tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42695222382286156862024-03-13T03:04:05.368-07:00The Van Winkle ProjectIn which one man seeks to live a normal life and remain oblivious to news of the world for 365 daysBirdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.comBlogger140125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-58613984044804052832013-03-21T07:57:00.000-07:002013-03-21T08:07:31.352-07:00Amazing Quote From a Favorite Work of Fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYqMFcmR_SSMam9A8N2aL4am5HdBOx7usNczIJ8cgYPEAOKOfYXeBmrGtlpV0fNheYHctgvz9h_PRKKKBhtMsnySfs7JaH0SzyIpZTMeXv9-wwqU0814wIiHBwKLqiXZlKsWvI7kz5aLfo/s1600/life-after-god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYqMFcmR_SSMam9A8N2aL4am5HdBOx7usNczIJ8cgYPEAOKOfYXeBmrGtlpV0fNheYHctgvz9h_PRKKKBhtMsnySfs7JaH0SzyIpZTMeXv9-wwqU0814wIiHBwKLqiXZlKsWvI7kz5aLfo/s320/life-after-god.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I was rereading a quirky, one-of-a-kind book by the gifted Canadian author, Douglas Coupland</span></strong>, who will forever be famous for popularizing the terms "Generation X," "McJob" and "Microserf."<br />
<br />
I speak of Coupland's 1994 undersized volume of thematically linked short stories, <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_God">Life After God</a></em>. <br />
<br />
Each story is divided into multiple short sections. Each section is prefaced with one of Coupland's (who once attended art school) whimsical felt-tip pen drawings. <br />
<br />
Like this one on p. 103 where he's remembering the old distaster flick from the '70s, <em>The Poseidon Adventure</em>:<br />
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<br />
As I'm was reading the title story I reached a section that has a drawing of what appears to be a stack of <em>People</em> magazines. <br />
<br />
There ensued a conversation between the narrator and his friend Kristy:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I mentioned to her one of my favorite fantasies: to be in a coma </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> for one year and wake up and have a whole year's backlog </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> worth of news to catch up on.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"> "Me too!" she cried. "Ffity-two whole issues</span> of <em>People</em> to </span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> catch up on<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>it'd be like <em>heroin</em><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>information overdosing."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">There it was, <strong><span style="color: red;">The Van Winkle Project</span></strong> in a nutshell. The excitement of doing something so non-standard, so weird, and the ecstasy of when it comes to an end!</span><br />
<br />
But wait a minute. <br />
<br />
After all this time (see the counter over there on the right clicking off <span style="color: red;">days, hours, minutes</span> since I awoke) the ecstasy of information appears to me to be a bit overrated. If this is heroin, it hasn't seemed as alluring as mother's milk that I'd want to fill myself with. In fact, after going on two years of being "awake," I have yet to make a concerted effort to find out much about what I missed during 2010-2011.<br />
<br />
No, I want to tell Mr. Coupland's characters, the real trip is the coma itself. Its's about finding a way to remain immune to the daily onslaught of stuff we don't particularly need to know. At the same time it's important to leave space in the brain for what really matters.<br />
<br />
What really matters? The very things that depressed, over-consumed, drugged-alcoholed, junk-fooded narrators of <em>Life After God</em> find themselves drawn to at their better moments in these stories:<br />
<ul>
<li>nature </li>
<li>friends</li>
<li>their pets</li>
<li>simple memories of childhood</li>
<li>floating in the swimming pool</li>
</ul>
<br />
Call the kind of life I'm commending to myself a "conscious coma" since the oblivion is not total. Who wants to give up the bad stuff and at the same time miss out on the <em>good</em>?<br />
<br />
Hey, maybe I need a T-shirt that says that:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong></strong></span> </div>
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All this is to say that I'm once again longing for the peace and extra time made available when I cut back on my curiosity about the larger world, a world that I can't begin to effect.<br />
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<br />
..Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-8872278918676532282012-01-01T04:23:00.000-08:002012-01-04T04:44:24.697-08:00My Top News Story for 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQkhlRwo5lC4tIb1zp0mfXrMPpuwh1Vpt_IDngtrtKqUr2UBwYggWFH-afb9A2c8R4E80oy5mWjHqcpYPEah28LehV9nmWEyjZWnHGtnOv03FETqx_ucWkNL-zegX7ywa_b1sKaoUnYzIk/s1600/mmw-bestof2011-123111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQkhlRwo5lC4tIb1zp0mfXrMPpuwh1Vpt_IDngtrtKqUr2UBwYggWFH-afb9A2c8R4E80oy5mWjHqcpYPEah28LehV9nmWEyjZWnHGtnOv03FETqx_ucWkNL-zegX7ywa_b1sKaoUnYzIk/s320/mmw-bestof2011-123111.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Strictly speaking,</span></strong> it's clear to me that I'm not qualified to name the top news story.<br />
<br />
What do I know about most of last year?<br />
<br />
From January 1, 2010 to September 11, 2011, I was still unplugged from the news. <br />
<br />
I was doing my best to imitate a guy named <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.bartleby.com/195/4.html">Van Winkle</a></span>. "Asleep," I was fully committed to my 365-day, 24/7 news-snooze...<br />
<br />
Still, all things must end, and over the past few months I've caught up on some of what I missed. It seems pretty obvious what belongs on all the experts' Top Ten News Story lists. It's tempting for me to go along with them.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvIg_AFZEvBTsZNjdTWurnTNuoqo1YDWFF9cDnYqDyIUEswPoO6di0TJMoiXajYTZ2N6Uun5xBUOfjrYdjFVGHym5DrDEIodF1zAkTosAPMD-FmQ_LnSpEyMBEaPsLH0MWa9oIEcgqtrt/s1600/osama-bin-laden-dead-time-cover-2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvIg_AFZEvBTsZNjdTWurnTNuoqo1YDWFF9cDnYqDyIUEswPoO6di0TJMoiXajYTZ2N6Uun5xBUOfjrYdjFVGHym5DrDEIodF1zAkTosAPMD-FmQ_LnSpEyMBEaPsLH0MWa9oIEcgqtrt/s320/osama-bin-laden-dead-time-cover-2011.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Likely Candidates</span></strong><br />
For example, I thought I might choose the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42852700/ns/world_news-death_of_bin_laden/t/us-forces-kill-osama-bin-laden-pakistan/">death of Osama Bin Laden</a>. That was a big story, right? There's a problem , though. Months have passed and I haven't had the raw curiosity necessary to wade backwards in time and dig out the old newspaper from May 1 or the <em>Newsweek</em> I saved and read up on what actually happened. I haven't even googled "Death of Bin Laden." How can this be my top news story if I still haven't read about it?<br />
<br />
Likewise, when it comes to another major news story of 2011, the apocalyptic <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-11/world/japan.quake_1_hokkaido-tsunami-east-japan-railway?_s=PM:WORLD">Japan earthquake</a>, I haven't educated myself except when I read about a recent tour given the press of the ongoing cleanup at the nuclear power plant. And one time I stumbled across a few on-line photos of the devastation. They were so upsetting that I didn't want to know more.<br />
<br />
What else might be a competitive news story? They tell me that William and Kate's wedding was one for the ages. Again, I missed it, and like a student who repents at the end of the semester, I don't see how I can make it up a class I never attended.<br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEgBfrRjqYL_T2rmgc1MtCzcVuiKDTz5423ePrLkhBqf_DwqKZN5RKObz27Z_NP0JcJp7LeI5_Zxi4wf54Asf-nsUr7xCOCHdJzOQ4YyRRoOAKEfvVhMS8e2v9cZ0JAbk93R5bimCLrxLqdj/s1600/william-kate-first-kiss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBfrRjqYL_T2rmgc1MtCzcVuiKDTz5423ePrLkhBqf_DwqKZN5RKObz27Z_NP0JcJp7LeI5_Zxi4wf54Asf-nsUr7xCOCHdJzOQ4YyRRoOAKEfvVhMS8e2v9cZ0JAbk93R5bimCLrxLqdj/s320/william-kate-first-kiss.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whoever said, "A kiss is just a kiss..."?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As for what's happened that I've actually experienced while "awake" during the final portion of the year (Sept. 11 to Dec. 31, 2011), there just hasn't been much. This fall's Republican debates? Herman Cain's rise and fall? Rick Perry's "oops"? The playing "chicken" between Congress and Obama over extending the payroll tax cut? With news like this, I don't know anymore when to laugh and when to cry. <br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEjrX1-0kclCHG-X0ByRoaN9N_wpcYmdwliu616WpyFpnnQEAsSqOJMCR1r-787ue0cSpQQ45w5hHy-8zRpYIb1hvFpYlk4XVmWIZZfwyM2hWcHcCoaeAgE1_WkSoYGCSqT2jWKPnwas01LA/s1600/1110_rick-perry-oops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrX1-0kclCHG-X0ByRoaN9N_wpcYmdwliu616WpyFpnnQEAsSqOJMCR1r-787ue0cSpQQ45w5hHy-8zRpYIb1hvFpYlk4XVmWIZZfwyM2hWcHcCoaeAgE1_WkSoYGCSqT2jWKPnwas01LA/s320/1110_rick-perry-oops.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"It's got to be here in my notes..."<br />
The candidate who needed a Lifeline.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">A Decision</span></strong><br />
One thing the Van Winkle Project taught me is that the news is over-rated. It's an activity that constantly takes the pulse of the patient, and energetically tries to offer a prognosis (the economy is getting better, the Middle East is getting worse). <br />
<br />
The problem is that by anxiously taking a daily pulse of the ills in society and around the world the news is prone to entirely miss what's going on with the overall healthy aspects of humanity over the larger course of time.<br />
<br />
Yes, I actually think that if one takes a long view there was good news in a few nooks and crannies of the much maligned 2011. That's my top story...<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">What's Old is News</span></strong><br />
One of the most obvious things going on around us is technological change. This Christmas just past was the Christmas of the e-reader with <a href="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Amazon-Kindle-Fire-Making-Christmas-Consumers-Merry-Munster-650460/">Amazon's Kindle Fire racking up enormous sales</a>. This comes after the Christmas of the iPad and the Christmas of the smart phone and the Christmas of the flat-screen HD TV and, going way back a whole ten years, the Christmas of the iPod.<br />
<br />
A new year, a new gadget, a new way of doing things. It's become the norm.<br />
<br />
I've noticed though that as we move old things into the garage (like two humongous tube TVs my brother has stored in his) some of us are hesitating and deciding to hang on to the best of the past. Here's what I've read about lately:<br />
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1 - Publishers are bringing out <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/books/publishers-gild-books-with-special-effects-to-compete-with-e-books.html?pagewanted=all">more lavish books</a> with special covers, bindings, and artwork. <br />
<br />
In the age of the e-reader, the books that survive as physical objects must offer something that cannot be digitized. <br />
<br />
Heft, the smell of leather, palpable embossing, fine papers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2E-Y29Q_qdVUC8z-8qXlHjRQJM8cWUSIrXm8xoHvHpZSV9v_PygOmfTV-3IW5wN9H6__jy5SOqepmreGLcsjO_EvwPF9WIybF4ELujBbCGP6gDtTHRTxldmAz-ETg24JkHu-6PBsjSdz/s1600/barefoot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2E-Y29Q_qdVUC8z-8qXlHjRQJM8cWUSIrXm8xoHvHpZSV9v_PygOmfTV-3IW5wN9H6__jy5SOqepmreGLcsjO_EvwPF9WIybF4ELujBbCGP6gDtTHRTxldmAz-ETg24JkHu-6PBsjSdz/s200/barefoot.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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2 - An emerging movement in the world of runners is promoting the idea of running the way the ancients did it: barefoot. In his book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Superathletes-Greatest-Vintage/dp/0307279189/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325679559&sr=1-1">Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superatheletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen</a></em>, Christopher McDougall swears that it's only by abandoning the technology of the expensive running shoe that runners can be sure to avoid injury.<br />
<br />
According to the barefoot gospel, you were born with feet, not shoes. You belong to a species with the world's greatest endurance, such that humans used to routinely run for hours after faster creatures until they collapsed from fatigue and could be captured... Yes,you were "born to run"!<br />
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3 - Wrist watches are <a href="http://www.gfk.com/group/press_information/press_releases/009033/index.en.html">selling more than expected</a>. Like the aforementioned books, the more lavish the timepieces are, the more they are prized. How can this be? Most of the people I know have the time of day (plus temperature and their GPS location on planet earth) at their fingertips via their smart phone. Yet people recognize there was something beautiful about this older mobile technology.<br />
<br />
I've got the time, right here on my wrist!<br />
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4 - I've made my own "discovery that is a recovery". A year ago I hooked up my 1982 Parasound turntable to my 21st century amplifier and speakers and brought out some of my old records. I'd heard audiophiles tout the superiority of LPs over CDs, but I was always skeptical. <br />
<br />
Hearing was believing. What visited my ears courtesy of four decade old records was richer, more detailed, extra realistic sound compared to the shiny silver discs.<br />
<br />
I've become a convert to vinyl. <br />
<br />
By the way, this is not some embarrassing confession of a Baby Boomer clinging to his youth. When I go to the local vinyl shop who do I see pawing through the bins, big smiles on their faces? <br />
<br />
Teens and twenty-somethings.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Top Story of 2011: Taking Back the Past</span></strong><br />
So here's what I consider the most encouraging, remarkable, and unexpected thing that I noticed happening last year.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>Around the world people continue to decide that some of the old ways </strong></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>of doing things are worth keeping, using, and celebrating. </strong></div>
<br />
The old technology may be more labor intensive or time consuming, but whether it's a happy, flavorful chicken you raised in your backyard or the original Atlantic pressing of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's <em>Deja Vu</em> in the pebble-textured, gate-fold jacket with the paste-on cover photo, here's the deal: <span style="color: red;">the quality is better.</span><br />
<br />
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The world may be hurtling head-long into a science fiction future, but more than a few of us are determined that as we make the journey we will not be worried about going the fastest or taking the shortest route. <br />
<br />
You see, we're bringing along some of our old stuff with us. We'll arrive eventually at the "future," but we may just do it barefooted - <em>a.h.</em></div>
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<br /></div>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-2309715703807948572011-12-27T09:36:00.000-08:002011-12-30T04:07:10.327-08:00End of a Year: Dreaming in 3-D <br />
<table 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/AVvXsEiH77pLii9hkkF8Dp_q-d068nLVAoKUBuSOzJkhK1AD0wGX3k420I_b9rTeJSRxNr-D0SivhrdoDVTRskcyqnpr41fqYLkq3HWQTZ1zhM7VkiQC7jIwXFeE-SK0tJvf9_sDrnydD2CLcH8X/s1600/marty-scorsese.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="154" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH77pLii9hkkF8Dp_q-d068nLVAoKUBuSOzJkhK1AD0wGX3k420I_b9rTeJSRxNr-D0SivhrdoDVTRskcyqnpr41fqYLkq3HWQTZ1zhM7VkiQC7jIwXFeE-SK0tJvf9_sDrnydD2CLcH8X/s320/marty-scorsese.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marty invites you to put on the 3-D glasses</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for his latest film.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A couple of weeks ago I did something that was forbidden to me one year ago when I was still <span style="color: red;">Van Winkled</span>. I went to the Century 21 Cinema and took in a newly released film.<br />
<br />
My son and I bought tickets and a box of buttered popcorn. We settled back in our chairs and put on 3-D glasses for <em>Hugo</em>.<br />
<br />
<div>
</div>
<div>
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">What's in the Box?</span></strong></div>
There's a scene in this latest Martin Scorcese's movie (based on the Brian Selznick hybrid novel/graphic novel) that makes me think of what it's like to revisit this blog after choosing not to post for several months.<br />
<br />
Hugo Cabret and his intrepid girl partner, Isabelle, explore a room in the house of her mysterious Uncle Georges (Ben Kingsley). There's a wardrobe looming tall in the room and, guess what? The two youths detect a secret panel in the top. <br />
<br />
After a precarious bit of balancing on a chair, Isabelle opens the panel and, yes! there's a wooden box secreted there. As Hugo watches from below, Isabelle eases the box out but uh-oh! it's <em>heavy</em> and suddenly! the chair topples, the box hits the floor, the lid separates, and papers fly all over the room.<br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEiwl3TwEUPPqP5zh52tmJeAflI1CTPU9ysYKxV43zzgOWcWvx_yprs56ygPaYJX-Biga2ueZ09uXne93ad_b8IBsVFZG_oOU2I5LmpTcwdca0ycSnO95Si9iqZsIHmMLqXLpUfP8zq4u0tR/s1600/Hugo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="161" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwl3TwEUPPqP5zh52tmJeAflI1CTPU9ysYKxV43zzgOWcWvx_yprs56ygPaYJX-Biga2ueZ09uXne93ad_b8IBsVFZG_oOU2I5LmpTcwdca0ycSnO95Si9iqZsIHmMLqXLpUfP8zq4u0tR/s400/Hugo1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Hugo</em>: The box reveals its secrets--all the thoughts and visions of one man.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
A discovery is made. Each sheet of paper is a sketch for costumes and scenes from early movies. </div>
<br />
Revelation: Uncle Georges is the once-famous French moviemaker Georges Melies. <br />
<br />
This is startling news because Melies, after early successes in the movies, is thought by some to be dead. No one has heard anything from him since shortly after the Great War when he quit making movies.<br />
<div>
</div>
Uncle Georges intrudes upon the scene. A defeated and frustrated artist, he has responding by withdrawing and hiding away the wellsprings of all his work--these pieces of paper meticulously filled with ideas and sketches.<br />
<br />
He picks up a piece of paper, looks at the children, and crumples it in his hand.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Van Winkle Redux</span></strong><br />
Coming back to this blog is a bit like opening Uncle Georges' wooden box. In this case the box is stuffed with posts someone diligently produced for 52 weeks when he was sequestered from all news, weather, sports and entertainment. <br />
<br />
The person who posted here called himself "Van Winkle" and further protected his identity by never naming where he lived or worked.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP1s2GezLV5Rd0Mz1VbS2WxKc7sT224gR1GfT3IExHjm8Z4E0fOk_dxt7gk-2NyjpMEkBDMX6WCt5j-fPs8GiDaf6EUif5bQrjp42I0fw9kPQLggZXt3GuMGomAARWvCirWOAq-XnMYekT/s1600/IMGP0894.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP1s2GezLV5Rd0Mz1VbS2WxKc7sT224gR1GfT3IExHjm8Z4E0fOk_dxt7gk-2NyjpMEkBDMX6WCt5j-fPs8GiDaf6EUif5bQrjp42I0fw9kPQLggZXt3GuMGomAARWvCirWOAq-XnMYekT/s320/IMGP0894.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One year ago: Blog readers could see my shoes, but not my face.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
</div>
Van Winkle knew almost nothing about what was happening in the larger world (except for a few leaks that got through to him), but he was a fairly persistent observer of the minutiae of his life. <br />
<br />
I can go back and read about his impressions of his ficus tree, holes in his T-shirts, a concrete cherub named "Reginald" on his patio, his dog Bullwinkle, a red piece of paper snagged in a bush in his front yard. <br />
<br />
He also relived intensely at times his youth in Alaska, and he made more than a few attempts at finding what is humorous in the surrounding commercial and social side of America.<br />
<br />
<div>
I'm fine with what Van Winkle wrote. I'm not going to react like Uncle Georges and try to destroy my posts or hide them away and try to forget them. However, I've begun to look back on my experiment with a deepening perspective as I try to answer the question, "Was it worth it?" </div>
<br />
<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Trying to Reclaim the Old "Normal" </span></strong><br />
I've had most of the autumn of 2011 to reintroduce myself to the world of news. <br />
<br />
Like a fisherman setting out again on the news sea, I've been able to reel in as much (or as little) of Reality as I wish.<br />
<br />
So I indulged myself...<br />
<br />
As you probably know, there's been quite a bit going on, even in just the past 60 days:<br />
<ul>
<li>Politics (the rise and fall of Herman Cain! Rick Perry's oops! Newt's surge in the polls!) </li>
<li>The economy (payroll tax holiday debates! Black Friday! Internet Monday! Mega Monday!) </li>
<li>Historic (the U.S. leaves Iraq, North Korea has a new leader, Steve Jobs dies)</li>
<li>Sports (the Angels buy themselves a super team, Tiger Woods finally wins a major)</li>
<li>Entertainment (Mel Gibson's record divorce settlement, the new iPhone introduced us to Siri)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div>
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The Future?</span></strong></div>
<div>
Even though I don't want to go back to my unnatural state of one year ago when I, in effect, buried my head ostrich-like in the ground, I have reached the following conclusions: </div>
<ol>
<li>Reality, as constructed by what we call "news," is not so great. More, it's not even particularly necessary for successful living. There are other realities all around us, realities that teach, nurture, and inspire.</li>
<li>News is a product that is constantly shoved at us. Producers of the news shrewdly choose what they think we will grab us most emotionally. This is not the same as choosing what is news-worthy.</li>
<li>Because news appears to be "free" it is easy to consume too much of it. </li>
<li>Is news free? I don't think so. It taxes us emotionally and intellectually.</li>
<li>Most news stories will soon be forgotten. They are not worth following in the first place.</li>
<li>A few news stories do have historical import, but it's not necessary to watch them unfold and be analyzed to death day by day, hour by hour. One would do well to catch them at the beginning and at the end.</li>
<li>There's a news paradox: The most useful news usually isn't in the headlines. What we really need to know tends to be the small bits about human triumph and tragedy. These stories are typically reported by lone journalists, not well financed news crew with vans with a satellite dishes on top with a feed to a network anchor.</li>
<li>Big news (essentially useless) tends to drive out small, useful news--to our own detriment and diminishment as human beings.</li>
</ol>
So, based on what I learned during my newsless experiment, and what has happened since, how do I propose to move forward with my life in 2012?<br />
<br />
Ah, that is a good question. A little voice whispers in my ear, "Save it for another post...but this time don't wait so long..." -<em> a.h.</em><br />
<br />
.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-17185278838323197292011-10-20T05:04:00.000-07:002011-10-21T05:13:39.347-07:00Baby Baby: Thoughts on a Crowded Planet<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/AVvXsEiqi8RuvxztAzqSvpSQ67hjx-VWCNVt3OZfz-T3LlJBvyYINNNB_lARUMRtrH5_yNthXa3L4vy88y-1z79z-Fp8UWQGF4MEvAQPEHnbEyYMD_es1RmO04TlNp_Og6A4uWp_l1YN26sJHxhe/s1600/bldg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: right; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqi8RuvxztAzqSvpSQ67hjx-VWCNVt3OZfz-T3LlJBvyYINNNB_lARUMRtrH5_yNthXa3L4vy88y-1z79z-Fp8UWQGF4MEvAQPEHnbEyYMD_es1RmO04TlNp_Og6A4uWp_l1YN26sJHxhe/s400/bldg.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is it coming to this? Packed in tight, togetherness...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">As I very slowly get caught up on some of the news I missed during <span style="color: red;">The Van Winkle Project</span> I still haven't looked at the newspaper</span></strong> I saved that heralds arguably the biggest news story of 2011: <strong>the death of Osama Bin Laden</strong>.<br />
<br />
That's where I thought I'd be today. My nose and eyes and mind tipped toward Pakistan. But history surges ahead.<br />
<br />
Rather than moving backwards in time, I'm reading about the inglorious, cell phoned to the world death of <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/20111020111520869621.html">Colonel Gaddafi</a>.<br />
<br />
I suspect that though this event will lead to larger things--some kind of shaping of civil war riddled Libya into a country again--the news reporters will move on to the next dictator to fall and the next. The world is not yet in short supply of these bad guys to topple.<br />
<br />
Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, there are other things that interest me, worry me, play upon my emotions more than that drainage ditch outside Surt or the mysteries of how the Navy SEALS got Bin Laden.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Pop! Goes the Population</span></strong><br />
The other day I read a news article that suggests that while I was "asleep" there was possibly the "mother of all" stories going on--and I don't mean the "Arab spring" or the Japan earthquake.<br />
<br />
This story wasn't a one-time thing. It was happening every day. And it's still happening. <br />
<br />
There are about to be 7 billion humans occupying this planet.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">It's Not Getting Crowded In Here, Is It?</span></strong><br />
One way to think of the earth's new population landmark is that it's just a mildly interesting statistical moment, not something alarming. Ever since the rate of the overall population growth began declining to where it is today ( a steady 1.8% annual increase) it's been easy to assume that everything is well. After all, in the days before contraception and awareness humans reproduced themselves at a higher rate. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqEAdd6Q3VtjInF6l0UCv_rsPxpw6Jk6QQPG3uxszINXO_3YaS1WlHTesAn5dQAU1IwWG1mQMzQi43jKNQ1eLkP0cY_NkEUs1GR5nJ3iHPUufeBRfadMJFtuHjZDaYbRfwfdDsm_Q0nxZB/s1600/people.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqEAdd6Q3VtjInF6l0UCv_rsPxpw6Jk6QQPG3uxszINXO_3YaS1WlHTesAn5dQAU1IwWG1mQMzQi43jKNQ1eLkP0cY_NkEUs1GR5nJ3iHPUufeBRfadMJFtuHjZDaYbRfwfdDsm_Q0nxZB/s320/people.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
What this overlooks is that we're reached the steep end of a long-time growth curve and even a 1.8% global population increase adds another 212,000 people to the planet <strong>every day</strong>.<br />
<br />
That's like twice replicating the population of where I live (Abilene, Texas) every day of the year for the foreseeable future.<br />
<br />
At this rate, every 13-15 years there we find ourselves with another one billion people on earth.<br />
<br />
What really caught my attention in an article I read was this: when I was born back in the 1950s the earth's population was a paltry 3 billion. This means the world's population has more than doubled in my lifetime.<br />
<br />
Is it noticeable? You bet it's noticeable.<br />
<br />
Virtually every place in America I remember either visiting or living in during my youth has been radically altered whether it's Anchorage, Alaska or Houston, Texas. Where there used to be open land, one finds houses and strip malls. The cities bulge outward in all directions. Cars and parking lots and big box stores that I never imagined in my youth abound.<br />
<br />
And that's just places in the relatively uncrowded U.S. of A.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm9lD9ky0EpMptcbdQNu6sfgG6KzT5AqtH4JnQBeYAAIuGrSGpH_AsUOlkVC1MtK3pIL2j9tYCO_ZHdvhhtUQwpdu-tHWEVH7CpKGap2elt8UKbq2HlMkTR1WNsGx-WsHeGCttEG85Qf6U/s1600/rain+forest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm9lD9ky0EpMptcbdQNu6sfgG6KzT5AqtH4JnQBeYAAIuGrSGpH_AsUOlkVC1MtK3pIL2j9tYCO_ZHdvhhtUQwpdu-tHWEVH7CpKGap2elt8UKbq2HlMkTR1WNsGx-WsHeGCttEG85Qf6U/s320/rain+forest.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There goes the rain forest...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Of course, crowding and a loss of aesthetics is not the real problem with an ever-increasing population. There's still enough land to put the people and when that becomes too scarce we can build upward and stack people in upthrusting skyscrapers as my former writing teacher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hersey">John Hersey</a> imagined in his cautionary short novel, <em>My Petition for More Space</em> (1974).<br />
<br />
The real problem is that humans, in their pursuit of the kind of lives they believe will make them most happy, have become a hugely resource intensive species. <br />
<br />
We need staggering amounts of fossil fuel, metals, timber, and water. We also need a disproportionate amount of the planet simply to place our waste products whether its in the air or on the land or in the seas. <br />
<br />
And there's the bit that isn't discretionary. We can't help the fact that somehow, some way 7 billion people have to eat and get along with each other.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Special "K" for Earth</span></strong><br />
I've learned that there are people who think of human population growth as the number one problem facing us. Not global terrorism or nuclear proliferation or global warming. They warn that the earth realistically can only support so many people. After that bad things are bound to happen.<br />
<br />
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One of the bad things is called the "<a href="http://candobetter.net/node/2569">Witches' Hats" theory</a>. It's named after the orange marker cones used in driver's test. As you drive through a winding course, knock down too many cones and you fail the test and don't get your driver's license.<br />
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Likewise, governments who fail to provide enough basic services to their bulging populations are like bad driver's who topple witches' hats. The citizens will eventually revolt and overthrow them.<br />
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If you have too many people to feed, shelter, and keep healthy, you have a formula for political unrest. Some have said that bread prices that rose 70% and a population that went from 18 million to 80 million in only fifty years explains what happened in Egypt earlier this year.<br />
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If you wear the "witch's' hat," you worry that a crowded world is a world that is less likely to be a peaceful one.<br />
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Does this mean we're doomed? I won't automatically assume so. I also encountered this opinion:<br />
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<em>"Overall, this [population increase] is not a cause for alarm — the world has absorbed big gains since 1950," said Bongaarts, a vice president of the Population Council. But he cautioned that strains are intensifying: rising energy and food prices, environmental stresses, more than 900 million people undernourished.</em><br />
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<em>"For the rich, it's totally manageable," Bongaarts said. "It's the poor, everywhere, who will be hurt the most."</em><br />
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I also should take into account that the 1.8% world growth rate is an <u>average</u>. Some nations are not in danger of overcrowding, especially in Europe, where the population growth is actually nearing negative: more people are dying than are being born. This causes a different set of social issues. There are not enough young workers to keep the economy growing or to support the retirement of the old people.<br />
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It could be that eventually the great areas of population growth will eventually reach a point of mirroring the development of the "rich" countries and start to reach zero population growth. In other words, we're not doomed to a growth curve that keeps pointing to the sky, but in the best case could be headed toward one that plateaus and finally starts to drop as the orange and green lines in the U.N.'s 2004 projections show. It's an alternative to the dreaded RED LINE of population Armageddon...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIomRYtodhQJ067cBo9VWTPgdp8pZOtghvG4mUnCIQKYM68mSsg829eD0OtilvfWdohy-VK1slVM1Tn5QIbwTA0eVTmBDb0rVGYbbruqEqku3jj5e06ADPEP1wxpEonRxAP4mtP5iklQ3Z/s1600/300px-World-Population-1800-2100.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIomRYtodhQJ067cBo9VWTPgdp8pZOtghvG4mUnCIQKYM68mSsg829eD0OtilvfWdohy-VK1slVM1Tn5QIbwTA0eVTmBDb0rVGYbbruqEqku3jj5e06ADPEP1wxpEonRxAP4mtP5iklQ3Z/s400/300px-World-Population-1800-2100.png" width="392" /></a></div>
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But what if none of that really matters? What if this is not really about how many people may or may not be too many in the future, but about already having too many people? <br />
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This is a debatable point...<br />
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The optimists say that the magic number of people the earth can sustain or "carrying capacity," which is symbolized by the letter "K," is <strong>10-12 billion</strong> people. But it's just a guess. Much depends on technology and innovation and how they can leverage available resources as well as what kind of standards of living people are willing to find acceptable.<br />
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The pessimists, on the other hand, say, "Just look around. Is this the kind of world we want?" We passed "K" long ago. The magic number was <strong>5 billion</strong> people.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Please Take a Number, Get In Line</span></strong><br />
Somewhere today there is a woman with baby number 7 billion inside of her. That child we be born in less than two weeks. What kind of life will it have? Will it be able to even imagine what it was like to move around on this planet when there were only 3 billion people on it?<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/AVvXsEhYEBJhDHY53FeXcraX13YMZIPupG1ELYI0Mq6dMOKEZDjwsU24Xh29Y6ba4ibBrG9KiKK1_B0RFAzKZcOeAPWoSg4-Y3B8QUfKkGLWvK9MpGqoDle2Cx24jDxGJooCIM5CBSzf1i9PdDao/s1600/Pollution-and-carbon-emis-004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYEBJhDHY53FeXcraX13YMZIPupG1ELYI0Mq6dMOKEZDjwsU24Xh29Y6ba4ibBrG9KiKK1_B0RFAzKZcOeAPWoSg4-Y3B8QUfKkGLWvK9MpGqoDle2Cx24jDxGJooCIM5CBSzf1i9PdDao/s400/Pollution-and-carbon-emis-004.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Are you old enough to remember life before this?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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For us middle-aged people who still recall our youths, we have a message to pass on. I don't want to tell others that it was even close to a perfect world then (I have only to think of our American apartheid and the Cold War), but as humanity's work and play space starts to get ever more crowed, we now have problems I for one never dreamed of. <br />
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Back in the days of yore no one talked about smog, and the rain forest was still standing and as a child I walked along a beach and didn't see crap washed up onto the sand and I never would have considered it normal for anyone to take 40 minutes or longer to drive 10-20 miles to get to work.<br />
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There's now 7 billion reasons (and another billion more coming up in 2025) for me to think these problems have the potential to get worse, much worse. - <em>A.H.</em><br />
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.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-86201004420622973072011-10-14T07:18:00.000-07:002011-10-14T18:17:16.756-07:00The A,B,C's of the News - C is for (Sorry) Charlie Sheen<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Today I conclude my brief foray into learning about what is probably some of the least consequential news of last year. </span></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></b>Casey Anthony? Innocent? You're kidding! Brett Favre? I'm sorry to even know about what that man did.<br />
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And now we come to the last of the <strong>news not worth knowing</strong>.<br />
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Charlie Sheen.<br />
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My only excuse for this exercise of diving to the bottom of the fetid American cultural ocean and indulging in several hundred words of bottom feeding is that it's a matter of avoidance behavior.<br />
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As I contemplate getting caught up on the <u>real</u> news of the last 365 days, or at least some of it, I find myself hesitating. The death of Bin Laden, the Giffords shooting, a Japan earthquake and nuclear reactors gone wild, Arab revolutions, famine in the Horn of Africa. <br />
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It sounds so heavy.<br />
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It's much easier to delay with <strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">C</span></strong>: Charlie Sheen. Tabloid junk food. Come to Daddy.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Gesture of the Jester</span></strong><br />
I have come not to slam Charlie Sheen nor to criticize him. There's little point. In a way, I think we want there to always be a Charlie Sheen around.<br />
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Kings desire a jester. In between wars, public executions, wrangling over laws and resources, the goofy clown provides a welcome lightness.<br />
<br />
Enter the fool.<br />
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I've also come to believe that we Americans in particular need someone who counters our basic tendency to idolize people who are good looking or gifted or both. The antidote is a star who tanks. Acts outrageous to the point of alienating the very people who made him or a star. Haven't we been through this before?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2krt-CEgOVcfaM3Gj6EfGe7_L-RfqOh6cHUNvwiLhnlsZxyitfCGpSeIDcB89CZls0ZU1BLbg2SpVbB0sSBF53P0cSRieILWcKOCM-d_cUEKO8kEp6DB1O98ymO-kx21ovYLZ3Lug3Tb/s1600/britney-spears-rehab-poll-2-21-07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2krt-CEgOVcfaM3Gj6EfGe7_L-RfqOh6cHUNvwiLhnlsZxyitfCGpSeIDcB89CZls0ZU1BLbg2SpVbB0sSBF53P0cSRieILWcKOCM-d_cUEKO8kEp6DB1O98ymO-kx21ovYLZ3Lug3Tb/s320/britney-spears-rehab-poll-2-21-07.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
Britney Spears.<br />
<br />
Like Brittney we may eventually re-invite Charlie back into our passive viewing lives. Celebrities spoiling on the shelf become an obsession. Like an ex- we can't get over.<br />
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Perhaps this explains why in my own tenuous exploration of old news I found it unexepectedly easy to settle down on a patch of google and try to figure out what people meant when they told me Charlie Sheen had a "meltdown" in February. <br />
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Some of them even opined that Charlie was seriously crazy.<br />
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And they didn't think this before? Fancy that.<br />
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So I learned about Charlie's taunting and mockery of Chuck Lorre, the creator of <i>Two and a Half Men</i>, of Charlie's proud claim of "epic partying," his less doubtful assertion that he is now clean and sober, of his prediction that his army of loyal followers will lead him back into his cherished spot on the number one comedy show. <br />
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That was about the extent of what I uncovered. It left me shaking my head. This was definitely tabloid fodder, but beyond that who cared?<br />
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The most interesting thing to me was that I learned Charlie was the highest paid actor on TV, making $1.8 million an episode (and demanding a raise to over $2 million as recompense for the grief his meltdown had caused him). <br />
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This is truly an astonishing figure but so is $100 million paid by the Eagles for Michael Vick, a guy who was recently in prison and one of the more despised people in America because, you know, lots of people love their dogs.<br />
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<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/AVvXsEiFM4bKishzjPEymayq5zF_IWhyBtRLyUzoySWkxI5JrqCFiHT8DdtX4Rf1XF9KB3Z_i2i9hORa8dq2EWblDq_GvI-kOj49Dq1tQeVphbTIDxhWhZfj_qgLvPce3-p3Rn7V2IE5-LVka7d9/s1600/charlie-sheen-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFM4bKishzjPEymayq5zF_IWhyBtRLyUzoySWkxI5JrqCFiHT8DdtX4Rf1XF9KB3Z_i2i9hORa8dq2EWblDq_GvI-kOj49Dq1tQeVphbTIDxhWhZfj_qgLvPce3-p3Rn7V2IE5-LVka7d9/s320/charlie-sheen-2.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The man who wanted to be a clown...</td></tr>
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Perhaps the reason I was so unimpressed by Charlie saga was that I didn't see any of this unfold in real time. And I didn't augment my bare bones information by playing any videos or recordings of Charlie being Charlie during interviews and on talk shows. I'll just have to take people's word for it. <br />
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Charlie, a guy who had already pushed every boundary practically known to man, including beating on women, had finally found a way to reach a point of no return. No wonder Charlie was shocked. Based on all his past indiscretions, he thought he could get away with anything.<br />
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Wrong.<br />
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"Based on the totality of Charlie Sheen's statements, conduct and condition, CBS and Warner Bros. Television have decided to discontinue production of <em>Two and a Half Men</em> for the remainder of the season," the press release said.<br />
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Now I understand. Charlie had reached the fabled point of "totality." A partial mess is fine. Become a total mess and you're exiled from laugh track land.<br />
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Still, I think it was the right decision. I discovered that Charlie actually called Thomas Jefferson a "pussy". That's where Mr. Sheen personally crosses the line for me. Anyone who would say that about the man who put together the best home library in early America, is worse than a Philistine. He has a very small mind. More, it's clearly empty. Charlie, you pussy and clown, try reading a book. - <em>A.H.</em><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/AVvXsEhh3BTBtaBw54GhXKDf6hqOEqYnDc3udvC50_TsJ8caBid4JAPpUxAqJcoLHxNzuG0BY3H8h9OID53mVuDXxui23uLlHNAnTFCgkEeoqDqH_Sxh49-YyFnAbDe698PyMYSF0G04NOJtb2xF/s1600/expand-architecture04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh3BTBtaBw54GhXKDf6hqOEqYnDc3udvC50_TsJ8caBid4JAPpUxAqJcoLHxNzuG0BY3H8h9OID53mVuDXxui23uLlHNAnTFCgkEeoqDqH_Sxh49-YyFnAbDe698PyMYSF0G04NOJtb2xF/s400/expand-architecture04.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jefferson's library recreated at the Library of Congress</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<em>.</em><br />
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<br />Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-78883229108584473302011-10-11T04:18:00.000-07:002011-10-11T04:19:58.522-07:00The A,B,C's of the News - "B" is for Brett<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrOcRdRDPAWH2-Vl5CiyXGsPIL6m6kkL449noa475AUG_zhd0G03yHDI5lZ7Qdw8A94prvaKIDjWNOTP4tgrGlR1C4zsRj-hEQeO1kMR71s0uX3KYqtljxqx42HK9P6Gd9bwtt0VabzNr/s1600/super-bowl-xlv.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrOcRdRDPAWH2-Vl5CiyXGsPIL6m6kkL449noa475AUG_zhd0G03yHDI5lZ7Qdw8A94prvaKIDjWNOTP4tgrGlR1C4zsRj-hEQeO1kMR71s0uX3KYqtljxqx42HK9P6Gd9bwtt0VabzNr/s200/super-bowl-xlv.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">All I wanted to do was learn more about Super Bowl XLV which was played back on Feb. 6 in the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. </span></strong><br />
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Even though I was supposedly <span style="color: red;">Van Winkled</span> and "asleep" at the time, I already knew very well that the Green Bay Packers had won. There had been no way keep that news from assaulting me. <br />
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There's something about sports that makes Americans less than reticent. On Super Bowl day we wear our team favorites on our sleeves even more than we do politics, religion, or favorite musical groups.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlPnqWMuVNmr0uYVOhZIikHdykmio9DtvJaJ6C-KAFNzKfoNXzJaCf8sBu22gtfyLeyGxxSWpf-T3onOeBzrVzfOk_yOtDDAhyphenhyphenRyyduCVX73yULYY42klDJHd5nFZDXCynurFEqKVKyL24/s1600/Interception.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlPnqWMuVNmr0uYVOhZIikHdykmio9DtvJaJ6C-KAFNzKfoNXzJaCf8sBu22gtfyLeyGxxSWpf-T3onOeBzrVzfOk_yOtDDAhyphenhyphenRyyduCVX73yULYY42klDJHd5nFZDXCynurFEqKVKyL24/s320/Interception.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nick Collins intercepts. Puts the Pack ahead 14-0</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The day after the game, the cheeseheads (including those West Texans around here who had temporarily adopted Wisconsin and yellow and green as their ideal), were very happy. As for the Steeler fans you could tell that there was no joy to be had.<br />
<br />
That still didn't convey to me what I really wanted to know. Had <span style="color: red;">The Van Winkle Project</span> caused me to miss a really great game? Something on par with that miraculous drive by the Giants a few years ago when Eli Manning connected on fourth down in traffic, leading to the game winning touchdown against the previously undefeated Patriots?<br />
<br />
So eight months after the fact I read up on the game. Final score: 31-25. Analysis: a good game, not a great game. <br />
<br />
It seems the Packers, (a 10-6 regular season, number six seed playoff team, no less!) were in control all the way, with the exception of when the Steelers made things tight in the fourth quarter. In the end the Steelers were done in by a fumble and Ben Roethlisberger's two passes that were intercepted, one early in the game being returned for a touchdown.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxvbS4gGnq0_Ry5gpBe1G2vVKW5A6KMYNFpxFJsF0DKXtvOnePqdzt6oTNMKf8alYTcJn-uAOuBdbam6WZ62qEC5Dmp0Uh_2-BYmDc8ByTKK56eIdI4hDaxzZQPRvP742c9cJOUsYGxpF/s1600/Brett-Favre-Retires-and-Brad-Childress-Press-Conference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxvbS4gGnq0_Ry5gpBe1G2vVKW5A6KMYNFpxFJsF0DKXtvOnePqdzt6oTNMKf8alYTcJn-uAOuBdbam6WZ62qEC5Dmp0Uh_2-BYmDc8ByTKK56eIdI4hDaxzZQPRvP742c9cJOUsYGxpF/s320/Brett-Favre-Retires-and-Brad-Childress-Press-Conference.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Was this really it for Brett? A retirement that sticks?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Somewhere during my clicking around on the web I experienced my own kind of interception. I saw a link to <a href="http://www.favre4sale.com/">Brett Favre</a>, the Packers' once great quarterback.<br />
<br />
Oh yes, I suddenly remembered. One of my speculations when I began the Van Winkle Project had involved Favre. <br />
<br />
I already knew that "the quarterback who has trouble retiring" was coming back for another season with the Vikings. He had nearly taken to the Vikes to the Super Bowl the previous year.<br />
<br />
How had Favre held up? How had the Vikings done? Had he finally retired? For good?<br />
<br />
Instead, of answers to these questions, I learned about the Brett Favre sexting scandal.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;">B</span>: Brett - Dateless, Desperate (and armed with a cell phone)</span></strong><br />
All one has to do is google Brett Favre and his status is at last impeccably clear. His website is labeled:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.officialbrettfavre.com/home/">Official Web Site of Brett Favre - Retired NFL Quarterback</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Only this August Brett retired. Yes, folks. Really!<br />
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This website also has a banner headline "The NFL's Winningest Quarterback" (is "winningest" a word?) and many tabs that offer the opportunity to buy memorabilia or even have Brett send your friend a birthday greeting.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
But let's not linger over Web 2.0 marketing.</div>
<br />
Back at our google results one also learns of the bad news that was facing Favre a year ago when details of the sexting news broke at <a href="http://deadspin.com/">deadspin.com</a><a href="http://draft.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_42597191"></span><span id="goog_42597192"></span>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Brett Favre’s Cellphone Seduction Of Jenn Sterger </span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeFH42Osa9-3tHgVNfNc9RTaugz9wG9Gc7f2v3IXbIxxUEVnDoseR3K16Z5Sjns0HibEFsDrE6OE0wJZMwfLv9xLpiAYewbwB2UXRwU3n3gdWN05jVDlqlZulm_8H-Kw8l-2fWhJFZxtE2/s1600/jenn-sterger-jets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeFH42Osa9-3tHgVNfNc9RTaugz9wG9Gc7f2v3IXbIxxUEVnDoseR3K16Z5Sjns0HibEFsDrE6OE0wJZMwfLv9xLpiAYewbwB2UXRwU3n3gdWN05jVDlqlZulm_8H-Kw8l-2fWhJFZxtE2/s1600/jenn-sterger-jets.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ms. Sterger. Harrassed, but she never met Favre.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And because stories like this sometimes refuse to die, it does not surprise me one wit that my research indicates that months later there was more air exhaled into the media balloon:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">- An NFL investigation found a violation of the players' code of conduct and hit Favre with a $50,000 fine in January. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">- Two female massage therapists for the Jets sued Favre for sexual harassment because they too were sexted (is that the past tense of the verb?).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">- Jenn Sterger, Jets "game day hostess", who had been the original source of the accusations made an appearance on <em>Good Morning America</em> in April.</span><br />
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<div>
What do we now know? This was no fairy tale or shakedown. Back in 2008 Brett was hitting on women. He was using a mobile device. <br />
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<strong><span style="color: red;">He proudly filmed digital images of his reproductive organs and sent them to the object of his lust.</span></strong><br />
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What a way to impress a gal. It might have made a caveman envious. <br />
<br />
The best explanation for this kind of sleazy behavior heard didn't come from Brett. It was someone with the Jets who observed that the guy was a long ways from home. "Maybe he was lonely." And doesn't everyone know, the more lonely you are, the more pathetic you can be? <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja7OzzVFPA-GwMsbi151MqebMKv4t3lAnMySBvjfszEGEN9NFUq9jNe-yfUDSLtKCqc9bq159WL-decFa41KhX8yuIvojL0RMbDhNlMV7MVrf6Ba9n8_32dr9Dqm64sqabCMB0WS5E30lS/s1600/brett_favre_wrangle_0809.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja7OzzVFPA-GwMsbi151MqebMKv4t3lAnMySBvjfszEGEN9NFUq9jNe-yfUDSLtKCqc9bq159WL-decFa41KhX8yuIvojL0RMbDhNlMV7MVrf6Ba9n8_32dr9Dqm64sqabCMB0WS5E30lS/s320/brett_favre_wrangle_0809.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Judgment Day</span></strong><br />
There's really nothing to say for or against Mr. Favre at this point.<br />
<br />
He's another athlete who was sold to us as a person of note. A fiery competitor. Also, we were led to believe, a family man and a soft and fuzzy Wrangler's jeans kind of guy off the field.<br />
<br />
Consider how he "courted" his long-time girlfriend for 12 years before marrying her. The birth of his two daughters. This info is at: <a href="http://www.favre4sale.com/">http://www.favre4sale.com/</a> along with wonderful opportunities to try Brett's jambalaya recipe and buy lots of neat stuff!<br />
<br />
You see, Brett's from Mississippi. Doesn't that just scream family values? Listen to one of their Congressmen (who defeated the 10-term Democrat during the 2010 mid-term elections while I was asleep). <a href="http://palazzoforcongress.com/issues/">Rep. Steven Palazzo</a> says:<br />
<br />
<em>A born and raised Mississippian, I’ve learned that two of the most important issues to our state are <span style="color: red;">family and the Christian faith</span>. I understand <span style="color: red;">the importance of traditional Mississippi values</span>, and I plan to keep all of these values in mind when I represent the Fourth Congressional District in Washington, D.C. Because of my beliefs and the <span style="color: red;">shared beliefs of those in our wonderful state</span>, I will fight in Washington to protect life, the sanctity of marriage, and <span style="color: red;">our Mississippi values</span>.</em><br />
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Oops.<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/AVvXsEj2vQf-zf5O4eeowBJQRvpQrDY68ALWOofR1qXmuYyWuapr7mG448r0HjDsYDvI3XwG_Kdx7buN1QLUwSHHQhBmvDn74HRqNXre7ruV4AQju42xtcUfVVj2dj8NxDqj0Lgvc9IJuFenFFqk/s1600/favre+family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vQf-zf5O4eeowBJQRvpQrDY68ALWOofR1qXmuYyWuapr7mG448r0HjDsYDvI3XwG_Kdx7buN1QLUwSHHQhBmvDn74HRqNXre7ruV4AQju42xtcUfVVj2dj8NxDqj0Lgvc9IJuFenFFqk/s400/favre+family.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dad and family, including the loyal wife who happens <br />
to be a breast cancer survivor.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This week our son is supposed to deliver a monologue in his 8th grade theater class. Perhaps knowing that this particular 13-year-old has zero interest in any sports, the teacher selected a short speech that he could deliver with true feeling.<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/AVvXsEh-V-fzQCFNuOafn_nWj_wLXSNbcviaSp1ltFnV5OMrdVMewhoIWfPuwCfYoGnrYQFg6GrAfQdrwId21Xr8wq7H5d0wl6VUpxu5yca7xOnQhoYH7qaCjsjtk1Y37KfdlJfBEk_cvuXFh4qP/s1600/IMGP2877.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-V-fzQCFNuOafn_nWj_wLXSNbcviaSp1ltFnV5OMrdVMewhoIWfPuwCfYoGnrYQFg6GrAfQdrwId21Xr8wq7H5d0wl6VUpxu5yca7xOnQhoYH7qaCjsjtk1Y37KfdlJfBEk_cvuXFh4qP/s640/IMGP2877.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="left">
Our son's monologue script. Highlight added to facilitate memorization.</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The gist of it is, why do we idolize people beyond their obvious physical gifts that they manifest in competition? Why assume there's anything else worthy about the person other than a strong arm or good reflexes or 300 pounds of muscle that can move other mountains of flesh?<br />
<br />
In other words, the athlete as role model is a misguided proposition. I'm willing to bet Attila the Hun was a great athlete. And who knows? He may have been more articulate than some of these folks we shove microphones in front of and ask for their post-game thoughts.It wouldn't be all that hard. But Attila as role model? Forget about that!<br />
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Of course, I don't want to be quoted on any of this. I'm not trying to be a role model for anyone. But I will tell you one thing about my cell phone usage. I always keep it above waist level. - <em>A.H.</em><br />
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</div>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-27852822145258412122011-10-07T09:19:00.000-07:002013-03-18T05:18:14.321-07:00The A,B,C's of the News: "A" is for Anthony (Casey)<div style="border: currentColor;">
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">It's been almost a month since I woke up and allowed myself the freedom to once again know what's happening in the world.</span></strong></div>
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<div style="border: currentColor;">
The earth turns and I confess I find myself yawning. I'm not really following any of the going-on's as closely as I used to. I'll save the why and wherefore for another day.</div>
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Then there's how I'm relating to the recent past.<br />
<br />
Surprisingly, at least to me, I've felt very little in the way of a burning desire to find out more about what I missed from Sept. 11, 2010 to Sept. 11, 2011.<br />
<br />
In fact, my ultra-long "lost weekend" feels like a burden. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3V0BpOs2_RVO3eCHNbaSAaBcp_aWTZ4b188MEFuaCl8BMHsS1ky8VutXyYNZA1M6r5es-KsRyQh31tFkHmE0rFT0XZM78Xz98IooZ03LQ9JOBaXSDB9ndezAAzptXqzctsmrUp3_pdeeE/s1600/books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3V0BpOs2_RVO3eCHNbaSAaBcp_aWTZ4b188MEFuaCl8BMHsS1ky8VutXyYNZA1M6r5es-KsRyQh31tFkHmE0rFT0XZM78Xz98IooZ03LQ9JOBaXSDB9ndezAAzptXqzctsmrUp3_pdeeE/s1600/books.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'd fallen behind and felt like I had all <br />
this catching up to do...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="border: currentColor;">
I'm like a student who didn't do the required reading. Now he's contemplating slogging through a stack of textbooks and reading and absorbing hundreds of pages so he can take a make-up exam. </div>
<br />
Maybe I'm just going to sigh and take an "F".<br />
<br />
I did have one little indulgence this week as I dipped into what I figured would be 3 small stories, one each from the world of news, sports and entertainment that occurred during the past 365 days. <br />
<br />
I thought I could learn about these not-too-great matters with a few computer keystrokes. If it wouldn't take too much time, then, yes, I might be motivated enough to learn my A, B, C's...<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;">A</span>: Casey Anthony Trial</span><br />
I didn't know many of the particulars of the case since the body of Caylee was found in 2008 and that had been time enough to forget. I did remember how the media had seized upon the situation (Mom with missing child and contradictory accounts given to the police) and showed signs of turning it all into a soap opera with breaking news crawls and talking heads analysis. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj-kH6DVaxLY-dAOOgR2Gf0aD0HAYk0zsAXTUWiRgehuWSeZWfUUevufU88AKH_sqr4zV60b2LAlSi6g-OYhSowm2dwemWpngI-LmzfoKNG5tO0SQvncnSrIBUE2uqEWjoQOA4K1Tim3CM/s1600/anthony_3-18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj-kH6DVaxLY-dAOOgR2Gf0aD0HAYk0zsAXTUWiRgehuWSeZWfUUevufU88AKH_sqr4zV60b2LAlSi6g-OYhSowm2dwemWpngI-LmzfoKNG5tO0SQvncnSrIBUE2uqEWjoQOA4K1Tim3CM/s1600/anthony_3-18.jpg" /></a></div>
Each time I saw something like that on a TV screen when I was in an airport or store I walked on past without paying attention. <br />
<br />
So I didn't know that throughout the spring of 2011 the judicial system and the media had been ginning up for a real, live televised courtroom proceedings that <em><a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2077969,00.html">Time</a></em> magazine would call the "social media trial of the century." <br />
<br />
I lived through and watched many hours of the O. J. Simpson trial back in 1995. That was bad enough. I'm <u>glad</u> I slept through this one.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipMXCImfpGHZgvyS6cLM-Fb01vTqXRMAaAu9Vp_SJTdaJfivn54wSOf6g0FHn6EB_TIj6VU7EiKzR9RokM4dGRI33rzfEWWRnkJMd_BIoiMT6faIYsv2SeWb7Y6ZzT16cl15IW6sbeSfYU/s1600/casey-anthony-trial-people.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipMXCImfpGHZgvyS6cLM-Fb01vTqXRMAaAu9Vp_SJTdaJfivn54wSOf6g0FHn6EB_TIj6VU7EiKzR9RokM4dGRI33rzfEWWRnkJMd_BIoiMT6faIYsv2SeWb7Y6ZzT16cl15IW6sbeSfYU/s320/casey-anthony-trial-people.jpg" width="237" /></a></div>
My quick <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Caylee_Anthony">Wikipedia</a> catching up with the Casey Anthony saga told me about a foul odor emanating from a car trunk, garbage bags, a heart shaped sticker on duct tape, and an on-line search for "chloroform." There was also something about a removable swimming pool ladder. <br />
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The main thing--that every good story or movie needs--was the "shocking" verdict. Not guilty. Perfect! It allowed the entrance of indignation, furor and controversy and what happens now!<br />
<br />
A not guilty verdict must have been a media ratings dream...<br />
<br />
Learning about all this (besides nauseating me) led to a link to another trial that took place while I was asleep. <br />
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Nine years ago the body of missing Washington intern <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Levy">Chandra Levy</a> was found in a park where she had gone jogging. Suspicion first fell on her lover and boss, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Condit">Rep. Gary Condit</a>, who soon left office. The last I heard the crime had not been solved and I assumed it never would be.<br />
<br />
What I learned this week was that a man who had done time for assaults in the park where Levy's remains were found was put on trial last November. He was convicted. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison in February 2011. All of this happened while I was <span style="color: red;">Van Winkled</span> and I not even a murmur of it got through to me.. <br />
<br />
Unlike Casey Anthony there was no physical evidence connecting <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/22/AR2010112203633.html">Ingmar Guandique</a> to the body. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjpIRulXwHfEtATT-Fp6Pw4vkImuDZunN1sJzfbcBBUziG2-X6JxpoI0YA_0R7Z_9laW3mR4mKsAc5HBMeze9LH5qNfdwqHtzJhRCp5EQ4XrwYdexspc-kCoY6T1HEjogZk-Nho6w_6WX/s1600/abc_gma_levy_101025_wg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjpIRulXwHfEtATT-Fp6Pw4vkImuDZunN1sJzfbcBBUziG2-X6JxpoI0YA_0R7Z_9laW3mR4mKsAc5HBMeze9LH5qNfdwqHtzJhRCp5EQ4XrwYdexspc-kCoY6T1HEjogZk-Nho6w_6WX/s320/abc_gma_levy_101025_wg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Unlike Anthony an enormous time had elapsed before the police fingered him as a suspect. <br />
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The only real evidence against him was it seemed he had an apartment near the park, had attempted to rape two female joggers there in the months before Levy disappeared. And he had told a fellow convict that he killed Chandra Levy. <br />
<br />
Why did one jury convict this man and another jury not convict Casey Anthony who admitted to hiding her daughter's body, but confessed to this only after multiple stories (one claiming a kidnapping) fell through? <br />
<br />
She finally settled on an improbable scenario of a drowning accident in the family pool and she didn't know what to do, so she lied, hid the body, and never mind that she didn't even report her daughter missing for 31 days, there was no murder. Got that? It seems even more exotic than O.J.'s "Columbian drug dealers" who his defense theorized sliced up Nicole and Ron Goldman.<br />
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I didn't sit through the Levy and Anthony trials. I don't know the answers to why the outcomes of these two trials were so different. All I have is the pictures.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Z1K0570qjOuayLuraNJ7jLr1eqfCnMQBAllzxzEpTqBeDBbib3a-f4bs_mHuee_JnE_PoKfK-sLgUGmschLN86vAZWnSIVe2QHD_WzDjUJvSC8Q50Ak-2wICSGJbt_Etqh0lXvN8TWrl/s1600/091203_ingmar_guandique.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Z1K0570qjOuayLuraNJ7jLr1eqfCnMQBAllzxzEpTqBeDBbib3a-f4bs_mHuee_JnE_PoKfK-sLgUGmschLN86vAZWnSIVe2QHD_WzDjUJvSC8Q50Ak-2wICSGJbt_Etqh0lXvN8TWrl/s320/091203_ingmar_guandique.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Murderer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<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/AVvXsEiHzxcn2UJBcUSeW8lCjZGkpEgaGvjQJ7ML3BFYWmhBMgB5kF_7AWlc2GD9XnDwcfybZmrA8tq44yo3elQf9T0n87E1aP0m_-HYc3EVSIKWNcL3NpupFGf5_Vs-m2SS8HyZsRe79w2qUtdN/s1600/casey-anthony-6-300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHzxcn2UJBcUSeW8lCjZGkpEgaGvjQJ7ML3BFYWmhBMgB5kF_7AWlc2GD9XnDwcfybZmrA8tq44yo3elQf9T0n87E1aP0m_-HYc3EVSIKWNcL3NpupFGf5_Vs-m2SS8HyZsRe79w2qUtdN/s320/casey-anthony-6-300.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Innocent</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<strong>COMING NEXT:</strong> <em>B is for Brett: QB Enters the Sexting Hall of Shame.</em>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-73903551337485669142011-10-04T04:17:00.000-07:002011-10-04T04:17:47.525-07:00A Grave Time - Report From Austin No. 3<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Last weekend when I went to a conference in Texas's weirdest city ("weird" in a good way) I realized something. We were sleeping beside the dead.</span></strong><br />
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Located on the east side of I-35, across from downtown, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakwood_Cemetery_(Austin,_Texas)">Oakwood Cemetery</a> is the oldest city-owned cemetery in Austin. Some of graves date back to just before the Civil War. One story is that the cemetery was started out of grim necessity when victims of a Comanche raid were buried on what came to be called Swede Hill.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzR-v6s1F1L0vxny1xDXNqqYH2LSuHkqLHXmHmdcet375ZXSZUZqphVYsmjbHrer6RDj_xkG9ofKyPyJApXtohqE4LjLHvvJGFM8hbJlTdYzbfQtarScWLweigl1oMJ9l_ClQuME_H-E3/s1600/Map.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzR-v6s1F1L0vxny1xDXNqqYH2LSuHkqLHXmHmdcet375ZXSZUZqphVYsmjbHrer6RDj_xkG9ofKyPyJApXtohqE4LjLHvvJGFM8hbJlTdYzbfQtarScWLweigl1oMJ9l_ClQuME_H-E3/s1600/Map.gif" /></a></div>
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I woke early after our first night in our cushy bedroom, took the down elevator, and went for a stroll in the parking lot. I peered over the low stone fence, then I hurried back to the room. I looked at our son and I said two words: "Photo shoot."<br />
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Not to sound morbid, but it has occurred to me that my year-long project in imitation of <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/195/4.html">Rip Van Winkle</a> gives me something in common with the dead. <br />
<br />
The dead have no idea of what has gone on in the news of late. Or the news of past decades. It has passed them by and left them with no worries. Only endless sleep.<br />
<br />
We went out right at sunrise so we could take advantage of morning magic hour with the golden light pouring in low over the stones.<br />
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The cemetery was in a state of disrepair. We didn't see any graffiti, but many of the markers had fallen down.<br />
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Numerous formerly stately tall trees had been sawed off at about the height of a man because they had presumably died, been blown over by the wind, or been lightning struck. No new trees had been planted in their stead.<br />
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The rest of what we saw showed the effects of time which brings rain and gritty winds and buffs the stone surfaces until once important words start to dissolve like lozenges that have been held a long time upon the tongue.<br />
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And I wondered, "Is this what happens to grief?" Does baby Richard who lived only 3.5 months during one awful year of the American Civil War eventually fade along with his name and the dates so that the sorrow may always be there, but its rough edges and deep cuts are now worn away?<br />
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I'm not the only one who has meditated on such "grave" matters: <a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2006-04-21/359280/">Austin Chronicle</a>.<br />
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As we continued walking, looking, photographing, I found that I could be moved by a name and a few words. As was the case with Lillie when I peered close and read the full inscription:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>"A Beautiful Flower </em><br />
<em>Transplanted </em><br />
<em>by Her Heavenly Father </em><br />
<em>From Earth to Heaven."</em></div>
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The marker was precise about how long Lillie was with her family. She died on April 9, 1867. That made her seventeen years and five months at the time of her uprooting. A teenager who never lived long enough to fall in love and marry and become someone's wife...<br />
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There was time enough to wander further into Oakwood. A friendly cat came up and began to follow us. Even though it's home seemed to be among the dead, it was not macabre. It only wanted to be petted.<br />
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Austin's other major resting place, the state cemetery, is not far away. It is better maintained and contains many more of the famous than Oakwood, which confines itself to a few former governors and an unfortunately named oil heiress, <a href="http://www.famoustexans.com/imahogg.htm">Ima Hogg</a>, of Houston fame. <br />
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I have to say, though, that I like Oakwood and it's feel of being something like Roman ruins. There are no pretensions here. The grass is not green and the tallest monuments raised by the wealthy in defiance of Death have either toppled or appear starkly defeated.<br />
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It's an honest place. - <em>A.H.</em><br />
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.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-9220071569519883422011-09-29T03:11:00.000-07:002013-03-18T05:27:54.189-07:00Sandra Bullock Licks Her Lips - Report From Austin No. 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">As I was saying last time...I was at a statewide meeting of creative writing teachers in Austin, Texas over the weekend.</span></strong><br />
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On Saturday morning I sat on a panel that discussed using research in creative writing. I shared how I was drawn to research because over the course of more than 140 posts on this blog I faced the prospect of having very little to write about of significance. <br />
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In a sense this has always been a blog, as they used to say on <em>Seinfeld</em>, " with the potential to be about nothing."<br />
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That's because for one year <span style="color: red;">The Van Winkle Project</span> required that I subtract from my life all information about anything happening beyond the great horizon. <br />
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What did that leave a "sleeping" man with that he might comment on that might be of interest to others?<br />
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A) He could talk about his memories and mire everyone in the muck of his nostalgia.<br />
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B) He could focus on mundane daily activities and minutae and turn the blog into a quasi-journal slash diary no one cared about.<br />
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Ugh.<br />
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What I finally decided to do was try to strike a balance by writing on some days about significant moments in my <u>past</u> and on other days about interesting observations from my <u>present</u> life. But, I told the panel, I still needed more. <br />
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Take a bow <em>research</em>. The starring role, played by my best 21st century friend...<br />
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Most of the time before posting I found myself digging around and satisfying my curiosity about various matters. I then included that information in my posts. <br />
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<strong>Example</strong>: I wanted to write about the concept of "brevity" and how we value it in this era in which are days are already packed with too much to attend to. So there are shorter songs (you can count jam bands on one hand), shorter sermons, faster advertising pitches, and texts and tweets instead of emails. <br />
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This led me to remember the word "brevity" as it's used in the cult classic film <em>The Big Lebowski</em>. Hmm. Let's read a bit and refresh our memory about that movie as well as see what others say. And while I'm at it, what did the Spartans think about the idea of paring things down to a minimum, especially in their speech? <br />
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Voila. I had my post, <a href="http://thevanwinkleproject.blogspot.com/2011/01/el-duderino-and-whole-brevity-thing.html">The Whole Brevity Thing</a>.<br />
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I call this kind of posting sensibility "value added." I figure only the person writing a strictly humorous blog should get a free pass from having to offer readers value added. (That's because making us laugh is an unimpeachable public service on par with helping little old ladies cross the street, i.e., already valuable enough.) <br />
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The rest of us bloggers, right up to <a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/">Roger Ebert</a> with his million viewers, <u>owe</u> our readers something useful, if for no other reason than as non-monetary compensation for taking up their valuable time.<br />
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What might constitute value added on a blog post?<br />
<ul>
<li>A recipe.</li>
<li>A practical tip.</li>
<li>A factoid, piece of quotable trivia.</li>
<li>An interesting story from history.</li>
<li>A great quote</li>
<li>A ponderable insight.</li>
<li>A link to something cool.</li>
<li>A great photo.</li>
</ul>
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So in the midst of my utterly subjective thoughts about how to blog, here's my value-added for today. <br />
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If you ever visit Austin, Texas and are looking for some excellent dining in the medium price range, try <a href="http://www.bessbistro.com/">Bess Bistro on Pecan</a>.<br />
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The restaurant is in the basement of a former bank where the vault used to be. <br />
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Friday night found us dining for the first time at Bess where we met Telmond and Jackie, a wonderful Austin couple in their eighties. They fell in love 60 years ago as UT students a few blocks away on the campus. Jackie was an Austin gal. She told us she used to live just a little ways down Sixth Street from the former bank now Bess Bistro. She remembered what Sixth was like before became <em>the street</em> for clubs and live music, a veritable Bealle Street of the Southwest.<br />
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Not that it matters (but quotable trivia) Bess Bistro is owned by actress Sandra Bullock.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKsPwn7ljFx_cyCze8j63kKpZ6oAN33TPhAoG9B-avGjzgI9esZ_PL92GfoBBwHwgw-aBDh7ae8fGjuILXRtsVyTtwTlnqtOAr9HrmRXZedk-pF1ZCJJvai-3myJ4KtDWdDLKoecDJKfJY/s1600/1424_0_Sandra_Bullock_Gets_Mar_H200042_L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKsPwn7ljFx_cyCze8j63kKpZ6oAN33TPhAoG9B-avGjzgI9esZ_PL92GfoBBwHwgw-aBDh7ae8fGjuILXRtsVyTtwTlnqtOAr9HrmRXZedk-pF1ZCJJvai-3myJ4KtDWdDLKoecDJKfJY/s200/1424_0_Sandra_Bullock_Gets_Mar_H200042_L.jpg" width="147" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No blind side here.<br />
Sandy knows good food!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
What's the dining experience like?<br />
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The most expensive dishes are in the low thirty-dollar range. There's plenty of items one can order for under $20. The cuisine is comfort food or food you've heard of, all of it coming with a twist. Like how my ribeye steak was served with braised brussel sprouts. Or the quail that arrives on a bed of grilled greens. <br />
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We found everything to be delicious, all the way to the finale. You've got to have the beignets with chocolate sauce for dessert. Killer! - <em>A.H.</em><br />
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<strong>COMING: A Walk on the Grave Side, Report From Austin No. 3</strong><br />
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<strong>.</strong>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-51246904159331342792011-09-27T04:50:00.000-07:002011-09-27T06:33:53.425-07:00A Novel Idea - Report From Austin No. 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">I was in Austin, Texas over the weekend.</span></strong><br />
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The occasion was an annual gathering of creative writing teachers who come from around the state to swap ideas and share their work. <br />
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I had the honor of reading a chapter from my new novel <em>Evangel </em>which is currently a lost puppy in search of the loving leash of a publisher.<br />
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<em>Evangel</em> is not a satirical novel, although at times I must say I find what the Christian faithful say and do in real life to be humorous. I often have the same response when I read the Bible. Am I the only one?<br />
<br />
That trickster Jacob fooling his old man with a bunch of animal skins so he's as hairy as his brother Esau. Hilarious! Or there's that ultimate action hero who happens to be a half-dipstick short on intelligence, especially when it comes to women who whisper in his ear and give good massages. I speak of mighty Samson. <br />
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The New Testament is richly humorous, too, not all sober and finger wagging like Mitch McConnell talking about the deficit. In the days before the story of Jesus turns grim and bloody his twelve disciples offer a combination of earnestness and not-getting-it that could be worked into a set of stand-up. <br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: blue;">- Did you hear the one about Peter trying to walk on water? No, seriously, folks. He thought this was a good idea. And he can't even swim! I mean I'm afraid of heights, so I should think of jumping off a cliff?</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: blue;">- The other day I heard James and John were trying to book the best seats in a place called heaven. Isn't that a little premature? Like getting your Super Bowl tickets a few thousand years early?</span></em><br />
<br />
It's not that I don't take God seriously. I do. It's the humans in the Bible (as well as those currently walking the earth) who tend to make me laugh. I assume their creator laughs, too. Fortunately, though, the rest of the story is that the God of the Bible stops laughing just long enough to save humans from themselves. That's comedy, not tragedy...<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Sermon on Sex</span></strong><br />
There are no rules for how one goes about reading for 18 minutes from a novel. I thought it best to search for a chapter that perhaps would offer some liveliness and warm the corpuscles of the audience in the Double Tree's highly air conditioned Wildflower Room. <br />
<br />
Ah, yes, let's try pages 92-103, what I refer to as the "Sermon on Sex" chapter. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0S8k6nYHD_UBPBdrUb1Vffpk1y5744hC7_9sUogyGaSPpEXpLw_xGVtQ_rwd6cXrndv6Z1ap6fulJfG_wqdS13sQKRgTw53O2Lpx00ptWv70VzPY7WzoJCFVSlNHhSFE_VwFPKsfZItw/s1600/sex___the_Bible4-300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0S8k6nYHD_UBPBdrUb1Vffpk1y5744hC7_9sUogyGaSPpEXpLw_xGVtQ_rwd6cXrndv6Z1ap6fulJfG_wqdS13sQKRgTw53O2Lpx00ptWv70VzPY7WzoJCFVSlNHhSFE_VwFPKsfZItw/s200/sex___the_Bible4-300x300.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
In this section Pastor Frankie Wey offers a challenge to the married couples at On the Rock Temple Fellowship, a megachurch in Pinebridge Meadows. <br />
<br />
"Why does the devil have all the sex?" Dr. Frankie asks rhetorically from the stage as he addresses 3000+ people. "I say it's time Christians stole back sex from Satan who has taken it and perverted a beautiful gift from God!"<br />
<br />
To improve intimacy and strengthen marriages Dr. Frankie goes on to ask each married couple in the church to commit to the ultimate self-help regimen:<br />
<br />
Have sex every day for seven days. <br />
<br />
The husbands and wives are to report back the following Sunday and share the results.<br />
<br />
This scene in my novel has roots in a real challenge a Grapevine, Texas minister issued his congregation in 2008. You can read about this notion of "putting God back in bed." <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/24sex.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">here</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQJqQmFnHgFrsGKQ1UuXbogHgy58LIlDAyP3bMuLtdLUo8RYu0vVFvasppcrPsvC1ZWbz23F-icR1_Af6CXunmTbZWbgdQWEgDcoTXtLSzbck9wjBZI6lxTVUv04OvshfifFJk8cuaBDo/s1600/ed-young.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="273" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQJqQmFnHgFrsGKQ1UuXbogHgy58LIlDAyP3bMuLtdLUo8RYu0vVFvasppcrPsvC1ZWbz23F-icR1_Af6CXunmTbZWbgdQWEgDcoTXtLSzbck9wjBZI6lxTVUv04OvshfifFJk8cuaBDo/s400/ed-young.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The "Seven Days of Sex" pastor in Grapevine, Texas also preached a sermon<br />
earlier this year with a real Ferrari on stage.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In the sort of me-too'ism that's has long been rampant among American churches, which are just as subject to trends and fads as any other quarter of society, other preachers around the country have tried out the idea. Below is a billboard that sparked <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/11/great-sex-gods-way-sermon_n_173854.html">controversy</a> when an Alabama church put it up, not because of the one-man, one-woman message, but, well, the preacher was talking about sex in church!<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnr_WOW9ZI6ZUVcwaSignR37WNY3QR2Q6oYSyo-09O-YkfOR2e9DR7BzfDu0PbWj8B6DSSFaanoTnpy5RPCmCFimtY6GNGEHXsp0QQSZpEOj2FXSPweP6iOaJIxtf-cW9wc2RpW6hAkEp/s1600/church+sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnr_WOW9ZI6ZUVcwaSignR37WNY3QR2Q6oYSyo-09O-YkfOR2e9DR7BzfDu0PbWj8B6DSSFaanoTnpy5RPCmCFimtY6GNGEHXsp0QQSZpEOj2FXSPweP6iOaJIxtf-cW9wc2RpW6hAkEp/s400/church+sign.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPE0FG6jdlY6WKpPG6YQt2vqyzOK1fNKIlFjq0n8cpm9PT7i2qyUxEAhcd3AcORe9YwBMpBYTlr8q_GJ9UFXPfXljk5FY7YUmzKBIpxZCAUCxXniZVHB74SNlPwHMFzt7BpQjxDrOUkkXu/s1600/il_fullxfull_5562680.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPE0FG6jdlY6WKpPG6YQt2vqyzOK1fNKIlFjq0n8cpm9PT7i2qyUxEAhcd3AcORe9YwBMpBYTlr8q_GJ9UFXPfXljk5FY7YUmzKBIpxZCAUCxXniZVHB74SNlPwHMFzt7BpQjxDrOUkkXu/s320/il_fullxfull_5562680.jpg" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/5190322/wine-of-love-linocut-song-of-songs">"Wine of Love"</a> by Natalia Morez 2002</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If you're a fiction writer and you hear about something like this, including preachers providing a public exegesis of (blush) the Song of Solomon, you think, "I've got to try this out with my characters and see what happens!"<br />
<br />
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/" name="1:2"><em>Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is</em></a><em> better than wine. </em><br />
<br />
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/" name="1:3"><em>Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as</em></a><em> ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. </em><br />
<br />
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/" name="1:4"><em>Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into</em></a><em> his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. </em><br />
<br />
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/" name="1:5"><em>I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents</em></a><em> of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. </em><br />
<br />
Hot stuff! Somebody ought to write about it... So I did. -<strong> </strong><em>A.H.</em><br />
<br />
<strong>COMING NEXT</strong>: <strong>Sandra Bullock Licks Her Lips - Report From Austin No. 2</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-5435479312322320722011-09-23T07:00:00.000-07:002011-09-24T17:02:53.577-07:00A New Literary Analysis of Rip Van Winkle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>Now that Phase I of the Van Winkle Project has ended--avoiding the news--I'm in the midst of Phase II. In this effort I'm somewhat like my literary inspiration, Rip Van Winkle.</strong><br />
<br />
Since 12 months was long enough for me to forget all the details of Washington Irving's account, I combed the house until I found my nice little copy of <em>Three Tales</em> with its handsome, vintage illustrations.<br />
<br />
I wanted to read the ending again and make sure I had it right in my memory. <br />
<br />
I especially wanted to revisit how Rip deals with a flood of new information (America had become an independent nation during his sleep) and how he spends his days once he's newly awakened.<br />
<br />
It turns out that Rip wakes to a sort of personal paradise.<br />
<br />
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As I read the full account I learned that twenty years is sleeping and aging and being completley out of it brings with certan advantages. <br />
<br />
Because Rip is old no one expects him to contribute. <br />
<br />
In addition, his nagging wife has burst a blood vessel and died years ago. She will never again critique his behavior or nag, nag, nag.<br />
<br />
For the first time ever, Rip can truly be himself unimpeded and enjoy life as never before.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Set Free</span></strong><br />
Have I arrived at a "happy age" like Rip Van Winkle? Well, our cases are both similar and different. I have no nagging wife. Rather than wishing her away, I am proud of the fact that my wife has been with me this entire time. She endured my project heroically, even during those early days in May when she was dieing to tell me that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.<br />
<br />
What I realize, though, is that I did have another version of a nagging wife living with me. For decades. A nagger <em>par excellence</em>. This other wife of mine has a name.<br />
<br />
The news.<br />
<br />
You see, one can read this little story as something of a parable. It breaks down like this:<br />
<br />
<em>There's something that bothers a person greatly in life. It hounds them. Then one day a wonderful thing happens. They accidentally escape it in an unexpected way (in Rip's case a magic nap). When they come back to their old life everything is new and better. All it takes is TIME.</em><br />
<br />
Let's give this gradual de-toxing phenonomenon a name: The <span style="color: red;">Rip Van Winkle Effect</span> (<span style="color: red;">RVWE</span>)<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">How the <span style="color: red;">RVWE</span> Works For Me</span></strong><br />
Compared to before, my life now seems largely quiet and peaceful. The news doesn't have the hold on me that it once did. <br />
<br />
I don't hear that nagging voice saying, "Check online and see what's happened in the last hour," or "You've got to watch the evening news every night, every minute of it" or "Read the newspaper as soon as you bring it in in the morning." <br />
<br />
Nag, nag, nag.<br />
<br />
And I used to obey. I was afraid I'd miss something I needed to know. But I realize the truth now. It wasn't about need. It was habit.<br />
<br />
My news habit seems to have been burst its own blood vessel and gone away.<br />
<br />
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I realize, of course, that bad habits can return. In stressful times ex-smokers scrounge a butt and light up. Yesterday, habit returning, I said, "Hey!" to someone in the hallway after vowing weeks ago that such a low-grade greeting would never cross my lips again [See: <a href="http://thevanwinkleproject.blogspot.com/2011/08/andy-rooneys-eyebrows-mini-rant.html">Andy Rooney's Eyebrows: A Mini-Rant</a>]<br />
<br />
I'm hoping for the best this time. That I can model myself on Rip. <br />
<br />
I especially like the bit where we're told he makes friends "among the rising generation." Whenever I have hope for the future, it almost never comes from anything I read or hear in the news. It comes from the young people, especially my students.<br />
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<br />
What else can I learn from the <span style="color: red;">Rip Van Winkle Effect</span>? That eventually all things pass. What I wring my hands over today at some point will simply be history and have an end date placed on it.<br />
<ul>
<li>The bad economy</li>
<li>Global terrorism</li>
<li>Mideast unrest</li>
<li>Famines in Africa</li>
<li>Assorted annoying people, both public and private</li>
<li>Unfortunate musical styles and fashions</li>
</ul>
<br />
Yes, I may actually outlive the popularity of Justin Beiber, Snooki, and too many movies based on comic book heroes! However, I'm not naive. I know what any intelligent person is thinking. My list of "wish-it-weren't-so's" will be replaced by new ones. No matter how long one waits, true paradise never arrives. <br />
<br />
Though it's no solution to try to sleep through all the bad stuff, I now believe it might not be a bad idea to take more short news naps than the nagging voice in one's head says is socially acceptable. Accrue some <span style="color: red;">RVWE</span>. If upon waking the bad news hasn't gone away, at least it will be more distant.<br />
<br />
It seems to have worked for me.<br />
<br />
LAST THING: In case anyone is wondering, I don't plan to neglect the other aspect of the ending of Rip Van Winkle: <br />
<br />
<em>"It was some time before he...could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor." </em><br />
<br />
For the foreseeable future this blog will be my "bench at the inn door." I'll lounge here and idly chat and share my reactions to old news. Not that anyone cares. I'm just an old guy who is behind the times. <br />
<br />
Still, I figure if I'm going to live on the same planet as everyone else it might be a good idea to at least get back into "the regular track of gossip." Next time someone says "Super Committee" or "Michelle Bachmann" I'd like to know what they're talking about. - <em>A.H.</em><br />
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Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-40802415377787379752011-09-19T07:16:00.000-07:002011-09-19T08:29:53.332-07:00Glory on the Gridiron (The Day After)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">I just went one year without any NFL football.</span> No preseason, no 16-game schedule, no playoffs, no Super Bowl.</strong> <strong> As <span style="color: red;">Van Winkle</span>, I "slept" through it all.</strong><br />
<br />
To some this might sound like a hardship. But here's the deal...<br />
<br />
I'm not that monster-size football fan that almost single-handedly supports the beer companies and cable TV. You know the type. He has to know the results of all the games and he watches three games on Sunday and doesn't miss Monday or Thursday nights either.<br />
<br />
And he is a he.<br />
<br />
Still, I dabble in football-watching the way I dabble in other things. I show up in front of the TV screen at opportune moments, hoping to be rewarded by some feat between the hash marks that suddenly shoots adrenaline to my brain, which then tells my vocal cords and tongue to go to work:<br />
<br />
"HEY! DID YOU SEE THAT! IT WAS UN-BUH-LEEEV-ABLE!"<br />
<br />
Which is what happened in the fourth quarter of the Oakland at Buffalo game yesterday.<br />
<br />
I was semi-watching (okay, dabbling massively) on the couch, trying to mark a few student assignments from my Fiction Workshop. I had already seen the J-Lo Fiat commercial three times too many. This ad heralds the coming of a teeny-tiny but cool two-door car to America. <br />
<br />
Ms. Lopez, so made-up and digitally retouched that she more resembles a polished piece of plastic than human flesh, overshadowed the whole thing. Especially when I made the mistake of turning off the mute and I heard the singing. Cue the robots, please...<br />
<br />
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<br />
'PLEASE! BACK TO FOOTBALL!"<br />
<br />
There...that's better.<br />
<br />
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<br />
One thing I realized after no TV for a year is how eye-poppingly great HD TV looks when one is watching the action unfold on the field. Whenever there was a close-up on a player I could see the sparklies in the silver paint of the Raiders' helmet. Grass stains on pants. Fantastic detail on the tattooed biceps. <br />
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<br />
Football is eye candy.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Since I had missed 3/4 of the game I didn't know that the Raiders (8-8 last year) had blown a 21-3 halftime lead. The plucky Bills, who many said were better than last year's dismal team that lost their first 8 games before going 4-4, were on a tear with three unanswered touchdowns.<br />
<br />
Then I woke up on the couch. This is one of those moments when all the dull penalties, the runs up the middle for no gain, the worse than useless necktie comentating, and even those interruptive J-Lo moments go away. <br />
<br />
Buffalo has just scored minutes earlier to go ahead 31-28. The Oakland quarterback drops back and he heaves a pass 50 yards. Churning toward the goal line is <u>rookie</u> Denarius Moore. Mr. Moore has two Buffalo defenders on him. He gets a step on one, the other is gnawing his collar bone as he goes up and snags the ball and falls into the end zone with the defender atop him. Mr. Moore lands holding the ball. <br />
<br />
Amazing catch! Oakland scores!<br />
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<br />
But we're not quite finished because the Bills will march down the field, helped by foolish Oakland face masking and pass interference penalties. The Bills will survive a fourth and 3 on the Oakland 24 yard line and at that point I knew they weren't going to be denied.<br />
<br />
Sure enough they scored with 16 seconds left. There was time for three more Raider plays. The last one (6 seconds remaining) was a Hail Mary heave into the end zone. Multiple hands belonging to three Bills and one Raider grasped in the air for the ball. As they came down it appeared that both a Bill and a Raider were holding the ball? No. When they hit the ground, Buffalo had intercepted. End of game. Bills win it 38-35.<br />
<br />
Is this a typical NFL game? Hardly. But it does represent the kind of sports drama I missed out on last season when I was <span style="color: red;">Van Winkled</span>.<br />
<br />
Yesterday's game reminds me why I'll always watch some sports. Unlike the rest of the news, sports are reliable. If you watch enough games, something GOOD, something memorable, something that makes you for a moment feel "Yes!" always happens.<br />
<br />
The rookie makes the impossible catch!<br />
<br />
Maybe there are other ready-made communal spectacles that can reliably deliver this kind of thing, but right now, the morning after my Sunday "fix," this guy is having a hard time thinking of any. <br />
<br />
Football, baseball, basketball, golf. All of them offer a peculiarly American Sunday afternoon liturgy. The people show up and watch the ritual performed over and over again. They know that at some point it's quite likely they will briefly touch the transcendent. When that happens they find themselves cheering for something beyond their smallish, seemingly insignificant lives. <br />
<br />
I know exactly what it feels like.<br />
<br />
And, if I partake via TV, all this comes with minimal or no cost to me, other than time invested. It seems like a pretty good deal...<br />
<br />
That's why I'm not surprised that so many people worship in front of large screens, and the stadiums dwarf our churches. And heaven? Isn't that another name for making it into the end zone? Nothing but net from outside the arc? Home run in the bottom of the ninth? The eighteeen foot putt? <br />
<br />
Maybe not. You see, it's all so brief. And in the end it may not work out like you expected. Ask Denarius Moore, ask the Oakland Raiders. I think those gentlemen will tell you. - <em>A.H.</em><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpek8TfA-xxseqwmok_nqc0HhT9jJDgkCg7wfdIBoZhO2pC4g8tvN4Ww8iFsCH_z3YYC-vG3N9sIDd9D1IIRP1vs5TTy0td5iMxFUBHn8mfyt_TJotbiNpSbWuBrownpaaMcH5MDZf8wM5/s1600/buffalo+oak2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpek8TfA-xxseqwmok_nqc0HhT9jJDgkCg7wfdIBoZhO2pC4g8tvN4Ww8iFsCH_z3YYC-vG3N9sIDd9D1IIRP1vs5TTy0td5iMxFUBHn8mfyt_TJotbiNpSbWuBrownpaaMcH5MDZf8wM5/s400/buffalo+oak2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorry, Denarius. Even though you pointed heavenward and the score changed<br />
seconds later to OAK 35 BUF 31, your team went on to <u>lose</u>.</td></tr>
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.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-80200897874957992122011-09-17T05:43:00.000-07:002011-09-17T05:45:15.241-07:00News of the Lowercase "m-e"<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/AVvXsEhtT6A0PxOpaX7BahD30yx_5l3Ni-AoVtqZM851m9i_s6RKq36hbvZ8U3IpzI-zLjYrAjGYdun8gKt3Y4fs3ECePfibAreyAPjnN_VQDp2GgdDKbH4k1WjfREV72JWTpZdr-LWYpeyNzUHR/s1600/JohnQuidor-TheReturnofRipVanWinkle+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="323" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtT6A0PxOpaX7BahD30yx_5l3Ni-AoVtqZM851m9i_s6RKq36hbvZ8U3IpzI-zLjYrAjGYdun8gKt3Y4fs3ECePfibAreyAPjnN_VQDp2GgdDKbH4k1WjfREV72JWTpZdr-LWYpeyNzUHR/s400/JohnQuidor-TheReturnofRipVanWinkle+%25283%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Twenty years later he awoke and went home.</em><br />
<em>"The Return of Rip Van Winkle" by John Quidor</em></td></tr>
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<strong><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Hello. My name is Albert Haley.</span></strong> I live in Abilene, Texas, where I am a writer and teacher of creative writing at a local university. <br />
<br />
For the last year I've been de-emphasizing my identity, particularly on this blog where I once even went so far as to interview myself with a paper bag over my head. [See<a href="http://thevanwinkleproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/our-readers-want-to-know.html"> post</a>.]<br />
<br />
To all my kind readers, accidental, and otherwise, I remained <span style="color: black;"><strong>Van Winkle</strong></span>. I signed my posts <span style="color: black;"><strong>V.W.</strong></span><br />
<br />
Today I am not going to suddenly open up and invoke a cult of personality, but I will cease to remain in the awkward stance of an anonymous person engaged in an odd (and difficult) project of trying to avoid all news, sports, entertainment, and weather. <br />
<br />
The person who thought it would be interesting to try to become a modern-day <a href="http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/Winkle.html">Rip Van Winkle</a> has awakened. Albert Haley is now roughly like everyone else.<br />
<br />
Except I'm starting to wonder after what I've done to myself if I really am.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Hangovers and Pummelings</span></strong><br />
Although it was a relief for my project to finally end last Sunday, Sept. 11, and thus be able to abandon the daily vigilance required to make sure I didn't overhear or glimpse news, it was the oddest thing to dive back into current events.<br />
<br />
I found myself faced with the first newspapers I'd looked at in one year. [See: <a href="http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/sep/11/sleeping-professor-wakes-slowly-wades-back-into/">Sleeping Professor Wakes, Slowly Wades Back into the News</a>]<br />
<br />
I began with a weary sounding and downbeat headline story about the U.S.'s latest trillion dollar deficit and what must be done to trim federal spending. <br />
<br />
It was clear from both the tone and content of the story that many people have been discussing this for some time. But I don't remember debt reduction being a front-burner issue when I went to "sleep" one year ago.<br />
<br />
I thought then of how when Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle closed his eyes in the famous story there were union jacks waving in the breeze. He awoke to find a piece of red, white and blue cloth with stars on it raised in their place. "How did that happen?" he wondered.<br />
<br />
I have a similar reaction after being debriefed by family and friends and learning of Arab revolutions, terrible disasters, partisan vitriol, Congressional paralysis of action, and an economy that seems to be on life support. In addition, I gather that America has gone from having the equivalent of a neutral expression of patience on Uncle Sam's face to a full-blown frown that borders on "Holy Moley, what am I going to do now?"<br />
<br />
Intellectually, as I continue "back reading" from my pile of saved newspapers and <em>Newsweeks</em> stored in the garage I can understand the current gray mood. A lot of tough stuff is buried in those pages in the garage. <br />
<br />
Still, I don't feel any of this strongly myself. I think it's because my emotions haven't been run through the news ringer of having actually lived through any of it and (here's the big thing) I refuse to force feed myself 365 days of mostly bad news all at once.<br />
<br />
Someone in the news business wrote to me the other day warning me what that might be like:<br />
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<strong><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">How I'm Actually Doing</span></strong></div>
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While managing to avoid the sad, depressed, anxious state my correspondent described, a new "m-e" seems to be emerging.</div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> <em>-He reads the morning newspaper in about half the time he used to.</em></strong></span></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> -He listens to NPR for about 4 minutes on the way to work in the </strong></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> morning, that's all, an espresso shot of news instead of a grande.</strong></span></em></div>
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<br /></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> -During the day at work he's no longer in the habit of checking the home </strong></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> page of the NY Times every hour or two.</strong></span></em></div>
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<br /></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> -He only watches the lead story, maybe a couple of more on the evening </strong></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> network TV news. Sometimes he skips the show altogether and </strong></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> concentrates on cooking dinner.</strong></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> -He's in no rush to find out every detail of all the big news events of 2011 </strong></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong> that he missed.</strong></span></em></div>
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In many ways I'm still enjoying the sort of lifestyle that I forced myself into over the last year. Could it be that I'll never again be a news junkie? That I can now take news in moderation? </div>
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There are "social drinkers." They drink just enough to fit in with everyone else and be convivial company at parties and occasions. Maybe I've become a social imbiber of the news?</div>
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Maybe. But I'm still working it out. I worry that I'm taking up the mantle of the less informed and therefore, by my own standards, I am becoming a less intelligent person who has little or no basis for critical thinking about life and the world. </div>
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And what do I say to all the journalists out there who are dedicated to working hard, most of them for mediocre wages, to bring us so much news because they believe it can not only offer truth, but it can yield valuable clues and lessons about how all of us should behave in the future? Do I tell them, "You're spoiling my party, so buzz off?"</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5lCFmzlKBNIkcxYyE9yTfStnSSEUrYX5A9T2_JbwrYIs5y7PiCypY3S0nQEg9zerhA3akgDOTAUZMfcL51jaqaMwKN7Zyv3vnTsS1-gM9aWXHceU9ceip4fgZN4dobFvseEP6ZUj5Ws46/s1600/JohnQuidor-TheReturnofRipVanWinkle+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5lCFmzlKBNIkcxYyE9yTfStnSSEUrYX5A9T2_JbwrYIs5y7PiCypY3S0nQEg9zerhA3akgDOTAUZMfcL51jaqaMwKN7Zyv3vnTsS1-gM9aWXHceU9ceip4fgZN4dobFvseEP6ZUj5Ws46/s400/JohnQuidor-TheReturnofRipVanWinkle+%25282%2529.jpg" width="376" /></a></div>
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Excuse me, but to work this out, I think I'm to have to revisit something I did at the beginning of this project. I have a sudden urge to re-read <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/195/4.html">the story of Rip Van Winkle</a>, concentrating especially on the ending. </div>
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I'll find how Rip lived the remainder of his life after awakening with the world around him changed. After that I'll check back in with you. - <em>A.H.</em></div>
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Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-40454362591121580582011-09-12T05:20:00.000-07:002011-09-15T05:11:32.485-07:00Then I Woke Up...<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">...and I had pancakes.</span></strong><br />
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After all, the big day had arrived on a Sunday, a day that's always crowded with activity. Getting ready for church, going to church, coming home and fixing our traditional Sunday brunch.<br />
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I decided I'd waited this long to learn the news. What did it matter if it took a few more hours?<br />
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I left the newspapers lying unretrieved out on the front lawn, put on my apron, and got busy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRFSPJuEleTWn0-6eAIctBoOeqaEFhFej7b_phHig0G46IECI3pFjzOaJ14iUTYANQIqDbpRi__4p1cmW4_NiXU-95lypIWSKDq3nI0HWNEDqAmJXzGo0f4WZy6MfYukKyWjwyUunK9nS/s1600/Pancake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRFSPJuEleTWn0-6eAIctBoOeqaEFhFej7b_phHig0G46IECI3pFjzOaJ14iUTYANQIqDbpRi__4p1cmW4_NiXU-95lypIWSKDq3nI0HWNEDqAmJXzGo0f4WZy6MfYukKyWjwyUunK9nS/s400/Pancake.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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One of my accomplishments during my newsless, entertainmentless, sportsless, weatherless year was to develop to maturity my Sunday brunch pancake and waffle recipe. This is of major signficance because for me these delicious hot griddled versions of bread are an occasion for absorbing satisfying quantities of 100% maple syrup.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Ye3aF70B1tTpyd3dq7JO2JzoYb_ArpoMY7JWMSQSi7cOO8jXki_ZsH4pj5vzTPcIFXz2NAudtlX8cwdjer5eHFenevcn8gnGRkcb-jPgO7OS7aJ-2zMWWKTBBvZYRPmmtzvlTHmzrIjb/s1600/IMGP2776.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Ye3aF70B1tTpyd3dq7JO2JzoYb_ArpoMY7JWMSQSi7cOO8jXki_ZsH4pj5vzTPcIFXz2NAudtlX8cwdjer5eHFenevcn8gnGRkcb-jPgO7OS7aJ-2zMWWKTBBvZYRPmmtzvlTHmzrIjb/s400/IMGP2776.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
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What I discovered was that I could take a product that is fairly average in quality and, with the right embellishments, turn it into something that knocked my brunch guests (wife and son) out of their chairs. This saved time and it also proved that the potential for greatness can lurk in something as common as Aunt Jemima mix.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jPqKWRYwu5d2eBYzY2x9xD8r5T9EliR-zbpyM8tIA-KM7yyDFwp-6igcvyx_NMw5VxcwZHFyrygRGHoVnHOqVvsGNfJprBVgUyu8ev9o8MGGw_jCBVPjYFvZ0SxWgoSdQbqsDk7zVL40/s1600/IMGP2768.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jPqKWRYwu5d2eBYzY2x9xD8r5T9EliR-zbpyM8tIA-KM7yyDFwp-6igcvyx_NMw5VxcwZHFyrygRGHoVnHOqVvsGNfJprBVgUyu8ev9o8MGGw_jCBVPjYFvZ0SxWgoSdQbqsDk7zVL40/s640/IMGP2768.JPG" width="505" /></a></div>
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Fat makes all the difference, starting with the butter.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_HsSO0LINeF8HsIZVwiWhJx-XFcReegqJry-TFnM-KHtn-cd_zeVnSiVWJR_ykb3ghhr7WkaYJhkOkenJmE0Lmi-CS3CwNPSgeIkIkCP4LsVs8sg3M9SB-F5qDOzyosygIV3s1LT4XxKP/s1600/IMGP2769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_HsSO0LINeF8HsIZVwiWhJx-XFcReegqJry-TFnM-KHtn-cd_zeVnSiVWJR_ykb3ghhr7WkaYJhkOkenJmE0Lmi-CS3CwNPSgeIkIkCP4LsVs8sg3M9SB-F5qDOzyosygIV3s1LT4XxKP/s320/IMGP2769.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Supposedly the AJ mix contains its own rising ingredient and dehydrated eggs, but you have to "egg" this mix on in order to get it to do what it should, i.e., rise with an airy insouciance that clearly intimates that these light cakes are going to dance rambunctiously in your mouth before they dissolve on the tongue.<br />
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And the buttermilk! The instructions on the box say use water or milk, but you wouldn't believe the difference buttermilk makes in flavor and everything else. Remember what television was like before the HD version arrived a few years ago? Those were your old pancakes. Blurry, jittery, ghosting pancakes. Bring on the buttermilk and you have high definition taste. You can even <em>see</em> the difference in these thick, lucious golden beauties.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQNtHDE8afjlwg9zFJVLQqXugGES_QGqxd6LTTOMGZSvedOE02LXgYQiM2YC7RGoEn58UFng4g8ReObJzATXBvmbconJJk6ATLOIW4HKBsoQ06x9OUrbEJeWNHMwcLMM8MNvqkvQojUPcw/s1600/IMGP2774.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQNtHDE8afjlwg9zFJVLQqXugGES_QGqxd6LTTOMGZSvedOE02LXgYQiM2YC7RGoEn58UFng4g8ReObJzATXBvmbconJJk6ATLOIW4HKBsoQ06x9OUrbEJeWNHMwcLMM8MNvqkvQojUPcw/s400/IMGP2774.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Yesterday I ate pancakes with great enjoyment and then I went and got the newspapers and brought them into the house.<br />
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With the maple syrup sweetness still soaking my molars, I sat down on the couch. As planned my wife and son made a 30-minute presentation (with visual aids) concerning the events of the last year. A photographer/writer from the local newspaper took pictures and took notes for a <a href="http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/sep/11/sleeping-professor-wakes-slowly-wades-back-into/">story that would run on Monday</a>.<br />
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I asked questions. Then some more. Not that I'm finished. I'm still thinking of additional questions that must be asked.<br />
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<em><span style="color: red;">- "How many people died in the Japan earthquake?"</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: red;">- "Tell me the dimensions of this thing people are calling </span></em><em><span style="color: red;">'the Arab Spring.' What countries are we talking about besides the leaks I heard about Egypt and Libya?"</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: red;">- "How long did it take the Navy SEALS to finish off Bin Laden?"</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: red;">- "Okay, a film called <u>The</u> <u>King's</u> <u>English</u> won the best picture Oscar, but what else was nominated?"</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: red;">- "I know Greenbay beat Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl. Was it a good game?"</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: red;">- "Is anyone starting to think the US economy is like Humpty Dumpty? All the irresponsible mortgage bankers and derivatives brokers and bond rating agencies and Fed chiefs let him slip off the wall and no one can put him together again?"</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: red;">- "Is anyone saying that with this summer's record heat we could enter another Dust Bowl era?"</span></em><br />
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And the questions go on and on at the same time I'm trying to digest, along with my comforting pancakes, all the things my family told me--plus what was in yesterday's newspapers.<br />
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Will anyone feel insulted if I say that it felt like a LOT of bad news to imbibe in such a short time? That's why I need to take a day or two to decompress. I'll continue going through my newspapers, magazines, and ohter sources. Then I'll be back. - <em>A.H.</em> (formerly V.W.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIpbAQtrTFNxjHahuhpGfPTDPpIU46QZg9rZJwb5afEQvajrgY55w1U1zfsMQ9cxTB0QTn5o2l_dS_dxpLp1C2Ejg9sL4AnIQcG2wf6fQnbsmqn46-IlYK2wETZi_YAvbHDgwT4LoE8DVG/s1600/IMGP2777.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIpbAQtrTFNxjHahuhpGfPTDPpIU46QZg9rZJwb5afEQvajrgY55w1U1zfsMQ9cxTB0QTn5o2l_dS_dxpLp1C2Ejg9sL4AnIQcG2wf6fQnbsmqn46-IlYK2wETZi_YAvbHDgwT4LoE8DVG/s400/IMGP2777.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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,Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-49834799568268349172011-09-10T05:57:00.000-07:002011-09-10T15:25:30.525-07:00And Only Hours to Go (Before I Awake)<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Honestly, it used to feel like the day was never going to arrive. </span></strong>Then at about the six or eight-month mark the days began to pass more quickly. So quickly that I haven't really given much thought to what it will be like to return to the opportunity to resume what I used to take for granted.<br />
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Knowing lots of stuff about what's going on everywhere.<br />
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I've thought of an analogy, though.<br />
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Back at Christmas we were at my father's house. We always stay in the upstairs bedroom where there are some old family furniture pieces. A trunk that belonged to my great grandfather. A chest of drawers that were used by my grandparents.<br />
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And our old family Magnavox console hi-fi in a cherry wood cabinet purchased by my father in Denver, Colorado, in 1958. He wanted his three sons to be exposed to history, art and culture in the form of 12" long playing records.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyn-A6_6lDMX7Q0O7YgrcaQbl_zJYmjIDwc-tWbc9XnWuRZUXaTYuzoEGAmU5cLw8SQlRsGv1Fu9IB7l6aE9jP_S-eR3rOl7SV9uXKmNP7M8d9o1NKA9PN498BqJubA2shE38_eBIni1q0/s1600/IMGP1099.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyn-A6_6lDMX7Q0O7YgrcaQbl_zJYmjIDwc-tWbc9XnWuRZUXaTYuzoEGAmU5cLw8SQlRsGv1Fu9IB7l6aE9jP_S-eR3rOl7SV9uXKmNP7M8d9o1NKA9PN498BqJubA2shE38_eBIni1q0/s400/IMGP1099.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Typically I pay little attention these days to the hi-fi with its gold laced grill front, even though it once meant much to me. I used to lift the lid and stack up to 6 records on the turntable spindle (I can still smell that distinct black vinyl odor). Magic followed in the form of swelling, passionate classical music by the world's greatest composers as it vibrated through the living room for hours.<br />
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Crank up the <em>Rite Of Spring</em> past the middle setting on the rotary dial and a little kid could shake the walls...<br />
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Decades later the hi-fi has become a level surface during family visits where I empty my pockets of change, receipts, and keys. But at Christmas I had a new idea.<br />
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Let's lift the lid. Poke around.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5q-GRs5-Orf1jW6VfrOVVQqJjono_xS6rP8yltU4Sv-zDZU2QvPGGm0-U02pgEsu_XoA-Z9NPpPn8v-fc4HrjQZUKraE71xobLqxVEb3FDqUk_bT3awhcgBk1aqFnkWhTQVyGcSGVf4bp/s1600/IMGP1101.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5q-GRs5-Orf1jW6VfrOVVQqJjono_xS6rP8yltU4Sv-zDZU2QvPGGm0-U02pgEsu_XoA-Z9NPpPn8v-fc4HrjQZUKraE71xobLqxVEb3FDqUk_bT3awhcgBk1aqFnkWhTQVyGcSGVf4bp/s400/IMGP1101.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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What if I turn on the power switch?<br />
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Amazing! After 60 years the tubes are glowing... There are no records to play, but I spin the dial until I hear distant voices, that's all, because most of the A.M. radio band is obscured by static.<br />
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That's when I start to imagine that tomorrow morning, Sept. 11, 2011, I'm going to be a bit like that old hi-fi. My tubes will glow warmly and I'll remember that I can still pull in a signal and make the outside world come into my house.<br />
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News, entertainment, sports, and weather. I'll spin my mental dial, listening to my wife and son as they de-brief me, fingering the old newspapers and news magazines stored out in the garage. During that time of reengagement what is already past tense to everyone else will become my temporary present.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii53z6RGvFk8sE5tM4qFuTNaNK6OFJqwRx6Low3CfS1RmGkl0RDXV7do7jbYjT9NuSrOmFPIfLb7faUj-4NBFsRJ-XbkQitaDA3ErgRr8tWDALKfKmXDQwzwC5wkNE3Vhuk39btH5XzVBS/s1600/IMGP1106.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii53z6RGvFk8sE5tM4qFuTNaNK6OFJqwRx6Low3CfS1RmGkl0RDXV7do7jbYjT9NuSrOmFPIfLb7faUj-4NBFsRJ-XbkQitaDA3ErgRr8tWDALKfKmXDQwzwC5wkNE3Vhuk39btH5XzVBS/s400/IMGP1106.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I'll turn on the TV again, too. Even though we don't have a cable or satellite feed, there should be plenty to glean. I've ordered a new amplified antenna in lieu of the inadequate rabbit ears I've used in the past. I'll be able to pick up a few missing on-air channels. The Sunday NFL games will come back to me!<br />
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How long will it take for me to get caught up? And what will be my reaction to what I missed? Have I learned any lessons, made any discoveries in the midst of mass media deprivation?<br />
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I'll be working out the answers to these questions. That's what the rest of this project and my posts from here on out will be about.<br />
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And one more thing. I'm going to stop signing off as V.W. <br />
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Awakened to the whole range of life with all its charms and disappointments, human heroism and fleshly frailties, accomplishments and tragedies, I intend to once again put on my true identity. But for now, and those remaining hours, minutes, seconds until the counter turns over to 0-0-0, I remain as ever, your faithful dozing servant. - <em>V.W.</em><br />
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<em>.</em>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-88850567052733477762011-09-08T04:32:00.000-07:002011-09-09T17:46:11.008-07:00Hello, Sexy Friends<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Today as the time of my "awakening" draws nigh, I am going around and paying silent, admiring attention to some well known friends from my former life as a news and culture junkie. I want to reassure them. </span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Hey, it's me. I'm about to return."</span><br />
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I begin by going out to the garage where I have stored a year's worth of the local newspaper and the Sunday <em>New York Times</em>.Many months ago I took a picture and posted it with a yard stick alongside to show how my newspaper stalagmites were growing. The papers have now gone well beyond 36" in height.<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/AVvXsEjG-U2byJJOUk8k0iGLksExqhdcu-J4l_FERp2oD2EE8nhn9XO4czEfCE7nmh5z2xCisAzLrbECAGXKFPAoatPE2hlTwwstL3HxsX8-lQfkdwMqhum9XRBYSadk6qmUns-0EsW-5ZYrY7Lt/s1600/IMGP2754.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-U2byJJOUk8k0iGLksExqhdcu-J4l_FERp2oD2EE8nhn9XO4czEfCE7nmh5z2xCisAzLrbECAGXKFPAoatPE2hlTwwstL3HxsX8-lQfkdwMqhum9XRBYSadk6qmUns-0EsW-5ZYrY7Lt/s640/IMGP2754.JPG" width="444" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One year's worth of daily local newpapers on the left.<br />
52 issues of Sunday <em>NY Times</em> on the right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I stare at the picture posted here and I feel a bit like someone who is looking at an old photo of his "ex." Hmm. We once had a beautiful relationship. She was so sexy! All those pages we turned together. All that ink that smeared on my fingers...<br />
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Then something happened. We separated. But what if? The "what if" being our getting back together. Can it be like before?<br />
<br />
One of those imponderables I suspose. You'll never know until you hold out your arms, say, "Come to me!" and give it another try...<br />
<br />
While I am in the garage I open up the car and loft a special greeting to the in-dash radio. "Hello. I'll be turning you on soon!" <br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEhf7bGA2hPTr0NaHhspZKMatb3tEqtWMMkPt0b1gZ17VxKWD37GQ0aeqpSWmo6sbInAsO4hNGyMKMRhaO_cSgnd6m-ydwu-jTFoaVaN6q9CiewxU4__H88G9Wpo_TGI4I5zhXCAyLs_6BZe/s1600/IMGP2757.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf7bGA2hPTr0NaHhspZKMatb3tEqtWMMkPt0b1gZ17VxKWD37GQ0aeqpSWmo6sbInAsO4hNGyMKMRhaO_cSgnd6m-ydwu-jTFoaVaN6q9CiewxU4__H88G9Wpo_TGI4I5zhXCAyLs_6BZe/s400/IMGP2757.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The radio is silent, but not for much longer.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For 365 days all that has come out of my car's speakers has been music from pre-Sept. 2010 CDs. I didn't dare tune in an FM or AM station for fear that someone might play new music or break in with (gulp) the news. Of course, NPR, my normal drive to work drug, was absolutely <em>verboten</em>.<br />
<br />
"Michele Norris, Susan Stamberg, Robert Siegel, Ari Shapiro!" I call out. "Oh, how your alternatingly bemused and concerned voices once made sweet love to my ears!"<br />
<br />
Lastly, I have to go into the den and stand respectfully before the silent TV. Over the past 12 months I've only fired it up when watching a DVD of a movie (again, pre-Sept. 2010 vintage) or in order to watch <em>Seinfeld</em> re-runs on the indie channel.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnlGjrgMb5urf-oS29hZpx596Xg69N5E0Ahu29etfyejDU5NTtXCQHdfNbHHEvfPKonLUei6VWYVr8J6qiobs7RojyBydUDE4vc3HRSMKUVX5TPucB9QJD0s9YRkF_Xk4JAE8eklWEjUbW/s1600/IMGP2763.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnlGjrgMb5urf-oS29hZpx596Xg69N5E0Ahu29etfyejDU5NTtXCQHdfNbHHEvfPKonLUei6VWYVr8J6qiobs7RojyBydUDE4vc3HRSMKUVX5TPucB9QJD0s9YRkF_Xk4JAE8eklWEjUbW/s400/IMGP2763.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've watched it very little in the last year, and, yes, that is dust, definitely dust...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I take in the sight of my Television Lover in her stripped down, barest form. I do so for longer than is healthy for a normal adult male. A 42" empty, unenlightened HD screen. It's true what they say. The sexiest color is black, all black. And the sexiest pose a TV deprived person can imagine? One finger on the remote.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Time Served</span></strong><br />
My project has lasted long enough that there's a certain unreality about what used to be the norm in my life. It's difficult to imagine that once this Sunday rolls around I'll be free to do as I please with newspapers, magazines, television and radio, not to mention how it will be "surf's up!" time on the Web as the many sites I've carefully avoided for so long are once again open to me. <br />
<br />
I guess this must be a little bit how a prisoner feels as his release date approaches. He's planning for it, filling up a bag with his few personal effects, figuring out where he'll have his initial meal on the outside, who he'll want to visit in person first. At the same time it's got to be as frightening to contemplate as it is exhilarating.<br />
<br />
Can I survive my reencounter with all that's already happened in the news, sports, entertainment and weather? <br />
<br />
And assuming I'm able to catch up to the point that I acquire some more than passing familiarity with what events and changes took place during the past year, can I then get back into the harness and joyfully become a consumer of what's happening on a daily basis the way I did before?<br />
<br />
I must testify that it was quiet and peaceful in the Van Winkle slammer. On the other hand, it was a prison or, if not that, a very sensory deprived coma-like state. I don't want to go back, which is not the same thing as saying that I'm dieing to go forward...<br />
<br />
Truthfully, I'm feeling anxious about returning to the normal world. What's it going to be like? I have no idea. - <em>V.W.</em><br />
<br />
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.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-47759462355050222392011-09-06T03:54:00.000-07:002011-09-06T15:52:05.780-07:00Not My 9/11<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgENm1Zq135gkp9k0dk67xW7EtWaDLjfqSOrQ7z6dyosASfwoqSBGKE-M5rT2Zig3M-R969RTfiKPFeoJ87ErE0Y13NOeeTKvYsPVw-UvrYCQuOShsmxgDj9tEvd7QJfzBQvufbBFyNU2fj/s1600/9-11+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgENm1Zq135gkp9k0dk67xW7EtWaDLjfqSOrQ7z6dyosASfwoqSBGKE-M5rT2Zig3M-R969RTfiKPFeoJ87ErE0Y13NOeeTKvYsPVw-UvrYCQuOShsmxgDj9tEvd7QJfzBQvufbBFyNU2fj/s320/9-11+b.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I found the magazine in the library in the English Department last week.</span></strong> <br />
<br />
Right away a glimpse at its slightly fatigued cover told me it wasn't new, but vintage like many of the books and journals our profs have squirreled away on the oak shelves to free up some much-needed space in their cluttered offices.<br />
<br />
But in my instant glance I knew more. This copy of <em>People</em> was almost 10 years old. It has been that long.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">On the Nature of the Media </span></strong><br />
Often people who ask me about <span style="color: #cc0000;">The Van Winkle Project</span> are curious as to why it began on Sept. 11th last year and will end that way in just a matter of days.<br />
<br />
I point out that when I conceived of the project in late August 2010 a September 11th date seem like an made-to-order marker date. With a date like that, I'd be able to easily remember when I gave up the news, entertainment, sports, and weather and look ahead to the exact month and day when I would again be free to access them.<br />
<br />
But there was another reason.<br />
<br />
It occurred to me that Sept. 11, 2011 would be different this time around. Even typing it is different: <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">9-11-11 </span></div>
<br />
With the tenth anniversary of the "worst terrorist attacks in the nation's history" in store for all of us, I anticipated that the media would "play" and "re-play" that terrible day (and its aftermath) as if it were the re-release of the blockbuster movie of a season past. <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXS8_O6buLaLs9kWVpr51uJHU1VvCqLCcRP56wQLwAue0pGHrPCxjCaWs4eAcev-dL3mGkIxDkQbs3X3i-BWsJXX-G_mrX-MvHvjv9u4eWJohusDd2ZGZmk4fZ5vBWrhYWuf3471tCZG89/s1600/9-11+movie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="247" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXS8_O6buLaLs9kWVpr51uJHU1VvCqLCcRP56wQLwAue0pGHrPCxjCaWs4eAcev-dL3mGkIxDkQbs3X3i-BWsJXX-G_mrX-MvHvjv9u4eWJohusDd2ZGZmk4fZ5vBWrhYWuf3471tCZG89/s400/9-11+movie.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="right">
<em><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image by V.W.</span></em></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="center">
<br /></div>
Count me out.<br />
<br />
No, it's not that I fear that we have such bad taste that 9/11 Firefighter Hero toys will be given out at McDonalds or images of the blazing Twin Towers will be put on T-shirts. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What I do expect is a series of talking heads appearing on TV and the Web, all of them all of them ever-so-sincerely feeding us a combination of nostalgia, reliving the grief, "making sense of it all," and pondering the unanswerable question: "How have we changed in the ten years since?" <br />
<br />
Old news will become new news for as long as it's convenient and people can be induced to pay attention. <br />
<br />
And what could be more of an emotional draw? 9/11. Have two numbers ever had more poignancy when pronounced?<br />
<br />
I'm guessing the 9/11 revival has already begun. Perhaps weeks ago. I don't know. Van Winkle, as planned, has set me free of it.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">On the Nature of Memory</span></strong><br />
For anyone who does want to remember 9/11 in his or her own way for however long suits them, you mustn't think I disapprove. I speak only for myself. <br />
<br />
It's not that I'm of the mindset that "it was a long time ago and I've moved on." <br />
<br />
Neither am I keen on the idea that "I and my country changed forever on that day." Historians far down the line will have to decide that.<br />
<br />
And I do believe there are memories worth keeping about that time as long as I don't fondle or make a fetish out of them. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em><span style="color: red;">Going for a morning run, coming around the corner to my street, in a cool-down, walking mode, and seeing my wife on the front lawn waving at me to hurry into the house. Our son is three years old. I start running again! Something might have happened to him. I just run! And find the TV on (why? we never turn the TV on until the evening). It's showing a fixed view of the North Tower burning from the first airplane strike.</span></em><em><br /></em><br />
<em><span style="color: blue;">Over the next few days, I watch more TV than at any time in my life.</span></em><br />
<br />
<em> </em><em><span style="color: red;">I open my mailbox one day during the anthrax scare and I see a package with a return address I don't recognize. A feeling of creepiness and icy dread comes over me. Inside the house I stand at arm's length as I open the packet. A rational voice tells me that no one is going to pick me out from the entire population of the planet to poison or blow up in a fiery explosion, but at a deep animal level I've never known before I am spooked. Then I have the package open and with relief hear myself say, "Oh that! From that person! Why didn't I guess?"</span></em><br />
<br />
<em> </em><em><span style="color: blue;">I put a flag decal on the back window of my car. I've never been the patriotic sort, but it feels like it is a way of saying something in the only available channel I have: "We're not bad people. This shouldn't have happened to us" and "We're going to bury our dead, praise them, and rebuild what's been destroyed, and do it together."</span></em><br />
<br />
<em> </em><em><span style="color: red;">I move through an airport, almost completely empty except for National Guardsmen who stand apologetically with their M16-A2 rifles. Everyone seems so nice and speaks soothingly to one another. The message: "Sorry about this, but we're getting through this together."</span></em><br />
<br />
<br />
Those are my memories. All of them are passing away. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ten years later the flags have become much less numerous, even here where I live, which happens to be the most flag-waving of small cities with its military base and its proud remnant of silver-haired World War II veterans. <br />
<br />
Along with the vanishing flags, the images of the burning Towers and a blackened Pentagon wall have dimmed. Like old photographs bleached by sunlight. <br />
<br />
Long ago they made the movie about the heroes of United Flight 93 who really were heroes in the original sense of the word because they put their lives on the line to try to stop something. That film opened in theaters, got reviewed, was released on DVD, and then I watched other movies.<br />
<br />
As far as I can tell, 9/11 was a season. Seasons end. What followed were two wars. And then came another kind of war engendered by an economic collapse that was like a bomb falling on millions of people around the world.<br />
<br />
Those wars have not been seasons. They are more like eras. My memories of 9/11 are crushed beneath everything thing that has happened since.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">On the Nature of a Legacy</span></strong><br />
All this is to say that the extent of my 9/11 memories has just taken place out here in the open in the naked space of a blog post. <br />
<br />
When I awake up literally on the morning of September 11, 2011 as well as metaphorically (<span style="color: red;">The Van Winkle Project</span> ends) I will turn to other considerations. <br />
<br />
What has happened to the world and America over the past 365 days?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Still, my thoughts and analysis can't help but be informed by 9/11. I did glimpse something there of worth. It's become a standard by which I'm perhaps tempted to measure people by. Because I now know what we're capable of.<br />
<br />
9/11 was a reminder that humans can be together. During those gray days I found out that violence, which is a great uniter of peoples, doesn't have to be part of the equation. <br />
<br />
It is possible to subtract out the "hate" and achieve "one" by joining together in the sum of our "love," "compassion," "caring," and "bearing of sorrows" and a desire to restore. I was witness to how for a brief interlude we had:<br />
<ul>
<li>Gracious and freely given kindness toward strangers</li>
<li>Prayer stripped to its Book of Job essentials: Help Us Whoever You Are because I don't understand what's happening and can't get through this alone or bear such pain!</li>
<li>A quieting of the usual non-stop commercial voices that call us from our highest purposes and beg us to be small, craven, self-interested, isolated individuals day after day</li>
</ul>
If there were disasters and loss of life in the last year, as I assume there must have been, did people somewhere find strength in the behaviors listed above? <br />
<br />
And I wonder will we ever as a species turn this direction without it requiring a great calamity that drives us to our knees? Because that seems too hard and costly of a means to get there, much too hard. To find love and our better selves and to learn what really matters only by walking on the smouldering bones of our dead? This is an appalling vision. Surely there is another way? - <em>V.W.</em><br />
<br />
<br />
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,Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-83154409004779863942011-09-02T06:49:00.000-07:002011-09-05T11:31:06.891-07:00The Author's Hand - Part II (Flamboyant!)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">In our last post we looked at some books signed by authors whose personal inscription is rather pedestrian, even (yawn) ho-hum compared to the extraordinary quality of their literary output.</span></strong> <br />
<br />
Perhaps it comes from having signed too many books. Maybe it's a general boredom setting in when it comes to the mundane task of scribbling out one's name for some fan who smells slightly of garlic and has an inordinate fascination with a certain novel's character. Or it could be the writers are too humble to linger too long over their own names...<br />
<br />
Whatever the case, I've discovered there's one group of writers who do rise to the occasion. The copies of their books that are in my library feature premeditated strokes of ink. Truly each has embraced their status as a man or woman of letters!<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong><em><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">11 Authors Who Sign With Elan</span></em></strong></div>
<br />
<em><strong>Our first three writers take up and wield masterfully...Sharpies and markers. And I'm not joking.</strong></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<br />
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<strong>Ken Kesey</strong>: Long ago the late Ken Kesey was the leader of a band of proto-hippies who called themselves "the Merry Pranksters." They went around the country in a technicolor bus, making home movies, and turning people on to a newly available (and at the time still legal) drug called LSD. Journalist Tom Wolfe has chronicled this story in his <em>The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test</em>. <br />
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Given this background, I'm not surprised that in his later years the author of <em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</em> (as well as my personal candidate for Great American Novel, <em>Sometimes a Great Notion</em>), had an eccentric way of signing his books--with gold or silver colored markers as in the case of my copy of <em>Sailor Song</em>. It's not terribly readable but it's all Kesey.<br />
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<strong>Mary Karr</strong>: In the 1990's it was the <em>Liar's Club</em> by Mary Karr that helped jump start the public's fascination with memoirs by ordinary people. These were people like Mary who grew up in not so savory circumstances, but managed to overcome. Ms. Karr is still writing memoirs. A student of mine caught her book signing for <em>Lit</em> (about her alcohol drenched years and more) and asked her to sign a book for me. <br />
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I've heard Ms. Karr speak, too. She's a stylish middle-age woman who at the time favored pencil skirts and lots of leg on display. She was brassy and no-nonsense like her books, a Texan who went to New York City and then, biggest plot twist of all, found Jesus and joined the Catholic Church.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love this cover for Donald Barthelme's twisted<br />
take on the familiar fairy tale.</td></tr>
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<strong>Donald Barthelme</strong>: Here's an author whose works remain the equivalent of a foreign film. Those who know Barthelme's stories still rave about him. These are post-modern tales that are singular and original and overtly weird. Like Mary Karr, Barthelme was another Texan who fled his home state to hang out with the artists in New York City. There's a method to Barthelme's madness. His stories give us people who speak mechanistically, almost randomly, and move in response to consumer messages or products. It was D.B.'s way of sinking his teeth into the soulless aspects of lives adrift in a world ruled by TV screens and media messages. Black humor abounds. I think the implication is either wake up before it's too late or learn to laugh because in a push-button world it's not going to get any better.<br />
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<em><strong>Lastly, there are writers who exude tons of personality when they sign with a ballpoint, roller ball, or classic fountain pen. </strong></em><em><strong>They're</strong> <strong> fond of a well placed loop or curve or backward stroke, yielding stylish results. Or maybe, like Annie Dillard, they're so <u>anti</u>-style that it becomes a style of its own...</strong></em><br />
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<strong>Annie Dillard</strong>: One of the highlights of my literary memories involves meeting Annie Dillard at a signing in Michigan. She was funny, effusive, friendly and said she had a headache. I couldn't tell, though, that she was feeling any pain as she chatted with everyone in sight. An effervescent woman! She looked at my wife's copy of <em>Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek</em> and noted all the sticky notes placed on practically every page. She said to me, "This looks just like books I use when I'm researching. I find myself highlighting <u>everything</u>! And then it's almost pointless. The whole book becomes yellow!" <br />
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Dillard's signature is quick, like her rise to the top. <em>Pilgrim,</em> which is a modern-day <em>Walden</em> that intertwines science and theology using the voice of poetry, won the author a Pulitzer Prize when she was just 29 years old.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Really? Does this signature say "Annie Dillard"<br />
or "A . d . d"?</td></tr>
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<strong>John Irving</strong>: I was living on my own in an apartment by the beach in Long Beach, California. I bought the Sunday <em>L.A. Times</em> and read a review full of lavish praise for a new novel. It was called <em>The World According to Garp</em>. I bought the book. <br />
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A few years after that my own novel would be published and by then Mr. Irving would have appeared on the cover of <em>Time</em> magazine and won numerous awards. Some of the award money, that which came with his American Book Award for the paperback edition of <em>Garp</em>, he donated to his publisher earmarked for "the next best first novelist you publish." My publisher chose me and my novel went out into the world bearing a gold seal: John Irving First Novel Award. <br />
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When I wrote Mr. Irving a note of thanks, he responded with a typed postcard (a la John Updike). He encouraged me and told me that, among other things, he sold hot dogs at football games when he had a family and was scrimping by, hoping someday his writing would make some money. His persistence paid off. He's still writing and writing and writing...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I can't explain why ("John" almost looks like "Tom") but<br />
I LOVE this signature...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The writer in front of his typewriter,<br />
working on...a crossword puzzle!</td></tr>
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<strong>Kurt Vonnegut</strong>: I would have been thrilled to meet Kurt Vonnegut. Because he was an idealist who loved life and people so much, he was very hard on our stupidities and I'm, frankly, on board with that. <br />
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Vonnegut shares an outlook and a sense of humor similar to Mark Twain's, but he's arguably even more imaginative in his satire as he habitually tells stories set in the near future. In <em>Slaughterhouse Five, </em>his masterpiece, he manages write about the historical past, the present, and a science fiction future. <br />
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I started to read Vonnegut in high school, starting with <em>Cat's Cradle </em>and <em>Welcome to the Monkey</em> <em>House</em>. Decades later I'm happy to say I'm still catching up to all the novels he wrote. When I finally get to the end, I'll start over and re-read them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Five years before he left us the signature looks <br />
as if it says "Kit Kat," but still it's HIM...<br />
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<strong>Li-Young Lee</strong>: Here's a poet who writes not according to rules but by obeying his instincts, wit and heart. In the face of what he considers to be a reality filled with wonder, Li-Young Lee delivers pure emotion and a dose of mysticism. He's also the most incredible reader I've ever heard. I listened as he kept 400 hundred freshmen on the edge of their seats for 60 minutes. This is unheard of...on par with splitting the atom. [<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcAeCqCAwpo">See-listen</a>]<br />
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Lee's free form signature is particularly apt for the memoir he signed for me, <em>The Winged Seed</em>. The book was born when he challenged himself to write about his life's story in one sitting, eschewing sleep, until he reached the last round dot of terminal punctuation. It took him 36 hours of non-stop writing, The result is a species of rushing prose that sounds, no surprise, like poetry.<br />
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<strong>Galway Kinnell</strong>: Here's another poet whom I had the honor of escorting when he visited our campus a few years ago. This leads me to take back something I just said. Galway Kinnell's readings are every bit as entrancing as Li-Young Lee's. As someone said to me, "Galway could read the phone book and make it move you." <a href="http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/ntw-mla000008-galway-kinnel-reads-wait">[See-listen]</a> The man is like his poetry and his signature: elegant and understated, the hair now white but still thick with a shock of it that falls boyishly upon his forehead. Galway is perhaps the greatest poet left to us from the World War II generation.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perhaps the world's most dapper writer...</td></tr>
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<strong>Tom Wolfe</strong>: The most commonly remarked upon facet of Tom Wolfe's storied career (to his chagrin) is that he always wears white suits. He's a dapper man, but a remarkable prose stylist as well. It was said that he "invented" what came to be called the "New Journalism," a type of writing that was the opposite of the "beige prose" of a reporter trying to be strictly objective and keep his/her voice out of the article. <br />
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Journalism wasn't enough for Wolfe. Long a critic of late 20th Century American novelists whom he saw as self-absorbed and lacking in social commentary, he decided late-career to show them how it ought to be done. Starting with <em>The Bonfire of the Vanities</em>, there has beeen a succession of door-stop size novels on whatever topic Wolfe thinks needs illuminating. And can the man sign a book? Oh, yes, he can sign like he's the guy wearing the WHITE SUIT!<br />
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<strong>Jonathan Franzen</strong>: The youngest writer here (although he's not <em>that</em> young), Mr. Franzen has IMO the most unique signature. One suspects that he practiced it for years as a child while watching <em>Star Trek</em> episodes.<br />
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I've read a lot by Mr. Franzen, including <em>The Corrections</em>, <em>Freedom</em>, and his nonfiction. He's a careful, insightful writer who seems to actually like his characters. <em>Time</em> put him on their cover last year (shades of John Irving) with the headline, "Great American Novelist". I'm not sure Mr. Franzen is there yet, but as Hemingway's Jake Barnes said to Lady Brett at the end of <em>The Sun Also Rises</em>, "Isn't it pretty to think so?"<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Try copying this signature. How's he do it?</td></tr>
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<strong>Yevgeny Yevtushenko</strong>: I lost a friend and colleague this year to cancer. Recently, her books were removed from her office and made available for whoever wanted them. I overcame my sense of being a vulture, knowing full well this is what Vickie would have wanted. She would not let a good book go to waste! Take it and teach with it!<br />
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It seems appropriate to end this post with the thick book of poems I found in her hoard. It's by modern Russia's most popular poet. He actually came to mesquite tree land in 1992 and signed this book for Vickie. From Russia With Love...<br />
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Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-48172283329294727382011-08-30T03:41:00.000-07:002011-09-05T07:10:27.600-07:00The Author's Hand - Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>One thing the Van Winkle Project has accomplished for me in the past year is that it's opened up some time in my life.</strong> </span><br />
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I've estimated that I may have gained as much as an hour a day.<strong> </strong><br />
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Formerly this time was devoted to reading the newspaper, watching the evening news, leafing through <em>Newsweek. </em><br />
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Or I'd indulge in those little "cheat breaks" when I'd open a new tab on my web browser and dip into the <em>NY Times</em> on-line as an escape from what I was supposed to really be doing.<br />
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The extra time that has bounced back my way has allowed me to become better acquainted with the books I have in my library at home. <br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Squiggles on a Page</span></strong><br />
At some point I realized that I was mentally tallying the number of autographed copies of certain books I'd been fortunate to accumulate over the years. Sometimes these acquisitions weren't even by design. More than once I've simply bought a used book, opened it, and discovered it was signed by the author. Happy day! A real analogue bonus feature!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>I picked up this copy of short stories at the annual</em><br />
<em>library book sale. It was signed by the author!</em></td></tr>
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Most of the time I end up with a signed book in the usual way. I stand in line at a special event and meet up with the author at a table piled high with books.<br />
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Once it was even less calculated. I was at conference and I spotted the author of one of my favorite books as a child, <em>A Wrinkle in Time</em>. She was sitting by herself in a wheel chair. She proved approachable and very kind when I made a clumsy compliment and held out a book to be signed.<br />
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So not long ago I pulled out Ms. L'Engle's book and others and started looking at the signatures and reminiscing. That's when it occurred to me that maybe I could go to eBay or some other on-line source and add to my collection. Would it be affordable? <br />
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Well, it might be if I set a budget and refused to pay over a set amount per book.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Significance</span></strong><br />
A month-long buying spree transpired during which I added about a third more signed books to my collection. <br />
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What was this all about? <br />
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It starts with <em>loving</em> books. Beyond that, as someone who has labored over a few books of my own, I know books don't just happen. The author has to live with a book for a long time, sometimes even before he/she begins to write it. Then there's the slow process of getting it down on the page. <br />
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The short trail of ink represented by the author's signature takes me closer to a flesh and blood person, the person who performed this nearly miraculous feat of writing a good or even great book<br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Varieties of Signing Behavior</span></strong><br />
In the process of examining my signed-by-the-author books I noticed something. The signatures fell into roughly two categories.<br />
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1) A flamboyantly interesting and creative rendering of the name. <br />
2 ) An ordinary as an accountant's payroll checks signature.<br />
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Just because some authors I admire have blah autographs is my faith in their work shaken? Not at all. I just find it interesting and I'd like to share them with you now. -<em> V.W.</em><br />
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<strong><em>Nine Non-descript Signers</em></strong></div>
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<strong>John Updike</strong>: He's one of my all-time favorite writers. I could have gotten his signature back in 2002 or so at a conference. He gave a reading and when it was over he was right there waiting at the signing table. There was no line. But I had no Updike book in hand! So I walked on by.<br />
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Mr. Updike's prose is the furthest thing from bland; in his stories and novels he packs in almost an excess of life and makes me feel at times like he's zoomed in to the point of almost putting the material details of our live, as well as our behavior (including tons of sex), under the literary equivalent of an electron microscope.<br />
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<strong>Joseph Heller</strong>: I consider Heller one of the handful of great post-World War II American novelists along with Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, J. D. Salinger, and John Updike. <em>Catch 22</em>, I can say without exaggeration, changed my life. <br />
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In the course of spending a week reading about the insanity Yossarian is up against as he tries to get out of World War II alive, I went from being a cavalier teen who thought "war is heroic" and features "cool weaponry" to becoming something much closer to a pacifist.<br />
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<strong>Raymond Carver</strong>: When I was in college, Raymond Carver's short stories were just starting to be noticed. I was in a workshop taught by the fiction editor of <em>Esquire</em> who more or less considered Carver to be his greatest discovery. He shared some of Carver's stories with us. <br />
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It was later that Carver would make a greater impression on me; I had to be closer to the age of the men and women in his stories who struggle with how the American Dream doesn't seem to have landed on their street. And Ray Carver would do me a huge favor and provide a blurb for my first collection of short stories.<br />
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<strong>Wright Morris</strong>: I had not heard of this writer from Nebraska until a friend told me about his comic novel (not typical of his work) <em>Love Among the Cannibals</em> (1957). I had to read this book! the friend said. It turned out that Morris had written other well regarded books that were in the vein of my own early short stories. He was also a photographer (that's his photo on the left) and his black and white images were kindred souls to his spare prose. Like Raymond Carver he was willing to help me launch my own stories into the world with a blurb. <br />
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<strong>Alan Paton</strong>: I think <em>Cry, the Beloved Country</em>, a tale of racial misunderstanding, violence, and forgiveness by this South African author is one of the most powerful stories ever told. It's beautifully written and it's heart rending. <br />
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Paton died back in 1988, so his signature had to be purchased by finding a special leather bound, autographed edition of the book. He was a fine writer, with a great passion for ending apartheid so I treasure this signature.<br />
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<strong>Norman Mailer</strong>: If Paton was a great man, Mailer, who died a few years ago, was certainly a great personality. He strove to be larger than life. He may have been our most energetic writer, churning out books, interviews, running half-seriously for mayor of New York, and marrying five times. <br />
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Highly opinionated and provocative, Mailer's writing was hurt by what a high school mate of mine called his "verbal diarrhea." But when he took the trouble to hone his work, it was the best around. And even in the midst of the sloppiness, there was always genius. <br />
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I was surprised when years ago I bought a $20 remaindered, signed copy of his "best of" collection that his signature was, well, not very Norman Mailer-ish. No scrawling beyond borders, shouting out, trying hard to get our attention. It's rather straight forward in the way the man wasn't.<br />
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<strong>Gene Tierney</strong>: Yes, I know she's a movie star, not an actual writer, but I still feel fortunate that evidence of her "hand" came into my possession.<br />
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I used to live in Houston and that's where I found at a garage sale for a buck a copy of the screen siren Gene Tierney's biography. Tierney, who will always remain a Hollywood icon for her silky, sinister lead performance in of <em>Laura</em>, settled in Houston once her movie career ended. <br />
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Her book is a candid recollection of how with fame her life went to hell. She had to undergo multiple rounds of electro-shock treatment before she recovered. When you read that you're not surprised to see that her signature in her later years (the bio came out in 1979 when she was 59) shows the wear and tear. But in my opinion, in her youth Gene Tierney had the most beautiful, sexy face that has ever been shown upon the silver screen. (Note: G.T.'s co-author/ghost writer also signed the book).<br />
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<strong>\Adm. Richard E. Byrd</strong>: I ran across Byrd's account of how he stayed by himself for six months at the South Pole--and came with a hair's breadth of dieing. The riveting story is intimate yet elegantly written in the sort of calm Englishman under duress style that has almost disappeared. Without sounding quite like Thoreau it reminds me of Thoreau. <br />
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In his later years Admiral Byrd probably signed quite a few books as he went on lecture tours around the world. It wasn't hard to find this copy at a very reasonable price. I look at it and think that the same hand that once chipped at ice and wrote "-50 degrees today" in his log also signed the book I have in hand.<br />
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<strong>Joe McGinniss</strong>: A few years after he came to Anchorage and signed my copy of his book McGinniss would have fabulous success with his nonfiction exploration of the so-called "Green Beret murders" in <em>Fatal Vision</em>. <br />
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I already admired McGinniss for his seminal work on how television helps determine who becomes president, <em>The Selling of the President</em>. He also helped me early in my career by talking to me at that book store signing and remembering a story of mine he had read in <em>The Atlantic</em>. He encouraged me and gave me a quote for my novel. A really nice fellow!<br />
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<strong><em>Coming Next:</em> Part II - Flamboyant Ink</strong><br />
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<strong>.</strong>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-53271910852537134802011-08-26T05:06:00.000-07:002011-08-28T12:32:57.636-07:00Andy Rooney's Eyebrows - A Mini-Rant<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiv-GTxjO4nz8ysz-VJu7pwT4Tesyz5pTJ8RFsXId-_1eKXWIWjllDzbTuJ0VTmjZI5RdHRcDSMTqO04JI54sP2Bbm72YZ2IaLUEbcCUrnxrwBFZ-lyBUj2ZVkfyr9G-q667WfxPIayUDD/s1600/Andy+eyebrows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiv-GTxjO4nz8ysz-VJu7pwT4Tesyz5pTJ8RFsXId-_1eKXWIWjllDzbTuJ0VTmjZI5RdHRcDSMTqO04JI54sP2Bbm72YZ2IaLUEbcCUrnxrwBFZ-lyBUj2ZVkfyr9G-q667WfxPIayUDD/s320/Andy+eyebrows.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andy Rooney = Grumpiness and social nit-picking <br />
elevated to prime time art form.</td></tr>
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">I never thought I'd say that I really need Andy Rooney.</span></strong> <br />
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Oh, when he first popped up at the end of <em>60 Minutes</em> back in 1978 I liked him well enough. <br />
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Andy was an amusing old guy. <br />
<br />
He singled out absurdities in the consumer society including poorly designed or silly products and illogical ways in which we behaved. <br />
<br />
He wasn't so much a curmudgeon with a scalpel edge as a dull paring knife. An everyday whiner like the rest of us. <br />
<br />
And he came at his critique from the angle and predilections of the oldtimers, people who grew up in those white picket fence days of pure Americana and came of age during World War II and now they wondered what in tarnation was wrong with everyone with their Pepsis and loud music. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcg1lVKIavMa6Xd3w30_kc-u95FyI4dS8tVHdoEJDy5MzZPFxSO_XzntRjH0TxGmtMjp0F3zqmmBb4Fi45msLolRwl5oVhVA3Eo-xBPyQIQi53gq4K-oeNAEMfhMtmOxUVgvCXGY4nKs_L/s1600/michael-jackson-bad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcg1lVKIavMa6Xd3w30_kc-u95FyI4dS8tVHdoEJDy5MzZPFxSO_XzntRjH0TxGmtMjp0F3zqmmBb4Fi45msLolRwl5oVhVA3Eo-xBPyQIQi53gq4K-oeNAEMfhMtmOxUVgvCXGY4nKs_L/s200/michael-jackson-bad.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
But Andy began to wear on me. He complained about the lyrics to Michael Jackson's song "Bad." Andy's great insight, which he shared with the <em>60 Minutes</em> audience by writingon a chalk board the entire lyrics to the song, was this: "This song is repetitious. All the Great Gloved One says over and over is...":<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>"I'm bad. I'm bad. I'm really really bad."</em></div>
<br />
Andy missed the point. No one except <u>him</u> cared about the lyrics to this song. "Bad" was not the national anthem, It wasn't Cole Porter. An MJ song was for <u>dancing</u>. <br />
<br />
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After that I started watching Andy's eyebrows. They seemed to grow even as he spoke on TV. I decided that if they were a country they would need their own military and domestic staff, especially skilled Japanese gardeners. <br />
<br />
And people were making fun of Andy on <em>Saturday Night Live</em>, a sure sign that, like Barbara Walters (Barbara Wa-Wa per <em>SNL</em>) he had ceased to be an innovative bit of TV programming and was now just another institution ripe for parody.<br />
<br />
Nowadays I'm not allowed to watch TV, but even pre-VWP I had stopped getting off at the CBS whistle stop called <em>60 Minutes</em>. I hear that at age 92 Andy is still doing his thing at the end of the show. If so, more power to him and it's time to make a small confession.<br />
<br />
I do have a bit of an Inner Andy Rooney.<br />
<br />
You see there are some annoyances that plague my life. They lead to my private pathetic whinings. Grumblings that won't make one iota of difference. Cranky old man mini-rant. I have three of them. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDS57ZmDFGkkyeC7_SJnwLpqRdznbecerqGLcGkjT2jm117-jToUQgZb4HdDG0tnlv3tBVVhX2J0rFfJCpXI_Y0avlwT8tgEB8dovn04pyVQz_ZHmSvAexcJ3FXLqSoGEqysQp9NUhN9o/s1600/Hey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDS57ZmDFGkkyeC7_SJnwLpqRdznbecerqGLcGkjT2jm117-jToUQgZb4HdDG0tnlv3tBVVhX2J0rFfJCpXI_Y0avlwT8tgEB8dovn04pyVQz_ZHmSvAexcJ3FXLqSoGEqysQp9NUhN9o/s320/Hey.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two leaders of the free world meet to solve the global crisis.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<strong>1- People Who Greet Me With "Hey!"</strong></div>
<br />
What is going on here? This supposed salutation is nearly as bad as the absurd "Whas-up?" It used to be that "Hey!" was what you said when you wanted to get someone's attention.<br />
<br />
"Hey! Your fly is unzipped!"<br />
<br />
"Hey! You're about to press the wrong button and make the nuclear reactor melt down!"<br />
<br />
"Hey! What's this quill in your bed? Last night when you were drunk did you have sex with a porcupine?"<br />
<br />
Now this half-hearted exhalation of not exactly real verbiage is directed at me whenever an acquaintance sees me.<br />
<br />
"Hey, Al."<br />
<br />
"Excuse me?"<br />
<br />
When I asked around, someone suggested to me that "Hey" is a Southernism. Southerners are famous for condensing language as if it takes the same BIG effort to speak as it does to set down the sweet tea, get out of the porch swing and amble out into the sunlight and see if that's a coon or a cat up in the tree. <br />
<br />
Personally, I think "Hey" is ubiquitous in places other than south of the Mason Dixon Line. This makes it a national problem. Okay, I know we're not supposed to care about such matters in our democratic, it's-all-good, casual, rumpled shirts and pants, no pretenses society, but, "Hey!" think about it. This word doesn't sound very intelligent or articulate, does it? We already have a surfeit of wrinkled wardrobes (see any <a href="http://www.jcrew.com/index.jsp">J. Crew</a> men's catalog). Do we have to have wrinkled greetings?<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDmEFETdYCTdUPJcA2EqkNvbpowoKFTbHChYSLk8FRBv2paMoUWzh2odCGDLkAI3nWEPQuoXnHkXgTRyS6z1qAppFsrLHl6KTbrXsE-fPqQvxdIRx-TfAF5f7bkV8NgcTNhJCGiXar-Oo/s1600/waiter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDmEFETdYCTdUPJcA2EqkNvbpowoKFTbHChYSLk8FRBv2paMoUWzh2odCGDLkAI3nWEPQuoXnHkXgTRyS6z1qAppFsrLHl6KTbrXsE-fPqQvxdIRx-TfAF5f7bkV8NgcTNhJCGiXar-Oo/s320/waiter.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guess who has the gall to tar me with the gimmicky "guy"?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<strong>2 - Restaurant Servers Who Call Us "Guys"</strong></div>
<br />
This began not long after servers took to introducing themselves by first name. "Hello, I'm Courtney. I'll be serving you tonight." <br />
<br />
That didn't bother me. Research shows that people leave a better tip when they feel like they're dealing with a person with a name, a life, and rent to pay and maybe even porcupines in their bed. I believe the server ought to make a decent living.<br />
<br />
But do they have to call my wife, son, and me "guys"? We're not a football team ("You guys need to run it up the middle, then kick the field goal"). Strictly speaking, one of us is not even a "guy." The assumed familiarity is jarring, but worse is the style of it. "Guys" bespeaks beer, pizza, and a leather couch from Wal-mart, not fine dining.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDYyWenaDgge_A2G-kn9o1AIntX9rq224z1dSFyQ1hPHoXUufOhbn4Ol3jLw26DW-uNCQd-YN8Saq6LcIXLedIzMVCxLY3GXudtDhztaPD_JekzN-iS-7ePVt1uIcIwBg8bjhauQuHULXF/s1600/grocery-store-checkout-retro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDYyWenaDgge_A2G-kn9o1AIntX9rq224z1dSFyQ1hPHoXUufOhbn4Ol3jLw26DW-uNCQd-YN8Saq6LcIXLedIzMVCxLY3GXudtDhztaPD_JekzN-iS-7ePVt1uIcIwBg8bjhauQuHULXF/s320/grocery-store-checkout-retro.jpg" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The golden era: She knew to have a good<br />
day (or not) without anyone commanding it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<strong>3 - Cashiers Who Urge Me to "Have a Good Day!"</strong><br />
<br />
I've long thought that much of what passes for conversation in our society is just what I call "tail wagging behavior." It's how we approach one another and signal that I'm okay with you and I'm not going to bite and, all rightie now, I'm going to leave you.<br />
<br />
"Have a good day!" is tail wagging behavior par excellence. It's a gray flannel piece of verbiage.<br />
<br />
I've heard rumors (unconfirmed) that it was invented in a good manners factory in Peoria circa 1976 when someone realized that we had long ago become too secular to say goodbye to strangers with a simple "God bless!" or "God be with you!"<br />
<br />
What should fill the gap? How could we show that we wished the person well? <br />
<br />
Maybe "We salute you, heroes of commerce!" <br />
<br />
No, no. There had to be something better and more bursting with imperialistic designs upon the emotional state of millions of strangers.<br />
<br />
"Have a nice day!"<br />
<br />
Although this has morphed into "Have a good day!" it remains stupid and intrusive and nonsensical. And I'm not even talking about how the cashier will say "Have a good day!" at 9 p.m. when I go to the store for ice cream and the day is essentially over, is it not?<br />
<br />
The real problem is that <em>every single day</em> I'm supposed to have a good day? And what would that look like? What if I don't want to have a good day? Is America going to decline? Will the American Dream turn to nightmare? <br />
<br />
Let me ask this: Is a good day for every citizen that necessary to one's health and welfare? Is my having a good day really the only option? Maybe I want to have an excellent day or a challenging one or even a bluesy 24 hours that has a lot of texture and sad songs and chocolate built into it. <br />
<br />
So it's time to pose the following impertinent question. Why should a person whose chief retail skill is passing items over a scanner be told by his or her employer that they're supposed to attempt to make a contribution to my psychological state of mind upon leaving the store? <br />
<br />
Also, not to be overlooked is what this phrase does to a person who is actually, perish the thought!, already having a bad day. I can't begin to describe the nails pounded into flesh feeling I had when this phrase was mindlessly trotted out everywhere I went the week my mother had died and I was trying to stagger my way toward her funeral.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">A Solution?</span></strong><br />
I believe if we apply ourselves can nip these Andy Rooneyistic terrible tongue tropes right in the bud. It will involve some assertion and photocopying. <br />
<br />
To lead to a utopia of sane speech, I have prepared a convenient form that you can distribute to key people you're about to interface with. If they can read words on a page, our problems may be solved. If not, try sending them a text or a tweet. Something has to be done! - <em>V.W.</em><br />
<br />
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.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-20743203157769501132011-08-23T07:03:00.000-07:002011-08-23T14:12:56.011-07:00My Near Death Experience<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Today I realized that this month represents a sobering anniversary. </span></strong><br />
<br />
<strong>Forty years ago I was lying in the Intensive Care Unit of the old Community Hospital (now demolished) in Anchorage, Alaska. </strong><br />
<br />
I was 18 years old and I was paralyzed up to my neck. <br />
<br />
I could turn my head from side to side and that was it. I couldn't even close my eyelids. <br />
<br />
The only reason I was alive was because I was connected to a respirator that breathed for me. <br />
<br />
All of it happened very suddenly.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">An Odd Tingling...</span></strong><br />
In Alaska the summers can be short and laden with a kind of northern sweetness. Under the kind auspices of the midnight sun, the alders, birch, fireweed, and other vegetation characteristic of the alpine forest stretch and grow around the clock as if they know that the time of green will soon be a thing of the past. <br />
<br />
By the end of July the skies gray over, daily drizzle arrives, and the temperature starts to drop back into the 55-62 degree F range. Leaves on the trees at higher elevations turn yellow and gold even before the first official frost in September, By October comes the day that everyone in Anchorage wakes up, looks out the window, and the world has changed colors again.<br />
<br />
Snow.<br />
<br />
I was in the Alaska rhythm that summer forty years ago, moving through the long days like a plant trying to pull into itself the last morsels of the warmth Alaska had to offer. I had a job in a grocery store. In the meat department my union-scale task was to clean up the trimmings the butchers left behind. I had just graduated from high school and I was about to head off to college on the East Coast. <br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEinodc88ylY-eNKbYlAUQm0nyPX1RwMPzeEu71qxH1Qcoqm0NoQ77YZt38c9_OSObvBFDtj8nJnHH_da9_aDycxbJ3OrtkWIUc5-j997ndC7ILl6HMzso1SxJXSiBLvCBah2jQ0AXtDTbuP/s1600/albertsons-new-meat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinodc88ylY-eNKbYlAUQm0nyPX1RwMPzeEu71qxH1Qcoqm0NoQ77YZt38c9_OSObvBFDtj8nJnHH_da9_aDycxbJ3OrtkWIUc5-j997ndC7ILl6HMzso1SxJXSiBLvCBah2jQ0AXtDTbuP/s320/albertsons-new-meat.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I saw lots of red that summer at my job...in the form of meat.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There was a lot to be done and money to be saved and all was well. Even the rain that last week in July seemed more normal than ominous. I remember stepping around the puddles as I got out of the car gingerly and made my way to a doctor's office. I had suddenly started experiencing lower back pain. And my hands and feet were tingling oddly.<br />
<br />
I was sent home with pain medication and orders to soak my sore back in the bathtub. The diagnosis was that I must have lifted something too heavy at my job. Well, that was a relief. Take it easy for a few days and I would be back to normal. The rain was keeping everyone in-doors anyway, so I wasn't missing a thing.<br />
<br />
Less than a week later it was still raining and I returned to the doctor. The back pain had become excruciating to the point that I was lying in the floor and howling. And I was having trouble with my balance when I tried to walk. I felt generally weak all over. <br />
<br />
"I'm sending you to the hospital for tests," the doctor said.<br />
<br />
"When?"<br />
<br />
"Right now."<br />
<br />
I didn't know it, but when I walked into the hospital I was taking the last steps I would be able to make for the next two months. <br />
<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/AVvXsEjvO56SivJWzV3lyyHRraIweBhxiUS1IR_tplF3Dm6-YdSo4sLelYu4CPkZrHtcsCiulUqxlgHICaLiFlHGjmnpcC5YoUGk9V42lPQJU63LQXvrh0awp16WVxW3KxHNFthRXL_dg9HCNjZV/s1600/Exterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="280" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvO56SivJWzV3lyyHRraIweBhxiUS1IR_tplF3Dm6-YdSo4sLelYu4CPkZrHtcsCiulUqxlgHICaLiFlHGjmnpcC5YoUGk9V42lPQJU63LQXvrh0awp16WVxW3KxHNFthRXL_dg9HCNjZV/s400/Exterior.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>The old Anchorage Community Hospital at 8th and L Streets</em></td></tr>
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<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Ascending Phase</span></strong><br />
Here's a funny thing about being halfway to one's own funeral. If you're young and no one tells you that you might be dieing, well, then it's not necessarily going to occur to you. And why would the doctors or parents tell me something like that, anyway? I didn't have a terminal disease. What I had was <a href="http://www.guillainbarresyndrome.net/">Guillain-Barre Syndrome</a>.<br />
<br />
GBS is a rare nerve disease that afflicts 1 in 100,000 people. Technically it is <em><a href="http://draft.blogger.com/goog_595667718">"</a></em><span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;"><em><a href="http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/offices/miscdocs/docs-249/Manual/GuillainBarreManual.pdf"><span style="font-family: inherit;">an acute inflamatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP)"</span></a></em> </span></span>that is caused by a malfunction in the person's immune system.Often there is a precursor illness in the form of flu or intestinal upset. Afterwards antibodies begin attacking one's own nerve cells and destroying their myelin sheath. When the nerve cells are damaged, paralysis results. In GBS there is a characteristic pattern of ascension from the feet upwards.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Not everyone with GBS is fully paralyzed. And there is other possible good news. The paralysis after ascending is not permanent. It descends. The last body parts to become paralyzed are the first to move again. In most cases, the patient, especially if young, can expect a full recovery. It may take months or it may take longer.<br />
<br />
So I was delivered the different flavors of news as I lay in my bed. Good: I didn't have a brain tumor or meningitis. Good: I didn't have polio or MS. Bad: I had a weird nerve disease that would play with turning my body into concrete for an uncertain length of time. Good: When it was done, it would give my body back to me. Bad: I would have to learn to walk all over again. Good: I should return to normal. <br />
<br />
Since the trach tube in my throat kept me from speaking I communicated by clicking my tongue. One of my parents held up a chart of the alphabet and I would click when their finger arrived at the letter I wanted. Click, click, click. Click, click, click, click.<br />
<br />
H-o-w l-o-n-g?<br />
<br />
That would be my obsessive question from that point forward. When was I going to get out of the hospital? I was no longer in pain, but from the time I woke up around 6 a.m. to when I finally fell asleep late at night I lay in bed yoked to a great slab of boredom. What do you do when there's nothing you can do and you can't even sleep through it?<br />
<br />
My obsession with being freed so I could go on to college and the life I had so carefully planned, probably served me well. It shut out darker thoughts, more realistic and chilling ones. <br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Turn for the Worse</span></strong><br />
It wasn't long before lying flat in a bed and breathing via a ventilator took a toll on my respiratory system. I developed pneumonia in both lungs.<br />
<br />
I had two doctors, a husband and wife team. Dr. Shirley Fraser was my neurologist; Dr. Robert Fraser was a pulmonary specialist. From the beginning Dr. Shirley was the pessimist saying I might not walk for a year. Dr. Robert was the optimist who spoke in terms of a month or so of paralysis.<br />
<br />
Later it was Dr. Robert who would tell my parents that on my worst night when I was burning with fever his optimism dissolved. He left the hospital, went home to Dr. Shirley, and said, "I wouldn't give a nickel for that kid's chances."<br />
<br />
My parents were providing updates to relatives in the Lower 48. My grandmother in Oklahoma wrote, concerned because she'd heard that "Al got worse..."<br />
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<br />
I wouldn't hear this story of my taking a "bad turn" until much later after I was home and walking again. The reality of it would be hard to process. At the time I had never thought I was dieing. <br />
<br />
It explained a lot of things, though. Why my parents seemed so drawn and serious as they took turns keeping vigil around my bed. <br />
<br />
Or the day I asked my father to take a Polaroid photo of me so I could see what I looked like hooked up to the breathing machine. My response when he showed the image to me: "I look like a corpse!" His response: A horrified look on his face.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Or the time when they plugged my trach hole briefly so I could gasp a few words and I said, "I quit!" and Dad stuck his tongue between his teeth and bit down on it, a sure sign he was furious. He let me know in so many words that my quitting was <u>not</u> something he was about to tolerate.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">A Descending Phase</span></strong><br />
So now I know that I am a survivor. If there hadn't been that respirator unit at the hospital (the only one of its kind between Anchorage and Seattle I was told), I wouldn't be writing this today. <br />
<br />
If I hadn't had two doctors who became personally and emotionally invested in my case, I might not be here either. <br />
<br />
If on the "night of the nickel" as I think of it, something inside me had bounced the other way, I would have closed my eyes, heedless to what was happening, and I would never have awakened from the blackness.<br />
<br />
And there were all those cards coming in every day to the hospital. The testimonies that people were praying for me. Does that kind of thing make a difference?<br />
<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cards and notes of concern poured in.<br />
I've kept them in this box.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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There came a day at the end of August when my father held up my right hand and challenged me to move a finger. We'd done this before. Always nothing. But this time...<br />
<br />
My index finger quivered, just the slightest, tiniest amount. Absolute elation. It was as if I'd stepped to the plate and hit a bases loaded home run. It was like I'd gotten 1600 on my SAT. <br />
<br />
He told me not to try to do it again until he could call someone to witness this first sign that the nerves were healing.<br />
<br />
We celebrated that day.<br />
<br />
Not long after that, I was able to breathe on my own and I left ICU. It had been nearly 30 days. An ambulance took me to an "extended care facility," which in this case was an old folks home dressed up in euphemistic terminology. I lived for a month with the aged and blatantly demented and went to daily rehab there to learn to walk again and do other things I'd always taken for granted--like fasten buttons on my shirt, hold a pencil, pucker my lips and whistle.<br />
<br />
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<br />
It would be quite some time before my legs returned to full strength and I could actually do something familiar like run or jump. Still, I would go to college, albeit one year later than originally planned.<br />
<br />
In the end my life would turn out well. A couple of books published, then a wife, and a while later a son and a secure job at a university and a comfortable home. It's been easy to forget what was going on back in those days when the sky was dark and I had nothing to do but listen to the rain coming down outside my hospital window and dream of how great it would be to bite into a hamburger and drink a Coke on ice instead of have pink slurry forced down a tube into my stomach.<br />
<br />
You'd think that anyone who had survived something like that would become a sort of spokesperson for LIFE! That I would run through the streets shouting, "Wake up, people! You're alive! You can actually walk and talk and make choices. Do you know how exceptional and tentative all that is! Make the most of it!"<br />
<br />
I should be like George Bailey in <em>It's a Wonderful Life</em> after the angel has shown him enough that he finally "gets it."<br />
<br />
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<br />
A man transfigured by standing on the brink.<br />
<br />
And perhaps I am changed by this experience. Now. All these years later. But it's too much to demand of the young. When we're young, unless circumstances slap us in the face, we always expect to live. We think the world exists to sustain us instead of the other way around. We just don't know any better. You can call that ignorance or fearlessness; I think it's both. - <em>V.W.</em><br />
<br />
.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-29566629054224712472011-08-19T04:23:00.000-07:002011-08-19T04:26:19.363-07:00The Girl with the Dragon Coffee Mug<br />
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<br />
<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Since the Van Winkle Project is about avoiding not just the news but everything "new," I've tried to not know about product launches and cultural phenomenon. This has included books just appearing on bookstore shelves.</span></strong><br />
<br />
Giving up fantastic books that have appeared on the scene in the last 340-some days of my project would be difficult if it were not for the fact that there are already so many old ones lying around my house that I need to read.<br />
<br />
So I finally got to <em>The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo</em> (first appearance in English 2008).<br />
<br />
I'd heard the buzz about this book. I'd heard it might very well keep me up all night. <br />
<br />
I misunderstood. <br />
<br />
I thought the fans of this "international publishing sensation" meant by "buzz" that everyone was saying "You've got to read this!" and "Get ready for the film version!" I thought "up all night" had to do with the high suspense factor of this book.<br />
<br />
Now I know. They were actually talking about all the <u>coffee</u>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OoEIQv-fYCC0Fierrq5ZurPtmzisP8JUXzjE47ROi6IGXWZ1xPYUqgX6TVpy_2r-TBO4zCdx-QHyZd-u6D3VooU_ZhZCjdWuxn1znpM0JOycX0WSE2jbrt5GZ4NOO0FNEJJ5Jw3EPuHK/s1600/Dragon+mug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="377" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OoEIQv-fYCC0Fierrq5ZurPtmzisP8JUXzjE47ROi6IGXWZ1xPYUqgX6TVpy_2r-TBO4zCdx-QHyZd-u6D3VooU_ZhZCjdWuxn1znpM0JOycX0WSE2jbrt5GZ4NOO0FNEJJ5Jw3EPuHK/s400/Dragon+mug.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Literary Beverages and More...</span></strong><br />
I seriously like coffee, so the coffee motif in TGWTDT was something I could not overlook as I read it. Fact is, if I even smell coffee, I'm like a hound that has a whiff of bacon. But even someone like myself who fires up the coffee maker twice a day was taken aback by what Larsson was doing.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-Ur4wexaysxLpcB0-yjp2qzhFLfihcd79Ii2LcYS_c_1Tu0yHY05yUsrOLktcPdxfHtJwAtaZjpFZl5FCeQ26cLuPhcODJwwvgho0ogT0cFRWCIIf_19-dHt_uYPER-F6rO77fuJUWo9/s1600/Quote4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-Ur4wexaysxLpcB0-yjp2qzhFLfihcd79Ii2LcYS_c_1Tu0yHY05yUsrOLktcPdxfHtJwAtaZjpFZl5FCeQ26cLuPhcODJwwvgho0ogT0cFRWCIIf_19-dHt_uYPER-F6rO77fuJUWo9/s400/Quote4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Now I know what you're going to say: "It's just coffee!" But you haven't seen an addictive substance abused like this before. <br />
<br />
It's true that Hemingway's <em>The Sun Also Rises</em> was the literary equivalent of a well stocked bar and wine cellar with it's copious references to characters drinking absinthes, beer, whiskey, champagne, and other libations. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJNuI0pPDeDhWfi5Ofd439KkywaswEu3SaS7z4Fpr4Sh1NF5DIlhuRsOscd_i21P47uFCAPGz-pLB-6zM3DBe5desLlQKZQyKJZncQcXrkRzg2m8KSh5goyJ4aRHHhS5j3mo8s-8atl4pG/s1600/hemingway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJNuI0pPDeDhWfi5Ofd439KkywaswEu3SaS7z4Fpr4Sh1NF5DIlhuRsOscd_i21P47uFCAPGz-pLB-6zM3DBe5desLlQKZQyKJZncQcXrkRzg2m8KSh5goyJ4aRHHhS5j3mo8s-8atl4pG/s400/hemingway.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hemingway pours the booze.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In the liquor department John Cheever was no slouch either. His businessmen, all of them templates for the cable series <em>Madmen</em>, were equipped with a briefcase in one hand a whiskey soda or rye or martini in the other.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCoodHBWVc1TLAOIDODSs0qsxEd2FujeWBGg_KLYsct3cJ7c6xllRKHucL_iFm1FJ-LveFOrXuuBkJVALzGKg7nl3liHGUmObjeRkZonvAmGYczt3GkQ8HvX90RaXIStNZddrRkJrJmK4L/s1600/cheever2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCoodHBWVc1TLAOIDODSs0qsxEd2FujeWBGg_KLYsct3cJ7c6xllRKHucL_iFm1FJ-LveFOrXuuBkJVALzGKg7nl3liHGUmObjeRkZonvAmGYczt3GkQ8HvX90RaXIStNZddrRkJrJmK4L/s400/cheever2.jpg" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Cheever: Armed for action...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Lastly, you can't read J. D. Salinger's<em> Franny and Zooey</em> without starting to have your eyes water from all the cigarettes being lit and the smoke rising into the air.<br />
<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/AVvXsEjVC8PNFlAfaQ3gOtD4HtBp2C6eZ9X8pTqd4bU8NgBja6U6j_z4NE-8PpJlQEmOBJ5sqehuHLJmfpVi8QgrXga2gbT2Fcvh0R5zt_DVH3avthkOQU0PnC3iBEOC_YpOdPn7-9gf1K1UfU2H/s1600/Salinger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVC8PNFlAfaQ3gOtD4HtBp2C6eZ9X8pTqd4bU8NgBja6U6j_z4NE-8PpJlQEmOBJ5sqehuHLJmfpVi8QgrXga2gbT2Fcvh0R5zt_DVH3avthkOQU0PnC3iBEOC_YpOdPn7-9gf1K1UfU2H/s400/Salinger.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J. D. Salinger: Light me another one!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But I believe the late Steig Larsson outdoes all these literary gentleman. You have not seen coffee like this ever before.<br />
<br />
The brazenness of preparing it over an open flame on the stove. The lacivious push of the lever of the pump pot.The sheer quantity swallowed and all those Adams apples dancing with delight. <br />
<br />
If you're shy and not comfortable around these matters, do not (I repeat) do not read on.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Kaffe Spelled Backwards is Effak</span></strong><br />
Steig Larsson has a lot of tricks, surprises, and reversals lying in wait in his clockwork-like plot, but the coffee is right out in the open. The naughtiness, in fact, begins unpologetically on the first page:<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Then one gets caught up in the story and hardly notices, but the references come often. <br />
<br />
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And it's not just our hero Blomkvist. It's our heroine Lisbeth Salander, too. <br />
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Together or alone, these 21st century sleuths are drinking coffee. And so are the people they meet. <br />
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<br />
Larsson's murder mystery and milieu are marinated in coffee.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sweden Rocks </span><span style="font-size: small;">(and ABBA Spelled Backwards is ABBA)</span></span></strong><br />
I've said already that I like coffee and I'll admit I like Sweden, too. We were once serial Saabs owners. <br />
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And I just remembered...I like Swedish pancakes. And I once went through an IKEA phase when all I could afford in my home was furniture held together with hex screws. And Alfred Nobel (a Swede!) invented dynamite. Then there was ABBA and they definitely did <u>not</u> rock, but we'll table further discussion of that...<br />
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The larger mystery Larsson brings to mind is one about Sweden itself. What's going on up north with the coffee? Are the Swedes as a people not getting enough sleep to make it through the day?<br />
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Whatever the answer to the riddle, others have noted the TGWTDT coffee phenomenon and written about it in cyberspace. <a href="http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/08/23/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-is-secretly-just-about-eating-sandwiches/">One writer</a> (who must have had an e-Reader making it easy to do a word search) found the word "coffee" 92 times in the novel. By her reckoning "coffee" occurs twice as many times as the word "murder."<br />
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It's nice to know that Steig Larsson had his priorities in order.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Coffee Futures</span></strong><br />
I'm wondering now what the impact of Larsson's so-called Milennium Trilogy has had on the world coffee market. Are people drinking more of the black stuff? Are they seeking out the Swedish roasters (<a href="http://www.gevalia.com/">Gevalia</a> is the biggie in the U.S.)? Whenever they feel stressed, for example, feeling as if someone might be sighting them in with a moose rifle and drawing a bead on their cranium, do they shake the awful feeling with a good spoon-stiffening shot of coffee?<br />
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I guess my biggest concern is whether the average person who is not really initiated into and innoculated to coffee can withstand such large doses of what Mr. Larsson pours out of his pen.<br />
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This is a dark novel, in every sense of the word. To enjoy it, my advice is to stay the hand that would pour the cream or add the spoonful of sugar. You must either take the story as it is or keep your distance. Salander is raped and tortured by a S/M enthusiast. Blomkvist falls into the iron dungeon lair of a serial killer whose crimes are recounted in nauseating detail. This is stern stuff, but I think it's nothing compared to the coffee, oh, the coffee, the multiple cups of coffee... <br />
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Scalding. Black. <em>The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo</em> is an excellent mystery, well told with memorable characters. If you haven't read it, proceed at your own risk. If, on the other hand, you think you can handle it, pick up a copy, cue up the suggested soundtrack below, and start to enjoy. - <em>V.W.</em><br />
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<em>.</em>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-3847397311873121512011-08-16T04:09:00.000-07:002011-08-16T04:10:01.272-07:00For the Teachers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLbjnkkt5z226SiQzrtzuy98oMe1pojxikoJeLu0O1p_y3cg4bp7saiBCtwrPQDQ5iZN0bCuCDkc7LatEgiiAHHm_eyhCyR9fEviHGugWv8JRJKjOBvBbWH1wCgIR4FiNPF-E95WK6WSQ/s1600/9416221-back-to-school-blackboard--chalkboard-teacher-writing-back-to-school-on-black-chalk-board.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLbjnkkt5z226SiQzrtzuy98oMe1pojxikoJeLu0O1p_y3cg4bp7saiBCtwrPQDQ5iZN0bCuCDkc7LatEgiiAHHm_eyhCyR9fEviHGugWv8JRJKjOBvBbWH1wCgIR4FiNPF-E95WK6WSQ/s200/9416221-back-to-school-blackboard--chalkboard-teacher-writing-back-to-school-on-black-chalk-board.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Tomorrow our son gets up, slings his new backpack onto his shoulders, and returns to school.</span></strong> </span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><strong>His teachers, of course, have already gone to work and begun making their classrooms welcoming, prepared lesson plans, and sat through the inevitable meetings. At the university where my wife and I teach we will follow suit next week</strong>. </span><br />
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This seems like a good time to reflect upon just what it means to teach.<br />
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There a lot of popular ideas on this subject these days. One of them is "<a href="http://www.learningoutcomeassessment.org/">outcomes assessment</a>"-based learning. The way I see it, the idea<span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>when separated from its academic jargon<span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>comes down to something like this.<br />
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The classroom is a sort of factory and the teacher is earnestly pressing a mold over each student. By the time the teacher is done, one should be able to come in and measure the newly molded students and make sure they fit within the parameters and tolerances that have been mandated by experts in advance. <br />
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If the data (which must be collected frequently and presented in numerical form) shows the teacher achieving desired "outcomes," then students are taken off the assembly line and passed to the next level.<br />
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Long ago a fictional character who (along with Huck Finn) is surely in the running for the title of "World's Worst Student" imagined an ideal classroom in which the students themselves were in charge of the educational factory.<br />
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I speak, of course, of the famous <a href="http://www.pippisworld.com/">Pippi Longstocking</a> and her fantasy about the best schools in the world.<br />
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We're not supposed to take Pippi's amusing fantasy seriously. After all, this is a recipe for education as anarchy, the inmates running the asylum. But there's something that gives me pause. It's what Pippi says about the role of the teacher.<br />
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There's no molding followed by measuring going on here. The teacher does one thing and does it well.<br />
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She (or he) unwraps the candy, throwing away the distracting tin foil and paper that's getting in the way, and tries to help the students eat as much sweet stuff as possible.<br />
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Hmm. What if we were to think of that <u>metaphorically</u>? What if a classroom's candy amounted to a ridiculously large, delicious storehouse of the world's knowledge, including all the history, archaeology, math, science, culture, art, language, literature, and other discoveries humans have made over time?<br />
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What if the teacher realized that knowledge presented in the correct way is nothing like force-feeding bran or sawdust or cardboard to students in order to inflate them to a predetermined size and weight, but rather a matter of distributing the tastiest thing in the world and letting it work its magic?<br />
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I know. Most students don't think of school as sweet at all. It's hard, it's necessary, it's compulsory. It's something to ultimately escape. And these students never fall in love with the full-range of learning. Which is not the same as saying they never learn. <br />
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It seems like the most human trait one might single out is how both he dullest and brightest of us keep on learning <em>something</em>. Eventually every person finds something that is so much fun<span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>a video game, a sport, tuning an engine, fashion, talking about <em>Twilight</em><span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span>that they forget that they are learning.<br />
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The teacher's job is to get students to broaden their menu. <br />
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Maybe it's time for them to try something other than the usual cheap milk chocolates and caramels readily available on the popular culture market.<br />
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Belgium dark chocolate? Silky semi-sweet? <br />
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And, if I'm a good enough teacher, I may even get my students involved in challenging jawbreakers or licorice sticks of knowledge.<br />
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Calculus perhaps? Organic chemistry? <em>Moby Dick</em>?<br />
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But first I have to convince them that <em>it's all candy</em>.<br />
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This is why I teach with a persona that may resemble at times a man on a sugar high. I'm unwrapping the candy and saying, "You've got to hear this!" and "What do you think about that?" and "Isn't this amazing?" and "Let's all take the next half hour and try it out for ourselves!"<br />
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I can't help it. All forms of knowledge are candy to me and I'm eager to get it out there where people can taste it.<br />
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At the same time I have to admit that the majority of my teachers, especially from junior high on through college, came across as rather dry and unenthused. On their worst days they unwrapped the candy as if it were a fillet of week-old fish enshrined in newspapers. No wonder we doodled in the margins of our notebooks, yawned, looked out the window.<br />
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Years and years of this go on and what does a new teacher face? The prospect of trying to wake the dead.<br />
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<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/AVvXsEjBOHtuMen0qOVCQK-1MymHqddVBo4q-g4ftGdgreYC7gXKq2kp_l3HgsjE6Dl8ERfxbz-NFpzoKyg3yx6sMFHtcZoavAvdgptGDdsCfhi4OZz6RQmZIwEiHgOh40Y7IZG7n9mrrIz4YKw/s1600/Dead-Poets-Society-04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" id=":current_picnik_image" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOHtuMen0qOVCQK-1MymHqddVBo4q-g4ftGdgreYC7gXKq2kp_l3HgsjE6Dl8ERfxbz-NFpzoKyg3yx6sMFHtcZoavAvdgptGDdsCfhi4OZz6RQmZIwEiHgOh40Y7IZG7n9mrrIz4YKw/s400/Dead-Poets-Society-04.jpg" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Here's a teacher who knows how to unwrap the candy.</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Enter <em>Dead Poet's Society. </em>It's an easy movie to understand in the context of the problems I've just described. Then Mr. Manic himself, Robin Williams, walks in as the teacher. Yes! It almost takes an excess bordering on craziness to really get turned-off students' attention, especially if they're signed up for a subject they have already decided is intrinsically dull. <br />
<br />
The solution? Unwrap the candy as if there is a famine in the land and you've just shattered a giant pinata. I don't care what subject the teacher is assigned to teach, if he or she acts like a mad person and stands on the desk or whatever may be out of the ordinary, it can't help making students interested in the things the teacher is personally passionate about. <br />
<br />
I know. Some critics call this edu-tainment. They say teachers are being drawn down to the level of a TV show or other entertainment. I disagree. Humans from the beginning of time have paid attention best, remembered best, and ultimately learned when there's drama involved. Take a look at Sophocles and Euripides.<br />
<br />
A teacher without some degree of enticing delivery may have all the information in the world and every fact lined up correctly, which is perfect for the "quality control" people who stand ready to measure; however, if there's not a memorable <u>experience</u> of learning provided, we teachers may very well fail along with some of our students. - <em>V.W.</em><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_YP9lPfg0elDGdLzCyiI9dbIj9ZEWVLawdjuIK17MqQvjhgc7YMSBY8opmE6Yr7_Fqc-4p9PGc03iMaxWnbfu_NVLuqJbCybu8eNHJcY-bLSlWveeYnWmMqXtFt6egY98G84DotnaYqW/s1600/apple-teacherbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_YP9lPfg0elDGdLzCyiI9dbIj9ZEWVLawdjuIK17MqQvjhgc7YMSBY8opmE6Yr7_Fqc-4p9PGc03iMaxWnbfu_NVLuqJbCybu8eNHJcY-bLSlWveeYnWmMqXtFt6egY98G84DotnaYqW/s400/apple-teacherbook.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<em>.</em>Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-18836781225192293502011-08-12T11:17:00.000-07:002011-08-12T11:17:03.571-07:00Breaking News: H2O Discovery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcfpbGpPKrTd_j-Fo-Pbj4jf4XCUbkXRtXmU5aq6ASsqAKJuO7IkuIKIUHnUoKNH4m8kZuhdz4vGabiWdRWDb6tRG-lIblUM8yR9gKTdSoi4-93epz_9iJJHzVSIrqKMJdPFeXO3QNWA/s1600/IMGP2630.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcfpbGpPKrTd_j-Fo-Pbj4jf4XCUbkXRtXmU5aq6ASsqAKJuO7IkuIKIUHnUoKNH4m8kZuhdz4vGabiWdRWDb6tRG-lIblUM8yR9gKTdSoi4-93epz_9iJJHzVSIrqKMJdPFeXO3QNWA/s320/IMGP2630.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>I opened the front door. Looked out and yes!</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">And finally it rained! This was the kind of news that even Van Winkle had to pay attention to...</span></strong><br />
<br />
At 3 o'clock I took the dog out for a walk. There was something odd about the sky. It wasn't all bunsen burner flame-blue. <br />
<br />
I saw some gray bellies of clouds. <br />
<br />
I was noticing something else. Maybe I was crazy, but the air felt a little less fierce than its usual 105 degrees. That's when some drops of water began to splat on the street.<br />
<br />
Bullwinkle shied away. Crazy dog. He has webbed toes, yet he hates water. He has to run reconnaissance missions on his own dog dish before he finally, reluctantly goes forward and laps himself a drink. This time there was nowhere to hide.<br />
<br />
"Mr. Bull, those are <em>real</em> raindrops falling out of the sky..."<br />
<br />
A blue pickup truck pulled up beside us and the window rolled down. A father shouted at me across his son who was seated on the passenger side.<br />
<br />
"I've got to call 9-1-1," he said breathlessly. "I don't know what to do!" Then I saw he was grinning. He pointed at his windshield and the drops of rain on it.<br />
<br />
It has been a long time since the rain has made itself known in this massive real-life Easy-Bake oven we live in. From what I've overhead, the <a href="http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/">experts</a> have classified our entire region as being in a state of <em>"<span style="color: black;">exceptional drought</span>."</em> Our lack of rain in the midst of this historic heat is something I documented on a chart on a <a href="http://thevanwinkleproject.blogspot.com/2011/08/remembering-rain.html">previous post</a>.<br />
<br />
At the moment the rain was barely falling, <em>tap...tap</em>, as if it were still making up its mind as to whether to stay or go. There was lots of blue sky between those clouds, but I hurried Bullwinkle inside with high hopes. I had heard a strange, foreign sound that had not reached my ears for seemingly eons.<br />
<br />
Rumbles of thunder.<br />
<br />
I went out on the patio and watched. The show lasted five minutes.<br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEiEDCJnhfujUsKv6vdGSi1Jlgv2NPB8miD-JybgcDeWx3TbSnApSR1Bs1C-zTfBDvpMV7EbKxNWTNP0ya2-_q4ea9edeXaRtYy4RLq7nmn-KpmwyoBdDrJ7TmLESHISAOCrlYSU108vw2s/s1600/IMGP2628+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEDCJnhfujUsKv6vdGSi1Jlgv2NPB8miD-JybgcDeWx3TbSnApSR1Bs1C-zTfBDvpMV7EbKxNWTNP0ya2-_q4ea9edeXaRtYy4RLq7nmn-KpmwyoBdDrJ7TmLESHISAOCrlYSU108vw2s/s400/IMGP2628+%25283%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>The workers who are extending our patio and adding new flowerbeds</em><br />
<em>had to take shelter for the first time since the project began.</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<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/AVvXsEg96_yi-P9obH-bWL8p_MJoOvvf1AQzO-dpTwZzFVBp2JehmNPu2ryHB7z1bAx8pJcdix-ThRsM4Es28P0D3M64N55WiVP5c07eFEESSskjzMzMUo_Prjg89tBfsPtVStkwVVzI8p0g3hg/s1600/IMGP2628+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg96_yi-P9obH-bWL8p_MJoOvvf1AQzO-dpTwZzFVBp2JehmNPu2ryHB7z1bAx8pJcdix-ThRsM4Es28P0D3M64N55WiVP5c07eFEESSskjzMzMUo_Prjg89tBfsPtVStkwVVzI8p0g3hg/s400/IMGP2628+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>I squinted and peered closely to make sure.</em><br />
<em>Yes, those were real raindrops coming down...</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Then the sun came out.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirGHJZX9KoK_J36XwKwEKqqfAy-HSagj962W8NLtfgSqoAk9x2-dVFpQvrL4zegI7x3Ka5eQCiu5eKeW5-khccXZMoWfCJE2Qux_KhZS3wI5EZnehqdjIAbl8QQprH4EmP1stAs1sUkoI/s1600/IMGP2633.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirGHJZX9KoK_J36XwKwEKqqfAy-HSagj962W8NLtfgSqoAk9x2-dVFpQvrL4zegI7x3Ka5eQCiu5eKeW5-khccXZMoWfCJE2Qux_KhZS3wI5EZnehqdjIAbl8QQprH4EmP1stAs1sUkoI/s400/IMGP2633.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
So the rain ended before we could even marvel sufficiently, but I'm not going to complain. It's really true that when you don't have something, even if you formerly took it for granted, suddenly it becomes the most valuable and appreciated thing. Besides, the rain left a bonus beyond its trace amount (see below), a gift for us that lasted into the evening when we went for our family walk.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigb1mBa0xKYguAqsONFRvTGnunMU4lyBMASMFl5ZUwvAQA7qAt41Cexe-xlu-AZglAcSmxhc7OnWY7NxlT6CwgO_rriN-f6GVxCToj1LC7KNdu4S-n0btgtOko3ZyNJF-Nt8O3dgv5STU/s1600/IMGP2634.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigb1mBa0xKYguAqsONFRvTGnunMU4lyBMASMFl5ZUwvAQA7qAt41Cexe-xlu-AZglAcSmxhc7OnWY7NxlT6CwgO_rriN-f6GVxCToj1LC7KNdu4S-n0btgtOko3ZyNJF-Nt8O3dgv5STU/s400/IMGP2634.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The temperature dropped down to 88 F. It was such a contrast that we joked about digging out our sweaters. Which just goes to prove something psychologists perhaps haven't yet noted. It only takes five minutes of rain and one major drought for the human mind to start to turn delusional. - <em>V.W.</em><br />
<br />
.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269522238228615686.post-89717782508321085342011-08-10T04:55:00.000-07:002011-08-10T04:57:15.179-07:00D.I.Y. Is D.O.A. or the Not So Handy Man <br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">I had holes in the kitchen ceiling. </span></strong><br />
<br />
We had just spent a fairly large chunk of change to hire a electrician to get up on a ladder, pull out the existing light fixtures, then climb into the attic (where it was over 110 degrees F.) and run new wire to light cans that he installed in lieu of the harsh, ugly fluorescents that came with our house. <br />
<br />
Those old fixtures had looked better suited to illuminating somebody's garage or shop. They sometimes flickered like a pawn shop window display. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3rkeeSsqHtWKQV7Lbn-Wnv-2B2SlI0VQOaOFevkFzTPjmgSM-xzZeVx678L62u0OTFyv0ocI0wAymcZTK9EHxb1BBKv66uDN6zMCITFGAsct_PsRTLjWzbfgk1Wav1SelpGJyt7jo18/s1600/Fixture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3rkeeSsqHtWKQV7Lbn-Wnv-2B2SlI0VQOaOFevkFzTPjmgSM-xzZeVx678L62u0OTFyv0ocI0wAymcZTK9EHxb1BBKv66uDN6zMCITFGAsct_PsRTLjWzbfgk1Wav1SelpGJyt7jo18/s320/Fixture.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
They made everything in the kitchen, including the food we prepared, feel as if it were dipped in ghostly, nausesating vanilla frosting.<br />
<br />
The new can lights, on the other hand, gave off a natural, warm glow that didn't leave any shadowy spots in the kitchen. And Troy the electrician had installed two inset metal boxes. From these would eventually hang trendy pendant lights we had ordered on-line.<br />
<br />
Now seemed like a good time for me to take care of the holes left behind where those old fluorescents had been attached to the ceiling. I even thought of an inspirational song from 1967:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tDuNo1wN7ya41wr0Krtmdq_2HNBc9Mcd2CoJcBPqW-GBOve4WejCMbUOqRWFRvY4DHTV8ZlUWWpHQvKYgGsA5-7xzAFjNqbecInCUiLA-IBfTyZ3LTFiGHmymoWKw06D0MiEPYc9O2k/s1600/fixinghole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tDuNo1wN7ya41wr0Krtmdq_2HNBc9Mcd2CoJcBPqW-GBOve4WejCMbUOqRWFRvY4DHTV8ZlUWWpHQvKYgGsA5-7xzAFjNqbecInCUiLA-IBfTyZ3LTFiGHmymoWKw06D0MiEPYc9O2k/s320/fixinghole.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Back Story</span></strong><br />
"After we get done you might need to get yourself a good mud man," Troy the man from Surge Electric said.<br />
<br />
"Mud man?" I was amused by the slang term for a man who works with drywall. Troy went on to speculate about what might happen after the holes were filled.<br />
<br />
"If you paint over the repair, the paint might not match the rest of the ceiling. You could hire a painter to paint the whole ceiling all the way to the living room."<br />
<br />
I had twin reactions to the thought of employing a mud man and a painter: Ugh and ugh. This is a normal biological response for many of us when we hear a little "ka-ching!" sound in our heads.<br />
<br />
And thus is born the impulse for a man to become a D.I.Y.er who is <u>not</u> normally a D.I.Y.er.<br />
<br />
I'm going to save money by Doing It Myself! Isn't that why they invented Lowe's and Home Depot in my lifetime?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzqdg9tgTabfmt8dIinCNBNxDh1Z0mERB-jJ3Dkc0AyeNSMIfxJpOHQpfnLKueRDGk2wBF3PJoe7vgZvh3-Itnbw8DXEcJbAqbtCJ0pszQP87XidO8F64QAFy-4n_Ejvnj6g3hOKlOc4c/s1600/lowes%252520logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzqdg9tgTabfmt8dIinCNBNxDh1Z0mERB-jJ3Dkc0AyeNSMIfxJpOHQpfnLKueRDGk2wBF3PJoe7vgZvh3-Itnbw8DXEcJbAqbtCJ0pszQP87XidO8F64QAFy-4n_Ejvnj6g3hOKlOc4c/s200/lowes%252520logo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Putting on My Construction Genes</span></strong><br />
I spent several days sitting at the kitchen counter and staring up at the ceiling. Rhetorical questions floated through my mind: "How diffiicult can it be?" "How long might it take?" <br />
<br />
The answer that came back to me was always seductive, as if it had been whispered into my ear by Botoxed lips at 1 a.m. in a smoky bar: "It will be easy," and "We'll only need a couple of hours."<br />
<br />
I think part of what drove my male hubris wasn't the actual annoying residual holes in the ceiling, but a feeling that as a 21st Century male I'm too far removed from my father and all the stream of double X ancestral chromosomes before him. <br />
<br />
You know guys who were real men. Men who took advantage of having opposable thumbs to do more than peck at keyboards and remotes and grasp steering wheels.<br />
<br />
My father grew up on a farm. He had to do manual stuff as part of his daily chores. He went away to the war and acquired further expertise, this time in how to stay alive when people were trying to kill him. He returned to his parents' farmhouse and decided that it had been long enough. He was going to gift his folks with an indoor bathroom.<br />
<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/AVvXsEgHfofU2iF7lk2kVxZkXd4H4OCyjJl6p1GLOP53FuuPcC880U0f-gikBNnzcUEz0FwdxkLsieWW-gAyk2j8kYyM8BwHTJptVxTwaGf_cXAKSOKUj68JEo7nO9rlmAP8BLWg__DVmYOW4iw/s1600/Scan+4+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHfofU2iF7lk2kVxZkXd4H4OCyjJl6p1GLOP53FuuPcC880U0f-gikBNnzcUEz0FwdxkLsieWW-gAyk2j8kYyM8BwHTJptVxTwaGf_cXAKSOKUj68JEo7nO9rlmAP8BLWg__DVmYOW4iw/s400/Scan+4+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The war was over, but they still needed an indoor bathrooom on the farm.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Had he ever done any plumbing? No way! Could he watch how-to videos on the Internet? Are you kidding? This was 1946. Instead, he asked around, got a book from the library, bought his materials and set to work. <br />
<br />
He enclosed a porch and turned it into a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower. The day they turned the faucet handle and water came out and flushed the toilet my father presumably got on the tractor, chained it to the outhouse and hauled it down to the river bottom.<br />
<br />
Why can't I be like that? It's not about being born an Einstein, it's about accessing the natural "handy" in us all.<br />
<br />
Like a twenty-something colleague who told me that in his spare time he's a "lutier." I looked this up. It means he builds guitars from scratch. He buys the wood, cuts it, shapes it, glues it, adds a varnish, strings the strings, and there's an instrument you can use to make beautiful music. <br />
<br />
And I bet he can patch holes in a ceiling too so that you'd never know they were there. So why not me? Then I could move on and strum my own happy song of self sufficient, hammer-clutching masculine success, and have some extra bucks in the bank to pimp my lawnmower or something...<br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEhOXJpABZNjo-CDXxmPzeGl72zxuObgxsLJWfcsKUn5cCMI0hrb-MzrDJiUZrZoUzIQnP7TSTrq2OQUocV3Rt0t__xrBYDoePFT40Uz9DOpdf0HAdJfnVWnD64DQT5ZiNDLYHDfEX2cc2M/s1600/IMGP2624.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXJpABZNjo-CDXxmPzeGl72zxuObgxsLJWfcsKUn5cCMI0hrb-MzrDJiUZrZoUzIQnP7TSTrq2OQUocV3Rt0t__xrBYDoePFT40Uz9DOpdf0HAdJfnVWnD64DQT5ZiNDLYHDfEX2cc2M/s320/IMGP2624.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="justify">
Another D.I.Y. benefit--it's an excuse to buy new tools.</div>
<div align="justify">
This is the finest putty knife I've ever owned. Hold it in your hand</div>
<div align="justify">
and you can feel the quality. It's the Rolls Royce of putty knifes...</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Joint Compound, Spackle, Mud, Whatever...</span></strong><br />
In my personal and limited experience of D.I.Y. when things head south, they go all the way to Antarctica. I end up at the South Pole of Incompetence. There's not even a penguin hanging around to laugh at me. Just 80 below zero, the wind is howling, and I'm frozen with frustration...<br />
<br />
<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/AVvXsEj4R_EdZKez8yhYgW-B4hT7OKOTC5vkoBKLGn1pn1TBjT0NjUYO71sY_XUiqtEunuYfiC_8MzcziKRhgUL8kh9Shia8rqcpHaMD656RxXNcsmrJQZb89-QOx-A-Q22qTYmnK1Z4WuFThkw/s1600/IMGP2622.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4R_EdZKez8yhYgW-B4hT7OKOTC5vkoBKLGn1pn1TBjT0NjUYO71sY_XUiqtEunuYfiC_8MzcziKRhgUL8kh9Shia8rqcpHaMD656RxXNcsmrJQZb89-QOx-A-Q22qTYmnK1Z4WuFThkw/s200/IMGP2622.JPG" width="111" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patch like a pro<br />
with this stuff!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Patching the holes wasn't such a big problem. Except I had to keep patching because the repair would shrink upon drying. Never mind. Eventually I sanded them down and they were... Well, they weren't <em>perfect</em> but this wasn't the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, was it? No, the real trouble began when I decided to try to move to Phase 2 and cover over the mismatched paint and uneven texture where the fluorescents had hung.<br />
<br />
The ceiling texture in a can was so fun to spray that I didn't notice that it was bursting far beyond my target area. When I was done and smiling broadly at how well the sprayed areas conformed to the rest of the ceiling texture I happened to lower my eyesight. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My nemesis...arrived in a can.</td></tr>
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That's when I noticed. The texture had blasted across the room and onto the cabinets opposite me, as well as covering the refrigerator and my espresso maker.<br />
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An absolute <em>mess</em>.<br />
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I spent the next two hours removing every fleck of texture from where it had gone astray. It was like reclaiming a whole shaker full of pepperflakes from your mashed potatoes.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">"Running Like a Watercolor in the Rain..."</span></strong><br />
Then it was time to open a can of paint. I painted over the areas in question at least 8 times with different variants of white. I learned something via this process. <br />
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There are many shades of white paint. <br />
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Further, none of one's whites are likely to match the white that has already been on your ceiling for three years and acquired the standard kitchen off-white patina of smoke, grease, and general household dust.<br />
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Still, stubbornness can score points where competence is lacking. Or so I told myself. Days after I first began this minuscule project I felt I had arrived close enough to an end result I could live with.<br />
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Well, it all depends what light you look at it in. At 3 p.m. with the sun shining in the window and all the can lights on and glaring in your eyes you really can't tell...<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Moral of the Mess</span></strong><br />
I like to believe that things that happen to me can teach me lessons about life. That they are actually metaphors for something of significance.<br />
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It occurred to me when I was knee deep in holes that kept coming back and had to be refilled and sanded anew, whites that didn't match, ceiling texture that exuberantly obeyed the laws of gravity <em>et cetera et cetera</em> that most of my life is some kind of repair job. <br />
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I'm trying to fix me.<br />
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Sometimes it's probably less a repair on behalf of a noble cause than a matter of trying to avoid the embarrassment of having people notice the Swiss cheese holes in my personality and behavior. So to the extent I'm aware of these flaws I set out to do something about them.<br />
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Like become a better listener. How hard is that to fix? Pretty hard I've found out.<br />
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Or be less opinionated. Ouch! That's me biting down sharply on that thing called my "tongue"...<br />
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Or how about being less selfish about sharing my time and income. The holes there are really deep. I can't buy enough "mud" to fill them. I need a whole new panel inserted to replace the defective one.<br />
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Then I think, "Maybe I should call a professional." What would that look like? A motivational seminar? A therapist? Join a monastery? Oh, come on. Those are no fun. I want to fix this <em>myself</em>.<br />
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But maybe not everything is an equally good candidate for D.I.Y. Maybe I should swallow my pride from time to time and ask for some help.<br />
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And I might need to lower my standards a bit, too. Because in my experience whenever I get done with a personal remodel, part of the old me always seems to be showing through. <br />
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Darn sloppy D.I.Y.er! Why can't I be like those guys in the videos? A few flicks of the trigger on the power tools, some graceful hand moves, and perfection!<br />
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Instead, I am what I am, the purveyor of a sub-standard repair job, but if it doesn't leak or fall down, it is what it is and that's me walking down the street and you should have seen how bad everything was before I got started... - <em>V.W.</em><br />
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.Birdie (formerly Van Winkle)http://www.blogger.com/profile/11502611504298313961noreply@blogger.com0