Thursday, December 31, 2009

K. Starkey's List #2: Places I love in Colorado

I miss Franny. When I think about it, I imagine the things I could tell her about home that would lure her back. I don't need to though--she wants to come back and the doors will open again for that when it's the right time. I have steadfastly refused to tell her that the owners of Mezcal fired the chef and frontman recently and I have worried if her favorite Mexican place would be the same. I'm pretty sure not even that would keep her from coming back if that's what is supposed to be.

Anyway, I love it here. Here are my current favorite places:

1. DIA. Nate gripes about it and I hear grumblings at the Y all the time. It makes me happy though. I love the big blue horse. I love the many-boobed roof, the flights of paper airplanes by the trains, the walk to concourse A with the various exhibits and background music, the places to eat and drink, the voices on the train although I still miss Reymelda Muse's (a former role model for me). We've never had a horrible security wait and we've always had our luggage by the time we got to baggage claim.

2. Carpenter's Peak. We live about 15 minutes from Roxborough Park where the hike starts. Sometime in May we start getting in hiking shape for the Tetons and we start hiking up Carpenter's Peak about once a week. I like to go alone too. I look at wildflowers beginning in May that are in full bloom by the end of June. We pack a sandwich and walk up in an hour and a half and sit on top and look at Denver. If we leave after 10:00, we can usually watch a summer storm come in and we have to hurry down. It's nice to know a trail so well.

3. A Knitted Peace. This is the knitting store that C.Fite teaches at and helps the souls of many knitters. It feels just right if she is there helping or teaching. All of downtown Littleton is cool.

4. Two places in Vail: a) Manor Vail, the Gore Creek below, the bridge leading to the Betty Ford Garden. Wondrous memories and a quiet world so close to the rich people stuff; and b) The Golden Bear store in the midst of the rich people stuff. There are clerks there who know me and it's where Jim buys me presents.

5. Mizuna Restaurant. I like to sit where I can see the entry and the kitchen. I think this is the only place I know the entire staff. I feel certain that whatever chef is cooking my meal, he's doing it especially for me. I feel the waitstaff is bringing the food with pride to a longtime friend. I have a "relationship" with a restuarant.

6. The Public Art Downtown. The blue bear is the best. The dancers are happy. The big rocker by the library--Ahhh. I'm loving the blue pianos downtown now where folks are supposed to stop and play.

7. Coors Field. Even when the Rockies stink, it's a great place to be. That's why the Rockies will never be great--we'll all go even when the team stinks because it's just so pretty and real as far as ballparks go.

8. My lunch spots. I go from school to school all over Denver, Littleton and Aurora for my job. I usually take a short lunch and camp somewhere with lunch and whatever book I'm reading at the moment. I like being alone and reading and feeling a part of some giant work force fueling the economy. I feel kind of grown-up at these times and that's actually pretty rare for me. Anyway, I like my private lunches at The Squeaky Bean, The New Saigon, Masterpiece Deli, Bones, Abe's, Tom's Home Cooking, My Brother's Bar, Steuben's.

9. Mesa Verde and Rocky Mountain National Park. I haven't been to either recently. I keep vowing to get back to both soon. Both fill me with awe.

10. My House. For reasons I don't know, people are drawn to our house, especially the kitchen. I'm loving the backyard since Jim built Deck 1 on the side and Deck 2 in the back--so good for family gatherings we have every Sunday in the summer.

That's it for now.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

American Lion

Consider this passage toward the end of Jon Meacham's biography of Andrew Jackson.

Speaking of Jackson in death, alluding to the crisis with South Carolina in 1832-33, George Bancroft said: "The moral of the great events of those days is this: that the people can discern right, and will make their way to a knowledge of the right; that the whole human mind, and therefore with it the mind of the nation, has a continuous, ever improving existence; that the appeal from the unjust legislation of to-day must be made quietly, earnestly, perseveringly, to the more enlightened collective reason of to-morrow; that submission is due to the popular will, in the confidence that the people, when in error, will amend their doings; that in a popular government, injustice is neither to be established by force, nor to be resisted by force; in a word, that the Union which is constituted by consent, must be preserved by love."

I have believed in the truth of that statement all my life, with the possible exception of my Ayn Rand period somewhere around my sophomore year in high school. I've always believed that the history of the world is the story of Good outlasting Evil. I've always believed that William Golding was wrong. People, if left to their own devices on a deserted island, would not become feral cannibals worshipping a boar's head. People would instead synergistically seek the Good, form a society, and keep perfecting that society.

It is hard to keep believing that nowadays, but reading Jackson's biography gives me a little hope. The acrimony today, the ranting heads on Fox News, the tearful fearmongering of Glen Beck, the unapologetic hatred spewed by Rush Limbaugh, comes at us at such a level that it is impossible to believe it has ever been this bad before. It is therefore comforting to see the same poisonous atmosphere in the Washington of Andrew Jackson. It is even reassuring to note that Henry Clay gave Jackson a much more formidable adversary than any that Obama has to face. So it has been ever thus. Congress isn't beyond repair; it has always worked that way. It makes you wonder how anything has ever been accomplished, but history tells us that the system works. At least that is one message I pulled from the book.

However, all of the screamers in Jackson's day shared one major quality: they selflessly and unwaveringly loved their country. I'm not sure the same can be said today. Isn't it obvious that the only disappointment the right wing pundits felt over the recent terrorist incident on the airplane from Amsterdam was that the attack wasn't more successful. That would have given them even more capital in their cynical use of the incident to attack Obama. It is just a matter of time before the incident will somehow be linked to Obamacare. I'm sure Sarah Palin is tweeting* something about it even as I type this.

I don't think a love of the conservative movement is synonymous with a love of country. Where is the patriotism in a default republican position that says to block any move/appointment Obama makes as a matter of course and then to scream that our country is less secure because Obama has yet to make the necessary appointments to Homeland Security?!

I believe in the primacy of Love, but I fear that primacy is currently undergoing its sternest test.

* The one hundred and forty character limit is the perfect vehicle for Palin's entire philosophical base.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

K. Starkey's List #1: Books I've Read This Year Worth Mentioning

Katherine today. I just finished off two books this morning so I'd be ready for fresh reads when we head to Mexico on Saturday. I dutifully wrote the titles, authors, and my personal ratings in my journal. I always do that. My journal is full of lists. Not just book lists. Anyway, I decided to share an abbreviated and annotated list of the books I read last year. I'm as good a reading guide as anybody I suspect.

Here goes: What I read last year(mostly)and what I thought of it(mostly):

1. "Born to Run." McDougall. An article in "5280" and an interview on "The Daily Show" led to this one. A non-fiction narrative about a writer/wannabe runner constantly struggling with injuries. His quest to run without pain leads to the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico's Copper Canyons and numbers of ultra-runners (all bizarre and interesting folks). The Tarahumara run hundreds of miles in their bare feet, sometimes sporting cool looking capes, fueled by some drink made of chia seeds (yes, like the chia plants they sell at Christmas time). This is a cool book. ***

2. "Eat, Pray, Love." Gilbert. I'm supposed to love this book. I don't love it. It bothers me. All I see is an incredibly self-centered and selfish woman who gets a publishing company to pay for her personal year of doing whatever the fuck she wants to do. Only Seymour Glass could smile at this. *

3. "The Last Night at the Lobster." O'Nan (I think that's the name--I can't read my handwriting). This is the tale of the last night at a Red Lobster restaurant outside a mall in Minnesota or someplace like that. The manager is struggling with his personal life, but makes a mission of making the last night, in the midst of an awful storm, run as smoothly as a place devoted to elderly eaters can be. It's not great, but a wonderful portrait of how regular folks heroically plug away. **

4. Books by Jeffrey Long. Long is my new favorite writer. He writes very passionate love stories. They are not traditional and not really happy, but I love the passion.
In "A Peculiar Grace" he explores the nature of the artist through the eyes of a modern blacksmith. The blacksmith idealizes a love of the past while loving a girl grounded in reality in the present.
"In the Fall" tells the stories of three men who all fall in love in such a way their lives are forever altered--always in the fall. A better book, not as happy.
"Lost Nation" puts together two very lost souls who fill each other's gaps as they try to become part of a new western "nation." Don't get attached to the dog.
Long's books are poetry to read. I have his newest set for Mexico.
****

5. "Fool." Christopher Moore. This is "King Lear" from the fool's point of view. I like "A Dirty Job" and "Coyote Blue" better, but this one is fine and funny. Made me think of Jim teaching Lear and then turning into Lear. Lots of bodily fluids. Really. I emailed Moore about the book and actually got a reply. That was very cool. **

6. "The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet." Larson. A beautiful book in content and presentation. It's about a gifted 11 year old map-maker from Montana who wins a prize from the Smithsonian that he's afraid to tell his parents about (a hardcore rancher and a failed biologist). He hops a train and goes to DC by himself. The maps in the margin are gorgeous. Lots of moments I stopped and thought about sentences and how they meant something in my life. ****

7. "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo." Larsson. This book was next to the one above at the book store and had a bright yellow, green, and orange cover. Impulse purchase that turned out just fine. This is a terrific mystery about missing people and Swedish banking systems. It's a good time, but not much more than that. **

8. "Drood." Simmons AND "The Last Dickens." Pearl. Dickens was working on a mystey about opium eaters when he died of a stroke and both these books explore what was going on with that. "Drood" comes from the point of view of a envious contemporary writer and "The Last Dickens" follows an American publisher trying to find the ending to the unfinished novel. I read one last spring in Belize and just finished the other this morning. Both are good, but I wouldn't do them together unless you're Dickens obsessed. **

9. "Bandolino." Umberto Eko. This book is long. I finished it. I've read two others by Eko. I liked "The Name of the Rose." I own one more book by Eko. We'll see. *

10. "March" and "The People of the Book." Brooks. "March" is a fine book as the Pulitzer people have acknowledged. It tells the tale of "Little Women" from the father's point of view while he is away at the Civil War. Powerful. ****
"The People of the Book" traces the story of a remarkable religious book over history. I was in a books-about-antique-books mode last year ("Sixteen Pleasures," "The Book of Air and Shadows," etc.) and this would have fit right in. **
I'm taking a book by Brooks about the plague in England in 1666 to Mexico. I like this lady's stuff.

11. Nevada Barr and C.J. Box books. Barr is a National Park ranger and writes mysteries occuring in the parks. C.J. Box writes mysteries about a park and game ranger in Wyoming. No sentence crafting here, but I like to read one or two before we head to the Tetons to get in an outdoorsy kind of mood. Sheer escapism. **

That's enough for list number one. I read lots more, but that's a start.

Christmas Foodfest

As I think I've mentioned in a previous post, our Christmas traditions have undergone quite a transformation over the years. Now Kathie and I spend Christmas Day in the kitchen cooking for friends and family who drop by for various meals. We didn't have as big a turnout as last year primarily because Nate and Ashley were in Georgia this year and Franny and Ken were in Santa Rosa. Not as many people, but the food was just as good.

We spent the day before Christmas making tortellini en brodo from the Babbo cookbook. Kathie made the brown chicken stock (just like regular chicken stock only you cut up the chicken and brown it before adding the liquid) and I spent most of my time making the pasta. Tortellini is perhaps my favorite thing in the world. The stuffing is a combination of browned chicken breast, mortadella, pancetta, parmesan reggiano, and egg. The pasta is just the normal well-method home made kind (five eggs plus 3 and a half cups of flour). Drop a teaspoon of filling into a two inch square of pasta, fold it to look like Venus de Milo's navel, drop it in the boiling broth, then enjoy one of the culinary wonders of the world. We put the broth in the icebox, the tortellini in the freezer and then went out to a Christmas Eve party.

Breakfast Menu Christmas Day
1 - Bloody Marys
2 - Biscuits and Veal Sausage Gravy
The biscuits come from the Mizuna cookbook and are basically made entirely of butter. The gravy comes from a homemade veal sausage we found in the freezer. This was a winning combination. We get up at 6 in the morning, so rarely do we have company for our breakfasts and since none of the kids were home, today was no exception.

Lunch Menu Christmas Day
1 - Gorditas
These come from Rick Bayless' "Mexico One Plate At A Time." Just add some baking powder and flour to a regular corn tortilla masa and deep fry them until they pop up and form little pockets. Fill the pockets with a stewed tri-tip roast mixture and serve to order piping hot (I love being a short order cook with family and friends all gathered in the kitchen).
2 - Fresh Vegetable Quesadilla
This comes from Bobby Flay and is a traditional quesadilla filled with jack and cheddar cheese, fresh corn kernels, peppers, and anything else that sounds yummy. We had about eight or nine folks for this menu and they all kept coming back for more.

Dinner Menu Christmas Day
1 - Tortellini en Brodo
Enough said. Our neighbors came over so did our lifelong friend Barbara. The brodo was a hit and so was the conviviality. We ended the day by cleaning up the disaster in the kitchen and then headed over to cousin Roger's house for a traditional (at least in our family) Christmas night bowl of chili and plenty to drink.

We are going to recover from this day by heading to Puerto Vallarta with Bud and Janet. We can't wait.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Lunch

I don't care what Anthony Bourdain says, Denver is a great restaurant town. It isn't New York, but then what city in America is? But I'm convinced there are any number of restaurants here that would do quite well in the Big Apple, thank you very much.

Let's talk about lunch. It is my favorite meal to have in a restaurant and my least favorite to have at home. That is probably due to the fact that making your own lunch invariably interrupts some other activity and generally messes up the entire day. But lunch out is an event. The whole day, instead of getting messed up, revolves around the lunch. And there are so many likely lunch spots in the Denver area.

There is Tom's Home Cookin' in Five Points for the best soul food in town. How about Bones at 7th and Grant for steamed buns with pork belly and any noodle bowl on the ever changing menu. What could be better than Osteria Marco's bar with house made mozarella, Frank's Salumi Plate and a couple of quartinos of house red? How about a pitcher of Sangria and some kind of mole at Tamayo. Get a cubano sandwich at Masterpiece Deli and take it home, since it will probably be impossible to find a place to sit. Tacos at Jack 'n' Grill, and in the summer, the upper level deck at Morrison Inn is a great place to hang out with some shrimp enchiladas. And one musn't leave out Benny's for the quintessential Colorado tex-mex experience.

Hamburger joints abound. The perennial 5280 winner for best hamburger is the Cherry Cricket in Cherry Creek and rightly so, but I prefer the ambiance at Brothers Bar on 15th street. How can you not like a bar and grill so established that it doesn't even bother to put up a sign? The smashburger at Elway's is hard to beat and if you really want to get ambitious, drive up to Aspen for a burger at the J Bar in the Hotel Jerome.

However, if it is just a great hamburger you are after, let me recommend Park Burger at 1890 S. Pearl in the DU area. Jean-Philippe Failyau, chef and part owner of Osteria Marco as well as a long time Mizuna stand out, has followed the recent craze of places that only serve burgers and fries. I ate at one such place in D.C. recently and there were lines out the door for their counter service. Five Guys in Parker and throughout the country even tells you what part of the country your fries came from.

I think Park Burger is better than any of them. Like all places spawned from the Frank Bonnano restaurant machine, Park Burger has drunk the Michael Pollan Kool-Aid (We're talking the credo of THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA.) Everything is grass-fed, sustainable and never frozen. There is an impressive beer and wine list and an even more impressive chocolate shake. The buns hold up to the fresh juiciness of the patty and the french fries are ample, crisp, and perfect.

Park Burger is a straight forward burger joint with great drinks and classy art on the walls. Try it.

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Problem With Liberals

I just finished reading "Dean's Blind Spot" by Ronald Brownstein on The Daily Dish. Brownstein writes about what has been driving me crazy about health care reform, Afghanistan, Copenhagen, and Obama's falling approval ratings.

Let's talk about approval ratings before getting back to Brownstein. Obama's approval rating hovering around fifty percent (according to Karl Rove, the lowest of any new president at the end of the first year)is deceptive. Eight years ago the people who disapproved of Bush II's performance were united in their disdain, or disgust. United also were the fifty percent of the population who disapproved of Ronald Reagan's performance at the end of his first year. (Rove, not surprisingly, was wrong. Reagan's ratings were equal to if not worse than Obama's. Of course that fact would not be convenient to Rove's argument.)

In Obama's case, the disapproval is coming from totally different camps. Bill Maher, Howard Dean, Ed Schulz, and the like are screaming (You would think Dean would have learned about screaming!)because the bill will not include EVERYTHING they demand. Obama should get tough with Joe Leiberman they say. Bully the holdouts. Threaten the republicans. Stop trying to be bi-partisan. What they actually want is for Obama to be, well, Rovian. The conservative shouters, on the other hand, are screaming because the bill seems to be getting ANYTHING Obama wants. Even though THE HUFFINGTON POST disagrees, I suspect those approval numbers will jump dramatically once health care passes in some form because the necessity for posturing will be over.

As a liberal, I'm angry and frustrated that recalcitrance has become the republican default position. But I am more flabbergasted at the liberal reaction. After all, getting mad at republicans for wanting to cut services as they cut taxes is like getting mad at sharks for nibbling on swimmers. Is it possible that Bill Maher, Arianna Huffington, Howard Dean, et. al. really believed Obama and his non-majority majority would accomplish everything the campaign promised? Has there ever been such a campaign? Is it possible that all these liberals would be willing to cut off their nose to spite their face because the health care bill, while the biggest social program since The New Deal, is not perfect?

Back to Brownstein who says the biggest reason why so many liberals are abandoning the Obama bandwagon is because college educated white voters tend to be the demographic using the internet as its main information source and the internet "makes more noise" politically than just about anything you can think of. This is the demographic that Howard Dean mined in his ill-fated presidential bid. That demographic also provided the energy behind Obama's campaign, but it didn't stop there. It spread because of the nature of Obama and his promise.

According to Brownstein, the problem is that "college educated white voters . . . tend to see politics less as a means of tangibly improving their own lives than as an opportunity to make a statement about the kind of society they want America to be."

These statement makers don't have to really worry about health care. Approximately 97% of this group has great coverage. So the health care debate for them really is an intellectual exercise, a parliamentary battle like the kind they used to have in junior high when they first learned ROBERTS RULES OF ORDER.

They tend to forget that for millions of americans this is no parliamentary game; this is literally about life and death. They have neither the wherewithal nor the time to cruise the net every day to see what the pundits are saying. They don't have the time to wait for perfection.

Who does?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Christmas Traditions

When I was a boy in Estes Park our Christmas tradition was set in stone. All of the kids would be sent into the basement or the back bedroom early on Christmas Eve where we would be given games to play and admonished to stay put, otherwise Santa wouldn't come. By the time I got into junior high school and both of my sisters started reproducing like rabbits, the mob of kids in the back bedroom became almost more than I could bear.

While we were in seclusion, my mother, aunt, and grandmother would put up the tree and decorate it. We were never allowed to have a tree in our house before Christmas Eve. It just wasn't done.

Then my mother would ring sleigh bells to evoke Santa and we would all run out to the living room where we were greeted by a stunning tree decorated with generations of glass ornaments and tinsel. And underneath that tree was a miracle of presents. At least that is what it seemed like at the time.

After opening presents, normally a two to three hour orgy of materialism, we would all clean up and go to midnight mass at Our Lady of the Mountains. I always got a ride to church earlier than the others because I was the main altar boy in our youth group and one did not take that responsibility lightly. The church was always beautiful and the choir (my mother and aunt were altos; my grandmother was a bass) sang the Ave Maria, Gounod's version, and we were all filled with the wonder of the whole thing.

That tradition went away pretty much at the same time I grew up, got married, and had children of my own. So we substituted a new ritual around the holiday season and mostly with Katherine's family.

There is always the name drawing party the weekend after Thanksgiving. The extended family all shows up at Sharon and Roger's house for drinking, a little dancing, a lot of conversation, and finally dinner at around 9:30. As I get older it has become increasingly difficult to remain convivial all the way through dinner.

Then we have a family gift opening at our house. When Franny was a little girl she passed out the presents and paced the whole ordeal like a gifted head waiter. Since Franny has grown up, other young ones in the family have tried to take her place. In my opinion, they can never quite pull it off with Franny's aplomb.

Christmas Eve Chris and Nate would spend with their mother and Katherine and Franny and I would go to Mike and Barb's for a lovely dinner and small party. When we got home on Christmas Eve and got Franny into bed, we stuffed and put up the stockings with care. The next morning Mary would bring Chris and Nate back home. Actually, I would go and pick them up. And we would all gather round the tree and open the stockings and have cinammon rolls and hot chocolate or something equally Christmassy. Later that day we would go to Katherine's parents' house where we would meet Chuck and Teena, their kids, and Roger and Sharon. The gift opening that followed was always obscenely huge and more than a little embarassing. After that we would have a fancy dinner, invariably with mail order filet mignon and twice baked potatoes. Later that night everyone in the family would end up at Roger and Sharon's for more drinks and LATE night chili. Whew. End of holiday.

That tradition has changed as the kids have all grown up and moved away. We still have a name drawing and gift opening party for the family and we still go to Roger and Sharon's late Christmas night. As far as Christmas Day goes, Kathie and I spend the whole day making various tapas-like food and family and friends stop by throughout the day and visit, open presents, drink bloody marys, wine, beer, and sit around the kitchen table and eat. Late in the afternoon before heading to Roger and Sharon's we make Mario Batali's short rib recipe paired with Frank Bonnano's pirogi recipe and no one can get enough.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Why Is Economics More Important Than Morality?

Doug, a guy I work out with at the Y every morning and a past president of the Aurora teacher association, came up to me outside the weight room and whispered (There are lots of republicans at the Y so we have learned to be discreet) that someone had commented that universal health care should not be an economic issue, but a moral one. I think you will agree Doug's discovery is not a new one. The remarkable thing about Doug's comment is that he had to make it at all.

Why is it that everything the Obama phenomenon was predicated on was about doing the right thing, doing the moral thing, changing the atmosphere, and now everything is about what is practical, what is efficient, what will help the economy? When did this shift happen? The huge post war government programs both here and abroad were not responses to the question of what would be the most efficient and profitable thing to do, but what would be the moral thing to do.

If I approached the health care debate from an economic angle, I would be as passionately and irrationally against it as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck. I've got mine! It is a great plan. I don't want anything messing it up. As far as those people who don't have a plan as good as mine, or who have no plan at all, fuck 'em. I mean this is America (I'm resisting an impulse to spell that with a K). If you don't have health care it is likely to be your own fault. In any event it is not my problem. "Have we no poor houses?"

When I approach the debate from a moral perspective, my argument is embarassingly short. It is the right thing to do. The thought that it might raise my taxes, or alter the scope of my current benefits isn't even a factor in my considerations.

The problem with this position is that it seems laughable. People who heard the argument would all resist urges to pat me on the head before walking scornfully away. And yet, being the hopeless liberal I am, I am pretty convinced moral questions should take precedence over economic ones.

That is why I was so taken by Tondy Judt's "What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?" ("The New York Review of Books, December 17, 2009). His masterful essay starts with the question (much more eloquently and coherently stated) that I asked above. He doesn't go on to answer it so much as amplify it. I have to get this down so I can remember his arguments in case I want to lay waste some conservative friend.

He makes the point that we are the only democracy in the modern world that is not a social democracy. In fact, our traditional distrust of central government makes any other approach nearly impossible to visualize. Judt does allow for the fact that the USA is considerably larger and more diverse than other democracies and that diversity mitigates against a social element. In other words, if we all lived in a country the size of Montana and had a similar population base, we would have no problem establishing social institutions that would help out rancher Ben down in the valley when he hit on hard times because we know Ben would do the same for us. We trust him.

But the thing (one of the things) that has happened to dilute this social contract is privatization. The New Deal ushered in the idea that government had certain responsibilities to preserve the general good (postal delivery, regulation of public services, establishing roads, providing for defense, etc.). Even though many of my conservative friends would point out therein lies the source of all our current problems, Judt maintains that this governmental role helps serve as a buffer between the individual and the larger demands of a society. When you privatize many of these governmental roles, you end up with gated communities, both literally and figuratively. If you and your fellow community members put up your own fence (or pay for it through your homeowners) and hire your own security guards, are you still invested in society as a whole? Is there even such a thing as society any more? And if there is no longer a society as such, why in heaven's name should you feel the need to brunt the costs of someone else's healthcare, or unemployment,or foodstamps?

Now back to the question. Is it possible to make morally efficient or efficiently moral decisions? The question not only seems absurd, but beside the point. Judt gives a great example. He wants us to imagine the best way to run a railroad. If we simply ran express routes between big population centers with no stops in between, we would make a profit and the railroad would be efficient, but it would provide horrible service to those who live in one horse towns. If, on the other hand, we based the railroad on what is best for the customer, we would have local trains in addition to the express trains and those local trains would lose money. What to do? Don't ask Congress to decide!

Trains, mail, schools, health care are SOCIAL services. They can't be left to the vagaries of the market place. THEY WILL PROBABLY NEVER BE EFFICIENT OR PROFITABLE. That is just the nature of the beast.

But Judt does give us an uplifting end to his polemic. Maybe we should change the way we figure value? Maybe we should look at things that can't be so easily quantified as profit and loss? For instance, it is more efficient to simply give donations (food stamps, religious charities, etc.) to the poor than it is to fix the infrastructure in such a way as to ease the social humiliation of poverty and the huge disparity between rich and poor in this country (I read the other day in The Daily Beast that the disparity between rich and poor in the USA is greater than that of China. Startling information!) What is the COST of the humiliation that is indicative of the current system? The fact that we can't measure it doesn't take away from its importance. Maybe, as Judt says, if we considered the cost of the humiliation and despair of poverty, we might just discover that things like universal health care, subsidized transportion, and the guarantee of higher education might just be worth the investment. But there I go confusing economy with morality again.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

THE SELECTED WORKS OF T. S. SPIVET

THE SELECTED WORKS OF T. S. SPIVET
By Reif Larsen

This book is a literature teacher's dream. Name a trope about coming of age and you'll find it here. That could be bad and derivative and read like some horrible adolescent novel, the kind you'll find in high school reading labs, but in Larsen's wondrous book those tropes get enlarged and refined.

The most obvious comparison here is to CATCHER IN THE RYE. Our hero is a twelve year old genius cartographer who has recently lost his brother to an accident for which he feels culpable. His freakish abilities and insight make him estranged from everyone except his sister, Gracie, and his mentor, Dr. Yorn. His mother, at least in his eyes, is something of a failed scientist and his father is a gruff old rancher recovering from the loss of his son. So we have here a character just like Holden: brilliant, insightful beyond his years, isolated, and confused. And, just like Holden, T. S. goes on an odyssey of sorts to Washington D. C. and the Smithsonian which has somehow awarded him the Baird Fellowship and is expecting a Mr. T.S. Spivet to be in residence for the next six months.

On this improbable journey from his Montana ranch to the east coast, T. S. hops a freight train, amost gets stabbed to death by a religious fanatic, and hitches a ride from Chicago to D. C. from a truck driver reminiscent of the hipster trucker in Jim Dodge's NOT FADE AWAY. When the book finally settles in Washington and our hero's picaresque adventure comes to an end, everything slows down a little and to my taste seems to get side-tracked with some secret society weirdness that better belongs in a book by Dan Brown than here, but you can't have everything. All I can say is that riding along with T.S. Spivet between Montana and D.C. is a trip rich with discovery and insight.

Once T.S.'s roadtrip begins, he stumbles across the story of his great-grandmother's trip across country with the Hayden Expedition as a geologist as well as her romance with signalman Tecumseh Tearho Spivet. Generations of similarly named scientists, miners, artists, and ranchers ultimately lead, T.S. comes to realize, to his hoboing across country on this particular train or that particular semi on his way to that particular museum. You come of age by taking ownership of who you are and where you come from. It is a lesson that always comes in a flash of insight.

But enough about the story. I want to talk about the book itself. The hardcover edition I have in front of me from The Penguin Press (New York:2009) is the size and shape of a history textbook, which is to say that it has wide pages just right for holding lots of illustrations and graphs and, of course, maps. This kid maps everything and we get to see the results in the margins as he creates them. He polishes off maps of local water tables, maps of male pattern baldness, and a particularly nice map of grown men dancing, all drawn in one of his hundreds of meticulously organized notebooks. Along with the maps are fascinating sidebars exploring such questions as "When Does a Child Become an Adult?", or a chart depicting the evolution (or devolution) of the length of shorts in answer to the question, "When Did a Short Become a Pant?"

My advice is to postpone all further activity and go out and read THE SELECTED WORKS OF T.S.SPIVET.