Thursday, December 22, 2011

Crystallized Parenting

Katherine today.

It's December 22nd and it snowed all last night and I don't have to go any place and Franny's in-laws have arrived safely and there is food in the house. Jim has shoveled once and is psyching up for another go at it. As a life long feminist type, I feel odd I've only shoveled the walks several times in my life. I'm okay about it though. It looks pretty cold out there.

Mostly I'm waiting for Franny's baby girl to arrive. I've been thinking about this a long time. Because Franny has moved here, there are some things that are wonderfully immediate about the waiting experience.

I've discovered I'm constantly living on some sort of grandparental precipice. I feel this with Chris and his four kids--the grandkids we already know and love. I have thoughts and bits of advice or tidbits to share with he and Franny now and then and I don't always share what I'm thinking (hard to believe, but true). I also believe there's a lot of stuff you just have to learn on your own and you're best off if you do. Bringing a baby home from a hospital fits here. My purpose here is to catalogue the best parenting tips I can actually verbalize. None of these will cover bringing a baby home from a hospital.

I suppose I should explain how this list is organized. I've been trying to crystallize the things I liked about what Jim and I did as parents for the last several months. We certainly weren't perfect, but I feel good about a lot we've done as parents. Since October, when I could synthesize something into a statement that might actually make sense, I wrote it on a sticky note and stuck it my journal. The order of the following is based solely on the order that I crystallized a thought. I tried to limit my anecdotal comments, but there are still some included with my list of parental tidings. What can I say?

One last thing. These are not new insights and just because I participated in raising three kids, it doesn't make me an expert. It does, however, make me happy that I can look back and have a sense that what Jim and I did accidentally as parents over the course of years seems to have some sort of pattern when seen at a distance.

Crystallized Parenting:

1. Say yes when the request is not dangerous, when it does not upset the family budget beyond reason, when it does not upset family routines beyond reason, and when the request can foster genuine growth.

2. Have dinner together.

3. Have absurd rules. My favorite was for Chris: No tap dancing at the dinner table!

4. Weekly family rituals are good. The Broncos and nachos provided more familial glue than football success when the kids were little.

5. Realize each kid comes with a personality that is pretty much unchangeable. Could be brain chemistry, genes, food allergies, etc--explain it how you will, the personality arrives at birth. Enjoy it, revel in it, and point it in the right direction. Knowing the right direction is the hard part.

6. We chose praise and acceptance over criticism. Our whole family is addicted to praise. I've decided there are worse addictions. Along with praise and acceptance, there must also be some push to go further and do even better somehow.

7. Bedtime rituals are wonderful. Don't rush or skip them. Also good to carry your kids from the car to beds for as long as you possibly can. A hard part of growing up is having to wake up in the car and walk yourself from the backseat to the bedroom.

8. Talk about school every day, but don't talk about grades. Ask what happened in each subject (something always happened with curriculum and strategies to access content). Don't let up until you have detailed answers.

9. Cultivate family restaurant spots. We went to the Lakewood Bar and Grill and the Monterrey House with the boys. The Riviera and Romano's with Franny. I have fun imagining where Franny's family will hang out--Lou's Food Bar? Lola's? Mezcal's? The Brother's Bar? Bones?

10. Enjoy hanging out with other couples who have young kids. Our times with Barb and Michael and learning to be grown-ups with them are treasured times.

11. Find your family stories and rituals and create your family mythology.

12. Moms and Dads should go on dates.

13. Everybody in the family is entitled to secrets.

14. Restaurants are good places to deal with big events in the family. I'll forever remember how Jim and kids kept me together at the North Woods Inn the first time I learned about my cancer. Good news or bad news--you sort of have to behave in public. Also, we can detail the history of our family through the restaurants where news got shared.

15. Activities should come two ways. Expose kids to as much as you possibly can and watch the kids and they'll tell you where they want to go. Once you find a solid direction of interest, increase exposure and instruction and support in that area. Works in the arts, athletics, academics--anything really. Help your kids take risks if they are headed where they want to go.

16. Show up. Part of quality parenting is quantity. Seeing one performance is not as good as seeing two performances. Seeing them all is best. Jim never missed a single softball game and would not have missed a soccer game if the boys hadn't often been playing simultaneously. I've never understood the recent societal belief that quality somehow surpasses quantity. As a teacher and a parent I can tell you that's a crock. A student will write better if he or she writes until his or her arm falls off. One quality assignment here and there won't do it. Guiding your child means seeing your child a lot--even if that child chooses to be in Marching Band (it can happen). Quantity is hard. Really hard. It's important.

17. Hilary Clinton is correct. It takes a village. Let your kids have as many mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and friends as possible. Cultivate people and love them and let them love you.

18. Don't talk baby talk or talk down to your kids at any age.

19. Say "I love you" a lot. Hug a lot.

20. Strive for healthy habits. Enjoy cooking. Eat as fresh and as locally as you can. Avoid processed foods. Exercise in some way. Model healthy habits and don't ask kids to do what you do not.

21. Read in front of the kids and to the kids. When they read on their own, read the same books and talk to them about what they've read. Enjoy reading together.

22. Try not to censure, but to guide. Better to stretch the intellect and realize that it's better to be trained for the loss of innocence than to build a protection system that will never ever work. Just ask Rapunzel or Holden Caulfield. Franny always had to see films beyond her years in all ways because she was surrounded by grown-ups. It paid off--she was the only 4th grader whose favorite films included Shakespeare's Henry V (she named her gerbil Henry) and The Taming of the Shrew (she could hum the theme song while in the tub). We were always there when we took the kids into adult worlds (especially in theater, movies, and books) and that made the difference.

23. Point out happy things. In The Big Chill a character says, "I haven't seen that many happy people. What do they look like?" Jim and I used to have smiling drills in class. It's hard to be happy if you don't know what it looks like. It's part of why I like Tim Tebow. He looks happy. Anyway, remind your family how happy they are during happy times. The world works to make you forget that.

I suspect I'll discover other crystallizations in the future. They can wait. Right now I'm happy to wait for the new baby girl and watch as my daughter becomes an amazing mommy and she'll find the perfect way to harmonize her feminist soul with a beautiful little girl who may want to be a princess and paint her bedroom a truly terrible color of pink.




Wednesday, December 14, 2011

WHITE CHRISTMAS

Lone Tree Arts Center

I remember driving down to Mesa State years ago to see our son Chris in his first college production, Wind in the Willows. Looking back, I remember the prospect of seeing him perform outside the comfortable little world of Green Mountain High School, or Elitch Garden's Stax of Wax was a little scary. We were pretty sure Chris was good, but we were probably prejudiced. But seeing him on Mesa's main stage that day still remains one of the great moments of my life. He was better than I thought he was! Sweet vindication.

I had that same feeling driving to The Lone Tree Arts Center to see Starkey Production's White Christmas. Chris had been in Littleton Town Hall's production of the show last year and he thought this would provide a good vehicle to use for branching out into play production. Judging by the packed house, I would say he was right.

First of all, let's talk about the facility. While not as huge or as grand as its northern cousin, The Arvada Center, Lone Tree's 500 seat main stage, art filled atrium, and glass filled peaked facade has provided an impressive launch for an important regional arts center. My only complaint about the place is that there isn't a great restaurant next door. A pizza joint, yes, and all those mallish little outposts, but no Mizuna or TAG or Park Burger in sight. An enterprising restaurateur should take note.

Back to the show. White Christmas, like most Irving Berlin shows, is nothing more than a review of Berlin's music wrapped around a hammered together plot. But who cares. The music, for the most part ("What Can You Do With A General" might be an exception), is terrific. Add to this a strong cast and Wendy Duncan's choreography and you end up with a memorable night at the theater.

Be forewarned, the first scene starts the evening off slowly when the curtain opens on a huge stage with newsreel footage of WWII on an overhead screen. Below we find a small grouping of soldiers huddled around on Christmas Eve as Bob Wallace and Phil Davis regale them with Christmas standards. Quick freeze and cut to postwar Manhattan as Wallace and Davis star on Sullivan. From there we somehow get to a train traveling to Vermont and the fun part of the show begins. To this point all the musical numbers are terrific, but "Snow" stops the show. (I've always wanted to say "stops the show.")

To make a long story short, our heroes fall in love, save their old general from financial ruin, and put on a show in a barn. And at the end of the show there is even a bit of muted flag wagging. This is everything a Christmas audience could want and it is delivered with pace and class.

Even though some of the earlier expository dialogue is lost to the flashy musical numbers, things begin to smooth out by the time the scene moves to Vermont. Deborah Persoff as Martha Watson, the Inn's concierge, is one performer who is powerful enough to fill the big stage and nearly walks off with the show. I liked her here better than last year in the same role at Town Hall. That stage was just too small for her.

Randy St. Pierre and Chris as Wallace and Davis sound terrific together. St. Pierre wisely gets out of the way on dance numbers and Chris tones down his big voice to blend perfectly with all of his partners on stage. Chris' two dance numbers, "The Best Things Happen When You're Dancing," and "I Love a Piano," are better than the same numbers last year at Town Hall. First of all, there is room to move. Second, all the girls in the chorus are dancers and the guys at least move well enough to fake it from upstage. But I think the best thing about the choreography is that it isn't overly ambitious. It doesn't ask the chorus to do more than it can, and yet it is powerful and full of energy. And of course there is Chris up front in each number leading the way.

Brianna Firestone and Leslie Frankel are wonderful as the Haynes sisters. I'm especially glad that Leslie is thin enough for Chris to lift in the dance numbers.

Most especially, Paul Page takes the sappy General Waverly part and makes it interesting. I actually found myself tearing up during his last speech, which is especially remarkable because I'm usually looking at my watch as final curtains approach.

High praise for having real musicians. Your five piece combo (Jeremy waling on sax) is jazzy and loud and the transition to recorded music for the production numbers is seamless.

So what is the message here? Postpone all further activities and get tickets for White Christmas at The Lone Tree Arts Center. Last night is December 23.

Vindicated once again.


Thursday, December 8, 2011

I Never Got A Ham!

Life has been so wonderful lately that I have had nothing to blog about. It would be unseemly if I simply shared all the good stuff that I have been feeling, plus it is no fun to write about stuff without being sarcastic.

Luckily I found something in this morning's POST that pissed me off enough to stop watching reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show and come down here to the computer. "Alabama OK with apple for teacher but not an iTunes card" reads the headline on the little sidebar blurb on page 8A.

After the passage of a new ethics law, Alabama teachers may face fines of $1000 and up to a year in jail for accepting gifts from students in excess of $25 in value. The article specifically targets hams and $25 dollar gift cards as examples of holiday excess directed toward teachers. However, homemade cookies, coffee mugs (presumably with "World's Greatest Teacher" printed on them), and fruit baskets are okay, the article asserts.

Now that takes all the fun out of teaching right there. I remember throwing an extra garbage bag into the car the last day of school before Christmas break just to carry home all the largesse I knew I would score.

I'm kind of glad I didn't get a ham. First of all I couldn't bear the mental picture of some nerdy sophomore boy being forced to lug twelve pounds of pork to school in his already overfull backpack. And then what if I had the kid during first period? Where would I put the ham? The minifridge in the the lang arts office would already be full of salads and desserts for our last day pot luck lunch. And it would be embarrassing sneaking the thing into our house with the neighbors looking out their collective windows, armed with yet more proof of the profligacy of public education.

Come to think of it, In thirty-years I never saw a single colleague get a ham from a student. Although, I did get a bag of elk jerky once. It was very good washed down with a cold Negra Modelo.

I can't imagine how such legislation would have impacted my career in the classroom. On the first day of class I would always let the kids know I was aware of the difficulty of choosing just the right occasional gifts for teachers. When I was in school, I struggled with that just like they will struggle, I assured them. Then I would offer suggestions. Chocolate chip cookies--NO NUTS--were always welcome. If homemade, so much the better. I let them know that on movie days it was always appropriate to bring some extra popcorn--Jolly Time popped by hand on the stove--for the teacher. I realize that my gift list was modest in terms of price, but I wonder if my pandering would go against the spirit of the law?

The fact of the matter is that we never needed the extra garbage bag. My briefcase would usually do the trick. Although, we have gotten some great gifts and we've always accepted them as our due. I still have the black Cross pen Dane Erickson gave me his senior year. In fact, I would be lost without it. It is the only utensil I can use when doing crossword puzzles each morning.

One lovely young lady in CCB gave us a year long membership to the Denver Art Museum! If Colorado had had a similar law back then, I would have been breaking the law to accept it. Ethics be damned. We enjoyed the museum that year and especially liked the newsletter.

Katie Haeck gave Kathie a very pricey basket that still sits on our brass top table impressing visitors. We've also received gift certificates to expensive restaurants and some pretty impressive bottles of wine.

But mostly it was cookies and cards with an occasional apple thrown in for good measure. We would go home with our prizes and put them under the tree if they were still wrapped. Kathie was always happy with how festive it made the house look. I was always busy counting, seeing who got the most.


Monday, November 21, 2011

Legitimate News Vs. Cynical Manipulation

A Focused Free Writing

The next time you watch the Broncos play, turn the sound down and pretend the quarterback you are watching is the media's darling. His arm is golden. He sees the field. His footwork is solid and he does not make mistakes. Then evaluate Tebow's performance through that prism.
Now, turn the tables and tune in the next time the Patriots play. Turn the volume down and pretend that in Tom Brady you are watching an inept bungler who has no business starting in a professional football game. I predict you will be surprised at the results. All of Tebow's passes that used to be arrant have now been broken up by good defense, or should have been caught, or would have been caught had the receiver not cut his route short. And his successes? The great touchdown pass to Decker in the Oakland game? Ditto his pass up the middle to Decker for a touchdown against Kansas City? Instead of being momentary aberrations in an otherwise hapless quarterback, they have become yet more evidence of Tebow's sure fire admittance to the hall of fame.

On the other hand, Tom Brady becomes a stiff. His once brilliant survey of the field becomes the result of a great offensive scheme. Any overthrown balls, instead of being attributed to the loss of speed at the wide receiver position, have become inexcusable mistakes. If he leads his team to victory, it is now a fluke to be marveled at as we wait until next week to see if he can repeat this miracle.

We are slaves to this media supplied filter, but it serves us right because thinking on our own has become just too damn hard. There is too much info out there to wade through and it is nearly impossible to distinguish legitimate news from cynical manipulation.

There was a brief little story on television this morning about the recent controversy over oil deposits around DIA and its environs that would require fracking in order to access the stuff. The news crew reported that precious few residents of the area knew what fracking was and were angry that they hadn't been more thoroughly informed about the down sides to the procedure--like the elimination of our water table. This piece of information was accompanied by televised images of the confused residents. I think we were supposed to feel sorry for them.

I don't think the Great Fracking Controversy has any clear cut answers, but the uninformed residents only made me mad. How could you live in this decade and not be familiar with the term? And why don't you go out and find out for yourself what it means and what its implications are?

You see, I think the presupplied media filter we are given for any situation has conditioned us to wait to be told things. As boring as a droning lecturer can be, if you just play the stupid game it is kind of easy to get by. Even though the spin on cable news makes the truth impossible to discern, it is a lot easier to listen to Fox or MSNBC and their versions of "Obamacare" than it is to actually read that unbelievably boring document.

So we end up believing all sorts of contradictory things. Fox News devotees believe that computerizing medical records will lead to the scary world of Big Brother and Communism. MSNBC folks believe that computerizing medical records will save money and that Republican naysayers have been bought and paid for.

Fox News listeners think the main issue in the next election is whether or not we should raise taxes. If the right wing manages to frame the issue in those terms, the results of the election are easy to predict. MSNBC types, on the other hand, think the main issue in the next election is whether or not we should preserve our social safety net. This is a completely different way to frame the same issue and would result in a different vote.

I was thinking about all of this as I was reading The New York Times this Sunday. I was struck by the number of straight news articles that would elicit completely contradictory reactions, depending on the reader.

There is an article on page one that talks about the V-22 Osprey, a $70 million hover aircraft the Marines use in Afghanistan. It seems that the Marines love the machine, even though it has an alarmingly high failure rate. Congress has been debating the fate of the Osprey since the Bush Administration and the Marines, fearful of impending budget cuts when the "SuperCommittee" (There's a misnomer if there ever was one.) fails to reach an agreement, are busy showcasing their craft by giving dignitaries rides to and from the Pentagon.

My reaction is one of bemusement. I'm going to enjoy hearing the Republicans rationalize why we can't let the automatic trigger touch this cool aircraft, so lets raise social security age to 70. My conservative friends at the Y and some more that I used to teach with would not appreciate my sense of irony and would instead be shaking their collective heads over yet another example of the misplaced priorities of the Obama Administration.

Another article on the front page is about suspect programs in the nation's law schools. It seems that law schools spend most of their time talking, reading, and thinking theory and precious little time teaching the practical side of the law. Now, anybody who as ever seen My Cousin Vinnie already knows this, but you get the idea. To illustrate this problem, the article sites a course offering in a typical law school: "A Future Foretold: Neo-Aristotelian Praise of Post-modern Legal Theory."

My reaction? Cool. The Aristotle class sounds good. I think law school should be about theory and thinking and arguing and being obnoxious. You know, all those things that lawyers are. How hard can it be to figure out how to file a merger or file a complaint? If Joe Pesci can do it, anyone can.

But others would be furious that a lot of tax dollars end up susidizing a lot of this time wasted on phony things like Aristotle and obscure court cases.

Finally, an article appears on page 13 that really highlights our divergent filters for looking at any issue: "Deficit Panel Faces a Rift Over Who Ought To Pay." I don't have to go into particulars. I think the panel will fail and ultimately Congress will fail to come up with any bipartisan plan because Republicans simply refuse to consider raising taxes and therefore a compromise is impossible. My Republican friends would snort at my naivete and say the Democrats' refusal to cut entitlements makes any compromise impossible.

Neither one of those positions is an accurate statement of the situation, but this isn't about accuracy. This is about creating and sustaining media generated illusions and winning the next election.

And betting on the intellectual laziness of the American people is a good way to start.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

NEMESIS

by Philip Roth

If I were still teaching Advanced Placement, I would add this book to the reading list as a point of comparison during any discussion of tragedy. A number of reviewers have touted it as a modern day tragedy just dripping with Greekness in the same way that they touted Edgar Sawtelle, the canine upgrading of Hamlet that was all the rage a couple of years ago. Roth's novel contains all the elements of tragedy except the most important, a great soul who can feel deeply. That isn't to say that it is a disappointing novel. It isn't. Like everything Roth writes, it is topical, witty, innovative, and nearly impossible to ignore.

Bucky Cantor, our hero, is a young, bespectacled man who seems to carry misfortune around with him like a cloak. His mother died in child birth and his father, an inveterate gambler, was sent to prison for two years and never returned to Newark. Bucky ended up with his grandparents and managed to live a good life. He became a great athlete and diver, notwithstanding his rotten vision. Much to Bucky's shame, his vision kept him out of the army during the 1944 build up of WWII. Instead he ends up as a teacher, lifeguard, coach, and summer playground director in Newark.

Of course, this smattering of good fortune is interrupted by the Newark polio epidemic of 1944 and Bucky is so disturbed by the mounting number of dead or dying boys and girls that he, convinced he must be doing more harm than good, rationalizes an escape to the Poconos and the summer camp where his fiancee works.

Life at camp is good. Bucky's life is a lot like Bill Murray's in Meatballs, or it would be if Bucky were a little less serious. But when even the camp isn't safe from the epidemic, Bucky becomes convinced that he is a carrier. And becomes further convinced that this God everyone keeps worshipping is at best an incompetent bungler and at worst an evil inventor of ways to torment the innocent.

It should be no surprise that Bucky contracts the disease, or maybe he was a carrier. At the end we see him bitter and alone, talking with the novel's narrator who finally reveals himself at the end in a Rothian tour de force manipulation of point of view.

So why isn't all this tragic? I loved Bucky and worried about him and all the little kids he cared for. I knew he wasn't going to survive the book unscathed, so I was filled with all the dread I needed for a catharsis. But I'm sorry Bucky. I knew Hamlet and you're not him.

Bucky mostly reminds me of The Chief, Salinger's hero in "The Laughing Man." John Gedsudski, The Chief, loved his little Central Park charges. He regaled them with stories and feats of mythic proportions on the playing fields of Manhattan. He was their hero for one perfect summer and he let an unrequited love ruin that world for a little while.

The Chief disappears and his charges are left disillusioned. Bucky's charges die and disappear and he is the one left in disillusionment.

His initial heroism on the playground standing up to the epidemic, consoling kids and parents alike, was admirable. And when he eventually turns his gaze toward the heavens and literally shakes his fist at the gods, he verges on the brink of the tragic stance. But he loses sight of the gods when his sacrifices for the good of others seem more like petulant bursts of egotism than the stuff of tragic heights.

Finally, this reminds me of my comparison of Freedom to Anna Karenina last year. Why does great literature have to be ponderous and difficult to read? Why is Tolstoy better than Franzen or Roth? The obvious answer is that their characters are greater souls than the ones Franzen and Roth create. I would have to agree, but hasten to add that American Realism doesn't lend itself to the tragic emotion the way Russian Romanticism does.

Bucky is just an everyday schmuck with a past no more troubled or blessed than lots of ordinary schmucks' lives. He rises to the challenges of his life with love and courage and fear and rationalizations and recriminations just like a lot of people would. Watching his story unfold is fascinating and poses all sorts of great questions about fate, panic, despair, blame, and the way communities deal with inexplicable loss.

This book was made to be taught to high school seniors in Advanced Placement.

* * * * *

A SMALL DIGRESSION

Have you heard about the Unluckiest Man In The World?

When he was just a child--confirmation age--he was at a church picnic during the spring. He was out in left field watching his parents sitting together on the bleachers cheering him on just like they always did when a lightening bolt came out of nowhere and turned both mother and father into cinders.

The kindly parish priest invited the poor orphan to come and live in the basement of the church. There our hero stayed through high school, shoveling coal into the furnace and chasing rats out of the same church basement where he was sodomized twice a week by the old man in the flowing cassock.

But ever resilient, he escaped the church and managed to get himself all the way to NYU in New York City where he began to study drama. Things went well for his undergraduate years and when he went to his first audition he even landed a lead part in a new production being mounted that year.

Of course, on the way to his first rehearsal he was crossing 42nd Street when he caught his foot in a street grate and a Federal Express van, in the act of parking, crushed our poor friend's ankle.

Needless to say, he was replaced by his understudy, a strange, brooding young man named Marlon Brando, who went on to win his first Tony for his performance in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Our hero never really recovered from that disappointment. His ankle never returned to normal and he made a living by teaching drama in a local Catholic high school.

But one day he did get a call from a long lost acquaintance in Los Angeles who had remembered his audition for Street Car all those years ago. He offered him a part in a new sit com and told him to get right out to LA.

The Unluckiest Man In The World got his ticket and was flying happily 30,000 feet above Iowa when he noticed that the far left propeller had stopped turning. Soon, a gentleman across the aisle shouted that the far right propeller had also stopped. As the remainder of the propellers stopped working, our hero sighed and walked slowly up to the front of the plane and entered the cockpit.

"Excuse me, but I know how to get the plane safely down."

The pilots were ready for any suggestion.

"You see, I am The Unluckiest Man In The World and the props are going out because of me. Just give me a parachute and let me jump and the rest of you will be fine."

In no position to argue, they gave him a parachute and sent him out the nearest door. No sooner had he started his descent than all four engines whirred back to life.

Our hero smiled and pulled his rip cord.

You'll never guess what happened.

That's right.

So he pulled the emergency cord.

Yep, you guessed it.

Finally out of options and plummeting to earth, The Unluckiest Man In The World put his hands together in prayer.

"St. Francis, my patron saint. If you've ever helped me help me now."

And a big hand came out of a cloud and grabbed The Unluckiest Man In The World. And with a booming voice asked, "ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI OR ST. FRANCIS XAVIER?"

"Xavier," The Unluckiest Man In The World replied.

And with that the big hand opened up and dashed the scrawny body to the earth in disgust.





Wednesday, November 9, 2011

SHOP CLASS AS SOUL CRAFT by Matthew B. Crawford

And some random connections

If Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a philosophical-literary-psychological exploration of the Ideal vs. the Real, Plato vs. Aristotle, and the virtue of honest work, than Crawford's book explores those same issues from an economic and political angle.

There is no Phaedrus, no kid to take care of, and no one teeters on the brink of psychosis, at least no one we care about. Instead, Shop Class As Soulcraft is exactly as advertised in its subtitle: An inquiry into the value of work.

This book's thesis should be familiar to anyone growing up in America the same time I did, meaning all of us at or nearing retirement age. We don't work with our hands anymore. No one does. Even though I was completely inept as a young man, I could at least open the hood of a car and have some recognition of the parts of an internal combustion engine and their purposes. I see nothing remotely familiar under the hood of my Inifiniti. If my transistor radio broke back in 1964, I was expected to make a feeble attempt to figure out the problem and fix it. Sometimes I actually succeeded and those were great moments. I couldn't break into a new radio today if my life depended on it. If something goes wrong, the stupid contraption gets disposed of and replaced by a new one.

My sister's washing machine broke down the other day and her husband, a man who knows how to work with his hands if there ever was one, tried to fix the thing. After a few futile days and confronted with the reality of the bits and pieces of what was once a washer in front of him, Dick finally called for the repairman. After paying the guy to recollect the machine into some semblance of order and to cart it off, Dick bought a new machine. He would have saved time, money, and piles of dirty clothes if he would have just bought a new one in the first place.

In short, we are becoming increasingly cut off from our tools and therefore from the world of experience. Work of all kinds has become trivialized, computerized, organized, and assembly-lined. It has become symptomatic of the larger societal dichotomy, the separation of thinking from doing.

There was a time when work had a kind of dignity and the worker was vitally connected to the fruits of his labors. Then Henry Ford came along with his assembly line and put into practice the thinking of Frederick Winslow Taylor's Principles of Scientific Management. Scientific Management! In other words, the movements of labor were analyzed, stream lined, parcelled out, measured, controlled, and most importantly, timed. Workers became parts of a machine and there was no real connection between their work and the finished product.

It is interesting that in 1913 when the assembly line at the Ford plant was going full bore, there was such a flight of workers from the factory that for every hundred positions it was necessary to hire 963!

How do you end up controlling your workers when they find themselves in such degrading jobs? It worked in the good old USA because we invented advertising and were able to dangle the fruits of their labor in front of them so tantalizingly that they became consumers, consumers in need of even more money. And when they didn't have the cash, they borrowed. Before they knew it, working in assembly lines was the only way to feed the fever.

So, the idea of wages as compensation was born to justify the intolerable conditions for labor.

All of this takes its most interesting turn in a discussion of the difference between The Crew and The Team. He makes an important distinction between Real Work--the kind that produces a tangible product, like a plumbing installation or a rebuilt motorcycle engine, that can be seen and judged--and not-so-real work that results in ideas that can neither be seen nor judged, like the work of a college professor or a think tank. Real work is done by men and women in crews. These crews are characterized by a hierarchy based on experience, a division of labor, accountability to the customer and to one another because the result of the crew's work is visible and measurable. Social problems, historical analyses, recommendations from the social sciences, investment advice, all are done by teams. Teams are characterized by group dynamics, consensus, brainstorming. Where hierarchy is essential for a crew to function (you don't want an apprentice plumber telling a journeyman how to do a job), it is anathema for a team. This just further exemplifies our cultural disconnect between thinking and doing. The following quote sums this up best.

Not surprisingly, it is the office rather than the job site that has seen the advent of speech codes, diversity workshops, and other forms of higher regulation. Some might attribute this to the greater mixing of the sexes in the office, but I believe a more basic reason is that when there is no concrete task that rules the job--an autonomous good that is visible to all--then there is no secure basis for social relations. Maintaining consensus and preempting conflict become the focus of management, and as a result everyone feels they have to walk on eggshells. Where no appeal to a carpenter's level is possible, sensitivity training becomes necessary.

Look at what happened to Green Mountain High School in particular and all schools in general. The job at school is not measurable in the sense that I can use a level to check a frame I just pounded together. Yeah, our country has spent my lifetime trying to figure out ways to measure the work of schools, but, contrary to all you CSAPers out there, has yet to come up with anything that really works. Therefore, at the end of my career we were all walking around on eggshells with each new contradictory directive and each rehash of last year's educational panacea. No one knew what was expected because what was expected kept changing with each knee-jerk reaction.

I think the main reason Crawford wrote this book was to point out the bad rap we give practical education, the Doing half of the dichotomy. As a society we place a higher value on the thinker, the white collar worker. We pay them more. We elect them to make decisions for us. We seem to think that they are some how better trained in analytical thinking. But Crawford strongly asserts, and my experience corroborates this, that there is AT LEAST as much analytical thinking going on in a carpenter's head late at night when he is wide awake in bed trying to figure how to compensate for a house with no right angles, or a plumber trying to figure out a tricky installation.

He just wants us to realize that there is plenty of nobility to go around, a nice thought.

My point, finally, isn't to recommend motorcycling in particular, not to idealize the life of a mechanic. It is rather to suggest that if we follow the traces of our own actions to their source, they intimate some understanding of the good life.

Crawford ends his book by making some political and economic points that are quite appropriate for today. To be mercifully brief, he contrasts the idea that we have an "obligation to others" to the notion that we should act in "solidarity with others." Acting in solidarity is what happens when we acknowledge the nobility of all types of work and, most important, that we live in a shared world. He ends his essay with a magnificent statement.

Such a sociable individuality contrasts with the self-enclosure that is implicit in the idea of "autonomy," which means giving a law to oneself. The idea of autonomy denies that we are born into a world that existed prior to us. It posits an essential aloneness; an autonomous being is free in the sense that a being severed from all others is free. To regard oneself this way is to betray the natural debts we owe to the world, and commit the moral error of ingratitude. For in fact we are basically dependent beings: one upon another, and each on a world that is not of our making.

In "E.O. Wilson's Theory of Everything" (The Atlantic, November 2011.),Howard W. French writes about a controversial evolutionary biologist's take on this very idea of autonomy.

Now, I never was fortunate enough to take Bio II with C. Fite, so I am not as conversant with Darwin and Stephen Jay Gould and the rest as I probably should be, so bear with me for a little while. First of all, Wilson and Gould are not particularly fond of each other. Wilson thinks Gould fudges on his research and Gould thinks Wilson's conclusions approach the delusional. Like I've always said, there is nothing more fun than a good evolutionary debate.

There is a hot national debate going on among biologists concerning the kin-selection theory and the idea, promoted by Wilson, of eusociality. We can best understand this by looking at ants. Wilson loves ants. Darwinism suggests that individuals within a species will make the necessary adaptations to preserve their genes. How does this account for the behavior of female ants in a colony who sacrifice their reproductivity to the queen? Wilson says that ants, like humans, are eusocial, meaning they unselfishly put the good of the group over the good of the individual. Having a queen control reproduction frees the rest of the ants, both male and female, to protect the community against those pesky termites. Protecting the community, while not necessarily the best thing for the individual, is the best way to insure the survival of the species.

I always have this argument with people, especially conservatives. This is a society built on cooperation, not competition. If we are to survive it will be through cooperation.

In the studies Wilson has done, he discovered that within the confines of a group, selfish individuals seemed to prosper more than the selfless, but he also discovered that groups characterized by selfless rather than selfish behavior, prospered more than their selfish counterparts. I wish republicans in Congress would heed that lesson. The article ends with the following wonderful passage.

Group selection brings about virtue, and individual selection, which is competing with it, creates sin. That, in a nutshell, is an explanation of the human condition.




Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Schools and Snow

I've always liked schools on those days--one or two a semester--when snow makes districts across the state teeter on the brink of canceling classes. Those are the days when classrooms are one third full with kids carrying heavy parkas and shod in moon boots and they all sit around talking about how hard it was to get to school and how stupid the superintendent is for not canceling. I liked hanging out in the otherwise idle classroom with those few hearty souls, drinking coffee, catching up on gossip, sometimes even talking about classwork, letting kids go out to the cafeteria to get hot chocolate. On days when the snow looked particularly beautiful, I'd get the class to go outside with me and make snow angels.

I would periodically walk out of my windowless classroom and down to the door at the end of the hall to check out the weather. There would usually be a small and ever changing group of teachers huddled around the little window, speculating on when the superintendent would tell us to close up shop, guessing at the road conditions and the chances of making it home without major delays.

If I was lucky, I would have left all of my papers in need of grading at home so I could waste my planning period in the lounge drinking coffee and bitching about suspect decision making skills at the district level. Back in the good old days before smoking was banned, the lounge would be filled with smoke and loud stories from jaded assistant principals with nothing else to do but regale us with school humor and inside stories.

Somewhere around eleven when the honchos finally cancelled school, we would all bond in the unplowed parking lot, window scrapers in hand, custodians coming around with battery chargers, hapless kids looking forlornly out at Green Mountain Drive for any signs of a ride. We truly were a community on days like those. More than once we stayed around till the lot was empty, pushing and jumping cars, giving frozen kids a ride home and then coming back up the hill for more.

The communal nature of the whole thing started in the morning. Just like everyone else, we would pile in the car with the radio tuned to KOA so we could listen for closures. (Once, we were about to turn off Kipling to Jewell just as we heard that Jeffco was closed. Another time we got the news as we pulled into the parking lot.) Usually, by the time we reached the bottom of Green Mountain Drive the hope of getting to school on time was a distant memory and we were reconciled to the long wait going up the hill. Back in the seventies and eighties, four wheel drive was a rarity and so Green Mountain Drive become one long and slippery parking lot on snowy mornings.

This was all complicated by the fact that a goodly number of those futilely spinning their tires were beginning drivers with no clue how to deal with snow and ice. We would get out of our cars with mugs of hot coffee and talk to each other about the crisp weather and listen to the whirr of spinning tires as first hour slowly slid into second.

See, I've discovered something else I miss about teaching. Those were great times with great kids and colleagues. (The ones who weren't so great normally stayed home at any excuse.) I miss the anticipation of the night before. I miss convincing myself that we will get snowed out, so I can watch the football game instead of grading those essays. I miss waking in the middle of the night to look out the window at the snow. Smiles and relief if the snow is falling. Despair and existential nausea if the weather is clear. I miss hanging on the weather forecast's every word. I miss the manly feeling of driving your family safely across snow and ice in the dead of winter.

Now it just isn't the same. I don't have dreams about snowfall. I don't worry about my kids missing that all-important CSAP practice test. I'm neither disappointed nor relieved by the morning's weather. I make some coffee, shovel the walk so all the kids can get to class unobstructed, wait for the paper man to show, and play Scrabble on my iPhone. Weather? What weather?

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

That's The Trouble With iPhones, You Have To Check Them Every Minute



I am following with interest the saga of former student and current friend Katie Hoffman's adventures with her new iPhone. She discovered just the other day, for example, that there is a compass in the utilities app, a piece of information like that could come in quite handy at times.

I'm thinking of my own experience with my iPhone and with all technology for that matter. My iPhone has essentially ruined my life in the same sense that our 60 inch plasma television has ruined my life.

There are all these apps to keep track of and I've discovered that you do have to watch them every minute. I used to shake my disapproving head at all the smart phone users constantly checking their devices (calling them phones is no longer adequate), being careful never to lose contact with the rest of the world for more than a few minutes at a time.

Now, I'm right there with them. There is the weather app for instance. I can flick this little icon and instantly get weather conditions in New York City (Nate and Ashley), Jackson Hole (Jenny Lake), Belize City (San Pedro), Washington, D.C. (Franny and Ken, but I'll have to change that now), St. Helena (Napa Valley), Denver (of course), and Gstad (like Dan Akyroyd in Trading Places).

Then there is my green message icon in the upper left corner. I check it at every opportunity just in case someone might be trying to get in touch with me. No one ever is. Of course, I have to check Face Book regularly for the same reason. I normally get the same result.

If I get in an argument with someone I can whip out my iPhone and Google things to prove my points. If I'm reading a book--something I do less of now that I have to devote so much time to my iPhone--I can check the definition of words with a flick of my thumb. If I am walking through the woods and hear an unfamiliar bird's song, I can open up my Audubon app and identify the new species.

I have a New York Times Crossword Puzzle app that is in constant use, especially on Mondays through Wednesdays when the puzzles are easier. I am beginning to distrust this app however. I finished a Thursday puzzle in under eleven minutes the other day and the rush of pleasure I felt when the machine played its congratulatory fanfare was immediate and intense. But when the stupid program showed my ranking compared to other players around the globe, I discovered some player from Florida (probably some retired guy with too much time on his hands) had solved the puzzle in 2:20. 2:20! I don't think I could manipulate the little keyboard fast enough to fill in the whole puzzle in that time even if I knew every word. There's something underhanded going on, but I'm going to let it pass. I don't want to get too crazy over the whole thing.

The most dangerous app of all is Scrabble.

I remember back to a simpler time. There I was in my pajamas curled up in an armchair in our living room in Estes Park. My grandmother in her housecoat sat in another chair with a cup of coffee and a Lucky Strike both curling smoke. On the table in between, the Scrabble board was laid out with tiles forming an elaborate cross-hatch. Gram took charge of the dictionary, ready to challenge every obscure word. I loved those quiet early mornings together.

Fast forward twenty years. Kathie, Chris, Nate, Franny in an infant seat, and I hunched over a Scrabble board spread out in front of our 14 inch TV at 3510 Teller in Wheat Ridge. This time I manned the dictionary and Nate, with his instinct for the jugular even in grade school, won more often than not.

I think either one of those scenes would make a great study by Norman Rockwell. The American Family At Home, Circa 1980.

Kiss all that goodbye. Franny, Ken, Kathie, and I all have Scrabble apps on our phones, so we are in a constant Scrabble marathon. That's a good thing, but the way this family Scrabble-fest manifests itself is sometimes a little too Orwellian for my tastes. I first came to this conclusion about a week ago when all four of us were upstairs watching some guy on the Food Network try to eat a ten pound burrito, or a fifteen pound omelet, or something of equal magnitude. In the little box next to Kathie's chair sat our unopened family Scrabble board, looking every bit of its 4o years. And there were the four of us, heads bent over our iPhones playing our solitary games together.

Ever on the lookout for irony, I made note of this juxtaposition. Here was one scene Norman Rockwell would never paint. I would have dwelled on this idea longer, but then Kathie made a 45 point play on the triple letter square in the bottom right-hand corner and there I was with just one vowel.

Friday, October 21, 2011

I Want to Be Gwyneth Paltrow, Tebow's Cool, Knitting Barometers, and What's Left Over

Katherine today.

I've been very busy with work, Franny's move to Denver (ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!), knitting deadlines, and all sorts of household flotsam that's too silly to explain. I've had numerous impulses to write and skipped the important note-taking step and have lost track of even the faintest glimpse of what I intended to write about and so I'm writing today in an effort to get something down before it vanishes. It's a scary proposition.

I think I'll formulate this as a list. I'd like to think I could organize my thoughts into something coherent by finding a thread that holds it all together, but it's not going to happen. I'm not sure why anybody would care, but here's some stuff on my mind of late:

1. Gwyneth Paltrow. She's perfect. She can read Shakespeare well enough to earn her an Oscar and cook light regional Italian meals and publish a cookbook full of her original recipes. She can sing country western songs and work out with Madonna. She married the lead guy in Cold Play and he's witty and humble and not the typical goregous rock star. I think I want to be Gwyneth Paltrow.

2. We had Chinese food delivered one day last week. Several days later I ate the last fortune cookie after reading my fortune: "Everything you are against, weakens you." Whoa. I actually thought about that. It's not really a fortune and I've been bummed over the last several years that fortune cookies rarely have actual fortunes anymore, but it certainly stopped me in my tracks. I think it's the only time a fortune cookie has actually made me think.

I understand that I could get a really good paragraph here about conservative politics and some sort of significant irony that's embedded in all this. I'm just not up to it. It's just too sad.
I'm trying to think of things in terms of what I'm for and not what I'm against. I'm in favor of natural fibers instead of being opposed to synthetic fibers. I'm in favor of natural foods instead of being opposed to processed and packaged foods. I'm in favor of regulating banks and corporations and reforming taxes to distribute the burdens more fairly instead of being opposed to uniform greed. I'm feeling myself getting stronger all the time.

3. I like Tim Tebow. I didn't expect to. Before I decided I wouldn't be against things anymore, I was probably against Tim Tebow. Too much religion and goody-goody stuff. Too much effort. Just too much.

As I said, I like him now. Tebow hasn't talked about religion. He's charismatic and I find it impossible not to want him to make this work out. He somehow got his fellow draft-mates to run an 18 hole golf course (sit-ups and push-ups at each hole) one night at their rookie symposium. He looks really good in the underwear he's selling. I don't know. I just want him to do well and make the Broncos fun to watch for a while.

4. Jim made a pumpkin pie yesterday. He makes wonderful pies. The pumpkin filling is laced with Scotch and the crust is really flaky and it's my favorite pie in the world. Franny had us over for dinner (Ahhhhhhh) and we brought the pie. She made a wonderful European-style fondue dinner (The Melting Pot isn't it) and it was just really nice. Her place looks great. It was a nice family time. We cook a lot in this family.

5. When my emotions are crazy and I knit rows, the rows remain the same. Self-pity does not change my knitting stitch size. Emotions do, however, affect the size of my purled stitches. I thought you'd want to know.

6. I wish FaceBook hadn't changed. I know that FB is really all about how we are changing what we do and what we think and who we are all the time. Still, I wish it hadn't changed.

7. I'll miss Jobs and the ability to make technology cool.

I think I'll stop here. I'm hungry and I'll go scrounge for something to eat. I have to have the body of a sweater knitted before my knitting class next Wednesday night and I better go upstairs and knit, knit, knit. I don't want to be in the slackers corner at knitting class.

Thanks for listening.
K.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Moneyball - Michael Lewis

I just finished Michael Lewis' latest book. It was a quick and interesting read which will surely make a good movie, but I don't see much beyond that. I enjoyed the way Lewis skewered Conventional Wisdom, baseball style. The Oakland A's approach to baseball under the guidance of general manager Billy Beane went counter to the rest of baseball, yet managed to produce more wins (BEFORE PLAYOFFS) than any other team save the Yankees.

Billy Beane did it with the league's smallest payroll and smartest approach. He discounts the conventional wisdom that applauds sacrifice bunts, stolen bases, high averages, and bodies built like Mickey Mantle and trades that all for patience at the plate, high on-base percentages, walks, and long balls. The statistical studies that he became devoted to proved the good old boy ethos of professional baseball was flat wrong about its approach to the game.

It is fun for a revolutionary type to read about conventional wisdom getting turned on its ear. It is also fun to read Lewis' great prose and fascinating anecdotes about baseball stars present, past, and future.

I am, on the other hand, glad to be done with the book so I can go on to other things more compelling.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Hot Dogs And Sex Strikes Go Hand In Hand

I read in the paper this morning about the man from Petaluma, California who was arrested for throwing a hot dog at Tiger Woods during a golf tournament. The man said that, inspired by watching the movie "Drive", he decided he had to do something "courageous and epic." That's what we have come to. Throwing a hot dog at a disgraced golf pro has become an epic and courageous act.

For proof all you have to do is manage to watch an episode of "Dancing With The Stars." I was able to do just that the other night. After sitting through an entire evening with the show, I understand why it has become so popular. It is very glitzy. The female outfits are tiny and growing tinier. There is always the chance that a stray nipple or two will pop out, thereby fueling two or three days of media blitz. The judges are alternately fatuous and downright nasty. The host seems extremely pleased with himself. And the contestants all seem to have moving human interests stories to tell.

Even though this was the first show I have watched from beginning to end, I have seen a few snippets from other episodes. In the backstage glimpses the audience is privy to, you can always count on at least one star breaking down in tears under the intense pressure of hours of rehearsal. Of course one of the reasons the star might be crying is the realization that he or she has the time for hours of rehearsal because no one else in show business will give him a job. There are lots of scenes of grateful stars shouting the praises of their pro dancer partner.

And the audience and judges get misty eyed over the whole thing. There was Chaz Bono being showcased the other night. The camera showed him sweating away during rehearsals. He laughed a little. He cried a few times. He and his partner talked about his sex change operation and the controversy over him offering young viewers a bad role model by appearing on the show. What he didn't do was anything resembling dancing.

Sitting there watching everyone in the studio react to the video as if they were part of some special moment was disconcerting. And Cher was there, standing, wiping tears from her grotesquely over-made face, as if this stuff mattered to anyone beyond this audience desperate for something to feel good about.

The whole idea of Chaz Bono's decision to have a sex change operation and then top it off by an appearance on "Dancing With The Stars" being somehow courageous grabbed me on the same level that throwing a hot dog at Tiger Woods is courageous. Personally, I think the most courageous thing about having a sex change operation is coming to grips with the fact that you will have to spend more than one night in Trinidad. But I am being flip. I just don't see what the big deal is. If you want to talk courage let's talk about the guy who was trapped on the mountain and cut his arm off with his pocket knife. Of course, he does lose points for using it as a kind of publicity stunt. If you want and need a sex change, be my guest. If you want me to think it courageous, grab a pocket knife and head for the mountains. You might want to think about selling the film rights before you leave.

So anyway, I was looking at all of this and realizing that these people are registered voters. Well, some of them. These same folks who are crying over Chaz Bono's existential choice and craning their necks to catch sight of Cher, will be asked to make informed decisions at the polls. They are the same people who pollsters call up in order to publish more contradictory results. I wonder how many of them have strong opinions based on nothing. Jobs Bill? The Affordable Health Care Act? Tea Party? Rick Perry? Michelle Bachman? Mitt Romney? Kenyan? Mormon? Socialist? Fascist? Job Producers? FLOTUS at Target? Illegal Aliens? All of this stuff pales next to Chaz' sexuality.

I read an article in The New York Review of Books a year ago focusing on the build up in Afghanistan. In the middle of reading it I finally came to the realization that one of the main reasons for the quagmire there is that we are dealing with a population overwhelmingly young, male, and illiterate. Expecting the typical Afghan to understand our presence there is like expecting a ninth grade boy to understand anything beyond his immediate urges. The best thing to do is lock them all in a large closet and wait for them to turn twenty-one.

I'm rooting for the people camping out on Wall Street and around the country. But unless they can stage some kind of contest that requires skimpy outfits and acts of media induced courage, I don't see how they will make much of a dent on our nation's consciousness. On the other hand, I did find some hope in what has happened recently in Colombia. The women in the town of Barbacoas, fed up with authorities' lack of action, announced last June that they would withhold sex from their partners until the 35 mile road connecting them to the region's capital got paved. Army engineers started the paving job yesterday.

I predict there will be a major revival in productions of Lysistrata this theater season.






Thursday, September 29, 2011

Nothing To Be Frightened Of - Julian Barnes

I bought this book a couple of years ago, probably one day when I was being particularly depressed about being in my sixties. I don't mean to say that I have this morbid fascination with death. I don't. And even though the occurrences of death among my family and friends are increasing with each passing year, I am reasonably convinced that I am going to survive forever.

Besides, each new day brings a new potential disaster to worry about and either way you look at that you win. If the ruination of the earth from global warming takes another generation to take effect, I will be dead when it happens, so there is really nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if some crazed religious zealot manages to secure a nuclear stockpile and decides to blow up the world and me with it tomorrow, there is really nothing particularly irksome about my individual death, therefore; nothing to worry about.

I think that is the way our politicians ought to think. Sure, our economy is going down the toilet and our country's maddening propensity to feed the poor and comfort the afflicted will bring us all to the brink, but with any luck the ice caps will melt before that happens and Wall Street will be under water. See, in the long run there is nothing to worry about.

Julian Barnes' book ruminates about death in that manner for almost 250 pages. I managed to come away from the book with a healthier attitude about the whole thing and ended up finding the whole subject quite funny.

It also taught me a lot about the writing of fiction. Barnes looks at death through the eyes of a fiction writer whose job is to turn real life into narratives that expose some truth by telling lies about reality. The whole book, then, is an erudite, if gloomy, exercise in creating art with death as the fitting ending.

There is at least one laugh line on each page and little revelations that force the reader to reevaluate his certainties. What more can you ask for?

I think I'll share some.

* * * * *

When talking about Pascal and the whole idea that it is a better bet to believe in God than not, Barnes offers a great illustration.

". . . In June 2006, at the Kiev zoo, a man lowered himself by rope into the island compound where the lions and tigers are kept. As he descended, he shouted across to the gawping crowds. One witness quoted him as saying, 'Who believes in God will be unharmed by lions'; another, the more challenging, 'God will save me, if He exists.' The metaphysical provocateur reached the ground, took off his shoes, and walked towards the animals; whereupon an irritated lioness knocked him down, and bit through his carotid artery. Does this prove a) the man was mad; b) God does not exist; c) God does exist, but won't be lured into the open by cheap tricks; d) God does exist, and has just demonstrated that He is an ironist; e) none of the above."

* * * * *

Barnes likes to talk about how Renard faced death. In one section he talks about Renard's understanding of irony.

"Irony does not dry up the grass. It just burns off the weeds."

* * * * *

Barnes is an art critic/lover. He wonders if atheism puts up barriers to the appreciation of art and beauty.

"Missing God is focused for me by missing the underlying sense of purpose and belief when confronted with religious art. It is one of the haunting hypotheticals for the nonbeliever: what would it be like 'if it were true' . . .Imagine hearing the Mozart Requiem in a great cathedral--or, for that matter, Poulenc's fishermen's mass in a clifftop chapel damp from salt spray--and taking the text as gospel; imagine reading Giotto's holy strip-cartoon in the chapel at Padua as nonfiction; imagine looking on a Donatello as the actual face of the suffering Christ or the weeping Magdalene. It would--to put it mildly--add a bit of extra oomph, wouldn't it?"

* * * * *

My favorite Barnes' book is Flaubert's Parrot. He includes this great quote from Flaubert. I have to reproduce it here because I once used this quote as an essay question in Advanced Placement just to drive a certain earnest young woman crazy.

"Is it splendid, or stupid, to take life seriously?"

* * * * *

And my favorite passage about fiction.

"Fiction is made by a process which combines total freedom and utter control, which balances precise observation with the free play of the imagination, which uses lies to tell the truth and truth to tell lies. It is both centripetal and centrifugal. It wants to tell all stories, in all their contrariness, contradiction, and irresolvability; at the same time it wants to tell the one true story, the one that smelts and refines and resolves all the other stories. . ."

I'm surprised at how much I ended up liking this book.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The New Death Row Diet


Did you see in the papers the other day that state legislators in Texas are pushing an initiative to stop the practice of giving those slated for execution the right to order a last meal? Since Texas, under governors Bush and Perry, has executed more individuals than all the other states combined, this is a proposal whose time has come.

I'm sure when the practice of granting last meal requests was first introduced, penal authorities naturally assumed the requests would befit the low economic status of most of the condemned. They had visions of chicken flavored Ramen Noodles, Whoppers with cheese, Taco Bell specials when the home team scores enough runs, food scavenged from neighborhood dumpsters, and of course plenty of collard greens. But no, the condemned displayed alarmingly good taste. They opted for lobster, filet mignon, fois gras, baby asparagus, and french fries cooked in duck fat!

The last straw came just a week ago when the latest in a continuing string of the condemned ordered two chicken fried steaks, a pizza, gourmet ice cream, and other food stuffs too numerous to mention! The capper was that the ingrate did not eat a single bite! It all went to waste. Well, that is not exactly true. I suspect that the death row guards gathered around the largess and ate their fill as the lethal injection slowly took effect.

This was understandably too much to bear in a down economy and the Texas legislature leaped into action. I'm not sure of the provenance of the bill, but it is comforting to think that enlightened legislators around the country will take note as they introduce their own cost saving measures. Paul Ryan is already adding an addendum to his Plan for Prosperity and Eric Cantor is trying to figure out how to incorporate this spending cut into the next debt ceiling debate.

This is yet another reason why we can all be proud to be living in Amerika.

Monday, September 26, 2011

A Reverse Bucket List

I recently read a terrifically clever piece by someone I wish I could credit who, realizing he/she could never achieve his/her bucket list, decided to write a list of things he/she definitely didn't want to do before death. Here's mine.

1. Climb Mount Everest (This was also the top item in the list I read, but I had to list it anyway.)
2. Summit all the fourteeners in Colorado. I could still buy a tee-shirt proclaiming I had made it to the top of all of them, so what would be the point?
3. Scuba the Blue Hole in Belize. Again, I could always buy the tee-shirt.
4. Ride through the Everglades in one of those boats with the big propeller in the back.
5. Travel to Australia, or to any other place where you have to wear a hat with corks hanging down to keep the bugs at bay.
6. Attend the Daytona 500 or any other Nascar event.
7. Ride mules on that tiny little trail into the Grand Canyon.
8. Step out on that platform the local indians financed that looms over the Grand Canyon and makes you feel like you're standing on air.
9. Go paragliding off Lookout Mountain.
10. Go spelunking or any other activity where the likelihood of a bat getting into your hair is high.
11. Go for a run with those barefoot running indians in the Copper Canyon in Mexico. I liked BORN TO RUN, but come on man.
12. Attend a baseball camp for middle aged men. Little League provided enough humiliation for a lifetime.
13. Play Texas Hold 'em in Las Vegas.
14. Do anything in Las Vegas. Even the upscale restaurants there are depressing.
15. Watch the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City.
16. Attend a couples Tupperware Party.
17. Go on a cruise.
18. Buy a pair of white, patent leather shoes just in case I had to go on a cruise.
19. Play golf.
20. Attend a time share presentation.

Not Within Shouting Distance

There was an interesting article by Adam Gopnik in the September 12 New Yorker entitled "Decline, Fall, Rinse, Repeat." It was a criticism of the expanding genre of history writing, Declinism. Declinist books have been around forever. They are always prophesying some impending disaster like the Population Bomb, or a Nuclear Winter, or Class Warfare, or some other apocalyptic vision that is sure to spell our planet's doom in the near future. Then when the apocalypse has for whatever reason not happened, a new wave of Declinist books hits the stands explaining why the last prophesy of doom was wrong, or ill-timed, and why this new apocalypse detailed in the new book is the real thing.

According to Gopnik, the best Declinist book was written in 1918 by Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West. Spengler's hypothesis was that there is always a cycle of decline and growth. It is as inevitable as the change of seasons. Furthermore, western civilization reached its high point somewhere during the 13th century and has been in decline ever since.

It is difficult to look at our world as it currently exists and not agree to a certain extent with Spengler. But that is not the subject of this reaction. Gopnik goes on to talk about a number of other Declinist books and ends up focusing on Friedman and Mandelbaum's new book, That Used to Be Us. This work focuses on recent history, the ravages of 9/11, the Islamic threat, the paralyzed U.S. government, the world wide economic collapse, and basically wonders why we all can't just get along (Please note that this is a one reading knee jerk reaction to Gopnik's article).

The things we all want and need seem obvious to Friedman and Mandelbaum: good schools, safe roads and bridges, efficient airports, universal healthiness, no poor people starving in the streets, a clean environment. They have an almost impossible time envisioning anyone disagreeing with any of this. And yet history tells us that we have always had a large group of individuals who don't want these things, not if it means broadening the reach of government. The fact of the matter is that many individuals are perfectly willing to sacrifice bridge safety, air safety, better-informed children, faster, more efficient forms of transformations like bullet trains, and the like in support of their undying belief that we should give government as little money as possible. If that means the government will default, so much the better. It is, for instance, quite possible that republicans in Congress will block disaster relief funds for the east coast rather than cede more power to the central government. It is hard for us to imagine, but it is true.

"Annoying liberals," Gopnik writes, "is a pleasure well worth paying for. As a recent study in the social sciences shows, if energy use in a household is monitored so that you can watch yourself saving money every month by using less, self-identified conservatives will actually use and spend more, apparently as a way of showing their scorn for liberal pieties."

Protestants in the seventeenth century hated the magnificent baroque cathedrals of Rome because they were symbols of an earthly power they despised. Conservatives hate fast trains and efficient airports and beautifully engineered bridges for the same reason.

What does all this mean? We are so polarized that we are not even within shouting distance of each other. The kind of thinking and innovation that lead to a growing civilization have become an impossibility. Whatever trends will take us over and lead us back to prosperity seem to be happening in Asia. There is no intellectual room for them here.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Everyone's an expert

I enjoyed reading the link on Amy Figler Goings' FB wall entitled "What teachers really want to tell parents" (CNN.com). It did a nice job of detailing the frustration teachers face when confronted by parents who are forever rushing in to save their kids. It reminded me yet again how I got out of the profession just in time.

If I reacted to parents the way I used to I wouldn't last very long. At parent/teacher conferences I delighted in asking disgruntled parents where they got their degree in education. I remember one father was furious with me for requiring that my students leave me a personal voice mail if they were going to be absent just like I had to call in if I was going to be absent. The parent railed and railed, called me unreasonable, and finally asked me what would happen if all teachers required their students to leave a similar message. "Then I would be a damn fool not to," I shot back in an echo of Yossarian's refusal to fly more bombing missions. I finally said, "Look, we can go back and forth like this all night, but nothing will make me change my mind." He called me an asshole and stormed off to talk to the principal. Nothing came of it, I am happy to report. Nowadays I suspect I would be put on administrative leave pending an investigation for such a transgression. The Denver Post would probably pick up the story and I would serve as yet another example of evil teachers undermining the self-esteem of young people.

Toward the end of my career I was always being called on the carpet for my tactics. Of course that was during the reign of Dr. Treichler who always supported parents for fear that we would be sued. Roger Sykes, our post Treichler principal, was even worse. I remember one student whose parents decided before class even met that I was too harsh and demanding for their kid and asked to have her transferred to John Brovsky's CCB class immediately. Sykes, Brovsky, and I had a meeting where Sykes decided to make the transfer because he didn't want to deal with the parent who happened to be a biggie in the soccer community. I was outraged (outrage was my default mode back in those days) and said why don't we carry your thinking to its logical conclusion and just transfer all of my students right now? Sykes did not appreciate the truth in that comment and looked at me like I had lost my mind. Looking back, I have to admit that I was close to losing my mind on any number of occasions. Oh well.

But the thing is that everybody has become an expert lately. After presidential speeches, networks offer viewers a chance to ring in on their approval or disapproval of certain statements. Sports shows encourage viewers to second guess certain trades, or play calls, or cheerleaders' outfits, or uniform styles, you name it, and they broadcast the results of those instant polls as if they had some relevance. Call me insecure, but I think that the opinions of coaches and managers trump knee jerk reactions from suburban mancaves.

Don't get me wrong. I think Jim Tracy should play Seth Smith every day and I suspect that all those who think that Tim Tebow should start are wrong, but I don't get angry when Tracy ignores my advice. And if Tebow ends up starting instead of Orton, my life will go on. I will not call up some talk radio station where tired old jocks with pot bellies yell at and interrupt eachother and add to the fray.

This perceived right to have groundless opinions happens in other venues as well. The cool blue mustang with the red eyes at DIA is a source of constant controversy. It makes me smile every time I drive by it, but other people think it is a (GASP) devil horse and should be torn down. That's fine; they certainly have a right to their opinion. But many of them actually get angry about it and fire off letters to the editor and shun DIA whenever possible to use the airport in Colorado Springs instead. They not only believe they have the right to their opinions, but that the rest of us should bend to their will.

I love the new addition to the art museum. The view up the staircase in the atrium gives me the shivers and the museum's collection is glorified by the whole thing. It makes me proud to live in Denver. Other people are outraged by the place. It has too many weird nooks and crannies. What's up with the way the whole place sticks out like a sore thumb? To hear these people loudly opine on paper and on the airwaves one would think they won't be satisfied until we tear down the whole thing and consult them on a new design which they will have a right to veto. I love to have strong opinions and I love to argue with people who have equally strong opinions, but ultimately I realize that my opinion just doesn't matter. What do I know from architecture?

I love the book Heat by Bill Buford. Buford, a food writer for The New Times, takes a job in Mario Batali's kitchen at Babbo to see what it is like to be on the line of a great restaurant under the thumb of a great and demanding chef. It's damn hard, he concludes. But in the process he travels to Italy to see the origins of the industry up close and in his trip he meets the world's most famous and presumably best butcher, an iconoclastic sort with a temperament something like the soup nazi on Seinfeld. The great thing about the butcher and the reason I am sticking this digression into the middle of this rant, is that the butcher refuses to cater to his customers. Not only does he disagree with the idea that the customer is always right, he asserts that the customer is almost always wrong. When an unwary customer walks into his shop an asks for a particular piece of beef that is in fact out of season, the butcher will refuse to fill the order and tells the poor slob to get out of his store.

This happens all the time. Grocers will stock tomatoes in February because their customers are clueless enough to want them at that time even though they have no taste. Or people will sit down at a great restaurant and order a steak well done and expect the chef to prepare it that way. Or they will walk into a restaurant and ask for a salt shaker or, even worse, a bottle of catsup. A restaurateur with integrity should chase people like that out of his joint with a meat cleaver.

We are not experts at everything. Sometimes our opinions are just plain stupid. I think we should put ourselves into the hands of the real experts and maybe we might learn something. Of course, that is just my opinion.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Lou's Food Bar

Last night was my fifth visit to Lou's Food Bar, the newest addition to the Bonanno restaurant empire. I've had lunch three times; this was my second dinner. The first few times I liked the place, but was definitely not impressed enough to consider it a "destination restaurant." I live almost 40 minutes away and while it is worth a 40 minute drive to eat at Mizuna or Bones, that trek across town to Lou's was a stretch.

That attitude changed after last night's meal. We went there for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was a less than stellar review of the place in the 5280 this month. Katherine was even moved to write a nasty letter to the magazine which, due to its length, they will never publish. We wanted to go and reaffirm our undying faith in Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno's unerring instincts when it comes to eating and drinking establishments. There were a couple of other reasons to make the trip. You don't need reservations. It is easier to park at then Osteria Marco. It is their most affordable venue. We had gone to the Y every day for two weeks and were, by God, entitled. Most important, PERA and Metro State had filled the coffers of our checking account.

Lou's is designed to be a neighborhood bar where guys on Harleys and folks arriving on foot or by stretch limo will feel equally at home. A rather garish (in my opinion) neon sign announces the place and a parking lot in need of repaving supplies parking if you get there early enough (before 6 pm). There is an outdoor patio facing 38th with twinkling lights and plenty of space for neighborhood dog lovers to hang out with their pets. Inside it is a potentially cavernous space that has been toned down with off-white walls, brightly painted window frames, and names of entrees stenciled above the banks of booths lining the place. A lovely young dark haired girl in alarmingly tight jeans greeted us at the door and ushered us to a table in the bar area where the vibe is noisy and serious cocktails dominate the scene. There is a more sedate dining area to the right.

The 5280 reviewer said the place was too severe and unwelcoming and the concrete walls and floors made the noise level pretty high when the place fills up. The place is pretty noisy, and while the walls and floor do little to buffer the din, it is the kind of conversational hum punctuated with bursts of laughter born of the fact that 90% of the clientele, especially the gang in the bar area, according to Joe the manager, are regulars.

The food is what makes them regulars. The 5280 reviewer dissed the place because the menu didn't have a focus. There are charcuterie plates, the kind that keep people coming back to Bonanno's Larimer Square standout, Osteria Marco. There are Nicoise salads and Lyonnaise salads and white bean salads. There are artisanal sausages of all descriptions probably whipped up in the basement of Bonanno's North Denver home. Hanger steaks and frites are listed on the menu right next to organic fried chicken, french onion soup, and spaghetti and meat balls. All this variety left the 5280's hapless reviewer confused. What is this place? French? Italian? Biker bar? She couldn't accept it for what it is, an affordable comfort food venue in the Highlands area offering the kind of food you might have in your own home if you happened to be the best cook this side of the Mississippi.

Last night we shared the Lyonnaise salad which was easily large enough for two. Kathie moved on to a house made pastrami sandwich and I had a blackened fish sandwich with a remoulade sauce that was a revelation. We ended up sharing an apple pie from another Bonanno venue, Wednesday's Pies, made, like all the pies, with an almond flower that transformed that all-American dish. On other visits I've had veal sausage with German potato salad, a great reuben, and steaming mussels. My mother in law even ordered the spaghetti and meat balls on one occasion. You can bet that the folks who run Luca d'Italia whip up a great version of that road house staple.

It was a great and affordable evening. I left with two convictions. One, the 5280 had no clue. Two, it was worth the drive.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Making My Day

This cartoon appeared in last Sunday's New York Times in the Sunday Review section. Since it is impossible to read, I will give you a frame by frame description.

The first frame shows two students in front of a court building. One is obviously a nerd in a shirt buttoned all the way to his neck and wearing black framed glasses. In his right hand is an apple. In his left, a stack of text books. The other student is in tears while holding up a poster of a brontosaurus and a tyrannosaurus riding in Noah's Ark. The caption says, "In a rare victory for reality, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that teachers can call creationism 'superstitious nonsense,' paving the way for even more reality-based education."

The second frame shows a teacher at a blackboard pointing out the different layers of Earth's atmosphere. In the bubbles she says, "That's right kids, evolution is real! The sky is also blue and above it is space, not heaven."

The third frame shows a teacher seated in front of an attentive group of grade schoolers. He tells them, "Climate change is really happening, and if anyone tries to tell you differently, yell 'No!' Run away, and tell a grown-up."

The fourth frame shows a high school Econ I class with the teacher saying, "Supply side economics doesn't work. It's chiefly a way for the wealthy to hoard even more money."

The next frame shows a junior high kid named Billy with his head down while his teacher corrects the equation (2+2=Obama's a socialist). She says, "There are two things wrong with that equation, Billy."

The sixth frame shows a teacher holding a story book about The Gipper as she explains to her students, "Even Reagan raised taxes to reduce deficits! He also called ketchup a vegetable, but you'll learn about that after lunch."

My favorite frame is the last one. An art teacher is criticizing a horrible drawing by the tearful little girl. "Your perspective's all off, and I doubt your mommy really looks like that." The kid responds, "WAAAH! That hurts my feelings." "Sorry kid," the teacher responds, "facts beat feelings."

If I was still in the classroom, I would blow that cartoon up and put it prominently on my bulletin board where I could refer to it before every class and every parent/teacher conference. It would supply the ballast necessary to make it through the day.

Monday, August 29, 2011

ILL WIND - Nevada Barr

Murder at Cliff Palace

Nevada Barr is a mystery writer in the manner of C.J. Box who writes stories set in national parks. This one is set in Mesa Verde and Katherine read it while we were there a few weeks ago. I picked it up after she finished it and managed to devour it in a couple of days. Reading things, even mediocre things like Ill Wind, that are set in familiar places is one of my favorite things to do. C.J. Box's book about Yellowstone with the climactic encounter at The Old Faithful Inn was terrific. I knew that place and could picture every moment. The same is true about Ill Wind. The central incident in the novel takes place in Cliff Palace and that is precisely the place we toured when we were there.

This is not great literature. It isn't even great pulp fiction. It is just a fun, mindless read to fill the time on vacations you end up spending between meals, operas, and sightseeing. This has everything: a bizarre murder, unrequited love, money grubbing bad guys, and innocent victims. It also offers a lot of information about Mesa Verde that the guides don't necessarily fill you in on. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of sentences that make you cringe: "Consciousness dawned like a foggy day" is one such example. That ranks right up there with "It was a dark and stormy night."

But it is well plotted and you can put it down for days if you are of a mind to and pick it up again without missing a beat. Not much else to say, except I doubt I will be reading many more of her novels in the future.