Useless Indeed

It's not often that I feel so angry at a book that I recommend against its purchase. I've been disgusted, irritated, outraged, angered but that's what books are supposed to do.

But now I find myself in the position of telling people, "Don't ... just don't buy this book."

What's really irritating is that it is such a lightweight and essentially meaningless book. It is a book that is too minor to have angered me as profoundly as it has.

The tome in question is "The Book of Useless Information" written by Noel Botham and published by Perigee (a division of Penguin.

I have a voracious appetite for oddities. That is why I was attracted to the book, which is presented as a compendium of useless facts.

As I started to read, I was pleased with the quirky and humorous presentation. I was particularly amused by the fact that Sheryl Crow lost her two front teeth in a stage accident and Samuel Beckett's presentation of a play called "Breath" which was 30 seconds long and had no actors or dialog bracketed the statement that "Michael Jackson is black".

But then I started to run into problems. One or two factual failures would have been a forgivable neglect, but when I started running into egregious failures as in the explanation of the 'rule of thumb' being the result of a law forbidding men from beating their wives with a stick that was thicker than their thumb (totally discountable folk etymology), or the durable myth of the the Chevy Nova's unsalability in Hispanic countries because 'no va' means 'doesn't go' (it means the same thing in Spanish as it does in English).

But there were dozens of the falsities, retreads of debunked myths, and they were mixed in with everything else.

When I read that the eggplant was a member of the thistle family, I closed the book. A simple Wikipedia confirmation would have shown that the eggplant, like the tomato, bell pepper, etc. is a member of the nightshade family, not the thistles.

When a book purports to be factual, there ought to be at least a modicum of fact checking. I know have to discount everything I've read in it as possibly wrong. It doesn't matter that some of it may be correct, I have no way of knowing what is and isn't and I'm not going to do Mr. Botham's work for him.

It was a waste of money, time, and brain activity. I read a third of the book and I got out of it was this irritable article.

The Big DeRezz

Variation Number 1 on the theme of avatars.
This is a bit of a put-on or, some might say, a take off on the old hard-boiled, two-fisted, gumshoe detective novel of the Mickey Spillane genre. Ellipses will protect those of you with tender sensibilities and provide room for all kinds of imagined kinkiness.
This is for Surasa Tatham whoever she may be.

She pressed herself tightly against me. Her breasts like two scoops of vanilla ice cream nestled in the sequinned dish of her bodice. What I could see of the rest of her gown was gauzy and multi-colored, a kind of formal strumpetware, not that I was complaining. Clarisse was the type of pneumatic blonde who could give Mike Hammer a heart attack.

We stood at the bar, my shot of generic whiskey and her steaming, bubbling concoction in a baroquely detailed goblet on the mahogany surface between us and the bartender.

"You're looking good tonight, Clarisse," I said.

She blushed. I was impressed by the natural response. It's not easy to achieve.

"Thanks Jake."

I pried her off me long enough to remove my fedora and trench coat. "Come dance with me and we'll keep this private." The Club Casablanca was bustling but there were a few open spots left on the dance floor.

The club was an odd mix of styles; 1940 US noir, complexly Moorish architecture and art-deco furnishings. The ambient light was dim. On one side of the room were tall arches their symmetry broken by a few palm fronds beyond to remind us of the garden and beach between the stonework and the calm ocean with its silver snail trail of moonlight.

Huge black and white posters of Bogart and Bergman gazed down from the wall above the empty bandstand. The music was lush and sensual. A little placard in the corner near the piano displayed the album cover; "All for You" by Dianna Krall.

The club reflected the odd mind of its owner, the voluptuous beauty waiting for me impatiently.

"C'mon" said Clarisse. I stepped into the empty spot in front of her and she moved into my arms. I held her close as we moved swinging and dipping to the music and had a private chat.

"What's going on?"

"Some developers want to tear down the club and put in a marina."

"Any chance of them succeeding?"

"They're offering RIONCorp more than I can match."

"So, what can I do?"

"Oh Jake! I don't know ... You know how it works around here, money and property trumps style."

"It's the same outside, babe."

"I hoped you could think of something. Nothing I've done makes enough money. No-one is renting the apartments next door. Five nights out of the week the club is empty ..."

"I'll have to think about it. It's not my usual kind of problem."

"I know Jake. I just need some different thinking ... and you're the best I know for that."

"Thanks Clarisse, But you don't need to flatter me. I'll do anything I can for a friend. Who's been putting the squeeze on you ... anyone I know?"

"Harry Lime."

"That bunch? I'll do what I can, but be careful."

We left the dance floor. I put on my coat and hat.

"Here's looking at you, kid," I said with a wink, and left.

The next day was dark, dreary and drizzling in Redlight. I'd tracked down an identity thief; a sad little newbie with no style of his own had glommed a clone of one of the minor underworld characters. I explained his transgression to him gently but firmly, extracted a small fine as payment, and told him to go and sin no more. I sent the fine minus my collector's fee to the RIONCorp offices with the usual explanation.

I met the client in Podevash, his strange nightclub that focussed on leather kink. I liked the bi-lingual pun but wondered how many times he'd had to explain the joke to a customer.

I had my usual generic whiskey, but he was intent on making sure that I knew he was drinking from a bottle with a high res copy of a Lagavullin label. I collected my fee, explained that I'd keep the identity of the newbie confidential unless it happened again.

The club was nearly empty. I asked him if people got the same kick out of the fetish when they couldn't smell the leather, and he admitted that business was bad.

I left him, nursing his fancy tipple, in his kinky environment.

I got into my black Hudson Commodore parked in front. A moment later I stepped out of it and onto a sunny, bright, blue-sky, wide-beach island. I parked in front of a row of 10 townhouse style apartments behind the Club Casablanca. Five of them had small boxes showing that they were unoccupied and available. I deposited six month's rent, somewhat more than I'd just collected, in the box to transfer it to Clarisse' account, and got the key in exchange.

I changed from my PI wardrobe (double-breasted grey suit, white shirt, wide tie, black shoes, fedora, trench-coat) into my typical casual wear of an open-necked blue cotton button-down shirt, loose jeans and some sandals.

It took me a couple of minutes to unpack. I live simply. I laid a Persian-style rug on the floor in front of the fireplace, placed a brown leather couch against the opposite wall, added a couple of armchairs and a coffee table. I hung some high-res repros of Japanese woodblock prints on the wall and set a chessboard with the problem I was solving on the coffee table.

Upstairs I put down a wall to wall futon and went out on the balcony. In the distance I saw someone wave. I went downstairs, out the front door and put some chairs on the tiled terrace in front of my new digs just as Clarisse strolled up. She wore a low cut white blouse with lace to frame her cleavage, and bluejeans so tight that, if there were flesh involved, the pressure would have increased her bust.

"Hiya," I said, sitting down on a wicker loveseat.

"You didn't have to do that," she said squeezing in next to me. "I know you loved your place in Milkwood."

"Not a big deal," I replied. "The timezone disparity was giving me headaches and there was no one awake to gab at 4am GMT."

"Well it's a big deal to me," she whispered. "Touch this ... " She held out a scripted object. I trusted her, so I touched it ... and suddenly we were pressed tightly together, our mouths found each other whisps of her blonde curls drifted between our eyes. Then she had me touch something else.

* * *

Three weeks later, through advertising and special events, we'd built up traffic to the club enough for Clarisse to counter the takeover bid. Then we were hit by vandals.

I was doing some tracer work when I got the alert. By the time I got to the club Clarisse was standing in the middle of the room watching the walls melt. I changed mode so I could see corruptions in the code as discolorations. We ripped everything down and rebuilt from backup. It took a couple of hours but we got it up and running before the evening crowd arrived. We repaired the apartments the next day. Then I drove the Hudson over to the mainland shopping district.

The Enraptor Emporium was still in business, unfortunately. I'd investigated the proprietors a couple of times for some nasty ID-jackings, but they'd either bought off the complainers or maybe even RIONCorp's lawyers. The storefront looked the same, but I could see that they'd expanded their real estate both out and up. The store now took up the entire block and towered five stories above the street. I wondered if there was expansion below ground level.

As I walked up, the doorman offered me a landmark card. I shrugged him off, and went in. The store was self-service, but I must have tripped an alarm. A dozen steps in, the green-haired, silver-eyed piece of nastiness named Harry Lime materialized in front of me.

"What the Hell are you doing here, Jake?" In spite of his name, he always seemed more like Peter Lorre than Orson Welles.

"Nice to see you too, Harry."

"Get out!"

"Not until we have a little chat."

"We have nothing to talk about," said a new voice. A willowy brunette stepped out from behind a curtain. She was wearing a whisp of gauze that kept going transparent. It might have been distracting if I were more trusting.

"New persona, Rickie?" Last time I'd seen Rickie he'd been in a white zoot suit with a Tommy gun.

"You're not welcome here."

"I'm just here to tell you to lay off of my friends."

"What? You're here to protect that little bimbette?" Harry moved in front of me; right in my face.

"That's right. Back off and leave the club alone."

"Jake you're so dumb that it embarasses me that I find you such a pain in the ass." Rickie's voice seemed to come from nowhere. I spun around to find him behind me. He had an object shaped like an old blackjack. I just caught a glimpse of it as it came up and hit me between the eyes.

I de-rezzed.

I grabbed the wheels of my chair and moved back from the desk. I spun my chair, and rolled to the bookcase to grab the last CDR I burned. It took me hours to restore from backup ... too long.

When I got back the club, the apartments, and Clarisse were gone. I left messages, I checked with her friends and her best customers ... when I could find them ... when they would talk to me. There was a field tuned to me around the emporium, and I couldn't get in.

But I have resources. I don't have to play nice. I know addresses for Harry and Rickie. One of these days ... one of these days ... they'll open something they shouldn't, they'll touch an unfamiliar object, run a new script, and something will happen.

Even their backups won't save them.

Animo Ex Machina

Variation Number 2 on the theme of avatars

It seemed to be Spring. The windows were open and the curtains fluttered. There were lilacs in bloom outside.

I was waiting. I sat on the green corduroy cushions of a Morris chair near one of the two windows, my feet up on a blocky ottoman, an open book in my hands and waited. The room was perfect. Crammed bookshelves lined the walls, books stacked neatly rather than my own helter-skelter, Japanese woodblock prints occuping what little wall space was left. A simple library desk was under the other window, papers were scattered over its surface, weighted down by a couple of open books. and a fountain pen in an inkwell. All the wood was dark and polished. The floor around the Persian rug gleamed. The furniture gleamed. A recording of flute and harpsichord sonatas played from invisible speakers.

In a way it was the room in which I'd always imagined myself writing, but I had nothing to write. I had nothing to read except the book with blank pages that I held. Nothing to do but wait.

But there was also something subtly wrong. There was no dust, no scent of lilacs on a non-existent breeze, or of oil soap, or of the mustiness of books. I noticed, with some amusement, a pipe rack on the low table near me and an ashtray with a pipe fuming in it on the arm of the chair. It had been years since I had last smoked a pipe. But, as with the rest, there was no odor ... no scent of the pungent Latakia with which my favorite tobacco was laced.

It wasn't hard to wait, I was used to it. I had woken in the chair a few minutes ago and I knew it wouldn't take long.

The tapping sound that indicated footsteps started and I knew that she would be with me in a few seconds. I turned the book over and rested the open pages on the knee of my jeans. I reached for the pipe involuntarily, took a puff and blew a smoke ring just as she opened the heavy oak door.

She carried a tea service on a large tray. I noted that she wouldn't have had a hand free to open the door.

"Hello dear." she said as she crossed the room and put the tray on the low table. "It's your favorite ... Lapsang Souchong."

She handed me a steaming cup. I took it, having somehow laid the pipe down again. The book was gone as if it had never existed. I thought that it was a bit sloppy. She took a cup herself and collapsed gracefully into a lotus pose. I took a sip of the steaming liquid that though flavorless, odorless, and without temperature was supposed to be tea.

"How are you today?" she asked.

I decided to let the script play for a bit.

"I've written a few more pages," I said, although, of course, I'd done nothing of the kind.

"That's good," she said. "I'm glad you're being productive."

"What did you do this morning?" I sat back and provided the appropriate responses as she listed the events of her day. The curtains at the window continued to move in the breeze. Odorless, smoke continued to rise from the pipe. Heatless steam continued to rise from the teapot and cups.

She paused. I smiled dutifully. She was done with her catalog of events. It was time. I leaned forward startling her. This wasn't part of the script.

"You have to let me go," I said.

"What"

I shook my head. It should have been in caps with a question mark to provide the proper emphasis, but it was okay, I knew what she meant and how she meant it.

"You're hanging on to a life we never had," I told her, the perfect life that we never could achieve and wouldn't have known how to cope with anyway."

"Who is this?"

"You know who it is. Who else could it be? You spent so much time digitizing the photos, creating the environment, giving this digital husk so much of what its original wanted. You put in so much effort creating an environment to help the creativity of a non-creative entity."

"John?"

"Yes, Hon, but only briefly." There was a pause. I knew what was going on. We'd lived together too long for me not to know all the bits and pieces of her life, her habits, her coping mechanisms. She would stare at the screen in shock, then with suspicion. She'd sit back and light a cigarette which unlike my fuming pipe would sputter and smoke and coat the walls with a brown haze.

The ashtray next to the computer was probably already overflowing with ash and filtertips. She'd take a sip of coffee and try to figure out if someone was running a scam on her ... and she would start to hope ... about ... now.

"John is that really you?"

"Ask me a question." She did. I answered it.

"OMG"

"No, it's just me."

"It has to be you. No-one else would use that old joke."

"Listen to me Hon," I said. "This is important."

"How can this happen?"

"Just be quiet and listen. I don't have a lot of time. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes"

"I want you to destroy all this; the house, the room, the garden, me ... everything."

"WHAT"

There we go, I knew she'd find the caps key.

"Just listen. This was never us. This was never how we were. We were never this nice to each other, the house was never this clean, our lives were never this calm and stable. I hated your ambivalence, your lack of decision, your aggressive selflessness. You hated my wandering attention, my rigid personal codes, my own lack of decision. We both hated that we were so busy trying to figure out what each other wanted that we never decided on anything and we went around and around dancing around what might have been.

"What you've created here is a sterile construct, a false memory, an ideation of the way we never were. You've found a way to give me things that you thought that you'd deprived me of. It is sweet of you."

"... and it is kind of you to provide me with those things that you remember that I liked to surround myself with. But you need to know that I don't care about any of it. It's meaningless. All it serves to do is to help you persuade yourself that this was all there was to us."

"But it wasn't. There is no dust, no farts, no toothpaste tubes squeezed from the middle, no dirty underwear, no laundry, no money hassles, no trust issues. All those things that we had to put up with from each other have been reduced to the sterility of perfection."

"I love you, and appreciate this monument, but ... cut it out ... get a life ... start over and make it work better. Blow this place up. Log-off. Get out of here and don't come back. Forget about me. Good Lord woman ... I've been dead for three years."

"John, I just want ... " I disengaged and let my avatar go back to its script.

"Well dear," it said, "I'm glad you've had a productive morning. I must get back to writing now."

It stood up from the chair without the groan of effort that it would have needed from me, walked over to the desk and started to make scribbling motions over the perpetually blank pages. I watched for a moment or two as she tried to get it to respond. I hoped that she would give up soon and think about what I'd said.

Maybe she would finally come to understand the last few minutes as the gift it was intended to be. I'd have to settle for not knowing. I was out of time. I pulled out of the wires, the chips, the tickle of electrons rushing through them. I pushed back from the hot pungence of silicon, and copper. I let go of the metal and plastic boxes.

I let go and floated away. The breeze was lighty fragrant with the smell of lilacs.

A Reason to Not Write

The old gods call to me, chiding,
through the bodies of dead dryads
pulverized by metal grinders,
soaked, sieved, pressed into
consistency and transformed
from the rough coarse bark
and the sweet heartwood,
from the interweaving
of twigs and branches,
from the chaotic joy of life,
into mathematical linearity
of bleached white planes
covered with blue and red
maps prescribing the discipline
and direction of thought,
drilling the letters,
the words, the phrases,
the spaces, the breath
into obsessive rank and file
(my shaky hand making them
slouch like raw recruits
on the white ground ...
unkempt, disshevelled).

The old gods chide me
from the forest, whispering
from the sea, bubbling.
The kraken mourns its
stolen inky avatar,
ripped unborn from its body
pounded, dried, compounded
yet retaining its essence.
See how a drop of the black
soul of the deep sends its
vestigial tentacles into
the fibers of the paper
(is it searching for food
are the minced bodies
of dryads sweet or harsh
with chemical bleach?)
With my pen I inscribe
the dark of the deep
on the reach of the light,
smirching the brilliant page
with the blotted approximations
of speech. The sheet cringes,
not from the ink, but from
the corrosive content.
The words of my song eating
acidly into its pulp and
changing ... mutating
degrading it far more
than the mutilation of
mechanical separation
and symmetricality.

The old gods chide me.
Conspiring, they whisper
in my ear and tickle
the tympanum
with their sly confidence.
"Why," they sussurate,
"Why do you use us three
so callously?" Three?
I think, the wood, the ink
and ...? "Song" they hiss.
The words will live if sung.
But you, tyrant, sentence them
unheard, and merely imagined,
to a silent crypt, a soundless
coffin made of our bodies and
our blood, trapping them in
a senseless limbo alone,
unvoiced, in neat sarcophogi
of lineated pulp nailed shut
with spikes of ink
forever.

A Steller's Jay

I live, temporarily, with my oldest son, his wife and daughter in a suburb of Seattle. People here work (or worked) for Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Boeing and similar or supporting businesses.

The plots here are the size of postage stamps. As evidence of the area's growth, a single home across the street from my window was razed, the plot divided into thirds and a new house built on each and, as if to demonstrate the new economic reality, all three houses remain unsold.

It is sad that this boom and bust minimized the land surrounding the houses since most people will find it difficult to put in a vegetable garden to help out in these challenging days. My daughter-in-law has done her best though and a small set of raised beds now graces the front yard where some bedraggled rose bushes used to reign.

My window looks out over this tiny plot of perhaps 100 square feet or so, with a bamboo trellis for pea vines and a small but thoughtful selection of vegetables in an area surrounded by stones and only briefly shaded by the shore pine that stands up near the sidewalk. The steepness of the slope on which the house is built means that my window on the third floor is only slightly above street level (the driveway descends from the street at about a 20 degree angle and getting the mail is like climbing Monadnock). Well ,,, perhaps I exaggerate

There are several well-kempt cats in the neighborhood who strut by regally seemingly under the impression that they own it all (and who is to say that they do not), but they are not indulging in their usual perambulations this morning. so I have been watching a Steller's jay, with a fine jaunty crest and a raucous laugh, flit between the branches of the globular crest of the small pine and the ground.

I started watching him just to make sure that he wasn't destroying the garden, but it was soon clear that he was picking up his snacks from the area between the rows of seedlings.

He is a snazzy dresser, but a bit skittish. His head and breast are black or nearly so, fading to and irridescent dark blue. (If you are an artist I would suggest a pthalocyanine blue.)

At the moment he seems quite amused as the tiger cat named Walter and a white cat known to me only as "the ghost" have appeared and started to fight over a small and meaningless piece of territory on the opposite bank of the asphalt river. He balances on a drooping branch, cocking his head this way and that, not seeming to take sides but also not trusting enough in their focus to drop down and get more food.

In the time it took me to write that last paragraph, the battle of the cats moved further down the street. The jay waited a few moments and flitted to a high rock and is waiting ... just to make sure they don't return.

Obstacles

I walk out onto the porch.
The trees move gently in a breeze.
The sun is bright and warm.
A few puffy clouds contrast
bright white in the early morning sky.

A crow yells at me
from the denuded horse chestnut tree
(no buds yet, just the occasional
tenacious brown tattered leaf),
as I watch the blackberry runners
advance toward the house.

I go back inside --
the house is still asleep --
and measure coffee into the French press.
I set the kettle on the burner and slice
a thick wedge of bread and put it on
an old cracked saucerand drizzle it
with olive oil and dust it
with salt. The porch beckons
with its wooden chairs and table
in a warm spot of sun.

The kettle bubbles (at last) and I
pour the water, stirring gently,
careful not to clink the spoon.
Not wanting anyone else awake.
I put the lid on it.
The bread on the saucer, the notebook
beside it, the pen in the wire spiral,
and my empty cup wait with me
as I wait, and watch the crow drop
from the chestnut to the porch rail
to laugh at me. I push the plunger
and pour the coffee.

I tuck the notebook under my arm.
I grab the cup in one hand,
the saucer in the other, and
elbow the door open.

As I step out, a bank of gray
moves in to cover the sun,
a splatter of rain thuds
against the decking.
The light breeze has chilled.
I turn back.
Inside a child sobs.

A friend forwarded this to me. Unfortunately there is no attribution that I can share with you. Whoever it is who wrote it ... Nice Work!

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance.
My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Political interjection

A good friend of mine (and an excellent writer too) Linda Greene sent me the following political epistle from her home back in the liberal fortress of the Northeast.

You wanted Hillary. She didn't get onto the ballot. You're frustrated, hurt, and angry. You want to express how you feel. You have an absolute right to express yourself, but don’t do it in such a way that we end up with four more years of Republican rule.

These are the key points:

1. Do not write Hillary in. Write-in votes NEVER win elections. All they do is steal votes from the major candidates. If you write Hillary in, McCain will win because Obama will get fewer votes. It's as simple as that.
2. Do not put Hillary's name on the ballot in a comment or something of that sort, even if you do mark the checkbox for Obama. Republicans will welcome any excuse to throw out an Obama vote. If somebody writes a comment on the ballot, it may be seen as a joke or a crank or a double-vote, and it will be thrown out by those who seek an excuse to do so. And McCain will win.
3. Do not vote for McCain just because he has a woman Vice Presidential candidate. Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have nothing in common except that they're women. If you vote for Palin just because you can't vote for Clinton, you're saying that all women are the same. This attitude is not a step forward for women, and it’s a slap in Hillary’s face.

So, how DO you express your support for Hillary?

First, vote clearly and directly for her party for President. She is a Democrat. Even in the hottest days of the primary battle, she did not want the Republicans to win. Do what you can to make sure that they don’t. That is supporting Hillary.

Then write letters and send them to Hillary’s Senate office. Or write letters to the editors of newspapers. Or start a “Hillary in 2012” petition after the election is over.

But don’t throw the election to the Republicans just because you’re upset. Then we’d all end up paying.

Linda added a note that she was nervous about sending it to me since she wasn't sure of my political persuasion ... which, as you might guess is unpersuaded if not downright suspicious and surly. I sent back a note.

I can understand why you might be confused about who I'd support ... people tell me I'm a liberaltarian ... but, as you probably remember, I dislike inconsistency and McCain is too inconsistent as he panders to the various special interest groups.

The funny thing is ... he used to be a man I could have supported, one with a sense of honor and responsibility. I still see flashes of it from time-to-time, but his political story has become too much like a blending of "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" and "Faust" for me to be comfortable having him in the presidency.

To which Linda replied:

Remember back when John McCain wouldn’t use his time as a POW for political purposes? He thought it would be sleazy to do that. Most of us agreed. We honored him for his service, and we admired him for his restraint.

Now we hear about McCain’s POW experiences every time we turn around. He and his handlers plaster it all over TV. He and his handlers rub it in our faces. He and his handlers won’t shut up about it.

And, yup, we were right. It does feel sleazy.

My question is this: Did John McCain decide that using this political tactic is ok? Or did he get dragged into using it against his will?

• If the first is true, he has revealed himself to be comfortable with sleaze.
• If the second is true, he has revealed himself to be easily manipulated.

Neither of these qualities is one I particularly want in my next President.

It's always nice to know that there are still a couple of people thinking ... and, thank goodness, thinking out loud.

I know that some people might consider this naive and too old school to be believed, but I think that it is a Good Thing for a politician to be an honorable person. That doesn't mean that he or she cannot change their mind or their strategy as long as they're honest about it.

I'll tell you what impressed me during this campaign ... Obama's refusal to distance himself from a pastor and friend whose opinions were disadvantageous to his campaign and his eventual capitulation to need and his full disclosure of it. After the Eagleton affair, after Nixon's dirty tricksters, after Reagan's long nap, after the elder Bush's sly pandering, after Clinton's proposing and disposing of friends during the early part of his administration, after Shrub's (if I may use an Ivinism) outright, blatant and unapologetic lies, I'm about ready to put someone in office who hasn't lied to us yet.

Call me a romantic, but I still consider myself patriotic enough that I'd like to see some honor in our administration. Don't get me started on the legislature ... just don't ...

My Kettle Runneth Over.

On the deck of my new home in suburban Seattle I was enjoying the sunshine and low puffy clouds (strato-cumulus if memory serves), when I noticed some specks of black against the clouds' puffy white.

As I watched, I realized that there were about 15 to 20 birds wheeling in various circles in and out of the cloud mass. They seemed to be having a good time, and as the cloud moved off, they moved with it.

Had the clouds been lower, I almost would have thought them to be crows (since they took so much joy in flying) but they were too high and their glides too long and stable. I suspect that they are raptors of some type, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and Cooper's hawks are most common here, but I have never seen a group as large and so obviously playing with a cloud. I dropped a line to Laura Erickson who informed me that the swirling dance of a group of raptors is called a "kettle" ... a singularly appropriate and evocative name.

It was hard moving here and away from my Massachusetts garden, but there are compensations. The crows here are a rowdy crowd, and a group of them in a park by Lake Washington have made me an honorary member of their murder. (I do love my terms of venery.) I suspect that their motives have much to do with the fact that I have hands and a wallet and can provide them with an ongoing diet of snack foods.

I miss Pat and Pat The catbird pair, and the blueberry thieving bluejays ... but not those damn depressing mourning doves with their melancholic bubbling.

On the upside ... there is a Steller's jay that likes the evergreens in the postage stamp that they try to pass off as a backyard here. He comes visiting almost every day ... and a handsome chap he is too.

I am hoping that once construction stops in this area (houses are being built on three sides of my little plot) there will be more in the way of discernible avian neighbors.

Whoopee Tie Yie Yo

I have no problem with rodeos.

Watching the partnership between a horse and rider can be a beautiful thing. On the whole the cattle at rodeos are treated a damn sight better than those at feed lots. My preference in the events are the working activities like roping and bulldogging. I'm not so much a fan of the bucking and bull-riding competitions.

So ... I was at the rodeo in Ellensburg, WA recently, at the invitation of my son-in-law's family. I haven't been to a rodeo in years, and I was bemused by the experience.

Oddly enough the first rodeo I went to was near Montreal. About all that I remember of it is that the parade was led by a fancily dressed cowboy who rode a palomino while brandishing two shiny six-shooters. I was told at the time that he was a Canadian cowboy star named (I swear to God) Bang Bang Bertram. I have conducted a desultory search for this person and can find no proof of his existence, and it would be entirely in my father's character to have made up the most ridiculous name he could think of as a kind of joke.

Here are some impressions of the Ellensburg do:

I knew there would be some culture shock involved when the announcer made a big deal about one of the contestants being from New Jersey, and I turned to the person next to me and said, "Roy Rogers was from New Jersey," and she said, "Who?"

It was odd to see how many bright, new, straw cowboy hats were being worn. The biggest booths were for these hats and it seemed like everyone was buying them. I finally realized that some were being bought as souvenirs, but others were the once-a-year replacements for the old and battered working hats. I was tempted to buy one myself since my old straw fedora has become sanctified (too holy to be worn), but my style is more fedora than ten-gallon and I was mindful of the old adage that God created cowboys to establish a style that would make Jewish men look ridiculous (Kinky Friedman is the only one I know who can carry it off).

All the Misses Rodeo of various types ride their horses at full gallop as they lean forward, right arm extended (the one closest to the audience for their counter-clockwise dash around the ring) with a kind of metronomic back and forth handwave.

No matter how drunk they get, the ladies in back of you have an expert opinion on the cowboy's capabilities (and not just in the ring).

The outlying riders get little credit and do most of the work.

The clown and announcer banter isn't that funny, which is why a good portion of it seems to be directed toward the section where drinking is allowed.

The recitation about Native Americans was embarrassingly paternalistic and demeaning. It's probably a good thing that they weren't armed for their jaunt across the ring.

I never knew that Spandex was the traditional buffalo hunting costume of the Northwest tribes. (Nor did I know that they hunted buffalo.)

The parade of riders carrying the flags of advertisers and sponsors of the rodeo made me snort. I mean ... good for them but still.

Just like in Pro-Wrestling, rodeo now comes with a soundtrack. It's disconcerting to see a rider catapulted off a bronc to the dulcet strains of ZZ Top's 'Sharp-Dressed Man'.

All-in-all I had a good time, so don't take this as a list of complaints ... they are just bemused contemplations.

A New View

I am sitting in a room that overlooks the short steep driveway in front of my oldest son's house in Kirkland, WA. I am house-sitting while he and his family spend a year in Austin, TX.

Kirkland is still booming with the overflow population and technology companies from Redmond and houses are being crammed in like sardines in a can (a comparison made more appropriate by the fact that across the tiny side street from where I sit is a gray three story building that was originally a salmon cannery.

The contractor whose crew is digging out our foundations to waterproof the lower floors of the house told me that, and said that his grandmother had worked in the plant.

So, as I said, the buildings here are being crammed in tightly. Any house with a substantial yard seems to be in the process of being transformed into two houses with postage stamp lawns. The house to the left of the salmon cannery, for example, had a wonderful yard. The house was set back from the street about 40 feet. Now, however, only a tiny corner of the building is visible beyond the half-finished third of three houses that occupy the erstwhile expanse of trees and grass.

These mansionettes with their tiny yards are going to sell for at least 800K USD and probably much more. It is a boom time in this small town across Lake Washington from Seattle.

So for a small town ... this is a damn noisy place. In addition to the contractor digging around this house, there is the construction crew at the house across the street, another at the salmon factory refurbishing it into an apartment house (or so I surmise), the house directly to the east of where I sit is being refurbished too. Last but not least, directly behind us is what used to be a parking lot and storage building. For the last week or two an extremely squeaky and ancient backhoe has been in nearly constant use as the foundations are laid for yet another new home.

I've noticed something odd here. All the houses in the area have decks. Most have more than one. This house is built on the side of a hill and comprises three floors, The two bottom floors have decks, the upper forming a kind of roof for the lower.

I spend a lot of time on the upper deck. It's near the kitchen (and therefore the French press) and doesn't require me to channel Sir Edmund Hillary when I realize that I left my reading glasses in my bedroom.

The odd thing is that, with all the time I've spent out there, I have yet to see anyone on the deck of any of the houses in sight ... never ... no barbecuing, no drinking a beer, no smoking ... it's as if the deck is a decorative addition like the superfluous shutters that bracket the windows of newly constructed houses uselessly. Front porches are likewise deserted.

I can't blame the noise. Late in the afternoon when the crews go home, the decks stay vacant. You'd think that with the ubiquitous WiFi networking out here, that there would be at least one or two other people out on the deck with their laptops like the old goofy ads for Grant's Scotch. You know, with the man sitting in a chair on the patio with a portable typewriter in his lap, a single sheet of paper rolled into the platen, saying to some one outside the frame, "While you're up, get me a Grant's."

But everybody seems to wander down to the coffee shops in the downtown area. It is an odd kind of socializing where folks are packed in at little cafe tables talking on their cell phones or tapping at their keyboards, and ignoring those around them while, I imagine, taking some comfort in the fact that everyone else is ignoring them.

If I weren't such a misanthropic SOB I'd pretend to be confused by all this.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred

The Very Good Taste blog has a list of the 100 things to eat before you die. I know that some of my readers would rather die than eat some of the things on the list. The list is below. Foods that are in bold face are those that I've eaten. Those crossed out are those I would never eat. The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses (But it's hard to find.)
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea (Mmmmmm)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (Blecch)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal (Whooo ... )
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (Once was enough!)
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (Not as a result of any of the other entries though.)
64. Currywurst (Didn't realize it until I read the definition.)
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost (Feh!)
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong (Almost every day.)
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum (A favorite especially tom yum kung)
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate (Don't know)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (Gotta find some, it sounds great.
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So that would be a score of 92.

Here’s what to do to beat my score:

1. Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2. Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4. Optional extra: Post a comment here and at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The following list comes from LibraryThing, DirtyLibrarian turned it into a challenge and my daughter posted her response. According to DirtyLibrarian:

"What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read."

I have added a few additional flourishes. Asterisks indicate books that remain on my shelves though read, Italics indicate books I found distasteful or obtuse and did not finish.

• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
• Anna Karenina
• Crime and Punishment*
• Catch-22
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• Wuthering Heights
• The Silmarillion
• Life of Pi : a novel
• The Name of the Rose*
• Don Quixote*
• Moby Dick*
• Ulysses
• Madame Bovary
• The Odyssey*
• Pride and Prejudice
• Jane Eyre
• The Tale of Two Cities*
• The Brothers Karamazov
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies*
• War and Peace
• Vanity Fair
• The Time Traveler’s Wife
• The Iliad*
• Emma
• The Blind Assassin
• The Kite Runner
• Mrs. Dalloway
• Great Expectations*
• American Gods
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
• Atlas Shrugged
• Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Middlesex
• Quicksilver
• Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
• The Canterbury Tales*
• The Historian : a novel
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
• Love in the Time of Cholera
• Brave New World*
• The Fountainhead
• Foucault’s Pendulum*
• Middlemarch
• Frankenstein
• The Count of Monte Cristo*
• Dracula
• A Clockwork Orange
• Anansi Boys
• The Once and Future King*
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Poisonwood Bible : a novel*
• 1984*
• Angels & Demons
• The Inferno*
• The Satanic Verses
• Sense and Sensibility
• The Picture of Dorian Gray*
• Mansfield Park
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• To the Lighthouse
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles
• Oliver Twist*
• Gulliver’s Travels
• Les Misérables
• The Corrections*
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay*
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Dune
• The Prince
• The Sound and the Fury
• Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
• The God of Small Things
• A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
• Cryptonomicon*
• Neverwhere*
• A Confederacy of Dunces*
• A Short History of Nearly Everything
• Dubliners*
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Beloved
• Slaughterhouse-five
• The Scarlet Letter
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves
• The Mists of Avalon*
• Oryx and Crake : a novel
• Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
• Cloud Atlas
• The Confusion
• Lolita
• Persuasion
• Northanger Abbey
• The Catcher in the Rye
• On the Road*
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
• The Aeneid
• Watership Down
• Gravity’s Rainbow
• The Hobbit*
• In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
• White Teeth
• Treasure Island*
• David Copperfield*
• The Three Musketeers*

On being short a Penny . . .

 

Springtime is the wrong season for a dog to die. 

I know this. I said it about a week ago to Penny as I lay on the floor next to her for most of the day, holding her, massaging her legs, hoping that her inability to get to her feet was a cramp and not paralysis, comforting her through her obvious embarrassment at having to void bladder and bowels on the bed that she used in our bedroom closet.

I woke up that morning ready to plunge into a day of writing. My wife, Deni, was still asleep as I made myself some coffee. Penny usually gets up with me and barks to be let out into the backyard, so when I didn't hear her, I left the coffee perking and went back into the bedroom. She was awake, lying on her side as usual but her eyes were alert. I knew something was wrong immediately. When I thought back later, I realized that when she saw me, there was no motion at all from her tail.

She lifted her head and neck attempting to twist her legs under her and get to her feet, but she had no control of her body.

Let me back up a minute.

Penny was my youngest daughter's dog, but for the last 6 years or so, she has been my companion. She is a small white English setter with large round spots that were the source of her name. She came to us as a puppy. a tiny thing that wanted so much to be with us that she would bark and whine until we helped her up onto the sofa.

She was a runner. She'd dash across the backyard like a streak of doggie lightning in pursuit of squirrels, neighbor cats, birds, and any other invaders real or imaginary. Her favorite game was to chase a basketball as it was kicked across the backyard. I called her "The Hound of the Basketballs". With smaller balls the game played was not so much 'fetch' as 'just try to get it away from me slowpoke'.

She was a runner. She was an investigator. She was hard to take for walks since she would always be straining at the end of the leash trying to follow a scent trail, or seeing just one more movement deep in the shrubbery that she had to identify. I'm sure that some would say that we didn't train her properly, but I have always valued curiousity above obedience. Penny may have half-strangled herself trying to pass her limits, but at least she tried.

She featured in many of my essays about nature. She was my companion on walks, on the porch, in the yard, and as I worked at my desk. She'd curl up at my feet as I pounded away at the keys, every so often barking or whining me away from the desk for a romp.

She got yelled at a lot too: when she barked incessantly in the middle of the night, when she whined at the dinner table until Deni (the soft touch) would sneak her a tidbit from her plate, when, bored with her own food she shouldered the cat aside and feasted on Tuna Delite.

She got cuddled. She was afraid of thunder, of sticks, of water sprays, of other dogs, and of snaky things like ropes or belts. We could always tell when a storm was rolling in ... Penny would try to dig her way through the bathtub or cram herself into the smallest space whether it was a kitchen cupboard or under a bed.

She loved car rides. I'd tease her by saying "Want to go for a ride in the car?" and she would be panting and whining at the door before I even finished the sentence. She rode in the back seat with her head out the window. If I was running errands, as I walked into the store or library, she'd start barking foe me to come back. Sometimes she'd continue for so long that I'd have to cut the errands short.

She loved bones, much preferring them to dog biscuits. She was fastidious about her food. There was only one type of dog food she liked, and she would actually sort out pieces that she didn't want from the bowl and pile them to one side, but she wasn't as picky about other things she ate. She liked peanut butter sandwiches, butter, anything that had been on a plate on the table (I once watched her steal asparagus, another time found that she'd raided the trashcan for artichoke leaves), she also liked eating the occasional flower from the garden.

Her reckless eating habits may have hastened the end. Last summer she ate a large bee and, later that day, went into a series of full-bore grand-mal seizures. She frothed and drooled, her legs spasming and her eyes bewildered at her body's betrayal. Deni and I bundled her into a blanket and drove to the only place open, a distant animal hospital. She had come out of it by then, but was in the post-epileptic stage of constant walking and fear. They warned us at the hospital of likely permanent neurological damage and that the seizures might recur.

She had trouble with her back legs from then on. She could still run, but it was an effort for her to climb stairs and once again we had to help her up onto the couch so that she could be near us. She went from sleeping on the couch to sleeping on an old feather bed on the floor of our bedroom closet. Then came the day last week.

Throughout the course of the day, I lived in hope, I gave her some chunks of beef from some beef stew and some of the liquid. I had to use a shallow bowl and tilt it sharply to let her get at it since she could not raise herself up enough otherwise. I lay next to her, massaging her legs and hoping it would pass.

It was when she tried, desperately to get to her feet, and first whined and then moaned ... a sound I had never heard her make ... a sound of such distress, that it forced me to think. Here was a friend of mine, someone whose entire life is about movement. What could I do for her? It wasn't as if she were partially mobile. Except for spasms and quivers she was immobile below the neck. There was no option for scooter wheels or other partial mobility solutions. As humans we have other resources, we can internalize, creating a mental alternative to the freedom of movement.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I am still tearing up as I write about it. Deni and I took the corners of the featherbed and lifted her up to the bed, where, once again, I wrapped Penny in a blanket and carried her to the car. I drove as my wife held Penny. The vet was waiting for us.

Springtime is the wrong season for a dog to die. Winter is finally over and the grass is coming up. The snow is gone, the peepers are back. Wildlife intrusions into the backyard will be more frequent.

It is a week later and I am still putting food in her bowl, watching where I step, reacting to the barks of other dogs in the neighborhood. It is a week later and I've decided to leave the faded, half-deflated basketballs where they are under the tree and up against the weathered fence.

It is a week later and I just realized that I have my feet tucked under my chair so as to give Penny more space under the desk.

Like a Virgin

I have been reading some comments about Barak Obama having attended a church where ostensibly homophobic comments were made. I've also heard the snide comments about his not disavowing support from people that he didn't ask for support from. I'm particularly disappointed in the inability of Senator Clinton (whose intelligence and competence I otherwise admire) to rise above that level of pettiness.

I am confused about something. Just how far does a modern politician have to distance him/herself from an uncomfortable subject, to be free of its taint. It is, after all, nearly impossible not to come into contact with, or hear, or read, or see something that will offend someone ... just in the course of ordinary living.

It's odd that we have taken the old phrase "you are what you eat" to the extreme of "you are what you see/hear/read/etc.", because, of course, that just is not true. I eat bacon and digest it. My body changes it into something that I can use, modifying and absorbing the protein and nutrients letting me grow physically. I do not, by dint of eating bacon, grow a snout and trotters and become a pig. What I eat becomes me but only through the process of digestion imposed on it. There are portions that are indegestible and they are excreted.

Likewise, what I read or hear is not me. Just as meat must be digested, literature, music, even the cultural ecology is processed by the neural digestive juices of my mind disassembled to usable components. I take the nutrients I need and just as with food, excrete the rest. Unlike food, however, that which is intellectually indigestible is worthy of scrutiny. I may not stand gazing for hours into the toilet bowl, but I will return to something I've read that upset my mental stomach and try to figure out why. It is a kind of mental scatomancy. I am acting as my own allergist, trying to find out which ideas, words, attitudes are giving my brain hives.

But when I do these exercises, it is for my own being, not anyone else's. It does not always occur to me that I need to publicly announce or denounce. Maybe it is because I am a fairly private person, but it has never occurred to me to rise up in a crowded restaurant to announce the fact that "this fish is tainted". I may call the manager over and quietly complain, perhaps I won't eat there again, perhaps the manager will apologize and claim that it was an anomaly and Ill give the place another chance ... or two.

This is part of living. You meet, work with, enjoy the company of others with whom you agree, or you disagree; you taste, eat, enjoy different foods; you read, watch, hear different forms of media.

My hunter-mind makes it difficult for me to understand the pattern here. Has the fact that I have read Ezra Pound and not immediately written a position denouncing his anti-semitism make me unfit as a companion or a leader. If I attend a church service which uses the bible, a distinctly violent, legalistic document which espouses many positions with which I do not concur, is it immediately incumbent on me to write a position paper distancing myself from any passages in that tome that might offend someone.

... And to go back to the comparison with food ... just as I would have qualms about eating a meal of roast beef prepared by a lifelong vegan, I have qualms about politicians who do not know what they are talking about. Naivety is NOT a quality I want in a leader. A politician who rails against anarchy without having read Kropotkin, or against the failure of the Iraqi government to pull together without understanding that it wasn't even a nation until we forcibly stuck three separate and unwilling nations together, ... well they just make me tired. They're like a cook who puts a filet mignon in a microwave then complains that it's tough.

It's difficult enough solving the complex problems we face without being intentionally ignorant for fear that someone might say, "Oh! If you read that than you must agree with it." The only thing worse than an ignorant politician is a voter who thinks that the politician's obliviousness is a virtue.

I swear that sometimes I think people only want to vote for someone who has been kept in isolation for their entire life. They don't want to see any mistakes, any human failings.

I say to hell with that! You can't learn without making mistakes. (Of course, Mr. Bush has proven that you can make mistakes without learning.) When I see a politician with no flaws, I worry. Either he is too innocent, or too good a liar.

A Colonial Thanksgiving

William was splitting wood. A thin but broad-shouldered twelve-year-old he swung the axe deftly. It whistled through the air until its blade thunked deeply into the end of the section of log propped between the roots of an up-turned stump. Ice crackled underfoot as he let go of the helve and moved to place wooden wedges in the split that he'd made. He pulled on his mittens and took a round hickory mallet that hung from a convenient root and with one hand on the axe helve, tapped the wedges in until the widened crack released the blade. He hung the axe in the roots where the mallet had been, to avoid dulling the edge.

Tapping the wedges deeper he heard the crackle and groan of the log being torn apart until finally it fell in two pieces. He carried them to the neat stack of splits near the small, neat, log and clapboard house and added them to the top. Then he went to another stack and got another unsplit log.

As he walked back to the stump, a sudden shift in the cold breeze blew the smoke from the house chimney to swirl around him. The smoke of logs he had split earlier in the year was mixed wih the scent of pumpkin, apples and the greasy odor of a roasting bird. The smell of the pumpkin made him ill. As hungry as he was, he would be happy if he never had to taste pumpkin again ... ever.

Pumpkins were easy to grow, and dry. With corn and the occasional small gamebirds, they were the staples of the family's winter diet. Pumpkin was used in everything. It was stewed, roasted, baked. It was added to bread, thickened gravy. The taste of pumpkin was the taste of winter.

William trudged back to the stump with the log and settled it into the embrace of the roots. Twenty more to do. He took off the mittens and grabbed the axe helve.

After the last split for the day was put on the pile, he went to the door, pulled off his mittens and pushed the sheet of bark hanging from leather hinges aside. It was slightly warmer inside the house. It was a common house for the time. made of 18-foot logs on the longest dimension. The beds were platforms extending from the walls, three down below and two above in a loft reached by a ladder. The floor on the first level was compacted earth with flat stones near the fireplace..

A fire blazed merrily in the stone fireplace that took up most of one wall, but the heat it cast did not reach the far corners. A mound of blankets on a bed built into one of the corners, and only the occasional fog of his breath showed that William's grandfather lay underneath them, bundled from the cold.

His sister Elizabeth stood near the fire stirring the contents of a blackened iron pot suspended from an iron crane over one side of the fire. The thick plop of its boiling suggested that it was the pudding made from corn meal and dried pumpkin. His mother sat on a low stool tending the spiders, the skillets and pots with legs that sat in or near the blaze. Root vegetables were boiling in the large cauldron, Hanging by a cord over the middle of the fire was the goose that his father had shot with the old blunderbuss a few days ago. The lower half was roasted and partially blackened by the smoke, the top half was still raw but smudged with the soot.

Mother reached over and gave the bird a sharp twist. The cord twisted up, then untwisted and twisted the other way, rotating the bird over the fire to cook it as evenly as possible. An apple pie made from the last of the fresh undried fruit and a bit of maple sugar sent its distinctive aroma through the cracks in the metal box built into the chimney that served as an oven.

William moved close to the fire to thaw out. After a minute or two, his mother unhooked the goose from the cord, turned it upside down and hooked it with the raw side down. "Set up the table, Will," she said.

William got the trestles from a corner. He set the trestles on either side of the room, and got the long wooden benches and put them in place. The long board leant against the wall. He tilted it down and walked backward to drop it gently on the supports. Six deep hollows had been carved in the upper surface of the tabletop. With the board in place, there was just enough room at either end for a person to squeeze between the end of the table and the wall.

Then he placed six leather tankards on the table and four wooden cups on the sideboard, a simple plank attached to the wall. "Shall I get the cider?" he asked. His mother nodded. He went to the cupboard for the earthenware jug and put it on the sideboard.

"Why don't you go meet your father at the gate," she said. He put the mittens back on.

He opened the gate for his father's wagon and waited, stamping his feet to keep them from going numb. Finally he heard the rumble of wheels. As the cart appeared, William heaved a sigh. His father had brought Uncle Eb, his new wife Judith, two children from a previous marriage (Aunt Sarah had died of influenza four years ago) and Uncle Josiah. That meant there were six for the table, and he would be standing again this year.

He closed the gate after his father drove through, then ran to catch the wagon and jumped onto the back to ride the quarter mile to the house. William unhitched the horses and took them into the barn, rubbed them down and gave them some hay with a sprinkling of oats. "For your own Thanksgiving," he told them.

Inside, preparations were nearly done. The pie was cooling on the sideboard, bowls of boiled vegetables sat steaming on the table, some plates of pickled cabbage and fruit preserves, a loaf of bread and a pan of biscuits.

Greetings were shared, the coats hung up, and hands and rears warmed at the fire. The adults took their places at the benches. They all took knives, spoons and napkins out of their pockets. William, as the eldest child, poured the cider, then took his place with the other children standing at the sideboard. Uncle Josiah, a lay preacher, whose currently unmarried status was a source of concern to all who knew him, said the blessing and the food began to make its rounds

The bird was served in a shallow wooden bowl, which was passed along the table so that each adult could tear off the portion they wanted. The remnants were passed to William who took what he felt was fair and passed it down. The same process continued with all the dishes. The adults loaded the trough in front of them with food, and passed what was left to the children, who shared the scraps.

There wasn't much conversation. One didn't talk much while eating and the children were only to talk when spoken to ... and they weren't. An occasional gesture from an adult for William to refill a tankard was the sum of the communication between table and sideboard. Everyone ate with their knives and fingers. Those who had spoons used them for the small scraps.

The room was quiet except for the sound of chewing, drinking, an occasional fart or belch, and, now and then a clank as someone spat a piece of birdshot into a dish set by for that purpose.

At the end of the meal the pie was served. As William suspected, the plate was emptied before being passed to the children. Indian pudding was ladled into small porringers, and William greedily used more than his fair share of maple syrup to try to mask the taste of pumpkin.

The adults finished and the children were chased out into the snow or up to the loft, while the adults conversed.

And then it was over. His father, half-snoozing indicated that William had the task of driving the guests home. He went to the barn and hitched up the horses. Uncles and aunts and cousins piled into the bed of the wagon. He snapped the reins and they were off on the long cold drive to the two neighboring farms.

As he drove home in the moonlight, William wondered when he would get his place at the table.

Thanksgiving makes the year wobbly

Self-denial does not come easily to us. In this country, it seems that we can put up with a lot, if it doesn't require sacrifice. As evidence of this, I'd like to tell you about a missing holiday.

I am annotating the diary of Mahala Ramsdell Tufts, my wife's great grandmother. In 1867 she documented her graduation from Maine Normal School (a name for a teachers college that survived well into the last half of the 20th century) and the beginning of her first year as a teacher.

So I found myself bemused as I researched the historical context of an 1867 diary. There was a puzzling entry.

Thursday 4 April
Fast Day. Got up at six o'clock and went to meeting. Also at 11 o'clock.

"Fast Day?" I wondered. "What Fast Day is this?"

At first I thought it must be a religious holiday. I checked the calendar for her father's religion, Universalist ... nothing. She had been going to meetings with some Freewill Baptists ... still nothing. Then I cast my search a little wider and found it.

Until late in the 19th century, the governors of New England states proclaimed an annual Fast Day in early April (you can find more information on the New Hampshire, Wikipedia, and Plimoth websites). For many New Englanders, the Fast was a holiday with a lengthy mid-week church service as its focus. With Thanksgiving, it bracketed the Northeast states’ growing season.

When originally devised, it was a day of prayer and "humiliation". The latter word did not have the overtones of ridicule and embarrassment that form the current meaning, but instead meant to humble oneself.

But soon it became the day in early Spring when all citizens were expected to fast, attend the church or meeting of their choice and pray for a good season ... and not just for farming. Here is the text of Samuel Adams' proclamation of Fast Day for the year 1796:

Commonwealth of Massachusetts
By the GOVERNOR
A Proclamation
For a Day of SOLEMN FASTING and PRAYER.
It being our indispensable duty by Prayer and Supplication to acknowledge our dependence on Almighty God, and in a Public and Solemn manner, to implore the Divine Blessing upon all the concerns and interests of our Nation and Land: And the season of the Year now approaching, wherein from the Days of our pious Forefathers, it has been the Practice to make United Supplications to Heaven for Direction and success:

I HAVE therefore thought fit, to appoint: And do, by and with the Advice of the Council, appoint THURSDAY, the thirty-first day of March next, To be observed throughout the Commonwealth, as a DAY of PUBLIC FASTING and PRAYER. And I do exhort the people of all Religious Denominations, to assemble in their respective Congregations on that Day, and with true contrition of Heart, to confess their Sins to God, and implore forgiveness through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ our Saviour; and to seek to him, by fervent and humble Prayer

• That it would please Him to guide and prosper the Administration of the Government of this Commonwealth.
• That He would bless the Public Councils and Determinations of the Federal Government of these States, giving them Wisdom, Firmness and Unanimity, and directing them to the best measures for the Public Good.
That He would be pleased to preserve and strengthen the Union of these States, and that no designs against them shall prosper.
• To bless our Allies and render the Connection formed with them mutually beneficial.
• That He would give a Public Spirit to all Persons whatsoever, especially to such that are in Civil Authority, and endue the People with the Spirit of Piety, Truth, Harmony and Concord, and with a just sense of the value of the Liberties and Privileges they enjoy under Constitutions founded on the legitimate Principle of the Rights of Man.
• That He would be pleased to bless our Husbandry, and so order the Seasons, as that this Year may be crowned with a plentiful Harvest.
• That He would prosper our Trade, Navigation and Fishery, and give success to all our lawful undertakings both Public and Private
• That he would continue Health to us, and prevent the spreading of any mortal or contageous Sickness.
• That he would put a stop to the progress of a Spirit of Profaneness and Impiety, and that great dissoluteness of Manners which threaten us with heavy Judgements, unless we speedily Repent and Reform.
• That the rod of Tyrants may be broken in pieces and all oppression cease.
• And that the glorious reign of the Prince of Peace, may be established through the Earth; so that Man may no longer be the Enemy of Man.

AND it is earnestly recommended to all Citizens throughout this Commonwealth to observe the said Day, as set a part for Religious Worship, and to abstain from all servile Labor and Recreation thereon.

GIVEN at the Council-Chamber, in Boston, the twenty-ninth Day of February, in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-six, and in the Twentieth Year of Independence of the United States of America.
SAMUEL ADAMS.
Attest.--John Avery. jun. Secretary
GOD save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!

As you might assume from previous posts, I am not a follower of any organized religion, I suppose that I could be classified an agnostic, but still ... I like this proclamation. In fact, I like the idea of the holiday.

I like the balance of starting the growing season with a fast and ending with a feast. There is a certain rightness to it. A sacrifice in Spring for the bounty of the Fall.

It seems a shame that the surviving celebration has become a glutton's holiday, that we are willing to gorge without a sense of true thankfulness, that we feel entitled to the reward without paying the price.

But these are the musings of an irritable old curmudgeon who likes the idea of balance, who thinks that reward without effort is an empty accomplishment, and one who would like to suggest that perhaps ... just perhaps, this coming Spring might be a good time to re-institute an old tradition.

Oh, and by the way ... I hope you have a Thanksgiving celebration that is warm, peaceful and full of hope.

An Acorn for Ochs

Far too long ago, I was discussing our mutual admiration for Phil Ochs (Wikipedia entry) with Tom over at the similarly named blog Anatomy of Melancholy.

Phil, for those of you too young to remember, was a singer/songwriter of topical songs. I hesitate to call them "protest" or "political", although they were full of both. Phil's knack was to humanize our inhuman treatment of each other, and to point out our failings that allowed, if not supported, the sins of our society. His was the voice of the disappointed optimist, the disenchanted patriot, the American dreamer who found himself in a nightmare.

I have always found his writing to be clearer and and far more poetical than Bob Dylan. The only reason I have ever been able to devise for the latter's success, is the obscurity of his images. Ochs' vision was clear, his songs poignant and beautiful, not the hodge-podge of linguistic pyrotechnics that is the hallmark of Dylan.

Take, for example, the following verses from "Crucifixion":

Then this overflow of life is crushed into a liar
The gentle soul is ripped apart and tossed into the fire.
First a smile of rejection at the nearness of the night
Truth becomes a tragedy limping from the light
All the heavens are horrified, they stagger from the sight
As the cross is trembling with desire.

They say they can't believe it, it's a sacreligious shame
Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?
But you know I predicted it; I knew he had to fall
How did it happen? I hope his suffering was small.
Tell me every detail, I've got to know it all,
And do you have a picture of the pain

Phil's love songs were more tender, his satire more biting, his soul more bared. He didn't pull any punches, nor did he soft-pedal his beliefs. Whether he was telling the segregationist state of Mississippi to "find another country to be part of", exhorting unions to live up to their own principles and support the rights of black-Americans, or wryly pointing out the hypocrisy of liberals, he was clear, forthright, funny, and, above all, brave.

When Phil committed suicide after a long struggle with manic-depression, it shook me to my core. Even writing about it now overwhelms me and the sense of loss persists after all these years. I was a folk performer too, and I used much of his later material "Changes', "Pleasures of the Harbor", "Crucifixion", "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends". I was not alone in my admiration either. My friend Tom, mentioned above, sent me a recording of a living room session of Phil and another great songwriter, John Lennon, talking and playing together.

Yesterday, I followed a link that I'd bookmarked from the Kottke blog to a website containing podcasts of a 24-show series about Folkways Records, a seminal source for many of us older Folkie/Hippie types, and an archive of some of the most eclectic and interesting recordings ever made. Although originally a commercial enterprise and labor of love of its founder, Mo Asch, it is now a part of the Library of Congress.

I was surprised to see that the 23rd show of the series was dedicated to Phil (MP3), because he had not recorded much that was published by Folkways other than those contributions he had made to their audio periodical Fast Folk Musical Magazine.

Needless to say, it was the first show I listened to.

About halfway through the hour-long presentation, I started to feel sick-at-heart. A deep sadness came over me as I realized that much of what Phil sang about then has not changed. Some of the situations have remained, but even in those cases where they have not, the prejudices, apathy, selfishness, and arrogance that he saw have merely been pointed at different targets.

... and it makes me ill that there are no voices with the same power as Phil's being raised in opposition. We systematize, we categorize, we study and send things to committee, while people are degraded, starved, killed. We look for political or systemic solutions, thinking somehow that we can legislate ourselves into a Utopia, while simultaneously ignoring the human cost of delay and the inevitable failure to actually do anything.

Why are we such sheep? Why do we passively let our potential to be a great country be suborned to financial interests?

I'm not ranting from some angelically higher position either. The sickness in my heart comes from the realization that I too have sunk into middle-aged apathy, that I have become the liberal that Phil spoke of, older and wiser and selfish. I know that it will be an effort to change, but I must. I cannot keep on floating in apathy.

I don't think that I have the talent, or appeal, needed to take on the job of changing this country alone. So I'd like my readers to consider this a challenge, a seed, perhaps ... an acorn. I'll deal with my own apathy, but someone needs to energize, inform, entertain, and start people thinking again of what American values really are. We have people who make us laugh with their clear vision, but none, as yet, strong enough to mount a counter-assault on the money-grubbing, indolent, self-serving power structure.

Phil, in one of his most famous songs, said "I ain't marchin' anymore", but that call to action has become an excuse for inaction. We need to march. We need to act. We need to do something to take back our country from the plutocrats.

Can anyone out there sing? Can anyone out there lead?

I'm tossing this verbal acorn out in the hope that another Ochs will grow.

A DAMNED Good Review!

I found this review and, as a certifiable superannuated hippie I say unto you, I have gazed upon these words and they are true.

This book was the cause of far too many saccharine overdoses amongst my brothers and sisters in motley, and, as a friend once opined, the presentation of this volume to a loved one oft signaled the end of the relationship.

A Shining Moment

I am not a sports fan. I'll spare you having to listen to the usual diatribe about ... sorry, I said I'd spare you that.

I watched the World Series this year. It was unusual for me to do that since, after a 5th grade field trip to Fenway Park where I watched uncomprehendingly as Ted Williams was intentionally walked each time at bat, I have never really followed the game. This year I was seduced into watching.

I'm glad I did, because I saw a moment during the games that impressed me more than I expected. It was a real high point, and it probably isn't one that you'd expect.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Aaron Cook, the Rockies pitcher was batting. He laid down a pretty bunt that was placed just right on an unexpected trajectory. The Red Sox fielders had to scramble for it, and Cook got to first base.

For just an instant the cameras focused in on first ... and that's the moment that made the series for me. Cook was standing with David Ortiz and they were laughing. It was easy to imagine the conversation. Ortiz admiring the sweet shot and Cook delighted and somewhat amazed at being on base.

It seemed to me to be a show of good sportsmanship, an acknowledgment that the game was indeed just a game. 

If I saw more moments like that, I might even become a fan.