It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard’s pear tree. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
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Department Of ( the upcoming ) Happy Winter Solstice To All
And to my fellow yogis, if this tradition is in your practice, moiself hopes you have a memorable 108 sun salutations. Since I am recovering from a surgery which requires that I put *no* weight on my left foot, throw in a few sun salutations for me, if you will.
Or maybe moiself will just engage in some adaptive yoga to mark the occasion.
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Department Of Our Window Is In Solidarity With Jewish Neighbors And Friends And Coworkers…
and in this sad year, the Australians on Bondi Beach, and a certain, gone-way-before-his-time filmmaker….
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Department Of There Goes Another Piece Of My Heart
Rob Reiner was one of those artists whose name would not immediately spring to mind if I were asked to name either my personal favorite or the most influential contemporary movie directors…. Then, I heard the heart-twisting news re his death, began to consider his body of work, and realized that Reiner had directed many of the gems on my 100 Favorite Films List ® , [2] including
* When Harry Met Sally * Spinal Tap
* The Princess Bride * The American President
Reiner on the set of “The Princess Bride”
As is the case when a Famous Artist® dies, every news story about the demise includes a rundown of the artist’s résumé. But something is missing/is in error in all of the encapsulations I’ve seen (so far) of Reiner’s professional life: he did *not* get his “start” (however one calculates that) by co-starring in TV show, All In The Family. Before that, Reiner was a writer on the subversive, cutting-edge-at-the-time, comedy-variety show,The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.[3]
“Steve (Martin) and I wrote the first fart joke ever done on national TV.” ( Rob Reiner, ” ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’ at 50: The Rise and Fall of a Groundbreaking Variety Show: Steve Martin, Rob Reiner, brothers Tommy and Dickie Smothers and more look back on their experiences transforming TV comedy with the innovative and controversial series,” The Hollywood Reporter, 11-25-17 )
Moiself found much to respect about the man. [4] Besides the excellent and varied films Reiner wrote/produced/acted in/directed – and it’s mind-boggling to fathom that the same guy who directed This is Spinal Tap also helmed Misery and Ghosts Of Mississippi – I admired Reiner’s political and community involvement, and what seemed to be his general sense of decency, kindness, perspective and humility. In all the interviews I heard/read about with Reiner over the years, he seemed well aware of the leg-up advantages/entry to showbiz *he* had, that others equally (or more) talented and driven lacked, via the connections that came from being the son of Hollywood icon Carl Reiner (and thus he counted among his family friends such comedy legends as Mel Brooks and Normal Lear).
Bravo, Rob Reiner. When it comes to your contributions to the cinematic arts, on a scale from one to ten, you go to eleven.
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Department Of Nailing the Reason Why In Eighteen Words…
The LW’s father-in-law does not like the name the LW and her husband chose for their daughter, and he keeps insulting LW’s toddler daughter’s name ( yes, this child is the FIL’s granddaughter!), in front of the LW *and* the little girl. FIL continues to do this, even after LW asked him to stop. However, FIL no longer taunts his granddaughter about her name when his son is present, after his son (LW’s husband) asked his father to back off.
May you not go nose-blind to the everyday stench of prejudice; May you treat yourself to a Rob Reiner film retrospective;| May you take the opportunity to go to eleven; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago
[2] Which is something list makers list, and although I’m a list maker I haven’t done that one yet, but it does seem to deserve some kind of special notation….
[3] Whose other writing alum included comic/actor/author/banjoist/perennial SNL host Steve Martin and musician Mason Williams.
[4] Including that ground-breaking fart joke, for which I will be forever grateful.
[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Dateline: Monday, 5:40 AM scrolling through a newsfeed to get to one of the columnists moiself reads every morning. I skip past many ads, then find moiself scrolling back to one in particular, as my brain needs conformation that…no… it didn’t just say what it said, right? Sure enough, there is a drawing of a brassiere, accompanied by the following WTF/seriously what does this have to do with anything? product descriptor:
“These bras are designed to empower those with smaller chests.”
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Department Of Back To The Future
“We have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem I promise you ______ (right wing candidate) is not interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.”
( excerpt from speech in the final scene of “The American President” )
My latest quest for sanity maintenance is to ignore the news as much as possible. I do open my news apps on my phone in the morning, to scroll past the headlines to get to my games (Wordle; the mini crossword; Letterboxed; waffle…). While doing so I glimpse the headlines, streaming… And lately it seems to be a lot of screaming headlines, as in anti-LGBTQ parents and protesters screaming at school board meetings.
Regretfully, this sounds quite familiar to moiself. Some readers may not be old enough to remember California’s Briggs Initiative of 1978. Those who are and do…ay yi yi. Once again, Conservative Christian Voters ® are being manipulated. If you are a CCV, someone is exploiting you; someone is trying to make you fearful. Why do the Someones use such tactics? [1] And why do *you* continue to fall for it? [2]
I’ve lost track of how many people I ‘ve met – from relatives to friends to acquaintances and coworkers and neighbors – who went to Catholic schools, and guess what? Not one of them went on to become nuns or priests. [3] Lest you think that is merely anecdotal, look up the statistics for yourself.
No public school teacher is “teaching” your kids to be gay (or trans, which is the right wing politician’s bogeyman of the moment). If teachers had that power, whether by their words or the mere example of their existence, there wouldn’t be a shortage of nuns in the Catholic Church now, would there?
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Department Of That Which Delights
That would be, “The Show of Delights,” on one of my fave podcasts, This American Life. Starting at Act II, starting ~16 minutes into the podcast, is a delightful story (well duh, as that is what the episode was all about). Do yourself a favor and listen to the story of Cole, a delightful five-year-old, who is oh-so-very excited about an everyday task – commuting – that most adults merely tolerate. Ah, but this is Cole’s first bus ride to school.
Cole’s story brought me back to when both of my offspring attended our local elementary school. The school was a half mile/eleven-minute walk from our house; thus, they did not have the option of riding the school bus. In my school years in So Cal, neither did I. My elementary school was a half mile walk from our house, junior high a little over a mile, and high school 1.6 miles. School buses weren’t a thing then, I guess. [4]
It came as a surprise to me that my kids were so eager to ride a school bus and so disappointed to learn that wasn’t an option for them. For some reason, they’d decided that riding the school bus was an iconic, essential part of the school experience. Later, when they were in high school, there was the option (which they took until they made carpooling and other arrangements) of riding the school bus… But by then it had lost its magical appeal. I’m wondering, do they remember this?
Once again, moiself digresses. Cole’s delight…
Yes, I know, but it’s just so dang appropriate.
Delightfully precocious Cole shares his enthusiastic anticipations (and trepidations) about as he walks to the bus stop with his mother. When was the last time you said, or even thought of saying, something along the lines of “I can’t wait – I’m a bus rider now!”
If your delight is not satiated by the story of Cole’s first bus ride, stick around for the story which follows, wherein an adult daughter interviews her mother, who has finally discovered the joys of doing what she wants to do in her older years.
“After the kids are gone, and your dad is gone, finally, I can live my life.”
Chapter III of the podcast centers around a Japanese-American woman who lived her life as a wife and mother of six children, and who now at age 72 has created joy and delights in the most profound and simple aspects of life, from the discoveries of world travel to the humble comfort of the “warm Japanese toto toilet” she uses first thing in the morning.
Whose heart – and other regions – wouldn’t be warmed by such a device?
Also delightful to me, about that segment, is the rarity and clarity of the mother’s description of her present state of mind vs. that when she was younger. With regard to her family, she says to her daughter that although she was “glad you [her children] were born, and safe,” raising her family and caring for her husband never gave her joy. This is quite an admission, particularly for an older person, but also for any woman in this “your-family-is-the-be-all-and-end-all-you’ll-never-know-true-joy-or-love-until-you-have-them” world.
As this newly joyful woman tries to define her feelings, she mentions several times that she “feels light.” I thought perhaps that was the best and most succinct of the definitions I could think of, for the word, delight. That which lightens your heart, or your burdens – that which makes you feel… light?
Sometimes the most delight is when the light is “setting.”
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Department Of Another Thing To Do For Yourself
Moiself can’t begin to explain it; just trust me, watch The History Of The World, Part Two, the follow-up to Mel Brooks’ History Of The World Part One. My fave is the skit, “Khancestry.com,” which features a variety of purported descendants of Kublai Khan in a satire of 23 and me, ancestry.com, and other DNA-using genealogical services…
Oh, never mind the promo – it’s got Wanda Sykes in it, as both a performer and a writer. What else do you need to know?
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Depart Department Of STFU And Stop Pandering Sub Department Of This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Dateline: last week; 8 am-ish; returning from a walk; listening to ologies, a podcast moiself usually finds quite entertaining. This episode began that way, then turned into an exception. The episode is Black American Magirology (Food, Race, and Culture). [5] Here’s the episode’s description from the podcast website:
“What’s the difference between Southern cooking and ‘soul food?’ Is there a correct type of mac and cheese? And whose business is it what you eat? (Hint: no one’s). Culinary historian, scholar of African American life and culture critic Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson is a professor at University of Maryland College Park and department chair in the Department of American Studies. She also authored the books Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America, and Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power. We chat about everything from oral traditions to ‘soul food’ in popular culture, gendered roles in cooking, hyperlocal produce, systemic oppression and why someone would make chicken without seasoning it…”
Podcast host Alie Ward and her guest and talked about the racism which they see as implicit or subtle in criticizing the unhealthfulness of soul food (to which I’m thinking, Sorry, but *any* cuisine style laden with saturated fats and sodium are unhealthful, no matter who is doing the cooking or consuming), and the difference of the white and yellow cornmeals used in cornbread and what culinary historians say about the matter, and, as Ward put it, “how people judge each other” based on ingredient usage…. Then there is this gem of an exchange:
Alie Ward: You know, from an historical and anthropological perspective, so many European nations colonized other areas under the guise of looking for spices. Why are white people so afraid to season their food? We can’t flavor for shit – what’s up with that? How does someone go on Oprah with an award-winning chicken recipe and no salt or pepper? Do you remember this clip? Tell me you remember this clip?
Ward plays a clip of an Oprah show guest (a cook of some kind) who is asking of Oprah, in almost a pleading way, “Do you like it?” Oprah equivocates, finally saying, “I do like it…I like it very much…did we add salt and pepper? I think we needed salt and pepper.” Guest: “Nope; there’s no salt and pepper in it.”
Ward and Dr. W-F go on to talk about co-opting foods, as if the usage of mere salt and pepper, those all-over-everywhere ingredients can be co-opted.
Yeah; it’s supposed to be funny. But imagine a pronouncement like, “Why are white people so afraid to season their food? We can’t flavor for shit,” reversed: “Why do black people over salt their food? They can’t control their blood pressure for shit.”
Also, speak for yourself, Ms. Ward, and not *we*, as in, all “white people.” Moiself has never been “afraid” (seriously?) to season my food. [6] Also also, I for one do not consider slathering a casserole with salt and pepper to be adequate “seasoning.” [7]
So, there.
I’ll probably pout for a week, then check out next week’s ologies podcast.
“This world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another.”
–Elliot Page, nee Ellen Page, actor and LGBTQ activist
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May you delight in feeling light; May you never conflate empowerment with undergarments; May you enjoy scrolling past screaming headlines; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] This “you“ is rhetorical, as I am not sure of that many, if any, right-wing/conservative Christians read my blog.
[3] Or even “good” as in becoming believing in practicing Catholics, for that matter.
[4] I don’t think they were mandated by law, most of the kids had to make their way to school themselves, whether through walking or biking or carpooling with other families.
[7] And I’ve read cookbooks and essays by many non-American chefs who complain that the American palate – of all Americans of all skin colors – has been ruined by the over-usage of salt as the primary (and ofttimes only) seasoning, thus rendering many Americans incapable of appreciating the subtleties of spices other than salt).
[8] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
No matter what your plans, on this upcoming Earth Day weekend there are plenty of other ways to Love Your Mother (Earth, that is).
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“There’s pretty much sloths everywhere you look around here.”
Does that quote sound familiar? If you think heard something like it, perhaps from the HR person during your interview tour of your company’s cubicle land, then it’s time to look for a new job. Here’s the title of my dream job: Baby Sloth Wrangler, at the Costa Rica Sloth Sanctuary.
School spirit: Try to contain your enthusiasm.
I’ve occasionally received text messages from my offspring when they were stuck at a mandatory snorefest high school assembly. Typically, they were bored out of their gourds by the blah blah blah from their school’s administrators and/or lame “artistic” presentations from fellow students. I, on the other hand,[1] remember my high school’s assemblies with fondness. The assemblies were rare and welcome breaks from routine, and were also, for the most part, entertaining, with little to no speechifying by adults/administration.
From what son K has told and now daughter Belle is telling me, their high school finds numerous reasons to have assemblies, often merely to disseminate school/logistical information that could have easily been relayed via the teacher, in the classroom…information that is forgotten five minutes after the assembly has ended.
There are those kind of assemblies. And then, there are other assemblies.
Yesterday around noon I received the following text from Belle, during her school’s assembly, at which the choir and band were to perform.
OMG…this assembly is cursed. The color guard did a performance, and one girl got hit with her gun in the face and bled everywhere. Then ___ (Belle’s friend from the track team) passed out in the stands and had to be carried out.
Don’t think they’ll be forgetting this one so soon.
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The Boston Marathon bombs. At the time I’m writing this, those responsible have not been apprehended, nor identified. Much has already been said about the tragedy. One thing hasn’t: that such horrific incidents only go to show, in this Bright’s opinion, how the most basic tenet of a certain theology gets it all dead wrong.
I’m referring to Original Sin and other such mental ass cheek flapping religious doctrines that teach of an innate, even inherited, fallen humanity.
There are seven bajillion of us on this planet. If human beings were truly and inherently evil at the core of their being, we would have blown ourselves up – we would have torn each other to pieces – a long, long time ago.
Look for the good, the kind, the rational, the helpful. You don’t have to look far. Yes, there are some incredibly sadistic asshats[2] fighting for slop space in this world. And there are the others. They don’t usually make the headlines, because there are so many of them.
I saw footage and photos of people in Boston, from professional first responders and civilian bystanders, running to help their fellow human beings. People were running toward the sites of the still-smoldering explosions, even as they had no way of knowing whether there were more blasts to come.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
One of my favorite dialog sequences from one of my favorite movies, The American President.
Janie (Presidential Aide) : The 10:15 event has been moved inside to the Indian Treaty Room.
President Andrew Shepherd: 10:15 is American Fisheries?
Janie: Yes, sir. They’re giving you a 200-pound halibut.
The President: Janie, make a note. We need to schedule more events where somebody gives me a really big fish.
Janie: Yes sir. [starts making note]
The President: Janie, I’m kidding.
Janie: [Stops and starts to smile] Of course, sir.
After a trip to our favorite market, the awesome New Seasons, I realized I needed to do more grocery shopping where somebody gives my daughter a really big fish. [3]
* * *
Dateline: long ago in a galaxy far, far away. [4] It was a beautiful, Bay Area day, clear blue skies, mid-70s with no breeze. A co-worker had called to trade shifts at Planned Parenthood, so my morning was free. I had work to do, but even a freethinker like moiself who scoffs at the s-word knew it would be a sin to work indoors. It was the perfect day for one of my favorite drives: taking La Honda Road (highway 84) to the coast.
Sitting in my favorite spot under a sandstone cliff facing the ocean, I had the beach (San Gregorio) to myself. Midway through editing the final draft of a story, I looked toward the water and saw a man and his golden retriever walking in the shallow surf. Man and dog turned inland, headed in my direction, and attempted to make conversation. [5]
“Great day, thought we had the beach to ourselves….” Man’s banter was neither interesting nor original, but also not (intentionally nor particularly) annoying. He was friendly…and also sliding into flirtatious. I was polite but not encouraging. I made a point of petting his dog and shooing his dog away from my manuscript and shaking the sand off of said manuscript with my left hand, making sure that my wedding band was on display.
He soon got around to, “Whatcha working on?,” a question I’ve since learned how to deflect [6] . I thought if I answered him truthfully – if he realized that, indeed, I was not on holiday but was working – he’d half-heartedly apologize for the intrusion and be on his way. Instead, I had found myself in what is a fairly a common experience for writers: receiving unsolicited advice from a non-writer as to how, or what, a writer should write.
He incorrectly assumed that I was a novice, unpublished writer. Wishing not to prolong our interaction, I did not disabuse him of that assumption. “I hear fiction, for adults, is really, like, difficult to break into,” he offered, with a wide-eyed look that was obviously intended to be helpful. “Have you ever thought of working your way up, by, uh, like, writing stuff for children, first?”
He seemed taken aback at my hearty guffaw, and his expression quickly morphed from helpful to confused as he found an excuse to return to his dog walking duties.
“If you write comedy, you’re sitting at the children’s table.”
(Woody Allen)
A common misconception among non-writers is that writing “for children” is somehow easier, and less prestigious, than writing “for adults.” Authors who’ve been published across the various (and somewhat arbitrary) age groupings scoff at the former notion even as they grapple with the latter – that a “children’s author” is a second class citizen in the world of literature.
This snobbery sometimes comes from a select list of fellow writers, those who take themselves and their I Am an Author of Important Lit-ra-chure credentials oh-so-seriously. These writers are invested in this alleged hierarchy of prestige, and wish to maintain what they see as the ghetto of being on the children’s list. And yet, the children’s list is a relatively recent phenomenon. It was only twelve years ago that the New York Times Book Review made the controversial decision to start a children’s bestseller list, separate from that of adult fiction. This was due in part to the rumored complaints by some self-styled Big Boy writers who got their Serious Literary Underpants ® in a knot when they found themselves increasingly sharing (read: ceding) top rankings with Harry Potter [7].
But, apparently, sharing list-space with Fifty Shades of Meh or the latest “adult” schlock literary sensation is reputable…enough.
When I was invited by local schools to do readings of my first children’s book, My Closet Threw a Party, the teachers usually introduced me (to their students, and/or to other school staff) as a writer, or sometimes as a “children’s writer.” When it was the latter, I gently corrected the distinction…and then had to explain why I wasn’t objecting to it, but simply felt that it was inaccurate.
Although I write for all ages, the vast majority of my published works have been for an adult audience. I’m just a writer. I didn’t feel then, nor do I feel now, that being referred to as a “Children’s Author” is in any way depreciatory. Quite the opposite. If anything, I feel I am not deserving of the moniker. I can’t think of a better kind of writer to be. Think about it: who – truly, deeply and loyally – loves a book more than a child?
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“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
(Groucho Marx)
Get your favorite book, for children of all ages (I’m partial to Green Eggs and Ham), turn on the light inside your dog, and may the hijinks ensue.
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
