Mack Hall
"Hello. Sniff. Boohoo. I know that my name, Winthrop Postlewaithe, is on everyone’s lips, and that millions of little boys and girls look up to me as the World Champion Turbo-Four-Way-Chess Champion and want to follow in my footsteps – Queen’s Blasto-Rook to Knight’s Nuclear-Drive-Pawn 32 ½ -- and be just like me, me, me. Sniff. Boohoo. But I stand here before you today a disgraced person. Sniff. Boohoo. I want to apologize to my kazillions of fans, to my mom and dad who raised me to be strong and unafraid in a universe not always kind to a little boy whose dreams of piloting the Starship Enemaprize to nebulae really, really, really, really, really far away and defeating asteroido-serpents with his made-in-China-and-covered-with-lead-paint GollyGeeWhizSabre (four 3A batteries sold separately) were cruelly trashed by neighborhood meanies (I’ll get you for pantsing me in my Captain Quiche space suit, Ficus Norstenwhortle; you see if I don’t!).
"Sniff. I want to apologize to the whole world, because I know everyone on the planet has been following my, my, my career (and to Kim Il Jong in North Korea, which must be a really rockin’ place, thanks for all your emails of support, dude. You rock!). I, I, I know the whole world revolves around me, me, me and my, my, my Turbo-Four-Way-Chess career, especially when I, I, I won three Sorta-Gold-Like medals and two Sorta-Silver-Like medals in the 2004 Delphic Games in Threefrogs, Louisiana, I passed every doping test there was, and I swore to the people of the world that I had never and would never take unfair advantage of my, my, my special gifts by the Vague, Nebulous, Fuzzy Something-or-Other Being-ness Thing or Whatever Mr. Glock has to go away and meditate to in some episodes of Space-Rangers-in-Tight-Bodysuits by taking unauthorized dark chocolate with more than 60% hamster-sweat.
"Sniff. Boohoo. I, I, I must tell you all how I have let you down, because of course you spend all your pathetic little lives thinking about me, me, me and being so sorry that you could not be me, me, me. I mean, like, you know, who wouldn’t want to spend every waking hour sweating and agonizing over every moved in Turbo-Four-Way-Chess (not like those loser nerds who play Three-Way-Chess) just like I, I, I do, and wanting to be the gosh-darnest-bestest player in the whole wide universe. Sniff. Boohoo. I mean, like, who wants to be a mere entrepreneur or skilled craftsman or shop owner or doctor or truck driver or any of that bourgeois stuff when you could be the galactic expression of a superior mind drooling over a four-way-turbo chessboard? I mean, like, that’s even better than running foot-races.
" I, I, I also want to apologize to the Intergalactic Truth Investigative Vapor Team, who knew that probing deep into my, my, my really deep soul to find the poison planted there by evil doping coaches (I, I, I, of course, did not know that the Gypsum Mind-Melt was being practiced on me, me, me by an operative of the Dork Side of the Farce) was much more important than searching out Klink-the-Kans who want to blow up Planet Earth.
"I, I, I want to thank my soul-shadow, Hether-Mystyeyey-Shannin-Cheyyenne-Dauwn-La’To’tisha, and all you little people out there for standing by me, me, me in my, my, my dark mid-day of my, my, my existential soul, and, like, y’know, stuff. Way to go, H-M-S-C-D-L. And now I’ll take a few questions from the media before the ITIVT take me away to a penal colony. Yes…?"
First (and only) reporter: "Who did you say you were?"
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Jesus and the Twelve Apostrophes
Recently I had occasion to visit a facility offering something called healthcare (sic). Such an event used to be called going to the doctor, and health care, as two words, was part of the phraseology of insurance forms.
In times long past, one said hello to the receptionist (probably a high school classmate), and sat in a waiting room to read a ten-year-old copy of National Geographic. After a bit a registered nurse in a crisp (forgive the cliché’, but it is apt) white uniform complete with nursing cap and school pin opened a door to say, "The doctor will see you now."
Now one says hello to the receptionist (still probably an old pal from school), who gives the bearer of a fevered brow a greasy ball-point pen and a portfolio of almost illegible forms, photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, over which to labor while the receptionist photocopies the patient’s insurance card, pharmacy card, Sam’s Club card, and driving license. After a wait in a room full of the sick staring slack-jawed at CNN on a widescreen telly, a person of indeterminate rank and skills, wearing pajamas of indeterminate color and hygiene, admits the suffering for healthcare.
I suppose the coming phrase is "The healthcare provider will healthcare you now."
Combining words and employing nouns as verbs are fashions now ("cutting edge," I believe it’s called, "educating for the 21st century"), along with the elimination of punctuation.
In school a drill team is now called a colorguard, and they aren’t guarding the colors or even carrying them; the FFA does that. The denotation of color guard is the assemblage of soldiers carrying the national and unit colors, flanked by two riflemen, and don’t even think of messin’ with those colors unless you want to die. Now color guard, jammed into colorguard, is a team of dancers who wave bright cloths on the ends of sticks. These routines are certainly entertaining, and I yield to no one in my admiration of dance from ballet to Gene Kelly to boot-scootin’ something-or-other. But a dance troupe is not a color guard; one might with equal accuracy call it small-unit action against a gun emplacement.
One also reads of the modern tendency to exile commas and apostrophes to the same outlands as the semi-colon; one who has suffered through sixth-grade grammar drills is initially tempted to stand and applaud. But before we push the poor old apostrophe into a boxcar of the Siberian Express (return ticket not an issue), let us rememberer the real purpose (not Ol’ Miz Grundy’s sadistic got’cha game) of punctuation. Consider the following line:
PATERNOSTERQVIINCOELISESTSANCTIFICETVRNOMENTVVMADVENIATREGNVMTVVMFIATVOLVNTVSTVAINTERRAETINCOELVM…
Makes no sense, right? Now let’s separate the words, allow for little letters, and add some punctuation:
Pater Noster, Qui in Coelis est, sanctificetur Nomen Tuum, adveniat regnum Tuum, fiat voluntus tua in Terra et in Coelum…
Now we’re getting somewhere. As with geometry, accept as a given that Pater Noster means Father Ours, and the rest can easily be worked out. However, even in English we would have problems with no word separation, no small letters, and no punctuation:
OURFATHERWHOARTINHEAVENHALLOWEDBETHYNAMETHYKINGDOMCOMETHYWILLBEDONEINEARTHASITISINHEAVEN…
Oh, easy enough to sort out a line or two, but can one imagine reading The Bible (and which one, anyway?), work orders, nursing notes, bills of lading, or a Louis L’Amour shoot-‘em-up printed like that?
Language changes, but that change should flow naturally with the passage of time and with the need to express new technologies. We should not scurry like mice in obedience to the chief mouse to discard the carefully worked out usages of time and reality. Punctuation and word usage are about clarity and aesthetics, not ideology.
So for now, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, when push comes to shove, in today’s society, in a heartbeat, at this point in time, when the skinny lady sings, the cutting edge of education for the 21st century means thinking outside the box 24/7 in order to define a generation along a long and winding dusty country road for the just plain common people changed our lives forever as a person met his or her fate when a hurricane was brewing and then slammed ashore in an expression of freedom of choice for women’s healthcare because the wrath of Mother Nature…(fade to a Blue Bell commercial).
In times long past, one said hello to the receptionist (probably a high school classmate), and sat in a waiting room to read a ten-year-old copy of National Geographic. After a bit a registered nurse in a crisp (forgive the cliché’, but it is apt) white uniform complete with nursing cap and school pin opened a door to say, "The doctor will see you now."
Now one says hello to the receptionist (still probably an old pal from school), who gives the bearer of a fevered brow a greasy ball-point pen and a portfolio of almost illegible forms, photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, over which to labor while the receptionist photocopies the patient’s insurance card, pharmacy card, Sam’s Club card, and driving license. After a wait in a room full of the sick staring slack-jawed at CNN on a widescreen telly, a person of indeterminate rank and skills, wearing pajamas of indeterminate color and hygiene, admits the suffering for healthcare.
I suppose the coming phrase is "The healthcare provider will healthcare you now."
Combining words and employing nouns as verbs are fashions now ("cutting edge," I believe it’s called, "educating for the 21st century"), along with the elimination of punctuation.
In school a drill team is now called a colorguard, and they aren’t guarding the colors or even carrying them; the FFA does that. The denotation of color guard is the assemblage of soldiers carrying the national and unit colors, flanked by two riflemen, and don’t even think of messin’ with those colors unless you want to die. Now color guard, jammed into colorguard, is a team of dancers who wave bright cloths on the ends of sticks. These routines are certainly entertaining, and I yield to no one in my admiration of dance from ballet to Gene Kelly to boot-scootin’ something-or-other. But a dance troupe is not a color guard; one might with equal accuracy call it small-unit action against a gun emplacement.
One also reads of the modern tendency to exile commas and apostrophes to the same outlands as the semi-colon; one who has suffered through sixth-grade grammar drills is initially tempted to stand and applaud. But before we push the poor old apostrophe into a boxcar of the Siberian Express (return ticket not an issue), let us rememberer the real purpose (not Ol’ Miz Grundy’s sadistic got’cha game) of punctuation. Consider the following line:
PATERNOSTERQVIINCOELISESTSANCTIFICETVRNOMENTVVMADVENIATREGNVMTVVMFIATVOLVNTVSTVAINTERRAETINCOELVM…
Makes no sense, right? Now let’s separate the words, allow for little letters, and add some punctuation:
Pater Noster, Qui in Coelis est, sanctificetur Nomen Tuum, adveniat regnum Tuum, fiat voluntus tua in Terra et in Coelum…
Now we’re getting somewhere. As with geometry, accept as a given that Pater Noster means Father Ours, and the rest can easily be worked out. However, even in English we would have problems with no word separation, no small letters, and no punctuation:
OURFATHERWHOARTINHEAVENHALLOWEDBETHYNAMETHYKINGDOMCOMETHYWILLBEDONEINEARTHASITISINHEAVEN…
Oh, easy enough to sort out a line or two, but can one imagine reading The Bible (and which one, anyway?), work orders, nursing notes, bills of lading, or a Louis L’Amour shoot-‘em-up printed like that?
Language changes, but that change should flow naturally with the passage of time and with the need to express new technologies. We should not scurry like mice in obedience to the chief mouse to discard the carefully worked out usages of time and reality. Punctuation and word usage are about clarity and aesthetics, not ideology.
So for now, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, when push comes to shove, in today’s society, in a heartbeat, at this point in time, when the skinny lady sings, the cutting edge of education for the 21st century means thinking outside the box 24/7 in order to define a generation along a long and winding dusty country road for the just plain common people changed our lives forever as a person met his or her fate when a hurricane was brewing and then slammed ashore in an expression of freedom of choice for women’s healthcare because the wrath of Mother Nature…(fade to a Blue Bell commercial).
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Canada Takes Charge
The Canadian dollar is worth more than the American dollar for the first time since our invasion of Canada in 1775, which of course we Americans won.
The Canadian dollar is called The Looney because it bears a picture of a loon. The reason why there is a picture of a loon on the Canadian dollar is a state secret wrapped carefully in the skin of a cute widdle baby harp seal and hidden deep in an abandoned gold mine outside Dawson and guarded by Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Canadians are celebrating the power of their dollar by crossing the border and buying made-in-China stuff in America instead of buying made-in-China stuff in Canada. Because our funny-money is no longer quite up to the mark, goods are cheaper here in Canada’s Back Yard. A gallon of gasoline in Canada, for instance, costs almost five dollars, and that’s five sturdy Canadian dollars, not our flimsy Yank dollars, and so all those cars bearing patriotic maple leaf bumper stickers nip discreetly across The World’s Friendliest Border to buy cheap American petrol.
Being an underdeveloped country could be interesting. This winter Canadians will flee the ice and cold for the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico. We locals might find jobs wearing funny hats and selling overpriced drinks with umbrellas stuck in them to haughty tourists who will write postcards home about us quaint, colorful Americans in our native peasant garb:
“Dear Neville and Beryl, Having the most amusing time among the natives down here, eh. Charming towel boy named Bubba who was once a great logger or something among his tribe until we flooded the American market with our softwood, eh. Given the exchange rate, I and some of the lads at the fishery are thinking of getting together and buying Beaumont as a lark, eh. What they call a dollar is so charming, but of course it’s not real money, eh. See you on Dominion Day, eh. Your pals, Pierre et Marie”
Our illegal aliens could grow to be quite the snobs too: “’Ey, Yankee-boy, you are a bunch of losers. We’re going to Canada for better welfare and to learn how to say ‘Go, Maple Leafs! Eh.’”
Canadian dudes will swagger down the streets of our once-great cities and steal our girlfriends away by flashing their wallets full of Looneys and Tooneys. We will complain that the loud, pushy Canadians are overpaid, oversexed, and over here.
Canadians will patronize (or patronise) us by assuring us that our decaying Republic is so last week’s news, and that in the twenty-first century being a part of the British Empire is the coming thing.
Our children will have to go to special night schools to learn how to spell colour, armour, and eh if they want to be part of the world economy.
Little boys will discard G.I. Joe in favor (or favour) of RCMP Smedley.
American nationalists will gather in secret to whisper about the nefarious Canadian plot to invade us and steal our sand.
Manly men will gather around the telly on Sunday afternoon to watch soccer as the NFL is relegated to sandlots and supermarket openings.
The White House will feature a Tim Horton’s in the lobby, and the President will eagerly claim to be the Prime Minister’s best pal.
This Moosehead’s For You.
Cindy Sheehan and Al Sharpton will picket outside Parliament in Ottawa screaming “Canada Out of Canada!”
Canadian movies will feature the streets of Los Angeles pretending to be the streets of Toronto, partly because of the exchange rate but mostly because the streets of Los Angeles are safer.
Hummer? Ha! Now it’s all Bombardier.
And the final humiliation resulting from Canada’s economic and cultural dominance of North America: Newfoundlanders will be telling Amerifie jokes.
The Canadian dollar is called The Looney because it bears a picture of a loon. The reason why there is a picture of a loon on the Canadian dollar is a state secret wrapped carefully in the skin of a cute widdle baby harp seal and hidden deep in an abandoned gold mine outside Dawson and guarded by Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Canadians are celebrating the power of their dollar by crossing the border and buying made-in-China stuff in America instead of buying made-in-China stuff in Canada. Because our funny-money is no longer quite up to the mark, goods are cheaper here in Canada’s Back Yard. A gallon of gasoline in Canada, for instance, costs almost five dollars, and that’s five sturdy Canadian dollars, not our flimsy Yank dollars, and so all those cars bearing patriotic maple leaf bumper stickers nip discreetly across The World’s Friendliest Border to buy cheap American petrol.
Being an underdeveloped country could be interesting. This winter Canadians will flee the ice and cold for the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico. We locals might find jobs wearing funny hats and selling overpriced drinks with umbrellas stuck in them to haughty tourists who will write postcards home about us quaint, colorful Americans in our native peasant garb:
“Dear Neville and Beryl, Having the most amusing time among the natives down here, eh. Charming towel boy named Bubba who was once a great logger or something among his tribe until we flooded the American market with our softwood, eh. Given the exchange rate, I and some of the lads at the fishery are thinking of getting together and buying Beaumont as a lark, eh. What they call a dollar is so charming, but of course it’s not real money, eh. See you on Dominion Day, eh. Your pals, Pierre et Marie”
Our illegal aliens could grow to be quite the snobs too: “’Ey, Yankee-boy, you are a bunch of losers. We’re going to Canada for better welfare and to learn how to say ‘Go, Maple Leafs! Eh.’”
Canadian dudes will swagger down the streets of our once-great cities and steal our girlfriends away by flashing their wallets full of Looneys and Tooneys. We will complain that the loud, pushy Canadians are overpaid, oversexed, and over here.
Canadians will patronize (or patronise) us by assuring us that our decaying Republic is so last week’s news, and that in the twenty-first century being a part of the British Empire is the coming thing.
Our children will have to go to special night schools to learn how to spell colour, armour, and eh if they want to be part of the world economy.
Little boys will discard G.I. Joe in favor (or favour) of RCMP Smedley.
American nationalists will gather in secret to whisper about the nefarious Canadian plot to invade us and steal our sand.
Manly men will gather around the telly on Sunday afternoon to watch soccer as the NFL is relegated to sandlots and supermarket openings.
The White House will feature a Tim Horton’s in the lobby, and the President will eagerly claim to be the Prime Minister’s best pal.
This Moosehead’s For You.
Cindy Sheehan and Al Sharpton will picket outside Parliament in Ottawa screaming “Canada Out of Canada!”
Canadian movies will feature the streets of Los Angeles pretending to be the streets of Toronto, partly because of the exchange rate but mostly because the streets of Los Angeles are safer.
Hummer? Ha! Now it’s all Bombardier.
And the final humiliation resulting from Canada’s economic and cultural dominance of North America: Newfoundlanders will be telling Amerifie jokes.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Anticipating November
Mist and Meteors
Little Leonids, falling from the stars
Space dust, they say, sailing from far away
Why have you come to us, and why so far?
So tell me now -- what do you have to say?
The stars are dimming as the mist rolls in
A curtain between the heavens and me
A metaphor, perhaps, suggesting sin,
Separating what is from what might be.
And yet you use even the fog to light
The very air as you fall and die
A glowing, healing, mysterious sight
That closes the gap between earth and sky
I don't know -- are you a message from God?
In this strange night -- that's not so very odd.
Madonna, the Yenta Ouijazilla
Poor Israel – surrounded by genocidal neighbors who stay up late polishing their North Korean nukes and listening to The Voices. And now, perhaps a worse threat, a Kabbalah convention in Tel Aviv featuring Madonna.
Greek Orthodox everywhere breathe a grateful sigh of relief that Madonna’s parents did not name her Theotokos.
Whatever the Kabbalah is – and to ask for a definition is to suffer a smothering tribble-drop of New Age cliches’ – it has become the newest fashion among rich people without underwear. Scientology is, like, soooo last week.
And, really, one can understand – wearing a red string on one’s wrist is so much more understated than lugging an e-meter around.
And what’s with the red string, named Red String? Well, you buy it for some twenty-six dollars or so, and it has, like, y’know, seven knots in it, and, like, stuff, and it wards off the Evil Eye.
Whew! Gotta get me one! I don’t know of a day in my life when I haven’t been menaced by evil eyes glaring at me from my toothbrush and my toaster, and now my salvation is here, in a red string! You can buy your own Red String at Kabbalah.com, along with incense, candles, posters – golly, the sixties are back!
Other followers of Kabbalism are said to include Britney Spears, David and Victoria Beckham, Roseanne Barr, Donna Karan, Lindsey Lohan, Sandra Bernhard, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher, all the greats.
Last week Madonna, who has taken the name of Esther, was a guest of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who, according to the Associated Press, gave her a copy of the Old Testament. Note to AP: That’s not what they call it in Israel. In return, Madonna gave Mr. Peres a copy of a Kabbalist text, The Book of Splendor, inscribed "To Shimon Peres, the man I admire and love, Madonna." Now that, not dictators with nuclear weapons, will have the man waking up at 0200 dripping sweat and screaming in fear.
Why is it that the rich and famous seem genetically unable to sit modestly and humbly in a pew, donate to the soup kitchen, help serve coffee after divine services, and just shut up?
Because duty is not nearly as thrilling as being part of an in-group: all the corpse-littered films and the secret -– so secret that they have their own web sites – societies puttering about with secret Egyptian / Babylonian / Chaldean / Crusader books, candles, magic healing water, sacred vessels (stamped “Made in Taiwan” on the bottom), codes (Da Vinci and otherwise), arcane ceremonies featuring robes and wands and stuff, Grail legends, Templar legends, crystals, rocks, ouija boards, seances, tarot cards – it’s all old news. Have we learned nothing from Chaucer’s Pardoner with his pig bones and handkerchiefs? Or from pompously sad Yeats with his table-thumping seances and his orange magic robes?
Poor Madonna. If she really wants to encounter Jewish mysticism she could not do better than to visit an ordinary synagogue on a Friday evening. She could sit next to a woman whose husband has died and whose children are grown and gone. She could ask this woman, a real Esther, “What is the meaning of life?” And perhaps Esther would smile with the wisdom of genuine suffering, and whisper “Shhhhh,” and point to the Torah.
Greek Orthodox everywhere breathe a grateful sigh of relief that Madonna’s parents did not name her Theotokos.
Whatever the Kabbalah is – and to ask for a definition is to suffer a smothering tribble-drop of New Age cliches’ – it has become the newest fashion among rich people without underwear. Scientology is, like, soooo last week.
And, really, one can understand – wearing a red string on one’s wrist is so much more understated than lugging an e-meter around.
And what’s with the red string, named Red String? Well, you buy it for some twenty-six dollars or so, and it has, like, y’know, seven knots in it, and, like, stuff, and it wards off the Evil Eye.
Whew! Gotta get me one! I don’t know of a day in my life when I haven’t been menaced by evil eyes glaring at me from my toothbrush and my toaster, and now my salvation is here, in a red string! You can buy your own Red String at Kabbalah.com, along with incense, candles, posters – golly, the sixties are back!
Other followers of Kabbalism are said to include Britney Spears, David and Victoria Beckham, Roseanne Barr, Donna Karan, Lindsey Lohan, Sandra Bernhard, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher, all the greats.
Last week Madonna, who has taken the name of Esther, was a guest of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who, according to the Associated Press, gave her a copy of the Old Testament. Note to AP: That’s not what they call it in Israel. In return, Madonna gave Mr. Peres a copy of a Kabbalist text, The Book of Splendor, inscribed "To Shimon Peres, the man I admire and love, Madonna." Now that, not dictators with nuclear weapons, will have the man waking up at 0200 dripping sweat and screaming in fear.
Why is it that the rich and famous seem genetically unable to sit modestly and humbly in a pew, donate to the soup kitchen, help serve coffee after divine services, and just shut up?
Because duty is not nearly as thrilling as being part of an in-group: all the corpse-littered films and the secret -– so secret that they have their own web sites – societies puttering about with secret Egyptian / Babylonian / Chaldean / Crusader books, candles, magic healing water, sacred vessels (stamped “Made in Taiwan” on the bottom), codes (Da Vinci and otherwise), arcane ceremonies featuring robes and wands and stuff, Grail legends, Templar legends, crystals, rocks, ouija boards, seances, tarot cards – it’s all old news. Have we learned nothing from Chaucer’s Pardoner with his pig bones and handkerchiefs? Or from pompously sad Yeats with his table-thumping seances and his orange magic robes?
Poor Madonna. If she really wants to encounter Jewish mysticism she could not do better than to visit an ordinary synagogue on a Friday evening. She could sit next to a woman whose husband has died and whose children are grown and gone. She could ask this woman, a real Esther, “What is the meaning of life?” And perhaps Esther would smile with the wisdom of genuine suffering, and whisper “Shhhhh,” and point to the Torah.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
But What About New Orleans?
Hey, people -- stop cleaning up now, go back into the house (if you still have one), and write a big ol' check to send to New Orleans. Thousands of career victims are depending on you. (fade out from a weedy, sepia-colored railway track with a harmonica background)
Friday, September 14, 2007
Hurricane Humberto
Al Caldwell and KLVI always get life right. In crises and on ordinary mornings the discerning listener will roll the little red line to AM 560 for news, wheezy jokes, and INTELLIGENT conversation.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
A Workman
Mack Hall
Flavius: Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Second Commoner: Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but with awl. I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes. When they are in great danger I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.
-- Julius Caesar
Last week I had occasion to visit a shoemaker to have a pair of shoes re-soled and re-heeled, a practice common even a generation ago but now almost unheard of.
Shoes now come from slave factories in China, and when worn out are thrown away (“recycled”), as are redundant Chinese workers, not mended. China is now progressing in robotics to the point where one’s new leather shoes are perhaps not made by Prisoner Chang but of Prisoner Chang.
Most shoes look like cancerous mushrooms on steroids, but people are convinced by advertising that these blobs are cool because they are worn by some millionaire while he kills dogs or something. Looking for shoes that take a polish is now an adventure.
My cobbler is a smart young man who can discourse expertly on the merits of digital vs. film as media for recording images as well as on leather. He looked at my shoes and immediately knew the brand, the place of manufacture, and the eccentricities of the stitchery unique to the company who made the shoe.
His shop, marked appropriately by a wooden silhouette of a boot hanging from a chain, smelled of leather, wood, oils, and tools, all very much like The City Shoe Shop of happy memory.
And can you say “City Shoe Shop” over and over, really fast, without saying something naughty?
Nowhere was there any evidence of a computer in the cobbler’s shop; indeed, the only evidence of technology was the electric light. The tools were all hand tools, honest wood and iron, and the work bench was an archaeological site, worn and scratched and battered, among the litter of which history could be studied. And isn’t that the way art should be!
Here were no pixellated penguins, no electronic sermons yapping about my ideological failures, no preachments about why I should walk barefoot instead of killing a cow for shoes, no fashionable bottles of water, no body piercings, but rather that increasingly rare man, a real artisan pursuing his craft with his hands and his brain.
I am not nearly so gifted, but I can manage a bit of the rough carpentry I learned on the farm. Recently I felt the need to build some bookshelves. I have most of the tools I need for such small projects, including the hammer my father gave me for my 8th grade graduation for a summer of building fences. I was hoping for something more entertaining -– a car would have been nice -- but in the event my Tru-Temper Rocket has served me honorably for more than forty years.
Whenever I shop for tools I look for that Made In The USA stamp and can almost always find it. Although most manufacturers are now offshore, some of their older products are still trickling out of warehouses, and they are worth the hunt. An American-made hammer, saw, or screwdriver enjoys a heft, a balance, a solidity that you just won’t see or feel or weigh in some shiny thing stamped out of scrap metal by Prisoner Chang before he was harvested for his lungs.
We don’t need another filmmaker, another cartoonist, another nasal thirty-something abusing a guitar, another book on existentialism, another advertiser. We just don’t need ‘em. But a man who can make you some shoes or plumb your house or build cabinets or make the electricity go – in him you've met a true artist.
Flavius: Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Second Commoner: Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but with awl. I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes. When they are in great danger I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.
-- Julius Caesar
Last week I had occasion to visit a shoemaker to have a pair of shoes re-soled and re-heeled, a practice common even a generation ago but now almost unheard of.
Shoes now come from slave factories in China, and when worn out are thrown away (“recycled”), as are redundant Chinese workers, not mended. China is now progressing in robotics to the point where one’s new leather shoes are perhaps not made by Prisoner Chang but of Prisoner Chang.
Most shoes look like cancerous mushrooms on steroids, but people are convinced by advertising that these blobs are cool because they are worn by some millionaire while he kills dogs or something. Looking for shoes that take a polish is now an adventure.
My cobbler is a smart young man who can discourse expertly on the merits of digital vs. film as media for recording images as well as on leather. He looked at my shoes and immediately knew the brand, the place of manufacture, and the eccentricities of the stitchery unique to the company who made the shoe.
His shop, marked appropriately by a wooden silhouette of a boot hanging from a chain, smelled of leather, wood, oils, and tools, all very much like The City Shoe Shop of happy memory.
And can you say “City Shoe Shop” over and over, really fast, without saying something naughty?
Nowhere was there any evidence of a computer in the cobbler’s shop; indeed, the only evidence of technology was the electric light. The tools were all hand tools, honest wood and iron, and the work bench was an archaeological site, worn and scratched and battered, among the litter of which history could be studied. And isn’t that the way art should be!
Here were no pixellated penguins, no electronic sermons yapping about my ideological failures, no preachments about why I should walk barefoot instead of killing a cow for shoes, no fashionable bottles of water, no body piercings, but rather that increasingly rare man, a real artisan pursuing his craft with his hands and his brain.
I am not nearly so gifted, but I can manage a bit of the rough carpentry I learned on the farm. Recently I felt the need to build some bookshelves. I have most of the tools I need for such small projects, including the hammer my father gave me for my 8th grade graduation for a summer of building fences. I was hoping for something more entertaining -– a car would have been nice -- but in the event my Tru-Temper Rocket has served me honorably for more than forty years.
Whenever I shop for tools I look for that Made In The USA stamp and can almost always find it. Although most manufacturers are now offshore, some of their older products are still trickling out of warehouses, and they are worth the hunt. An American-made hammer, saw, or screwdriver enjoys a heft, a balance, a solidity that you just won’t see or feel or weigh in some shiny thing stamped out of scrap metal by Prisoner Chang before he was harvested for his lungs.
We don’t need another filmmaker, another cartoonist, another nasal thirty-something abusing a guitar, another book on existentialism, another advertiser. We just don’t need ‘em. But a man who can make you some shoes or plumb your house or build cabinets or make the electricity go – in him you've met a true artist.
Archbishop of Los Angeles Evicts Elderly Nuns
Thanks to Gerald Augustinus at The Cafeteria is Closed for this heads-up from The Los Angeles Times:
L.A. Archdiocese plans to sell the Santa Barbara site to help pay its priest abuse settlement. The nuns will likely have to leave the city where they've served the poor.
By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 7, 2007
SANTA BARBARA -- For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.
Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.
Nuns EvictedBut she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.
The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 -- and noted that an earlier departure "would be acceptable as well." Signed by Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, the archdiocese's vicar general, the letter offers the nuns no recourse but thanks them for their understanding and cooperation during a difficult time.
Oh, yes, "The Spirit of Vatican II" strikes again.
L.A. Archdiocese plans to sell the Santa Barbara site to help pay its priest abuse settlement. The nuns will likely have to leave the city where they've served the poor.
By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 7, 2007
SANTA BARBARA -- For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.
Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.
Nuns EvictedBut she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.
The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 -- and noted that an earlier departure "would be acceptable as well." Signed by Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, the archdiocese's vicar general, the letter offers the nuns no recourse but thanks them for their understanding and cooperation during a difficult time.
Oh, yes, "The Spirit of Vatican II" strikes again.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
September
Mack Hall
The hot, humid air hangs heavily, old,
On unnaturally green late summer days
Afternoon clouds billow up, blues and greys,
And thunder in impatience, high and cold
But here below the earth is exhausted
From growth and green, and from sunlight and heat
It wishes for sleep beneath winter sleet
As the air is cleaned and fields are frosted
I wish for autumn, earth’s time for yawning
As it prepares for bed. The morning deer
Along a distant line of trees seem near,
Nibbling gently in the misty dawning
Perhaps they, too, sense a change in the air
And feel the days of heavy summer pass
Into thin winter. Heavy summer grass
Fattens their bellies and thickens their hair
My morning coffee doesn’t satisfy;
I drink half a cup, toss the rest away,
Drift to work on a hot, late summer day,
And watch the far north for geese in the sky
The hot, humid air hangs heavily, old,
On unnaturally green late summer days
Afternoon clouds billow up, blues and greys,
And thunder in impatience, high and cold
But here below the earth is exhausted
From growth and green, and from sunlight and heat
It wishes for sleep beneath winter sleet
As the air is cleaned and fields are frosted
I wish for autumn, earth’s time for yawning
As it prepares for bed. The morning deer
Along a distant line of trees seem near,
Nibbling gently in the misty dawning
Perhaps they, too, sense a change in the air
And feel the days of heavy summer pass
Into thin winter. Heavy summer grass
Fattens their bellies and thickens their hair
My morning coffee doesn’t satisfy;
I drink half a cup, toss the rest away,
Drift to work on a hot, late summer day,
And watch the far north for geese in the sky
Sidonian Dido
Mack Hall
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen --
Dreamer on the Mediterranean shore:
Why is it that your truth has not been seen?
In singing ancient songs there is far more
Than tall tales treacherous Trojans tend to tell,
Crude calumnies by Teucerian bores
Your faithful friends followed when your star fell
In your Phoenician homeland far away
In Africa you built anew, built well
Your city between the desert and bay --
Carthage, homeland of courtesy and grace
Where even Juno deigned to dwell, some say
Sidonian Dido, your ancient race
Brought to the desert the lute and the lyre
Made moonlit music in that dream-scaped place
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen!
The black, bitter smoke of your funeral pyre
Cannot obscure the brilliance of your fire
Cannot win honour for Dardanian liars
Didonia Dido, a dreamer's queen --
Sing to us who love you on African nights
When the deep desert dreams in limpid light
Whene eyes and hearts and moon are full and bright
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen --
Dreamer on the Mediterranean shore:
Why is it that your truth has not been seen?
In singing ancient songs there is far more
Than tall tales treacherous Trojans tend to tell,
Crude calumnies by Teucerian bores
Your faithful friends followed when your star fell
In your Phoenician homeland far away
In Africa you built anew, built well
Your city between the desert and bay --
Carthage, homeland of courtesy and grace
Where even Juno deigned to dwell, some say
Sidonian Dido, your ancient race
Brought to the desert the lute and the lyre
Made moonlit music in that dream-scaped place
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen!
The black, bitter smoke of your funeral pyre
Cannot obscure the brilliance of your fire
Cannot win honour for Dardanian liars
Didonia Dido, a dreamer's queen --
Sing to us who love you on African nights
When the deep desert dreams in limpid light
Whene eyes and hearts and moon are full and bright
Monday, September 3, 2007
A B17 Over Jasper, Texas
I took this shot from ground level during Jasper's annual air show in April of 2006. And I confess that I touched -- gently -- an RAF Spitfire, the most beautiful plane ever.
Down From the Door Where it Began
The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
Down From the Door Where it Began
The road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
My Hero!
I would not wear images of other people on my clothing even if I weren't my own greatest hero.
The Photocopier Squeals
The office photocopier can be a marvelous source of wisdom as well as of trivia. Sometimes one clears the scanner glass and learns what joys and revelations a fellowship / church / ministry / outreach / under the inspired leadership of Reverend Doctor Bishop Brother So-and-So has planned for the next Sunday.
Our lesson for today, however, is taken from a science quiz, the original of which was left in The Machine that knows all. Here are some of the many connected bits of knowledge our tenth-graders are expected to master systematically:
What substance releases hydroxide ions in solution?
What category of elements makes up Group 2 in the Periodic Table?
What are single-celled prokaryotes, organisms that lack a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles?
Define abiotic factors.
What is the biological mass in an ecosystem called?
What is a form of asexual reproduction in which the genetic material of the cell is copies and then the cell simply divides in two, forming two identical daughter cells?
What chemical substance slows or prevents the growth of bacterial microorganisms?
How many thanks do we owe Sister Thus-and-Such for playing the piano…wait…wrong document…
I conclude by making my own modest contribution: What is the predominant meter in Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places?”
A. Iambic pentameter
B. Trochee
C. Anapest
D. Budapest
For us parents the most important question in September is this: do our children have a set place and time for study? Is their need to work to improve themselves respected by all in the household? Do they have a quiet corner and good sturdy table at which to work? A desk lamp? Pens and pencils and calculator and paper? A few basic reference books, beginning with an ordinary dictionary?
After all, life is not entirely about drunken movie starlets named after geographical features.
Our lesson for today, however, is taken from a science quiz, the original of which was left in The Machine that knows all. Here are some of the many connected bits of knowledge our tenth-graders are expected to master systematically:
What substance releases hydroxide ions in solution?
What category of elements makes up Group 2 in the Periodic Table?
What are single-celled prokaryotes, organisms that lack a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles?
Define abiotic factors.
What is the biological mass in an ecosystem called?
What is a form of asexual reproduction in which the genetic material of the cell is copies and then the cell simply divides in two, forming two identical daughter cells?
What chemical substance slows or prevents the growth of bacterial microorganisms?
How many thanks do we owe Sister Thus-and-Such for playing the piano…wait…wrong document…
I conclude by making my own modest contribution: What is the predominant meter in Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places?”
A. Iambic pentameter
B. Trochee
C. Anapest
D. Budapest
For us parents the most important question in September is this: do our children have a set place and time for study? Is their need to work to improve themselves respected by all in the household? Do they have a quiet corner and good sturdy table at which to work? A desk lamp? Pens and pencils and calculator and paper? A few basic reference books, beginning with an ordinary dictionary?
After all, life is not entirely about drunken movie starlets named after geographical features.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Secret National Press Guide For Reporting Hurricanes
1.Remember: hurricane reporting is always about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.
2.If you simply can't avoid mentioning the fact that a hurricane destroyed large parts of Mexico, Texas, western Louisiana, or Mississippi, skip over it lightly and get back to talking about existential angst in New Orleans.
3.Showing pictures of the dead in Jamaica is acceptable only if you make a New Orleans connection
4.Employ lots and lots of hyperbole and personification: “Mother Nature's Fateful Wrath of Hell-Storm Dean Bearing Down on Doomed Island Leaving a Swath of Destruction in His Wake” is good. Also remember that storms are always poising, bearing down, aiming, plowing, blasting, raking, tracking, thrashing, lashing, slashing, slamming, churning, and cutting swaths (whatever a swath is). Be sure to talk about people bearing brunts, which they never otherwise bear (and just what is a brunt, anyway, and why must it be borne?). Oh, yeah – say that every bit of litter looks like a war zone. War zone sounds cool, though no one who has ever been in a war says it.
5.Never, never, never publish a photograph of a lineman working to restore electricity, of a fireman rescuing folks from floods, or of a police officer patrolling in 100+ heat; instead, show a picture of some guy squatting in the gutter and playing a saxophone or harmonica. Use an artsy sepia filter for this.
6.Always imply that evil President Bush is responsible for any scene of sorrow. After all, we never had hurricanes until the bad man seized power through the machinations of his evil elves. And while blaming global warming for this mess we don't need to mention that President Clinton did not sign the Kyoto Protocols.
7.When interviewing His Honor Mayor Negin of New Orleans, never reveal that the interview is in the safety of his getaway home near Dallas.
8.FEMA trailers are all about the preservatives (found in all new wood products, all new furniture, and all new carpets, but we don't mention that, okay?). Never suggest that the residents might want to show a little gratitude for having a place to live and might want to clean up after themselves.
9.Never interview positive individuals who are repairing and cleaning and solving problems on their own. Find the professional victims; they have the time to indulge you, they're much better actors, and they enjoy posturing for the cameras.
10. Always find some whining twit with a baby but with no diapers, no baby food, and no formula to complain loudly that “(President) Bush shoulda been better prepared for this! This is ridiculous! This is ridiculous!” Never suggest that, with almost two weeks of warnings she might have made some effort herself.
11. Fill in dead air time with the usual babble about global warming. Don't go with science or history here, go with populist mythologies. Global warming is real (ignore the fact that in this hemisphere it's summer, and don't even think about the people freezing to death in Argentina), and is caused by the evil middle classes owning their own homes and driving cars and working for a living.
12. If you can't avoid showing those dramatic water rescues in Oklahoma, don't forget the New Orleans tie-in.
13. Never, ever speak the R*** word. There was no hurricane in East Texas / western Louisiana which took out an area the size of England.
14. When you assign some idiot to stand in the wind and rain of a hurricane, remind him to say things like “This must be a little bit of what Hurricane Katrina was like.”
15. My fellow journalists, our reporting on The End of The World,Y2K, and Hurricane Katrina (genuflect as this point) was too, too restrained. Let's go out there and go with YooToob and MeMeMeSpace journalistic passion with the hurricanes! Darn the facts! Grab those cliches' and stereotypes!
16. After you read this, make three copies on your Blueberry and eat the original while kneeling before your Dan Rather ikon.
2.If you simply can't avoid mentioning the fact that a hurricane destroyed large parts of Mexico, Texas, western Louisiana, or Mississippi, skip over it lightly and get back to talking about existential angst in New Orleans.
3.Showing pictures of the dead in Jamaica is acceptable only if you make a New Orleans connection
4.Employ lots and lots of hyperbole and personification: “Mother Nature's Fateful Wrath of Hell-Storm Dean Bearing Down on Doomed Island Leaving a Swath of Destruction in His Wake” is good. Also remember that storms are always poising, bearing down, aiming, plowing, blasting, raking, tracking, thrashing, lashing, slashing, slamming, churning, and cutting swaths (whatever a swath is). Be sure to talk about people bearing brunts, which they never otherwise bear (and just what is a brunt, anyway, and why must it be borne?). Oh, yeah – say that every bit of litter looks like a war zone. War zone sounds cool, though no one who has ever been in a war says it.
5.Never, never, never publish a photograph of a lineman working to restore electricity, of a fireman rescuing folks from floods, or of a police officer patrolling in 100+ heat; instead, show a picture of some guy squatting in the gutter and playing a saxophone or harmonica. Use an artsy sepia filter for this.
6.Always imply that evil President Bush is responsible for any scene of sorrow. After all, we never had hurricanes until the bad man seized power through the machinations of his evil elves. And while blaming global warming for this mess we don't need to mention that President Clinton did not sign the Kyoto Protocols.
7.When interviewing His Honor Mayor Negin of New Orleans, never reveal that the interview is in the safety of his getaway home near Dallas.
8.FEMA trailers are all about the preservatives (found in all new wood products, all new furniture, and all new carpets, but we don't mention that, okay?). Never suggest that the residents might want to show a little gratitude for having a place to live and might want to clean up after themselves.
9.Never interview positive individuals who are repairing and cleaning and solving problems on their own. Find the professional victims; they have the time to indulge you, they're much better actors, and they enjoy posturing for the cameras.
10. Always find some whining twit with a baby but with no diapers, no baby food, and no formula to complain loudly that “(President) Bush shoulda been better prepared for this! This is ridiculous! This is ridiculous!” Never suggest that, with almost two weeks of warnings she might have made some effort herself.
11. Fill in dead air time with the usual babble about global warming. Don't go with science or history here, go with populist mythologies. Global warming is real (ignore the fact that in this hemisphere it's summer, and don't even think about the people freezing to death in Argentina), and is caused by the evil middle classes owning their own homes and driving cars and working for a living.
12. If you can't avoid showing those dramatic water rescues in Oklahoma, don't forget the New Orleans tie-in.
13. Never, ever speak the R*** word. There was no hurricane in East Texas / western Louisiana which took out an area the size of England.
14. When you assign some idiot to stand in the wind and rain of a hurricane, remind him to say things like “This must be a little bit of what Hurricane Katrina was like.”
15. My fellow journalists, our reporting on The End of The World,Y2K, and Hurricane Katrina (genuflect as this point) was too, too restrained. Let's go out there and go with YooToob and MeMeMeSpace journalistic passion with the hurricanes! Darn the facts! Grab those cliches' and stereotypes!
16. After you read this, make three copies on your Blueberry and eat the original while kneeling before your Dan Rather ikon.
Friday, August 17, 2007
If Men Gave Baby Showers
If Men Gave Baby Showers
A friend is soon to have a baby, and your 'umble scrivener was invited to the shower. The father-to-be was trapped in the gifting thing, but the uncle-to-be and y.'u.s. escaped to the kitchen to nibble early from the buffet and to exchange existential angst about an alien milieu involving women, reproduction issues, and Winnie-the-Pooh.
One of the great guy-questions, never fully resolved, is this: if a man attends a baby shower, can he still legally watch John Wayne movies? Is he still certified to operate a riding lawnmower? Does he have to surrender his fishing license to the authorities?
The aunt-to-be kept a careful record of the proceedings so that thank-you cards could be sent later (“Thank-you cards?” men ask. “What are thank-you cards?”), the grandmother-to-be took lots of snapshots, everyone overdosed on sugar-sodden cake while talking about diets, the mother-to-be glowed, and a merry time was enjoyed by all (even the initially nervous men).
What if men gave baby showers? What if guys gathered around the father-to-be and gave him stuff for the baby? Here are some possibilities for totally guy baby shower gifts:
My Li'l Shotgun
Fisher-Price Deer Camp Playset
Samuel L. Jackson Bedtime Reader
Chuck Norris Diapers – they don't take no **** off no one
Baby's First Deer Rifle
My Very Own Junior Chainsaw
John Wayne Drawl 'n' Spell
Combat Booties
Dangling Saddamn Hussein Crib Toy
Just-Like-Dad's TV Remote Control
Winnie-the-Pooh as Mr. T
Fort Apache crib
Massey-Ferguson stroller
John Deere baby bottles
Remington diaper pins
Pat-the-Timberwolf activity book
Fisher-Price B2 Bomber with nuclear capability
Dukes of Hazzard car seat
Rambo fully automatic cup and plate with real smoke
RMS Titanic bathtub toy with optional iceberg and screaming action figures
Finally, let us not forget a box of manly thank-you cards themed in your choice of Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn, Laurence Fishburne, or other action heroes:
Deer (haha) Bubba,
Thank you for the Vikings-Invade-England-and-Slaughter-the-Villagers Action Playset you done give my little Cheyenne-Dakota. His momma and I can hardly wait to see him swinging the cute little double-headed axe when he learns to chase the cat around the house.
Your friend,
Bubba-Gene
Hey, this guy baby-shower thing could work!
A friend is soon to have a baby, and your 'umble scrivener was invited to the shower. The father-to-be was trapped in the gifting thing, but the uncle-to-be and y.'u.s. escaped to the kitchen to nibble early from the buffet and to exchange existential angst about an alien milieu involving women, reproduction issues, and Winnie-the-Pooh.
One of the great guy-questions, never fully resolved, is this: if a man attends a baby shower, can he still legally watch John Wayne movies? Is he still certified to operate a riding lawnmower? Does he have to surrender his fishing license to the authorities?
The aunt-to-be kept a careful record of the proceedings so that thank-you cards could be sent later (“Thank-you cards?” men ask. “What are thank-you cards?”), the grandmother-to-be took lots of snapshots, everyone overdosed on sugar-sodden cake while talking about diets, the mother-to-be glowed, and a merry time was enjoyed by all (even the initially nervous men).
What if men gave baby showers? What if guys gathered around the father-to-be and gave him stuff for the baby? Here are some possibilities for totally guy baby shower gifts:
My Li'l Shotgun
Fisher-Price Deer Camp Playset
Samuel L. Jackson Bedtime Reader
Chuck Norris Diapers – they don't take no **** off no one
Baby's First Deer Rifle
My Very Own Junior Chainsaw
John Wayne Drawl 'n' Spell
Combat Booties
Dangling Saddamn Hussein Crib Toy
Just-Like-Dad's TV Remote Control
Winnie-the-Pooh as Mr. T
Fort Apache crib
Massey-Ferguson stroller
John Deere baby bottles
Remington diaper pins
Pat-the-Timberwolf activity book
Fisher-Price B2 Bomber with nuclear capability
Dukes of Hazzard car seat
Rambo fully automatic cup and plate with real smoke
RMS Titanic bathtub toy with optional iceberg and screaming action figures
Finally, let us not forget a box of manly thank-you cards themed in your choice of Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn, Laurence Fishburne, or other action heroes:
Deer (haha) Bubba,
Thank you for the Vikings-Invade-England-and-Slaughter-the-Villagers Action Playset you done give my little Cheyenne-Dakota. His momma and I can hardly wait to see him swinging the cute little double-headed axe when he learns to chase the cat around the house.
Your friend,
Bubba-Gene
Hey, this guy baby-shower thing could work!
The Beast 666 Computer
The Beast 666 Computer
In the 1970s there were many whispered rumors about The Beast 666 Computer that Satan was supposedly constructing in Belgium. Our social security numbers were the Mark of the Beast (I used to date her, by the way), and these would be fed into the 666 Computer and then fluoridated or something, and then Satan would rule the world, mwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!
The founders of this rumor went on to invent Y2K, and urged us all to buy drums of water and sacks of dried peas because when the End Times come and Captain Kirk beams us up to his space ship as the planet explodes we’ll all need drums of water and sacks of dried peas.
We now know that the whole bit about Satan and his magic laptop was always quite impossible, since within minutes of its completion the computer would have whimsically shut down and refused to do anything but light up.
Satan would have had to call out a Volkswagen-driving 30-something with thick glasses at $60 an hour to sneer at Satan’s outdated hard-drive (“this is sooooooooo last week”) and his dial-up connection.
Satan would also have learned that all the dossiers saved on his previous (hardly old) computer in Micro-Blop X-PMS are not compatible with the newer-than-new Micro-Snort Z-Xtreem bundled into his new computer, and would have to sacrifice his first-born, Vladimir Putin, to the computer gods to pay for a patch, which would take three hours to work through each time he wanted to look at, say, his MeMeMeSpace downloads.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new car, and after driving it ten minutes it breaks down, and must be rebuilt at great expense.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new book shelf, and as you transfer those favorite volumes from the old shelf to the new shelf your books simply disappear.
Imagine, if you will, transferring file folders from an old cabinet to a new, and they simply won’t fit into either file cabinet.
Imagine, if you will, writing a letter to a friend, and the old pen won’t work and the new pen comes with a lengthy instruction manual and then won’t work anyway.
Imagine, if you will, writing out your week’s work and meeting schedule in your daily planner, and then at a critical moment all your writing simply evaporates.
Imagine, if you will, mailing a letter to a friend, and finding that the postal service no longer accepts envelopes but instead requires a complex new packaging and you must spend a day at a seminar learning this new method.
Yes, I bought a new computer this week.
Satan’s in the computer business, all right.
In the 1970s there were many whispered rumors about The Beast 666 Computer that Satan was supposedly constructing in Belgium. Our social security numbers were the Mark of the Beast (I used to date her, by the way), and these would be fed into the 666 Computer and then fluoridated or something, and then Satan would rule the world, mwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!
The founders of this rumor went on to invent Y2K, and urged us all to buy drums of water and sacks of dried peas because when the End Times come and Captain Kirk beams us up to his space ship as the planet explodes we’ll all need drums of water and sacks of dried peas.
We now know that the whole bit about Satan and his magic laptop was always quite impossible, since within minutes of its completion the computer would have whimsically shut down and refused to do anything but light up.
Satan would have had to call out a Volkswagen-driving 30-something with thick glasses at $60 an hour to sneer at Satan’s outdated hard-drive (“this is sooooooooo last week”) and his dial-up connection.
Satan would also have learned that all the dossiers saved on his previous (hardly old) computer in Micro-Blop X-PMS are not compatible with the newer-than-new Micro-Snort Z-Xtreem bundled into his new computer, and would have to sacrifice his first-born, Vladimir Putin, to the computer gods to pay for a patch, which would take three hours to work through each time he wanted to look at, say, his MeMeMeSpace downloads.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new car, and after driving it ten minutes it breaks down, and must be rebuilt at great expense.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new book shelf, and as you transfer those favorite volumes from the old shelf to the new shelf your books simply disappear.
Imagine, if you will, transferring file folders from an old cabinet to a new, and they simply won’t fit into either file cabinet.
Imagine, if you will, writing a letter to a friend, and the old pen won’t work and the new pen comes with a lengthy instruction manual and then won’t work anyway.
Imagine, if you will, writing out your week’s work and meeting schedule in your daily planner, and then at a critical moment all your writing simply evaporates.
Imagine, if you will, mailing a letter to a friend, and finding that the postal service no longer accepts envelopes but instead requires a complex new packaging and you must spend a day at a seminar learning this new method.
Yes, I bought a new computer this week.
Satan’s in the computer business, all right.
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