Old Furniture Scifi

Astro Physicist Stephen Hawking, the
splendid Nobel Laureate, the scientist who
occupies the Math seat at Cambridge once
occupied by Sir Isaac Newton, had a role in Roddenbury's
(Rotten and Buried?) Star Trek. In his book
The Universe in a Nutshell there's a photo of him, in his
wheelchair, sitting next to 'Marilyn Monroe'
aboard the Enterprise. I'll have to look up his
exact words about his little acting job for fun
and science popularizing. He didn't think much of
the ship, or the science it was telling tales about.
He thought it stodgy, old hat. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !

Barry


                 http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

Do You Want To Be God?

Whatever social/cultural behavior and thinking that began on the West Coast apparently ripples East over the rest of the country, propelled in part by the movies and television, and consumed by those hungry for the latest. Not, mind you, that lunacy doesn't possibly also originate from the most Eastern part of the USA, which might be in Maine.

Behold, The Whole Person, an expensively printed, 114 page veritable encyclopedia of spiritual quest advertising out of Santa Barbara, CA. This booklet leaped into my hand from a stack of them outside a closed bookstore in 'with it' Silverlake, near the heart of Los Angeles (precise location never determined). There must be a very big market for Spiritual Quest persons seeking guidance, preferably new guidance. The 8 1/2 by 11 booklet cost $1.50, but a black stamp had cancelled that with the good news, "Complimentary Copy." So I brought it home.

On the cover there's a lovely photo of a young beautiful, coifed mother with her two toddler daughters knee deep in gentle surf at the beach.  But the mother is dressed! and even has a scarf around her neck on a sunny day. (Perhaps she's self conscious about the first signs of age showing up even though she's still in her 30s?) The gentle surf is frothing and the two girls are apparently screaming with joy and communion. It is an image, I suppose, depicting nurture. On the back cover there's a formal picture of an impeccably done up, rich young socialite smiling with every tooth. Across from, beside, her most inviting face is her racket, BECOME CLAIRVOYANT.

Let's wander through this feast of fulfillment offers. On page three there's OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES? ("Would you like to have them?") At Crystal Cave there's "Working with the Angels," "Channeling." On page 7 there's an offer that seriously makes one wonder what on Earth (or elsewhere) could the remaining 90 odd pages be about? Already my imagination is besotted, drunk, wobbly, and wow am I feeling peasant-like, a rube, shoeless in a sea of persons who surf fully clothed. But I anticipate; here's the killer diller: WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE GOD? This can be granted you through "Reincarnated Vedic Astrology."

Nap time. Really, I must rest.

Okay, back to the grind. How about - really noone has said you don't have free will in all this heavenly offers of new powers - "Angelic Alchemy."  Dross into Gold. Color me drossy.

Learn to Hypnotize, Intuitive Healing, DNA Intuitive Healing, Regenesis (Be young again), Avoid Surgery, "Kick depression in the Butt," Touch Healing," "PMS? Hot Flashes? Menopausal Symptoms? Cramps, Night Sweats, Hormonal Mood Swings"?

"Soul Transcendence."

"God is as Close as Your Next Breath." (Full page)

"Past Life Regression Therapy."

I'll skip the rest. Years ago I learned that an excellent seminar titled ABOUT MONEY when given in Santa Barbara drew huge audiences. It was, for example, much more popular than a seminar given by the same organization, reputable, popular elsewhere, called simply ABOUT SEX.  For a town where beautiful women go in the surf fully clothed I can believe that.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

Vulnerability

Arriving in the country on holiday from boarding school when still a child, thrilled to be with my cousins, I let on that a water pump operated so successfully because it was aided by atmospheric pressure. No, no, no, said my formidable Uncle Hugh, it was "Suction." I was crushed because I didn't know how to argue from physics, oh so new to me from class. I must have been aware, even then, that Uncle Hugh was not going to be seen possibly bested in front of his sons.

What was really going on, but unprovable, was that he was in a fury that his mother's money, my Grandmother's money, was being used to put me in an expensive boarding school, The King's School Paramatta, which would be a drain on the inheritance he hungered for, the money he had to have to be redeemed, he hoped, in his wealthy wife's eyes, and thus rid him of the imagined stigma of having married for money. His wife's family owned the town's huge department store.

I had to take elementary school physics twice because the first year out of public school I flunked in private school, and had to repeat. That's one of the reasons, of several, that years later, in America, I was twenty before I entered college. Even today I love to read physics even though I lack higher math with which to understand.  In school I was required to memorize Archemedes' "When a body is wholly or partly immersed in a fluid without dissolving, there is a resultant upthrust equal to the weight of the fluid displaced." An elephant can be weighed by leading it onto a barge and then calculating the weight of the fluid displaced.

My Uncle, the same Hugh, was incensed that I told my cousins I'd read and found fascinating  Middlemarch the novel by George Eliot (actually Marianne Evans) an opinion I was to pay dearly for. I can't think of any reason he was so hot on the subject. Had he not read it? Perhaps he knew the story was about a brilliant woman married to a pedant who dragged her down?

Such family biography is fuel for my novel. Many of the facts will be altered to serve fiction. For example, 'Hugh' will definitely not be a blood relative. Well, for example, my mother, and Hugh look as if they couldn't possibly be from the same parents. So, I'll make him adopted, heh, the rejected child of one of my dear Grandmother's maids.  

"Writing is aggression," quoth Academic, Jaqueline Rose.

Barry

 

 

 

 

Magic Smoke

Magic Smoke;

Please turn back on my counter. You have nullified 3,512 plus visits. Also, why does it take 59, FIFTY NINE characters in a link to get a message to you?  You're like a landlord one can never find, and when you do find him it costs money.

FIFTY NINE CHARACTERS. Apparently my computer can't handle 59 characters all in an unbroken line. I strongly suspect fifty nine characters is an affectation. Gimme, please, the short name, or your telephone number.

Thanks.

Please turn my counter back on. Thanks again.

Barry R Bartle

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

God God, even mine has 42 characters or so. Ridiculous.

On Strike

Ssomething is always fishy at AOL. I can't get a credible answer to why my visit counter keeps changing up or down. So I shut it off till I get an explanation. Do I make someone at AOL, possibly Journals Editor JohnMScalzi, nervous? What with his lecture about "Sarcasm." He says some of us are "Sarcastic." Well, that beats his being Little Mary Sunshine. He reads like the AOL News And Advertising opening window that's an insult to any adult sentient being.

I'm on strike. Please comment or email me. Thanks.

Barry

 

WWW.SPMA.NET

I checked the Website for So. Cal. Masters Swimmers to make sure it was official, and on record, that I'd qualified for the 1,500 meters event for the USMS National Championships to be held this August in Mission Viejo, CA. And yes, there it was in black and white. My plan at the moment is to swim just that one event, with the goal of at least being in the top ten in my age group. The events are spread over four days, with the 1,500 meters being on the final day. One event provides as much incentive to swim for good health as would competing in events every day of the meet. And, there are other meets. Besides, the prospect of driving back and forth from LA to Mission Viejo on the freeway is daunting.

Old men competing can be just as mean, and prone to act and think in terms of 'psyching' the competition, as young competitors, maybe even more so. Pretty comical really. I make an effort to avoid that. The idea of getting into a lather, and thrashing around in the water just to win has zero appeal. Getting there with a minimum of effort, and in so doing avoiding injury, that's my goal. (I have to clamp my mouth shut here; I have a proclivity to gossip.)

It's early Sunday, the Lord's Day. Good morning.

Barry

Infidelity

Infidelity, says the media, is rampant, way beyond the guesses of folk wisdom. One wouldn't be too far off to simply throw up one's hands and moan that everyone is unfaithful. Even within the confines of my strict, formal, educated, religious greater family on three Continents, everyone was unfaithful: mother, father, uncle, brothers, children, all three wives, and very likely one or another of my grown children. That's the truth; if you're clucking in horror I dare you to take a really, truly close look at your own greater family. Not in my family, but in some families there is an agreement to permit discreet infidelity, perhaps tacit, as well as understood. 'For the children's sake,' a decision is made to not end the marriage, or the 'violent' alternative, divorce. Oh, some say divorce is good for the children, while others, me included, know it is immeasurably destructive.  

Yet, that's definitely not what we all want. What we want is a soulmate. "Ever since I can remember I've longed for a soulmate," writes Linda Schierse Leonard in the preface to her challenging and fascinating book On The Way To The Wedding, (1986). This book has been on my mind for many years; I bought at least five copies, shipped them off to friends, then lost my copy, and just got it back via Daedalus Catalogue. Not one of those friends had anything to offer about the contents of the book. I bought my initial copy, by the way, at The Sisterhood book store in Westwood very close to the UCLA campus. Most of their books were Feminist.  Most men, most men ready to be frank, are fascinated by Feminist books, especially if they contain anything about sex. Men, for example, are endlessly fascinated by the Lesbian connection.

Here's a taste of the book from the table of contents.

Part One: The wandering

1. Through the woods

2. Prince Charming and the Special Princess

3. The Ghostly Lover

4. The Bewitchment

5. The Demon Lover

6. The Ring of Power

Successful lovers teach each other their subjective methods of pleasure, something that usually leads to prolonged sessions when time and place allows. What that can lead to are specific connections not available in snatched infidelities, which fact, I guess, accounts for those faithful marriages that are accomplished; many a tryst must have come a cropper when one or another of the lovers suggested techniques was anathema to the new thrill-of-the-moment.  

(I think I've reached the end of my 25,000 character entry limit. No, just kidding. But this stuff sure is tough to talk about, even though we do live in a much more open society than almost anywhere else in the world. Yet, if that's so, why do our marriages shipwreck so often?)

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Times I read that Book!

Was it dippy to read the same book over and over four times? Why would anyone do that? I did it lying down, light coming in the window, or, sitting at another window in daylight with the top end of the book on a bun. The subject of the book is not the subject of this entry. Again I want to write here about 'mind chatter,' the little voice, the 'Black Crow' which is what I call my little voice in the back of my head, usually saying despicable things to, and about, me. It's not the first time I've read the same book many times, yet it's the rereading I might understand the most.

The book is called Bobby Fischer Goes to War. It is a well-written, thoroughly researched account of the 1972 World Championship chess match held in Reykavik, Iceland between the reigning champion Soviet player Boris Spassky, and American genius Robert J. Fischer, aka 'Bobby.'

The big news on that subject is that in the past weeks Bobby Fischer, now in his 60s, has accepted Iceland's humanitarian offer of asylum and granted him Iceland Citizenship. The USA stupidly cancelled Fischer's USA Passport when, in 1992, he played another match against Spassky, winning $3,000,000, in the former Yugoslavia in violation of the State Department's order that he not go there. So Fischer said 'Up yours,' played and won, went to live in Japan and married a Japanese woman chess champion. I hope the couple is now happily enjoying Iceland's generous hospitality. The only way America can get Fischer now is to take away it's valued, strategically important military base near Reykavik, and demand that Iceland hand over Bobby. That ain't gonna happen.

For me the core of the book on the 1972 chess match is about the passion to win, and one's absolute imperative ability to silence the little voice in our head that insists on second guessing us. I play chess against the computer chess program Chessmaster 7000 and try to examine my inner life while doing so. The 'voice' never shuts up. Oh my God what a bore is that black crow. I deduce from this that all the shenanigans that went on just before the beginning of the 1972 Iceland match, all of Fischer's demands and refusals and threats of going home, were really about Fischer being determined to have his own little voice absolutely silent so he could play his best. How can anyone do their best, at anything, if the little voice says, "You don't deserve to win." And, upon losing, it says, "What did I tell you?"

There might be some kind of survival value provided by having this menacing voice, but so far I can't grasp what that might be. Perhaps it's religious in nature, something along the lines of putting our spiritual welfare ahead of our competive lusts.

If you know the answer, send me an email. Or, comment. Tnx

Barry

Former Ham Operator, WA2VLI, (NY)

 

 

Singing and Dancing

Last night, purely by accident, I tripped over Channel 12 Mex in LA and got to watch two glorious hours of Selena in concert and interview, rehearsal and simulated performance for camera, most likely shot almost immediately after performance.

The Mexican American Selena (So American she had little Spanish, even though all, or nearly all of her Grammy winning, and other hit songs, were sung in Spanish) at the time of her murder she was on the verge of Mega-Stardom. Last night I got to see why. For those not familiar with her work, let me descibe her as a female Elvis, the Elvis at the time of his solo performance for camera at the height of his powers. They both sang while they danced. They both perfected a very rapid delivery sung with rich tones and gorgeous, perfect pitch. In fantasy I imagine them together in a musical, romantic comedy. Oh, how the sparks would have flown!

To be honest, music is not my cuppa. I just love it; can't play an instrument, and have grave vocal disabilities, which is one reason, of a few, that I so dote on hearing great voices, whether male, female, old, young, all Nationalities, especially including Japanese Kabuki, and the singing of the Geisha turned actress with Brando in Sayonara.

It is a measure of Selena's burgeoning fame that the footage I saw last night included hand-held, onstage photography of her taken with great skill and care, while she sang and danced. She didn't mind the camera one little bit, and flirted with the camera, which I loved! but mostly 'flirted' with an imaginary audience for whom she had just performed, live. In other words she was an ACTRESS par excellence. I can tell you why. I can't tell you much about the music, or even the specific genre of dance (But it must have owed something to Michael and to Elvis) but the acting I can speak about.

To sing, and dance, at the same time, without the movements of the dance merely mirroring the movement of the music, there can be no lock-step connection of the muscles which do the work in each sphere. There can't be a, "block between impulse and expression," (Strasberg) and specifically the vocal muscles, and the muscles which support the vocal muscles, as the diaphragm keeps pressure on the air column passing over the vibrating vocal cords setting off vibration in the chest, mouth, throat and head. If you can do it right it must feel like a million bucks, and sometimes earn you a million.

Selena almost seems like two people while performing.  What stunned me last night was how powerful was her presence, tiger like, aggressive, and if you will, as I said earlier, a female Elvis at his greatest.  Nothing dainty about Selena, nothing coy, nothing coquettish at all. She was the right female performer at the right time: the awakening of the Hispanic American woman. And, of course, she was wildly appreciated in Monterrey Mexico when she performed there so ably, a fact beautifully reproduced in the fine movie, Selena, starring a young Jennifer Lopez.

When I find out what the words of her songs mean I'll probably love her even more.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

The black-hearted "Crow" we listen to:

Even alone we have company. There's the little voice that announces its opinion, unasked. There's no disgrace in it, but I believe not everyone is willing to admit they live, perpetually, in the company of their little voice, or "Black Crow" as I now call mine. Maybe if I name it, make it a separate entity, it'll know its place, and I'll never be in doubt that the critical, know-it-all wing flapper is not me, not myself, not who I am. I declare that I'm far better than my 'Crow.'

"Acknowledge source" was one of the koans of the est Training. It's probably still around in the 'inheriting' organization, bought and paid for, The Forum, an enlightenment seminar given all over America. In response to the 'Little Voice,' the instruction was, to reply, "Thank you for sharing," a sentence that entered the vernacular, and has been there ever since in a variety of not-originally-intended meanings. So, in that spirit I acknowledge that I didn't invent the concept of a separate-seeming voice that censures us, deceives us, and leads us into all kinds of blue funks, taking weak positions on important issues, and sometimes leading us down the wrong path, especially that of non-assertiveness. Play it safe, don't make waves, 'You're doing it again,' and, everybody hates you, being just a few of the voice's disparagements we pretend even to ourselves not to have heard.

Escaping one's 'Crow,' can be achieved through making declarations and then keeping one's word. One glorious, successful declaration, to give an example, was made by JFK when he declared when we'd land a man on the Moon, and return from the moon. I'm glad he tacked on that last part! Ha! 

All together now, "I'm going to land a man on the 'moon' and return, and you can take my word on that!"  Depending of course on your particular Heavenly body.

Barry

 

 

 

   

Our Little Voice

Somewhere nearby at this hour millions of birds are sleeping. I imagine them with their head tucked under their wing.  Birds do very well in big cities I understand. You've heard about the hawk that built it's nest above the high arch of the main entrance to a Fifth Avenue, NYC swanky apartment building? Oh yeah, the owner got fed up with tourists, and natives, gawking at the nesting hawk who, it's said, made out very well with his girl friends. So, unwisely, the landlord took the nest down. There was such a hubbub of protest from savvy New Yorkers, the nest was restored. Chalk up one for the good guys.

Oh, that reminds me. Recently I saw a crow and a sparrow sharing what was left of a hotdog bun on the grass beside the sidewalk. My jaw fell. Watching the scene from my parked car I was incredulous that a crow could be so accomodating. Ah, but I now know better: my new acquaintance, bird expert Rita, told me that what I was watching was not a crow, but a Raven. So all the 'crows' I've been itching to shoot from my window are actually black Ravens. (I believe they also come in other colors, but not sure.) Ravens have "wedge shaped" tails Rita told me. That might explain why they are so very remarkable at maneuvering in-air; they actually play with each other, sometimes even pretending to be falling, out of control, to the ground, then pulling out at the last second. I wonder if that is courtship? Crows, in my experience are humorless, merciless, and even peck out the eyes of sheep and lambs. There's no 'play' in them.

Oh dear, I've become so enamoured again of birds I have watched I'd forgotten about the subject I was intending to write upon: the little voice in our head, the 'crow' if you will, that has nothing good to say about us. May I return to that subject later? Pretty soon I'll hear the first birds of the morning, new voices I hear this time of the year beginning yesterday. Migrants? Can't switch back to that other, black, subject right now: it'd be like chewing a tough steak for dessert.

Barry

 

DAY AT THE ZOO

Children, and parents of children, were the main event at the Los Angeles Zoo yesterday. In fact as we pulled up to the parking lot two yellow school busses were loading up again. Our three children, especially the youngest, Michael 3, and Patrick nearly 5, became energized by the excitement and suspense as we approached the enclosures of their favorite mammals, including the seals. Before yesterday I didn't know some seals took naps underwater, lying on the bottom. News to me.

I'd never seen a coyote up close before. The one we saw marched rapidly up and down behind the ceiling- high fence separating us. As it passed once more in front of us Michael, running, fell down, tripped, and stayed down no longer than three seconds. Yet, the instant Michael fell the coyote skidded to a halt, crouched, and eyed Michael, briefly prone and vulnerable. It was an electric moment, and illustrated in an instant why in California even suburban cats and dogs (and babies?) disappear. Only Hollywood could make of a coyote a congenial, inventive but inept gentleman: The Coyote and the Roadrunner. One of my longtime favorite cartoons.

The LA Zoo is located at the eastern end of Griffith Park, a huge, mountainous recreational area given to the city by a Mr. Griffith who made his fortune in garbage collection. Also in Griffith park is an Observatory, currently being rebuilt, and at the western end, the Hollywood sign. It is hilly, with innumeral trees; the Zoo itself is lavishly shaded by many tall Australian Eucalyptus trees. The children's enjoyment was increased by already knowing at least something about Nature from PBS and Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.

It was fun taking photos, and when I know how to get photos from a CD onto this site I will post a few.

Next we'll visit The Acquarium of the Pacific which son Vincent has already seen on a field trip from school. Vincent will serve as guide for the rest of us. We'll return to the Zoo after the current rebuilding is completed.  (Just between you and I, the Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney Australia, at least in memory from childhood, is far more richly endowed and serviced. There are almost no lions in LA, let alone the daily highlight in Sydney, the feeding of the lions.) 

Could zoos around the world be in abeyance, preempted by Television nature programming? Talk show segments on TV feature Zoo Keepers bringing on their animals, as if to say, come see us, live!

The young children were transported, from which it is easy to state that "live" is better.

Barry

 

 

 

 

Swimming To Qualify

On Sunday, May 8th, Mother's Day, a beautiful Spring day at the Santa Clarita 50 meter outdoor swimming pool about 30 miles NW from Los Angeles, I qualified for the 1500 meters at the USMS National Championships in August in the time of 26:45. Probably not fast enough to win but what the heck my mother would have been proud of me.

I arrived at the pool an hour or so early. What few cars were in the parking lot belonged to City of SC employees, or volunteers from the community. There was one other swimmer just arrived, Rita, famous for not just national championship wins, but world record holder in several events. Rita is, I believe she told me yesterday, in our first-ever meeting, is 87 years young. Still locked out of the pool grounds, Rita, so gracious and unaffected, was kind of stuck with me. She handled it splenditly: she gave me a little nature talk about the birds we could either see or hear. She identified the Ravens before finally seeing one quite close. I thought it was a crow. Ah, but Rita pointed out the tail shape was that of a Raven. We talked about age. She said, with a motion, that everything was "falling." Her speech, alertness, quickness of thought, aliveness, were that of a woman half a century younger. Sure, she didn't walk quite erect, but I watched her swim the 1500 meters and her stroke was long, smooth, virtually the same speed for the entire race. She always wins of course. I watched, rapt, at the amount of bubbles surfacing from her underwater breathing out during her freestyle. Hers are 'young' lungs; earlier, when she spoke, even a long sentence was easy to navigate on one breath. Swimming: Rita's a walking, talking, glamorous, generous advertisement for the benefits of swimming. While waiting she happened to mention that her husband died, she gave the year, quickly, so I didn't quite catch it, but I  silently calculated it must have been about 25 years ago. 

Rita, obviously, knows secrets for living. I noticed how continuously she totally accepted me from the start. There wasn't a murmer of exchange of social information used in most new conversations, aimed to find out just how seriously one must take the other. Our dialog occurred in a classless culture. That's where I'd like to live fulltime, like in Heaven. She offered personal information demonstrating a predisposion to trust fellow humans, another Heavenly condition. She mentioned being in Greece recently, competing of course against swimmers from all over the world, the Master's Championships. She visited a 'dig' where she was intrigued to learn that in ancient Greece the roads were paved with marble. She was fascinated that archaeology continues apace, even in Greece. So, maybe, there's a tip: to stay young have many interests.

My 1500 meters went remarkably well, not even feeling tired from beginning to end. I think Rita got me into the right place: Calmly getting the job done.

Barry 

 

 

 

 

Swimming in Memories

Here it is Friday night already, three years since my last Master's swim meet (age divisions) and on Sunday next I'll compete in four events: 1500, 200, 400 meters freestyle, and 200 meters backstroke. The first event I might use as warmup. Two years ago part of my left lung was removed; that 'part' was judged benign, praise God. It took more than a year's swimming to recover most of my breathing strength. Although I feel fine, I must brace myself for the inevitable shock of finding my swim times have fallen off.

Swimming is one avenue to Memory of childhood for me. I've tried many times to put into words my feelings associated with swimming but each time, failed. One  aspect I've never dared venture to write about is the voluptuous enjoyment derived from languidly gliding through the water. That's why I tend to shun short events such as the 50, and 100 meters which to me feel like wild, unenjoyable thrashing just to get a few seconds faster. There is one part of the freestyle stroke cycle, to be fast, one must execute fast. I've only just a few days ago discovered that the 'catch' halfway through the underwater part of the stroke of each hand must be faster than any other part of the stroke. That movement duplicates, in Physics, the propulsive, drag-free motion of the underwater motor driven screw. (Same as a propeller in the air.) I thought the action itself was enough, never grasping that the movement had to be fast. The trouble is, having never practiced isolating that part as fast, I could never sustain that fast motion, as short as it is, for an entire distance event having never practiced that strength-requiring motion. Standing erect, place one arm, straight, at a 30 degree angle from your body with your hand a few inches opposite center. With fingers together, hand in line with the rest of your arm move the hand almost parallel with the line of your shoulders. It is that short 'propeller-like' motion which provides the greatest propulsion when the body is horizontal, on the top of the water.

In salt water floating is a snap because salt water is heavier than fresh water. But even in fresh water one can lie on the water on your back with arms straight above your head, body in line, and float, provided the body is relaxed.

Archimedes: "When a body is wholly or partly immersed in a fluid, without dissolving, there is a resultant upthrust equal to the weight of the fluid displaced." I memorized that in boarding school in Australia when I was about thirteen. My academic record in boarding school was included in my application to three colleges when I applied from High School in San Francisco. Neither in HS, or college, could I make the swim team. I didn't  get serious about swimming until I was in my 50's. Before that I was a very heavy footed runner in 10Ks and three marathons, two in LA, and one in San Diego. To complete each one I had to run a heck of a lot of miles.

Each aspect of swimming mentioned above I associate with my dear departed mother who literally supported me, and gently encouraged me to learn and train which I did around the age of ten. What you learn at ten one very often remembers well. So the pleasure and good health I enjoy from swimming I owe to my dear Mother who I love and miss so much, especially on Mother's Day.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mistress Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet, poet, 1612-1672 One of the first Americans we honor at Thanksgiving.

Mistress Bradstreet, The Untold Story of America's First Poet, written by Charlotte Gordon, Pub. by Little, Brown, 2005.

I first heard of this book over NPR radio while driving. I'm hooked already. When I have studied the book I will ask some questions out loud, right here.

My ignorance is showing, because I understand that one of Bradstreet's poems is very often read out loud at weddings. You see, she loved her husband. She so loved her husband she bore him eight children at a time when child birth was extremely dangerous.

Barry

Just chatter....

When people write in their journal on the subject of their life do you think they are telling the literal truth, an approximation, or a fantasy about their life? How about a mix of all of those things? In general, how about the differences in the writing on the subject of their life as reported by women, and by men? My 'prejudice' if you will, is that women can write more openly on their subjective lives, than can male writers of journals and novels. Men, including me, are very into 'looking good.'  They are especially alert to how they are stacking up vis-a-vis other males. Do women truly say, in private with other women, "Men are dogs"? I bet they do, ha!

Some would-be rapacious males, if you get my drift, excoriated me for exposing my children to danger in yesterday's post about driving. They conveniently overlooked that children weren't in the car in the main episode. I now believe that gay men without children feel intensely hostile to males who talk about their own children. I'd like to know more about gay, male couples who adopt children, or, who sperm donate to a female willing to give birth, for their sake.

The theater, very small, on lovely Hyperion Street in Silverlake, a nice district of Los Angeles, a theater recently under new ownership called Company of Angels, has staged a new play called Dust   I saw the play with my wife last Saturday night. The average age of the small audience might have been age 50. The play was written by a very young man getting even with his family. His conceit is that a rich family living in NYC lives off enormous, accumulated fortunes made from manufacturing munitions. As a result family values have vanished, one son is a 'dog,' and the other is gay. Everyone in the family is more of less mad. So far, so good; where the play runs aground is that 70% of the lines are directed at the audience, long monologs, well done, but the natural dialog scenes, by comparison, seem not rehearsed. When a writer uses writing, any writing, to get even, I believe, the reader tunes out. I'd like to learn how to deal with that. I'm not agin' getting even. You? How does one do that and still make a difference so that ultimately everyone benefits?

Barry

 

 

 

 

Strange Encounters

I was driving around the Industrial section near downtown in the early afternoon making sure I knew the best route to a social event in the early evening. My three children were with me. Just as well or I might have become entangled with the driver of an enormous semi-trailer. His trucker's fog horn behind me at a light when I didn't jump off fast enough to suit him got my blood racing so fast I almost lost it. He was so big, and we were so small. Well, what the heck, I'll confess, I gave him the finger to go with my faint bleeping  back at him. He bore down on me from behind blinking his headlights at me in broad daylight, on an off, as if imaginary blows he'd promptly administer after he crushed my vehicle. Luckily I was able to change lanes, turn left, and escape him. He was fenced in by numerous other vehicles.

This was the second such traffic encounter I'd provoked in a week. Something is amiss. There's defensive driving, and then there's aggressive driving to avoid the possibility of collisions, and then, narrowly separated from those two, there's suicidal driving. I think I might be lunging into the latter.

In recent weeks there have been six highway shootings, several lethal. I'm jumpy, so kill me. Two murders took place on the same stretch of the 110 Harbor Freeway, in LA, when another car pulled along side the other at high speed and fired as many as nine shots into, and near the driver, killing the drivers of both cars. The other shootings were similar. Erratic, high speed, too close driving seems on the increase in spite of these sobering, and bewildering, and infuriating murders.

Some days ago driving down an offramp I was tailgated by a black SUV. I hate them and call them hearses. Some brands of black SUVs have a grill made of shiny, vertical metal fence posts that up close in the rear view mirror look like teeth bared by an enraged, giant shark, mindless, automatic, hungry and angry, about to announce the sentence of death through that grill.

That's when I first got in trouble in recent days through giving the finger. Turning on my lights, and pumping the brakes, sounding the horn, did no good. The shark was gonna swallow me. At the red light at the foot of the off-ramp I screamed at the top of my lungs at the driver, giving the finger again, and casting grave doubts about the sanity of all her forebears. Yes, it was a woman. Small, and dainty, and maybe, I later figured out, not yet twenty.

Full of chagrin, embarrassment, and regret, I slowly drove to my nearby destination, an outdoors employee parking lot of a hospital. Three blocks and one right turn later, as I entered the parking lot, suddenly there was the very same huge, black SUV closely following. That parking lot was not her destination, I was her destination. My God, I thought, has she changed drivers? Am I about to be rammed? To escape I tried circling the large parking lot containing narrow roadway separating many rows of hundreds of vehicles. Tenaciously she clung to my tail. Round and round we went. Did she have a male companion with a gun? I hoped that the mad scene of two rapidly moving vehicles zigging and zagging, circling, and dodging would attract a security guard, but no such luck. I felt a coward from not stopping and at least attempting to call for a truce.

Eventually she trapped me. We were going in opposite directions and she, who was all alone and even younger than I thought, slim, pretty, with long hair pulled back, drew up quietly and slowly beside me so we could talk driver to driver. She wanted an explanation. I didn't have an explanation, and I didn't have a note from home either. She was trembling. I said I hated too big truck-like SUVs. She said I oughta get a bigger vehicle. She stared at me unblinking. My God she was gorgeous, or at least her trembling was a monster turn on.

I think I was kinda raped, and didn't really mind all that much. I might go back to driving school. Maybe she teaches there.

Barry