The Prince of Peace?

Many of my readers are current or past English teachers, English majors in college, and generally well-read individuals. For that reason, I feel pretty comfortable that you are familiar with Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and the genre of dystopian novels in general.  Knowledge of these novels may equip us well for the Trumpocalypse that awaits us.

I was particularly struck by the Christmas message released by soon-to-be-White House Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus and his RNC Co-Chair Sharon Day.  (By the way, what ever happened to "i" before “e” except after “c” or when sounded as “a” as in neighbor or weigh?) The first paragraph reads:

“Merry Christmas to all! Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends.”

I think it’s very hard to misinterpret who they mean by “a new King.”  The twitterverse lit up with disbelief over this tweet, and I, myself, said several times out loud, “No, they didn’t say that. What were they thinking?”  I didn’t have to wonder for long, because soon-to-be-White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, rode up on his camel to clarify the message for those of us foolish enough to be picturing a crown on the orange man, saying: the reference didn’t have anything to do with Trump and “Christ is the King in the Christian faith.” Spicer later said that it was “sad and disappointing you are politicizing such a holy day.” (www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12/26/rnc) Who actually did the politicizing?

Words matter, and most of us, for good or for ill, interpret words in the conventional sense, not as part of some Orwellian doublespeak.  For my part, I suspect that Reince has secretly printed new business cards, “Prince Priebus,” because, you know, alliteration. I’m sure Mr. Spicer stands ready to interpret this for us.

Michael Andor Brodeur had a new interpretation in today’s “Thing Tank” column in the Boston Globe:  He thought that possibly “‘good news of a new King’ could have just been voice recognition screwing up “good news of a nuking.” No question but what Mr. Spicer will be busy in the New Year creating new meanings for tweets we thought we understood.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

A glamorous woman dressed in what appears to be a down filled strapless dress is lying on her back, arms akimbo, knit scarf carefully thrown around her shoulders and across her neck on a bed of snow-covered leaves.  Her left leg seems to be in full stride and her back leg or boot is thrust backward.  In the orientation of the photo as it appeared in a half-page ad in today’s Boston Globe, her head is down, giving the impression that she is upside down on the page.

What is Moncler Boston at Copley Place advertising here? My first guess would be lipstick, as her bright red lips are the first thing to catch my eye.  Moncler, however, doesn’t make cosmetics. Is she wearing a dress or a jumpsuit?  Is it down-filled?  A search of the Moncler web site (www.moncler.com) doesn’t produce a garment that looks remotely like what she is wearing, though the company, which first produced sleeping bags for climbers, still makes down-filled outer garments, in prices hovering around $1000.00 up to $3000.00.  By process of elimination, then, they must be advertising the scarf, though I can’t find a white one like this on the web site either.

Aside from whatever the product may be, what is also being conveyed in this picture? In the post-truth, post-factual, post-feminist era of president-elect Trump, where women have been demeaned and objectified and sexual harassment has been portrayed as “boys being boys,” this picture returns us to the world of the 1970s or earlier in its depiction of women in advertising.

We see here a woman who looks as if she has just become the victim of an assault. Her right arm is up in a defensive posture and her lower body is twisted in such a way as to suggest she is, or was, trying to run away from her assailant who is looking down at her.  She is in an extremely vulnerable pose, and is lying helpless on the ground in a wooded landscape, far from help.  Her scarf, which might have kept her warm, is now available to strangle her.

For those who think my imagination has run away from me, what other story can be told by this photo? Who in her right mind would be voluntarily lying down in an expensive strapless dress on snow-covered woods? I’ve tried a number of scenarios, but I’m sorry to say, I can’t come up with any plausible plot line other than the one I have suggested above.

In case you missed it, which apparently the advertising execs at Moncler Boston at Copley Place did, and the Advertising Editor at the Boston Globe did, Jean Kilbourne in a remarkable talk turned documentary film “Killing Us Softly,” revealed the violence, objectification, and demeaning of women ROUTINELY employed by advertisers in the media.  The first documentary came out in 1979 and it has been revised four times since then, and sadly, not much has changed, as witness this morning’s ad. 

As the cliche goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. The story this one tells is, in one word, horrifying.

Curiouser and Curiouser

In the words of Alice in Wonderland, the world continues to get "curiouser and curiouser."  I could be writing about politics, and I could be writing about the climate, but instead, I'm going to write about the mail I opened today.  It didn't all come today, but as is my bad habit, anything that is apparently "junque," I leave unopened on the kitchen table until I can't stand the mess.....usually a couple of days or so.

Today's opening brought me a most eclectic selection and a host of guilt.  Each item includes a "free gift," and a return envelope to defray the cost of the "free gift" and provide a donation to the sending organization. Where to begin?

Let's start with the glossy map of the world:  The World of Smiles with said map on one side and on the other side, heartbreaking photos of 4 month old children with cleft palates and the same children after surgery. A second, smaller map on the side with the photos is color-coded to show how many surgeries have been performed in various locations around the world.  Of course the U.S. has 0 to 100.  Some countries have had as many as 100,000. Hard to toss this into the recycling bin - see guilt, above.

Next up:  4 blank greeting cards and envelopes produced from banana leaves, (no, I didn't make that up) created by hand by Rwandan women to earn income for their families.  This is a fundraiser for Women for Women International. Another worthy cause.  The envelopes have butterflies (of hope?) on them.  Considering that I wrote only 1 note this past year, this could supply me for four years.

Having obtained this supply of greeting cards, I was overcome by the next envelope filled with 5 more blank greeting cards AND matching address labels from Disabled American Veterans.  All but one card feature prominently displayed American flags, making these cards useful as possible Fourth of July cards, if one were to send Fourth of July cards. (see previous paragraph).

In a smaller, thinner envelope came another set of address labels, this time from the NH SPCA, saying "Every animal deserves a home."  They must have been reading my mind as I have been scanning the shelters for an adoptable dog.  The dogs and cats on the labels look very cute and soulful.  It occurs to me, however, that between these and the DAV labels, I now have a 2 year supply of address labels since I mostly pay my bills online.....and we know that I don't write cards or letters
any more.

I knew what was in the next envelope with Hillary Clinton's name emblazoned on the outside, but what is in the envelope from Michelle Obama? Well, to end the suspense, Michelle has written to ask me to contribute to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to help ensure that we elect a Democratic Senate to help "preserve the progress we've made."  No address labels or greeting cards, just the ask for money. Furthermore, if I affix a stamp over the "No postage necessary if mailed in the U.S." square on the envelope my 49 cents will go toward electing a Democratic Senate.

The biggest surprise of the day was a letter from Kelly Ayotte, Republican Senator from NH asking me to join her "Leadership Team" and help her re-election bid.  Since Kelly and I share no philosophical, political or moral positions, it will be a cold day in Hell when I send money to her campaign.  Reading her letter practically sent me into apoplectic shock. It may, however, be the only piece of mail I actually respond to, using the envelope she so kindly enclosed, because I think she needs to know that she is pursuing a dead end with me and that she can take me off her mailing list.  I'll be sure to use an address label from the Disabled Vets, in case she questions my patriotism.

I'd love to be able to help provide surgery for the kids with cleft palates, food for the homeless dogs and cats and help for the disabled vets.  I would like to show my support for the candidates I support. But I am horrified by the amount of money spent on these unsolicited mailings, the cards, the labels, the use of trees to make the paper (or maybe banana leaves) and the huge amount of "stuff" that ultimately ends up either recycled or in the landfill.  If this were a one time occurrence at my house, it wouldn't be so bad, but I could write this same blog post over and over and over. Maybe I can try writing "return to sender" on the unopened envelopes and see if the P.O. will send them back their point of origin.

Airstream #2

Airstream #2

In the studio at Mass MoCA, early morning sun strikes the Airstream, so bright it causes me to see small suns when I look away.  Something makes me picture this trailer abandoned in the desert, the black markings IAO 128 visible from far away. A marker of some sort in the shimmering heat. The yellow post-it referred to “black with scratches,” perhaps the person who inhabited my apartment room also inhabited this studio.



Footsteps on the floor above and the sound of a small motor echoing through the concrete and brick below prevent my mirage from continuing; I move my gaze to the rusting steel girders and two orange clamps holding the Airstream in place fifty feet in the air. Out of its element, it appears to be a trolley car waiting, waiting for passengers that never arrive.

Wally Byam had a dream, a dream to build a travel trailer that would move like a stream of air, be light enough to be towed by a car, and create first-class accommodations anywhere.  I doubt he would have imagined this location for one of his beloved trailers.

On the other hand, in 1931 when he began designing his dream trailer, he probably didn’t imagine that in 1969, when NASA landed men on the moon, one of his trailers would be located on the deck of the USS Hornet, to become a place to quarantine Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins when they returned from their epic trip. No one knew if they would bring germs of new diseases back with them. 1969 was also the year Wally conducted a major re-design, adding a foot in length and creating the longer, rounder shape of this 1973 version, which the history web site refers to as “a more distinct bullet shape,” a description I resist.

Watching the trailer, waiting for something to happen, I am startled by a sudden flock of pigeons, their coverts flashing silver, swooping over the Airstream to land on the roof ridge of a building nearby. The quarantine is over, life arrives in this otherwise lifeless landscape.

Airstream #1

    Through the week of the Mass MoCA residency, all of my new writing focused on the Airstream trailer which was my studio view. I freely admitted I became obsessed by the trailer and photographed it once or twice a day, capturing different light, different sky, the play of shadows on the bricks on either side.  Part of my writing tried to unravel why I was so obsessed, but deep in my heart, I already knew why. 
    The Airstream represented my studio. The only studio I’ve ever had. It was my companion on this Visiting Artist adventure. It didn’t move; it provided interesting beauty and it greeted me every day, with it’s shiny body and mysterious black letters and numbers on its side. 
    I connected it, somehow to the gold post-it note that I found folded under a jar of sunflowers, chrysanthemums and strawflowers on my windowsill in the apartment bedroom which was also mine for the week.  The post-it said:
        So black with
        scratches
        maybe some
        writing too?
No one else in the apartment had flowers in her room; no one else found a mysterious note, and almost no one else had the Airstream. Almost, because one of my apartment mates shared the studio with me, but she had a different window, different view, and she didn’t seem to be obsessed with it the way I was. She was actually writing, not gazing out the window!
    This is my photograph on the first morning I spent time in the studio. I instinctively photograph the view from my window whenever I’m in a new place, and at this point, I did it out of habit and because I was intrigued with this industrial landscape which, for a week, would replace my usual view out to flowers, shrubs, an old willow tree and birds at my feeder. I also noticed the clouds, the water flowing below in the canal and loved the bright touch of yellow on the side rails of the bridge across which many small maintenance vehicles and occasional cars would drive throughout the day.
    This was my view. I was hooked.

poem

Migratory Birds

On the list serve,
a birder posts the sighting
of a yellow-headed

female blackbird
the same one, he says,
sighted last week.

How did he know it was the same?
This is a fact not in evidence
false on its face,

ipso facto and BOOM,
you might as well
be in the room, domineering

as in the old days -
shades up, not down
take the truck, not the car

click through the channels
never watch one show -
Why ask if you don’t

intend to listen?
Then the assertion,
1277 double-crested

cormorants in flocks
of 30 to 60. Was the passenger
pigeon flying too?

Managing life or living it?

I’ve always been a list-maker of tasks I have to do. When life grows busy, the list is a way to have control over what threatens to become chaos. While I was teaching, I would have multiple lists: a “to-do” list for each of my five classes; a list of household tasks that needed accomplishing; and eventually, a list of needs to take care of for my parents. I found great satisfaction in crossing items off these lists, but an equal amount of angst in the items I didn’t finish and didn’t cross off. Like Toad in the the book Frog and Toad Together, I would even add and cross off something on a list that I had completed but which wasn’t originally on the list, just to make myself feel more” accomplishful,” a word often used in my family.

Sometimes lists hung around for a long, long time, with one persnickety item that I just couldn’t get done. I would not transfer that item to a new list, because it signified some degree of incompetence or procrastination that I didn’t want to acknowledge. I realize I come by this list-making honestly from my father, who carried a small spiral notebook in his shirt pocket with lists of things to do. His lists, and mine, helped to organize our lives and were necessary stays against confusion and lack of control.

I still make lists, and love the satisfaction of doing all the things that I’ve set out to do and crossing off items one by one. But I have also realized that there is a certain tyranny in a list that constrains life and may even prevent the pursuit of a more spontaneous, creative life. Who, for example, would write down “watch the birds” on a to-do list? Or “become absorbed in a good book and read all day?” Or “decide to write a blog post?” Because I don’t write things like these on lists, when I end up doing them, I feel guilty, somehow, that they weren’t “on the list” of things to do that day. I’m guessing there are others who experience this same feeling, because when I posted on facebook the other day that I had accomplished very little but had read a lot, more people “liked” that post than just about anything else I have ever posted.

So in talking to myself about my life as a retired person, and trying to be more present in the moment, I have decided to stop thinking of my lists as “to-do lists” and to start thinking of them as simply a list of “possibilities” for the day. In a way, this actually helps me to feel less overwhelmed by any of the many “to-dos” that a single individual needs to carry out in order to keep some semblance of order inside and outside the house. It also frees me up to do whatever I feel like doing in the moment, without feeling hugely guilty about other things on the list which are going undone.

In the story “The List,” Toad is paralyzed when his list blows away and he can’t remember what else was on his list of things to do. I don’t want to be that person (that Toad?) I will still be the person who makes a list for the day, but whether I choose to do one thing or no thing from that list, at the end of the day, I will be grateful for the way that life unfolds, offering surprises and accomplishments, things I can cross off and things that I can’t.