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    • Apr

    28

    Another Catholic Being Awesome

    Filed Under ao resources, current affairs, media, people, politics, race | 7 Comments

    I’ve heard the questions the reporter poses - in some form or another, just change out some of the names if you want - my whole adult life (and longer). Father Phleger - who was dubbed a “black a** kisser” at one website I visited - has responses that I can only characterize as “real.”  I love how his last words apparently stun the reporter into quickly ending the conversation. I guess the reporter just didn’t want to go there.

    Everything Father Phleger has said, I’ve heard black people say growing up. Everything. It’s still incredible to me that there are millions of people out there who aren’t even familiar - they don’t have to agree - with these views. 


     

    Popularity: 62% [?]

    Apr

    27

    “Blindness” to be a Movie

    Filed Under books, movies, people, quotes | Leave a Comment

    I’m not quite sure what to think yet. One of my favorite novels, Blindness, is being adapted to the big screen. The cast list has me scratching my chin - it includes Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Sandra Oh, Danny Glover, and Gael Garcia Bernal. The inclusion of North Americans puzzles me a little as the writer, José Saramago, is Portuguese, and his stories tend to be set in nameless Iberian countries. 

    But … it could be good. The premise - in case you’re wondering by this time - is this: a man on his way home from work or wherever is sitting in his car at a light, when all of the sudden he goes blind. Of course, he cannot drive so he is assisted to his home by another man. The man who went blind visits the doctor, who isn’t sure what’s going on. But very soon after, the doctor goes blind. The blind man’s wife goes blind. Pretty soon many people have inexplicably gone blind, and the government starts housing them all in an unused asylum.  And then we see what happens to people in these situations, and what becomes of society as more and more people lose their sight.  

    Back to the film: The director, Fernando Meirelles - also Portuguese - is responsible for City of God and The Constant Gardener. Oh my god - two films that can grind even a stone heart into sand for an hourglass. I’ve only a little exposure to the screenwriter Don McKellar. He is a Canadian, who seems to travel (at least some of the time) within this circle of excellent and interesting Canadian actors and directors like Egoyan, Cronenberg, Sarah Polley, and Oh. He made the indie film, Last Night, which I thought was … okay. In general, I find Canadian films made by this group of people to feel slightly frozen. I like them, but the characters always seem to be in the midst of thawing. 

    Maybe something truly remarkable will be the result when these two Portuguese and Canadian sensibilities are mixed. The novel itself gives the experience of being rent from a long distance. Saramago is magical that way.

    This afternoon I skimmed through some of the book, rereading underlined passages. It’s a challenge to quote Saramago because his “sentences” are the length of paragraphs, while his paragraphs are the length of chapters; his humor is difficult to take out of context, and the dialogue is not separated from the narrative.  But here are a couple of excerpts that I like:

    …The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality ….

    … She did not waste time asking herself where such a thought had come from, she was only surprised at its slowness, at how the first word had been so slow in appearing, the slowness of those to follow, and how she found that the thought was already there before, somewhere or other, and only the words were missing, like a body searching in the bed for the hollow that had been prepared for it by the mere idea of lying down. 

     

    … animals are like people, they get used to everything in the end.

    That last one reminded me of something Dostoevsky wrote in another of my favorite pieces of fiction, House of the Dead, - “Man is a creature who can get used to anything, and I believe that is the very best way of defining him.” 

    There are many days when I think this is true. In Blindness, Saramago offers a great parable. 

    Popularity: 45% [?]

    Apr

    18

    Billy Joel Keeps It Real

    Filed Under current affairs, music, nostalgia, people | 4 Comments

    I can offer no explanation of my fondness for John Mellencamp’s music … years ago when I was a 15 year old I didn’t even know any adults who listened to him, but for whatever reason, there was a connection to this prickly Midwesterner’s songs. Well, John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month, and he was introduced by another great American singer songwriter, Billy Joel.

    Of course, being a native New Yorker, I couldn’t help but know about Joel, and oh … the days when you could actually hear him on the Top 40 radio station. Back when it was okay for a “pop star” to be in their 30s, or chubby, or balding, or singing things that would never play in a night club. But now I’m starting to sound like an old grump muttering about the “good ole days.” 

    Here’s an excerpt from Joel’s introduction; another reason why he and Mellencamp are all right in my book. 

    Don’t let this club membership change you, John. Stay ornery, stay mean. We need you to be pissed off, and restless, because no matter what they tell us - we know, this country is going to hell in a handcart. This country’s been hijacked. You know it and I know it. People are worried. People are scared, and people are angry. People need to hear a voice like yours that’s out there to echo the discontent that’s out there in the heartland. They need to hear stories about it. [Audience applauds] They need to hear stories about frustration, alienation and desperation. They need to know that somewhere out there somebody feels the way that they do, in the small towns and in the big cities. They need to hear it. And it doesn’t matter if they hear it on a jukebox, in the local gin mill, or in a goddamn truck commercial, because they ain’t gonna hear it on the radio anymore. They don’t care how they hear it, as long as they hear it good and loud and clear the way you’ve always been saying it all along. You’re right, John, this is still our country.

    (transcription courtesy of Wikipedia.org; video available here - this excerpt is from the last 2 minutes of the clip)

     

    Popularity: 42% [?]

    Apr

    15

    Reports from the Home Front

    Filed Under being creative, lil things, love, new things, people, plans, pregnancy | 11 Comments

    Stuff #1: Well, not only did he not know who Cyndi Lauper was, or recognize the blind, black man with braids as Stevie Wonder, but today I discovered that my husband doesn’t know who Sean Penn, W.E.B. Dubois, or Langston Hughes are. Or Bette Davis. 

    But in all truthfulness, I’d never heard of Richard Feynman, Alan Turing, Gauss, Heisenberg, Von Neumann or the Bernoullis before I met him… so we both have our weak areas. His is popular culture and Black History; mine is physics, mathematics, and computer science. You can decide which is worse. 

    In any case, we are learning from each other. Hopefully, our child(ren) will learn from us both. 

    ***

    Stuff #2: I’m learning to swim! After 3 lessons, and 3 additional sessions (on my own), I can “kick” and “fin” on both my stomach and my back, without any assistance. So if I fall into a small body of water I shouldn’t drown.  Although this has never been a real danger for me, knowing this feels really great.  I love going to the pool. I finally got over my swimsuit fears (well, mostly; my suit is a short skirt and midriff-concealing top), and don’t care what people think of my body. So I guess that’s modesty without the self-consciousness, which is all I ask.

    Yesterday, the midwife told me it was okay to get in the hot tub so long as I didn’t let myself cook; that made my DAY. I love a jetted hot tub. Learning to swim has been an empowering experience; every day I see progress, and become more bold. Plus, I’m doing my part to defy the stereotype that black people can’t swim. (Click here for an interesting article on that annoyingly persistent myth - most of my family believes it, and they all swim!)

    ***

    Stuff #3: Picked up Murakami’s Elephant Stories (at reader Hotei’s suggestion), as well as several Saramago novels I’ve not yet read, including his latest, Seeing. I’ve decided to write a few short children’s books for my own kid(s) based on people in my and Michael’s families. Getting the illustrations done will be the biggest challenge, but my brother-in-law is an artist, and one of my brothers is very good, too. I’m teaching myself to draw,  but it will be a while before I can do anything substantial.

    I learned more about my predecessors … my granddad (an aspiring writer, who wrote numerous novels that were never published) wrote a letter to W.E.B. Dubois, who wrote back to him. The letters are published in a book of Dubois’ correspondence. This granddad’s mom, Rebecca, was a labor organizer in Panama, and met Paul Robeson (another person Michael’s never heard of). And her mom, Mary Jane - the Jamaican woman who married the Scotsman - wasn’t of African descent, as I’d assumed; she was Arawak. Rebecca was a pretty incredible woman. Discovering things about my recent ancestors has been such a gift. I feel more grounded, richer … as though I have something to give to my children apart from myself.

    I also learned that Michael’s paternal ancestors from Spain were Sephardic (Jews). When I told him this, his response was the typical wisecracking: “So there’s still a chance I’ll be rich!” Oh lord. He doesn’t care a whit about ancestry or family history. In some things, we couldn’t be more different.

    So many stories …. If you’re looking for stories, start at home.

     

    Popularity: 54% [?]

    Apr

    10

    The Family I’ve Always Had

    Filed Under being creative, from the heart, happiness, life changes, love, people, spiritual practice | Leave a Comment

    Nanny as a Young TeenAfter my grandmother was pulled over by the police for driving “one mile an hour” down a hill after dark, she decided to stop driving. The rest of our little family agreed this was for the best. Over the last two years, Nanny’s health had sharply declined, and she was becoming less independent.

    During a family meeting of my parents, my oldest brother, his wife, me, and my husband, we all agreed that Nanny was very probably lonely, and needed help managing her health, nutritional intake, and finances. It also concerned us that her short term memory was less reliable; her paranoid statements were becoming more alarming than amusing; and she seemed depressed and easily agitated. 

    In my family, we tend to always look at two things first as the source of any problems: physical health and personal relationships. Nanny was sitting at home most of the day, eating frozen food, and not being nearly as social as she used to. Not to mention, my brother and I weren’t spending much time with her.

    My brother and his wife - who have four kids - volunteered to have Nanny move in with them. They both work and the kids are all in school, so Nanny would have some privacy and quiet during the day, as well as some energy and life in the house on the weekends. They needed a larger place, and within a week, we’d found a five bedroom house across the street from my house! They moved in two weeks later. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad put Nanny’s house up for rent. 

    A year ago this time, I probably talked to my grandmother once every two weeks on the phone, and saw her about once a month. Now, I talk to my grandmother almost every day, and see her four or five days a week, if not more. I can pop over to visit with her as easily as checking the mail. She is always happy to see me. Sometimes I make her a sandwich, or help her with something, or we just chat while she goes about her business. 

    Even though this has been an adjustment for everyone, I feel a tremendous amount of relief:  I’d had no idea how lonely my grandmother was. I used to hear about old people in nursing homes whose families would visit them once a month or only on the holidays, and think, “That’s really sad; that’s your mom/dad/grandma/granddad!” And yet gradually, I’d become more and more distant from my own grandmother, just taking for granted that I’d spend more time with her “later.” Looking back, I see how easily that happened.

    Last spring, my decision to move back to the suburbs of my adolescence - the suburbs I’d hated and sworn never to return to - seemed like a weird faux pas. I had to keep explaining it to my friends, and started questioning my progressive identity. But something compelled me; I don’t know what. That line from The Sunscreen Song kept playing in my head,

    The older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

    Maybe it was my grandfather dying last fall that helped me get real about my relationship with Nanny. I didn’t know him well, and we weren’t close, but we loved each other. When he died, it felt like a sudden zip! Everything he’d thought and felt, remembered, desired, hated - it just evaporated with him.  I can recall looking at the dark hole of his open mouth, the large head, and the massive eye sockets. And it occurred to me: I would never know the half of it. 

    Unlike her ex-husband, Nanny has never pushed me away. All I have to do is be there. I’ll drag my feet to pick her up from here and there; huff silently to myself as she slowly puts on her coat, but it’s always worth it. Last night, after we picked Nanny up from choir practice, she told me and Michael the story of her first visit to the community pool. Neither she nor her little sister could swim, so her father instructed them to sit on the bench after they changed, and he’d take them to the wading end. But Nanny wanted to take a closer look, so she’d stood at the edge of the pool, and noticed its beautiful white marble walls, and how the light hit them,  and … she just jumped in. She went straight to the bottom, and looked at the walls all the while. Eventually, she floated back to the top. And her little sister was screaming “in awe,” she said, and her father was so distraught he returned to the men’s dressing room to sneak a drink.

    He looked at himself in the mirror, but found no new line or wrinkle on his face, It’s probably somewhere inside me, he thought, then he ran the tap, washed his hands, and went out.           ~The Cave, Jose Saramago

     

     

    Popularity: 49% [?]

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