Mobtown Blues

Way Down Yonder on the Li'l Tallapoosa

I've been struggling for weeks now to compose a post that adequately encompasses the long weekend I spent with my wife and friends recently in rural Alabama.  Now, when I say "rural," I don't mean "rural" in the Maryland sense, where McMansions are swiftly eroding the farmland, and where one is never more than a 20-min. drive from the multiplex and the Panera.  No, when I say we were in rural Alabama, I mean that the place where we stayed was a miles down a dirt road, with little but vast, creeping fields of kudzu between us and the nearest gas station a couple of zip codes away.

After racking my brain trying to come up with a way to adequately summarize my experience in one of the deeper parts of the Deep South, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not up to the task.  Either I write the Cliff's Notes or I write 'War and Peace;' there's no middle ground.  So here are some of the things I've been telling friends, family, and coworkers, when they ask "what in the world were you doing in rural Alabama this summer?"

Among other things, I: visited a chicken farm, went four-wheelin' in the mud in a Dodge Caravan, saw a dead armadillo, drove past Booger Hollow Road, tried my first crawdad, listened to my friends outsing a lightning storm, shared a smoke with a guy in a rebel flag doo-rag, drank muscadine wine, ate at a roadside barbecue stand, did yoga on the front porch at sunrise, discussed the decline of the African-American Sacred Harp tradition, made several trips to and from Lower Cane Creek Primitive Baptist Church, listened to impromptu mini-lectures on astrology and homeopathic remedies, talked about pockets of Yankee sympathizers in Alabama during the height of the Civil War (or "the Late Unpleasantness," depending on your perspective), learned about the now-defunct custom of dropping live turkeys from the second floor of the courthouse in LaFayette (pronounced "luh-FEHT"), and heard all sorts of startling things about Nathan Bedford Forrest and the organization he founded, the one that's abbreviated by repeating the eleventh letter of the Roman alphabet three times.

I also attended the funeral home visitation for a singer who died unexpectedly the day of our arrival.  She wasn't someone I knew in any way well; I had sung across the hollow square from her a couple of times, is all.  But the singing we conjured for her and her family, about 50 of us packed in a little anteroom next to the room where she was laid out for viewing, was just about the richest, most reverent, most powerful singing of my experience.  As we sang for our departed fellow singer, I looked around the room at the people around me.  I saw young people and old people, Northerners and Southerners, black folks and white folks, liberals and conservatives, atheists and Pentecostals, their voices all raised in hymns of praise and lamentation.  Beyond them I saw the family members of the deceased, many of whom had never heard this music before.  Some of them hugged me afterward, astonished that folks would drive all the way from Maryland and sing for someone they barely knew.  And I thought: this is how I want it to be when I die.  This is what we do for each other.  This is, to quote Raymond Carver, what we talk about when we talk about love.

One afternoon, my friend with whom we were staying took the group of us down to the Little Tallapoosa River, its waters depleted from the drought that has scorched the southeast for months.  After chasing off the cows that, like us, were trying to beat the 100-plus degree heat and stifling humidity with a dip in the river, we waded into the muddy water and lay ourselves down.  Our host's cousin drove up on a John Deere ATV, bearing locally grown, orange-colored watermelons.  As I spit the seeds out into the drowsy current, I found myself thinking of my father, how he had spent most of his young adulthood trying to find a way out of the South, its poverty, its religion, its culture.  I wondered what he would think of myperiodic excursions to Georgia and Alabama, of the bonds I have developed with the sort of people he fought so hard for get away from.  I skipped a chunk of watermelon rind across the suface of the water and figured that wherever he is, he's probably getting a kick out of the irony of the whole thing.

I rose and toweled myself off.  The sun was just beginning its slow, red decline, the air shimmering with heat and moisture.  In a few hours, we would be kicked out of a seafood restaurant by armed Randolph County sherriff's deputies.  The South was beginning to grow on me. 

too barbarous for heaven

 

On days when I'm not swamped with work or off at meetings, I like to walk over to the Walters on my lunch break.  For one thing, it's free.  For another, it's nearby.  And no matter how many times I visit, I always find something new that catches my eye.

The 10th century Assyrian relief above reminded me of a segment from 'The Hearts,' by Robert Pinsky:

. . . as once in the Temple

In the time before the Temple was destroyed
A young priest saw the seraphim of the Lord;
Each had six wings, with two they covered their faces,

With two they covered their legs and feet, with two
They darted and hovered like dragonflies or perched
Like griffins in the shadows near the cieling --

These are the visions, too barbarous for heaven
And too preposterous for belief on earth,
God sends to taunt his prophet with the truth

No one can see, that leads to who knows where.
A seraph took a live coal from the altar
And seared the prophet's lips, and so he spoke.

God is in the details

I'm reading The Pillow Book (Makura no Soshi) of Sei Shonagon, a 10th century Japanese courtier and the contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote The Tale of Genji. 

Little is known about Sei Shonagon other than what she reveals about herself in The Pillow Book.  Even her name is shrouded in mystery, as "Shonagon" is a title that designates her as a government functionary, and "Sei" is a shorthand reference to her family name, Kiyohara.  The picture that emerges from the translated pages of her only work is of an intelligent, sarcastic, incisive, haughty, compassionate, vain, vibrant person who was enchanted by the minutiae of life.

The Pillow Book itself is a collection of lists, reflections, observations, gossip, and poetry, the sort of things that a Japanese noblewoman might have jotted down on loose pages before bedtime.  Though spare, her musings offer tantalizing, hypnotically fascinating glimpses of Japan and court life during the Heian period.

Here is her entry on "winds."

A stormy wind.  At dawn, when one is lying in bed with the lattices and panelled doors wide open, the wind suddenly blows into the room and stings one's face - most delightful.

A cold, wintry wind.

In the Third Month the moist, gentle wind that blows in the evenings moves me greatly.

Also moving is the cool, rainy wind in the Eighth and Ninth Months. Streaks of rain are blown violently from the side, and I enjoy watching people cover their stiff robes of unlined silk with the padded coats that they put away after the summer rains.

Towards the end of the Ninth Month and the beginning of the Tenth the sky is clouded over, there is a strong wind, and the yellow leaves fall gently to the ground, especially from the cherry trees and the elms. All this produces a most pleasant sense of melancholy. In the Tenth Month I love gardens that are full of trees.

Here is Sei on "elegant things."

A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat. Duck Eggs. Shaved Ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl. A rosary of rock crystal. Snow on wistaria or plum blossoms. A pretty child eating strawberries.

And on meeting a lover:

To meet one's lover summer is indee the right season. True, the nights are very short, and dawn creeps up before one has had a wink of sleep. Since all the lattices have been left open, one can lie and look out at the garden in the cool morning air. There are still a few endearments to exchange before the man takes his leave, and the lovers are murmuring to each other when suddenly there is a loud noise. For a moment they are certain that they have been discovered; but it is only the caw of a crow flying past in the garden. In the winter, when it is very cold and one lies buried under the bedclothes listening to one's lover's endearments, it is delightful to hear the booming of a temple gong, which seems to come from the bottom of a deep well. The first cry of the birds, whose beaks are still tucked under their wings, is also strange and muffled. Then one bird after another takes up the call. How pleasant it is to lie there listening as the sounds become clearer and clearer!

Increasingly I find that creation is such an incredibly vast affair that the only way to wrap one's mind around the enormity of it all is to pay attention to the details.  Each moment, each occurrence, each phenomenon contains so much that it seems to me a futile exercise to try and understand existence on a macro scale.  Perhaps quantum mathematicians and astrophysicists can play comfortably with notions of time, space, and infinity, but such concepts tend to elude and frustrate me.   Observing the small and mundane, on the other hand, brings me into more intimate and immediate contact with mystery.  That's what appeals to me so strongly about The Pillow Book.

Sei Shonagon's style is also useful for me as a lackadaisical blogger.  I've never mastered the art of the short, pithy entry.  My tendency is to write essays (such as this post is becoming).  Reading The Pillow Book, I am finding the inspiration to pull back, to say more with less, and hopefully to post more regularly. 

On a lighter note...

If I have to read another grant proposal I think I'm going to auto-defenestrate, so I'm taking a little break to finish up a post I started a couple of days ago.  Here's what I've cramming inside my squishy little brain of late.

What I'm reading now:
- Treason's Harbour, by Patrick O'Brian - #9 in the Aubrey/Maturin series; skullduggery and derring-do in early 19th century Malta.
- Silence and Witness: The Quaker Tradition, by Michael Birkel - we were reading from this for our Meeting's Quakerism 101 discussions some time back.  A good primer on Quaker history and practice.
- Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi - I have an enormous crush on this poignant, funny, heartbreaking graphic novel and its author.
- Thirst, by Mary Oliver - see my earlier post for more about this beautiful and painful collection of poems.
- The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, edited by Bernard McGinn - I've begun reading a snippet over breakfast each morning.  At this rate I'll be drawing Social Security by the time I reach Bernard of Clairvaux.

What I just put down:
- The Quakers in America, by Thomas Hamm - wanna know the differences between Conservative Friends and Orthodox Friends?  Always been puzzled over what distinguishes a Gurneyite from a Wilburite?  No?  Well, you should go ahead and read this lucid, succinct account of American Quakerism anyway.
- The Ionian Mission, by Patrick O'Brian - carronades, studdingsails, and figgy-dowdy off the Greek Isles.
- The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by Will Eisner - this graphic novel recounts, in terse historical vignettes, how the hydra of anti-Semitism continues to grow heads even as others are chopped off.

What's on the nightstand:
- Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey Into the Evangelical Subculture in America, by Randall Balmer - I picked this up at a used bookstore in Northampton last year, and I'm determined to read it before it's revised again.
- Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, by Kathleen Norris - I've been reading this one in small doses, but I intend to find a day where I can sit down with it and drink in Norris' spare, elegant high-plains prose.
- Persepolis 2, by Marjane Satrapi - doset daram, Mme. Satrapi!

What I'm watching on the teevee:
- The Colbert Report - Isn't this mandatory for GenX libs?  Don't they take away your "Garden State" soundtrack or something if you don't watch Colbert?
- Futurama (reruns on Adult Swim) - We demand new episodes NOW!  All six of us!
- South Park - to quote Peterson Toscano, "sometimes it takes the court jester to uncover the madness of our times."  Word.
- Frontline - Usually depresses the heck out of me, but it's consistently the finest documentary program / news magazine on the air.

What I've rented from Video Americain / ordered from Netflix recently:
- Walk on Water - a top-notch Israeli thriller about a Mossad agent who cozies up to an irresistably adorable German brother and sister so he can assassinate their Nazi war-criminal opa.
- Danger UXB - an excellent British television miniseries from the '80s about the unexploded ordinance units of the Royal Corps of Engineers, who defused German bombs during the Blitz.
- The Prestige - the pledge reels you in, the turn is dazzling, but the prestige itself is like kissing your sister.
- I, Robot - KILL ALL HUMANS.  KILL ALL HUMANS.  KILL ALL HU -- aw, dang it, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air had to go and ruin everything.

What's taking up memory in my MP3 player:
- Beautiful Rat Sunset, by the Mountain Goats - "Going to Maryland" is my favorite song this week.
- Ash Wednesday, by Elvis Perkins - a gorgeous debut album; the son of Tony "Psycho" Perkins sounds like a cross between M. Ward and Rufus Wainright (that's a good thing).
- In the Valley, by Val Mindel and Emily Miller - honey-sweet old-time mountain harmonies and early country ballads from one of the incredible Sweetback Sisters and her talented mom. 
- October 29th, by Caleb Stine & the Brakemen - Caleb creates a pool of stillness around him when he sings.  Step into it and you find yourself sitting by a campfire in the Grand Canyon at sundown.
- Hello, Dear Wind, by Page France - Benn of the Mobtown Shank says "if I have to hear one more indie rock band sing about Jesus, I'm gonna start dispatching them to their savior myself."  He should probably avoid this album.

Who you should see live, should they come to a town anywhere near you:
- Caleb Stine, with or without the Brakemen - the best singer-songwriter in Baltimore.  See above.
- Curtis Eller, with or without his American Circus - America's angriest banjo player yodels like an Alpine shepherd, coos like a pigeon, pines for the 1920's, writes songs about Abraham Lincoln digging up his dead baby, extols Al Jolson and Amelia Earhart, and dances like the love child of Elvis Presley and Charlie Chaplin.
- The Sweetback Sisters - this is how Maybelle Carter would have sounded had she grown up in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
- Jonathan Byrd - a rangy North Carolinian preacher's son with a twangy baritone, who sings new songs that sound a couple hundred years old.  Plus he wears a cowboy hat.  And makes it work.

Love Day Pt. 2, or What If I Threw a Cuddle Party and Nobody Came?

The tricky part about performing acts of loving-kindess in the world, it seems to me, is taking one's ego out of the equation.   As Allen Ginsberg so eloquently wrote, we "must give / for no return / as thought / is given."  Most religions I'm familiar with talk about love and compassion having inherent value apart from whatever benefits redound to the person who manifests them.  A religious studies professor of mine used a familiar rhyme to illustrate this.

He knows when you are sleeping,
He knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness' sake!

The song's about Santa Claus, of course, but according to my old teacher, it could just as easily talking about one's relationship with God.  Why should we be good?  Is it so we get presents on Christmas morning?  Is it so that other people will think better of you?  Is it to receive eternal salvation and secure a place in heaven?  No.  We should be good, according to the song, for goodness' sake.  We should be good simply because it is good to be good.  For a believer, it is because God is good and delights in goodness, and so acts of goodness give pleasure to God.  (Note that God is not obligated to reciprocate by reserving us a chalet inside the pearly gates, where lovely, dark-eyed virgin houri await us.)  Goodness, in short, is its own reward, or at least it should be.   

But that's such a hard standard to live up to, isn't it?  We are in general self-interested and self-involved creatures, after all.   I mean, most of us can appreciated the value of making an anonymous donation to a worthy cause, but we have to admit that it's also nice to see our name listed as a contributor in the annual report, or get the logo-bearing tote bag, or be invited to the special "Benefactor's Circle" dinner with the conductor.  Deep down, we want to be appreciated.  So it can be difficult when you're busy patting yourself on the back for some act of good you've performed, only to realize that the earth hasn't exactly stopped rotating on its axis just because you've decided to be nice for a change.

Love, to quote again from Ginsberg, is the weight we carry.  It gives us ballast, helping us to stay upright and balanced in choppy seas.   But if we let ourselves get all self-congratulatory for doing good, if we get all pouty because people don't throw a parade for us, then it can drag us down like a stone.

That, at least, is what I've learned over the last couple of weeks.

Love Day

Last week I participated in a daylong event at the Pearlstone Retreat Center as part of the Campaign for Love and Forgiveness, a multiyear initiative convened by Maryland Public Television and others to explore “how love and forgiveness can effect positive change in individuals and communities.”  My work is providing funding for the Maryland campaign, which is part of a broader effort sponsored by the Fetzer Institute. 

I must confess that when my coworker invited me to this thing, I was pretty skeptical.  I’ve engaged in activities focused on peace, reconciliation, and nonviolence with groups ranging from A (American Friends Service Committee) to Z (Zen Peacemaker Order). Some of these experiences have changed my life in very tangible ways.  A series of facilitated conversations on race that I participated in a couple of years ago clarified how I view the power dynamics associated with race and class, which in turn had a significant impact on my work.  For the most part, though, I’ve come away from these types of sessions and workshops with a temporary, free-floating sense of goodwill, but with few tools of practical application.  The last thing I wanted to do as part of this MPT campaign was to sit on a cushion in my stocking feet, passing around an inkin and talking about my feelings.

When I entered the hall where the opening workshop was going on, I nearly turned around and walked right out again.  But when a couple of acquaintances caught my eye and motioned me over, I sighed, kicked off my shoes, and took my place on a cushion within the circle.  When the little bell came my way, I dutifully dinged it and intoned an extemporaneous prayer for love and healing and pie and puppies over all the land.

The day got more substantive fairly quickly after that, though.  As an icebreaker, each of us was invited to share five things that we heard repeatedly when we were growing up.  It was interesting to note how messages we received as children differed between men and women, and between younger folks and older folks.  The males and those of us in our twenties and thirties reported getting a lot of “I am so proud of you” and “you can be anything you want to be”-type messages reinforced as children, while women and people in their fifties and above cited more disturbing lessons, such as, “you’re such a disappointment,” “be nice,” and “girls can’t do that.”

Most of the participants were nonprofit-y, direct service types – case managers, juvenile counselors, health care practitioners, educators, and the like – so we paid particular attention to one of the speakers, a former gang member who had spent years in prison developing a spiritual practice that helped him deal with anger and violence.  After he was released, both his son and stepson were murdered in gang-related incidents, and it was painful to hear how he dropped his hard-earned principles of nonviolence he had learned in prison, and bought weapons with the intent of avenging his sons’ deaths.  He spoke of how he strove to work through his grief and overcome the self-destructive eye-for-an-eye conditioning he had learned growing up, so that he was finally able to forgive not only the people who killed his son and stepson, but himself as well.

Later, following an excellent kosher lunch prepared by the Pearlstone staff, a few of us took part in a theater workshop facilitated by deaf instructors affiliated with the QuestFest visual theater program.  The session was a fairly basic theater workshop involving forming tableaus, expressing emotions, and group work, but what was distinctive about it was that it was conducted in near-total silence: no words, no sign language, and a minimum of pointing.  Witnessing a collection of mostly strangers engage in increasingly complex group activities for an hour without the benefit of standard forms of communication was unexpectedly powerful and moving.  As a Quaker, it spoke to me of the value of silence, of how often we let our verbosity get in the way of meaningful communication.

The most interesting part of the day, at least to me, was a workshop on the Jewish idea of chesed, which is usually translated as “loving-kindness.”  Led by a rabbi who teaches religion to kids from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, we learned how chesed differs from conventional formulations of compassion or charity by virtue of its being specific and quantifiable.

 

Chesed, she explained, is prescribed by the scriptures and the rabbinic tradition, and is measurable in clearly defined actions.  One manifests chesed in honoring the dead, for example, by performing a set list of duties: bathing the corpse, attending the funeral, comforting the bereaved, commemorating the deceased, and so on.  Chesed offers us a way to think about and talk about concepts like love, forgiveness, and reconciliation.  Without being grounded in discrete, concrete actions, these concepts tend to remain airy, intangible, frustratingly out of reach.  We can always be more loving.  We’re never merciful enough, or generous enough, or forgiving enough.  But we can point to acts of mercy, generosity, and forgiveness, and say, “There.  That is how I manifest loving-kindness in this world.” 

The rabbi told us that the history of chesed in rabbinic Judaism dates back to the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple in the first century C.E.  We read from the siddur:

    Once, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was walking with his disciple, Rabbi Y’hoshua, near Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple.

    Rabbi Y’hoshua looked at the Temple in ruins and said, “Alas for us!  The place that atoned for the sins of the people Israel lies in ruins!”

   Then Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai spoke to him these words of comfort: “Be not grieved, my son.  There is another equally meritorious way of gaining ritual atonement, even though the Temple is destroyed.  We can still gain ritual atonement through deeds of loving-kindness.  For it is written: “Loving-kindness I desire, not sacrifice.”  (Hosea 6:6)
Midrash Avot D’Rabbi Nathan 4:5

The notion that “deeds of loving-kindness” can be a sufficient means of atonement, a sufficient path to God, is a radical one.  Within Christianity there is a great deal of ambiguity and controversy regarding the place of good works in cultivating a relationship with God.  Liberal Christians who preach the primacy of the social gospel emphasize the performance of good works, but rarely (in my experience, at least), claim them to be a stand-alone means to salvation.  Other Christians regard good works as being part of a continuum where salvation is concerned, along with faith and grace.  Still others believe that the only means to salvation is the grace of God, period.

 

But prior to the destruction of the Temple, traveling to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice was the only means for Jews to atone for their sins and get right with God.  When that means of atonement was taken away, another means had to be established in its place.  Beginning in the rabbinic period, according to the rabbi, that means became the performance of chesed.

As an example of the way that chesed can be manifested in one’s work life, the rabbi told us of one of her students, a young man from a broken home and a broken community, with a troubled past and a bleak future.  In attempting to cultivate in this boy qualities of patience, courtesy, and respect, she quickly realized that she couldn’t just admonish him to “Be patient!”  “Be courteous!”  “Be respectful!”  Those words would have little meaning to someone who hadn’t been brought up with them.  Telling him to behave, and then getting angry with him when he failed to do so, would only make him confused and unhappy, and would only have frustrated her.

So instead, she tells him exactly what she means.  “When I am talking to someone, wait quietly until I’m finished talking to them.”  That’s patience.  “When I give you this book, I want you to say ‘thank you.’”  That’s courtesy.  "When you want to talk to me, you look me in the eye and say ‘excuse me’.”  That’s respect.  Like the old adage about teaching the man to fish, these instructions provide something solid for this student to latch on to.  That, as the rabbi explained it, is chesed.

As I close this unexpectedly long entry, I must add the disclaimer that I do not purport to be in any way an expert on Judaism, and I regret if anyone reads the foregoing passages and says, “Wait, that’s not it at all.”  I can only report what I was told the other day, and apologize if I have mischaracterized any aspect of Jewish history or belief.  But I found it extremely helpful and hopeful to hear the slippery concept of love in action discussed in that way.

The workshop closed with one of my favorite passages from the Hebrew bible:

With what shall I approach the Lord, do homage to God on high?  Shall I approach Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriads of streams of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for my sins?  Man has told you what is good.  But what does the Lord require of you?  Only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:6-8

Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars

Baltimore's Mayor-elect, the City State's Attorney, the City Comptroller, the City Council Vice President, and the new President Pro Tem of the Maryland State Senate are all African-American women.   While I have concerns about each of these office holders on political grounds, and while we as a society have a million more miles to go on racial issues...I thought the fact that the most powerful elected officials in Baltimore City are black and female is pretty cool.

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"...I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.

"...And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

"...And you know what's beautiful to me, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say, 'Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.'   Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus, 'The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor.'

"...It's alright to talk about 'long white robes over yonder,' in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's alright to talk about 'streets flowing with milk and honey,' but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

"...We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, 'God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda--fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.'

"...But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take you money out of the banks downtown and deposit you money in Tri-State Bank--we want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."

"...Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

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Read the full text.

Happy MLK Day.

You say you wanna resolution

The practice of making New Year's resolutions has fallen out of vogue in recent years, it seems.  K, for one, will have nothing to do with them, and I can understand why: making commitments that one is most likely not going to keep can be a pointless and frustrating endeavor.  I know this, and yet I can't help but buy into the cheesy custom year after year, with mixed results.

The trick to avoiding disappointment, I've found, is to keep the resolutions realistic.  If I were to resolve to lose 30 pounds in 2007, it would be as ridiculous and far-fetched as if I vowed to win the Iditarod.  It's simply not going to happen, so why bother?  But when I resolved a few years back to cook more meals at home, the result was the addition of some fairly passable Italian and Lebanese dishes to my culinary repertoire.  While the fruits of this resolution might not threaten to put any Italian or Lebanese restaurants out of business, K and I have managed to save money that would otherwise have been spent dining out.

The other key to making effective resolutions is to aim high (within reason, of course), but don't beat yourself up if you fall short of your mark.  So I resolved to buy a house last year, and this year we're still renting.  So what?  We took a homeownership counseling class, we've gotten ourselves out of debt, and we're making more money than we used to, so it's not like we spent the last year spinning our wheels.  We'll see what next year holds.  I contend that we're better off for having set that goal than we would have been had we just refused to think about it.

A Zen teacher of mine told us a great story about the value of setting goals.  A man was arrested and falsely charged with murder.  Despite his protestations of innocence, he was condemned to be executed at dawn.  Resigned to his fate, he called for a Buddhist priest to give him comfort him in his last hours.  The priest told him that if he recited the prayer to the Bodhisattva of Compassion 12,000 times before dawn, he would be released.  The condemned man stared at the priest in confusion and terror, since the night was already half gone and there was no way that he would be able to get through that many repetitions of the Enmei before the sun rose on the day of his execution.  Nevertheless, he bowed to the priest and began chanting.  He had only gotten to the 4,000th repitition when the cold light of dawn broke into his cell and he heard the jailer's key turning in the iron door.  With one final prostration on the cold stone floor, he rose and turned to meet his fate, only to find that the door was open and he was free to go.

I've always loved that story.  It tells us that there is inherent worth to aspiration itself, apart from the expected results.  It also tells us that we live in the midst of an tremendous mystery --  that we "are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark /Drowned," to quote Hopkins -- and that we don't know where the labyrinthine corridors of our lives will eventually carry us.  So why not set a goal, and see where you end up with it?

With that, here are my resolutions for 2007:

To finish grad school.  The only thing standing between me and that %#@!& master's degree is one final project, and since this is the last year I can sign up for it before having to reapply to the whole %#@!& program all over again, I'm going to get the thing done once and for all, dagnabit.

To walk more.  Again, I'm not talking about running the Baltimore Marathon or anything.  I'm just going to see if I can work my way up to those 10,000 steps per day that are supposed to be so healthy for me.

To keep in better touch with old friends.  This is a toughie for me, I have to admit.  As a kid I became so accustomed to waving goodbye to my friends every couple of years that it's made me awful about staying in touch.  The older I get, the more I see the value of good friends, so I'm going to do my best to respond to e-mails more promptly, send more birthday cards, and pick up the phone more often.  If you're one of my friends, beware.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

To pick up the guitar again.  K bought me a great starter classical guitar for my birthday years ago, and all I have to show for it is a coat of dust and a halting Travis pick.  This year, I want to learn to play "Storms are on the Ocean," or at least pluck an arpeggio without it sounding like I'm strangling a cat.

To do the Flickr 365 Days project - for real this time.  The last time I started the one-self-portrait-per-day-for-one-year thing, it lasted about a week.  This year I'm determined to stick with it, no matter how bored I get with my own face.

See?  I'm on my way.

Happy 2007 to all.

Itsa Win'er Wunnurland, Hon

It's not all contemplation and snooty piety, of course.  I also love Christmas because of the fun little rituals that K and I have scooped up over the years.  For me, the season begins on the first Saturday of December with the Northern Shenandoah Valley shape-note sing in Berryville, VA.  We sing all afternoon out of 'The Sacred Harp' and the 'American Christmas Harp,' then head over to our friend's farm for wine, food, shooting the breeze.

One of my most eagerly anticipated holiday milestones is the annual lighting of the Washington Monument in Baltimore, which features music, fireworks, and a celebrity lighter (last year it was John Waters; this year it was Chef Duff of Charm City Cakes).  Local food vendors hand out samples of hot chocolate and Maryland crab soup while the high schoolers of the City College Choir sing holiday favorites with an R&B flavor.  This year's lighting was somewhat poignant for me, as it marked the last time that Martin O'Malley would preside over the festivities as mayor.  If I recall correctly, I've been to every lighting that O'Malley has overseen since he took executive office. 

Schedule permitting, I look forward to making it up to Pennsylvania's historic Brandywine Valley for our friend Laura's holiday party, which always involves mouth-wateringly delicious food and shape-note singing in the parlor.  Laura is an excellent cook and an excellent photographer, and boasts the largest collection of jaw harps that I've ever come across.

This December 10th was a particularly busy one, as my friend Rachel invited me to join her in her own annual ritual of cooking breakfast for clients of the Harford County Homeless Shelter.  Despite the early hour, Rachel showed no sign of weariness as she directed her small, bleary-eyed team in the preparation of biscuits, sausage gravy, grits, cereal, and yogurt for 40 people.  After breakfast we attended services at Mount Carmel Primitive Baptist Church, which has a tradition of fiery preaching and strong congregational hymn-singing.  More singing followed, as Rachel and I crossed the Harford/Baltimore County line to join K and Gunpowder Friends in caroling for the residents of Broadmead, a Quaker-founded retirement community.

I can generally take or leave having a Christmas tree at home, but K really likes it, so one of our new holiday customs is going to the nursery and picking out a blue spruce that's small enough to fit in the subcompact, but not so small that it looks like something out of Charles Schultz.  It was K's idea to have friends over for a tree-decorating party this year, and it was a treat to have our apartment filled with friends, food, and singing.  Most of the ornaments were hung by our friends' young daughters, with the result that there were a great number of decorations bunched up near the lower branches, and not so many higher up.

Growing up, my parents and I always exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve, a tradition that K and I continue to observe with my mom and her boyfriend.  He's Jewish, so his lighting the menorah and reciting the blessings for Hannukah are a welcome addition to our family get-together.  Generally we attend services at her church, and this Christmas Eve she and her boyfriend reciprocated by coming to Quaker Meeting with us.  The silence rattled them a bit, but it was an abbreviated Meeting for Worship, and it was followed by carols and cookies, so that was okay.

Another holdover from my childhood is watching Midnight Mass from the Vatican.  Though I'm not Catholic, there's something comforting about tuning in for the ceremony year after year.  I think it has a lot to do with the rich, sonorous baritone of Archbishop John P. Foley, who has provided the English language play-by-play for the service for as long as I can remember.  This year marked the first time the mass was conducted by Pope Benedict, and I have to say, I found it somewhat unsatisfying.  Not only am I not a great admirer of the former Cardinal Ratzinger, but John Paul II was the only Pope I'd ever known about growing up, so it was a little jarring to see someone else sitting in the big seat.

We spend Christmas Day with K's family, and always try to get home early enough for K to enjoy a well-deserved winter's nap, and for me to spike my eggnog with a heavy hand.

Oh, and I nearly forgot the other great Baltimore Yuletide spectacle, Hampden's "Miracle on 34th Street," a Christmas lights display so grotesque, so over-the-top, so endemically Baltimore, that it somehow manages to transcend its own tackiness and achieve a state of divine kitsch that is nothing short of sublime.

So yeah, I like the holidays.  Stress and all.

Fighting the plague

Despite the reams of paper, miles of tape, and terrabytes of memory that have gone into the news coverage of this week's school shooting in Pennsylvania, I've found dishearteningly little of light or real value.  There's what I think of as the 'Silence of the Lambs' angle: the obsession over the shooter, his family history, his possible motives, his psychological profile.  There's what I think of as the 'Witness' angle: the evil, corrupt, modern world savagely intrudes upon quaint, idyllic, rural utopia.  (Sample headlines: "Outside world shatters peaceful life of Amish"; "A gentle paradise, lost"; "Two cultures collide in Amish country".)  And of course there's the "Columbine" coverage, which seeks to place this incident in the context of the disturbing trend in American school shootings over the last decade or so.  ("Some people are calling it ''Pennsylvania's Columbine...") 

On a more encouraging note, there have also been a number of pieces that talk about how, faced with such crushing pain and grief, Amish residents of Lancaster County are talking about forgiveness.  But what all this media attention reveals -- besides a squint-eyed, bemused fascination with certain rural Anabaptist communities -- is yet another societal attempt to wrap our collective thinking around the problem of evil: why it happens, where it comes from, how we deal with it.  How do we as a society process with domestic tragedies that seem determined to one-up each other in horror and violence?  Think you're inured to murder, these homegrown demons seem to taunt.  How about the murder of schoolchildren?  How about the murder of schoolchildren by schoolchildren?  How about the abuse and murder of little girls who belong to a religious community that espouses peace above just about everything else?

I freely admit I can't get a handle on it.  The sheer immensity of badness this shooting represents is completely, utterly beyond my comprehension.  And no amount of analysis, no amount of discussion of Carl Roberts or sociological undercurrents, is going to add light to the impenetrably dark fog I bump up against when I think about this recent tragedy.  Or about Columbine.  Or about Beslan.  Or about Tom Fox.  Or about September 11.  Or about Abu Ghraib.  Or about the earthquake in Bam.  Or about evil at all.

Here's what I believe: I believe there is such a thing as evil.  I believe it is a force in the world.  I believe that individual people are not inherently evil, just as a hurricane is not inherently evil, but that evil can work through them.  I believe that when confronted by evil, our response, as Camus says in The Plague, is not to necessarily try to understand, but just to fight it.  I believe how we fight the plague is critically important.  I believe that the way we fight the plague is with love.  I believe that's the most difficult challenge we face as individuals and as societies.

*****

One small way to do that in this instance is by donating to assist the victims' families.  The Mennonite Central Committee has established the Amish School Recovery Fund for anyone who wishes to make such a contribution. 

Put the Taste of the South in Your Mouth, Redux

Splashing about in the bath-temperature waters of the small lake hiyatop Alabama's Mount Cheaha a couple of weeks ago, a friend came up with a single phrase that neatly encapsulates the substance of all 550-odd songs in the 1991 revision of The Sacred Harp tunebook:

"OhmysouldeathJesushallelujah!"

Yep, that pretty much covers it.  You could throw in a "boy, I can't *wait* to die and receive the reward that I know is coming to me because I've been so faithful," or a "Y'all gonna burn if yew don't get right with the -- yeah, buddy, I'm talking to yew."  But really, "ohmysouldeathJesushallelujah" captures the spirit of the lyrics rather nicely.

In case you're wondering why I was wading around in my swimming trunks in the middle of Talladega National Forest -- and well you might -- it was on the occasion of my second pilgrimage to the Chattahoochee Sacred Harp Convention in Carrollton, Georgia.  This annual event is neither the largest nor the loudest Sacred Harp gathering in the world, but it's arguably the oldest.  Singers from western Georgia, eastern Alabama, and beyond have traveled to the area around the Chattahoochee River just about every summer for the past 154 years.  For the last few dozen of those years, the convention has been held in a chapel erected specifically and solely for that purpose.  The exterior is simple brick, the interior is all wood of a dark gold, and when the singing really gets going, it sounds like the building is going to levitate from its foundation.   

The phenomenal singing is a big reason I look forward to the Chattahoochee Convention, but it's not the only one.  There's also the eye-popping variety and quantity of food at the dinner-on-the-grounds: an epicurean riot of cobblers, casseroles, pork products, poultry, black-eyed peas, and at least three different types of fried okra.  (And one must not forget the endemically Dixie delicacy known as the fried pie.)  There's the quiet prayers offered by Mr. Lonnie, the nonagenarian convention chaplain, who never fails to give thanks for another opportunity "to sing these old songs."  Most of all, I appreciate the warmth and hospitality that we motley gaggle youngish singers from up North have encountered the last couple of years that we've traveled to Carrollton.  The generosity and acceptance that have been extended to us by so many Georgian and Alabamian singers is humbling, not to say surprising.

There's a lot of hoohah that Sacred Harpers in the North hear about their southern counterparts.  Although shape-note singing as we know it arose principally in the northeastern U.S., it migrated fairly quickly to the South, where it has been maintained generation after generation by individuals and families who put their own stamp on the tradition.  As a result, the voices of southern singers, especially those who hail from Georgia and Alabama, are frequently regarded as authoritative by Yankee singers, many of whom came to Sacred Harp during a resurgence of interest during the 1970's.  There's a good deal of self-consciousness outside the Deep South about whether northern singings retain the integrity and "authenticity" of southern forms and customs.

This concern is understandable.  When folks in places like Massachusetts and Illinois began singing this stuff a couple of decades back, they really didn't know how the music was "supposed" to sound.  That is, until some Southerners whose families had been singing for years on end ventured northward and provided some instruction based on their own experience.  Naturally there' s going to be an acknowledgement of and respect for Southern ways of singing Sacred Harp, given that it has remained a living and evolving tradition in certain areas since the early 19th century.

However, I've seen that acknowledgement and respect manifest itself as unquestioning reverence on a number of occasions.  Not that that's necessarily that bad of a thing, but it becomes problematic when that reverence leads to caricaturization of Southern singers and sweeping, contradictory overgeneralizations about the way Sacred Harp music is sung in the South.  In the short time that I've been part of this tradition, I've heard variations on the theme "In the South...!" so many times that I cringe to think of it.  "In the South, people beat time really fast!"  "In the South, they beat time really slowly!"  "In the South, you'll get yelled at if you tap your foot when you're in the hollow square!"  "In the South, they raise the sixth in this song!"  "In the South, men wear ties to a sing!" 

In the South, in the South, in the South.  The picture of Southern singers that was drawn for me when I began singing Sacred Harp -- of stern traditionalists ready to glower disapprovingly if I led a fuging tune before 10:00 a.m. during an all-day sing -- was oddly at variance with my experience of Southerners I actually knew.  My own father, for instance.

I have discerned a tendency among some northern Sacred Harpers to view southern singers as ethnographic curiosities, quaint convervators of a revenant folkloric tradition steeped in the myth of an idealized rural communitarianism.  On a couple of disturbing occasions, I've also heard southern singers stereotyped as humorless, horn-rimmed glasses-wearing, finger-wagging xenophobes who regard women in trousers and men with earrings with the utmost suspicion and distaste.  But such stereotypes are damaging, be they of the negative or positive varieties.  They fail to take into account that Southerners are no more homogeneous or easily categorized than any other group of people.  They gloss over the fact that Southerners are white and black and Hispanic, Christian and Jewish and Muslim and atheist, liberal and conservative, gay and straight and in-between.  Most have CNN, cell phones, Yahoo accounts, PTA meetings, college degrees, and opinions about the Lebanese crisis.  They're not Mammy Yoakum or Jed Clampett.  Southerners might hold singings out in the scenic boondocks of the piedmont, but that doesn't mean that most of them live there.

I think the most important things for northern singers to keep in mind as they interact with the southern branches of the Sacred Harp tradition are the same things that are important for anyone venturing into an unfamiliar environment: respect for others and confidence in one's own integrity.  When in Rome (whether the one in Italy or the one in Georgia), it's generally a good idea to take cues from the Romans.  But just because the tradition in Rome is to beat a particular song in cut time doesn't necessarily mean that you should be afraid to beat it in four.  This is particularly relevant when you consider that a singing in Carroll County, Ga., has a remarkably different flavor from one in Fayette County, Al. -- or even from another singing in Carroll County.  Southern singings are no more monolithic than Southerners themselves.

I suppose I'm particularly sensitive to this because of my years practicing Soto Zen in America, where there are endless debates over how closely to hew to Japanese forms and practices.  When I started sitting zazen, I was one of those students who swished around importantly in my black robe, and couldn't wait until I received a Sino-Japanese dharma name, so I could swish that around importantly as well.  At one point, I believed that the more Japanese trappings a zen group affected, the more "authentic" it was.  At the other end of the spectrum were zen teachers who refused to use any Japanese nomenclature whatsoever, or even to keep a Buddha image in the meditation hall.  After a few years, I realized that it's important to balance respect for a tradition's origins with a respect for its evolution.  Doubtless there were no few Japanese zen practitioners in the 17th century who stressed about whether and how to adhere to Chinese cultural paraphernalia.

So I say go to southern singings.  To quote the sign outside Brad's Barb-B-Que in Oxford, Alabama, put the taste of the south in your mouth.    Heck, go to northern and western and midwestern singings, too.  Join your far-flung fellow singers "in a song with sweet accord," as Isaac Watts would have it.  Meet new people and eat their food.  Be respectful, be attentive, but mostly, have fun.  You're always going to run into a few sourpusses, so don't pay them much mind.  And remember to taste the fried pies. 

"Martin Scorsese: Zero oscars. 3-6 Mafia: One."

8:03: Ahhh.  The Super Bowl of the Mobtown household is just getting started.  Stewart, you better be funny, you bastard.

8:06:  Funnier than that, goddamnit.

8:07:  Finally, a laugh frm the crowd!  Let's cut to commercial quick, so makeup can do something about that flop sweat.

8:08: Stewart just reported that Bjork was unable to make the show, because "she was trying on her dress, and Dick Cheney shot her."  Excellent.

8:15: Okay, the tribute to homoeroticism in Westerns was not only funny, it said what we all have been thinking for decades.

8:16:  There are rumors that presenter Nicole Kidman and her down-under Keith Urban may be tying the knot.   Dear God, can you imagine their children's jawlines?  And their dimples?  And their blonde weaves?

8:19: When George Clooney named as Best Supporting Actor, the first thing out of my mouth was, "well, I guess this means he won't be winning for anything else."  Turned out to be pretty much the first thing out of his mouth when he climbed the stage.

Wow!  To quote Meerkat -- Best.  Oscar speech.  Ever.

8:25: Okay, so the Tom Hanks acceptance speech thing was a time-waster, but it was funny.

8:26: Hey, speaking of time wasters, it's Ben Stiller in a green suit.  Nice, ah, bulge there, Ben.

8:29: Aaaaaaannnd, the Academy Award for visual effects goes to...ah, who cares.  Anyone want a beer?

The peanut gallery gathered around the warm glow of the teevee here in Chez Mobtown is not thrilled about the new thing they're doing this year, where they're playing cheesy music in the background during acceptance speeches.  "Sweetie," says Meerkat, "through the power of your blog, make them stop doing that!"  No problem, honey!

Now she wants me to post about how happy she is over 'Curse of the Were-Rabbit' (her favorite movie of the past millenium) winning an award.  If this keeps up, I'm just going to give the laptop to her and let her do her own typing.

8:34: Up close, Naomi Watts' dress looks even worse.  The peanut gallery is horrified.  It looks like she got into a fistfight with twelve-roll pack of triple-ply Charmin'.

Poor Dolly Parton's voice is a little wobbly on the song from 'Transamerica.'  What with all the silicon and botox, she's probably more space-age polymer than human being.  Still, she sounds pretty good for an octogenarian.

Now Meerkat wants me to look up where the Wilson brothers are from.  Here, just take the damn computer, already!  And it's Dallas, Texas.  Thank you, IMDB.

Here's a question that Moe has about those lame sequences that they do every year, when they bring animated critters out on stage to do some pathetically weak banter: what do people actually sitting in the audience see while this is going on?  Does everyone just pop out to the loo or bust out their cells and start texting their moms?

8:51: As Risemysoul just asked, "what's everyone's infatuation with Russell Crowe all about?"  I'm not sure.  All I know is that I'm ducking behind the sofa in case he hucks a telephone at us.

8:58: Presenting the Achievement in Makeup Award along with Will Farrell, Steve Carell looks like Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange.'  Eek!

9:01: Have you ever noticed how, whenever they talk about the technical Oscars that are given out in a separate ceremony, the presenter is always some super gorgeous woman?  Like, this year it's Rachel McAdams, last year it was Scarlett Johanssen, and so on.  I think it's a concessionary bone tossed to all the techie geeks who will a) never get on TV, and b) probably never get another chance to stand next to a woman that hot.

9:06: Well, Rachel Weisz was the expected choice for Best Supporting Actress.  Still, I would like to have seen Michelle Williams get the statue, for her astonishing turn in 'Brokeback Mountain.'

9:12: Poor Lauren Bacall.  She's obviously sick.  Still a stunningly beautiful person, though.

9:18: There's Terence Howard again.  And that skin.  Good Lord.

9:21:  Holy cow, what the hell is that on Charlize Theron's dress?!?

Going back to the award for makeup: didja catch how the guy totally ran out the time limit on the acceptance speech, so that his colleague didn't get a chance to say a single word, and they cut the mic off when she finally pushed his yakkity butt off to the side?  If I were him, I'd sleep with one eye open tonight.  What a tool.

9:25: It wouldn't be an Oscars ceremony without at least one high-concept, bafflingly idiotic interpretive dance number accompanying one of the nominated songs.  Hey, behind you!  The car!  It's on fire!

9:41: Look it's the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts an...ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

9:56: Mm-mph.  Huh?  Wha?  No, I'm awake, now, really.  The peanut gallery is talking about which celeb are on their respective "laminated cards" of people they could shtup guilt-free.  Terence Howard and Maggie Gyllenhall are consensus favorites.

10:00: Oh great, Eric Bana is on stage.  Keep it in your pants, Meerkat, jeez.  Looking at Bana standing next to Jessica Alba, Meerkat just mused, "you know, those two could really just repopulate the earth..."

10:05: Lesser actors would have totally butchered the cutesy overlapping-dialogue shtick in the introduction to Robert Altman's lifetime achievement award, but Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep are so consummately phenomenal that they actually manage to pull it off.  They don' t make 'em like that anymore.

Seems to me like they left out a couple of films from the clips sequence leading up to the presentation of Altman's honorary Oscar.  What, no 'Pret-a-Porter?'  No 'Streamers?  And what Altman retrospective is complete without a nod to that masterpiece, 'Popeye?'  For shame.

10:20:  Gee, I guess I've never reflected on just how hard, in fact, it is out here for a pimp. 

Nice, er, "ho's" in the production number.

10:24:  Huh.  Only three original songs nominated this year.  As John Stewart just said, "if there's one way to communicate to an audience the difficulties of being a pimp, it's through interpretive dance!"

10:28:  I don't know if Jennifer Garner's dress is really that beautiful, or if it's just that her breasts make it appear that way.  Yowza.

10:30:  George Clooney is on deck for, as the peanut gallery just put it, "The Dead People Award."  Tasteful!

10:39:  That may be the first time that Zulu has ever been spoken from the Oscars stage.  Now I really want to see 'Tsotsi.'  Amandla!

10:46:  Best Actor is a tough category to handicap this year; it's a good pool.  I'm pulling for David Strathairn, but I predict that Philip Seymour Hoffman will get the statue.

10:47: Told ya.  What a sweet tribute to his mother.  Who, if she's the person sitting next to him in the audience, is disturbingly hot.

10:58:  So what, is it just de rigeur now to nominate Judi Dench for an Oscar, no matter what she's in?  Who even saw the Mrs. Henderson movie, anyway?  I'll tell you who.  Nobody, that's who!   

Hmmm.  I think I need another beer. 

Jamie Foxx is opening the envelope.  My pick is...drum roll...Reese Witherspoon!

And, as we crest the third hour, Reese takes the prize!  Remember to thank your costar.  Remember to thank your costar.  Remember to than -- there you go.   You know, thinking back on 'Walk the Line,' Joaquin's performance was flashier, but it was Reese Witherspoon's that really stays with you.  She did justice to a great lady in that film.

11:08: Has Dustin Hoffman ever said anything unscripted that isn't totally, gratingly, fatuously, egotistically annoying?  Didn't think so.

Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry just won for Best Adapted Screenplay for 'Brokeback,' surprising exactly no one.

11:12:  Uma, Uma, Uma.  Bad dress, bad eyeliner, bad hairdo, bad color combination...what happened, there?  Tsk tsk.

Risemysoul just pointed out that when an auteur quotes Bertoldt Brecht ("Art is not a mirror to reflect society; it is a hammer to shape it") to laud his own screenplay, as Paul Haggis just did...the phrase "pretentious prick" is not inapposite.

11:19: Awright, let's keep this train wreck moving, and give Ang Lee his well-deserved Best Director Oscar.

11:20: Thank you.

11:21: Y'know,  'Crash' is exactly the sort of safe, mainstream, faux-provocative film that the Academy loves to honor.  The studio also mounted a last-minute -- and apparently successful -- campaign to win over Oscar voters.   So I suppose it's not too surprising that it won top honors.  But it's still really disappointing, especially in the face of amazing competition like  'Brokeback Mountain,' 'Munich,' and 'Good Night and Good Luck.'  Bleah.

It's 11:30.  Okay, everyone get the hell outta my house!  I'm hitting 'post', typos be damned.  Good night, and good luck.
 

Red carpetganza!

6:57:  Look, it's Billy Bush, working the Oscars pre-show for E!  Gosh, I loathe that little twerp.

Oh wait, it's not Billy Bush,  it's Ryan Seacrest.  Gosh, I loathe that little twerp.

Hold on, what did Seacrest just say about Jessica Alba being pissed about 'Playboy?'  And why was I not informed about this before?

Isaac Mizrahi is lurking on the red carpet, accosting impatient-looking glitterati.  He seems a tad more restrained and less obnoxious than normal.  I guess he was instructed to dial it down after Scarlett Johansson expressed outrage over his fondling of her at the Golden Globes.

I'm not sure about that dress Naomi Watts is wearing.  She looks like she's channeling a more tasteful version of Stevie Nicks.   Keira Knightley, on the other hand, looks stunning in what Isaac described as "this kind of eggplant-y taffeta thing."

Earlier, Meerkat muttered something indistinct concerning her lips and Eric Bana's body.   Other guys might feel threatened, but I totally get it; he's a stud.   Now, if she was talking about doing things to Paul Giamatti's body, I might be a little concerned.

7:08: Pop culture pet peeve of the new millenium: use of the phrase "bump" to talk about a pregnant woman's belly.  "Look at Rachel Weisz' bump!"  "Sandra Bullock has been wearing dresses that hide her bump!"  There's something really crude sounding about that usage of the word.  Bump.  Bump, bump, bump.  Ew.

7:15: Terence Howard just has the most perfect skin.  What is up with his skin?  It's like, unnaturally smooth and bronze-y.  I wish I had skin like that.  Damn.

7:20: Wow, Salma Hayek looks fabulous in an incredibly form-fitting aqua number.  I wonder if it's actually fabric, or some sort of high-class PVC?

7:27: Seacrest's co-host, Giuliana Dipandi, just picked up some cool points for knowing how to say "hello" and "goodbye" in passable-sounding Farsi.

Hey, are Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves a couple?  Huh.

New drinking game: every time Isaac says "divine" or "darling," take a shot.  If the words are said in succession, chug.

On to the main event...

The SNAG's* Guide to Bluffing Your Way Through Superbowl Monday

"Man, that was some game last night, wasn't it?  You had to feel kinda bad for the Seahawks; expansion team, first time at the Superbowl, you know they were hungry for it, but they just couldn't get it together.  Hasselbeck played well, except for that one huge screw-up, and if the game hinged on QB'ing alone, I think the 'hawks would have had it all over on Pittsburgh.  There was that one point in the first half when they were just trailing by four points where you thought that they just might be able to turn things around.  But then Hasselbeck panicked and totally overthrew the wide receiver, whatsisname, Jackson, when Hasselbeck thought he'd try for a streak but Jackson made that in-cut instead, and everything was downhill from there.  The six million Steelers fans that showed up in Detroit couldn't have helped Seattle any, either.  So much for a neutral venue."

Okay, I'll admit: I have no freaking clue what the heck I just said.  I know about as much about American football as my one-eyed cat knows about Euclidian geometry.  I avoid watching the Super Bowl whenever possible, not out of snobbery so much as because I just really, truly, honestly don't get football one bit.   Sounded pretty good though, didn't it?

If I were a betting man, I'd be willing to wager cash money that a lot of other guys of my generation probably don't give a fig about the Super Bowl either, and would prefer grabbing a beer or seeing a movie to watching a bunch of roidheads crashing into each other for four hours.

Okay.  Maybe not a lot of guys.  Probably just me and the collection of misfits that used to sit in the basement smoking cigarettes and watching 'Enter the Dragon' while everyone else was off watching the high school football game.  Even so, I would imagine that a fair number of men in this society feel compelled to watch the Big Game, feel that the ability to converse knowledgeably and enthusiastically the following morning about who did and who did not end up going to Disneyworld is in direct proportion to their perceived masculinity.   In other words, if you can't talk to your coworkers about who sacked whom in the third quarter, you might as well just put on a tutu and toe shoes.

Well, for all you nerds, hipsters, and other rejects out there whose flesh crawls at the words "Super Bowl Party," rejoice!  For as I found out this morning, one can skip watching the game without feeling that one has emasculated oneself in some horrible fashion.  All one has to do after a night of downloading music and watching E!'s '101 Sexiest Celebrity Bodies' is wake up the next morning, turn on the radio, open the page to the sports section, jot down a couple of key phrases, and -- ba-bing! -- you sound convincingly like one of those freaks with the terrible towels.  Both your standards and your gonads remain intact, and no one's the wiser.

Pulling off this little bit of duplicity was important for me this morning.  I'm the only man in a department of women, most of whom are avid football fans.  If I had admitted that spent most of last night ripping Sufjan Stevens' 'Illinois' to my iRiver instead of watching the game, they would have probably dunked my head in the toilet. 

*SNAG: "Sensitive New-Age Guy."

Hour the Third

What are you, nuts?  There is no 'hour the third' for me.  I start a new job tomorrow morning, for heaven's sake.  I have to iron a shirt, then get some shut-eye.

So long as David Strathairn wins for 'Good Night and Good Luck' and 'Brokeback Mountain' wins Best Picture, it'll be a happy Tuesday.

Hour the Second

Oh, snap!  Mary-Louise Parker just beat out the entire top-billed cast of 'Desperate Housewives' to pick up an award for a show that, as presenter Chris Rock put it, "is only watched by Snoop Doggy Dogg!"  That'll be the upset of the evening, I think.

She just said that she wants to "make out" with the rest of her 'Weeds' cast, "especially" co-star Elizabeth Perkins.  Um.  I would upgrade my cable subscription to see that.

Note to self: never say "oh, snap" ever again.

Okay, I'll just come out and say it: Bill Nighy should just win any category he's nominated in: Best Actor in a Miniseries, Best Animated Short, Best Boom Operator, whatever.  Jonathan Rhys-Myers, my foot!

Emma Thompson is a class act.  She's beautiful, brilliant, intense, and bitingly acerbic.  She's someone I would want at any dinner party I might host.

Mira Sorvino is up for her portrayal of "an NYPD detective who busts an international human trafficking ring."  What I like about that is how believable it is.

'Law and Order' veteran S. Epatha Merkeson just became the first African-American nominee to be honored at the Golden Globes this Martin Luther King, Jr.  evening.   She just thanked her date and co-star, Jesse L. Martin.  Whom Meerkat has vowed to leave me for at the drop of a hat, should the opportunity ever arise.

Three words: Scarlett...Johan...Ssen.

'Brokeback Mountain' just received the first of what I'm sure will be many awards, this one for the  screenplay, which was as uncompromising and starkly beautiful as the Wyoming mountains that provided the film's setting.

Gee, Larry McMurtry resembles Gary Cooper a lot less than I just realized I'd been picturing him all these years.

I swear, I can smell the stench of b.o. and weed emanating from Matthew McConaughey right through the screen.  Yech.

Interesting that a Palestinian movie  just won for Best Foreign Film.  I wonder whether politics had anything to do with it (duh), and whether any fallout will ensue as a consequence.

John Williams just won for his 'Memoirs of a Geisha' score.  I'm waiting for that imminent day when he's an uncontested lock for an award, having scored every single film in a given category.

Gwyneth Paltrow is up next, to present the C.B. DeMille Award to Sir Tony Hopkins.  Paltrow's second child, Kumquat, is due later this year.

 

Hour the First

Emmy Rossum is  introducing the president of the HFPA.  This should be a truly life-changing 30 seconds.

.............................
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And...okay!  Absolutely no memory of what he just said.  I think my heart actually stopped beating for a few moments back there out of sheer boredom.  Back to the show.

Geena Davis just won for Best Actress in a TV Drama for 'Commander in Chief.'  I've never seen the show, but an old friend of mine plays what appears to be a fairly significant role.  He doesn't seem to be in the audience tonight, though.  Eh.  Story of his career.

Wow,  Davis just made the first interesting remark of the evening, spinning some treacly yarn about a little girl who wants to be president because of her, then admitting, 'Okay, so that never happened.'  Funny!  She didn't mention my friend in her speech, though.  Tough break, dude. 

It's so good to see Hugh Laurie win for 'House.'  Hard to believe that this rugged, sardonic, witty Hollywood star was once the "thickie" in all those 'Black Adder' episodes.

       
Avant.                                         Apres.

Wait.  Why did they remake 'The Producers,' again?  Did the world really need that?  Honestly?

Ooh, I hope Zach Braff wins for 'Scrubs.'  He's great on that show.

Nope, Steve Carrell got it, the talented bastard.  May he contract chronic athlete's foot. 

Nah, I take it back.  His was the best, and funniest, acceptance speech so far.  I loved his wife's amused yet long-suffering, "oh boy, there he goes again" expression.

Does Judi Dench even need to act to be nominated for stuff anymore?  I think she just receives award nominations in the mail the way the rest of us get credit card pre-approvals.

Reese just won for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in 'Walk the Line.'  Excellent.  Pretty dress, too.  She and Ryan Phillipe appear to have that oddest of things among Hollywood couples: a healthy relationship.

Three words:  Mary...Louise...Parker.   

Remember to thank the HFPA!

Another year, another awards show.  Red seems to be the new black at tonight's Golden Globes, with Scarlett Johanssen, Geena Davis, Eva Longoria, Barbara Hershey, Laura Linney, and Johnny Depp all decked out in crimson.

Watching the pre-show, I felt sorry for Hilary Swank, whose eight-year marriage to Chad Lowe is going through a rough patch.  Two separate red-carpet interviewers tactlessly brought up the subject of her marital difficulties, forcing her to grimace out a smile and work through her talking points.  I'm like, it's an awards show, people.  Give her a break, huh?  If that's the price of celebrity, no thanks.

Mariah Carey is just looking scary these days.  With her new chin, new nose, new cheekbones, new rack, and Lord knows what else, she's like a burn victim or something.

Isaac Mizrahi, who's been groping actresses on the red carpet like they were sides of mutton, just insinuated that Ryan Seacrest is gay.  Seacrest, who's long been walking that fine line between "I don't mind the speculation my sexuality is my own business so what if I am some of my best friends are gay" and "Ah ain't no queer, dammit!", did not look pleased.

George Clooney, accepting the Best Supporting Actor award for 'Syriana,' just thanked Jack Abramoff, "just because."  Nice!

Speaking of Johnny Depp, K just remarked how uncomfortable he looks, and it's true.  He worked the red carpet interviews with all the relaxed aplomb of someone undergoing a prostrate examination.

Rachel Weisz just won Best Supporting Actress for 'Constant Gardener,' which I have yet to see.  She's a fine actor and I'm sure she deserves it, but I am disappointed that Michelle Williams didn't win for 'Brokeback Mountain.'

Yeesh.  Weisz's hair looks terrible.  It looks like it was built by one of those colorful South American birds who construct elaborate nests to attract their mates.

Hmm...as a person of faith striving toward greater simplicity in life, I probably shouldn't be wasting my time on such superficial analysis of callow fashion and fleeting fame.

::shrug::

Meh.

The Year-End Mobtown Family Letter

In the hierarchy of the wintertide customs that make me grind my teeth and reach for a drink, the year-end family form letter (or YEFFL) ranks just below office holiday parties, and just above circling around the mall for three hours on Dec. 23 looking for a parking spot close to the Sears. 

In my experience YEFFLs are rather excruciating affairs: wince-inducing accounts of personal woe and family tribulation, with a thin residue of forced holiday cheer sprayed on top of them like Lysol.  "We're pleased to report that Great-Aunt Bernadette is recovering nicely from that emergency tonsillectomy, but what with George's impending layoff from Delta and little Suzie's gout, we could all use a little extra holiday cheer this Christmas.  Love from our family to yours, the Gundersons."  Gah.  The fact that these things are generally typed in 16-pt. block Arial font and photocopied onto seasonally apropriate green or red 24-lb. bond somehow makes them all the more poignant.

[Note: if I have received a YEFFL from you at any point in the recent past, please disregard the above.  I truly value our friendship/family ties/casual acquaintanceship and treasure any correspondence I receive from you, however perfunctory or pro forma.]

This said, when a friend recently asked the members of an online community I participate in to come up with their own holiday letters, I rose to the challenge, comformed to the groupthink, and composed my very first YEFFL.

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December 2005

Queridos chulos y chulitas,

A couple of years ago, if I'd been talking to someone at one of those obnoxious office holiday parties that I can't stand so much, and that person had predicted that I would become a vegetarian again in 2005, I would have raised my eyebrows a bit and replied that it was possible, but pretty unlikely.   If they had then gone on to prognosticate that I would end up discovering myself, to my rather chagrined surprise, to be a Quaker with an interest in exploring plain dress, I would have  smiled thinly and suggested that they had really misread the ol' pigeon entrails.  And if, undeterred, this same person had followed up by suggesting that I would  spend an entire weekend in the hottest part of the summer singing loud Protestant hymns with a bunch of Primitive Baptists and Methodists in rural northwestern Georgia, I probably would have begun discreetly checking for a tinfoil hat and/or plastic hospital bracelet. 

Well, a lot can happen in a year, I discovered.

The whole career-arc thing has been an interesting journey this year for Meerkat and me both.  She, fed up with the position she'd held for several years -- more precisely, fed up with the vexingly frequent encounters with nincompoopery with which she was encumbered on this job  -- took a position as a museum curator, only to find herself having jumped from the sizzling frying pan of bureaucratic dysfunction into a raging fire of overt sexism, rampant mismanagement, and free-floating poopheadedness.  With a roll of her eyes and a fatigued heave of her shoulders, she flapped her hand at the whole historical profession and began exploring a career in public education. 

At about this time, our old, one-eyed cat was diagnosed with diabetes and kidney disease.  Being a pragmatic sort, I was in favor of luring him into a Hefty bag baited with Friskies, then taking him for a nice walk along the Western Run of the Jones Falls.  But Meerkat insisted on prolonging his miserable, ungrateful existence by putting him on what amounted to kitty dialysis.  The expenditure this entailed, combined with the precipitous drop in income associated with Meerkat's employment vagaries, provided us with a valuable opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the  giddy highs and gut-twisting lows of  poverty.  Ah, Mahatma Rice and bill collectors, how I've missed you.

Fortuitously, at about the time Meerkat realized that she was not, in fact, called to a career at the blackboard, she received a call from her old  job.  You know how workaholics always think that their workplace is going to collapse without them?  Well, turns out that in her case it's true.  The place went to hell in a handbasket after she left, prompting them to track her down and entice her back by waving more money, better working conditions, and the promise of a senior management position in her face.  On top of this good news, Meerkat is now a published author, an essay of hers having been anthologized in a book about young Buddhists.  The fact that she now teaches Firstday School at our local Friends Meeting is an irony that we chose not to share with the book's editor. 

As for me, I will soon be giving up the heady thrill of lobbying the state legislature in favor of a position in the philanthropic field.  It sounds like a whole new vocational ballgame, but when you consider that a big part of my current job involves the anxiety attack-inducing prospect of attempting to persuade elected officials to enact policies that help marginalized people, and that a big part of my upcoming job will involve the anxiety attack-inducing prospect of persuading rich folk to hand over cash money for programs that help marginalized people . . . it's really not that much of a leap.

As for the younger cat -- ah, who cares.  Nobody likes that little troll anyway.

So as the pale winter sun breaks on a new year, and this letter draws to an overdue close, Meerkat, the cats, and I leave you with one last holiday thought:  "When I say 'whooooose house?!?'  Y'all know what time it is!"  Old school.  Don't worry about the hatas.

Peace,

The Mobtowns

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Happy 2006!

A rare and brief occurence

The Governor's Interagency Council on Homelessness recently issued a 10-year plan to make homelessness a "rare and brief occurence" in Maryland.   That's a worthy and well-worded goal.  Baltimore, like most American big cities (and an expanding number of suburbs and rural towns) has a large population of homeless people.  On any given night there are about 3,000 men, women, and children without shelter in Baltimore.  Many of the adults are mentally ill, or addicted, or both, their condition in large part the result of Reagan-era "mainstreaming" policies which slashed funding to residential mental health facilities.  Advocates at the local, state, and federal levels wage a constant, Sisyphean battle against mounting cuts to shelter, healthcare, and food assistance.  All the while the number of people who experience homelessness nationwide is increasing, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

I'm approached by indigent people on pretty much a daily basis.  I get asked for cigarettes, for a dollar, for spare change, for meal money, for bus fare, for ten dollars.  If I have change on me, I'll usually hand it over.  I don't think for one moment that this makes me any kind of good person.  It is, almost literally, the least I can do, a virtually meaningless gesture.  Sometimes I get a slightly queasy feeling as I rummage through my pockets for nickels and dimes.  I'm discomfited by the suspicion that my readiness to part with my loose change is prompted not by benificent waves of altruistic lovingkindness, but by trite liberal guilt.  Horrid stuff, that.  Toxic.

But then I'm reminded of my friend who always used to drive by the same guy standing on the median strip, holding a cardboard sign.  One day while he was stopped at a traffic light, my friend asked the man his name.  They struck up a little conversation, and as the light changed the man thanked my friend for treating him like a human being.  He was asking for money, sure, but he was also pleading for alms of a more existential nature.  The man wanted eye contact, he wanted people to acknowledge that he existed.  I imagine that can be a weighty gift to pass along with your $0.83.

I've had people chastise me for giving change to homeless people:  "Instead of giving them change, you'd be doing more good by donating to a homeless shelter!"

Well, no question.  I wonder, though: of the people who advocate donating to a homeless services provider over giving a few pennies to a homeless individual, how many of them have actually made such a donation?  I mean, it makes logical sense as a proposition, but it also sounds like a bit of a cop-out.  I can't imagine shrugging my shoulders at someone who just asked me for money and saying, "Sorry pal, but I gave my tax-deductible contribution at the office.  Wanna see the nice thank-you card they sent me?"

Another protestation I hear quite a bit is: "You know they're just going to use that money for booze/drugs!"

Maybe they will.  I don't know.  If I give someone a quarter and he applies it toward heroin, my heart and my prayers go out to him.  But that's not something that's within my power to control.  The only thing that I have control over is whether or not to give.  And I can try to let go a little bit of my expectations for how my gift should be used. 

The other thing that bothers me about that argument is its whiff of race and class discrimination.  If a well-groomed white guy in a nice suit were to ask politely for some change for the bus, how many of us would narrow our eyes and ask him whether he was going to use it to buy a vial of crack? 

I can choose to give, or not.  If I do, fine.  If not, fine.  Either way, though, I hope I can treat the requester with a modicum of respect and courtesy.

Tomorrow is the first day of winter.  It is also National Homeless Persons Memorial Day.  Every year since 1990, local homeless advocacy organizations have held memorial services on the longest night of the year to commemorate the men, women, and children who have died without a place to lay their heads.  This week, the number of homeless people who have died in Baltimore over the past year climbed to 83.  There will undoubtedly be more as the cold months draw on. 

They will be remembered tomorrow afternoon at 4:30 in the park next to St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church, 120 Front St., at the intersection of Fayette and President Streets. Similar observances will be taking place nationwide.  So if you know someone who wants to do something about extreme poverty but is uncomfortable with the notion of giving change to homeless people, going to one of the memorial services would be a good way of finding out more information and getting connected to an organization that's doing good work.

Alternatively, if anyone is desperately searching for a Christmas gift for that family member who has everything, they consider making a donation on the loved one's behalf to Healthcare for the Homeless, a venerable Maryland nonprofit that is out there on the front lines every day, fighting to make homelessness that rare and brief occurence.   

 

Better than chocolates. Kinda.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite holiday treats was getting an Advent calendar from my parents, the kind depicting a winter scene that had little windows for the days of the season.  I confess I didn't really get the whole spiritual dimension of Advent until I was older; I just looked forward to eating a Swiss chocolate every day leading up to Christmas.

Those calendars can be hard to find on this side of the Atlantic, but fortunately the internet offers its own seasonal charms.  Over at Make Up Your Mind I found a link to Leslie Harpold's totally awesome online 2005 Advent Calendar.   Behind the windows you'll find all sorts of goodies, from poems to holiday memories to printable gift tags to yuletide folklore.

It's not Swiss chocolate.  But it is very cool.

Best. Thanksgiving. Ever.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love its American-ness, its ecumenicism, its resonance with the folkways of earlier times.  Most of all, I love that it's the one holiday I get to spend with my friends, the family of my heart. 

Thanksgiving is distinctly American.  We didn't import it from anywhere, although it contains strong echoes of the first harvest traditions of many cultures.  And though the dinner that took place in 1621 between European settlers and native Wampanoags was not called "Thanksgiving," our national mythology points to the event as the origin of our holiday.  Since folklore and creation stories have been around on this continent a lot longer than fact-based historiography, and because they have always been critical to the shaping of the national identity, I will always cheerfully and unabashedly point to the Massachusetts Bay settlements of the 17th century as the origin of the observance.

The food we usually eat on Thanksgving is also distinctly American.  Corn and squash.  Turkey and cranberries.  For most contemporary Euro-Americans, this is the only time of year that they are conscious of eating foods endemic to the North American continent, items that were enjoyed by the First Peoples, albeit prepared in very different ways.   This merging of Old and  New Worlds is reflected in the story of Indians and Europeans sitting down to a eat a civil meal with each other.  The image of native people breaking bread with immigrants represents an American ideal, something to remember each year.  Something to strive for.

Thanksgiving is about family and community, not nationalism or sectarianism of any particular stripe.  Independence Day might be our official national holiday, but it carries a whiff of jingoism and militarism that I find disquieting.   The idea of friends and families coming together to eat the fruits of their labors and give thanks for the ability to do so in peace -- and, more important, to give thanks for each other's presence and love -- symbolizes a reflective, personal, grassroots American character that trumps the brassy machismo and star-spangled bunting on display every Fourth of July.   

But if Thanksgiving is a reflection of all that there is to be proudest of about America, it is also a reflection of those national characteristics that we should be most ashamed of: consumerism, gluttony, selfishness, arrogance, waste, family dysfunction.   How many tons of food are tossed into the garbage every fourth Thursday of November?  How many millions of people march blithely off to shopping malls the next day to run up massive credit card debt?  How many families come together not out of love but out of obligation, waiting anxiously over dinner for the flare-up of old animosities and simmering tensions?  How many of us forget, amidst all of the cooking, driving, eating, drinking, fighting, and shopping, to actually pause in gratitude for the blessings in our lives?

I can't throw stones.  Every year I eat too much and drink too much and lie around wallowing in a pool of my own overindulgence, willing my waistline to slow its inexorable expansion.  Every year I wince as I scrape mounds of  uneaten food from serving platters before plopping in front of the television with my sixth beer of the evening.  If I am to consider myself truly American, I am forced to acknowledge my own complicity in the darker aspects of our cultural makeup.  But I can at least try to be conscious of how I manifest those aspects, and hopefully reduce the harm that I do in the world, not just on Thanksgiving, but throughout the rest of the year.

This year, for me, was officially the Best Thanksgiving Ever (tm).   Our dear friends from Boston, with whom we have celebrated the holiday for the past six years, drove down on Wednesday.  I cooked an 18th-century inspired meal, trying in the process not to let my over-anxious nature lead me to freak out too much over the menu preparations.  We were joined on Thursday by our more recent friends, who brought homemade pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, a bottle of excellent sherry, and lots of laughter and lively conversation.  After dinner a few of us went shape-note singing, and came back with other good friends in tow.  The following day we saw the new Harry Potter movie and went out to dinner with yet more friends.

We even managed to make it to Meeting for Worship.  I delivered a message about giving thanks for the "resistless grace" of God, which peeks around every shutter and blind we wilfully draw around our lives, determined as we are to continue walking in darkness.  In the stillness of my heart I thanked God for the patchwork of holiday traditions that K and I have sewn together over the years like a quilt: the presence of friends; good food; voices raised in song; a place of warmth, safety, laughter, and comfort for those of us whose childhood experiences led us to associate the holiday season with stress, tedium, and strife.

One of these traditions is K's annual reading of an Iroquois prayer of thanksgiving. (This is one of the benefits of having a Colonial-era historian for a spouse).  The prayer, truncated for the sake of eating food while it's still warm, is this:

To you our Mother, whereon we stand, this earth here present, we give thanks...Now do you, our Elder Brother, the Sun, going about on the visible sky, continue to listen.  Now you will continue to know that all those whose persons remain alive have made preparations to thank you with one voice...

You next, the Moon, our Grandmother, and now also the Stars in the sky in many places, do you know that every one of those who remain alive has made preparation to thank you with one voice?  Now, our Grandmother, they thank you, and also the stars fixed in the sky in many places...

Now do you continue to listen, our Grandfathers [the Thunder-spirits], whose voices are uttered from place to place, who are in the habit of coming from the west, and whom [the Sky-Holder] has appointed to protect us who are alive upon the earth day after day, and also night after night.  Now, then, every one whose body remains alive has now made preparation to thank yhou with one voice...

Now, then we wrap up into a single body, as it were, all the various grades of those of you to whom he has assigned duties here on the earth -- here also all the grasses that grow, the growing shrubs, the growing trees, and the several springs of water, and the several running springs, the several streams of water, and the several running waters, and the air that moves; this also, the present day, and also the present night, and the several fixed Orbs of Light, and the several Stars fixed in the sky, and you who have completed our bodies and also all those things that we have indicated, now, moreover, we thank you all. 

You, Sky-Holder, continue to listen.

- from Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands. (Paulist Press: Mahwah, New Jersey, 1979.)

May everyone's Thanksgiving celebration be as full of love, light, and plenty as ours always is.  You, Sky-Holder, continue to listen.

Working and Poor

For many, the phrase "working poor" is an oxymoron, a concept that flies in the face of deeply held beliefs about this country and its promise.  Although most of us have never read a Horatio Alger novel, the mythology of American success he lionized remains a pervasive cultural force.  In America, we are taught, all you need to get ahead is ambition, perserverance, and above all, hard work.  Given this simple equation, how then is it possible to have a "working poor"?

The simple answer, and the popular one, is that it isn't possible.  This is the richest, freest, most egalitarian country on the face of the earth, goes the theory.  If you're poor here it must be because you're: a) lazy; b) unqualified; c) ignorant; d)  some combination of a-c; or e) lazy.  If you keep your nose clean and do what you're told and show up on time and display a little initiative now and again, why, you'll eventually move up and out of that dishwashing/roofing/landscaping/housecleaning job, and you'll never have to go on the gummint cheese again! 

It's the dark side of the American Dream.  If America is truly a land that offers virtually unbounded opportunities for success to anyone with a strong work ethic and a capable mind or body, then anyone who doesn't sieze one of those opportunities for success must be inherently undeserving in some way.   So we trot out bogeymen to support this syllogism:  specters of welfare queens and deadbeats trading their food stamps for drug money, boogityboogityboogity.  Thus wealth and poverty, to our capitalist, Calvinist-influenced, post-Victorian way of looking at the world, acquire moral dimensions quite distinct from the economic factors that determine them.

None of this changes the fact that, sadly, it is entirely possible to be an American who works hard and plays by the rules, and also be poor.  The federal minimum wage is $5.15 per hour.  Your average hotel housekeeping job in Maryland pays around $8.50 per hour.  That works out to less than $18,000 per year, and that's before taxes.  Try raising a kid on that.  Or two.  Heck, try raising yourself.

For an excellent exposition of what it's like to be both working and poor in this country, read Barbara Ehrenreich's justly acclaimed Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America.  Or, if you only have about an hour to spare, you can listen to The Working Poor: Invisible in America, a two-part radio program produced by Provoke Radio.  Affiliated with the Catholic Church, Provoke takes a progressive, faith-based look at social justice issues each week on Baltimore's conservative talk station, WBAL AM-1090.

The show features  interviews with working Marylanders and their advocates, including yours truly.  The two installments get a little treacly at times, but I remind myself that their target audience is not wonks or policymakers, but mainstream, Catholic, socially conservative reg'lar folks who happen to tune in on a Sunday morning.

On a personal note, I think that my colleague Melissa sounds excellent on the show -- succinct, compassionate, humane -- while I come off as very stuffy and long-winded.  Obviously she derived more benefit from the media training we participated in together than I did.

Good Night and Good Luck

We went to see Good Night and Good Luck this evening.  George Clooney should be proud of himself.  He has crafted a fine piece of movie-making, a taut, intelligent, beautifully photographed, perfectly acted morality play about journalistic ethics. 

Visually the film is stunning.  Shot in stark, luminous black and white, each frame could be printed and hung on a gallery wall.  The art deco sets and omnipresent silver swirls of cigarette smoke transport the viewer into a world haunted by the Cold War.  Period footage is interspersed with the contemporary shots, lending a grainy verisimilitude to the newsroom drama.   

That Clooney, the director and co-screenwriter, did not himself step into the central role of Edward R. Murrow speaks well of the actor turned auteur.  It also turns out to have been a wise choice, as it is hard to imagine anyone portraying the iconic newsman better than David Strathairn, who carries the film with a quiet authority.  Long one of my favorite actors, Strathairn is brilliant in this role.  With his clipped, stern delivery and air of weary determination, he channels not just Murrow, but every other journalist who has stared unfinchingly at injustice and dared to call it by its true name.

In the case of this film its name was Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI), the bete noir of leftists and suspected "fellow travelers" during the 1950's.  Though seen only in snippets of archival footage, the specter of McCarthy hovers, Sith-like in its menace, over every scene of Good Night... By the time that Murrow makes the fateful decision to take the Senator on via the still-evolving medium of television, viewers understand that they are watching something more than a journalistic David confronting a political Goliath; they are watching a showdown between integrity and hypocrisy, between civility and demagoguery.

The film is unapologetic in its didacticism.  It's a good, suspenseful flick on its own merits, but it's first and foremost a polemic about the purpose of the news media and the promise of television.  The movie details how Murrow's uncompromising sense of righteousness prompted the flight of his show's sponsor and censure from the higher-ups at CBS.  Even at the time, Murrow and his team faced severe consequences for their actions; in a modern network news context, such precipitous on-air gambits are virtually unimaginable.  We've become so jaded about journalism, lost so much faith, that we can barely conceive of a reporter working for a major, corporate-owned news outlet bucking the system in the way that Murrow and Co. did half a century ago.  In an age when an administration shill like Judith Miller is held up by some as a model of integrity, such fantasies seem quaintly improbable.

Watching the end credits scroll, I noticed that CBS is given special acknowledgement, and that the film was shot in a CBS studio.  No doubt the Eye Network and its erstwhile CEO Les Moonves were proud to lend their names to such a project, proud of the legacy forged by CBS alumni like Murrow, Cronkite, and Schorr.   Yet I couldn't help wondering, perhaps unjustly, how CBS or parent company Viacom might react if one of their newsies bit the hand that feeds them in the way that Murrow did.  Dan Rather's recent effort resulted in his being brought down in a tangle of hubris and inaccuracies, while his target -- the president who lied his country into a costly and unnecessary war -- not only remained unscathed, but came out of the affair looking like the mistreated party.

I'm sure a lot of latter-day news program hosts, the Chris Matthewses and Bill O' Reillys of the world, would like to see themselves as the heirs of the legacy mentioned above.  Like Murrow, they seek to weave editorial sentiments and their own personalities into their "fair and balanced" coverage.  Yet too often these contemporary pundits sound smug rather than self-assured, shrill rather than provocative.  Instead of probing they usually stab, and we in turn roll our eyes and reach for the remote.

If Good Night and Good Luck were just a cinematic tirade about the good ol' days of news reporting, when urbane, squint-eyed newsmen swigged scotch and puffed on Luckies while raging against the machine, it would make for a pretty poor movie.  But Clooney and his able cast deftly balance a tone of understated outrage with a dose of optimism about what journalism -- and media consumers  -- can be, if we work at it: civil, evenhanded, independent, humane.  It's there for us if we want it badly enough, the film seems to say.  We can elevate the level of public discourse in this country if we try.  It's not impossible.  Look: it's been done before.

See, we're not just all rats and heroin.

Wow, Baltimore continues to get love from EW.  The Senator Theater, the last of Charm City's great old movie palaces, was named among the 'Top Ten Theaters in the U.S.' in the magazine's August 8 issue.  It's nice to see Baltimore gaining notoriety for something other than crack and chlamydia.  Maybe we should send them a fruit basket.

Speaking of movies, a group of us saw 'The Aristocrats' this weekend.  For anyone who doesn't yet know, this documentary spends 90 minutes deconstructing a joke.  Called, logically enough, 'the Aristocrats,' the joke is a revenant of the Vaudeville era, a short-form gag with a punch line that at its best elicits nothing more than a smile, more likely a simple rolling of the eyes. It is, in a word, lousy.  What has elevated it to the level of legend among comedians, who tell it among themselves when the audiences have all gone home, is the way each teller interprets the joke.  In between the cliched, Catskills introduction and the groan-inducing punch, the comic must, jazz-like, improvise the set-up, filling it with the profanest, grossest, most vile filth ever.  The idea is to set up such a stark juxtaposition between the vulgarity of the set-up and the jaunty innocuousness of the punchline, that the audience doesn't laugh so much as it snorts in disbelief.

The film is terrific.  I expected to be disgusted, which I was; I expected to be offended, which I was only very slightly at one point; I expected to laugh, which I did in abundance.  What I did not expect was to be moved, as I was a couple of times listening to some of the greatest comics of our time talking about the nature of their craft.  And I certainly didn't expect to come away with a newfound appreciation and respect for Gilbert Gottfried and Bob Saget.

If you have a weak stomach or delicate sensibilities, then it's probably best to avoid 'The Aristocrats.'  If you're unfazed by sexual and scatalogical humor, go see it.  You'll laugh so hard your #@!$&% will drop off.

We caught the film in the Charles, Baltimore's other great theater, which is also playing 'March of the Penguins.'  In honor of the French doc that's killing the summer blockbusters at the box office this year, the Charles has erected a grotesquely large emperor penguin in its lobby.

Frankly, I find it kind of unsettling.

Enjoy you Flake!

Wow, multiple levels of groovy.  I just got the latest Entertainment Weekly, and not only did the glorious Emily Flake's new Lulu Eightball book make #1 on EW's vaunted 'Must List,' Atomic Books got a shoutout in the bargain, since it's the publisher.

       
Image credit: Sugarfreak.

WTG, Rachel and Benn!  Don't forget us little people on your way to the top.

Hmm, and I just happened to have received an Atomic gift card from Kazoogrrrl for my birthday.  I wonder what I should spend it on...

Cool Site: Positive Liberty

(Originally posted July 26, 2005)

Jason Kuznicki is young, out, atheist, and a hell of a lot smarter than I'll ever be. A Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins and a fellow blogging Baltimoron, Kuznicki tackles heavy issues like political philosophy, economics, civil liberties, social psychology, and popular culture in his blog, Positive Liberty. His posts tend to be somewhat lengthy, brilliantly constructed, meticulously researched capsule discourses on topics ranging from Foucault to Frederick Douglass to Michael Jackson. Occasionally dense but never ponderous, Positive Liberty's content and style reflect a commitment on the part of its founder to not further pollute the aether with yet another run-of-the-mill blog. You know. Like this one.

Kuznicki writes:

Too many blogs, web journals, and the like add no real content at all, or do so only in a slapdash way that will convince no one except those who are already converted. Too many do nothing but parrot what has already been said elsewhere, and better, by others. They point above all to other blogs, who point to other blogs, who point to…

So true.  And look, here I am, pointing to his.

Specifically, I'd like to point to a particular recent post, in which he gently and powerfully takes on the "ex-gay" movement. Kuznicki, who is in a longtime committed relationship, recently received a letter encouraging him to give up his "destructive, unfulfilling lifestyle" and join all the wholesome, shiny, happy, heavenbound het couples who nobly "sacrifice themselves and their personal desires for the sake of their partners." Interesting premise. If you go by the logic that being gay necessarily involves indulging in cheap, tawdry, empty, dangerous, meaningless sexcapades, then a whole lot of us must have been gay, gay, gay back in our twenties.

Sadly, he says he gets hate mail like this on a distressingly regular basis. My own impulse would be to fire back at such repulsive ignorance with some choice invective of my own, but Kuznicki's response is so much more mature, so much more compassionate, and so much more effective.

View it here.

Around Town: Legacy of Lace/Filigree Spaces

(Originally posted July 25, 2005)

If you had told me 72 hours ago that I would be way interested in a museum installation on lace, well, let me tell ya --- ah, who am I kidding: I have no machismo. I would have been like, 'cool, when are we going?'

So now that I've copped to my utter emasculation, I can enthusiastically recommend you check out the antique and contemporary lace exhibits at the BMA.

'A Legacy of Lace' features examples that date back to the 17th century, when French aristocrats' rapacious appetite for the flimsy fabric nearly crippled the French economy, and when the Venetian government guarded its lacemaking secrets so jealously that it took out contracts on artisans who defected over the border to teach the craft to the hated French. In addition to some truly spectacular samples of Valenciennes, Flemish, and Point d'Angleterre lace (none of which terms meant diddly squat to me before yesterday, but lookit me now), the exhibit offers fascinating historical tidbits. For example, did you know that the French so coveted Flemish lace that they used to send dogs over the border into, um...Flemland...where the animals would be loaded down with over 20 lbs. of contraband fabric, over which would be stretched the skin of a larger, deceased dog, then sent back across the border? Tres freaky!

I took in the exhibit yesterday with a good friend, a textile artist who informed me that the art of making lace in the old way is virtually extinct. One of the handful of contemporary artists who still work in that medium is Piper Shepard, my friend's former prof at MICA, who has a couple of stunning, large scale pieces on display at the BMA, like this one:

Her work is elegant, otherworldly, with filigreed panels of hardened muslin cascading from the ceiling as if suspended in the air. Shepard creates a quiet, reflective space where functional craft, decorative art, and architecture intersect in fascinating ways. I only wish there had been more of Ms. Shepard's pieces to see.

So check it out, it's well worth the trip. When you're done being all highbrow and artsy, you can browse the European art galleries and ogle the odalisques.

(Credit for images goes to the Baltimore Museum of Art.)

The Homonomo Man

(Originally posted July 18, 2005)

Speaking of cool Quaker guys and their websites, I was delighted recently to stumble across the blog of one of my favorite performance artists. Peterson Toscano is an actor, queer activist, and Friend who lives in Connecticut. I met him in Baltimore last year when a friend (who is also a Friend) invited Meerkat and me to a performance of 'Doin' Time in the Homonomo Halfway House,' Toscano's solo show about how he survived the "ex-gay" movement.

For nearly two years Toscano lived at a residential program for Christian men trying to purge themselves of the "sin" of homosexuality. Called Love in Action, the program operates under the premise that there is no such creation as a "gay" or "homosexual" person. There is only homosexual attraction and behavior; accordingly, there can be no change from a sexual identity that never existed in the first place.  Place sounds like a real gas, doesn't it?

Toscano's account of his stay there is harrowing and infuriating, as one might expect. What is unexpected is how funny the show is at certain points. Toscano describes how residents are banned from listening to evil secular music, but not to fear, the program provides a catalog with Homonomo-approved analogs of popular artists. Like, there's a Christian 'Celine Dion,' a Christian 'Barbara Streisand,' a Christian 'Liza Minelli,' etc. The whole thing is so surreal that when Toscano talked about how the Christian 'Britney' was dating the Christian 'Justin,' I wasn't sure whether he was joking or not.

The years that Toscano spent at Love in Action were but the culmination of a what he describes as a long, painful struggle between his Christian faith and his homosexuality, a conflict that prompted him to abandon his missionary work in Zambia to enter a series of programs designed to "cure" him of his desires. He finally came out six years ago, and since then has gotten involved in teaching, writing, performing, and activism. His performance in Baltimore last year was a benefit for an organization called That All May Freely Serve, which advocates for the ordination of LGBT ministers, deacons, and elders in the Presbyterian Church USA. At Pride a few weeks ago I talked to a guy from TAMFS who said the group is bringing Peterson back to Mobtown in the fall.

Links:
- Ex-Gay Watch, a blog about people in recovery from the ex-gay movement
- Heartstrong, for LGBTs in religious schools
- Peterson's personal site.
- Watch Doin' Time at the Homonomo Halfway House (Quicktime movie)


(Image credit: Homonomo.com)

WTF of the month

(Originally posted July 11, 2005)

I'm home sick. Blech. Since Spike reruns of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' don't come on until 1:00, I've been passing the time flipping through the forest's worth of magazines we've accumulated over the past few months.

I just got through the June issue of 'Real Simple,' whose tag is "easy solutions for everyday life." Within the mag's voluminous 296 pages you will find articles on how women of a certain age can enrich their banal, bourgeois existences through a Less Is More philosophy that includes conflict resolution techniques, time management, yoga, 'makeunders,' efficient space organization, yadda yadda yadda. So, fine, whatever, that's cool. But interspersed among these tips on simplifying one's life you will find advertisements for Banana Republic, Lancome, Microsoft, American Express, Citi Financial, Master Card, DiModolo jewelry, Raymond Weil timepieces, Visa, Polo, Chrysler, Nissan, Principal Financial Group, Wachovia, Diet Pepsi, Mercedes Benz, and Jose Cuervo Margarita Minis. That's not even halfway through the magazine, and those aren't even half the ads.

This particular issue includes an article that features the staff of 'Real Simple' with their fathers. Everyone is very Manhattan, very whitebread, and very affluent-looking. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but are these really the best folks to be lecturing Americans about how to live simply? With articles extolling the virtues of simple living, mixed with ads encouraging consumerism at its most rampant, the execution of 'Real Simple' is at best clueless, an example of cognitive dissonance at a cultural level. At worst, it's a cynical, exploitive sham, the wolf of materialism dressed in the sheep's clothing of simplicity.

I don't really have that strong of a beef with materialism. Considering my laptop, central A/C, PDA, cell phone, DVD player, L.L. Bean wardrobe, etc., I would be pretty hypocritical if I did. But if we're going to be materialistic, let's at least be honest about it, and not try to dress it up like living simply. That's just insulting.

Oh, and the piece de resistance? On the back cover of June's 'Real Simple' is...an ad for the new Hummer.

Beautiful and Invincible

(Originally posted June 13, 2005)

Courtesy of Laurable's poetry audio links and the New York Times, you can hear one of my very favorite poets reading one of my very favorite poems.

Click here to listen to Jersey boy and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky read the late Czeslaw Milosz's 'Incantation.'

In his introduction, Pinsky says something about the title being important; the poem is not about the 'world as you see it,' but rather the one you 'wish to bring about' through the words.

Blame Canada!

(Originally posted May 18, 2005)

Several days ago, at some point during the six hours a day I spend playing computer solitaire and surfing the net at the office when I should be working*, I came across two examples of the sort of blogger I would love to be had I the talent, self-discipline, and gumption.

Chandrasutra is the blog of Melanie McBride, a writer who lives in Toronto. Eschewing the idea of a single-themed blog, she offers insightful, wide-ranging commentary on everything from Chogyam Trungpa to Pat Metheny to George Lakoff to PS2 games. She calls Chandrasutra "the thread that connects [these disparate ideas], a sutra of my interests." (There are layers of meaning in that metaphor; "sutra" not only connotes a written work and hints at the Ms. McBride's spiritual leanings, but the word also comes from the same root as "suture," or thread.)

The blog is both wide and deep, with lots of interesting nooks and crannies to go exploring in. One of the more intriguing of these is a section called "The Blogger's Blogger," a series of thoughtful interviews with exemplars of the art.

Among them is the author of Cassandrapages, another Canadian blog which the author of Chandrasutra describes as consistently delivering "intelligent and mindfully aware reflection...a breath of fresh air in an otherwise noisy blogosphere."

My awareness of both of these excellent blogs come courtesy of Mikel, yet another Montrealien (Montrealais?) whose concise posts cover technology, media, and online culture, in addition to Canadian and U.S. politics.

It's like the old saying goes: you come to Canadia for the health care system and the poutine, but you stay for the erudite bloggers.

*Jason, if you happen to be reading this -- I'm just kidding.  I work like a whole family of Honduran immigrants, I swear.

He was right, you know. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band *did* suck.

(Originally posted May 17, 2005)

If you're any kind of folkie or world music aficionado, your head is going to a splode when you learn about the recently unveiled online Alan Lomax Archive. This attractively laid-out database, maintained by New York's Hunter College, is a steadily growing catalog of the staggering amount of sound recordings and documentary footage Lomax collected during his long career as musicologist and archivist.

The archive is definitely a work in progress. The sound files are in sample format, just 40 seconds each, and they all seem to be from recordings made in the U.S. But if you want a place to hear what an actual, real live field holler sounds like, followed by a vintage Sacred Harp recording, and topped off by a recording of a Child ballad interpreted by a Puerto Rican folk singer, this is a good place to go.

L-R: Sonny Terry (obscured), Woody Guthrie, Lilly Mae Ledford, Alan     Lomax, New York, 1944. 
Photo courtesy of the Libary of Congress.

Lomax was quite a character. He once got himself thrown in jail in Mississippi during the 1940's because some cracker sherriff took offense at Lomax referring to the now legendary blues singer Son House as "Mister Son House." At the fateful 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the same one where Dylan invented electricity and scandalized the folk world, Lomax got into a fistfight backstage with impressario Albert Grossman. The two came to blows after Lomax introduced the Grossman-managed Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and basically told the 70,000 people in attendance the band sucked.

The photo above is taken from one of the smoky, booze-soaked, late-night jam sessions Lomax would have in Greenwich Village with people like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Lee Hays, and Brownie McGee. According to Guthrie biographer Joe Klein, Woody and Alan would sit up all night trying to stump each other by throwing out themes and then coming up with songs to that fit them. If I recall the book correctly, Lomax would almost always win these drunken contests.

It was on one of these occasions that Woody came up with a topically extemporaneous additional verse to the song "Acres of Clams:

They asked would I fight for my country,
I answered the FBI: 'Yea!'
Iwill point a gun for my country,
But I won't guarantee you which way!

If you ask me, Alan Lomax made the far greater contribution to the life and preservation of American folk and roots music. But Woody always had the best lines.

No, ENTOmology is the one with the bugs.

(Originally posted April 18, 2005)

Oh my God, I ran across the most addictive site ever.  The Online Etymology Dictionary describes itself as "a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English."  Drawing on sources ranging from the Oxford English Dictionary to the Etymologisches    Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache,  this crack-like site can tell you, for instance, that "crack" derives from the Old English cracian ("make a sharp noise"), which in turn comes from the "probably onomatopoeic" Proto-Germanic word krakojan. It goes on to say that the first recorded use of the word "crack" to describe a try or attempt is found in 1836, and that 1985 saw the first use of the term to describe rock cocaine.

Pretty cool, huh? Occasionally the entries themselves can sound downright poetic if read aloud. Consider the OEtD's deconstruction of one of my favorite words, "bless."  Given the proper line spacing, it reads like a Gary Snyder or Robert Pinsky poem.

-------------------------

bless

Old English bletsian,
bledsian,
Northumbrian bloedsian
        "to consecrate, make holy,"
from Proto-Germanic *blothisojan,
        "mark with blood," from
*blotham
       "blood"

                      (see blood).

Originally
        a blood sprinkling
                on pagan altars.
This word
was chosen in Old English bibles to translate Latin
    benedicere
and Greek eulogein, both of which have a ground sense
of "to speak well of,
                                   to praise,"
but were used in Scripture
to translate Hebrew

               

brk

"to bend (the knee),
worship,
praise,
invoke blessings."

Meaning shifted in late O.E. toward
            "to confer happiness,
                                    well-being,"
by resemblance to unrelated

bliss.

No cognates in other languages.

--------------------------------

I know.  I'm a freak.

Oscars 2005

(Originally February 27, 2005)

Okay, so I'm watching the E! red carpet coverage, mostly because I can't stand Joan Rivers.  Not that Kathy Griffin is much better, but whatever.

- Star Jones looks like the love child of Divine and RuPaul.  Freaky!

- Black seems to be the new black among the glitterati this year. And too much eyeliner. And bad brunette dye jobs. Ugh. Drew, Renee -- whazzup wit dat?

- Oh, I wish someone had already uploaded a picture of Mrs. Chris Rock, Malaak Compton-Rock. She's an attractive woman, but my God, she's a fashion disaster tonight. Here's my theory behind her look: after being startled out of a nap by something so horrifying that her hair exploded, she ran out of the house in her nightgown, stopping only long enough to throw a cat around her shoulders.

- Holy shit. Catalina Sandino Moreno looks amazing. And I don't normally go for Latinas. They inevitably remind me of my moms, and Mobtown don't swing that way, baby.

- Mario and Melvin Van Peebles are wearing matching bowlers, God bless 'em.  They may make lame movies, but they got style.

- MMmmmmmmmmaggie Gyllenhall... ::Homer gargle:: ...

- Speaking of my mom, I think Penelope Cruz raided her closet to find one of her old wigs from the '60's.

- More hip hatness: Spike Lee's fez. I think the fez is an underappreciated form of headgear, and I hope that Spike starts a trend tonight.

- I'm not sure how I feel about Hilary Swank's dress.  The cut's not doing much for me, but the color is nice, and it flatters her figure.  And what a figure.

- Wow, Sam Jackson and Oprah make a cute couple!  They should totally hook up.

- Is that a temp tattoo on Jamie Foxx's head, or the real thing?  And if the latter, that must have hurt like a beeyotch.

- Hey, is Puffy wearing one of those tuxedo t-shirts they sell at Spencer Gifts?

- Over ABC for more red carpet. Shit, it's Billy Bush. I hate that annoying little twerp. Oh - haha! Warren Beatty looks like he wants to punch him. I wonder if it has to do with his family's politics, or if it's just the annoying little twerp factor.

- You know, I've never thought much of Virginia Madsen one way or the other as an actress, but that's a smokin' Versace dress she's got going on.

- Kirsten Dunst is so cute. She has these weird little pointy teeth! You'd figure she would have had them done by this point, but she's obviously kept her natural chompers. it adds to the cute.

- Don Cheadle is the man.  I heard an NPR piece the other day where a dialect coach evaluated the verisimilitude of a couple of the Oscar nominees who put on accents for their roles. He had special praise for Cheadle's performance in 'Hotel Rwanda', saying that the actor's accent was absolutely flawless.

- That's it.  On to the main event!

8:30 - 9:00    

                    

Chris Rock is on. He's a little nervous.; it's making him sound a bit shrill, his timing's a little off. But hey, I'm already loving him more than Billy Crystal.

Ooh, he's bringing the Bush humor.  Good for him.

Well, he didn't bring his best game tonight, but Rock did manage to get in a few good ones:
- "Ja Rule is not Tupac, okay?"
- "if you want Denzel, and all you can get is me, wait!  Denzel...would *never* make 'Pootie Tang.'"
- "I saw 'Passion of the Christ.'  Not that funny."
- "Our next presenter...will next be seen in the eagerly awaited 'Catwoman 2."

Mrs. Mobtown is not feeling the stage set.  I'm with her.

I'm sorry, I gotta say it again: what is UP with that hair, Renee?  Damn!

Clive Owen always rocks, but I'd love to see Alan Alda get the award for Best Supporting Actor.  He kicked ass in 'The Aviator.'

Ah, well, Morgan Freeman got it. After four nominations, you can't say he's not due. And that was a nice, concise acceptance speech. But why are they playing the theme from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' as he walks off the stage?

Ah, shazbot. Can we please go one Oscars telecast without having to endure Robin Williams? He's become like a caricature of his own self. Wait. Is he really dragging out the Brando and Nicholson impressions? He beat that schtick to death in the '80's with 'Dead Poets Society.'

9:00 - 9:40    

                    

I like Cate Blanchett's dress, but I don't think it works with her hair and skin coloring.

You'd think the woman who won the award for make-up would, you know.  Be made up better.

'Choristes?' What the hell is that? I've never heard of this film. Oh, snap. Beyonce's singing. In French. Excuse me, I need a moment.

Oh, I kinda like this little interstitial thing that Chris Rock is doing, gently poking fun at the racial dynamics among moviegoers.

Scarlett Johannson is doing the Science and Technical Awards. Is it me, or do they always seem to get some bombshell to present the sci-tech trophies? Maybe it's a conciliatory bone thrown to the techie geeks. You know, like: "you may not get to accept your statue on prime time, but hey, you get to receive it from the hottest babe you will ever stand next to in your entire life"?

Now Pierce Brosnan is co-presenting alongside a computer-generated image. He's gamely trying to not let his embarrasment show. Did they base the cartoon on that old lady who used to do the Old Navy commercials, or what?

Cate Blanchett was so good as Kate Hepburn in 'The Aviator.'  The way she did her voice was uncanny.

And she won!  Excellent.  She's a fine actor.  It'll be Natalie Portman's turn next time.

Wow, I didn't realize that Michael Moore wasn't up for a documentary award this year. Huh. I bet $5 that Spurlock gets it for 'Super Size Me.'

Nope, 'Born Into Brothels.'  I hate it when I lose bets with myself.  If I recall correctly, EW panned 'Brothels' hard.

Look, it's Counting Crows! I thought they just sort of turned into pumpkins after 'Mr. Jones' dropped off the charts back in the '90's. Shows what I know.

Christ, the lead singer is an eyesore, though, isn't he?

9:40 - 10:00    

                    

The Chris Rock-as-Catherine Zeta-Jones bit is falling totally flat. Adam Sandler looks like he wants to crawl off somewhere and die over the crap dialogue the hacks behind the teleprompters wrote. And this is Adam Sandler we're talking about! Listen, when the freaking Waterboy thinks your gags suck, you should start looking into a career change.

I haven't seen 'Sideways' yet, but I like Alexander Payne.  Good for him.

Oh my God.  Scarlett Johannson's sitting next to Catalina Sandino Moreno.  Too...much...hotness...in...one...place...

They just mispronounced Zhang Ziyi's name. Ignorami. Fifty zillion Chinese Americans in the greater L.A. area, and the Oscar producers couldn't get some dude to tell them how to pronounce "Ziyi" properly?

They're trotting out the president of the Academy.  Looks like a good time to grab a beer and a smoke.

I like Sidney Lumet a lot too, but Al Pacino should be forbidden by act of Congress from ever again rambling about "old Village poets" and how much he "digs" things.

I didn't realize that Lumet did 'Deathtrap.' That was a fun movie. And 'Serpico.' And 'Twelve Angry Men.' And 'Fail Safe.' And 'Murder on the Orient Express.' Right. Time for me to update my Netflix queue.

Now on to the Governor's Ball    

                    

Crap! My 'puter froze up and I just lost the past half hour's worth of Oscar-related snark. Just as well. I'm winding down, I have to get up early tomorrow, and they're just handing out the short documentary award.

Chris Rock aside, this could be the most boring Academy Awards ever.

...except that Yo-Yo Ma is now on.  He is a god.  and never more so than when he's playing Bach.

I didn't realize that Paul Winfield died this past year.

Beyonce again.  This is her third time singing tonight.  What, is her dad producing this thing?

Wow, this 'Believe' song suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Prince!  You go, you purple lovesexy Jehovah's Witness freakazoid, you.  Much love.

Well, that's cool, that the first-ever nominated Spanish-language song won.  Even though it too suuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Good for Hilary Swank on winning Best Actress.  Believe it or not, I've been a fan of hers since 'The Next Karate Kid.'

Hold it.  Did she just thank her lawyers?

From all accounts, 'The Sea Inside' is a spectacular film. One, however, that I have no intention of ever seeing. Quadraplegic suicidal Latino activist? No thanks, I see enough depressing stuff in my work as it is.

I'm glad 'Eternal Sunshine' picked up at least one award.  That was perhaps the best film I saw in the past year.

Jamie Foxx just won Best Actor.  Even though it was more or less expected, it's still nice to see.

Foxx just gave the sweetest, most moving tribute to child corporal punishment that *I've* ever heard...

Holy smokes, Best Director Clint Eastwood's moms is in the audience!  She must be like 156 years old!

...and Clint just won again, as 'Million Dollar Baby' takes best picture! This shuts down all that buzz about an 'Aviator' sweep, for sure.

I hung in there after all.  Now I'm going to bed.

I'm shocked, shocked I say.

(Originally posted February 21, 2005)

Hunter S. Thompson is dead. Authorities believe that he busted a cap in his own ass.  Or noggin, as it were.

Not to be callous -- nah, screw it, this is going to be callous. It was like Thompson drew himself up a list of approved ways to shuffle off this mortal coil, and he didn't deviate from that limited set of options.

WAYS FOR ME TO CROAK
a) GSW to the head (manslaughter, accidental, drug-fueled blackout-related)
b) GSW to the head (manslaughter, accidental, drug-fueled game of "William Tell"-related)
c) GSW to the head (self-inflicted, drug-fueled pistol-cleaning accident)
d) GSW to the head (self-inflicted, drug-fueled blackout-related)
e) GSW to the head (self-inflicted, drug-fueled depression-related)
f) GSW to the head (homicide, murdered by my own drug-fueled hallucination of a giant psycopathic kumquat)
g) O/D (drug-fueled)

Hmmm, I think I'll go with option...E!  How gonzo.

These tchotchkes are sacred to my people

                    

(Originally posted February 19, 2005)

The following was overheard this afternoon in the gift shop of the National Museum of the American Indian (which, incidentally, you must stop reading this immediately and reserve your advance pass online). The speaker was a teenage Latina who was rifling disgustedly through a collection of "sun sign" medallions with her friend.

"Like, I was hoping to find something Inca? Like, Inca jewelry? Because my ancestors were, like, Inca? But this stuff is just, like...hippie."

Pronouced: "heepie."

Seriously, though. This is not only an incredible museum in terms of its collections, it's also one of the most beautifully designed buildings I've ever visited. Check out these photos.

Go Loretta!

(Originally February 13, 2005)

Is it just me, or have the performances at this year's Grammys had a little more of a *kick* than in years past? Sure, the scripted presenter patter sounds as awkward and contrived as ever, and the tsunami-relief version of "Across the Universe" was sorta We Are The World 2005, but on the whole the live acts haven't sounded as cell-phoned in as they usually do in these cheesefests.

Melissa Etheridge, making what might be her first public performance following her bout with the big C, kicked some serious ass on Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart." And Kanye West's rendition of "Jesus Walks" made want to get off the couch and go to church. Even U2, who could be forgiven if they turned in a less-than-stellar set in their fifteen millionth appearance at one of these things, were nevertheless heartfelt in their performance.

Sidebar: isn't Larry Mullen looking kinda rough these days? And isn't Loretta Lynn looking amazing? She so owned the stage tonight when she dragged Jack White up to accept the award for "Van Lear Rose."

The only discordant note, as far as I'm concerned, was the lame tribute to southern rock featuring a bored-sounding Gretchen Wilson, a flat-sounding Tim McGraw, and a bunch of old-ass, fallin-apart-lookin' bitches from like the Allman Bros. and Skynyrd or some shit. Listen up. For the record, "Freebird" sucks. Sucked then, sucks now, will suck in perpetuity. And "Sweet Home Alabama"? I cringe everytime I hear that "in Birmingham we loved the governor..." line. Everyone always claps and hoots and gets their vicarious wannabe redneck on when they hear that song, but what's left unsung in that line is "...because the governor made me proud to be a dumb racist cracker." The Alabama depicted in that song is no sweet home of mine, sugar.

Real-time aside: Cheryl Crow's hot an' all, but the undercleavage thing isn't working for her. But then again, damn. Lookit them abs.

I feel bad for Anthony LaPaglia, who introduced the tsunami benefit song. He introduced himself, paused for applause, and fought to keep from looking chagrined at the sparse bit of clapping he received. I think people were like, wait, what band is he with?

Ray Charles is getting much well-deserved love tonight.  I'm really glad I got a chance to see him live before he passed away.

Bonnie Raitt's playing. You know, I've bought one of her albums, seen her in concert, and even hung out with her a little bit (she showed me some cocktail napkin tricks she learned when she was a waitress), and I think she's a really cool person and an amazingly talented musician, but I've just never hooked into her music. I like blues, but her stuff just leaves me cold.

Speaking of stuff leaving me cold: that J.Lo./Marc Anthony thing. Bleaaaaggghhhhhh. Not only do I loathe that style of tuneless, histrionic crooning that's so popular in Latin America, but I had to change the channel before the schmaltz clogged my arteries and caused a blood clot to shoot into my frontal lobe.

There's a Best Buy commercial on featuring the Black Eyed Peas.  Holy crap, Fergie's cute.

Ray Charles just got the Palme D'Or or Album of the Year or whatever. That's cool, but maybe a little excessive by this point, considering the competition. For my money, the award should have gone to Green Day, especially seeing as how they pulled themselves out of irrelevancy and has-beenism to produce one of the most purely fun albums of recent years.

Okay, it's wrapping up.  I'm going to bed.

At least the set dressing was purty

(Originally posted October 20, 2004)

K and I saw a fair-to-middlin' production of Oscar Wilde's 'Lady Windermere's Fan' last night at Center Stage. It was frustrating, because while I love love love Wilde's dialogue, the cast for the most part didn't seem comfortable with it rolling around on their tongues. They were so busy talking through their noses that they ended up sounding more like John Cleese as the sex educator in Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life' than like, say, Jeremy Northam in the film version of 'An Ideal Husband.'

Part of the problem, I think, is that they were all Americans affecting contrived English accents, and it's a little hard to sound drawlingly, drily witty when you're *OH-vah ee-NUN-see-ATE-ing* like you have a pole up your bum. I found myself wishing that the director had instructed the actors to just forgo the accents altogether, to elicit smoother delivery.

The sets were gorgeous, though. And it was cool to watch the male, tuxedoed scene-changers turn every transition into a gay production number, complete with dancing, singing, and a dreadlocked hoofer with a green carnation in his boutonniere.  Oscar would have loved that.

Speaking of Zach Braff...

(Originally posted August 24, 2004)

...go out this very evening and see 'Garden State.' Excellent, excellent film, particularly for a debut, semi-autobiographical feature from a young auteur known mostly for his sitcom shtick (which is very funny, don't get me wrong).

Without giving away any spoilers, I found it interesting to compare the film to 'The Graduate,' another movie about a disaffected, alienated young man who comes home and feels numbly dissociated from what he used to consider his normal life. The major difference between 'GS' and the earlier work, however, is that 'The Graduate' was at its core nihilistic, while Braff's film is fundamentally hopeful. Not ha-ha, everything's-gonna-be-okay, tearful-catharsis, dancing-in-the-rain-to-soulmusic, Benny-and-Joon hopeful, but hopeful in the way that real life can be hopeful if you choose to grow up and shift your focus outside yourself to include the world. In this respect, and in the quiet, Nick Drake-y feeling that permeated the film, 'GS' reminded me of David Gordon Green's masterful coming-of-age tale 'All the Real Girls.'

[Sidebar: I actually have this huge generational rant about how 'The Graduate' is the perfect emblematic boomer flick because it's all navel-gazingly morose and self-important, and how 'GS' is a great Gen-X flick because it shows how people once derided as "slackers" by and large have a pretty good handle on things, but I have plenty of rants involving generational bias against boomers, so I'll save it.]

And oh, the cast. Braff himself is deft as the central character, a role that requires him to do a lot of acting with his eyes and subtle shadings of expression. Natalie Portman is characteristically adorable without ever sinking into mannered, cutie-pie treacliness. Ian Holm is fantastic, as always. But as in 'Shattered Glass,' the powerhouse in this movie is Peter Sarsgaard. It would have been all too easy for him to play his role broadly, as either a totally pathetic druggie loser or as Spicoli-esque comic relief. He does neither, instead delivering a nuanced performance that's funny without ever being contemptible, and sad without ever being pitiful.

Sanrio has gone too far this time

(Originally posted August 5, 2004)

                    

All right, I've had it.  I've put up with my wife's kawaii fixation for years. I've had to endure Hamtaro stickers, Landry mugs, Pochacco key chains, Batdz Maru lunchboxes, Hello Kitty everything else, and through it all I've managed to handle my distaste for all that saccharine crap with what I feel has been admirable restraint.

Okay, so I like Batdz. He reminds me of me: short, stocky, and grumpy. And I have to give credit to K for not buying everything in sight when we took our niece to Otakon this past weekend.

However. I've long felt that society as we know it is being threatened by a sinister cabal of evil 12 year old Japanese girls who seek to undermine the bedrock of our popular culture by unleashing wave after wave of surreal, big-eyed, no-mouth-having, pastel monstrosities that sort of resemble real animals but really don't. It's like Pearl Harbor all over again, only instead of bombs dropped by Mitsubishi Zeros we're contending with cutesy pleather handbags dropped by Hot Topic.

But now those little bishojo villains have gone too far.  Too far, I say.

Damn you, Sanrio!

::shakes fist::

Celebrity Crushes

(Originally published July 21, 2004)

I officially have two new celebrity crushes: Mindy Smith and Nellie McKay.

K and I saw Ms. Smith perform last Friday night as part of Artscape, Baltimore's annual arts festival. Or, as I refer to it, Baltimore's annual See Everyone You Work With, Used to Work With, Have Ever Dated, Would Prefer to Avoid festival.

We purchased Mindy's debut album some months back and liked it, even though we found it a tad downbeat. I still think she could use a little more rawk in her songs, but it turns out she's a completely charming live performer. Willowy, wry, and more than a tad spacey, with dishevelled hair and jeans that probably haven't seen the inside of a washing machine for longer than is ideally desirable, Smith sang with a quiet intensity and emotional rawness that held the audience rapt.

What added to the performance for us was that we unknowingly set up our camp chairs right next to where her sister, nieces and nephews were sitting. We deduced that the kids, who ranged in age from something like 18 months to somewhere around three years, were relatives of the performer through our keen observation of a couple of clues: 1) they seemed to know the words to every one of her songs, and 2) every so often they would exclaim in unison "Aunt Mindy! Aunt Mindy!" Lemme tell you, watching a toddler in a stroller mouth the words to Dolly Parton's "Jolene" is so cute you feel your teeth are going to fall out. At one point late in the set we overheard their mother tell them, "okay, Mindy is probably about to sing the Jesus song now, and then we can all go get ice cream."

My other new crush, Nellie McKay (pronounced, for whatever reason, "Mac-EYE"), recently played a sold-out show here in Baltimore. What caught my attention was the pictures of her in the Sun's 'Live' section, which showed a button-cute young woman with a telltale gleam of loopiness in her blue eyes. Reading the accompanying article, in which she was described as a 19- year-old cross between Doris Day and Eminem who dropped out of a tony Manhattan music school and cut her teeth singing at queer bars, my interest was piqued. I was not disappointed when I purchased her album, a double-CD affair in which she alternately croons, yelps, and raps out wacky late-adolescent angst and refreshingly political rants. After giving the album a couple of listens, I think she's less of a cross between Doris and Marshall, and more like the love child of Rufus Wainwright and Tori Amos (y'know, like if Tori got Rufus all likkered up one night and he forgot he was gay and whatnot). Or Ethel Merman meets early Ani DiFranco.

Listen to Nellie perform live on Morning Edition.  I particularly recommend 'Sari' and 'Dog Song.'

You know what just made me feel old? Some person I know said that a good formula to figure out whether it's appropriate to date a younger person is to take half of your own age and add seven. I'm going to be 32 in a few days, which means that the bottom threshhold of appropriateness for perving after younger women would be, lessee...23. Ms. McKay is therefore a whole four years out of my appropriate perving age range (or APAR, if you like).

Great.  So now I'm turning into Humbert Humbert.  Getting old sucks.