Wonderblog

2003-01-29T10:56:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

I have an announcement to make!

I'm so excited! My big alpha geek brother did the nicest thing for me. He bought me my own website.

www.murphyhorner.com

Can you believe it?!

So I have moved all my stuff over there...you can go check it out!

All my posts in the future will be located on that site. You have the opportunity to make comments about them there too. Please do!

See you all on the new site.

2003-01-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

I eat a lot of microwave popcorn. I imagine a lot of people do.

I am also notoriously cheap. It burns me that i have to pay so much for all the packaging of microwave popcorn. I figured that there must be a way to make my own microwave popcorn.

I bought the actual kernels yesterday. I put them in a ziplock bag, leaving a little opening for steam to escape. I put it in the microwave and hit start.

I heard them pop! I was exited! but they weren't popping very much. Not a lot of popping going on.

I opened the microwave. The ziplock bag had melted onto the bottom. Nasty! So I had to get all the hot unpopped kernels out, and then scrape off the melted plastic.

Hmm...

Maybe I needed to use a paper bag.

OR MAYBE i needed to ask the internet how to do this.

I found THIS article.
Very interesting. This poor little science nerd decided to see which was the BEST popcorn brand. His criteria was just that the most kernels popped without burning.

I would be interested in a brand that tasted good, but perhaps that not easy to define scientifically.

He actually tried his own method of popping corn, using a paper bag. He soaked the kernels in water overnight to increase their water content. The water is apparently what the microwave uses to heat.

And it worked!

But he never saw the true genius of his experiment. He didn't realize the he could bypass the whole paying extra for the packaging and make his own homeame microwave popcorn.

I did find THIS recipe. It's a good guide for ratios and cook time.

2003-01-27T22:55:00.000-08:00

Well, today was a day of little import.

I wouldn't say no import. But the import i got was not really useful.

I was trying to import all the individual posts from this blog I love so much into another location. It would be so easy, just a little click and go.

But no. This was a day of little import.

It was much more a day of cut, paste, drag and drop.

I have found out a few things though. I have written a lot of content on this blog. If you took all the posts I have made and printed it out on a scroll, and then rolled that scroll out on the ground...

It would be a really long scroll!

The actual number of pages I managed to write on this site is

*drum roll*

one hundred and fifty two

I wish that i had more to say about it, but that about sums it up. That's a lot.

I may have more profound things to say about it tomorrow. But a day of clever leftclick/rightclick scroll and paste takes up a lot of brain power. Not so much left over for medidations.

stay tuned.

2003-01-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

I just love my blog. I am a writing addict, really. In prior times, before I had this fabulous content delivery system known as "Blogger" available to me, I would write VOLUMINOUS emails to everyone that would answer. Not to mention the ones that didn't.

The joy of writing them was enough.

Even before email, long ago in the 80s, I used to write letters to people. I had several pen pals I wrote to every week. It felt wrong to me if I didn't write at least 4 pages. To many, I wrote upwards of 20 pages. Honestly, I'm not sure what I had to say. I didn't really have any exciting life as a homeschooled teenager in the remote suburbs of Alaska. But I wrote anyway.

But now we have the internet! There is so much good stuff to read. People generate content every day, scads of it. I don't know how many hundreds of people have their own blogs, and not all of it is self-referential psychotherapy. Not all.

There are all those clever new guys that made stabs at politicians and public figures. And Blogcritics, reviewing music and movies.

A lot of those folks seem to be quick quippers, dashing off little paragraphs.

I tend towards multiple pages. It makes me feel like looking sideways in the mirror.

"Does my blog look fat?"

I found this today, from Openletters.net

The fact is, reading on the web – or at least reading anything longer than a few hundred words – just isn’t that pleasant an activity. And yet the Internet seems like a tremendous opportunity to deliver great writing to a far-flung readership. This is precisely the paradox that has burned up hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital over the last few years. And still the question remains: how can this cool tool be used to distribute information with a little depth, with a little soul?

Preach it!
That is some of what I am trying to do for you, my readers, known and unknown. A little depth and a little soul.

My tolerance for reading more than a few hundred words on the net might not be shared by everyone. But I hope that I make it worthwhile, the PageDown button not too tiresome, and my chubby blog makes itself worth your time.

2003-01-23T08:48:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

My moose story inspired a friend to write another wild-animal Tale (tail?). I wanted to share it with you.

Louie's story

The black ball beside the road ducked just as I drove past it on my way to work. I realized at once what it was and turned around to get it. Two more cars passed it before I got stopped and the small black ball ducked each time. It couldn't have gotten any closer to the side of the road without being on it. I walked across the road and bent down to pick it up and was meet with a cry and a beak that opened so wide, I could see half way down its throat. The baby magpie must have been blown out of its nest the night before by the high winds, and was hungry. I looked around for the mother and was greeted by cries form a treetop a short distance away. I picked the baby up and put him on the other side of the fence, hoping that its mama would feed it still.

I stopped and looked for it after I got off work that day. I didn't see it and hoped that it was being taken care of. I went on home and fixed some supper for myself. I decided to go do some grocery shopping after supper and so I got into my car and drove out to the road. There right by the road, so close it was scary, was my little friend, sitting there like he was waiting for me to come by. I got out and picked him up, once again greeted with the beak open so wide I was amazed by it.

I set him on the seat of the car and he just looked at me with a look that said, " It was about time. I've been waiting for you. " We went back into the house and I mixed up some baby bird food. He let me feed him without too much trouble, as he was very hungry. Then he just sat there on the towel, looking at me as if to say, "What's next?" I looked him over and marveled at the half-inch tail and the perfect baby feathers all over him.

My husband, Dan usually takes care of the baby birds we find but he was gone for the next week. So I was just praying that I could keep the little guy alive for a week till he got home then we could name him together and he could take over its care. Our first week together went well and we got to know each other. The baby was very alert and would sit there and watch me as I went about my housework. When Dan got home, he said lets name him Louie. Dan figured that Louie was about three weeks old when I found him. Now Louie would just sit and watch all that went on around him and he realized that there were birds in the other room. He wasn't able to fly yet but he could hop to anywhere he wanted to go. It wasn't long before he wanted to join in the fun he thought he was missing in the other room. He would sneak in when I would forget and leave the door open and the other birds thought he was just another of the flock. When he learned to fly, he would chase them around the room.

Louie grew to enjoy being with his people. He would stand on the dish drainer and give you kisses. He didn't like you to touch him but he would always come to see what you were doing. If you were very lucky, he would let you scratch the top of his head with one finger.

We tried to teach him about eating what other magpies ate and so we would offer him pieces of meat and cheese. Louie loved cheese and if you left the top off the container of shredded cheese, Louie would help himself. Louie was always hungry when we got home from work and would rush through the door as soon as you opened it. If you didn't give him food right away, he would follow you around till you did. He would eat all he wanted and then hide the rest. Any little nook or crack was a good place to secret away snacks, in his mind. We would find bits of his dinner stuffed away in our checkbook that had been left on the table or tucked under the edge of a magazine. Anything with a hole in it would soon hold his treats and I had to learn to turn things so it didn't have an opening for him to use.

The minute you started to pull into the driveway, Louie would fly to meet you. He would follow you down the drive and wait patiently on the side view mirror while you got out of the car. I would always talk to him and tell him "Hello, Louie". It wasn't long before he would say hello Louie to himself when I would let him out on the morning. He would sit on the post, chattering to himself.

Louie was very friendly when he wanted to be. He went over to meet the neighbor, Bob, one morning. Now Bob wasn't aware that Louie was a pet and so it kind of freaked him out when Louie peered over the edge of the roof at him. However, Bob was used to all our pigeons standing on the roof edge and so he didn't pay too much attention at first. Bob went to sit in his lawn chair, setting his cigarettes and lighter on the ground beside him. Louie flew down to check it out. Now magpies like bright and shiny things and so these really caught his eye. He tried to pick up the cigarettes and Bob grabbed them. He tore off the bright silver paper from the end of the pack and set it in front of Louie. He set the pack back down. Well, Louie must have decided that bigger was better and tried to carry off the whole pack. The pack was bigger than he was used to carrying and had to land a short distance away. Bob retrieved the pack and set it back down by his chair. Louie decided to try extracting a cigarette from the pack and so he picked it up and shook it. Out fell several of them. Louie grabbed one and flew to the top of a low shed. I guess he didn't like the taste because that's where he left it. Louie would go visit Bob and would even come when he called him. Bob soon found that Louie liked treats and would give him food tidbits during the day.

Louie was under the impression that all creatures were put on this earth for him to play with. As he grew up in the kitchen, he found that the dog was an excellent playmate. I don't think the dog harbored the same thoughts but Louie never took that into consideration. As the dog wandered around the kitchen, Louie thought it was great fun to follow him and pull a couple of hairs on the back of his leg. The dog not realizing this was a game would go hide under the buffet. Louie wanted to play so he would walk under the buffet and chase the dog out and the fun would start again. Louie would follow the dog and whenever the dog wasn't paying him heed, Louie would grab a couple of hairs.

Louie would follow you wherever you went when you were outside. If you headed down the drive to get the mail, he would fly ahead and wait on the mailbox for you. Then he would fly back to a fence post, waiting for you to return. I would sit outside at the patio table and he would come and stand on your feet. If you had shoestrings, they were for Louie to play with. He quickly learned to untie them for you. He would climb up you and sit on your shoulder and give kisses or listen to you talk to him. If you had a snack, you were expected to share.

At dinnertime, Louie would invite himself and would help himself to whatever looked good, dragging his piece off to the edge of the table. After satisfying his hunger, the leftovers were secreted away for late night snacks. One afternoon while I had cookies baking in the oven, Louie followed me in the kitchen door. I took the sheet of cookies out of the oven, turning my back to the ones left to cool on the counter. I was aware of Louie flying back and forth behind me and when I turned to place the warm cookies to cool, discovered that there were several missing from the cooking rack. I grabbed the cookie from Louie's mouth and hunted for the others he had spirited off. I never did find one of them.

Louie was willing to share anything with you, even if it was yours. He would walk across the table to your beer bottle and try to pull it over. He would drink a little beer if you tipped it so he could get his beak into the opening. Then he would strut around the edge of the table as if to say, "Look at me, I'm something special." He would share your soda too, till he discovered he didn't like it.

Magpies are very territorial and Louie took great care to insure that no one invaded his territory. Invaders were not allowed and the meter reader was no exception. I saw her pull into the driveway one day and waited for her to leave. It seemed to be taking a long time for her to do what needed to be done and so I went outside to see what was happening. I found her back by the meter but she had never had a chance to get close enough to read it. Louie was nipping her shoes and flying at her head to keep her away from the house. I tried to let Louie know that it was all right but he wasn't having anything to do with it. She finally got her job done, but I bet she will never forget her encounter with a magpie protector.

Louie didn't react to everyone that came to the house like he did to the meter reader. The vet had to come visit one of the emu's that was feeling under the weather. Louie didn't bother the vet but he thought the vet's truck was a new playground. The vet found Louie riffling through the things on his front seat and just laughed. We were worried about the West Nile virus that was affecting the horses and members of the crow family, and the vet gave us the vaccine to inoculate Louie. The vet still laughs about Louie in his truck.

But some people just shouldn't invade Louie's kingdom, such as the water truck. The driver opened his door and Louie flew straight at him. He scooted across the seat and went out through the other door as Louie decided to check him out. Louie flew straight through the truck, trying to let the driver know he was in hostile territory. Luckily Bob was home and saved the water truck driver from the menace of Louie's protectiveness.

One day, my daughter, Shanna, came for a visit and wanted to see Louie. We were standing by the back door, calling him. He didn't come right away and so I went to look for eggs behind the house. Suddenly I hear Shanna calling me, in a panic or so I it sounded. I got to her as quick as I could and there was Louie standing on her jacket covered arm, talking to her. "Hello Louie. Hahahaha, hello Louie. " She was so excited to see Louie and as he was climbing up and down her arm, told me that she didn't know he could talk. We went into the house and Louie sat with her for an hour before going on to something else.

Louie was a loner for most of the time he was with us, preferring our company to others of his kind but he did make friends with one other magpie and they would spend time together. Louie's friend would land about 30 feet away and watch his interaction with us. A couple of times, Louie wasn't waiting to come in at night and would be out, coming back in the morning to eat. The last time I saw Louie, he had pick up a large piece of hard bird food I had thrown out from the birds' dishes in the house and flew off towards the grove of trees by the creek where the colony of magpies lived.
I don't know if Louie and his friend took up together or if some other fate befell him.

When the wind is blowing, I remember how he didn't like to hear the wind and would sit and shake like a leaf. When I bake cookies, I always wonder where that other cookie is I didn't find. Every time I see a magpie sit on the post and chatter, I hope its Louie. I still find his secret hiding places with his little bits of food. I wonder if he has enough to eat. Wherever he is, we miss him and would love to have him come back to us.

Sheryl Mireles
Sheryl.Mireles@vspan.com

2003-01-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

There is this little Oasis of Germany here in Los Angeles called the Alpine Village. it's the Home of Oktoberfest, and of all things German. The waitresses wear those St. Pauli girl bodices, much to the delight of male patrons.

But I wasn't there for the cleavage. I had in on good authority that Monday nights is free swing dancing. I headed down there to check it out.

Unbelievable. The live band was really excellent. I have been used to ska-type San Francisco swing, but these guys were mellow and sophisticated. Horns, keyboard, drums, they were pros.

I got there before my friend did, the traffic was really light. MLK day and all. So I sat down by the huge dance floor and watched the original swinger go to it.

I mean original. The median age of the dancers out there had to be in the 70s. But they could do it! Those men in their suits! And the ladies with their cute dresses and piled up hair were floating and twirling with style.

I had barely had a chance to take it all in before a fly septegenarian stepped up to my table. "Would you like to dance?" he asked. He had on zoot suit pants, a styling bow-tie and an immaculate white shirt.

I couldn't say no! He was an amazing dancer. A really strong lead, and after a few seconds, he had me dancing things I'd never danced before.

His name was Marco, and he actually knew Robert, the friend I was waiting for. He said, "The YOUNG people usually sit over there in that corner. There is a second dance floor behind the band."

It was all I could do to keep up with him. We danced half a dozen dances before he relinquished me. What energy!

I sat down, still looking for Robert. But I couldn't stay there long. Another gentleman, whose name I never caught asked me to dance. He was a little more staid, but he kept up a conversation the whole time about his travels over the world.

Robert did arrive, and he and I had a great time dancing. But I am still impressed with those gentlemen.

Ladies, if you want to see real charm and remember what it's like for a man to treat you like a queen, go down and dance with the men of monday night at the Alpine Village.

2003-01-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

I met some new friends this weekend...Amy and Jamie. Amy just moved here from Virginia. She is aspiring to be...a singer? an Actress? whatever works.

She was aspiring for a long time to live in LA. Now she is, so she feels like she's made serious progress.

Her full name is Amanda, but she doesn't like it. She said that she went by "Amanda" for a brief, weird period in time. Apparently, the guy she was dating knew a different Amy that treated him badly. He didn't want to call her Amy, too.

That relationship ended.

But Amy was thinking that she might need a new name for her new city.

"What do you think?" she said. "I want something more powerful! Amy is a very passive name."

Jamie was having nothing to do with this. "Your name is your name. You are who your name is. You can't just change it!"

Well, that's not my philosophy at all! Those of you who know me understand that I have unique naming conventions. MURPHY is not my real name...

So I looked at Amy and tried to think of more powerful names. "Rebekah?" I said.

"Hmmm..." was her response.

"Well, let's see...you want powerful names...maybe a verb.
I have it! 'Di' as in Diana! That's a powerful name!!"

Jamie didn't think that was funny, but _I_ thought it was hilarious.

This got me thinking about action verb names. Right then, I couldn't think of any other feminine names that were action verbs. Jamie wasn't playing, anyway, so I let it drop.

But TODAY!

While setting up a video conference for someone by new conference producer appears on the TV screen and introduces himself, "Hello, This is Neil. I will be your producer today.

"Neil?" I said. "That's one of those cool action verb names."

Neil himself was very cool. I told him that there weren't very many female verb names, and about Amy, nee "Di".

So we both started thinking of names. I told him they were mostly masculine names. "Like Stu."

He smiled. "Yeah... And Phil!"

That made me laugh.

But Neil was challenged now. He had to think of girl's names.

"Carrie!"

"Ooh! good one."

Neil works in a big conference support pool, so he got the other guys involved in coming up with names. I walk like a wraith from conference room to conference room, so I didn' have any help. He starts calling out the suggestions:

"Nick!"
"Bob!"
"Chuck!"

"Oh yeah!" I said. "Mark! How could I forget my own brother's name?"

Things were quiet for a while. We were thinking.

It took us a while, but we came up with these names:
Neil
Carrie
Mary
Stu
Phil
Barry
Nick
Pat
Bob
Mark
Di
Chip
Chuck
Flo
March
Carol
Chase
Mike

And, after some discussion, we included:
Eddie
Peg
Jimmy

We were concerned that Peg and Eddie might be nouns, and Jimmy may be one of those names that became a verb because of the person who first performed that action. "To Jimmy" a lock...It may have become a verb because of the original "Jimmy" who invented that action upon the lock.

ANYWAY.

It was very amusing. And Neil was a great sport.

2003-01-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

Bee Gees member Maurice Gibbs passed away recently. That's sad, he was quite young.

This has given rise to some editorial reminisces about the 60s. Collin Levey, in her article for the WSJ, said this:

"The difference is that back in the baby boomers' youth, there were real edges of the envelope. The issues of sex and drugs and freedom and anger and war were new, and raw--they were also in the lyrics of the songs. "

Um..Sure. Sex, Drugs, Freedom and Anger were invented by the 60s generation. What geniuses they were.

I remember when I was a pre-teen, and I heard some straight-ahead rock music for the first time. I was so excited! I thought that this was the coolest thing I had ever heard! The guitars, and the energy. I bopped around telling everyone that THIS WAS THE BEST MUSIC EVER MADE.

It wasn't. I learned that when I grew up a little bit. There was better music out there. I gained some experience, some perspective, and was able to evaluate that music in a broader context.

I'm frustrated with narrow-minded view of history Levey's article represents. Were the hippies the only ones to experience free love? What about the Poet, Lord Bryon? He was a proponent of free love. And George Elliot, the female writer. She gave up the Victorian ideals of marriage and lived in sin with her soulmate, who happened to be married to someone else. She was shunned for that.

Anger...it had been done before the 60s. Ever hear of the French Revolution? And freedom. I think that Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson did some stuff along that line.

Coleridge wrote his drug-induced poem, Kubla Khan, in 1797. That's quite some time before Bob Marley.

Things happened in the 60s. If you lived through them, they may be particularly significant to you. But don't make them more than they were! Have some respect and humility. Every person take their place in history behind some people and ahead of others.

2003-01-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

Great minds think alike.

My friend Tantek just blogged about the artistic value of watching people in museums watching art. This idea has been actualized by Thomas Struth, and his exhibit is being shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Conveniently, the MOCA is located two blocks from where I work. I already did a review of it.

Tantek thought I needed to let you all know about this circular coincidence. Probably because he is really fond of mark-up and wants to encourage the proliferation of links.

But I think it's worth noting. Take it for what it is.

2003-01-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

B000002QTH

I am listening to my Best of the Blues CD at work today. GOOD GOOD stuff. Man, I tell you what. BB King and Bobby Bland are telling me they'd like to live the love they sing about. And BB wants me to know it's a stormy Monday.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Lovin it.

2003-01-08T23:31:00.000-08:00

I was born and raised in Alaska, but when I was seven, my family moved down to Humboldt County, California. We were only there four years, and then circumstances brought us back to Alaska

We didn’t have anything. We didn’t have much even in California, but we could only fit so much in the car. I think we each were allowed one box for our things. We had left the rest of our things behind, to be shipped up later when we had enough money for it. Dad had gone there ahead of us, to prepare the way.

The dear friends we had left behind, those wonderful church people, helped him out. He found a temporary job working as a shoe salesman. When the rest of the family made it up the Alaska-Canada highway in our 60s VW bus, they took all five of us in. Afterwards, another family rented the finished half of a duplex to us and we had a more permanent place to live.

Before the school year started, we got an excited phone call Pastor Frank. It was the first Moose Kill of the season, and they were giving it to us! All that beautiful moose meat, enough to eat on for months. All we had to do was come butcher it up.

Moose were killed all the time, hit by trucks or cars or on railroad tracks. Moose are big; a half-ton of meat and bone, so the state had developed a road kill list to salvage the meat. An organization, be it a church or charity or whatever, could sign up to be called when a dead moose became available.

Pastor Frank had been called, and had picked up the moose carcass. It was hanging up in his garage when he called us.

Welcome back to Alaska! Trying their hardest not to look the gift moose in the mouth, mom and dad gathered up their children to receive it.

I was confused about what was going on. “We’re going where?”

Mom said, “There’s been a moose kill, and we get to have the meat.”

This explanation in no way prepared me for the sight of a dead moose hanging on a hook in Pastor Frank’s garage. It was bloody and hairy and amazingly intact.
My 11-year-old mind was boggled. What were we supposed to do with this animal?

Pastor Frank knew exactly what to do. He was an avid hunter. I’m sure he enjoyed hunting, but a certain amount of practicality was involved: he had 8 children to feed. He got out all the butchering tools that he always used: several kinds of knives, a meat grinder, and a chainsaw.

He told us the first thing to do was to get the hide off the animal, and then cut it into smaller pieces. Then he would come back to tell us what to do next.

Take off the hide? We were at a loss. None of us had done this before, but this was not the time to be fainthearted. Frank had taken a knife to the edge of the moose’s abdomen, when it had been opened and gutted, and made some quick cuts, easily separating the skin from the muscle.

After he left, Mom started laughing in amazement and disbelief. She took up one of the knives. "Well, okay.." she said. I was right behind her with my own knife, and stood by trepidatiously as she pulled at the skin.

She bravely pulled the hide back, where Frank had cut. She stuck her knife in there, and made some stabs at it. I watched her, dumbly amazed. After a second or so, she said, “Oh, I see! If you use the knife to cut in the right place, it comes right off.”

She moved over so I could get started. I tried to cut in with my skinning knife, but for the first few times, I cut into the skin or the muscle and I couldn’t get it. She showed me that I should aim for the soft tissue in between the two. She was right; it was really easy when you cut in the right place.

Moose aren’t very clean. The hide was dirty, and when I cut into the muscle accidentally, there was blood. And there was a lot of goo involved with the tissuey parts. I washed my hands as often as I could

But the blood had only just begun. My father was eyeing the chainsaw. After we got the hide off, we had to cut that beast into manageable pieces. It had to be quartered, which meant cutting it into four pieces of one leg apiece. The chainsaw was the tool that the pros used.

My dad was not a pro, God bless him, but he fired that chainsaw up, gritted his teeth and set to it. VVVrrrr! He pushed that little chainsaw through the moose’s heavy bones as his wife and children stood around him with horrified and awestruck faces. We cheered when he finished, and he smiled at us above his bloody rubber apron.

Now we had manageable pieces to work with. But we didn’t know what to do next. None of us had done this before; my father was not a hunter. Any wild game that we'd eaten had been a present from someone else. We’d never gone through the whole process.

Pastor Frank must have heard the chainsaw, because he came back around and solved our dilemma.

“This is great!” he congratulated us. “It’s coming along fine.” He showed up how to string up the quarters on other hooks in the ceiling, and put containers beneath to catch the blood that dripped out.

He was going to throw away the hide, but my 13-year-old brother had plans for it. Pastor Frank was a cheerful man, and thought that was alright. The hide was set aside for later.

It was amazing that, even though the hide was completely removed, there still seemed to be hair everywhere.

The muscles of the skinned meat were pink and they shined like opals as they dripped blood down to the floor. They hung like nightmare wind chimes in the air. I poked at one. It swung a little.

“Oh, that’s right,” Pastor Frank said. “We have to be careful of this one leg.” He pointed his knife at one spot we hadn’t noticed. There was a big black blotch on the hindquarter. It looked like a marker had bled its ink. “That’s where the moose was hit when it was killed.” We were supposed to cut around it and toss the bad parts. When he cut into it to show us, the meat was all black and pussy.

Oh my.

“Oh, you’re really lucky!” he told us. “This one wasn’t banged up hardly at all. Sometimes, they are all torn up and you can’t get much meat of them. This one has plenty of good meat on it.”

He told us that we had to save the moose’s lower jaw to give to Fish and Game.

“Why do we have to give them the jaw?” my two brothers and I wanted to know.

“Oh, that’s just what they decided. You have to prove you didn’t get it illegally. They probably picked the jaw because it isn’t much use.”

So we pulled and hacked and got the jaw off the moose head and set it aside. The rest of the moose waited.

There was a lot of moose. Pastor Frank told us about his favorite cuts of meat, and how we should take the meat off the bones in certain ways, depending on how we were going to use it. When we had a family portion size, we had to wrap it in plastic wrap, and then wrap it again in freezer paper. We’d tape that into a neat package, and write on it what kind of cut it was.

Pastor Frank would rattle off different kinds of meat we could have. He kept saying, “It depends on what you like.” In our state, we were not up to making aesthetic dining choices. Dad finally asked him what he would do if it were his moose.

“Oh, I like to make it into mooseburger. You can always use mooseburger.”

As it turned out, mooseburger involved a few extra steps. You had to grind the meat up, which was not such a problem since there was a meat grinder installed in the garage. But you also had to add fat to the meat. Moose is lean meat, and hamburger is not lean. Apparently, we could go to the store and ask for lard.

Supermarkets in Alaska were prepared for this. I went with my mom to the store, and we asked for lard for mooseburger. They gave us several brown grocery sacks full of cubed fat pieces, charging us a nominal price per pound.

It took a lot of fat chunks to make hamburger. I think the ratio was half and half. After one person had sliced off pieces of meat from the bone, they would give them to the one running the hamburger grinder. The meat and fat chunks were put into the grinder, and had to be pushed down while someone worked the big metal handle in a circle. It took some strength make that handle go around. The meat was not always willing to be ground and squished through the holes at the end. We’d have to take the grinder apart and clean it out periodically before it would work again.

Every so often, someone would poke their head in and say hello. The grown children of Pastor Frank, neighbors, and church parishioners came by and chatted with us. Most of them had been through this before, and they told us stories of other moose butchering or hunting expeditions. We were happy to talk with them, even though we were covered in blood and elbows deep in moose meat. At that time, it was hard to think of interesting topics of conversation. Most of my brainpower was concentrated on not paying too much attention to how disgusting this whole process was.

Some of these experienced visitors had advice, which we really needed. One neighbor told us that we could make steaks and roasts out of larger cuts of meat. When we realized that we didn’t have to grind all of the meat, there was much rejoicing. Things went a little faster after that.

After the second day of butchering, it felt like quite enough. But we were not finished yet. One of our difficulties was that it was August, still summer. Moose kill in the winter kept better, because it was cold. But our meat would spoil if we did not deal with it quickly.

My poor father still had to go to his shoe salesman job during the day. Mom and us kids would work on the moose while he was at work. When he was done at with the shoes, he came straight over and starting cutting with the rest of us.

The third day was tough. We had seen a lot of meat and blood and muscles and tendons and cartilage and connecting tissue and arteries and moose anatomy. It was hard to go back and do it some more. And dad had to face all that after a day at work.

That last day we gave up on mooseburger. We made a lot of stew meat in chunks. We cut big roasts. Even some extraordinarily large ones. “It will be our Christmas roast!” we said. I think we had five Christmas roasts by the end of the day.

I was so glad to see the end of that day.

We ate a tremendous amount of moose meat that winter. Moose stew. Moose burger. And everything seemed to have a few brown moose hairs in it. The stray hairs were especially insidious in the stews. They would float away from the meat and rise to the top. When you would bring your spoon to your mouth for a sip of broth, suddenly you would feel a wiry two-inch hair on the roof of your mouth. We all had little collections of discarded hairs next to our plates.

The full moose hide had been saved by my brother, because he wanted to tan it. He was quite excited about it. He had read that you could use Alaskan Sourdough to tan hides. He informed everyone that sourdough would do the trick and he was going to be the proud owner of a tanned moose hide.

Mom said, “You can do whatever you want, but make sure you keep it away from the house.”

This was something of a disappointment to Chris, since he really wanted to nail the hide to the side of the house. That was the way real trappers did it. But he got over it, and tromped off to the woods with a crock of sourdough and the moose hide.

I had had enough of moose in the raw for a while, so I did not follow him. But a few days later, I thought of it.

“Hey Chris, how’s your Moose hide? Did you cover it with sourdough?”

He looked down. Apparently the tanning process is harder than it looked. He said that he had covered it in sourdough and left it hanging over a tree branch. But he went back in a day, and it was covered in maggots. Since it was turning green and festering, he had to give up the project.

I don’t know where he put the thing. I think he buried it.

After many months of moose meat and moose burger and moose stew, when Christmas came the Christmas moose roast was less special. But everytime one of us went to the freezer to get more meat, we reminded each other that we had a package in there waiting, labeled "CHRISTMAS ROAST." There was no way around it, when Christmas came, we were obligated.

Mom cooked it up really good. She had enough practice with moose meat by now. It was pretty good.

2003-01-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

My friend Tantek made a list of what he did for his first day back at work in the new year.

He took a much longer holiday than I did. Must be nice!

BUT he also worked a TWELVE HOUR DAY upon return. GEEK!

This is what I did on January 2nd, my first day of work in the new year:

*Got in at 8:30. Habit. It's nice to come early, so I can leave early.

*Check my email. Both work and yahoo. Yahoo comes up faster and is more interesting than my work email.

*Noticed that one half of my co-workers were gone.

*Went to coffee room to get coffee and Microwave my Kasha cereal

*Ate and drank the above.

*Called all the telcom companies who my company uses and who are irritating me.

*Ordered a new cell phone for someone.

*deleted the 5,000 odd spam emails that were in my Inbox. Including one about a teenage girl and a horse that I REALLY wish had not passed in front of my eyes.

*Answered my personal email

*Started a really interesting email discussion about which movies of the '80s were great, and why films buffs ignore the '80s so much

*Did some other work stuff

*Answered a phone call, giving answer #32 of my arsenal, describing the difference between a phone conference and a video conferene. "In a phone conference, you use a phone and you only hear the other participants. In a VIDEO conference, you see the other side. There's a TV in the room, and it talks to you."

*Started a video call

*Surfed

*Deposited my paycheck

*Checked my bank account online.

*Perused my Y-T-D totals sadly, contemplating that taxes were only getting worse and that I made a lot more last year.

*Watered my plant

*More work stuff

*Left kind of late, because I was waiting for a phone call about the next day's meeting.

*Worked 9 hours

I've left a few things out, but that pretty much covers it.

I think in my next post, I'm gonna lie.

2003-01-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

I had a fabulous weekend. Lots of fun and fun people.

Sunday was the day I caught up on all my errands and chores. While I was out grocery shopping, I decided to give myself a treat and go to Eastside Records. It's a great record shop near where I live. My co-worker had recommended it. She said that poeple who work in the industry sold their extras there, and they were cheap.

Cheap is good! They had a lot of different things for sale: CDs, Vinyl, VHS and DVDs. There was not very much organization; they are really set up to browse. They only have the mediums organized into general categories, such as rock & pop, COuntry & Folk, etc. No other order is imposed on the stacks. But there is a lot of room, and things are cheap.

I was thrilled to pick up the latest Alanis Morrissette CD and the latest Counting Crows. I'm gonna get pissed and depressed really good!

Anyway, I didn' t have a chance to listen to them at home, so I brought the CDs to work. I have a huge set of headphones plugged into my computer.

My boss jokes that I look like I'm landing planes. I tell him that at least no one will talk to me and THINK I'm hearing them when I'm really listening to music.

Whatever. I'm not buying new headphones to please him.

So I pop in the Alanis CD into my CD rom, all set to be pissed.

No Dice.

I pop in Hard Candy, ready to be depressed if I can't be pissed.

No luck.

KNOW WHY? The stupid record execs, who had made these two enhanced CDs, have forgotten to put a listening link on the menu of choices available.

Didn't they realize that people who would use the enhanced CD technology would be the same people who use their computers to listen to the CD?
Yes, thank you very much, I can access the "secret website" from the CD, i'm thrilled, yadda yadda.

HOWEVER, I cannot listen to the CDs I paid for.

Sheesh. Get a clue.

2003-01-03T21:49:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody!

Here is your chance to vote and be heard. The new design for the California Quarter is being chosen. You know how they are working on making 25-cent pieces now for every state?

You can affect the process! Go to THIS website, and be heard.

As far as I can tell, you do not have to be from California to vote. Heck, I don't think you even have to be american.

Just imagine how pleased you will be to find that your choice ends up being on a quarter.

Let your voice be heard!

2003-01-03T15:33:00.000-08:00

Hey, My archives had disappeared!

Thank you for visiting my site anyway. I was looking through the visitors, and I realized a lot of them were going to a really old post.

When I checked, I saw that was the only one of my archives available. Thank you for your patience, and come again.

The rest of the posts are up now.

2002-12-31T11:18:00.000-08:00

It's cold outside, and my coat smells like a skunk farted on it.

I noticed the smell yesterday. I've been wearing the coat for months. It's a nice warm wool blend coat, grey and tailored to just above my knee. Very cute.

But as I was waiting at the bus stop, I smelled it. The bus came right then, so I was distracted.

The smell came with me on the bus. Now, powerful smells on the bus are not such an extraordinary thing. With all the people riding, you learn to let these things pass.

The smell came with me to work. It was undeniable now.

WHAT was that smell coming from? I was wearing a cute vintage blazer. It's vintage, maybe it smelled.

I sniffed it thoroughly. No, it didn't seem to have a strong odor. The most I could detect was a slight dusty smell.

The smell I smelled had strong sheep tones. It had to be my jacket. I smelled and smelled and resmelled the collar. I couldn't seem to find the source of the powerful stench that surrounded me when I wore it.

The only explanation I could think of, was that it was the kind of smell that faded with deeper sniffing. Like, you could really smell it when you weren't paying close attention, but if you sniffed harder it lost the edge.

I decided that I would sponge the coat down with some ammonia. That would un-stench the coat nicely.

I checked every cupboard in my house. I have furniture polish, copper polish, Tilex, some cleaner a guy sold me door-to-door, PineSol and scrubbing baking soda. But no Ammonia. I swear I had a big yellow gallon of it. II must have thrown it away when I moved.

So now I am wearing the stinky coat again today. It's cold outside! This close proximity has given me more opportunity to search for the source.

Eureka. The left front, starting under the armpit and moving forward. It's not on the right side.

It's unmistakable. I had been limiting my sniffs to the collar area, around my head. I didn't think of the pits.

I suspect the cat may have played a part in this extreme centralization of stink.

Maybe not, though. It smelled much more sheepish than cattish.

Perhaps it was damp in that one area and some kind of sheep-stench bacteria set in.

Well, what's to be done? I'll be celebrating the New Year in a skunk-fart coat.

2002-12-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

The holiday season is almost over, and it’s been wonderful. Presents, decorations, yummy food and all that.

And let us not forget: TIME WITH OUR FAMILY. I love my family so much. My mom and dad, and my brothers are really great people. They are intelligent and exuberant about all kinds of things.

But they still drive me crazy, and in ways that could only work between just us. No one else would be so irritated at that casual remark tossed off about my job, or choice of living arrangement.

I remember that I spent years in my early 20s convinced that my parents were supremely strange and inappropriate. I alone suffered under idiosyncrasies and impossible, illogical standards for behavior.

I’m sure you all can see what’s coming. I began to share my rants with other people, and discovered that this parent difficulty is nearly universal. Everyone is made crazy by their parents.

Some people are more softhearted than I am, and handle it more graciously. God will reward them, I am sure.

But in the meantime, I have a fantasy scenario that will solve the problem.

Let’s all switch! Take one step to the side, and take the parents of someone else.

Since most parents are benign and the irritating things they do only annoy their own children, the substitute children will be unaffected. The arsenal of time-honed barbs will bounce off the hide of the substitute. The oft-repeated jokes will have fresh ears, and become amusing once more. The weekly question about how to work email (yes, the same one) will not have built up into the spluttery incomprehensible answer now doled out on a weekly basis. The new child will simply answer. Perhaps even, from a new mouth, the answer will be retained.

The child-provided needs of the parents will be met much more efficiently and with better good will. I know I would take care of another person’s parents admirably.

As for my own….

2002-12-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

I had a marvelous Christmas with my family!

This Christmas was the one where I got to be the hostess. I had been thinking about what to do, and what to cook, for a long time. My mother told me they were coming over since before Thanksgiving.

Notice, I say she told me they were coming. She did not ask. She told.

But after I got over being volunteered to host everyone I got kind of excited. I went and got a tree and decorated it, with red and white lights and green and red balls.

I thought a lot about what to cook. I have become very involved with cooking since my dad gave me pots for christmas last year.

So often the right tool can make all the difference. I didn't have any pots. Hard to cook without pots. When I got the pots, it was like a dam burst. I could cook!

My sweet boyfriend is not very much fun to cook for. He does not like vegetables, fruit, spices, or anything he has not eaten before. Basically, he likes to eat beef and candy.

I like candy just fine, butI don't like beef very much. In fact, I like to cook things that involve a LOT of spices. Spices are the most fun part! And I love California's fresh vegetables.So basically, I cook for one.

But my family likes to eat! We all love to eat, so I was excited to cook for them.

I fired up the family sourdough. If you don't know about sourdough, you just don't know. God made sourdough, and we are the grateful recipients of this gift.

I made sourdough rolls, small hard hearty knobs of good stick-to-your-ribs-through-a-blizzard bread. Yes! I have NO idea was evil things those folks in San Francisco do to their bread to make it fluffy and light. MY sourdough bread is something that you really chew.

I made a ham. I didn't have pineapples or cloves, so I dumped some canned apples over it, and smeared brown sugar and salt on it. Then I remembered I had some clove oil, so I put some of it in a glass of water and dumped it over the ham.

That washed all the pretty brown sugar off. I was happily envisioning that sugar crusting and carmelizing all pretty. Now it was gone. Oh well.

I also made some Turnips and Mashed potatoes. My new specialty. MmM!

My stuffing was not stuffing. You can't stuff a ham! But neither can you have a holiday dinner without stuffing. I went to THREE stores to shop for everything I wanted for Christmas, but I did not encounter bread cubes. Sheesh. SO I bought my own loaf of bread, toasted it, and left it out to get dry and stale. While it was staling, I sauteed an onion and some celery. I added lots of interesting spices: Basil, Oregano, Thyme, sage and salt and pepper. After it was mostly done, I remembered that I wanted to use some apple in there. I quickly chopped an apple and sauteed that too. MM! Then I chopped up a link of pesto chicken sausage and sauteed that in there, too. I left that in the fridge the night before. The day of the dinner, I took it out and put the bread in with in, and some precooked kasha, to add interest. I tossed it all, with a little water, and put in in a bread pan to cook.

I made a mostly whole-foods version of the green bean casserole. I didn't want to use the french-fried onions. Fried was to be avoided. I did use Cream of Mushroom soup can, a half of one, but the rest was yummy frozen green beans and frozen mushroom, and some milk, and crackers. It turned out quite well, but I might have put some onions in. Onions are so good!

I also made the jello very early. We have a tradition of green jello with grated carrots in it. Nasty! We have vetoed this tradition after we were old enough to realize we could. We've compromised on Green jello with pinapple.

Well, I didn't have any green jello. And I wasn't going to the store AGAIN! Red jello would have to do. I made it and dumped in the pinapple.

Did you know that there is a trick to adding fruit to jello? I read about it right after I dumped the pineapple in. Apparently, you have to let it "set" for a little bit and then stir in the fruit. Otherwise, the fruit will just sit in high concentrations at the bottom.

My red jello had mysterious objects suspended in the bottom when it reached the table. If you looked from the side, you could see the pineapple chunks. But from the top it was murky and somewhat ominous. But my family are heroic eaters! They dove right in!

Well, that was pretty much what we had for dinner.

But the breakfast before was really really yummy. Sourdough pancakes! The taste of my homeland! Alaska sourdough pancakes are quite light and fluffy. Mmmm! Waffles are even better, but I don't have a waffle iron anymore.

I made rhubarb and strawberry syrup, from frozen strawberries and rhubarb. Now, I am not surprised to find frozen strawberries. But rhubarb was quite a find! Rhubarb is also a taste of home. Rhubarb will grow in alaska. So will strawberries. So I cooked them with some sugar in a saucepan, and boiled and boiled it, until they were all melted into a mass of tartly sweet thick liquid. I had to watch it to keep it from boiling over while I flipped the pancakes. I was mostly successful.

The sourdough pancakes were coming along beautifully. I'm glad I made a double batch, because mom, dad and I ate every single one. The recipe calls for the sourdough started to be mixed with oil and eggs, and then you pour in soda. The soda reacts with the sourdough, fizzing it up. The result is an extremely airy and fluffly light pancake.

Oh my goodness! When we sat down with our sweet pancake, and poured the mashy rubarb syrup on it, I took and bite and when to heaven! I knew it was going to be good, but I had undersestimated myself! Screw maple syrup! Rhubarb is the way to go. I'm making that again.

I was full of sourdough and rhubarb-flavored christmas cheer when I set about making the above-described christmas dinner.

There were, of course, cookies as well. I had been avoiding making cookies. I try to be good! but my Aunt Pat had circumvented my good intentions! God bless her! She had sent a little box of goodies with my dad for all of us to share.

SHe had shortbread and some cinnamony mexican shortbread cookies in the shape of logs. There was homemade caramels, and Russian Tea cakes. Pecan sandies which were nice and chewy, and a few things I am forgetting.

But I do not forget the toffee. I love toffee. She had made lovely chunks of rich toffee with almonds in it, and covered in melty dark chocolate that was rolled in walnuts from their own tree.

Know how I know they were walnuts from their own tree? Aunt Pat always sends things with walnuts from their own tree. Walnuts are good! But Aunt Pat's walnuts goodies come with the inevitable bits of shell shrapnel. I learned young to crunch lightly.

Then there is also the traditional shrimp crap. That's what we've called it recently, to my mother's utter horror! "Don't call it ' crap'!"

Of course we say it with fondness! It is a highly favored dish. Basically, you take a large plate and smear cream cheese on it. Then, in a separate dish, you take a bunh of ketchup and a little horseradish and a can of chopped shrimp and stir it all together.

I learned by trying it, it's best to DRAIN the can of shrimp. Word to the wise.

But you stir the drained shrimp and ketchup and horseradish into a red muck. Then you drop in on top of the cream cheese and smear it around.
THen you take ritz crackers, and lay then in an attractive circle around the plate.

YUM! you dip the crackers in the cheese and shrimp and eat away. Sometimes we would have to make it twice.

This year, I was talked into buying jumbo shrimp by a sneaky sample-offering guy at the store.

So I did everything the same, but I didn't put shrimp in the ketchup. I lay the big shrimp around the plate in an attractive pattern, and put the crackers on a bowl nearby.

We didn't finish the plate this year. But maybe that's because half the family was elsewhere, and because everyone was full of rhubarb pancakes. I don't know.

But perhaps next year I will not mess with a winner.

I have not described the Christmas EVE dinner. That has a specific history which deserves it's own place. I will get to that later.

2002-12-25T01:52:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

(LUKE 2:1)
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David,Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

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

I encourage you all to be like the shepherds, who go to "see this thing which is come to pass" rather than the people who only heard and wondered.

2002-12-23T16:27:00.000-08:00

This was obviously Cross-Posted on Blogcritics. But I didn't want my own blog to miss out
***

Blogcritics is a beautiful thing. And I don't care if it's self-promotion, it deserves to be said. It's a wonderful thing to have a collection of interesting people giving their own opinions and publishing them in a place that others can get to.

It's hard to find fresh and unfettered points of view sometimes.

Except on the internet! The internet is full of that sort of thing.

If you know where to look.

I know we are supposed to point to Amazon.com when we recommend a book. It's kind of cheating, but I want to recommend a book.

San Francisco Stories by Derek Powazek is a really good collection of stories. Derek caught the mood of foggy, laid-back, soul-searching San Francisco.

If you love the City by the Bay, or even just the idea of it, get the book!

I know you San Francisco-philes would love the feeling of getting an off-the-beaten-track book as well.

Derek started this thing as a website, sfstories.com. I don't remember how I stumbled upon it, but it touched me and I kept coming back.

I don't live in the bay area anymore, but I went back there recently and found out he'd made a book.

GO, web-boy, GO!

So check it out. It's worth a look.

2002-12-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

Readers, I am so excited about The Lord of The Rings movie coming out!

I was talking to a friend at work, and I mentioned some of the background mythology for this story. He wanted more information about it. Well, I started to write an email, and I couldn't stop. It's more of a blog post. Here you are:

Beowulf is one of the oldest books in ancient English (Anglo Saxon) still around. Originally, literacy in the British Isles was concentrated in Latin, since Latin was the language of their ruling elite, the Romans.

Although the Brits had their own language and writing (known as runes), they mostly relayed their cultural stories through word of mouth (oral tradition). Beowulf is only one of these stories, and it is highly treasured because it is one of the very few peeks we have into the culture of the Anglo-Saxons (MY people-transparently white child that I am).

I know of two main reasons why more stories didn't survive:
one, the advent of Christianity created an unfavorable environment for stories about pagan deities. The British Isles, and especially Ireland, really embraced Christianity when it arrived. Some of the stories were christianized, and deities and legendary heroes got cleaned up into "saints."

Beowulf has some christianizing in it too.

But the second reason is because of the Norman invasion.In the 11th century, I think, the French came in and enslaved (enserfed?) all the Anglo-Saxons. The Roman empire had long been dead, although Latin was still the Lingua Franca. But Anglo-Saxon writing and speech was what ordinary people used to communicate. When the French took over, they insisted that everyone speak French. Servants only spoke English to each other. And naturally, they had limited time to chew the fat. The complicated grammatical structure of Anglo-Saxon got mushed into a quicker, less nuanced speech. Anglo-Saxon wasn't really taught; if a person went to be educated, they learned Latin or French. The Anglo-Saxon words that survive in English today are servants words. Swine for a live pig, but the Norman Pork for the meat (the only part that the Lord of the manor would see). Interestingly, all the cuss words survive.

Some of that Norman/Anglo-Saxon antagonism is played on in Monty Python's Holy Grail. You've seen it, I imagine.

But English was saved, as a language, when Chaucer decided to write his "Canterbury Tales" in English. His patrons were Norman nobility, and there was a current of thought at the time which said that nothing poetic could come from this servant language. But the Canterbury Tales were written entirely in English, and this bold statement on the part of Chaucer encouraged many others to attempt the same. Shakespeare would never have written the way he did if not for Chaucer.

Of course, after Shakespeare all kinds of things happened. He was part of the renaissance, then the Age of Reason (aka the age of revolutions: American, French) happened. Then the Romantic period followed that, reacting to the cold idealization of reason. The Romantic period focused on the beauty of nature, and the transformative power of love and higher emotions. Nature elicited those emotions, so nature (with or without the concept of the Christian God, which had suffered some blows during that "reason" period), nature was raised as a saving mercy. The beauty of nature was a place of refuge and a reminder of the beauty of life, a sort of reassurance that good things endure. Thoreau, who wrote Walden, was on the tail end of the American Romantic period.

But then the INDUSTRIAL AGE began. English and American capitalists started raping and pillaging NATURE for fun and profit. Actually, all kinds of capitalists were doing it, not just the English-speaking ones.

Also, around this time, Darwin and other naturalists starting coming up with plausible theories that did away with the need for a benevolent deity. "Survival of the Fittest" was a philosophy that knocked the stuffing out of the idea of nature as a beautiful restorative refuge. Nature wanted to kill you, so that it could eat you. And if you couldn't thrive, it was probably just as well that you died. One less weak genetic contributor.

How horrifying! You can imagine the slow, sick realization of all these things. The Victorian English ended up focusing primarily on appearances. Keeping a stiff upper lip, doing your duty for your country, and not upsetting society. America also had strong middle-class bourgeois tendencies. Certainly, we were happy to keep any new immigrant class "in their proper place", often using the new Darwinistic philosophies to justify the mistreatment of other nationalities and the prejudicial racist treatment of African-Americans. "Nature" had made things hard, and the dominant culture took their dominant status as their natural (god-given?) right.

It was the "enlightened" and "modern" way of thinking. Do your duty, do the right thing for no other reason that that it was right. Until World War one happened. Then the "right thing" led to all kinds of wrong things. Thousands and thousands of good people, young upstanding soldiers died fighting for the meaningless cause of a few miles, a few feet of dirt.

The soldiers got really close to nature then. Sitting for months in their foxholes, seeing nothing but dirt, mud, excrement and the bodies of their mates decomposing nearby.

When it was all over, not much had changed but their attitudes. The "modern" way of thinking now meant utter disillusionment. It is no accident that the era was called "The Depression." God was irrelevant, nature meaningless, and hope was scarce.

It was during this period of time that J.R.R. Tolkein conceived the story of Middle Earth.
You thought I was never gonna take it back around, didn't you?

Now, most of what _I_ know about concerns the cultures that speak English--America and England. To have the full picture, I will eventually have to learn more about Germany. Because the Germans were REALLY the ones who pursued heroic legends and folks tales. They started it much sooner than the English did. Remember the Brother's Grimm fairy tales? Now that people have started to study fairy tales more extensively, we have found that they are STUNNINGLY similar across cultures. I think I read that almost every culture has a Cinderella story, which is my personal favorite.

But the German stories were very close to English stories. We actually are a Germanic people, sharing a culture with the folks over there in what's now called Germany. Wagner also took a well-known Norse legend and made it into his Ring Cycle.

Did I say "ring"? Why, yes I did! It's the same ring from essentially the same story that Tolkien was ripping off of.

But let me focus on Tolkien again. He was a Medieval scholar at Oxford, and he was probably one of the weirdest guys there. He hung out with C.S. Lewis, of Narnia fame, while he was there. I"ve been to the pub in Oxford where they all hung out. They would have a pint and read their writing to each other. Tolkien was obsessed with the Medieval legends; he has also published a version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated for the Middle English. He knew all the stories live he was living in them.

I think he tried to live in them. I have read that he wrote the Lord of The Rings series in a made-up langauge (elfin, maybe?) and then TRANSLATED it into modern English.

COOkOO!

But it is my opinion that he was trying to escape into another world. This one wasn't offering much, and he wanted to retreat into a place where heroism and courage and honor still counted.

You notice, I"m sure, that one of the characteristics of a "fantasy novel" is that it takes place before any industrialism. About the most technological they get is a windmill.

And Tolkien was the one in the English language that created the foundation of a complicated fantasy world.His universe is extremely fleshed out. He is as obsessed as you want to be. And many of his fans today are quite obsessed.

But see, he wrote these books in a particular place in time.They were moderately popular in his time, because people felt an affinity for the world that he had created. The novels are complicated. They begin in the middle, the way life does. The characters do something that will have an effect beyond the scope of the novel. They have done something lasting and meaningful. Their heroism is not wasted or twisted into evil ends, as was the heroism of the WWI soldiers.

Basically, Tolkien was calling on the power of myth, the myths that had evolved and been honed through generations of wise and intuitive storytellers. He knew the myths of his culture forward and back; and he dramatized them anew for modern sensibilities.

Society was sick and needed to hear a story. The story they needed was essentially the one we needed all along. Moses, Homer, and wise clan leaders told the stories. Tolkien put it in the language modern readers could understand, with the structure we were used to now. We didn't use poetic chants...We use dialogue and description.

We don't use campfires so much. We use ink and paper.

As I said, the Lord of the Ring was moderately popular when Tolkien first published it. But it wasn't until the hippies rediscovered it that it went platinum, so to speak.

The hippies were sick of the old ways, and they BELIEVED in a new order. Frodo's heroism was possible for them, they knew it! Hope was everywhere, and so were the Hobbit books.

This is also when the fantasy book market opened up.

NOW, with all that intro
(I am nothing if not thorough)
I would like to propose some of the original myth stories to be read by a fan of fantasy.

TRY
Beowulf
Sigurd the Dragon Slayer
Tales of King Arthur
All fairy tales
the Grimm fairy tales
fairy tales of any culture, particularly of the culture you are from
(if you are an American mutt like me, go for ALL the cultures that are in your mix)
The Iliad & The Odyssey
Gilgamesh
the Aenid (although, that's an artificial myth, just like Tolkien's)
Greek Drama (yeah, like Oedipus Rex)

All these are a little difficult to engage, because they are not told in the way we are used to. We are accustomed to being entertained in certain set ways, for plots to move in certain patterns. These stories pre-date those templates.

But they are worth the trouble of reading. You will find that they stay on your mind in ways you didn't expect. And they don't go away. The images stay, working as metaphors that give you handles on life's confusing moments.

That's what they are supposed to do.

And for learning more about myths, as a topic, I cannot more highly recommend Joseph Campbell.

2002-12-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

My friend Tantek had some stuff to say about Mythology and Science.

The story of the Priest scientifically explaining that Santa could not possibly deliver all the toys in one evening is pretty ironic. Imagine! I'm sure the priest wanted to scientifically disprove Santa's existence in order to move the emphasis back to the TRUE reason for Christmas, which is the arrival of the omnipotent GOD in the form of a human baby concieved by a woman who had never engaged in sex.

Scientifically, it is impossible for Santa to exist!
Science is a wonderful thing. I love Science, and I know people who love it even more. It is SO NICE to have proof, and be absolutely sure. If you are wondering about something, just throw some science at it, and out pops the answer.

Well...sometimes. When you are wondering what temperature water boils at, science is your tool. When you are trying to figure out how many CD's you can fit in the bookshelves you just inherited from your grandma, get out a measuring tape and a little science in the form of math, you have it.

But when you want to know how the world came into existence, science can't give you an absolute answer.

In order to use science, you have to be able to repeat the experiment. And we have not been able to create another world like the one we are in now.

Yet, here we are. The question remains. At that point, we have to lay down the tool of science and take up another: mythology.

Myths are humanity's way to address those portions of our experience that lay mostly beyond our reach.
Because there are so many things that we encounter in life, which we know intuitively to be much larger than the fragment we have experienced. We know that we are only encountering a small percent of what the whole entails.

Such as...
Love. We have all encountered some of it, but we know that there is so much more to this experience of love that we cannot have in our lifetime.

or Courage

and especially Truth

These are things we know, but have difficulty grasping and expressing.

And if we cannot even express the problem, the facts of the matter, how on earth are we going to find a way to design and implement a repeatable experiment?
Science cannot exist in this realm.

Not as we now understand scientific method.

But we have found other ways of giving shape to the unknown. We tell stories.
Important stories. Stories that are so important, we can't even say or fully know their importance even as we impart them.

Mythology gives structure and shape to higher things. It is invaluable. It gives us hope and courage to look for answers to any question we can concieve.

And if we did not have to courage to feed our curiousity, science would not have been developed.

It is a worthy thing to attempt large questions. It is wise to use the best tool. But it looks foolish to try to force the inappropriate tool when the correct tool lies within reach.

Science and Myth are not inherently in conflict. You just have to use them wisely.

2002-12-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

Some friends and I were wondering the other day, "How did New York City get to be called Gotham?"

We were in San Francisco, looking at some statues scattered all around. It reminded us of the Batman movies, where the city was filled with spooky gothic architecture and art.
"This looks like Gotham City," someone said.
"Yeah, but we're in San Francisco. Gotham is supposed to be New York."
"I wonder why they call it Gotham?"

That was the extent of it. But today I ran across something on a website www.writingclasses.com.

For you people like me who wonder about things, here's their story:

The Wise Men of Gotham [were], in English legend, wise fools, villagers of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, Eng. The story is that, threatened by a visit from King John (reigned 1199-1216), they decided to feign stupidity and avoid the expense entailed by the residence of the court. Royal messengers found them engaged in ridiculous tasks, such as trying to drown an eel and joining hands around a thorn bush to shut in a cuckoo. Hence, the king determined to stay elsewhere. The "foles of Gotham" are mentioned in the 15th-century Wakefield plays. Merrie Tales of the Mad-Men of Gottam, a collection of their jests, was published in the 16th century.
© Copyright 1994-1999 Encyclopædia Britannica

How Gotham Came to Be a Reference to New York City
Washington Irving applied the name to New York in an issue of a humorous magazine named Salmagundi. The name, by Washington Irving's time, had long been associated with stupidity, even though the original story was actually about a kind of twisted cleverness. Washington Irving thought this just the name to give to a city which he believed was inhabited by fools.
© Copyright 1996-2000 Michael B. Quinn from World Wide Words

2002-12-11T14:33:00.000-08:00

Park You Car in Harvard Yard by Israel Horovitz, produced by LA theater works

This was labelled as a COMEDY, which is completely incorrect. According to classical definitions, comedy ends in a marriage. Tragedy ends in death. Well, this ended in death.

You make the call.

Perhaps we've progressed beyond classical definitions, and find death the funniest thing we've ever heard?

Probably not. But there were a few funny moments in this play. Mostly not, though.

It's set in Massachusetts, a place that makes me think of my friend Christy. She lived there for a year. That's the east coast, the OLD part of America. They have a sense of the social class that we don't have as well defined here.

Imagine! Your family being in one area for generations, and all of them doing the same sort of work. Dock work, maybe. Or some kind of unskilled manual labor. Having the same few miles that you know. And not knowing at all how to get past them.

I don't respect those sorts of boundaries, I consider them a dare most of the time. As in, "I can't? Who says I can't? I'll show you!"

Anyway, the high school teacher that everyone was afraid of, for years and years, is finally on his deathbed. He needs someone to help him. And this woman comes to be his housekeeper until he dies.

She is his former student, only she doesn't tell him that right away. Some part of her hopes he will remember, but knows bitterly that he will not.

They have more things binding them together, being in the same place for so long, than you would expect.

He is full of rage and regret at how his life turned out.
She is too. And she actually blames him for a lot of it. Her ticket out was education, but he flunked her and slammed that door.

I'm mad at him too, for her. He should have been a better teacher, and tried to help them learn. He should not have held the bar so high and mocked his students when they could not pass it.

I think he was trying to illustrate dramatically how SUPERIOR he was to them.

But she should have kicked harder against her lot, if she really didn't like it.

At the end, though, they were both in the same neighborhood, they both endured the same cold winters.

How different are we, really?
These two were quite similar.

He was trying to die, which is a difficult thing. She was trying to live, which can be much harder at some times than at others.

2002-12-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

Here I am, in a beautiful hotel in my former neighborhood. It was so strange, to leave from an airport that I have never seen before and arrive in an airport that is so incredibly familiar.

Taking trips, plane trips, were so out of the question when I was small. I had been on a plane once, when I was five. But the rest of the time, planes were as far away as the moon. No money, no open door, no flight path.

So, when I got older, flights were very possible. I am nervous in airports, but I LOVE to fly.

And I was excited to leave from Burbank, to find out what this new airport was. It is kind of disappointing. San Francisco airport, the one that I know, that I have memories and stories in, is much nicer.

And here I am, in the shadow of the Transamerica pyramid, in this beautiful, amazing, creative, energetic, sexy city that I love so much.

It’s not MY city anymore. I’ve never lived here. But I lived for seven years in the San Francisco Bay Area...The Bay Area…That means that San Francisco is mine.

Well, the first few years were full of unhappy memories. But the last few years were the best in my life.

It is hard to think that I am not part of here anymore. Here is very much a part of me.

I live in Los Angeles now. And I really do live in Los Angeles…I live and work right in the middle of the city of Los Angeles. I am part of the city.

But this city is not really part of me. I don’t have so many stories here. I am still trying to grok this huge sprawling city. I am bewildered and intimidated by the highways and the styles. I am trying to understand what I should be afraid of; who I should be afraid of.

Everyone says there are things to be afraid of here. “Haven’t you HEARD of Compton? Don’t you know about Watts? And East L.A.?”

I think it’s sad that I have to learn to fear like that. But I do know that I, one person, cannot change decades of segregation by ignoring it. I have to be smart.

It takes a while to get used to a new place. I’ve moved enough to remember that. I have more experience, and I know that.

LA seems like it has a lot to offer. I have more to offer too.

I’m glad to be out of the bay area. There were too many bruises on the map, even though I had shining moments and places.

I’m happy to be in a place that I can make my own, now that I have more of my own to make with. It just feels empty until then.

I guess I’ve moved from a place I’ve grown out of into a place I haven’t grown into yet.

2002-12-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

Looking for something else, I stumbled upon a notebook musing from a few years ago:

I like best to see my face reflected in a window at night. The outline is clear, but the details are less distinct. It's such an accomplished [self-contained] pleasure, admiring my own reflection.

I once asked a man, at the beginning of a new romance, when we were first shyly revealing the traits we found marvelous and fascinating in each other, "Don't you think I see you differently than you see yourself?"

He considered and replied, "It's only natural. I know myself better than you do."

It was so easy for me to admire and cherish him. But he to himself and me to myself--it's not as easy. We know the blemishes.

When I look into a mirror--a clear flat, distinct and well-lit reflection--my eyes seek our all the imperfections. I put my face right close and examine all the planes and crevices. I wonder what I'm looking for? Don't I know my face already? I don't linger over the good features, but I move straight to mottles in my skin, or to my crooked teeth. Are my eyebrows incorrect? And which standard should I choose?

I want to believe I am beautiful. I want it so very badly. Because if I am beautiful, I will be loved. And if I am loved, then I will live in the sunshine and nothing can be wrong.

I don't undersatnd this trap, a slippery slop to never-fulfillment. What if I am loved, but am not beautiful? What if it rains on me and the ones who love me? It must be a flaw in me. When hard times come, it must be because I am not loved enough. But who could love me enough? I am not beautiful enough for that kind of love.

When I see myself in the night-window reflection, I am less distinct. I don't have to see the confusing minutia of my appearance. I can be pleased with the outline. I can love myself, forgive the imperfections. I can have what I so crave and not be indebted to someone else.

2002-12-02T23:17:00.000-08:00

Sigurd Part VI

At last, Sinfjotli was considered old enough by Sigmund to enact revenge upon Seggeir for Volsung’s death. Sigmund and Sinfjotli had been creating havoc in King Seggeir’s kingdom long enough; they wished to strike at the heart of their enemy.

Signy brought them into the palace, to begin their attack on her husband. But as they were waiting, one of Signy’s two young children ran into the room where they were hiding. He was chasing a toy, and he saw the two fierce men. He ran back to Seggeir’s chamber and told his father what he had seen.

Seggeir understood the significance of what the child said and prepared himself for attack. Signy discovered what had happened, and dragged her children to her brother and son: “These children have betrayed you,” she told Sigmund. “I suggest you kill them.”

Really, since he had killed the first two boys, it’s not so surprising that she would say this. I mean, it follows what happened before.

But maybe Sigmund was feeling guilty, or who knows what. He said, “I am loth to kill children of yours, even if they have betrayed me.” And he stood there.

Young Sinfjotli didn’t have this constraint of feeling. He killed his siblings right then and there.

The next thing you know, Seggeir has launched his attack. Sigmund and Sinfjotli have arrived at their hour of revenge, and they fought harder and stronger than ever before. But they could not prevail against Seggeir’s numbers, and he tied them up and threw them in jail.

While they sat there all day and night, Seggeir devised a special way for them to die. He built a traditional cairn, or burial mound. As a special torture, he put a huge stone slab through the center of the mound. He put the men into the burial mound, one on each side of the stone. He intended this to bury them alive, together but unable to help one another.

However, right before the mound was sealed, Signy managed to throw an armload of straw into the opening. But Seggeir sealed it up tightly, pleased to have devised this painful and humiliating death for his long enemies.

Sinfjotli looked through the straw. He said to Sigmund, “It looks like we won’t have to worry about food for a while, because my mother has thrown in some ham with the straw.”

But then he felt it; the hilt of Sigmund’s sword! He couldn’t see because of how dark it was, but this sword was unmistakable.

Sinfjotli plunged the sword into the slab of rock dividing the mound. Sigmund grasped the other end and they sawed their way through the slab. As soon as the slab was spilt, they worked together to hack and saw their way out of the burial mound.

They were free.

It was nighttime, and they made their way back to the hall to find Seggeir. Everyone was asleep, so they gathered fuel and firewood. They intended to set the great hall on fire and burn the king and all his men with it.

When they felt the heat and the smoke, the men in the hall woke up. The king demanded to know who had set the fire.

Sigmund rose up to accuse him. “Here I am, Sigmund, and my sister’s son, Sinfjotli. Now you know that all the Volsungs are not dead, and we remember that you are the one who killed our father.”

Signy came out to stand with her family against Seggeir:” Now you know that I have not forgotten who plotted to kill my father. I had our two youngest sons killed because they were not eager enough to avenge Volsung. Here is Sinfjotli, my child and Sigmund’s. He was conceived while I was disguised as a sorceress. His blood comes from a daughter and a son of Volsung, and he was always eager to kill you for your betrayal of my father.”

Sigmund put out his hand to lead his sister out of the burning hall, but she stopped him.

“I have worked for nothing but revenge. I have had my children killed for it, and devoted my whole life to it. I was unwilling to marry Seggeir, but now I will willingly die with him. It is all I am fit for.”

And she walked back into the fire, saying farewell to Sigmund and Sinfjotli. She died with everyone in the hall.

2002-12-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

I'm sure Sigurd would approve of the weekend I just had. Not a lot of killing, but excellent feasting and fellowship.

I've been TOO bogged down, and I have thoroughly missed hanging out with friends old and new. This Thanksgiving was a friend thanksgiving rather than a family one. It was very very nice.

Since I also did a lot of christmas shopping this weekend, I was feeling far more benevolent than usual. Well, according to lots of experts, a lot of us were feeling the Christmas spirit.Sales are supposed to be way up this weekend. I am looking forward to the pleasure in my friend's and family's eyes when they open the presents I get them.

I am a very social animal. Being around good friends revitalizes me. I now feel all recharged and ready to tackle new things. This, In reference to my blog, has caused me to look again at all the books I am in the MIDDLE of reading.

I'm still in the middle of
The Proud Tower, by Barbara Tuchman.
MiddleMarch by George Elliot
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman
The Prince by Machiavelli

Hmm...There's more, but I'm not at home and I don't remember what they are.

I just finished reading, but have not yet reviewed:
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

All of these I think are very worthy of being reviewed, but they are meatier than I have time to just dash off..Interestingly, Dr. Dolittle is the trickiest.

But what I am really excited about is this poster they are selling at the library...It is a poster/timeline/graph of all the major musical composers since the 1400s. It gives their names and their major works and places them in proximity with other contemporary composers.

This is tremendous! I mean, It's not like this information didn't exist before. But sometimes, the way information is presented can make all the difference.

I believe that music can convey the sense of an idea or an emotion in ways that other mediums cannot. I may say to you, "the 1600s in Europe was a time of humanistic exploration, with intense interest in rational exploration and characterized by a sense of self-confidence."

That's very dry.

But if I hear the music from that period, and put it into the context of what I know of the history and literature and art and architecture of the period, music can add a depth and fullness and richness to my partly formulated understanding. I am looking for that click, that "Oh!" moment, the moment when the discrete facts coalesce into a fluid understanding.

I would like to have a sense of the progression of the last 6 centuries. It takes much less time to listen to music than it does to read large tomes.

2002-12-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

Sigurd Part V

I warn you ahead of time, this part of the story is quite strange. I’m only telling it like it was told me, but you can make of it what you will.

Sigmund and Sinfjotli decided to go on a few adventures before planning their vengeance on Seggeir. They figured they had time. Besides, Sinfjotli was young and needed toughening up. To this end, they went around being bandits in the woods, killing and robbing people.

One day, when they were out looking for people to rob, they found a house, with two men asleep in it. The house had all kinds gold and treasure in it, and the men were covered with rings and such.

But above the men, there were two wolfskins. I don’t know if our Volsung men had figured this out beforehand, but the wolfskins were enchanted. As you have probably figured out though, they were not really men to step back and think anything over. They grabbed the wolfskins and tried them on.

Instantly, the skins became part of them. Lo and behold, our heroes had become what are now known as a werewolf. They ran and howled. Sigmund decided that they should look for more men to kill and rob. Sinfjotli and he separated, with the understanding that they would not take on more than 7 men without calling to the other for help.

Next thing you know, Sigmund runs into 7 guys. He howls for help, and Sinfjotli comes running. Between the two of them, they finish them off really quickly and separate again.

Next thing, Sinfjotli runs into 11 men, but he won’t howl for help. Maybe he was trying to impress Sigmund, maybe he thought Sigmund was being a wuss for calling for help even when there were under the agreed upon number of men, whatever. We lay into the eleven men, and slashed and snapped and fought and eventually kills them.

But he is badly wounded. Sigmund finds him, and realized what happened. He was so angry that he bit Sinfjotli’s throat.

That didn’t really help matters. He managed to pick Sinfjotli up, and drag him to their underground home. He realized then that he couldn’t get the wolfskin off, and he howled in frustration. He sat by Sinfjotli, trying to figure out what to do.

As he waited, he saw these other woodland creatures fighting. One of them bit the other’s throat, just like he had bitten Sinfjotli’s. Then he scampered off, returning with a leaf that he placed on the wound. The formerly wounded creature sprung up again, completely well.

Sigmund ran out to try and find the leaf! He saw a raven flying overhead, with a leaf. The raven dropped it, and Sigmund was able to take it back and heal Sinfjotli with it.

Both of them were pretty happy about this. They decided to lay low until they could get rid of the wolfskins. As soon as they were able to shuck them off, they burned them.

All this time, Sigmund never realized that Sinfjotli was not Seggeir’s son. Sinfjotli was always very anxious to get revenge on Seggeir.

2002-11-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

Sigurd Part IV

Signy went to Seggeir, privately, and said, “I think you shouldn’t kill my brothers right away, but you should put them in stocks. For my sake, please don’t kill them quite yet.”

Seggeir mocked her, “You are crazy! It is far worse for your proud brothers to be put in stocked that to be merely killed. I am happy to do what you ask; they should suffer more.”

Seggeir had a big tree trunk in the forest made into stocks that would fit all ten of the brothers at once. He clapped all of them in the stocks and left them there in the woods.

At night, they were still there, helpless. A huge hungry wolf found them, and ate one of them.

In the morning, Signy’s man told her what had happened. She was horrified and filled with grief, but there was nothing she could do. Every night, the wolf came back to eat another brother. At last, only Sigmund, her twin was left.

This time, Signy sent her man to Sigmund, with some honey. She told him to smear the honey all over Sigmund’s face and to put some in his mouth. This done, he went away and left Sigmund to his fate.

Naturally, the wolf came back again for her supper. But this time she smelled the honey. She licked it all off Sigmund’s face, and was beginning to lick the honey out of the inside of his mouth. Sigmund was ready for this, and when her tongue licked into his mouth, he bit down hard and wouldn’t let go.

The wolf jerked back in pain, and kicked at the tree to get away. The tree broke, freeing Sigmund. But he still wouldn’t let go! He clung onto the struggling wolf until her tongue ripped out, and she died.

Some people say that the wolf was Seggeir’s mother, who was a witch and could turn herself into other creatures. Could be. But Sigmund took care of her!

So now he is free! He ran into the woods and stayed there. Signy sent men to find out where he was, and when she found out, she went to him.

Together, they made him a cozy home in the ground in the woods. Sigmund stayed there for quite a while.

But King Seggeir thought he had killed the whole Volsung family. But Signy turned inside herself, plotting revenge.

She had two sons by Seggeir. When the oldest was ten, she sent him to see Sigmund, to see if he could help Sigmund take his revenge on Seggeir.
Sigmund received the boy, and talked with him for a while. Then he gave him a sack of flour and asked him to make bread while he went out to gather firewood.

This was just a test for the boy.

When Sigmund came back, he asked where the bread was. The boy said, “There was something in the bag, and I didn’t want to open in.”

Sigmund lost all respect for the boy, because he had no courage. He knew that the boy would be no help avenging their family.

When he saw Signy next, he told her that. Signy said, “Kill him them. I have no more use for him.” And Sigmund did.

When he next boy was old enough, the same thing happened to him.

Signy despaired of finding the proper man to help Sigmund take revenge upon Seggeir. She was sitting in her chamber, trying to decide what to do about it, when a sorceress of great skill came in to see her.

Signy saw her opportunity: “Change shapes with me!” The sorceress agreed. After all, Signy was the queen.

So they switched shapes, and the sorceress stayed in the palace. The king never knew it wasn’t Signy.

But Signy, in the shape of the sorceress, was off to the woods to see Sigmund. I’m only telling you what happened.

Signy went up to Sigmund’s door, “Please,” she said, “I am a poor woman, cold in the woods. Please let me in and give me shelter.”

Sigmund let her in and treated her well. He never had any idea that it was his sister. He fed her dinner and looked closely at her. She seemed like a fine woman to him. You can imagine what happened next. He asked her to sleep with him, and she did.

For three nights, they were together. Then Signy left to go back to the castle. She met with the sorceress and changed shapes again. No one ever knew.

But now she had a baby. He was the child of Sigmund. She named him Sinfjotli when he was born. As he grew up, he was strong and looked all Volsung. Well, he was.

Even before he was ten, Signy sent him to Sigmund. He went through the same bake-bread-while-I-gather-firewood scenario. When Sigmund came back, the bread was all ready for him.

Sigmund asked him if he had found anything in the flour. Sinfjotli replied, “I suspect there was something, but whatever it was, I just mixed it in with the bread.”

Sigmund was delighted with this response. He said, “You might not want to eat this bread for dinner tonight. You kneaded in the most poisonous snake into the bread.”

Sigmund ate the bread, though. He was tough enough to stand any poison. Sinfjotli could only stand external poison; he couldn’t eat it.

2002-11-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

Once the sword was out of the tree, everyone could see it was finer and more beautiful than they had even thought. Everyone admired it.

King Seggeir really wanted the sword. He said to Sigmund, “I’ll give you three times its weight in gold for that sword.”

I think this really shows that Seggeir was an idiot. Everyone in the hall knew that the sword was special, not something you just buy. Sigmund was meant to have it, and that’s why he was the only one who could pull it out.

Sigmund turned Seggeir down, “ You could have taken the sword from where it stood, no less than I did, if it were meant for you to carry it; but now that it has come first into my hands, you will never get it, even if you should offer me all the gold you own.”

Well. Seggeir did not like that answer one bit. He thought that Sigmund was being a snotty-nose punk and that he had no right to talk that way or even THINK that way about him, the mighty King Seggeir.

But he kept a straight face. He already knew how to lie. He didn’t say much more about it. But he decided he had to leave.

This was totally rude! Wedding feasts were supposed to go on for days and days. It gave everyone a chance to celebrate, and the family a chance to say goodbye to their daughter or sister. King Seggeir tried to cover up how rude he was being by saying, “You all must visit my kingdom soon. Everybody! Bring all your friends and servants and whoever you want! In three months, okay?”

Volsung and his family agreed to come, and Seggeir left with Signy.

Now this is where is gets sad. King Volsung and all his sons got ready and came when they promised, suspecting nothing. But when their boats reached King Seggeir’s kingdom it was dark.

Signy was waiting for them. She snuck up to see them, because she had to warn them.

She told her dad, “Seggeir has been waiting for you, but he has gathered together a huge army to fight with you and kill you. You must turn around at once. Gather up your armies and come back prepared to meet with him in battle! Otherwise, you will be trapped by his lies and surprise attack!”

But Volsung seemed to have a habit of not listening to his only daughter. He made light of the situation and got all heroic and fatalistic. This is exactly what he said:

“All peoples bear witness that unborn I spoke one word and made the vow that I would flee neither fire nor iron from fear, and so I have done until now. Why should I not fulfill that vow in my old age? Maidens will not taunt my sons during games by saying that they feared their deaths, for each man must at one time die. No one may escape dying that once, and it is my counsel that we not flee, but for our own part act the bravest. I have fought a hundred times, sometimes with a larger army and sometimes with a lesser on. Both ways I have had the victory, and it will not be reported that I either fled or asked for peace.”

Stubborn Volsung! He was being very brave, but I don’t think he was being very smart. In those days, our people felt like peace was another word for coward, or “not good enough to win.” He wouldn’t go back and regroup.

Signy was completely upset; she cried and said she wanted to stay with them and not go back to the wicked Seggeir. But her father told her that her duty was with her husband, no matter what happened with the battle.

She left, crying and distraught, to go back to her husband.

Volsung and all the brothers armed themselves and got ready for the war they knew would be happening. As soon as they stepped off the boat in the morning, they walked into Seggeir’s army.

Wow, they fought like the best, hacking and slashing their way through the ranks of the enemy. They had gone through the ranks eight times and were turning around to do it again, when Volsung fell. The brothers looked around, and realized that their father was down and the rest of their ranks were all down except for themselves, the ten sons of Volsung.

The odds were too great. Seggeir’s men captured them, and took them away bound in chains.

Signy heard about it pretty quickly. She was full of grief that her father was dead, but since her brothers were still alive, she wanted to do anything she could think of to help them.

2002-11-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

Volsung grew up and was really good at everything people wanted him to do. He could hunt, and he could fight. When he was old enough, Hrimnir sent his daughter Hjold to marry him.

Hjold was the one who had dropped the apple for Odin on Hrimnir's lap. She was a very special lady, not for just anybody. But Hrimnir could tell that Volsung was the right kind of man for her. They were married, and were incredibly close. They loved each other very much and told each other everything.

He had all kinds of treasure, and he had built a big hall to be his palace. The hall had a lot of marvelous things in it, but one of the most amazing was the big tree that grew in the middle of the hall. It was huge, with a strong trunk and branches that spread all throughout the roof. The tree would blossom beautifully; you can imagine how much they loved this tree and how proud they were. They called the tree Barnstock.

Volsung didn't have the same only-child problems his grandfather and father had. He and Hjold had 11 kids, 10 boys and 1 girl. First off, they had twins. That was where the daughter came in; the twins were a boy and a girl named Sigmund and Signy. They really were the rulers of the roost among the kids. Everyone knew they were the handsomest and the best at whatever. They were really good friends too.

After they had grown up, a neighboring king took interest in Signy. His name was Siggeir, and he was a very popular king. To Volsung and his sons, Siggeir seemed to be everything they could want for Signy. But Signy didn't like him.

Back in those days, women didn't really get to pick their own husband. Especially royalty. I mean, it's like that now, too. Political alliances and all kinds of other considerations got it the way. Maybe that's was Volsung was thinking about when he decided to let SIggeir marry Signy.

She was trying to be a good girl, and obey her father. She told him that she didn't want to marry Siggeir, but that she would do what he said.

Naturally, Volsung said marry him.

But at the wedding supper, the strangest thing happened! This old man, in a shabby hooded cloak and no shoes walked into the hall carrying a sword. Weirdest of all, he only had ONE EYE. Volsung's family and all the guests were so amazed, they completed forgot their manners and just stared at him.

This one-eyed man walked straight up to Barnstock and stabbed the sword into the tree all the way to the hilt. He announced, "He who draws the sword out of the trunk shall receive it from me as a gift, and he himself shall prove that he has never carried a better sword than this one."

Then, he turned around, and walked straight out of the room. That is all they heard from him.

As you can imagine, everyone was stunned!

But as soon as they came to themselves, there was a mad dash for the sword. All the men tried to pull it out. Every last one of them, regardless of rank, pulled and tugged and kicked and yanked at the sword, trying to get it out of the tree.

Everyone could see that it was a really good sword. Plus, they all wanted to prove that they were the ones worthy of the challenge.
Finally, after everyone else had had a shot, Sigmund steps up and pulls out the sword.

As easy as that!

I'll tell you more next time...

2002-11-26T18:17:00.000-08:00

Every family has its stories. Maybe some of them are stories older siblings tell on younger siblings. My brother likes to tell the story of how I loved to shove rice krispies up my nose when I was in my high chair.
My mom likes to tell the story of how she fell in love with my dad. It was on their second date, and they were at the zoo. She said, “I don’t think I should say this so soon…But I think I am in love with you.”
My dad answered, “Me too.”

My dad has a story about his grandmother. Everyone knows this story. My frontierswoman grandmother, who was barely 5 feet tall, was outside one day with the baby. She was doing her regular chores, and then she noticed that there was a WOLF coming towards her child. Nobody was going to mess with her baby! She grabbed an axe and killed the wolf all by herself.

Imagine that!

It’s entered the family legends. There are lots of them. And it’s interesting, because no one that tells the story now was alive when the wolf was killed. But that’s okay, because it’s our family history.

I just read a little piece of my family history. It’s called Sigurd the Dragon Slayer. Yeah, I’ll call it family history, why not? My family comes from Nordic stock. We are every one of us Celtic-Anglo-Saxon-Germanic, big, tall, fair-haired and PALE. The original folks who told the story of Sigurd were Scandinavian, or Goths. I’m sure we were related somehow.

So I will claim kin, and tell you one of the family legends. It’s time you all heard it.

I have to start with a little background on Sigurd. He was supposed to be descended from Odin. But I have a few doubts about it. There might be some skeletons in the “descended from the gods” closet; I’ll let you hear the evidence and decide.

But even if he wasn’t Odin’s great-grandson, he still was quite a hero.

There was a man named Sigi, and HE was the son of Odin, so they say. Now, he had a servant or slave, what they called a thrall back then, named Bredi. Bredi was one of the best of men, really a great guy. He was strong and brave, far more than anyone expected a servant to be. Once, Sigi and Bredi were out hunting for deer. Sigi tried to capture and kill this stag, but he missed. Bredi kept chasing it though, and he caught it.

When Sigi caught up to Bredi, and saw that he’d caught the deer, he was jealous and mad. He lost it, and said, “how dare you, a slave, catch a deer when I cannot!”

He killed Bredi.

Now, back then, if you killed someone and admitted it, it was okay. I mean, they didn’t want people to go around KILLING each other, but if you owned up to it, they would let you make it right. They would let you off easier; you had to pay a man-price called “Were Gild” according to the value of the person. There were set amounts for how much the lives of different classes of people were worth. A slave was worth less than a king--I do remember that.

But Sigi was a coward. He hid Bredi in a snowdrift and took off.

Big no-no. If he were found out, he would be considered a murderer, and would have to be dealt with as such.

Sigi took the long route home. When he got there, people asked where Bredi was. He tried to act innocent. Bredi wandered off, he told them. He acted like he was surprised Bredi wasn’t back yet.

But they smelled a fish. That didn’t sound right to the people, and they went looking for Bredi. Maybe they had already figured out Sigi’s character. I guess it doesn’t mean much to have Odin as your daddy—you can still be a lying good-for-nothing.

They found Bredi in the snowdrift. After that, Bredi was the word they used for snowdrift, and even glacier.

But it also meant that Sigi was in trouble. He ran. He knew that they would consider him a “wolf in hallowed places” if he stayed amongst them. He couldn’t be trusted.

Odin stepped in again. I guess he was trying to help out his son. They went traveling, and as the story goes, they took a trip so long it was amazing. I don’t know anything about where they went or what they did, but the next thing you know, Sigi is married to somebody. He seemed to think she was quite a catch, and for all I know she was. But I never caught her name. He had built himself up all kinds of treasure and gotten himself made king of somewhere. So this lady was his queen.

Sigi and his queen had a son; they named him Rerir. He was a good boy, by the standards of the day. He managed to fight hard, like the princes are supposed to do, get gold and a kingdom, and he married a worthy woman. I never caught her name either, but I do know they really loved each other, and were very happy.

The only problem was that they were having some trouble conceiving. They prayed to their gods, long and loud, because they really wanted to have a child. Well, Rerir was Odin’s grandson after all. Freya, Odin’s wife, heard their cries. Like a good wife, she reminded Odin to take care of the problem.

I don’t know what Freya thought of Odin’s relationship with Sigi. I mean, really. I am pretty darn sure Odin was fooling around when Sigi was “in process.” But Freya was nice about Rerir’s problem. She thought Rerir was a very good man, a warrior and all kinds of other good things. So she spoke to Odin about it.

Odin decided to enlist the help of a Valkyrie wish-maiden. I really don’t know that much about this woman, but she’s important later. The wish-maiden was the stepdaughter or something to the Giant Hremnir. Apparently, they needed Hremnir help with this.

Odin gave the wish-maiden an apple, a special apple. The wish maiden changed into a crow (a crow!) and kind of nonchalantly flew over to Hremnir with this special apple. She’s sitting up over Hremnir while he’s on the ceremonial mound outside his house. Hremnir is surveying his domain from the mound, and the wish-maiden-turned-crow drops the apple in his lap.

Hremnir is no fool, whatever you may have heard about giants. He sees the apple and knows right away what’s up. But I guess he’s okay with it, because he takes it and goes to see Rerir’s queen.

Now, this is the part of the story that makes me raise my eyebrows. They SAY that they just “shared the apple,” but that sounds a little euphemistic to me. I don’t KNOW what happened, and I am not saying what happened or what didn’t, but you can be the judge.

All we know for sure is that afterwards the queen was pregnant, and they were overjoyed. That special apple did the trick.

But back then kings were always off warring. It was part of the job, I guess, they had to keep up with the killing, or they would lose respect I guess. King and Peace didn’t really belong in the same sentence, at least not they way they made it sound. So, Rerir had to leave and go battle somebody while his queen was still pregnant.

Only this time, he actually gets killed. While he is in his old-style lingering death throes, the queen manages to get her pregnant body down to the battlefield and say goodbye.

“Isn’t there anything I can do? Let’s get you patched up, “ she says.

But Rerir is a hero in all senses of the word. “There is no point. If I knew that I was never going to die, that would be one thing. But this is something that comes to everyone. It is my time to die.”

The queen was beside herself with grief. She stayed with Rerir on the battlefield, as he passed away. He told her not to be too sad, that she was carrying a son and he would also be a great hero. Finally, he died.

Now, the queen was having some trouble with her pregnancy. She was apparently pretty strong and healthy, but the baby did not want to come out. She was pregnant for 6 years. You can imagine this was not an optimal situation. The child kept growing within her. Finally, she realized that she was going to die because of the child. She told a doctor that he should open her up and take the child, because she was going to die anyway. The child came out, and he was a boy.

He was huge! He had been growing all along inside her, but he was a big boy for being six. His whole life, he was larger than other men who were considered big.

But he was able to kiss his mother before she died. She named him Volsung.

He became a famous hero, and all his children were named after him. In fact, a famous poem, called the Volsungasaga was written about him and his family.

Yes, my family! We should be proud.

I’ll tell you more about him tomorrow. We haven’t gotten to the part about Sigurd yet.

Just wait.

2002-11-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

Driving around my new city last friday night, I stumbled upon a Peace demonstration. Lots of people in Hollywood were standing in the warm night, holding signs and chanting things: PEACE!

There were quiet a lot of people. I thought it was a very nice night for a protest. It really was quite warm and pleasant. There were a lot of kids out.

As I was waiting at a red light, I saw a man dressed as the grim reaper, propping up a protest sign and a scythe.

He had a frightening yellow skull mask over his face: the reaper wants peace!

While I watched him, he brought a lighted cigarette to the mouth hole of his mask and took some long drags.

The irony is unbelievable.

2002-11-22T14:58:00.000-08:00

..."in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much the the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardour in generous unpad toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowningly: you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions..."
George Eliot, from Middlemarch

I haven't finished Middlemarch yet, but that passage stopped me cold. Eliot wrote it 130 years ago, and how true it remains! We all know those people "fit to be packed by the gross", and I for one fear daily becoming one.

But the path lays so simply and easily in front of me, of us. The path from the bed to the closet full of work clothes, the path from the door to cubicle, then back to the prepackaged, demographically designed entertainment and commercial marketing

What disturbs me so much about the demographically designed entertainment is how ACCURATE they are! yes, I AM entertained by the same things that so many others of my age/sex/ethnicity/economic strata are!

And what better proof that I am fit to be packed by the gross?!?

I have, in the past, combat this by being scornful and suspicious of anything popular. If too many people liked something, I should not. Very simple. I can't be like everyone else then.

Levi's, Disneyland, popular film, music, television, all these things were to be dismissed, or if not, became guilty pleasures. Perhaps I could intellectualize a movie, if I liked it too much. "You see, Mulan is struggling with her gender identity and trying to come to terms with her own conception of herself!"

The major problem with this approach to life is it's essential FALSENESS. It is reactionary rather than reasoned or real. It did not take into account the merit of the thing.

If I refused to like things that were popular, and tried to embrace things that were alternative, edgy, or avant garde for no better reason than because they were DIFFERENT, I am not seeking a higher path.

I realized that I must look closely at the thing in question. Be engaged in my life; and to evaluate and try to understand what I engage it. This is responsibility at work. THIS is greater individuality.

And yet, the earlier way was better defined. It is frightening to leave behind easy labels.

I was QUITE nervous to visit Disneyland. My boyfriend would not accept my dismissal of it being evil. He said, "you have not been there since you were five. How do you know it's evil?"

So. I have been to Disneyland, and I guess it is not evil. It is a tool, and it can be USED for evil in the wrong hands. That's all I will say about it for now.

Naturally, I do not have to live my life in Disneyland. I live my life between the lines from the bed to the closet and the door to the cubicle. In between the lines, and on the margins, I look for ways to creatively express my individuality. There are flashes of poetry on the meeting notes I have on the table, and I can find time to read Eliot on the bus.

But I strive to remain engaged. Does it have to be this way? In between and on the margins might be a little shabby for my individuality.

Is there another path? Surely, there are other ways to live. Millions of people have lived their lives in millions of other ways.

I have heard a story about a man who put into his margins what I have made the lines.

Sam Hamill, who I only know about because books from his publishing house have been nominated for an award, drew his own lines. He decided a life dedicated to poetry would be his. I am awestruck. He created a publishing house for poetry.

Poetry, that difficult and indescribably beautiful artform that humankind has been turning and returning to since words were formed:difficult, because we must let go of pre-established equational connections and form our minds to new synaptic leaps.

Hamill chose poetry over a pension. He decided that renewing his mind was more important than stability.

I am amazed, astounded and envious.

I heard on the radio (I have searched, but I can't find it again...suffice it to say, it was an NPR station) the story of how he started Copper Canyon Press. He found an old 1907 printing press! He set the type by hand!

Later, he moved from Colorado to Washington, because he could get free rent there.

It is not like I haven't heard of people moving around, and doing "irresponsible" things like that. I grew up with people who did not want to be packed by the gross.

Alaska. There are barely enough people to MAKE a gross there.

So, I understood the "free rent" allure. I knew family after family that moved there, bought a plot of virgin land for practically nothing, and meant to build their dream home, their special individual place for THEM and THEIR FAMILY to be unique.

So, in the three months of summer, they threw up an A-frame structure, and did their best to insulate it against the quickly approaching winter.

And for years afterwards, the pink fiberglass and bedsheets for walls became stained with use, and the path to the outhouse grew bare and hardened.

This sort of individuality was common and not admirable, in my mind. Sure, it could be called "the path less traveled." I'm sure the (non-Alaskan) parents and extended families of the people who chose this life thought their children were the only ones in the world to live this way.

Well, I was FROM Alaska and not so easily impressed. These were the people who could be packed by the gross for me.

What purpose did this lifestyle serve? "Anti-materialism" or "anti-establishment" is only a negation. What is the positive contribution?

Hamill lived in his Washington home without the "basics", in the same way as those crazy Alaskans. However, HE made a lasting contribution to the world.

I feel challenged.

2002-11-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

I promised to share the story I wrote for my real-world journalistic debut. It made newsprint earlier this month, in the Highland Park News:

From Italy to the Internet: Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Highland Park
By Murphy Horner

A small revolution has been bubbling up right here in Highland Park. At a time when large corporations and everywhere-you-look name brands are squeezing out all other options, John Nese has created a new business for his store on 5702 York Boulevard. He sells soda pop, and in a big way.

Galco’s Old World Market began over 100 years ago as an Italian grocery store. John Nese runs the store after his father Louis, who can still be found on the premises keeping an eye on things. Nese is proud of what his dad had done for the store. He tells stories of how his father started the first buying co-op to get better prices for their goods.

But things began to change for the next generation. The bigger supermarkets were taking over. They used their huge buying power to cut smaller businesses out of the market. Small shops could no longer get the discounts that supermarkets enjoyed. It was becoming very difficult for locally owned grocery stores anywhere to compete.

John Nese knew he would have to get creative to keep his store open. He noticed micro brewed beers were becoming popular. He liked the idea of the microbrewers. They were small businesses creating a product that emphasized quality, just like himself. But alcoholic drinks were only for people over 21. What about all the younger people or others who did not want alcohol?

In 1995 John decided to listen to his heart and do what felt good. In Nese’s own words, “What makes you feel good? Drinking a soda!” He began stocking hard-to-find sodas in his grocery store. As he tells it, the soda manufacturers were doubtful about whether the soda would sell. But he stocked them anyway, and even bought more varieties. He also began to seek out and buy candies from small candy companies. His philosophy at the time, in his own words, was “to go find little brands…and do what makes me feel good.”

He began to look for all the little brands that were around, and buy their products. After he had stocked 150 different kinds of sodas, people began to take notice. The Los Angeles Times came to Highland Park to see this new Soda Pop Stop and write a story. Apparently the story was so interesting, it was picked up by a news syndicate and published all over America, even running internationally.

Nese’s daughter contacted KCET’s program California’s Gold, and Galco’s Soda Pop Shop received a visit from the ever-enthusiastic Huell Howser. He filmed a show about John Nese’s store, which aired in 2000. A few months after, Sunset Magazine did a story about the Highland Park store that was now becoming a phenomenon.

Now that the word is out, customers are beginning to show up from all over the place. The Saturday I was there, I spoke with Kay and Bob Trevana. They were visiting California from Bloomington, Minnesota. Having seen the Soda Pop Stop on the Food Network, they came to check it out. Kay said, “It’s kind of amazing to see that there are that many pops out there.”

This is music to John Nese’s ears. He says, “The one thing I can do is offer the customer a lot of variety.” He works hard at bringing customers variety. By his calculations, if a customer tried out a new soda from his shop every day, it would be a year and a half before they would run out of new flavors.
But where does he find all these sodas? He listens to his customers. This business makes a huge point of asking the customers what they would like to buy. The proof is lined up on the shelves, in neat glass rows. Nese said, “Like the Manhattan Special. All of these things are from customers’ suggestions.”
The story of how Nese found the Manhattan Special (www.manhattanspecial.com) line of sodas is a classic example of how he runs his business. A number of New York City transplants had been requesting this coffee-flavored soda, so Nese called up the company to place an order. The woman who answered the phone was quite surprised. She wanted to know how the Los Angelino had even tasted the soda. When Nese answered that he had not tried it, she was having a hard time taking him seriously. Nese told her that he had a stack of requests from his customers who wanted Manhattan Special, and that was good enough for him.
She reluctantly agreed to let Nese place an order, but on one condition: he had to come get it. The Manhattan Special Company had been in business since 1895, and this is how they had always done it. If he was serious, he could pick it up himself.
Nese took up the challenge, arranged for a truck to go to Manhattan Special’s door and pick up the soda. He now stocks Manhattan Special in his store, and ships orders from his website (www.sodapopstop.com). His contact with the Manhattan Special Company must have had an affect on their policy, because now they also offer to ship orders to customers from their webpage.
Nese’s goal is bigger than just offering variety. He wants to sell high quality soda pop. In his experience, quality soda is bottled in glass and made with a cane sugar recipe. He feels strongly that the current use of corn syrup as a sweetener in soda is a bad thing. He explained that corn syrup is cheaper than sugar, but the quality of the soda suffers. He has gone to great lengths to get soda made with sugar.
It is hard job. He is a small business. Most of the manufacturers he buys soda from are small. He feels that maintaining high quality product is the best way for a small business to survive in a predatory market. He says, “Make a better product and the people will buy it.” Since he is in direct contact with the people who are buying the product, he has made a point of calling the manufacturers and demanding they use cane sugar and not corn syrup. He has to go all the way to Mexico for some of his sodas.
Customers who visited the store to buy milk and sugar 50 years ago would find it very different now. John Nese and Galco’s have come a long way. There is no milk or sugar on the shelves. But a lot remains the same. There is still a helpful person behind the counter. The owner still cares about the customers. And they still sell their famous blockbuster sandwiches. An Italian deli at the rear makes meat and cheese monstrosities that keep people coming back. Customers feel pretty good when they visit John Nese’s store. And that makes John feel good.

2002-11-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN

Another Radio Drama! Great stuff, that LA Theater works. This one was a "docudrama." Love that word, it sounds so fake.

Of course, it is based on the House Unamerican Activities Committee hearings. Those hearings trouble me. I have been trying to get my head around them. The paranoia about communism seems excessive in retrospect. It was hard to believe that people really took it seriously.

But they really did. People lost their jobs because they knew people who were interested in a political viewpoint.

I can hardly think how this country, based on radical political ideals, would so trample on communism.
But it happened.

The play was based on real transcripts from the hearings: hence the "docu"mentary part of the docudrama.

There seemed to be a real emphasis on how bad it was to inform on other people. the consequences were pretty severe for the ones named as "members of the communist party." They couldn't get work.

It reminds me of the situation now, somewhat. I wonder how Muslim groups might be thinking and feeling now. I haven't heard much about how those detained have been questioned. I suspect they too are asked to name the names of people they know. I might have to find out more about this, I am only speculating right now.

The part that made the most impact on me was the conclusion. James Earl Jones played the voice of Paul Robeson. Of course, Jones's voice is marvelous. But the words that Robeson said were marvelous. He was so proud and magnificent, and the House committee members were scornful of him, because he was African American.

It made me want to find out more about Robeson.

2002-11-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

Guilt “On the Waterfront”

Rented “On the Waterfront” this weekend. I had seen part of it on TV years and years ago, and always meant to go back and see the whole thing.

It’s funny to see Brando so young. And Eve Saint Marie, she is so beautiful.

I thought the ideology behind the movie was very interesting. It was from the 50s, and it was set in a poor neighborhood. The men trying to work on the docks were “ethnic”, which was how things were in the 50s. They don’t seem SO long ago, but class differentiation was much more distinct then.

The 60s made a difference.

These men and their families talked about getting “food on the table.” One recurring motif is how a dead man’s jacket is given to someone else who needs it. Jackets, clothing, basic needs were not taken for granted.

They were poor and hard-working. They also had no prospects for anything better. Edie’s (played by Saint Marie) father tells her that he worked and slaved and saved so that she could get out of there. She had been sent to a convent to study. She was sheltered, but she had seen enough to be grateful for it.

The men kept complaining about unloading bananas.

Bananas, now, are the cheapest fruit in the store. Not so in the 50s. I doubt that the average dockworker ever had the opportunity to eat a banana.

They were struggling to get potatoes. It was hard.

But the point of the story was union corruption. That’s a tricky topic. Unions were created to stop corporate or “boss” corruption. But then, Unions became corrupt, and they began to exploit the workers. Almost like, where the bosses left off, the unions took up.

But it was hard to get unions going! They establishment of unions took a lot of work.

Also, I realized as I was watching it, Unions were considered socialist…Red..Communist! So how was this movie part of the whole McCarthy environment of the time?

Come to find out, the director Elia Kazan was brought before the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Twice. He Named Names on the second visit.

There were a lot of people that were blacklisted because of him. He didn’t feel too good about that.

The scene from the movie, where the priest stands over the dead body of the one man who had courage to name names about the corrupt union bosses springs to mind.

It was very preachy. The clergyman gave a very rousing sermon about what was right, and how you HAD to speak out to stop the bad guys. The laborers were throwing things at him, even, and he kept going.

He was SO righteous!

And all throughout the movie, the theme of informing and being a “stool pigeon” or a “canary” was repeated and repeated.

He even had real pigeons playing a prominent role.

One thing I noticed from the movie, too, was the lack of a real answer. Sure, they broke the back of the union boss. But what then? None of those guys were really capable of taking over. The viewer didn’t really have a sense that everything would be “happily ever after.”

You can see how Kazan had re-cast his own story, making himself a hero informant, making the world safe against unscrupulous bosses. I’m sure it scratched a sore itch for him, making this kind of movie.

But it didn’t really show any answers. Right then, I don’t think people had any.

2002-11-18T08:48:00.000-08:00

It's monday, and I stayed up late last night catching up on all my house chores.

So I am very groggy this morning.

I am considering whether or not ambition is evil.

One of the reasons I am thinking aobut this is because an old friend of mine recently started working at an Indian Casino.
Times are hard; he is a uber computer geek, but he can't find work. So he got what he could.
He said, "it's amazing to think about. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to, but many of the workers here are completely pleased to have the job, and say things about how stable it is, and how great it is."

It occurred to me that Indian culture is not expansionist. They are not like McDonald's and Starbucks, they don't necessisarily feel the need for more more bigger bigger all the time.
You might call that lack of ambition.
Or you might call it enjoying what life has to offer.
Food, clothing, the ability to appreciate your family and friends-that's really something.

What does ambition get you?
More money, less time to spend it.
Maybe not even more money. Depends on your ambition. I've known enough start-ups to know it doesn't always bring more money.

The angel of light (aka Lucifer) had ambition. Didn't do him much good.

Don't get me wrong. My ambition to do more and learn more has served me well, it's brought me a lot of good things.

But when is enough enough?
How much do I need? When should I stop?

In the Garden of Eden, what use was ambition? Maybe Adam and Eve spend a hard day working on the hedges...So that they could appreciate them the next day? That means they took the next day off.

It is easy on a monday to think that having to get up and work all day is evil.

2002-11-14T09:12:00.000-08:00

I don't know how profound I am going to be, but I just felt like blogging.

This week, I have put my foot down and GONE HOME as early as I can. I still put in 8,9,10 hour days, but I am really trying to avoid the 12 hour days.

THEREFORE:
I am experiencing life without sleep deprivation. I recommend it.
Previously, things which I knew where simple tasks had seemed insurmountable.
I knew something was wrong, and I had to figure out a way to get back to normal.

Sleep was a very big part of the solution.

So, all week I have been quite cheerful and productive.

BTW of nothing, I just noticed that I have someone FROM RUSSIA! who has visited my site.
Hello hello and welcome!

Russia's academy of science is where my visitor came from.

I've had a lot of international visitors (how do they find me? I have no idea!)
but never anyone from that special country.

Since we all lived there for years (some of us more than others) my dad has been really digging in and trying to learn the GRAMMAR.

scary stuff.

He had his birthday yesterday (happy birthday again, dad!) and was amusing himself with the fact that he is now 64, just like the Beatles song.
He and mom sang the song together. I think that's marvelous.

I'd get him a beatles CD, but I am almost sure he would never listen to it. He would much prefer a documentary video.

Anyway, Dad and I decided we should practice our Russian skills and become pen pals. That way we could practice writing and reading, and have something fun in the mailbox every once in a while.

I am going to have to find my RUS_ENG dictionary. I think one is in the bookshelf, but the good one is missing.

Well, like I said, not profound, but I am feeling pleased with life and thought I would burble on my blog for a while.

2002-11-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

Checked out "Long Day's Journey into Night" from the library. There were a lot of different drama recordings to choose from, but I picked that one because it had a reputation of being really good. Eugene O'Neill is a reknowned playwright, and this play gets mentioned all over the place in anthologies, etc.

I thought it was something I should experience.

So. I listened to it. I was looking forward to posting about a brilliant play, and giving my opinion of it.

It is not a fun play. I really didn't know what to expect, but it was not a comedy.

The whole story revolves around the mother in the family, who has a drug addiction. But as the play progresses, you find out that everybody is some kind of addict.

Their interactions are filled with justifications followed by wallowing in self-loathing. Then they are all so full of regrets and warning for everyone else.

Typical junkie behavior. I find it repulsive. I find it irritating, annoying and icky. So why would a whole drama showcasing junkiness be such a hit?

I can only think that, when the play came out, not many people had experience with junkies, and so they were fascinated.

I've had experience with junkies. My former father-in-law was an addict. It was quite exhausting, to keep up with his whereabouts and moods. Everyone in the family had to be massively elastic and jumpy to keep up with whatever he was going to do next.

And the astounding feats of justification and self-recrimination that his wife and son did. I never knew him as anything but an addict, so I was free to categorize him. They knew what he had been before, and were always judging his current behaviour as how close or far it was from his "real" self.

Crazy.

And now, one of my dearest friends just discovered her fiancee is a crackhead. She was describing how he reacted when she discovered him, and the lengths he had gone to hide the habit and lie to her.

I remembered my father-in-law. I remembered "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

Self-deception. The easy way out...Thinking "It's not really a lie...I will have quit the stuff before she finds out about it"

Then just a little more. And the NEED for it.

There are more people that can relate to this play than perhaps I realize.

Maybe it's a mirror, too. It makes me wonder what I'm lying to myself about. It's so so easy.

2002-11-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

This is Portrait of an Artist story, arranged for easy reference:

Prologue
The Story
Epilogue

2002-11-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

Of all the icky things, I discovered my cat has fleas.

My life here in LA has been accompanied with a precipitation of insects. First, before I even moved into my apartment, I got bit by some mosquito-like creature that made my face and finger (doggone thing bit on on the KNUCKLE) swell to unattractive and painful proportions.

Then there were the ants, in the hot weather. Ants were getting into EVERYTHING.

The sugar bowl!

And then the day came when Skellig stared at me with intense aggrieved accusation.

The ants were eating HIS food.

And now fleas. I have no idea where the fleas came from. The house has new carpet, so I don’t think they were lurking there. Skellig lives inside, only making dashes for freedom every once in a while across my concrete patio.

Nevertheless, Fleas are here.

I discovered one while petting my cat. It was very very icky. Especially when I realized that those bites on my legs were not mosquito bites, but had crawled on me in the night.

I was so grossed out, I didn’t want to go to bed. But it was late, and there was nothing I could do.

I had to wait until the next day.

So, I bought TWO rolls of quarters in anticipation of all the laundry I would have to do. I washed all my bedding and sprayed the bed.

I sprayed the couch.

See, I went to the hoity toity pet shop around the corner after I voted last night.

I would rather have gone to a plain jane pet store, but I don't know where one is...This one is called Catts and Doggs.

They have health food and holistic solutions for animals.

They also have Advantage, that flea neck poison stuff. Which I bought. And they had natural oils flea shampoo. Which I bought. And they had natural holistic carpet spray. Which I bought.

I also bought catnip, since I felt sorry for my pathetic cat. And they had soap bubbles which were non-toxic and SMELLED like catnip. Those will probably be quite a hit. I'll have to get back to that after I try them.

So I walk out of the store 80 bucks poorer.

And I go home to spray and wash everything.

I sprayed the bed before I put the clean sheets on it again.

And I sprayed the couch.

And then I bathed the cat.

Let me tell you, bathing a cat is WAY easier when you have those solid slidey doors on your bathtub. Unlike the bathrubs that have curtains, he had no hope of escape. He just gave up struggling and yowled.

He was trying to have as little to do with the water as possible, by kind of standing up against the door. This made it easier to wash his tummy. I have not usually been able to do that.

But the essential oil flea shampoo worked really good. He is a shiny shiny cat, now.

After he finished licking himself, I decided to apply the flea poison on the designated spot, behind his head. I didn’t want it bleeding into the wet fur and getting licked. It was enough to have to launder everything because of fleas, I didn’t want to launder everything because of cat barf, too.

Fleas are such a nuisance. They are so annoying and insignificant. That makes them even more annoying. They are not WORTH all this hassle.

I hope that we will soon see the end of them.

2002-11-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A VIDEO CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATOR

EPILOGUE

The radio was giving me a report about the stock market, and my eyes blinked awake. I looked at the clock. 4:30 AM—right on time. I lay in bed a moment longer, waking up.

My clothes were hanging on my doorknob, chosen the night before. I had showered before I went to bed, so I could slip right into my clean and pressed business casuals.

I fixed my hair and brushed my teeth, looking closely at the red capillaries in my eyes. Almost ready.

The laptop and books I meant to read during this long day were packed and ready by the door. My lunch and breakfast were waiting in the fridge; I put them in my backpack. I stopped to pet my cat, who purred instantly when I touched his soft fur. Poor lonely kitty. I should pet him more, he is so grateful lately for it.

Slip on my warm coat, the weather is getting colder. I double-check: cell phone, security badge, bus fare. Yes, they are all exactly where I put them the night before. Grab my keys and walk out the door, ten minutes before the bus is scheduled to arrive.

The bus stop is right in front of my building. There is even a nice bench to rest there, but it is damp from the early morning dew. 5:10 is a misty moist time of day. I stand and wait.

Very few people are on the bus at this time of morning; the driver smiles at me as he answers my “good morning.” He is one of my favorite drivers, because he will remember where my stop is and has once stopped in front of my work for me even though I forgot to ring the bell. I would like to ask his name, but he seems bashful and that makes me bashful too. Instead I smile sincerely at him and take my seat.

The bus is dimly lit, so I do not read the book I have brought with me. I choose to watch the road go by. Soon enough we are traveling through Chinatown with its Dragon gate and interesting signs.

The new philharmonic hall is approaching; when we turn there I must stay awake. I will be getting off soon. I am alert enough this time to ring the bell and step off at my stop.

A full-bearded street person, holding a shopping cart full of used suitcases, watches me as I walk down to my building. “Good Morning Beautiful! How are you today?”

I decide to answer. “Tired.” I say. He responds loudly with sympathetic but undecipherable syllables. I smile to myself.

5:45 and all is in readiness. I stop at my desk to check for any messages. None of any consequence. Up to the 16th floor, where the video bridge operator is already connecting my video conference.

By the time I reach the room, it is connected, and Dave the NY person is in the room already. We set everything up and exchange pleasantries. Dave is a very easy-going guy, and we wait for the people from the other sites to appear. It is still quite early, but they all arrive and we test and check. Then we sit for a while longer, talking sports and making sure everything is stable.

Dave reads us the sports from the newspaper he brought with him. David from San Francisco says that it was very peaceful to walk up the street that early in the morning. Philip in Newport Beach looks so peaceful; I think he is trying to fall back to sleep.

But everything is set; everything is working perfectly. Everything continues to work perfectly, so we disperse for the moment.

I set my laptop up at the abandoned receptionist’s desk just outside the conference room. I have my books, and I have my coffee mug. I take my mug and my bran muffin to the coffee room. I get some tea and warm my muffin.

Back in the conference room, my manager, back from his trip at last has stopped in to check things out. Things are perfect, so he has an impromptu staff meeting with all of us. We talk about projects and catch up a little on the different things we’ve been doing.

The rest of the guys from the other rooms come back, and my manager has left. We talk some more and everything is still perfect.

Finally, some participants begin to trickle in to NY—all other sites are empty. The NY attorneys are all chitchatting and gossiping about clients and colleagues. At last meeting monarch says the three magic words: “Let’s get started.”

No one is present in my location, so I listen in to hear him make an announcement asking people to avoid placing their phones on hold during the conference.

Moments later, a participant arrives in my room. I set him up and tell him I will be around the corner. He is pleasant, polite and appreciative. He wonders, “What happened to the doors?”

“They took them off for refinishing.”

“Oh,” he shrugs” I leave him happily situated.

At my makeshift desk, I start to clean off the hard drive and organize my personal files. I have a book, and I read a little bit.

After I finish my first cup of tea, I get another.

My phone is silent. After many hours pass, I use my personal cell phone to call my brother.

I flip through digital photographs on my hard drive.

The conference takes a break, and my conference participant has been joined by another participant. He asks me how to mute and unmute the microphones on the speakerphone.

More hours pass. I have deleted a lot of old files on my computer, and composed messages to old friends that will be sent when I next log in to the Internet.

Right on schedule, the meeting ends. The participants say their goodbyes and leave. My pleasant attorney thanks me.

Even NY is clearing out, so I give the okay to disconnect the video call. I call all the support staff on each location to congratulate them and let them know it’s over. They already knew.

It is finished.

2002-11-03T19:08:00.000-08:00

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A VIDEO CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATOR

THE STORY

I kept getting requests for a conference that was happening on the 24th. I had at least three requests for a conference that were all happening at the same time. Since the requests sounded like they were a continuation of a conversation that I had not heard the beginning nor the end of, I thought, “I bet this is the same conference! I will find out who is really in charge of this one!”

I discover the identity of Miss Organizer, the central person arranging the meetin, and I called her. She seemed very nice, I told her that I was the video conference administrator, and that everything would go fine. She seemed pleased.

In fact, she was so pleased, that she sent out an email to everyone saying that she had talked with me, and that the video conference was in good hands.

I was pleased.

But after the fiasco meeting with the new CEO, he sent out an email to everyone (apparently attorneys like to produce lots of documents) saying that video conferencing was incredibly unreliable, and should not be used for anything important. He mentioned me personally, asking who my manager was, and said that the Chief of Staff (my boss’s boss) should be in charge of making sure this whole video conference idiocy worked, because it probably wouldn’t.

I felt hurt. Video conferencing should not be used for anything IMPORTANT! Well, I wasn’t forcing anyone to use it, but I always did my very best to make it work for them when they asked for it.

In the meantime, I had found out what was wrong with NY. A major cable, sending network to the whole building, had been damaged. NONE of the network was unaffected.

And I had called little miss assistant right after the call and said as politely as I could muster, “WHY THE HELL IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT’S HOLY DID YOU NOT GIVE ME THE 800 NUMBER BEFOREHAND SO THAT I COULD DIAL IN?”

That’s a paraphrase.

She was very apologetic, told me that ten minutes after the start of the call some guy had asked for an 800 number. She had to quickly create one and send it out to all the other people already in the call.

Well. That sounds like a rude and unthoughtful last-minute person. That was typical. What can you do? I let her off the hook, and got back to my business.

But before I can get very far, the Chief of Staff comes steaming around the corner of my cube. “I need to talk to you right now,” she said.

I go to her office, ready to explain. “It’s really unfortunate that this conference went badly.” I told her about the cable, and about not having the 800 number.

“Well, everyone else had the number!”

My proverbial jaw dropped. “I asked the assistant for the number three times!”

“Well, everyone else had it. Maybe you didn’t ask the right questions.”

My proverbial jaw hit the floor. What possible question other than the one I asked could have been the right question?!?

“Well this meeting on the 24th had better go perfectly. It has been made clear to me that my continued employment here is on the line. We need to have a meeting about this with everyone tomorrow to talk about what we are going to do.”

“What will we do if NY can’t get its network back online? Do we need some document from the phone company saying the line is damaged?”

“Oh the attorneys won’t look at it. They will just say we are making excuses.”

Making excuses? What are we supposed to do, go knit them some optical fiber so that they can have their precious video connection?

It was hard to pay attention after the didn’t-ask-the-right-question and the making-excuses arguments. What gall! How unfair! How mean and irrational!

I went back to my cube to poke the NY phone company about fixing the cable, but I was steaming! Steaming, steaming, all afternoon, night and next morning. I do not like to be unfairly accused. I was practically ready to find new employment.

I read Dilbert to make myself feel better, and then I griped to my little co-worker. She said, “You don’t have to take that! Don’t let her get away with saying you did something wrong when you didn’t!”

Yeah! I can take back the night! Just say no, stand up for myself etc.

I felt all better and empowered. Hmph! I’m doing the best I can, and better than most.

All right then. Back to the conference of the 24th. Got to get NY online again. That is where the meeting is being hosted. After a million phone calls back and forth, the phone company finally gets them online, thank God.

We had the meeting with the COS and everyone, deciding on a procedure. In fact, it was a procedure we already had from before I came around.

1. All sites will do a test run of the call the day before for an hour.
2. All sites will do a test run of the call three hours before the conference starts.
3. All sites will set up for the call an hour before the call is supposed to start, and leave it on for the whole call
4. All sites will have a staff person located outside the room included in the conference, ready to fix any trouble during the entire conference.

Wow. That’s quite a strict set up. We had one telecom guy who had been in NY for two weeks already, and the COS asked him to stay another day to babysit the conference. He said okay. My other co-worker was sent to another site. I was going to be here in LA.

The Chief of Staff wanted back up plans and contingencies covered. “We won’t use the sound that is part of the video conference! We should mute all the video conference equipment, and only use the phone for the sound!”

Yes. Okay. Whatever you want. It will look weird and sound bad, but it will probably be more stable. Whatever makes you feel happy.

Every time the COS sees me, she says, “You’re gonna help me keep my job, aren’t you?”

She sees me several times a day.

But at least she wasn’t making random and irrational accusations about my competency.

I chose to smile and say, “Everything will work fine.”

But this is making me doubt the sky it blue, already. I am thinking and thinking about every single part of the conference. I started thinking about the phone conference. What did I know about it? What would I do if it went wrong?

They would blame me anyway.

So I had to do some archeological work and find out the person to call about our telephone conference service. We uncovered her number in a Mesozoic strata of post-it notes and I gave her a call.

What a nice woman! She was so sympathetic and helpful. We talked for forever, really, and she told me all kinds of things. She said, “You know, if you want, you can have a higher level of service on your conference call. You could have an operator assistant on the line to help callers with any problem and improve sound issues, etc.”

Well! That sounded nice. But the conference was only 2 days away, and I wasn’t sure that a change to the dial in number at such a short notice was a good idea. But maybe I should let the meeting organizer decide.

I was supposed to call her anyway. We had determined, in that first friendly phone call, before all the uppity-mucks got involved, that we should speak again 2 days before the conference. I called her at my pre-arranged phone appointment--she wasn’t there. I left a message on her cell phone.

Now the later it got, the harder it would be to give out this new number. I really needed a confirmation of whether it was a go or not. I figured I should at least schedule the call and get the proper 800 number in case Miss Organizer called back and wanted the number. Just as I was finishing up with the nice conference woman, getting the number, etc, the COS appears at my cube.

She is foaming at the mouth and having a seizure. Metaphorically. “I need to speak with you in THE NEXT TEN MINUTES! It’s VERY IMPORTANT!”

I almost have a seizure just looking at her, but before I can say anything (Remember, I’m still on the phone) she tears off to her office.

I quickly hand up with my new conferencing friend, and run to her office.

“Miss Organizer just called me about changing the 800 number! WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?”

Oh. Well, I explained to her very quickly and as calmly as I could that I had called the conference service to see what could be done to have a good call, they had told me about this higher level of service they could offer. I thought that, in pursuit of her staying employed, I would call Miss Organizer and ask her if she wanted to do this. I understood that it was not desirable to change the 800 number at the late date, so I wanted to talk it over with her.

The COS visibly calms down and begins reassuring me that she is not mad at me. As I watch her in fear and wonder she says, “Don’t worry. I am not angry with you. Believe me, you would know if I were.”

This does not calm my fears.

We called Miss Organizer and have a big conference about what this was all about.

Miss Organizer seemed very calm when she was talking with both of us. “What do you think? What do you think we ought to try and do?” The COS was pretty adamant with her, saying NO forcefully to changing the number. But Miss Organizer brought up something else unrelated. “ I think San Francisco might want to join in. But I think they really don’t want to. I think they might just want to go on the phone.”

I said, “Yes, I think they should just join on the phone, especially if they are not certain about being part of the video conference.”

I settled THAT, at least. Taking charge, follow the COS example. She told me afterwards, “Miss Organizer is a very insecure person. She never wants to make a decision.” Hmm…Okay.

Time is drawing closer, and we are going to have to begin the first of our tests. Miss Organizer has promised to be there to let us know things about where people will be sitting, etc., so we can mike them properly.

I’m sitting in my video room, and our connections are up. All sites have the staff in place, everything is fine. But where is Miss Organizer? It’s been a half hour; she should be here to confirm that everything is how she wants it.

I have to chase her down. She appears finally, 45 minutes late. This time, she seems as shy and uncertain as a 12-year-old meeting her great aunts for the first time. “Oh, this seems nice. Is that how this is going to go? I think it will be okay.”

I ask her some direct questions about where the speaker will be, and where the camera should be, how she wants the room set up. “Umm…I think this is fine. What do you think?”

I refrained from voicing what I really thought.

An hour into the test, when it should be concluded, she says, “I think we might want to have San Francisco be part of the video call. I mean, I think they said something about it. But maybe they would like to join in.”

“Do you want me to bring San Francisco into the call?”

“Yeah, if you could, I mean…That would probably be a good idea.”

I mute my microphone so she doesn’t hear my exasperation, and make the phone calls to set up San Francisco.

Oh. Need I even say it? All participating sites on the West Coast will have to be at work at 6 a.m. to set up for this meeting. Yes, SF is on the West Coast. We’re telling staff there to be at work at 6 a.m. at 5 p.m. the day before.

Convenience for the staff was never a consideration.

So, we get the very good-natured SF support guy in the room, things are testing fine. He’s gulping back any complaints and saying that he will be there at 6 a.m.

It’s an hour and a half into the test. Miss Organizer says, “Oh, I think SF doesn’t need to be in the call. I think they said they’d rather listen in. Let’s not do them, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, ready to agree to anything. “Let’s give them what they want. They can easily come in on the phone conference. We will NOT have SF included in the video call.

But there is one last little thing on Miss Organizer’s mind. “Are we gonna go through with this video conference? I don’t want to take the responsibility of making the final decision.”

Well, no one is shocked by that statement. “I will take that responsibility,” I say. “The test went flawlessly, we can go ahead with the call.”

“Okay…” she says in a trailing voice.

As I am leaving, I notice something. Normally, there are two doors to this conference room. Today, there are two doorways. Where are the doors?

I’ll have to find out.

But first, I go down to see the COS, because I fear for her blood pressure. I wanted to tell her that everything went well. She’s not in her office, so I go make arrangements for someone else to cover the OTHER video conferences happening the next day. Amazingly, the entire firm did not stop to prostrate themselves in honor of this conference.

On the way back, I am snatched out of the hall by the COS: “Quick!” She says intensely. “I need to know how the test went. Miss Organizer has called me to make the final decision about whether to go ahead with the video conference.”

Didn’t I see this same patch of water go under the bridge earlier?

“The test was flawless, “ I say.

“That’s all I need to know.”

Back at my cube, I remember the missing doors. I call around and discover that they have been removed for refinishing. They will not be back for a week.

I am tired. What should I do? There is nothing to be done, the doors are gone and we can’t bring them back. But I must tell the COS, because if it were a problem and I didn’t tell her, who knows what.

I peek around her door trepidatiously. She sees me: “What do you need?”

“Um…You know the conference room that the meeting is in tomorrow?”

She looks expectant.

“The doors are gone. Both of them have been taken to be refinished.”

She just stared at me in shock for a moment. Then she lay her head on the desk and muffled peals of laughter burst out

“That is really something that I cannot do anything about,” she gasps in between her shrieks. And both of us just laugh. Of all the ridiculous things!

I finally make it to my bus at the end of the day, but my cell phone rings. It’s San Francisco. “Hey, the managing partner really wants to know if he can be part of the video conference. Only, he doesn’t want the other sites to see him. He wants to see them, though. Can we do that?”

“No, we can’t do that.” No, no no! We can’t do that, and even if we could, we wouldn’t. Because you are rude and you are very tardy in asking, and you are inconsiderate of the people you are asking help from. Also, because we haven’t put your site through the arbitrary and meaningless set of tests that make all the ignorant people who are in charge of the call feel better about it being stable. NO!

“Are you sure? Because they really want it.”

It was four staticky and desperate phone conversations later, at 8 p.m. in my home that we finally determined the SF really wanted to be in the video call, and that we really would let them.

I debated whether I would be remiss by not calling the COS and Miss Organizer and letting them know about this change. Then I put it out of my mind. There is a point when enough is enough.

I had to be awake at 4:30 a.m. so I went to bed, and dreamed that my bus wouldn’t come, and that I had to drive to work to get to the meeting on time. I got lost, and as I was running in between the skyscrapers, I realized I wasn’t dressed for work, and that I would have to go back to my car to get the right clothes. I was working out in my head how long it would take me to do that, and how I could make it to the office in enough time, but I still wasn’t sure where the building was at, and where I was.

2002-10-30T08:44:00.000-08:00

While looking in the library for the original Doctor Doolittle series (which, believe me, is a whole nother story) I remembered another series of books I loved as a child: Moomintrolls.

It is fun to go back to the books you read as a child and see what you think of them when you are grown up. Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh are nice escapes from the grown-up world. And they have enough good stuff to please the more sophisticated adult reader, too.

But those two books are well-known. When I would talk to my friends about the Moominfamily, I got blank looks.

This was hard to understand! My brother and I read the series voraciously, reading some of them even twice.

I asked my brother if he remembered the Moomins. He did. He even said that the author, Tove Jansson, had won awards for the psychological complexity and apporpriateness of the books.

Wow!

Well, I finally remembered to remember the Moomins when I was at the library. I grabbed the first Moomin book on the shelf that my hand fell on.

MoominPappa at Sea

Here is the first paragraph:

"One afternoon at the end of August, Moominpappa was walking about in his garden feeling at a loss. He had no idea what to do with himself, because it seemed everything there was to be done had already been done or was being done by sombody else."

Oh yes. Yes. This was going to be everything I had enjoyed as a child and more. What a perfect description!

Moominpappa and Moominmamma are so real, they have such human feelings and interactions and reactions.

Moomintroll is the perfect introspective child, and Little My is the best bratty little sister.

They meet the most fascinating people and make friends with them as best they can. The stories of their adventures are a kind of magical realism fairy tale.

As you see, I am re-smitten.

BUT! There is very little awareness in America about these wonderful stories!

It's hard to imagine.

If you have a child, run, don't walk, to buy these books and read them to your little one.

And if you are looking for a little escape from the grown-up world to a gentler place, read a moominbook. There is no way you will regret it.

2002-10-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

Let us take a pause from my PORTRAIT story.

It is monday again. I sit in my journalism class again. The Bubble Yum Imac sits temptingly in front of me.

I can type. It is amazing how very little effort this class is taking. Most of the time I forget that I am in school.

It's pretty great. A class that requires very little attention.

I now have a reason to be glad I'm taking the class, though. I have gotten a gig!
I met a woman on craig's list who is starting a community paper. And she looks at my writing from my blog

YES, THIS VERY SAME BLOG

and agreed to let me be a writer. For free.

We are both getting something out of this.

I did my first interview on Saturday. Stay tuned for the article. I'll post it here after I have completed it.

2002-10-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A VIDEO CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATOR

PROLOGUE

Last week, I had a request for a conference. All my co-workers said “Oh, this one has to go well. It’s the one with the new CEO in it.”

OH. Okay. I will make sure it goes well. I called the assistant to ask her what this CEO needed for his call.
Will he have a powerpoint presentation?
Oh no…

Will he have a telephone conference as part of the video conference?
Oh no…
Are you sure? Even if someone can’t make it, and has to call from their hotel room or something?
Well, let me check…No no…No phone call.

Okay. So I have my techs on each site (three sites, including mine) all there a half hour early, everything is fine, all is perfect, all is well.

But then the participant walks into NY, and his call drops.
Carp.

Try to reconnect, it drops again, bad news. So I get on the phone, to call into NY’s room and tell them to dial into the speaker phone in the room where we are at.

Just told them the number, barely hung up, and the speakerphone rings. It is someone else, telling us the CONFERENCE CALL NUMBER THAT HAS SUDDENLY BEEN CREATED BY THE LITTLE MISS WHO SWORE WE WOULDN’T NEED ONE!!!

Carp again. Now NY has to have the number. But wait, it’s okay because suddenly they are dialed in.

Someone else brought them the number. Okay, good, they are finally set up. I ask the second Video conference site if he can hear okay, he says yes, and I slink away.

I am met immediately by another, completely different fire that needs me to put it out. In the midst of that, I forget and leave my cell phone at my desk for a moment. When I realize it’s gone, I freak out, rush to the phone, and sure enough, it’s got a missed call.

I run up to the conference room, to ask what’s wrong. The whole thing has fallen apart and they are now only on the speaker phone.

Ugh. The new CEO, the Chief of staff (my boss’s boss) and the CIO are all in the meeting looking at me with contempt. Well, maybe not the CIO. He understands that technology happens.

They tell me that it’s too late, that nothing can be done.

I slink away again.

2002-10-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

Some people, and I have the impression that it is mostly men, are terrified to go to the doctor. Maybe it is the doctor's hurried and supremely self-confident and superior way of tossing off diagnoses and prescriptions that make people dislike seeing them. It explains the gender difference, too. Most women are used to being condescended to, at least a little.

Of course, things have changed so much. The last hundred years or so have taken medicine so far.

But so much has changed so little.

"The Doctor's Dillemma" by Bernard Shaw satirizes the medical profession brilliantly. Shaw groups the brilliant doctors of his late victorian era and has them talk about their methods and their practices in such a way as to make any sick person set off in search of a witch doctor.

That's not the only point to the story, though. There is a dilemma for the doctor, after all. A lovely young woman comes to him for help; she wants him to cure her husband of tuberculosis. He is quite dismissive at first, but is charmed by her and agrees to see the man.

With time, he becomes more and more impressed with the young woman--at the same time he discovers her artist husband is a liar and a cheat.

Is he worth saving? For his wife's sake? For his art's sake?

The play is very interesting, dealing with serious subjects, but with a lot of humor.

2002-10-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Writing takes time. It takes a certain time of brain space, too. I have been really busy with work. I wish that work would back off a little...I would rather be reading and thinking and writing than doing all this JOB stuff.

But the job stuff pays the bills.

I had a chance to listen to PYGMALION by Shaw. That was a great play! All kinds of good stuff, about class tension and social climbing and the place of women and the importance of manners in society.

On the back of the package, it says "PYGMALION inspired the award-winning film and stage productions of Lerner and Loewe's musical, MY FAIR LADY."

I went and got MY FAIR LADY so that I could compare the two. I like musicals.

But you know, this was pretty different than the play. THe musical added songs which are very nice. But the story itself is such a practical story...I mean, it is about getting this work done--HIggins has to teach Eliza how to speak.

In PYGMALION, Eliza learned very fast and had a quick ear.
In MY FAIR LADY, Eliza couldn't hear the sounds at all until Professor Higgins essentially tortured her inot saying it right. I thought that change to be rather implausible, he didn't even TRY to explain how sounds are formed. Then, after he's starved her and been cranky to her all day, she gets it and they dance around sining "The Rain in Spain." Then, he demands that she stay up and study some more.

And she goes all googly and sings "I could have danced all night."
WHAT?! the implication is that she is in love with professor higgins.
I fail to see the attraction. He hasn't done anything nice for her, and he's done a lot of mean things.

It doens't make sense to me.

In PYGMALION, Shaw treats marriage as a much more practical exercise. In fact, on of the lines that are in common show his point of view, "In tottenham court, I was above this. I sold flowers, not myself."

That line seems incongruous in the musical. THe musical has all kinds of massively sappy moments of LOOOOOVVVEEE!!! Freddie is head over heels, and Eliza is exstatic over Higgins, and Higgins has grown accustomed to her face.

It doesn't hang together quite as well.

I think the play was much more complimentary to Eliza, giving her talents that are to her credit. But the musical makes her a patsy, whose only major selling point is how pretty she is.

It's too bad.

2002-10-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

I managed to find some quiet moments to listen to LA Theater Works' " The Prisoner of Second Avenue." Neil Simon is a funny guy. But you all know that.

This one wasn't full of symbolism and deeper meaning. It reminded me of a black-and-white slapstick sitcom. It was funny.

He published it in the 70s, and the many references to Valium make it seem pretty dated. Valium is not the trendy drug that it used to be.

I especially liked the gasps by Richard Dreyfuss...I think it must take practice to gasp that well.

2002-10-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

This has been quite a week. My Co-worker had a cold, and it turned into a nasty cough. That either created or exacerbated a hernia he had. He went in for surgery. He was recovering, but then he died.

Tom was a very good man. We miss him. His wife and son miss him even more.

Last monday we heard that Tom had died. Then last thursday I came down with Tom's cold.

Germs live forever.

2002-10-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

Arthur Miller’s “The Price” by LA Theater Works

I picked this out of my local library because I remembered Arthur Miller as one of the writers affected by the McCarthy era, blacklisted by the House of Unamerican Activities Committee. The recording was a radio drama, and I had been listening to KPCC’s “The Play’s The Thing” with delight since I moved to the area.

After I listened to “The Price” the first time, I immediately put in the first CD to listen to it again. Miller is an amazing writer. I am filled with admiration and envy-- I’ll admit it. Wow! He tosses off such amazing insights like candy to a throng. He’s astoundingly prolific too. Reading his chronology of works shows that he just doesn’t stop…Play after magnificent play just roll off his pen.

“The Price” first premiered in 1968. By that time, both his parents had died, he had been married three times, Marilyn Monroe was his second wife, and had been persecuted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. His life spanned 2 world wars, the great depression and the rise of communism. As an American Jew, he encountered the holocaust and met concentration camp victims.

“The Price” is addressing how we pay for the life we choose. With all the dramatic examples of tumult and war and deprivation, Miller chose something much simpler. He took simple familiar family relationships and used it for the backdrop of his ideas. Victor and Walter are not utterly indistinguishable from the crowd, their family had drama. But given the times everyone had lived through, their drama was not extraordinary. One was a doctor, one was a policeman, and they confront one another about the choices they made that have brought them to where they are. Men in middle age taking stock and facing life-long illusions, they speak intensely and finally, with honesty, about their motivations.

The character of Mr. Solomon, the appraiser, really is priceless. He has such marvelous lines:

“The mania today is SHOPPING. Years ago, a person was unhappy, didn't know what to do with himself, he go to church start a revolution, something...Today, you're unhappy, Can't figure it out, what is the salvation? Go shopping!”

And all in the most wonderful Jewish accent. He’s real glue, bringing out points that the others cannot.

Miller wrote so many plays, this one is great, and not even in his top ten. I’m glad that LA Theater Works has captured the drama and made it available to those of us who might not make it to a theater as often as we wish.

2002-10-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

I just finished listening to The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland. Yes, you read right. I said, “listened.” I have discovered the joy of books on tape. I love to read, and when I am doing almost anything else, I wish I could be reading.

With a recorded book, I get the joy of reading while still accomplishing the other things I need to do. While doing housework, even on the job, I can hear a marvelous story and be taken away from the mundane.

This book was read by Gigi Bermingham, who really did a marvelous job. She changed her voice for the different characters and used just the right amount of Italian accent to make it work.

Artemisia, of course, is the first female painter to be admitted to the academy of Florence. Vreeland emphasizes her womanhood with sympathy. She is not a strange martyr, like Joan of Arc. Artemisia is shown to have all the universally female issues to deal with: how to be a mother, daughter, lover and wife.

Her tutor even sexually abuses her, and her father is unsympathetic. This is, unfortunately, a familiar situation for many women even to the modern day.

Artemisia is an artist, above all. Vreeland shows how she struggles to be a great painter and to grapple with large ideas. Galileo shows up, apparently they were friends. His Earth-moving theory and her tradition-shattering career choice are well matched.

Artemisia, as Vreeland portrays her, is very human and very familiar. She triumphs and she fails. But she does not give up on her art; she does not give up her pursuit of truth and beauty.

Vreeland evokes a full range of emotion for her Artemisia. She is passionate, she is angry, she is enraptured, but she is also tired and frustrated. She is very real.

Bermingham speaks for her just perfectly, too. She enunciates carefully and in a feminine way for Artemisia. Her phrasing added to the pleasure of the book.

2002-10-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

This is cross-posted on Blogcritics

Yes, I recorded it. Of Course! I'll be watching it all week. The Forsytes are a complicated family, and stand up to repeat examination. Old Jolyon, Young Jolyon and Soames Forsyte are the men of note. Little June grows up before our eyes and Winifred scandalizes everyone, but harmlessly. Mostly. The Aunts tut tut over every little thing. There seems to be such importance placed on the smallest detail of propriety. And they all take such pride in the "Forsyte's good name."

The Victorian age was a tough time for people to figure out. With the Industrial era setting in, people who had no formal expectation of rising socially found themselves filthy rich and wanting to be upper class. England's class system of nobility couldn't hold all the worthy contenders.

Since nobility was not as easy to achieve as wealth, they had to settle on a different measure of what was upper class. Money, naturally, was easy to decide on. But there was that other part of nobility…nobility of character… that was implied (in complete disregard of evidence of such in their ranks) to the noble classes. Respectability was prized. If you were rich, but were vulgar or not respectable, all the other people, so desperately clawing for status, could look down upon you. You can see how the slightest impropriety would be pounced on as grounds for derision and exclusion.

Yes, the Victorians were prudish. And extremely money conscious. The Forsyte series makes that immediately evident.

But the Victorians were not without heart. Anyone who has read the Bronte Sisters knows the kind of high-flown passion the Victorians held dear. Jane Eyre and Heathcliff and all of them, falling so deeply in love, like falling off a cliff. They had nothing to orient them, and no handhold to grasp. Except respectability, which Jane had and Heathcliff did not.

So the Forsyte, and the rest of the Victorians, followed the rules to stay on track. There were so many rules, so so many, that it would keep them occupied past their moments of passion.

Young Jolyon, the artist, was able to recognize his passion. He knew enough to see the pearl of great price and give up what he had to in order to take it. He had the capacity for great love. It is easy for the viewer to recognize that—he is the artist after all.

But for poor Soames, to encounter the passion of his life and have nothing preparing him for it, the situation is agonizing. He was impeccable, always doing the right thing at the right time. Nothing but that, and always that, the right thing. He is the one who pushes the other Forsytes to harden their hearts against the members of their clan who trespass. Soames expresses the harsh opinion of "people" without a word, merely maintaining the hardness of his features.

It is chilling and wonderful.

But when he meets Irenie, he is lost. He is helpless in the face of his love, admiration and passion for her. There are so many men who are capable of falling so hard in love, but might be like Soames, having absolutely no idea what to do with their feeling.

Soames blunders it. He knows how to be respectable, but he doesn't know how to enjoy life. Irene does, but he will not learn from her. He expects her to meet him on his terms. It is not hard to see how this will turn out.

I am mesmerized by Soames, even more than Irene or Young Jolyon. He is so controlled, that when he finally says "You are charming beyond words," it is as if the words were formed in flame.

I can't wait to see the rest of the series.

Check your local listings. I think many places repeat the first episode, and the rest is still coming.

And if you don't "do" TV, then by all means read the books. They are as good, maybe better.

2002-10-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

It has beautiful dresses and restrained passion. And ENGLISH ACCENTS!

It's a chick show. It's wonderful

The Forsyte sage began tonight on Masterpiece theater. I have been looking forward to it for weeks now. I had the chance to read the series years ago, before I really understood anything about anything. I've only seen the first part of the series, and I'm already finding it much richer than I remembered it.

It's worth watching. The series captures the late-Victorian middle class's obsession with money and propriety.

And then love. Where DOES love fit into a well-regulated household?

Soames is marvelous, he behaves like a stalker. It's great! He's so beside himself. And he's so bad!

All of the characters are fabulous. I will be watching.

2002-10-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve blogged before about creativity; I consider creative thought and expression to be of high value and usefulness. It is something I want to foster with my life and habits, and to encourage those I know to pursue their own creative endeavors.

I’ve described creativity very loosely, as any type of artistic expression. Drawing, Music, writing, sewing, dance—all these are easily identifiable as creative expression.

But as I thought about it, I realize that those ART categories are not the only way people are creative. I have known a lot of folks who considered their computer programs as a creative expression, and I can agree with them. Computer science, Mathematics, chemistry, and other sciences can be a framework to express creative minds.

In fact, many of these sciences rely on the creativity of their practitioners to directly improve the products and services used every day.

So, maybe creativity is not what I really mean.

If I use a pattern from Butterick, and create a poodle skirt for a Halloween costume, that is being creative. But I didn’t really create anything new.

And if I play a popular song on my piano, I haven’t really created anything new.

Not really. A little bit, I guess. Because I took an old favorite and made it my own. But I didn’t add much.

But if I sat at my piano and wrote a whole new song, that would be quite creative. That would be original.

I think that originality is the highest pursuit of creativity.

It is SO exciting to come upon an original idea. I know that one of the things I love so much about going to school was encountering new ideas. Even when they are not original, they are new to ME.

I never learned to play it cool in the classroom..I am the girl sitting in the front row that raises her hand and makes the point the teacher was just about to make before he can make it.

The teacher is droning …”And so, this leads to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which says…”

Me: “You mean everything in the universe is tending towards entropy?”

Pause

Teacher: “Why yes, thank you…”

Sometimes, I would connect the dots long before the teacher got to them. I would have figured out what he was about to teach, maybe a week in advance. I would be all excited, thinking I had understood something in a new way that no one had ever seen before.

But then we would get to that part of the chapter, and I would discover that my incredible new theory about the universe was already fully articulated by the ancient Greeks.

It sort of let the air out of the balloon. I was thinking I was brilliant and original, possibly a hidden genius for my great idea! But everyone else in the world already knew it.

What can you do?

I would often go to talk to my teachers about some idea I had, and they would always say, “Have you read this particular book? The author talks about that theory you are discussing.”

It makes me wonder if I have any original ideas at all. Apparently, all the licenses on original thought are sold.

But it also doesn’t take very much originality to go very very far. If one person comes up with a new idea, a TON of people are right there to copy it in a million different ways.

I mean, look at fashion. The fashions always seem to be regurgitations of the previous fashions from a respectful distance in the past.

Some major designer comes out with his or her expensivoso designs, based on older designs by some previous expensivoso. Then those are instantly snapped up by all the knock-off designers who make clothes for Target and Wal-Mart and K-Mart and all the other places.

There maybe have been, like, 5 grams of creativity in the entire fall clothing lines of the entire United States of America. Do you see what I mean? A little creativity goes a long way.

Also, creativity doesn’t usually happen in large amounts. I don’t know why, maybe it just doesn’t work like that. But most original ideas are simply a rearrangement of ideas already lying around.

The printing press, that boost-us-out-of-the-dark-ages device, was really thrown together out of ideas that had been used for the whole darn dark ages anyway.

But it did open people’s minds. Rearranging what has been there all along, and juxtapositioning things that had never been together before is enlightening.

Kind of like the fashion of the 70’s, which we seem to be reliving…free your mind:
Red and Pink CAN go together!
NOW ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

Baby steps, my friends…Our minds open slowly.

Very slowly. We don’t move even incrementally towards new ideas. I think it’s more like fractions of increments towards new ideas.

Some though, have minds set to be open. The really creative ones, they have their minds ajar, as it were.

That’s how I would like to be. Always open to new ideas.

At the same time, there is the fear, a real fear…At what point does the mind’s door become unhinged?

It’s well known that genius is close kin to madness.

Daily life rewards routine and patterns. Step outside of the pattern, and people will be bothered by the asymmetry.

But maybe some, maybe just enough, would be delighted.

2002-10-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

I am inadvertently in the middle of a cat fight here at work. My job deals a lot with Administrators, Receptionists and Secretaries.
Maybe this place is sexist...They all seem to be women.

Anyway, some woman told another woman that something was cancelled, and the second woman told the first woman that she had no right to cancel anything, and then SHE told HER that MURPHY said to, so there!

Whoops.

It was all a silly misunderstanding, but now these women are threatening to not speak to one another.

Goodness.

Some people here, certainly none of them my direct superiors, are under the impression that I am important. . Therefore, when such an important person as myself says something, IT IS TO BE OBEYED.

I am still curious where they are getting that "important" vibe. I don't feel important. Right now, I just feel busy.

Is that what being important feels like? Maybe I'm more important than I thought.

2002-10-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

There is a Dock strike in LA.

My sweet boyfriend, known for his unfailing foresight, asked me if I'd heard about it.

I had.

NPR was talking about how it was affecting truckers, and I was thinking about my friend Karen's dad, who is a trucker. But Chris said, "You'd better do your Christmas shopping early this year."

"Really? Why?"

"All those cheap christmas gifts come from Asia. And we're going to run out of cheap stuff from Asia or it's going to get really expensive really quick if this strike lasts any length of time."

Good point. Now all you readers can be prepared.

But this makes me feel sad, too. China has such a terrible human rights and labor rights record. I can just picture all the little child workers, making assembly line Santa Clauses for Americans, and they don't even have enough money to buy themselves decent toys, let alone get presents for Christmas.

It's just wrong.

2002-10-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

It's October, and frankly, I don't feel like it.

"Like what?" you might ask.

Anything.

I would like to be effortlessly fabulous. Profound, beautiful, gracious, yet keenly witty.
It's not happening. I am dull, rumpled, cranky and can only grunt.

unh.

Furthermore, I have no motivation to go out and "Make it happen!" so that I could become all those fabulous things I just said.
Richard Simmons would disapprove, I know.

I wish I had had the forethought to pre-record everything I had to do today so that I could press "play" and go back to bed.

2002-09-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

I went to the Fair this saturday. Los Angeles County has quite a few redneck-type farmers. It was just like county fairs are supposed to be.

Except they had a Hollywood Section, where you got to meet stars of shows that you've never heard of.

BUt they had all kinds of animals. Goats and Pigs and Sheep and Cows and rabbits and chickens and everything!

The pigs were my favorite. I may have to tell a few pig stories later. I got to pet their hairy sides and wiggle the little piglets' nose..THey are so wonderful!

It was somewhat of a shock to pass an entire pig spitted and roasting at one of the BBQ stands. I had just been petting the little guys!

It made me wonder how they shave the pig before they roast it.

But there were a lot of interesting food items for sale. The usual caramel apples and popcorn and cotton candy were there. Also, Funnel cake and Pink's hot dogs. THe specialty this year was deep friend twinkies.

I abstained.

2002-09-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Of all the crazy things, East Timor appears to have chosen a new national language. Finnish.

I am thinking of The Swedish Chef, and I am thinking of Garrison Kiellor and the Prairie Home Companion. Finnish is a strange-sounding language, and it has no association with East Timor at all.

That is the point. It has no association with East Timor. I guess, from my broad base of ignorance about Finland, the Finns have had a history of minding their own business, and not raging about the world conquering things.

East Timor has a history of other people minding THEIR business and conquering THEM. They are tired of it. So many terrible things have been done to them, a quick glance through the web pages about East Timor shows up sites all about "help them!"

They've been trampled on by a lot of colonizing countries, and none of the world's major languages hold good memories for them. Newly their own country, the officials are making decisions about what language to use, and they do not choose to use the language of their oppressor.

Their own language has become fragmented. They have not had the chance to cohese, under the dividing forces of colonialism.

They chose Finnish.

I see a kind of tragedy in their choice, and a heroism, too. They've been mistreated, and they choose to step away from those atrocities.

Language is incredibly important; it is the bearer of culture. If they chose the language of their oppressors, they are choosing also the culture that fostered that oppression. But the East Timorese say: no! no more and not for us. we will be something other than that.

Colonialism is a force and an influence which is hard to understand, especially if you are on the colonizers side. We Americans are a colonial power. We were not the first, there are many. So many, that the shadow of colonialism is cast over the whole globe.

It is time to realize it, and begin to come to terms with recctifying the situation. We must examine our heart and our attitudes to purge hurtful assumptions about others and ourselves.

I don't know if the East Timorese will stay with their Finnish language program, but I admire their choice. They have chosen the language, and therefore the culture of a non-colonial power. THey know the harm colonialism can bring, and they want out. More power to them.

2002-09-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

Well, This is a special day.

Six months ago, TODAY, this wonderblog was born. My first blog post on my first blog was six months ago.

AND, because I am nerdy, I went back and counted. There are more than 80 posts in that time. I’ve done a good job of updating my blog pretty frequently. I’m proud of what I’ve done.

I wanted to say thank you, to my small cadre of readers…Some of whom I don’t know at all, which thrills me tremendously. I know that I’m hardly a top hit of the internet, but even the fact that a few people are interested enough to read what I write makes it very worthwhile. If any of my readers would like to email a response or question, I would be pleased to reply.

This has turned out to be a very worthwhile endeavor for me. I feel sure that it will be around for another six months, and be even better.

Stay tuned, and happy anniversary to me!

2002-09-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

Today is Blogcritic day! I posted my review of The Hours on blogcritics, because Eric Olsen asked all blogcritics to post today. He wanted to do a blitz. I will be interested to see what happens. Go check it out!

2002-09-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham

There were two things that immediately put me on my guard with this book. One, the book was a takeoff on Mrs. Dalloway, and I don’t have a high regard for takeoffs. Second, the author is a male writing about the interior lives of women whish is suspect. I decided to wait and see what Cunningham had to offer, and make my assessment after I finished.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolfe expanded the significance of a single day into an entire novel. The Hours, by Michael Cunningham, takes the significance of the novel Mrs. Dalloway and tracks it across the lives of several people, still keeping the temporal window of a single day.

It’s not the same day, though. He tracks Mrs. Woolfe, Mrs. Brown and Clarissa, women of different generations, during their significant day. He manages to show how the novel has affected each woman in her own time. It is an interesting twist on Woolfe’s original work.

I remember reading Mrs. Dalloway, and thinking that it was not a long book, but that it was something I should probably read twice to get it’s meaning. I did not read it twice. Perhaps I will read it again now.

Woolfe’s novel highlights the importance of a single point in time. One of the things I took away from the book was a sense of Virginia trying to say, trying to write, trying to impress upon the reader every single impression of the characters. Every day, every MOMENT is filled past capture with sensory experiences and cognitive reaction to that experience. It is as if she wanted to capture the entirety of what a day is for the people that live in it. There is an inexhaustible fullness of joy in every moment; there is a sorrow in the passing time as well. Her sad Septimus was not able to cope with his allotted hours, the past, present or future moments which made up his life. It was too much for him.

Cunningham’s The Hours expands and savors the moments, as well. It seems that his selection of title comes from that emphasis. He has beautiful turns of phrases, capturing feeling and sensation and emotion elegantly. He put a window to the hearts and minds of the women in the book; it made me wonder how he knew. He must be very empathetic, or have some excellent female friends to share with him. It’s still a little studied, not the organic expression that Woolfe could convey.

The Hours is well worth reading. It is leisurely and lovely, and it made me notice my own moments a little more.

2002-09-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in a journalism class, which I have already mentioned. The teacher has been talking about the importance of keeping a source's anonymity, and of course, is talking about deep throat.

We need some new famous anonymous people, here. What's up with that? By the time everyone kicks the bucket and deep throat's identity is revealed, no one will care.

I probably will not recognize the name, since I hate the news anyway.

But I am sitting here in front of an iMac. That's what I'm wrting this on. Can you hear the accent? goodness gracious, it's a juicy blue one, too, almost the color of Crest Gelpaste...Mmmm...Minty!

I am told that simply ALL the newspapers use Apple computers.

Ugh. I thought I left that behind. This silly little iMac is already proving annoying. I was unable to find the tool that lets me create a link to the previous blog where I talk about my journalism class.

SIGH

perhaps I am just bitching. Not being able to find a tool doesn't mean it doesn't exist...

My brother (hi~!) was a Mac-aroni from the beginning. He started out in desktop publishing and so my first experience with computers (not counting the wind-up tandy color computer, that really hardly COUNTS, especially since my brothers hogged it anyway) is with the mac. The FIRST mac.

Finally, as a wise and discerning adult, I discovered PCs and Windows.

It was beautiful. I am quite happy with my computer. It does EVERYTHING i want it to do, and I don't have to save my word documents in an RTF format.

well.

that was a pointless rant, based on the fact that I am sitting in class being bored. I'm sure I added nothing to the holy war being raged by the Mac-ophiles against the mostly uninterested PC users.

If I become a famous journalist some day, i may have to use an iBook.
I suppose fame has its price.

2002-09-22T17:24:00.000-07:00

Dostoevsky, Anarchists, and Al Qaeda

Cross Posting at Blogcritics
--------------------------------------------

More than anything, Crime And Punishment seems to be about what the characters are thinking. Not necessarily in an inner-monologue kind of way, definitely not stream-of-consciousness, but what their ideas are.

The characters have beliefs and ideals and IDEAS. The ideas are more important to the main character than any reality that exerts itself upon him.

He seems startled when a reality that does not conform with his ideas presents itself. That’s not so surprising, I’ve experienced it and seen others experience it. When you believe something to be true, it is hard to assimilate new evidence to the contrary.

I am sure that I would not have understood this novel if I had not also bee reading The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman. This book is about the cultural climate right before WWI. I haven’t finished it yet, but I had gotten to the part where she discusses the anarchist movement, AKA the communist movement. The people who were involved in this movement were taking it upon themselves to attempt assassinations, with some successes, of the ruling class. They seemed to act with terrifying randomness, because their IDEA said all rulers were bad, and needed to be brought down.

For the anarchists, there was no allowance for personality in a ruler. It was incidental if they were benevolent, and in no way saved them from attacks. The position, regardless of who occupied it, needed annihilation. Murder was not wrong, when it was correcting the evil of the ruling class.

The anarchists were not in the majority, even among those who were acting against the contemporary powers-that-be. Socialists and Unionizers were associated with the anarchists, but only a very few acted on their ideas.

So, of course, it is easy to see the parallels between the picture Tuchman drew of these idealists and Raskolnikov. He wanted to prove himself as a man of genius, above such petty moral considerations. He is motivated by his ideas about the world, and ignores realities of the world. A college drop-out, who mopes in his room, neglects to eat. And, of course, murders an old woman based on his principles.

Dostoevsky seemed to be bringing the reader through the experience of Raskolnikov in order to show the consequences, the “Punishment.” As seductive as some ideas seem, there is a reality which must be reckoned with. Our rationalization of theories and ideas is fine as far as it goes, but there is a standard to measure against. We may not recreate the world according to our ideas.

Of course, the times being what they are, I could not help but see a similarity between the turn-of-the-century idealists and the modern ones. I read the stories of the anarchists who murdered in the name of their beliefs. I saw how their zealot faith led them to an inevitable conclusion. And I remembered a certain group of men who hijacked some planes.

Wrong. When interacting with the universe, humility is required. You will not convince the world that you are right, and make it change. Not like that. The laws of the universe always get the final world: “Because I said so!” We must bend our minds to their forms, always and forever. There are consequences and reactions for our actions; and there is usually something that has been overlooked in the grand IDEA.

Raskolnikov had to understand how moral laws worked. Dostoevsky did a really good job of showing the complexities of his thoughts and experience. It isn’t simple.

Neither is the book. It’s long and often seemingly pointless. But it’s worth reading, and unexpectedly timely.

2002-09-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

There was a fire across the street from my bus stop this morning.

I noticed it first because of the huge black plume of smoke. Actually, I noticed it before I noticed it. I thought it was foggy outside, and I was worried that the bench would be too wet to sit on. Then I noticed the pillar of smoke.

Since I was still stupefied from being up too early, I didn't realize that the smoke was unusual. I just thought it was from a smokestack. Then I thought, hey, there's no smokestack on that building. Which is when I saw the fire.

It was burning in a grove of trees by the highway. The orange glow flickered through the black outlines of the trees growing between me and the flames. It seemed rather small, especially when compared to the multi-acre fires we've been used to this year. I watched it for a while before I thought, should I call the fire department?

There were a few men in the parking lot across the street, they were closer to the fire. I thought they must have called, since they were obviously watching it. But it was quiet, and time dragged on with no sirens. I became suspicious and wondered if those people were the ones who had set the fire.

There are crazies out there, you know.

If I'd had my phone with me, I would have called. I've never called 911 before, it would be a good thing to know how to do, in case of emergency. But this was an emergency. There was a fire across the street.

I'd had a fire near my house before, at a nasty slummy place I lived in Anchorage. The building over burned down. We all got out on the balconies and watched it. But the trucks were already on the scene.

I was waiting for the bus, and I was concerned because it was late already. I had an important meeting at work I didn't want to be late for. But there was a fire burning. What if no one called 911? In my sleep deprived state, I just watched it burn. I was reminded of how much I love the smell of woodsmoke. It always reminds me of fall in Alaska.

But this wasn't a fire in a woodstove. What if it raged and I ignored it, because I needed to go to work?

That's what's wrong with the world today. People don't care. Maybe I should go inside and call the fire department.

It seemed like an eternity before the trucks appeared. But they did blare up the road, and let me off the hook.

After they fire was put out, wispy flakes of ash began to rain on me.

2002-09-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

This art review is on blogcritics, too. Just so you know.

2002-09-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to see the works of Thomas Struth this week at the Museum of Modern Art here in downtown LA. I made a point of going to the MOCA , since I believe in the importance of art and art museums. It's funny, I'll go to huge lengths to spend an entire day at a museum when I travel, but if it's nearby and convenient, I have trouble finding the time.

The MOCA is a small museum, which is good because I only had my lunch hour to see it. Also, the "contemporary art" title made me curious as to what I should expect. It's funny, but you can't call it "Modern" art anymore. Modern art is the art of a specific period, which, ironically, is in the PAST. Those who categorize and subdivide are soon going to run out of words.

But contemporary art right now means Thomas Struth, among others. His works on display were photographic. Big photographs. I'm concerned with three kinds of things he took pictures of:

Patches of jungle
Major City streets
People in museums looking at incredible art

In his jungle shots, there were no people, only plants. In this respect, Struth was the only human touch in the scene. The plants grew untamed in an order completely without human intervention. Struth's choice of angle and lighting for his photograph was the only external influence upon the profusion of flora represented in the work.
The city views he photographed were the exact opposite. Every object in the frame was something created by humans. Sidewalks, streets, skyscrapers, billboards, streetlights, even the clothes on the passersby were all products of human choices and endeavor. And yet...The scene in total was more random than each individual choice. In the same way that each plant in the jungle photos sprung up according to it's own needs and volition, it seemed as if each man-made object in these city scenes had sprung up out of distinct and different wills and desires. The scene was chaotic and conflicting, with different goals and philosophies expressed. The people walking through the streets all had their own purposes in mind, mostly unaffected and undeterred by their surroundings. There was not really an over-arching plan in the arrangement of these big and small objects, they sprang up according to desire and need.

The progression of subjects in these photographs from purely natural to purely man made reminded me of something...It wasn't until I put it together with the photos of people in museums that I remembered...The aesthete movement in Victorian England.
Walter Pater started it, and Oscar Wilde finished it. "Art for art's sake" was their slogan. As I remember it, Pater wrote up this whole argument that artistically refined art is the better.

Think: refined like sugar.

He said, Nature is beautiful, yes. Go out and receive the beauty of a sunset. But you might be disappointed. It would be better by far to go to a museum and observe a painting of a beautiful sunset. But if that is a better idea, then it might be even better to read a beautiful critical piece about the beautiful painting of a beautiful sunset.
The art critic's piece would be beauty (aka art) processed, refined, three times. He rhapsodically concluded that it must therefore be the highest and best
I’m not making this stuff up. He had a lot of adherents in his day.

So the photos of the jungle are once processed, just nature turned into a photograph. The next one was cities, human-processed nature, turned into art.

But don't stop there!

We now arrive at the photographs of people in museums looking at the art. Which is a little weird, because I was in a museum looking at photos of the people looking at art in a museum.

I think Pater would have been curling his toes in glee.

I was thinking of Puff Daddy. Are these photos the equivalent of remixes? Like in P. Diddy's remixes, I was paying attention to the hook. Me and my friend kept commenting on the beautiful paintings in the photo. Of course! They were astounding and beautiful and all the things that we love to go to museums for.

What if there was a 99-cent museum gallery, with nothing in it but prints of great works of art? I bet we would enjoy it still.

Just a thought.

I'm still not sure about Struth. I respected the jungle and city shots, but I am uncertain about the museum shots. What was the originality of his product? How much of himself was he really adding?

2002-09-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

I'm famous!

Those of you who read my boyfriend's blog are familiar with the truly stupendous new website, Blogcritics.org. That clever man who created Blogcritics, Eric Olsen, sent me my password to join the Blogcritic cadre.

I'm so thrilled to see myself in print, I'm squirmy!

I reprinted my little review on Alanis over there. It's exactly the same as the one below, but it is on someone else's page, with a logo and links on the side.

You should check out the site, anyway. It is grassroots in the best possible way, and it's interesting. I find out all kinds of things by checking it out.

This may have the result of focussing my posts, here, too. I may feel more motivated towards critically relevant topics, and less inclined towards introspective musings...Or maybe I will merge the two!

We'll see.

2002-09-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Readers!

Thank you for your patience. Let's just say, you get what you pay for sometimes.

Blogger was giving me technical problems. Apparently, they thought I needed a makeover.

I kind of like the new look, and I really like that I can post again.

2002-09-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

Once, while on a visit to a zoo, I saw a jaguar. This shiny black animal was pacing back and forth in front of his cage, eyes intent on the direction he was headed, muscles rippling with the potential of all the things muscles can do.

I could not stop watching this pent up animal. He was caged, yes, but he also seemed pent inside himself. I wanted to catch his eye to see what he was feeling. Of course, he never looked at me. He was single-minded in his purposeful prowl.

I could not help remembering that magnificent beast when I saw Alanis Morrisette explode onto the stage at the Greek Theatre last Saturday. Her skin-tight black leather pants helped the illusion, but she had the same barely contained pacing that the jaguar had. She loped across the stage in strides that were far longer than most people would take. She stretched her legs, and her voice and her heart out as far as she could.

Her songs have always hit me like a Mack truck. When she sings about love and faith and pain she takes the lid off the things I’ve “kept bubbling under,” and makes me feel the need to move, to act, or to speak.

Her songs, no matter which one, express her spirit. She is not comfortable, she is not complacent. When I saw her relentless pacing onstage, I was not surprised. I feel like pacing too, when I hear her songs.

I am grateful to her, because she grapples with ideas and issues that many people grapple with. Most people, however, give up in exhaustion, willing to believe that answers or even questions are beyond their capacity. Alanis does not give up on them. After seeing her perform in person, I can see that she cannot. The person she is finds it physically impossible to back off.

She engages her experiences and her questions as if in battle. She finds a way to express them, and behind every single song is a harmonic drone, like a bagpipe, of “Why?” She dares to take it on.

And I, along with many others, am very much the richer for it. She’s given a voice to many of us, because she was able to express herself, She did not hold back and say, “that’s too personal, I’d better just be quiet about that.” It’s in the personal, in the subjective, that the universal human experience can be understood.

I appreciate her bravery, and I am so glad I saw her in concert. I really need to buy her latest album.

2002-09-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

In LA, every waitress is supposed to be waiting for her break to be an actress.

My Muzhik novelist from last Sunday was probably not a professional writer, not yet.
I don't know what he did to earn a living.

One of my friends from book club was telling me about her career in Television. "They are grooming me to be a producer. But I just don't know...I REALLY want to write coming-of-age books for children."

The guy that I had coffee with was the director of a very respected news program. "But that's not what I came here to do," he says. "I have more in mind."

And me?
I'm a video conferencing professional, but I just signed up for a journalism class.

Charles Dickens, author of Great Expectations, had his hero in Oliver Twist say it for us:

'Please, sir, I want some more."

Yeah, we all want some more. More from our jobs, more from life, more from ourselves.

And more from our JOBS. That's a critical thing. After the basics are taken care of--food, housing, clothing, etc.--that job takes on a different meaning. The struggle for survival takes so little effort, that we think we can do it with one hand tied behind our back. That leaves us with an extra hand to do all kinds of other things! Maybe we begin to resent the effort it takes to have a job...And we want to get both those hands working together to do what we "really" want to be doing.

A lot of books are written about that. What Color is Your Parachute? and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are just two well-known examples. These authors write out systems of how to articulate your values and line up your life according to what you believe is most important.

That's great! that's why those books are such bestsellers. Who wouldn't want to achieve perfect balance?

And they continue to be top sellers, because people are not achieving that balance. In large droves, we continue to have difficulty finding the perfect job.

Does it exist?

I remember talking with my friend a long time ago, we were griping about work. I said, "Don't you think that this is your dream job? I mean, when you were a kid, if someone told you that you would get to be a computer programmer at NASA, you would have been thrilled!"

"Yeah," he said. "I remember taking a tour of NASA when I was about 14 and being completely impressed."

"And you worked hard to get the chance to work there. But now, you complain about it! Being an adult sure turns out to be different than what we thought it would be like when we were kids."

Maybe the idea of the perfect job is not for everyone. On This American Life, they ran a show that talks about it. In the last segment the narrator talks about his love of making things, crafty art pieces that engaged his whole self in the making.

He researched whether he could get a job doing crafts, but concluded that if it was his job, it would no longer be his passion. He would be compelled to do it, instead of free to do it.

That show has really stuck with me lately. I like my job a lot, it is satisfying and it pays my bills. But I have been struggling with pursuing it as a career, since I am not sure that it gives me the opportunity for expression of my best talents.

But maybe we as human being are more complicated than that. Maybe our best talents, that we are all trying to foster and get more opportunity to express, are not things that we can access 40 hours a week.

2002-09-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

My busmate gave me a flower today. It's sitting in a cup of water by my phone.

I met her the first day that I took the bus. She was very friendly and helped me get off at the right stop, since it was her stop. Then we discovered that we work for the same company.

Now she is my friend, She is very careful for me on the bus, and when I get on, she makes sure to point out a good seat for me, if the one next to her is taken.

Once, when I was sitting next to her, we passed by the chinatown farmer's market. I told her that I was fascinated by the different asian fruits and vegetables, but I had no idea how to cook them. She said she was philipina, and she knew how to cook all kinds of things.

This led naturally to a later lunch date...We had dim sum. It was great! she showed me the best places to go. Since I usually am intimidated by the different foods, I was really happy to have her there.

But today, she brought me a flower! It's very beautiful and it smells really nice. She called it a Camia.

I'd never heard of that kind of flower before, and since her accent is a little thick, I wasn't sure that i had heard the name right.

But I found out about it on the net:

"Millions of flowers of all colors and scents bloom all year-round throughout the Philippines. For this reason, many authors call the archipelago the "Land of Flowers". There are about 10,000 species of flowering plants and ferns in the Philippines. Among the beautiful flowers are the lovely sampaguita, the charming cadena de amor, the romantic gardenia, the milky-white camia, the bewitching dama de noche, and the majestic bougainvillea of various colors. "

That was ALL I could find on google.

But that makes it seem more rare and special. Only philipino people know about camia.

And me.

2002-09-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

This was originally an email, but I thought it was blog-worthy.
-----------------------

Last Sunday, I had a chance to meet someone off of Craig's list...We'd been emailing wittily back and forth, and we decided we had to meet face to face. We decided to meet down at a place called Psychobabble...It was open mike night.

I didn't know what he looked like, but I told him I would wear a beret, and he would recognize me. I was sort of looking around, and I looked hard at this one guy, thinking it might be him.

The guy (it wasn't him) kind of skulkily followed me up to the counter. He nerved himself up to ask me, in a thick Russian accent, if I had come for the poetry.

"Is it poetry night?" I said. "If only I had come prepared!"

"You write poetry?"

I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Doesn’t everybody?"

He said he would be reading his poetry. I told him I would have to make sure to listen for it.

Then he noticed the copy of Crime and Punishment I had brought. You never know if these internet types will actually show up. I figured I'd better have reading material in case I got stood up or had to wait a long time.

"Oh, are you reading that? He is my favorite author"

"Yeah, I'm almost done with it. But I think I like Tolstoy better."

"Well, yes but..Tolstoy was very different. I mean..."

"Yeah, Tolstoy was from a different era."

"Yes! Yes!"

I had obviously impressed the socks off this Russian poet Muzhik.
He had to regain some ground.

"Well, if you like Tolstoy, you would probably like my novel."

That's quite a claim.

"You've written a novel?"

"Yes. I could email it to you, so you could read it."

This is a new line. So much for etchings. We've gone on to novels!
But I know better now.

"Sure, give me your email address."

Better to get his than to give him mine. I had to get rid of him somehow. The guy I was really there to meet had showed up, and it's bad form to be hit upon while meeting another male for the first time. Even though it was a platonic meeting, they can get miffed.

I got his email on a napkin and me and the other guy slipped out of the cafe.
I missed my chance to hear the Muzhik's poems.

I'm still undecided whether I want an e-novel sent to me or not.

2002-09-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

I found my grocery store! It's on the way back from school.

Oh, it is marvelous! It's called JON'S. I think it's a take off on the other big store "Von's"

But the reason it's marvelous is because it has all the wonderful ethnic foods you can think of. They sell frozen pelmeni and vareniki. They also have fresh bulgarian feta at the deli section. They have ptitsa moloko actualy labelled "Bird's Milk" on the box.

When I saw that they had Pryaniki, and they were called Pryaniki, I almost welled up. I couldn't help remembering the times I had discovered Pryaniki the first time, in the deli at Mirnyy. I spent SO much time shopping when I was in Russia.

It was all there was to do, but it was also a lot of fun discovering new things.

I also remembered the friends that I shared the bird's milk and Pryaniki with when I was in Russia. I felt very sad because I knew I would never see most of them again.

But it was wonderful to go to a store that had all these treats I had almost forgotten.

2002-09-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

Heard at work today, in serious tones:

"...that sounds like a reasonable explanation. Other than the fact that it doesn't work..."

"It's good if they can get you an explanation, though..."

"Oh, Yeah!"

Information Technology is strange.

2002-09-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Although the wonderblog is supposed to be “musings about art and the meaning of life,” I’ve been a little short on the art portion of that. At least, I have never really done a critique of a piece of art yet.

Today, that will change. And I invite comment, please. Isn’t good art supposed to evoke a response?

That’s what they say.

Art should challenge you. Art should change your perspective. Art should make you uncomfortable sometimes.

Right.

But the major patrons of art in the 21st century are corporations. Art for the foyer. Decorative sculpture for the drive up to the main office. Ah yes.

Should lobby art make you uncomfortable? Perhaps the “challenge” of corporate art should have it’s base in challenging the workers (dare I say proletariat?) to do their best work for the company.

My company has been going through some renovations, which included my floor. It was several weeks before the renovation process got around to the part where they hang up pictures. There is a poster by Georgia O’Keefe in the mailroom now. Not her best work—I can say this, since I’ve been to her gallery in Santa Fe—but it is an interesting perspective of the trunk of a tree and some of it’s branches. I appreciate it. There is another work by the elevator; I call it the crayon tree. It’s a sort of white abstract tree trunk on a black background, with brightly colored marks or dabs along the sides. It looks like it’s raining crayons, as I wait for my elevator to arrive. Not sure about that one’s merit, but whatever. It’s cheery.

The one by my buddy’s cube is a sort of college-dorm poster. It’s a poster of a stretch of road going off into the distance, and an enormous moon hangs over it in the twilight blue sky. I think that a college freshman with a desire to travel and/or own a motorcycle would really dig it.

My buddy hates it.

These pictures are all of a bland nature. They are there, they give your eyes a place to rest on, but they are mostly non-intrusive.

The piece that really stopped me was on a different floor. It is a piece called “Candy Bar” by Mel Ramos.

Let me see if I can describe it accurately. It is mostly made out of cardboard, and it looks like a Baby Ruth wrapper. There is an edge of the cardboard with what seems to be instructions posted in the upper left corner. I don’t remember what it says exactly, but it starts out saying, “Cut along the lines.” The candy bar wrapper looks partly opened, and the cardboard cutout of a young blonde 70’s-style knockout is inserted into the wrapper. The edges of the wrapper come right to the right spot on her chest, all you see is a bit of cleavage. But the whole thing is mounted on a mirror, so when you come up to get a closer look, or to read the instructions, you can see that her entire backside is naked. You can even see her tan line, a pale stripe running across her back and another blunt triangle across her naked bottom.

This one is hanging up across from a popular video room, so I get to pass by it a lot. The first time I saw it, I was flabbergasted and I had to take a better look. The idea of a woman being in a candy wrapper was so obviously sexist that it seemed to be almost anti-sexist. And when I got closer, I saw that it was mounted on a mirror, and I saw her little tan lines.

The whole thing is only about a foot tall. Probably not even that. She’s not much bigger than a Barbie.

An apt comparison.

But since I have to pass by this candy bar frequently, I am becoming more and more disturbed. Yes, it is a blatant portrayal of women as consumables for male palates. Or even female. It broadly states the objectification of women, and the role women are expected to play in society. How much the artist is aware of this is unknown. Maybe he is portraying his own attitudes, and they coincidentally are widespread.

It’s witty. It is an exaggerated perspective of an often unspoken reality. In the right mood, it might be profound.

I’m trying to be objective and open about it.

But I don’t think it is the sort of thing that belongs in a company hallway. Yes, women are commonly objectified. But they should not be experiencing that kind of treatment at work! So why should this piece of art (and I think it is more artistic than the crayon tree or the dorm poster) be displayed here?

I don’t think that Japanese Americans would like to have artistic photographs of War scenes from WWII posted in the hallways.

I don’t think African Americans would appreciate having scenes of slavery posted in public rooms.

Corporate art has to be more subtle. More bland, maybe.

Art is not art is not art. That is to say, there is a time and a place for different kinds of art. And some of the most profound and life-changing or life-enriching art must be handled carefully. Like a volatile substance.

I have in the past, a long time ago, made snide comments about the meaninglessness of corporate art. Those strange abstract geometric shapes made out of steel or concrete and rise up tall in the parking lot—“What does that MEAN?” I would say. “That’s not art. It’s just a way to fulfill the government’s requirement to spend x percentage of new construction on ‘art’.”

That was before I started going to work in those buildings.

But here is my dilemma now:

Do I swallow it? Do I just ignore Ms. Candy Bar?

Or do I try to get it removed?

2002-09-04T09:24:00.000-07:00

It seems that I am addicted.

Those following my blog, and those who know me (what's the difference, really? :) know that I have just completed my Bachelors in English. YAY FOR ME!

A long time goal, that. It feels very good to be done. But...I miss taking classes. I love going to school and having a forum to ask questions and learn new things. I'm not through with that yet!

California is an absolute Nirvana of educational opportunities. With the difficulties of multi-culturalism and English as a second language for a large number of students in Cali, it is to their credit that they have made it so easy to learn stuff. I'm lucky. English is my first language, so it's pretty easy for me to get access to all the goodies.

Not too long ago, I called my last remaining friend in Alaska. She happened to mention that her fiancée was really anxious to go to college, and he had never had the opportunity. A little later, she mentioned that she was thinking of moving to California. "Well," I said, "Greg would be able to go to a jr. college for 11 bucks a credit if you moved here."

She just about fell through the floor. "That's impossible! Really?!"

California has made it very easy to get eddicated.

So. I am going to try to sign up for a journalism class at the JC around the corner. Maybe it will teach me to blog better.

We'll see.

2002-09-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

I have already mentioned the homogeneity of Silicon Valley--how it is very much an industry town. ONE industry: Computers.

When you are into computers, and you live anywhere else in the country, you tend to think of yourself as outside of the mainstream. If you have delusions of grandeur ( and many computer folks do, especially when they are young) you may consider yourself as part of an elite group of people "in the know," able to toss around TLAs (three-letter-acronyms) like pronouns. After all, you are able to speak in hieroglyphic syllables to communicate with others like yourself, those who can engineer, control or manipulate abstract and physical machines that wrap themselves around the globe like a poly-tentacled jellyfish.

And so many other cannot do this.

In fact, so many others are in-"duh"-viduals who cannot even understand your syntax.

The idea of the ones who know and understand as an elite strata is easy to buy into.

That is, until you are in Silicon Valley. The maligned, misunderstood, socially inept computer geeks of the world have flocked to SIlicon Valley and found a community where they are simply one of many. TLAs are no longer mysterious knowledge symbols, they are common parlance. The erstwhile guru becomes a grunt in Silicon Valley.
There is a knowledge base there unlike anything else in the world; it is a veritable Fort Knox of Geek intelligence.

One of these troy ounces of Geekitude, my friend Tantek, has a blog now. It is his story about a Silicon Valley encounter that has set me off on this blog-rant.

Now let me just say, I understand the elation he describes at overhearing the deep-geek conversation in the restaraunt. Lord knows, when a person is passionately interested in a topic, it is very exciting to find others who also love it and can discuss it on the same expert level as yourself.

HOWEVER, I myself was getting a little tired of the ONE THING happening in Silicon Valley. Life is rich and full. It is important to have more than one interest. Computers are fascinating, and I enjoy them. But there is more to life than start-ups.

2002-08-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

There is quite a lot of animosity going on between the North and South. Well, I have a feeling that the Northern part of California is more invested in the animosity than the Southern part is.

But as I said, I am still figuring it out.

An up and coming artist that I had never heard of before today has created a series of paintings depicting a fictional battle between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

It's one of those profound-as-you-wanna-be series, I guess. There is a lot of immediate humor involved. It doesn't take much previous knowledge to appreciate the idea of an army of pizza delivery guys and big gulp slurping soldiers. But there is more thought put into it than that, as the writer of that article shows.

I think the whole thing is pretty funny. I bet the artist had a lot of fun designing them.

Here's another article that gives even more of the story.

2002-08-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

I woke up VERY early this morning. I had washed my hair last night, and I wasn't sure what to do with it all wet when I went to bed. So I wrapped it in a towel and went to sleep like that.

I think I may need to wash my hair more often down here..The air is muckier...I have been feeling like my hair is dirty, and I don't usually feel that way. Or, I didn't in sunnyvale. I washed before it felt that way.

Anyway, I woke up, and it had dried very pretty. I dindn't have to do ANYTHING to it.

It is free and curly and pretty. How nice! Espcially on a day when I don't feel so good, having to be up at

4:30

!!!!!

But it is nice to feel pretty, even though I am tired.

Before I woke up and discovered my hair, I lay in bed in a little bit of a stupor. I was listening to some guy talk about...something...Knowing yourself? He was saying something about making sure to live your life the way you know you need to...in the middle of a list of other things he said "...and make sure to have quality time with..." friends and family, right? NO.
"..our companion pets.."

That was not was i was expecting to hear. Is that shallow? In LA, they don't tell you to reach out to your fellow humans, they tell you to spend time with your lapdog.

*smirk*

However, it made me feel guilty about not spending quality time with my companion pet.

Poor Skellig.

As I was about to leave, I was saying goodbye to him, like I always do. He was looking at me, lying in the middle of the living room. I felt bad, so I went up and petted him for a little bit.

He was lying next to a blue mouse. As soon as I petting him, he started chirping, purring and loving on the mouse.

Good kitty!

He really liked it that I petted him. Perhaps I should work it into my morning routine, to pet him for 5 minutes. That shouldn't be too hard. He was very nice.

chirp
chirp

2002-08-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Ah yes. Early morning Wednesday. More about that later.

On Monday night, I went to a book club. I had signed up online, and I was very excited to be part of a book club here in LA.

Remember all those warning about the shallow people here?
Maybe shallow people don't read books. Maybe moving here means that I will never be able to discuss what I read (because I am always reading) with anyone.

How sad!

But there was a book club, and I joined it.

Let's see...Philip, Mike, Justin, Michael, Amy, Gneb, and...oh..what was that last girl's name? I can't remember. We were reading Othello.
It was fabulous. A lovely INDEPENDENT coffee shop, sitting around and discussing Iago's motives. Then we got to know each other a little bit. Everyone was friendly and intelligent. Everyone had something to say and add.

At the end, I asked everyone what they did for a living. They were fascinating. Everyone back in the bay area would say, "IT" or "Networking" or "Programming" or "databases". They are different, it's true, but there is a homogeneity. Back when those fields were not sinking, it was kind of fun that everybody all worked in the same field. But at the same time, it meant that you ended up talking Tech all the time.

and NOT talking about Othello. For example.

So, at this table, we had ME. Video conferencing administrator. Kind of a glamorous career.

Not compared to these people. There was a guy who was a commercial artist, an illustrator. Then the guy who wrote descriptions of action in movies for people who can't see the movies...Kind of like closed captioning (he said it was his firm that does that), but it's said out loud. If you can't see what's happening on TV, you might not be able to pick it all up from just the dialogue. So this guy writes the stuff like "Sheila enters the dining room", or "John furrows his brow"
I think that is also tremendously cool.

Then there was the former Jazz trombone player, whose lips were wearing out, so he was an insurance guy, making sure cars get fixed right. HE says he loves cars too, so it's not a complete departure from his passions. He's still composing.

Then the girl who is working on a reality TV pilot, but wants to keep her integrity, so think she would like to write children's books.

Then the guy who is an Economics professor at a state university. He was actually asked a lot of questions. We all wanted to know things about what it was like to be a professor, or what economics was really about.

Then the girl who worked for the Chamber of Commerce at Hollywood. I guess she helps with the walk of the stars...Whatever that's called. And other things. She got asked a lot of questions about the idea ( I had never heard about this before) that some part of Hollywood, or San Fernando valley or somewhere wants to secede from the city of Los Angeles. A whole discussion of local politics ensued.

I was, I must confess, enraptured. It was hard to leave. I was there almost 4 hours.

We all had to come up with suggestions for the next book to read and discuss. We filled up a whole page of ideas. NONE of them were science fiction or fantasy-those geek staples were left entirely out.

2002-08-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

When I told my new co-workers where i live now, one of them said, "Oh, that's a very trendy neighborhood."

I said, "Really?"

I had no idea.

But. As I was watching the stupid afterwork television when I got home, I turned on that stupid show "Blind Date."
It's the one with all the pop-up insults, and commentary on how the date is going before you know how it ended?

THEY WERE DOING THEIR STUPID DATE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD!!!

I am not sure what I think about this.

They went to the Irish restaraunt around the CORNER from me. THe Tam O'Shanter.
very weird.

TV is roaming about in my neighborhood. I don't know.

Maybe I should start wearing makeup every day, In case I'm on TV.

Just kidding. I'm sure that would end up making me look worse.

Besides, since I do video conferencing, technically, I'm on TV every day.

But it was a weird feeling, seeing my neighborhood on national TV.

2002-08-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

The Vendors came today. The Vendors bought us lunch.

For my non-IT readers, the “Vendor” phenomenon requires some explanation. Even if you are an IT person, but you are a vendor, you may need to know what it looks like from the inside.

I work for a company. And companies, in many ways are all the same. I do what I do for them, and they need someone to do it, and they are glad that they have someone reliable like me doing it. But mostly, I am not that important. I solve problems when they arise, mostly. I do other things, but as far as everyone else in the company knows, I solve problems.

People are sometimes grateful when their problems are solved. But usually, the intensity of their gratitude does not equate the intensity of their distress when they came to me with the problem.

So I am not that important in my company, not really. I just do my job and continue to solve problems.

BUT! There are vendors. Vendors are special. They are the people we pay to do certain things that we don’t know how to do or don’t have the time to do. They are not us. They are other people, other companies, who do only that one thing that we happen to need right then. And we pay them to do that one thing, because we need it.

Naturally, we think that they should be so excited to just be near us, that they would offer to do the job for free.

Naturally, they think that since we need the job done so badly we should be willing to pay top dollar.

Somewhere in the middle, we have to find a way to get what needs done. Usually, the vendor has to do some things for free. Usually, the company (us) has to pay top dollar for some things.

As you can imagine, it takes a lot of shifting and discussing and pushing back and forth to achieve the mutually beneficial balance between free and top dollar. Exaggerations on both sides, promises on the one, threats on the other. Poking, flattery, courting and playing hard to get, all these things play into the vendor-company relationship.

I usually enjoy meeting with vendors. Because I’ve always been on the company side, and I get to be the one to play hard-to-get. It’s nice to be treated like you are important. I like to make vendors take me out to lunch.

But I like meeting with vendors for another reason, too. I have to spend most of my time buried in a technology that most people don’t know that much about. But these people (or at least some of them) do know about it. They can talk about it, and answer more questions and tell me about new things that are about to happen, or things that happened in the past that I hadn’t heard before. It’s almost like a fan club.

These vendors hadn’t met me yet. I just started work there, remember? So when they met me, they wanted to know what I had done. When I said I had 5 years experience in Video Conferencing, they just about fell out. Not so many people have that.

They asked me about this and that and gave me kudos and all kinds of respect for knowing things. It felt kind of good, except there was no way to forget that these were vendors and sucking up is what vendors do. At least in those kinds of meetings.

But I think they really were quite impressed with the breadth of my experience. We were talking like equals in nothing flat. They were impressed by my experience, but even more than that.

I was a girl.

There was an additional reason I was looking forward to this meeting with the vendors. Even more than being treated like I was important for the duration of a lunch hour, I had some ISSUES that I needed to take up with them. Some of the equipment wasn’t working right, and I have problems with their service that I wanted to take them to task about.

My boss has indicated that he is pretty direct with vendors and getting what he needs from them. He has told me to do the same. No problem. That would be my preference anyhow. Isn’t direct the shortest distance between to points? Or something.

The vendors were talking a mile a minute, and telling about this and that and all the things that can be and could be and should be. I had questions, and I had no problem saying, “stop! What do you mean by that? And what about this?”

I didn’t learn without asking questions.

A lot of what I wanted to know, they didn’t have answers to. Well, I don’t appreciate that. I like to think that the people who do the ONE thing, and the ONE thing they do is what we are paying them for, should know all about it.

Whatever. They are trying to sell us something so that they can stay in business and get their bonuses. That’s fine.

Anyway, the vendors took us to lunch, and we were all talking about this and that. The guys were asking my opinion about this company and that company, what I thought about different products, etc. Then, from the other end of the table, I catch one of the guys saying, “Well, I’m sure that if it wasn’t done right, we would hear about it from Murphy…and loudly!”

Loud? I hadn’t been loud. “…i wouldn’t be loud….” I said.

Well, we were all having a good time. He meant no harm by it, I’m sure. But I began to think about it. Why would the vendor guy think of me as loud? I wonder if he thought of my boss as loud? Because my boss was probably as direct, if not more direct than I.

I think that assertive and smart in a female is particularly astounding. Women are not expected, are not taught, to demand from others. We are taught to get along, to compromise, to let it slide. “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind”

I wish that women could be as assertive as men and not lose femininity. Let those of us who will be women hunters and women warriors.

2002-08-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

I had to be at work this morning SO early, it broke my watch.

Really.

It is a hard thing, being awake at 4:30 AM. It is also a hard thing to stay awake at 4:30 AM. I suppose for full disclosure, I became permanently awake for the day at 4:36. There were some snooze-alarm fits and starts before then.

As a child of the universe and an employee of the global economy, I have to be able to work in the slivers of overlapping time zones. Today's time zones were East Coast and West Coast.

I rode in on the bus, with my nose buried in a magazine. When I looked up to see how close I was to my stop, I noticed how different the city looks in the dark. There are neon lights wrapped around the tops of some of the skyscrapers, and the lights were the focus points on the periphery of my vision, rather than architecture.

I arrived at work when the newspapers were being delivered. As I was watching the heavy stacks being carried to their individual vending machines, I looked up at the sky.

Someone at work had asked me about the Iditarod sled dog race the other day. He was asking about how long it was, and remarking about how the dogs and people would have to travel in the cold through the dark of night. I told him that dark is not so dark there, because the snow reflects all the light. There may only be a moon and a few stars, but the snow is so white that it glows.

I looked out at the sky of the dark pre-dawn morning in downtown LA and it was a dull red. All the lights of the whole city mixed with and reflected off the fog-smog of the morning, and kept the sky from being black.

Red. Or Pink. I would not have expected the sky to be that color. The lights the sky reflected seemed to be white or maybe yellow. I don't know how the sky came out pink. Maybe it is similar to how the sky turns red at sunset because of the pollution. Perhaps LA smog makes light red.

Much later, after I had gotten the video conference for the two coasts working and could finally relax with a cup of coffee in my cube I noticed that my watch had stopped. It had stopped at 6:40. I reset it, but it is done tracing circles.

I guess I will have to go through the rest of my day without it.

2002-08-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

So I live in Los Angeles now. Imagine that.

I've already talked about the prejudice the Northern Californians have towards Southern Californians. As near as I can tell, Southern Californians really don't care what people in the north think of them. However, I'm not moving from south to north, but north to south, so I get the prejudicial remarks.

My brother says, "You going to become all shallow and superficial when you move to LA"

Well, I personally think I could stand to become a little more shallow and not suffer much. I spend too much time in the deep end of the mind pool.

My mother says, "Everyone in LA does drugs all the time."

"Mom, don't worry. I'm too cheap to get addicted to drugs. I would never spend that kind of money frivolously."

"Well, okay. But how will you find friends? Everyone else will be on drugs"

I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

Another friend says to me, " Oh no! You can't move there. They have no culture."

Yet another "All they care about is looks down there. People are not nice. And they are just not as intellectual as the people in the Bay Area."

These are serious problems, I have to say. If I am stuck in a place where people only care about the surface, and social interaction would be the equivalent of living on Baywatch, I don't know. That would probably suck.

But prolonged unemployment sucks too. I had a job offer in hand, so I went for it.

Now, I've been here less than a month. I have to say, I haven't really made any friends to hang out with yet. But take into consideration that I have only left my house to go to work and buy groceries. I have not gotten involved in the social scene yet.

However!
I have been stunned and amazed by how nice people here are.

Everyone at work has been extremely friendly. I mean, really! My boss sent out a notice that a new person (me) had arrived, and to make me feel welcome. They really have. I chat with people in the break room and they all say, Oh you must be Murphy! I was meaning to meet you. Hi!

The boss and my co-workers almost always invite me to have lunch with them. This never happened in my jobs in the bay area. First of all, people were too busy to take lunch. I always worked through lunch anyway, but even if I didn't, I didn’t get invited to be with my co-workers. People didn't go out to lunch so much.

At my apartment complex, which really is huge, there is an elevator. It's pretty similar to the way Chris the man's complex is set up. All the floors and the parking garage share one elevator.

When I was moving in, and pulling in all these boxes and bags, almost everyone said something to me. They all were willing to help me hold the door open, and often they said, “Are you just moving in? Welcome!”

Even now, people are friendly and say hello in hallways and in the elevator.

This did not happen at Chris’s complex. If you were forced to be in the elevator with a neighbor, they looked sort of embarrassed to have to be near you.

This Sunday, I went to go check out my complex’s gym. I was trying to figure out the weight machines. It always takes a while to figure out what each one is FOR, you know? They all look like medieval torture device.

There were three muscley Italian guys also working out on the machines. The gym isn’t that big, so we were running into each other a little bit. I had stopped to try and figure out what the next machine I needed was, and one of these guys asked if I needed to use the machine he had just finished with. I said, “No, this is just my first time here. I’m trying to figure out what I need.”

“Well, if you have any questions, you can ask me. I could help you.”

Now, I thought that was very nice. I certainly did not look superficially fabulous in my crabby workout clothes and lumpy body. Not the expected gorgeous LA-type anyway. But this guy, Paul was his name, was quite friendly and helpful. He helped me out a little bit, and didn’t make me feel stupid.

I thought that was pretty decent.

So far, the stereotypes don’t seem to be true. I will have to report back after I’ve been here a while, but I am beginning to think it will be pretty nice here.

2002-08-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

The Uhaul journey I completed was complicated by the fact that I had to have my cat along with me.

Cats are not usually known as good car pets. And my cat is special. He is special in many ways, but one of the most obvious ways he is special is in how HUGE he is. He is fat, true. But he would be a large cat even if he were in shape.

Because of his size, I thought it would not be a good idea for him to travel in the usual cat-sized traveling case. I thought he would do better if I just put him in a box. So after I loaded up the truck, I set up a cardboard box with Skellig’s rug in the bottom. I thought he might like to have something familiar near him.

The box fit in the foot area of the passenger side of the truck. And Skellig fit in the box quite well. But he didn’t want to be in the box. NO! He used all his strength to stay out of the box. We shoved him in—after all we are much bigger and stronger than this housecat.

He Burst out of the box. Oh boy. I guess we’d better tape it down. That should hold him. We taped it to death. He yowled for a little bit, and then he was quiet. Al right.

So I started out, on this ragingly hot day. As I got on the road, kitty was a little too quiet. I called his name:

Skellig!

YOWWWWW!

Okay, he’s alive. Drive a little further.

Kitty! Skellig!

MYOOOOWWWWW!

He’s good. Okay, I’m on the 101, getting up to speed but still in the slow lane. Suddenly, with a tremendous burst of strength, a large grey cat bursts out of his taped down box. He looked like the Hulk bursting out of his clothes.

Loose cat in the cab! Oh my goodness! What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t get over to the side! And he had already proven that he was capable of breaking loose his bonds.

While I was trying not to panic and trying to remember to concentrate on keeping this 8-cylinder leviathan on the road, my cat crawls up onto the seat and sits next to me, halfway in my lap.

He shows no inclination of moving from this spot of refuge.

My brave cat sat by my side the whole way to Los Angeles. He was calm and collected, only losing his cool when we stopped and had to turn the AC off.

He did get a little carsick, and had to throw up. If I had understood cat a little better, I probably would have pulled over. He gave several warning yowls. I cleaned it off with the spongy end of the Squeegee at the next gas station.

After that, he was perfectly fine.

I was impressed with my cat friend. That’s quite an adventure for a housecat that never goes outside.

Adjusting to the new apartment was a piece of cake, after that.

2002-08-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend I completed my plan for getting a job in LA by packing up all my stuff and moving it to my new LA apartment.

When I started this process, I didn’t think too much about moving my things. I have moved a lot in my life, most of it as an adult. While it is difficult, I know it’s possible. I just put it out of my mind; I had enough other things to worry about.

But the day arrived, and I was faced with my piles of boxed and unboxed belongings. I had called upon my family and friends to help me, and I had rented a Uhaul truck.

After filling out the meandering paperwork and listening to all the dire warnings designed to sell the extra trip insurance, I was presented with the keys to a vast, lumbering, scraped and dented truck. After examining this land leviathan, I bought the extra insurance.

Then I drove the 2 miles to my apartment and all my things. This massive truck was the truck that I would be driving 400 miles that day. Lord have mercy. Best not think about that, one ought not hyperventilate while driving a Uhaul.

Parking the car, I noticed that some of my friends were already there. This helped take my mind off the doom of driving the truck over Highway 5, and made me think about all the things that needed to be packed.

We went inside, and all of us immediately set to work. Cheerfully, in the blazing heat, my friends set to work moving my stuff.

The incredible part of it was, as I looked at all of my things, I began to be pit-of-the-stomach afraid that, as cavernous as my beast of a truck seemed, all my stuff might not fit.

It also began to dawn on me that I was not as packed as I had thought I was. I had a lot left to cram into bags and boxes.

And my amazing friends and family packed cheerfully, like intelligent ants, moving my belongings into the space of the truck carefully, plotting out how to use the space efficiently.

I didn’t have to direct anything, which was good, because I had to pack all my loose stuff and toss the stuff I couldn’t keep.

All the while the others were packing. And when they noticed my rising panic, they reassured me that everything would be okay. Things would fit-- I shouldn’t worry.

What incredible people! I could barely believe that I knew these incredibly nice people, let alone that they cared about me so much that they would work in the scorching heat to pack all of my pitiful stuff into a truck with care.

I should never have asked them to do such a thing! These fabulous people should not be doing this! I should rather have taken them out to nice restaurant and treated them to dinner, counting it a bargain because I could just spend the time in conversation and good company.

But here they were, doing this arduous task, because I needed help.

I really needed help.

There was no way I could have done all that work on my own.

I had asked for help, because I was pitiful and needy. But there was no obligation on their part to give it. Really, they could have said “no.” Any reason would have sufficed, or no reason at all. It would not have been rude or wrong. Certainly, a million things might have been more important or pleasant.

But they went one phenome further and said “yes.” I didn’t deserve it. Perhaps I should have been responsible for my own crap, and hired movers to take care of it, instead of burdening my dear friends.

But I had not done that, and the time was too short now. I needed their help, and though I didn’t really deserve it, it was given.

As that realization dawned upon me, I felt truly humbled. And then God revealed himself to me in that space.

Jesus was packing my truck.

Because isn’t undeserved grace the gift of Christ Himself? And when these beloved people came to help me—they didn’t have to—they became the arms and legs and strong back of Jesus. Their actions were pure shining Christian love, pouring out from God through them to me.

Did I mention feeling humbled?

As with all of God’s gifts, there is no adequate way I can pay them back. If they had been hired movers, I could have given them my MasterCard and kept my pride. But I am not supposed to hold on to pride, anyway. The Truth reveals that I have nothing to be so proud of—I have only to rejoice in the fact that God loves me whether I deserve it or not.

And so, apparently, do Bonnie, Alex/Steve, Bryan, Chris, Dad and my brother Chris. I sincerely thank you all so much for your help. It meant a lot to me.

God bless you.

2002-08-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since I posted. I have thought of two or three things to post about every single day since then.

But I have had no time.

It's been amazingly hectic. In the midst of the battle is not the time to compose the epic poem.

That comes later.

I have some AMAZING stories to tell. And I will tell them.

But it will have to be later. Perhaps tonight I will have time to blog.
My apartment is filled to the brim with Boxes, and Skellig the Brave paces and lounges among them.

I THINK I can find my computer in the middle of all of it.
When I do, I will have to find the time to write all my amazing stories.

Thanks for your patience and continued readership. I _love_ the fact that people are reading my stories and thoughts.

Don't stop!

2002-08-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

For my dear friends and family that have been supportive and interested, I figure I should post a little bit about my new job.

This was my first day. Being the first day, I did very little. I watched 4 videos…at least, I was supposed to watch four videos, but I got confused and only ended up watching three. The HR bunny came in and asked if I was done, so we started going through all the things I had to sign. Part way through, she showed me a paper about ergonomics, and said, “This covers the same stuff you saw in the video.”

Video? Whoops…”Oh yeah…Right!” I said. Well, I would have to use my own judgment when it came to ergonomics.

Then I got to meet my new cube, which was all fancy and built in. I have panes of frosted glass at the top of my short cube walls, and my section is full of people that are in my group.

Every single person I met seemed extremely nice. They were friendly and welcoming and seemed like the kind of people I might actually enjoy spending time with.

Of course, I have not met any lawyers yet. From the way they are spoken of, I get the impression that the lawyers are regarded as Olympian gods…. Full of power and wrath, unless they are ignoring you.

We shall see.

In the afternoon, I got to spend time in a class explaining how to use their complicated system of servers and utility software. You must be very careful when dealing with legal documents, you see.

I don’t think I will be dealing with legal documents. I will be dealing with technology.

One major thing that struck me was how laid back the IT people were. They didn’t have the dogged look of the Silicon Valley. Maybe that is an incorrect first impression, since they did talk about having to be there at 6AM, and other major projects that needed to be completed.

It will be interesting to compare the two cultures. Diarmiud (Pronounced Dermott) my co-worker said he had spent a lot of time in San Francisco. Maybe he knows the Silicon Valley pace; he was there working after I had left.

Speaking of leaving, that reminds me of the traffic. Yes, there was a lot of it. No major accidents, but getting to a major freeway from any downtown anywhere is more complicated than getting to a downtown from a freeway.

I took the scenic route through the city. Spirals and backtracks got me to a freeway labeled East.

I seriously doubt that it was east.

Oh the map that I was using, that freeway seemed to be going DOWN. Down is south, right?

Not necessarily.

Suffice it to say, it was a long day, and it ended with a long drive.

But I got more gas before I got home so I won’t have that difficulty in the morning.

Tomorrow is my first Videoconference.

I don’t’ want to be late.

2002-07-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

As I have previously mentioned, I am getting ready to move. To Los Angeles.

My Parents are getting ready to move to Sacramento

My Brother is finishing moving to a new, cheaper apartment.

My other brother is trying starting to move into an old, cheaper apartment.

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Green family on the move!

Anyway, this creates a problem, or at least a difficulty. We are ALL moving, and we would all normally help each other with the moves. But it's a little difficult choreographing everybody's different moves. I mean, when it comes down to it, you are responsible for your own stuff. And when it really comes down to it, you are Liable for your own lease. So you can't wait on everybody else to be done.

Well, we are doing our best to help each other out, and all of us are suffering extended bouts of sore moving-muscles. There is so much to be done!

Dad, the man for the job, has been making multiple trips IN ONE DAY to Sacramento, getting all his stuff taken over there. My brother has been coming to terms with the excessive amount of personal possessions he owns.

And there are the inevitable trips to the DUMP.

Ah, the dump. I remember the dump as a child. Dumps in the 70's, 80's and 90's in Alaska were a big pit in the ground. I am sure that many people bypassed the dump altogether and just threw their stuff in a ravine, on or off their property, whatever. But we did not do that. Keep America clean! or something...There were a lot of signs up on the way to the dump:

"Watch out for bears."

Bears were very attracted to the dump. It was a smorgasbord for them. But the reason that you had to be careful of the bears is that there was absolutely no separation of the trash. No separation of YOU from the trash, and no separation of the trash from amongst itself. There was simply a huge pile, or a huge amount of trash in a hole. The bears would go through it, tossing aside balls of disposable diapers to get at that lovely bit of uneaten cheeseburger. I knew of and knew personally many people who also sorted through the trash for treasures. I myself could not help glancing at the strange items mixed in with the nasty cans and plastic. There could very well be perfectly good items in this pile. If I recall correctly, there were posted days when people were allowed in to scavenge. Why not?

The dump in Santa Clara was not this type of bear-friendly free-for-all dump. It made me think of some kind of industrial-age hell nightmare.

The stench was quite amazing. I am not sure if all dumps are this smelly--I know that all dumps are odorous--but it was stinky. This one had the added benefit of having a sewage treatment plant next door. Why not? Good city planning to put the two together, if you ask me.
Have one big ball of stink instead of two.

Wow, it was stinky.

But it wasn't enough just to dump it and run. NO! There were types and classifications of trash, and each had to be handled in its special way. Concrete was special, it must be put THERE. Dirt is something else, and must go over THERE. Cardboard goes here, and paper there. Ordinary trash goes in a different place. And, oh my goodness! Nothing toxic. You are only allowed to throw away poisonous things once a month, between 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM on a Saturday.

Regular trash had to be put in a different place from all of these.

And they couldn't leave any of the trash alone! There were huge bulldozers pushing it around, and scooping it up to move it to a whole nother place. For a reason that I could not understand, there was a complicated trash blower, that took the regular trash from a hidden area down below and brought it up through a tube, blowing it out of the open mouth about 40 feet in the air. The trash shot out in an arc, landing on a pile that the bulldozer could then play with.

The wood trash section was run through a gigantic chipper; a big pile of damp-looking wood mulch lay around the back.

It was mysterious, appalling and impressive.

So was the stench. Because of the difficulty of understanding their sorting system, we had to be there a long time, dropping off the multitude of different kinds of trash in all of its correct drop-off receptacles. It was powerful. I really wished I had an Altoid. That might have helped.

But it descended into your stomach through your nose and mouth and sat there evilly.
It was quite a place. It took me half the day to recover.

2002-07-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

I think a lot of people do this...I know I do...You get together with your friends, and talk about different movies you have seen...Then you talk about movies you would like to see made. Or which actor or actress would best portray a certain character.

I got in one of these conversations recently. Me and Chris were talking about which actor would best portray the Devil. I don't remember how it came up. But we tossed out ideas..Keanu? One of the Baldwins? Sean Connery? Who could really do this job well?

I am at a disadvantage. I don't remember actors names..I just can't keep up with the celebrity hype. When I see a movie, i think of the people as the characters they portray, and that is that. Some extremely famous people have pierced the void of my ignorance, so just coming up with the name of an actor was an accomplishment for me ( Tom Hanks! no wait...he couldn't play the devil!).

Thinking of any person from the screen, who seemed evil or potentially evil, I remembered one annoying character from a TV commercial. A vacuous-sounding, California accented young blonde guy from the Dell computers commercials.

It is HE.

Can't you hear it?

"Dude! You're going to Hell!"

...i'm still laughing...

2002-07-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

well, this looks like it will be another busy day of packing. I'm making some progress. I woke up early, because I was excited.

Of course, the first thing I do every morning is check my email. Since I was already sitting at my desk, I started my packing by trying to clean off my desk. The detritus of my last year of college had piled up alarmingly.

But as I was searching through which things to keep and which to throw away, I found some scraps of musings. I surprise myself sometimes by writing down really great interesting stuff, stuff that is mysterious and possibly profound. I find that when I read it later, the meaning is somewhat opaque, as if it were written by another person entirely. I don't know what the author was thinking when she wrote it. And the author was me!

Here is a little scrap. Maybe I'll post some more of this type of thing, if I run across them again.

Notes from a scrap of paper, probably from 2001, fall

I have fought so hard to learn what I know. I fought hard, but at the point when I actually learned what I know I had, for that moment, stopped fighting.
I don’t know all of what I know yet. But when people ask me questions I know the answers to, I am often embarrassed. The answers are rushing out my mouth; I want to share the joy of finding the answer with someone else. But I wonder if the person asking really wants to know the answer. If he wanted to know it is obviously there [waiting to be found out]. But if he only wants affirmation that the answer is unknowable, my giving an answer will anger him.

Sometimes, I only shrug.

2002-07-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

TIme is going by a little fast, now.

It looks like I will be moving to LA. A law firm is about to make me a job offer...I sort of gave them the impression that I already live there.

That made it easier to get the job.

I am pretty excited, and I have a lot to do.

This is the reason why I have not written on my blog for a while. When my mind is whirling, it's a little bit hard to take the time to be contemplative and write all these great thoughts down.

I guess I don't have time to write anything long and profound tonight, either.

I am sorting through all my books. LORD, I have a lot of books.

I cannot take them all. I suspect whatever apartment I find next will be smaller, anyway. So..I have a new theory:

If I can easily find a book in any library, I should not have my own copy.

There can be exceptions, of course. Especially sentimental books, for example. Or exceptionally beautiful books.

Since every member of my family is moving this month (except my youngest brother), I have had some time to think about the fact that there must be some way to reduce possessions. Really. All my stuff takes up so much space.

Shouldn't I be able to outsource some of my storage to the local library?

2002-07-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have a great love of politics or the news. That amounts to the same thing.

I remember as a child, I was deeply irritated at the news. I didn’t understand why there was never anything GOOD on TV at six o’clock. The news was really boring, and had nothing to do with me.

In the seventh grade, my teacher had been a photojournalist. He was very excited about the news, and he had us get very involved in current events. We followed the story of what was happening with Khadafi. He made it sound very exciting, and we were supposed to clip articles out of the paper that told us what was going on.

That made the news interesting. But they stopped talking about Khadafi, so I lost interest. No one explained to me about anyone else.

But then a few years later, a new excitement hit. My born-again Christian family was getting swept up in the new Christian craze:

Pat Robertson for President.

Suddenly, ELECTIONS were important. Not only was it important to become registered to vote, but all kinds of strategy was discussed. Electoral votes and all kinds of other things.

Wow. I remember we went to a rally, to get support for Robertson for president. It was hard for me to understand what the big deal was. And even more, why we had to rally about it.

“It’s a political rally! For Pat Robertson for President!”

Well, it honestly took a little time for me to remember who Par Robertson was at first.

“You know! He’s the preacher on TV”

Oh. But I remember thinking there was something funny about that. Sure, maybe he was a really good preacher, but that did not really tell us if he would be a good president.

I asked, “Has he ever held public office before?”

“No.”

“Well, Maybe he shouldn’t just jump into being president. I think it must be a hard job. I mean, the president is really important. He has to make difficult decisions.”

Well, actually, that had been considered. There was something of a debate about whether Robertson had a chance, and whether we would be “throwing the vote away” by choosing a candidate that was not a republican or a democrat.

“Perhaps voting for George Bush would be better than letting a democrat win.”

I thought that was a good idea. George Bush had been vice president, and that seemed to be good training for the job of president. I felt much more comfortable with that idea.

So why was everyone trying to elect Robertson?
To abolish abortions.

Now, whatever I may feel about that situation now, and however I felt about it then, I certainly realized that there was more than just one issue involved in being president.

As important as that one issue was to all the people at the rally by the lake, I felt like it was foolish not to consider the other responsibilities the president shouldered.

That was my earliest political conviction.

One-issue politics is stupid.

You are going to miss something important, and not further your cause by ignoring complexity. Nothing is quite that simple, and you will seem a fool if you don’t see the other side and other issues. The person in power to effect the changes you wish to occur knows that it’s more complicated than a one-issue activist gives credit for.

Fools are easily dismissed. You hurt your own cause by not fully understanding the issue.

This leads me up to the issue at hand. I just got a newsletter from a Woman’s studies program. They are quite concerned with the “war on terrorism.” One article in particular, concerned me.

It was called “Race, Gender, and the War” by Andrea Smith. She was reporting on a forum of the same name. She reports:
This forum provided an opportunity to more fully explore the gender dimensions of the war. Some critical questions raised included: Why would George Bush, who has so solidly supported the Christian Right’s anti-feminist agenda, actually care about the status of women in Afghanistan? How can state violence provide true peace and security for anyone, including women?

This paragraph bothers me. It seems to indicate a tried-and convicted mentality, prejudging the issue before they have talked about it.

Granted, I was not there; I have not heard the discussion. But such questions are set up to receive negative answers. They seem rhetorical, not inviting true questions. Even if the forums included open and free discussion, this author did not give that impression.

This group has already decided that “if they are not in total agreement with us, they are against us.” Bush’s alignment with the Christian Right on matters of abortion may be well understood. But, God help us! There are many more issues that face women’s lives today than just that one.

Diplomacy requires talking out, understanding each other’s position, and working on broadening the places of agreement. It’s not a matter of one person shouting down the other.

In terms of attitude, I see very little different in the political tactics of the far right and this women’s rights group. Neither one is behaving in a politically savvy way.

Especially in light of the second question “How can state violence provide true peace…?”

I assume the alternative to state violence would be diplomatic negotiation. But the lack of diplomatic skills is writ large in the actions and speeches of this group.

I am very interested in the welfare of women all over the world. I am disappointed that this group does not demonstrate proficiency in the methods they approve of.

2002-07-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

Goodness. TIme flies. It's been almost a week. A lot has happened.

Last friday I went to a bellydancing party. It was marvelous. And for the enlightenment of the male readers, whose little minds are spinning, this was an entirely female experience.

The women were wearing the most elegant and revealing of costumes, and since it was an all-female party, the sexual overtones were lacking. We could simply enjoy the beauty of the female form, and be entranced by the graceful movements of the dance.

I was very much entranced. I tried to learn a few basic bellydance movements, but I confess, I was not a quick student. Even though I have learned the basics of a number of different dance steps, I was not quite up to all the subtle movements the bellydancers used.

It made me want to learn.

Even more, it made me want to get one of the fabulous outfits!

2002-07-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

What with all my free unemployed time, I have been working on reading all those books I’ve been meaning to get around to reading, and finding out all about those subjects I’ve been meaning to learn about, and seeing those movies I’ve been meaning to see.

Let me pause for a moment to say, this is not the most cheery chapter of history, this current moment. The economy by itself is a drag, but then there’s that pernicious TERRORIST nonsense, leading to all kinds of ominous rumblings from the Middle East and elsewhere.

So, escapism into good literature and good movies seems like a good idea.

But.

Have you ever noticed that the most recommended movies, books, etc, are extremely depressing?

I’m sort of stuck in the middle of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. It’s a cheery book about the fall of the Russian aristocracy, and the section I am dealing with has to do with a poor woman’s fall into prostitution, the contemplated suicide of another young man, and his sister’s pending marriage to a cruel man she does not love.

But it hasn’t really gotten off the ground yet.

I have been meaning to watch The Godfather for some time. “They” say that it’s absolutely essential for understanding so many other films. It’s about murder, family betrayal and mob crime, I understand.

I rented One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest earlier. I’d read the book not long ago, and I figured I would see the film.

Schindler’s List is another one I’ve been meaning to see.

Do you see the trend here? I mean, really! What’s up with all these depressing movies and books?

I guess we believe in tragedy more than comedy.

Last time I went to the library, I specifically went for light-hearted reading and videos. I am just oppressed by all these horrible situations. It makes me too sad.

I checked out Bridget Jones’ Diary. It is making me laugh out loud! Her problems are so pathetic as to not really be problems, so I can freely laugh.

I actually have a great respect for good comedy. I admire the artistry of stand-up comedians, who can tell the awful truth of something, and make you laugh at its absurdity.

That’s a real gift. I think that Life is Beautiful did that, but it was so heartbreaking, that I ended up crying before I was done laughing.

Whoopi Goldberg does that with her routines, sometimes.

Alice in Wonderland does that, although some of the message is lost in modern readings. Gulliver’s Travels was pretty funny.

I’m going to have to focus on the brighter side. I just can’t take all this gloom and tragedy anymore.

2002-07-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

Sheesh...It's been too long.

I have been having an over-abundance of thoughts lately. You would think that would result on MORE blogging, not less...

But sometimes certain trails of thought need to come to some sort of conclusion, or at least a pause, before you can write them down. Mine have been awfully meandering.

Anyway, I will write more later on those walks in the woods.

RIGHT NOW, i am excited to share the news that by beautiful friend of faith, hope and love has published her informal survey of new music. Go check it out!