The Wild Winds of Fortune

Congratulations to the Giants, and to all my friends who are Giants fans.

I want next year’s World Series to be the Cubs versus the Indians.

 I am more than ready to talk about football. Considering that the 49ers are at the bottom of the NFC West (although the Raiders are at .500), I may be alone around here in wanting to do so.  (Hey, my team’s at 5-2 and leading their division.  Hee hee hee.)  Stanford is 7-1 (curse you Oregon!) and second in the Pac-10.  So it is shaping up to be a rather nice season, both pro and college.

Speaking of football, last night I saw an ad for football apparel actually cut to fit women.  Apparently the NFL has finally realized, hey, we do have some female fans out here after all…

I am writing a post about the literature that had a significant effect in creating who I am today.  And while writing it, I could not help but think of the woman who introduced me to some of the best of it:  my high school English teacher, Mrs. Cogar.  I wrote about her in my Live Journal in 2004, and decided to repost here what I had written then:

Yesterday, the Rocket Scientist and I and the kids went snow-tubing. It’s a lot of fun — you sit on an inner-tube like contraption which tows you to the top of the hill, and then you lie down on your stomach and slide down.

Once, when I was being towed on the lift up to the top of the hill, I looked over and saw two crows sitting in a bare-limbed tree. It was staggeringly beautiful — two dark birds, the dark naked tree branches, surrounding by the swirling white flakes, against the white hill. And, all at once, I thought of Mrs. Cogar.

Mrs. Joanne Cogar was my high school English teacher. She walked into the first day of Advanced Composition 1 and said “All those rumors you hear about me are false. I never bite people, and even if I do, I start frothing at the mouth first, and you have a good head start on getting out the door.” She did not suffer fools gladly, and was considered a holy terror by much of the student body. I adored her.

I treasured the B+ I got in her AP English class more than the As I received in History or Math. When we were told by the guidance counselor during class one day that the school board was considering making AP English independent study for second semester, available only to students who had an A in the class, I broke down and wept openly.*

She introduced me to Shakespeare and Faulkner and Eugene O’Neill and John Steinbeck. She opened up worlds to me that had I had never thought could exist. She made me understand how great literature could change lives. She taught me to read critically, but never to let that criticality get in the way of the joy of reading.

Just as importantly, she introduced me to Strunk and White, and made me see a well-crafted sentence as a thing of beauty. If I write at all well today, Mrs. Cogar is one of the biggest reasons. (If I write at all persuasively, I have various professors at Stanford Law School to thank.)

And I trusted her. She was the only teacher I told about the CAT scan that had been taken because my doctor thought the blackouts and spells of disorientation I was having could be caused by a brain tumor, like the brain tumor that had killed my older sister. She was the first person — before my parents, even — I went to when I received my college acceptance letters. When I told her that Cornell and Wellesley had accepted me, but that Princeton had not, her response was “Who do they think they are?” (My answer, if I recall correctly, was that they were Princeton and could refuse anyone they damn well chose.)

Being young and callow and stupid, I did not keep in touch. I have no idea where she is or even if she is alive.

But I thought of her on Friday, when I saw those two birds in that tree.

Among the poems we studied during the poetry unit in AP English was Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow”. Being typical teenagers, we kept reading death imagery and angst into those few lines (after all, it had hemlock and crows — how could that not be death symbolism?). Mrs. Cogar was nearly tearing her hair out — “No! No! A hemlock tree has nothing to do with the hemlock that Socrates drank! You’re overanalyzing, people!” — trying to help us understand how the beauty of a black bird and a dark tree against white snow could make everything better.

We just couldn’t get it. How could we? We were growing up in Florida. For most of us, snow was only something we had read about in a book somewhere. We had crows, but they tended to get overshadowed by great snowy egrets and blue herons. And let’s face it, a crow perched in a pine tree against a background of kudzu just doesn’t have the same overwhelming emotional appeal. And even though I saw snow in college — a lot of it — I was too busy being angsty and pretentious and all the other things that people who have more intelligence than common sense are prone to being to notice something as simply beautiful as birds in a tree.

But Friday, when my breath caught in my throat at the stark beauty of black birds silhouetted against swirling flakes of snow, I wished that somehow, somewhere, I could tell her:

Mrs. Cogar, I understand the poem now. And thank you.

I’m late for the train on this one, but…

I can’t say that I blame the folks at NPR for firing Juan Williams.  But they should have fired him for having anything to do with Fox News to begin with.

Of course, that’s just me.

As far as what Williams said to Bill O’Reilly, I am concerned that the people on my side of the fence are doing to Williams what the right did to Shirley Sherrod.

Language and opinion are funny things: the points that one thinks one is making — by perhaps openly discussing one’s prejudice — and rebutting — by perhaps objecting to similar statements being expressed by others — can get lost in the shuffle of debate.  When I see the entire clip, I see a man who openly expresses bigotry, but then backpedals away from it, explaining that, whatever his discomfort he understands that the real problem is extremists.  I get that others see it differently — I am still thinking about the points made by Andrew Sullivan and Ta-Nehisi Coates (whose writing I adore and whose views on most things I agree on).  I am trying to examine my own reactions to Juan Williams in light of what they wrote, and my interpretations of both the statements that got him fired and those he made later to O’Reilly.

There is a crucial difference between the Juan Williams statements and Shirley Sherrod’s.  Sherrod’s statements were made during a speech.  Speeches are crafted pieces of art: the speaker tells stories and can inject nuance and understanding.  Juan Williams’ statements came within an unscripted exchange on a cable show.   More chaotic, less chance for nuance.  A world of difference; rhetorical context matters.

All this is really neither here nor there when it comes down to the fundamental issue: dishonesty.

The dishonesty for me comes in the editing of the clip as it first appeared on YouTube. If the entirety of the exchange is damning, then let it stand on its own. Editing it to showcase the most offensive part, while ignoring the sections where Williams stands up against the bigotry of O’Reilly is unfair not only to Williams but to viewers; the underlying message is that we cannot be trusted to understand what is taking place before us.  While I understand the assumption that this is true for most of the people who get all their information from Fox News, I resent being lumped in with them.  If you think it needs explanation as to why it is offensive in its entirety, by all means, explain.  Or don’t: let people see for themselves.

I have often said that the First Amendment does not bring with it a right to any soapbox one wants to stand on.  NPR was certainly within its rights to fire Juan Williams for any reason it wanted to: his comments to O’Reilly, his continuing to appear on O’Reilly’s show, budget cuts, the color of the tie he wore to work.  I am not shedding any tears over his departure — I think any commentator who appears on Fox News has indelibly stained his credibility.

For heavens’ sake, though, let’s not become our enemies.  Acting unfairly indelibly stains our credibility, too.

“You should work as hard as you can — whether you are paid for it or not — at something worth doing.” Sandra Day O’Connor.

Me: “Do you know what a group of crows is called?” 
Echidna Boy: “Yes mom *eyeroll*, a murder.… There were a couple of murders of crows going after the geese.” 
Me: “Does that make it a serial killer of crows?”

It is October now.

It has started raining here in Northern California, which means the hot days of fall are over, and we are entering into the “other season.”  We here in the Bay Area really only have two seasons, wet and dry.  Although I hail from a city so sunny that one of the newspapers used to have a policy that if 24 hours passed with no sun shining on the corner outside their office the next day’s paper was free, I am most decidedly a wet season person.

It is not that I love rain so much per se, for I don’t.  It is simply that I love the fall and winter.

In the fall, school has started.  While October brings with it the stress of end-of-quarter grades and parent-teacher conferences, it also brings structure and familiarity. School has an established routine now, and everybody knows what is expected of them.  (Whether they follow through is another thing altogether.)

The bright, sunny, oppressive days of summer are over.  The clouds and the lowering darkness of the shortening days fold gently around me, comforting as a blanket.  The twilight comes hard upon the setting sun, and when the stars are out they are clear and beautiful.  When they are not, the clouds are like gray unspun wool, just out of reach.

There is Halloween*, a holiday which takes on much less significance now that I don’t have to figure out how to make a mummy costume, or a devil, or whatever the latest video game hero wears.  I still have a shirt belonging to “Link” (from Legend of Zelda) costume.  I have no idea why I do not throw it away — it does not fit anyone here any more.  Sentiment, perhaps.

It gets better.  The days get shorter until the solstice, and its surrounding holidays.  Holidays were probably meant originally to help those for whom the dark, long nights were a threat rather than a blessing. (Yes, I know Christmas has significant religious importance: but its date was tied to pagan celebrations to help ease the pain of conversion.)  But for me, they are lagniappe.  The joy is in the darkness itself. (Except for Christmas music.  Which my family has decreed I cannot play in their hearing until after Thanksgiving.)

I realize that I am odd; my friends are pulling out their light boxes to help them get through until the spring.  I understand that, I do; I wish I could have a dark box to help ease the brightness of summer.**

But for now, the darkness is returning, and I revel in it.

*Personally, I think the extent to which Halloween has been co-opted by adults looking for an excuse to have parties and drink too much is somewhat appalling.  Stick to St. Patrick’s Day, and Valentine’s Day, and leave Halloween for the kids.
**I tend to read in dim light too, my eyes can handle it.  Yet whenever I am in even a slightly public place, a kindly  intentioned person will turn a lamp on me and say “You need a reading light.  You’re going to ruin your eyesight.”  I have not yet snapped at anyone (I usually settle for waiting until they have left and turning the light off) but I’ve been tempted.

I have never read the work of  China Miéville.  I had heard of him — I read a lot of blogs with a high concentration of SF/Fantasy fans.  I am not reading much of either genre these days (I’m probably missing a lot, I realize) as I tend to be a mystery reader.


However, his letter to Facebook, as reported in this blog post, makes me want to.

Jan* has died.  Or, at least the hard drive has.  Attempts to run Disk Repair resulted in a message that the disk was beyond repair. With the exceptions of iTunes, any software would crash within seconds of being opened.  (Hey, my computer knows what’s important.) I am now operating from the external hard drive I had been using for backups, named Francisco.*  Yes, I name my computers.**

Being the good addict, I made sure that my stash was secure:  the first thing I did was copy over Bejeweled and made sure it could run off Francisco.  Only after that did I deal with less important matters, like copying over my Job Search folders with some job leads and the latest versions of my resume.

And Firefox.  The thought of coping without the ‘net was making me panic. 

Because what could I stand on without a soapbox?

 * Jan is named for Johannes (Jan) Vermeer.  Francisco is after Goya.  I had contemplated naming Jan Vincent, but was talked out of it.  Maybe my next computer will be Leonardo, or Domenikos (Theotokopolous, better known as El Greco).  Or Artemisia (Gentilleschi). Or Edward (Hopper).  Or Eduard (Munch). Or Henri (Toulouse-Latrec). So many artists, so few computers.


**I also name my cars:  the minivan is Bruce, after the shark in Finding Nemo (which was in turn named after the fake shark used by Steven Spielberg in Jaws) and the Mustang is Vincent, after Van Gogh. (Early on its life, Vincent had a knack of dying without warning. “Let’s name it Vincent,” I told my husband. “After Vincent Price, since it’s black and mysterious?” “No, after Van Gogh, since it keeps trying to kill itself.”)  I am still pondering a name for the used green Mazda.

The Jesuits were fond of saying “Give me a child until seven, and I will give you the man.”

It don’t know if they’re right, but I think there was one man who may have believed that:  Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Suess.

There is an amazing amount of politics and “life lessons” hidden among the smart rhymes and strange artwork.  Geisel doesn’t even try to hide most of it, although if you aren’t paying attention it can slip right by you.

The Cat in the Hat is a story about living life to the fullest, as long as you clean up after yourself.  One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is about all the marvelous things in the world.  Green Eggs and Ham is about trying new things because, you never know, you might like them after all.  (There is also an unfortunate lesson in there about nagging people until they do what you want, but nothing is perfect.)

There are the obviously political books.  Horton Hears a Who is about protecting those society doesn’t care about, regardless of the consequences:  “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” The Sneetches is about how we aren’t so different after all, and how we base our sense of superiority on irrelevant things. The Lorax is about environmentalism and industrialism and the necessity for protecting the world.  (This so upset logging interests that they wrote a competing book called The Truax.)

And then there is the Butter Battle Book.  It is a parable about the arms race, written during the Cold War.  Pretty heavy material for for a book to read to pre-schoolers, yet presented in a way that they can understand and digest.  Adults figured this out : there was a reason it was pulled from library book shelves during the Cold War.

Clearly, not all Dr. Seuss is so formative:  I don’t think there is any real message to The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins or Fox in Sox.  Nor is Dr. Seuss the only children’s writer to produce books with strong moral messages:  The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein immediately comes to mind.*

I read these books to my children.  I strongly suspect that they developed their views of the world based on them. (Except maybe Green Eggs and Ham.  In that case, the wrong message got through, the one about nagging.) I firmly believe this to be a good thing.

I’m not sure if other people’s children were so affected.  I wish they were.  And I wish more adults would read and internalize Dr. Seuss’s carefully crafted messages.

It would be a better world in the end.  And I think that was what Theodore Geisel may  have been working towards, after all.  At least I hope so.

*Although quite a number of Silverstein’s poems are downright subversive towards adults, such as my favorite, “How Not To Have To Dry the Dishes.”

The notion of privilege can be a difficult one to explain sometimes in terms that people can feel viscerally.  All too often, the discussion exists at a safe distance, at least on the part of those having the privilege.  (For those without whatever privilege it is, the discussion is all too real and all too close.)

John Scalzi has put into simple words that anyone can understand the feeling of what it is to be privileged.  As one who walks on both sides of that line, a lot of his words resonate with me, both as things I experience and things I really need to be mindful of.

There are a few I thought he might have added (one of which I left in his comments):

Today I don’t have to worry about whether the person I’m interviewing with will toss my resume in the trash because I’m over fifty.

Today I don’t have to worry about whether disclosing my disability to my boss, and my need for accommodations, will materially damage my work environment.

Another highly recommended piece by Scalzi:  On Being Poor.  He wrote this in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, hence the last line of the piece.

Adventure day!

I was ostensibly conducting research for a novel I may or may not be writing during NaNoWriMo.  The novel begins with the heroine standing on the shore at San Simeon state beach.  Since I could not actually remember what the beach at San Simeon looked like, it was of course necessary to take a road trip to see it.  And to relive the experience of driving Big Sur.

Not that I really need an excuse to drive Big Sur.  I just need an excuse to give everybody else, when they ask why I am spending an entire day driving Highway 1 to San Louis Obispo.

Actually, from the novel standpoint, it was a good thing I did.  The beach (which is not San Simeon State Beach, but W.R. Hearst Memorial State Beach) is not nearly as pretty as I remembered it.  It is in a cove, so it has small quiet waves, rather than big crashing dramatic ones.  It also has a pier, which I totally did not remember, as well as a couple of very nice cypress trees off to one side with very low hanging branches, which I have plans for, fictionally speaking.

Still, not so pretty.  Considering that the heroine ended up there by tossing a coin between San Simeon and Mendecino, maybe I should shift course and relocate her to the Sonoma Coast.  Which would mean a road trip north next weekend.  Hmmm. Something to ponder.  And a great excuse to drive Highway 1 north, at least as far as Mendecino.  Or at least a great excuse to tell everyone else as to why I simply have to drive up that way.

Herewith, some notes from today’s journey:

Rats, getting a late start.  That means I’d better not drive 1 south from Santa Cruz to Monterey.   Oh, well, I can do that at a later time, and it is not nearly as critical as driving 1 south from Monterey.

Dear KFC:  That thing with the two pieces of chicken, bacon, and cheese?  Not bad.  But it’s NOT A SANDWICH.  It has no bread.  No bread, ergo no sandwich.  Got it? If you can’t hold it and play whist at the same time (you can’t – you’d get grease on the cards), it doesn’t count.

Dear lady in the pale blue late-model Toyota:  If you cannot both drive and look at the scenery, use the vista points.  If you are not looking at the scenery, but are white-knuckling this stretch because you cannot handle driving both hills and curves — and drop-offs with no rails — use the turnouts so those of us that actually can drive this are not stuck behind you.  Going 30 mph on piece of highway marked 50 creates a lot of very irate drivers in your wake.  Including me.  Which is totally harshing my squee and making me cranky, when I had been hoping to enjoy this. Oh, and if the turn says suggested 30?  You do not have to slow down to 15. Or if you do, you should be letting someone else drive.

Actually, driving this is so much better than being a passenger, because you are watching the road (and occasionally the distant waves) and not looking over to your right thinking “That’s a looooooong way down there.”

Dear guy in the white pickup truck: Not you, too?  See advice to the lady above.  And I thought that, having managed to pass you once, I would have gotten far enough ahead of you that I could stop at the state park to use the restrooms.  I was wrong, but a person’s gotta do what a person’s gotta do.  So here I am, stuck behind you again.

Dear lady in the maroon minivan, and guy driving the camper:  You use turnouts.  You win your good citizen points for the day.

Oooooooohhhhhh! Condor! Condor! Has to be. The wingspan is too massive, the wingspan/body/head ratios — it can only be a condor.  I’ve seen one once before on this stretch, and I love watching them.  I just wish I had been near a vista point so I could have stopped.

The sky is cloudy, and the clouds lie close to the road.  On the one hand, that is making the ocean less striking than usual, on the other hand, it is making the trees in the ravines on the eastward side of the highway look mysterious and wonderful.  “The woods are lovely, dark and deep…”

Just as I came down from Big Sur — just above Cambria — the clouds lifted so that the ocean turned its normal deep Pacific blue, from the slates and silvers it had been earlier.  I could feel every muscle in my body joyfully relax.

All these people looking at the elephant seals.  I guess I can understand that, if they’ve never seen elephant seals before, but really, they’re just smelly, noisy brown blobs lying on the beach.  They do absolutely nothing for me.

The zebras, on the other hand….. Zebras.  Lots of zebras.  Baby zebras.  Oh, William Randolph Hearst, you may have had more money than sense (you certainly had more money than taste), but the zebras you imported are just so way beyond cool.

I did the obligatory stop at the Castle Visitor Center.  The night tour was sold out (just as well, the place does have a strange fascination for me).  I nonetheless paid my eight bucks and caught the last showing of “Hearst Castle: Building the Dream.”  I am a sucker for all things Imax, even forty-minute love-letters to megalomaniacs. Which it was, considering that they basically stated that WRH was a co-architect of the place with Julia Morgan. And they ignored the seamier parts of the man’s life (such as the actress he left his wife for).

Speaking of Morgan, I’ve seen other pieces of her work, and she really is a better architect than this.  The conflict between the various influences at the Castle is simply jarring, and her other work is so much more coherent.  I do love both the indoor and outdoor pools, though, even if the rest of the place makes me want to scream a little bit. 

Ahhh.. time to go.  It actually is a good thing that I got such a late start, otherwise that last line on the highway sign in SLO — “Los Angeles   200 miles” — would be oh so tempting….

Let’s see… I know people in Pasadena, and G & D live in Riverside, and even if that didn’t pan out I could always crash in my car.  I know! I could drive “Route 66” backwards! San Bernadino…. Barstow…. Kingman… don’t forget Winona!…. Flagstaff, Arizona…  I could be in Flagstaff tomorrow evening.  Oh, Sarah…..

But no.  It’s late.  Too late to head further south, and besides, I am needed elsewhere tomorrow.

As the man said, “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Jan (my computer) may be dying.  He’s crashing every five minutes, from an “unresolved kernel trap.”  I do not know what that is and the people in my house who do are not currently home.  We will see.

Tonight, after the 100,000th time seeing an ad for paper towels, I came close to losing it.

See, in each of those ads, whatever the brand, you see kids, or even worse, a dad, making big messes, that Mom then cleans up, using the brand of towel being pitched.  A smiling Mom.  Who looks as though she had nothing better to do than clean up the salsa that Dad and son spilled playing counter hockey with a condiment bowl.

Sorry, but any child over the age of six should be handed the roll of towels and told, “Gee, it’s a shame you spilled that.  Let me know when you’re done cleaning it up.”

And that is especially true of children in their mid-thirties.

Sheesh.

My father, who died in 1996, was a football player.  He played for Georgia Tech, and had half a season with da Bears before he blew out his knee.  He loved the game.

He had three daughters and two sons. His sons have no interest in football.  At all. Or at least they did not have the last time I talked to them about the sport. Oh, my older brother watches it because he hangs out with my eldest sister and…

The three daughters? Football fanatics.  Both college football (Mississippi State and LSU for my sisters, Georgia Tech and Stanford for me) and pro football (The Saints for them (although I have a strong fondness for the guys from N’Awlins as well) and the Buccaneers and Dolphins for me).  Fans who can scream “It’s a blitz!  Watch out!” at the television and know what we’re talking about. Visiting around Christmas last year when the Bucs played the Saints* was exhilarating, and we all managed to talk to each other afterward. (My mother, bless her heart, learned to watch (and like) football in large part to be able to share it with my Dad, and is a die-hard Buccaneers fan.)

When I was about six my goal in life was to be a linebacker for the Bears. I gave it up once it was explained that this was not, in fact, a viable career path for a girl.**

And as for the next generation… my sons have about the same amount on interest in football as their uncles.  Two of them came in last Saturday in the midst of a tense Stanford – USC game to tell me to stop yelling at the television set.  As if that was likely to happen.

And my nieces?  Yes, another set of women who can – and do – comment “screen pass!” or who groan when the other team runs back the kickoff to our team’s twelve-yard line. All of whom absolutely adored the onside kick the Saints carried off to perfection to start the second half of the last Super Bowl.

Funny thing, though.  You would think, looking how football is marketed, that women such as me and my sisters do not exist.  We are completely invisible. The ads during the games rarely or never show women as active participants — even when the game in question is touch football — or interested and knowledgeable observers.  Women are window dressing, designed to sell beer or cars or flat-screen mega-tv sets.  Or we are shown as complainers, whining about how the game is cutting into our time watching the latest rom-com on Showtime.***

It’s enough to drive one batty.  It makes me angry that there is a whole demographic out there — of which I am a part — which for all intents and purposes is treated as freaks by advertising agencies. And the explanation which seems to make the most sense, at least to most people, that women have never played football, applies equally well to a great many men who watch the game religiously. 

It is getting better in one respect, though.  There are now women sportscasters, women who show depth and intelligence about the sport, even though none of them had the good fortune to play it.  There are enough of them now (i.e., more than one) so as to be relatively unremarkable.

Who knows? Maybe the next generation — my sons’ and my neices’ daughters — will be taken seriously as the serious football fans we are.

*The Bucs won.  Hee hee hee.
**Of course, about that time I decided that my other favorite team was the Rams, because they had such cool-looking helmets. My father seemed okay with this, saying who I rooted for for whatever reasons was my business, as long as I pulled for them through thick and thin. He had little patience with fair-weather fans.  This attitude has seen me through countless seasons with the Bucs, Saints, Rays, and Mets.
***Baseball has similar problems, but not, it seems to me, to the same extent as football.  Somewhere it must have occurred to someone on Madison Avenue that hey! there really are female baseball fans.