I hate cell phones. We have reluctantly adopted them as a necessary evil since we have five kids, and the four still in middle and high school are all involved in after school activities.
When my oldest son left his in the back pocket of his jeans, then ran the jeans through the wash, I was righteously furious.
A week later I did the same thing.
I was nervous about being without the phones, but not having the extra money to go out and buy new ones, we decided that we could wait to replace them. We would just have to plan more carefully.
Blake, my husband, and I mapped out the week. Friday, in particular, was a busy day. Jimmy, our varsity soccer player, had a game on the North Shore, and Blake was scheduled to go to Maine to help his brother-in-law pull in a boat for the winter. (Fortunately, David, our cross country runner, had a team retreat that weekend, so he did not need to be picked up.) We decided that Blake would go to Jimmy’s game, and I would meet him there with the twins (who were not playing that day). Lizzy, our oldest, goes to college near the school, so she would also meet us there. We would all watch Jimmy’s game, and from there, Blake would drive to Maine, while the rest of us would go out for a bite to eat.
Friday’s schedule was complicated by having to pick up medical forms for the twins that had not been faxed to the school by the doctor. It was 3:30 by the time we retrieved the forms and headed toward the highway. The 3:45 game was 40 minutes away. I got onto the highway—and stopped. Rush hour had not figured into the plan, so I resigned myself to the fact that we would miss the first half of the game.
We stopped and started and crawled, and when we passed the exit for 93, it was clear that we would only catch the last quarter. By the time we came to the exit for the school, I was muttering.
The driveway for the school is one-way, and leads to the top of a large hill where there is very little parking. I squeezed the car into a small spot, and we got out and sprinted to the field where we found a girls’ Junior Varsity game in progress. Stunned, I asked a spectator where the boys’ Varsity game was. After a blank stare, we walked back toward the car, looking for someone who looked like they might be able to help. I saw a woman who seemed like she “belonged” and asked if there was another field.
“Oh yes! There’s Iron Rail field—but it’s across town. Do you have a GPS?”
We have a 1995 Ford Windstar that is being held together with duct tape and Bondo. No—we do not have a GPS. And we don’t have cell phones.
“I have to go to the bathroom, Mom,” Danny said., “Bad.”
“Bad-ly—and I do not care!” I screeched out of the driveway. “We are going to the college! We’ve missed the game, anyway. We’ll meet Lizzy there."
I missed the road to the college.
“Oh look,” I gushed. “We’ve just driven in a circle. Isn’t that lovely.”
Next to me, Sarah was sobbing.
“Mom (hiccup), you’re scary when you’re happy!”
“I still have to pee—really bad.”
I do not swear, but at that moment, I could not think of any words with more than four letters.
At 6:30, we pulled into the college parking lot, right next to Lizzy who had Jimmy with her. Sarah fell out of the car crying into her arms, and Danny was doing the potty dance. Lizzy, who does have a cell phone, called Blake who, though he has already headed off to Maine, turned around and met us, just to make sure everyone was OK.
Saturday morning found me at the phone store. The clerk was sympathetic, and since it was time for us to upgrade, the price was right.
I still hate cell phones. But the buzz in my pocket is comforting.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Rites of October
I spy her slicing through the leaves, leaving an orange wake. I smile. She is our first-born and in less than a week, she will turn twenty-one.
Dampness and grilled hamburgers and hotdogs hang in a haze over the soccer fields, packed with players and homecoming visitors. As we amble, arm in arm around the field, we chat about her life—about her senior year, what she is studying, her roommates, the group of freshman she mentors. Our stroll is punctuated with hugs from her friends, our surrogate daughters.
Soon, this will be her alma mater; it already is her father’s. He is walking the same steps under the same trees, though there are a few new buildings. But it is her campus. For now, she is the present.
Because the phone is on the top of my desk, it interrupts my focus. I am grading student work. It is important—and overdue. However, when I see the phone number, my work is no longer significant.
“Hi, honey! What’s up?”
“Hi, Mom! I have an English question for you.”
Her calls come sporadically, and they focus with increasing frequency on our shared literary passion.
“Do you know an artist who has illustrated Dante? We’re talking about him in freshman seminar, and I want to show the illustrations to my freshmen. Is it Doré?”
I am silent for a moment. “I haven’t taught him in years, so I don’t really remember. Lizzy—you’re the Dante expert. If you have any American Lit questions….”
Her grin reaches through the phone. “That’s OK, Mom. I’ll look it up.”
We continue to talk about inconsequential things—how is she feeling? When is she going to come home again? The phone is replaced; my grading resumes its importance.
Lizzy loves old movies and musicals. One of her favorites is Fiddler on the Roof. She particularly likes the scene of the daughters dancing and singing, “Matchmaker.” I, too, enjoy that scene, and have a memory of her singing at the top of her voice, and dancing around the cluttered den of her grandparent’s home. Recently, however, I have begun to appreciate the gratuitously sentimental scene when Tzeitel, the first-born of Tevye and Golde, and Motel, the poor tailor are married and Tevye and Golde sing “Sunrise, Sunset” to each other. In the dialogue of the first verse, Golde muses “I don’t remember growing older, when did they?”
It seems appropriate that the musical’s revival is being advertised in October—the month of sunrises and sunsets. (The ad proclaims that it will be playing for three weeks in November, and would star Topol in his farewell performance. My husband wonders if he would be playing the part of Lazar Wolfe.) In the mornings, we leave for school in the dark, and travel down route 3 as the clouds begin to reflect pink and yellow. We return as the colors are reflected in the opposite direction. We try to hold onto its vibrancy; we even turn back the clock so as to add one more hour before the coldness of November closes the door on its light.
Before the month closes, however, small goblins and princesses knock at our door asking for treats. The faces behind the masks change, and now my older children place the candy in the buckets, pretending to be scared of the ghouls. But another father walks his daughter around the block. And the sun sets. And the curtain falls.
Dampness and grilled hamburgers and hotdogs hang in a haze over the soccer fields, packed with players and homecoming visitors. As we amble, arm in arm around the field, we chat about her life—about her senior year, what she is studying, her roommates, the group of freshman she mentors. Our stroll is punctuated with hugs from her friends, our surrogate daughters.
Soon, this will be her alma mater; it already is her father’s. He is walking the same steps under the same trees, though there are a few new buildings. But it is her campus. For now, she is the present.
When we ask her what she wants to do for her birthday, she says she does not want anyone except family. Her quad break synchronizes nicely with her her day. She comes home for the weekend, so Sarah bakes her cake and creates a card, I decorate the cake, and the boys wait to eat.
Since it is her twenty-first, she brings a bottle of Chianti that her roommates have opened with her, and we sip it with marble cake iced with vanilla-rainbow chip frosting (a special request from the birthday girl). The house settles into the hum of evening and it purrs—we are all home. She leaves Sunday.
“Hi, honey! What’s up?”
“Hi, Mom! I have an English question for you.”
Her calls come sporadically, and they focus with increasing frequency on our shared literary passion.
“Do you know an artist who has illustrated Dante? We’re talking about him in freshman seminar, and I want to show the illustrations to my freshmen. Is it Doré?”
I am silent for a moment. “I haven’t taught him in years, so I don’t really remember. Lizzy—you’re the Dante expert. If you have any American Lit questions….”
Her grin reaches through the phone. “That’s OK, Mom. I’ll look it up.”
We continue to talk about inconsequential things—how is she feeling? When is she going to come home again? The phone is replaced; my grading resumes its importance.
* * * * *
It seems appropriate that the musical’s revival is being advertised in October—the month of sunrises and sunsets. (The ad proclaims that it will be playing for three weeks in November, and would star Topol in his farewell performance. My husband wonders if he would be playing the part of Lazar Wolfe.) In the mornings, we leave for school in the dark, and travel down route 3 as the clouds begin to reflect pink and yellow. We return as the colors are reflected in the opposite direction. We try to hold onto its vibrancy; we even turn back the clock so as to add one more hour before the coldness of November closes the door on its light.
Before the month closes, however, small goblins and princesses knock at our door asking for treats. The faces behind the masks change, and now my older children place the candy in the buckets, pretending to be scared of the ghouls. But another father walks his daughter around the block. And the sun sets. And the curtain falls.
Friday, October 23, 2009
A Moment of Sight
“The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price” (Annie Dillard, “Seeing”).
Gary Schmidt, author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and The Wednesday Wars, arrived at our school disheveled and disoriented after spending the night in O’Hare airport when thunderstorms delayed his flight.
Our middle schoolers were at the end of a second retreat day full of activities and expeditions. They had traveled to a camp where they swam in a frigid lake, kayaked and canoed, and participated in a ropes course, and other team-building exercises. Some of them had climbed a mountain, others had gone bowling, and a few had visited Haystack Observatory. Now they were all sitting in the Activities Center where we expected them to listen politely to a middle-aged author.
After I introduced him to the mass of swinging legs and squirming backsides, he hunched to the front of the room and began pacing, talking about a whale in the San Francisco Bay who was caught and being pulled down by the mass of flotsam he had collected on his body. Some intrepid rescuers rowed out to him in a small boat and began the painstaking process of freeing the whale, armed only with a knife. He continued with other stories—a baseball game in a small camp where a young man just wanted “one stupid single;” his real-life Wednesday war with his seventh-grade English teacher who was the inspiration for the character of Mrs. Baker in The Wednesday Wars; and the three-year process of writing Lizzie Bright.
I felt myself lean forward eager for the whale to be freed, exultant when the it returned to thank his rescuers, and I yearned for the young baseball player to get his hit. Suddenly, I realized that there was entire roomful of middle school kids doing the same. Gary had shed his fatigue and was exuding a magnetic energy, pulling us into the stories, the “what happened next” that he related is the trademark tool of the storyteller. The appendages that had been constantly in motion were now still. Giggles punctuated the silence when his real English teacher was yelled at by the principal in front of her solitary Wednesday afternoon student, and sighs and gasps erupted when the player ran circles in right field because he didn’t know where to go after he went to first base on his very first hit. This was the author who wrote: “Of all the kids in the seventh grade at Camillo Junior High, there was one kid that Mrs. Baker hated with heat whiter than the sun. Me” (The Wednesday Wars).
He explained that a writer will also write about something bigger than the story, leaving the reader with more questions. Lizzie Bright is based on the historical events centered in mid-coast Maine just after the turn of the century. The story was unearthed by Anne one summer when they went on vacation to the family home near Brunswick. The main character is a preacher’s son, Turner Ernest Buckminster III, who befriends a young African-American girl, Lizzie Bright. Lizzie lives in the community on Malaga Island, a piece of land the town fathers want to control because of its strategic location in a beautification plan for the town. The story involves issues of race, friendship, and growing up. One of the unforgettable characters, Mrs. Elia Hurd (based loosely on Emily Dickinson), says “So, Turner Buckminster III” she asked “when you look through the number at the end of your name, does it seem like you’re looking through prison bars?” When asked what the book was about after it had won a Newbery Award in 2005, Gary said: “It’s what I always write about: what it is that makes a child move from childhood to adulthood. It’s when a child starts to say, ‘this is my decision. I make this call.’ It’s the message a child has to get—that there’s a moment when you have to become your own person.”
After Gary finished and the students were dismissed, a crowd formed around him, adolescents and adults alike, clutching their copies of his books for him to sign. He graciously penned his name—about a hundred times—before following my husband and me out to our minivan where he and Anne climbed wearily into the middle seat. We drove back to the college where he was to speak again at a dinner, and he fell asleep while Anne and I talked quietly, she as a proud wife, brilliant in her own right, confident and content with her husband’s accomplishments, and I in the cathartic glow of inspiration.
After safely returning Gary and Anne for their evening activities, my husband and I returned to the school where I collected my books and our kids. We walked outside, passing an eighth-grade boy still dressed in the soccer uniform he wore for his afternoon game. In his hand, he gripped one of Gary’s autographed books.
“So, Derek,” I said, “Mr. Schmidt was pretty cool this afternoon, wasn’t he?”
“Ya!” His eyes lit up. “He was awesome, Mrs. Newell! I loved his stories! I wish he could have stayed longer. I want to read his other books.”
I looked at the boy’s eager face, and smiled.
“Me too, Derek!”
Gary Schmidt, author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and The Wednesday Wars, arrived at our school disheveled and disoriented after spending the night in O’Hare airport when thunderstorms delayed his flight.
Our middle schoolers were at the end of a second retreat day full of activities and expeditions. They had traveled to a camp where they swam in a frigid lake, kayaked and canoed, and participated in a ropes course, and other team-building exercises. Some of them had climbed a mountain, others had gone bowling, and a few had visited Haystack Observatory. Now they were all sitting in the Activities Center where we expected them to listen politely to a middle-aged author.
After I introduced him to the mass of swinging legs and squirming backsides, he hunched to the front of the room and began pacing, talking about a whale in the San Francisco Bay who was caught and being pulled down by the mass of flotsam he had collected on his body. Some intrepid rescuers rowed out to him in a small boat and began the painstaking process of freeing the whale, armed only with a knife. He continued with other stories—a baseball game in a small camp where a young man just wanted “one stupid single;” his real-life Wednesday war with his seventh-grade English teacher who was the inspiration for the character of Mrs. Baker in The Wednesday Wars; and the three-year process of writing Lizzie Bright.
I felt myself lean forward eager for the whale to be freed, exultant when the it returned to thank his rescuers, and I yearned for the young baseball player to get his hit. Suddenly, I realized that there was entire roomful of middle school kids doing the same. Gary had shed his fatigue and was exuding a magnetic energy, pulling us into the stories, the “what happened next” that he related is the trademark tool of the storyteller. The appendages that had been constantly in motion were now still. Giggles punctuated the silence when his real English teacher was yelled at by the principal in front of her solitary Wednesday afternoon student, and sighs and gasps erupted when the player ran circles in right field because he didn’t know where to go after he went to first base on his very first hit. This was the author who wrote: “Of all the kids in the seventh grade at Camillo Junior High, there was one kid that Mrs. Baker hated with heat whiter than the sun. Me” (The Wednesday Wars).
He explained that a writer will also write about something bigger than the story, leaving the reader with more questions. Lizzie Bright is based on the historical events centered in mid-coast Maine just after the turn of the century. The story was unearthed by Anne one summer when they went on vacation to the family home near Brunswick. The main character is a preacher’s son, Turner Ernest Buckminster III, who befriends a young African-American girl, Lizzie Bright. Lizzie lives in the community on Malaga Island, a piece of land the town fathers want to control because of its strategic location in a beautification plan for the town. The story involves issues of race, friendship, and growing up. One of the unforgettable characters, Mrs. Elia Hurd (based loosely on Emily Dickinson), says “So, Turner Buckminster III” she asked “when you look through the number at the end of your name, does it seem like you’re looking through prison bars?” When asked what the book was about after it had won a Newbery Award in 2005, Gary said: “It’s what I always write about: what it is that makes a child move from childhood to adulthood. It’s when a child starts to say, ‘this is my decision. I make this call.’ It’s the message a child has to get—that there’s a moment when you have to become your own person.”
After Gary finished and the students were dismissed, a crowd formed around him, adolescents and adults alike, clutching their copies of his books for him to sign. He graciously penned his name—about a hundred times—before following my husband and me out to our minivan where he and Anne climbed wearily into the middle seat. We drove back to the college where he was to speak again at a dinner, and he fell asleep while Anne and I talked quietly, she as a proud wife, brilliant in her own right, confident and content with her husband’s accomplishments, and I in the cathartic glow of inspiration.
After safely returning Gary and Anne for their evening activities, my husband and I returned to the school where I collected my books and our kids. We walked outside, passing an eighth-grade boy still dressed in the soccer uniform he wore for his afternoon game. In his hand, he gripped one of Gary’s autographed books.
“So, Derek,” I said, “Mr. Schmidt was pretty cool this afternoon, wasn’t he?”
“Ya!” His eyes lit up. “He was awesome, Mrs. Newell! I loved his stories! I wish he could have stayed longer. I want to read his other books.”
I looked at the boy’s eager face, and smiled.
“Me too, Derek!”
Friday, October 9, 2009
Lying to Lowell
Theater Poster
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Audience—Merrimack Valley (Local Daily/Movie Reviewer)
During last year’s filming of “The Invention of Lying” Lowellians caught occasional glimpses of Ricky Gervais along with his co-stars, Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe, through the maze of movie wires, cameras and sets strung throughout the city. La Boniche and The Dubliner were among the favorite spots for celebrity sightings.
Since then, viewers have been anticipating the opening of the movie, and the premier at the Showcase Cinema on Reiss Ave held the promise of the same excitement. Unfortunately, the reality was disappointing. The story has the promise of comic thoughtfulness—it is a fairy tale set in a world where no one can lie—but it begins to unravel early.
Gervais, who along with Matthew Robinson wrote and directed the film, cannot seem to decide whether he wants to present a satire of modern advertising hyperbole, a statement about his cynical religious views, or a light romantic comedy.
The opening suggests the latter as Gervais does a “Once upon a time...” voice-over, and we meet our anti-hero, Mark Bellison (played by Gervais himself) as he plods toward his disastrous date with the beautiful Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner). During the dinner she tells him that he is just not “in her league.” Adding insult to injury, she receives a cell phone call from her mother in the middle of the date. McDoogles tells her mother that she is not expecting anything, and that she “will probably never go out with him again or even kiss him goodnight.”
The blunt honesty of all of the characters flogs the viewer rather than gently poking her. Beyond simply not lying, everyone seems to have a sort of obsessive disorder where they say whatever is on their minds. Fiction of any sort does not exist, so the only form of entertainment, provided by Bellison’s employer, “Lecture Films,” is an on-screen narrator reciting history. Even an ad on the side of the bus proclaims: “Drink Pepsi—if there’s no Coke around.” Thus, everyone in the world lives in a sort of depressed stupor. Bellison’s neighbor, Frank (Jonah Hill), discloses that he wants to commit suicide because he is such a loser. In a scene that seems more suited to The Office, his perky secretary, Shelley (Tina Fey), chirps “that I realize more and more how overqualified I am for my job and how incompetent you are at yours.” She also divulges that he is going to be fired that day, if the boss can work up the courage to do so. As he drags himself out of work, his coworker, Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe), blurts out that he has always hated Bellison. Out of a job and out of luck, he goes to the bank to withdraw the three hundred dollars which stands between him and homelessness and discovers something that will change his world forever—he can lie!
Bellison uses this new ability to change his fortunes, not always for the better. Desperate to comfort his dying mother, who resides in a “Sad Place for Hopeless Old People,” Mark makes up a story about a mysterious “man in the sky” who controls the fates of everyone and has everlasting bliss waiting for her. Because he is overheard by the doctors and nurses, he reluctantly dons messianic robes in the eyes of the world as the one and only conduit for the god-man. Here the story stumbles in yet another direction. His fabrications take on a life of their own as he scrambles to create his own version of the Ten Commandments, written on pizza boxes: including promises of eternal ice cream and mansions for good behavior. (One wonders whether Gervais was listening to John Lennon’s “Imagine” when he wrote this part.)
Bellison grapples with his new-found power, trying desperately to balance his honest attempts to woo Anna with his desire to help the helpless and downtrodden by lying, or at least, gently fibbing, to them. Gervais infers that the only truthful and intelligent character is Bellison, himself, who understands that the heaven he has created is a lie.
There are some hysterical moments. When Bellison realizes that he can lie, he goes to his favorite bar (aka The Dubliner) where he meets his friend Greg (Louis C.K.) and attempts to name this new phenomenon. (“I said something that wasn’t.”) A dialogue ensues where Mark tries to get Greg to understand exactly what has happened, but each time he says something untrue, Greg comes back with innocent acceptance of the statement: (“I’m black!” “I knew it!” “I’m an Eskimo!” “Fantastic!” “I’m a one-armed German space explorer.” “When’s your launch date?”) Unfortunately, the funny moments, and even the gorgeous views of the city and the Merrimack River in the evening, are not enough to salvage the film.
Gervais is a master at creating comedy sketches, as he has proved in his television series, The Office, but his ability has not translated well into a feature-length production. The only consolation is that the city looks fabulous on the big screen, and one hopes that this will be enough to woo other movie makers with more credible scripts.
During last year’s filming of “The Invention of Lying” Lowellians caught occasional glimpses of Ricky Gervais along with his co-stars, Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe, through the maze of movie wires, cameras and sets strung throughout the city. La Boniche and The Dubliner were among the favorite spots for celebrity sightings.
Since then, viewers have been anticipating the opening of the movie, and the premier at the Showcase Cinema on Reiss Ave held the promise of the same excitement. Unfortunately, the reality was disappointing. The story has the promise of comic thoughtfulness—it is a fairy tale set in a world where no one can lie—but it begins to unravel early.
Gervais, who along with Matthew Robinson wrote and directed the film, cannot seem to decide whether he wants to present a satire of modern advertising hyperbole, a statement about his cynical religious views, or a light romantic comedy.
The opening suggests the latter as Gervais does a “Once upon a time...” voice-over, and we meet our anti-hero, Mark Bellison (played by Gervais himself) as he plods toward his disastrous date with the beautiful Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner). During the dinner she tells him that he is just not “in her league.” Adding insult to injury, she receives a cell phone call from her mother in the middle of the date. McDoogles tells her mother that she is not expecting anything, and that she “will probably never go out with him again or even kiss him goodnight.”
The blunt honesty of all of the characters flogs the viewer rather than gently poking her. Beyond simply not lying, everyone seems to have a sort of obsessive disorder where they say whatever is on their minds. Fiction of any sort does not exist, so the only form of entertainment, provided by Bellison’s employer, “Lecture Films,” is an on-screen narrator reciting history. Even an ad on the side of the bus proclaims: “Drink Pepsi—if there’s no Coke around.” Thus, everyone in the world lives in a sort of depressed stupor. Bellison’s neighbor, Frank (Jonah Hill), discloses that he wants to commit suicide because he is such a loser. In a scene that seems more suited to The Office, his perky secretary, Shelley (Tina Fey), chirps “that I realize more and more how overqualified I am for my job and how incompetent you are at yours.” She also divulges that he is going to be fired that day, if the boss can work up the courage to do so. As he drags himself out of work, his coworker, Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe), blurts out that he has always hated Bellison. Out of a job and out of luck, he goes to the bank to withdraw the three hundred dollars which stands between him and homelessness and discovers something that will change his world forever—he can lie!
Bellison uses this new ability to change his fortunes, not always for the better. Desperate to comfort his dying mother, who resides in a “Sad Place for Hopeless Old People,” Mark makes up a story about a mysterious “man in the sky” who controls the fates of everyone and has everlasting bliss waiting for her. Because he is overheard by the doctors and nurses, he reluctantly dons messianic robes in the eyes of the world as the one and only conduit for the god-man. Here the story stumbles in yet another direction. His fabrications take on a life of their own as he scrambles to create his own version of the Ten Commandments, written on pizza boxes: including promises of eternal ice cream and mansions for good behavior. (One wonders whether Gervais was listening to John Lennon’s “Imagine” when he wrote this part.)
Bellison grapples with his new-found power, trying desperately to balance his honest attempts to woo Anna with his desire to help the helpless and downtrodden by lying, or at least, gently fibbing, to them. Gervais infers that the only truthful and intelligent character is Bellison, himself, who understands that the heaven he has created is a lie.
There are some hysterical moments. When Bellison realizes that he can lie, he goes to his favorite bar (aka The Dubliner) where he meets his friend Greg (Louis C.K.) and attempts to name this new phenomenon. (“I said something that wasn’t.”) A dialogue ensues where Mark tries to get Greg to understand exactly what has happened, but each time he says something untrue, Greg comes back with innocent acceptance of the statement: (“I’m black!” “I knew it!” “I’m an Eskimo!” “Fantastic!” “I’m a one-armed German space explorer.” “When’s your launch date?”) Unfortunately, the funny moments, and even the gorgeous views of the city and the Merrimack River in the evening, are not enough to salvage the film.
Gervais is a master at creating comedy sketches, as he has proved in his television series, The Office, but his ability has not translated well into a feature-length production. The only consolation is that the city looks fabulous on the big screen, and one hopes that this will be enough to woo other movie makers with more credible scripts.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Mine! A Bird’s Eye View of Narcissism
In “Blindness” Jorge Luis Borges writes about the link between and poetry and physical sightlessness. He recites a litany of great poets—from Homer to Milton to Groussac—who have used their common challenge to write great literature. “A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one’s art…Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that re eternal, or aspire to be so” (included in Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay, 385). Borges links thorough self knowledge to general experience. Thus, Julie, the anonymous Boston area woman writing the blog entitled “a little pregnant,” uses the death of her father, her own grief, and the inability to conceive to ask a profound question about the relationship between the body and what we perceive as life. “But is it unseemly, or even inhumane, I wondered later after the funeral, to be so ready to divorce the body from the being? Am I too hasty to dismiss the last physical scraps of someone — anyone — unique and precious? Do the people who bowed in front of that box know something I don't? Maybe. But I know something, too: What our bodies can't do is not who we are” (Julie of "a little pregnant"). Borges would agree, but both he and Julie use those infirmities, blindness, old age, infertility, and grief, to understand humanity a bit better.
Annie Dillard explores the theme further and explains that to really see the human condition takes discipline. In her essay “Seeing” she explains that in order to understand what is sublime, one is must acknowledge what is mundane, and then lift one’s sights above it. “The world’s spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind’s muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness…you raise your sights; you look along it, mildly acknowledging its presence without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real where subjects and objects rest and act purely, without utterance” (Lopate 705). Her epiphanies of the world around her imbue the everyday with the divine. She is in all of her writing, but the reader sees instead what is common to all. Like Borges, she understands her place in the world and is able to use her existence to touch eternity.
Conversely, Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Goop” reveals just how little she understands of normalcy. She describes her newest fashion finds: “Recently, I have enlisted the services of an old friend in the style department. Elizabeth Saltzman, the long time Fashion Director (and now Contributing Editor) of Vanity Fair and one of the best dressed girls I know has been getting me dressed when I need to dress up. She’s used her discerning eye to pick trends for fall that will work for falls to come – these shapes and fabrics can be used as inspiration and modified for the everyday” (Paltrow, “Get”). Gwyneth’s suggestions are, at best, laughable; at worst, they are a slap in the face for working women who are helping to support families, dealing with diapers, dirty dishes, and economic stress. Her blog, an attempt to share her wonderful life and “nourish one’s inner aspect” (Paltrow), would actually starve the reader looking for any depth of thought. Paltrow is not alone in her superficiality. The blogosphere is full of writers sitting on the edges of our computers screeching “Mine! Mine!” However, sometimes, a voice like Julie’s pierces the clamor and calls us to question, to think, to consider. And our lives are enlarged because of these voices.
Perhaps I do have something to say. I have fifty years of words and experience in my slightly saggy body. I do know that the older I get, the less quickly I use those words to answer questions, and the more I hold them and listen to what others are saying. Borges and Dillard write with the eye of the poet, their language and images draw us into their prose, to their lives. They are within their writing, but we see beyond their specific to what is true. My hope is what I write will add to truth, to illuminate rather than to increase the cacophony of egotism clamoring for our attention.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Humpty Dumpty's Great Fall
Traditional media in the U.S. is teetering precariously on the proverbial wall. The Pew Foundation’ Project for Excellence in Journalism has produced a “State of the News Media” annual report for the past six years, and this year’s conclusion is the bleakest in their history. The increase of reader migration to the Internet as well as the collapsing economy led the writers of the report to lament: “Imagine someone about to begin physical therapy following a stroke, suddenly contracting a debilitating secondary illness” (Overview). The report goes on the say that “the problem facing American journalism is not fundamentally an audience problem or a credibility problem. It is a revenue problem—the decoupling, as we have described it before, of advertising from news” (Overview). Thus, dailies like San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Boston Globe are threatening to close, their ability to produce a profitable product hobbled by digitized media and disappearing advertisers. But is the fall of newspapers and other more conventional media necessarily negative? A close look at new media models arising from the ashes of former news powerhouses suggests otherwise.
Five years ago, Howard Finberg, Interactive Learning Director of the News University of the Poynter Institute posted a prescient article in The Chaser, entitled “Training for the Future.” He posed the question, “Who and how will we train journalists to carry out the future?” He suggested two simple tenets:
1. Develop the new business models to support the journalism so essential to democracy
2. Develop the staff -- young and old -- to be more flexible and adaptable to a changing media landscape.
The first principle assumes that journalism is not what is disintegrating; rather it is the “business models” or the medium through which news is presented that is in need of overhaul. Journalists have historically acted both as watchdogs devoted to a vigorous defense of the rights of the American public, as well as being recorders and analysts of daily life. Andrew Donohue, Editor of VoiceofSanDiego.org continues this tradition in a non-traditional venue. His news organization is a non-profit news site with a staff of 14 and an annual budget of just over $1 million. In an interview with Mallary Jean Tenore, he argues that the advantages of this model include “efficiency,” a focused “mission of investigative, in-depth reporting,” and more “revenue streams” than mainstream media. The site is, as its title suggests, a local “daily” recreated in a digital medium. It does not depend on advertising, but rather on “foundation grants, corporate sponsors and membership drives,” much like public television and radio. Freed from the clutch of advertising revenue, perhaps this is a model that better supports the principle of the independent journalist.
This model of a commercial free press is further supported by The Nation’s John Nichols and Robert McChesney. In March of this year, they wrote an article entitled “The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers.” Like the Pew report, they painted a grim picture of American journalism: “The old corporate media system choked on its own excess. We should not seek to restore or re-create it. We have to move forward to a system that creates a journalism far superior to that of the recent past.” Their conclusion is, however, a bit more radical than Donohue’s: “We can do exactly that—but only if we recognize and embrace the necessity of government intervention.” (2) Their reasoning appeals to a historical view of government support, and suggests that though careful protection from censorship is necessary, a vigorous free press can be a matter of public policy. “From this foundation we can envision a thriving, digital citizen's journalism complementing and probably merging with professional journalism. What will the mix be? It would vary, with more not-for-profit and subsidized media in rural and low-income areas, more for-profit media in wealthier ones. The first order of any government intervention would be to assure that no state or region would be without quality local, state, national or international journalism.” (3) Their vision is a careful balance of protective policy and investigative vigor.
In a more capitalistic vein, Alan Mutter, adjunct faculty at Berkeley’s graduate School of Journalism writes a blog entitled “Reflections of a Newsosaur: Musings (and occasional urgent warnings) of a veteran media executive, who fears our news gathering companies are stumbling to extinction .” He discusses a profitable online model in a March post, “Can WSJ (Wall Street Journal) pay model work at other sites?” His post includes a commentary by Bill Greuskin, former managing editor of WSJ.com , in which he details why WSJ seems to be successful with their paid content approach. “Charging readers for content might work, but it needs to be a consistent approach, with targeted content that enriches the lives of readers. More fundamentally, online editors and publishers need to value their readers’ time, and make editorial and business decisions that fit that goal.” His conclusion—people will pay for content.
The second of Finberg’s principles focuses on flexibility of journalists and willingness to adapt to new media. In the Online Journalist Survey included in the State of the News Media Report, those surveyed were uneasy about the direction of journalism (54% said that it was on the wrong track). However, 82% were either very or somewhat confident that a profitable business model could be found online. This ambivalence underscores the tenuous nature of the profession today, and is reflected in some of the gloomy responses to Allan Mutter’s posting such as tish jett who says, “It is absolute hell being a journalist now.” As in many sectors of our economy, we are feeling the pains of a profession reinventing itself. Adaptability and patience are key to the process. Those who persevere may find new hope even as they sweep up the shards of fallen giants.
Five years ago, Howard Finberg, Interactive Learning Director of the News University of the Poynter Institute posted a prescient article in The Chaser, entitled “Training for the Future.” He posed the question, “Who and how will we train journalists to carry out the future?” He suggested two simple tenets:
1. Develop the new business models to support the journalism so essential to democracy
2. Develop the staff -- young and old -- to be more flexible and adaptable to a changing media landscape.
The first principle assumes that journalism is not what is disintegrating; rather it is the “business models” or the medium through which news is presented that is in need of overhaul. Journalists have historically acted both as watchdogs devoted to a vigorous defense of the rights of the American public, as well as being recorders and analysts of daily life. Andrew Donohue, Editor of VoiceofSanDiego.org continues this tradition in a non-traditional venue. His news organization is a non-profit news site with a staff of 14 and an annual budget of just over $1 million. In an interview with Mallary Jean Tenore, he argues that the advantages of this model include “efficiency,” a focused “mission of investigative, in-depth reporting,” and more “revenue streams” than mainstream media. The site is, as its title suggests, a local “daily” recreated in a digital medium. It does not depend on advertising, but rather on “foundation grants, corporate sponsors and membership drives,” much like public television and radio. Freed from the clutch of advertising revenue, perhaps this is a model that better supports the principle of the independent journalist.
This model of a commercial free press is further supported by The Nation’s John Nichols and Robert McChesney. In March of this year, they wrote an article entitled “The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers.” Like the Pew report, they painted a grim picture of American journalism: “The old corporate media system choked on its own excess. We should not seek to restore or re-create it. We have to move forward to a system that creates a journalism far superior to that of the recent past.” Their conclusion is, however, a bit more radical than Donohue’s: “We can do exactly that—but only if we recognize and embrace the necessity of government intervention.” (2) Their reasoning appeals to a historical view of government support, and suggests that though careful protection from censorship is necessary, a vigorous free press can be a matter of public policy. “From this foundation we can envision a thriving, digital citizen's journalism complementing and probably merging with professional journalism. What will the mix be? It would vary, with more not-for-profit and subsidized media in rural and low-income areas, more for-profit media in wealthier ones. The first order of any government intervention would be to assure that no state or region would be without quality local, state, national or international journalism.” (3) Their vision is a careful balance of protective policy and investigative vigor.
In a more capitalistic vein, Alan Mutter, adjunct faculty at Berkeley’s graduate School of Journalism writes a blog entitled “Reflections of a Newsosaur: Musings (and occasional urgent warnings) of a veteran media executive, who fears our news gathering companies are stumbling to extinction .” He discusses a profitable online model in a March post, “Can WSJ (Wall Street Journal) pay model work at other sites?” His post includes a commentary by Bill Greuskin, former managing editor of WSJ.com , in which he details why WSJ seems to be successful with their paid content approach. “Charging readers for content might work, but it needs to be a consistent approach, with targeted content that enriches the lives of readers. More fundamentally, online editors and publishers need to value their readers’ time, and make editorial and business decisions that fit that goal.” His conclusion—people will pay for content.
The second of Finberg’s principles focuses on flexibility of journalists and willingness to adapt to new media. In the Online Journalist Survey included in the State of the News Media Report, those surveyed were uneasy about the direction of journalism (54% said that it was on the wrong track). However, 82% were either very or somewhat confident that a profitable business model could be found online. This ambivalence underscores the tenuous nature of the profession today, and is reflected in some of the gloomy responses to Allan Mutter’s posting such as tish jett who says, “It is absolute hell being a journalist now.” As in many sectors of our economy, we are feeling the pains of a profession reinventing itself. Adaptability and patience are key to the process. Those who persevere may find new hope even as they sweep up the shards of fallen giants.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Baking a Blog
Dave Caolo made a great point in his discussion in our class last Monday when he equated those who customize and use technology well to one who bakes his own bread from scratch. Certainly, his own bears witness to the deliciousness of home-baked blogs. However, whether one knows the entire html necessary to completely customize plug-ins and graphics, or uses the “store-bought” features, audience-focused content coupled with appropriate tools create a beautiful product.
Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and motivational speaker, writes “Leading with a Purpose” for those interested in leadership and writing. His blog covers a range of subjects from Life Balance and fitness to blogging and technology, including one on Twittering that I personally found very helpful as I began venturing into the tweeting world. He also has a laugh-out-loud P. J. O’Rourke quote on “Avoiding Writing.” One can easily look up posts on subjects of interest as well as enjoy his clear, concise, and engaging writing style. His ads, found on the right side of the blog, do not detract from his content. Thus, the layout, graphics, and other features enhance the great writing/reading experience. It is hosted by WordPress, obviously customized for his content and intended audience. He represents a large corporation, and his graphics, layout, and links reflect a high level of professionalism.
Liz Davis is also a professional. She is the Director of Academic Technology at the Belmont Hill School outside of Boston. Her blog, "The Power of Educational Technology,” does not have the slick look or the bells and whistles of Michael Hyatt, but her content is strong and clear. Her intended audience is educators, and she includes gadgets that are helpful and free (or almost)—including her own book in .pdf form—something cash-strapped teachers would love! In a recent post, she offers some timely advice on accepting and adapting to change—particularly as it relates to new educational tools. A previous post on tips for teaching new media to teachers is also excellent. In it she states “It isn't really about the tool it is about how you use it: It isn't the word processing software, it's the skills and usefulness of word processing. It isn't the presentation software; it's how to create a meaningful and effective presentation.” (Davis) Both Hyatt and Davis have blogs successfully marrying features and good writing. The high-end gloss of Hyatt’s is appropriate given his position, but the clean organization of David is equally suitable given her role and audience.
Beyond the consideration of overall structure, a blog’s purpose is central. Thus, a corollary might be what level of technology is appropriate for the content being presented? The professional look of Michael Hyatt would feel ostentatious in the NieNie Dialogues of Stephanie Nielson. Her blog is an annotated album of her life—simple, sweet, and deep. She is not presenting advice or information; rather, her readers are invited to glimpse her journey. Her images are the focus of the blog, and her words are almost secondary. The layout is a bit cluttered, but no less apt than Hyatt or Davis since her audience and purpose is personal rather than professional. Another “life chronicler” is Ree Drummond. Her Pioneer Woman it is readable and makes good use of organizational features. I particularly like the tabs, reminiscent of a recipe card box, that act as categories. Like most other areas of her recorded life, she seems to be a DIY blogger, using the Liquid Web Blogging host which makes her layout precisely appropriate to her content and audience, those interested in home cooking or even homeschooling.
On the other hand, “The Cool Cat Teacher Blog,” one that I found on Davis’s blogroll, is illustrative of a blog’s features superseding content. It is crowded and messy with so many plug-ins and links that one is hard pressed to find the posts. I was also incredibly annoyed by the ad that took over my computer screen as I clicked on Jam Donaldson’s “Conversate is Not a Word.” Her ads definitely detract from her message (though I do like her T-shirt designs).
Listening to Dave’s passion as a master blog baker was inspiring. For a DIY blogger, the tools he described would certainly make one’s life easier and more organized. However, for the more “out of the box” user, features and gadgets already existent on sites like Blogger.com and WordPress can help create excellent products. They would not produce the gourmet taste of a Michael Hyatt or Dave Caolo, but mixed well with audience and purpose driven content, would certainly be delicious and satisfying, nonetheless.
Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and motivational speaker, writes “Leading with a Purpose” for those interested in leadership and writing. His blog covers a range of subjects from Life Balance and fitness to blogging and technology, including one on Twittering that I personally found very helpful as I began venturing into the tweeting world. He also has a laugh-out-loud P. J. O’Rourke quote on “Avoiding Writing.” One can easily look up posts on subjects of interest as well as enjoy his clear, concise, and engaging writing style. His ads, found on the right side of the blog, do not detract from his content. Thus, the layout, graphics, and other features enhance the great writing/reading experience. It is hosted by WordPress, obviously customized for his content and intended audience. He represents a large corporation, and his graphics, layout, and links reflect a high level of professionalism.
Liz Davis is also a professional. She is the Director of Academic Technology at the Belmont Hill School outside of Boston. Her blog, "The Power of Educational Technology,” does not have the slick look or the bells and whistles of Michael Hyatt, but her content is strong and clear. Her intended audience is educators, and she includes gadgets that are helpful and free (or almost)—including her own book in .pdf form—something cash-strapped teachers would love! In a recent post, she offers some timely advice on accepting and adapting to change—particularly as it relates to new educational tools. A previous post on tips for teaching new media to teachers is also excellent. In it she states “It isn't really about the tool it is about how you use it: It isn't the word processing software, it's the skills and usefulness of word processing. It isn't the presentation software; it's how to create a meaningful and effective presentation.” (Davis) Both Hyatt and Davis have blogs successfully marrying features and good writing. The high-end gloss of Hyatt’s is appropriate given his position, but the clean organization of David is equally suitable given her role and audience.
Beyond the consideration of overall structure, a blog’s purpose is central. Thus, a corollary might be what level of technology is appropriate for the content being presented? The professional look of Michael Hyatt would feel ostentatious in the NieNie Dialogues of Stephanie Nielson. Her blog is an annotated album of her life—simple, sweet, and deep. She is not presenting advice or information; rather, her readers are invited to glimpse her journey. Her images are the focus of the blog, and her words are almost secondary. The layout is a bit cluttered, but no less apt than Hyatt or Davis since her audience and purpose is personal rather than professional. Another “life chronicler” is Ree Drummond. Her Pioneer Woman it is readable and makes good use of organizational features. I particularly like the tabs, reminiscent of a recipe card box, that act as categories. Like most other areas of her recorded life, she seems to be a DIY blogger, using the Liquid Web Blogging host which makes her layout precisely appropriate to her content and audience, those interested in home cooking or even homeschooling.
On the other hand, “The Cool Cat Teacher Blog,” one that I found on Davis’s blogroll, is illustrative of a blog’s features superseding content. It is crowded and messy with so many plug-ins and links that one is hard pressed to find the posts. I was also incredibly annoyed by the ad that took over my computer screen as I clicked on Jam Donaldson’s “Conversate is Not a Word.” Her ads definitely detract from her message (though I do like her T-shirt designs).
Listening to Dave’s passion as a master blog baker was inspiring. For a DIY blogger, the tools he described would certainly make one’s life easier and more organized. However, for the more “out of the box” user, features and gadgets already existent on sites like Blogger.com and WordPress can help create excellent products. They would not produce the gourmet taste of a Michael Hyatt or Dave Caolo, but mixed well with audience and purpose driven content, would certainly be delicious and satisfying, nonetheless.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Musings of a Club Sandwich
While being compared to an upscale excuse for eating too much lunch is rather disconcerting, Carol Abaya’s term “sandwich generation” aptly describes those who are caring for aging parents as well as for their own children. Her term was adopted by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 2006, and is now part of our culture’s lexicon. On her website, she parses the term further, defining the “Club Sandwich” as those in their 50s or 60s sandwiched between aging parents, adult children and grandchildren, or those in their 30s and 40s, with young children, aging parents and grandparents.
My father turned 83 this year. I was not with him for his birthday in July, but I went for a walk him in August. The Pennsylvania air was steamy and still, smelling of wilting plants and the fresh manure used by the Amish farmer down the road, Dad wore heavy blue jeans as well as a sweatshirt that he refused to remove. His feet dragged from one step to the next, his cane serving as more of a hindrance than a help since he could not balance himself properly with it. Every few shuffles, he stopped to wheeze and totter, leaning backwards more and more until he looked like a limbo dancer headed toward a pole. After laboring up the driveway of my sister’s home and around the cul-de-sac, we creaked back to our starting point where he finally lost his balance, falling into my arms.
My mother accompanied us. In contrast to my father’s fragility, her gait was slow, but sure. She stood less than five-feet tall, and her left arm hung useless at her side (the result of degenerative arthritis), but the steel in her stance was a reminder of her once formidable character. Her concern was that we would not get back in time for her to “go home.” She was sure that her Mom and Dad were expecting her—she would be late.
“They will be worried, you know. And I need to get packed before we leave.”
I tried to reassure, but her parents continued to worry her.
My brother and I try to support my sister, their primary caretaker, as much as we can by traveling to her home to stay with Mom and Dad. Our efforts are, in the grand scheme, only gestures since we are not there enough to deal with the chronic concerns of the disease, but our visits encourage our sister and assuage our guilt, at least for a few weeks.
My husband and I are in the habit of walking after dinner which is usually rather late since we wait for soccer and cross-country practices, after school activities, and work responsibilities. Last night’s walk was cool and dark. We strode through quiet streets that glowed pink under the streetlights while sleepy houses with windows half-closed watched our progress. The conversation was comfortable both in the words and the silence between. It blended gently with the rumble of the neighborhood, and our steps provided a cadence for our speech. We talked about our children, two of whom will graduate this spring, one from college and the other from high school. We talked of money and of the mundane. Who would pick up whom? When? How would we get the grocery shopping done before the weekend? We smiled about our son’s hysterical comment at dinnertime, and worried about our daughter’s Lyme disease diagnosis. We passed an elderly Asian woman, watering her garden in the almost-dark, and our conversation veered back to that small Pennsylvania apartment containing an elderly couple who is gradually evaporating.
Our President spoke to young people yesterday, about staying in school and doing one’s best. His speech was a pep rally for education, and on the front page of the paper this morning were the faces of eager kids listening intently. I want someone to call an assemblage for club sandwiches—to encourage us as we are squeezed softly, yet inexorably, by those sweet faces on either side of us. Perhaps as we begin morphing from filling to bread, we can teach our children how to better deal with being in the middle.
My father turned 83 this year. I was not with him for his birthday in July, but I went for a walk him in August. The Pennsylvania air was steamy and still, smelling of wilting plants and the fresh manure used by the Amish farmer down the road, Dad wore heavy blue jeans as well as a sweatshirt that he refused to remove. His feet dragged from one step to the next, his cane serving as more of a hindrance than a help since he could not balance himself properly with it. Every few shuffles, he stopped to wheeze and totter, leaning backwards more and more until he looked like a limbo dancer headed toward a pole. After laboring up the driveway of my sister’s home and around the cul-de-sac, we creaked back to our starting point where he finally lost his balance, falling into my arms.
My mother accompanied us. In contrast to my father’s fragility, her gait was slow, but sure. She stood less than five-feet tall, and her left arm hung useless at her side (the result of degenerative arthritis), but the steel in her stance was a reminder of her once formidable character. Her concern was that we would not get back in time for her to “go home.” She was sure that her Mom and Dad were expecting her—she would be late.
“They will be worried, you know. And I need to get packed before we leave.”
I tried to reassure, but her parents continued to worry her.
My brother and I try to support my sister, their primary caretaker, as much as we can by traveling to her home to stay with Mom and Dad. Our efforts are, in the grand scheme, only gestures since we are not there enough to deal with the chronic concerns of the disease, but our visits encourage our sister and assuage our guilt, at least for a few weeks.
My husband and I are in the habit of walking after dinner which is usually rather late since we wait for soccer and cross-country practices, after school activities, and work responsibilities. Last night’s walk was cool and dark. We strode through quiet streets that glowed pink under the streetlights while sleepy houses with windows half-closed watched our progress. The conversation was comfortable both in the words and the silence between. It blended gently with the rumble of the neighborhood, and our steps provided a cadence for our speech. We talked about our children, two of whom will graduate this spring, one from college and the other from high school. We talked of money and of the mundane. Who would pick up whom? When? How would we get the grocery shopping done before the weekend? We smiled about our son’s hysterical comment at dinnertime, and worried about our daughter’s Lyme disease diagnosis. We passed an elderly Asian woman, watering her garden in the almost-dark, and our conversation veered back to that small Pennsylvania apartment containing an elderly couple who is gradually evaporating.
Our President spoke to young people yesterday, about staying in school and doing one’s best. His speech was a pep rally for education, and on the front page of the paper this morning were the faces of eager kids listening intently. I want someone to call an assemblage for club sandwiches—to encourage us as we are squeezed softly, yet inexorably, by those sweet faces on either side of us. Perhaps as we begin morphing from filling to bread, we can teach our children how to better deal with being in the middle.
Dad and Mom
