Saturday, August 17, 2002
THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE
Suddenly, it’s not there...!
Have you noticed that when your electric power supply goes off
there is a sudden sense of loss and a pressing weight of silence falls upon the immediate world about you.
We, as a people, tend to live much of our lives against a comforting background of noises, an amalgam of many things, muted in most cases, fortunately, There is an element of disbelief, but reality lingers very much
there in the shadows where it is virtually unnoticed. When it all stops suddenly, the silence is oppressive!
There can be no “sound of silence”, I suppose, but the element of heaviness falls upon us in a very real sense.
Sometimes, when the electricity fails, we sit or stand for a few seconds trying to realize what has happened. A change has come about ,and it is not good, but exactly what it was might be comes to us only after
we realize the darkness pressing in around us. Some state the obvious when they say” “The lights are out!” in a tone of dis-belief. The TV screen is a blob starring into blackness, the refrigerator is silent, the air-conditioning is not running,
or, the furnace, if it be during the winter time when the crisis comes to your house.
The first thing to be done is to find your way to as many light switches as possible and snap them on and on and off in random order until you have no idea what positions they will be in when and if, the power
returns. As soon as you are assured of the fact that the loss is general and not solely where you were at the time it happened, you try to remember where it was you put the flashlight so you could find it speedily if such an emergency
arose. Mother goes searching for candle stubs.
These common steps, and others, occur in rapid sequence in most families. Someone will get on the phone and call anyone to ask if their “lights are off”....which they are. One such person called is sure to remind you
that your freezer is no longer holding fast to those low temperatures you need to retain the quality of all the meats and vegetables stored therein. You resist the temptation to take a peek to see if the little light comes on when our lift
the lid. Usually, it works out that someone else in the family has already done that. Several have already tried the refrigerator.
If you are not much at dialing phone numbers in total darkness (and it is amazing how many people can do that!) you ascertain the fate of your neighbors by opening the door - front or back - to see if their lights
are burning. They are not. You feel comforted in the common sharing of disaster which has, it appears, to come to all...not just you alone.
The door opening sequence is a good thing because it allows street or highway noises to burst upon our ears even though they be far away. Sounds have returned! There is hope of survival. There might be the
sound of a plane moving above; a distant siren telling of a rescue vehicle searching out suffering somewhere. When it happened years ago you could even hear a train whistle in the far off hills, and it all became less tedious somehow.
You step back into the darkened rooms and express your
determination of wait it out. New problems face you. What does one do while waiting it out? No stereo, no computer to play with, no fireplace to sit by, and no one has the slightest idea where that old battery operated radio might
be by now. If someone does remember, by chance...the batteries are dead, of course, the terminals quietly turning into a gray-green fuzz therein.
By that time the children are hungry, or they have to go to the bathroom, or both. Then -
Glory be! The power is restored as quickly as it had disappeared. The weight of silence is lifted. Noise, at last! Living is back to normal.
A.L.M. August 1, 2001 [c699wds]
Friday, August 16, 2002
LET’S GO TO THE FAIR
Fall is Fair Time throughout the nation.
Fairs are not so numerous as they seem to have been not too long ago. The ones remaining are largely in rural areas or in large cities which are dependent on agricultural income from around the area. The first fair I
ever remember attending was in Norfolk,Virginia, a coastal city, far removed from what we thought of as farm land. I remember seeing chickens, ducks, cattle, hogs and other farm animals, but the main events at the Fair for me,
and I suppose the adults who took me, was racing. In all it’s forms - racing was the main attraction.
I liked horse races but the seemed to be over far too soon. The excitement was so short-lived it was all over before I could identify with a favored horse and rider. I still feel that way. Too fast.
My favorite was harness racing...the sulkies!
A driver was seated on a narrow, rather precarious shelf, perched there on between spinning wheels and immediately behind the rear of the horse. He encouraged his horse to drag the cart around the track with
seeming abandon. The driver seemed ever intent on trying to take advantage of any flaw he could detect in other driver’s movements. Very often the horses seemed to anticipate what they were expected to do. More skill seemed
to be required in harness racing, and not all of it was predictable, either.
There was noise associated with the racing,too. There was the soft whirring of the wire wheels, the sound of hooves beating rapidly the dirt track. Bursts of cheers and jeers from the crowd watching, fears expressed
that a cart would topple were real from time-to-time and with good reason. The light carts would leave the track surface for a second and the driver would lean into the inner rail until he looked like a racing schooner man at sea
leaning far out over the water. The carts weighted well over one hundred and fifty pounds when harness racing came in around 18l0 ors, replacing the popular wagons used up to that time. Over the years to weight has come down
until today, itg is about forty pounds. I have often thought that, if the seat were a solid strip of metal, instead of weight-saving strips, the contraption might become airborne with the seat acting as a wing. Around 1872 a
bow-shaped axle was invented and form it todays bike-cart design came toe to be the prevailing cart type. The design enabled the horse to run even more furiously since they lost their natural fear of clipping their heels on an axle
when they really felt like turning loose.
Sometimes a cloud of dust trailed along after each passing group but most tracks had a sprinkler wagon to wet the place down a bit before the actual running.
My first and only early experience with automobile racing ended in as a tragedy. To this day I have mixed feeling concerning car racing any kind, and I keep living that initial experience. The car was a boxy-looking
“Maxwell” probably a 1921 or 1922 model cut-down and souped-up as a racer. It was painted a violent, fire-engine red color and it came roaring past us in the grandstand. It was leading the pack by several lengths and then, when
it started into the curve it suddenly swerved, did a tumble, end over end, jumped the barrier of hay bales which had been set up between the track and the concessions area of the fair. It landed on a “kewpie” doll concession tent
and burst into flames. The driver was killed and two people it the tent died later as a result of their injuries. I can still see the black smoke rising from the tented area.
To this day I find it all coming back as I try to watch stock car racing or other vehicular competitions on TV.
Another case of . . . too much . . . too soon, I suppose. Kids are not grown-ups. We need to remind ourselves of that from time-to-time.
A.L.M. August 16, 2002 [c
Thursday, August 15, 2002
ARE THEY REALLY GREEN?
Why is it so many U.F.O. sightseers talk about “little green men” walking about the downed craft?
Green is a perfectly good color and it has the feel of Ole Ireland and Finian lore about that makes it seem natural when you talk of “wee folk” on “little people”, I suppose. A green sprite would be sprightly, too, I
suppose, whereas a brown one or a blue one might not move with such promptness.
From what I hear those UFO riders have to be quick. too. The dish might be gone before they get all the way inside it and I hate to think what a green, blue, yellow breakdown into primary hues, might look like
smeared across the shiny surface of one of those whirling Frisbees from Outer Space.
Green also suggests “ineptness”, too, doesn’t it? We speak with contempt and ridicule concerning someone who doesn’t know how to do a certain thing we can do with ease. He’s a “greenhorn”. He or she is
“green” - not quite ripe - and stands as an example of someone who can not do a certain thing at all, much less well . They can, however, learn if we teach them which we can do if we get the “green light” telling us it’s okay.
Then, “green” means envy in another usage, I think. So-and-so is “green with envy” because you have a new pogo stick you can ride and she has none. Or, a new Audi, or you are because she can wear a bikini well
and you’d rather not think about even trying to do so.
It could be that we seeing little “green” creatures from space may be in the eye of the beholder, too. Maybe they appear to be green because our eyes are inadequate to equate space colors properly which
could be totally different from ours.
Green also means “go ahead”...or “safe”, does it not? We use it generously on our traffic lights. That suggests that the little green men symbolize safety and that we need not be hesitate to meet with them. We
can just sashay right up to them without fear of being turned into spaceburgers as their fast-food snack. The “green-eyed monster” is very real in the lives of many humans.
What else does “green” mean to us? I forget what litmus paper turns to when it is dunked into something strange. We do, or did, care a great deal about chlorophyll in our lives a few years ago but that has now
given way to cholesterol and anti-oxidants to season our daily conversations and to separate program content on TV. To do a line or so about it here would seem old-fashioned and dated, so I won’t mention t at all.
Why can’t we have more variety in our aliens?
Can some of them appear to be red, or - no, not “yellow”, because that suggests cowardice and anyone, alien or not, who would go whizzing around in one of those little Styrofoam sky scooters with all of our
assorted space junk spinning round the planet cannot be sissies, can they? Maybe purple would be proper...as in “purple people eaters”, so essential to our musical achievements some years ago.
One assumes the aliens are “clothed” in green, or whatever. Certainly we can’t have the scurrying around the sky in green buff! Why can’t some Calvin Kline clothing engineer come up with designer garb in
Scottish plaid? A tartan or two would be a real treat now and then.
A.L.M. August 12, 2002 [c598wds]
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
THE GREEDY ONES
We are in the midst of a flood of disclosures of mismanagement at high levels in American business and industry. It could not have hit at a worse time, because the perception of business ethics is at an all-time low.
At the time when we need more public confidence in and loyalty to the CEO echelon of American business firms we are inundated with stories of gross ineptitude in handling the affairs of ranging from sheer incompetence to outright
dishonesty.
That’s putting it all mildly, too. The vast majority of the public mind thinks of these transgressions as plain old lying, cheating and stealing. To call it by any other name is to set aside Truth in favor of momentary
convenience. Indications , are, at the moment, that our elected official will see it as a serious matter to track down and reveal further scandals in business and to bite political bullets a bit and deal with offenders quickly, honestly
and completely. Not to do so is to invite voter distrust in the elected officials as well, and rightly so.
The field of accusations is growing and the latest edition of “Fortune Magazine” pictures several such “greedy” individuals about whom most of us have never heard, and, in so doing, they push the known
offenders ‘way down the list of miscreants. Let’s hope none of them get lost in the flood of followers.
I hear voices saying, not only should the offenders against common decency and honesty, be punished, but that their ill-gotten acquisitions - running into millions and even billions -of dollars, - should, whenever
possible be returned to the pilfered firms, to stockholders therein or individuals - workers, for instance - who suffered severe losses because of company policy. It would appear that we have ahead of us a mountainous array of legal
proceedings which likely continued former years. Some more recently named “greedy ones” may think of this as an advantage which gives them a chance of being either overlooked or snowed under in the avalanche of legal
procedures certain to be set in motion by any attempt to stop such widespread theft.
There is a good chance that this will set the tone of the upcoming Congressional elections and of the next Presidential election as well. This clean-up is going to take a while. It will dwarf the clean up campaigns of
the past and make them seem to be kindergarten “pick up and put away” time by comparison.
The big question right now...for all of us... is: Are we ready to deal with a problem of this magnitude?
The problem is just being “stated” at the moment. Are we ready to face up to the crushing enormity of such crimes against our society?
A.L.M. August 14, 2002 [c468ds]
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
FRIDA KAHLO
I have know girls named Freda, Freddie, Frankie, Franny and I remember meeting a charming little Irish girl named Feona once years ago when she was a foreign student in our area. But - I never recall ever
meeting, or even hearing of, a girl named Frida. I assume it is pronounced Free-da, or it could be Fri-da - as in the day of the week.
The name belonged to a complex , young girl by the name of Frida Kahlo. Her father was a Hungarian Jew and a photographer. Her mother was part Spanish and part native American. Frida was born in Mexico
City in 1910. At age six she was stricken with polio which left her with a permanent limp. Undaunted she went on to become an unabashed tomboy type and a favorite with her father. At age thirteen he enrolled her as one of
thirty-five girls in a student body of two thousand at the prestigious Preparatoria - the national prep school of Mexico and her career and mis-adventures proceeded.
At the school she met a young painter who had just returned to Mexico from France who was commissioned to do some murals in Mexican public buildings. His name was Diego Rivera and teen-ager Frida
found herself attracted to him. Not knowing how to deal with her emotions, the young girl teased him without mercy, played practical jokes on him and discovered numerous ways to make his wife Lupe Marin jealous. In 1925, Frida
was riding in a bus which collided with a streetcar. She was severely hurt and it was said that those injuries would prevent her from ever having children.
Many women might have given up at this point, but not
Frida Kahlo. She was forced to withdraw from school and thus away from Diego and Lupe Rivera. During her convalescence, Frida did something she had never done before. She painted a picture - a self-portrait. This was the
beginning or a new life for her.
She met a young photographer by the name of Tina Modotti and they became communist militants opposed to the “reactionary” rule of the Calles government of Mexico. When the
government withdrew all support from Diego Rivera concerning the murals he was doing , she took it as personal affront. Diego Rivera had been divorced from Lupe Marin by this time, so he and Frida were married and went off to
San Francisco and then to New York. after a quick visit to Mexico convinced them they were no longer welcome there. He accepted work in Detroit where Frida miscarried and-again, in recovery - painted another self-portrait titled
“Miscarriage in Detroit.” The career of Diego Rivera mis-carried shortly afterward. He was commissioned to do large murals at Rockerfeller Center, in New York, but his communists background caught up with him. He was dismissed
and all the work had completed was torn down.
Frida was painting with regularity. She developed, with Rivera’s generous and eager help, a style akin to native tribal art of ancient Mexico. She specialized in small paintings called “retablos” of the type used in so
many Mexico churches. I find it odd to think that her small paintings may, in time, live on-and-on and her reputation as an artist steadily increase, which that of Diego Rivera and his massive murals will fade away and be difficult to
remember.
Frida Rivera is quoted as having said: “Two accidents shaped my life....a tram knocking me down... the other accident was meeting Diego Rivera.”
Consider Frida when you think you have “troubles.” But do not - I repeat - do not - set her up as an example to follow. From this point on Frida Rivera made the worst possible choices in almost everything she did
and her life came tumbling down around her. Her’s is one of the greatest stories of an artist gone wrong.
It is best read, or retold, perhaps, as a “How NOT To...” guide.
A.L.M. April 11, 2002 [c 670wds]
Monday, August 12, 2002
A, D, F#, B.
I woke up the other night at 3:33 a. m. tuning a ukulele!
What a thing to dream about! And, I realize, too, I will have to explain to some younger readers, in particular, exactly what a ukulele was and continues to be. It is musical instrument mentioned often in crossword
puzzles as a three-letter word - something akin to a guitar.
That we know, but it was not electrically amplified. It was strictly acoustic, as we now say, and the usual effect was to provide a soft, strumming accompaniment of chords to back up a singing voice. It is most
often associated with music in the Hawaiian tradition and Island groups are about the only places you can see and hear them anymore.
There were two generally accepted ways of tuning up the four-stringed instrument and the one I preferred from about age six or seven was one which was tuned by paraphrasing sing-song words: “My dog has
fleas!” You could start with any note you thought to be approximate as an “A” on the scale and sing: “My(A) /Dog(D)/ Has(F#)/ Fleas(G)!” You twisted the pegs at the top of the neck and did your best to match those heavenly
sounding tones you were uttering so well and to duplicate the sound on the gut strings - top to bottom - and you were prepared to take on all comers. The other method of tuning was “G,C,A,E” and both tunings depended on how
accurately you sounded the first note. If you had a piano to which the first tone could be likened, you were fortunate, indeed, but if you had a good piano available, who would be playing a uke anyway?
Those turnings fit time eras, it appears. The A,D,F#,B version was higher and the other one tuning just one step lower. The change can be seen in the configurations ofchord symbols printed on sheet music. They
seem to equate with our national change to lower register in popular music... from the likes of the Rudy Valee, Ted Lewis tenor types to the Russ Columbo, Bing Crosby baritone bunch.
Time and place were critical to uke playing. It was, and still is, difficult to take a piano along on a hike or camping trip, and here it was that the ukulele helped out great deal. It was compact in size and very easy to play.
Guitars came along later, oddly enough. Somewhat larger Tenor Guitars took over for a time among the pros. “Tenor Guitars” were ukes with thyroid problems. The strumming ukulele could be heard over the waters of the moonlit,
always s placid waters of the lake from some distant canoe, or from the porch of a cabin in the fringe of trees along the shore. It was a very romantic instrument and, with a good singing voice, it was a good means of expressing
romantic emotions. At time, you didn’t realize it was there. Some singers were said to sing “over” the uke - the robust-toned, lusty-lyric ones - while other sang “under” the strumming accompaniment. One might sing ”On the Road
the Mandalay” while the other chose “Pagan Love Song”.
You might find a stray ukulele (also spelled “ukelele”, by the way) in your attic
or the catch-all “Plunder Room” such as my grandmother used to keep upstairs in a back bedroom. Today, now that I think of it, you might try that large room with overhead doors... the big doors leading to the driveway where you
keep your car! It’s
called a “garage.”
Everyone should know how to tune a ukulele. Then, there’s a good chance you would understand what is going through the alleged mind of us oldsters should you overhear us singing out softly in our sleep:
“My...dog...has...fleas!”
A.L.M. August 10, 2002 [c632wds]
Sunday, August 11, 2002
MAKING SURE
I have, a least, a score of items constantly on my list about which I and not certain.
Some of them are single words about which I am in doubt, and others are expressions I
hear being used and which I sometimes echo without really knowing, for sure and certain,
what they might mean. Try keeping such a list yourself for a while and I’ll bet you find you are
using words and saying things you don’t quite understand. You sense some uneasiness when
you voice them and wander if they mean what you think they do.
For instance, I hear horsy people talking about an animal measuring so many “hands”
high. To me that means sorta like laying your hand against the beast very gently from foot to
topside - head? haunch? ear tips? rump?.. and is your hand horizontal as if you are
compassing out an area or distance on a flat board? Is a “hand” across the palm from edge
to edge or from wrist to the end of your longest fingernail?
One chart I consult tells me “sixty-five inches is equal to 16.2 hands” Now, that’s a real
help isn’t it?` I’ve never had nerve enough nerve to step right up to a pawing steed and
perhaps tickle him a bit as I hand measure his height to see if the formula holds true. The
statement can’t be accurate, I insist even as I perform the daring ceded in a mental preview
au, because my hand is bigger than my wife’s hand and she would probably have courage
enough to give the necessary measurement a try. So, I’m still in doubt about how such hand
measurement a horse works. In conversation I can ask how many hands high a horse might
be, but I can’t say it was so many hands high. And, while we’re here in the stables, I have to
admit that until recently, I thought the term “dressage” meant “grooming.” It does not. It’s
French for “training.”
Seagoing terms give me nervous pings now and then, as well. I
had read that a “fathom” is what? Seven feet? I think so. If the water is
seven feet deep, why not just say “seven feet” instead of a “fathom?”
A “league” bothers me, as well...from the very time I read one of my favorite books as a kid
which had “twenty-thousand “of them. It’s long. That’s about all know about it.
I’m grew up in an era in which the metric system was considered to be the “old” way
of measuring things. We now consider it to be either the ”best” way or the “only” method of
measurement. So, I’ve had to translate my measurements from one “language” to another,
you might say. In doing so, I’m never absolutely sure of how much of anything is what is
intended.
Then, take words like “noisome”. I use it occasionally and I am fully ware that it does not
allude to “noise” but rather to unpleasant odors. It is related to nausea rather than to
rackets of any kind. When I speak of the halls in a tenement house as being “noisome”, I mean
the stink to high heaven and not that they are, necessarily, noisy. I still shy away from using
the word, thinking, perhaps, that the person who hears me say it, or reads it when I have
written it, will think, as I once did, that it means the place is noisy.
Did you ever notice how many people pause reflectively to make sure they say
ant-ARC- tic-a, with the first letter “C” in place?
And, there is a localism in the area in which I live which drops a letter from the
emergency vehicle called an “ambulance.” Here-abouts it is often heard as an
“AN-val-ANCE”. When I hear it, or use the term correctly, I often wonder how many other
words I may be mispronouncing or mis-using out of sheer laziness or sheer ignorance.
A.L.M. August 5, 2002 [c672wds]
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