I was just looking through the folder where I kept notes for my newsletter, which I started sending out in March of 1979, and pretty much discontinued in 2005. Lots of odds and ends never made it into the newsletter. I've decided to trot out a few of the fairly recent ones, dating from when I was living in my cold, leaky but wonderful cabin-on-the-lake in East Winthrop, Maine. The lake was the Cobbosseecontee, shortened by everyone to Cobbossee. I was forever being treated to scenes that delighted me, driving along the road that led in from the two-lane highway to the unpaved road that in turn led to the camp where my cabin was located, driving along various back roads when I just felt like exploring the neighborhood, even just looking out the window of my cottage. To wit:
When I first moved to the cabin from the motel where I'd been staying I was arriving late in the evening, and it was quite windy. My headlights lit up masses of dry, late autumn leaves that were being swept across the road, up, over, around, turning the road into a tunnel of swirling leaves. And there was perfect, vigorous musical accompaniment on the radio -- Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Made it seem like I was starting out on this exciting adventure.
One day in early spring I glanced out my window and saw a perky squirrel sitting upright on a branch, its tail a bushy question mark, looking just like all those cartoons. Then it took a flying leap to another tree and the air filled with dust, lit up by the sun. Dust? A few minutes later a car drove down the road to another of the cabins, and I saw that it was covered with a fine green film. The light went on in my head: the "dust" I had seen was tree pollen, being transferred by one of natures transport agencies.
Another sign of spring: two bugs copulating on the window pane. It looked like forcible rape to me -- she kept trying to scoot away, he kept pulling her along in the other direction. When I hit the pane they both froze, played dead ("Shhh. Somebody's seen us.")
One winter's day I drove into Winthrop proper. Flawlessly blue sky, bright sun, the ground and trees covered with recent snowfall, but the roads clear. Out on the lake in town (Maranacook -- another great Indian name) there were scattered ice-fishing huts, the occasional snow mobile speeding across the snow-covered surface. At the edge of the lake some folks had cleared a small area of snow, turning it into an ice-skating rink. All those people out there enjoying the day, despite the 24 degree temperature. But 24 degrees with sunshine and no wind feels good to northerners dressed for it. And all of this was accompanied by the beautiful, peaceful music, with just a touch of the melancholy to it, that was playing on my car radio. When the piece ended I learned it was Dvorak's 9th symphony. Perhaps he wrote it on just such a day. It went so perfectly with the day, the scene, that I almost cried.
Another day in winter I watched snow dust being wafted through the air from the snow-laden pine and hemlock trees around the cabin on a wind that was really nothing more than a breath. The earth breathed, and the trees sighed.
And this was my reaction when I got home late one night, and stood for a moment in the dark, listening to the silence that was interrupted by a waxing and waning wind:
"I love the sound of the wind coming through the trees toward you -- like rushing water -- and it sounds so strong you're surprised that the trees around you move so little when it arrives. Sound...the great deceiver."
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Death comes to an island (again)
Well, I've now read the first of Ann Cleeves's mystery novels, called Raven Black. I think it's actually better than the second one, White Nights, which I liked very much (see Note of Aug. 22). For one thing, the murderer was more psychologically feasible, and came as more of a surprise. I'll admit to having had an intuitive flash of who the murderer was, early on in White Nights, based on the fact that the character seemed to serve no essential purpose in the story...but there he/she was. Must be there for a reason...(Would this qualify as a spoiler?)
There was no great satisfaction in being proved right with that book since, by the time the climax rolled around, too many deaths, and the reasons for them, had made it hard to swallow that the murderer was, indeed, the murderer. It's interesting that the author made this mistake (to my mind it was a mistake) in the second book of the series, but not the first. I'm hoping she doesn't go out on another psychological limb with her third culprit (I gather four books in all are planned for the series).
Cleeves did as good a job in Raven Black of rendering the people, the culture, the physical makeup of the Shetland Islands as she did in White Nights. In both books police inspector Jimmy Perez is a jewel of a character, very likable, not hard-boiled at all, but smart. He gets there. And while in White Nights we saw what folks of the Shetlands got up to in the summer, in Raven Black we see them celebrating the same kind of drunken New Year's Eve celebrated elsewhere in Scotland, and later involved in their own special celebration, Up Helly Aa, which celebrates the island's Viking heritage with a giant bonfire in which a full-sized replica Viking longboat is burned. All quite fascinating.
However, I do have to take issue with the publisher calling these books thrillers. They are intriguing, well-plotted mysteries, but the emphasis is on the characters, on their interactions with one another, and on their interior lives, not on heart-stopping action, on exciting adventures of the hero, often while tracking and/or being tracked by the bad guys. That's my idea of a thriller. Did they think the books wouldn't sell if they were just called "A Mystery"?
So...check 'em out.
There was no great satisfaction in being proved right with that book since, by the time the climax rolled around, too many deaths, and the reasons for them, had made it hard to swallow that the murderer was, indeed, the murderer. It's interesting that the author made this mistake (to my mind it was a mistake) in the second book of the series, but not the first. I'm hoping she doesn't go out on another psychological limb with her third culprit (I gather four books in all are planned for the series).
Cleeves did as good a job in Raven Black of rendering the people, the culture, the physical makeup of the Shetland Islands as she did in White Nights. In both books police inspector Jimmy Perez is a jewel of a character, very likable, not hard-boiled at all, but smart. He gets there. And while in White Nights we saw what folks of the Shetlands got up to in the summer, in Raven Black we see them celebrating the same kind of drunken New Year's Eve celebrated elsewhere in Scotland, and later involved in their own special celebration, Up Helly Aa, which celebrates the island's Viking heritage with a giant bonfire in which a full-sized replica Viking longboat is burned. All quite fascinating.
However, I do have to take issue with the publisher calling these books thrillers. They are intriguing, well-plotted mysteries, but the emphasis is on the characters, on their interactions with one another, and on their interior lives, not on heart-stopping action, on exciting adventures of the hero, often while tracking and/or being tracked by the bad guys. That's my idea of a thriller. Did they think the books wouldn't sell if they were just called "A Mystery"?
So...check 'em out.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Heroes
The other night I watched a video of My Darling Clementine, starring a marvelous Henry Fonda, an unusually good Victor Mature, and a ludicrous Linda Darnell, playing her Mexican senorita (or was she supposed to be Indian?) with a flat Texas accent. The story of Wyatt Earp and his brothers up against the dastardly Clanton family in Tombstone, it is felt by many to be John Ford's finest film. It is a good movie, with many striking shots, excellent performances, and some pleasantly real, human moments. But it takes huge liberties with history...which is not, of course, unusual in a movie.
Just for starters, it would seem that Wyatt Earp, far from being a man of heroic stature, was a not-very-nice man, at least in his youth, and more than anything was a self-aggrandizer, who quite possibly took credit for achievements of others.
In March 1871, in Missouri, two lawsuits were brought against him. One, brought by Barton County, charged him with having kept the moneys he had collected, in his position as constable, instead of turning them over to be used by the school fund. In a separate allegation he was charged with having misrepresented how much a local citizen needed to pay in fines, again keeping the difference. Neither of the actions was ever acted on, apparently because Earp and his father (who was also not one of your more upstanding citizens) had left the state.
The next month he was charged with horse theft in Indian Territory, where he had apparently fled to avoid the suits against him back in MO. He was arrested for this crime, but escaped.
In 1872 he was living in, and off the proceeds, of a brothel in Peoria, IL; he was arrested several times in connection with this, and had to pay fines. Later he was involved with a floating brothel on the Mississippi. He often made his living gambling.
In Tombstone, where he achieved his greatest fame, he wasn't even the marshal, as all the movies would have it -- his brother Virgil was the deputy federal marshal, as well as the city marshal -- Wyatt was just, at times, a deputy. In Clementine Virgil had the job of riding shotgun on the stagecoach; this was actually a job that Wyatt took, in between gambling, and mining. Those were his primary interests in Tombstone.
And the famous gunfight was nothing like the way it's always portrayed in movies. For one thing, the opposing party wasn't "Pa" Clanton and his four sons; it was only Billy and Ike Clanton, along with two other brothers, Tom and Frank McLaury, and a fifth cowboy, Billy Claiborne. Ike and Billy Claiborne ran away, and so lived; the three others were killed. Doc Holliday was not killed -- as portrayed in Clementine -- though he and the other Earp brothers were all wounded. Wyatt was the only one who came out unscathed, which is what contributed mightily to his reputation as a top gunslinger.
The gunfight didn't even take place at the corral, but about a block away, in an empty lot between two buildings, with the two parties facing each other at close range, not scooting in and out of out-buildings and behind fences, as generally portrayed.
While I find all of this factual history very interesting, I can't help wondering how this man who seemed to spend as much of his time on the shady side of the law as supporting it, ended up becoming this western icon. Well, actually, I know how -- he told his highly roman-ticised story to someone who swallowed it whole, wrote it up, and spit it out for the rest of the world to read, be fascinated by, and believe. We want heroes so badly, we'll take them even when they aren't real.
Just for starters, it would seem that Wyatt Earp, far from being a man of heroic stature, was a not-very-nice man, at least in his youth, and more than anything was a self-aggrandizer, who quite possibly took credit for achievements of others.
In March 1871, in Missouri, two lawsuits were brought against him. One, brought by Barton County, charged him with having kept the moneys he had collected, in his position as constable, instead of turning them over to be used by the school fund. In a separate allegation he was charged with having misrepresented how much a local citizen needed to pay in fines, again keeping the difference. Neither of the actions was ever acted on, apparently because Earp and his father (who was also not one of your more upstanding citizens) had left the state.
The next month he was charged with horse theft in Indian Territory, where he had apparently fled to avoid the suits against him back in MO. He was arrested for this crime, but escaped.
In 1872 he was living in, and off the proceeds, of a brothel in Peoria, IL; he was arrested several times in connection with this, and had to pay fines. Later he was involved with a floating brothel on the Mississippi. He often made his living gambling.
In Tombstone, where he achieved his greatest fame, he wasn't even the marshal, as all the movies would have it -- his brother Virgil was the deputy federal marshal, as well as the city marshal -- Wyatt was just, at times, a deputy. In Clementine Virgil had the job of riding shotgun on the stagecoach; this was actually a job that Wyatt took, in between gambling, and mining. Those were his primary interests in Tombstone.
And the famous gunfight was nothing like the way it's always portrayed in movies. For one thing, the opposing party wasn't "Pa" Clanton and his four sons; it was only Billy and Ike Clanton, along with two other brothers, Tom and Frank McLaury, and a fifth cowboy, Billy Claiborne. Ike and Billy Claiborne ran away, and so lived; the three others were killed. Doc Holliday was not killed -- as portrayed in Clementine -- though he and the other Earp brothers were all wounded. Wyatt was the only one who came out unscathed, which is what contributed mightily to his reputation as a top gunslinger.
The gunfight didn't even take place at the corral, but about a block away, in an empty lot between two buildings, with the two parties facing each other at close range, not scooting in and out of out-buildings and behind fences, as generally portrayed.
While I find all of this factual history very interesting, I can't help wondering how this man who seemed to spend as much of his time on the shady side of the law as supporting it, ended up becoming this western icon. Well, actually, I know how -- he told his highly roman-ticised story to someone who swallowed it whole, wrote it up, and spit it out for the rest of the world to read, be fascinated by, and believe. We want heroes so badly, we'll take them even when they aren't real.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The only way to go
For my recent trip to New York I took the train. Some time ago I swore never again to do any major driving through the Northeast, due to the relentless heavy traffic, which can produce intolerable levels of stress in me. I broke that promise to myself when I drove to Pennsylvania to attend my goddaughter's graduation -- nothing like high motivation to get you to do something you've sworn never to do -- but I was lucky in not encountering really nerve-wracking traffic until Connecticut, on my return trip. Nonetheless it is absolutely impossible to avoid nerve-wracking traffic in driving to New York, so I don't do it.
The train is a wonderful way to go. A few years ago Amtrak reinstated service between Portland and Boston -- the Downeaster -- so you can even go the whole way by train, though you must get yourself from the station the Downeaster arrives at (North Station) to one of the stations the train to New York departs from (South Station or Back Bay). You either have to go by subway, lugging your luggage and hoping you don't miss your connection, or taxi, paying that extra bit (and, if the traffic's bad, hoping you don't miss your connection). Despite this hassle, I like to take the train the whole way, enamoured of train travel as I am; but for reasons we won't go into as it would cast me in a bad light, I managed to miss the Portland-Boston train. Big trauma. However, the bus station is in the same place as the train station, and they just put me on the next bus (as the woman behind the counter said reassuringly, "Somebody misses the train every day); the bus station in Boston is right next door to South Station, so making my connection was painless, and from then on it was a very pleasant trip.
But not, of course, perfect. Perfection is, we are told, reserved for the next life. (If there's no next life that means there is no per-fection anywhere which makes you wonder, why do humans even have that concept?!) In the Things Could Be Better Dept.: the cafe car had no Diet Coke, only Pepsi. I do not like Pepsi at all -- and am deeply offended by places that assume they are interchangeable, and serve you the one when you've ordered the other -- so was forced to consume water with my hot dog. I do realize that my dilemma is no worse than that suffered by those (surely few) souls out there who prefer Pepsi, every time they encounter a place that carries only Coke. Nonetheless, since Coke is vastly more popular in this country than Pepsi, I really think the cafe car should offer it. I was going to say as much in the online survey I answered when I returned from my trip (because of the promised chance at $500 free travel), but there was never a place for such input.
In the Pleasant Surprises Dept., the cafe car served the best kind of hotdogs there are, Hebrew National.
I was, happily, traveling on the Quiet Car, so was not bothered by people jabbering away on their cell phones or holding noisy conversations with one another. For me and people like me (who ask the dental hygienist to turn off the T.V. that is always running in each of the work cubicles at the dentist's office), the person who first thought of having a Quiet Car on trains was a genius.
At one point a woman sitting a few seats back from me did start jabbering away, in Spanish, on her phone. I got up, walked back, and politely but firmly said, "Excuse me, you're not supposed to use your phone on this car." There are signs hanging from the ceiling saying this, as well as paper notices in each empty seat; the conductor also announces this when the train first starts, and at any stop where a lot of people get on. However, this woman waves me away with "This is an emergency." Since the woman had been laughing and talking in a cheerfully animated way I was quite sure this wasn't true, but it didn't occur to me at the time to say, "Even if it's an emergency, you need to go to another car to use your phone."
Almost immediately, two different men went back to attempt to shut her up. One of them, shaking the printed notice at her, said, "Are you stupid? Can't you read?" The woman had plunked her large suitcase down in the space next to her, as she could not lift it to the rack overhead and apparently was not trusting enough to leave it in the large-luggage area at the back; one of the angry men went so far as to carry this suitcase off to that area. I think this action more than anything got the woman off her phone, though she was spitting "You shut up! You stupid!" at the same time.
The irony of making a noisy stink on the Quiet Car because someone was not being quiet enough seemed not to occur to these two gentlemen. I also thought how un-Maine-like their behavior was; no question these guys lived in Boston, or New York, or some other big city where aggressive behavior is the norm, and often necessary for 1) self-protection and 2) to get results. It took a few minutes for a sense of calm and serenity to reinstate itself in the car, but then I was able to go back to gazing out the window, dozing, and reading. Yes, sir, the only way to go.
The train is a wonderful way to go. A few years ago Amtrak reinstated service between Portland and Boston -- the Downeaster -- so you can even go the whole way by train, though you must get yourself from the station the Downeaster arrives at (North Station) to one of the stations the train to New York departs from (South Station or Back Bay). You either have to go by subway, lugging your luggage and hoping you don't miss your connection, or taxi, paying that extra bit (and, if the traffic's bad, hoping you don't miss your connection). Despite this hassle, I like to take the train the whole way, enamoured of train travel as I am; but for reasons we won't go into as it would cast me in a bad light, I managed to miss the Portland-Boston train. Big trauma. However, the bus station is in the same place as the train station, and they just put me on the next bus (as the woman behind the counter said reassuringly, "Somebody misses the train every day); the bus station in Boston is right next door to South Station, so making my connection was painless, and from then on it was a very pleasant trip.
But not, of course, perfect. Perfection is, we are told, reserved for the next life. (If there's no next life that means there is no per-fection anywhere which makes you wonder, why do humans even have that concept?!) In the Things Could Be Better Dept.: the cafe car had no Diet Coke, only Pepsi. I do not like Pepsi at all -- and am deeply offended by places that assume they are interchangeable, and serve you the one when you've ordered the other -- so was forced to consume water with my hot dog. I do realize that my dilemma is no worse than that suffered by those (surely few) souls out there who prefer Pepsi, every time they encounter a place that carries only Coke. Nonetheless, since Coke is vastly more popular in this country than Pepsi, I really think the cafe car should offer it. I was going to say as much in the online survey I answered when I returned from my trip (because of the promised chance at $500 free travel), but there was never a place for such input.
In the Pleasant Surprises Dept., the cafe car served the best kind of hotdogs there are, Hebrew National.
I was, happily, traveling on the Quiet Car, so was not bothered by people jabbering away on their cell phones or holding noisy conversations with one another. For me and people like me (who ask the dental hygienist to turn off the T.V. that is always running in each of the work cubicles at the dentist's office), the person who first thought of having a Quiet Car on trains was a genius.
At one point a woman sitting a few seats back from me did start jabbering away, in Spanish, on her phone. I got up, walked back, and politely but firmly said, "Excuse me, you're not supposed to use your phone on this car." There are signs hanging from the ceiling saying this, as well as paper notices in each empty seat; the conductor also announces this when the train first starts, and at any stop where a lot of people get on. However, this woman waves me away with "This is an emergency." Since the woman had been laughing and talking in a cheerfully animated way I was quite sure this wasn't true, but it didn't occur to me at the time to say, "Even if it's an emergency, you need to go to another car to use your phone."
Almost immediately, two different men went back to attempt to shut her up. One of them, shaking the printed notice at her, said, "Are you stupid? Can't you read?" The woman had plunked her large suitcase down in the space next to her, as she could not lift it to the rack overhead and apparently was not trusting enough to leave it in the large-luggage area at the back; one of the angry men went so far as to carry this suitcase off to that area. I think this action more than anything got the woman off her phone, though she was spitting "You shut up! You stupid!" at the same time.
The irony of making a noisy stink on the Quiet Car because someone was not being quiet enough seemed not to occur to these two gentlemen. I also thought how un-Maine-like their behavior was; no question these guys lived in Boston, or New York, or some other big city where aggressive behavior is the norm, and often necessary for 1) self-protection and 2) to get results. It took a few minutes for a sense of calm and serenity to reinstate itself in the car, but then I was able to go back to gazing out the window, dozing, and reading. Yes, sir, the only way to go.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Murder, she wrote
I recently read a book that I so enjoyed, I'm reading another by the same author. The one I read was actually the second in a series by the author, Ann Cleeves (no, not Anne of Cleaves). I think of it as the Shetland series, because the books take place on the Shetland Islands, north of the Scottish mainland. Those of you who know me know I have a peculiar fascination with islands, having spent extended periods of time on a Greek island (Santorini), a French island (Isle d'Yeu), and a Scottish isle (Mull). Indeed, I would live on one of the many Maine islands, if I could figure out a way to make a living there.
Thus, a mystery book that takes place on an island is bound to have an allure for me. Also, I enjoy mystery series in which one painlessly learns about the setting, as well as the culture within that setting, at the same time that a mystery unrolls. This was one of the attractions of the Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn books by Tony Hillerman -- I loved learning about the Navaho culture, within its Northern Arizona/New Mexico milieu. When Micheal and I went to visit the Grand Canyon in 2000, I insisted on our driving back through what I thought of as Hillerman country, delighting in spotting some of the landmarks mentioned in the books, such as Shiprock (which didn't look like a ship to either of us, but rather a huge rock fortress, sitting out there by itself in the middle of the prairie).
I enjoy Nevada Barr's national park ranger series for the same reason: I learn all about the various national parks, while pursuing mysterious evil-doers! In Barr's case, I don't much like her heroine, park ranger Anna Pigeon, whom I find humorless and irritatingly touchy, but the descriptions of and information about the parks are priceless.
But to get back to White Nights. That's the name of Ann Cleeves' second book, and refers to the twilight-like night-time hours of summer, on the Shetlands. Looking at my trusty world map, on the wall of my study, I see that the Shetlands are at almost the exact same latitude as Anchorage, where I experienced "white nights" myself, the two times I lived there. Several characters in the book mention how crazy the lingering light makes them, never seem to get enough sleep, etc. I know that in Anchorage many people have heavily lined curtains, to keep that pesky light out so they can sleep like normal people.
Cleeves' other book, Raven Black, which I've just begun, takes place in winter, when there is the opposite situation: long stretches of darkness, characters setting out for work or school before sunrise. There is frequent blowing snow (apparently the wind blows so constantly on the Shetlands that when it isn't blowing the locals notice; they are struck by the absence, the silence.) and ice everywhere. No tourists now.
In both books you get a nice sense of the people, the older ones hoeing their turnips in their bit of a garden, the younger ones drinking too much (a real problem throughout Scotland), everybody hooked up to the computer now. And there's a terrific police inspector, Jimmy Perez, a native Shetlander, despite the exotic name. He's mild-mannered and courteous, worried about his relationship with his new girlfriend -- is he pushing too hard, going too fast? --and also striving to maintain a good relationship with the detective inspector sent from the mainland, who is impatient, intense and driven. This kind of opposites-working-in-tandem often works well, in the aforementioned Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn books, for example (intuitive Jim Chee, steeped in Navaho ways and religion, trying to work with rational Leaphorn the skeptic), or in the Inspector Lewis mysteries on PBS, with the old-school, working class Lewis tied to his Cambridge-educated, technically savvy Sergeant Hathaway. Here I like the fact that DI Taylor actually respects Jimmy, recognizes that Perez's methods get results, even though they make him crazy with impatience. In general I like the way Cleeves avoids stereotypes with most of her characters, making them realistic composites of negative and positive attributes.
And I think to myself, maybe Shetland should be my next island.
Thus, a mystery book that takes place on an island is bound to have an allure for me. Also, I enjoy mystery series in which one painlessly learns about the setting, as well as the culture within that setting, at the same time that a mystery unrolls. This was one of the attractions of the Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn books by Tony Hillerman -- I loved learning about the Navaho culture, within its Northern Arizona/New Mexico milieu. When Micheal and I went to visit the Grand Canyon in 2000, I insisted on our driving back through what I thought of as Hillerman country, delighting in spotting some of the landmarks mentioned in the books, such as Shiprock (which didn't look like a ship to either of us, but rather a huge rock fortress, sitting out there by itself in the middle of the prairie).
I enjoy Nevada Barr's national park ranger series for the same reason: I learn all about the various national parks, while pursuing mysterious evil-doers! In Barr's case, I don't much like her heroine, park ranger Anna Pigeon, whom I find humorless and irritatingly touchy, but the descriptions of and information about the parks are priceless.
But to get back to White Nights. That's the name of Ann Cleeves' second book, and refers to the twilight-like night-time hours of summer, on the Shetlands. Looking at my trusty world map, on the wall of my study, I see that the Shetlands are at almost the exact same latitude as Anchorage, where I experienced "white nights" myself, the two times I lived there. Several characters in the book mention how crazy the lingering light makes them, never seem to get enough sleep, etc. I know that in Anchorage many people have heavily lined curtains, to keep that pesky light out so they can sleep like normal people.
Cleeves' other book, Raven Black, which I've just begun, takes place in winter, when there is the opposite situation: long stretches of darkness, characters setting out for work or school before sunrise. There is frequent blowing snow (apparently the wind blows so constantly on the Shetlands that when it isn't blowing the locals notice; they are struck by the absence, the silence.) and ice everywhere. No tourists now.
In both books you get a nice sense of the people, the older ones hoeing their turnips in their bit of a garden, the younger ones drinking too much (a real problem throughout Scotland), everybody hooked up to the computer now. And there's a terrific police inspector, Jimmy Perez, a native Shetlander, despite the exotic name. He's mild-mannered and courteous, worried about his relationship with his new girlfriend -- is he pushing too hard, going too fast? --and also striving to maintain a good relationship with the detective inspector sent from the mainland, who is impatient, intense and driven. This kind of opposites-working-in-tandem often works well, in the aforementioned Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn books, for example (intuitive Jim Chee, steeped in Navaho ways and religion, trying to work with rational Leaphorn the skeptic), or in the Inspector Lewis mysteries on PBS, with the old-school, working class Lewis tied to his Cambridge-educated, technically savvy Sergeant Hathaway. Here I like the fact that DI Taylor actually respects Jimmy, recognizes that Perez's methods get results, even though they make him crazy with impatience. In general I like the way Cleeves avoids stereotypes with most of her characters, making them realistic composites of negative and positive attributes.
And I think to myself, maybe Shetland should be my next island.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Warning: political rant
Sometimes the ignorance and gullibility of large swaths of the American populace fill me with despair. The current shouting matches taking place all across the country concerning the health care reform bill are a good case in point.
First there is the nonsense about what Sarah Palin calls the government death squads. When you get old somebody from the government is going to come around and ask you how you want to die. Actually, if you think about it rationally (which those people who will believe any scare tactics the wealthy insurance companies care to throw at them, all too often fail to do), this wouldn't be a bad idea. Americans persist in pretending they're never going to die, when as a matter fact death is the one indisputable fact of life; and it would be much better if people made proper arrangements for this fact before it was too late and their families were stuck with making heart-wrenching decisions with no guidance. However, that's not the point. The point is that the bills before Congress propose nothing of the sort. They propose including payment to doctors for counseling on end-of-life care. If you become incapacitated do you want everything possible done to sustain life, or do you want, instead, a living will? At what point do you want all aggressive therapy to stop, and hospice care to take over? Etc., etc. None of this would be done by govern-ment "bureaucrats," but by doctors, who are, after all, sworn to "first, do no harm." They wouldn't be encouraging you to let yourself be euthanized, they would be encouraging you to think intelligently and sensibly about these important matters while you're still in good enough shape to make the necessary decisions.
And then there's all the milarky about how if we're not careful we'll have a terrible, uncaring health system like they have in England and Canada -- whose citizens are now expressing anger at how those systems are being misrepresented by the ads here. My English friends Ann and John had two children and didn't pay a dime to have them. As Ann said to me, "I can't imagine going through child birth, and all the adjustments connected with having a baby, and coming home to huge hospital bills as well!" Both she and John have leveled criticisms at the NHS on occasion -- like any system it is not perfect -- but both are basically highly supportive of it, as are most of the citizens of the U.K. But because we are, as a country, essentially ignorant of what life is like in other countries -- unless something happening in another country impacts the U.S., or U.S. citizens, or is a natural disaster like a tsunami or an earthquake, network news does not report on it -- we don't know that the scare ads we are seeing all over the television simply do not represent the experience or attitudes of most of the people living under these systems.
And then there are those people yelling, you're going to have this public option plan at the expense of my Medicare! Excuse me, are they not aware that Medicare is a "public option" government-run plan, exactly the kind of thing they're objecting to? Where do people leave their brains when they leave home?
There are legitimate things one can base objection to the bills on, perhaps how-do-we-pay for-this being one. The simple, and logical, answer to that would be: we raise taxes. All the countries with excellent health care systems have higher taxes to pay for them. They have accepted the idea of the shared burden of higher taxes, in order to have the shared benefit of good, reliable health care that does not force anybody to declare bankruptcy, because of their med-ical bills, or to go without medical care, because they can't afford it.
But Congress is scared to death to come out and say, 'we'll have to raise taxes, but it will be worth it.' I think it's a mistake for President Obama to insist that only the very rich should be taxed. Those guys should perhaps bear the lion's share of the burden, but it should, again, be a shared burden. My taxes help pay for improved roads, and I get to use those improved roads. My taxes should help pay for an improved health care system for everyone...including me.
First there is the nonsense about what Sarah Palin calls the government death squads. When you get old somebody from the government is going to come around and ask you how you want to die. Actually, if you think about it rationally (which those people who will believe any scare tactics the wealthy insurance companies care to throw at them, all too often fail to do), this wouldn't be a bad idea. Americans persist in pretending they're never going to die, when as a matter fact death is the one indisputable fact of life; and it would be much better if people made proper arrangements for this fact before it was too late and their families were stuck with making heart-wrenching decisions with no guidance. However, that's not the point. The point is that the bills before Congress propose nothing of the sort. They propose including payment to doctors for counseling on end-of-life care. If you become incapacitated do you want everything possible done to sustain life, or do you want, instead, a living will? At what point do you want all aggressive therapy to stop, and hospice care to take over? Etc., etc. None of this would be done by govern-ment "bureaucrats," but by doctors, who are, after all, sworn to "first, do no harm." They wouldn't be encouraging you to let yourself be euthanized, they would be encouraging you to think intelligently and sensibly about these important matters while you're still in good enough shape to make the necessary decisions.
And then there's all the milarky about how if we're not careful we'll have a terrible, uncaring health system like they have in England and Canada -- whose citizens are now expressing anger at how those systems are being misrepresented by the ads here. My English friends Ann and John had two children and didn't pay a dime to have them. As Ann said to me, "I can't imagine going through child birth, and all the adjustments connected with having a baby, and coming home to huge hospital bills as well!" Both she and John have leveled criticisms at the NHS on occasion -- like any system it is not perfect -- but both are basically highly supportive of it, as are most of the citizens of the U.K. But because we are, as a country, essentially ignorant of what life is like in other countries -- unless something happening in another country impacts the U.S., or U.S. citizens, or is a natural disaster like a tsunami or an earthquake, network news does not report on it -- we don't know that the scare ads we are seeing all over the television simply do not represent the experience or attitudes of most of the people living under these systems.
And then there are those people yelling, you're going to have this public option plan at the expense of my Medicare! Excuse me, are they not aware that Medicare is a "public option" government-run plan, exactly the kind of thing they're objecting to? Where do people leave their brains when they leave home?
There are legitimate things one can base objection to the bills on, perhaps how-do-we-pay for-this being one. The simple, and logical, answer to that would be: we raise taxes. All the countries with excellent health care systems have higher taxes to pay for them. They have accepted the idea of the shared burden of higher taxes, in order to have the shared benefit of good, reliable health care that does not force anybody to declare bankruptcy, because of their med-ical bills, or to go without medical care, because they can't afford it.
But Congress is scared to death to come out and say, 'we'll have to raise taxes, but it will be worth it.' I think it's a mistake for President Obama to insist that only the very rich should be taxed. Those guys should perhaps bear the lion's share of the burden, but it should, again, be a shared burden. My taxes help pay for improved roads, and I get to use those improved roads. My taxes should help pay for an improved health care system for everyone...including me.
Friday, August 14, 2009
After a turn around the park...
The restaurant where Fae and Jim held their birthday/anniversary party was the Gramercy Tavern on East 20th, just off Fifth Avenue, and a couple of blocks from famous Gramercy Park, one of only two remaining private parks in New York City. In very London-like fashion the black-iron-fenced park sits in the middle of a residential square, with only the tenants of the buildings all around it able to purchase keys to the gates. Larry, Mary Beth and I arrived downtown a bit early for showing up at the party (and Fae had been firm: don't come early), so Larry had our cab stop at the park, and we walked two-thirds around it, admiring the handsome, elegant old buildings lining the four sides of the square. We were most taken with a rather hideous Victorian Gothic structure of dark red stone that, according to an information sign we discovered at the park, is one of the oldest apartment buildings in New York.
The place I would most like to visit is The Players Club, located at Number 16, in a building dating from 1844. (The 1840s is when the square was first developed. Townspeople were skeptical, but the developer knew people would soon be moving "this far north." Twentieth and 21st Streets! Yes, indeed, they kept moving all the way to 198th Street...) Anyway, Number 16 is where the actor Edwin Booth lived (a statue of him stands in the middle of the park). After his brother, the infamous John Wilkes, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, Booth's family, and actors in general (for John Wilkes had also been an actor) were held in very low esteem. In an effort to mitigate this negative attitude, Booth decided to form a social club in which members of the theatrical world would mix and mingle with successful businessmen and others. He had his home on Gramercy Park redone, so that it could be used as the "clubhouse," just reserving the upper floor for his personal use. Supposedly it is full of all kinds of theatrical memorabilia, and being a lover of the theatre as I am, I'd love to take a gander.
Some of the famous members of The Players have included Mark Twain (an example of how you don't have to be an actor... a "player"...to be a member), John Barrymore, playwright Eugene O'Neill, James Cagney, Gregory Peck, Jose Ferrer, Lynn Redgrave, Timothy Hutton (those last three were all president at one time), Walter Cronkite, Kevin Spacey, Judy Collins, Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Tony Bennett, Carol Burnett, Dick Cavett, Hal Holbrook, Robert Vaughn, Christopher Plummer, Ethan Hawke (one of the younger-generation members), Peter O'Toole and ex-James Bond Roger Moore (you'll notice a number of Englishmen in there, so obviously you don't have to be an American, either.)
A walk of a couple of blocks west on 20th brought us to the Gramercy Tavern. Online reviews of the place refer to it as "rustic but elegant," which seems something of an oxymoron to me, but it is quietly elegant, and I suppose all the pieces of old wood furniture scattered here and there could be called rustic. The walls are painted sand which makes a nice contrast with the brown-stained wood beams across the ceiling in the main dining room, the long, heavy brown drapes in the doorways between the several dining rooms. The color scheme also contributes to a sort of country feel. But the place is certainly not my idea of a tavern.
As to the food, of course it was good -- my sea bass in marinated cucumbers and yogurt sauce was gently cooked to perfection -- but in my nitpicking restaurant critic mode I have to mention that the drink the waiter brought me was not the Wild Turkey over ice I asked for but Wild Turkey with water over ice (this mistake astounded me). And the salad -- an attractive heap of arugula and turnip greens with sweet garlic-saffron dressing -- was a little bitter. The "sweet" dressing was not enough to offset the bitterness of the greens. This also surprised me, like an experiment that was not quite successful. And finally, I took issue with the fact that coffee was not served until most people had finished their dessert. Perhaps this is commonly done, but to me it makes more sense to provide coffee and tea with the food, rather than after. The warm chocolate bread pudding, by the way, was wonderful!
One thing that impressed the hell out of me was how many people they had serving. It made me think of those royal dinners, with a server between every two chairs. But ours were a little more informally dressed, no white gloves. All in all it was lovely party, beautifully done. The sort of thing one needs to go to every couple of years or so, to keep ones hand in.
The place I would most like to visit is The Players Club, located at Number 16, in a building dating from 1844. (The 1840s is when the square was first developed. Townspeople were skeptical, but the developer knew people would soon be moving "this far north." Twentieth and 21st Streets! Yes, indeed, they kept moving all the way to 198th Street...) Anyway, Number 16 is where the actor Edwin Booth lived (a statue of him stands in the middle of the park). After his brother, the infamous John Wilkes, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, Booth's family, and actors in general (for John Wilkes had also been an actor) were held in very low esteem. In an effort to mitigate this negative attitude, Booth decided to form a social club in which members of the theatrical world would mix and mingle with successful businessmen and others. He had his home on Gramercy Park redone, so that it could be used as the "clubhouse," just reserving the upper floor for his personal use. Supposedly it is full of all kinds of theatrical memorabilia, and being a lover of the theatre as I am, I'd love to take a gander.
Some of the famous members of The Players have included Mark Twain (an example of how you don't have to be an actor... a "player"...to be a member), John Barrymore, playwright Eugene O'Neill, James Cagney, Gregory Peck, Jose Ferrer, Lynn Redgrave, Timothy Hutton (those last three were all president at one time), Walter Cronkite, Kevin Spacey, Judy Collins, Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Tony Bennett, Carol Burnett, Dick Cavett, Hal Holbrook, Robert Vaughn, Christopher Plummer, Ethan Hawke (one of the younger-generation members), Peter O'Toole and ex-James Bond Roger Moore (you'll notice a number of Englishmen in there, so obviously you don't have to be an American, either.)
A walk of a couple of blocks west on 20th brought us to the Gramercy Tavern. Online reviews of the place refer to it as "rustic but elegant," which seems something of an oxymoron to me, but it is quietly elegant, and I suppose all the pieces of old wood furniture scattered here and there could be called rustic. The walls are painted sand which makes a nice contrast with the brown-stained wood beams across the ceiling in the main dining room, the long, heavy brown drapes in the doorways between the several dining rooms. The color scheme also contributes to a sort of country feel. But the place is certainly not my idea of a tavern.
As to the food, of course it was good -- my sea bass in marinated cucumbers and yogurt sauce was gently cooked to perfection -- but in my nitpicking restaurant critic mode I have to mention that the drink the waiter brought me was not the Wild Turkey over ice I asked for but Wild Turkey with water over ice (this mistake astounded me). And the salad -- an attractive heap of arugula and turnip greens with sweet garlic-saffron dressing -- was a little bitter. The "sweet" dressing was not enough to offset the bitterness of the greens. This also surprised me, like an experiment that was not quite successful. And finally, I took issue with the fact that coffee was not served until most people had finished their dessert. Perhaps this is commonly done, but to me it makes more sense to provide coffee and tea with the food, rather than after. The warm chocolate bread pudding, by the way, was wonderful!
One thing that impressed the hell out of me was how many people they had serving. It made me think of those royal dinners, with a server between every two chairs. But ours were a little more informally dressed, no white gloves. All in all it was lovely party, beautifully done. The sort of thing one needs to go to every couple of years or so, to keep ones hand in.
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