Ruining a good thing

O.K., here's my critique of the HBO production of Game of Thrones, which one of my staff had ordered, and lent me to watch. It looks great, perfect, some things, like The Wall, so much better than I'd imagined in reading the book; the music was mesmerizing, the opening credits amazing, the acting, virtually without exception, excellent. But but but.

Bob had warned me that there was a lot of "gratuitous sex," and as it turned out, that gratuitous sex ultimately ruined the show for me, and made it impossible for me to continue watching it. Just way too much totally unnecessary sex, nearly all of which involved women -- usually totally naked women -- being thumped soundly from behind, bare breasts flopping. The only time I witnessed what you might call halfway affectionate, facing-each-other sex was in the scene where Princess Daenerys convinces her barbarian husband to try it that way for a change. And interestingly, that was her only sex scene in which she was allowed to keep her clothes on...presumably because they had to cover up the man's penis (still that particular double standard?).

I ignored this stuff for as long as I could, but when we finally reached a scene that could in no wise be described as anything but pornographic -- two totally naked women having sex, in various positions, accompanied by much exaggerated heavy breathing, under the gaze and tutelage of a man -- I decided that was it. I couldn't even just fast-forward through this tasteless scene, because I realized the man was doing a helvua lot of talking, while gazing at his two whores, and when I turned off the mute, sure enough, he was giving all this information that was actually important to the story. But doing it to the accompaniment of this totally distracting heavy breathing. Boo hiss.

Although the show did such an excellent job otherwise in adhering to the book -- one of its many pluses -- none of this beat-the-bitch down sex is in the book, not an ounce, not an inch of it. There is a sex scene between the Queen and her brother, while they are visitors at Winterfell -- which the boy Brand inadvertently witnesses, which brings about his near-death -- but it's nothing like what we were shown on the screen (brother pounding sister from behind, though in her case she's clothed, just has her skirts hiked up.)

Some folks will respond with irritation: well for heaven's sake, you don't have to watch the thing. If someone was watching it when it was being shown on HBO that someone could switch it off and not tune in again; in my case, and that of anyone else watching the DVDs, rather than the original show on T.V., we could simply stop watching it. Which is of course true, although while in my case I could just return the borrowed DVDs to the gentleman on my staff who had lent it to me, and be out nothing, if one had ordered the DVDs, started to watch them, and discovered how much offensive sex there was in it, one would just be out of luck, and that much money.

But here's the real thing, the big thing: what a shame that what was otherwise such a well-done production of a fascinating story that so many of us enjoyed in book form, should be ruined for what must surely be a goodly number of us by the addition of scenes of pornographic crudeness and offensiveness that had nothing to do with the book. If all that had been left out, the men in the audience would be no worse off -- you can't miss what was never there -- and the women in the audience would not have had to sit through so many scenes that one begins to suspect represent the director's fantasies about putting women in their proper place. Frankly, I feel sorry for all those actresses who are forced to agree to perform in pornographic scenes, in order to snag what are otherwise excellent parts. Boo hiss.

Potpourri

Lots of things to talk about. First, it's been a gorgeous day, a perfect day, here in central Maine, the third in a row. A few weeks ago we had several days of false spring, when we all got excited because it was sunny, and the temperatures got up into the 70s, even 80 degrees one day. But we all knew that wouldn't last, and we were all right; there followed several weeks of coolish, often overcast (though rarely rainy; we are way behind on our rain quotient) weather, when we were all still wearing turtle necks, jackets and gloves. But the last three days have reassured us: yes, spring does always come 'round at last, even in Maine. I actually wore a skirt and sandals without stockings when I went out to run my errands today.

Now, as to those errands. One of them was to buy salt and pepper shakers. I can't even remember when last I had a salt & pepper set; for literally years I've just bought the little cardboard sets you can get at the supermarket. The problem with that was that the salt would always run out long before the pepper, so I'd be collecting pepper shakers in the cabinet, in order to keep myself in salt. My friend Susan did give me the cutest little salt and pepper mills a couple of Christmases ago, which I do love, but milled salt isn't always what I want; that is, I'm often looking for more finely-grained salt than you can get from a mill (besides which it always seemed to be the case that when I would grab for them they'd be empty, and I'd fume while I fumbled to get them refilled, while the whatever was cooking on the stove).

So anyway, I've been looking for weeks at places like the Goodwill Store, K-Mart, Target, Reny's (the wonderfully old-fashioned department store we have here in Maine) for a not-too-expensive set that wasn't boring. Today, as I was driving to Staples to buy ink cartridges for my printer, I passed the Bed and Bath store and the light bulb went on in my head: hey, they should certainly have salt and pepper sets. And they did, but most of them were, alas, boring; but then I found the last remaining Bear Set! A Maine black bear sitting on its rear end, holding a small shaker in each arm. Kitsch as all get out -- the sort of thing I normally do not go for at all -- but it charmed me, no doubt at least partly because of all the too-big, too-expensive, too bland shaker sets I've looked at lately.

So that was the successful part of my outing. The less successful part was connected to my constant, constant, constant inability to remember things. When I decided I would have to go buy ink cartridges I had the fleeting thought that I should take the used ones I have, to turn them in for reward coupons (although the last reward coupon I received, for $6, I forgot to use before the deadline...) However, in the event, I forgot to take them with me; thought of it as I was pulling out of the parking lot at the local drugstore, where I'd gone first, in hopes that they'd have the ink cartridges I needed, so I wouldn't have to drive all the way to Augusta. I was about five minutes from home, but simply did not feel up to adding to the driving I was about to have to do (I had also done a lot of running around yesterday), by going back for the old cartridges; would just have to turn them in another time.

And here's the big thing: I shouldn't have had to go get ink cartridges at all today, because I went to Staples yesterday, to get something for work (can't now remember what it was!), and I had the thought, oh, I should get ink for my home printer while I'm there. But I realized I wasn't sure what the number of the cartridges was. Pretty sure, but not absolutely sure; I simply could not remember, for sure. And mind you, I've had this printer a good two years, have bought ink cartridges for it innumerable times...but I couldn't remember the number.

I do despair. I know we all joke about our Senior Moments, and Nora Ephron has made lots of money making us laugh as she describes how She Remembers Nothing. I just can't seem to maintain a sense of humor about constantly not being able to remember, having to constantly look for things because I can't remember where I've laid them down (this happens on average about six times a day), constantly discovering I've missed deadlines at work, failed to do this that or the other thing that needs doing, despite the To Do Lists, and all the giant notes all over the place. I REMEMBER NOTHING!! And alas, it really isn't funny.

Call to arms

Here's my soap box for the day. I think we need to bring back the draft. The most recent incident involving our soldiers abroad, i.e., the shooting of 16 innocent Afghan civilians, most of them women and children, "allegedly" by Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, points up one of the big drawbacks of our continuing to rely on a volunteer army. That army gets spread too thin. Bales had had three combat tours in Iraq -- being wounded twice -- before being sent to Afghanistan. He didn't want to go, had thought he wouldn't have to go, but go he did...and, apparently, snapped.

A number of possible contributing factors to this mad act have been mentioned by the press: the severe wounding of a friend of Bales' a few days before, the fact that Bales resented having been passed over for a promotion, an apparent problem dealing with anger, as indicated by his having had to take an anger management course for an assault case that was later dropped, when he was a civilian, possible marital tensions. While any or all of those may have contributed to Bales' going over the edge, I suspect that a major contributor was that he was simply worn out with what must have come to seem like pointless war.

Of course, other soldiers also put in multiple tours, have problems in their marriages, lose friends in combat, and do not snap and go murder a bunch of women and children while they sleep. But many of those soldiers do come back with various mental problems, which adversely affect their attempts to adjust to life after combat duty.

I don't see anything wrong with a country requiring a period of public service duty of all of its able-bodied citizens, female as well as male. I'm not a proponent of females doing combat duty, but there are many other ways they can (and do) serve. And I think being in the military for a while would do most young people a heckuva lot of good. Get them out of the damn malls, and off their i-phones; teach them discipline, responsibility, how to defend themselves and others, have them meeting and having to work with/get along with all kinds of people.

I do realize that there are some people who are wholly unsuited to military life. I would have been one of them -- I'm sure if I had been drafted I would have spent an inordinate amount of time in the brig, for insubordination, since I would have balked at any order I considered stupid or unreasonable. Perhaps young people should have a choice: working for two years in something like the state version of the old CCC, that exists in many states (see Note of Aug. 3, 2008), or spending those two years in the military. At any rate, serving their country. Then we really would "all be in this together."

Looking back

It's interesting how limited our vision of our parents is, even if we think we know them very well, have them all figured out.

When my mother passed away two years ago, my younger sister sent me most of Mother's old pictures, since J is "not a picture person," and she knew I was. I have gone through the box a number of times, including when I was pulling pictures of my younger self to go into the Melody photo album that my mother had started for me, and never finished. However, just the other day I began a serious effort to re-do Mother's own old photo album -- the kind with black pages -- which had several pictures of her first wedding still attached, and some small, old snapshots, but from which most of the photos had long since become detached. I made the administrative decision to untie the album, put the wedding pix more toward the back, and fill the earlier pages with the pictures of her at two and six (would never have known that was my mother) , at 12 (yes, by then she was Gary), of her in her little Scotch lassie outfit, which was the costume of the pep squad at her high school, where she twirled baton, eventually becoming drum majorette, of her as football queen, beaming alongside her high school sweetheart who had been elected Football King.

I have said numerous times that my mother was beautiful, but it was only in looking through these pictures that I saw how true that really was. I remember perfectly well that I never thought of her as beautiful when I was young. She was just mother, who could be very strict, did not hesitate to spank, but who was wonderful to you when you were sick, whom I was mortified by when I was in junior high because she was so much younger than most girls' mothers (she had me when she was 18, making her only 31 when I was 13), and did young things like lie out in the back yard in shorts and a tiny halter, sunbathing.

In these pictures I see not only her beauty -- which became dramatic when her youthful blond/light brown hair turned a darker brown, and was eventually helped along by Lady Clairol -- but her vitality, her humor, her sense of fun. Most of the pictures were taken at family gatherings, because family was always very much at the center of my mother's life. You see her being playful with her old uncle, who is smiling despite himself. You see her crossing her eyes in the picture that was taken by a professional photographer at a nightclub she, my father, her brother and his wife, and one of my father's best friends visited in Juarez, Mexico. You see her hamming it up with three other ladies in front of a table that is beautifully laid for cake and coffee -- my mother had excellent taste, and always knew how to make things look "nice". In another photo she's laughingly feeding cake to a woman who is obviously just as pregnant as she is (the woman was the wife of one of my father's friends, whom I have a bare memory of); and then there they are, lying on the floor -- still laughing -- with the obvious remains of a party all around them -- cake plates, cluttered ash trays, champagne bottle and glasses (back in those days they didn't know you weren't supposed to drink, or smoke, when you were pregnant. Since my mother did both during all five of her pregnancies, I suppose it's a wonder my siblings and I aren't in worse shape than we are.)

To me the true irony of my mother's beauty is that she had three daughters, none of whom came close to her in looks. Mother used to say about all of her children that if she didn't know she'd had us, she wouldn't think we were hers, and it was true; we all took after our fathers (and there were two fathers involved, since my mother married twice.) I used to say that the only things I'd inherited from my mother were a flat chest, and a temper.

From the time I was about fifteen my mother and I did not get along. I was too independent-minded, and Mother was too determined that I was going to "mind." In today's parlance, I think it's safe to say that my mother was a control freak. She initially hated with a passion the man I fell in love with and married -- but then, none of her children's chosen partners was ever good enough. With time her religiosity and tendency to be judgmental increased, making her less pleasant to be around. All of this colored how I "saw" my mother. But oh the wonder of photography: I can look back now, and see her as she was, as I never saw her before. And experience a little enlightenment.

Something reliable

Yes, I realize I didn't write a single blog entry in December, and this is my first in January. Just haven't been able to work up the necessary momentum. It has become harder and harder to make myself do anything I don't have to do -- possibly as the result of depression -- on top of which my feelings about my blog have always been nebulous at best. Is keeping it up a total waste of time? Is anybody out there reading it? Admittedly, I do have statistics that show people are reading it, but I get virtually no feedback these days, to any of my posts, which makes me wonder if people show up once, take a look, are not particularly impressed, and never come back. And I sometimes feel I am just part of the current national obsession with exhibitionism. I have always tried to make my blog postings more than what-I-ate-today, or this-is-my-opinion-about-that, but basically they are about what I do/observe/think/feel. And, well, who cares?

However, something just happened that has inspired me to write. The postman showed up. No big deal, right? Only we're in the midst of a major snow storm, 6-10 inches predicted, probably three inches on the ground now, and the roads, especially the back streets, still minimally plowed. Nearly everything closed for the day, including my little library (director's discretion), but here comes the mail truck. As I laughingly said to the fellow when I went to the door to relieve him of my mail, before he stuck it in the box: "Neither rain, nor snow, nor..." "That's right," he laughed, "nor anything else the world decides to throw at us."

And isn't that great?! Isn't it wonderful that this tradition lives on? My power could go out any minute -- no more computer access -- people have trouble with their telephones all the time -- but the mail, that old-fashioned mode of communication, always goes through.

But the poor old post office is in dire financial straits, as it has been for years, they're closing rural and big-city branch offices right and left -- some of them, as has been pointed out, the hub of their small communities -- they're talking about eliminating Saturday service altogether...

And yes, it's a shame. A shame that such a truly noble institution seems to have outlived its usefulness, as more and more people turn to doing business online, rather than through the mail, communicating on a personal level via email or text-messaging rather than with letters, as services like FedEx and UPS usurp the package-delivery end of things (they, too, make a point of getting their packages through, and as quickly as possible). But for now, anyway, I can be appreciative of my local letter carrier, since "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

I was surprised to learn, by the way, that this famous "motto" is not the official motto of the Post Office -- which doesn't have one -- although it is inscribed on the James Farley Post Office in New York City (a huge, great P.O. building). It's derived from a quote from Herodotus' Histories (Book 8, Ch. 98), referring to the courier service of the ancient Persian Empire, (which shows you that, yes, there's nothing new under the sun):

It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

And by the way, The Farley Post Office once held the distinction of being the only Post Office in New York City open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now that's service. But in 2009, due to the economic downturn, its windows began to close at 10:00 p.m.

Winter in no uncertain terms

Well, it must be winter: had to break out the warm, fake-leopard-skin robe this morning. The pretty, pale aqua one that was a Christmas present from friend Meaghan a few years back has served faithfully since about May, but this morning it was 28 degrees out (and snowing, about which more in a moment), and it was cold in my little house. Even turning the heat up didn't do the trick, so I dug around in the bottom of my portable closet (my little house comes with only one real closet), where I stack extra blankets, and I pulled out the folded-up, warm winter robe.

As to the snow, 6-12 inches are predicted. Although we had a freak snowstorm at the end of October -- which made newspaper headlines across the country, since it was only the fourth time since the Civil War that snow had fallen in New York City in October -- and many areas in New England got close to two feet of snow, here in the Augusta area we had only maybe four or five inches. So this is our first real snowstorm. And naturally it arrives on the day before Thanksgiving, when the whole world has a plane to catch -- or a couple of hours on the road to drive -- in order to get to Grandma's house. Fortunately I don't have to go anywhere, not even to work, since I made the executive decision, after digging out the winter robe, and standing at my front window for a few minutes looking out at the gently-falling snow (and the six inches that were already on the ground) not to open the library. Didn't even agonize over the decision, as I have so often in the past (see Note of Jan. 12, 2011). Although I have to admit I vacillated a little bit. I decided that if the snow had let up by this afternoon, we'd open at 2. My reason for this is that we are definitely and absolutely closed for the Thanksgiving holiday both tomorrow and Friday and, as I discussed in the note of Jan. 12th, I know some of our patrons depend on the library for reading (or viewing) matter to get them through such things as holidays, weekends, and snowed-in days. To be closed three days in a row is a bit much.

So I call the staff member who normally opens on Wednesdays, to tell her answering machine (Sue never answers the phone directly) that we are closed until maybe two o'clock; I call our answering machine at the library and change its message to say the same thing ("Please give us a call after that time to see if we are open), I call our snow-removal guy to let him know he doesn't have to worry about getting our walks cleared until this afternoon, and I prepare to enjoy an extra day off.

But nothing is ever simple. In my life these days nothing is ever simple. About an hour later I remember that this is ILL delivery day. Some libraries have two or three deliveries a week; our little library has only one, so if we miss it -- because, say, we're closed due to a storm -- then our patrons have to wait an additional week for their interlibrary loan books, and the libraries we are lending books to have to wait an additional week for their books.

So, sigh, I call the delivery service, to ask if they think the delivery guy will make it through, like the P.O., just maybe late. The woman I talk to says he may run late, because of the state of the roads, or he may actually run early, because so many libraries will have closed. So ultimately we agree that someone will be at the library to receive our delivery at two o'clock, unless I hear otherwise from her. And then I have to call Sue back to convey this information to her, so that she can plan on definitely being there then (Sue lives within walking distance of the library, so her getting there is not the ordeal it is for me when it snows.)

Now I just have to hope my neighborhood doesn't lose power...and that some strapping young boys will come around at some point and offer to do my shoveling for me (wait, do I have any money in the house? Hmm...)

All we need is love

Have you heard about the lady from India (named Sudhamani, when she was born in a small village in India, but now known as Amma), who offers a hug to anyone who wants one? And about the thousands of people who lined up to receive one of her hugs at Alexandra Palace (now a kind of convention center) in North London? All kinds of people, different countries of origin (plenty of native Brits!), different religions, young and old.

Amma had to leave school at the age of nine to take care of her family, and began hugging people way back then, anyone who seemed to need it. According to her web site she was sometimes punished by her family for hugging inappropriately -- especially members of the Untouchable class, and older men (!) -- but she felt this expression of love towards people who were, in her eyes, suffering, was important enough to continue.

It's amazing to me that this woman goes around the world holding these hug fests, that she decided this was a good thing to do, and by George she was going to do it (and by the way, people do not pay for their hugs, so she does not make money from this aspect of these events, though perhaps she does from the sale of souvenirs, or the like.) And what's even more amazing to me is that in a land of physically inhibited people, like England, she draws these huge crowds, who just want a kindly, compassionate hug. What does that say about the state of our culture? People are hungry for someone to wrap them in a mother's embrace and reassure them, if only for a moment, that they are loved.

I've checked out Amma's web site (http://www.amma.org/humanitarian-activities/social/index.html), and find that her organization does have several what sound like very worthwhile projects, e.g., an orphanage for Untouchable children in Kerala, her native state, which is along the west coast of India, near its southern tip. And I love the quotation that appears on one page of her site: "A one word solution to all the problems the world is facing is compassion." I actually agree with that. I think if the leaders throughout the world felt real compassion, not only for their own people, but for the people of the other countries of the world, as well (remember that shot of the earth from space -- we are one small planet); if instead of competition and one-upmanship there was a spirit of helpful cooperation, springing from that compassion...well, a heluva lot of our problems would indeed go away.

David Sillito, the BBC newsman who was reporting on Amma's appearance in London, interviewed several people both before and after their hugs: "What do you expect from this?" "No idea whatsoever." "How was it?" "Unexplainable, you just cannot describe how you feel;" "I'm sorry, I'm speechless; I haven't come back to the real world yet;" "That was..."(expulsion of breath)..."something else." "Ah...It was a very nice hug.")

The reporter finally announced that the only way to really know what it was like, was to do it, so we saw him on his knees in front of this chubby little woman (who was seated), getting hugged. Then she laughed, handed him an apple, and sprinkled him with flower petals. As he stepped away and faced the camera you could tell that he was actually moved, to his surprise and somewhat to his chagrin -- undoubtedly as much of a cynic as the next reporter. In his report that appeared online, Sillito said that what that hug reminded him of was his mother, and what he did after he left Alexandra Palace was call his mother.

I can't imagine myself getting in line behind hundreds of people, to kneel, and have this total stranger embrace me in a hug of several moments. But I have to admit, I could use a hug.