It's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium, or, Melody's Whirlwind Trip to Italy

O.K., there are positives and negatives attached to almost everything; perfection awaits us in another life.  So let’s get the negative stuff out of the way first.  The most negative aspect of my long-awaited trip to Italy was that I and my friend Pat were fighting exhaustion virtually the entire time.  The tour we were on – Perillo Tours’ Marco Polo, for the record -- was grueling, probably more appropriate for people twenty years younger than we, people with more energy at their command, and certainly more stamina.  Our group of 36 included a few in that category, though it seemed to me that most of the folks were somewhere in their 50s.  Pat and I, with our 1947 birth year, were probably among the oldest of the “couples,” (as all but three women traveling alone were).  One lady was 78, and her husband was probably a couple of years older; they proved themselves amazingly resilient.  But poor Patricia, with her carefully controlled leukemia, and me with my never-very-high energy level, were anything but. 

Patricia, as a retired lady of leisure, is accustomed to getting up about 9, feeding the dog, having a cup of coffee & a cigarette while she reads the paper (and her smoking was moderately problematic throughout the trip, as none of the hotels permitted it), having a breakfast pastry and another cup of coffee before taking a shower, and finally being ready to tackle the world about 12.  Although I am still a working stiff, I, too, am accustomed to fairly leisurely mornings, since I don’t usually have to be to work until 11; virtually never get up before 8.  But here we were, dragging ourselves out of bed with the 6:30 wake-up calls, on the bus by 8 a.m., doing a lot of walking when the bus got us to wherever we were going, being given a lunch break of an hour to an hour and a half, with no additional time for resting, before we did it all again for the afternoon’s excursion.   I’m accustomed to resting frequently, usually take a nap after returning from my 4  1/2 to 6 hour work days.  But on our tour the only way to get some rest was to say no to some activity or other, which as a matter of fact we did, twice.  In Florence we did not go to one of the free dinners, because Pat was utterly dead from the day’s activities, and I couldn’t bring myself to abandon her for the evening (naturally it was the dinner that everyone said was the best of the three we’d so far been provided with).  And ultimately I opted out of the final afternoon excursion, in Rome, because I knew I simply had to rest.  After doing so for a couple of hours, I was able to go out for a walk, to the famous Spanish Steps, about 15 minutes from our hotel, and also to the nearby Trevi Fountain.  I was still back at the hotel well before the exhausted excursion folks returned.

While Pat and I may have been especially hard-hit by the rigors of the tour, they were hard on everyone.  Diana (names have been changed to protect the innocent), one of the ladies who was making the tour on her own, said at lunch on the next to the last day, “I am so tired of being tired.”  And all of us at her table laughed uproariously in rueful agreement.

The other major negative, as far as I (and I think a number of other people) was concerned, was that there was insufficient time allotted to be able to just enjoy the sights we were seeing.  Except for the church we visited in Padua, we always had a local guide, giving us historical facts in heavily accented English, through the little earphone sets we were given.  So there you were, marching along, trying to catch what was being said, at the same time that you were trying to take in all that you were seeing.  And naturally at times something just cried out to be photographed.  Now, admittedly, those folks with smart phones were at an advantage when it came to taking pictures.  They could just point the phone at the desired image, shoot, and keep on walking.  Some of us had slightly more demanding cameras, and mine was especially demanding, as it was new, and I really didn’t know how to work the damn thing properly.  Time and again the group would have moved on, while I was still trying to get a shot – sometimes impeded by people from other groups (there were a kazillion tour groups, which is actually another negative, but one that Perillo Tours can hardly be held responsible for), and I would then have to go hurrying up the hill, or down the street, or through the church, trying to relocate them.

And sometimes it wasn’t even a matter of wanting to take a picture, but of just wanting to be able to sit and enjoy the scenery for a while, luxuriate in the realness of actually being where you were – hey, dig this: I’m in Venice/Florence/Siena -- or to go off and explore on your own for maybe an hour. One of the few opportunities we had for this sort of thing was on the morning we left Florence for Rome.  We drove first to Michaelangelo Square, with a glorious view of the city spread out below us, the hills in the background.  We were able to spend a relaxing half hour drinking in the view, taking pictures, checking out the little souvenir stands (not so many as to be obtrusive).  It was magical.  

I think the core problem is that it is just a mistake to try to do four major cities, a stop-over in a minor one, a wine tasting, and a long day trip to an ancient city raised from the volcanic ash, in eight days.  That’s what produces both the exhaustion, and the lack of free time to explore more in each place.  So there you go, a word to the wise.

But, coming up: the positives.

Saving the world for the rest of us

I’ve figured out what the problem is.  It’s men!

Who starts and perpetuates wars?  Who become terrorists, dedicated to destroying themselves and as many innocent people as they can take with them?  Who shoot little girls in the face because they are scared to death to allow females equal rights and opportunities?  Who tend to be obsessed with violence, particularly violence with guns, in everything from video games, to movies, to what they play on the playground?  Who go on murderous, assault-weapon rampages, killing dozens of innocent people?  Who has to turn everything into a competition, a matter of one-upmanship, of mine-is-bigger-than yours? Who commits rape, incest, and the vast majority of domestic violence?  Who commits most of the crime, period?

In a word, Men!

Not all men, of course.  Indeed, virtually every man I am friends with, am related to, or even, as far as I know, know, does not do any of the above.  But the people who do do the above are, for the most part, other men.  Testosterone-laden men, who have not managed to evolve beyond the aggressive, violent mind-set that may have helped to insure survival back in the bad old days, but now serves only to make the world a place where bad things that do not have to happen, endlessly happen.

So what are we gonna do about these guys?  The “we” being the women of the world, and those non-violent, non-bullying men – in other words, civilized men – who do not fit into the category of Undesirables?  How do we wrest power away from those guys who do not hesitate to resort to violence when things are not going to suit them?  In places like the United Stated, the other Western industrialized nations, women obviously need to make up a larger portion of their countries’ legislative bodies, have more of a voice on what bills are passed.  And we need more female judges who don’t have a problem with handing out stiff punish-ment at sentencing.  You could say, we need to get tough on crime!

For example, why isn’t the automatic penalty for rape chemical castration?  Note that it actually is a possible punishment in several countries, including Australia and New Zealand, and even nine U.S. states, but there is a question as to how often this punishment is meted out.  And indeed, it’s a choice; those convicted of sex crimes, particularly crimes against children, can opt for chemical castration, rather than jail time.  But why on earth should it be a choice?  You rape, you molest children; as far as I’m concerned you’ve lost your right to choose what you’re going to do with that penis.  But since there is absolutely nothing that all men fear more than a loss of their manhood, it’s awfully difficult to get a bunch of, for the most part male, lawmakers, to make that the required punishment for sex crimes.  But for gods’ sake, think how the incidence of rape, of child molestation, would go down, if every man who committed such a crime knew that would be his punishment?  And if the argument is, no then they’d just kill their victims, because the punishment for murder could be less (in their eyes) than that for rape, then let’s  make castration the punishment for rape, even if the victim is also murdered.  In short, you rape, no matter what else you do, you lose the ability to rape again.  And for that matter, you kill somebody, you die!  Despite my basically liberal political tendencies, I am for the death penalty.  Folks, we need to get rid of the Bad Guys!

The gun control controversy is another area where we need to wrest power away from violence-loving men.  All those men out there rushing to buy up as many guns as they can, in desperate fear that they’re about to lose their precious right to own as many, and whatever kinds of, guns as they wish (which as a matter of fact the Second Amendment does not guarantee) need to be reined in.  And we, the civilized people of the world, are the ones who are going to have to do it.  Note that I am not saying a man who like to shoot, who owns a gun, who likes to hunt, is necessarily one of the Bad Guys.  But if he thinks this right of his is more important than maintaining the safety of an entire country, then he goes into the corral with the rest of the Undesirables.

But what do we do with all the guys in that corral?  Send them all to Mars, where they can duke it out amongst themselves?  And of course, the first problem is, how do we get them all into that corral?  When the major problem of your planet is nearly one half of your planet’s reigning species, you’ve got a problem indeed…  

 

The old gray mare she ain't what she used to be

We have had three days of very cold and windy weather, here in central Maine.  Saturday night, all day Sunday, and Sunday night it was a matter of “gale force winds,” as they say, up to 51 miles an hour in nearby Augusta.   Even today, though it has been sunny (Saturday and Sunday It was overcast, and on again off again snow) it has remained cold and windy.  A number of the windows in my house have improperly-fitting storm windows, that have rumbled mournfully; and at times the house has even shaken.  I’ve been very glad that I went out early Saturday morning and stocked up on groceries, so that I didn’t have to go out at all yesterday or today.  (It’s been a three day weekend – God’s gift to the working stiff – which is why I didn’t have to venture out to work today.)

However.  I’ve been cold.  My little house appears to have virtually no insulation; it only feels warm while the furnace is running.  And I had checked the oil tank on Saturday, and was dismayed to see that the indicator hovered just above 1/8 full.  I had oil delivered less than a month ago, and while I didn’t have it filled (no way I could afford to have it filled), I would have expected the 100 gallons that were delivered to last longer than this.  So I was trying to be frugal Saturday and Sunday, not pushing the thermostat too high, wearing my wool leggings under my jeans, and two sweaters on the top half of me, in an effort to keep warm.  I was hoping to be able to avoid calling for more oil until Thursday (the company delivers to Gardiner on Mondays and Thursdays), but by last night I knew this was unrealistic.  A Starving Librarian I might be, but it was ridiculous to be freezing in my own home, when I wasn’t living in Afghanistan, or on welfare in this country.  

So early this morning I called Augusta Fuel, and ordered 200 gallons.  And since it was delivered I haven’t hesitated to turn the thermostat up.

But here’s the thing.  It seems to me that in general I am feeling the cold more than I used to.  It’s always been an obvious chilly in this house, in the wintertime, but I don’t recall being made as uncomfortable as I’ve been this winter.  I have two sets of friends who, years ago, fled the cold and snow of the Northeast for balmy California.  But I have always felt comfortable with both cold and snow, and have had no desire whatsoever to relocate to more temperate climes. But in the last couple of years serious, heavy-duty snow-shoveling has simply gotten beyond me – thank the gods for the rather creepy young man who knocked on my door one day last year and offered to dig me out; he has continued to do so, at $10 a whack – and now I’m finding the cold harder to deal with.  The Aging Body Syndrome, asserting itself in a new and exciting way?   Malta, here I come?

The last one to go

A very old friend of mine died a couple of weeks ago.  He was old in both senses of the word: he was 92 ½, and I had known him since the day I was born.  He was one of my father’s three oldest friends – they had known each other since 7th grade.  On the day I was born, Clifford and the other two old friends, Frank & Albert – both of whom died some time ago – brought a big, pale blue stuffed bear to the hospital.  My first gift, which I still have, though it is much flattened – has been restuffed more than once – and a faded gray.

A life-long bachelor, Clifford was a familiar figure throughout my childhood, but especially so once my father and stepmother settled in Ft. Worth, and so did Clifford, in a small house not far from theirs.  This quiet, mild-mannered man would often visit, occasionally staying for dinner, not infrequently joining us on family jaunts.  I remember being impressed by the snappy little MG he drove for a while, and amazed when I was visiting him once, and he proceeded to cook us a large steak in a big metal bowl.  As a bachelor, he could obviously do things in unconventional ways.

Clifford served as an Army photographer during World War II.  In the last few years I was privileged to see some of the photos he took in that capacity.  There were a number of bombed-out towns, the inhabitants standing and staring as the Americans rolled into town in their trucks and jeeps.  He told me that one photo, of a medic working over a fallen soldier in the field, was purely staged.  “The guy was already dead,” he said; “but they wanted me to take the picture for a story about the medics.” Like much of the photography done during the war, most of the pictures Clifford took were intended to bolster morale within the army (many of his pictures appeared in Stars and Stripes), and increase support for the war on the home front.

Though he worked as a surveyor for oil companies for much of his adult life – until he took early retirement, convinced he could make more money wisely managing his investments than working at a job -- Clifford never stopped taking pictures, until a couple of years ago, when his sight began failing him.  He also painted, and wrote a number of quite excellent short stories.  He was, in short, a very creative man, something I never realized until we became closer over the past ten years.  He was a perfect example of how little we may know someone we think we know very well.  And he was one of the few people in my life who was actively supportive of my writing.

Clifford and I had very different opinions on almost every subject.  Perhaps inevitably, given his generation, and where he grew up and lived virtually all his life (i.e., Texas), Clifford was extremely politically conservative, whereas I am your basic liberal.  Besides politics we argued about the Civil War (which Clifford insisted on referring to as the War of Northern Aggression), race, evolution, even music (we agreed about Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, disagreed about the Beatles and Al Jolson).  But the nice thing was, we could have these vigorous disagreements, and still remain fond of one another.  It was refreshing to me to find a member of my parents’ generation who was willing to discuss all these different matters, and I think Clifford enjoyed having somebody to talk to!

And now that he is gone, my family has lost the last member of our own Greatest Generation.  Clifford Owen Bell, I and my brothers and sisters, who saw you as all-but-family, honor and salute you.  And we will miss you.

The play's the thing

I have unintentionally found myself immersed in Shakespeare over the past few days.  First, when I tuned into PBS the other evening they were showing something called "Shakespeare Uncovered."  Various of the Bard's plays are being discussed by a famous actor or director who has appeared in or directed the play under discussion.  That first one I stumbled upon was hosted by Derek Jacobi, one of my all-time favorite actors, whom I have actually managed to see live in a total of four plays, one of which was Shakespeare ("Much Ado About Nothing," Broadway, 1984).  However, the play he was taking us on a tour of was "Richard II," which he appeared in for the BBC in 1978 (and which I also saw, on television). Besides clips from that production, we saw bits and pieces of other productions, which made for an interesting comparison.  And we learned about not just the play, but the king whose story was told in the play, who so believed in his divine right to be king, and to do whatever he chose, as king, that ultimately he alienated enough powerful men to have his throne taken from him. 

Jacobi also inserted an interesting note by questioning whether Shakespeare even wrote Richard II, or for that matter any of the plays attributed to him.  There has, of course, been a lot of discussion on this topic for a long time -- a discussion I never really paid much attention to, putting it down to academics in need of a controversy.  But I had to admit that the points made by Jacobi in favor of the real author having been Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, made me at least want to know more.

What was especially interesting on this score was that the following evening, again while essentially channel-surfing, I came upon an episode of Michael Wood's "In Search of Shakespeare," which originally aired in 2004, but you know how PBS recycles programs ad infinitum.  I had actually seen this 4-part series a while back, but now found this particular episode interesting, because Wood was busy explaining what Shakespeare might have been doing -- where he might have been -- between the time he was a teenaged father with an older wife he'd "had" to marry, in Stratford, and his first appearance in London (at least by 1592, and probably by about 1589). The possibilities Wood came up with -- off in Lancashire, which was the seat of much of the Catholic resistance to the Protestant reign of Elizabeth I (Shakespeare's family had been staunchly Catholic, and had been
persecuted as a result) -- seemed a bit far-fetched to me.  What the episode mainly shows is how much about the life of Shakespeare is pure speculation, at best, educated guesses.

Immediately following on the heels of Derek Jacobi's examination of "Richard II" came Jeremy Irons' episode on the Henrys: "Henry IV," Parts I and II, and "Henry V."  Irons appears as Henry IV -- an aging version of the young Henry Bolingbrook who had stolen Richard II's crown -- in Parts I and II, made for the BBC in 2012.  So we saw clips from that telecast, as well as interviews with the young actor (Tom Hiddleston) who played Prince Hal, who eventually becomes Henry V, and goes on to be Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branaugh, in the best-known filmed versions of that particular play.  We got lots of psychological analysis on the importance of the father/son relationship in these plays.

An interesting aside: Irons played Richard II in a production of the Royal Shakespeare Co. that I saw in 1986 in Stratford.  I remember not being particularly impressed by his Richard, who didn't just seem weak, but totally ineffectual.  By contrast Jacobi's Richard was full of energy.  Irons does not go in much for energetic performances, but rather a kind of languid elegance.  But how would someone who was languidly elegant manage to hold people in thrall for as long as Richard did?  Yes, well.  A question for the critics.

So after watching these two programs on Friday night, and catching some of Wood's search for Shakespeare the following day, it seemed only a natural progression to decide to watch my video recording of "Shakespeare in Love," which I saw and loved on the big screen when it came out in 1997.  And which I loved all over again when I watched it late Saturday night.  It really is a perfect movie.  Perfect casting, with everyone turning in superlative performances, perfect looking -- you would just swear that that was exactly what rough and tumble London looked like in the 1590s -- wonderfully funny, and romantic, and absolutely full to the brim with fine renderings of the words of Shakespeare.  A movie that reminds you of the importance of theatre, in the lives of human beings.

Which takes me to the main point of this posting.  All of this -- the watching of these very interesting programs, and then this wonderful movie, as well as, no doubt, the making of these shows, acting in them, directing them, being any part of the various productions -- all of this is so much more enjoyable, so much more satisfying, than almost any aspect of our current reality that you can name (this country's disfunctional Congress, the divisive gun control controversy, not to mention the almost daily shootings taking place in this country, the ever-worsening economic situation in Europe, which besides being very hard on all those out-of-work Europeans, could adversely affect the U.S.'s tentative economic improvement, the ever-worsening political situation in Egypt, the never-ending and seemingly hopeless enmity between Israel and the Palestinians, ones own problems with health/work/lack of money) that one has to wonder: why bother with that reality?  Who needs that stuff?  Let's go to a play.  Or...hey gang, let's put on a show!

Making my voice heard, for all the good it will do

I finally got my letters...well, my emails...off to my congressional representatives on the hot topic of stricter gun laws. It was hard to get myself to do this, even though I wanted to do this, felt it was important to add my voice to those who are clamoring for changes in our gun laws, to at least try to cut down on the all-but-constant murderous rampages by people with guns. We are the least civilized of the civilized nations, because of our continuing tolerance for this kind of violence. We just shake our heads, say what a tragedy, and go on letting the National Rifle Association run this country.

So, yes, I wanted to put in my two cents worth, but it was hard to make myself do that, because it was so damn depressing. The whole topic is depressing. And it's not just the topic of "we need stricter gun laws but there are many people in this country opposed to the very idea;" it is the larger topic of this country's passion for guns, and violence. I have to say that with all the putrid proselytizing we've heard from the NRA in the last few weeks, I'd have to agree with their condemnation of the way we glorify violence -- particularly violence with guns -- in movies (and presumably video games, though I'm hardly an expert on those). When I was at a showing of the film "Lincoln" recently, I saw a trailer for the new movie "Gangster Squad," which would seem to be everything the NRA was condemning: policemen "leaving their badges at home" so they wouldn't be hampered by the law, in their attempts to do away with the bad guys. People being shot with automatic weapons, right and left, and it not appearing to bother anybody in the least. And we have endless movies like that.  What can I say, our culture depresses me.

So yes, we have the big deal Second Amendment that declares that, A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. But this S.A. says nothing about how many guns one may have, what kinds of guns one may have, how much ammunition, what types of ammunition, whether or not you must register your gun, etc., etc. Surely the government has the right, in order to preserve the safety of its citizens (the first responsibility of a government), to makes rules concerning these aspects of gun ownership. The idea that our much-vaunted freedom means anybody can have as many and whatever kinds of firearms s/he may desire is ludicrous, and it is simple common sense to know that our forefathers did not intend that. They had no way of knowing that this country would become essentially an armed camp, full of automatic and semi-automatic weapons! This is surely one of the disadvantages of slavishly adhering to a document that is 225 years old (the Bill of Rights, of which the S. A. is a part, is 223 years old). The times change, and we need to be able to change with it.

Every time one of these massacres of innocent people by people with guns occurs, and we do nothing but shake our heads, it makes me ashamed to be an American. For here's what gets me: this country is full of people who consider their freedom to have whatever weapons of violence they wish, to be more important than insuring that the kinds of mass shootings we are treated to every few weeks -- or indeed, to the gun violence we are subjected to on our streets and in our homes, every day of the year -- do not occur, or at the very least, are reduced. The selfishness within this country, as well as the anti-government paranoia, never ceases to amaze me.

It wasn't all misery

So, after four postings detailing what was wrong with my Christmas vacation, was there anything right about it? Certainly spending time with my brother and sister counts as a positive. Jeremiah and Ellen are both very funny people, so they kept me laughing.  Not everyone is lucky enough to have siblings they genuinely like and enjoy spending time with.  And they were properly sympathetic and supportive as regards my travel woes. On Christmas morning we got up and opened the presents under the tree, just like we did when we were kids. Three people in their 60s exclaiming with glee about this present and that, as if we were seven years old. There were even goodies in our stockings -- hung by the chimney with care -- thanks to Elf Ellen & Elf Jeremiah, who slipped things in at different times. (Elf Melody completely forgot about the stockings, as soon as she'd asked, upon seeing them when she first arrived, "Is there anything in our stockings?" "Not yet!" E & J both exclaimed. "It isn't Christmas morning yet!")

The dinner we had at the Broadmoor Hotel on Christmas Eve was lovely. This huge hotel, located at the lower edge of the foothills that lead up into the Rockies, is actually a AAA Five-Diamond luxury resort, ranked #1 among 104 hotels in Colorado on TripAdvisor. It naturally has several restaurants; we ate at the elegant Charles Court, which is in what they call Broadmoor West, the building on the other side of small, pretty Cheyenne Lake, which lies behind the main building. Both my appetizer -- Little lettuce with duck confit -- and main course -- Jumbo Lump Maryland Crab Cakes -- were excellent. E & J both had the Coconut Crusted Atlantic Salmon, which they also proclaimed excellent. (And note that we were all consuming perfectly prepared seafood, far from the sea.) Because Ellen was on her pain medication, and Jeremiah is essentially a tee-totaler, we didn't have wine, but I enjoyed a Rusty Nail, which soon had me feeling pleasantly relaxed, all thought of my missing suitcase banished for the moment.

The meal served to remind me of my former life, when such dinners out, with friends or my current Significant Other, were not that much of a rarity. I am someone who has never liked to cook, but has always enjoyed "fine dining," as the cliche goes. This evening at the Charles Court was a perfect example of that, with only a few negative notes sounded during the course of the evening (it was a little too cool when we first sat down, the main course took a little too long to appear on the scene). And the hotel was beautifully decorated, with a gorgeous Christmas tree in the lobby of the building we were in (I adore Christmas trees), and trees throughout the grounds covered with lights, turning the grounds into a true winter wonderland. It was also snowing, lightly, which also contributed to the magical look and feel of the evening.

But speaking of the Christmas lights reminds me of a surprising positive note that was sounded on my unfortunate flight back to Portland. On the bus ride from O'Hare Airport to the hotel, as we came off of the freeway, we were greeted by all these trees and shrubs and wire shapes covered with multicolored lights. Even from the depths of my black mood, I couldn't help noticing, and feeling amazed, particularly by the scale of the display. I haven't been able to find online any kind of explanation for this incredible display -- was it just the city of Des Plaines going all out? Something the businesses in the area did? -- but it was unquestionably something "right" about my Christmas vacation.