Something For Everyone, in the American Gothic Tradition

Dear Grant Wood,

When you fall in love with a region, a house, a style of cozy living, you just want to express it. Your painting captured something priceless. (Was that really your dentist? Didn't he want to smile?)

My oldest daughter and her husband have fallen in love with a little region south of Nashville, Tennessee, right near Santa Fe. (That is Santa like the northern jolly elf and Fe rhyming with flea and like the amount you pay to renew your fishing license.) And you can renew your license right there at the crossroads in the little corner store, Netts, where you also can check your game before and check and tag it after the hunt. Before the hunt you go, chew tobacco and refer to the game catalog, checking the size and shape of turkey feathers which will clue you in to how old that bird must be to qualify for slaughter, or verify when doe season actually starts. "Is that a Friday or a Thursday?" You are reminded that "Until checked, the head of the deer must remain attached and turkey must have the head and plumage intact."

Now Sunday, don't you be going down to Netts at noon, lest you put your Sunday duds on. The place is hopping after morning service, as congregants from all the demoninations, Baptist, Baptist, Nazarene, Baptist, and Missionary Baptist, crowd in for the buffet. Who says we don't share a common cup? We surely do break bread together down at Netts.

Not that Netts is off-putting as a classy joint, not at all. But the folk there know what to respect and how to respect. And they do know how to cook, not just the standard meatloaf, fried chicken, and catfish, though you'll find none better. But Friday and Saturday the offerings include frogs legs (5 pair per order) and fresh from Leiper's Creek, I'll reckon. The last time I had frogs legs was at a French restaurant in Philadelphia. I want to guess that the shriveled specimen from the swamps of southern Jersey were shamed, (I picture those little legless froggies hanging their tiny amphibious heads in pitiable disgrace) at the comparison with the healthy, fresh, lower limbs of robust rural varieties found near Santa Fe, Tennessee.

It is the third Saturday night that is the acme of the month for this little community as they gather at the community center for the Pickin' and Grinnin' fellowship. Average age one estimate says is 72 years, though the performers are much younger, round about 64. My daughter and her husband have become the darlings of the regular attendees, if not because they still have enough energy to clap accompaniment to every song, then at least because they are willing helpers for clean-up, passing drinks, and supporting folks with walkers who need to leave mid-evening because it's getting late and the chickens still need tending.

There are chickens in the community, sure, but also a goodly number of other country critters. It is one of those areas that are a boon for children playing Cow Poker, with points racking up for white horses and pigs wallowing in mud. Our minivan came to a complete stop in front of these fellows and accompanying farm whose sign could have said, "Kodak Country Photo Op," but actually read, "Fresh Bacon."














Regards,

brd

Nett's Revisited--2008

Marriage, How to Make it Work

Dear Lisa and Peter, (And Annie and Josh)

Disclaimer: Lisa and Peter are not a couple. Peter gets married on the 11th of August and Lisa gets married the 18th. Both are the adult children of my friends. I have been invited to as many weddings this summer as I was when I was 25 and my own friends were getting married. I appreciate weddings more now than I did then, but that's another story. (Annie and Josh are a couple.)

Your weddings are hard upon us and I wish you very happy wedding days. But that really doesn't matter at all. Wedding day disasters happen and apart from some surface emotion on the part of the bride and groom's parents it doesn't matter too much at all. (The bride and groom sometimes are not even informed that a disaster has occurred.) I myself was party, Lisa, to a near disaster at your mother and father's wedding. In 25 words or less, we had volunteered to engage the services of an accompanist for the ceremony. He was a great pianist. He lived in Philadelphia, an hour+ from the church. He was not dependable. Need I say more.

But, as I said, that doesn't matter because weddings don't matter. Marriages matter. We just celebrated the 60th anniversary of my parent's wedding. At their party I was asked to read a couple of things that they liked, which I had included in my own wedding ceremony. The first is a poem from George Herbert that was set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams.

Love Bade Me Welcome

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

This poem speaks of balance of Love and Guilt. More than you can imagine now, your lives will call upon Love, first one, now the nervous groom, and then the other, now the hopeful bride, to both Love and Forgive, Then Admit, and Submit to Forgiveness, To Serve without Rancour, to be Served Undeserved.

The other thing I read was this passage from the Bible, Song of Songs 8:6 and 7

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy as cruel as the grave;
Its flames are flames of fire,
A most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised.

This is such a strange metaphor. Love strong as death. Yet is there anything we know stronger than the grip of death. It wields a permanency, a power over our lives and imaginations. But, here is the secret. Love is stronger than that.

Grow your love. Nuture it. Don't let it falter. For if love is healthy, it is stronger than death itself. I have used a term sometimes when talking about these things. "Deliberate desire." Desire can be a flippity gibbet, but one that can be controlled, and investment in your love is how to do that.

I could use some talk now about the centrality of our faith in all this. But you can say those words and do. Unfortunately, I think that Christian marriages fail as often as others. Live in love, act in love, commit to love, for God is love, and the other things, the precious fruits of a stable and happy marriage will be yours.

With all my best wishes,

Betsy

Be Free

Dear Stevie,

Thanks for singing to me.



I'm looking forward to the third in the Jesus drives his truck to West Virginia and does miracles in the trailer park series.

Love,

MOM
XOX

State Children’s Health Insurance Program

Dear Friends,

Some of you know that our family, at one time, nearly lived at East Tennessee Children's Hospital. We were fighting. Specifically, we were fighting leukemia and for the life of our youngest child.

The first night there we were in a daze. I remember few specifics, just a few phrases;

"The good news is that it is ALL not AML."
"Treatment is about 2 or 2 1/2 years."
"Out of school."
"Want to reach remission in a month."
"Survive."

But one other important phrase I remember was this,
"Our hospital does not do wallet biopsies."

Since that time I have served on a committee for the hospital. Today, I received a request from them. Sign this petition they said.

You can read on if you'd like more information, but to me it's a no-brainer. I want this hospital to continue to say to people like me who are in a daze, who are scared beyond measure, and who may, unlike our family, have no good group insurance, "We don't do wallet biopsies."

So sign!

"The National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) and its 140 member hospitals applaud the leadership of Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), Ranking Republican Charles Grassley (R-IA), Health Subcommittee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) and Health Subcommittee Ranking Republican Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in producing a solid, bipartisan bill to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Congress should act now to reauthorize SCHIP.

"Chairman Baucus’ mark builds on the current successes of both SCHIP and Medicaid, which together cover more than one in four children in the U.S. The bill creates the potential to cover more than 3 million additional children under Medicaid and SCHIP.

"Importantly, it invests in the development of pediatric specific measures of health care quality for children and provides funding for demonstrations of techniques to improve children’s health care quality — an investment that is sorely needed since the federal government has not invested in improving pediatric care while it heavily invests in improving care for adults.
Finally, the bill increases funding for every state, providing the opportunity for each state to enroll more eligible children, while establishing contingency funds to reduce the risk of state shortfalls that have plagued many SCHIP programs in recent years."

BRD

True Democracy and Economic Wealth Continued

Readers of the controversial blog entry of a week or so ago,

I had to bring this late comment from the True Democracy post to the top. Too good to be lost way down at the bottom of that discussion. And I have another great email comment to post on the subject tomorrow or the next day. Who said you can't talk politely about politics, religion, or sex? I'll have to work up something on sex for future discussion, as we've already covered politics and religion!


brd


DGP said...
"Hi. My wife showed me these comments, which I have found thought-provoking, and I love the civility among disagreeing parties. These are my two cents: When I was in graduate school in the '70s, a young man (a close friend of my wife's brother)stayed overnight and, over dinner, let us know that he was part of a movement to role back social programs until Franklin Roosevelt's social network would be erased. He felt that churches and individuals would take over the function of providing for those in need. We considered him an intelligent, privileged, naive, idealistic young man whose beliefs had no chance of coming to pass. Carter was in the White House and the country had just experienced the Nixon years, government wiretaps, the enormous contributions, in cash, solicited from corporations by the Republican Party, etc. The nightmare was over; who could forget it? Since then, regulations have been rolled back not just to pre-Roosevelt (Franklin) but to pre-Roosevelt (Teddy); the trust buster and founding ecologist. Corporate heads now make 500 times as much as their workers rather than the 50 times of thirty years ago, there are essentially no limits to mergers and companies make money by shipping jobs to countries with no worker rights or benefits. The United States hemmorhages wealth through it's lopsided balance of payments. Those who insist on a quality product and fair treatment more often than not are beaten out by those who spend largely on executive pay. Chainsaw Al, the legendary company buster, made millions in bonuses by cutting jobs. Does anyone really think that a ten million a year ceiling to executive pay would be socialism? Or that extending the social security tax so that there is no longer a ceiling to deductions, which would take care of almost half of the yearly deficit for the country, is grossly unfair? Somebody does; that bill reportedly has no chance of coming to a vote. It's always possible to make more money by cutting pay, cutting benefits, deregulating, not enforcing safety standards, firing watchdogs and generally taking the short view that at this point appears to be ruining the world for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Controlling the press is even better. Slander works; it's a tradition. That's how Nixon got rid of Ed Muskie (an attack on Muskie's wife caused Muskie to cry publicly during his defense of his wife, a kiss of death for a presidential candidate), and it was the tipping point for the last presidential election. Swift Boat tactics work, and a genuine war hero (who was anti-war) was outshouted for patriotism by a draft evader wrapped in a flag. Simply put: the health care system is worse than ever and 90% of doctors will agree, the United States appears to have gone from paragon to villain in public opinion polls in the world's democracies, morality is used as an issue to help the wealthy get wealthier (Calvinism, anyone?) and it appears to be okay to be financially greedy as long as you're not sexually greedy. I could not believe the results of the last election, but I've come to believe it. Sure, government is inefficient, but privatizing appears largely to have been a way to pay fabulous sums to those companies, such as Honeywell, that have replaced government employees with unregulated contractors. Has anyone followed the disastrous results of private contracts in Iraq? Shoddy workmanship is cheaper. Anyway, you can tell which side of the discussion I'm on. I think giving a third of my money to the common good is getting off cheap, but right now that third is being distributed to Cheney's cronies. I'd rather have a program for the poor, thank you."

Thanks DGP for your insightful comments. I like it civil. Sometimes Payne Hollow has to come in to moderate!

brd

White Girl Reads Black Boy

Dear Richard Wright,

Well for some time I have been reading Black Boy. I started with an abridged version, then fascinated went to the whole of what I have discovered is a two part piece that was published separately, as Black Boy and American Hunger.

You are not very soft and fuzzy. I knew that, for I have read Native Son. But you are revealing and as you were forceful in pointing out, you live in the world of emotions and you reveal emotions. They are not warm and fuzzy emotions, but they are emotions. Black Boy was particularly moving to me as an offering of the psychological makeup of an afro-american male growing up in the deep south of the early part of the 20th century.

I was interested in the two concepts that you play with throughout the two books.

1. Fear
2. Hunger

Are those the drivers of the life of the intellectual? Does fear drive us (us?) in and does hunger make us come out? Is it fear that makes us stand, shaking and then psychologically crawl to the underbrush of our personalities, spooking around for shelter. I use that phrase "spooking" because my father used to use it. He would come to our home for a visit. Then he would get bored and curious and say, "I'm going to go out and spook around." I wonder where he got that? What would you say, Richard? That word has a nasty underbelly, doesn't it? His surface meaning was that he wanted to float about and find the local haunts. In this case I think he meant nothing else.

But we float about inside ourselves looking for a steady base that can be counted on, from which we can begin to build an intellectual framework. Is it possible to retreat and find that place inside ourselves without the fear? White girl here did not grow up in fear. My fears have come late and with age and the various kickings around of life. My fears have come with rejections and incompletions and incapabilities. And hunger? I have not known physical hunger at all. Yet I cannot be satiated, now. I hunger for ideas and paths of thinking, and I hunger for relationships that feed. (You longingly mentioned a lack of friendship in your book. Did you ever find that? I hope so.)

Oh, how I wish I had enough to fill the empty belly of my brain.

I'm glad that, as hard as some of your information is to digest, you are clear that you are dealing in the realm of emotion. I think that moderns, though very emotionally driven, are slow to use the term. I, too, live in that realm and work from that gut place. But productivity isn't driven by emotion or the intersection of fear and the internal man or woman, do you think? It demands a return to the world of the other and the work of scavenging for sustenance. And it demands a common cupboard of some kind. Your work displays a very particular cupboard that has been helpful for me to see.

Well, let me go eat breakfast.

brd

Zorro and Zorra and the Little Zorries

Dear Dan, Josh, Cadh8, Cate, et al,

I'm anxious to get back to politics and economics. But first I must introduce you to the fam!

In the spirit of the last post on Pretty Fakes and super-conscious appreciation for seizing the day, I wanted to introduce you to the growing Zorro family. They truly are one of my nearly daily joys in life.

Here Zorro brought Zorra home to dinner to meet the family.


Then we were ecstatic to learn that there was already a fairly well grown brood of 3, very shy except for this one. The others scooted before I could draw my camera.


Later, a post on, as the New York Times calls it, The New Gilded Age.

For now enjoy the moment.

Betsy

The Zorro Report

Dear Terwillinger or Tilliwinger or whatever,

Since you asked I will begin a short series of Zorro videos, just to keep you up to date.

First the bad news. Zorro has wounded his foot badly or a small infection has become a large one. He is not longer bearing weight on his back right foot. We are saddened but are not planning to intervene, for he is afterall a wild raccoon. We have debated, (hear faint conversation in video) bringing some bute (phenylbutazone) over from the farm and dosing him, but perhaps regular aspirin would be a better alternative. (Having read a little about bute, I'm sure it would be a bad choice.)



Sorry about the sound. The night was loud or something.

Betsy

True Democracy and Economic Wealth

Dear Thomas Jefferson,

These are some definitions:

Democracy

Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives — The American Heritage Dictionary

a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges

political or social equality; democratic spirit

the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power — Dictionary.com

If those definitions are anywhere close to reality, then a true form of democracy would not allow for the perpetuation of unlimited control, by one set of individuals, of our most valuable life resources. The American form of democracy is failing, slowly but surely, and tumbling into some form of post-modern classed aristocracy because of an untoward and malignant commitment to private property. We are beset as a nation by an underlying and pervasive notion that those who own property are graced with some form of the Divine Right of Kings to hold that property and pass it on as royalty to, not just the third and fourth generation, but ad infinitum.

Our nation is peppered with individuals who swear allegiance to democracy and then wrap themselved in a motto like that of the British monarchy, "Dieu et mon droit." We might say, "Terre et ma droite."

Thomas, here are some statistics you might find interesting. Look at them and then tell me what you think. It's not me who's the crazy one here is it? (Full data)

The top 10% of Americans control 68.8% of the wealth. The top 20% control 81.6% of the wealth. The average wealth of the top 1% of the nation is over 10 million dollars. The average wealth of the bottom 20% of the nation is almost NEGATIVE 10 thousand dollars. A fellow named David Chandler developed this little "L Curve" to demonstrate how skewed the control of resources in the United States has become. It wasn't like that when you were thinking about democracy was it?



Here is my simple recommendation, based on the principles of democracy. Wealth must be redistributed. That redistribution need not be done during the lifetime of the earner. Certainly, people deserve to experience the fruit of their labor. They should also be able to pass on a reasonable amount to their children. However, there should be limits to the amount of money that can be passed from generation to generation. OK, you heard me say it and I wanted to say it to you first.

Well, I've got to go to work now. My pile of money lies along the space in the middle of the football field, so I must spend my time working hard. But then, that is what makes democracy great. Work is a great gift. I just think that the descendents of the very wealthy deserve to engage in the American democratic struggle, just like the rest of us.

Betsy

P.S. I don't think you've heard the last from me on this. I have some thoughts on Social Security Tax that I'd like to run by you.

Bubbles

Dear Beverly Sills,

The question on today's MSNBC.com news quiz that I got unhesitatingly, unguessingly correct was,

7. The classical music world mourned the death of Beverly Sills, a child star who grew up to be America’s first opera prima donna. Sills, who succumbed to cancer at age 78, was born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn; what was the name she was known as when performing as a girl?

Well, of course the answer is, "Bubbles," your nickname and the title of your autobiographies from 1976 and 1981.

The New York Times article in your memory was a good one and the picture was very nice, but I remember you more like this, from the days in the late 70's when I was first discovering opera and your wonderful coloratura soprano voice. The point at which I disagree with the Times is this sentence. "Ms. Sills was America’s idea of a prima donna."

I think not. You were a diva, but you were never a prima donna, for you were not temperamental and did not assume adulation as your right. That is what we loved best about you. Prima donnas do not sing with Muppets, nor host late night TV shows. But you did, and in doing so helped to make the world of opera accessible to many who didn't realize they could love opera.



You were, without doubt, the 'First Lady' of opera to those of us who heard you sing, and when you took your final bows on the stage (didn't you stop singing a little early) we were glad that you didn't give up the theater. The last time I saw you was this spring when you hosted The Met's TV Broadcast of Bellini's I Puritani. I loved your warmth and encouragement to a new first lady of opera, Anna Netrebko. You were so gracious in your ability to love the voice of another. And in your roles as general director of the New York City Opera and chairperson of Lincoln Center and finally the Met, you helped mentor a whole generation of musicians.

How can we thank you for the beauty in music that you shared with us all of your life? The Italians might say, "Grazie per la canzone bella." But we, we all just say, "Thank you for the most beautiful of songs."

Betsy

Dear Me

It's a consideration I suppose, but blogging is just too much fun.

brd

Philip Glass, Minimalist

Dear Philip Glass,

I have been studying your music for a few months now. Please understand, when I say study I am making no claims upon scholarship. I just mean that I'm concentrating on your music and theater pieces. I'm doing some reading then I'm listening again and reading some more.

Sure, I have some things to say after all my thinking and listening. This is why, this is why, this is why, why, why I like blogs. For I may publish my thinking to the world without peer review or edit (besides my own) and perhaps someone else reads and comments, agrees, disagrees. "You are out of your mind. Have you read what Nadia Boulanger had to say?" "No, but Persichetti was scathing!"

Who's there ?
Knock Knock ?
Who's there ?
Knock Knock ?
Who's there ?
Knock Knock ?
Who's there ?
Philip Glass.

So that's why I love to write blogs and express my opinions on the things I read and hear. And I'm sure you understand.

If I were to try to convince someone to start listening to your music, I would tell them that they already like your music. It's like if someone in the 30's and 40's tried to convince someone to enjoy the writing of William Faulkner. *Movie goers were already enjoying it whether they realized it or not in the form of movies like Today We Live, The Road to Glory, Slave Ship, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and Land of the Pharoahs. But that was Faulkner.

Wide America is already enjoying your music in the form of The Truman Show.

Truman. Truman. Truman. Come back.
The unknowing public also loved you while they watched The Hours

And others. But that really isn't the point either. What is the point? What is? What? Who's point? Point is? Music that touches? Whose soul? Why do you care if they hear this music? Didn't he just open a new theater piece in New York? Did you see it, hear it, must run, good to see you, talk to you soon.

So when I sit in the car with my twenties something children and I say, listen to this just for a minute and then put on whatever music you like. They say. I like this. And I am satisfied for their souls have been touched too. And I really didn't have to convince them.

A friend of mine gave me a Philip Glass record. I listened to it for five hours before I realized it had a scratch on it.

So what I meant to say is, I like your music.

Betsy

*Note: Faulkner said his work on the script for The Southerner was the best that he did. However, he is not credited with the work because it was produced by United Artists and he was under contract with Warner Bros.

Richard Wright's Native Son, Albert Camus' The Stranger, and Walker Percy's Lancelot

Dear Richard, Albert, and Walker,

I am fascinated by this thread of commonality between your books, Native Son (1940), The Stranger (1942), and Lancelot (1977). This is cute. Did you plan this or did it just happen? I imagine the three of you doing an IM Chat.














rman:
inside_resistance: sanctus+dude:
So this is how this whole series of books got going? No?

Well, I'll have to think about this some more. Others are thinking about it too, like Lemony Snicket and the Baudelaire children.

*Richard Wright, an American novelist of the realist school, asks a famous unfathomable question ... "Who knows when some slight shock," he asks, "disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling?"

You guys are too much!

Betsy

*The Penultimate Peril

Zorro's Woodland Home

Dear Stormland and Others Curious about the Life and Times of Zorro,

You asked about whether it is legal to live with a raccoon here in Tennessee. My answer is, "I don't know, I don't live with a raccoon. I just entertain one regularly." However, I am providing this exclusive video (Soon to be picked up, I'm sure, for an episode of Private Lives of the Rich and Famous.) It reveals the little known and seldom seen haunts of Zorro the Raccoon.



He appears to be slow and thoughtful as he retreats to his humble abode. This morning, though, after breakfast, he was quite hasty when the neighbor dog, Molly, arrived and took up chase.

Betsy

Carter on US Policy on Palestinians

Dear President Carter,

Thank you for speaking out clearly and strongly on this subject. Did I ever tell you that you are the reason I became a registered Democrat. I must admit, I'm not dyed-in-the-wool and that if I were to describe myself politically I would probably say I'm a socialist, but I'd still vote for you. Will you run?

As a Woman in Black I have stood with the women in this photo in front of the Duncan federal building on Tuesdays here in Knoxville, TN. We have a silent presence that raises a persistent request to the federal government. Please, act for peace in Palestine. (I must note here with respect and appreciation. Our congressman Jimmy Duncan--son of Duncan of federal building fame--was one of the few Republican legislators, one of the few legislators on either side of the aisle who voted against the war of aggression in Iraq. Thank you Congressman Duncan!)

The Irish Times stated, "President Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Croke Park, also said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was 'criminal.'" This is not the first time the US leadership has moved into the realm of what could be described as criminal, also immoral, war-mongering, disrespectful for humanity, insane. . .

I could rant on. But I want to thank you again, and ask you to continue working, using your voice and the well deserved influence that you possess, for reasonable peace in Israel, Palestine, and our world.

Respectfully,

Betsy DeGeorge

Eugene Onegin and Ennui

Dear A. Pushkin,

I read your poetic novel recently. It was, sigh, ok. I have heard the operatic version a number of times and saw it on the Met broadcast. It's, yawn, nice. So I figured it was time I read the book.

In your poem, "Onegin's Journey," (was that an addendum to the main poem?) I noticed that concise couplet, which, to me expressed the point precisely.

Oh God, I'm young, I'm fresh, I'm strong
And I've got boredom, all day long.

Onegin is not really a bad man, is he? But he is a bored one. And boredom disallows the kind of caring that engenders good, doesn't it. The want of good can degenerate to bad very quickly. In Onegin, it degenerates to a thoughtless flirtation and the killing of a friend. For that, Onegin pays with a life of more ennui and guilt. You don't really develop the guilt in your work, Alexander, but for 'Evgeny' ennui is punishment enough. Ennui, that is, and unrequited love.

Here is why I think Onegin is a generally good man.

1. He doesn't take advantage of Tatyana.
2. He writes in the margins of books.
3. His servants like him.

The first is obvious. In most pre-20th century literature, I think, protagonists get "good" points for respecting the life and sexual innocence of other human beings. This is probably no longer the case as far as I can guess, but when you were writing, it was true.

I might be questioned on my line of reasoning for my third point. But I think goodness used to be defined by how well servants and slaves liked their masters. To me this is strange, but reflects an interesting human trait. The very person who is in some ways the closest oppressor is deified for the kindliness of their oppression. Certainly Onegin is just a poor example of this, but literature runneth over with examples, from Harriet Stowe to Jane Austin, good is established not by active high virtue, but by the absence of high evil with the trimmings of petty virtue. (Perhaps I need to think more about this later but I think I've a headache now.)

Onegin wins my heart though, if perhaps he loses that of Tatyana, because he writes in the margins of his books.

Tatyana sees with trepidation
what kind of thought, what observation,
had drawn Eugene's especial heed
and where he'd silently agreed.
Her eyes along the margin flitting
pursue his pencil.
Everywhere his soul encountered there declares
itself in ways unwitting--
terse words or crosses in the book,
or else a query's wondering hook.

There is nothing I like better than an annotated book with margins full of reaction. How much we can learn about the reader from a simple exclamation point or underline. (I especially favor the double underline.) I have to tell you, this stanza was my very favorite of the entire book. There, as I droned along through the interminable passages of this overwritten book, my spirit was captured by your obvious appreciation of the marginal comment.

Lee Smith in her novel Saving Grace says you can get away with anything if you are nice about it. Of course neither her Florida Grace nor Onegin, whose delicate charm won many hearts, get away with anything in the end, for loved or not loved, they must live with themselves.

At this point I need to comment about Childe Harold, for it seems that this is the character that you drew upon for your skeleton of Onegin ("A Muscovite in Harold's Dress"). Lord Byron, whose portrait hung in Onegin's country library, said this of his Harold.

It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature, and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements) are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected.

(Does anyone have a stick of gum?)

"Childe," as you know, means a youth destined for Knighthood. But neither Harold nor Onegin have the heart for nobility (whatever that is). Byron's description of Harold,

But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by,
Worse than adversity the Childe befreel
He felt the fulness of satiety:
Then loath'd he in his native land to dwell,
Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell.

Whoa is this boring yet? So back to the point, poor Onegin, he is not a bad guy, but lost. He reminds me of the obese children suing McDonald's. Is there anything more pathetic than Harold, Onegin, and they, satieted and looking for something to eat.

Here's the thing, (I really need to take a shower) . . . I think U.S. Culture 2007 has been struck by a bad case of Oneginitis. You've had a century or so to think about this. Got a cure? Let me know, I've gotta go and take my Prozac.

Betsy

If Jesus Drove a Truck

Dear Jeff Street and Payne Hollow Folks,

Finally, the video debut of Stevie singing "If Jesus Drove a Truck." You folks have enjoyed this for some time at the Goatwalker. And thanks for posting the lyrics there. I suppose the true name of the song is "I Don't Know, I Don't Know, I Don't Know." The lyrics are the best part aren't they?



Thanks for your support for my "boy". Actually, I will have to stop using that phrase, for he is truly a fine man. I am not only proud of him, but I look up to him too.

Betsy, a.k.a. Stevie's Mom

Quilts

Dear Sapphire Quilt,

For a few years now you have been creating your own works of quilt art. I love everything that you have done, but I especially love the ones I get to wrap up in on chilly nights. (Keep in mind that for me, every night is a chilly night at some point or other.) I wanted to recommend to anyone passing through this blog post that they really should take a look at the quilts on your blog, Sapphire Quilt. I also wanted to post pictures of one of my most treasured possessions, a quilt that hangs not off my shoulders but above my bed. This piece was a loving gift from teachers and students at a school where your Dad worked for a number of years.





As I look at each of these squares I am reminded of stories and people.

Remember the Friday club? Dad would bring boys without fathers to our little old house in the country and show them how to do stuff. Remember when the horse ran off with that one kid? And when I got so mad at them for shooting the head off a doll with a 22 rifle?

Remember that Stop light that Dad put in the 2nd grade classroom. Green meant you could talk, yellow meant whisper, and red meant sssh!

How about the annual squirt gun battle staged by the 6th graders and the mini-marathons? And how about that time they dragged you to the principal's office for saying "Ass-phalt!"

Those were the days, when little Stevie wore teal converse sneakers, and little Diane could curl up in our arms she was so small. And speaking of curls, remember how Anne GG's were so wild and only Carrie Gwilt knew what to do with them. Did you know that she just had a baby! Plus she's a pediatrician or some kind of medical doctor on the side!

Our lives are really like quilts put together from lovely squares of remembrances aren't they? And you Sapphire Quilt are in the center portion of my quilt and one of the most beautiful of all.

I Love You So,

MOM
XOX

The Sand Child: An Interpretation

Dear Tahar Ben Jelloun,

I have continued to think about your book, The Sand Child and am ready to posit an interpretation. Tell me what you think. Of course I am not sure, but my thoughts feel like they are swarming closer to the center of what you are trying to say, and, perhaps, that is something.

My former post, Ben Jelloun Draws Such Strange Words in the Sand, helped me think through my initial ideas.

The father figure in the book is Western Colonial Influence. I, at first, thought this a difficult metaphor, yet it makes sense in relation to the patronizing attitudes of colonialists. Certainly, colonial forces always assume the role of father to the countries they inhabit. There is a line in the book that talks about the father lying with Zahra(F)/Ahmed(M)and the forms coming together. This relationship of father trying to form child in his own image is a fascinating one. It is complemented by all the allusions to Father bringing the child into the world of men and power.

Meanwhile the relationship of Zahra(F)/Ahmed(M) to the Mother figure, a representation of Mother Morocco or Mother Maghreb (Northern Africa, the area West of the Nile and North of the Sahara) is distant and especially so after the death of the father, i.e. the end of colonial rule. The child is left alone and unable to find a definitive path in the current world. Abandoned by all, including the storyteller, the child is first (or primarily) isolated from both the modern world and from tradition, and second (or secondarily) without a sure path forward, exemplified by the surrealist multiple storied ending.

There are oddities in the tale that I am unable to unscramble. The traveling gypsy episode may have some cultural roots and interpretations that escape me. I have heard and read that transvestite entertainers are part of standard issue Arabian fun. That is out of my realm of experience, but may play in here somehow. The rapes that occur in that section could speak to the psychological reality that one lives through rape over and over, hence its placement after what I have identified in my mind as the death of colonialism (i.e. the rape of one culture by another) is showing that the effects of the ravishing of a culture does not cease when the last ship leaves the dock.

The story hasn't ended. The end has not been written for North Africa or for Zahra. Perhaps the presence of Jorges Luis Borges in this book gives a clue to how it should be understood.

"The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it." — (dogma of a fictional religion in "Hakim, the masked dyer of Merv".) Part of this quote (See paper by Beauvais Lyons) or perhaps another version is attributed to a heresiarch of Uqbar in "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". "Mirrors and copulation are abominable since they multiply and extend a visible universe that was an illusion, or more precisely a sophism."

History and existence are not locked down. Perception of history and culture is what we have. Who is telling the story? The gender, seemingly the most predetermined of the elements of a being is undermined, put in question, made into an incompetent parody. In the case of the Sand Child, the being is Morocco, and it has lost its footing in the sand, lost more than its footing, it has lost its shape, its gender, and must redefine itself. The story will be told, but those who must tell it have yet to find their voices.

OK. That is my attempt at interpreting The Sand Child. Next I'll read The Sacred Night.

Betsy

Marriage: What Makes it Work for 60 Years? An Answer from Gillian Welch

Dear Gillian,

My parents have just crossed over. That is, they have crossed over their 60th wedding anniversary. Now, they may not be big fans of your music exactly. But if someone asked them what it is that makes a marriage work for 60 years, they would answer something like the words to your song, By The Mark. "It's Jesus," they would say, "Just Jesus."

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By The Mark

When I cross over
I will shout and sing
I will know my savior
By the mark where the nails have been

By the mark where the nails have been
By the sign upon his precious skin
I will know my savior when I come to him
By the mark where the nails have been

A man of riches
May claim a crown of jewels
But the king of heaven
Can be told from the prince of fools

On Calvary Mountain
Where they made him suffer so
All my sin was paid for
A long, long time ago

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Marriage is a very tricky thing. But from what I have observed. They have it just about right.

Betsy