Some years ago my favorite writer, Thornton Wilder, penned the prize-winning novel "The Bridge of St Luis Rey." Robert DeNiro later made a movie of it, The theme is classic -- why have i survived in this scary old world when others just like me haven't?
The story has been told a thousand thousand times. Travelers -- in this case crossing a weathered rope bridge in old Peru -- are suddenly caught in an unexpected tragedy. Crack, crunch and the bridge collapses under their trembling feet into the abyss below. On this bridge on this day, some lives are lost; those who did not take the trip, survived. Why some and not others? Why them and not me? Why? Why? Why?
My grand-daughter recently experienced the question when a school bus she was on hit a power line, and broke into flames. Forty years earlier, her own father experienced the same question when a tornada out of nowhere smashed into his car. In both cases, they walked away to tell the tale; others did not.
Does God or Fate or Evolution have a reason? Is there even such a thing as a reason for the random? The answer always lives somewhere in the future. What will the survivors do with their survival? How will they choose to live their extra days? Where will their existence make a difference in the lives and events to come?
Almost makes their lives a unique kind of opportunity, maybe even obligation, doesn't it...?
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
MICHELANGELO AND ME
I once saw -- thoroughly experienced, really! -- Michelangelo's astonishing statue of David. Enough to put any man (even an NFL quarterback) to embarrassed shame. Funny, though, how the image of this magnificent sculpture comes back to haunt you...
There I was sitting in my car waiting for Joan to come out of the store. A procession of human anatomies passed my way every few seconds. Entering and leaving the supermarket, each one less like a David (or an Athena) than I cared to ever imagine. Too tall..too short...too lean...too thick...too much sticking out here and too little there. Being altogether too human myself, it was a depressing mural of the imperfections of our lumpy species.
Hard to avoid the question stepping out in this procession -- why are we so far from the ideal? Why does God or Darwin give us such stunningly evolved forms in the hands of great artists, when we ourselves remain so deformably distant from the ideal? How fair is that!
Later, munching on some of the precarious comfort food we brought back home, it suddenly struck me. How simple. How obvious. Ideals are goals not givens. They are about what we can be not what we are. And so ideals quite properly are meant to be-- just like the vaunted David -- a little further than we can touch, A little more than we can hold. As Michelangelo himself wrote in later years: If all beauty were possible here, then why a heaven...?
I absolutely agree. Only does this mean I absolutely have to give up the greasy comfort food...?
There I was sitting in my car waiting for Joan to come out of the store. A procession of human anatomies passed my way every few seconds. Entering and leaving the supermarket, each one less like a David (or an Athena) than I cared to ever imagine. Too tall..too short...too lean...too thick...too much sticking out here and too little there. Being altogether too human myself, it was a depressing mural of the imperfections of our lumpy species.
Hard to avoid the question stepping out in this procession -- why are we so far from the ideal? Why does God or Darwin give us such stunningly evolved forms in the hands of great artists, when we ourselves remain so deformably distant from the ideal? How fair is that!
Later, munching on some of the precarious comfort food we brought back home, it suddenly struck me. How simple. How obvious. Ideals are goals not givens. They are about what we can be not what we are. And so ideals quite properly are meant to be-- just like the vaunted David -- a little further than we can touch, A little more than we can hold. As Michelangelo himself wrote in later years: If all beauty were possible here, then why a heaven...?
I absolutely agree. Only does this mean I absolutely have to give up the greasy comfort food...?
MICHELANGELO AND ME
I once saw -- thoroughly experienced, really! -- Michelangelo's astonishing statue of David. Enough to put any man (even an NFL quarterback) to embarrassed shame. Funny, though, how the image of this magnificent sculpture comes back to haunt you...
There I was sitting in my car waiting for Joan to come out of the store. A procession of human anatomies passed my way every few seconds. Entering and leaving the supermarket, each one less like a David (or an Athena) than I cared to ever imagine. Too tall..too short...too lean...too thick...too much sticking out here and too little there. Being altogether too human myself, it was a depressing mural of the imperfections of our lumpy species.
Hard to avoid the question stepping out in this procession -- why are we so far from the ideal? Why does God or Darwin give us such stunningly evolved forms in the hands of great artists, when we ourselves remain so deformably distant from the ideal? How fair is that!
Later, munching on some of the precarious comfort food we brought back home, it suddenly struck me. How simple. How obvious. Ideals are goals not givens. They are about what we can be not what we are. And so ideals quite properly are meant to be-- just like the vaunted David -- a little further than we can touch, A little more than we can hold. As Michelangelo himself wrote in later years: If all beauty were possible here, then why a heaven...?
I absolutely agree. Only does this mean I absolutely have to give up the greasy comfort food...?
There I was sitting in my car waiting for Joan to come out of the store. A procession of human anatomies passed my way every few seconds. Entering and leaving the supermarket, each one less like a David (or an Athena) than I cared to ever imagine. Too tall..too short...too lean...too thick...too much sticking out here and too little there. Being altogether too human myself, it was a depressing mural of the imperfections of our lumpy species.
Hard to avoid the question stepping out in this procession -- why are we so far from the ideal? Why does God or Darwin give us such stunningly evolved forms in the hands of great artists, when we ourselves remain so deformably distant from the ideal? How fair is that!
Later, munching on some of the precarious comfort food we brought back home, it suddenly struck me. How simple. How obvious. Ideals are goals not givens. They are about what we can be not what we are. And so ideals quite properly are meant to be-- just like the vaunted David -- a little further than we can touch, A little more than we can hold. As Michelangelo himself wrote in later years: If all beauty were possible here, then why a heaven...?
I absolutely agree. Only does this mean I absolutely have to give up the greasy comfort food...?
THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
When you watch those riggers and seamen working against that Gulf oil spill, you're watching first responders at their very best. In their rugged arms and steadfast eyes you're seeing the kind of valor so missing among the sleek masters-of-the-universe who decide fates in soft mahogany conference rooms, and vacation in exclusive summer resorts.
Here in Chicago, considerably north of the Gulf, I had a brush with a similar breed of first responders. A morning at the ER for symptoms that required different kinds of arms, but the same kind of eyes. ER's can be like that. A measure of the merits of our species, because here -- like in the Gulf -- you can find a proud community of skill and spirit at work.
Things went fairly well here; down there the final results are not yet in. But whether every patient survives or whether every oil spill is salvaged is not the point. The point -- indeed maybe the whole purpose -- is that some among us have committed their time and talents to save what most needs to be saved.
Something all too few professions can claim.
What I always liked about the old Frank Capra movies is what I still like about today's first responders. An everyday can-do elan from the everyday people of the world. Corny...? You bet....! Indispensable...? Damn right...! Now if only more well-heeled masters-of-the-universe -- be they on Wall Street or on K Street -- would believe this, Capra's "what a wonderful life" might become more than a movie.
Well, here's one ER patient who can at least dream, can't he!
As I left there I noticed most of us patients were in our 60s and 70s. But just then I heard a small child crying in her mother's arms. Reminds you the elderly on this dangerous planet aren't the only ones who need first responders. Young or old, we'll all need them one time or another. Be glad they're there....!
Here in Chicago, considerably north of the Gulf, I had a brush with a similar breed of first responders. A morning at the ER for symptoms that required different kinds of arms, but the same kind of eyes. ER's can be like that. A measure of the merits of our species, because here -- like in the Gulf -- you can find a proud community of skill and spirit at work.
Things went fairly well here; down there the final results are not yet in. But whether every patient survives or whether every oil spill is salvaged is not the point. The point -- indeed maybe the whole purpose -- is that some among us have committed their time and talents to save what most needs to be saved.
Something all too few professions can claim.
What I always liked about the old Frank Capra movies is what I still like about today's first responders. An everyday can-do elan from the everyday people of the world. Corny...? You bet....! Indispensable...? Damn right...! Now if only more well-heeled masters-of-the-universe -- be they on Wall Street or on K Street -- would believe this, Capra's "what a wonderful life" might become more than a movie.
Well, here's one ER patient who can at least dream, can't he!
As I left there I noticed most of us patients were in our 60s and 70s. But just then I heard a small child crying in her mother's arms. Reminds you the elderly on this dangerous planet aren't the only ones who need first responders. Young or old, we'll all need them one time or another. Be glad they're there....!
Monday, May 3, 2010
FROM THE EMERALD CITY TO PLEASANTVILLE
WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE
When Dorothy and Toto left Kansas, they couldn't imagine what they would find. But neither could they imagine what they left. Not only school boards wary of Darwin, but churches panicked by porn!
Oh, not the usual kind. This is female porn. Evangelical churches there have found organized porn for women which they say has become epidemic. In Christian theology, women are the non-sexual member of the species; but things haven't worked out that way in Kansas. And now some religious groups in cities like Chicago are also concerned.
The question isn't where women can find pornography, but why they're looking for it? I'm old enough to remember Sinatra's crooning voice and Elvis's grinding hips. Seems to me the only difference between young women then and now is now they've kicked their swooning and screaming up a notch. Lets see -- the same Darwin Kansas so dislikes would probably say: "It's just the female of the species evolving..."
EXACTLY HOW HAPPY WERE THE "HAPPY DAYS?"
According to Ron Howard and the Fonze, the Fifties were the "Happy Days." The greatest boom-decade in America's history when we were number one in the world, with jobs, salaries and chromed convertibles everywhere just for the asking. Like we were portrayed from the 30s & 40s in cozy sepio-tones, in the 50s we're usually pictured in crisp black&white. The fizzy fun of "Uncle Miltie,"I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners," "Ozzie and Harriet," "Make Room for Daddy," "Dobbie Gillis," and my particular favorite "Father Knows Best."
I loved Robert Young in that role, because as a young father I looked forward to when I too could come home in neat suit & tie to my waiting white-fenced family, mother in dress and earrings, children agog with young wonder. Unfortunately, as things turned out in the 60s and 70s, most of us discovered fatherhood didn't come with Robert Young's script and dialog.
Other things were similarly out of joint with the gradual arrival of Rock n Roll, the Beatniks, pink shirts, perfect Debbie and Eddie getting divorced, gritty foreign films without patented happy endings, the mushroom cloud dictating daily duck & cover drills in school, and the oozing virus of McCarthyism.
Yes, there were little dispiriting signs all around us. If we dared pay attention. Like the characters did in the recent film "Pleasantville" in which the placidity of their black&white 50s gradually gave way to a whole new reality. Now I perfectly understand the audience is supposed to celebrate this dawning new reality pushing aside the banalities of our 50-ish ways and days. And yet as I watched Pleasantville mature before my eyes, frankly I wasn't entirely pleased.
Call this reaction a foolish nostalgia refusing to embrace the world as it's actually becoming. On the other hand, have you ever asked yourself what Dorothy really felt once she returned from the technicolor glories of the Emerald City to the gritty reality of dusty Kansas? I have....!
When Dorothy and Toto left Kansas, they couldn't imagine what they would find. But neither could they imagine what they left. Not only school boards wary of Darwin, but churches panicked by porn!
Oh, not the usual kind. This is female porn. Evangelical churches there have found organized porn for women which they say has become epidemic. In Christian theology, women are the non-sexual member of the species; but things haven't worked out that way in Kansas. And now some religious groups in cities like Chicago are also concerned.
The question isn't where women can find pornography, but why they're looking for it? I'm old enough to remember Sinatra's crooning voice and Elvis's grinding hips. Seems to me the only difference between young women then and now is now they've kicked their swooning and screaming up a notch. Lets see -- the same Darwin Kansas so dislikes would probably say: "It's just the female of the species evolving..."
EXACTLY HOW HAPPY WERE THE "HAPPY DAYS?"
According to Ron Howard and the Fonze, the Fifties were the "Happy Days." The greatest boom-decade in America's history when we were number one in the world, with jobs, salaries and chromed convertibles everywhere just for the asking. Like we were portrayed from the 30s & 40s in cozy sepio-tones, in the 50s we're usually pictured in crisp black&white. The fizzy fun of "Uncle Miltie,"I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners," "Ozzie and Harriet," "Make Room for Daddy," "Dobbie Gillis," and my particular favorite "Father Knows Best."
I loved Robert Young in that role, because as a young father I looked forward to when I too could come home in neat suit & tie to my waiting white-fenced family, mother in dress and earrings, children agog with young wonder. Unfortunately, as things turned out in the 60s and 70s, most of us discovered fatherhood didn't come with Robert Young's script and dialog.
Other things were similarly out of joint with the gradual arrival of Rock n Roll, the Beatniks, pink shirts, perfect Debbie and Eddie getting divorced, gritty foreign films without patented happy endings, the mushroom cloud dictating daily duck & cover drills in school, and the oozing virus of McCarthyism.
Yes, there were little dispiriting signs all around us. If we dared pay attention. Like the characters did in the recent film "Pleasantville" in which the placidity of their black&white 50s gradually gave way to a whole new reality. Now I perfectly understand the audience is supposed to celebrate this dawning new reality pushing aside the banalities of our 50-ish ways and days. And yet as I watched Pleasantville mature before my eyes, frankly I wasn't entirely pleased.
Call this reaction a foolish nostalgia refusing to embrace the world as it's actually becoming. On the other hand, have you ever asked yourself what Dorothy really felt once she returned from the technicolor glories of the Emerald City to the gritty reality of dusty Kansas? I have....!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
MAY 1 TRIBUNE OP-ED ON 1ST AMENDMENT
For one small sad moment, imagine a world like this.
A world of wombs without fetuses...hearts without loves...minds without thoughts...Springs without birds....Junes without marriages...Winters without Christmases...moons without lovers...pitchers without batters...organs without choirs...pianos without fingers...newspapers without readers...."The Wizard of Oz" without "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"...dreams without dreamers...oceans without beach parties...passions without purposes...prophets without followers...teachers without students...parents without pride...kites without kids....and constitutions without devotees.
A perfectly dreadful place. A world with all potential and no payoff!
One has to wonder sometime if this has not become the fate of our own hard-earned 1st Amendment. To have shed blood to achieve it, to have spilled ink to compose it, to have fought to preserve it, what are we left with...? Perhaps you hear and see what I do. Blind, blistering arguments in Congress, in sports bars, on commuter trains, on college campuses, in board rooms, in backrooms, in the Wrigley Field bleachers and on the worldwide web.
A cacophony of ranting voices exercising this sacred right like a fraternity gang chug-a-lugging vintage champagne. There's something almost sacrilegious here. Oh, we are assured that this is how democracy works; that such public-forum messiness can eventually translate into legislative majesty; that when Mr Smith goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart can eventually warm the cold heart of Claude Rains in the final reel.
I'm no longer sure.
And so it is that we live in a great irony. More freedom of speech being exercised by more citizens in more formats than ever before. From the office water-coolers to the family dinners, from our barbershops to our beauty salons, from our town halls to our street marches, and from talk radio to 24/7 cable. And yet, I feel the restless stirrings of our Founding Fathers in their graves who hear this babble of angry dis-informed voices, and whisper: "Don't you yet understand? Reason not rage is what we tried to enshrine in this amendment. If all you can bring to it is your rage, how will your reason ever prevail...?"
A world of wombs without fetuses...hearts without loves...minds without thoughts...Springs without birds....Junes without marriages...Winters without Christmases...moons without lovers...pitchers without batters...organs without choirs...pianos without fingers...newspapers without readers...."The Wizard of Oz" without "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"...dreams without dreamers...oceans without beach parties...passions without purposes...prophets without followers...teachers without students...parents without pride...kites without kids....and constitutions without devotees.
A perfectly dreadful place. A world with all potential and no payoff!
One has to wonder sometime if this has not become the fate of our own hard-earned 1st Amendment. To have shed blood to achieve it, to have spilled ink to compose it, to have fought to preserve it, what are we left with...? Perhaps you hear and see what I do. Blind, blistering arguments in Congress, in sports bars, on commuter trains, on college campuses, in board rooms, in backrooms, in the Wrigley Field bleachers and on the worldwide web.
A cacophony of ranting voices exercising this sacred right like a fraternity gang chug-a-lugging vintage champagne. There's something almost sacrilegious here. Oh, we are assured that this is how democracy works; that such public-forum messiness can eventually translate into legislative majesty; that when Mr Smith goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart can eventually warm the cold heart of Claude Rains in the final reel.
I'm no longer sure.
And so it is that we live in a great irony. More freedom of speech being exercised by more citizens in more formats than ever before. From the office water-coolers to the family dinners, from our barbershops to our beauty salons, from our town halls to our street marches, and from talk radio to 24/7 cable. And yet, I feel the restless stirrings of our Founding Fathers in their graves who hear this babble of angry dis-informed voices, and whisper: "Don't you yet understand? Reason not rage is what we tried to enshrine in this amendment. If all you can bring to it is your rage, how will your reason ever prevail...?"
Saturday, May 1, 2010
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE MAKES A POINT
Nathaniel Hawthorne put it aptly when he said: "Easy reading is damn hard writing...!"
Which calls to mind several stories that bubbled up over the last few weeks. Each has an easy-reading feel to it, and yet in each simmers some intriguing consequences for the rest of us. Take renowned physicist Stephen Hawking's warning about ET's. He was commenting on our enduring fascination with contacting alien life. Fine, said the master, but think what contact might mean? "If aliens ever do visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America. That didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans!"
Which in turn may have something to do with "Star Trek" star Leonard Nemoy retiring at age 79. Perhaps his role as Mr Spock all these years finally convinced him the Hawking's prediction made sense. But while he steps out of the Starship Enterprise, scores of Tekkie Conventions around the world will now miss his ET presence.
There's a third easy-read story which also carries consequences. A New York man is suing the police, not for what they did but for what they didn't. Matthew Ortiz claims he wouldn't have been shot in the leg from a stray riot bullet had the police intervened in time during an Italian street festival. His lawyer, perhaps implying a new precedent here, argues, "This was pre-emptive negligence.":
Finally comes one more easy-read story from Taiwan. A group of female students staged a "Boobquake Day" to ridicule the Iranian cleric who claimed earthquakes to be divine intervention for immodest dress. The students paraded bare-breasted to make their point. Later that same day a 6.5 earthquake struck the island.
Four easy-read stories each with its own consequences for the rest of us. If only Hawthorne had lived in these days of instant world-wide reporting, I am stunned at the number of tales he could have labored over. In the meantime, today's writers often have to be content with writing about the ways and wiles of Hollywood starlets and macho wannabes.
Nat, be glad you didn't make it to the 21st Century...
Which calls to mind several stories that bubbled up over the last few weeks. Each has an easy-reading feel to it, and yet in each simmers some intriguing consequences for the rest of us. Take renowned physicist Stephen Hawking's warning about ET's. He was commenting on our enduring fascination with contacting alien life. Fine, said the master, but think what contact might mean? "If aliens ever do visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America. That didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans!"
Which in turn may have something to do with "Star Trek" star Leonard Nemoy retiring at age 79. Perhaps his role as Mr Spock all these years finally convinced him the Hawking's prediction made sense. But while he steps out of the Starship Enterprise, scores of Tekkie Conventions around the world will now miss his ET presence.
There's a third easy-read story which also carries consequences. A New York man is suing the police, not for what they did but for what they didn't. Matthew Ortiz claims he wouldn't have been shot in the leg from a stray riot bullet had the police intervened in time during an Italian street festival. His lawyer, perhaps implying a new precedent here, argues, "This was pre-emptive negligence.":
Finally comes one more easy-read story from Taiwan. A group of female students staged a "Boobquake Day" to ridicule the Iranian cleric who claimed earthquakes to be divine intervention for immodest dress. The students paraded bare-breasted to make their point. Later that same day a 6.5 earthquake struck the island.
Four easy-read stories each with its own consequences for the rest of us. If only Hawthorne had lived in these days of instant world-wide reporting, I am stunned at the number of tales he could have labored over. In the meantime, today's writers often have to be content with writing about the ways and wiles of Hollywood starlets and macho wannabes.
Nat, be glad you didn't make it to the 21st Century...
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