Since Kozol and My Reading Shelf

Since Kozol’s last Tuesday, I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about his lecture and my experience in Wellesley. I have also found out that some people close to me are reading his books as well. One should use life well, he said.

Well in the last week I used my life in the following manner: reading, writing (one story has characters inspired by Kozol’s work), cleaning, exercise and braving the dreary, endless rain to hit the Boston streets. Did I mention thinking? Because all of the ways I mentioned to use my life are also just the kind of things that let ideas and feelings incubate and blossom from time to time. More on those interior journeys later, perhaps.

In the meantime, here is an update on my Reading Shelf.

I am struggling, sadly, with Saul Bellow’s Augie March. I finally resorted to commentary on the book in order to justify my labor between the pages. Of course, the experts say it is genius. It is a good read, but dense, dense, dense with precise—utterly beautiful—realistic detail. Well done, but I slog through nonetheless. I don’t like to slog, especially when so many other delicious books are out there. So, I did renew the book on the library’s online service to have one more go at it. If you have read it, please encourage me.

You might wonder why on earth I chose Bellow’s novel to battle with. In a way I did and did not choose it. When I choose new books to read, I rely on a combination of word-of-mouth, allusions that drive me mad, reviews, overhead conversations, impassioned accounts, and random shiny covers. In addition to these methods, I also decided to attack the Indiana recommended reading list for high school students. I came across this list in teacher training and was appalled at the sheer number of unfamiliar titles. I decided that if I teach in Indiana, I should read the books that are suggested for my students. Augie March was second on the list, I think.

The truth is that many of these books are not taught in classrooms, for various reasons. And I have no idea who develops or if they even update the list. But it is a good touchstone.

I also finished another book on the list this past week. The Abduction by Mette Newth is a strangely sparse prose style with lots of exclamation marks! But it does have compelling characters and a sophisticated theme, the clash of ancient and modern people! Two characters are abducted from their native culture and held hostage, as animals, by Europeans. It is an interesting way to get at slavery, oppression, and cultural dominance without using the case of African slaves in the Americas. A strange little tale, a quick read.

Another book that I just finished, which I thought was on the list, is Snow In August by Pete Hamill. As it turns out, this book is not on the list at all and I have no recollection of why I decided it was a must read! That is a bit scary. At any rate, I am perfectly happy to read it. I am nearly 2/3rds finished with this post World War II story of an Irish-American Catholic alter boy in Brooklyn and his friendship with a Czech Rabbi. This is a delightful story written in a clean prose style and packed with allusions to Poe and Jack London. Baseball aficionados, especially of the Dodgers, might salivate. I would almost rather teach this than The Chosen, but Snow in August is a bit long, but not too long. It tackles a boy’s coming-of-age, a father lost in the war, immigrants, the Holocaust, Jewish culture, anti-Semitism and racism. Jackie Robinson’s emergence into the major leagues almost makes him a major character in the narrative. We’ll see how it ends.

Next on the recommended reading list: The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines. I am quite familiar with Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying and look forward to reading another one of his works.

Now, not on the list, but sweetly devoured: The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich. You might remember that I blogged about another one of her books, The Master Butcher’s Singing Club, a while ago. The Painted Drum is her most recent book and I had been on the waiting list at the Boston Public Library for quite some time for this little jewel. Unlike the other novels I have read by her, this story is quite compact—less than three hundred pages with large font! But it is amazing. Please read it. I tried to look through it for some memorable lines, but I simply couldn’t separate out any discrete lines without including a huge chunk of text. The language and images appear simple, but they build and fit together in poetic ways.

I am also reading the current Harper’s magazine (with fiction by Margaret Atwood), Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver and the Boston Globe (daily newspaper). And of course, as many short stories as I can uptake without stuffing my brain with too much noise.

Amy Tan is reading from her new book, Saving Fish From Drowning, at the public library this Thursday. I am still number 20 on the waiting list for her book, so I probably won’t have a copy read before her talk. I will probably go anyway. Check her out. Check out the scene, perhaps. Or should we go to the theater? Can I just say, I am so pro-choice.

In the meantime, send me your reading suggestions!

Kozol: The Shame of the Nation

It was rainy. I hate to drive. But Kozol was speaking in Wellesley. There is a train to Wellesley, but his talk was in the Unitarian Universalist sanctuary and, sadly, the train did not stop precisely in front of the church. For those of you who know me, you know my horror at hitting the highways, at night, in the rain. You know that I really, really wanted to see Kozol speak. So I went.

Kozol was tired, and not just because of the exhausting book tour. In fact, this talk was “at home” here in Massachusetts. So he was technically taking a break from the tour. He was tired too because of his elderly, frail parents. But more about them later.

He was tired, but he was delightful and outrageous. He believes that we should be outraged at outrageous things. He has focused his life, spent his life, working with and for kids. He has tried to make sense out of the American public school system. When it wasn’t possible to make sense out of the injustice and apartheid conditions he faced, he turned to outrage. He is right.

The speaking engagement was an intimate one for him. Usually he speaks to audiences of 800 or more. Our gathering in the packed sanctuary numbered about 200. I had left very early to give myself ample time on the highways and arrived near 7:00 for the 7:30 speech. I sat myself in the second row, just beneath the pulpit. Soon the chilly church began to warm up as the crowd, mostly women, gathered. He started promptly and when he asked if there were any teachers in the audience, a good half of us raised our hands. Teachers have been turning out in droves for his talks. Teachers want answers.

Kozol wore a light blue button down shirt, rolled up past his elbows, and a navy tie. His voice was soft, almost high-pitched and moved higher when he posed a rhetorical question and softened playfully when he recounted a story about a kid he had met. He smiled when he talked about the kids he knew and loved. When he came out from behind the blonde wood pulpit at the end of his talk, I saw that he wore navy sneakers with white piping. He was not nearly as tall as me, which must make him fit in very well with 4th graders.

Kozol graduated from Harvard and went to teach 4th grade because he believed in little kids. He still believes that bringing “joy, magic, mystery and mischief” to pint-sized people is the best thing you can do in life. He has spent his career working on their behalf, and now only visits classrooms. Seven-year-olds, he said, have only a theoretical connection to their chairs. When he asks questions they jump and wave, even thrust their little waving fingers in his eyes. He recalled one little girl who nearly blinded him and so, afraid she might die, he called on her to answer his question. She looked up at him with a sweet smile and asked, “What?” She just wanted to be recognized, he said.

During Kozol’s talk he discussed one of President Bush’s education catch phrases. Bush often talks about what he calls the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Bush accuses teachers and schools, and the public at large, of this new, more insidious kind of bigotry. As if race had nothing to do with it.

Bush accuses schools and teachers of failing our kids because of low expectations. It seems that Bush doesn’t get teachers. Teachers, in America, do not get into the profession for financial gain or even to earn social status. They teach because they are idealists, at least to start out. The best ones remain idealists despite the odds. Idealists, by definition, have high expectations.

So if teachers and schools don’t suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations, I wonder, then who does have this disease?

“Be not offended, but feel a little threatened,” Kozol intoned from the pulpit. “It is my job to make people feel uncomfortable.”

“Outrage is not in fashion.” Kozol was right on. The American public, even the world today, is too tired to get mad. It is far easier to ignore the problems that do not directly affect us. “We should be outraged at outrageous things,” he said.

And the most outrageous thing in the America right now: Apartheid in our democratic schools. Segregation across America is worse now than at the time of Martin Luther King’s assassination. If you want to see a segregated school, just look for one that is named after a great Civil Rights leader. The student population will be nearly 100% dark-skinned, the teachers will be the most inexperienced and low paid in the district, it will have the largest class sizes, the building will be in ruins and the hallways will reek of depression.

Some say that Kozol’s use of the word “apartheid” is too strong. Apartheid in South Africa was a legal division of the races. Kozol says that in the eyes of children, it doesn’t matter. It is apartheid. It is not a legal mandate, but it is economically and socially enforced.

26 out of 11,000 students in the Bronx are white. (Try saying that out loud.)

“Children are equal in the eyes of the Lord, but not in the eyes of the United States government. . . . they come into the public schools with a price tag stamped on their foreheads,” Kozol claimed. For example, an inner city kid in New York is worth about $8,000 per year (this is what the government spends per pupil), while a kid in the suburbs is worth easily $14,000 and up to $22,000 in the wealthiest areas.

These are separate schools, and unequal.

How can we solve this problem? Kozol related stories of getting stuck at dinner parties with his old Harvard grads. They like him and admire his work for social justice. They might say, "Your last book made me cry." But by the time dessert and coffee are served, they lean back in their chairs and ask, “Can these problems be solved by throwing money at the situation?” This question comes from parents who spend thousands upon thousands to send their own children to private elementary schools.

“Yes!” Kozol says, “Throw it, throw it from a helicopter!”

How can the rich claim that money can’t solve the problem when they throw their own money at their kid’s private education? Even the use of the verb, throw, instead of allocate or even spend, betrays their “soft bigotry.”

Kozol believes in kids. He believes in Pre-K education for all, especially the inner city kids who need it the most so that thy have a hope of passing the standardized tests mandated by the government. He believes in real literature, not merely phonics. He believes in teaching lessons, not merely Standard 267b. He believes in accountability, not merely for kids, but for the government first.

The lecture ended on a personal note. Kozol's father is 99 years-old. He was a leading neurologist in Boston and has been diagnosed by one of his former students with Alzheimer’s. His mother is 101 years-old and still bossy! When she saw the tie he planned to wear on the tour, a navy thing with coffee stains, she said, “Do me a favor. Go to Lord & Taylor’s. Buy yourself a tie and charge it to me.” (He was wearing the tie, by the way.)

Kozol said that his mom is still his best friend. When he was fired for teaching Langston Hughes to his 4th graders, his mom and dad came to the school to march with the parents who protested his departure. He was a Rhodes Scholar fired from teaching the 4th grade due to “curriculum deviation.” His mother marched for him all those years ago, and he can’t bear the thought of losing her now. He ended his speech by concluding, “Life goes so fast, use it well.”

Use it well.

I teach in an affluent, white suburban school. I didn’t mean to. Now I have to consider, carefully, how I use my life, my profession. I want to use it well.

The crowd moved into a meeting room for the signing of books, and coffee and cookies. I didn’t know a soul. I had checked out his book from the Boston Public Library, The Shame of the Nation, and read it before the talk. I hadn’t intended to have him sign anything. But I gave in.

I bought a copy and then tried out little speeches in my head to say to him while he signed it. I had lots of grand, succinct, eloquent things planned out. In the end, I mumbled. He thought I said Philadelphia instead of South Bend. I mumbled some more, put my book in my bag and headed out into the rain. I started the drive back clutching my mapquest directions with my tank on E.

Someday I’ll tell him thank you, properly.

Stoppard, Tom that is, and Me

Last night it was Benoit Mandelbrot, tonight my man was Tom. Tomorrow is the last show of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing (written in 1984) playing at the Huntingtom Theatre Company, directed by Evan Yionoulis. Not that I know Evan, but I thought I should give credit to her for staging such a lovely play.

Tom. What can I say? If you know his plays, and screenplays (not to mention his fiction and nonfiction and just about every word out of his mouth, I’m sure), then you know how it is to be post-Tom. So, at any rate, tomorrow is the last show and I finally got my act together and went online to see if there were seats available. When you look for one ticket, there is always a prime seat stage center so that your single seat status is no secret. Alas. I don’t hate going to plays, movies, dance, whatever alone. But I don’t love it either.

Of course, since it was Tom, all was good. My affair with Tom started back in college when we read his play Arcadia. In the intervening years I saw glimpses of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (I had to leave the theater early for some unfathomable reason). I saw Shakespeare in Love and Enigma, for which he wrote the screenplays. I saw The Invention of Love on Broadway, I think? Or was that in Chicago? I remember the stage set, but I can’t recall the city. Finally, last year, I saw a production of Arcadia at Notre Dame. I adore play analysis, but seeing a play in the flesh is always so much, well, more. So tonight I happily went along to see The Real Thing, even though I had no idea where the plot might take me. Even though it is raining like crazy out there and I had to make the fifteen minute walk in my heels. Okay, so that last part, about the heels, was a choice.

Of course, it was witty and dense with allusions—an English teacher’s wildest dream on stage. The four main characters, who lived in London in the early 1980s, worked through the verbal gymnastics of their relationships as they vaulted over and tumbled across whatever the "real thing" might be, or not be. Lots of quoteable lines, only I can't quite remember them. It is more like I feel them still. I should buy the script of The Real Thing and underline all those bits. The worst part of seeing something great when you are alone is that it seems less great somehow. Darn it.

I am no Stoppard expert and so here is a link or two and a quote for your enjoyment. My advice, if you see a Stoppard play in production: Go.

http://www.geocities.com/stoppard2004/index.html

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Tom_Stoppard/


"I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contra-dicting yourself. I'm the kind of person who embarks on an endless leapfrogdown the great moral issues. I put a position, rebut it, refute it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. Forever. Endlessly." — Tom Stoppard from an interview with Mel Gussow in the New York Times, 26 April 1972.

Charlie Weis

Promise keeper: the last wish of a dying boy
By: Terry Moran
Date: October 2, 2005
From: World News Tonight (ABC News)

(Off Camera) Finally tonight, keeping a promise. There are many great stories about the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame. Stories that wake up the echoes, as the song goes. This is another one. It's a story about a dying boy and his last wish. He wanted to call a play for the Irish football team, in a real game. ESPN's Tom Rinaldi tells us what happened.

TOM RINALDI, ESPN: Almost from the day he was given his name, Montana, after Joe Montana, Montana Mazurkiewicz grew up watching Notre Dame football. From the day he was diagnosed with a brain tumor a year and a half ago, he kept watching. And last week, he asked if a player from the team could visit him at home. The head coach came instead.

MOTHER: The coach walked right past me. And he said, hi, I am Charlie Weis, and Montana's eyes just lit up.

CHARLIE WEIS, NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH: You're looking at a kid that you know is not going to make it. I thought my job was to do all I could to get a smile on his face.

MOTHER: The coach just asked him, what would you, what would you like to do? Would you like to call a play? And Montana said, I'd like to call the first offensive play. Charlie Weis says, well, do you want me to run or pass? And he goes, pass to the right. Not just pass, pass to the right. And the coach just kind of broke out in a sweat, you know?

TOM RINALDI: Just a day and a half after the visit, Montana died in his mother's arms. He was ten years old.

MOTHER: I just held him and sang him the stupid Notre Dame fight song, and then, some other songs that my daughter had written. And I just told him he could rest, it was time to stop fighting, that he could rest now, and that he was my hero.

TOM RINALDI: A day later, the family watched as Notre Dame played. For its first offensive play of the game, the ball rested inside the Notre Dame one yard line.

MOTHER: No way. He's not going to pass it. He's not gonna do it. He can't, he can't make that play.

CHARLIE WEIS: I said, well, we don't have a choice. I said, it's not whether we're going to do it, we don't have a choice, run the play.

ANNOUNCER, MALE: Play action for Quinn. Throws, wide-open, (inaudible). The tight end with a hurdle. Provided a first down.

TOM RINALDI: The play went for 13 yards, but reached much farther, all the way to a family in Indiana, a family in grief.

MOTHER: It was the fact that coach Weis kept his word. That was the big thing, that he kept his word in an almost impossible situation to a ten year-old kid that he didn't even know.

TOM RINALDI: Last Sunday, Weis returned to the house and gave the family the game ball, signed by the entire team. But he knows and they know, it's about more than football. For ABC News, Tom Rinaldi, ESPN.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) Pass to the right.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) That's our report. Tomorrow on "Good Morning America," more on the Lake George boat accident.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) I'm Terry Moran. For all of us at ABC News, have a good week. Good night.

http://newsinfo.nd.edu/content.cfm?topicid=13703

Mandelbrot and Me

Friday night in Boston and the temperature was an unseasonable 70 degrees, relative humidity at about 85%. I had spent the day writing, reading, paying bills and then getting out of the house to exercise at my health club. I rushed home to eat a quick peanut butter sandwich and then dash out the door for my hot Friday night on the town.

I had been to the Museum of Science a few years ago, but had to find it all over again on the T (metro) and then find the right bus/shuttle in service while the last section of the line is repaired. The bus teemed with life. A distinguished old man in a three piece suit sat just in front of me, but he got off several stops before my destination. There was a stunning black woman with her little boy asleep in her arms just next to me. That kid must have had lots of experience sleeping on public transportation. He was out. I spotted a few other people on the bus that I suspected might be heading in the same direction as me. I could just tell. Khaki pants, unkempt skin. Healthy, if a bit pasty.

I was late, mind you. So I dashed across the street with a few others when we arrived. I picked up a ticket at the door and jetted to the Cahners Theater. I was seated and ready to go at 6:59. It was just enough time for the well-heeled woman next to me to strike up conversation. “So, what brings you here tonight?” I explained that I was not a scientist, but had heard of Mandelbrot’s work and so there I was. She and her husband had come to the museum for some other event (I think) but stayed to hear the lecture because, of course, they had read all about complexity theory and had followed its development over the years. Yes, well.

The large crowd, a nearly packed house of at least several hundred, settled down as he was introduced. It was a funny crowd—teenagers in workout clothes, college types, professor types, and your well-educated, well-dressed Bostonian off the street.

So Mandelbrot was my hot date. He didn’t even know that I existed. Typical date, he talked and talked and I just smiled and listened. His two favorite words: astonishing and banal. The title of his talk was “From Cauliflower to Chaos: The Fractal Geometry of Roughness.” And indeed we did get to see cauliflower as well as the Eiffel Tower and a Jackson Pollack canvas as Mandelbrot took us through a very brief tour of the history of fractals. It is all about roughness, I gather. For, well, ever, scientists didn’t know how to measure our rough edges. Mandelbrot had a breakthrough moment, à la Gladwell’s “blink,” and he visualized the solution before he, or others, were able to prove it with mathematics.

His presentation was punctuated with his personal anecdotes about Ligeti, the Hungarian composer, and the Empress of Japan. He is unabashed about his accomplishments and spoke with great joy about his work. He obviously takes great delight in his work, as well as in music and art. Really the kind of man with whom I would gladly share a meal.

After his presentation, he was joined by Christopher Lydon, a host from National Public Radio, who moderated the question-answer period. Many of the questions led Mandelbrot into territory that had too much geometry for me to follow. One person did ask him if there were any applications for fractal theory and Kevin Bacon. Mandelbrot commented that “Yes,” it is called “Fractal Networks and lots of people are making a big business out of it.” And then he moved on to the next questioner. Soon enough the applause sounded and we all headed out the door.

I boarded the shuttle with another colorful crowd and headed off into the sultry night. I am glad that I attended his lecture. He spoke with a Nobel Prize authority that actually got me hot to sign up for a geometry class. After all, it is never too late to finally learn math, right?

Tonight the heat should break and finally the Fall should come rushing in next week. My night with Mandelbrot was a hot and steamy evening in Boston to remember, even if he never gave me a glance.

And just in case you are interested, here is a link to a few of many of Mandelbrot's books

Cookie Dough Ice Cream, Children's Motrin and Stuff on my Reading Shelf

After much debate about whether not it was worth the drive, we did hit the road and make our way up to Stowe, Vermont for the weekend. L. had to give a talk at a conference held there and Dani and I were happy to accompany him.

The weather was perfect and the Fall colors were just beginning to show. Our resort had more stuff than we could have needed: a spa with “Hungarian” mineral bath; a workout facility better than my club here in Boston; pools and a cafe, not to mention two upscale eateries. Dani and I did take advantage of the chess board in the lobby. He beat me. He is ten.

The only damper on events was Dani’s Trojan Horse virus. He looked so sweet and innocent, but carried a hacking cough that erupted at three o’clock in the am our first night there. So far we have not succumbed to his bug, but time will tell. Poor kid sounded worse than he felt, but still we took things easy and didn’t rent bicycles or canoes as we had planned. We did manage to squeeze in a tour at Ben & Jerry’s factory and sample two flavors fresh off the line. We ate amazing pizza at Pie in the Sky and the BEST calzone I have ever had. I could describe it in scrumptious detail, but I am not that cruel.

On Saturday I took Dani to have his first ever fondue—it was a hit. We took two turns zooming down the Alpine slide. We visited the Trapp (as in owned by the family that inspired the movie) resort in search of Austrian cakes. Sadly we arrived at 2pm and the bakery had closed an hour earlier. We took less than an hour and much teamwork to extricate ourselves from the amaizing corn maze. We drank fresh mulled apple cider with our freshly fried apple-cake doughnuts at the Cold Hollow Cider mill. I also put a pin into Hutchinson, Kansas on the map as the first from that town to visit. We stayed up too late to watch Notre Dame beat Purdue on ESPN, which was actually a factor that put us on the road. Our resort had cable, we don’t.

Sunday morning: Dutch pancakes. They were twelve inches around. Only I managed to entirely polish off mine, which was slathered in lemon-compound butter and sprinkled with powdered sugar. The rich dark coffee, two mugs worth, made it all go down smoothly AND kept me awake despite the sheer quantity of blood redirected from my brain to my stomach for digestion. Despite our bellies, we happily stumbled down the recreation path to visit an outdoor sculpture garden near the river (which had these delightful, spontaneous sculptures on the rocky beach) and a farmer's market on our way pack to our resort before we hit the road back to Boston.

Today: back to the gym, I swear.

Reading Record

I recently read these in the search for novels to use with or assign for young adult readers:
Nectar in a Sieveby Kamala Markandaya
Whale Talkby Chris Crutcher
Spider's Voiceby Gloria Skurzynski

The following I read to satisfy my craving for short fiction:
"The Stone Boy" by Gina Berriault (A short story that I would love to teach!)
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson (a classic short story; you can find this story in her her collection of short fiction in The Lottery)
"The Teacher of Literature" a short story by Chekhov

I am reading from this collection for my fiction writing class: O Henry Prize Stories 2005 (a collection of short stories)

What I am reading now and you should expect to hear more about this: The Shame of the Nationby Kozol

Also reading: The Adventures of Augie Marchby Saul Bellow

And I need to find a copy to start reading for October book club: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstressby Dai Sijie

Concert: The White Stripes

The White Stripes. WoW.

We arrived at the Boston Opera House at 7:20 pm to see the 7:30 show. We should have known that there would be an opening band. Time was ours to kill. We sat in the front row of the mezzanine seats, just right of center. The place was bathed in a warm glow from acres of ornate golden plasterwork. Warm chandeliers lined the side walls and the deep red of the seats was a ready sea for White Stripes aficionados. The fans barely trickled in for the opening band. We sat there, mouths agape, as music pounded our eardrums. A drummer and two guitar players pounded and screamed and generally looked and sounded great. Too great. After several rocking tunes abused our bodies, L. glanced at his watch. It had been eight minutes. We felt old. We meekly went to the lavish foyer for a glass of something to dull our senses. I opted for a shot of vodka. It was key.

We sat on a marble step in an empty niche near the impressive bust of Benjamin Franklin Keith (B.F Keith), who commissioned the original building. The tiny plaque beneath his oversized bust had tinier print. We watched people stroll over and squint at it. We watched the crowd descend and ascend the curving staircase in front of us. A rough-around-the-edges crowd. Some fashionistas, but mostly semi-dolled up girls with guys in jeans. A distinctive couple popped up the steps, each with two drinks. They had outwitted the bar line. He had better hair than her, dark and artfully hung across his forehead. They both wore the trendy new pencil thin jeans. They bounced with anticipation. Finally the lights dimmed and the masses headed for their seats.

The mostly empty theater filled up rapidly as we found our seats again. The lovely pencil pants couple had the two seats next to us. They hit their feet and jiggled, in the best sense possible, for almost every tune. At the end of the concert I heard them tell someone that they were over from London for just this one night. See you in London, then, right.

The White Stripes strolled onto the black, white and red stage and it was energy, noise and that relentless and deeply satisfying drum beat for an hour and a half. I have to say they are fucking good. They have these clean lines and a deep, sexual connection to the music they spin. It is fun to watch them. Meg, the drummer, exudes chill. Jack, the other half, exudes pleasure. And then, at about the second song, Jack took off his long black coat and bent down to chat with the front row. He plucked a nine-year-old girl from the row, after a nod from Dad, and got her comfy just behind the piano. That tiny tot enjoyed the entire show from her privileged vantage. When Meg come stage front to sit and play her bongos, Jack held the little girl’s hand and brought her forward. They gave her a tambourine and she happily tamped that thing off beat for two songs. The audience loved this. A punk rocker, doing his own thing, wearing togs from Hot Topic and sporting a razor thin mustache, man of pleasure who can sing to a nine year old like the ultimate cool Dad. It could have been creepy, Michael Jacksonesque, but he was straight level wholesome when he offered his hand and she clutched it having the time of her nine year old life.

Did I mention the noise? WoW. I have never gotten the bazillion decibels thing. I guess this is why I have never really been a concert fan. I prefer the intimacy of a back waters blues bar, where you can see the eyes of the singer and he can, and does, talk to you. Not that the Whites are impersonal. Meg and Jack, formerly married to one another, had an undercurrent of modern love in their stage work that turns intimacy on its head and gives me a kind of hope for all of us.

This White Stripes concert was worth every sacrificed brain cell and any irreparable damage to inner ear drums. I don’t know the first thing about Detroit, garage rock, punk, British pop and couldn’t name a band in the same league as the White Stripes. But I know that they put on a damn good show. And probably once was enough, for me.

September Book Club: The Historian

Warning:

You may want to wait until after you finish the book before you continue. . .

The Historian
By Elizabeth Kostova

Professor Rossi suddenly appeared gray as the humor drained from his eyes. “ ‘Dracula – ” He paused. “Dracula – Vlad Ţepeş – is still alive.’ ”

Indeed Dracula lives. This is the narrator’s “cri de coeur” as she draws the reader into a fast paced tour of libraries and monasteries across the globe. An American man, her father, who I see as less than dashing, joins forces with a Hungarian speaking Romanian to fight evil. The woman, Helen, seeks revenge against her absentee father; he is compelled to rescue his doctoral advisor who has mysteriously disappeared. They fall in love, of course, somewhere between the silver bullets and the archive stacks. It is their daughter who tells the story of adventure, temptation and sacrifice. She has grown into a staid professor herself, but the appearance of a book has caused her to dig into her father’s past and tell the story so that someone out there in the world of books will hear her cry and beware Dracula, who lives and lurks among us.

Kostova presents the hero/devil perspective problem in history. The Wallachians view Vlad as a hero because he held off the Turks and their unholy traditions. The Turks see him as a devil/terrorist who threatens their power. The world sees Dracula as an enemy to the natural order, but Dracula and his minions see humans as fundamentally evil and are willing to “live” with the consequences of this philosophy. In life Vlad was a warrior willing to destroy life to gain/retain power. In death he is willing to take life so that he may pursue the great books in which the “truth” of humanity’s dark side is preserved. What is his ultimate goal? He does not want to gain power over humanity. Rather he sees himself as a guardian of the truth. A painful truth that humanity tries to deny by preserving only the good books and all the while falling victim to their own evil nature in the course of history. So Dracula is a protector of the truth of humanity as evil. While this does not make him redeemable, it does give him a valuable role in humankind. This may explain why he lives among us today, at least in our literary souls.

Kostova presents Dracula's evil as pure ego—pure self interest. Perhaps evil is inherent in human nature, but it is not the predominate trait unless it is cultivated. It can not be set loose easily—except perhaps in large anonymous crowds. If the personal/relational is maintained, then evil energy/power can be sublimated or transformed into harmless activity—sports or competition, or even civilization building. Vlad stopped defending his people and instead fought the faceless/inhuman Turks. In this process he lost control of his evil tendencies and become evil himself.

Yes, Evil exists. Yes, humankind wants to hide or deny this truth. We want to suppress this truth precisely because we cannot conquer evil AND we fear that evil is not a supernatural force (like Dracula) but an intrinsic feature of our humanity. It is the beast inside of us as Golding knew and illustrated in The Lord of the Flies. Kostova hints at this by presenting Helen as Vlad's long distant descendant who carries Vlad’s blood. She gives both his hidden genetic evil and the more pressing contamination of her vampire wound to her daughter, our narrator. The beast is inside of her, but perhaps it is not inside of all of us. So, like the narrator, we must confront the possibility that we have inherited evil or that we could be contaminated at any time by a sudden or subtle attack. We must learn to live with this knowledge. Perhaps this is why the narrator never marries. The novel supports the idea that family and love are worth protecting from evil, even at great personal sacrifice. Yet the narrator does not marry or have a family in the end. Instead she has devoted her time to research, uneventful travel, her students and friends, writing innocuous historical accounts and university politics. This could be a plot device to free up the narrator to fight evil in a sequel perhaps.

Kostova’s novel is timely, and not because of the tension between the West and East. Specialists in America knew that the a sizable population of poor and elderly people in New Orleans would not be able to afford escape or be physically unable to help themselves in the event of the inevitable Hurricane. Yet nothing was done to effectively solve this problem. I suspect that much of the population provided the work force to support more affluent tourists in the city. Their labor was necessary to support the city’s lucrative tourist trade. Thus we had the intellectual power to see the problem, but lacked the will to do it. Is this not inherent evil? To see injustice and stand aside? Did that population really have a choice about living there? Were there excellent public schools to empower them to choose their careers? Did they have healthcare to empower them physically to pursue a productive career? They suffered in life and eked out meager lives alongside our quaint picture of New Orleans. Now they are exiles and many have paid with their lives.

So is evil out there or in here? That is the question. As we grow more global, the truth may be that evil grows along with our collective humanity. Perhaps evil grows in strength as we give our will into the collective. Evil grows in crowds. Or at least the potential for mass evil grows as we lose our sense of moral responsibility and become anonymous.

Love flourishes where two or three are gathered. Evil reigns when we forget that we are human—animals, really—who are made of meat and can be reduced to meat and in the eyes of a man turned butcher such as the various Vlads of the world today.

Burning Questions
(and some possible answers or at least page references)

1. Why couldn’t the librarian find Dracula himself? Why did he have to follow the others? Did Dracula not want him to get at his library? Probably he was not a good enough scholar. Part of the deal is that you have to prove your undead self to Dracula by actually finding him.

2. What happened to Massimo?

3. Why was Barley there except to add a bit of romance? They don’t end up together in the end? Will he come back in a sequel?

4. What was the deal with the bibliography? Was Dracula leading these scholars in their research in order to document his evil deeds? Why add their names to the list except as a way to brag or lure further scholars?

5. Why does Dracula have his tombs (his homes) in monasteries? What is Kostova trying to say with this choice? Is it merely the surprise of it? Evil hidden inside of goodness? Are good and evil often confused or hard to distinguish—for example when the narrator is confused about whether she sees an altar or a sarcophagus in France? Note: Dracula becomes a vampire by acquiring the knowledge from monks in the West who have written it in a book. See page 640.

6. What exactly is Dracula researching? He has two tasks for Rossi: catalogue AND make new acquisitions…perhaps he is still researching the occult?

7. How was Master James involved? Who was Elsie? See page 625.

8. Why was Helen’s old boyfriend, Geza Joszef, looking for Dracula? To destroy him or somehow join his minions? I think he wanted to destroy him. But I don’t think he got a book. Somehow he is defending Hungary, but is not personally invested in the search for Dracula. Maybe he represents the disinterested State or the vestiges of the historical attempts to conquer Vlad.

9. What is the point of defeating death if life after death is so grotesque? What is Dracula after? Why is he willing to be undead? What is Dracula’s ambition? He says that the world is changing and that he intends to change with it. Does this mean that evil as we know it will morph into a more evil form? Is Kostova hinting that the modern clash between East and West is the continuation of the same battle fought by Vlad?

10. Is Dracula a hero because he protects the truth as he sees it?

11. Dracula needs someone to catalogue his collection: thus he is not a genius, a creative thinker. He needs help. Is this humility? Laziness? Does evil always need minions? Note: Dracula does have “magic” or supernatural powers—the food and travel, names appearing on documents, changing shape, etc.

12. Is Dracula a librarian or a historian? He collects books—all kinds with no canon. A historian uses books and texts to understand the past and shed light on human nature. Dracula has no perspective on the past—he is still in or of it. He does not see both sides of the issue. He is not a historian; rather he collects texts that humans want to suppress. This makes him a collector or a preservationist, not a historian.

13. What is the significance of the narrator getting the book in the end? Is Dracula still alive and distributing his books? What was the function of those books in the first place? Were they temptations?

14. What is the point of pursuing Dracula if he cannot be destroyed (as the novel indicates) and if the pursuit destroys families and lives?

Quotes and Memorable Language:

“As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward with its shadowy claw.”

“It’s the reward of the business, to look history in the eye and say, ‘I know who you are. You can’t fool me.’”

“But history, it seemed, could be something entirely different, a splash of blood whose agony didn’t fade overnight, or over centuries.”

“The Dracula of Stoker’s imagination had a favorite sort of victim: young women.”


“I was becoming wise in the way of the story.” --narrator, 78

“The dragon was our protector,
But now we defend ourselves against him.” --folk song

“I know the modern world. It is my prize, my favorite work.” --Dracula

“I became an historian in order to preserve my own history forever.” --Dracula

“With your unflinching honesty, you can see the lesson of history,” he said. “History has taught us that the nature of man is evil, sublimely so. Good is not perfectible, but evil is. Why should you not use your great mind in service of what is perfectible?” --Dracula

“Together we will advance the historian’s work beyond anything the world has ever seen. There is no purity like the purity of the sufferings of history. You will have what every historian wants: history will be reality to you. We will wash our minds clean with blood.” --Dracula

Fun Links

Meet the Author: an online video of Kostova discussing her novel: http://www.meettheauthor.com/bookbites/599.html

Online NPR interview with Kostova: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4730352

Anita Diamant: The Last Days of Dogtown

We were late. We had been told that our reservations could not be held past 7:00 pm. We arrived at 7:10 and thank goodness there was a table down front and directly to the podium’s left. Diamant was enjoying her dinner at the table next to us. She was seated in my line of vision and just cattycorner to L. We recognized her from her portrait on the book jacket. The Attic has a raised stage at one end that places the diners at the feet of the speaker. Tables clustered close to the stage and fans gathered at the bar to the rear of the room. Altogether the tiny place held about seventy guests. Intimate.

I ordered a martini, a classic one with vodka and olives. L. ordered a Blue Moon, one of the twenty beers they offer on tap. He ordered a seafood sampler for us to share: crab cakes, catfish and calamari. The drinks came just as a distinguished lady sat down behind me. She had eaten downstairs because she didn’t know that dinner was available stage side. She was Helen, a retired psychoanalyst. She had read Diamant's best seller The Red Tentand given it away for birthdays, Christmas gifts or any occasion at all. She was from the area, but had never been to one of Newtonville’s events. She came to see Diamant. We chatted. Right now she is reading a whole stack of anti-Bush books that her friends send her. She also has an anti-feminist book, just to see what they have to say. She leaned into me as we spoke and often put her hand on my arm and leaned her ear close to my mouth. She was an instant, if fleeting, bookish friend.

Diamant is a local and Newtonville is her local book shop. She extolled her audience to cherish local book stores as she does. Helen assumed that I was Jewish and started to discuss
the emergence of ritual bathing places for woman after they finish their menses that sprang up in the area after The Red Tent was published. Imagine that: fiction recovering history and then materializing into the present. You have to admire that. I asked Helen if I would be allowed to bath there, but she didn’t get a chance to answer.

I had purchased Diamant’s The Last Days of Dogtownlast week in Boston and finished it over the weekend. I had no idea that September 13th, the day of the reading, was actually the official publication date. Diamant told us that she was pleased to be “at home” to celebrate the event. She read the author’s note and shared the genesis of the novel. Eight years ago she came across a pamphlet about Dogtown (never the official name of the town) and slipped it into a file knowing that someday she wanted to write a novel about it. She then researched the history of the era—the clothes, language and food. She read a few passages that focused on the characters of Cornelius and Easter before she took questions.

Most of the audience had not yet had a chance to read the novel. Most of the questions were about her creative process. She was asked about her current reading and the authors she admires. She is reading now about Katrina and the aftermath as well as a British novel. She named among her favorite writers M.F.K Fisher. I did ask her to speak about the character Ruth. It turns out that Ruth was mentioned in the historical record, but that the narrative she created was pure fiction. The pamphlet about the historical town merely mentioned some of the people who were remembered to have been residents. She used these as seeds for her character studies.

Similar to The Red Tent, Diamant explores what it means to be on the outside of the main historical narrative. Her characters are pushed to the edge of acceptable society, yet they do not suffer there necessarily. Although set in early America, this is no Little House on the Prairie, where the characters struggle with right and wrong. In Dogtown the characters are already deemed wrong and therefore bad by the city folk. They are judged, but not condemned. They are able to join the ranks of the respectable if they choose.

After the reading the organizers asked us if they could use our table for the author to sign books. I would have been reticent to have her sign my book. I know too well my tendency to blubber. But being asked to move meant that we were automatically first in line. I asked an organizer if I could pilfer the poster announcing the event off the podium. An autographed poster would be perfect for my workstation or my classroom. Diamant thanked me for asking a question about the novel, one of the first she has gotten. I couldn’t help but tell her in as few words as possible that The Red Tent was our book club’s first selection and how it had galvanized our group and led to years of fruitful reading. Just a tiny bit of blubber, but sincere.

I clutched my signed poster and book as we left. We floated through a perfect end-of-summer night toward the little shops that line Newton’s centre. Ice-cream was on L.’s mind and I was happy to end the evening by sharing a rich concoction at the Stone Creamery.

Garrison Keillor

My father tuned to 90.1 fm, the public radio station, as we drove from Hutchinson to Newton to visit our grandma. We made the trip every Sunday after 11:00 mass. Sleepy Sunday in the interval between mass and grandma’s fresh and hot lunch taxed the stomachs of the Kelley kids. We had grown used to the drive and had our games to occupy us for stretches at a time. We spotted out-of-state license plates. We held our collective breath as we passed tidy prairie cemeteries. Our eyes glued to the horizon so that we could be the first to spot several landmarks. “One more corner, I said it first!”

Later we would bring books, gadgets or tiny treasures too. The radio became a hot zone for tense negotiation. Soon enough we longed to turn the dial higher up the fm frequency to hear the Top Forty countdown get closer to number one. Dad had no ear or patience for our music. Instead he favored classical music and gently extolled the benefits it had on human intelligence. It took work to create and listening to it edified the mind and soul. We groaned, but he held sway. Often we would be on the road at the right time to catch Garrison Keillor’s weekly radio show, The Prairie Home Companion. Garrison’s voice soothed our nerves. We stopped our fidgets and listened. He was funny without a laugh track. You had to really listen to get his quirky take on American life in the Midwest. I liked being in on the story.

I lost track of Garrison somewhere around sixteen years old, and then found his show again after college. Now I had dishes to do and laundry to fold during the broadcast. I took to carrying a small radio between the kitchen and basement as I went about my tasks. I even crocheted heavy, uneven stitches to the news from Lake Woebegone. The same vignettes made new every week, thousands of times. It was like getting a postcard from a real place each week. The characters had lives in parallel with mine. My own life seemed ripe for humor too if only I had a story teller to help me see the folly of my foibles and the pretense of my triumphs.

I longed to see the show. Before long it was one of my few articulated life dreams. “The man is as jewel, an American treasure,” I was known to profess at dinner parties. He tells stories and we sit by the radio immersed in the sound of his voice. Who else can claim us like him? His other program, The Writer’s Almanac, gives America one good poem a day. Is that not the measure of a good deed? I bought his anthology of good poems and it seemed that his voice was there giving cadence and texture to poems that might otherwise have fallen flat.

So when I heard that he was bringing his show to the Kansas State Fair in my hometown, it had already been decided. I would go. I would try to bring my betrothed, who was able to attend in the end. I would pay any price. Garrison and Pronto Pups were almost too much to bear.

The show started precisely at 5 pm and indeed it was live. The Kansas wind was relentless. It cooled us and kept the porcine odors headed due North instead of choking us. It must have been a tyrant to Garrison though. Yet, the wind whipping across the plains is Kansas and this is his gig. Local flavor is his thing. The musicians were talented. Guy Noir spiced up with a guest appearance of the Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius, playing herself. They performed the English Major skit, a personal favorite. And then Garrison settled himself on the faux front porch and brought us the the News from Lake Woebegone. He wove a strange tale that episode, but kept the eight thousand spectators as rapt as little ones at bedtime.

I looked around and watched my fellow Kansans as they listened. It was odd to be in public with my hands still while Garrison weaved his tale. I felt vulnerable in a new way. My private pleasure in his story was now radically public. That voice, deep and slow and tinged with delight, calmed my unease. That voice telling tall tales over the years has shaped me into a Midwest girl who knows that stories come from ordinary folk and nourish us along with our daily bread.

Red Sox v. Angels

I vowed to have all the right Red Sox gear—hat with brim appropriately worn and curved over the eyes and baseball jersey—before we went to our first game. Alas. I was out scoping the city and had found myself in Chinatown when L. called. He was on his way home from work and was passing the scalpers at Fenway Park. We decided to go for it.

In true Eastern European style he paid only $5 over the ticket price for two seats. We found out later that Red Sox tickets are the most expensive tickets in the baseball market. He had no idea what constituted a good seat, but we had seats and it was less than an hour until the first pitch. I hurried home and my usually comfortable blue rubber Crocs rubbed raw spots on the tops of my feet, but I didn’t want to slow down and be late for the fun. I was hungry too, but ate only an apple in anticipation of the ball park goodies.

When we converged at the house, L. had already donned his red t-shirt, but I settled for a green t-shirt, jeans and comfortable shoes. We made it to the park on time (about 20 minutes walking), found our seats and settled in for the event. Our seats were straight down the first base line all the way out past the yellow foul line. It was field level, but just across from the bull pen. We were happy. In fact, it was perfect. The weather was pristine. I hardly needed the light sweater I had brought and a breeze kept the American flag fluttering at half mast to honor the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

We had it all: beers, foot-long hotdogs (with mustard, raw onion and relish, oh my!), a few peanuts from our friendly neighbors (who have a four-year son adopted from Korea with the pictures to brag about him), the friendly drunk a few seats over, the rowdy drunks who got thrown out, fly balls in our direction, a homerun, the seventh-inning stretch, we sang “take me out the ball game,” Wally the frog mascot came by to spread good cheer and of course several rounds of the Wave. Not to mention a 6 – 3 Red Sox victory over the Anaheim Angels.

I still plan to get a hat.

Happenings Around Town

I am officially stimulated. I stroll the streets in the Back Bay and feel a real fear to enter the endless boutiques and eateries, not to mention the high-end organic food stores and condomworld. There is too much here. The sidewalks are flooded with college types--pudgy around the middle with bosooms to the wind. Strange, yet sad. Oddly comforting.

So first things first, the house. I spent yesterday on the phone with plumbers, architects, real estate agents, Dani, and my sister as along the way we determined that our kitchen sink drains into the bedroom of the tenant below. Charming. I also learned that last year there was a "rat problem" that has been "temporarily solved." Luckily I do not fear rats. Of course I have never lived with them. I discovered that the garden behind the house is lovely, however. It was even on the Back Bay garden tour this year. Come and have tea with me before the weather turns too bitter and the rats come home to sit by the fire!

Events: of course, now I get the whole Red Sox thing. We can hear Fenway park when it is in a tizzy. So we shall get tickets, eat peanuts and drink beer while I struggle in vain to explain why the batter gets a free base if the pitcher hits him. Baseball appears simple, but this is true only if you have grown up in a country that has it in its blood. We rob it of its metaphors for goodness sake. Do the Brits have cricket metaphors? I promise to buy us Boston Sox garb for the event. Here are my burning questions: Why Red? Why S-o-x and not socks?

Other events: we are headed to Newtonville for an author reading. Book Club get jealous: Anita Diamant of The Red Tent will be there to read and sign her new book, The Last Days of Dog Town: A Novel. I picked up the new novel last night and have already tucked into the first several chapters. A world away from The Red Tent, but I'll reserve comments until I have more to say about it!

Other fun stuff: We are trying to get tickets to the White Stripes concert in a few weeks. They will play in the Boston Opera House, of all places.

And before either Anita or the Whites there is Garrison Keillor, the American Jewel, at the Kansas State Fair.

Yes, it does feel like the Fall of Rome.

Bostonland

It is a foreign land, I know it. When I enter the walk-in closet, complete with toilet and sink, my sinuses contract and air escapes only in robust sneezes that clear all rational thought from my brain. I was forced to locate the local drugstore and buy allergy medications. Give thanks to the pharmaceutical gods! After dining on clam chowda for lunch and fresh fruits and vegetables from the Haymarket for dinner, I was devastated to find my bowels in utter spasms. I ventured out once again to the drugstore for Pepto-Bismol. Praise be to the gods of the pink tablets now in cherry flavor! The odd thing about this foreign country, called Boston, is that so many people speak English. I am surprised to hear my native tongue spill out of so many mouths. And they sound and look so Americanish. It is a strange land—the future is here.

Seriously our new digs are too good to be true. We are a block from Newbury Street and the sheer number of restaurants, salons, and boutiques gives me the shivers. The people on the street range from average Joe to diva fashionista. Even on Labor Day weekend there are people on the streets at all hours and music thumps from bars with brawny door guards who are ready to wave you in or toss you out.

Yet our spacious, high-ceilinged apartment is deadly silent. Few cars use our little thoroughfare. The cicadas and the frogs and the birds of Indiana are missed at night. Luckily the sunshine still greets us at dawn.

Packing and New Reading Selections

It is done. I have boxed 1997 - 2001. I have labeled by batches and created a 6 page Word document with a timeline of major life events. The next step: select and print our prime photos from our 2002 - 2005 digital files and paste them into the albums I have started. From this point forward we only print those photos that make us more beautiful than life or, at least, less hideous than at that moment. Conclusions:

1) I have distinct cute and noncute phases that last months at a time (turquoise-blue hair was cute, while white-blond was more shocking less cute);
2) the cute phases do in fact correspond to phases in which I exercise;
3) we are definitely getting cuter as we mature; and
4) caffeine and stress cause one's skin to bloat (as I sit here and sip my morning cup).

The next major project as we prepare to move: the piles of important papers. Find a nook; it is already stuffed with dusty documents that need to be kept. There is no logic to which these disparate piles will succumb. It is good that I did the pictures first because the process humbled me and took the edge off my perfectionist itch.

The Final Countdown has begun. It is less than a week until we get in the car and head East. I am in a kind of tharn state. A deer frozen in headlights. I do not deal well with down time. I need the deadline to be within 72 hours before I can actually place a perfectly folded pair of slacks into a box. Blogging is a good salve. So are dinner parties.

Reading, of course, is the ultimate band aid. Alas, I am too pressured to pack and party to really relax between the pages of a hefty novel. I have started The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which is our book club selection for September. I know, I know. I will be in Boston as they gather over this tome. But I do plan to read their selections and participate in spirit and blog when possible. As I sunk my dollars into a new copy of The Historian (I think the public library here would appreciate the late fee I would accrue, but it would be cheaper to buy the darn thing), I also bought a copy of 1776 by David McCullough. I have heard rave reviews about this book. Since I am heading to Boston, I thought I best brush up on all things Americana. The Historian and 1776 together weigh about 3 pounds and will serve as nice door stops in our new abode.

In lighter reading, I read The Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte on the plane/bus ride back from Europe. It is all about a powerful woman and the drug trade on two continents. Shortly after we returned to the Bend, there was a huge news scandal about a marijuana field near by that was raided. It brought the intrigue of the novel to real life.

August Book Club: Master Butchers Singing Club

Yesterday evening was my last book club meeting for quite some time. I am in complete denial that part of moving to Boston and having a great adventure means leaving these treasures behind. I trust that they will continue to laugh and delve into great stories, which is reassuring. I feel good just knowing that they exist, truly.

I brought along a friend, the wondertastic Ms. L, to introduce her to the group and see if the chemistry is good. The molecules seemed to collide and create just enough heat to liven things up for all involved. It is all about random collisions.

The evening began with dinner: sausage, in homage to Fidelis, ratatouille, as a nod to Eva's lush garden, fresh bread and a wonderfuly herbed salad. The apple tart and vanilla ice cream nodded toward the immigrants growing roots in North Dakato. A feast, to be sure. We dug in and caught up and nearly choked as L. recounted the basic premise of The Aristocrats, a new documentary. A hoot at the dinner table.

After dinner we tucked into a lively discussion of The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdich. We had read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by the same author as a group a while ago. This work immerses the reader into the intimate everyday details of life in Argus, read: small town, North Dakota. The events span the two world wars and in fact war and the violence lurking just below the routine of our daily lives seem to be linked here. Delphine never experienced a battle field, but she had seen horror and senseless death. Reckless death and reckless life balance and often our lives veer toward one or the other despite all good intentions to remain upright. Erdich reminds us in this quiet novel that it is the songs we sing and the rituals we observe before death that matter. When the songs end, we are dead.

Quotes and Memorable Language:

"Eva sipped her coffee. Today, her hair was bound back in a singular knot, the sides rolled in smooth twists, the knot itself in the shape of the figure eight, which Delphine knew was the ancient sign for eternity. Eva rose and turned away, walked across the green squares of linoleum to punch some risen dough and cover it with towels. As Delphine watched, into her head there popped a strange notion: the idea that perhaps strongly experienced moments, as when Eva turned and the sun met her hair and for that one instant the symbol blazed out, those particular moments were eternal. Those moments actually went somewhere. Into a file of moments that existed out of time's range and could not be pilfered by God.

Well, it was God, wasn't it, Delphine's thoughts went on stubbornly, who made time and created the end of everything? Tell me this, Delphine wanted to say to her new friend, why are we given the curse of imagining eternity when we know we can't experience it, when we ourselves are finite? She wanted to say it, but suddenly grew shy, and it was in that state of concentrated inattention that she met Eva's husband, Fidelis Waldvogel, master butcher."

"Life was a precious feat of daring, she saw, improbable as Cyprian balancing, strange as a feast of slugs."

"Who are you is a question with a long answer or a short answer."

"All around her, she felt how quickly things formed and were consumed. How there was so much blind feeling. It was going on beyond the wall of her sight, out of her control."

" 'There is plan, eine grosse Idee, bigger than the whole damn rules. And I always known it. Bigger than the candles in church. Bigger than confessionals, bigger than the Sacred Host.' She crossed herself. 'I do not know what it is. But big. Much more big.' " . . . . ' Our brains are just starting the greatness, to learn how to do things like flying. What next? You will see, and you will see that your mother is of the design. . . . Nothing can get rid of me because I am already included in the pattern.' '"

"Hey, I've got news for you. Everyone does everything to fill the emptiness."

"She lived with an invented force."

"A new story would develop. Delphine's story. Could she bear it?"

"She hadn't exactly feared the word contentment, but had always associated it with a vague sense of failure. To be discontented had always seemed much richer a thing."

"Time was an army marching like the butchers onto the stage. Time was a singing club whose music was smoke and ash."

"Some said the ghost dancers believed that those shirts would protect them against bullets, but Step-and-a-Half knew the dancers were neither stupid or deluded. They just knew something that is, from time to time, forgotten except by the wind. How close the dead are. One song away from the living."

"Our songs travel the earth. We sing to one another. Not a single note is ever lost and no song is original. They all come from the same place and go back to a time when only the stones howled. Step-and-a-Half hummed in her sleep and sank deeper into her own tune, a junker's piled of tattered courting verse and hunter's wisdom adn the utterances of itinerants or words that sprang from a bit of grass or a scrap of cloud or a prophetic pig's knuckle, in a world where butchers sing like angels."

For more information about Erdich and her newest novel The Painted Drum, visit her website.

Back in the Bend

Details have sucked me deeply into a black hole. The trip home from Budapest was relatively uneventful, though I did run into a very good friend on the last leg of the trip. Do you ever find yourself in the middle of an Indian forest spotting monkeys and yet have the feeling that someone you know will show up around the next tree? Well, this actually happened when I saw M. sitting patiently on the bus from Chicago to South Bend. We simply could not have planned such an encounter.

At any rate, I am tres busy trying to organize the house, my health insurance, clean the basement, purge useless pairs of sweatpants, see the dentist and systemitize eight years + of photos. Luckily we switched to digital at that point. I am decidedly inept at scrapbooks, so these treasures are being diligently sorted by date and filed in boxes with labels. It is the best I can do and it is driving me crazy. I am also trying to apply for jobs in Boston and enroll in a writing class. Anyone out there who needs an English Teacher or knows of a good writing community. . . I am open to suggestions.

The Bend is good. Those of you who who are SMCers/Domers will be suprised when you return for this Fall's football games. There have been major construction and road changes.

A New Address

Boston: The not-too-distant future. This is the apartment that we shall call home for the academic year 2005 - 2006. In a few short weeks we will pack up enough clothes for the year into my RAV4 and settle into Boston, a new city for me.

Budapest Nights

Gastronomical Review

Yesterday's entry was a bit premature. We had looked forward to a quiet and relaxing day, but events followed a different course. Our only official plans for the day included a late lunch/early dinner at 4pm.

We arrived at around 8 o'clock am Budapest time by train. We came directly to our residence and had coffee and juice while we relaxed and showered. Around 11 we headed up the stairs to the Ruszwurm cafe for "breakfast." L. has been in the habit of eating their kremes cake, a thick layer of vanila creme between pastry shells, for a morning snack. I gave in and had a tepertos pogi, a bacon enhanced biscuit. We then strolled down to the city and shopped and I entered my first blog of that day, which was mostly a recap of previous events. We eventually crossed the Danube into Pest and there we continued shopping, but my caffeine and bacon high was crashing and so we headed for our second snack: gelato for me and chestnut creme for him. Just for the record, this was our second dessert of the day and it was about 3:30.

We then found our way to Bagolyvar, an upscalish place connected to the famous Gundel, which neither of us had even visited before. The restaurant is located next to the city park and zoo and the sidewalks were crowded with loads of people out for a Sunday stroll. We met a few friends, new and not so new, for lunch. The food was traditional magyar fare. I ordered turkey cooked on a scewer with prunes wrapped in bacon, which is not something nagymama would make but still quite meaty. Prunes wrapped in bacon, then grilled. Genius. The conversation raced at top speed and I must be fully primed because I understand 99% of it! We then ordered dessert. I ordered noodles with poppyseed. So simple, so beautiful.

After our friends left for the opera (that is why we met so early), we quickly made our way to the lanchid (the chain bridge) to meet a Greek friend who is a prof at MIT. He was passing through Budapest on his way home to eat fresh figs for the rest of the summer. Luckily he was a camera fiend and hopefully we will have some nice shots to upload of our journey by foot around the castle district. He hadn't had any cake while in Budapest, so of course we had to take him to the Café Gerbaund, which though touristy is still a fine place. We ordered five or six cakes and shared. It was a meal to be remembered. Count it up: dessert four times in twelve hours. I have truly never felt so svelte.

Back in Budapest

This trip was been shadowed by the passport gods. L. made two trips to Bucarest to arrange his identity card in order to renew his Romanian passport. He got ALL the correct papers, signed here and there, paid the fees and . . . no passport. It turns out that some office in Bucarest was supposed to send a number of some sort and they did not. As I sit here in this sultry internet cafe, L. sits in the overcrowded, frenetic Romanian police headquarters on the off chance that the number will arrive before closing time. He did arrange for the Hungarian embassy to give him a paper that allows him to enter Hungary. So, it looks like we will leave for Hungary on Saturday night, arriving Sunday morning. That gives L. exactly one day to arrange for a Hungarian passport before we fly out on Tuesday. Ugh.

Somewhat appropriately I have been reading Chekov's short stories this week. Someone told me at some point that all you ever needed to know about the short story as a genre was found in Chekov. Frankly I was afraid of him. I thought I had to be in a classroom with brilliant minds to understand his work. Alas. I actually have about three different things I am reading, which I am not in the habit of doing. I suddenly realized that I have a huge stack of readables and a dwindling about of time.

Can you believe that 20 minutes before the police office closed, they gave L. his Romanian passport? It looks as if we will return all together after all! His mother theorized that they had it all along but were hoping that L. would bribe them or make a little offering before they passed it over. That is the way it works here, not all of the time, but often.

We are now in Budapest and L. and I are in a bookstore/internet cafe. We are recovering from our long, long train ride. We all grimaced when two little boys entered our couchette, but it turns out that they were very sweet and quite entertaining on the ride here. Their mother even recoginzed L. because they grew up in the same town, though she was quite a bit younger. Our last few days in Csik were quiet. We tried to go to a movie, but the 8 pm showing was cancelled due to lack of guests. It turns out that at least 5 tickets must be sold. We had heard that they would run the movie if one person buys all five tickets. We got there three minutes late, however, and the ticket guy had already made the executive decision to return home for a few hours before the ten pm show. The last afternoon we drove out to a valley with a little river to cook out. We went mushroom hunting, but we did not find too many. It was my first time at such sport.

Not too much else to report on, although I can think of so many things I did not write about cocerning life in Transilvania. Perhaps later. Today and tomorrow will be busy as we do last minute errands and shopping here in Budapest. Luckily we are staying in a quiet residence on the castle away from the hustle and bustle. D. is staying with his aunt and cousin outside the city. A bit of quiet before the long flight home and our reintroduction to life in the midwest.

Poems: Salty and Sweet

Today I feel like poetry. The sun is brilliant and the not-too-distant mountains stand out sharply beneath the blue sky and a smattering of ice-white clouds. From inside it looks warm, but I wear a turtleneck sweater under my jacket. Now this is the summer time weather I know for this valley. Gone is the heat that nearly smothered me.

I am far from the sea, but somehow the elemental nature of this place seems right for a poem that uses salt to talk about love. South Bend, Indiana, if one would dare to compare apples and oranges, knows nothing about the salt of the earth. It is so simple, this poem. Why didn't I think of it?

If you like this poem by Lisel Meuller, or even if you don't!, visit http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/. Ted Kooser, our current poet laureate, has put together this site and publishes little poems-not his own-along with a short commentary. I heard Kooser read from his newest bookthis past fall. He seemed surpised at the audience's rapture. The man wrote poetry at 4 am for years while he sold insurance by day. Talk about salt of the earth; just look at his face.

Love Like Salt

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

Reprinted from "Alive Together: New and Selected Poems" (LSU Press, 1996) by permission of the author. Poem copyright © 1996 by Lisel Mueller. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
For more poetry, check out this poem by Kooser:

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

And here is one of my favorites from Kooser:

Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

A Sunday in Csik

The rain started ten minutes before the fabled Illes concert was to begin on Friday night. It poured. Luckily we had stored away three ponchos that we had purchased for a trip to India last summer. It was monsoon season in India, but we never had to use them and they were still in their crisp packages. One loses all dignity in the rain; the three of us in ponchos had dry heads but the mountain-going Hungarians here seemed to grimace when they saw us. L. said they were jealous; I was sure we were the laughingstock of the town. Despite the rain, we faithfully stood in "Freedom Square" and I was impressed by the band. I must say the music was good and I even knew a few tunes. We had had visions of drinking beer until the wee hours of the morning, but our wet pant legs did us in.

Saturday we toured the city and enjoyed the festival before lunch. There was am impressive gulyas cooking contest. Think chile cook off. Different cities and organizations had bubbling cauldrons of their secret recipes. Do not think macaroni and ground beef. Gulyas is a soup with beef, potato, paprika and lots of other vegetables. There was even the "world's largest" pot simmering. I have photos of this that I hope to upload one day. We ran into some friends there who were leaving that afternoon to drive to Greece for vacation. Think about that.

We resisted the tempting smells and headed home to enjoy nagymama's home cooking: meat soup, beef, mashed potatoes, cucumber salad, and watermelon for dessert. It was worth it. Meat soup loses something in translation. It actually has no meat. It is cooked with beef and vegetables, but served only with thin noodles. The beef is the second course. The vegetables and leftover beef are then diced and mixed with a homemade mayonnaise into a salad for the next day.

Later L. awoke me from my afternoon nap (I've had a napping relapse) and we got gussied up to go to a gallery opening. We have these three artist friends in town who have had an "open studio" where they work and people can just drop in for a drink of palinka and a smoke (first or second hand, your choice). We have three small paintings by one of the artists, Janosi Antal, in our dining room (think psycho potatoes in a triptych). At any rate, they have just converted their open studio into a bona fide modern art gallery and museum. They gave speeches. Then a little barefoot man in a scary gas mask and a black robe performed. He had a map of Romania affixed to a meat grinder. His buddy played loud, eery music that grated the audience's nerves while he pushed beef through the grinder. The raw meat oozed through the cities of Romania. This symbolized how art is treated in Romania. Later I saw the little man who must have been the performance artist enjoying the abundant refreshments. I kept wondering if he had washed his hands. I grow maternal.

It is Sunday now and the rain is relentless. The city festival ends today, but the rain has already finished off the good spirits. People droop as they stroll and the heavenly smell of kurtos kolach (a bread covered in sugar and grilled over hot coals on a tube) is overpowered by wet dog. Kurtos kolach, by the way, is yet another food of the gods. I had a scheme years ago to try and sell it in America. I still think it would fly off the steaming hot wooden tube.

More family has arrived for a few days and the tiny apartment that is so cozy has become congested with damp socks and little boys shut in by the rain. You know the boredom level is pretty serious when even Game Boy has lost its allure. I finished reading Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang today, which was interesting to read here in this formerly Communist country. I also read Harry Potter Six this week. I had been reluctant to dive into Harry; I hadn't read the fifth one (sh! don't tell). I gave in mostly because D. and L. had both read it and had been whispering about it continuously. It is a quick read and worth it to keep a young reader enthralled with fiction. I'm not sure what I'll read next...I have been reading the Atlantic's fiction edition as a filler. At some point I will read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburger, which is a required summer reading for our resident 5th grader. I might revisit the Master Butchers Singing Club--make note of its memorable language and ponder its themes. Gots to get ready for Book Club this month! We will be back in the States in time for my August meeting. In fact we will probably leave Romania and return to Budapest on Friday. Then we will fly back to the States on Tuesday morning, a week and a day from now.

Incidently, if want to learn more about Csik and Transilvania, check out the Ballad of the Whisky Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hocky, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein. My Dad has read it and passed it along to my mother. The hero is from the very city I sit in now. It is a TRUE story, but you won't believe this guy's life. It gives a fairly accurate account of life for Hungarians in this region of Romania. Highly entertaining.

"City Days" Festival

After five days of morning tennis lessons I have bronzed a bit on my shoulders, roughened up my palms and realized that I need many more lessons to even hope to compete with the 4 feet tall 9-year-olds who I am too embarrased to play because they are so powerful. Alas. This morning's lesson was especially difficult for me as I had trouble sleeping and woke too late to properly drink my coffee before heading off to the courts. Luckily we have no lessons on the weekend and so I get a little break.

The "City Days" Festival has started here in Csik. The huge attraction this year is a concert tonight by Illes, the equivalent of the Beatles in Hungary. This is their farewell tour and all of Transilvania is headed here for the big event. I can't tell you how many aged rockers and pop stars I see peform. I don't go to many concerts in the States, and so I don't have much to compare the experience with. Here the performers seems to last and last. The band that performs tonight must be in their sixties. I'm not sure why this makes the experience more surreal.

The city is packed with stands selling all the local specialities: lots of meat and beer. Actually Romania's most popular beer is made right here in this town and of course it is everwhere. It is not to my particular liking, nonetheless when one is Csik, the Csiki beer is the way to go. By the way, Csik is pronounced, "cheek" and Csiki is "chicky." Now you know.

Okay, time is up at the Internet Cafe!