In the middle ages an Anchoress was a woman who lived in a small, sealed room inside a church;she would have visual access to the Sanctuary and to Holy Communion. Usually there was also a small side window at which she could converse with visitors, receive foods, etc. As a shy sort of person who prefers to hang in the background, the persona suits.
Consider this my window. Instead of passing me food, comments will do! I ask only that you be civil, because I do believe that decent people can disagree and still be decent people.
All posts are copyrighted, 2007 The Anchoress. Blog administrator is not responsible for content of comments. Note: All emails are considered fair game for publication, unless you specifically tell me not to quote you or use your name, in which case I am happy to comply.
So, I did a stupid thing today and decided I would make something delicious for supper instead of the same old, same old. I would fry chicken!
Buster, who mostly doesn t like my cooking unless it s hamburgers or steak, was thrilled.
Stupid, stupid. Now I know why I never make fried chicken. The house reeked of oil.
Thank goodness for a fair-weather snap, because I had to open the windows and turn on the ceiling fans to get the ghastly smell out of the place. And the cleanup no supper is worth the clean up.
Finally done chasing grease, I sat at the kitchen table waiting for the return of the man of the house and I ate a banana, because since childhood I have had a habit of spoiling my appetite, probably because I disliked my mother s cooking as much as Buster dislikes mine.
I m sitting there, eating the banana, and the dog plants herself before me and says, Ma, (I swear, she says Ma ) Ma, what you eating?
Border Collies are very smart dogs. They re like having another teenager in the house, and once they get an idea in their head, they pester you.
In the past this dog got after me for a burned-out lightbulb in the ceiling fan which bothered her because it messed with her light-and-shadows and kept making her jump. When I didn t fix it fast enough to please her, she followed me around all day, saying, I could fix that lightbulb for you You re going to fix it, right? Because if you re not, I could probably do it do you have a ladder?
Please fix the light
Tonight, I got, Ma, what you eating?
Go away, I said. You ve had your supper and this is a banana.
I know you don t believe this, but you re a dog; you don t eat bananas.
I could eat bananas, she said defensively, cocking her head. You ve never let me try.
It s fruit. I explained. You won t like it and you ll spit it all over the floor and then I ll have to clean it up.
I am quite certain that I will like it, she argued, you re being mean and lazy. You always keep me from growing and learning because you don t want to do a little cleaning
Because I am weak-willed, I broke off a bit of banana and tossed it her way. She grabbed it neatly and chewed it with determined expression on her face.
The mushiness seemed to surprise her, but she swallowed and defiantly planted herself before me. More, Ma. She demanded.
I can t believe you ate that, I said, narrowing my eyes. You didn t really like it, did you? You re just trying to make a point.
The point being I love bananas, she narrowed back. They re now my favorite food. Gimmee.
I tossed her the last bit of my banana and she chewed it with that careful expression and then, finally, walked away - tossing one last look at me. Told you, she said.
Snot nose.
Then Buster walks in. Ma, you used to be a girl, right?
With a sigh of long-suffering, I nodded.
Yes. I used to be a girl.
What does it mean, when you ask a girl to hand you a pencil, and when she hands it to you, her hand lingers on yours for a minute?
What, like this? I demonstrated the way I used to do it, a wispy touch of fingers across the palm.
No, more like this.
His demonstration seemed much more forward, to me - a definite full-palm lingering, with a pat.
Ummm she likes you a lot, I explained.
Well, what the hell?
What is it with women, anyway?
Turns out the pencil-lending-lingerer was his latest break-up - a girl he really likes, has liked since elementary school. They ve been good friends for a while and started dating - briefly, it turned out - over the Thanksgiving holiday.
I think she s confused, I said. You were pals for a long time, then you got pretty hot pretty fast I think she fears risking your friendship by being your g/f.
This crap sucks, he announced.
Dating sucks and why can t girls just say what they mean? Later this afternoon, in lab, I handed her her wristwatch so she wouldn t forget it and she did it again.
Maybe offer her biscuit, the dog panted with banana breath.
And you shut up, also, said Buster. You re no help.
The dog, 9 years old and past caring about teenage angst, decided chump don t want good advice, chump don t get good advice, and went to sleep.
I miss when they were all little.
UPDATE: Fausta wants to . Be my guest, Fausta, but I warn you - she s a smart ass.
Sorry for the downtime. Buster got hurt at a football game yesterday and the ER was a long, exhausting place to be. He s okay, but the knee is mangled a bit and we ll more in a few days.
Will perhaps be posting later today.
UPDATE: It occurs to me that the way I wrote the above (I was in a hurry) makes it sound like Buster was playing football.
Um, no.
He plays baseball, and football, informally with his friends but I m one of those awful mothers who won t let her son play footbawl for the crazed high school crowds and coaches. Buster was injured because, after singing the Nat l Anthem at the start of the game, and fooling around with his buddies at halftime, he was climbing the bleachers a second time when a girl called out to him;he turned, missed his footing and ummm fell through the bleachers. Not all the way, of course, just enough to mangle his knee.
And today we head out for another exam and possible MRI. Blogging will be light.
Anoints, I said, anoints not annoys.
In fact, I like him quite a lot; he s a good priest.
Some of you know I ve been dealing with a long-undiagnosed, pain-in-the-arse illness for a while, and yes even now I await results of further blood tests. But this morning at mass, I felt an inexplicable urge to seek anointing in what we refer to as The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
Believe me, I hadn t gone into mass contemplating it. But suddenly I thought, well, why not ask? If it doesn t bring healing in one way, it will in another; maybe it will bring some clarity to the doctors
So, after mass I headed back to the sacristy and asked the pastor, Father M, for an anointing.
My son, Buster, used to work in the rectory and once came home from work with this story: This couple came in to arrange a wedding and they specifically wanted Father M; they wanted him so much that they were willing to wait while he dealt with a sudden death situation that I d told them might keep him busy for a while. I showed them into another office and when Fr. M came back from walking the other family to their car, I informed him that the young couple was waiting.
He gave out an exasperated sigh and said, ah, geez, now a wedding what do they want from me?
I smiled at him, said Buster, and I said, well, Father, I expect they want you to, you know, be a priest!
Realizing he d sounded like a jerk, Father M promptly cracked up laughing and then went in to meet the couple.
So, I wasn t surprised when he responded to my request for anointing with a harried sigh and a yeah, fine, have a seat
It doesn t take long to be anointed, but Father M kind of soaked me in the holy juice. He anointed my head and my palms and some of the oil dripped onto my clothes. He said the prayers, laid the hands and wished me well, and I - dripping - spoke without thinking and said, wow you ve anointed the hell out of me
He laughed out loud and said, yeah, well it is a little exorcism, before heading off to the confessional (we re fortunate to have confession almost every morning and on Saturdays, in our parish).
We don t pray enough for our priests and ministers, I think. Jonah Goldberg :
During a Eucharistic Congress, a number of priests from different orders are gathered in a church for Vespers. While they are praying, a fuse blows and all the lights go out.
The Benedictines continue praying from memory, without missing a beat. The Jesuits begin to discuss whether the blown fuse means they are dispensed from the obligation to pray Vespers. The Franciscans compose a song of praise for God s gift of darkness.
The Dominicans revisit their ongoing debate on light as a signification of the transmission of divine knowledge. The Carmelites fall into silence and slow, steady breathing. The parish priest, who is hosting the others, goes to the basement and replaces the fuse.
Anyhow, I m anointed. Don t feel any better yet, but at least my soul is all sparkly and shiny. As Chesterton said : When a Catholic comes from Confession, he does truly, by definition, step out into that dawn of his own beginning in that brief ritual God has really remade him in His own image.
He may be grey and gouty; but he is only five minutes old.
On the advice of a friend, I m going to head out for a walk on the beach.
Firefighter Matthew David Garvey, age 37
Died 9/11/01 - Laid to rest, October 30, 2001
Described by as a serious leader who set the example of getting it right the first time.
Never one to hesitate but focused driven to do and apply every effort in completing even the most difficult tasks.
Then-Corporal Garvey was my team chief at 2nd ANGLICO, in the early-mid 80 s. As a dumb Lieutenant, I learned a great deal about stamina, perseverance, leadership, and teamwork from Matt.
He never yelled or shouted, complaints NEVER left his mouth, and he led always by example. I m a better man for having served with him and it grieves me to know he is gone.
Sgt Garvey was my Sgt while in 2nd ANGLICO.
All we wanted to do was to be like him. And at the end, if we came close, we were better Marines and better people.
GSGT.
Garvey was the hardest Marine I have ever met. He was a motivated and dedicated. I know that being a Marine and a NYC Firefighter were the most important things in his life.
`It was a life dedicated to the service of the people of America, said his friend, Rick Helton, who served with him in the Marine Corps.
Matthew Garvey enlisted in 1981 at the age of 18. In his 10-year career, he would make sergeant and become a squad leader in 2nd Anglico, an elite scout team that went into hostile territory ahead of ground troops.
He served in Beirut and in operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield.
Mr. Garvey, 37, joined the Fire Department in 1995 and earned his way into the elite Squad 1 unit based in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
He was recently accepted to law school, was an active Marine reservist, studied Kung Fu, played guitar, took photographs, climbed to the summit of Mount Rainier and was a rescue instructor for the Fire Department. Books on his nightstand included: Don Quixote, War and Peace, The Iliad, Moby Dick.
No one word can describe him, said his friend and stationhouse mate Gerald Smyth.
There are three:
Garvey spent more than 10 years on active duty and participated in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf War, where he received numerous awards. He also earned the Navy Marine Corps parachutist insignia, and was certified as a jump master.
Garvey is survived by his mother, Frances, and brother and sister-in-law, Christopher and Donna.
Graduate of St. Francis Prep High School, Queens, NY
Moving remarks at his funeral,
Reading all of this, I wish I d known Matthew Garvey, but in a small way, perhaps I do know him, thanks to a nephew.
My son Buster was reading over my shoulder as I compiled this and he mentioned that Matthew Garvey looks quite a lot like one of my nephews, who is also a former Marine who saw duty in the Persian Gulf, and who is currently working in law enforcement.
it s in the eyes. Buster said. His eyes are the same as K s - they have the same look.
You can always recognise a marine or a cop or a firefighter. It s in the eyes. But, you know, so many of them are Irish - maybe that s why they look the same.
We talked about how the Irish - and the Scots - when they came to America, became cops, firefighters, railworkers and skyscraper builders, because those were the hardest, filthiest and most dangerous jobs, and no one else wanted them. Here in New York, and in Boston and other cities, these families almost developed dynasties within the lifesaving and protection professions - whole families entered into that service until to do anything else was almost unthinkable. In fact one of my Elder Son s grade-school friends is doing that right now; he graduated high school, now he is finishing up his military service and hoping to get into the FDNY, like his father and his grandfather and great-grandfather before him, like his uncles and cousins.
But, Buster asked, why are these Irish fellows, like Matthew Garvey, still so into it? It s not like the old days where the Irish couldn t find other work and yet the majority of FDNY and the NYPD personnel are Scots-Irish.
Yes, I mused, and a great many - perhaps a majority - of our armed forces comes from the south, and they re largely Scots-Irish, too.
We both mulled that over quietly for a few moments.
Maybe, I said, it s a combination of getting to do this swaggering, real man he-man type work, plus the satisfaction of helping others, plus the uniforms and the whole idea of honor and duty that goes along with them.
Plus the fact that Irish and Scots seem to be adrenaline junkies who like being on the edge of things; are they self-destructive?
Buster asked, forgetting that he s half Irish, himself, so the question might be better phrased, we.
Maybe they are simply the old-fashioned mad Irish who enjoy tempting fate and walking away victorious, or perhaps they like the idea of dying for something noble, worthwhile and greater than themselves: for the benefit of society in general; for all mankind.
Our cops and firefighters do the unthinkable, they do what Christ did.
They lay down their lives for strangers - and there is no greater love than that.
Buster looked at Garvey s picture again and mused, I still say he looks like K. It s in the eyes.
Maybe what we see, that similarity between Matthew Garvey and K, is that they ve seen death.
Or perhaps what we see in their eyes is a love greater than death.
They are the epitome of , and because their gift is free, nothing can ever claim victory over it.
RIP Matthew David Garvey, FDNY, USMC, and thank you for your lifetime of service to the benefit of those you never knew.
may the martyrs come to welcome you,
and take you to the Holy City,
the new and eternal Jesusalem.
may you find eternal rest.
Amen.
Shakespeare, Venus Adonis
It is both humbling and an honor to memorialize my fellow New Yorker on this day.
And kudos to Dale Roe, who thought up this way for So are coming away from this project .
The Cotillion girls .
I mentioned a week ago that I had my site debugged and in the process the moderate comments thingie got flipped on. For the heck of it, I decided to try it out and I ve decided I like moderating comments; I get to actually read them all, now.
For the record, I haven t zapped a comment yet, and I probably won t be inclined to, unless it s really offensive or it hijacks the site. In the nearly two years I ve run the blog I have only ever banned two people, one for going after my faith in a manner that I wasn t having, and another for calling me the C-word (female version). And he even got reinstated, once he apologized and promised to tidy up his cesspool of a mouth.
I m no prude and in r/l I ve been known to speak the sailor s tongue from time to time, but I do have a couple of rules about comments that I d like to review - don t worry, like St.
Benedict in his Rule, I prescribe nothing harsh or burdensome.
1) No referring to Presidents, ex-presidents, or others by disgusting or vulgar nicknames. I don t do it myself - out of respect for the office, and also because it is simply infantile - and I would prefer it not be done on my site.
A simple last name is sufficient.
2) No carrying on about what people look like. I have been accused (by a lefty blogger who has accuracy problems) of having called Hillary Clinton fat, which is a lie.
I happen to think she is a perfectly attractive woman, and I have said so here - I once even . I never comment on people s looks or weight (unless I can do so positively) because there is enough of that in the world, and deriding people for their looks is - again - infantile. I will comment about grooming, though, as in please wash your freaking hair, or whatever, and I did once wonder if someone would tell Andrea Mitchell that a soft auburn would work better than blonde with her skintone, but overall, people s appearances are not fodder for this site.
I d appreciate it if commenters did not refer to other people - even public figures, who are considered fair game for a lot of scorn - as fat pigs or bubble-eyed or whatever. It s just about being civil and acting like adults. That sort of writing betrays one s interior noise and adds nothing to one s argument.
3) I have no problem with hell, damn, balls, cojones, or crap, nor bitch when it is used as a verb. Asshat is sometimes an absolutely necessary word in the English language, as is screw that, screw this, and Screw me? Hey, screw you!
(I am from New York.) Beyond that, don t tempt me. If you are inclined to the F-word, freaking will do quite nicely, and as stated before, both C-words (male and female) will get you banned until you grovel as you have never grovelled before.
4) No taking the name of the Lord in vain. I don t care whether He s your Lord or not, I d ask you to respect my sensibilities, here. If that offends you, think of compliance with my wishes as being multi-culti tolerant, then it should sit better.
Happily for me, I have some of the coolest readers in the sphere and most of them have never broken a-one of these rules. But I see a few are coming close, so I figured I d put up the warning, which my kids call the look. When they are skating near the edge of my patience or endurance, they will get the look from me which means, control that lip, child, before I pull it over your head
Only yesterday I was remarking to Buster that he d had a pretty easy time of it growing up, that I hadn t had to do much more than throw him the look to keep him in line.
He said, well, that s because I m not stupid. The few times you did lost it, it was a little like watching Samuel L. Jackson recite that passage from Ezekiel in Pulp Fiction before blowing holes in people.
I never wanted to be on the receiving end of that!
zactly.
So, Buster is sitting at the piano, pounding away and singing.
I can t hear what he s crooning, because he s on the other side of the house, but it sounds pretty good.
A few minutes later he comes in and says, I m gonna make Sexual Healing more soulful.
I did a spit-take (tea all over the screen) and peered at him over my glasses: Umm You re going to be more soulful than Marvin Gaye?
Buster, I sighed. No one can have more soul than Marvin Gaye. Not even Barry White has more soul than Marvin Gaye.
And besides, his father shot him. That automatically means no one can remake his songs.
Is that how he died?
Buster asked, wide-eyed and wondering briefly if his own father still had his hunting rifle. That doesn t make him have more soul than me! He said.
I hate to destroy a kid s dreams, but this time I really had to put my foot down and make him face reality. Buster has a good voice. He s a multi-culti mongrel who can claim Irish, Italian, Scots, German and yes, a bit of African ancestry and yeah, he s got a little bit of soul but I couldn t allow him to continue deluding himself that he could improve on Marvin Gaye.
There s lots of blue-eyed soul singers, he smiled that killer grin.
Hey, all the best soul singers have brown eyes!
He s been listening to a lot of Ray Charles, a lot of Bill Withers, Lou Rawls and Stevie Wonder - but only Marvin has stirred his soul to this extent.
Meanwhile, I m going to haul out some of my old Joe Williams albums and let him listen to that astounding artist. He was a jazz singer, but I m gonna make him listen, anyway.
It s going to be an interesting year.
Just found this in the archives and thought as September approaches and the video cameras are hauled to the bus-stops and the reality shows begin again, :
In response to my revealing my utter disinterest in growing the blog much beyond “playful primate” status or getting this Irish mug on camera somewhere, Dirty Harry has written a (and some nice remarks in between the laughs).
But you know, it is a very interesting thing, to consider how others reacted to my being contacted by the BBC. The assumption that everyone made was, “well of COURSE you’d want to be part of that - anyone would…”
But would anyone?
And why? Why is it assumed that anyone would consider it a positive thing to be so conspicuous?
Everyone is different, of course.
My son, Buster, seems to have been born to be the center of attention, and he revels in it. I have friends who, handed a microphone or invited into a spotlight, are pleased to be in such a situation. My own husband rather likes being singled out.
Perhaps it is merely that I am a painfully shy person who has never been comfortable when shoved to the fore, who would much rather hang back, writing the speeches and allowing others to bask in the applause lines, so to speak. Perhaps most people are not like that.
But I think there may be more to it - to this idea that “of course, anyone would want to be interviewed for tv or the radio,” I think there is a culprit in all of this, the same culprit who is fueling the preponderance of “reality” television shows which clog up the airways and keep hungry scriptwriters out of work.
It’s the humble videocamera that is somewhere in a closet in your own home.
Twenty-five years ago, video-cameras were huge and cumbersome, and yet people couldn’t wait to buy them, and from the moment a family acquired a machine, everything became ripe for videotaping. Weddings.
Births. I remember being present at a funeral in Jamaica, Queens where the wake was videotaped, so the tape could be sent “back home” and family there could “see everyone.” American children couldn’t eat their lunch without hearing the whirrrrrr of the camera, “show Daddy what you’re eating!
Is that Peanut Butter and Jelly? Can you say Peanut Butter?”
When my best friend went into labor with her first child, I took her to the hospital, and lugged in the video camera and case.
While we waited for her husband, she instructed me to videotape the room - the fetal heart monitor - the clock. I was very bad at it and they still tease me about the strange camera angles and dizzying turns.
Like everyone else, we got a video camera, too, and subjected our poor eldest son to hours of bathtime “smile for the camera” performace.
I remember when I stopped liking it. It was when I went to put him on the schoolbus for the first time. Gathered there with all of the other children on the block, I simply hadn’t thought to bring the video camera.
Not having one, I was able to observe what the children were going through. Nervous and antsy about school, they weren’t getting re-assuring hugs from Mom. Mom was saying, “stand over there, by the fence, get Mark into the picture - okay guys, where are you going today?
” And the children, nervous but obedient dutifully replied, “to school…”
“What grade are you in, are you in high school?”
I know, I know…it’s cute. I don’t want to sound like a party-pooper…but what I realized that day was that there was a whole rite of passage that was being shunted aside, for the pictures.
When the bus came, the camera focused on it. Then the door opened, and the parents videotaped the driver saying good morning and giving her name. Then, one-by-one, each child entered the bus taking stage direction.
They posed near the first step, turned and smiled and waved and disappeared inside the vehicle. Only my son got to hold Mom’s hand as he advanced into this new experience, got the quick hug and the vigorous wave as the bus left…everyone else was busy taping the bus until it turned the corner. I came away from it thinking…you can tape it, or you can experience it…but you really can’t do both.
I didn’t take the video camera out for a long time, after that. I thought it was better to actually live life, and record it fully on the heart, where it might be remembered imperfectly as to detail, but the feel of it, the scent and taste of life, would be imprinted.
My feeling was confirmed when we took a family trip to Walt Disney World and I somehow pulled video-camera duty.
We came home, watched the tape, and I kept saying, “I didn’t see that! Wow, I didn’t see THAT!”
My kids said, “Mom, you taped it, what do you mean you didn’t SEE it?
”
I had taped it. But I hadn’t LIVED it, and therefore…there was no memory of it encoded into my harddrive - no imprint on my heart.
No wonder I hadn’t had a very good time on that vacation!
I never experienced it! 
So at least one, perhaps two generations have now been raised playing to the camera. No wonder reality tv works for them. To these folks, having an intrusive camera in your face is simply a part of life.
If you’re participating in some television show, all the better! You might get asked onto Regis and Whoever. You might get interviewed by top disc-jockeys and get your picture in People magazine!
And this is, I guess, to be accounted a good, desirable thing. It means, apparently, that you are a star.
I don’t know.
I just know it’s not for me. I look at famous people and it seems to me most of them aren’t made any happier for the fame. Some people are absolutely suited to it and revel in it, of course…but often people who become famous seem to become uncentered, or ungrounded - to lose touch with real life - and they seem to suffer for it, for losing that grounding.
Me, I’m a creature of ego, and I think if I ever got comfortable with any sort of prominence, I would get into awful trouble. I think if I embraced it, I would end up looking at the wrong thing - meaning, myself.
There was a boy who fell in love with his own reflection in a moonlit pond…and so taken was he by his own likeness that he became blind to everyone else…and to God.
Better I should just stay in the background, where I like it, and keep my eyes on Jesus.
Buster, on the other hand…he’s always making sure we’ve brought the camera! 
And we’ve learned to stick the thing on a tripod and let it record, while we watch with our own eyes, and remember.
He s got 19 fielding errors and the last few games we lost can be directly attributed to A-Rod either making a stupid mistake or simply refusing to stretch.
Yesterday he threw away a routine double play (Mike Mussina has got to be tired of losing games because of him). Two days ago, in extra innings, we lost the game because A-Rod didn t feel like hustling two feet to catch a ball. Even his staunchest defenders (and it says something that he needs defenders) admitted he could have gotten it.
He just doesn t want to work too hard. That s our baby, A-Rod. That s our whaa-whaa boy.
A-Rod might be the nicest guy in the world, but - as a ball player - Buster and I can t stand him. We re convinced that he is a curse to every team on which he plays, and that we will never win another World Series until he goes away. He s an infant, a tempermental marshmallow.
. If he doesn t feel loved, he can t hit. If the crowd s a little rough on him, he can t play.
A-Rod seems to be a wuss. And he s not really a Yankee. He may be wearing the uniform but he doesn t have the Yankee heart.
Bobby Abreu has been a Yankee for ten days, and he s more of a Yankee than A-Rod will ever be.
That sounds harsh? He s earned it.
Or maybe not, but he s frustrating the heck out of me. Buster has taken to mocking A-Rod (both in the stadium and at home) by characterizing him in a voice that sounds a lot like olympic gymnast Kerri Strug, and this is the sort of stuff he says, whenever A-Rod is up:
I can t play today I can t run. It s too hot!
I have a rash! That guy in the third row said something mean about me! Mean people should not be allowed in the stadium.
They hurt my feelings, and then I can t play. I want to play good, but they make me play bad!
Joe can I sit on your lap?
I tired! Can I have a vanilla milk shake and some sweetarts? Can I have the milk shake with a bendy straw?
I didn t knock that ball out of the first baseman s hand on purpose. It was just an accident that my hand went out and knocked the ball from his glove. I would never cheat and I don t make excuses and you better stop saying I do or it will be your fault that I can t catch anything or throw anything.
I have golden gloves and you don t
That Derek Jeter keeps getting in my way and he keeps making me make mistakes! He keeps running over and catching things before I can! If he would just let me play, I d show everyone how good I am, I bet.
Watch me, Mommy, watch me! See? I tap my ball into my glove before I throw it to first, and I do it every time!
Doesn t that look really good? See me, Mommy? See how it looks?
Sometimes it doesn t get to first base in time, but it looks so good when I tap the ball into my glove! Am I playing baseball? I always disremember!
I know Scott Brosius could catch a ball bare-handed and throw it to Tino, but I need to tap my glove - because it s glamorous - and anyway Giambi is not Tino.
Joe, make the pitchers throw me good things so I can hit them can I go home and take a nap? Can you put me in the lineup between Abreu and Giambi, so I get some good pitches?
I should have good pitches because I m your bestest player! Ain t I your bestest player? Tell me I m the best one, Joe, don t you just love me?
I have told Buster he is not to do this voice when he is at the Stadium, because someone might take a shot at him (you re not allowed to criticize A-Rod within the bounds of Yankee Stadium it s in his contract or something - it must be, because everyone is constantly making excuses for him) but Buster keeps hoping he will get a seat near enough to the broadcast mics to get A-Rod s secret thoughts over the air.
Yes, he can be a buster, sometimes.
So, Buster is gone for a week.
While Elder Brother and his Sweet Girlfriend are working away their summer in anticipation of another year of college, Buster has had the sort of summer a boy seldom has, anymore. He s gotten his driver s license. He s courted a pretty girl, dated her and had his heart stomped on by her, (and written three pop songs chronicling that whole cycle.
I think the bust-up one is best!) He s made good progress on the piano, but still refuses to be true to the bass clef; he sneaks along by ear. Along with his best friend, he s hired himself out as my gardener for some major mulch-moving and bush-ripping.
He s played many innings of baseball in the daytime and hands of poker in the evenings with his friends, and he s lately fallen into a job teaching young sax and clarinet students.
I don t begrudge him his summer of fun. Last summer he worked the whole season and earned enough money to purchase a computer and a semi-pro grade tenor sax and he s rarely asked me for money in the last 12 months.
I figure, he s got his whole life to work - why not take the summer between his junior and senior year to be carefree and a little lazy?
But he s gonna be tired after this week, I think. He s just taken off for a week-long trek through the woods at some Boy Scout camp.
50 miles with a full backpack and trail food and a bit of canoeing as well, and climbing 1400 ft. inclines and .
Such a guy, he is.
I know, I know, there are those out there who read Boy Scouts and immediately think homophobe (his gay uncles and bandmate would be the first to correct you) or geek (ummm no, we know geeks in this family, and Buster is not one) or faggoty, corny boy scout. (Buster would laugh at you if you said that.)
I remember a few summers back, when the issue of the BSA forbidding out gay men to become scoutmasters was raging, my two sons being called haters while they were in a diner ordering lunch.
These people who didn t know my sons, saw the uniform and immediately made assumptions about the people they were. They were scouts, so they must be haters.
It happened to be the last day of summer, before school began.
My kids were having lunch after having risen that morning and packed up two knapsacks with camping gear, tent, sleeping bags, twigs and assorted paraphernalia, and a bugle (and sax). They d gone to a facility for high-functioning alzheimer s patients, at the facility s request, and they put on a program for the patients.
They set up the tent, unrolled the sleeping bags, built a fire using sticks and a flashlight wrapped in red cellophane, and for a little over an hour, they allowed these patients to explore the campsite, find memories, listen to reveille and taps - they brought out things that smelled smokey and otherwise excited memory either by smell or touch.
They made knots with rope, and invited the patients to do it, too.
Sounds like nothing, right? Well, I was there, and the patients - particularly the men, who suddenly were remembering how to make sailor s knots and other things I wouldn t have a clue about - were enthralled.
They sang songs, recalled camping with their own children, or with Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts one man in particular really moved the kids, he was childlike in his happiness at suddenly finding that part of his memory again.
For a little over an hour (although the effort took all morning) all sorts of men and women - of all sorts of different backgrounds - were pulled back into the world from wherever they were sadly in the process of receding to.
My kids - who are affable, sweet-natured and generous people for whom hate is an odd concept - spent the last day of their summer vacation gladly doing that.
And when they went to get a bite to eat, later, they were called haters.
Because my kids really don t like it when I get into what my husband calls , I held my tongue and did not chase after these cowards (they made their accusation and quickly moved past the table, heading out the door, not staying for a response). But I wanted to.
And for a better part of lunch, my poor sons had to listen to me fume, I wonder what they re kids were doing on the last day of summer? I bet they weren t thinking about spending some time with alzheimer s patients blah, blah, blah, growl, growl, growl, until Elder Son said, Ma, enough. Who cares?
They don t get it, because all they know is what they read
He was right and I shut up because I knew he was right and because I also knew my kids were finding me boring, repetitious and way too hotheaded. Way too Irish, as they might say.
Were some of those patients my kids worked with gay?
Who knew? Who cared? Who the hell would even ask?
In point of fact, the BSA does not ASK you if you are gay, and the leaders I know couldn t care less - their only thought is, are you here to teach the kids teamwork and leadership skills, or to further a political agenda?
Anyway, so Buster and his dad and assorted other young men are trekking this week. I m worried sick.
Trekking in high summer and humidity, with backpacks and ticks and no bathrooms egad.
I can t wait for them to get home.
Yesterday, in this piece on , I wrote this:
Here is the interesting question…when a life has been lived with a sense of deep mission - as in either Hamlet s or Harry s case - and that mission has been fulfilled, what is the purpose of the life, thereafter?
[ ] Perhaps this is why monarchs, old generals, popes, entrepreneurs, mother-hung rock stars and CBS newsmen can never willingly retire and live out their days. Without their sense of mission, life has no thrust and parry, no vivacity, no purpose.
Because I have a bit of a nudge-streak in me, I decided to send that last bit to a few acquaintances at CBS, including , whose columns I find so , I must - even though my sometimes .
Meyer wanted to know what Mother-Hung meant and then he pointed me toward , The Lonely State of America, which comments on in America.
Now, you know I take every study with a grain of salt for two reasons, firstly because everything is always in flux, nothing is static, and life is unpredictable, and so today s study can be tomorrow s , and secondly because whenever a study is given full-trumpet fanfare in the press, soon all the big and little laws based on the study are upon us, for better or worse. Sometimes I think studies - interesting as they are - are done for no other purpose than to excite legislation, but I digress.
Meyers writes that this study s findings should scare you. These days scared is how every study wants you to feel, so fear is useless. I would say this study should make us more thoughtful, than scared.
I urge you to read his whole piece - I don t agree with all of it, of course - but it is well worth your reading and passing along.
Meanwhile, in answer to his question:
Mother-hung. People who spend their whole lives either trying to please the mother or to replace her missing love.
I ve noticed that a large number of rock stars (and other celebs, to be honest) either lost their moms early in life (Madonna, Bono, John Lennon, Rosie O Donnell) or had bad or complicated relationships with their mothers (Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland Bill Clinton!) I ve always thought that for these folks public adoration was the mother replacement, and one reason why these people can never stop or retire.
Which is actually kind of an interesting correlation to Meyer s piece.
These people, lacking mothers, look ever outward and require enormous adulation, but it s all long-distance adulation - the length of a playing field or arena, via video, CD, radio - it s not personal or warm. Just think of the gazillion stories of stars who had the love of the distant world but lived in private hells because they had no one to talk to, no intimacy in their lives. Look at Marilyn Monroe - she was the most wanted woman in the world, yet the night she died, she couldn t get anyone to even talk to her on the phone!
John Lennon was able to put it down, and be a family guy baking bread, when he finally had familial intimacy.
I will have to read this study to see if it considers the disintegration of the family into single-parent or blended units, or the both parents working, here is your quality half-hour of together time before you go to sleep, sweetie phenomenon of the past 20-30 years. Because that could well be a factor.
We have now had several generations growing up with either missing parents or well-meaning but barely-there parents. A lot of what we learn regarding intimacy we learn from Mom and Dad and Grandma. If they re barely in the picture, from whom will we learn it?
The Nursery school teacher? If we have a society with intimacy issues (and I would define it thusly, rather than as loneliness issues), I d wager it is because we have a society wherein intimacy has been pushed aside for the progressive lifestyle ideas which preclude learning the skill. The folks who are demanding free, government-provided child care are not helping society learn intimacy and interdependancy (even though - to be fair - in their minds, they really ARE, they believe they re preaching it takes a village interdependancy - but that is not intimacy, that s social duty, and social duty always ends up being humorless, perfuctory and expedient).
Another problem, of course, is that intimacy has been defined downward, especially for our young girls, to mean little more than a hook-up. This is something Buster talks to me about. Children, but especially girls, are being sexualized at ever-earlier ages.
The sexual messages begin very young in television commercials and on the clothes-store racks, and most of Buster s generation grew up watching Friends and Sex in the City and thinking that this was what life was: a series of sexual encounters with no emotional attachments, no repercussions, no pain, no loss of oneself.
Sexualized early, many girls are either overly jaded or mistrustful and remote. Buster says a troubling number of girls his age are sexually hyper-active, but unhappy and lonely - they cannot make good, healthy connections with respectable young men, because they don t get the guys who open car doors for them and who look for a relationship to be about more than a hook-up or perfunctory oral sex.
(A romance recently busted up because Buster wanted a real relationship, and the girl, a nice-enough kid, simply did not know what that meant!)
While the girls are , too many boys are learning to see the girls not as young women to be respected, admired and (in a chivalrous sense) looked after, but as disposable spitoons for their . I ve heard my sons and his friends complain about it - that their generation is very screwed up about how to relate to each other, that too many of both gender have no idea what self-respect is, that they treat themselves, and each other, badly.
They crave intimacy but have no idea how to achieve it when they ve been raised to throw everything - their virginity, their standards, their drive to succeed (it s not cool to get good grades) - their potential, their very selves away. You cannot learn or achieve intimacy if you re busy conforming to the Culture of Now - what Flip Wilson used to call The Church of What s Happening Now - you re too busy just trying to keep up.
This is not an overnight problem, it s yet another fruit of the sexual revolution and the world-tilting sixties - the overcorrection to the 1950 s.
Meyer makes the excellent point that In primitive and survival-dependent societies, social isolation was basically impossible. True. When my husband and I were growing up, Grandma lived upstairs and auntie down the street, cousins all over the place and that mattered, but I don t think that s really the issue.
I think this study is quite right that much of it is a matter of time and the incessant demands of the beeper, the cell phone, the freaking unending email (my husband literally has nightmares about the non-stop email at work that keeps him from full productivity, and sometimes keeps him stuck answering it all night instead of interacting with us). The demands of the workplace, and the fact that the work day no longer begins at 9 AM but as soon as the first cell-call rings through as you step out of the shower, may well be unhinging and destructively distracting us, as . It could well be that the work-demands are so out-of-control that when people finally end their work day they say, just leave me alone, and
But I think there may be other trends which answer this worrisome report and can provide some reassurance and reason for optimism.
Last year we read, to the horror of many feminists, about the - who were actively planning to leave their careers and the work force for set periods of time to have and raise children. They were including parenting in the career plans, being smart enough to recognise that if they wanted kids, they d want to raise them, themselves. It goes without saying, they were also hoping to marry men who could help them achieve that goal.
Sometimes both parents must work, but more and more we re seeing younger parents decide that one parent will stay home while the kids are young or - as with my nephew and neice - working in shifts so that the kids are always in the charge of one parent, rather than assorted sitters and caretakers. And now - just like back in the day - Grandma is moving in with them. The pendulum swings.
If there is going to be a correction to all of this mad fruit of the do your own thing era, it will take TIME and undoubtedly it will anger some who insist that any correction is a dramatic over-correction. But I don t doubt there will be a correction of some sort. Humans need each other, we will find a way back.
Intimacy can be re-learned and re-captured, and it will happen on a parent s knee, .
Well, it s very possible you don t know that you like Ukulele music, because you have not be introduced to the very astounding music of , which Buster is turning the household onto in his inimitable fashion.
Don t worry, I m not going to go all on young Jake (my heart is fast and true and it s pretty well loaded up between Bryn and , these days, anyway), but you really must check out this fellow s musicianship.
Start here with . Yes, really.
Then check out .
Yes, really. A whole Ukulele concert.
Some of you know that Buster has been toying around with the uke for a while - in between the sax, the clarinet, the bassoon, the guitar, the keyboards, the singing, the blues harmonica, and yes the uke.
His fascination is turning into a sickness, and these days he s calling me to his computer everyday to watch another uke video on a site called . Yes, really.
You might like .
Or this . Really.
There s also , which is a little creepy, but then again, I was led to the site by a kid who thought going to the last day of school dressed up as a human jukebox (insert fifty cents and the door opens and he sings you the song of your choice) was the best idea anyone could possibly come up with, so you know (yes, I know, there are worse things )
I m not of a girl for re-posting, but in light of my recent decision to (you have no idea how freeing it is ) someone emailed and asked me to repost this, and - as we say round these parts - what the hey why not?
Kyoto? Buster’s got a theory; haters will hate it
The boy had to bring in to school an article about environmentalism - it could be about anything - about “global warming” or endagered species, or the Kyoto protocols, anything. They had to read the piece and write up a commentary on it.
Extra credit.
Buster used by James K. Glassman, which I had actually linked to :
In a surprise move that caught Europe’s smug moralists and the environmental movement’s noisy extremists flatfooted, the United States announced in Vientiane, Laos, last week that it was joining five other nations - China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia — in a new pact that offers a refreshing and effective alternative route to tackling the problem of climate change.
While given short shrift by the puzzled media, this is a big deal, in many ways.
First, it breaks the climate-change deadlock. This is the agreement that responsible scientists and public officials have been seeking since the failure of the Kyoto Protocol became evident at the global warming conclave in Delhi two years ago.
Call it “Beyond Kyoto” - Way Beyond Kyoto.
Second, the new deal was negotiated and settled without the involvement of the United Nations or the European Union - a clear message from the United States that multilateralism does not have a single definition…the agreement - called the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate — was kept secret by President Bush from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, an uncompromising champion of Kyoto, during last month’s G8 meeting” in Scotland.
Third, the agreement comprises countries that account for 45% of the world’s population and about half the world’s economic output and greenhouse gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide, implicated in raising surface temperatures….
Fourth and most important, it takes a pro-growth approach to combating the possibility of global warming in the century ahead. The new Beyond Kyoto agreement focuses on innovative technology as the antidote, not only to carbon-dioxide emissions but also to dirty air and economic deprivation…”
Never heard about all this, I bet? Neither had Buster’s teacher, who is pretty well-informed.
It’s another one of those stories that just .
His fellow students were all surprised, as well. They’d not heard about it, but you know…”Bush is a moron and everything he does is bad and stupid and illegal and power-grabbing” was the general consensus, because that’s basically all the kids could find in their own reading.
Buster came home and said, “Hey, Ma!” (These days EVERY sentence begins with “hey,” which is starting to annoy me a little…) “do you remember earlier this year, wasn’t there some reason why Jon Stewart and everyone was saying, ‘maybe Bush was right after all? What was that about, again?
’
By jove…the kid was right. I’d forgotten all about it, myself - I could remember reading (or seeing a tape) of Stewart looking panicked and saying the words, but I couldn’t remember what the issue was about.
Turns out Stewart -I can’t help it, I have a soft spot for him (I like olive skinned men and Jewish men…what can I say?
) - was fretting because :
“I’ve watched this thing unfold from the start, and, and, here’s the great fear that I have: what if Bush, the President, ours, has been right about this all along? I feel like my worldview will not sustain itself and I may - and again, I don’t know if I can physically do this - implode.”
Stewart, btw, was .
Not by a long shot.
But on the defining, fundamental question, Bush was right.
He understood that to defeat an idea, no matter how perverse and brutal it might be, it was necessary to have an opposite and superior idea.
He understood, in other words — instinctively rather than intellectually — that the only way to win a war against terrorism was to turn it into a war for democracy.
This is now happening. Against the quest of ordinary Iraqis for dignity and self-respect and freedom, the terrorists in Iraq had nothing ultimately to offer, except blood and hatred.
Already, Palestinians and Afghanis have made the same choice.
Even in Europe, was the big question.
It was difficult not to cringe during Reagan’s speech in 1987.
He didn’t leave a single Berlin cliché out of his script. At the end of it, most experts agreed that his demand for the removal of the Wall was inopportune, utopian and crazy.
Yet three years later, East Germany had disappeared from the map.
Gorbachev had a lot to do with it, but it was the East Germans who played the larger role. When analysts are confronted by real people, amazing things can happen. And maybe history can repeat itself.
Maybe the people of Syria, Iran or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did. When the voter turnout in Iraq recently exceeded that of many Western nations, the chorus of critique from Iraq alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted. Just as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night of Nov.
9, 1989 when the Wall fell.
Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right, just like Reagan was then. (H/T .
)
Having refreshed our memories, Buster confided his theory to me, inspired by both his teacher’s sense of wonder in reading about the Bush environmental initiatives, and the memory of Stewart’s admission: “I think,” he said, “they hate Bush so much, because they saw that he had greatness in him, and he wasn’t supposed to be great. He was supposed to be, at best, slightly worse than his father.”
There might be something to that, after all.
I mean, for months now better, smarter bloggers than I have tried to understand what it is about Bush that has driven so many people around the bend, and has even inspired journalists we formerly thought very well of to simply lose it where he is concerned.
Perhaps it is the narrative. Bush is not following the narrative.
He was supposed to be a semi-harmless goofball the press and the Dems could run a few circles around before being defeated in 2004. Instead, 9/11 turned him into a president with strong ideas and stubborn resolve. He couldn’t be moved or swayed, not by editorial boards, not by marching millions, and.
.and…the 2002 election went his way! And his poll numbers wouldn’t go down, dammit, they just wouldn’t go down!
If this kept up, Bush 43 was actually going to have a LEGACY. A real one, and - if his ideas were successful -a staggering one.
There was only one way to change that: write and talk as much trash as they could, get it all on record.
Suspect EVERYTHING. Denouce EVERYTHING (when was the last time you read a sentence about Democrats, re Bush, that used the word “support”? Now, think - how often are the headlines “Democrats denounce Bush” or “battle” or “decry”…) Pummel, pummel, pummel this guy, and eventually he’ll go down, and his legacy will be shattered and the narrative, which the press and the Dems were accustomed to controlling, would be safe.
It’s only a theory. It’s an idea. I put it out there because Buster has a way of coming at an issue in a fresh, unexpected way.
As he just did. Bush wasn’t supposed to be this good.
Heaven help us - Buster is quite taken with The Terfel s controversially .
I prefer him dark, Buster says. I don t understand these people who think Giovanni should be sympathetic. He s a rapist, a murderer, a liar, a plunderer of innocence - he denies Leporello any human dignity - he s tempestuous, prideful, selfish, violent and spoiled.
He charms his way around but when charm won t work, he just takes. There is nothing sympathetic there but he s fascinating and charismatic and you can t look away from him. I think in the end, it would be wrong to make him sympathetic - that would be too much like trying to make sympathetic because he had a troubled youth .
Don Giovanni practically sounds like he d be a great American hero, these days, doesn t he?
If I ever play him, Buster declared, I might even take it darker. And Terfel gets pretty dark.
Indeed he does. When Donna Anna s father runs to rescue her from Giovanni s attempted rape, Don Giovanni engages him in a duel in which he is - due to his size and youth - clearly the superior swordsman. Enraged when the old man unmasks him, Giovanni kills him with a smile, almost finding ecstacy as the old man dies in his arms.
Then he then he threatens Leporello for mentioning it before forgiving him with a smiling, Judas-like kiss. When he spies Donna Elvira (before recognising her) all he sees is prey, and (like Hannibal Lector) his eyes never leave her as he plans his pursuit. Then, once he recognizes Elvira as the innocent he used and betrayed, he has no sympathy, only disdain.
His abuse and manipulation of Leporello (who bears his own darkness, reflected off the Don) is almost off-putting. When his seduction/rape of Zerlina goes awry and Don Ottavio corners him with a gun Terfel s Giovanni doesn t pull back, rather he shoves his forehead against the barrel, daring Ottavio to pull the trigger (reminding me of a scene in some Clint Eastwood movie where John Malkovic, threated with a pistol simply smiles and puts his mouth around the barrel). When Elvira comes to his palace trying to convince him to repent and reform, he all but rapes her on his dining table, and when he gets one last chance for a painful redemption, he is angry and unrepentant.
This Giovanni is stunning, larger than life and brilliantly put out there. I don t really know how Buster could go even darker, but I m interested in figuring that out - maybe 15 years or so down the road.
This DVD is pretty wonderful.
though chintzy on the bonuses. Terfel sings Giovanni beautifully and when he is not harrowing, he s surprisingly funny, in a complex way - a very expressive actor. But he s not the only thing great about this production.
Renee Fleming s Donna Anna is just astounding - her voice is creamy and controlled and huge. The whole cast is terrific but we especially love Ferruccio Furlanetto as Leporello - his voice is not quite what it was or could be, but he makes such a human and yes, sympathetic and redeemable character that you cannot help but love him. A terrific job, a great show.
The staging is gorgeous - by Franco Zeffirelli - very traditional, but that s not always bad. Things don t always have to be re-imagined and contemporized (ala Peter Sellers with his mania for deconstruction) in order to impress.
It s a pain in the neck to order from Amazon - they don t stock it, so you have to buy it from vendors.
, though. We like it a lot.
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