"Atonement"

Bruce and I used my free movie passes to see "Atonement" today. I'd read the book a couple of years ago and discussed it at a book club at my local library.

The movie was excellent, and seemed very true to the book (although I don't remember everything now). Young Briony is quite full of herself, and full of romantic fantasies but no real understanding of love or sexuality. On one fateful day in 1935, she has her ego knocked about when her cousins don't want to take part in a play she has written. She witnesses an odd scene between her older sister Cecilia and Robbie, the bright young man who doesn't fit in, as he is the son of one of their servants. Later, she delivers a note to Cecelia that Robbie gives to her by mistake, and she reads it first. It's a highly erotic note but Briony misreads it and believes it proves Robbie is a sex maniac.

Cecelia, on the other hand, is turned on by it, and she and Robbie have a tryst in the library. Unfortunately, it is witnessed by Briony who now believes she has witnessed an attack. Later in the evening, when her twin cousins run away and everyone goes out to search, Briony sees her cousin being held down on the ground by a male attacker. She accuses Robbie, knowing it's not true, but sticking to her story when she's questioned.

Robbie goes to prison as a result of her testimony and ends up serving in World War 2 since he was offered a release in order to go into the army. The war scenes are nightmarish, especially the scene at Dunkirk, with drunken soldiers reeling every which way, wounded and crippled people, horses being shot to avoid them being taken by the enemy, and soldiers riding abandoned amusement rides.

Briony becomes a nurse like Cecelia and tries to do penance for the lie that haunts her. But she can't wash away the guilt no matter what she does. As a writer she envisions a somewhat happy ending, in which Robbie and Cecelia are married and happy together, but they will not forgive her; they insist that she write letters exonerating Robbie and apologizing for her perjury.

But in fact, as she states at the end, now an old lady with a fatal illness, that's not what happened at all. In fact, Robbie died at Dunkirk, and Cecelia died during a bombing six months later. They never saw each other again and never had a chance at the happiness they could have had if Briony had told the truth about the person who committed the assault.

I won't reveal that, though I've probably already revealed too much anyhow. This was a sad movie of three lives destroyed by a little girl's lie. For Briony's life was destroyed too, she was haunted by her guilt and never found a man of her own or had any family.

Why did she lie? Bruce asked me this when we were leaving the theater. I think it was a combination of things. She was a self-centered rich kid who was mighty put out that her brilliant play wasn't lapped up by her cousins (who were distraught over their parents' divorce). She had a crush on Robbie at one time, and probably was angry that he didn't return her affection. Plus, she just didn't understand erotic love, and completely misinterpreted what she saw between her sister and Robbie. And then there was the class issue. It was so much easier to throw the blame on a lower-class person, especially one who had been allowed to rise above his station. People were quite willing to believe that he would be the rapist and not the upper class person who actually was the attacker.

I liked this film a great deal and I recommend both the movie and the book.

A Wedding in the Toilet

I just read a filler article in AMNY about a couple who are getting married in a restroom, where the bride will wear a gown fashioned out of toilet paper. The dress was designed by the winner of the 2007 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by a website called Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com.

At least if the marriage doesn't work out, they've got an alternate use for the dress....

Is "Happy Holidays" Too Politically Correct?

This afternoon, weather permitting, the Brooklyn Humanist Community is going to hold a discussion this afternoon about saying "Happy Holidays."

Apparently quite a lot of people find it insulting and annoying to hear "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas." For the most part I have not heard many Jews complaining about this.
Personally, I generally just respond in kind. If a person wishes me Happy Holidays then that is my answer. If they say Happy Hanukah, so do I. If they wish me Merry Christmas, I answer the same. Who cares that I don't celebrate Christmas? It doesn't matter to me. If it is a sincere and friendly holiday greeting I could not care less how it is phrased or which holiday is mentioned.

While I can see why some people don't like "Happy Holidays" because it takes the Christmas out of Christmas, on the other hand there are times and places where it is better to be neutral and just say "Happy Holidays" to one and all.

I certainly wouldn't say "Happy Kwaanza" to every person of color I meet, because it's not fair to make the assumption that just because her skin is a certain shade, she must be celebrating this holiday. So why would I say "Merry Christmas" to everyone without wondering if someone is feeling left out?

On the other hand, as I said, if they wish me a Merry Christmas I will wish them the same.

Two incidents that recently happened on the subway I use most, the Q train, bring this whole issue into another focus.

First, one night during Hanukah, I was on the train with Bruce and Jason when two Hasidim got on the train. They were probably of the Lubavitcher sect that believes the Messiah will come when every Jew is observing all the rules and regulations of strict Orthodox Judaism. So, they proselytize among Jews (but not to non-Jews).

One of the men was going up and down the subway car, asking everyone if he or she was Jewish. If the response was positive, he would hand them a tiny box of some sort (I could not tell what it was..prayers for Hanukah, a set of candles? maybe) and tried to also give them a plastic container of doughnuts. On Hanukah it is customary to eat fried foods to remind oneself of the oil that miraculously lasted 8 days instead of only one.

When he came to me I ignored him and Jason did too. Bruce was sitting a distance away and was taking a nap on the way home. This crass fellow actually woke Bruce up to ask him if he was Jewish. Jason became quite indignant and was ready to have words with this man if he came back to him. The Hasid came back to me and asked again if I was Jewish, and I loudly said, "I don't want it!"

In an instance like this, making a distinction between those who celebrate Hanukah and those who don't, and then pushing their agenda on those who admitted to being Jewish, was quite offensive to me. I would have certainly preferred to hear, "Happy Holidays!"

In another incident also on the Q train that Friday night, the fourth night of Hanukah, a group of about 10 college-age kids got on the train and loudly wished everyone a Merry Christmas. A small group of maybe 2-4 Jewish kids around the same age responded, "Happy Hanukah!" Whereupon the Christmas celebrants set on the Jews and beat them up.

The one person who came to their defense was a Muslim. Now, there is someone who probably deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, and he has the two black eyes to show for it.

In the aftermath of this, it turns out that the Jewish fellow (who had his nose broken by the so-called Christians) invited his newfound Muslim friend to celebrate Hanukah with him.

The aggressors were found to be a bad lot, with web pages showing them playing with guns, and with a sheet already documenting other hate crimes. They are going to be prosecuted for a hate crime, which serves them right. As Mr. Potter said to George Bailey, "Merry Christmas to you -- in jail!"

Here again, supposing they'd come on and shouted "Merry Christmas," and the Jewish kids had said, "Happy Holidays!" Would there still have been a violent incident? Maybe, since these little cross-wearing hoodlums were obviously looking for trouble anyhow. But saying "Happy Holidays" might also have defused the whole thing.

Then again, maybe it's better to name the holiday (thereby naming your religion) and find out then and there who your friends and your enemies are.

If it warms up and the ice goes away by 11 AM, I will bring up these two stories during the discussion. If not, I've at least mentioned them here.

Silly Job Ads

Every day, I peruse Craigslist looking for possible job openings for Jason and for some of my friends who are looking for work. Once in a while I run across some very strange and funny advertisements!

Last week someone posted a job ad for an administrative assistant at a company where "one of the co-founders is a dog." Therefore, being a dog lover was part of the job description, but as the poster put it, "The final requirement for this job is that you not be allergic to the co-president."

One might also want to add that you shouldn't be terrified of the co-president. I suppose no cats need apply.

In another ad for a dog walking company, the final job requirement was that the applicant not be "an uptight weenie." Therefore, when revising Jason's cover letter, I added the sentence, "I solemnly swear I am not an uptight weenie."

Still, they haven't called. I wonder if they are afraid he can't cut the mustard.

I could probably start a separate blog lampooning the outrageous and sometimes hilarious demands bosses ask of their prospective employees. I'm sure it would make entertaining reading!

Article on "Holiday Gifts" to be Published

Another of my articles has been accepted for publication. This time, it's a semi-sardonic essay on holiday gift giving, tied in to the many toy recalls this year. The article will appear soon on www.yournews.com, under the 11229 zip code.

It would probably make Ebenezer Scrooge proud, because generally I don't favor expensive gifts! However I do favor gifts to charity, and old Ebenezer would not be pleased with that approach until after his series of mind-altering dreams. I favor gifts of memberships or magazine subscriptions, that you can enjoy all year long.

Anyway I do wish everyone a Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza and a Happy New Year. And do check out the website so you can see my thoughts on holiday gifts.

Breast Cancer, 10 Years After

Ten years ago today I had my mastectomy. I was terrified. Not so much of losing a breast, but of waking up to hear that it had spread throughout my body, and that I didn't have long to live.

Although I'd had some warning signs for two years, mine was an unusual type of breast cancer, known as Paget's Disease of the Nipple. It manifests as what looks like a rash or some skin problem on the nipple, and therefore is often ignored until it has spread. That was what I feared. The survival rate was lower than some other breast cancers, because women who had it tended to go to dermatologists, who weren't always sharp enough to take a biopsy, but kept issuing creams while the cancer grew and entrenched itself.

Also, because it looks like a rash or a callous, it doesn't raise the same level of alarm that an actual lump would raise in a woman's mind. It's pretty rare, showing up in only 2 out of 100 cases of breast cancer.

Fortunately, the dermatologist I went to recognized that it could be more than a rash, so he took a biopsy.

After the mastectomy on December 1, 1997, I felt great about my survival chances until December 22nd when I had a bone scan that revealed a suspicious mass in my left femur. On Christmas Eve (Merry Christmas to you, doc!) my oncologist told me it looked as if I had metastatic cancer in the femur, and if so it was a question of how long it would take me to die. Not pretty news by any means, and I lived in terror for the next seven weeks until in February I had an orthopedic biopsy.

I never learned the name of the mass in my femur, but it wasn't cancer and it wasn't going to kill me. That was all the information I needed.

At the time I became very spiritual and prayed a lot, read lots of spiritual books. Since then I've become a little more apathetic about my spiritual life again. Everyday life and its concerns takes over. But some things have changed forever. There's no such thing as a routine doctor appointment anymore, and any little symptom I have gets magnified into possible cancer in my mind.

But, I'm also grateful for the ten years I've lived cancer free, and I hope to remain cancer-free for the rest of my life. I got the chance to see Jason grow up and graduate high school. Now that he's in a transitional period, I need to see him heading in a useful direction. And I still haven't given up the hope of dancing (stiffly) to classic rock at my grandchildren's weddings.

So onward I go, with ten years survival now, and high hopes for future survival. The odds were with me but they were sure scary for a while there. I've been blessed, and I need to remember that when the petty things get me down.

Happy Anniversary to me!!

Implicit Association Test

Want to find out how prejudiced your unconscious is? Try the Implicit Association Test. This test asks you to quickly associate attributes with various concepts (age, race, gender roles, etc.) and rates your unconscious prejudices by measuring how long it takes you to associate a "good" word or a "bad" word with a certain category.

So, for instance, if you find it easier to associate positive attributes with "young people" as opposed to "old people," then you have a preference for youth over age.

It's an interesting concept except that I wonder if it's really true. The way the test works is as follows: first you identify faces or names with the concept. For instance in the young vs. old test you had to press the e or the i keys to identify faces as "young" or "old." Then you identified "good" vs. "bad" attributes. Next you identified young vs. old faces again only they were now on the opposite side of the keyboard. Then they pair "good" attributes with "young" and "bad" with "old." Finally they switch again and "bad" attributes are paired with "young" while "good" attributes are paired with "old." If it takes you significantly longer to identify good attributes with old as opposed to identifying them with youth, then you're biased against old people.

So, what if you just get used to hitting the keys the way you were first trained? What if it is harder to switch gears not because you are prejudiced against the group in question but because you already learned to associate the attributes with your right versus your left hand? I wonder. In any case the results were interesting but not too surprising (and no, I'm not telling what they were). Try it for yourself. It's an interesting diversion!

My Life with George

I suppose My Life With George by Judith Summers jumped off the library shelf at me because I had a cat named George from 1984 to 1997. My Life With George is the story of Ms. Summers' relationship with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, or "What I Learned About Joy from One Neurotic (and Very Expensive) Dog."

In George the Cat's case, he was neurotic enough (almost starved himself to death while Bruce and I were on our honeymoon and we left him with one of my co-workers, who proved to be too neurotic herself to cope with a frightened and unsettled cat). But I didn't allow him to become nearly expensive as Ms. Summers' dog.

My Life With George isn't just a cute dog story. Ms. Summers goes into depth about the role George played in her family. She decided to buy George on a bit of a whim, after her husband and her father died within days of each other, and her son was begging for a dog. The dog did in fact bring laughter and joy back into the bereaved household, and was a big factor in helping the two of them heal.

But on the other hand, George himself was a handful, spoiled, willful and overly dependent. Ms. Summers admits she didn't have the spine to make George behave, and she gave in over and over again to his whining and sulks. But from her description of George's behavior, just about anyone would probably have a hard time getting this pooch to do as he was told. Her encounters with animal psychologists were pretty absurd, with them ascribing deep hidden meanings to George's behavior (piddling on the carpet was supposedly a bid for attention).

So, as she described, George had a profound impact on Ms. Summers, on her son Joshua (who, coincidentally, is Jason's age), and also on her various relationships with men after her husband's death. The first fellow was driven away mostly by Joshua's opposition, but George's behavioral eccentricities didn't help either. The second was a dog lover and very tolerant, adored by George and Joshua, but Ms. Summers herself could not muster any passion for him. And the third adored her and it was mutual..but only when they were in a romantic bubble of unreality away from her daily life with Joshua and George. To some extent he had a point about her overindulgence of the dog, but he was also intolerant and resentful of a relationship that existed before he came along. The breakup was inevitable.

(I remember seeing a great bumper sticker at a cat show years ago: Men come and go, but the cat stays).

And yet, even with all the ups and downs and the distressing effect on her love life, she continues to love her naughty little doggie, and at the end of the book, is off to indulge his whims yet again. It is, in all, a sweet story about the love between humans and their animal companions. Ms. Summers should definitely put a bumper sticker on her car: "I'm owned by a dog." Anyone who is an animal lover will appreciate this touching story.

Ms. Summers has written several other books including The Empress of Pleasure: The Life and Loves of Teresa Cornelys, Queen of Masquerades and Casanova's Lover.

American Jewish Historical Society

Today Bruce and I visited the American Jewish Historical Society, a mostly-free museum an avenue block off Union Square. This is a museum created as a partnership between 5 organizations, and each one contributes exhibits to the museum. I'd never heard of it before but stumbled on it while looking for free things to do in New York City. Their website is at www.ajhs.org

There was an excellent exhibit on the historic synagogues of Turkey, with beautiful photos of synagogues, some of them centuries old. It was fascinating to read about the Ottoman Empire in which Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully and Jews were invited to help shape the Ottoman Empire. Too bad that mutual respect can't seem to exist today, although it does in Turkey (unless the fundamentalist Muslims are able to take over there too).

Besides the beautiful photos, the researchers kept a travel diary that was fascinating to read. One excerpt described a rabbi who travels 22 hours each way every weekend in order to bring Shabbas services to a town that has only 4 or 5 remaining Jews. Now that's dedication!

Another exhibit was on Jewish Chaplains at War: Unsung Heros of the "Greatest Generation," 1941-1945. This described the extraordinary efforts put forth by the Jewish chaplains during World War II, how they comforted the wounded, buried the dead, and sustained the faith of all troops without regard to race, ethnicity or religion. They also made efforts to help the Holocaust survivors rebuild their lives. They worked closely with Christian chaplains for the first time and brought the spirit of ecumenicism back to civilian life at the war's end.

Several chaplains died while on duty. One was on a ship that was torpedoed. He and 3 other chaplains of other faiths gave their life preservers to the escaping sailors, and then held hands and prayed while the ship sank. Their sacrifice was honored on a postage stamp.

The Yeshiva University Museum had an exhibit on Dreyfus but we preferred to stay in the free part of the museum, and, that exhibit room didn't look all that big. (Bruce wandered into it by mistake while looking for me). I was in another side room looking at an exhibit built around the mesivta, the separation between men and women in the Orthodox synagogues. I'd always resented that separation so it was interesting to see how the artists interpreted it, with cutouts of women, the mesivta on one side and a depiction of the woman's character on the other.

There was a photo exhibit of Jewish writers. Many of them I've read, but many others I have not. Now if I see their names I will remember and perhaps read their books.

This was a delightful and serendipitous find. If you're visiting NYC check it out!

Bearded Lady (Reprise)

Friday I went and got my hair colored and cut for the first time in months. I take my time about it and I let the skunk stripe of gray hair grow out too far along my part. It was finally time to do something about it so I did.

The hairdresser kept pushing me to get my face waxed. I kept saying no. She even offered to do it for free the first time. I began to think of a drug peddler, offering school kids that first joint or pill or snort for free, knowing they would get hooked and come back for more. Finally I said to her, "What part of NO don't you understand? It's only two letters!"

Thank God for assertiveness training. I read those books 20 years ago and they still stand up today.

She says I'll change my mind someday and get a waxing done, but she's wrong. I won't. I had waxing done and not only did it hurt like hell, the hairs on my upper lip and chin came right back the minute I stopped. The same thing happened with electrolysis, which burns and stings, no matter how much local anesthetic they rub on your face. It's supposed to kill the root so that the hair doesn't grow back again. Oh, really? Well, I found that more and more hair grew back, so either it wasn't true or else the tiny electric shocks stimulated more growth in the nearby hair follicles.

In any case I am almost 53 and I am through torturing myself to make those hairs go away. If I find out that laser treatments are painless and permanent I might consider it but otherwise I will just shave off the long hairs and let it go at that. I have to say again that I admire Jennifer Miller for taking what could have been a devastating blow to most women, a full beard, and turning it into a positive and really the focal point of her life since she organized a circus.

I've got a fantasy. I'll stroll into my hairdresser's salon arm in arm with Jennifer Miller and we'll both flip her the bird. No waxing for me!!

Blogs of Note

Yesterday I checked out some of the Blogs of Note catalogued here on Blogger. One was about global volunteerism and seems to draw on the contributions of a number of people who have travelled to foreign countries in order to volunteer their time, energy and skills. It was inspiring to read about various experiences (and travel tips -- such as pedestrians do not have the right of way in China!) and how they changed the volunteers' lives. Here's the link: http://www.globalvolunteers.org/blog/

The other is on the ethics of blogging, and deals with issues such as blogging anonymously, what kinds of rules should apply to blogging, blogging in oppressive regimes, etc. Here's the link to this blog: http://ethicalbloggerproject.blogspot.com/

I recommend both highly. Finally, we have a published comment from a gentleman who claims to have written a book on the meaning of life. Please read his comment and do check out his blog, who knows, he may be on to something. Granted, in Douglas Adam's book, Life, the Universe, and Everything, a massive computer that had been working on the ultimate question for millions of years finally arrived at its conclusion: the answer to life, the universe, and everything was 42! It would probably take humanity and all the other sentient life forms in all the galaxies another billion years or so to work out what that answer meant. But whatever his answer, his blog is sure to raise some questions worth pondering.

Ethical Babies

Today I read this article, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071121/ap_on_re_us/infant_judging&printer=1;_ylt=AvFkCKf78WNd0gse_j_PuORH2ocA about babies and their ability to distinguish between "naughty and nice" playmates. Apparently when they were presented with a video of a train with googly eyes (sort of like Thomas the Tank Engine, I suppose) trying to climb a hill, they were able to judge the behavior of a second train which either helped or hindered the first one. When they were offered toys that resembled the "nice" or "naughty" train, they preferred the nice train that exhibited kindness and helpfulness. They rejected the train that hindered the "little engine that could."

They also preferred the "good" train to neutral ones and preferred the neutral trains to the "bad" train.

These were babies as young as six months, and some scientists were already saying that 3 month olds were exhibiting similar behaviors. These kids can't even talk yet but they seem to have an innate sense of right and wrong and they want to be in good company, even if it just means they want to play with a "playmate" who will be nice to them.

So instead of original sin, and being born wild and unruly unless they are civilized, it seems that babies have an internal ethical standard that guides them from almost the beginning. It's our experiences later in life that cause us to make the wrong choices and opt for bad company, at least according to this experiment.

This also puts a much bigger responsibility on parents and caregivers of infants, because it suggests that babies who are capable of distinguishing right from wrong behavior are not going to want to be in the company of adults who misbehave and treat others badly -- even if they are kind to the baby. Little eyes are indeed watching us!

Brooklyn Humanist Community is Cookin'!

This past weekend we had not one program but two! We gathered at Maureen's on Saturday evening and discussed the Big Questions. Some of us wanted to know the meaning of life. Others were concerned with relationships, and still others with world events and how we can affect them.

Together we wove a lovely tapestry of ideas and enjoyed the warmth and spiritual uplift of these Reflection conversations, led by Dr. Kurt Johnson. It reminds me of what we used to have in the other organization that we pulled away from, before all the power grabbing and character assassination began. But this is a circle of friends and we have known some of them for 20 years, and I'm just so glad that we are able to continue to meet with them and do constructive things, hold discussions, maybe branch out into some kind of ethical action, and most important, keep our friendships with them intact and growing.

The next day we had a program at the Brooklyn Public Library Kensington branch. The theme was Giving. Adriana spoke about Bill Clinton's book, Giving and about the things some of the wealthiest people are doing to make a better world. Tony read The Giving Tree, which brought him to tears. It is a sweet story of a completely unselfish tree that gives everything she has to a little boy who seems to always be asking for something. I actually think it is a model of too much giving but perhaps the tree is a parent. In that case its excessive giving makes some sense, though even parents have to eventually draw the line and get a child to move out, get a job, and do things for himself.

I discussed Rambam's Ladder, Maimonides' 8 step hierarchy of giving, climbing up toward righteousness. He placed giving begrudgingly on the lowest step of the ladder, and giving a poor person the wherewithal to pull himself out of poverty (for instance helping him find a job) as the highest form of charity. Just below the highest form of "teaching a man to fish" is completely anonymous giving. I discussed Maimonides' ideas from the viewpoint of a modern fundraiser and showed where his ideas fit in and where they clash with what we know about the psychology of giving. My audience was entertained by the "Vampires and Charity" story, where a scientist observed that vampire bats sometimes drink more blood than they need and then will give it away to other bats, but only when asked, and mostly only to those bats who have given them blood in the past. (Tony interjected that this is how the Red Cross got started, which cracked everyone up).

At the end I showed them the photo of the young man from Boston who was panhandling near Faneuil Hall last summer. I asked whether his cause was worthy and whether anyone would donate to him. In fact, because he was up front about his wishes and wasn't trying to fool anyone, I gave him a dollar and took his picture.

We have a planning meeting on Dec. 2nd, another program on Dec. 16th, a Reflection on the 22nd, and a book club discussion on January 6th. We also have a Winter Party coming up on Jan. 12th. So for a tiny group of about 22 people with only 10-12 active members, we are really going places and doing things. I hope it will grow but in the meantime I am happy that such a small group is able to accomplish so much.

Re-Filling the Nest

Just as we were getting used to the empty nest and beginning to appreciate the freedom, he's back. The veterinary technology program was too much, too quickly, and Jason was overwhelmed by it. He was also saddened and revolted by having to look at cut up "pets" like dogs and cats in the anatomy and physiology lab.

So we travelled up to Delhi on Sunday, Nov. 11th, and helped Jason pack up his things. On Monday morning we met him early, and he got the remaining signatures he needed to withdraw from the college fairly quickly. Because we ran back to the hotel and checked out before 11 AM, we wound up getting a credit for the second night.

It was tough getting the suitcases down to the bus stop but fortunately we only had to bring them down from the campus. Bruce's heel spur was acting up and he couldn't walk that far comfortably. So it was a good thing that it was all downhill and not that far from the dorm to the bus stop in town.

Pretty much as soon as we got home, we introduced Jason to The Door. http://www.door.org The Door is a youth organization that offers assistance with health, legal issues, counseling, career and educational help, for young people from 12 to 21. Although they say they are intended for low income youth, no one is turned away. Jason signed up to become a member and got the phone numbers for the career and education specialists.

Because the college ID is also a key, he had to surrender it at Delhi when he completed the withdrawal process. So he also had to go right to the Department of Motor Vehicles and apply for a nondriver photo ID in order to be able to work.

Right now he plans to look for work and may or may not attend as a part time student in the Spring. Or, he might wait until fall to attend college again. We'll see how this goes. In the meantime, we have our full nest again. It feels natural. I missed him more than I knew. But on the other hand I hope he will venture out again in a year or two and it will work out better for him next time. I felt sorry for him, after he had such great social success at college, that he had to leave and probably lose most of the new friends he made. But he will make friends again elsewhere, I am sure.

"Salem's Lot"

I picked up "Salem's Lot" at Duane Reade a few days ago. Apparently their sale on Halloween theme spooky movies did not move all the films, and I got the DVD for $5.

I read the novel by Stephen King years ago, probably at least 15 years back. I remember enjoying the shivers up and down my spine but did not remember much of the plot except that it involved a town being taken over by vampires.

Basically, that's what it was about. The main character, Ben, arrives in town to write a book about the weird happenings at the Marsten house. But he finds that a mysterious and creepy antiques dealer, Mr. Straker (James Mason) has rented the place. Strange and creepy things begin happening. Characters die off right and left and come back as vampires, eager to convert others to their evil cause.

This movie really scared me. I had clammy hands while watching it. It wasn't the makeup on the evil Vampire Master that was so frightening. It was the anticipation and the built up tension in each scene, so that by the time something supernatural happened I was ready to jump out of my skin. It takes an excellent movie to be that scary, and I was duly impressed with the skillful acting and direction.

Mason was particularly creepy as the dapper and urbane gentleman who aided and abetted the master Vampire in his aim to convert the townspeople into vampires. One wonders why Mason himself was not turned into a vampire and what reward he got from assisting the Master. One also wonders how Mason, who was around 70 at the time, could have been strong enough to lift a younger man and carry him down a hallway to impale him on a knife protruding from the wall.

But these little discrepancies aside, "Salem's Lot" was a marvelously spooky movie and I appreciated it a great deal though I am not so sure I will ever watch it again.

"East Side, West Side"

A few days ago I watched "East Side, West Side," with James Mason, Barbara Stanwyck and Ava Gardner. It's not the best movie in the world but I appreciated it nonetheless. Barbara Stanwyck played a kindhearted society wife to James Mason's character, a dapper and distinguished young man who unfortunately had a great weakness where fast women were concerned.

When the story begins Mason and Stanwyck seem to have weathered a bad episode in their marriage precipitated by his affair with another woman. They are all lovey dovey and she has forgiven him. But the "other woman," played by Ava Gardner, comes back to New York and begins her seduction of Mason all over again. Gardner plays an out and out slut who is completely confident of her power over him.

Mason tries to resist but eventually he succumbs to her charms and the affair begins over again. But this time he has a rival, and this time so does the Gardner character.

Gardner and Stanwyck face off and Gardner brags that she will call Mason and he will come running to her. Just after this confrontation, the Gardner character is murdered. Stanwyck and Mason are both suspects until the real killer is caught by means of a tiny piece of physical evidence left behind at the scene.

Spoiler: Don't read if you don't want to know the ending




Mason hopes to be able to pick up the pieces but Stanwyck has had quite enough of him, and she delivers a "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," type speech before walking out on him.

While others have criticized this movie in a number of ways, and it is of course rather obvious, I enjoyed it. It was a forties movie but contained some dialogue that could have been written in 2007. There's an interesting speech by Nancy Davis (who later became Nancy Reagan) in which she talks about the myth that women can't be good friends to each other. Very modern thinking, and a speech I didn't expect in a forties movie. Perhaps not that much has changed after all, in the past 60 or so years.

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman was an excellent read. It concerns the three main characters, Ronit, Esti and Dovid, all born and raised as Orthodox Jews in the London neighborhood of Hendon. Ronit has broken away, moved to New York and become nonobservant. Long ago, when they were schoolgirls, she had a lesbian affair with Esti. Esti is now married to Dovid, Ronit's cousin.

Ronit has never intended to go back but she returns on the occasion of her father's death. Her father was a much respected and loved Rabbi, a great leader in the Orthodox community there. Ronit is not in heavy grief over her father's death since they have been estranged for at least six years, but she intends to bring back the candlesticks that her mother (who has been deceased since Ronit was a girl) used to light the Shabbos candles, as a memory of her mother.

She stays with Esti and Dovid, and though Ronit has moved on from that long-ago affair, Esti has carried a torch for her all these years. The torch erupts into a flame. Ronit brings disapproval on herself by declaring herself a lesbian at a Shabbos dinner, and then when Esti makes a pass at her, some of the nosy and self righteous neighbor women see them and misinterpret it as Ronit making an unwanted pass at Esti. Naturally they blab it around the neighborhood even though gossip is considered a huge sin.

Also as this is simmering and word is spreading, the richest man in the area and the most arrogant offers Ronit a substantial bribe to leave London and not attend her father's memorial (hesped). How she deals with this and what she does on her return to New York shows a change in her from the woman who felt compelled to open her mouth and declare herself a lesbian before people she knew would be horrified, and yet she retains her identity and sense of self. However, the return home has changed her and mellowed her a bit in her attitude toward the religion she turned her back on (though, she is never going to move back to Hendon or become part of that insular and ingrown community again).

Esti also changes, from someone who is too silent to a woman who defies the tradition of women's silence to speak out at the hesped and declare her desires for women. Dovid actually stands with her and backs her up. So, there is growth and change even within this rigid community where people have tried so hard to hold back the tides and the influence of the outside, secular world.

While I didn't grow up Orthodox we did attend an Orthodox synagogue and I had some brushes with the narrow-mindedness of that community as a teenager. I remember the position of women being clearly defined when we were told we could not come behind a certain partition and see the Torah opened. The rabbinical student who told us this made an offhand jest about women's lib and it was clear to me that he was telling us that women's lib meant nothing: we were still not fit to be around an open Torah. I also remember going to a youth group meeting at the synagogue with my friend Janet. A few of the boys in the group took a high and mighty attitude with us (probably learned from their fathers) and told Janet she could not stay because she showed up in jeans and that was disrespectful. I, on the other hand, could stay because my pants were "nice."

Of course, in the Orthodox community today, even "nice" woolen pants would not pass muster on a female and I would have been ordered out also. But at the time I stated that if Janet's attire wasn't good enough for them then I was not good enough for them either and the two of us walked out. A few months later, we went to the outdoor Purim celebration, and these same boys had partaken of a large portion of wine (as is considered proper at Purim). They were sloshed enough not to recognize us and they invited us to come to the youth group. I told them, "We came last fall and you made her leave because she was wearing jeans."

The drunken ringleader answered, "Oh, that's okay, you girls can come in anything you want. In fact you can come naked if you feel like it."

Naturally, with an invitation like that, we never showed up.

So to an extent at least I understand Ronit's desire to flee the Hendon community and live her life her own way. She asks, at the end, if it is possible for there to be passion in such a community and in such a way of life. That is indeed the crucial question. I've suggested this book to the book club and I recommend it highly.

The Very Thought of You

I just finished The Very Thought of You, the last of the Lynn Kurland romance novels Ivy sent me. As usual it was excellent. I've enjoyed all these stories, even if one or two dragged slightly.

This one didn't drag. It was the story of a modern man, a lawyer who had been a corporate raider and not an altogether nice man, and his accidental trip into medieval England where he meets Margaret of Falconberg, the woman of his dreams. As is so often the case in Lynn Kurland's books, Margaret prefers to wear chain mail, tunics and hose rather than the gowns a woman is supposed to wear, and she is an excellent sword fighter.

Alex has been trained in swordplay by his brother in law Jamie, who originally hailed from the 13th century. But he's vowed not to fight again, feeling he is atoning for his past sins. However, when the chips are down and Margaret needs defending (which doesn't happen often) he picks up a sword again.

These two are crazy in love with each other, despite the usual glitches and misunderstandings. The travel in time is also quite an interesting complication. It's of course a pleasure to see them end up happily ever after while the bad guy, Ralf, ends up with Margaret's dagger in his heart.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoy Lynn Kurland's writing. I appreciate her frequent use of time travel in her stories, since I've always liked time travel stories, ever since I read The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. The problem of disrupting the time continuum and possible catastrophic results has always fascinated me, and the culture clash here between a 12th century woman and a 20th century man is quite entertaining.

And yet, Margaret is way ahead of her time. She fights like a man, reads and writes, and considers herself subservient to no one. Even at her wedding where she must promise to obey Alex, she mutters under her breath that she will obey him when she chooses to. It's hard to imagine a woman so strong willed in that time and place but maybe there were a few like Margaret. Unfortunately, no 20th century men enamored of strong-willed and sassy women were likely to be calling on them.

Lynn Kurland is a fun author who knows how to draw her readers in and give them what they are looking for. I certainly recommend The Very Thought of You.

Merit Pay for Teachers?

Last week I read an article in AM NY, stating that teachers in underachieving schools would receive merit pay if their students’ test scores improved.

Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? But it isn’t.

First off, it has already been shown that SAT scores are not all that closely correlated to success in college. After the terrible scoring glitch two years ago, when several thousand students were given the wrong grades on the SAT (most of them downgraded and a few hundred upgraded) there has been more of a push to do away with them as the entrance key or stumbling block to college. There are a number of schools that no longer even look at the SAT scores.

So there’s no real reason to suspect that all the standardized tests we are shoving down kids’ throats nowadays tell us much more than how kids perform on standardized tests. The burden of testing has grown enormously and teachers, parents and students alike complain that teachers are “teaching to the test” rather than teaching students to think for themselves.

Worse still, if teachers receive a bonus for bringing up the test scores, there’s a powerful incentive to bring up the test scores by any means necessary. There’s already that incentive in schools where principals stood to be removed from their positions if test scores did not improve. What happened?

Cheating, of course, instigated by the teachers rather than by errant students. I heard of one teacher who posted the answer sheet near the pencil sharpener and told students to keep sharpening their pencils as often as necessary. I’m sure the students got the idea. Another woman, a retired teacher I’m friendly with, told me that she taught the fourth grade, and when the time came for them to take the ELA, she would read the correct answer a bit louder than the others. Again, one supposes the students took the hint.

Not only that, but students who are known to be doing poorly are often encouraged to stay home on the day of the test. This raises the school’s overall test scores too, but it’s hardly an accurate reflection of reality. At Inwood House, I learned that pregnant girls are often encouraged to leave school by their guidance counselors, partly because there is still a stigma against them, and also because they, too, are viewed as bringing down the school’s testing scores.

So merit pay for teachers who bring up test scores in an underachieving school is more problematic than it seems. There’s got to be a better way than all this constant testing, to help students learn. Merit pay is not the answer.

A Link to Guiding Change

A couple of years ago, I heard Deb Howard speak and was impressed with her approach to helping nonprofit organizations change and transform in a positive way. I always thought that the organization I worked for in 2004-2005, the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, could have benefited greatly from her knowledge as it entered a period of intense, painful, and ugly conflict. Possibly some of it could have been averted if they had turned to her rather than to an organization that gave them cookie-cutter solutions that did not differ to any great degree from advice given to similar organizations in crisis.

I've just learned that Ms. Howard has launched a blog so I am including the link here for those who have a stake in a nonprofit organization's peaceful and productive continuity and growth. And no, I don't work for her! http://guidingchange.org/blog/

Midnight by Dean Koontz

I finished another Dean Koontz novel, Midnight, yesterday. This concerns a variation on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in which the enemy is a human who thinks he's smarter than the rest of us. This person, Shaddack, has devised an incredibly tiny microchip that can be injected into the human bloodstream turning human beings into either soulless and unfeeling creatures who can only feel fear because it is a survival mechanism, or else, they regress into animalistic creatures that live to hunt, feed and rut, without intellect or higher emotions, and without any sense of human morality.

It takes place in a small town, Moonlight Cove, where already quite a few of the townspeople have been "converted" when the story begins. Four people find themselves on the run from those who would turn them into unfeeling cyborgs: Tessa, the sister of a woman who was killed by the "regressives," Chrissie, an eleven year old girl who has seen her parents regress and escapes from a forced conversion, Sam, the FBI agent who has come to investigate too many deaths in a sleepy town and finds himself on the run, and Harry, a disabled veteran who has never lost his will to live and be engaged with life.

As the story progresses we learn that it is not just a few of the converted who regress to an animal state. The potential is in all the converted, as an escape from their emotionless existence. While still outwardly human they can remember and vaguely mourn the depth of feeling they have lost, but the regressive state is attractive to them because once regressed they simply live for pleasure and excitement and do not care. So whenever they are faced with a regressive, the converted are in danger of regressing themselves.

We also see the other side of the conversion to a cyborg state, where the "new people" evolve into a complete fusion with their computers, becoming joined to them by new organs, and incorporating wires and chips and switches inside their formerly flesh and blood bodies. This is a "Frankenstein monster" situation that somewhat accurately mirrors the effect of the internet, which in 1989 when Koontz wrote Midnight was just beginning to be available. Sometimes I feel so plugged into my computer that I might as well be one of these cyborgs, and how much more so is that the case for all the people carting their laptops and blackberries and mobile internet connections around with them?

The basic theme is that we can't afford to lose our finer emotions to either animal pleasures or to the silvery lure of the machine, because when we do we cease to be fully human. We also need to keep our love of life alive, lest losing it impact on our loved ones as well. The last scene, which I won't reveal, was one man and one boy's redemption and a "recall to life."

No Place Like Home

I finished Mary Higgins Clark's No Place Like Home a few days ago. Suspense novels are actually scarier than most horror, I find, because everything in a suspense novel could actually happen, while many horror stories rely on the fantastic or the supernatural. So I can maintain an element of disbelief while reading them. But with suspense, the events in the story could conceivably happen.

In No Place Like Home, Liza Barton, now living under another name and married with a child, is suddenly brought back to live in the very house where she accidentally shot her mother to death and tried to kill her abusive stepfather. Because the townspeople believed her stepfather's side of the story, she was nicknamed "Lizzie Borden" and the house was dubbed "Little Lizzie's house."

Her husband Alex has purchased this home for her, not knowing her history and not knowing of the terrible events that took place there. Even when he learns about the house and its history he insists he loves the house and wants to stay there. The real estate agent, meanwhile, is worried because she did not disclose the house's stimatizing history to Liza and that was a violation of the law. So she offers to show Liza (now known as Celia) another house nearby. But when Liza goes to keep their appointment, she finds the real estate agent murdered.

The plot becomes more complicated from there. There isn't just one bad guy involved; there are several. I'm not going to reveal the ending but I was pleased to discover that I did in fact spot the worst of the bad guys, and it was someone the reader wasn't supposed to suspect. So now should I go collect my detective badge?

This was a hair raising book, and I found it almost impossible to put it down and go to bed. I'm glad I read it.

In the Flesh Erotic Reading Series

Last night Bruce and I visited the Happy Endings lounge in Chinatown and attended the "Virgin Night" of the In the Flesh Erotic Reading Series. Their blog can be found at www.inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com.

The lounge is a small bar over a Chinese health club. We could hear Asian music wafting up from the downstairs club, since the stairway was not blocked by a door. I haven't been in a bar in years and it was hard to get used to the dim candlelight. Even in the bathroom, the light was dim since they used only red lightbulbs in there. The drinks cost $12 each. That may be normal Manhattan pricing these days but it sure made me glad that I am not allowed to drink.

The hostess put candy and cupcakes on the tables and I have to admit I broke down and ate a chocolate cupcake, but it was tiny. So I figure it was about two bites of a normal cupcake.

The reading started a few minutes late and was led off by the hostess, who has a prolific imagination. She hastened to inform us that the story was pure fiction. Good thing because otherwise she'd be exhausted from her sexual exploits!

Some of the pieces that were read were calculated to raise the temperature in the bar (though none did, and I was wearing my raincoat around my shoulders because of the air conditioning). Others were not only sensual but also hilarious. The tale of James Blond, hairdresser and environmentalist spy, saving the world from bad air and bad hair, brought a lot of chuckles. But I nearly wet my pants laughing at the story of two yuppies who had determined that the best place and time to conceive their baby was sometime slightly after 2:30 AM on Monkey Island at the Central Park Zoo. So they sneak in without attracting the attention of the guard or waking the monkeys and they begin going at it.

But then one of the monkeys wakes up, alerted by their moans, and they find themselves face to face with a curious and intrusive snow monkey...

The description was absolutely hilarious, and they still succeeded in conceiving their child. What a story they will have to tell when that kid asks, "Mom, how did I get here?"

The hottest erotic scene was read by Colette Gale, who read an excerpt from her novel, Unmasked, An Erotic Novel of the Phantom of the Opera. A close second was the young man who read last; about a man who finds himself in a compromising position with another woman, not his girlfriend, and is subjected to her bad poetry before she takes him to bed.

These readings take place every third Thursday of the month, and since we aren't drinkers we didn't have to spend a cent. Next time, I'll bring my own snacks so I won't be tempted to break my diet with all that candy. Since most of the people there were young (20's and 30's) they hadn't yet reached the age when candy and cupcakes become evil and forbidden fruits. Much better for me to munch on celery and just enjoy the sensual stories without blowing the diet!

This was different and fun, and I recommend it to anyone close to the New York City area.

Hideaway

In the past week or two I've concentrated on suspense and horror novels. I go through occasional periods where I enjoy them even when they scare or disgust me. Then I move away from them again, sometimes for years.

Hideaway by Dean Koontz was quite good. It concerns a man who dies in an accident, drowns in extremely cold water, and is brought back to life by a new technique that turns him into a modern-day Lazarus. The only problem is that he comes back with a mental link to a vicious and sociopathic murderer, and he is tormented by the visions he receives from the killer's mind. It's an epic struggle between good and evil, and they are just about evenly matched. The plot swirls around the threat to a little handicapped girl who represents innocence and goodness, even though she is not the least bit nauseatingly sweet.

I also enjoyed Koontz's afterword where he stated that this was the first of his novels that attracted hate mail. Apparently some atheists were highly offended that he wrote a book that assumed the existence of God, and some even threatened him! In a sense, though, that's the ultimate compliment to his writing, because they were clearly emotionally moved.

I recommend this book.

My Favorite Music

Every time I make one of these lists, I forget quite a few of my favorites, but I will put down what comes to mind anyhow. Sometimes it is hard for me to remember the names of the artists or the names of the songs. Still, here's at least a partial list, if anyone out there wants to make me a CD (joking!).

Groups and Musicians:

The Beatles - Yes the Fab Four are right up there, even if I didn't fully appreciate them in 1963 when they made their American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. Can you believe that my first comment on JPG&R was, "Why is everyone screaming? They're just four guys who need haircuts!" In my defense, I was not yet 9 years old.

The Rolling Stones... Mick and his amazing rubber lips
The Grateful Dead...come hear Uncle John's Band!
The Jefferson Airplane, and later they went anaerobic and became the Jefferson Starship
Simon and Garfunkel made a lot of beautiful sounds, none of them silence.
Leonard Cohen - I loved his music in the sixties and I still do. "Suzanne" and "I'm Your Man" are big favorites.
Bob Dylan -- "Come mothers and fathers all over the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command..." Who could have imagined, first hearing those words, that someday I'd be on the "parent" side of that great divide between the generations?
Judy Collins -- looking at clouds, love and life
Buffy St. Marie
Joan Baez
Country Joe and the Fish, for their most famous song: today it might go, "Come on all of you big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again, caught his tail in a terrible crack, way down yonder in Iraq..."
Mamas and Papas -- They made me dream of California
Billie Holiday -- Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do
The Beach Boys
Celine Dion
Mark Anthony
Janis Joplin
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Bob Marley -- "emancipate yourself from mental slavery"
The Bermuda Triangle (a folk group that never attained great notoriety but played often at Folk City and was just a lot of fun!)

And some random favorite songs:

My Heart Will Go On
The Tide is High
You'll Be In My Heart
Come Sail Away
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream
Hurts So Good
Redemption Song
Blowing in the Wind
Coming to America
Piece of My Heart
Where Have All the Flowers Gone

This is just a round up, since I can't think of them all, but I think our favorites tell something about us. Obviously I lean heavily to the sixties, classic rock and protest folk. I also enjoy classical music and classic jazz. Do post comments with your favorites too!

Blaze

I just finished reading Blaze by Richard Bachman, Stephen King's now-abandoned pseudonym. This is an interesting, non-horror novel about a not very bright man who attempts the "crime of the century," and has it all go awry. He's either hallucinating or hearing the spirit of his dead partner in crime, and follows his instructions for the most part in order to carry out the kidnapping, which he realizes (or believes) he is not smart enough to plan and execute on his own.

Blaze is pathetic as criminals go, and he has been sinned against pretty often, which makes his crimes somewhat understandable. Just about everyone's hand has been against him all of his life. When he kidnaps a rich couple's baby in order to hold it for ransom, he finds himself caring for the baby and wanting very much to protect it at the same time that he wants his ransom money. In fact, it seems that he has come to love Joe and see him as the one person who could really be his. Of course, that dream too is shattered.

Stephen King wrote a preface in which he spoke about his ambivalence regarding this novel and his doubts as to whether he should publish it. It might not be his best novel, but it was well worth reading and I'm glad he went ahead with sharing it with his readers.

Nocturne

I've just finished a collection of horror stories by John Connolly, contained in an anthology titled Nocturne. They were all fairly good stories but the one that stands out most in my mind is the story titled "Cancer Cowboy Rides." While we all should know today that cancer is not contagious, this story feeds on that lingering fear that sometimes makes friends and loved ones shy away from a person with cancer. The Cowboy isn't even a Typhoid Mary, immune in himself while infecting others with death. He's suffering himself, and the only way he can alleviate his suffering for a short while is to infect other people. It's pretty gruesome and I won't describe his symptoms here, but they go far beyond anything that really exists. Certainly, his "misery loves company" attitude is taken to an extreme in this story.

Though he is apparently vanquished, in the end we learn that he is indestructible and rises again like a contaminated and deadly phoenix. What a great metaphor for diseases that can recur, like cancer or better yet, AIDS, which continues to mutate and makes itself so hard to outpace with vaccines or medications.

The other story that sticks in my mind is "The Furnace Room." In this one, the classic horror story morality comes into play. The main character murdered his wife years ago, and finally gets his comeuppance when he is dragged into the furnace by the shade of his wife and three ghostly creatures that are similar to the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys. In this case, one has no ears, so he cannot hear his victims' pleas. Another has no eyes, so she won't have to see their sufferings, and the third has no mouth, so he cannot speak out on their behalf. Yet, since this victim is a murderer, it's hard to feel much sympathy, and as he is dragged to his fate I mentally agreed that justice was served.

For those who don't mind a little revulsion along with a good plot and vivid writing, I do recommend Nocturne.

The Lovely Bones

Spoiler Warning: If you have not read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, you may not wish to read this review. I tend to give away too much.

The Lovely Bones begins with the rape and murder of a fourteen year old girl by a deranged neighbor. The entire story is told from Susie's viewpoint, describing the horror of her murder and dismemberment, and then proceeding to describe her experience of heaven and her years of observing the toll her murder takes on her family and friends. So many lives are changed irrevocably by her death and particularly the gruesome manner of her death. Her body is never found, leaving it difficult for her parents to find any closure for their grief.

Susie's heaven is "a separate peace." She can have pretty much what she wants but she seems to be trapped in one part of heaven because she has not yet let go of her family and her earthly life. Her loved ones don't necessarily find their way to her the moment they pass, and she is not waiting for them with open arms at the end of a shining tunnel. They find their way to her, but some arrive sooner than others. And they don't always stay in her corner of heaven but sometimes return to their own versions of the afterlife. She finds that she can have the things she wishes for but that doesn't mean eternal happiness, just as things on earth cannot make happiness.

Somewhere at the beginning of the book Susie mentions lamp lights that resemble those in a stage set of "Our Town," a play that also deals with the relationship of the dead to the living. I remember seeing "Our Town" when I was around Susie's age and feeling Emily's frustration when she is allowed to return to Earth to relive her twelfth birthday, but no one really sees her, no one realizes that she is not a twelve year old but a grown woman who died young.

In Susie's case, she does get that magic moment. A girl she knew at school, Ruth, felt her touch as she hastily departed her body the night of the murder, and knew it was Susie's soul departing. She becomes obsessed with Susie and with death, and with the death of women and girls, the souls of whom she is able to see. Finally, after years of observing Ruth befriend Ray, the boy who gave Susie her first and only kiss, she is for some reason permitted to inhabit Ruth's body just long enough to make love to Ray. And Ray is able to perceive her and know that he is making love to his dead girlfriend Susie contained in Ruth's body. She succeeds where Emily failed, in making contact with a living loved one. Others see her also but this is her most tangible manifestation of all.

At the end, she realizes that her violent murder has influenced so many lives and that her family has turned out the way it has because of the "lovely bones" built by her death. There is transcendent joy in the ending: although they still think of each other the grief is over. Susie has moved on in her heaven, and her family has moved on to new beginnings; even a little niece is named after Susie.

This was an excellent read especially for someone who believes in an afterlife and has great curiousity about what the "dead" think and feel about us. We won't know for sure until we get there but I appreciated Susie's voice and her imagined thoughts and emotions. I recommend this book.

Inwood House Staff Meeting

It was a pleasure attending the staff meeting at my new job with Inwood House. We met last Friday at the Bronx site up on 148th Street and Courtland Avenue. This is a section of the Bronx I never knew as a child and young adult, but when I got off the subway I saw several buses heading to destinations I did recognize. It gave me a wave of nostalgia to see buses going to Fordham Road, Kingsbridge Road, and the Grand Concourse, my old stomping grounds.

The staff meeting itself was an upbeat experience. I came out of it feeling much more like a member of a family, even though I didn't get a chance to chat with that many people before we began. We got a quiz on the history of Inwood House, and I learned some fascinating and relevant facts from that quiz.

Our Executive Director, Linda Lausell Bryant, led the meeting. She reported some positive and some disturbing news. I'll start with the disturbing news so I can return to the positive stuff last. First, the Department of Education closed all four of the schools for pregnant teens this past June. While those schools were reflective of an unfortunate attitude toward pregnant teens and were not demonstrating high standards or expectations for the young women in attendance, it surely doesn't help to simply close the schools and insist that these teenagers go back to their home schools. Although it is not permitted on paper, guidance counselors often push these girls out of their schools or don't want to accept them back in. So it's a serious problem and Inwood House is engaged in a long battle to address this issue, perhaps by bringing back the "P schools" but with higher standards and expectations and with the kind of back up services needed by pregnant and parenting teens.

Another problem is that ACS has taken the position that all children should be with a loving family and therefore they are downsizing all forms of residential care. But for some of these kids that loving family just doesn't exist, and if the residences are closed down, a lot of kids will be left to fall through the cracks.

On the positive side we have Christine Quinn as an ally and we have good relationships with all the potential candidates for Mayor other than one, and that person will be approached soon also. Also Governor Spitzer has recognized that the "abstinence only" programs are not supported by evidence, and has turned back the federal money for these programs but is still making the matching state money available to agencies working on teen pregnancy prevention. Kudos to Governor Spitzer!

Some of the goals for Inwood House's future are to strengthen our ability to affect public policy and to help the youth we serve to not only finish high school successfully but also go on to get a higher education, since the evidence shows that it is difficult to earn a middle class wage without a college education. We're also moving to offer more support for young families, which face a lot of negative attitudes, and to help teen parents to provide early childhood education for their children, in order to give the next generation a better chance to pull out of poverty.

Ms. Bryant has a dynamic vision for helping the youth of NYC achieve their dreams and become independent and healthy adults. I'm excited to be part of this effort!

We had a section of the meeting known as "shout outs" where staff members gave appreciation and praise to various other staff. I got up and thanked the staff as a whole for creating the feeling of an extended family that I was getting at this meeting, and the development department in particular for welcoming me and giving me the opportunity to learn so much about Inwood House and the clients we serve in just my first month.

Inwood House's website is at www.inwoodhouse.com. I'll be writing updates on our work from time to time.

Boycott the Skies

Here's the letter I wrote to AM-NY, a free newspaper distributed during the work week around NYC. It's a great paper that I enjoy reading for its brevity, good reporting and for the interesting listings of city events. Their website is at www.amny.com/news.

Boycott the Skies

I am outraged by the news that an irate passenger was arrested and then left alone in a holding cell while she choked to death trying to get her handcuffs off. This is the worst tragedy so far but in the past year there have been all too many horror stories of various airlines mistreating their customers. People left on runways for hours and hours without food, water or a working toilet? People herded past guard dogs and held in a tiny room once they do get off the plane? Women told they can't fly because they are wearing short skirts? Baby bottles yanked out of children's hands? This is no way to treat paying customers. Since 9/11, instead of beefing up security where it counts, airlines have taken "security" as an excuse to mistreat customers who aren't perfectly docile no matter what the situation. I urge everyone who has the option to stay off planes and travel by other means. Collectively the airline industry deserves to crash and burn.

That's the end of the letter but I could say a lot more. It seems to me that the airlines have completely lost respect for their customers. They continually flunk tests of their security measures but instead they bully and browbeat paying customers and tell themselves they are being security conscious. I don't intend to fly again. When I last got on an airplane in 1998, it was a whole different world. We were treated with courtesy. An hour wait on the runway was seen as a big and inconvenient delay. Today that would probably be seen as excellent service. Yes, security was too lax, and that's why the terrorists got away with it on 9/11, but callous mistreatment of passengers isn't the way to deal with it.

The young woman who died was Betsy Gottbaum's step daughter in law. Ms. Gottbaum has asked the media to respect the family's privacy. I hope they will. But as public advocate, Betsy Gottbaum is in the perfect position to take the airline to task over this tragedy. Once the mourning period is over.. I won't say the grief because that never ends, not in a case like this where it was so senseless and someone is clearly at fault.. I hope she takes the airline responsible to court and strips them down to their last dime. It still won't bring back a daughter, wife and mother to the people who loved her.

But so far as I can see, the airlines are collectively misbehaving and acting as if they are doing the public a favor when they let us on a plane. Their attitude is all wrong and until it is corrected I don't intend to ever go near an airplane.

The Namesake

I read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri for a book discussion group to take place in October. The writing was vivid and excellent. The story puzzled me a bit. It's the story of a Bengali family, transplanted to America. Their son is named Gogol and the name, which is originally only meant to be a family nickname, ends up sticking with him throughout his childhood and youth.

Gogol gets his name because his father was once in a terrible train wreck and was only saved alive because he was reading a book by Gogol at the time of the accident and one of the rescuers spotted him feebly waving a crumpled page of the book from the train window. So he gives his son Gogol as a pet name. But then there is a mixup: the child's great-grandmother has the honor of giving him his formal name, but for some reason this important letter never reaches the family. So Gogol ends up being the name on his birth certificate. Later, his parents try to rectify the problem by naming him Nikhil as his formal name, but he refuses to use it in kindergarten and thus Gogol follows him all through his early years.

Young Gogol despises his name and refuses to read anything by his namesake even when his father gives him a book by Gogol when he reaches adolescence. He is humiliated to learn that Gogol went mad, and considers it somehow a reflection on him. In the mix is his attempt to become an American, pretty much the classic struggle of the child of immigrant parents who are clinging to the customs of the old country.

His two relationships with American women don't work out, and then he marries his parents' choice, the daughter of their friends. He's known her all his life, and yet she used to read books at all the gatherings and barely spoke a word to him. Although he loves her, she doesn't return his affection enough, and the marriage fails. At the end, his mother is returning to India to live there six months of the year, and Gogol is at the last party that will be held at his childhood home. He retreats to his old bedroom, finds the book by his namesake that his father gave him, discovers an inscription from his father that he'd never noticed before, and begins to read.

It seems he's come to terms with his strange name (even though he has already legally changed it to Nikhil) and therefore with his identity and his unique place in the world.

I had several reactions to this book. First, I was rather glad that his marriage to "Miss Right" didn't work out. That would have been too pat. It would have smacked of the smug assumption that people should "stick to their own kind" and not try to assimilate and learn other ways.

Second, I didn't quite understand his hatred of his name. Sure, it's odd. But he could have viewed it as fascinatingly different instead of being embarrassed by it. We are all given names by other people and unless, as he advocates at some point in the book, people are to remain nameless until they choose their own names at 18 years of age, we're pretty much stuck with that. Of course, a legal name change is always an option. In Gogol's case, the fact that he's the child of immigrants makes the name issue more confusing. He's not only embarrassed by having a strange name, but he's embarrassed because it is the name of a man who went mad (he overlooks the fact that Gogol was a brilliant writer), and because it's neither an American nor a Bengali name. Instead it's Russian and has no obvious relationship to him at all.

We're all named for someone or something. I was named for an aunt who died in her forties, possibly of breast cancer. Strange that I got breast cancer in my early forties too. Other than that, I am named for her but don't know anything about her as a person. I used to think about what name I would choose if I were renaming myself, but now I don't remember what name I would have taken. And of course, online, I have a number of screen names and various identities. We all choose names that mean something to us here, and we are able to reinvent ourselves at least in terms of how we present ourselves in this virtual world. I wonder what Gogol would call himself here, and whether he would take any teasing because his name resembles Google?

As for the expected marriage, I was glad it didn't work out because my own experiences with blind dates or with expectations of that sort were anything but good. I know some people had happy arranged marriages or met their soulmates on a blind date, but I didn't, and my bias is against it. I felt sorry that Gogol was betrayed but also felt that maybe next time he would find a woman of his own choosing and things would go well.

"They Were Sisters"

Warning: Spoilers included in this review; if you have not seen this movie and intend to see it, you may not wish to read this entry.

"They Were Sisters" begins in 1919, with three sisters and their courtships. Charlotte falls for James Mason's character, a sexy but cruel young man who marries her and then heartlessly destroys her soul with his psychological abuse. Vera, rather cold and heartless herself, marries her young man but warns him ahead of time that she doesn't love him. Throughout their marriage she has affairs and blows him off until he finally leaves her and goes to America alone.

The third sister, Lucy, is a good and sweet person who marries a kind and decent man and they are eternally happy together. Their only sadness is that their only daughter died young. Instead, they shower their love on their nieces and nephew, Mason's children and the only daughter of Vera, the "cold" sister.

Eventually, Mason's character (Jeffrey) drives his pathetic wife to suicide, and he tries to cover it up by convincing Lucy to lie on his behalf and cover up his wife's drinking problem (caused by his mental cruelty). But she does the right thing after all and betrays him at the inquest, accusing him of murdering Charlotte with his torture and undermining. Finally Jeffrey is exposed and gets his just desserts, his reputation in tatters (though he can't really be held criminally responsible for his wife's death as he did not push her in front of the car, she darted out in front of it). Lucy and her husband end up happily ever after, with custody of all the children.

A curious feature of this film is that Mason's wife Pamela Kellino played his daughter in the film. Not only that but just like in his later film, "Lolita," Mason as Jeffrey obviously has some lustful intentions toward his eldest child Margaret. He sits her on his lap, holds her in loverlike ways, and talks about taking her on a vacation, just the two of them alone without her mother or the other children present. When she finds a young boyfriend, Jeffrey tears up his letters to her and does his best to break it off. It's clear that just like Humbert (who hadn't even become a gleam in Vladimir Nabokov's eye yet), he is jealous of his daughter's normal interest in a boy. He seems to love her unnaturally and yet his cruelty and domineering character comes out with her too. In the end, she sees through her father and rejects him as evil, and he is left with nothing. You can't help but applaud the ending, particularly when the good husband says to his good wife, "God's in his heaven and all's right with the world."

Mason was the worst sort of cad in this film but he was also gorgeous and sexy. His rare and calculated tenderness with his wife was all but hypnotic, and it was easy to see how a woman could be taken in by this sort of manipulation. I also saw a connection to "Gaslight" when Charlotte was so bamboozled by his derision that she began to act like the fool he continually accused her of being.

It's not a pretty story but I enjoyed it, and found Mason's sexy villainy enticing, even though in real life a man like that is exactly the kind to run far away from, as his wife's sisters Vera and Lucy tried to warn her before the marriage.

Dreams of Stardust

Lynn Kurland's Dreams of Stardust is another of her medieval/modern romances between a woman of the Middle Ages and a time traveling 21st century man. I'm seeing now that her stories are intertwined, as the same or related characters keep popping up in several of her books. Not a bad idea, it saves her from having to research a number of eras instead of just one.

I liked this story. Jake, a modern day gem collector and designer, is sent spinning into the past and falls in love with the beautiful Amanda. Amanda is similarly taken by him but spends much of her time feeling that he is unsuitable because he is a mere merchant and not one of the nobility. However, she has strong feelings for him all the same.

Jake is so smitten that he determines to win Amanda one way or another. He learns that he might be able to buy himself a title and impress the king with his swordplay or some other talent, and thereby make himself an appropriate suitor for Amanda's fair hand. So he undertakes the journey back to the future (our present) and finds himself in a dangerous situation and unable to access his considerable fortune.

Without giving away the ending, this is a romance novel and like 99% of romance novels has a happy ending. This story was a pleasure to read because of Jake's willingness to sacrifice everything in his modern day life to be with Amanda.

Years and years ago I had a boyfriend who loved me but would not commit because he was "too young." In retrospect, he was surely right. But at the time I was upset that he wouldn't take a chance. We watched "The Graduate" together and I was touched by the last scene, where Benjamin locks the wedding celebrants into the church with a huge cross and then runs off with Eleanor, still in her bridal gown to be married to someone else. He was so willing to make an absolute fool of himself to win her over.

Afterwards I had an argument with my boyfriend and angrily challenged him to "do something stupid for me." Well, he wouldn't, and it's just as well as his maturity hadn't kicked in yet.

But in Dreams of Stardust, Jake does "something stupid" in order to marry Amanda. I guess that's what appealed to me most, vicariously enjoying the love of a man who pulls out all the stops and takes impossible chances in order to get his woman.

Recently a man told me he read a book that told him that women marry for security while men marry to have steady sex. I don't think I went looking for security or mainly for security in a man. But I did go looking for a man who would love me enough to jump in feet first and not dally on the shoreline debating the issue forever. It's that quality that pleases me about Jake.

Amanda is the woman who is not sure of her own attractiveness. Her sharp tongue isn't valued by men in the Middle Ages though her brothers clearly adore her. But Jake appreciates her wit even when she sends her barbs his way. That's another thing I like about this book. If you get a chance, read it.

"You Never Write! You Never Call!"

Tonight Bruce and I went to a book signing at Barnes and Noble. The featured book was You Never Write! You Never Call! A History of the Jewish Mother. The author, Professor Antler, discussed the book and read some excerpts from it. She talked about the negative stereotype of the Jewish mother as being a sort of hovering, interfering vampire. We heard a few Jewish Mother jokes and even though they are dreadful I just had to laugh. My favorite is, "What's the difference between a Jewish mother and a terrorist? You can negotiate with the terrorist!"

Apparently Margaret Mead and a number of other anthropologists once did a study on Jewish families. They discussed the stereotype of the Jewish mother and characterized her as giving unconditional love but unfortunately expressing it through suffering, worrying and overfeeding her kids. To an extent I guess I fit that stereotype! She also said that for the second generation, kids of immigrant parents, rejecting the Jewish mother was a way of assimilating, distancing themselves from their roots. That, I don't identify with. My parents were the second generation, I'm the third.

It was an interesting presentation and I certainly could relate to it after we got so worried when we didn't hear from Jason for four days that we called up his Residence Director to get him to call us. I really don't want to do that again. It was quite a funny coincidence that this book signing came along right at this time. Maybe we needed a little levity injected into the situation.

She asked if anyone had any questions or comments and I spoke up about our worrying about Jason, and called myself a "card-carrying Jewish mother." I really do think I fit the worrywart part of the stereotype though I hope I'm not a "vampire." I'm also trying hard not to be a "helicopter parent," which Prof. Antler described as being very similar to the Jewish mother stereotype (though without any specific ethnic identity).

We didn't buy the book but I will look for it in the library. Here's the link: You Never Write! You Never Call!

Bearded Woman

This afternoon Bruce and I sent Jason the charger from the main post office behind Madison Square Garden. It's good knowing that there is a post office open 24/7 in this city, even though all that does is get a few hours jump on the usual mail. But this time it may get a more major jump because of Labor Day.

Afterwards we went to the Village and walked around a bit. We ended up in Washington Square Park and followed our ears to find a small circus, known as "Circus Amok," performing. http://www.circusamok.org The show was political and satirical in nature, with digs at Bush and the war in Iraq. Persons of indeterminate gender (were they bearded guys in skirts? Were they women after all?) performed skits, did acrobatics and juggled. I recognized one person, but I was not sure if it was a male or a female. He/she had a full beard but the voice of a woman. It was puzzling.

Later, I googled the circus and found an article about the Bearded Woman. Her name is Jennifer Miller. It seems she is quite an accomplished person, a circus performer, a writer, and a university professor. And the beard is genuine. She wears it proudly and refuses to be ashamed of who and what she is, though of course she has endured plenty of taunting and stares.

Because I have a problem -- hm, is it a problem? -- with excessive body hair and hair on my face, I found myself very impressed with and drawn to this woman who has not tried to hide it like a defect but instead is who she is without apology. She reminds me of the fictional character Sissy Hankshaw, the woman from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins. Sissy was born with huge thumbs and rather than hide her "defect" or have them surgically removed, she becomes the world's greatest hitchhiker.

Now here's a woman who is very much like that, but she's a real person who has lived with an enormous difference, a gender-bending difference, since puberty or so, I would assume. If I had a hat, I would have to take it off to her. I feel a certain kinship with her although I have tried to hide the hair on my face, and I have been put through so many awful treatments to try and get rid of it. Now I remove it myself, knowing it will always grow back, but I'm going to give Ms. Miller's attitude some thought and plenty of respect. I am not a performer and I can't go around being completely unconventional in appearance so I will have to stick with the solution I have chosen. Yet, I admire Jennifer Miller for having the courage to be who and what she is. http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/nytimes/917M-000-012.html

Emptying the Nest

Thursday morning we headed up to Delhi to deliver Jason to his college. I had some nasty tummy trouble on the way up there. Let's gloss over the graphic details, but just say I suspect I have irritable bowel syndrome or something similar. Anyhow we waited two hours on line for the bus to be sure we would catch it. Lo and behold, we had the same bus driver who gave us such a hard time on the way back in February. However, he didn't remember us at all, which is not surprising since he must have seen a couple of thousand passengers since then. His lack of recognition was a great relief to me since last time I thought he was going to deliberately leave us off the bus.

We got to the hotel just fine and then walked into town to scope out the route and do a couple of errands at the campus. We saw the outside of the dorm and then went up to the bookstore where we bought Jason a cable lock for his computer. Then we went back into town and ate an early dinner at the Pizza Factory.

Around that time Jason started complaining of a headache and sore throat. At first I didn't want to believe anything was wrong but by the time we got back to the hotel it was clear he wasn't well. He tried his temperature and it was elevated a bit. So, he went to bed early, and we hoped for the best.

But on Friday morning it turned out that he was still sick and in fact had 102 temperature. I realized then that our original plan of wheeling the suitcases from the hotel all the way into town was just not going to fly. So I called campus security and they sent their "Bronco Bus" service down at 7 AM to pick us up with the luggage. That was a great help!

Everyone was very helpful. There were move in crews and orientation staffers and the Resident Advisors were on hand to help also. I was pleased with the number of people available to be of help and how nice they were.

Jason's roommate arrived with his parents, his sister and his little nephew who must be around 2. They brought tons of stuff for Jonathan, including a case of "cup a soup" and a case of bottled water. I somehow doubt he will need all that but I guess just as I have worried myself crazy about Jason's needs, Jonathan's mother has worried about his. We've just expressed it in different ways.

The dorm room seems tiny and it was in battered condition after several young men have occupied it over a number of years. Jason received a huge list of all the damages to the room. Now I have to wonder, if they charge the kids for damaging the room, you would think they would use the money to FIX it, but apparently not! One track light doesn't work..and they only have two. The land line phone did not have dial tone, either. So they'd better get that fixed in a big hurry.

After we got Jason unpacked we went out to the orientation tables and he checked in. He got his ID card, and several other items including a free tee shirt and a planner. We proceeded to the meeting for students with special needs and he got his program. What a killer. On Mondays he has classes with just a few breaks, from 7:30 AM till 5 in the afternoon. Fortunately that is his absolute worst day and it gets better after that. He has no class on Thursdays but I'm sure he will need to study that day anyhow.

After the meeting there was a barbecue. They served half chickens, cole slaw and a fruit and bean salsa. It was delicious but Jason was still not well and he didn't feel like eating much. He just had some tortellini and bread. He went back to the dorm and took a nap while Bruce and I walked into town and bought him a phone card and two looseleaf notebooks to keep his lab manuals in. He didn't have his chemistry book packaged up with the rest so he is going to have to buy that later.

When we got back and woke him up his temperature was even higher so we insisted he go to the infirmary. Fortunately it is just a stone's throw from his dorm. That's a very good thing. The nurse practitioner looked him over, determined it wasn't strep, and said he most likely just has a virus and needs to drink a lot and take tylenol and rest as much as he can. I hope he didn't go to the picnic today but I guess he probably made that decision for himself.

Finally they had a "convocation" at 3. This was a lovely ceremony where the college president and department heads put on their academic robes and marched to the stage with all sorts of fanfare. They asked the freshmen to stand and formally welcomed them to the college. A few professors made speeches. The head of the Vet Science department told them he is a science fiction fan. Well, that's great to know because Jason can have some common ground with him on a subject that isn't just the schoolwork. I'm sure he will manage to strike up a conversation about sci fi and fantasy. Also this prof said that when he began as a Delhi freshman 35 years ago, he was very unhappy and hated the college for the first few weeks. But then, he decided he was going to make it work, and obviously he not only made it work but returned as a professor.

At the end of the convocation we said goodbye to Jason, wished him well, and let him go off to meet with the orientation leaders while we headed off the campus and back into town.

He wasn't really far away yet, though. So it was hard to believe we won't see him till early October. Bruce and I took a walk through the town. It's not very big in terms of the downtown area. There's a supermarket, a couple of antique stores, an occult store, a few restaurants, some liquor stores, and a general store, but it's quite small and unexciting. All of the excitement will be on the campus and not off of it.

We ate out at an Italian restaurant but had tiny chef salads. By contrast the chef salad I had on Thursday evening in the Pizza Factory was enormous. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel and watched TV. Jason called around 8 and said he was feeling better, and I asked him to call in the morning too.

He called around 7:3o yesterday morning, said he was better, and I reminded him to do something about the land line, because the professors use that line to contact the students. He has a cell phone but since his didn't work on the campus he and Bruce traded chips on Friday. However we hadn't brought Bruce's charger so Jason has not kept his phone on. Therefore I wasn't able to call him. I asked him to email last night but he didn't, and he hasn't today either. It's getting me a bit antsy but I'm trying to keep it in perspective and not get overly nervous.

We had breakfast around 8 and another couple was there. They brought their son to the college but because he didn't reserve his dorm room early he got caught in an overflow situation. So he didn't have a room to move into, and the college was putting him up at the Buena Vista motel! It sounds good except that he has to walk to the college and back and that won't be so pleasant after dark. It might mean he doesn't get to some parties he would like to attend, plus he misses out on the dorm experience. However they said he would probably get to move into the dorms sometime during the term because not everyone ends up staying.

These people also told us that some of the students had to double and triple up way over their rooms' capacities and that kids were "stacked like cordwood" with 6 to 8 in some rooms that were meant for 3. That sounds pretty horrible especially given how much crap some of these kids lug up to the school with them. Just imagine all those cases of cup a soup and the kids trying to sleep curled up around them! Jason is certainly lucky that he got his request in early.

We caught the bus back to New York at a few minutes after ten. Around 15 minutes later we reached Margaretville. Now over the two days we were there we kept seeing people we knew from BSEC. There was a woman who reminded me of Joan, and another man who reminded Bruce of Kurt. So when I saw a woman who reminded me of Annette I didn't think anything much of it, but commented to Bruce that I've been seeing people I thought I recognized all weekend. Then the woman got on the bus, and it actually was Annette, returning from a few days in the country visiting a friend! That was a great surprise and certainly quite a coincidence. I'm glad we had someone to talk to on the way home or we might have felt like lost souls. I certainly do feel a bit like that right now, especially since Jason hasn't called or emailed yet since yesterday morning.

But, I will attempt to keep my nerves under control. I expected it to be difficult and scary, emptying the nest and letting our little birdie fly free. And I was right. I will try very hard to give him space and let him organize things the way he wants to, but in another day or two I'll break down and have to call to see that he is all right.