On/Off/On

 

I had my very first surgery recently. Nothing major, but it meant being "put under", anesthesized, something of which I had an unacknowledged fear, the penultimate loss of control. Stripped of my clothes and worse, my glasses for a significant myopia, I was introduced to the man who would knock me out, minutes before it was to happen. "Hello Doctor"  I said, unable to make out the contours of his face. "Trust me?" he asked. I don't think I had time to answer as I was being wheeled from my waiting space in this outpatient mini-hospital into the place where my neck would be quite literally slit on the left side to take out an infected salivary gland and a foreign calcium object that had grown nearby. I saw three circular lights, as yet not ablaze. And then, I awoke, someone wiping blood off my nose and calling my name, shadowy figures hovering and mumbling in the near distance. I did not remember being shut off, but I was switched on again and it was powerful. I don't know if I actually did, but I have this idea that I thought about a scene in Robocop just then. He had been damaged and being man and hardware; he was shut down. Then from his point of view, a semi-computer, he registers, click, click, click, information coming in, words like "functioning" crawling on his visual screen, flash, flash, flash. That was my view, without the instructions in my visual field to tell me I was back "on". Nothing gradual. Not there. Then there. And, unlike Robocop, I was crying. My life was returned to me. Control was nearly mine again.

But this hour or two hour period of being shut off got me thinking about the ultimate fear, death, the big, the final sleep. In that room, during my surgery, time had passed. For me, there was before and after, but literally no middle. Not even dreaming good or bad. Nothingness. What if I had not awakened? Then what? Some people think that there is no what then. Nothing more than nothingness. And I certainly can't dispute them in any concrete way. I have fallen back on my faith that despite what I did not see or hear or feel in that two hours plus pause of my consciousness, when the true end comes, I'll pass through the cloud of unknowing. But, even when my faith falters, I like the idea of Pascal's Wager. That God, and the Someone after, exists because it is the best bet and I have got nothing to lose by believing it. If I am wrong, there is an eternity of nothingness and I won't be there to worry or complain. If I am right, and there is a community of saints, wow, won't that be grand? Think of the people I'll get to see again, as God smiles and His Eyes and mine meet?

But for now, I am glad that I'm back "on" in this life. But, I am a little less afraid and maybe a bit more willing to let go of the control I never had in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: life, death, on, off, robocop, God

The Mindblowing Metamorphosis of Downtown LA

 

 

 YESTERDAY

      . . .AND TODAY!

Our hour not quite up, my lunch companion and I wandered  from City Kitchen on Olympic to 9th and Hope to see the new Ralph's Supermarket on the cusp of its grand opening tomorrow.  I looked upon it, its almost readiness, except for a ladder here and there putting the finishing touches on ceilings and lights, as a virtual piece of architectural magic. Eyewitness News must have felt the same way--the blue truck parked out front anticipating interviews.  Ok, the building looks pretty much like any other super grocery store in any big city, but the fact that it is there, complete with underground parking, in the heart of a downtown LA that is coming alive was mesmerizing. What do you bet that the reporter's question to a passerby was "What's it like finally to have a supermarket you can walk to?" Los Angeles is becoming less the terrain of empty lonely parking lots, decrepit store fronts and bad smells than a place to visit and come home to, if you happen to be ensconced in one of the earliest constructed lofts. I work in one of the first skyscrapers, which happens to be on what has been the seediest part of town. But even our building has been renovated. And I am energized. It's almost like having a new job! (Ok, that part was over the top.) But there was something tonight about walking toward my office lot as the sun was starting to set and seeing three new buildings on Grand, just south of the Staples Center glinting on the horizon. A community is growing. When I go over to Starbuck's (some might say the ultimate sign of civilization, while others might cringe) I see the same man who lives in the building above it, with his three cute sausage dogs. We are sharing a nascent neighborhood. Occasionally, we even say "hi" to each other. The coldness and desolation is gone. I am reminded of the time just before I left New York. It was 1979-1980 and I worked around Chambers and Church Streets, lower Manhattan, surrounded by warehouses and tire factories, also bad smelling. Then this little bread shop/cafe opened, in a renovated brick building which gave the place character and a little glow of impending hipness. Then a dinner/bar place where I became addicted to pna coladas of all things. I left that job and the East Coast before the residents came into what was to become Tribeca.

I am committed to staying at my job for a few more years if they'll haveme, so I should get to see the new downtown LA in full bloom. For now, I am just aching to go to the new Ralph's tomorrow. Even if I don't live in the neighborhood, I kind of feel a vested interest in its success. Go South Park!

 

Wild about Harry

 

When the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, came out and there was talk of a movie to follow it, I happened to hear some radio show on which a guest was prophesying the corruption of childrens' minds and souls because of the witchcraft and wizardry advocated by J.K. Rowling's vision for the pre-pubescent and pubescent set. I seem to remember that he was a minister, who, no doubt many would denominate fundamentalist, but I am not given to automatic disregard of those so denominated. But neither am I given to an automatic grant of credibility. The warnings seemed a bit over the top to me.  I mean, the children's fantasy stories of my childhood had been Hansel and Gretl, Rapunsel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty, wherein children were subject to being baked, beautiful maidens were locked in towers, a large giant was sniffing out Englishmen to eat them and a witch was trying to get another lovely maiden to eat a poison apple. And then, there were the books and movies of the Grimm's Fairy Tales, and they were, well, grim was the operative word. And pray tell (sorry minister), what is so bad about wizards and witches? Remember when they had those machines that pressed out a personalized good luck charm in places like Woolworths? I got one that announced my name with the title, "Wizard".  The wizard I was modelling myself on hailed from Oz. I heartily sang, "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!" at age 6 or 7 and wondered if Good Witches all had the high pitch of Billie Burke. Though I had no prior interest in Harry and company, my curiousity was piqued, and I  read the first Harry Potter book. Aside from being gratified that children from say 8 up were able to read anything quite that long with actual big words, I fell in love with the franchise. Packrat that I am, I re-located my old wizard badge, delighted at the continuity of  life.

I won't disregard the concerns of the commentator. Children might think they really can be wizards or witches and that they can work magic. Some kids thought they could fly back in the 50s because George Reeves did as Superman, but most understood, that they couldn't, just like most kids today know there are no such things as wizards. But they, like the rest of us, like to pretend that there is a world in which they have special powers (kind of like owning an iphone or blackberry), particularly where the one they are currently negotiating reminds them so often that they have none at all. Children might become seduced by dark things. Well, indeed in the world of Harry Potter, there is darkness, even a devil in the form of Lord Voldemort. And a lot of other wizards and witches join him. But this is what Harry and company, Hermione, Ron, Neville, fight from the moment they join the House of Gryffindor. They fight in the name of good magic, truth, light. And this is what they advocate by action. Where is God in all this? I understand a church goer's concern that He isn't mentioned anywhere.  But then, to the extent that anyone is looking for Him in this children's book, or movie, seems like He is there, in context. I don't mean to be flippant here, because she was an award winning serious writer, but Flannery O'Connor's books are about God and Grace, but boy if you don't know that going in, you could easily miss it for all the grotesque people and behavior that inhabit her stories.

Harry Potter has been discovering himself all these years. In the Order of the Phoenix, he is fearful of dark magic within himself, just as we fear the Shadow within us that a minister would say is the result of sin. Whatever it is the result of, it is there. Harry aims towards good, but is not sure he is capable of it. He cannot even be sure what it looks like, because evil is so often disguised as good and turns others against what is truly good. He could go the way of Tom Riddle, once a beloved son of Hogwarts School for Magic, where Harry now goes, and of its headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. That boy became Voldemort. He was no different than Harry is now. As Harry's godfather reminds the flailing Harry, we all have light and dark within us. It is the choice to embrace one or the other that defines us. That choice has defined us since the beginning of time. The failure to choose the good got us kicked out of Paradise.

And sometimes, even when we do the right thing, sad and horrible things happen. And still, if the light prevails, in religious terms if God prevails within us, we are somehow victorious.

Harry Potter is engaged in the journey of the hero. We need heroes, wherever they may be found, and however they may befound, to walk with us on our own journeys.

Snapshot

 

I recently became a bit obsessed by a movie, a series of professional home movies actually. In black and white 1964 in Britain, the director Michael Apted (before he was well known) and a group called World in Action selected a group of kids from different social classes (this was still at a time when social class more or less determined how well a person did or did not do in life) then age 7 and filmed them, and interviewed them. It then followed them from 7 UP, that is, every seven years, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, and the latest 49, using the same basic procedure of filming a piece of their lives, in snapshot, and interviewing them, with flashbacks to the individual as once he/she was. All are still alive, two  or three at one time declined to appear in 42 UP, but one of those was back in the 49 UP.

The effect of watching the child switch to the adult and trying to hold the image of the child in mind while listening to the adult is mesmerizing. I have two of them, 42 UP and 49 UP. I keep trying to decide which of these some 10 plus people I like the best, I like them all so very much. Maybe it's Tony, who as a boy dreamed of being a jockey, but wasn't good enough, and ended up as a cabbie with two homes, one in England and one in Spain. But there is something about Neil, who admits himself to being eccentric, a long suffering soul who has struggled through life, either homeless in a rather untraditional way or in local politics with the odd job that keeps him going. Surprisingly, at 49, he seems like he has come through the worst and is even vaguely happy.

If you think that the most beautiful or handsome of us don't age in what seems like the short period of seven years, watching this film will disabuse you.

The rich boys dreaming of Oxford and being barristers or solicitors become pudgy white haired or balding men. Some of the scrappers are scrappers still, figuring the odds of getting as much as they can out of their opportunities in life. Almost all have done surprisingly well. The sullen girls mostly marry, several divorce, their children sprouting on camera, color mirror images of the black and white grammar school selectees for this project.

Those of us who have reached a certain age already know that it all passes so quickly, this life that seemed a bottomless well of time when we were babes on summer vacations. But this series slugs the chin of our souls with that transient reality because we watch their lives pass in about and hour and a half.

Neil hits on that when he is riding his bicycle through the countryside, where he feels closest to whatever is God in nature. He finds that he is happier now because of the realization that this is HIS one time through and now, though relatively late at 49 UP, he is making the most of it as best as he knows how.

I hope I am around for 56 UP and that I have fully and joyfully and purposefully acted on making the most of MY one time as best as I know how.

 

 

 

 

Tags: UP SERIES, life, time

I think I feel Sick-o

 

I cannot get over this one part of Michael Moore's "Sicko". It's where he and his truly innocent pawns (and if I were sick and had my savings wiped out because of the failure of my insurance, I would be one of them) boat on over to the Guantanamo Bay prison's buoy line. He yells at the guard tower that he has brought Americans for medical treatment there because he says the enemy combatants get better treatment than his  crew have as citizens. Of course, the tower guards don't let the boat through. The audience laughs.  "That Michael, he really showed the Amerian Government how silly and horrible it is!" But that's not the part I can't get over. Cause I know that government, local, state and Federal is often silly. I had somehow, previously been given to understand, I think via the diatribes of Moore clones, though perhaps not Moore himself, that Guantanamo is a torturous type place that needs to be closed. But then I hear that the medics there worry about the cholesterol levels of their charges. What is true? Maybe I agree that that is kind of ridiculous.Which of course, is the problem with the whole docu-proselytizing concept. Unless you go in with an armload of information about everything Mr. Moore touches upon, you come out a propagandist's convert. Like all good propagandists, and I guess we are all at some level propagandists when we tote fiercely our own philosophies, Moore takes the glistening kernel of truth and threads it through emotional tales and opinion until it is no longer recognizable.  And this is in a movie (I hadn't seen his others) that folks said was pretty even handed. I guess so, because Hilary did not get off scot-free.

I wanted to be with Michael all the way down the road---I guess I am just a compassionate conservative (no longer really Republican, since I can't tell my old party from the other big one. I kind of see the two parties as one, suffering the fate of those cross breeds, like the Liger, maybe an Eledonk) and I agreed going in that the health care system needs major change. Maybe it was a small recent experience (and I am hoping that it stays small) in which my own primary care physician tried to dissuade me from a needed out patient surgery with the threat that it wouldn't be covered, the surgeon being out of network. So Michael, I really wanted to agree with you! But then you give us a sanitized version of Canda's, Britain's, France's and Cuba's systems (btw those Cuban fireman who wished that they could have helped after 9/11, do you think Castro would have let them go?) And the Guantamano stunt, I just can't let that go.

So, I went home and perused the net, not a perfect source of information, I know, but what is these days in the world of variable truth. I looked first for something objective. Failing that, I decided to look at the comments of those I thought would be more aligned with Michael. The CNN review, that was picked up by lots of other papers, or services, mentioned that the numbers were mostly accurate, but that more context was needed. Somewhere I heard that context is everything. And even the World Socialist Website that I ran across provided a very thoughtful critique. The title gives you the tone, "Michael Moore's Sicko: very limited conceptions, very limited results."

I cannot resist a few tidbits from the article, which, for that context lacking in Mr. Moore's movie, can be found at wsws.org.

"One is not unmindful of Moore's past contributions, but he has launched himself into the social and political arena with his films, demanding to be taken seriously, and ought to be judged accordingly. . ."

Aside from a number of genuinely moving encounters with casualties of the American health insurance industry, the film offers little that is truly revealing. Moore explains at one point early in his new work that he appealed on his web site for 'health care stories' and received 25,000 responses. This certainly points to the dimensions of the crisis, but how much additional research and thinking have gone into the film?

Sicko is disjointed and uneven, and breaks no new ground;  Moore dwells on certain points, especially those he thinks will amuse, often cheaply, while passing far too quickly over major issues. The work is static, beginning and ending at the same intellectual point. Moore doesn't appear to know much more at the conclusion than he knew to begin with, and neither do we.  A generally facetious tone prevails, which quickly irritates. This is done, wrongly, in the name of making a wide or 'popular' appeal. Even the title is foolish."

That's just from the second, third and fourth paragraph of the review. There are quite a lot of paragraphs after that, one of which somewhat addresses, though obviously from a different political perspective (if only I was as sure of my political perspective as everyone else I meet and read), that boat ride, "Moore's presentation of Guantanamo implicitly legitimizes the argument of the US government that the internment camp is a necessary co of the 'war on terror'". That's one way of looking at it. To some other political views, it calls into question the entirety of the platform that America and its treatment of prisoners is bad, when in fact it is not merely humane, but virtuously so, if Mr. Moore is to be believed. But who knows because the truth in the movie and in the world is so flexible.

I appreciate that Mr. Moore is an advocate. As so many of the reviewers point out, he is not pretending to be otherwise. I am a lawyer by profession and everyone opines about the propensity of lawyers to stretch the truth in their advocacy. But even lawyers often get into trouble with judges, when they fail to cite precedents that would blow their positions out of the water in an effort to bamboozle the judge, or the other side. They call that misrepresentation. They call that, in an arcane phrase, moral turpitude, even when done in the name of advocacy.

That's what scared me about the movie. I agreed with a few points, mostly the need for radical change in an industry that (in my small case) allowed a charge of $10,300 for an emergency room visit, and paid $2,000, when I was there less than an hour and got nothing more than tylenol, a penicillin prescription and a referral to another doctor, but I really can't look to Che Guevara's daughter in Cuba as the measure of what ought to be done here, where by the way, droves of people still come, legal, and illegal, oh, I mean, undocumented. But that's another movie somebody I am sure is goingto make and call it a documentary.

 

Tags: Sicko, truth, eledonk

Portrait of the Artist as a Middle Aged Woman

Two paintings. One weekend. When I realize I did them, sometimes, I laugh at myself.  Fancy yourself an artist then, Djinn, m'dear? 

Don't know that I do, truth be told. Don't know that it matters, truth be told there too.

What little I know about painting I learned as a child. For 2 dollars extra a week, a tidy sum even in 1961 or so, available were lessons of one sort or another, piano, and painting at my grammar school. I took both. I learned the basics before I went onto other elementary school, high school, college endeavors. I kept my original piano. The only thing I moved cross country in 1981; the only thing I owned, after a fashion. It had been bought for me by my parents for $800.00 in 1962. 

Of late, I have been thinking greatly about my life as a retiree, although it is still a few savings years off, and nothing retiring there will be about this retiree. All the things I never committed to because none of them likely meant self-support, these are the things I desire to do. And so, from time to time, in an effort at pre-retirement self-discipline, but also, pre-retirement, enjoyment, I am painting again. The rigors of the piano have not yet quite attracted me. Maybe because I realize it is easier to avert the eyes, than to cover the ears and I am a charitable artist. I have been finding my style, which seems to be some motley combination of impressionism cum bright color. Probably the source of my impressionism is laziness. I don't have the patience to make anything look like the real thing. Let's just call it primitive.

I fear actually asking anyone who has also seen my, shall we call them, works, what he or she thinks. For while I say that it doesn't matter if I am any good, I am still fearful of criticism and a sucker for praise. But onward I say, for now. I will paint. I will pretend that I have some spark of talent. It gives me pleasure. And for a momentary act of courage, I think, it is courage, here is one of the two--I am calling it "Backyard on Spaulding Avenue."  Not as bright as the real thing, and my effort at copying anduploading, cut off much of the bottom, but you get the idea. I hope this art is in the eye of some beholder! I think I shall make my little pictures a personal trademark on this blog, much like a friend of mine has made his dinner the personal trademark on his (Len Speaks).  Alas, though, it won't be everyday, my capacity to paint is not as prodigious as my capacity to eat.  

   Backyard on Spaulding Avenue

 

Tags: art, middle age

Judge Not! Lest Ye Be Judged

 

I am remonstrating with myself, in advance, apropos today's subject. I am about to tread the thin line among observation, a modicum of philosophizing and plain old condemnation. Where I shall finally step is a mystery to me, but here goes!

When religious motivation within me, and external chance, in this case, a day off, collide, I will go to a daily Mass. This I did on Thursday. Small church. Small crowd. Immense Grace. My faith, at best, is sporadic and fragmented on any day, but in the key moment in the Eucharistic Celebration, when the priest raises the now Consecrated Host, the ACTUAL, TRUE and REAL PRESENCE of God, the Son, my belief is miraculously actual, true and real. Receiving has lately become meaningful to me, as it has probably not properly been for most of my life.

I joined the eager communicants of the regulars. I envy them (oops, not supposed to envy, maybe it's not envy but admiration) the dedication of their daily attendance. A white bearded, white haired man courteously allows me to exit the pew to go ahead of him. Then, as we advance, I hear it, the swishing click click of gum chewing. Step. Click. Step. Click. He isn't blowing any bubbles, but it is loud. I regret that I am no longer concentrating on my own conscience and the Gift to come, but on speculating on what my civil friend (I cannot reconcile this casualness against the kind behavior of his letting me ahead of him) is thinking about taking God into his mouth alongside the sticky gum. I recollect homilies about our lack of awareness, as Catholics, of the Salvific Signficance of our joining in this Meal, and our haphazard approach toward the Second Person who will be placed on tongue or in cupped left hand supported by the right. There is the sudden righteous, and yes, judgmental thought, "I would never do that! followed by the perfunctorily contrite, "I probably have done far worse. No, I know. I have have surely done far worse" than chew gum before, during and after receiving Communion. But he isn't even trying to hide it. Can the person next to him hear it? Then, a well, it isn't my business, or is it? thought. I am not considering a tattling shout, "Stop, he is chewing gum, father!" Should I be?I am suddenly reminded of the day before, when a priest friend told some acquaintances that he gives Communion to other Christians, though non-Catholics. I feel guilty on every possible side. I understand why my non-Catholic brethren feel insulted when a committed to dogma priest, the very man I am about to receive Communion from in the middle of my distraction, refuses them the Host. I understand the theology surrounding the decision not to allow other Christians to partake, that the recipient must believe in the TRUE PRESENCE, I mean, THIS IS the BODY OF CHRIST, and if he cannot, then to receive is antithetical to the heart and belief of the person accepting Him. I did not contradict my friend the other day. He is the priest. Who am I to say, "Ah, Father. . . . just one thing." And he is far more educated than I am in divinity study. So, I took the path of least resistance. Or maybe the path of not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, or get myself into trouble for embarrassing everyone, including myself. What do I know? Same theory in the shortening line. I am not telling the nice man chewing gum to take it out of his mouth and I am not ratting on him. And, if I can avoid it, I am not judging him. Maybe he doesn't know about the one hour rule. Sounds silly I suppose. But the idea is that the gravitas of receiving God into one's body AND soul warrants at least an hour's abstinence. There is only one person left in front of me before my turn. I want to bow to My Lord, about to be received. So I forgot about the man behind me. I didn't even look back. I hope that is ok, Lord. I don't know what was the right thing to do. I know I am supposed to have. But I didn't.

Starting Over

 

 

I'm thinking the third time's the charm. I started one of these blogs before, and then backed out with a stroke of the delete key. I still have a book blog, but the problem is reading takes time, if I actually read all the paragraphs. . . And if I read a book and I really hate it, I don't want to say that I hated it, so I won't enter it at all on the blog. What to do? A concomitant blog methinks, at least tonight, on things heard, things seen. I recognize that this is one of many such soapboxes, and I likely have no idea even slightly more original  than anyone else's. Truth is, sometimes I  am overwhelmed by the amount of chatter in our world and I am a little embarrassed to add to it, although obviously not embarrassed enough to refrain. There are just a million things out there to record--or is it that there is simply a need, my need, our need, to make an imprint, and what better way than cyberspace, well certainly, a most accessible receptacle. There may be no readers, but there are NO rejection slips.

Will I be cynical? Will I be charming?  Will I be idealistic?  Does it matter? Probably not. But I have set myself on a road, two roads if you count the book blog, btw, The Bookish Djinn. Not a lot there yet, maybe six or so pieces. I am reading a very dense book on Thomas A Beckett and I hope to have something up soon. He is Archbishop of Canterbury as of last night's perusal. The future martyr and the king, Henry II, became enemies a lot sooner than they did in the movie.  But I digress, which will likely be a hallmark of this blog, if not the other.

When I have bloviated in several entries in this newest forum,  I will share with some of my friends. Maybe all of them, oh you lucky souls! Tell me what you think. I'll accept critique, but beware, I cry very loudly. Abundant praise will build my fragile ego. Do what you will. My finger is hovering over the delete key at this moment. If you do read an entry you may root, "DELETE, DELETE, DELETE!"  Even at that, thank you for your glance, even if askance.