DVDs From the Library-“Old Joy”

DVDs From the Library

In the library there is a bin full of DVDs. One may take up to five and keep them for a week. Don’t forget to return them on time or you will pay a hefty over-due penalty, or worse, they will develop a terminal mold and eat your furniture, flooring and, eventually, your brain. Join me now as I take a look at one…

“Old Joy”

A film by Kelly Reichard

Staring Will Oldham and Daniel London

This is a film about two close-to-middle aged, hip, grunge types who reunite after a period of separation to go on a short camping trip.  There, you have the entire plot from beginning to end in almost complete detail.  If you like small talk by stoned hippies around the campfire while they shoot BBs at tin cans you will love the dialog.  If you like lingering (and I mean l-i-n-g-e-r-i-n-g…) scenic shots of water flowing or overhead wires passing by the car window, you will love the visuals.  But, if you expect to go anywhere with a storyline or solve any of Life’s mysteries you will be disappointed.  I was not entertained.  It was all I could do to keep my wife from throwing a shoe at the new flat screen before the end of the film.

The camera work is clear and clean.  The music suitably haunting.  The acting (not the best description for what the two characters do) is minimal to the point of non-existence.

 I usually don’t read other people’s reviews prior to writing one of my own but in this case I did.  I just couldn’t help wanting to see if anybody wrote a positive review.  It seemed impossible to imagine one but I was surprised.  Four out of five stars?  “Haunting”?  What film were they watching.  But Hey! this film won the Narrative Film award at the Sarasota Film Festival!!! Wow! 

Don’t even start this DVD unless you have at least four cheap beers at your disposal. They will help mask the stink of 4 Smelly Socks, which is my rating for this pic.

 

Old

Siscal and Ebert Review - "Old"

In my opinion

the break-out scene

was the one where the son (played by Jackie Coogan)

said to his father (played by Edward G. Robinson)

-you remember he was lying on the couch

his wife (played by Myrna Loy)

was on the other couch knitting-

Coogan said

“…an old man…”

“How old?” asked his father.

Indignantly, or a bit too off handedly,

“I don’t know!

Like you.  Sixty four or sixty five.  Old.”

Robinson sat up slightly and

brushed his hand over his

beard and then through his thinning hair.

“That’s not old”, he said, “I am not old.”

“Yes it is.” 

Myrna Loy could not help herself

and could not conceal

a slight smile. 

The camera caught it in a fleeting close-up

of her lips.

As Coogan gathered his coat

and made for the door

to his car outside,
 to meet his friends.

The camera came to rest

on Robinson’s face.

The most expressive face God ever formed

and without a word

it said,

“I am old.”

DVDs From the Library-"Notes on a Scandal"

DVDs From the Library

In the library there is a bin full of DVDs. One may take up to five and keep them for a week. Don’t forget to return them on time or you will pay a hefty over-due penalty, or worse, they will develop a terminal mold and eat your furniture, flooring and, eventually, your brain. Join me now as I take a look at one…

“Notes on a Scandal”
Staring- Judi Dench & Cate Blanchett

I have trouble with British films.  The problem is in the translation from whatever language it is they speak and the one I speak.  They are both called ‘English’ but I have a great deal of difficulty in understanding the dialog.  This film was no different in that respect but after a half hour or so I got used to the ‘lingo’ and got into the plot. 

The plot was wound around a young teacher’s (Cate Blanchett) affair with a fifteen year old student which is discovered by one of the teacher’s coworkers (Judi Dench).  At first it is not very clear what the older spinster-coworker is aiming at by manipulating-in fact blackmailing-her younger friend but that is what she does.  Dame Dentch proves to be a very distasteful old bitch and I could barely watch the closeups of her sans make-up,  Really revolting.  It is later revealed that Dentch is very unbalanced and spiteful and when her own advances are repulsed by Blanchett,  Dentch ‘drops a dime’ on Blanchette and the pedophile is arrested.  Cast out of her own home and, having no where to turn, she is still blind to Dench's betrayal, and she moves in with her older 'friend'.  Blanchette finds the spinster's sick and twisted diaries revealing the manipulation and betrayal and…well that’s enough of the plot.  I refuse to give up the very end.

Once I got past the thick British accents the actors came through nicely and the plot kept me mildly amused for an hour plus.  It was slow sometimes.  I’d recommend you have a couple of ‘Stouts’ available if you want to get through this one.  In fact, that is what I give this film…two cheap beers. If you want a 'four cheap beer' movie about pedophiles better go with James Mason and Sue Lyons in "Lolita". 

Visit From My Sister

I love my sister.  She is a wonderful person.  That is not to say that she doesn’t have her faults (who doesn’t?), but hers are the faults of one who wants to make you love her and be comfortable with her and have an good time… I find it hard to judge a person like that.  

She likes to play games (cards and scrabble and ???) but after years of living with a person who loathes games I have lost the capacity for them.  I try.  I fail.  I am turned into a Teutonic worker bee.  I have no love except that borne of labor and accomplishment.  There is no place left in my life for ‘games’.   For example today:  I spent the day working on the cable attachments for the controls of the auger of my snow blower.  I fashioned a new cable and the connections and then, when it didn’t work properly, I took the damnable machine apart and did it again.  It works now and I feel the full thrust of my accomplishment.  I am tired and (having taken a drought of bourbon) fulfilled to the degree that a ‘worker bee’ may feel fulfillment.  Gone are the days of browning on the beach.  Of puttering on the golf course.  Of casually riding to an unknown destination on my motor bike. 

Would that there were a touch of my sister (with respect to the ‘games’) in my wife.  That she might enjoy a game of gin/rummy or climb on my motor bike and go with me for a ride to nowhere.  To stop in a way-side whiskey bar for a beer on a hot day, if we happened to pass one while we were hot and tired and in need of refreshment.  That will never happen.  But what might happen is my sister might convince us, eventually, to take a real vacation.  She might persuade us to fly to some never-before-considered-destination where we have no pragmatic connection and have no excuse but to relax and play.

Life in the Great U.S. of A.

The trial is over (jury service done see here:     http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/vw_cases/collinsrefco.html).  The leaves have completely fallen and the hurricane has been through and done her damnedest...and we are still here.  There are dogs to walk and all the regular stuff of 'Life' goes on.  I am so happy to be alive and warm. 

Notes from Underground

Notes from Underground

Dusty you start off miserable.

I am guessing that you will not change?

I will try to read you anyway

so long as I am trapped

on this grumbling train.

But as refreshment from

the crumbling acid-eaten words you wrought

I will, at periodic intervals

reflect upon the book mark found

in this ancient paperback I bought.

It is a post card-there is no date

or stamp or writing on the back.

As fragile and flaky as the book

within whose intestine it has hid

for decades from the sun and stars.

On the obverse a photograph

of a Palisade Park, New Jersey bar,

John Lullmann, proprietor.

A low beamed ceiling

and well stocked shelves

the bar-keep gives a lovely lady a light-

all the warmth and charm

one might like-and need-to beat

back the demons of the Russian night.

Martinis and bourbon,

J & B and rum,

warm wood finishes

and leather stools, Feodor,

to have rested your bum.

couldn’t all of you desperate writers-

you Petersburg poets-

have possibly found

a similar venue

to pen your Notes From Underground?

or replaced it all

with a good conversation

and drink from the menu?

Feodor you are miserable

but you might have been fine

if you’d not written even a word,

given the lady a light,

and bought her some wine.

Take Good Notes
(advice to my favorite counselor)

Take good notes
develop your own good style
leave the weight on those
accurate pages-
store away
each meet and man and fact
for future reference need.

Take good notes
so your heart be light
and care not about
the clouds of the day
or storms of controversy
they need not
keep you up at night.

Smile on
every person you meet
friend or foe
rely upon the shaken hand
trust to a point
every man
but take good notes.

Interpersonal Interaction and The Boiler Room

Interpersonal Interaction and The Boiler Room

I just called Julio.  He’s the guy that has been servicing our boiler for years.  We had an appointment to get the annual boiler service done next week but I have had to juggle all of the long term appointments I had made prior to my unexpected selection for jury duty.  I just can’t be home and Lizzy doesn’t want the work to be done when I’m not here.  When a question comes up during the boiler service she wants me to deal with it—that’s just the way the boiler work has always been. It is my job.

It used to bother me a little bit that she doesn’t want to have that responsibility when it is inconvenient for me to be here.  I have resented that I have to be on the hook for the boiler appointment.  Over the years I have realized that it is the nature of relationships (partnerships really) that responsibility gets either naturally or artificially distributed.  That is to say either the parties fall into a pattern of accepting portions of the work without prompting or one of them has to take a leadership role and assign the tasks or, a third possibility, they balk and run, dissolving the relationship.  “Accepting the portions” does not necessarily mean doing so without discussion or debate, it just means that the apportionment is mutually acceptable in the end, without rancor or distaste.  Our marriage has been a study in such 'give and take' and I like to think that we are successful on that count. 

 

Similarly, emotional distribution of responsibility also takes a sort of ‘work’--the work of negotiating the mine field of personal emotional interaction.  Between two people (or any group of people for that matter) there are situations that need to be ‘worked out’.  Married couples sometimes call this ‘give and take’.  One would think that the combination of just two people, working out a position on a single problem would be a simple thing.  It is not simple.  If it were only for the time and space aspect of a problem (who is picking up the kid from day care and what time? for example) it would be simple but history of the relationship (how the negotiation played out in the past), the physical condition of the persons involved (who didn’t sleep well last night or who feels poorly for eating cold chili out of the fridge at midnight?),  the mental condition of the individuals (who is going to traffic court later in the day or who has to drive over to Mom’s house to deal with the Alzheimer’s, the home care worker and the social services administration?…) the irritants and the mutations of Life are incalculable. 

It is not all bad though.  A walk outside on a beautiful Fall day when the leaves are bright and the Indian Summer has brought warm breezes just might make the sorriest husband in the world amenable to anything his wife desires.  I think it is safe to say that there is no way to predict the direction a ‘personal interaction’ might take.  We live our lives bouncing like a pinball off of the circumstances and personalities of others.  We do our best to ‘divine’ the way a conversation or an interaction might progress based on how we feel ourselves and how similar conversations and interactions have gone in the past.  We must, out of necessity, live with the uncertainties of life and personality and circumstance. 

Most importantly, we must use every bit of our strength to be the best person we can be so that those people who are important to us (and ultimately all beings in our universe) can count on us and know us and depend on the consistency of Us. 

I have to go down to the boiler room now and tidy up a little bit.  I don’t want Julio to come in to a messy place.  I hope he is in a good mood today.

Greens in the Garden

Washing the greens

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

One of the advantages to being out of work is one gets to work in the garden.  An extension of that is cooking the produce and putting some of it up for the winter.  Going into the garden is a satisfying pastime that gives me great pleasure.  I am not sure if I would call it a substitute for the gym but it seems to give me a similar relaxed sense of a physical workout as well.  Probably all in my head (I hate the gym) but I seem to be losing some weight and redistributing the weight I have.  After walking the dog and having my coffee I try to put some time in to make the garden productive and attractive.  Productive-obviously, because that is what a garden is for, growing stuff to eat.  Attractive-the purpose of that is less easily defined.  Garden as art?  A farmer might scoff.  I find that I must work to that end because…well, again, I’m not entirely sure why?  It makes it more pleasing to be in an ordered, attractive place?  Sure.  It runs against my grain to do dis-orderly things.  Yes.  Tight assed guy- I guess so. 

Anyway, this is this morning’s project-cookin’ up the greens. Mustard greens, basil, garlic, onion, spices...

And clean it all up when you are done cookin' (the most important step in the process!)

Ready to freeze for the winter

Sony Mavica

You can go back in time--on Amazon.  I mean, not really but sort of, by reading the reviews written by people who purchased the Sony Mavica camera back in 1999.  They are still there on the web site.   Unlike the storage media of the Sony Mavica camera (3 ½ inch floppy’s), Amazon has plenty of server space to maintain the obsolete reviews from thirteen years ago.  And the reviews are eye opening. 

In its day the Mavica was state of the art.  It had a Zeiss 14x optical Lens standard.   Combine that with the floppy storage, a great viewfinder and an LCD screen and you had a potent tool.  The ‘hi-res’ photos that Mavica shot back in the day are tiny compared to the photos you can get on any cheap digital camera today.  But even so, back then, the Mavica was considered a quantum leap in technology.  People were amazed at being able to walk around with a stack of floppys in one’s pocket and shoot the equivalent of half a dozen rolls of film.  To be able to delete shots on the fly.  No developing film.  The joy of seeing the images appear on the screen of your blazingly fast 486 PC…the floppy clicking and dumping the bits onto your hard drive…and sending the jpegs to your friends via e-mail!  It was amazing!

The Clothespin Bag

 Back in 1991 I had one (I still have it).  It seems like a boat anchor now but back then I was thrilled to carry the thing everywhere.  I bought a cordura fishing tackle box in K-mart and padded it so I could carry the camera, floppys, spare battery, charger and cord to the beach or hiking or on the back of my red, white, and blue Honda Transalp.  Everywhere I went I remember many, many people stopping me and asking me about the camera.  Asking me to snap a photo of them and giving me their e-mail address so I could send it to them.  Many, many people. 

I also took photos of the job.  Of wildlife-birds, turtle nests, chipmonks and ants-and of motorcycles, friends, my sons, no matter what I did it seemed like the camera had to be a part of the process.  The Sony was to become like a friend and I think I will never take more pleasing photos with any other camera.  I know these images are small and grainy and the Mavica is technologically out dated but when I look at the images I love them.  I have had a half dozen cameras since and none of them has given me the sense of confidence or consistently pleasing pictures the way that old Sony did.  Today I took out the tackle box and charged the batteries-each of which is about half the size of a modern cell phone-and then I popped a floppy into the ‘Beast’.

As I expected the shots of Lizzy’s Mom were very grainy but the low light shot caught her perfectly.  With a tiny bit of light this old camera could always take a nice portrait, especially very tight in.  Also, as expected, the close shots of the do-dads on the porch were nice too. It was always fantastic at extreme close-ups.  The weakest shots were scenes, and even those pleased me some.  So, despite my fairly regular urge to ‘clean house’ and ditch old technology including the Mavica, I hang on to it.  The laptop I am using right now and the one that will follow it and the iPad that will follow that will probably be in the trash (uhhhh, excuse me- be recycled!) long before the Sony Mavica hits the landfill.

 

Berry Season

(skip this top part if you are only interested in the berry picking...)
It is hot.  I mean very hot!  In the early a.m. before the sun gets too strong I work in the garden and do my outside chores.  This includes soaking the garden plants and weeding and plucking off the dead parts of the tomatoes and etc… I have my system of collecting rainwater and, so far this year, have not had to use any well water for the garden.  That is about to change as we have not had significant rain fall since last week.  My six day supply will be gone tonight.  It will take a good downpour for at least an hour for the three rain barrels to fill and that won’t be happening for the next couple of days.  This evening I will fill one of the barrels from the well.

It takes a lot for me to hide in the air conditioning but this summer I am happy to have the cool, electric breeze.  The only thing better would be a swimming pool but I don’t have one of those so I have to find alternative, indoor activities so I can stay in the ‘cool’.  My journal is one.  House chores is another.  Watching TV and reading fill a couple of hours but I hate watching the TV.  This morning I finished the outdoor stuff and instead of hiding in the A/C I took the bike and headed out for a ride through the state park.  I packed my backpack, a banana, a yogurt, some ice in a baggy and headed down the road. 

My destinations were vague.  My first stop was in Fort Montgomery at the motorcycle shop where I drooled over the bling.  They had a nice used BMW Roadster (a 2012 with under 2K miles) which they took on trade for a ‘Multi Strada’.  (must be nice to have bucks!) Tempting, but too much money for a bike in my opinion.  If it had been a clean ‘California’, a little bit older and a lot cheaper, I probably would have been riding a different bike this afternoon.  I did find out there is a group of retired guys who meet at the shop every day and go for a ride together.  Sounds like something I should try out next week. 

I left the bike shop and took Firefighter's Memorial Drive through the military academy at West Point and then 293 to the parkway.  Nice back woods road with no traffic.  Speed can be a problem as there is a lot of wild life but I was in a slow-goin’ mood and the cool breeze made me feel wonderful.  After that, on the Long Mountain Pkwy, I didn’t even mind the idiots who were tailgating me –and I was doing seventy!  I left them when I took the turn off to old route 17 heading to Tuxedo-another old four lane highway that is long legged and relaxed.  I stopped for gas in Tuxedo and turned around.  I was getting tired and the heat was coming off the asphalt in waves.  I retraced my steps back towards home. 

When I got to the ‘goat path’ (the name given the approach road for the Bear Mountain Bridge from the Annesville Circle) I took advantage of the fact that there were few cars sharing the road and I could do it the way it should be done.  This twisting, curving road is a bikers dream.  If you don’t have at least one nerve jangling moment where you think you might not make it out alive then you didn’t ride it right.  Call me an idiot, I don’t care!  Anyway, when you are almost down to the Annesville Circle there is an old historic toll house.  I turned into the gravel parking lot outside the toll house and parked under a tree. 

I know from hiking there with Benny that there are the most magnificent berry patches right out back of the house, hidden in the woods.  The berries are protected by gobs of poison ivy and their own prickly thorns.  But if you know how to pick them and how to avoid the ivy you can eat your fill.  I unlocked my top case and took out my lunch.  I sliced up the banana and stirred it into the yogurt.  I walked into the patch and as I ate the yogurt I picked the sweet raspberries and plopped them into the cup.  Eat, pick, stir, repeat.  Un-fu*king believable.  The berries were so ripe that they were sticky with their own sugar.  They melted like chocolate on my fingers.  When I was done with the yogurt I went back to the bike and took out the bag of ice, which was three quarters melted.  I drank the icy water out of the bag and then proceeded to fill the bag with more berries.  When it was filled up I put it back into the insulated lunch box and into the top case.  I brought them home to eat later. 

Back in the house, my shower was great.  I have some DVD’s from the library and some primo left-overs in the refrigerator for diner.  I have my hand picked dessert and tonight’s Shabbat service (with my friends) to look forward to.  The heat is tough.  But today was good.  I am one lucky Fu*ker.

One Hundred and Fifty Mile Cup of Coffee

Just off the interstate highway 684 in Danbury, Connecticut-in fact underneath the overpass itself-was the diner that got its name from the dairy/processing plant right behind-Marcus Dairy.  According to a short history I looked up on the company web site the ‘dairy’ was a farm which the Marcus family bought in 1919.  They built up a farming and milk distribution business and finally gave up the farming to focus on packaging and distributing dairy products.  Sometime about 60 years ago they also opened a restaurant that served breakfast and ice cream and over the years it became a regular Sunday morning hang out for the motorcycling crowd.  Bikes would line the road and fill the driveway and parking lot.  It was a freewheeling museum with every kind of motorcycle and many old cars and hotrods.  The breakfast was fresh and good and I looked forward to riding there with my friend.  Outside the dinner familiar faces hung out and families visited to see the array of shinny motorbikes.  The mood was always festive.  The Harleys and BMW’s and the ‘squids’ all parked in their respective areas but the feeling was generally up beat- live and let live.  If it has two wheels and it made it to the ‘dairy’ it was cool.

Not long ago the ‘dairy’ was demolished to make way for the inevitable tentacles of retail America.  It would soon be just another strip of stores and restaurants and the wandering Sunday morning motorcyclists-myself included-had to begin the search for someplace new to go to…No real suitable place has surfaced.  The Marcus dairy crowd has spread out to various dinners and restaurants but none welcomes the huge crowd and noise and biking enthusiasm the way the Marcus’ family place did.  Hanging out in the parking lot of Starbucks with a dozen Ducati’s just doesn’t feel nearly as good.  The overlook at Perkins Drive is a nice solo destination during the week but on Sunday it is crowded and impersonal and there is no coffee or anything to eat.  I almost stopped taking a Sunday morning ride altogether, as I just couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the available venues.  This morning I could stand it no longer and even though I couldn’t get my regular companion to come I took a little ride myself.  A different kind of Sunday morning ride-Over the mountains and up to God’s country to have a coffee and some conversation with old friends. 

I have known Richie and Hadie for over twenty-five years.  We have shared Baptisms, bar mitzvahs, barbeques and birthdays.  We share a love of life and work.  I had not been up to see them for a very long time.  Riding sixty-five miles to their vacation home near Grahamsville, NY was a pleasure on this cool summer morning.  The coffee they put in front of me had a familiar Bustello flavor.  We sipped and caught each other up on the trivia of our lives.  I saw the recent work they had done on their home and Richie showed me his ‘new’ truck.  The vintage Dodge was shinny and black with decals of a sexy woman on the door panels.  I felt like a kid climbing into the cab with Richie and Hadie.  A host of my own memories accompanied the ancient truck smells and the sound of un-synchromeshed gears grinding and grumbling as the truck lurched out of the driveway.  We played with the extinct ventilating windows and the air scoop on the hood.  We made bad jokes about seat belts (or the lack of them) and gasoline consumption (pre CAFÉ standard).  We rumbled past the Roundout Reservoir and tiny decrepit churches and general stores.  Up and down the hills of southern New York the little truck groaned and smelled of oil and gasoline.  This is what heaven should smell like, I thought to myself. 

Back at their home after an hour’s truck ride I said my good byes.  Richie snapped my picture as I got on my bike.  They waved as I pulled out of the driveway.  The perfect weather held.  The perfect Sunday ride was not Marcus Dairy, but a visit with friends.  The bike was not the star but only the conveyance.  Perhaps next week I will visit someone else and ‘catch up’. 

A Long Run- E.K.-RIP

GrilleMaster 554

We don’t grille much any more. I can’t tell you why. We don’t have a bonfire very often either. These things just past away-out of our lexicon of dinner activities and after dinner entertainments. The roaring bonfire and the sparks weaving up to the inky evening sky just don’t have the attraction they used to. The contemplative and hypnotic orange sparks leaping up with the smoke doesn’t get it. I am more comfortable in front of the wavering images on the TV screen. I save the outdoor cooking for the occasional campout, but now that Benny-my camping partner- is far out west I don’t know when I will be doing that next. Tonight was an exception. Lizzy brought home some whole fish and she wanted them grilled on the fire-it is a favorite of hers-so I dragged out the old GrilleMaster 554 parked in the back of the house, uncovered it, and took inventory as to its condition. Already the end of May and this will be the first time we are using the grille. I don’t think we used the grill twice last year. It was not in great shape. The gas manifold was completely rotted and a mouse had obviously spent a comfortable winter in one corner of the firebox. I cleaned it out. I cut out the gas guts and scrapped the grilles. It was my opinion that the racks were not useable. I devised a way to use one of them, positioning it just above the floor of the firebox to hold a bed of old fashioned charcoal. Above that I would use a couple of stones to hold the fish rack above the coals. The fish rack is a two piece affair that clamps the fish and has a long handle that makes it easy to “flip” the fish while they roast. I cut out the bottom of a coffee can and filled it full of charcoal, some newspaper and a few twigs. It lit right up and within a few minutes I pulled out the can and had a nice bunch of coals burning away. My rig with the fish clamp and the stones worked well enough. Balancing the clamp on the stones took some fiddling but the fish cooked. In half an hour we were sitting down to dinner.

It was nice to get in out of the humidity and into the air conditioning. That’s something else I ‘fired up’ for the first time this year. In fact the initiation of the A/C season makes me feel more like summertime than the whole grilling thing. Pretty soon I’ll fire up the TV and sink back into the sofa, stinking slightly of smoke and fish, I’ll watch some stupid sitcom and/or cop/doctor/lawyer show. The end of the evening I won’t be getting into a tent or a sleeping bag but rather into a newly made bed with clean linens, with a book, or the TV (again) and my eyes will close while I think of the GrilleMaster 554 and wondering if I should buy a new gas grille. Or maybe I’ll be thinking of the sculpture I am making down in the basement or the job I will be doing tomorrow. Nothing exciting, that’s for sure. And I just flashed on a line of poetry that I learned back in South Miami Junior High School about how it all ends “not with a bang but a whimper.” I understand that line now. But it’s not exactly true. Life can end without a “bang” but accompanied with a smile. Not as incendiary as an explosion, but far less desperate than a whimper.

i-Pod

it lay in it’s own chrome shadow
for more than a year
on my desk.
the desk is it’s own junkyard accumulation of bills and cords and chargers for all the gadgets of the house. somehow they all just find their way there. every once in a while I sift through them and discard what I can identify as no longer relevant to a current piece of equipment. the device gets the boot long before the charger and the spare cords find their way to the trash. bills and brochures have their own pile on the left side of the desk top. they similarly get attention at unpredictable intervals the pile gets deeper or thinner shredded or filed from time to time.
the i-pod was a special case of actual equipment that lived next to the laptop and would have sat up on it’s legs (if it had any) and beg for attention and I would have absolutely loved to have given it some. unfortunately, my technical ability -like my general energy level- seems to have dwindled and is moving towards the vanishing point of my unamazing biologic perspective. what ever skill I have already processed and stored in my brain is all that I have to work with now. I am going no further. I have moved in fits though my adaptation to the computer, the cell phone, transistor’s, recordings on vinyl, magnetic tape, cd’s, dvd’s and the internet. I’ve made photos/images on a brownie, and a 35mm, and a video camera, and a digital camera that recorded postage stamp size photos on floppies. the i-pod with its sleek touch screen had proved to be a step too far.
sheri gave it to me when I saw her in Atlanta. I got as far as figuring out how to make it play recorded novels through the speakers of my VW when I drove back up to New York. when I got home I tried to use it for other things but either for a lack of ability, a lack of desire to learn any more or laziness, I never did integrate it into my life. it sat. I charged it once in a while. if it had been cheese it would have turned to mold.
Ben is home for a visit. he and sixty thousand other young people took the test to become a fireman I am not sure why…he came to town for this and, anyway, I am very glad to see him for a while. he said a couple of times he would help me get over the hump with the i-pod. teach me to load the things I want on it and show me how to use it. but it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. then it did. he began to erase things from it and put things on it. he said it was going to be easy and I thought yeah. I used to be the one to say things like that. while he held an electric saw or a drill or the steering wheel of a car and I talked him through those learning processes. now it was my hand he was holding and the electrons were flowing. the i-Pod began to glow when he looked at it. when he punched the keys of the laptop, the electrons all pressurized snaking down and out through the white wire into the i-pod, it began to come to life. Ben was illuminated by his own glow. I stood over him and the i-Pod while they bonded and lighted up together.
he erased all traces of my wonderful brother-in-law. all his music all his history all the novels I had heard on the trip back from Atlanta and all the ones I had always intended to hear but never would have. he even erased the name of the i-Pod. it was time to rename the i-pod-like when a slave is sold and it becomes the property of the new master and the new master gives the slave a new name. “should I name it ‘Rand’s i-pod’”, he asked, and I realized it was not a good name.
it had lain face down in it’s own chrome shadow
on my desk for a year.
now as Ben looked up ready to baptize
I said “name it ‘Ben’s i-pod’”.

To My Friend Sylvester...

I will really, really miss my cat. I never thought of him as my cat until the kids all left home and then there could be no doubt as to who he hung out with. There was no choice left. Elisabeth never let him sit on her lap or crawl up on her shoulder while she snoozed in front of the TV. She fed him often as not and cleaned out his litter box more than I did but when it came to companionship I was the go-to guy. The only guy left to go to.
The job of hooking him up under my arm and putting him down in his little padded box each evening fell to me. Cajoling him out of the screen door into the cold so he could get a little air was my job. Brushing him and cutting out the knots in his long, fine, volumous fur was my job and it meant getting scratched and bit a lot because he hated anyone grooming him. He could live with knots of fur the size of ping pong balls and he shed twice his weight of fur each day (or so it seemed-fur covered every rug, every piece of furniture, every article of clothing…)but he would not tolerate a brushing. Over the years I got him used to a little grooming but mostly he hated the brush and he loathed the nail clippers.

For many years he had a friend-Garth-a pure white short hair-and the pair grew up from kitten-hood in our newly built home. Garth passed on a number of years ago and Sylvester took up the slack, so to speak, relishing the attention of the whole family. We tried bringing another cat into the house but he would not tolerate any other cat hogging up his limelight. For a year he did put up with Pebbles the rat terrier who belonged to Benny and we were all very surprised that he did so. We chalked it up to his advancing age and resignation that he couldn’t boss a dog three times his size into submission. Pebbles also had an indomitable spirit and mostly got along with every one and every thing, including Sylvester. When Ben moved and took Pebbles to Colorado Sylvester owned the house again and he maintained his routine almost right up to the end.

To wit: wake up early (before our alarm at 5:15) and start moaning from his bed in the basement. Clearly announcing that he was ready for breakfast. Sit on the steps and wait impatiently while Elisabeth or I spoon out the canned food and open the ‘cat door’ so he can come up and eat. Eat half a can of food and climb up onto the bench at the table to accompany Liz and I while we eat breakfast. His head at breakfast and lunch and dinner just peeking over the table top, sniffing the meal but never getting on the table itself. That would have caused him to receive a healthy smack, and he knew it. After breakfast repair to the living room and lie on the bay window or the sofa and snooze all day. Alternate sleeping areas included the little couch in the den or the kitchen bench or, sometimes, back down to the bed-in-the-box on top of the ceramics kiln in the basement. As he got on in years he went outside less and less. Most days he slept all day long. He would follow me around from room to room after I got home from work until he got his supper and after a few minutes to eat his dinner (the other half a can of food) he would wait for me in the living room until I was done with my own meal and spend the evening sleeping on my lap/back/shoulder/ leg/ etc. When the TV and the lights were turned off he let me carry him down to the basement and put him in the box. Thus beginning the cycle afresh.

I said “he maintained his routine almost right up to the end” because in the last couple of months his physical condition began to deteriorate and he began to show signs of age. His self grooming became even more erratic. He was less and less able to jump or climb up on the furniture or bay window. There were times when his hind legs failed him for a few moments and he had to collect himself to get his balance back. He slept 23 ½ hours a day and moved only to eat, poop and climb up on me in the evening. Often he was in the same spot for 8 or 10 hours sleeping peacefully. I was happy that he was comfortable and looking forward to his twentieth birthday in July. And then a couple of days ago his legs failed him completely.

His new condition left him dragging himself in circles with his front paws. He cried in frustration and could no longer get to his food, the litter box or up on his favorite perches. His beautiful red fur grew dull and matted and he began to smell of his uncontrollable body functions. To eat I had to hold him over the bowl and he hung his head down and lapped. He didn’t seem to want water even when I held him that way over the water bowl. I tried to hold him over the litter but he struggled to get away when I did. The only times he seemed contented was when he was in my lap or at night when I left him in his familiar ‘box’ in the basement.

I stayed home from work today, and after his breakfast I held him in my lap for a while. I looked for a sign in his face that would tell me what I already knew I had to do. There was no sign. I am sure someone else might have seen an old, old, filthy cat in my lap. To me he looked just the same in his beautiful face as that little kitten that came to live with us so many years ago. This is the only home he has ever known and now he is buried in a little grave near his old friend Garth. There is nothing else to say except that I love ya Sylvester and I will really, really miss you.