The daughter’s crack art 

            She did not talk much as a child. She seldom played with other children. Mostly when she came home from first or second grade, she drew. She did not do the classic stick figures of mommy and daddy or a rudimentary house or cat. Nothing representational. She did abstract drawings, but these were not quick slashes of crayons across paper. She could often spend an hour or more on one. She seemed to have some sort of plan and carefully placed straight-edged lines of one color alongside half-circles of another. She would end up with strokes shooting off at angles seemingly held in place by the occasional curve. She did not look for approval; she drew only to satisfy herself. I don’t remember her ever saying, “Look, Daddy, at what I made!”

          One day, however, the daughter had made some different art. She had been with Cleta to the park at the end of the block. Calling it a park was then somewhat generous. When we moved in, there was a triangular plot that was mostly empty but had a cemented-up old movie house and a few other vacant buildings. Those structures were eventually torn down, some minimal landscaping had been done, and a park proclaimed. Vacant land stood across the street from the site’s hypotenuse; a boarded- up hospital bordered one side; and a nursing home the other. (Later on the park was redesigned into an attractive space; a Catholic charity converted the hospital into housing; and nice row housing was constructed on the vacant land.) A few people used the park during the day back then but not many, and I could only guess what happened there during the night. I certainly did not go into it after dark.

            When I came home that evening, Cleta said, “Look at what she found in the park and what she did with them.” She showed me a piece of construction paper to which were glued tiny, plastic vials with colorful tops. They were arranged in some careful pattern that clearly pleased the daughter’s eye. This time I could see pride in her. She knew she had made something special, and I agreed inwardly and outwardly. It was striking.

            While I evinced sincere admiration, I also tried to keep the horror off my face. While Cleta and the daughter did not recognize the plastic containers, I knew what they were; they were crack vials. The different colored tops denoted, in effect, different brands of crack. I might have guessed it before, but now I really knew what happened in the park at night. As I looked at the art and the pride on the artist’s face, thoughts flashed and crashed in my mind, I resolved to say nothing about the origin of what were now part of an innovative collage. The park was safe during the day, and I did not want Cleta and the daughter to be afraid of going there.

The mother got home later, and I showed her the daughter’s art, but I played dumb when the topic moved to the source of the vials. Much to the daughter’s consternation, however, I made her wash her hands time and again that evening.

Much later, not from me, the daughter did learn that this art incorporated crack vials. This is a story we now share. Amazing what fathers and daughters can bond over.

Snippets . . . . Snippet It Real Good

A visual for your movie: In an urban mall outside the windows of a Marshall’s store containing mannequins adorned in fashionable, but reasonably priced, clothing are five teenage girls dressed in Orthodox Jewish attire chatting, smiling, even giggling, eating large Kosher dill pickles.

I asked the server in my local Biergarten what part of Germany she was from. She replied, “The best part. Austria.”

How would you react if you found out that Trump’s favorite novelist was Zadie Smith?

I wonder what Pat Paulsen would say today.  When he “ran” for President, he said, “I want to be elected by the people, for the people, and in spite of the people” . . .”Issues have no place in politics.  They only confuse matters.”. . . I wonder if he would still say, “The current system is rigged so that only the majority can seize control.”

A Sunday School teacher once said to me, “There are three main religions in this country: Christians, Jews, and Catholics.”

Thought experiment: Whom would you more likely vote against? Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton? If it is not the same, does that indicate a bias against or for women?

In the world of Bob Ross, you were shown how to paint “happy little bushes,” spoken in an almost inaudible voice.  Nothing wrong with that, was there?

“I believe in children praying—well, women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant.” Joseph Conrad, Victory.

Outside Green-Wood. Flamingo Furniture. Full Serve. Marino’s Italian Ices (on the move).  Baked in Brooklyn (with one of the four greatest smells, baking bread). Club XStasy. Top Nest.  Weir Greenhouse Restoration. A National Landmark. Est. 1838. And no Starbucks.

What would you have wanted to ask the attractive, young Asian woman sitting on the subway in a going-to-the-office dress and sensible shoes reading Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer?

Would you want to bank at the place I saw recently where the clock above the entrance always reads 7:10?

In a trip to Montreal, I learned that it was a magnet for some. Thus, the young woman working in a souvenir shop was from Nova Scotia, and she had come to Montreal to learn French. In a restaurant, a young, rail-thin woman had come from France during the winter.  Even though she was from the Alps, she had found the Montreal winter remarkably cold in spite of its being mild by Quebec standards.  I asked her what she thought of how French was spoken in Montreal. After a thoughtful pause, she replied, “Interesting.”

Perhaps you know what I only recently learned outside the General Post Office: the ZIP in ZIP Code is an acronym for Zone Improvement Program.

I have never learned to open a bag of potato chips properly.

Shut Up, You Elites

His hair is distinctive, one could say impossible, but there it is. A microphone is only a few inches from his lips, but he still leans into it. He does not really yell into the mike, but the voice is certainly not conversational. His words can be adamant; they can be bullying. He denounces enemies, enemies that stand in the way of greatness. He talks about the alliances he has entered or created and how strong they are. He makes promises about how he will perform, performances that he guarantees will be great. There is nothing nuanced in what he says; there are no ambiguities. It is a world of black and white; of good and bad; of greatness or failure. There is not a single shade of gray.

He pauses often, seemingly waiting for his audience to catch up. The audience reacts visibly and audibly. Each denunciation, each bragging claim elicits a hoot or holler. He encourages the audience to mock his opponents, which often responds with a sing-song chant. This is an interactive, audience-participation performance. The speaker supplied an initial energy, but he soaks back energy as the frenzied crowd reacts to him.

The audience doesn’t really care about the specifics of his promises. They know as they are uttered that many can’t be kept. Indeed, they won’t be surprised if contradictory promises are made in a week or a month or that the alliances announced today are changed tomorrow or that the enemy previously castigated in absolute terms is now a dear friend. The audience is there not for truth, but for an attitude, and he supplies and feeds that attitude.

This audience seems bound together by something more than what most audiences have. They know that others, “nice” people, “successful” people, “elite” people not only do not share their enthusiasm, those others, this group knows, think there is something wrong, ludicrous, maybe even shameful or dangerous in what this audience feels. Here, however, together with this crowd and the performer who understands their visceral reactions, each can indulge the passions they all enjoy, and this brings them all closer together.

Perhaps this is a Trump rally, but what l was trying to describe was pro wrestling. Since the rise of Trumpism, I have thought that those who are mystified by the appeal of Donald Trump might learn something by trying to understand the allure of professional wrestling.

Professional wrestling remains strikingly similar to what it was in my childhood of Verne Gagne with his sleeper hold and his between bout pitches for a nutritional supplement, good guys (Wilbur Snyder, for example) and bad guys (definitely Dick the Bruiser) in a simulated reality of pain, danger, and unbelievable heroics. The business, however, has changed in some important ways.

What I watched growing up was largely regional. Different parts of the country had different wrestling companies. As a friend once said about a wrestler, “He was the world heavyweight champion of the greater Cleveland area.” The spectacle might have been similar everywhere, but we did not all see the same performers.

Vince McMahon of what is now the WWE (World, or is Worldwide, Wrestling Entertainment) changed that. His wrestling organization, started in the Northeast by his father, did not respect others’ territories. He drove many regional operations out of business or bought them out as they started to fail.  WWE now dominates the business, and wrestling fans today for the large part all see the same product. The rise of cable television, the Internet, and other media has given more choice for news and entertainment and fragmented popular culture. We don’t share as much in common as we once did.

Professional wrestling, with its nationalization, has gone in the opposite direction. The odds are overwhelming that its fans will all know, and probably have opinions about, Kevin Owens, The Undertaker, the New Day, and Triple H. Wrestling is one of the few popular forces that is producing an increasingly unified cultural base, but a base that is out of sight to the rest of America.

The wrestling business has also changed because, while it is not trumpeted, it is not now hidden that the contests are not real sporting events. While perhaps back in the day, some fans may have thought that the spectacle was a legitimate sport, today it is acknowledged that wrestling is “sports entertainment.” All but the most naïve of wrestling fans know that while the wrestlers can be athletic and do take risks, the violence is simulated and the outcomes follow predetermined story lines. Wrestling’s popularity has fluctuated through the years, but its popularity does not seem to have been harmed because those involved no longer steadfastly maintain that it is “real.” Instead, it has always been a form of reality TV; something that pretends to be real.

The allure of pro wrestling to the outsider is hard to fathom, but it must have something to do with the power of simulated reality, violence, simplistic good and evil, outrageous characters, and the continuing tensions of a soap opera. As epic poems, sagas, novels and movies show we want, maybe need, superheroes and supervillains. At least some of the time, we don’t want caveats and tough choices. During the wrestling shows, we have those heroes and villains and only easy choices. Who and what is good or bad is crystal clear.

It is not my point and beyond my abilities to intellectually analyze the allure of wrestling, and any way, the appeal may largely be visceral and, thus, cannot be satisfactorily explained to those who don’t feel it. But what should be recognized is that the spectacle has had an enduring appeal. And if I am right, that Trump at a rally performed much like a pro wrestler talking to the audience and that audience responded much as wrestling crowd does, it may make sense for those who can’t grasp Tumpism to try to grasp pro wrestling.

When Trump was gaining traction in the political arena, this wrestling fan thought back to one of the WWE storylines. It featured Donald Trump. Oh, yes, Trump has been a part of pro wrestling for quite some time. I don’t remember all the storyline’s ins and outs, but as I recall, Vince McMahon backed one wrestler and Trump another, and either Trump or McMahon would have his head shaved depending upon which wrestler lost some big event. This went on for weeks or maybe even months, but of course, no one could really believe that Trump was going to appear bald to further wrestling ratings. The mere thought of it, however, whipped up the crowd.  Politicos studied Trump’s business record and pop culture critics talked about The Apprentice, but pundits mystified about his appeal should also have been studying Trump on Monday Night Raw and then watching more of the wrestling shows.

Perhaps roots of Trump can be found in Huey Long and William Jennings Bryan, but we should also consider Gorgeous George. Gorgeous George was perhaps next to Milton Berle early television’s biggest star. Professional wrestling has always presented itself as what is now called reality TV, and GG was really America’s first huge reality TV star. Gorgeous George (George Raymond Wagner), often shortened by TV announcers to Gorgeous or Georgie, was in wrestling parlance a heel, a bad guy. (Good guys are babyfaces or just faces.) He broke stereotypes. In what was a supposedly testosterone-fueled world, his character displayed effeminacy. Flunkies would proceed him up the arena’s aisles spraying perfume in his path. He entered the ring wearing elaborate robes no “man” would have been caught in—festooned with ostrich feathers, for example. No one but his valet could touch his robe, and the referee in a Chaplinesque routine would be repeatedly blocked from doing so. And he had that hair. It was some sort of yellow or straw color never seen in nature, and it was curled and primped in ways that only permanents and feminine implements could produce. His hair was secured with what otherwise would have been called bobby pins; his were called Georgie pins. Before a match, he would elaborately remove and toss them to the crowd. The hair was central to the character. The storylines often said that he would not fight someone unless they contracted not to touch his hair. And late in his career, as other wrestlers were eclipsing him, he fought a match where the loser would have his locks sheared. Gorgeous lost the match and his hair.

There is a line from Gorgeous George to Trump. This path meanders with stops for Muhammed Ali and James Brown, both reportedly fans of Gorgeous. It goes through Ric Flair, William Regal, and other wrestlers. But although the line goes to him, Trump in some ways has flipped Gorgeous George.  Gorgeous played the heel to fill the arenas with those who came to jeer him. Trump, too, acts the heel, but not to the faithful in front of him. Trump unites with the audience and together they act as the heel to all who are not Trump’s fans. It provided pleasure akin to that at a wrestling spectacle when he would say and the crowd when join in denouncing little Mario, that nasty woman, the lying press.

Gorgeous entered the arena to work and work up the audience. When they frenziedly taunted him, he would appear to break and shout back, “Shut up, you peasants.” The crowed would roar with delight. Trump’s again has shifted the heel’s performance. His audience roars because Trump and his audience vicariously seem to shout to all those that are not enthralled by him, “Shut up, you elites.”

What Me, Prejudiced?

Let me give you some facts. Then form your image.

The couple are in their sixties. They are retired. By dress and bearing, they are above middle class, but it is hard to tell how far above. He is a long time representative in the state legislature. Maybe even had been Speaker of the House. In South Dakota. He made his living as a lawyer. Not in for whatever passes for a metropolis out there, but in Spearfish, which, the woman maintains, has a population of 12,000. In the western part of state, near Wyoming. She was in education. Asked if she had been a school teacher, she was quick to say, “And principal.”

From these facts, what assumptions would you make about them? I had a friend who was raised in a Dakota, but for the life of me, I don’t remember which one. Is there really a difference? I do remember him telling me that that some Dakota relative of his raised turkeys. When he was about the size of the birds, nasty creatures he assured me, they scared him mightily, and he would sprint through the yard to get to the safety of the farmhouse. This couple, however, was definitely from that lower Dakota and did not raise turkeys.

The images, or shall we say the prejudices, I might have had from this information would, however, have to have been not so much tempered as shattered by additional factors. I was in my local having a beer and potato fritters when this couple couple sat next to me at the bar. I was quite confident from their look that they were not from the neighborhood, but they seemed perfectly relaxed as they ordered a beer, a glass of wine, and a pretzel. The bartender said something, and they replied, “South Dakota,” and that brought me into the conversation.

When asked what they were doing in a neighborhood bar in the not the trendiest part of Brooklyn, they gave a multi-part answer. Most of their retired friends from South Dakota were Arizona snowbirds; they wanted something different. The couple had moved to a garden apartment in an Upper Westside townhouse and now sought to do something in New York every day. They were in my area to go to the Irondale, a non-traditional theater carved from a reclaimed Sunday School auditorium connected to a historic church. They were going to see the Nutcracker Rouge, which is described as a Baroque Burlesque Confection. I know little about it except that it is quite raunchy. I don’t know about you, but my stereotypes of a small-town South Dakota lawyer/politician and principal did not include retirement to Manhattan much less attending a nearly naked Nutcracker in an obscure performance space in Brooklyn. I try to think of myself as open, but sometimes when I am surprised by somebody, I realize how much baggage I unconsciously carry in making quick assumptions about others.

And what would be your images when you hear of Spearfish, South Dakota? I certainly was not surprised that some later, quick research disclosed that it was over 90% white, but I was surprised by its climate. I jumped to the conclusion that it would be bitterly cold for the winter; in fact, the high temperatures average near forty degrees in January and February. Spearfish, however, is known more for some unusual weather. On the morning of January 22, 1943, the temperature was minus four Fahrenheit. A Chinook wind blew and within two minutes, the temperature was a plus 45 Fahrenheit. That two-minute temperature swing is the world record. Hey, what world records does your town hold? The woman, Katie, told me that the temperature continued to rise into the fifties that morning. Then the warm wind dissipated and the temperatures dropped to below zero in the next half hour. This plunge, a bit more gradual but greater than the earlier rise, was still so rapid that windows cracked.

The South Dakota couple, Jim I think his name was, was interesting, charming, and amusing. Right after they left, I felt as if I had make a mistake with them. I should have got their contact information so that I could have invited them to dinner. And perhaps see if I would find other prejudices of mine I was not aware of.

FIRST SENTENCES

“It’s not so easy writing about nothing.”  Patti Smith, M Train.

“It was in the days when theater companies toured not just France, Switzerland, and Belgium, but also North Africa.” Patrick Modiano, Suspended Sentences.

“I seldom dream.  When I do, I wake with a start, bathed in sweat.” Magda Szabor, The Door.

“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.” James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss.

“Melancholy as it is to stand at dawn and watch one’s house vanish over a cliff. I can’t deny that amid the attendant dust cloud of black thought is a whirling spark of exhilaration, as after the death of a partner or parent.” James Hamilton-Paterson, Rancid Pansies.

“My name is J.D. Vance, and I think I should start with a confession: I find the existence of the book you hold in your hands somewhat absurd.” J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

“The Americans were coming, and Saddam Hussein was on his best behavior.” Christian Alfonsi, Circle in the Sand: Why We Went Back to Irag.

“The first time I met Sunee, I was in Klong Toey seeking a poor person whom I could ask why poverty existed, and she rushed right up to me, drunkenly plucking at my sleeve, pleading with me to come home with her.” William T. Vollmann, Poor People.

“On a hot night in Lokichokio, as a generator thumps in the distance and katydids cling like thin winged leaves to the lightbulb overhead, he tells his visitor that there is no difference between God and the Devil in Africa.” Philip Caputo, Acts of Faith.

“One of the few things that humanity has agreed upon for most of history is that its laws descend directly from the gods.” Sadakat Kadri, The Trial: A History from Socrates to O.J. Simpson.

“Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, the lack of a smell, that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew well had all smelled distinctly.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah.

“If you want to get people to believe something really, really stupid, just stick a number on it.” Charles Seife, Proofiness: The Dark Art of Mathematical Deception.

“The day my wife left she gave me a list of who I was.” Chang-Rae Lee, Native Speaker.

“I’m here because I was born here and thus ruined for anywhere else, but I don’t know about you.” Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York.

Barack Versus the Babe

When a President is leaving office, news stories from all over analyze what he has and has not accomplished. Invariably historians will be tapped to tell us where this departing executive stands in the hierarchy of Presidents—is he near the top like Lincoln and Washington and FDR; in the middle like, like—if they are in the middle who can remember them?; or at the bottom like Buchanan or George W. Bush.

These rankings, instead of making me reflect on Presidential history, turn my thoughts to Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron (according to one of his biographies, he did not like being called “Hank.”) When Aaron broke Ruth’s home run record, some people, supposedly putting the accomplishment into perspective but really trying to denigrate it, pointed out that it took Aaron many more at bats than Ruth had to get to 714 home runs.  Aaron responded, “But Ruth never had to face Juan Marichal.”  (My memory is that I read or heard from someone that Mr. Aaron said something like this. I have not verified this memory. You can do that if you want. Instead, whether Aaron actually said it or not, the insight remains.)

Ruth, of course, never batted with Marichal pitching. Ruth’s last major league appearance was before Marichal was born. (I did look that up.) The real point, however, is that Ruth did not bat against his day’s equivalent of Juan Marichal. Because major league baseball was segregated in Ruth’s time, he did not bat against the best pitchers, only the best white pitchers. For example, Ruth did not face Satchel Paige, even though Paige’s prime came when Ruth was playing. Paige was clearly an outstanding pitcher—some think the best of all time. In the frequent barnstorming and exhibition games of his era, he faced major league stars and pitched excellently against them. But Paige was black and could not play in the major leagues in the 1920s and 1930s. (I do not know what to make of the fact that Paige first played in the United States on an integrated team in 1933 in Bismarck, North Dakota. Or at least that is what a biography of Paige said.)

How many home runs would Ruth have hit if some of the weaker pitchers he faced had been replaced by Paige and other outstanding black players then barred from the major leagues? We can’t know.

Aaron, however, did face Marichal, as well as Bob Gibson and other outstanding black pitchers. Baseball had become integrated. Perhaps because he had to face all the best pitchers,  Aaron’s records are more impressive than Ruth’s. On the other hand, the nature of American professional athletics was changing during Aaron’s career. When Ruth played, baseball was the dominant sport, and the best athletes mostly concentrated on baseball. That may have been also true at the beginning of Aaron’s career, but by the 1970s, professional football and basketball had become more attractive to the athletically gifted, and probably not all the best American athletes homed in on baseball.

If we were comparing Ruth and Aaron to today’s players, we would have to factor in the internationalization of baseball. While there were Latin American players in Aaron’s day (but almost none in Ruth’s)—after all Marichal was a Dominican—the influx of Spanish-speaking players has mushroomed since then, and the major leagues are also seeing a steady flow of players from Japan Korea, and Taiwan and even Australia and the Netherlands.

In assessing players from different era we should consider the differing player pools but also that the game has changed in other ways—the pitching mound has been at different heights; gloves differ tremendously from those of yesteryear; night games were not always played or scheduled less frequently; travel was different; the number of double headers has changed; the use of relief pitchers has changed; spitballs, once allowed, are now banned; a ball that bounces over the outfield wall is no longer a home run; and so on.

This all leads me to the wisdom of Bill Russell (again, I have not verified that Russell said this, but the point remains even if he did not) when he stated that you cannot compare players from different eras. At best, players can only be compared to other players of the same era. You can conclude that Ruth was the greatest slugger of his day. You can debate whether Mays or Mantle were as good as Aaron, but you can’t meaningfully maintain that Tris Speaker was better than all of them.

And that conclusion should also apply to Presidents. To rank Presidents ignores the different conditions during which they held office. You might think Washington did a good job as the first one, but the world he faced and how the government then functioned is different from the environment other Presidents had. Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt’s temperament and abilities suited well the conditions when he was President, but TR would probably have been a disaster as President in 1861. The issues that one President confronts are not faced by another, and the nature of Presidential powers, federalism, and congressional authority have changed over time. As a result, the presidential playing field keeps changing, and it is well nigh impossible to compare performers operating in different games.

Rankings of Presidents from different eras, while giving occupation to some historians and pundits, shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The conclusion that George W. Bush was a better or worse President than James Buchanan or that Barack Obama ranks higher or lower than Grover Cleveland is merely a parlor game (at a time when there are few parlors.)  As with athletes, at most we can compare Presidents within an era, not across the whole history of the Presidential game.

However, Obama did seem to have a better basketball game than all the other Presidents.

EYE-HAND

                She hit line drive after line drive in the playground.  She drew spectators.   Nine years old, but her gender unclear to onlookers.   Someone asked, “How old is he?”  I replied that she was a girl.  “No way” came the reply.  The daughter picked up bouncing ball and threw it to me.  One boy said, “That’s a boy.  No girl throws like that.”  (The daughter credits me for teaching her how not to throw like a girl.  I don’t remember that.  I think it was her innate ability, but I confess her throwing pleases me.)

                She had those skills, but she did not want to join the school’s softball team.   She was intensely shy, did not talk much, and did not really make friends.  (Today she and I half jokingly say she was semi-autistic.)  I thought that with her abilities, her classmates would notice and appreciate her more, but she did not join the team.  She did not voice her fears, but I could picture the discomfort of the being the center of attention and the potential panic if another player yelled, “Throw the ball to second.  Throw the ball to second.” And perhaps even worse, in a team game, you can let your teammates down.  That would have been terrible.

                A summer or two afterwards, we had an August rental in a community with tennis courts.  The daughter’s eye-hand coordination was again on conspicuous display.  Soon she could hit the fuzz off a tennis ball. A few years later after I had started to play tennis, I found that she could hit the ball harder than most of the men (admittedly not great tennis players) I played with.   

Tennis seemed just right for her. She loved being active, and almost instinctively she had great form on forehands, backhands, and serves. Not so much on volleys and overheads, but that could come. Her school did not have a tennis team, but perhaps that was good.  She would not have the team pressures.  She could just shine on her own.

                She did seem to enjoy hitting a tennis ball, but she never enjoyed playing games, whether pickup or in the little regional tournaments we went to.   She lost more than her innate ability warranted.  There were good reasons for that.  Tennis, especially in the city, has become a rich child’s game.  There are public courts, but it is not always easy to get time on them.  Private courts, of course, cost, and kids today don’t just hit with each other; they take clinics and private lessons and go to tennis camps.  It takes money.  Book a private court and a tennis pro and more than $100 is gone.  And since none of her few friends played, or even had much athletic ability, on the days without a clinic or pro, she could only hit with me, and she had soon exceeded my ability.  I felt that Peter the Pro could have improved her game tremendously if she was with him a couple times a week, but this would have cost thousands, thousands we did not have.  She often lost because she simply had less instruction and practice than the city and suburban kids she played against.

But it was more than that.  Although she was bright, brighter than she realized, she seemed to lack competitive instincts or knowledge.    I asked her, “When you are behind in the first set and look like you are going to lose it, have you considered trying different tactics—bringing your opponent into the net; hitting looping balls—to see what might work in the second set?”  She simply replied, “No.”

I once asked after a tournament whether when she was warming up with her opponent if she tried to see her competitor’s strengths and weakness? Did she hit to the backhand to see if it was a weakness or how the person volleyed and so on?  If she  could see that the person had a weak backhand, did she  try to hit a lot to the backhand during a match?  She told me that she did not do that because if she did that her opponent would do the same.  I didn’t say anything, but I thought, “Your opponent is likely to do that whether you do or not.”  The daughter thought that it was somehow unfair to try to figure out the opponent and take advantage of any weakness.

I had not played much tennis until the daughter started playing and did not know much about the game. From her I learned a lot. I don’t mean that I learned how to have good strokes and hit good shots. I do not have her ability. Instead, I realized how lonely and brutal tennis is. The player may have had much coaching, but during the competition she is out there all alone with no help. She is the one who has to adapt strategies in the midst of the match. She cannot look to someone else to give her a boost or to bail her out. An individual wins, and that also means that an individual loses. The winner has beaten someone else. That victor has made someone else a loser. It is a zero sum game; there is always a clear winner and a clear loser. 

The daughter did not like to lose, but she also did not like to win because she felt sorry for making someone else a loser. Losing did not feel good, but winning was not satisfying either. Once she was no longer required to compete (note the passive. I was the one doing the requiring), she gave up playing games. She still enjoys hitting tennis balls, but that’s it. I continue to play at my less-than-mediocre level, but her choice makes perfect sense to me.

Snippets . . . . Snippet It Real Good

For your novel, short story, or screenplay. At the urinals of a successful Broadway play, a man to my right speak..  It takes me a beat to realize that he is not talking to himself. His ‘free’ hand is holding a phone to his ear. I hear him say, “I auditioned yesterday.” I look over at an ordinary looking young man.  He continues, “It wasn’t a big part.” Pause. “It was a bartender.” Pause. “He is basically the best friend of the main character.” Pause. “I will talk to you later, Mom.” Write a page or a paragraph.

Barroom philosophy. Some of the division in the country stems from drug use. Those Hollywood and Hampton elites grew up on cocaine, and coke users want open borders and prefer wide open trade. They often find themselves dealing with connections of differing nationalities and ethnic groups. A different portion of the country, however, desires meth. They don’t have to engage vicariously or otherwise with the whole world. They need venture no further than the nearby basement lab and the local pharmacy. No racial lines need be crossed. Don’t you think where the cocaine culture is strongest, the voters favored Clinton and where the meth culture is strongest, the voters favored Trump?

I had an Inauguration Day rule I wanted for the Poconos, but it might apply elsewhere. By Inauguration Day all outdoors Christmas decorations must be taken down.

As I am walking past a restaurant featuring fresh fish, I seeing being delivered to the kitchen a pizza. Hmmm.

Is this story true? Margot Asquith met Jean Harlow, and Harlow kept pronouncing all the letters in Margot.  In exasperation, Asquith finally said, “The ‘t’ in Margot is silent just like the ‘t’ in Harlow.”

Was he right? A distinguished academic who had spent most of his career in New Haven had moved to New York. He stated that in New Haven he saw lots of movies because there was little else to do.  Now he had little time for them, partly because his wife had mapped out an extensive social life for him.  He indicated that sometimes it seemed a bit too much, but still he said, she is filled with all this energy, and she knows lots of interesting people.  His luncheon companion agreed that his wife knew lots of interesting people, but there was a failing in the people she knew.  The companion continued, you would think better of the social life if she knew more 28 year olds with cleavage. The academic laughed and laughed and said, “28 with cleavage.  What a great movie title.”

Heard a woman on her phone, “He is self-aware of that.”

Who knew that Tarzan lived in Wisconsin.

It can’t matter whether the toilet paper goes over or under, but I care.

First Street between 1^st and 2^nd. Strong Coffee. Juice Cleansing. the great aussie bite. The Art of Everyday Life. Ghostism. 1on 1 Chiropractic. Esperanto Fonda. Catholic Workers St. Joseph’s House (oh, how we could use Dorothy Day today). And, of course, Prune (her memoir was awfully good, but Well-boiled Brussel Sprouts?). And no Starbucks.

COULD THAT BE THE FAMOUS WRITER?

When I picked up the tickets, I heard the ticket seller say that the play was sold out.  I had made my purchase online from a discount source, as I almost always do, and that site enjoins buyers to pick up tickets early.  This time I had, and I went outside to seek a quick bite to eat.  The theater doors had not yet opened, and a ticket-line monitor was trying to herd the early arrivals into an orderly procession.  Someone behind me spoke, and I heard “Jonathan.”  I assumed he was giving his name to the TLM in case tickets were not picked up or returned.  I was about to continue my quest for a sandwich (later found at Pret), when I heard, “Jonathan and the last name is F-O-E-R.”  I turned around and saw a man, not that tall, with scruffy facial hair.  A striking woman behind him saw my movement and smiled a bit, but my attention went to the TLM, who had stopped writing on a pad to ask, “Like the writer?”  Almost as if embarrassed, he silently replied with a small head movement.

My thoughts ping ponged.  Should I say how impressive I had found Everything is Illuminated and that friend Judy thought it was one of the best things she had ever read?  Would I have to pretend I had read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?  Should I try for a brief conversation and ask if he was working on anything?  (Since this incident, he has published another book.) Should I offer him my one ticket and then ask that striking woman, from whom I averted my eyes because I did not want to stare, for a drink?  If I said anything, was I really trying to give him a compliment or just trying to show off that I was literate enough to have read him?

With these thoughts ricocheting, I walked away.  I have felt that we unique-in-our-way-but-ordinary-people should not intrude on celebrities. Some of this feeling comes from decades ago when I attended a Liza Minnelli concert, and whispers in the audience said that Jackie Onassis was there.  I looked down from my first-row balcony seat, and yup, she was right below.  At intermission, what seemed like half the audience walked towards the stage in the aisle where she sat, turned around, and walked back in order to see her.  She sat in her seat, composed, ignored the parade, and talked to her companion.  I thought how hard it could be for a celebrity to do what the rest of us can take for granted, and I vowed not to be such a gawker.

I have, however, found myself nodding.  At the intermission of another play which I don’t remember, I saw the actor who did the ads where he dared you to knock a battery off his shoulder.  Our eyes met.  I nodded.  He nodded back.  He was standing alone, and I did wonder if he, like I, had come alone.  When I saw Sam Waterston approaching on West 23^rd Street, I again nodded, and he nodded back.  Once before, I almost broke my nod policy.  Shortly before a performance of the Flying Karamazov Brothers (I am a sucker for juggled chainsaws), I was at a urinal, when Jerry Orbach appeared at the adjacent spot.  I wanted to say how much I had enjoyed his performance in 42nd Street and that I hoped besides Law and Order he would do more song and dance roles.  Few were better than he, but he and I only exchanged nods. And, of course, in New York, there have been other celebrity sightings, but almost always with no external reaction from me.

Do any celebrities out there have advice on how the rest of us should act.  Do you want to be acknowledged?  Do you tolerate it?  What is your reaction if a stranger wants to engage in conversation or give words of praise? Take your picture?  Does it matter the source of the fame?  I assume that well-known actors may be approached often and this can be wearing, but is that true for writers whose faces may not have been imprinted on us?  I certainly would not have known that the man behind me had written a book that I admire if I had not heard him give his name.  I did feel more of an urge to say something to him than I have had to the actors I have passed. Perhaps that is because I expect that a well-regarded author would have interesting things to say while I am not sure that that holds true for other celebrities.

What would you have done if you were standing next to Jonathan Safran Foer?  And would your answer change if, as I am 80 percent sure, his companion was Michelle Williams?  (Since then I have seen her in Certain Women and Manchester by the Sea. A very good actor.)

If anyone knows him, tell Jonathan that he looks much too young to be such a distinguished author.  And I truly have admired his writing.  Also tell Joshua that I found his memory book fascinating.  (I wish I could remember that book’s title.)

Back to the Future? Really?

My parents rained on parades.  This was partly because although we had enough money to get by, we did not have more than that.  The family would not have the latest model car, a second home, or exotic vacations.  There would be a used Oldsmobile  (my father’s invariable choice) and a week on a nearby lake if some friend or boss made a cottage available.  There would be adequate clothing, but no one would be a fashion plate.  And who needs to go to restaurants?   This was not a terrible hardship perhaps because things like smartphones and Air shoes and overly expensive dolls and other toys did not seem to exist.  On the other hand, I remain frugal today, perhaps excessively so.

The dampening, however, was not just about material expectations; it was about life in general.  Some typical interchanges:  It’s a beautiful day today.  Yes, but it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.  We won the ballgame!  Yes, but you play the (powerhouse) next game.  The Halloween party is going to be great.  Well, it is probably going to be much like the one last year, and I am sure you remember that.

The point, I guess, was to avoid disappointments.  If you did not expect much, you would not be dashed, crushed, frustrated  by what did happen.  And if good things did happen, then you could feel good.  But, of course, only for a brief time because disappointments were always looming.  My Mom and Dad, by spritzing on expectations, no doubt thought they were being good parents by shielding us from disappointment.

My daughter when young often had great enthusiasm for some coming event.  Often I knew that occasion would not live up to her excitement. My instinct was to act like my parents.  I needed to protect that precious little one by referring to my experiences to show her how boring, or whatever, it was going to be. Then she would not be disappointed.   Perhaps I initially did that, but then I realized that such a condescending speech only  deprived  her if her pre-event excitement. If the event itself truly was a bust,  then there was no enjoyment whatsoever. My daughter actually taught me what had been drilled out of me in childhood, enjoy the buildup to something.  Get that enjoyment no matter what happens later.

This practice was put to a severe test at Orlando’s Universal Studios when she spotted the Back to the Future. She had loved the movie and was so eager to go on the ride. But I did know some things about my daughter, and I did know that did not like thrill rides. (Another reason to love her.  If she had liked roller coasters, I might have to endure them with her. But the last times I have been on such attractions, admittedly quite some time ago, I felt sick for hours afterwards.)  I have no idea what she thought this was going to be, but I knew it was going to be awful for her.  As we endued the long line, her excitement grew and grew, and I kept debating with myself about telling her we were not going to do it.  The more time I internally waffled, the more excited she became.

We did it.  It was not a ride that plunges and twists.  It was worse.  It was one of those virtual reality things where you do not get sick from teal motion, but through the trickery of projections.  You know it is a trick, but still it makes you scream.  You feel scared and stupid.

We came out, and it was clear she had been terrified and was not a happy person.  I am sure that it lasted but a few minutes, and the wait, with its buildup in her mind had been much longer—the period of enjoyment had been much longer than the period of disappointment (and terror)–but this time in not taking away her expectations I was not sure that I had done right.

What should a good parent have done?

Recently she and I had dinner, and the Back to the Future ride came up.  Although decades ago, she still remembers it vividly.  I asked her if I had been a bad parent.  She shook her head no.  But then again she was expecting me to pick up the restaurant bill.  (If you meet her, ask her about the Disney ride, It’s a Small World, and you should be convinced that, at least some of the time, I was a good father.)