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My Book List (concluded)

          Over the years I have maintained a list of books I have read. It’s out of curiosity, but also because I remember too little of what I have read and thought it would be useful to have a list. This being the end of the year and the beginning of another annual book list, I thought I would look over at least part of the list to see what I might remember about my reading.

          The first book on my list, recorded in 2012, is by Joan Hess, Misery Loves Maggody. A note I made says that it is an Arly Hanks Mystery. Not surprisingly, I do not remember anything about the plot of the mystery. I seldom remember plots for more than a few weeks after finishing a mystery, but I am surprised that I recall Maggody as being set in Arkansas and that Arly Hanks was a small-town sheriff or police chief. Also to my surprise, I remember buying the book at a Lot for Less store, which carries all sorts of remainders from clothes to breakfast cereal to sheets. I was addicted to this store for a long time. Since it was on my route from the subway stop to my office, it was only natural that I went there regularly, buying lots of things I did not need because they, as the name implies, cost lots less than elsewhere. On occasion, the store had books, and on occasion I bought one there–like the Hess book. I enjoyed the Joan Hess mystery, but that was, according to the computer’s find function, my first and last encounter with her and Ms. Hanks.

          As I glance down the first year’s entries, however, I have no idea how I obtained many of the books. For example, after Misery Loves Maggody comes Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy, which a note indicates consists of three novels published from 1960 to 1965 and was made into a BBC series with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. I can’t believe that I bought this giant paperback which still sits on my bookshelf. I probably found it as a giveaway sitting on a neighborhood stoop. I can recall little about the book other than I thought it odd that a country, I think in this case Romania, would accept a king who was not born, raised, or otherwise being of the country and did not even speak the language.

          As I glance at the listings from over a decade ago, I have zero memory of many of them. For example, Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper. I noted “M.D. Hit Man.” That seems memorable but apparently not to me. More surprising is that I have no memory whatsoever of Naguib Mahfouz, The Mirage. A note tells me that the author was an Egyptian Nobel Prize Winner. Surely the book had an important literary impact, but not a lasting one on me.

          That first year’s list also indicates that some of my book habits had changed. Every fourth book or so a decade ago was on audio. I had begun listening to audiobooks in my running days.

          I had at first resisted audiobooks while running. A runner, I thought, should have an unimpeded experience and absorb only the ambient sounds. I felt superior to those on the Prospect Park road who had buds in their ears. After a year or so of running, though, I changed. I was then in a phase of if you are going to do something you should do it compulsively. I was spending a lot of time running my 40, 50, or 60 miles a week, and there seemed to be less and less time for anything else. So I bought a Walkman, or probably a knockoff, and started listening to NPR shows. Then after another year, I broke down and ordered from Books on Tape. I had assumed that listening to a book could not hold up to reading the print version. I soon found that was only partially true. Some books, I felt, were best read by oneself. Many were good in both print and audio versions, and there were some, I was convinced, that were better in the audio form (I felt that about the moving Growing Up by the amusingly astute observer of America, Russell Baker.) Audio continued into 2012 even though the running did not. While they have now dropped to the wayside for me, audiobooks were a regular part of my life for a long time.

          I at first also resisted Kindle. Turning pages seemed more satisfying than poking a screen, and with a printed book, it was much easier to go back and find the clarifying passage I did not remember. I read a few e-books a decade ago, but not many. That changed during the pandemic.

My country library is a member of an e-book consortium, and I started getting more and more e-books while quarantining. Then I expanded my horizons and got them from the New York Public Library, and a bit later from the Brooklyn Public Library. (Brooklyn, of course, is part of New York City and most NYC municipal institutions are citywide. However, for whatever reason, when the five boroughs were consolidated into one New York City in 1898, the Brooklyn Public Library remained separate from the New York Public Library.)

Of course, there is a lot to be said for being able to get books without leaving the couch, but I still find one major drawback with e-books — you can’t mark them up. I often underline or write in the margins of printed versions of the nonfiction I read. Sometimes I go back to look at my notes in these books. I know that something similar can be done with e-books, but I have not learned how to do it as efficiently as I do with traditional books.

          While the lists eleven years apart indicate a shift away from audiobooks towards e-books, they indicate a consistency in library browsing for new nonfiction. A longstanding habit has been to turn to the right after entering my small, public country library. The metal bookshelves there hold in separately labeled sections new fiction, mysteries, biographies, and nonfiction. Sometimes I may browse for a novel or a fiction, but every time I look at the biographies and the nonfiction for a topic that might be of interest. If I find such a book, I will give it a go even though I may not have heard of it or its author before.

More recently, I have started doing comparable browsing at convenient branches of the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries. They, too, have new nonfiction sections, and rummaging in them has led to much of what I now read. Eleven years ago the browsing at the country public library led me to such books as Joshua Foer, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Jonathan Eig, Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster, and Susan Orlean, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and Legend, and others, none of which I probably would have bought to read. This year the browsing in the various public libraries has led me to William Elliott Hazelgrove, Greed in the Gilded Age: The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick, Danielle Dreilinger, The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live, and Porter Fox, Northland: A 4,000 Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border.

          When I look over the 2012 list, I see mostly random reading except perhaps for several books about lawyers and our criminal justice system. I was then in the midst of volunteer work with a couple of public defenders’ offices, and perhaps I had some fantasy about writing reflections about those experiences. If so, nothing came of it.

          This year’s list does have a few spots of direction. I was advising a senior at Columbia University writing an honors thesis centered on the January 6 insurrection, and I read several books so that I could advise him better. These included Charles Lane, The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction; David Zucchino, Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy;and Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.

In the years since I started the book list, I became a member of a history book group that now directs some of my reading. For example, among other books this year, we “historians” read Jacob Goldstein, Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing; Steve Inskeep, Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War; Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, A Hasidic Village in Upstate New York; Philippe Sands, East West Street; Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History; Report of Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States; and Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.

What got the most focus from my reading in 2022 was Iceland. I read novels by Halldór Laxness and Auour Ava Olafsdóttir, many mystery stories written by Icelandic writers, and several nonfiction books about the country. These added enjoyment and perspective to my trip when I was there and afterwards.

I am lucky to have friends and family who are discerning readers and make good recommendations. Mostly, however, my reading seems aimless except that I tend to avoid certain genres. I seldom read romances, although this year, wanting to get a better understanding of the phenomenon, I read a book by Colleen Hoover. I avoid science fiction, although I have read several books by Philip K. Dick and one of his novels sits on top of a stack of books I plan to read in the coming months. I don’t read fantasies, although I feel as if I ought to know Harry Potter and the Hobbit. It has been years since I read a graphic novel, and even longer since I read a western. Every couple years I attempt poetry but never make it to the end of a volume.

I do wonder why I read. I read few books closely. I remember well only a few of the books I finish. I do get some fodder for this blog from my reading. It produces the “First Sentences” I occasionally post. Sometimes the reading gives me an idea for a post or a quotation to use. But I don’t read as if I am researching for the blog or anything else. I read because I read.

I think back to a clerk who had waited on me several times in a ten-day span at the local bookstore. She said, “You read a lot.” I replied, “If you don’t have a life, you should at least read.”

And I continue to keep my book list. I have made the first two entries for 2023: James Kirchick, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington (obtained from the new nonfiction section of the Brooklyn Public Library) and Henning Mankell, The Man from Beijing (obtained from a sale at the Barrett Friendly Public Library.)

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My Book List

          As a new year unfolds, people reflect on what occurred in the old one. Those reflections often come from professional writers—David Barry’s amusing and insightful summary of the year’s events, for example. Some are informative lists of the “best” books, movies, music, television shows, or plays of the year which help to inform my reading or viewing. Some of the reflections come from “ordinary” folk in a broadsheet carefully creased into a holiday card telling me what the writers and their incredibly marvelous and accomplished children and grandchildren have done during the calendar year. (A friend used to send us one of these. We were slightly amazed at all the interesting things they had done throughout the year until we realized that one of the described events was something we had done with them, something that to the spouse and me was so unexceptional that we barely remembered it.)

          I have not engaged in such annual retrospection. The end of December seems arbitrary to me for this task. A new calendar may be tacked to the kitchen bulletin board but in my gut a year naturally ends and begins with a change of the season—the coming of spring or the end of summer. January 1 in the dead (interesting phrase) of winter does not feel like the beginning of a new year.

          I don’t engage in such yearly retrospection except, sort of, for an annual book list. I record the books I read each year starting with January 1. This recordkeeping is now a decade old, but I have not done the compilation for any reflection at the end of the year. I often do not remember what I have read, not the title, author, or content. I often do not know whether I have read a book that I am considering, nor could I tell someone the identifying information of a book that I might recommend. To remedy these shortcomings, I started my book list. I seldom refer to the list except occasionally to answer the question, Have I read that? Or, What was the title of that book?

          The list does not include many comments. I note whether the book came from a library or its form if I read something other than a traditional print version. No notes indicate that I own the book and should search my shelves if I want to look at it again.

In the second year, I began to number the volumes on each year’s entries. I had no reason other than curiosity so I could see how many books I had read in the year. This, however, soon morphed into a bit of OCDism. I set a quota each year, and I became uncomfortable if I felt I was falling behind the necessary pace to reach the goal.

Last year, however, I met my self-imposed number well before the end of the year. Part of me felt that to finish more books before December 31 was a waste. They should be pushed off into the next year to make attaining the new quota easier. I paused in reading a half dozen books last December so that I could finish them in the first week of January to get me ahead of the OCD book curve. I realized that that was silly and resolved not to do it again. On the other hand, I still find myself apprehensive about starting a thick book when I am not on the “correct” pace.

This year, partly because of my 2021 cheating, I completed my quota early, but even though it makes me a bit uneasy about making 2023’s “required” number, I did not “artificially” alter my book reading. It is sad that this disregard for the coming year added an element of devil-may-care to my life.

(concluded January 4)

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Why Celebrate January 1?

The New Year did not always begin on January 1. New Year’s Day was celebrated on different dates throughout history. In some ages and places, January 1 started another year, but in other places and ages, a new year began on December 25 or March 1 or some other date. In early England and its American colonies, March 25 was New Year’s Day, which strikes me as odd. I may be conditioned by the January 1 date, but it only seems natural to begin a new year as a new month begins. March 1 or April 1 seem to be possibilities for another year, especially since these are days of spring in the northern hemisphere when we see the earth being renewed.

          In England and America January 1 became New Year’s Day in 1752 as England adopted the Gregorian calendar. Trivia question: When was a year not a year-long? The answer: 1751. The British parliament passed a law adopting the Gregorian calendar in 1750 mandating that the year 1751, which began on March 25, would end on December 31 with the next year beginning on January 1, 1752. Thus, 1751 in England was only 282 days long.

          There is another answer to that trivia question, however. The Julian calendar in use in England was not quite accurate, something that had been recognized during the Middle Ages. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII adopted the more accurate Gregorian calendar, which had January 1 as a year’s starting point. (What are the odds? Gregory adopted the Gregorian calendar.) This deletion required the elimination of ten days so that 1582 is also a year that was not year-long.

          Of course, because the Pope made this change — even though it was a good one — many Protestant countries resisted it, apparently thinking that if the Antichrist was behind it, then it could not be all good. Eventually, of course, other countries recognized that the Gregorian calendar was not some sort of devilish trick and adopted the new style of dating—even the British.

          Today countries that had used different calendars have adopted the Gregorian calendar, including Japan, Egypt, Korea, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. New Year’s Day starts at the stroke of midnight on January 1, and it is the most celebrated time around the world as billions are excited by fireworks, whistles, and bells, local time of course.

          Even though I don’t understand why we celebrate the day, come Sunday, I, too, will be saying “Happy New Year!”

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Snippets

On Christmas Day I received an email from a legal group that claims to fight for the religious rights of all faiths but proclaims itself Christian. The message did wish me Merry Christmas and said that on Christmas “we celebrate the birth of the One who makes our spiritual freedom possible.” I don’t understand that phrase, but I expected what was coming. Jesus may make spiritual freedom possible, but He could be helped along if I would forward some money to this organization. Is this what the Christmas spirit now means–fundraising for your own organization on the day to celebrate the birth of Christ? I don’t think being nummamorous ???, especially on Christmas, seems very Christian. Luckily for me, however, my Christmas spirit was not affected because I did not read the email until Boxing Day.

Old joke: The sailor, when asked what he did with his money, replied, “Part went for liquor, part went for women, and the rest I spent foolishly.”

Christmas Day is over, but we are in the twelve days of Christmas leading up to the Epiphany on January 6, which is a big holiday in some cultures. However, while perhaps it should be sung now, the song The Twelve Days of Christmas seems to be heard before Christmas Day, not after. I like Christmas carols, but I would be happy if I heard The Twelve Days only once in a season, or perhaps not at all. And doesn’t it contravene the Christmas spirit to give someone 78 gifts?

Those who worship the version of the Second Amendment the Supreme Court created) a decade or two ago should send their true loves a cartridge in a pear tree.

Who for twelve consecutive winter days sends over a pear tree? And where do they get all those partridges?

The young woman next to me pointed to the book I had placed on the bar and said that she was trying to see what I was reading. I held it up to display the cover and said, “It’s a fictionalized biography of Thomas Mann.” She looked as if I had not uttered an English sentence. I added, “He has also written a fictionalized biography of Henry James.” She still looked blank. I decided that,  despite this evidence, she must be a reader. Did she have any recommendations? She could not come up with one. She told me that she was there to meet someone she had only just met from an online writing course. We did not speak much after that.

“It is a common failing of an ambitious mind to overrate itself.” Lady Caroline Smith.

Browsing in a library, I pulled out a collection of three short novels that had been reissued in a single volume a couple decades after their initial publications. The back cover had paragraphs from two noted (that means I recognized the names) literary critics. One stated, “Whoever she is, she is the most important new novelist in the English language to appear in years.” The other began, “She has cut to roundness and smoothed to convexity a little crystal of literary form that concentrates the light like a burning glass.” WOW. I grabbed the book and looked forward to reading it, only partly because I anticipated the pleasure of commenting on it (in a superior fashion) to others “What? You’ve never read so-and-so?!” I gave up after thirty-seven pages. I concluded that just because you have read Henry James, that does not mean you should try to write like him.

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Blog Today

There is no attempt at yet another witty, insightful, meaningful post today. I am busy assembling, trying to learn how to use, swearing at, and enjoying Christmas gifts.

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Send Back the Song Which Now the Angels Sing

The angelic appearance in the fields surrounding Bethlehem is sometimes referred to as the Annunciation to the Shepherds.  The Annunciation, which has been celebrated in many famous paintings, was the announcement to Mary that she would become pregnant even though she had not “known” a man: “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, . . . ‘And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.’ . . . And Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have no husband?’ And the angel said to her, . . . ‘For with God nothing shall be impossible.’”

(The Virgin Birth is in the Bible. The bizarre notion of the Immaculate Conception is not.)

The Bible contains another annunciation of the virgin birth. It comes earlier in the Bible than the one to Mary, but later in time. Mary is already pregnant, and Joseph, engaged to Mary, for obvious reasons knows he is not the father. He plans a divorce when an angel appears in a dream and tells Joseph not to reject Mary for she has conceived through the Holy Spirit. The angel continues that the son should be named Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins.” As a result, Joseph did not reject Mary “but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.”

Mary is honored for her faith in accepting her pregnancy, but perhaps Joseph’s conduct should be celebrated at least as much. His action is an incredible expression of faith, much more it seems to me than that of Mary. Mary finds herself pregnant, but she knows that she is a virgin. Perhaps it is not so hard under these circumstances to accept that the Holy Spirit was responsible. However difficult the acceptance was for Mary, surely it was much harder for Joseph. He finds his fiancée pregnant. He knew he did not impregnate her. It is an extraordinary man of faith that would accept what the unnamed angel told him. If you are going to celebrate faith, this is an act for celebration.

Mary’s annunciation story presents few facts about her. She is a virgin. She married Joseph. She accepts what Gabriel tells her. We learn little about her actions, personality, or character other than the angel telling her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

We do not know why she has found favor. It surely can’t be that she is a virgin. The story is based on the notion that virginity was expected on the wedding day. There were many virgins in the land. Perhaps she was favored by the Lord because she led an exemplary life that we should emulate. But if so, we can’t try to be like her because we do not know why God singled her out. As far as we know, she found favor just as a powerball winner finds favor. Mary has been simply the winner in God’s lottery.

On the other hand, Joseph’s annunciation story reveals something about the kind of man he was. When he finds himself a cuckold because his betrothed is pregnant, my Bible says, “Her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” Of course, after the angel speaks to him, he abandons this thought, but look at his character. When many men would have been vindictive or trying to save face, he was thinking of another, the one who apparently wronged him. He did not want to shame Mary. Joseph is not just a man of incredible faith, he is a helluva nice guy. The Bible does not tell us that Joseph was favored by God. No reason is given for him to be the “father” who raises the savior.  But we do know that this is a faithful man who can put others before himself. We can see at least a bit of Jesus in Joseph. Joseph seems to be someone to emulate, and perhaps he should be pushed more to the center of the Christmas story.

For some the Christmas stories constitute a test of faith. Do you believe in the virgin birth? Do you believe in the guiding star? I am not a believer in any of the Christmas story. For me, its truth is simply irrelevant. His “resurrection,” another test of faith, is also irrelevant. Instead, I would like to believe what truly matters and what points the way for a better life for me and a better world for all is the life He lived.

I like Christmas. Every year during the season I feel a few moments of that spirit where maybe someday there could be peace on earth and good will towards men, or more realistically, a bit more peace and good will. For a few moments each year, the concluding part of the song about the midnight clear haunts me with its possibilities:

“An ye, beneath life’s crushing load/ whose forms are bending low/ who toil along the climbing way/ with painful steps and slow/ look now! for glad and golden hours/ come swiftly on the wing./ O rest beside the weary road,/ and hear the angels sing!

“For lo! the days are hastening on,/ by prophet seen of old,/ when with the ever-circling years/ shall come the time foretold/ when peace shall over all the earth/ its ancient splendors fling,/ and the whole world send back the song/ which now the angels sing.”

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Send Back the Song Which Now the Angels Sing

I look forward to Christmastime. I like much of the seasonal music. In these weeks of possibilities, in my mind I sing Christmas hymns, carols, and songs, and I sing them perfectly on key. However, in reality I do not sing them aloud because no one can recognize anything I vocalize. Only dogs want to harmonize with me.

One that I love is “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” It contains the marvelous verse: “Peace on the earth, good will to men/From heaven’s all gracious king/The world in solemn stillness lay/To hear the angels sing.”

(When I recently said, Peace on the earth, good will to men, a listener who I assumed knew neither the song nor the Bible story accused me of being woke. The woke version, however, would say, “Peace on the earth, good will to people of all gender identities.” See if you can work that into a hymn.)

I am unsure, however, about the inclusiveness of the blessing. My Bible acknowledges that some authorities have the angels saying “peace, goodwill among men.” But this version has it: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!’” I find this ambiguous. If God were pleased with all men, this is inclusive. But the granted peace might only have been given to a subset of humanity that had pleased God.

The song’s refrain, of course, refers to the Biblical story that begins, “And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, watching over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them.” (The shepherds were not washing their socks by night as many Sunday School children think.) That angel announces that the Savior has been born in Bethlehem and is lying in a manger. The shepherds hurry off, find the manger, and spread the angel’s words.

This leads to the many creches I have seen. Always in a creche is a manger with the baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph are nearby and a little further away are the kneeling shepherds along with sheep. (We should pay more attention to the sheep because they were celebrating the first Fleece Navidad. I have seldom seen a dog in the countless manger scenes, but a German shepherd would not be inappropriate. Naples is known for its creches, and all sorts of figures are placed around the baby, including representations of historical figures and relatives of the creche’s owner. Even so, I found it strange that I could buy a tiny representation of Maradona to place in mine. I did not do so.)

Almost all creches include the Three Wise Men even though the Bible tells us they were not outside around a manger. Those men first go to Herod and tell that signs reveal that the king of the Jews has been born. They want to know where to find Him. “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.’” An assembly of chief priests and scribes say that it is written that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. Led by a star to the City of David, the wise men “going into the house [Italics added] they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.”

(The Three Wise Men followed the big star. Were they the first groupies? Yes, I know that the Bible does not say that there were three wise men. That number is merely assumed from the number of gifts. As kids, we liked to sing, “We three kings of orient are/Puffing on a royal cigar/One was loaded and exploded/ We two kings of orient are.” That passed for Sunday School humor among us.)

The Bible does tell us about the manger. Joseph and Mary had traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem where her labor began. “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” A song I sang as a kid begins “Away in a manger/No crib for a bed/The little Lord Jesus/Laid down His sweet head.” That hymn always seemed insipid, and it is not one I replay much in my head. I only learned as an adult another song relating to that same Biblical passage, No Room at the Inn. It is now a favorite, both for its infectiousness and its layered meanings. I have heard the gospel song with varying lyrics from different artists, and now each Christmas season I make a point of listening to it. This year I heard on YouTube renditions, both good, from Mahalia Jackson and Ann Murray.

Mary and Joseph were away from home because: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. . . . .And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.” Luke 2: 1-5.

(I don’t know if this census included any controversial citizenship questions. The passage says “all the world.” I have a strong feeling that the Mayans and the Japanese did not enroll. Of course, this passage is one of many that demonstrate that the Bible cannot be taken literally, Walter Lippmann said, “You and I are forever at the mercy of the census-taker. That impertinent fellow who goes from house to house is one of the real masters of the statistical situation. The other is the man who organizes the result.” (concluded December 23)

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Perez–Lost at Christmas

The first gospel begins with a genealogy, which concludes, “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportations to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.” Fourteen seems to be a key, but its significance is not stated, and it is not self-evident at least to this reader. I am surprised, however, that with its repetition it has not become part of the iconography of the nativity story. Perhaps the Christmas table should have fourteen candles or a basket of fourteen pomegranates, but I am not aware of any such tradition.

I am aware of only a few of the names in the genealogy. Most ring no bells, but the unknown ones such as Amminadab, Uzziah, and Zerubbabel at least seem Hebrew. One of Jesus’s progenitors, however, seems out of place–Perez. I think of that as Spanish or as the fictional detective on the island of Shetland, not as a Biblical name. But there it is in the genealogy—“Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Herzon. . . .” (Tamar is the first woman mentioned in the ancestry list. Only a few other women are mentioned. Jewishness may pass through the mothers, but mostly mothers are overlooked in this genealogy, at least until we get to Mary—“Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” Although the Bible says that Joseph did not take part in the conception of Jesus, the genealogy is his. We are told nothing about Mary’s lineage, which strikes me as strange.)

The mention of Perez in The Gospel According to Matthew is anodyne, but his birth chronicled in Genesis is hardly a routine story. Judah sees the Canaanite Shua, whom he marries. My Bible states that Judah “went in to her, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er.” Apparently Judah penetrated his love-at-first-sight some more and the sons Onan and Shelah were born. Judah marries Er to Tamar. However, Er is a bad boy for he “was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him.” This thirty-eighth chapter of the first biblical book only leaves it to our imaginative speculations as to how Er erred and to the method of the slaying, but we do know that Er is dead.

Judah then turns to his second born and using that only slightly euphemistic language tells Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” Onan, however, is displeased that any resulting children will not be considered his and interrupts his duty: “so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother.” (Other Bible translations state that this happened repeatedly.) He should have thought twice and lingered more: “And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.” (I understand from this story how onanism became a word for coitus interruptus, but I don’t understand how it became a synonym for masturbation.)

Of course, there was still the third son, but Shelah was understandably not too eager to do his duty as a brother-in-law “for he feared that he would die, like his brothers.” Shelah was apparently young, however, and Judah said to Tamar she should live with him “till Shelah my son grows up.”

Tamar, not surprisingly, is frustrated. When Judah, after becoming a widower, goes off to shear sheep, she dresses as a prostitute and intercepts him. Judah does not recognize her and assumes “her to be a harlot.” Apparently thinking that this is his lucky day, he said “Come, let me come in to you.” He offers a baby goat in payment, but she exacts some of Judah’s personal possessions instead. He enters her and gets her pregnant. Let’s pause here. Two of Judah’s sons have been struck down by the Lord for their transgressions, but not Judah. Apparently, perhaps because his wife was dead, his employing an apparent prostitute did not anger Yahweh. I guess Tamar got the heavenly pass because the Lord did not pay attention to women or she only wanted a baby and acted to keep it all in the family.

When it is clear that she is pregnant, Tamar produces Judah’s personal artifacts, and he realizes that he is the father. A form of happiness, or acceptance, results. Judah says, “‘She is more righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my Shelah.’ And he did not lie with her again.” And the result is the birth of Zerah and his twin Perez, the ancestor of Jesus.

In reading this story the other day, I wondered at what age it is appropriate for children to read this semi-explicit sexual story. If you can’t say gay, can you talk about semen on the ground and “let me come in to you”? How would you answer questions from an inquisitive third grader about Judah and Tamar. Perhaps the Bible should be banned from at least grade schools.

This is not the only dicey sex that lurks in the genealogy, which also delicately states, “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. . . .” Uriah’s wife, of course, was the beautiful Bathsheba spied by the peeping Dave. David could not keep his desire in check and impregnates her while she is still married. David, as military commander, sinfully makes sure that Uriah is killed in battle. The supposedly pro-life Lord punishes David by having this first issue with Bathsheba die in early infancy. Later David and Bathsheba produce Sol. (I discuss David, Bathsheba, and Uriah in my post of June 11, 2018. Search for Bathsheba.)

While Jesus, according to the Bible, results from a Virgin Birth, his genealogy also contains harlotry, seduction, onanism, voyeurism, and murder. I don’t think that Matthew presented the genealogy for this purpose, but while the miracle of his birth may indicate a divinity, he is also linked to very human ancestors. Perhaps true believers should remember both at Christmas.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

She was carrying into a neighborhood Italian restaurant a stack of boxes. One was labeled “Cannoli Cream.” It had never occurred to me that somewhere I could buy just the filling.

I have read that in high society in antebellum New York flowers were never placed in a dining room because their perfume interfered with the food’s enjoyment.

The headline referred to “corporate profiteers.” While not always redundant, isn’t that always the goal?

In 2017-18, political action committees supporting business interests outspent PACs aligned with labor sixteen to one.

The promo on the public address system at a college basketball game was for a bus company. It told me that it had diverse vehicles that could fit any need and had “professional drivers.” Until then it had never occurred to me that some company’s buses were driven by amateur, unpaid people.

The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round. By definition, can’t all wheels spin?

Until I heard that a hockey player was suspended for it, I had never heard of slew footing. Slew footing, however, must be the greatest name ever for a sports infraction. Surely baseball’s balk, basketball’s charge, soccer’s offside, and football’s pass interference don’t measure up. (But false start has some potential on the colorful front.) I am not a great hockey fan and don’t believe that I have ever seen it, but I gather slew footing is dangerous. When I first heard of slew footing, I did not know that it was a hockey term and assumed that it was something that happened at a dance in a Harlan County holler.

“Too many people seem to think life is a spectator sport.” Katherine Hepburn.

If you restrict your watching, as I do, to every four years, soccer can almost seem exciting.

The label on the inexpensive hairspray read: “This Product Has Not Been Tested on Animals.” That begged several questions. If it had been tested, for what? If it had been tested, how? I assumed no label ever says, “This Product Has Not Been Tested.”

I identify: The struggling writer told his significant other, “Don’t worry. My work will be remembered long after Shakespeare, Milton, and Dickens are forgotten.” “Yes, indeed,” the SO replied, “and not a day before.”

So far I have not undertaken the catalog of my actions that I keep promising to take to satisfy my curiosity. This is about those 50/50 actions of daily life, such as when, without looking first at what is the proper way to do it, I push/pull a door or insert a USB cord into an adapter or insert a polarized plug into an asymmetric outlet. I feel as if my initial attempt is wrong more than half the time. Could that be true? If so, why?

Posted on by rjonakait

DSK–Polish Christmas Edition

A patron at the local biergarten said that he was from Poland and asked where Aga was. The bartender replied that Aga had left DSK months ago, and he did not know where she had gone. The patron no doubt was interested in Aga because she, too, had been born in Poland. Aga, who worked at DSK when I first started going to the biergarten, struck me as different from the other servers who were not born in the United States. She seemed a bit older, her accent thicker, her English less good, her education less extensive than the others. She struck me as less ambitious than her colleagues; she did not seem to have another career in mind as other servers did. Although I talked with her frequently, I don’t remember much from our conversations except for one in December.

She told me her son was getting excited about Christmas, but it quickly became apparent that the mother, too, was looking forward to the holiday. She told me that she was going to have a traditional Polish Christmas with her boyfriend. I had met him only once. Big and burly, clichés of Middle European thugs came to mind. But then I found he had the gentlest handshake, a twinkle in his smile, and a soft, soft voice. Aga said he doted on her son, and another staff member later told me that he was a Polish bear—a Polish teddy bear.

I realized that I knew nothing about the traditional Polish Christmas celebration. I was a bit surprised because I believe that if you live in New York for a while, you begin to take on new ethnic colorations. Thus, in some sense all true New Yorkers are a bit Jewish. You absorb some of the religious practices, Yiddish phrases, the rhythm of speech, the humor, the foods of Jewish people. And, similarly, a true New Yorker is at least part Irish, part Chinese, part Italian and has absorbed, aware of it or not, some southern gospel background.

This was not true, however, at least for me, with Poles who, after all, do not have as large a footprint in the City as other groups. I asked her about the Polish Christmas celebration. She told me that in the Polish countryside, hay was spread under the dining table to symbolize the manger Jesus was laid in, but Aga and her boyfriend were not doing that. They were, however, going to have the Christmas Eve feast of many dishes that started with eating something akin to a communion wafer. She said that carp was often served. I asked if this was similar to the traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast of the seven fishes—a misnomer because while all the courses are seafood, all are not fish. Italian food and clams always go together, as they do when honoring the birth of Jesus. Aga said that the Polish celebration was not the same. They did have carp and maybe some other fish, but all the courses, while meatless, were not seafood. Poles gotta have borscht, and they do when honoring the birth of Jesus. And they do not restrict themselves to a paltry seven courses; they have twelve. After the feast, presents are opened, and, traditionally, people go off to bed early to be ready for early morning mass. She told me that the dinner on Christmas was not meatless, but it was not as important as the meal the evening before.

I asked how long it took her to make the twelve courses. She laughed and said that she didn’t. Delis in the central part of Brooklyn where she lived sold many of the Christmas dishes that would be served. I got the name of the place she went, but like many other things, I have forgotten it. But the evening sounded incredible to me and made our family’s traditional Christmas Eve celebration seem a bit scanty.