Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own.” Dan Brown, Angels & Demons.

“The blood is still rolling off my flak jacket from the hole in my shoulder and there are bullets cracking into the sand all around me.” Ron Kovic, Born on the Fourth of July.

“In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.” Patrick Suskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

“By the time Edwin Rist stepped off the train onto the platform at Tring, forty miles north of London, it was already quite late.” Kirk Wallace Johnson, The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century.

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.” A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh.

“Elizabeth Anne Holmes knew she wanted to be a successful entrepreneur from a young age.” John Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secret and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.

“Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.” Amy Tan, The Kitchen God’s Wife.

“A free society can exist only when public spirit is balanced by an equal inclination of men to mind their own business.” Edward A. Shils, The Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Security Policies.

“When you work in the glove department at Neiman’s, you are selling things that nobody buys anymore.” Steve Martin, Shopgirl.

“On a humid Monday night in the summer of 1965, after finding an eight-dollar hotel room in the then economically friendly city of San Francisco, I lugged my banjo and black, hard-shell prop case ten sweaty blocks uphill to the Coffee and Confusion, where I had signed up to play for free.” Steve Martin, Born Standing Up.

“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God.” John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany.

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Liar, Liar, You Can’t Tell a Liar

[This post is drawn from The American Jury System by Randolph N. Jonakait]

She said. He denied. Many people heard the testimonies. Many decided that one or the other was lying without thinking much about how they reached their conclusions. Most of us filtered what we saw and heard through existing beliefs, biases, and prejudices and that, of course, affected our credibility assessments of Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh. However,many, maybe most of us, feel we are good at spotting liars from subtle cues—awkward posture, a bead of sweat on the upper lip, hesitations in speech, the tone of voice, the movement of hands, the shifting of eyes. If that is what most of us feel, most of us are wrong.

Studies of the determination of lies from nonverbal behavior have found that people correctly spot a lie from 54 to 57 percent of the time, barely above the random guessing level of 50 percent. We are not good at this, and I was not surprised to hear the conclusions drawn that Kavanaugh’s evident anger indicated he was lying and also that Kavanaugh’s anger meant he was telling the truth.

One reason that liars are not easily detected by nonverbal behavior is that most people are proficient liars. This is in part because we get so much practice. One study had participants keep a diary for a week of conversations that lasted for at least ten minutes and record the lies they told during these exchanges. The study revealed “that lying is a daily event. On average, people lied almost twice a day or in one quarter of the ten-minute interactions. Of all the people they interacted with during the week, they lied to 34%.” Perhaps because people lie so often “there is no typical non-verbal behavior which is associated with deception. That is, not all liars show the same behavior in the same situation, and behaviors will differ across deceptive situations. . . . The complicated relationship between non-verbal behavior and deception makes it very difficult or even impossible to draw firm conclusions about deception solely on the basis of someone’s behavior.” The problems of correctly detecting deception are compounded by the fact that lying is easier and consequently harder to detect when the liar has had time to plan the lie—like for testimony at a congressional hearing.

The lack of ability to detect lies extends across the board. It is not correlated with gender or age. Men are not more skilled than women; older people are not superior to younger ones. A person’s confidence in being able to spot liars does not correlate with the ability to do so. Lie detecting ability does not correlate with experience in interviewing or with professions involving the detecting of deception. A summary of studies involving federal law enforcement personnel, federal polygraphers, and police found that most fell in the range of 45 to 60 percent accuracy in lie detection, with an average accuracy rate of 54 percent. In other words, they do no better than the rest of us in detecting lies from nonverbal behavior. The major difference is that the police are, unjustifiably, more confident than the general public in their assessments.

Trial judges, who often must assess the credibility of witnesses, are no different. Studies have shown that judges are like “ordinary” people in this regard. A research summary states, “Trial court judges . . . demonstrated little more skill at picking out prevaricators than a pipe fitter or a bus driver pulled from the street.”

One of the reasons we are not good lie-catchers is our frequent failure to receive feedback that facilitates learning. A leading researcher maintains that people fail to obtain “adequate information as to whether their truth/lie judgments are either right or wrong.” If we don’t learn whether our assessments are correct, we have no way to improve our lie-detecting performance.

Just watching and listening to testimony is not a good way to determine what is truthful. If we want the truth, we need more than our gut instincts about who has testified truthfully. If a child is thought to have had cookies before dinner, a parent really wanting the facts does more than listen to the kid. The parent peers into the cookie jar to see if anything is missing and looks for tell-tale signs of melted chocolate chips. If a plane crashes, investigators seeking the causes go to the crash site to inspect; they question witnesses; they seek out and examine cockpit and control tower voice and data recorders; and so on. You want the truth, collect information. Investigate. Ask more questions based on the gained knowledge.

Think about the great movie, My Cousin Vinny. The witnesses have painted a stark picture of the two youts’ guilt, but finally, Vinny investigates. He learns of dirty windows and obscuring trees and bushes and now can ask informed questions casting doubt on what witnesses were positive about. He learns about cooking times of real and instant grits and establishes that the time frame presented by a witness cannot be correct. Vinny only becomes a lawyer when he learns that meaningful questions that might lead to the truth can only happen after investigation.

If you want the truth about the event, don’t just judge what she said and he denied. Collect all the information you can about the event. Then it is time to ask informed questions based upon what has been learned. Use common sense and your life’s experiences about how people behave, but also listen to what others have learned about behaviors, such as of sexual assault victims and teenage drinkers. Now examine all the pieces of information to see how they do or don’t fit together. Is one version of the event more coherent, consistent, plausible, and complete than another? Only then is it time to judge.

Ask Cousin Vinny. If you want truth, first have a thorough investigation.

Posted on by rjonakait

The DSK Bar–Danish Edition

The woman came into the DSK bar looking as if she were trying to find someone. She sat on a stool next to me. I returned to my book, but she soon asked me if I knew the bar’s owner. I pointed her out. The woman, whose name I no longer remember but I’ll call Brigitte, went over to the owner and after a short conversation, left. A few weeks later, I learned that Brigitte had been hired as the bar’s manager. 

Over the next month or so, I found out that she was married to a Frenchman who cooked in a restaurant a couple miles away. She, however, had been born and raised in Denmark. I asked if she was aware of the book The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell, which I had recently read. She was not but asked me about it.  

I told her that Russell, who is English and had edited a British magazine, moved to Denmark when her husband got a job with, what else, the Lego Company. Russell had seen surveys that placed Denmark at the top of lists with the happiest populace. She set out to figure out why because she learned quickly that there were some reasons not to be happy about in her new home. It has a harsh climate and high taxes. (When a Britisher complains that somewhere else has an unpleasant climate, you can be damn sure that the weather is not an attraction.) Russell soon realized, however, that the Danish had learned to cope with and accept the weather. They also did not bitch much about the taxes because the country used them to provide excellent health care, education, childcare, and other social services. In addition, partly because of the tax structure, extremes in wealth were much less than in England. Riches were seldom flaunted, and few people seemed to think they would be happier if they only had a few more euros. Russell thought that this led to more contentment throughout Danish society than what she observed in Great Britain. 

Perhaps the biggest surprise for Russell and her husband was the many fewer hours the Danes worked compared to the English. The Danes had a lot of days off for holidays and national celebrations and were provided with extensive vacation time. In addition, the Danish work day is short. Her husband came home from work much earlier every day than he had in England. Danish life was not simply work, eat, and sleep. The Danes had time for other activities, which they did in abundance. They did them, however, in a different fashion from the way Russell was used to. Danes seldom acted by themselves or just with another person or couple. Instead, they did them in groups. There were clubs for almost everything, from biking to knitting, and the Danes regularly participated in club activities. As a result, Russell realized, the Danes were almost always connected to others.  

Russell, however, was struck by an anomaly. She noted that many studies had found a positive correlation between happiness and religion, but Denmark, which is not very religious, belied that. She was not surprised by the lack of religiosity. She cited studies concluding that the better educated and wealthier the country is the less likely its population believes in a higher being and participates in religious rituals. Russell noted that the USA is an outlier for this correlation—a country that is wealthy and highly educated, but still high in religious practices and beliefs. Russell went on to say, however, that America may have much in common with third world countries. Unlike highly taxed Denmark, the US lacks universal healthcare, has scant job security, and has a flimsy welfare net. Perhaps, she speculated, people are less likely to need a God if they live somewhere that is safe, stable, and prosperous. In other words, those in a secure and prosperous land, living without fear of health and financial disasters, are more likely to be happy than those in a more god-fearing country without universal healthcare, good job security, and a tightly knit welfare net. 

Helen Russell also found that several clichés about Denmark were true. First, there were a lot of candles. Lots and lots of them. (Get your hygge on.) Second, she discovered that its reputation for excellent pastries was well deserved. She mentioned this repeatedly, and it was clear that she had much firsthand (firstmouth?} experience to back up the claim. 

The bar manager listened with interest to Russell’s exposition of Denmark’s strengths. Brigette did not agree. She did not think of Denmark as a place to be happy. Instead, it was a land of enforced conformity that undercut individuality. Brigette had been happy to leave her homeland and had no desire to return. (Yes, she did know who Victor Borge was. I did not ask her about Hamlet.) 

Brigitte did not remain as bar manager for long. I was told that she and her husband moved to France. I hope she is happy.

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Snippets

I overheard the man say, “I tried to get a haircut today, but all the barbers were closed for Yom Kippur.” I had some questions.

 

I had an interesting dinner conversation about whether parents should distribute money equally to their children or give more to those who have the greatest need. No consensus. What do you think?

 

Years ago a man at my door told me that he was collecting signatures so that one of the communist parties could get on the ballot. I signed it thinking that people should have the chance to vote communist if they want to. That was democracy. But I have wondered if my action placed me on an FBI or other national security watch list. I have thought of filing a Freedom of Information Act request to see what the FBI has recorded about me, but then I wondered about how I would feel if they had no such entries. I might feel as if my life had been wasted.

 

“There are grounds for suspecting, in other words, that there exists a secret constitution, whose first article runs: The security of power is based on the insecurity of the citizens.” Leonardo Sciascia, Death and the Knight (translated from the Italian by Joseph Farrell.)

 

I am not proud that in scanning the obituaries I feel some satisfaction when I find that a vegan has died of cancer.

 

Even though I am told that meditation can have wonderful effects, I don’t do it. I am afraid that it might give me inner peace.

 

“So, a little morphine, a good sweat, and a bowel movement—the cure for everything that ails you.” Charles Frazier, Varina.

 

At the performance, Temesgen Zeleke played the Ethiopian krar lyre. An interesting instrument, but who knew? His bio said that he “performs regularly with Ethiojazz legend Mulatu Astatke.” Who knew that?

 

A half dozen baseball scouts were sitting nearby at a Staten Island Yankees baseball game. Most were young; some looked as if they might have been in high school last May. I was not surprised when I saw one put his retainers in.

 

At a New York Yankees game, the message board proclaimed, “Susan G, I married you because you are a Yankee fan.” Is that romantic? He married not for her eyes or thoughtfulness or sexiness or love. It would be much more meaningful if he married her even though she was a Yankee fan.

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The Politically Incorrect Confirmation Hearings

 

John F. Kennedy’s watershed speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960 still reverberates. Kennedy, of course, was a Catholic, and a group of Protestant ministers that election year had promised to “oppose with all powers at our command, the election of a Catholic to the Presidency of the United States.” Norman Vincent Peale, one of the most revered clergymen in the country, headed another religious group that stated that the Catholic Church was a “political as well as a religious organization” that had frequently repudiated the sacred principle “that every man shall be free to follow the dictates of his conscience in religious matters.” Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State stated that it could not avoid the “fact that one church in the U.S., the largest church operating on American soil, officially supports a world-wide policy of partial union of church and state where it has the power to enforce such a policy.”

In his masterful Houston speech, Kennedy responded:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. . . .

Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

Kennedy’s speech defused his “Catholic issue,” helped him win the election, and has had a lasting effect. Mainstream figures no longer question a Catholic’s fitness for the presidency. I don’t remember John Kerry’s religion being raised in a negative way at all when he ran for president. Indeed, we have gone further. Polite political society tends to eschew any questions about how an office seeker’s religious beliefs might affect his governmental performance. (See, e.g., Mitt Romney.) Even if, however, this is generally a good thing, there are times that we should drop this political correctness.

Stretch your mind to the now unthinkable and imagine that a practicing  Muslim has been nominated to the Supreme Court. Should Senators inquire how the nominee’s religious beliefs might affect his judicial duties? Should he be asked about his views of Sharia law and how those views might influence his interpretation of the Constitution? Should he be asked about Islamic beliefs concerning the roles of women in society and how this might affect his constitutional interpretation?

Look again at what Kennedy pledged. He stated that if his presidential duties conflicted with his religious conscience, he would resign the presidency. He, in effect, promised to be a secular president. Should we demand that the hypothetical Muslim Supreme Court nominee make similar promises and then gauge the sincerity of his response?

Perhaps the most significant development from Kennedy’s speech has been on the Supreme Court. We have not elected another Catholic as President, but the Supreme Court, which for generations had but one Roman Catholic, now has five Catholics out of the eight justices. The conservative bloc of four are all Catholic men: John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, three of whom were educated in Catholic schools. Brett Kavanaugh, also educated in Catholic schools, if confirmed, is expected to join those four men on the conservative wing of the Court.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, however, has avoided important issues. I am not referring here to Professor Ford’s allegations and whether she or the nominee have been treated fairly, but to the politically incorrect topic of Kavanaugh’s religious views. JFK, who attended public schools, maintained that his religious views were irrelevant in his quest for the White House. In that Houston speech, he stated, “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens to be Catholic.” Even so, Protestant evangelicals opposed Kennedy. Evangelicals today, on the other hand, enthusiastically ly support Kavanaugh. Why? Because part of the reason that Kavanaugh was nominated and has such support is because it is believed that his religious background will affect his constitutional interpretations. Thus, his religious views are germane to whether he should be on the Supreme Court, and he should be asked about them.

For example: Does he believe that abortion is a sin? If ruling as a justice would preserve a woman’s right to choose, would he be committing a sin? Does he believe that artificial contraception is a sin? Would he feel that he is committing a sin if he preserved or extended people’s access to birth control? Are LGBTQ people committing sins because of their sexuality? Would he be committing a sin if he preserves, recognizes, or extends their constitutional rights? And furthermore, Judge Kavanaugh, do you believe that it is God’s will that women have a limited role in the Catholic Church? How does that affect your views about the issues that affect women’s role in society that come before the Court? Have the sexual abuse scandals in the Church affected your thinking about other sexual abuse and harassment claims that come to court? Would you resign if your faith conflicts with your duties as a Supreme Court Justice?

John F. Kennedy addressed the connection between his religious beliefs and his governmental duties. We should end the present incorrect political correctness and seek answers to such questions from a Supreme Court nominee.

RELATED POST: https://ameliasdad.blog/?s=borked

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The New Left Needs Epithets

I occasionally receive emails from someone who monitors right wing media, and they indicate that those on the far right often castigate other conservatives. These far rightists seem to nitpick over some of the smallest details and claim that others are not truly conservative—that they are in, essence, illegitimate conservatives. In 2016, the term “cuckservative” started appearing more often to denigrate those who did not hold the right right views, although I would not be surprised if other terms, unbeknownst to me, have now emerged.

This looks like an extension of the RINO movement–Republican In Name Only–starting in the 1990s. (Of course, there were similar attempts to purge even earlier, but without the RINO name. Remember Rockefeller Republicans?) But the name calling over ideological lint mostly makes me think back to the beginning of my legal career when I worked with various people who regarded themselves as socialists. These people had long, arcane arguments among themselves, although I believe they would have said that they had political discussions. When they started arguing about which socialist organization most resolutely carried forward or subverted Trotskyite principles, I did not laugh; I tuned out.

I had little interest in their disputes because I did not even know what they meant by socialism. I gathered it somehow differed from communism, but I thought that both involved the state or the government or the workers owning or controlling the means of production. Their discussions over arcane positions just seemed silly since it seemed clear that no socialist was going to be elected to office.

I did remember one Frank Zeidler, a socialist, who had been mayor of Milwaukee throughout the 1950s. While my impression was that he had been regarded as a good mayor, I did not know how as a socialist his positions were different from others who might have thought of themselves as progressive or liberal. (Zeidler, I believe, was aided because Milwaukee’s mayoralty election was nonpartisan, and he did not have to run under a socialist party label.) I did not know what in America makes a person a socialist.

I also knew that in the early and mid-twentieth century, people proclaiming themselves socialist were elected to various offices, but I had assumed that no socialist would ever be elected again. Thus, I was surprised when I first learned that Bernie Sanders, one-time mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and then U.S. Senator from Vermont, was a Democratic Socialist and that others now adopt that banner. If Democratic Socialism is a new movement, I don’t know what it means. If you do, let me know. I recently asked friends what Democratic Socialism was. Both quickly replied, “It’s what used to be called liberalism.” Indeed, in running for the Democratic nomination for President, Sanders seemed to indicate that he was not much different from other Democrats, and his ideas could fit within that party. Why else would he have sought to be head of that party?

I can’t take this new left seriously. It should learn from the alt-right who seems to have learned from the old left. To be seen as a new ideological movement, this new left needs to find things to argue about among themselves for the sake of purity. I don’t mean that there must be cell meetings where the true meaning of Bakunin’s collectivist anarchism is so furiously debated that violence is imminent. However, a political movement, to be a viable, apparently has to find ways to denigrate others who seem to hold similar, but not precisely the same, views.

Insults have to be found. I am told that “cuckservative” is a mashup of cuckold and conservative. The new Democratic Socialists need something like that. How about pervgressive? So for example, that president said he cared about liberal and progressive issues, but helped the deregulation of the investment industry, which aided his friends and donors on Wall Street; hurt American workers with NAFTA; signed a law that made it easier to discriminate in the guise of religion; supported the near gutting of habeas corpus; backed draconian drug sentences that disproportionately affected non-whites; did little to nothing about the stagnation of middle-class wages; and set back the reform of health care. That president was a real pervgressive.

RELATED POST: https://ameliasdad.blog/?s=derrida

 

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Brendan Fraser’s Belly

I would like to give the impression that I am an intrinsically intellectual, sophisticated being. Surely there must be some truth in that. I have read Austen and Dickens and Dreiser and Dos Passos and Fitzgerald and Atwood and Franzen. I have read Kant and Locke and Neibuhr. I have discussed whether the Guns of August did capture the causes of World War I and whether the Trail of Tears was one of the roots of the Civil War. Even before the bubble burst, I had discussions about how the subprime market was going to cause problems. I have listened to Mahler and Dvorak. I have made quenelle and polenta with a chicken liver sauce. I know a fair amount of Cole Porter and Gershwin. I can discourse on the famous fighter plane scene in the Best Years of our Life and Brando’s role as a disabled soldier. I, of course, know the difference between robbery and burglary, and perhaps the differences between a bordeaux, burgundy, and a barolo. I have taken a course on Renaissance art and admired Michelangelo’s David.

Sometimes, however, I feel that this is all a fraudulent front because I know that I am attracted to low pursuits. I have, for example, loved the hardly-high humor of Jay Ward. He first got me with Crusader Rabbit and Tom Terrific and the exclamation of Wow-watausa, Wisconsin. His most enduring creations, of course, are Rocky and Bullwinkle. I enjoy the flying squirrel, the moose, Boris, and Natasha, but when I think of Jay Ward I dredge up memories of the many Saturday mornings in my early twenties when death from a hangover approached. I got through the queasy feelings by having a beer and a lot of chocolate and watching George of the Jungle on TV. I can’t sing, but in my mind I can still hear the theme song, with the line, “Watch out for that treeeeee.”

I did not want to wreck my memories of the animated version and how much it helped me on those Saturday mornings, so I did not see the live movie of “George of the Jungle” in the theater, but eventually I saw it on TV, and to my surprise, liked it. It was the first time I had seen Brendan Fraser, who to my male eye, looked gorgeous. I don’t think I had ever seen a better-looking person. (Yes, I admire beauty in all genders. So does the spouse, and we often point out three-blockers—someone who it is worth going three blocks out of your way to get a glimpse of–to each other.)

I did not think about Fraser one way or the other after that, at least for a while.  I have not seen him in most of his blockbuster movies, but then I saw him in Gods and Monsters, with Ian McKellen, where both he and McKellen were terrific and in The Quiet American, where both he and Michael Caine were terrific (or as I think of it, tom-terrific.) Those movies made me see Fraser as a fine actor, so when a few years back he came to Broadway, I went to see him. (Or to be more honest, memories of those movies and a discount ticket got me to the theater.) The play was an English adaptation of a Norwegian novel and movie based on that novel, Elling. The play had its problems, but Fraser was good, as was the woman, Jennifer Coolidge. The evening was made, however, by the performance of Frazer’s co-star, Denis O’Hare. But, I shamefacedly confess, I was most pleased by something else. I loved seeing Fraser in his underwear. No, this was not out of prurient interest or another of my admirations for physical beauty. Instead I took a certain delight because his belly looked almost like mine. By that, I mean protruding, rounded, you know what I mean. At first I thought it was stage padding, but I took some pleasure in the fact that as the play went on, the curved tummy seemed real.

My pleasure was not entirely pleasing. It conflicted with that projected savoir-faire image. But I knew that my delight was not out of keeping with at least part of me. In addition to some other low pursuits, I can like low comedy, although I maintain that Jay Ward’s humor was far above that. (I do confess, however, that I think Curly was a great comedian, and there is nothing sophisticated about the Three Stooges humor.) I just hope that this lowness in me that I felt in the theater that does not rule out all chances of intellectualism and sophistication, but I also know that I always have at least a little inward smile whenever I see a man who has hit middle age with a prominent belly. Except when I look in the mirror.

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First Sentences

“He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed mustache, hair turning silver at the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine—he could see out, but you could not see in.” John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

“When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, a scrap of paper with her sister’s address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money.” Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie.

“Brooklyn looms large in the imagination, but its long history seems difficult to capture.” Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier, Brooklyn! An Illustrated History.

“I am an invisible man.” Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.

“Picking a fight was an odd way to say good-bye.” Michael Doran, Ike’s Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East.

“They say it came from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved, that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles.” Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Junot Wao.

“The American Dream was remade on Baltimore’s Eastern Avenue.” Andrew Hurley, Diners, Bowling Alleys, and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in Postwar Consumer Culture.

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960, and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex.

“The Reformation superseded an infallible Pope with an infallible Bible; the American Revolution replaced the sway of a king with that of a document.” Edward S. Corwin, The “Higher Law” Background of American Constitutional Law.

“One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet’s house to see what Piglet was doing.” A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner.

 

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My Education at DSK (continued)

Because bars were a part of everyday life growing up, I am surprised that only recently have I got a regular, local bar. Of course, there were drinking establishments along the way, but I frequented them infrequently for hosts of reasons, and none became the local. When I retired, however, I tried on different activities to see what different activities might please now that I had extra time. I started going to some local bars. One had music on Monday nights that was quite good, but often there were other things to do on Mondays, and my visits were sporadic. I went to another place where I met some interesting people, but the bar did not have food, and I was often going out for a beer and a bite. In addition, the place had no beer on tap, and my father always told me to order the draft beer in a tavern, so I did not become a regular. I went to a few other places, but I found myself going every ten days or so to DSK.

It felt comfortable for several reasons. Although I was usually the oldest person in the place, this was not a pickup bar, and I seldom felt (too) conspicuous because of my age. It had one projection TV that was seldom on. I already had enough sports and news channels in my life. It had beer on tap, a selection of German brews, and it had German-style food that often appealed to me. Music, generally an interesting mix from a bartender’s list, played but at a low enough level that I could concentrate on a book (I always bring a book with me) or have a conversation. The discussions turned out to be the key. Not every time I was there, but often enough I would have an interesting conversation different from the kinds I had elsewhere. I was encountering kinds of people I did not meet the other areas of my life.

There have now been many amusing and informative talks—with a Buddhist monk, a retired firefighter, a public defender, German-Turkish Muslims, an opera singer, filmmakers, comedians, news writers, a couple from the South Dakota who spends the winters in New York, a militant vegan, an ad man, and more—but the conversations started with a bartender

Stuart, the bartender, was the first person I got to know in DSK. When I was there at slow times, he started talking with me. Like many New Yorkers, he was not from New York. He grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I don’t remember how he came to New York or what his father did, but his mother was a school teacher, high school English I think. Stuart knew a fair amount about literature.

Like many who worked in the bar, Stuart had another interest besides the bar life. He, with two other guys, created humorous podcasts, which I ashamedly admit I never listened to, but I discussed often with Stuart. I learned about their concept—mostly discussions of bad movies—and how the podcasts were made and distributed.

Their podcasts were clearly successful. In the year or so that I knew Stuart, he and his two friends did several live versions at fairly large venues and sold them out. Stuart on occasion mentioned the podcasts, but not often. However, one day a young man came into the bar and asked Stuart for “Stuart.” Stuart replied that he was “Stuart.” The young man, from somewhere in the Midwest, gushed that he was a Stuart admirer because of the podcasts. On one of them, Stuart had said where he tended bar. The young man was visiting Manhattan and had made the trip to Brooklyn specifically to meet his podcast hero. He lit up when Stuart shook his hand. Stuart was self-effacing, but pleased, and I was impressed that I had a sought-out celebrity serving me a Hofbrau dunkel. I also recognized that outside DSK I knew no one who did podcasts, and I had learned something about this world because I had been going to that bar.

When Stuart and his wife opened another bar, Stuart left my local to operate the new establishment. I have not seen him since.

(To be continued sporadically)

Posted on by rjonakait

My Education at DSK

I go to a bar—call it DSK, since that is its name–in my Brooklyn neighborhood. You could call it my local, and I am somewhat surprised that it is my first local since I was a teenager. I often feel that I go to this biergarten around the corner from where I live to further my education.

It seems surprising only now to have a local again because I grew up in a bar culture. My Wisconsin town had strong Germanic roots, and neighborhood taverns were everywhere. In fact, there was one next door to our house; a block away was another, and this was not unusual. Sheboygan had a population of 45,000, and it was said, over 140 drinking establishments.

The grandfather went to the one on the next block and played skat there. The father went to a different one, Dick’s Club, on the town’s main street most days after work. Neither patronized the one next door because the family had a long-running dispute with its owner over noise that emanated from its attached dance hall especially when the hall hosted the schuhplattlers with their slapping of thighs and accompanying yips and shouts.

Almost all of the bars I knew in my birth place were for the working class. (I don’t think the upper crust went to bars. Instead, they drank–a lot it always seemed to me–at home or perhaps in the country club or in establishments that I did not know existed.) My working-class family was similar to most in that we seldom had non-family guests in the home, so a bar was a place to meet friends and others.

Each bar had regulars, and the father knew almost everyone who came into Dick’s Club. (I don’t know the source of the name. The owner in the father’s time was not Dick.) The father ordered an eight-ounce, draft Pabst Blue Ribbon, then the Wisconsin working man’s beer. It was never then called PBR, and it was not drunk “ironically” as became the fashion in hipster circles. The beer, as was usual in working-class Wisconsin, was accompanied by a shot of brandy. The brandy was not one you are likely to know. E & J was considered high class, and this clientele would not drink high class booze. When I was of age, I once bought a fifth of Christian Brothers brandy as a treat for the father. He would not drink it because it cost too much, and he said that he would not appreciate it.

The bar for him was a comfortable place to discuss current events—elections and the civil rights movement and more—and to talk again and again about sports, with the father known for his dislike of the manager of the Milwaukee Braves as well as his, and everyone else’s, admiration for Vince Lombardi. (Vince comes home after a December practice and gets into bed. His wife says, “God, your feet are cold.” He replies, “Dear, at home you can call me Vince.”)

Women did not patronize the place during the work week except when families came for the Wisconsin tradition of a Friday night fish fry–breaded perch with limp French fries and coleslaw. Dick’s Club was also part of the father’s Sunday ritual. The father would drop off the siblings and me at the First Baptist Church, go to Dick’s Club, and then pick us up after the services.

I joined him once on a Sunday morning when I was home from law school and no longer a regular churchgoer. He was happy to show off to his friends the son who was going to be a lawyer. The bar then had a pool table. After we had a couple beers and shots, the father challenged me to a game. We did not grow up with the game, but I had expanded my higher education by playing a bit of pool (and billiards—it was a fancy school) at college. As we played, we had a few more beers and shots, or perhaps more than a few, but I was on fire and far ahead until the table, for some reason, became a bit fuzzy, and I aimed at a wrong ball, pocketed it, and lost the game. The old man had seen me lining up this mistake and did not utter a word although I could see that he was trying to suppress a smile. To my surprise, I found that I admired him for his reticence. He wanted to win. He wouldn’t cheat, but he wasn’t going to help me. We went home to the noontime Sunday dinner, and the mother wondered why the father and I were in such a good mood. He and I both just tried to hide our more than a little buzz and said nothing about the bar.

Children were allowed in the bars when accompanied by a parent, but I did not go to Dick’s Club often. Instead, my bar attendance started when I was eighteen. Wisconsin in those days allowed eighteen-year-olds to drink beer, but not wine or distilled spirits, and beer bars–establishments that served only beer–is where we headed, most often to The Patio, after our slow-pitch softball games. There were dice games for beers at the bar. Sometimes there was dancing. (I thought then that I was a good dancer. If my present ability is an indicator, I deceived myself. I prefer to believe, however, that my skill just deteriorated through the years as rock ‘n roll became less meaningful.) I often hoped to pick up some girl. (To protect my ego, I will not go into my attempts and my cool lines. Let’s just say I mostly failed.) I did not go for conversation. I remember only one. The guy next to me at the urinals was in the Coast Guard stationed in Sheboygan, and I thought what a disappointment it must be to join the Coast Guard, expect to see exciting places, and end up in Sheboygan. But he was eighteen and drinking, and passing, beer. He was happy.

I went to the Patio with a friend also to play the pinball machines. There were generally two there, and it was always intriguing when a new one came in as we tried to figure out the tricks to get the high scores. In those golden days, the games cost a quarter for five balls, and you got five games for four quarters. If someone was playing it, you slapped a quarter down on the surface to indicate you had next. You could stay on the machine as long as you had games remaining, and since the machines granted free games for certain scores and difficult shots, the goal was to keep getting free games to continue playing. The friend and I generally played what we considered doubles. Sometimes we alternated balls; sometimes we each took a flipper. And we were good. Often when the bar closed, the machine would indicate that we still had a raft of free games. We would try hard to be there when it opened next evening to make sure we got the freebies we had won the night before.

(Continued on September 17)