Tossing Out the Tree

Walking around the West Village on December 26th, I noticed the first Christmas trees tossed to the curb - the day after Christmas!! I'm always shocked by this, but it's the same story every year. Within a day or two of Christmas, discarded trees start appearing, some still dressed in their lights and tinsel. Tinsel I can understand. But lights? How lazy does one have to be to leave the lights on the tree when it's headed for the curb? This only complicates the job of the trucks that collect most of these trees for delivery to one of the city's mulching facilities. (Are they simply adding shredded wire, plastic, and glass to the mix of mulch?)

How little Christmas spirit must one have to trash the tree on December 26th? My wife has observed that perhaps these are people who will be traveling for the remainder of the holiday period. But I think there are just too many on the curbs to give that hypothesis credibility. We didn't get our tree down until last week, several days after Epiphany, signaling the end of the Christmas season (if one follows liturgical calendars). As a child, I remember our family tree always came down on January 1st or 2nd, but no later. When my brother and I visited my grandmother in the hospital on her 94th birthday, December 31st, she asked us to remind my mother to drop by the house and remove all Christmas decorations, including the wreath on the front door, by the end of New Year's Day. She was lying in the Intensive Care Unit, attached to IVs and oxygen, but she was still worried that her decorations might be up past January 1st, thus inviting bad luck for the coming year. (By the way, she's out of the hospital and improving. And my mother took down my grandmother's decorations on January 1st. Why tempt the gods who control luck?)

On the opposite side of the spectrum from those Scrooges who can't wait to reclaim the space taken up by the Christmas tree are those who can't bring themselves to haul out the boxes and repack the decorations for another year. I still see plenty of apartments and businesses sporting the mantle of holiday cheer, with lights and wreaths and miniature snowy villages on display well into January. One can't blame them, given the pall of melancholy that so often shrouds the weeks of January and February. A part of me wants to keep the tree up longer because it reminds me of the fun of Christmas day and the memories of Christmases now hidden away in photo albums and reels of Super-8 movies.

Nevertheless, I know it has to go - in our case, taken apart and folded into a box, bound for storage until next December. By Epiphany, we're no longer turning on the lights or adjusting the angel on top. Ornaments have dropped to the tree skirt below and no one has bothered to replace them on the tree. The skirt itself has become a wrinkled mess, where just a couple of weeks before, we were vigilant in keeping it neatly arranged beneath the tree. Although it's the season of Epiphany, which lasts until Shrove Tuesday on February 5th, one might observe that we're already looking ahead - albeit symbolically - to the season of Lent. Indeed, it's no accident that some of the symbols we associate with Christmas actually presage the events commemorated in Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.

Even without the religious iconography manifest in the Christmas tree and its decorations, the act of throwing out the tree (or packing it away, for those of us with artificial trees) can also symbolize a discarding of the previous year. While we're cleaning up and reclaiming that space in our living rooms and dens, we're facing a new year and, we hope, starting with a clean slate for the next twelve months. (Yet I can't help wondering - still - about the motivation behind throwing out the tree only a day after Christmas. I guess the practice is so antithetical to my own notions about Christmas, that I can't grasp the rationale behind it. In the end, I can only guess that it's the act of a melancholy heart.)

♫ Soundtrack - Atonement - Elegy for Dunkirk (full length)

Here's that piece from the "Atonement" soundtrack, "Elegy for Dunkirk." There are several versions of the hymn on YouTube, including a lovely clip from Westminster Abbey that provides the subtitled lyrics. A very typical Anglican hymn - and among my favorites.

"Atonement"

I saw the film version of Atonement on Friday night. Wow! Although reviews for the film have been mixed, I really think that's rather typical of most movie adaptations of popular novels, made all the more problematic by this book's high profile and the numerous awards it has won since its 2001 publication. Under the best of circumstances (a-list stars and a competent director, good screenplay, etc.) it's very difficult to visualize the full scope of 300-400 pages of an author's musings. Even multi-part adaptations - take, for example, "Masterpiece Theatre's" numerous interpretations of classic literary works, some of them stretching to eight and ten episodes - manage to shave details from novels that some readers will doubtless miss and deem critical to understanding a story. So given the complexity of Ian McEwan's novel, it's no surprise that some critics have failed to appreciate Joe Wright's directorial handiwork.

Atonement immediately reminded me of the works of E. M. Forster (long a favorite of mine, both novels and films), particularly in its depiction of class tensions and life on an English country estate. Indeed, the cinematography of this film reminded me of the lush Merchant\Ivory productions of several Forster novels (including Howard's End, Maurice, and A Room with a View). Keira Knightley and James McAvoy turned in wonderful performances, enhanced by an obvious chemistry between them. I was also mesmerized by the score and have already downloaded two selections from iTunes (the main theme, "Atonement"; and "Elegy for Dunkirk," which is built around a stirring Anglican hymn, "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind").

Most movies I see are fun for a couple of hours but are forgotten pretty quickly thereafter, filed away for future reference in games of Trivial Pursuit. But Atonement is one of those films that I'll remember - and doubtless purchase when it reaches DVD. The ending was a shock - but I shan't give it away with spoilers. Just go see it. (And since writing this, I've learned that the film won a Golden Globe yesterday for Best Drama.)

Haiku

My friend Isabel at A Room of One's Own has reminded me of how much I miss poetry, finding that I've rarely taken the time to read it in recent years. Yet in the past few months I've stepped gingerly back into the measured currents of verse, reacquainting myself with Emily Dickinson, e e cummings, and Allen Ginsberg, who represent just a trickle of what I once swam through. Mind you, I've always enjoyed poetry, and even wrote a great deal of verse in my teens and 20s, some of it shockingly naive . . . which I guess is fairly typical for angst-laden youth. At my peak I could fill volumes of notebooks in mere months, as poems popped into my head at the oddest times. (As I mentioned last week, the shower seemed to be an environment peculiarly fertile for these little epiphanies.) But why did I stop? I think grad school chased the muse away, replacing her with a scholarly rigidity that eschews the loose verse and wayward lexicon of the e e cummings and Allen Ginsbergs of the world.

The best poetry - whether formulaic sonnets, sing-songy couplets, or the unstructured musings of more modern authors - ultimately reveals something about universal truths and one's own sense of self. (At least that's my rather uninformed opinion.) So I think now, in my 40s, having encountered - and endured - some life-changing events in the last decade, I'm better equipped to appreciate some of those stanzas that once grabbed my attention, their intonation and meter sounding a bit different filtered through 20 years of experience.

So one of my resolutions for 2008 is to read more poetry. And if I'm lucky, perhaps the muse will speak to me again, as in this haiku that I plucked from the ether today:

Stumble-down verse songs
Asleep in winter-dark dens
Await the new grass

More photos: Walking home

Still experimenting with the new camera, this time taking some shots during my walk home through Madison Square Park. The first two are of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, constructed between 1907 and 1909. At 700 ft., it was the tallest building in the world until 1913, when the Woolworth Building downtown surpassed it. At night, the top of the tower, including the clock faces on each side, are brightly lit in either white or colors appropriate to the season/holiday. (I can see it from the roof garden of my building in the West Village.) It's still considered one of the most significant buildings in Manhattan and is now on the National Register as a historic property. I believe it was sold in mid-2007 and reportedly will be converted into either condos or a high-end hotel. Oh, and that last picture . . . I love how the Flatiron Building looks like the prow of a ship, making its way between Broadway and Fifth Avenue.

Reduplications, or an "eency-weency" literary lesson

I was reading William Holloway's General Dictionary of Provincialisms, published in London in 1840, and ran across a new word that I had to share: frobly-mobly. It's a reduplicative word meaning one is "indifferently well." (Reduplicative words, common in many languages, are still used regularly in English . . . although I suspect frobly-mobly is now extinct in the lexicon of daily usage. There are three different kinds of reduplicative words: the rhyming variety, with examples like hocus-pocus, hanky-panky, higgledy-piggledy (a personal favorite), and razzle-dazzle; exact reduplications, like bye-bye and choo-choo; and ablaut reduplications with their contrasting vowels sounds, like wishy-washy, chit-chat, and zig-zag.) So the next time someone asks how you're doing, reply with an earnest "frobly-mobly."

More Photos: Stained Glass

I'm still experimenting with the new camera, this time going for colorful stained glass under low light conditions. These images - Mary Magdalene, an angel at the Annunciation, the hem of Christ's robe, and Christ's hand - were taken in a historic Manhattan parish. The windows were made in Munich and installed in 1887. I've been fortunate over the last several years to work in religious non-profit organizations that have had beautiful stained glass. It's often a challenge to capture these images, both in terms of the unique lighting conditions and difficulty in gaining access to some of these vertical spaces. These windows were reached pretty easily, a welcome change from the clerestory windows I photographed several years ago. They required hauling cameras up narrow iron ladders through two passages near the nave's high ceiling. All that effort to take photos for the parish Christmas card! I'm usually nervous about open heights, and dislike climbing ladders, but for stained glass windows, I'm willing to set that fear aside.

Weekend photos

Just a few photos from the weekend. Soccer restarted, so we spent several hours on both Saturday and Sunday watching the boys play. The top two photos show Ben watching Sam's game. The bottom photos are of Sam shooting some hoops at a playground in the West Village. They got a new junior-sized basketball for Christmas - after I braved the NBA Store in midtown - and have enjoyed shooting baskets for the last 2 weeks, even in the cold. Their Junior Knicks program at the neighborhood YMCA restarts on February 1st, so they're anxious about "being ready." These photos were taken with a new camera, a Canon A570, with which I've been experimenting. The photos of Ben were taken without flash under low light. I think the camera had set the ISO at 1600, aperture f/2.6, and shutter 1/50, hence the graininess of the images.

Happy Blog Anniversary

I almost forgot to note the first anniversary of this blog, which passed on January 2nd. When I started this endeavour a year ago I wasn't sure how this project would fare, although I had some obvious goals set out in that first post, "Start Your Engines." Now, 243 entries later, I've been pleasantly surprised at the response. Thank you to those who have been regular readers and commentors. Indeed, nearly all of the comments have been positive and insightful, and for many of you, I look forward to your consistent input. (And I still have to laugh at the one guy who called me an "idiot" after I referred to Billy Joel walking his pug in the neighborhood.) As I had hoped, this blog has proved therapeutic, and has allowed me to organize some of my ideas and memories more clearly over the last 12 months. Yes, on occasion I've been a bit "rabid" (my mother's description) in my attacks on the Bush administration, conservatives, and the "religious right." But that zeal is a product of my conviction that these individuals and their organizations constitute an insidious threat to our personal liberties and national security. (In the 1964 presidential campaign, Barry Goldwater scared Americans by uttering the now-famous phrase, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." At the height of Cold War paranoia, it's easy to see how those words might worry voters apprehensive about a possible nuclear holocaust. Unfortunately, we now live in a country in which those words seem to be the guiding principle for the president and his minions.)

In the second year of "My Tears Spoiled My Aim" I hope to continue with the same volume of entries, while increasing the proportion devoted to painting and photography. And as my younger son becomes more engaged in his drawing and painting, I may take the route of the typical proud parent and post some of his art on this virtual refrigerator.

Again, thanks for your input and encouragement, particularly in terms of my painting. 2007 constituted a turning point in this hobby, and I hope 2008 will afford opportunities to make it a more serious avocation.

Epiphanies

My friend Nina over at Ornamental commented yesterday on how some of her best inspirations materialize while standing under a hot shower. I couldn't agree more. I've always found that some of my best ideas are delivered as I stand in the shower . . . as if the falling water is a conduit for wet epiphanies. Maybe the water pouring over us is akin to a baptismal experience, through which we're ideally washing away our sins and anxieties, while achieving some sense of heightened clarity about ourselves and our souls.

Whether or not one believes in the idea of spiritual baptism in the Christian sense - a practice with roots in pre-Christian, pagan ritual - there's something to be said for the power of that cleansing water. Years ago, when I still wrote poetry, I would have poems pop into my head, nearly fully formed, without that arduous period of gestation and self-editing that could define some moments of literary creation. Under those circumstances, I'd dash from the shower and grab paper and pen to record the words before other thoughts crowded out this latest revelation. Even now I find that my mind clears in the shower and the synapses seem to fire a bit more smoothly.

For the liturgically minded, this is the season of epiphanies, by the way. And this Sunday, churches around the world will celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, ostensibly the symbolic moment of Christ's divinity being revealed to Gentiles, represented by the Magi. Parishes will parade likenesses of the Magi, "Three Kings" or "Wise Men" through their sanctuaries or the streets of small towns, or children will dress up in beards and plastic crowns to process into their church bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But like so many of these "feasts" in the liturgical calendar, its 4th century origins are convoluted and represent one of those focal points of disagreement between churches in the east and west. For example, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, January 6th marks the day of Christ's baptism in the river Jordan. And at one time, even Christ's birth was celebrated on this day as well, before December 25th and the feast of Christmas became a separate celebration.

Growing up in a Southern Baptist church I never heard of Epiphany - or Advent and Lent, for that matter. It was as disconnected from liturgy and western christian ritual as one could possibly be. Anything remotely liturgical or ritualistic was deemed "Catholic" in nature and thus suspect. I believe some of that has changed now, however, with more Baptist churches embracing the concepts of Lent and Advent as means of organizing and structuring the worship and educational experiences. It also allows these churches to employ the familiar idiom of Catholicism and its adjuncts as a way to appeal to potential converts with experience in those liturgically oriented traditions. As an Episcopalian - and occasional congregant in a Lutheran parish - I always found these moments in the liturgical calendar a way to connect with Christian traditions that, in some cases, stretch back over the millenia. They also remind one of the fluid nature of Christian belief over the centuries - a quicksand-like reality to be avoided by the more dogmatic denominations that prefer ignorance over an informed faith.

I tend to avoid making New Year's resolutions, realizing that they'll most likely be cast aside in a short time. (Authoring this blog was actually borne of a resolution last January, and is thus one of the few New Year's promises I've ever kept.) Yet instead of dwelling on promises and resolutions - or things "done and left undone" in the language of the prayer book, here's hoping that 2008 is a year of epiphanies, whether divined in the shower, while walking down the street, or engaged in prayer.

Another nail in the coffin . . .

. . . that holds the "American Dream." Check out this story in the New York Times. It's rather ironic that the company that gave us the modern, postwar suburb in the form of Levittown is now one of the first large building companies to declare bankruptcy as a result of the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis. Enhancing this sense of irony is the company's recent practice of showing movies of happy homeowners, circa 1950, standing proudly in front of their newly finished Levittown, NJ, homes. (In fairness to the memory of William Levitt, one should note that the current incarnation of the company has no direct connection to the family which shepherded the postwar revolution in American housing.)

Until now, the crisis has affected only the financial institutions which had engaged in predatory loan practices to entice home buyers. But now, as the market for new homes has dwindled, builders - as well as the subcontractors and suppliers who support them - are facing the trickle-down effects of the crisis. One suspects that Levitt & Sons will not be the last major builder to close its doors.

Of course, the real victims in all of this are those buyers who didn't understand fully the intricacies of what they were signing when they joyfully accepted the loan terms. And by many accounts, the loan companies didn't want buyers to understand the dangers of adjustable mortgages and dramatically rising payments. Representing the 21st century equivalents of 1950s and 60s suburbanites who escaped cities and apartment living, these new homeowners - many of them immigrants and minorities - thought they had achieved the "American Dream." Now they face foreclosure and, potentially, homelessness. Why haven't we heard any of the presidential candidates, Republican or Democrat, addressing this issue with more than tacit acknowledgement that there's a problem?

The Dark Ages

"Happy New Year." I say that without exclamation, because the start of a new year is rarely a happy experience for most of us. We're feeling fat and bloated, sleep deprived and cranky, and, after spending little time in the office over the last two weeks, doubtless unhappy to be back at work. Riding the bus and subway to work this morning, I couldn't help but notice the somber faces of the crowds trudging Park Avenue, bent against the cold wind like beggars under their sacks. It's certainly easy to understand why so many animals hibernate through this season. But we humans, ostensibly masters of our environment, able to combat extremes of heat and cold, labor on through the seasons, bundled against winter's cold.

But apparently this flurry of activity during winter's coldest months is a modern development. I was recently reading a new historical geography of France - The Discovery of France - and learned that in the coldest areas of western Europe many communities essentially hibernated until the spring thaw. There would be little or no commercial activity, no travel, and only meager time spent outside. Families would huddle together with their animals - including sheep, cows, goats, etc. - and spend much of their time sleeping. While this might seem surprising, realize that winters were generally colder and of longer duration until the early 20th century. (Chalk that difference up to the climate change wrought by global warming.) Also understand that for many Europeans, fuel supplies were quite limited and expensive when available. But enough science and history.

When I was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in the early 80s, we called this time between the Christmas holiday and Spring break the "Dark Ages." Tucked under red comforters in our folding beds, we'd awake each morning to the clang of the warming steam radiators and a lone bugler blowing reveille in the darkened barracks. We would line up outside barracks in our company formations and march off to breakfast in the dark. And, after a day of classes we'd change into our grey wool blouses and march off to supper - again, in the dark.

For Rats (VMI's term for freshmen) this was a time of fear and depression. Having enjoyed the liberation of home and family for the holidays, we would spend the ensuing winter months praying for the arrival of Spring and the end of the period of torture and humiliation known as the "Ratline." Laboring under a heavy course load, we struggled through months of physical and emotional torment. When friends ask what it was like, I compare it to the first half of the movie Full Metal Jacket - plus 18 credit hours. (This was the period during which so many Rats reached the breaking point and quit, abandoning VMI for the relative ease of regular college life.)

On a warm spring day, with flags fluttering and the parade ground covered by cadets on parade, VMI could seem a magical place . . . proud parents taking pictures of their sons (and now daughters) arrayed in coatees and shakos, with freshly polished brass and steel sabers glinting in the mountain sunlight. Under those conditions, with the statues of Stonewall Jackson and George C. Marshall surveying the field of neat formations, it was easy to get caught up in the romance and history of a place like VMI, the "West Point of the South," as it is nicknamed. But in cold January and February, under grey clouds that matched our grey uniforms, the place seemed a prison. (Indeed, while visiting VMI as a senior in high school, my father remarked during a tour of the campus, surrounded by other parents and prospective cadets, "It reminds me of Alcatraz.")

By the winter of my senior year, the romance of VMI had faded, the naivete of an 18-year-old freshman having been replaced by the realization that the quaint 19th century uniforms and flashing sabers were just window dressing to cover up the harsh reality of military life. Rather than marvel at the history and pageantry, I was more apt to contemplate the final line of Wilfred Owens' great poem from the trenches of the First World War: "Dulce et decorum est/ pro patria mori."

Like VMI, New York City can exhibit that polar contrast between its mythic, beautiful face and the grey reality of urban squalor. And today that reality seems just a bit harsher as used Christmas trees are tossed to the curb throughout the City and the Christmas decorations come down, only to be replaced by the garish displays of Valentine's Day wares. Here's hoping the "Dark Ages" are mercifully short and Spring arrives a little early this year.

"Leave the Driving to Us"

I was having dinner with a good friend the other night and we started talking about our shared interest in the idea of "the great American vacation." I've mentioned this vacation before on the blog . . . a trip that involves piling the family and possessions into the car for a weeks-long orgy of traveling the country's back roads in search of classic "Americana" and the best of roadside kitsch. Several friends and I have also discussed a mutated version of the trip in which it becomes a dads-only road trip of epic proportions, equal parts driving, sightseeing, and binging on beer and diner food. Our wives tend to cast a dubious eye on this endeavour, probably with some justification, because the trip would a) leave them with the kids, b) expose us to far more alcohol, trans-fats, and free time than our 40-something bodies can handle, and c) leave them with the kids! So the chances of this trip actually happening are pretty minimal. (However, we're definitely having a dads-only camping trip in Summer 2008.)

But back to the other night . . . Our talk turned to long-distance bus travel, which is something of a lame-duck form of transportation in this country. Prior to World War II, one could take a bus to just about every town in the United States. Between the larger bus lines, like Greyhound, regional, and local carriers, one could go nearly anywhere. But after World War II, with the development of the interstate highway system and the auto empowerment of a majority of Americans, bus travel declined at a steady rate, mirroring the decline in train travel. Still, my parents talk of taking long bus trips in the 1940s and 1950s, noting the ease of having someone else drive while enjoying the opportunity to "see" more of the country. By the 1980s, however, many bus companies had folded or were bought out by larger carriers. Today, there's Greyhound and a few regional lines, like Peter Pan buses in the northeast. Compared to that pre-war golden age of bus travel, comparatively few communities can boast intercity bus service now.

I started wondering: Who uses buses for long distance travel? A majority of Americans either drive or grab a seat on one of the low-fare airlines. Indeed, within current popular culture imagery, bus stations and bus trips are usually relegated to the seamier underbelly of travel, a mode of transportation left to ex-cons, the poor, and minorities. Is this demographic profile a reality, or just a product of pop culture stereotyping? (I remember from my years living in Tennessee that the Greyhound terminal in Knoxville appeared to confirm this depressing conclusion that bus travel had become the resource of the disadvantaged and marginalized.)

Having been to the famous Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan many times, I've witnessed the continued popularity of regional bus travel, with long lines waiting at gates for destinations throughout New England. One can still catch Greyhound buses for distant points across the nation. The people waiting for these buses always seem to represent a cross-section of the populace, with considerable ethnic and racial diversity defining the crowds. Why do they take the bus? Have they been priced out of the marketplace for air travel?

So here's my idea: a book on current bus travel in the U.S., with a working title like "Leave the Driving to Us: America By Bus in the 21st Century." It would look at bus travel in a historical and sociological context, but the heart of the book would be chapters based on taking several long-distance bus trips, including some cross country trips, like New York City to LA. The more esoteric information of the introductory chapter would be followed by chapters of anecdotal stuff and photographs. Is this a workable idea? Would anyone read it? At the urging of friends, I've been tossing around several book ideas in the last year, but hadn't settled on anything definitive. Given the recent popularity of books on rail excursions and highway travel on roads like Route 66 and the Lincoln Highway, one would think that a book on bus travel would prove equally interesting. Any feedback? I'd also love to hear about your bus travel experiences.

Merry Christmas

A belated "Merry Christmas" to everyone. After last Friday I was too caught up in Christmas preparations, last-minute shopping, and family activities to get near the blog or even check email. (And I have to admit there were moments when I experienced symptoms of blog withdrawal. Nearing the one year anniversary of this endeavour, I find this blog has become a hard habit to break . . . not that I'm trying to break it, mind you.)

In the end we managed to put the tree up by Saturday, have the kids decorate it, wrap the presents, attend a Christmas eve service on Monday, and settle into bed by 1:00 a.m. Christmas morning. As always my wife and I were doing the wrapping late on Christmas eve and, as part of our yearly routine, watched the televised services from St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Vatican. (Although neither of us is Catholic, we both have Episcopal backgrounds and recognize most of the Catholic liturgy. Oddly, we both concluded that the St. Patrick's and Vatican services seemed flat and joyless, lacking that Christmas spirit of celebration. Perhaps this was a product of the highly choreographed nature of these services, for they just seemed to be "going through the motions" or "phoning it in." Or perhaps the participating clergy were just exhausted, having reached the end of the Yuletide charisma for the next time they celebrate a Christmas mass.)

Thankfully, the kids slept in until 8:00 a.m. For those of you who don't think of that hour as "sleeping in," realize that my kids usually awaken around 6:30 or 7:00 and we were most grateful for the extra hour of sleep. We sifted through the gifts from "Mom and Dad" and "Santa" and while the boys were happy with the "loot" they had scored, we detected a sense of disappointment that they hadn't received every item enumerated on their Christmas lists. So, we had to explain that Santa never satisfied every wish, nor would he deliver items that might be deemed inappropriate. Grumbling quieted, the rest of the day was spent playing with the bounty of Santa's great generosity, while Mommy and Daddy lazed about for much of the afternoon. A merry Christmas was had by all.

On Friday we travel to Virginia to visit my family until New Year's day. With luck and some free moments, I'll have photos to post during the trip. (By the way, the image of Santa is an 1881 rendering by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly. It represents the genesis of the modern American interpretation of Santa Claus from which our present images were derived. I actually prefer this Santa over some of the more sterile characterizations presented in cartoons and the well-known "clay-mation" holiday shows. Over the centuries there have been countless versions of the "Father Christmas," "Kris Kringle," and "St. Nicholas" myths, but it's the American version - with its graphic roots in the Nast imagery - that has proved dominant since the end of World War II.)

It's a Wonderful Life

I had originally written a long post in response to a bit written by my friend over at "Open Doors." She raised an interesting point about the direction our society has taken in recent years, a seasonally appropriate theme since it involves Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Sure, jaded critics like to point out how corny Capra could be - hence the derisive term "Capra-corn" - but the director was a great storyteller. Moreover, his populist vision of America reflected a very important element in the national psyche during that period. But, alas, a computer malfunction caused me to lose two-thirds of what had become a rather curmudgeonly post on the effects of sprawl and how it is analogous to the depiction of George Bailey's alternate reality - Pottersville - in the movie. (If you've read this blog for very long, you know how I feel about sprawl!)

Last week I managed to watch bits and pieces of Capra's classic on NBC, making sure I saw that unforgettable ending. It's a Wonderful Life remains one of my favorite Christmas movies, along with Miracle on 34th Street (the original), A Christmas Story, The Bishop's Wife, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (just kidding . . . maybe). And I still manage to shed tears at the end, when they're singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Auld Lang Syne."

Why do I love this movie? First, I've always been a big Jimmy Stewart fan. That "aw shucks," "everyman" quality is perfect in this role. (One also has to admit that Donna Reed was hot as George Bailey's wife.) I also enjoy the contrasting visions of the town, between the quiet, friendly Bedford Falls, and the frenetic, noisy Pottersville. The ugly truth for most of us in America today is that we live in scattered equivalents of Pottersville. So it's nice to think there could be idyllic towns like Bedford Falls in which one has neighbors like George Bailey. Moreover, who wouldn't want to be hailed as the "richest man in town," not by virtue of our bank balance or political influence, but measured by the friends and family one can count on in good times or bad. And finally, one has to enjoy the idea of a "do over" or the opportunity to witness how the world would fare without one's presence, thanks to a visit from Clarence the angel.

Jimmy Stewart always said this was his favorite role in a lengthy film career. I think if one possesses a mere gram of Christmas spirit, it has to be a favorite for many people. With its talk of savings and loans, runs on the bank, and possible suicide, it may prove a little dark for my kids. But having experienced Dickens' Christmas Carol this year, they may soon be ready to discover the joys of Bedford Falls and the Bailey family.

A Dickens Christmas

(Only a week until Christmas Eve. Alas, so much yet to do, just to realize what most of us consider the "basics" of the holiday: put up the tree, buy some more presents so Santa will visit the kids, make a gingerbread house with the boys, and perhaps walk around to check out some of the city's decorations.)

On Saturday night our family attended a Dickens-themed Christmas party, appropriate given our efforts to read through A Christmas Carol for the first time this year. (As I've already noted here, it's a bit of heavy lifting for the kids in terms of vocabulary, but I think their exposure to Dickens' narrative and richly portrayed characters will prove an invaluable experience. At least they will be able to say they've been exposed to Dickens!) The party featured authentic foods from Victorian England, with parallel passages from Dickens' novels accompanying each item. Obviously the menu was heavy on little meat pies and pastries, shortbreads and ham. But the hit of the night was the flaming Christmas pudding - ceremoniously paraded into the room as everyone sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

The whole affair prompted me to reflect on the simplicity of the Christmas experience as described in Dickens. Sure, there was feasting and celebration, and even dancing in Mr. Fezziwig's warehouse. But it was still a decidedly simple occasion, in which familial ties and the bonds of friendship constituted the glue holding the celebrations together. And while there's an emphasis on the characters maintaining a "Christmas spirit" in their lives, Dickens' tale isn't overtly religious. Indeed, even the non-religious among us can buy into those Christmas ideas of "giving" and "fellowship" without troubling oneself over the more miraculous episodes associated with the occasion. Moreover, it's nice to know that early Christian leaders failed to eradicate entirely the more pagan, pre-Christian rituals now associated with the Christmas holiday. As in so many other areas, they realized that co-opting existing practices proved a more successful route to conversion than more heavy-handed tactics. Frankly, I think the pagan enhances the Christian, and both belief systems - at least in the context of Christmastide - enunciate some similar concepts. This is certainly clear for Dickens, in which a world incorporating the supernatural exists comfortably in an avowedly Christian society. One should realize, too, that by the middle of the 19th century, much of English society was only nominally Christian in belief and practice, despite the existing state-controlled church infrastructure. Enclosure, concomitant destruction of traditional village life, the Industrial Revolution, and construction of England's "dark, satanic mills" only hastened the decline of popular faith - ironic in a society that had once spent so much energy and spilled so much blood over matters of Christian dogma.

Standing there on Saturday night, listening to the traditional carols of the season, I realized that Christmas should instill in us a lightness of heart - in the way Ebenezer Scrooge's epiphany transformed his spirit. On the surface, it might seem an easy charge: Go forth and spread Christmas cheer throughout the whole year, not just in Advent or in the days immediately following December 25th. Nevertheless, we get bogged down in the extraneous details of the season. We lose sight of the simple joy in giving, because we're too often engaged in games of "oneupsmanship" in the gifting process. We become too concerned about the price tag or the tax write-off. And I have been guilty of these failings too many times to recall. This year, however, as I've struggled to find the spirit of Christmas within the barrage of commercials and appeals to buy, spend, and save, I think I've recognized more of that simplicity in the season, and thus haven't been driven to "shop 'til I drop." (For a guy who loves to shop - yes, something of a rarity - this can be a difficult urge to suppress.)

No doubt I'll join the family on Christmas Eve for a service at the little Lutheran church around the corner from our apartment. The church will be decorated beautifully, as always, and the familiar carols will remind me of Christmastides past. But will I be able to muster my usual Christmas spirit?

"Over the River and Through the Woods" - Christmas Travel

Of my childhood Christmas memories, some of my favorite recollections involve travel to see family. Every year on December 26th we'd pile into the car and drive the 100 miles to see my paternal grandparents on Virginia's "Eastern Shore." This was always an adventure - as was any winter trip to see them - because the bathroom in their house was unheated. (To this day I still don't understand why they didn't keep the door open so some of the heat from other parts of the house could warm the room up. I guess they were trying to keep the main rooms as warm as possible for a house that was underheated and had no insulation.) So any trip to the facilities involved putting on a coat. If you had to sit down, one's rear end was treated to a chilling awakening, perhaps similar to the icy grip of a hospital bedpan. Still, the Arctic bathroom experience couldn't diminish the occasion, an affair defined by a dinner that perennially included my grandmother's seafood recipes, supplemented by piles of buttery cornbread. (The giant pile of clam and oyster shells in the back yard was testimony to decades of delicious meals.) At the end of the day we'd load up the car and drive the two hours back home, with my brother and I usually falling asleep to the rhythmic thump of the car tires bouncing over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel's pavement sections.

Within a few days of that trip - at some point before New Year's Eve - we'd bet back in the car to visit my great-grandmother. This excursion, involving a three-and-a-half to four-hour drive, always began in the dark. My maternal grandfather, whose mother we were going to see, would arrive at the house around 5:00 a.m., his Ford Galaxy 500 loaded with food, gifts, and my complaining grandmother. We'd load our car and then start across Route 58, which runs along the southern border of Virginia.


We would drive west through little towns and burgs, finally stopping for breakfast around Emporia or South Hill, finding one of those "mom and pop" family restaurants that once flourished along America's byways before the fast food franchises wiped them from the map. Then off we'd go again, heading for South Boston and eventually Brookneal, in the heart of Virginia's tobacco-growing counties.

My great-grandmother's house in winter was, unfortunately, like my grandmother's house - a study in contrasts between icebox-like rooms into which no heat was allowed, and sweltering rooms that could have doubled for saunas once large pots of food started boiling on the kitchen stove. I remember dashing outside to cool down and breathe fresh air, playing on the giant millstone of pink granite that rested in the front yard, a great stone circle that I guess served as a lawn decoration near the front porch. I would also brave the cold bedrooms upstairs to peruse the nursing textbooks left behind by my great aunts, several of whom had served in the Second World War. For a nine-year old boy, these dusty volumes offered photos of every imaginable medical malady - from cancers to wounded soldiers missing various body parts. Oddly, I'll never forget the photos of goiter patients, something so rarely seen today thanks to our diets rich in iodized salt.

I remember one year we drove in the snow and got to the intersection for the country road down which my great-grandmother lived. At that point, the snow became too deep to drive, so my grandfather parked the car right there, grabbed some bags of gifts, and marched a mile to the house to see his mother. We waited - my grandmother and I in the Ford, and my parents and brother in the Dodge. An hour later, my grandfather returned, we all turned around, and drove home. (I don't know why we all didn't get out and walk. If this happened today, I wouldn't hesitate to bundle the kids up and have them march a mile in the snow, particularly if I had just driven three or four hours. As New York City kids they're accustomed to walking long distances in all kinds of weather. I guess my parents thought it would be too much for us.)

Sleepy, and fortified with another incredible holiday meal, we'd pack up the car in late afternoon and start on the long drive home. Passing back through those little Virginia towns, paralleling the old railroad line that once linked these communities. Seeing the little abandoned stations in these towns, I always wondered what it would have been like to take the train out to my great-grandmother's, an experience my mother has always mentioned with fond memories. (Years later I would discover the photography of O. Winston Link, who spent countless hours in the 40s and 50s photographing the last of the great steam trains in this very part of Virginia.)

Now most of my family in that area is gone, most dead, the rest having followed my grandfather's lead and abandoned the life of the tobacco farmer. Still, I have those magical Christmases when we almost literally went "over the river and through the woods" to visit grandparents.

"Many Are Called"

I was sitting on the subway this morning, riding uptown, and noticed my reflection in the opposite window - dark glasses, bow tie, rumpled blazer and overcoat, punctuated by an expressionless mouth. I was immediately reminded of that great Walker Evans book, Many Are Called, which was reissued a couple of years ago after years out of print. Between 1939 and 1941, Evans clandestinely photographed New York City subway riders, hiding a Contax camera under an overcoat with a shutter release fed to his hand via cable. Leafing through Evans' images one is struck by the diversity of riders for pre-war New York. Even then the subway could be a multi-cultural petri dish into which a higgledy-piggledy solution of riders was stirred. Yet one wonders how Evans would react to the heterogeneous mixture of people one encounters today.

I know people who refuse to ride the subway, preferring taxis (expensive) or buses. Arguing that it's dirty and dangerous, they're missing one of the best shows in the city, all for only a $2 admission charge. Besides, it's pretty safe and is no dirtier than any other place in New York City. Moreover, with the "Poetry in Motion" program and the subway art series, a ride on the train can be an educational experience - and I don't mean in a sociological sense.

One thing strikes me in a comparison of Evan's images and the scenes I witness each day: The expressions on riders' faces haven't really changed in 65 years, which I guess shouldn't be surprising. Sure, the ladies usually wore hats and gloves and the men sported fedoras or caps in their underground travels, but most simply sat expressionless, waiting for their stop, remaining largely anonymous in the herd of New Yorkers being shunted about. The visage staring back at me this morning could have been pulled from Evans' book with no incongruity.

It's funny how the subway can reduce us all to a humming hive of workers and drones. I'm also often reminded of scenes from Fritz Lang's monumental silent film epic, Metropolis. But if that's an apt analogy, I wonder if we're all that brainwashed and unhappy.

Planet Christmas

We're settling into orbit around "Planet Christmas," with its moon "New Year's" plainly in view and I can already tell this is going to be like one of those NASA missions in which one tries to fit as many experiments as possible into the shortest amount of time. We've already had parties, concerts and shopping, and the next three weeks promise more of the same. Mind you, I'm not complaining. In my family, I'm usually the one most imbued with that child-like sense of Christmas, an enthusiasm I always shared with my mother and maternal grandfather. My brother and father seemed only to tolerate the fuss, preferring to let others decorate the tree and wrap presents. But this year even my mother has complained that she's suffering from the holiday blahs, finding it difficult to muster the usual excitement that accompanies hanging ornaments and baking cookies. Indeed, she worries that she's becoming a "Scrooge" like my grandmother, who for years has perennially spent the Christmas seasons fussing about the mess and extra work. Even she, however, always managed to brighten on Christmas morning and rediscover some of that youthful lightness of heart, enjoying Santa's visit vicariously through grandchildren and then great-grandchildren.

On the homefront, I've started what I hope will be a new Christmas tradition for the kids: a reading of the original Dickens version of "A Christmas Carol." I hadn't read the book in many years, so it was a joy to encounter afresh Dickens' rich prose. I realize that my boys may not understand all of it - and there are moments when I change words to more readily understandable synonyms - but I think they'll understand the main idea of the story. At some point I'll probably add a film version of the story to give them some of the visual clues, and of course there's only one decent version to show - the 1951 English production starring Alastair Sim. (Considered the definitive interpretation of Scrooge's character, Sim's effort conveys more of that Dickensian spirit and gothic darkness than perhaps any other version. No doubt the black and white medium enhances the film. We'll try hard to avoid some of the more dreadful characterizations, including Kelsey Grammar's memorably horrific 2004 made-for-TV debacle. Whoever greenlighted that project must have been stoned.)

Emily Dickinson

This quiet dust was gentlemen and ladies
And lads and girls; Was laughter
and ability and sighing,
And frocks and curls;

This passive place a
summer's nimble mansion,
Where bloom and bees
Fulfilled their oriental circuit,
Then ceased like these.

My friend over at Open Doors reminded me that Monday was the birthday of Emily Dickinson, who entered this world on December 10th, 1830. It's hard to express how I felt the first time I encountered Emily Dickinson, at around age 13. I recall that it was really the first poetry I could appreciate and understand, the first poetry that seemed resonant with my adolescent anxieties and longings. Miss Emily also proved an unknowing catalyst to my own angst-ridden poetry - unless that impulse was her sainted spirit nudging me from the eternity over which she so often puzzled.

As a depressed, death-obsessed teen it was easy to find the appeal in so many of her works. Even her correspondence underscored a curiosity with death and the hereafter. Given her ruminations on the subject, one wonders how she regarded her imminent mortality in 1886. That, of course, we can never know.

In my 20s I set her aside, favoring the edgier voices of Allen Ginsberg and his contemporaries. Just as they railed against the excesses and inequalities of post-war America, I found kindred voices in my own attempts to escape the homogeneity of suburbia and sprawl. More recently, however, I've begun reacquainting myself with the "Belle of Amherst," and I find that in my 40s I tend to approach her with a keener understanding of the emotions from which her verses sprang. Indeed, having spent most of my previous career as a historian immersed in 19th century American culture, I recognize now - which I didn't as a teen - that Dickinson was very much a product of her age, an era in which death punctuated one's years in the way birthdays, holidays, and the seasons demarcated one's passage from month to month. And, having focused a good deal of time on women's correspondence from this period, I realize now that Emily Dickinson's "voice" echoed the feminine experience of her time, with its obvious limitations and rigid expectations.

On the surface, it might seem odd that she lived what most of us would consider a reclusive life. (And one wonders how travel to more distant locales would have affected her poetic voice.) Yet it's obvious from her letters that her intellect and introspective character allowed her to exist in a world not defined by purely physical distance. A small part of me actually longs for that isolation - with the attendant opportunity to engage in the kind of thought and self-examination that doubtless served as a muse for Miss Emily. That realization reminds me that my happiest times as a scholar were spent surrounded by books, delving into a bit of research in the way the anchorite retreats to his cell, accompanied only by his thoughts, prayers, and religious texts. Being no St. Anthony, however, I doubt I'd survive for long as an academic ascetic, connected to the broader world in the way Emily Dickinson's spirit flourished through correspondence.

So happy birthday Emily. I hope your spirit found the answers it so earnestly sought.