Bullsh*t

 

Our mother

Our mother was many things over the course of her lifetime. Not all of them were pretty. 

But as a young thing, she certainly could cut a figure. Smart, elegant, arrogant, a ‘cliffee, she had a lot going for her, and that photo effectively conveys it. 

It was also the era of another Harvardian, John F. Kennedy, so the aroma was in the air. My parents thought they were pretty hot stuff, and maybe they were. “It was a heady time,” was a favorite phrase of my mother’s. I’m certain it was.

Phyllis Munro Ferguson Seidel (1938-2024), circa 1963

The subway is a sewer

 The sewer scene in Les Miserables and the movie The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 really are the same story -- life underground when there is a great city above. For Victor Hugo, it's Paris of 1832. For director Joseph Sargent, it's New York of 1974. The main question is, will any of their characters ever see the light of day again.

In defense of loneliness

 The Streets of London is a folky tune by Ralph McTell with delicate guitar and smoky vocals evocative of Donovan or Bob Dylan. First recorded in 1969, it reeks of that decade's lingering sadnesses and melancholic pursuits of social justice. If you're old enough, you'll remember this song even if you're only hearing it now for the first time.

Its basic lyrical premise is to dissuade an unnamed listener from feeling lonely by pointing out at all the people who are truly lonely, out on the streets of London.

It led me to this thought: I wonder if our device-driven world has deprived us too completely of loneliness. Force feeding us togetherness. Unrelentingly pushing information. Virtually drowning us. 

Perhaps we'd be better off if we could once again sit in a crowded cafe too late into an evening, alone and alone in our thoughts, listening to that bloke on stage gently walking his guitar, telling us not to cry by telling us how better off we've got it than those people. It's a strange longing, but not without some merit.

It's here if you want to listen to a version of it.

I dreamed I saw St. Augustine

What days are these that political violence reemerges in our midst. Heinous, the violence. January 6th condemnable, July 13th condemnable. This violence must be condemned. By all parties. And the gun. Always the gun. Americans and their guns. 

How did we get here? For whatever reason, I think of 1968, when the veritable world must have seemed to be collapsing. The Vietnam War churning through ever more American lives, Hue and Tet in January. King then Kennedy killed within two short months of each other by June, and cities aflame in rage and fear. 

There is fear now too ... Trump as a kind of Caesar, set out to destroy the Republic and all its restraints on the accumulation of power once power is bestowed on him. But that is a future state of affairs. And as we know, the future is unknown. The current state of affairs is now. 

America, never so healthy, wealthy or powerful, tearing itself apart. How so ever did we get here?

Please note.

 A note recently written to a women’s college alumnae class secretary about getting older:

Your job must be tough too. For some reason, I have a baseball analogy in my head: an outfielder standing alone in the outfield of an empty stadium, catching fly balls during practice. Very methodical and routine and (perhaps) lonely, with one sharp twist every time -- each ball always has the same message scrawled on it ... "So and so has died. Please note." 

The Stranger

 "Mother died today. Or was it yesterday. I don't remember." These words start The Stranger by Albert Camus. So I recollect. As it turns out, the internet tells me I'm essentially right. It was most likely was the Penguin translation of the 1980s that I'm recalling. 

I have thought about these words for many a decade whence I first read them. And on June 3rd of this year, if I had posted this then, they would have been accurate to me. 

This whole little tale, those few sentences you have just read, is an odd compilation of the impression that literature left on the mind of a young man, the passage of time from that impression to the moment described therein, and a retrospective telescope back through time from that moment to that long ago initial impression. 

Or in my case, Mother died today. Or was it yesterday. I don't remember.

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