Found Money

I put on my ski pants this morning and found a dollar in them.  Knowing that the dollar had been there since last ski season made it seem a little more valuable to me.  This says something about expectation theory.  If I had been looking for a twenty dollar bill from yesterday, and found only a single dollar, I would have been disappointed.  It's not the dollar that matters so much, it's the pleasant surprise of getting it.

As I sit here in the Christmas spirit, I think it would be nice to be the deliverer of pleasant surprises.  It is a habit, I guess.  A matter of slowing down the world and looking about for opportunities.  They shouldn't cost much, perhaps less than the dollar which just brought me a smile.  Seems like a small price to pay.

Some Things Never Change

"But the bad women, those called harlots, (show) no fine feelings; quite publicly they go about chewing chicle along the roads, in the market place, clacking like castanets."
    ---Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, writing about Aztec society in the 1590's

Just a little tidbit I picked up from the book Chicle, about the history of chewing gum, from the ancient Mayans to Wrigley.  One of the funnest parts of writing a book is the research.  Turns out there's a book for everything!

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I had to fight off shame when I found myself strangely unaffected by the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and seven adults were senselessly gunned down. The families and friends of the victims must be suffering in anguish, the community devastated and the surviving schoolchildren traumatized. The event is profoundly tragic. My friends on Facebook expressed their sadness and tears, while I felt mostly emptiness.

I have had the same reaction to similar tragedies in the past. In 2001 I found myself thinking mostly of the  geopolitical impact of the 9/11 attacks. Yes, I was inspired by the courage and sacrifice of so many that were involved and admired their selflessness. And I recall being encouraged by the simple kindnesses and considerations that momentarily surfaced in everyday life. But I did not mourn for the victims.

I'm not proud of that. If one of the victims was close to me I would have been grief-stricken. But I didn't know anyone that died, and so felt only a general sadness at the evil in the world and man's inhumanity to man. After reflecting on my response to this latest tragedy in Connecticut, I attempted to understand why I feel the way I do, or rather, why I don't feel the way so many others do.  What character defect or darkness in my soul steels my heart to the suffering of these innocent people?

It stems from a defense mechanism.   There are times when I contemplate the great inequities in the world.  I have pondered the nearly five million children under the age of five who suffered preventable deaths last year, mostly from disease and starvation in sub-Sahara Africa.  In some of these countries, the mortality rate for children under five approaches 20%.   The magnitude of these numbers is almost overwhelming.  Yet what personally affects me the most is that these are preventable deaths which I am doing nothing to prevent. Instead, when my thoughts drift in that direction, I quietly allow my mind return to my business, rescued from the painful implications of a self-examination that would turn my sadness first to disappointment and then despair. 

Next year there will be more suffering in the world.  Another five million of these innocent children will perish. Their mothers, if alive, will grieve every bit as deeply as those that received the bitter reports in Newtown.  If I refuse to shed a guilty tear for those lives I might be able to save, then I cannot allow myself the same emotions for those for which I feel no culpability.

Things can be done. Steps can be taken. Yet it's hard to know how much of one's life and resources should be devoted to the distant and seemingly unsolvable problems in the world. There are no tidy solutions to this personal calculus.  Still, and not for the first time, I resolve to do more. 

I am reminded of the famous excerpt from John Donne's Meditations, which my daughter Lanee and I have attempted to memorize and occasionally recite together.  It is sadder and more significant to me today:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, 

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friends', 

Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore, never send to know

For whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.

Potatoes

I stumbled upon this rather interesting brief history of the impact of the potato.  Yeah, I know, pretty weird.  But really interesting.  I had no idea it was such a maligned food in so many places.  I was also surprised to learn how Europeans viewed vegetables.  http://www.history-magazine.com/potato.html

I was actually looking for the Frederick the Great story, which is in this article.  It turns out Frederick felt that the Prussians should be growing potatoes, but the people didn't appreciate them and resisted.  So he created a royal garden, planted potatoes and stationed armed guards around it.  The peasants figured anything that well guarded must be worth stealing, so they did.  And eventually they were accepted and cultivated broadly.

That made me think of the Ataturk ploy in Turkey in the 1920's where he tried to get women to stop wearing veils.  Nothing worked, so instead he instituted a law that all prostitutes MUST wear veils.  Pretty soon, veil wearing decreased substantially.

Gotta love political leaders clever enough to try reverse psychology!

Feedback Feedback

I'm writing a book.  When I ask you to read parts of the draft and give me feedback, what I really want is for you to tell me it's fantastic.  If you give me any criticism, no matter how insightful, constructive and well-intentioned, it not only deflates my ego but creates a lot more work for me, thinking through changes and making rewrites.

This is absolutely true.  I would like you to tell me it's fantastic.  But please don't.   Instead, be liberal and straightforward with your suggestions.  I may never forgive you, but the book will thank you for it later.

Magazines for Today

Printed magazines are following the same downward trajectory as newspapers, only lagging that pack by a few years.  Certainly many have done a better job of embracing the digital world and adapting to its devices. But that only avoids the curse of paper.  The other problem with magazines is that they buck the trend for how we actually consume data--no longer in a sitting, poring over articles, but in small, bite-sized pieces.

The magazine of the future should arrive digitally in small, daily doses.  It should include real-time feedback on how others have rated the articles.  It should keep track of what I open and how I rate articles and recommend those that I am likely to enjoy, like the movie sites.  It will allow me to immediately save it in the same files as movies, books, etc.  It will look for relationships with other things I have read and saved and call these to my attention, if I'd like.

Finally, it will have a memory program, using the established laws of memory (repeat in 1/10/30/60 days) to help me remember the things I choose, and even test me on them.

If I desire, it will also help me to think creatively, with my right brain, about how what I read could be relevant to my personal or professional life.  It will have tools that help guide me on this process.

And that's for starters.

Family Ties

I spent some time with relatives this weekend in Minneapolis.  I particularly enjoyed Sunday afternoon at Franklin and Ellen Maki's in Forest Lake.  Franklin is my mom's (May-May's) older brother.  We were joined by my Aunt Aggie and Uncle Edwin, Mom's younger sister and brother.

They told some fun stories and I learned some interesting things about my mom.  Franklin said that even though he was older, she could always run faster, throw farther and hit harder than him.  In fact, he said Mom played first base on the Kalevala boy's baseball team in middle school.  (Two of her sisters also did this later, he said.)

When Franklin was nine years old (and Mom was seven) there were some family problems and they had to do all the chores by themselves for quite some time.  This included doing all the dishes, milking the cows and bringing in the firewood.  I wonder how modern kids would react to those kinds of chores?

Franklin and Ellen recently went to the Cromwell High School all-school reunion, where both Franklin and my mom used to teach.  They said that several students mentioned that mom (May Beuhre at the time) was their favorite teacher.  Franklin also told me that Mom's Lincoln Junior High Orchestra, which she led, was really good, and traveled significantly to give concerts.

Another bit of family trivia: May-May's grandfather and his sister came over from Finland as orphans.  His grandmother also came over penniless, but agreed to work in New York for a year (as a nanny, I think) to pay her freight over.

Franklin is the family historian, of sorts.  He needs to capture that history.  The world would be a lesser place without it.

Finally, we talked about the war.  Franklin was a medic in World War II.  Toward the end of the war, his division tended to the liberated Jews who were recently freed from the infamous Bergen-Belson concentration camp in Germany.  It must have been very traumatic for him.  He told about many dying from disease and malnutrition.   He recalled feeding one prisoner who could only handle a tablespoon of soup every half hour.  He said he greeted each spoonful with a big smile.

Shambolic

shambolic  (ʃæmˈbɒlɪk)
— adj
	informal  completely disorganized; chaotic
[C20: irregularly formed from shambles ]

I just learned a new word.  I like it.

Peripatetic

I've been meaning to write something about my trip to Southeast Asia, but the pace since then has been so hectic that I haven't taken the time to sit and reminisce.   We had many wonderful experiences, and I'd love to go back to some of what I missed.  But knowing how way leads on to way ...

I never quite adjusted to the time zone.  One of the reasons is that we were all sharing a hotel room, so I tended to go to bed the same time as Rebecca and Courtney.   As a result, I awoke about 4:00a every morning, sometimes earlier.  Not wanting to turn on lights in the room, I would usually go for a wee-hour walk before returning to the lobby to read.

There's something captivating about the Asian streets at these hours.  Before 5:00 a.m. there are usually small groups of men hanging onto the night before--drinking, talking and waiting for the morning light to roll them into bed.  But more interesting are the people (usually women) setting up their stalls, carts and tarps on the street, preparing for the day's commerce.  Often these are family affairs, with young children helping to haul out the goods to be sold or set up the food carts.  Wood fires are lit, so coals will be ready to grill the chicken, which is spread out for viewing like some sort of poultry morgue (refrigeration and sanitation being less important to street food than effective merchandising).

I suppose that early birds have the same advantage over Cambodian, Thai or Malaysian worms.  As I walked the darkened streets I admired their industry.  And as the morning arrived, I worked up an appetite that was routinely satisfied with exotic fresh fruit or a cart food breakfast.

Walking was always more fun away from tourist areas.  Many times I stumbled upon local markets, with all manner of meats and produce spread out on the ground.  Sometimes I would head down narrow residential alleys, only to eventually find myself at a dead end, standing in somebody's open living space  More than once I laughed with old ladies who tried to point to the way out.  And always I'd be stared at, more out of curiosity than concern, because I never saw other white people in these residential labyrinths.

More than once I found myself reciting one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, Acquainted with the Night:

I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.

Entropy

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the universe is in a constant state of entropy, moving from more order to less.  If we accept that the universe is about 14 billion years old, and that it started with a Big Bang, physicists can only conclude that the universe must have been very orderly at its inception.  There is no good cosmological explanation for how this could happen, as each theory is controversial and poses its own set of unsolved problems.

I love a good mystery.

The Great War

We visited a travelling World War I exhibit at the Fort Douglas Museum this afternoon.  It was a small, but interesting series of displays, including a recreation of a trench, all assembled in a semi trailer.  A few things I learned about WWI, in no particular order:

1. The U.S. was hoping to stay out of the war, which the public regarded as a European conflict.  But when we discovered documents showing that Germany was trying to enlist Mexico to attack the U.S., Pres. Wilson asked Congress for the right to declare war.  Public opinion was divided on the matter, but when the vote came, Congress chose a near-united front.   War, when it is perceived as just, brings a country together, partly out of necessity, but also out of a patriotism that goes cold during times of internecine peace.

2. The U.S. had very little modern warfare experience and had to be trained by the French and the British.  What progress we have made!  We now know so much about the art of war that we are obliged to train the world.

3. There was a school of thought that Darwinism applied to nations as well as species--that war was part of the natural selection process and the the fittest would rightly survive for the benefit of the planet.  The German author Thomas Mann referred to the coming war as a potential blessing and a cleansing, demonstrating once again that ideas, like women's make-up, are often misused to cover an unattractive truth.

4. Pres. Wilson chose John "Black Jack" Pershing over several other more senior generals to lead the efforts in Europe.  Pershing had most recently led troops tracking Pancho Villa in Mexico, and once had commanded a regiment of "buffalo soldiers" in the Spanish American War (hence his nickname).  An interesting tidbit: After the war, as Chief of Staff for the Army, he created the Pershing Map, which later, under Eisenhower, served as the vision for our Interstate highway system.

5. As in all wars up to that time, the most common causes of death were disease and infection.  Diseases spread rapidly in the close quarters of the trenches.  When the battles moved to the heavily-manured fields of France and Belgium the trenches became particularly deadly.  This is like a Greek tragedy, with the horses and farmers playing an unwitting role.

6. Italy at first stayed on the sidelines, with Mussolini opposing the war.  However, midway he saw an opportunity, as the Allies promised Italy territory on the Adriatic Sea as part of the secretive Treaty of London.  Unfortunately, Italy's military performance was almost completely ineffectual, which proved to be a national embarrassment, and when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, they got nothing for their efforts.  Interesting quote from Mussolini, urging the nation to war: "Do you want to be spectators in this great drama, or do you want to be fighters?"  I'm reminded of Shakespeare's observation: "All the world's a stage.  And all the men and women merely players ..."

7. The war was a defining moment for America, which was largely a nation of immigrants.  The country pulled together to support the effort, with extraordinary volunteerism not just in the military, but in supporting services back home.   There was partly the result of an intense propaganda effort by Wilson, including hiring writers to create anti-German pamphlets and hiring "four-minute men" to deliver patriotic messages at schools, movie theaters, etc.  Most interesting was the encouragement of people to grow backyard "victory gardens" (also called "war gardens" and "food gardens for defense") to reduce the demand on the food supply in support of the war.  It is extraordinary what sacrifices people will make when fueled by hate for a villain, a well-known lesson today by those who cultivate gang-bangers and suicide bombers.

We also visited the Fort Douglas Museum, which covers the military history of Utah.  The most interesting thing I learned: President Lincoln recommended the fort be named after Stephen Douglas, his historical political adversary.  The more I learn about Lincoln the more impressed I am by his greatness of character.  I keep searching in vain for a politician of similar ilk today.

Sundance 2012

Since I am no longer participating in my old Sundance blog, I thought I'd post a quick update here.  It was another light year for Sundance--and by that I mean I only saw seven films.   That may seem like a lot over eight days, but in the past I would see 25, so the reduced participation makes me feel like an outsider.  I had hoped to buy  more tickets and see a few additional international and documentary films, which are usually available when the single tickets are sold, but due to a scheduling mix-up I missed my window.  Anyway, here's a quick recap of the movies:

Red Lights
Written and directed by Rodrigo Cortes, who also directed Buried.   This has all the feel of a paranormal thriller, but there is surprisingly little to find frightening, and I'm an easy mark.  In fact, because of that the tone of the movie seemed inconsistent.  Starring Robert DeNiro, Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy and Elizabeth Olsen.  All but DeNiro were there, and Sigourney Weaver sat right in front of me.  She is quite tall, which gave me the unusual experience of having Sigourney Weaver's head block my view of Signourney Weaver on screen.   The script was weak, finishing with a painfully long soliloquy that left many in the audience dazed and confused. This will make the rounds in theaters, but not for very long.

Arbitrage
Richard Gere, Tim Roth and Susan Sarandon.  (Gere was there, looking like a modern-day Richard Cory.  I hope when my hair turns all grey I'll get slender and taller and better-looking like him.)  I had to see this movie to learn that capitalists are bad and that money corrupts.  Now I'm really glad I'm not a billionaire.  Actually, a lot of people will like this movie.  I didn't, not because it picks on rich people, but because it was predictable and cliched.  It will play the theaters, probably to mixed reviews.

Celeste and Jesse Forever
Andy Samberg (SNL), Rashida Jones (Parks & Recreation, The Office, I Love You Man), Elijah Wood and Eric Olsen--all were there but none said anything particularly brilliant, which isn't unusual for actors at Sundance.  Most of the Q&A's are terribly awkward, with the stars standing on the stage with very little to do or say, while the director prattles on in his/her glory.)  Anyway, while the premise of a post-romantic friendship is anything but new, this film pushes the notion to the extreme.  It's filled with crude humor, which is, admittedly, pretty funny at times.  The script gets a bit tedious and the acting is acceptable, but not inspired.  This will find its audience as a date movie that guys who saw The Hangover three times will agree to.

Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
This is a documentary that we managed to get into at the last minute.  (We even had to talk ourselves into the parking lot.)  The title is self-explanatory and the film interesting and, like so many documentaries on social issues, incredibly frustrating.  Although I must admit to being surprised and encouraged by the military's use of acupuncture as an effective substitute for drugs to treat returning soldiers.  If you weren't disgusted by Big Pharma before this movie, you surely will be afterwards.  It's worth seeing, even though it's a small-budget movie.

Lay the Favorite
Directed by Stephen Frears (The Grifters, High Fidelity), and starring Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall and Cathrine Zeta-Jones (Willis and Hall were there).  Based on a true story by Beth Raymer about her experience moving to Las Vegas and working for a small-time bookie.   Both Hall and Willis bring a lot to the movie and a lively, fast-moving script keeps it interesting.  Plus, there's a cameo by Vince Vaughn (I sat next to his dad the night before, and you can see where Vince gets it from!).  This is by no means great cinema, but more than mildly entertaining.  Writer Beth Raymer was there and on-stage and it was amazing to see her every bit as ditzy as how Rebecca Hall portrayed her in the movie.

The Word

Director/Actress Nadine Labaki

First-time director (but veteran actor) Brian Klugman with Bradley Cooper, Olivia Wilde and Jeremy Irons (all there).  Sort of an interesting premise about a writer who publishes a work that isn't his.  Unfortunately, the script doesn't do enough with the idea.  However, it held my attention because I was genuinely interested in how it would end.   Cooper is pretty good, and Irons is, as always, excellent.   If nothing else, the movie gave me hope that I still might publish a great novel--although perhaps not one that I personally wrote.


Where Do We Go Now?
A Lebanese film directed by Nadine Labaki, who has become something of a rock star in Lebanon, which is not known for its cinematic excellence.  (What is it known for?  Uh ... cedars?)   But this is a terrific film, absolutely my favorite from this year's movies.  It's the story of how a group of Lebanese women try to save their town (well, their unwitting menfolk) from civil war.  It's both inspiring and funny, and well worth living through the sub-titles.   Strongly recommended when it comes to your local arthouse this year.