Facing the Wave - A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami by Gretel Ehrlich

This is about the hardest book you will read. Harder than Newton's Principia, harder than the Three Laws of Thermodynamics, harder than the Book of Revelations. In surveying the survivors of Japan's earthquake and tsunami author Gretel Ehrlich uncovers every possible permutation of Shakespearean - even Greek - tragedy. Parents lose their children in the Wave. Children lose their parents in the Wave. There's at least one instance of a man losing his spouse, his children, and his parents in the Wave.

 

One reads of the horrors and thinks, Well, at least it can't get any worse. Except for those who actually saw their loved ones washed away. Except for the old people,folks in their 70's and 80's, who are suddenly homeless, living in evacuation centers til they can go to the mixed blessing of 500 tiny square feet, temporary housing.

 

It's hard and awful but one is compelled to keep reading. Instead of throwing the book against the nearest wall one realizes, at some fundamental level, if they had the strength to survive this then we should at least be brave enough to read about it.

 

So one continues, but with a rising internal wave of our own - a wave of anger. Why did the government even allow people to live in such a dangerous zone? Why weren't the sea walls sufficient? And why did the teachers dither over official procedures and protocols instead of high tailing the children up the hill?

 

The author herself doesn't escape our annoyance. At first the Asian-style nature poetry irritates instead of pleases; it's zen simplicity seems slight against the calamity it tries to describe. Even her presence feels wrong initially, almost ghoulish. When her Japanese friend and escort cries out in an especially gruesome district about sensing a ghost it's feels heartless of Ehrlich to insist on continuing.

 

But the author's instincts are correct. The story of the tragedy isn't to be old only in cesium counts; the humanity of poetry is an appropriate balm, and honest witness is an honorable tribute.

 

 

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Obamacare Derangement Syndrome

 

Can we all at least agree that not having access to affordable health care is a bad thing, or does the Tea Party hold a screeching "Up is Down!" position on that, as well?

Let's say not having health insurance, thus not having access to affordable health care, is a thing to be feared. One would be up at nights worrying about the health of ones family, putting off routine tests that could uncover a major issue, use expensive emergency rooms for easily treatable conditions, and risk bankruptcy to pay for it.

And let's say the President, along with health care professionals and other knowledgeable people, comes up with a plan for helping people without insurance. First, some 3 million people aged 21-26 are allowed to stay on their parents' plan. Then the legislation says insurance companies cannot deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions (which could be as irrelevant as an adolescent appendectomy). And also more millions have access when the legislation does away lifetime caps - potentially important for everyone but definitely important to parents of children with chronic conditions who could hit that cap at any time.

The concern for the economic impact of the ACA is pretty rich coming from supporters of both the sequester and the Iraq war. (And anyway, if people weren't spending hundreds a month for health insurance maybe they'd be spending more, maybe consumer confidence might uptick a notch.)

Ah, but listen to me. I'm using logic against Obamacare Derangement Syndrome, a condition that doesn't respond to logic and has no countenance for facts. The whole point of the opposition isn't to create a healthcare system that serves their constituents. That would involve actually sitting down and coming up with a better plan. No, the point of all of the theatre and lies and nonsense is to make PBO look bad. If they have to abort the entire U.S. economy to do so, so be it, because those ignorant, foaming at the mouth Tea Baggers must be catered to. (Funny how that senator overlooked the true "appeasement" taking place when he was waxing lyrical about Chamberlain and Churchchill.)

Either you have a better plan for people getting healthcare insurance or you don't. Hate PBO all you want but at least he has a plan, and isn't cowering behind the apron tails of The Market to fix inefficiencies and chasms the market created in the first place.

*

But why all of the animosity, why the sizzling, white hot hatred? PBO won the 2012 handily over an opponent who pledged the repeal the ACA on "Day One." The Tea Partyers and the billionaires behind the scene have had nearly a year to go through their stages of post-election grief, so why the 11th hour drama, why the extortion, why now the pathetic "Push it back a year!" nonsense?

My theory is this: (Almost) Universal access to healthcare fills a certain cohort in this country, a certain demographic, with dread because health, life, and death underscore our common humanity. If you've been raised to believe in differences - racial, gender, religious, orientation, economic - and all of a sudden everyone is getting a benefit - even those people - it will be a blow to your self-image. You might not want to "pool" your health, your life, with people you've kind of looked down upon. " But...but...but, I'm special!" Indeed you are, and if you heaven forbid lose your job or have a preexisting condition you can pool up up with other such people and get an affordable health insurance plan.

As for the billionaires, one can almost see their logic in throwing millions in deceptive ads. If people see government successfully solving a problem, then their "Let's Privatize Everything!" Campaign loses a lot of steam. Maybe we don't need to pimp out our prisons, or education system, our environment to the highest bidder.

Worse of all, if it turns out that people like affordable health care, they might remember the party that tried to stop it with less than kindly favor.

 

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Group Ride with CICLE

The good folks at CICLE (one above, pumping up Carmella) led about a hundred riders on a groovy romp through Cypress Park Saturday morning. The theme - besides fun - was "Made in L.A." I went to the starting point on the Metro Gold Line, easy-peasy. After warming up on some streets and a lovely stretch along the L.A. River we stopped at Grain, a place that makes sort of artisanal, handcrafted surfboards. Even non-surfers could appreciate the quality of their boards, could feel the love that was poured into them.

Then we were off again. The CICLE leader's bike had a boom box attached so we made a lovely racket as we cruised along the neighborhoods. Cypress Park seemed a bit tough, but I'm just going by the number of huge dogs barking angrily behind fences.

Next stop was Kruegermann's pickle factory. The guy was a fourth generation pickle maker, his father having fled East Germany to come to the States. Tough going, according no the son, but the old man managed to hand make the various machines needed to cure the pickles here as they were made in Germany. Free samples and - God bless him - free bottled waters.

The last stop was SWRVE, a bike clothing store that's a cycling hipster's Nirvana. I was all set to splurge there, to shell out $25 or even $30 on a super-cool bicycle graphic tee. Alas, there was nonesuch to be found, at least in the small shop. (I should check their site.) They did have soft fabric blend tees for $40 (solid color, no graphics) and long-sleeved thermal-like shirts for $60. Knee-length bicycling pants went for $125, so skinny I'd be lucky to get my arm in the legs. I slunk out, but upon hearing a woman - let's call her Norma Rae - make an earnest speech bout how the prices only seemed high because we're not used to garment workers being paid a living wage, I slunk back in.

There were some neat bike journals and issues of peloton. There was also a copy of the photography book Paris: Women & Bicycles, which I had just received from mail order the day before. (The photographer is Gil Garcetti, former Los Angeles district attorney and father of the new mayor of Los Angeles. Hope the son is pro-bike, too!)

I was kinda grumbling to myself about how s-l-o-w the group was riding, about people half my age getting off their bikes and walking them up slight inclines. Yet when I got home I didn't even get up off the couch or the rest of the day.

Which means it was a good ride, indeed!

 

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Good Cause, with Reservations

This is the review I wrote for Amazon of Salman Rushdie's memoir, Joseph Anton:

Clever Idea for a "Novel"

What a brilliant premise for a work of fiction! Have a protagonist write a score-settling memoir after having written a novel that gravely offended fundamentalists in a semi-literate, terrorist breeding-ground country. (Man, don't you hate when that happens?) The protagonist valiantly fights the good fight for a righteous cause - in this case, freedom of speech; heck, his right to life - but as the layers are pulled back it's revealed that the protagonist is so vain and clueless and tone-deaf that whole swaths of people who hate censorship as much as he does are turned off. This incenses him almost as much as the religious fanatics' threats. Publishers who chose not to risk their, their family's, or their employees' lives on publishing the (frigging) PAPERBACK edition of the book are never forgiven. Having the Her Majesty's Government giving him round the clock protection is a grave insult. (It was shameful how these [professional, yet probably culturally illiterate, working-class] people talked to him!) No one, he moans, understands LIT-tra-chure, no one realizes the super-duper ultra-important role of the writer. (If occupations could be granted a Pass on douchiness I'd just as soon give it to brain surgeons or pastry chefs, but that's just me.) It's exhausting but fascinating to read, like would be a novel about a Dalai Lama who in private life is an insufferable diva.

But I want to say more. I want to get at why the book was so exhausting-fascinating, Readable-excruciating. I'm against censorship. I'm certainly against death threats. What should it matter if the victim wasn't a sterling character? Why wasn't I sympathetic?

I think I disliked the author for making me ashamed to be a bookworm. For enjoying writing myself.

For him, the world of books isn't just a nice place to visit; it seems a righteous, sacred perch from which to sling stones (a drunken father, not unlike his own, appears in an early novel) and look down upon people. Every time he declares himself to be a Writer he makes the occupation seem less noble, not more. Being a writer seems to be a "license to ill", and not in a good way.

Sometimes he refers to him as a "scribbler", implying a degree of humility that doesn't line up with the pettiness exhibited elsewhere. When his protection team tells him what to do (and really, do they have any choice but to err on the side of caution?) he howls at being spoken to that way. Being under protection meant he didn't have an official, public address in London and therefore couldn't vote. But he read that "even homeless people had been given a special dispensation that allowed them to cast their ballots; but there was no special dispensation for him." (Lovely, that "even".)

But what really makes the smoke come out of his ears is when he asks for and is denied permission for his girlfriend to attend a friend's funeral. Other principals have been allowed such, he countered. The officer told him yes, "but every other principal is performing or has performed a service to the nation. You, in my opinion, have not." Bam! And this from a lowly, unlettered officer who probably doesn't even know about Falalalajin and the the 12th century Hindu poet-mystic tradition or some such!

The treating of women as Kleenex; grumbling when one ex - the mother of his first-born son - asks for money for a house; the index finger circling his ear motion while speaking of the second ex-wife (who has some of the best lines in the book); the summer-long mooch-fests in the States; the la-di-dah dinners with writers one would normally be happy to read about but in the memoir turn into guests you can't wait to leave; the going anywhere to accept every literary prize he's offered (one suspects some awards still have a smear of peanut butter from the kindergarten class that offered them); the name-dropping and schmoozing; no awareness that the notoriety of the book is getting him all of this attention, not nececessarily the book's merits; the leaving wife and two-year old for a greedy model.... No, no, no. That awful whiff of entitlement comes through often in this memoir, and it's no more appealing in a self-proclaimed Serious Writer than it is in a derivatives zillionaire in NYC.

I'm still a bookworm and I still have ideas for writing but I don't want to be a raging, megalomaniacal ass about it. If I ever start to look down on people because I've read a book and they haven't I hope I have enough sense to jump on my bike and let myself be humbled by a few tough inclines.

Actually, a good ride might be a cure for having no sympathy for someone who was in a helluva jam for over ten years.

"Bad Mother" by Ayelet Waldman

"Bad Mother" has many intelligent things to say about the joys and challenges of raising children, of the labor required (and hopeful prayers offered) to see that they become happy, healthy, and whole adults. Also good was the discussion of how society continually presents evil "bogeymamas" (often women who have postpartum depression or a mental illness). We can read of such an unnatural creature and feel nicely smug, totally uninterested in the way that people who supposedly have all of their marbles, like members of congress, do nothing for the benefit and well-being of all the nation's children. Worse still, Waldman says, is the fact that women are the first-formed and loudest chorus of attackers to other women who fall off the ridiculously high Good Mother pedestal.

The tone - the "voice" of the writing was a bit hard, maybe even somewhat annoying, despite Waldman holding the same opinions I have on a number of issues. She pays lip service to realizing how extraordinarily privileged she is, but doesn't take the next logical step of doing something to help mothers who aren't so lucky. It's as if looking down on people who look down on troubled moms and families is the same as affirmatively helping them.

Well, caring for four kids wouldn't leave her time or energy for anything else. And it would never occur to anyone to ask a dad what was he doing for less happy families.

 

 

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Ruby Thursday - The Ojai Valley Trail

 

The bike rental employee had to take my credit card information in case, God forbid, the bike got stolen or banged up, or if I decided to just walk away with it. She had to show me the value of the bike so I could sign off on it. The Specialized "Ruby" road bike, was valued at $2,200. (I've since confirmed the figure online; the upper end of the same line goes for $8,000,)

$2,200. That, of course, would have been the point when a sensible, middle-aged Baptist-raised, now Presbyterian lady would have declined, saying, "You know what? It wouldn't be worth the risk of losing it or mangling it to have to pony up that kind of money, so just give me a beat up, clunky, heavy beach cruiser."

Again, that's what a sensible person would have said. Me? I said, Lets do it.

The bike was a work of art. Gorgeous, two-fingers light, and so anxious to hit the road she was twitching. Just sexy beyond words.

Friends, there's a narrow path, a bikes-only trail from Ventura to Ojai, 15 miles each way. I made a short "let me make sure I know how to brake" loop in front of the shop, made a left off Main Street, another left off Rex, and entered the trail.

Ruby and I were practically airborne.

How rare and wonderful to have the sense of being completely enclosed in nature, far away from the city and its irritations and assaults on ones sensibilities. Here's a glimpse of what it was like here:

 

There were parts of the trail with no one about, but before one succumbed to Dateline-induced fears, you'd see a nice family of riders just ahead, or a sleek group of MAMILS (middle-aged men in lycra, i.e., kitted out serious riders) heading towards you.

Being a bike commuter, I associate riding with dodging cars and trucks and buses, I'm hyper-aware of the chance some idiot thinks zooming along in a thousand pounds of encased steel makes for an excellent time to text or apply mascara or munch a burrito.

Riding along a bikes-only trail is a whole 'neither kettle of fish. Or the absence of fish. The only thing to think about is the ride; everything petty and worrisome just sort of peels off.

I made it to Ojai in about 90 minutes only a tiny bit tired towards the end, had a quick bite to eat (outside table so I could keep an eye on Ruby), and made it back to the bike shop in an hour. I've been collaring strangers telling them about this ride, and Mr. Cockatoo has floated the idea of a ride along the coast. I had never done 30 miles in a day before but it certainly was with the effort.

 

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George Washington - Very Fashionable

The authors of the wonderful book "George Washington's Mount Vernon - A Revolutionary Life" are teaching me more about our country's first president than I ever imagined wanting to know. They paint him as a young man in a hurry, someone quite anxious to become one of Virginia's leading citizens. Washington's order to his tradesman in London for his first military uniform reads like Sargent Pepper meets Michael Jackson, circa Thriller:

...a gold shoulder knot, gold lace, twenty-four inches of "rich gold Embroidd Loops," a "Rich Crimson Ingr[ained] silk Sash," four dozen gilt coat buttons, a hat with gold lace, three and a half yards of scarlet cloth....

This determination to make himself stand out extended to making Mount Vernon, Washington's house on the Potomac, Architectural Digest worthy.  The constant tinkering and overhauls make it seem like Washington was somewhat obsessed with the house which, at most had to fit him, Martha Washington, and Martha's two children from her previous marriage.  The London contact - Colonial America's Amzaon.com - got orders for chairs, for dishes, furniture and so forth, with Washington indicating the items should be of the latest fashion.

While the book does not give the reader a good insight as to what Washington thought about besides homemaking (Gore Vidal once remarked that, unlike Thomas Jefferson, Washington's mind was untroubled by books), we do get an idea of what the first president thought of himself.  When his London tradesman gently mentioned that Washington was carrying a bit of debt he got an epistlatory earfull from the Virginian gentleman:

"[Washington] was surprised someone 'so steady, & so constant as I have provd' would be reminded 'how necessary it was for him to be expeditious in his payments.'"  Then, later, "it is but an irksome thing to a free mind to be any ways hampered in Debt."

One can see Washington standing up to his full height and raising his chin after having written this.

Even before the revolution there was always tension between the colonists and the British.  While fighting with the British militia regiment leader against the French Washington chafed at being outranked by British soldiers.  And later, when the British crown starting imposing taxes and overstepped its authority with the colonists, an aggrieved Washington said the colonists were compelled to assert themselves lest they became

...as tame & abject Slaves, as the Blacks we Rule over with such arbitrary Sway.

So fascinating, this social blindness!  Remember, Washington represented the highest echelon of society in the colonies in general and Virginia in particular.  He had extensive fields for tobacco, the enormous house on the banks of the Potomac, and as bright a future as one could imagine.  But the tax, the nibbling away of his pride by the British, was enough for Washington to cry that such treatment would lead to his enslavement.  Which would be intolerable.

Well, historians have been pondering this stupendous duality in the founding fathers for two hundred years.  Did these altogether intelligent men truly not see that whatever the crown threw at them would be a rainbow of daffodils compared to what the slaves - their slaves- were enduring?

And Washington was by no means a monster.  He kept his word to not sell slaves in a way that would break up families.  Maybe it was merely his own pride, his sense of self, that made him do that but of course many other slave owners had no such hesitation.

As upsetting as it is, as cruelly ironic as it is, the fact remains that the men who fought off British oppression held on fiercely to the notion of slavery being acceptable.

All of which leaves us with the question, What is acceptable today - what is fashionable today - that will make people flinch and recoil two-hundred years from now?

George Washington's Mount Vernon:  At Home in Revolutionary America by Robert F. Dalzell and Lee Baldwin Dalzell

CicLAvia on Wilshire Boulevard - Success!

The mighty Wilshire Boulevard was a no-car zone for the better part of the day Sunday.  Six lanes of bliss, it started from One Wilshire Blvd. downtown and stretched all the way out to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).  Along the way - the DWP handed out free water (maybe an effort at PR - there's been some grumblings about the department's financials), and every cafe, sandwich shop, and eatery was crammed with customers who'se bikes were inelegantly piled outside.

We've had several CicLAvia's now and the consensus is (1) people love them and (2) they give small businesses along the routes their biggest one-day revenues of the year.  Grumpy car people complain about the street closures (just as Cockatoo, a non-runner, complained about the marathon route disrupting the part of the city with the fewest runners), but they can be consoled by it only being one day.  Also, maybe their co-workers will be a little less hard to deal with Monday after a lovely Saturday on their bikes.

On a side note, during my normal bike-commute home we've noticed that at least west of Vermont, the lane next to the curb has been painted BUS LANE.  I looked up at the street sign and saw that during rush hour it's reserve for buses but BIKES OK.  Hello!  A nice, safe lane without malevolent car people trying to pass you and missing you by inches.  Now, we can just glance back once in a while to make sure no buses are coming and pedal on home.  So much better than the sidewalk.  (Which is legal here, if not preferable.)

A win-win.  And was it my imagination that there were more bike-commuters Monday?  Did CicLAvia open a few eyes as to what's possible, even in Los Angeles?

Al Roker's Weight Loss Book, "Never Goin' Back"

We picked this up at the library Tuesday after work, finished it Wednesday evening, and posted this three star review on Amazon Thursday morning:

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One star off, obviously, for the misery meals that take up a quarter of the book at the end. The paper they're written on looks tastier, which is saying something since my copy seems to have been printed on Grade Z coarse newsprint.

The second star off comes from this nasty whiff of rich guy entitlement. Heaven help us if we've become so strident and polarized that we see Al Roker as "The Man," but the upscale gym memberships and private trainers and the exotic cleanse therapy are assists unavailable to obese poor people. Which is not to say Roker was wrong to take advantage of these things, it just places this book at a far remove from the the societal aspect of obesity in America, the link between poverty and obesity.

He mentions trips to Paris without mentioning the French Paradox - why they tend to be slimmer. One suspects it's because they wouldn't dream of eating the "food products" one would see advertised on the Today Show. (Per capita they eat HALF the sugar we eat; the Italians even less.)

Still, Mr. Roker is quite pleasant and an agreeable television presence. Congrats to him for getting on top of his weight issues. The image of his spouse berating him and making faces when he reached for a piece of bread was pretty grim; it's pleasing to read that he's happy now.

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But did we give the book enough thought? Did we think Oh, it's just a light-hearted, mini-memoir of a semi-famous, affable glutton who gets food religion and changes his ways? Something in us thinks we should have delved deeper into this....

And yet, only a churl would see something sinister in the way he seems to ignore the wicked role the Food Industrial Complex plays in the American obesity crisis. It's as if Roker's afraid to say the obvious and plain thing, that almost any "food product" one sees advertised really isn't food at all. (I exclude the nice people at the Chilean Fruit Board with their seasonal pitches.)

And surely only a curmudgeon would attribute this reticence to corporatism, to his delight and willingness to be part of The Machine. A line from the book really annoyed us. Roker talks about how 95% of dieters fail. "Maybe," he offered, "the 95% should occupy Dunkin Donuts against the 5% who are successful." Ha! Funny, see, 'cause that means the young people in Occupy Wall Street, who weren't reticent about expressing their unease with the power of corporations and gross income inequality, were apparently losers.

So now Roker's Hugo Boss suits are the right size to pass management muster, and he's married to / merged with an appropriately corporate spouse. (True company people, the spouse stopped snarling to him about his weight because it was "ineffective", not because it was unkind.)

Knock it off, Cockatoo! He's America's beloved weatherman, for gosh sakes!

Hope there's some of that Hagen Dazs strachiatello gelato in the store tomorrow; they were out last time.....

Tom Hanks vs "Rupert Pupkin"

Spent an enjoyable quarter hour watching actor Tom Hanks being interviewed on David Letterman. Effortlessly funny and charming. He mentioned having to say no to projects (more precisely, feeling obliged to say no to projects that are awful) and joked about using "I have to promote a movie in Japan" as a foolproof excuse.

Mr. Hanks, a two-time academy award winner, is often cited as being the nicest man in Hollywood. He's currently in a play on Broadway for which he's been, of course, nominated for a Tony.

It occurred to me that an awful thing about being Tom Hanks would be people constantly wanting things of you. Can you read my script. Can you pass this on to Spielberg. Can you get me an audition. It must take an elevated, maybe even Grimleyesque, level of decency to continue to see people one doesn't know as human beings, not as takers.

In Scorsese's King of Comedy, De Niro painted wanna be comic Rupert Pupkin has a pathetic, no-talent who yearned to bite into Jerry Lewis' neck (metaphorically speaking) to become immortal - that is, famous. The character was not interested in honing in craft, in studying the history of comedy or television or humor. He didn't even seem to believe he had something of vaue to impart to an audience.

Do writers who try to palm off their scripts themselves (instead of through an agent) feel that same desperation, that need to fuel their careers with someone else's star power? Or is it similar to any other profession where you leverage any connections you may have?

Two Minutes, Please

He wore the movie crew uniform - loose tee shirt and knee-busters. Sneakers big as a boat. "Just two minutes, please," he implored the crowd of us just disgorged from the morning metro. "We're filming a stunt. Thank you."

We pretended to grumble, we feigned annoyance, but let's be honest - watching a scene get filmed would be more of a kick than settling in to our cubicles. We weren't going to miss it.

Two minutes became four, seven, eight.... Then: Rolling!

An actor known only to his patents ran from the shopping center to a Beemer parked at the curb. He opened the door, yanked out the equally unknown driver, and sat in the driver's seat.

That was it. The crowd moved through a forest of lights and camera on the way to the action of our everyday lives.

We Don't Need Much

A sunny day, books, a smidgen of hope and good cheer.  A pop band on a small stage making us bounce around a bit, shaking off the awfulness of the week. We as a species don't need a lot to make us giddy.

Loons on the Run

Don't ponder others, Tibetan Buddhist lojong training demands.

One day I'll be nice like that.

It's a delight to see all of the anti-gay, anti-gun control and one-note PBO'S haters backing themselves into the same deranged corner.  In true elementary school rubber and glue physics, the ickiness that the anti-gay crowd ascribed same-sex relationships is now adhering to bigots who go into hysterics over Mitch and Cam.   Despite PBO's reelection his haters seem as outraged and indignant as in 2008.  We don't understand why they don't  just look at it and  think, "Well,  in four years he'll be gone".   You know, like progressives did with Reagan and W.  Were PBO to take a bite out of sweet apple and smile, brigades of  screeching teabaggers would demand to know what does this man have against oranges?  The Koch brothers would start pouring millions into a Real Americans for Citrus and Lower Taxes  astroturf outfit.

The anti- gun control people, however,  truly astound.   Despite every study confirming what common sense would intimate, that having a gun in the house increases one's  risk and one's family's risk of death several fold, they still insist that they need a gun to protect their family.  These people would literally prefer to die than admit that that uppity Kenyan, with all his Harvardy-ness and intelligence and airs, is right on the subject.  But what a tiny group they are!  Turns out  that 90% of Americans would like to see background checks extended to gun show and Internet  gun buyers.

Maybe one day i'll grow up and feel compassion for the suffering of the insufferable.  That would be great.  For now, though, seeing them flop around like salmon is kind of a kick.

Beep! Beep!

One day we will commute in a manner befitting an adult. But not today!

The Madness of Carmella III

Last weekend our beloved bike Carmella II was stolen. It was parked at a rack right next to a car parking lot, between two other bikes.  (One being a Jamis!)  When we returned to it from The  Gap thirty minutes later it was gone, the space as empty as if the bike had never been there in the first place.

Those two tee shirts turned out to be very expensive, indeed.

Bargaining, anger, denial.   Cockatoo went through all of the stages of grief.  It wasn't until ten that night that we remembered that Tibetan Buddhist idea of tonglen--in this case, breathing in to aerate and break up all of that anger and exhaling empathy and compassion for all people who've suffered theft.

Not quite as fun as wishing miseries upon the rat bastard who stole my bike, but somehow beneficial nonetheless.

Friends were very kind and sympathetic, and Mr. Cockatoo was, too.  "That bike meant something special."  It did; I had found it on my father's birthday after a long search, leading me to think--only half-jokingly-- that Dad  sent me a sign from heaven to buy it.

Well, emotions had to move aside for practicalities.  We still had to get to work and the idea of driving was sad enough, and the idea of having to pay $9 for the "privilege" was even worse.  So, our old bike, it was.   Carmella, my first bike, was great for someone getting on a bike after years and years.  Comfortable, predictable, reliable, but so, so heavy.  The heaviness slows you down when you ride and makes you worry about your bike when transporting her.

Of course we were happy to still have Carmella but Carmella II, the stolen bike, was deeply missed.  Cockatoo didn't see getting a new bike til Memorial Day, so...acceptance.

It turned out, though, that Mr. Cockatoo had a different idea for a timetable.  When he came home Wednesday he came through the door with a bike...that looked just like Carmella II.  Except it didn't have the sticker we had on her top tube.  And it had tags hanging on the handlebars.   He bought me a bike that's the same make, model, and colors has the stolen bike.

Paradise regained.

Cockatoo dubbed her The Madness of Carmella III.  She flies down streets; we're airborne for minutes at a time. She slices through lanes and traffic and going uphill makes her laugh.  Cockatoo smiles when she rides this bike; we have to force ourself not to let out a "Whoo Hoo!" lest we cause a disturbance on city streets.

Madness, yes, because it's insane to love something so much, to be grown and get such a kick out of a childish toy.  Life is insane, when you're kind of down and then something splendiferous happens from out of nowhere.

The wonderful madness of seeing again for the thousandth time how splendiferous is Mr. Cockatoo.

Another Tibetan Buddhist idea is not being too attached to emotions as they're fleeting. Don't get too high from good events or low from bad. Sorry, but it will be a long time before I forget how happy I was Wednesday night.

Film Comment: 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama...

…wherein an earnest in the extreme American journalist  named Rick Ray visits His Holiness the Dalai Lama (HHDL) in his exile home in India and questions him on topics ranging from the unexpected happiness of the the poor to how to bring about peace in the Middle East (people getting to know each other, and festivals.)

HHDL’s responses are subtle and complex even as his vocabulary is simple, even child-like; it put me in mind of Samuel Beckett getting at the essence of things when writing Waiting for Godot in French instead of his native English. 

While seeing HHDL is always uplifting this relatively short film had enough material for a second story—the infinite number of ways the government of China is sabotaging and trying to wipe out any aspect of Tibetan culture.  Government armies have been taking over lands since forever; the Chinese government is doing nothing new or imaginative in occupying Tibet and oppressing the native population.

Bad enough, but the film shows has the Tibetan experience of occupation has nasty twists.  HHDL, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, was forced to flee when he was a boy and has to rule in exile in India.  Not only can’t he return to Lhasa, but the Tibetans there will be questioned or arrested or even tortured if they possess the HHDL’s picture.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition all of our Guys are dead; imagine if their reincarnations were alive and we could not even mention their name for fear of being arrested.  (You’d think our holy-roller evangelicals would be all over this.)   

But wait, there’s more, and this is where it gets diabolical.  OK, there has to be someone to be the next person to pick the new DL.  HHDL picked a little boy as the reincarnation.  The Chinese government put the kid and his family under house arrest and he hasn’t been seen in years.  He’s missing out on the intense education the religion requires for such an important task and position.  Unlike our Ten Commandments, half of which are like, Duh, Tibetan Buddhism has over a hundred subtle lojong precepts that the holder of the position needs to have mastered.  Are the Chinese providing this?    Oh, no, they’re too busy parading around their own fakey-fake reincarnation kid who probably doesn’t know how to pour water out of a boot. 

Why can’t the western powers stand up to China on this?  It’s all so redolent of the anti-apartheid era of South Africa. (Update: Walking a now-deleted sentence back in light of finding out Apple donated $43 million to Africa via the Product (Red) campaign.  Also, the HHDL isn't calling for a boycott.)

Speaking of Apple, Cockatoo was goofing around with the new iPad mini the other day.  After seeing our image in the camera we in short procession purchased a pricey lotion, contact lenses, and got our hair done.  If only there were some kind of ethical camera one could aim at the Chinese soldiers in the film so they could see how hideous and shameful  they looked when they wailing on random Tibetans, or when a handcuffed Tibetan walked by and one of the soldiers gave him a gratuitous knock on the head.

A monk in the film was beaten and tortured by the Chinese.  He made it to the Indian compound and spoke to HHDL.  This monk said he didn’t want to be a monk anymore, that he wanted to fight.  Even the most pacifist among us would see the point.  But just like Archbishop Desmond Tutu would have done, HHDL hugged the battered young monk and talked to him for two hours on how violence would not help.  With a smile the young man said he was convinced to remain a monk.

HHDL’s compassion for everyone – even the Chinese government and the Chinese people – is a force more powerful than anything in the Chinese arsenal.  It lights up the world. 

2006.

 Recommend

p.s.  Cockatoo would ask one thing of the monks and laypeople in Tibet:  Please, have compassion on people you don’t  know, people who you will never meet, who are rooting for you, praying for you, and hoping for you – have compassion on us and yourselves by not even considering harming yourself to bring attention to your cause.  Your enemies don't care if you are no more, but your friends do.  The day of celebration will come, and we want you all to see it.

Where Has All the Music Gone?

It started with an advertisement for one of those televised singing competitions: Cockatoo didn't know one song by anyone on the show's panel of judges. Yikes! How did that happen? Is it an inevitable part of growing older that one loses all track of what music "the young 'uns" are listening to nowadays? Mind you, we've have heard of all of the judges, just haven't heard them.

Then came the Grammys last Sunday night. The word was out that folk music was making a big comeback. Cockatoo went into the show only knowing - and liking - guitar-hero Jack White's Blunderbuss. Sadly, we left with only a "Well, that was kind of nice" feeling about The Lumineers, even as we're kind of wondering if that $3.99 download was a good investment. And shame on The Onion for saying Mumford and Sons won in the category of "Best Vest." (By "shame" we mean, of course, it made us laugh.)

We wanted to fall desperately in love with a new band, a new voice, to feel that delicious thrill again. But we can only see U2 for the first time once, and ours came on the Live-Aid broadcast where they performed Bad, and, really, what can replicate that feeling? As Bruce Springsteen said of U2 when he inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they're the last group for which he knows each person's name. So true, so true.

We grew up listening to KGFJ, the soul music station in Los Angeles. The first record we ever bought was the single - vinyl, with a red Atlantic label - of Respect by Aretha Franklin. The second one, though, didn't create an obvious pattern: Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.

But actually there is a link. Cockatoo loved the soul of Aretha Franklin and the guitar-rich energy of the Stones. With every record we bought during our teens and young adulthood we held out the hope that it would somehow, somehow entwine these two strands of heart and electricity. Bono's one line in Do They Know it's Christmas stood out for Cockatoo, and we bought our first VCR (yep) the day before the aforementioned Live-Aid concert.

Did it affect me? Let's put it to the Bruce test: Bono, Larry, Edge, and Adam. For extra credit: Paul David Hewson, Larry Mullen, Jr., Dave Evans, and Adam Clayton. For super crazy credit: May 10th, Oct. 31st....

Fellow U2-disciples will note that the title of this blog comes from a "Breathe" lyric on the "No Line on the Horizon" album. Rattle and Hum-era fans will remember another good U2 lyric, which addresses my current dilemma: You glorify the past when the future dries up.

We solemnly vow to not become fossilized, to keep an ear out for new, contemporary singer-songwriters, and not let my iPod become a museum.

Even as Cockatoo anxiously awaits a new U2 record.

My Life in Politics by Jacques Chirac

Palgrave McMillan
2009.  English Language Translation 2012.
337 pages.

Are memoirs by American politicians this candid?  Cockatoo hasn't read an American political figure's memoir since Jimmy Carter's Why Not the Best?; somewhat shamefully, we've never even read Dreams of My Father.  Perhaps Santorum or Gingrich also recounted, as does former French President Jacques Chirac, losing their virginity in a dodgy quartier in Algeria.  Or, perhaps not.

Upon leaving the Elysee after serving two terms as president, Chirac had had forty years of experience in French politics. The memoir perhaps tells Americans more than we want to know about the inside baseball - boules? - aspect of that career.  (Long story short - prime minister and president is a whole different and nastier dynamic than our president and vice president.).   Still, it was a fascinating insight into not just a world figure but of an era, as well.

Particularly fascinating were the descriptions of his encounters with the major players.  From General Charles de Gaulle, to Valery Giscard d'Estaing; from Pompidou to Mitterand; and from Dominique Villepin (he of the famous UN speech against the war in Iraq) to Nicholas Sarkozy, Chirac gives a nice sketch of people who might merely be historical names to Americans.  Chirac revered the general for how he personified France's liberation. He clashed with the (apparently) snooty Giscard but had warm respect for Mitterand despite his predecessor being a socialist.

Chirac clearly would have preferred the noble Villepin to succeed him. Of Sarkozy's election speech Chirac says:

Each of us listened to each word he pronounced with the greatest attention, secretly waiting for the moment when he would mention the name of the man he was preparing to succeed or even thank him for the support the latter had given him. But this moment never came.".  

One can sense how Sarkozy's blingy, breezy modernity would make the formal, dignified Chirac wince.

Famously, Chirac did nor just sit by and watch the US march into Baghdad. His government lobbied security council states intensely to let the weapons inspectors do their job. That the lobbying or Villepin's elegant speech for the ages did not stop the war does not reflect poorly on them but merely adds to the eternal shame of w. Bush, Rice, Cheney, Wolfowitz etc. for insisting on death and violence.

Lastly, it's fascinating to see conservatism unyoked from philistinism and racism. Indeed, this French-style conservative comes off as a bit if a hippie with his concerns for the environment, or his telling the King of  Spain that, no thank you, France would not take part in any Christopher Columbus anniversary celebrations (..."the expedition of cc did not constitute ...a great moment in history but rather a calamity that could not justifiably be celebrated). Add to these his deep interest in African art and ones gets the image of a career politician with more layers, more depth, than one might have guessed.

MLK Day - Random Thoughts

A woman walks past the Sheriffs standing on duty in the Metro station.  Some of them are part of the K-9 unit, and have their dogs with them.  A certain big dog jumps up at the sight of the woman, not because she's African-American but because the dog loves sniffing her bicycle wheels.  She pets the dog, chats a second with the officers, and continues on to work with a smile that only petting a loving, goofy dog can bring out.

*

At the top of our hike in Griffith Park today there were some people in their twenties singing, playing music and dancing.  The singing was some simple, African-sounding chant.  The instruments included a tambourine, a gourd covered in shaking beads, and something that looked like a bow.  But the dancing...it wasn't so much dancing as a kind of  couples t'ai chi - slow, rhythmic movements including taking turns swinging a leg over the partner's crouching body.  The seeming leader was a white guy in khaki shorts and sneakers; he took turns dancing with another white guy, a black girl, then a black guy.  At the end of each session he gave his opponent / partner a lovely platonic hug. 

*

A mattress store is offering specials for its Martin Luther King sale.

*

Cockatoo is off work tomorrow for Martin Luther King's birthday, a national holiday.  Cockatoo will spend the morning watching President Obama being sworn in for his second term.

Lewis Lapham - A Semi-Disagreement

It struck us as odd that the usually insightful journalist Lewis Lapham, whose "Notebook" essays in Harper's we devoured each month, dismissed President Obama as someone only interested in striking the right pose ("Here's the Thing" podcast with Alec Baldwin).  It's an indictment that gives one pause since Lapham's the first person we've heard of with a three-digit IQ who seems to see the president as an empty suit, a decorative speechifyer who (how the "moderate right-wingers wanted this phrase to stick!) is "in over his head". 

Was sweating blood - and more preciously, political capital - to get the Affordable Care Act passed just striking a pose?  Did he work like a demon to avert a financial catastrophe just to make himself look good?  Perhaps freeing up millions of dollars for college student loans was just something the president did when he got bored with practicing smiles.

One wonders if Mr. Lapham has joined the "Oh, I'm so jaded" club, the one where Gore Vidal (whom Cockatoo adored) insisted that there was no genuine difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.  Maybe a policy like aid for foreign women's health and family planning falls beneath one's radar if one is a male living in the United States.  Perhaps repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell isn't a big deal if you're a straight civilian.  And why would health care and student loans make a dent in the psyche of someone who probably never fretted about either? 

The point being, seeing PBO as a mannequin might say more about the observer's POV than about PBO.  So, no, there aren't any cornpone "Tear Down This Wall" moments coming from this White House, just the day-to-day work of dismantling as much W-Cheney asbestos as they can.

That being said....  (Cockatoo now thinks immediately of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld when that segue is used.)

That being said, we have to admit that we do enjoy seeing PBO in action.  WhiteHouse.gov has clips of raw video, and a guilty pleasure is watching the President or First Lady, say, surprise a White House tour group, or pop unexpectedly into a diner in Iowa.  The people go nuts, and POTUS and FLOTUS are so gracious, so charming, it really makes one feel good that they are the First Couple. They seem completely natural, truly comfortable in their skin, yet humble and delighted to be representing the country.  One of our favorites?  The short and sweet clip of PBO inviting baseball great Willie Mays onto Air Force One.

So, yes, PBO does strike some nice, even heartwarming poses, but they don't overshadow the good of his policies.

Film Comment: Silver Linings Playbook...

...wherein Cockatoo settled down in our plush velvet chair and felt a twinge of guilt for being too cowardly to see "Django Unchained". Maybe next week. Nevermind. The film we did see, Silver Lining Playbook, had an off-beat charm, and if the mentally ill ever decide to run a public service campaign toward destigmatization they certainly could not find a more photogenic pair for the posters than Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Both Mr. Cooper and Ms. Lawrence were nominated for Academy Awards and, on the surface, this film about kooky characters and family dynamics seems like Oscar-bait in the extreme. (There's even the de rigeur Public Big Event.) But we think it's richer than that.

Cooper's character Pat is released from a psychiatric hospital, his plea-bargain sentence in lieu of jail for assaulting his wife's boyfriend. He's bi-polar, and in the film this is expressed by a tendency to wake up in the wee hours jabbering to his parents, Robert DeNiro and Jackie Weaver (also nominated). Annoying, yet not so bad, but there's also the problem with flashback-induced edginess. Pat thinks if he can just exercise enough, cleanse his system of the meds, and force himself to be "normal" and attentive enough, he can win back his wife, Nikki.

He's invited to dinner, and his friend's wife's sister Tiffany is there. Recently widowed she sees right through Pat's attempt at normalcy and asks him, "What meds are you on?" She knows all about them, having mental health issues herself. Pat sees her as a possible conduit to his ex-wife and agrees to help her out with a project, a sort of hometown dance competition.

There is something quite lovely yet heartbreaking about watching these two practicing their moves - trying to concentrate, trying to help each other. One needn't have a diagnosed mental illness to have days where one thinks, If I can just hold it together then maybe, maybe it will all work out.

DeNiro of course if marvelous, and made the audience laugh when he went off on somebody with a GoodFellas-style threat. Ms. Lawrence was quite good, especially in two scenes: One, where she lets Cooper have it for thinking she's crazier than he is, and Two, where she fearlessly goes mano-a-mano with the great DeNIro. Perhaps she's too young to be scared of him.

There, we've reviewed the film. (We would just add, parenthetically, how helpful it is for the characters in the film to have families with resources and houses and a kindly, sympathetic police officer on their shoulders. How many poor, unappealing, unlucky [and non-white?] bi-polar people are on Main Street tonight, trying to find a bit of curb on which to stretch our their sleeping bags?)

Recommend.