Activity

June is my favorite month

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While Autumn is my favorite season, June is my favorite month. Even though half of it is lost to the school year, that pivot point in the middle of June is part of its charm. June means the freedom of the summer starting before the tedium of too much unstructured freedom sets in. Winter and spring are spent looking eagerly to June.

The weather gives the promise of solid warm sunny days ahead, but not so many or so hot that bitching about the heat is the first thing people say to each other.

In June, July and August are still ahead and you can think “Two months of awesome freedom ahead! What can I DO in this incipient bounty of self-determined time and leisure?”

The days are longest. People look their best. We collectivly brim with optimism. The world is brightest in June.

Music

Pretty music? Pretty cellist.

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Ended up watching/listening to this whole thing. ‘Twas nice, but for the umpteenth time when viewing/reading/listening to an object kept pondering: “Would I be giving this so much attention if the person were not beautiful?” More than Eros at play — a hope that when someone has both beauty and talent, an aspiration that our species is capable of advancement. A little thrill at yielding to such people/moments obsequiously. Interested in your thoughts.

I love the cello. It’s the classical instrument I’d most like to play.

Pop Culture, Religion

“I believe that in 1978 god changed his mind about black people.”

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When looking at the cosmic membrane that gets pressed in one place, to rise in another, it looks like the Mormon Church bankrolling the shitty, hateful Proposition 8 in California is responsible for the revenge of The Book of Mormon musical triumphing on Broadway.

Studying Mormonism was a hobby back in the early 90s, and The Book of Mormon hits on a LOT of the absurdities of Mormon cosmology. Men get their own planets in heaven, the Mormon President speaks to god, Joseph Smith transcribed the contents from golden plates he never allowed anyone to see. But there’s simply too much idiocy – leading to authentic human misery – for even one musical to cover. The song “I Believe” performed on The Tony Awards packs a bunch of ’em in, though. In the plot Elder Price is one of two missionaries assigned to Uganda for his mission and he has to deal with violent warlords and an AIDS-ridden culture in which many people with AIDS feel if they have sex with a virgin their AIDS will go away.

Among the things left out of the musical? Satan and Jesus as brothers. Joseph Smith was a convicted con man before his “revelation”. Bigamy. Constant divine revelations about purely bureaucratic matters – though the musical does have instances of people making up doctrine and revelations right on the spot.

A single line in “I Believe” touches on the generations of doctrinal racism “I believe that in 1978 god changed his mind about black people.” The whole book is horribly written (yes, I read it once) in the style of a mock King James Bible. Did Jesus come to the Americas? Check. Was a lost tribe of Israel running around the Americas? Sure, why not!

All embarrassments to humanity now. What’s additionally unforgiveable is the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints Bachman-Turner Overdrive is their bankrolling the forces that passed Prop 8 in California. Is there any issue in our country MORE OBVIOUSLY DOOMED TO HATEFUL OBSCURITY than banning homosexuals from full legal rights, including marriage? The arguments are exactly the same as those who stood against mixed-race marriages. Those bigots ALSO cited holy writ (which is always POORLY writ and never, ever holy) to make their case. “Based on my book of made-up nonsensical rules from a barely literate dolt…”

The Book of Mormon musical on Broadway is the artistic community dragging the silly Mormons into the light for ridicule. Long overdue. Hopefully the light will exercise Mormonism from otherwise considerate, compassionate people who will realize they don’t need generations of compounded flimflammery to be nice people. They are already nice people.

Parenting, Pop Culture

X-Men + fatherly pride

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Saw ‘X-Men First Class’ with the family tonight after a dinner of noodles. Movie was fine. James MacAvoy used the phrase “groovy mutation” TWICE in the movie, which is pretty boss. Not a Marvel kid growing up, more DC, but I could recognize most of the characters.

I cannot read your thoughts with mittens on.

But, ugh, two black characters and one of them turns to the bad guys (Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz’ daughter – her celeb pedigree very obvious) and the other dies in service to the other characters. Ugh.

Exiting the theater, we had driven in separate cars. Which kid would ride with whom? I mimicked the movie and said to the kids they could choose the side of cooperation, hope, and peace and follow me, Charles Xavier or their mom, militant and forging a new path like Magneto. Son chose me, daughter my spouse (the usual arrangement) but spouse said that if ANYONE was Magneto, it was me. Family agreed. In the movie lobby, I pulled my shirt over my head so only my face poked out from the neckhole I said: “Stop trying to READ my MIND!” Son came up next to me and did the same. The telepaths thus foiled, they headed to the car on the other side of the mall.

Strolling with my son through the mall, I looked down at his 11 year-old self and saw he was already acquiring an adolescent shuffle and slight slump, hands in pocket, a running stream of verbally summarizing everything. I realized I would not be looking down at him much longer. In the parking lot again, as he was talking about the Wilderness Survival-themed daycamp he was at today, he glanced up at me and I got a glimpse of the teenager to come, but also over that the man he would be someday. I beamed proudly at him. He smiled back and continued with his story. Got in the car, I let him sit in the front seat on the ride home (still a thrill for him).

Okay, January Jones. Betty Draper was a MARVELOUS character the first two seasons of ‘Mad Men’ and she has not had as much to chew on the last two seasons. But, she was a SEXPOT character in ‘X-Men’ with lots of skin and heaving bosom. Is there any actress so beautiful and yet so astonishingly unsexy? Not repellent, but the constant effect of looking at her is: admiration, then feeling I should feel stirred, and yet Eros sits on the floor eating a sandwich. A phenomenon bordering on the medical.

Activity, Reading

Obits in print and online

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After getting breakfast ready for the kiddos I sat down with the morning newspaper and a whole wheat toaster waffle. I slowed down at the obituary section and saw a lengthy entry for S with two photos and an extended tribute to her life and family. Interesting to see the intervening 18 years or so filled by a few paragraphs, but helpful in getting a sense of her complete life as I’ll be attending her memorial on Saturday with long-dormant friends. But an online component was something I’d not engaged with before.

The newspaper obit gave a link to a website, Caringbridge.org, which provides a place for patients and their families to tell their stories.

This morning, the page for S shared about her six-year bout with cancer, its remission, and re-emergence a year ago after it spread to several organs. It described a series of treatments and her courage and photos of her with her three children, husband, and some with her undergoing treatment including a brace on her head for removing a tumor in her brain.

All of the content described her in the present tense, as it was last updated before she died. There was a video consisting mostly of a photo montage of her over the last few years, and ended with a shot within a car driving, trees alongside both sides of the street near her home with orange ribbons on them. “All of this for me?” was the caption. No voice, no faces. Only the line of trees moving by as viewed from behind the windshield.

Tonight that has been scrubbed, with details by her spouse Peter about her death and cremation that happened at 4:00 p.m. today. Also newly posted: info about the funeral Mass for her Saturday, and a party following after the orange ribbons are ceremoniously removed by children associated with S and her family/friends. Not looking forward to the Mass. Organized religion interferes with the very human need to gather and confer and share with its self-serving mumbo jumbo and unprovable delusions that hold our species back. In truth, such moments are deeply meditative for me, as I try to ignore the propitiations the robed figure burbles and instead listen/watch for the genuine humanity that shines through.

In going to the newspaper’s website tonight the obituary section is full of ways for people to express themselves with tributes, signing an online guest book, sharing the obit out, ordering flowers, sending a gift, ordering a copy of a death certificate (weird), and making a donation (though not to the one specified by S and her family – a generic charitable organization lookup).

While the extensive text of the obit and both photos were also online, the effect is really noisy. Yet, it makes sense, with obituaries online, that people would want services and online tools tied into it. With deaths, I’m accustomed to direct interactions and commisseration with others in-person, quiet, perusal of memories, laughter at moments of fond honesty, listening to eulogies or giving them, and not having technology in the hand, lap, or in front of the face. Death and grief and wakes have been strictly real life. Hands, embraces, nods, tears, smiles, laughter, celebration and NOT typing and mouse clicks.

But for people not able/inclined to be at a specific place and time, having something like that online is better than nothing. it would let people contribute or participate preceding or following a service. I wonder how long her family will get notices of people encountering news of her death online weeks, months, years hence.

There have been businesses around that offer a service of managing/deleting your online materials and accounts after death. Again, sensible when pondered from a distance, but inescapably ghoulish.

MAKE NO MISTAKE: Despite the somber tone of these last few entries, life and mind skitter around. All day I’ve had the WiiFit music that accompanies the Basic Step aerobics workout. All day. Kicking again right now.

While sad for extended friends about S who knew her better, I’m not distraught. A dear friend recently got some bad news that is on my mind more. It’s a commonplace to observe as you get older you start turning to the obituaries first. Today was my first step in that territory. Seeing these elements to modern death is slightly interesting, but will also serve as an orientation/scouting trip for when a death occurs that hits closer to home.

Activity

Eager for a gathering on a sad occasion

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This Friday night I’ll be meeting with friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in person in decades. That will be good and am looking forward to it.

Facebook will be a boon in that we have had opportunities to have some slight updates on how our respective lives have been going. We won’t have to start from scratch, and can even have some “What the HECK was going on with that POST?” conversations. They’re all good people. It will be a good time.

The occasion is sad. The death of a mutual friend, S. Some of us hadn’t spoken with her for almost twenty years. Others saw her just a few weeks ago on her birthday. On Saturday, the lot of us will be attending a Catholic memorial service for S. We may be hanging out some more afterward.

Other than the memorial, we will be amusing. We will be somber and reflective. We’ll be assessing our own lives as we get updates and ask questions of each other. My guess is that as our extended circle is now smaller by one person, our remaining connections will grow a bit stronger and deeper. We’ll be the better for it.

Writing

Death is tedious

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A few events in the past week got this going. Photo is of a glass of wine I had tonight.

Death is tedious. It greets you with reminders of each time you met.

Death waits as a body turns against itself, eats an apple while seated on a windowsill choosing whether to nod at its name being called.

Death puts coarse molasses sugar over memory, then sears it brown. You take your teaspoon to crack at the glaze to let the memory breathe and stir it. The shellac cannot be broken.

Death jumps backward to parrot screams, coughs, laughs, a fond sigh, drowsy breaths that were once strong and pressed against you. It is a refrain only for you. You recall the light and who and the touch and are almost there. Almost. But they are the ripples Death has sent forward to you, and they break.

Death then leaves to sit on another windowsill, says that it will meet you again in the past, the future, or a sudden now.

You move forward, the only thing you can do, and see the compressed ripples before you, the laggard ripples in your wake, and wonder which of them Death will borrow and send to another.

Pop Culture

Liking Rufus Wainwright backwards

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I was first aware of Rufus Wainwright in a group photo that ran in Rolling Stone in a gallery of spawn from music stars. Saw his debut album for sale and went “Okay, whatever.” Passed it by. Then in late 1998 this ad came out for the Gap in which Rufus sings “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”:

My reaction? What is up with that minor chord mopey caterwauling? Bleh! Not my thing. Pass!

In 2001 was aware his album Poses got some acclaim. Not tempted to buy it. Minor-key caterwauling. Not my thing. Pass!

Jump to 2007. Heard his song “Going to a Town”, about losing faith in the U.S. as it denies rights for gays saying they are unworthy of love or respect, is lost in superstition to a pretend god, rejects world compassion, awash in arrogance. He resolves to head to a place that has already fallen and taking his inspiration there. Bush politics and the trouncing of the forces of reason made this resonant. I bought the song, and then the album: Release the Stars.

Got engrossed by the creativity, breadth of sounds, daring, cheek, and feeling. I’d also matured to the point where life itself was more minor key, yearning, and ambiguous. I started buying and listening to his albums in reverse order. And getting into his biography. Especially the album Poses with its salutation to a life of indulgence, compulsion, debauchery, staying up too late, adolescence. Rufus was saying goodbye in 2001 to this phase of his life, or wondering if he ever would. After the album he had to deal with a severe meth addiction. A great anthem for those who seek to get lost in destructive habits and find wisdom there and hope to get out, or stay lost: “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”

Cigarettes and chocolate milk
These are just a couple of my cravings
Everything it seems I like’s a little bit stronger
A little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me

If i should buy jellybeans
Have to eat them all in just one sitting
Everything it seems I like’s a little bit sweeter
A little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me

And then there’s those other things
Which for several reasons we won’t mention
Everything about them is a little bit stranger
A little bit harder, a little bit deadly

It isn’t very smart
Tends to make one part so broken-hearted

Sitting here remembering me
Always been a shoe made for the city
Go ahead, accuse me of just singing about places
Where scrappy boys faces
Have general run of the town
Playing with prodigal sons
Takes a lot of sentimental valiums
Can’t expect the world to be a Raggedy Andy
While running on empty
You little old doll with a frown

You got to keep in the game
Maintaining mystique while facing forward

I suggest a reading of ‘A Lesson in Tightropes’
or ‘Surfing Your High Hopes’ or ‘Adios Kansas’

It isn’t very smart
Tends to make one part so broken-hearted

Still there’s not a show on my back
Holes or a friendly intervention
I’m just a little bit heiress, a little bit Irish
A little bit Tower of Pisa whenever I see you
So please be kind if i’m a mess

Cigarettes and chocolate milk

Onward listening to his music swirled, and in August 2009 I went with a longtime friend to see Rufus play a concert in Seattle. Great show. Great company. Spent several hours with my friend catching up on a decade of history and shifting from deep to frivolous then back again through the afternoon/evening. Had fun at the show enduring a dreary, precious opening act. Rufus was very engaging, gave the audience the songs and the banter they wanted. He included songs from upcoming projects including his opera Prima Donna.

November 2009 Rufus announced a new album: All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu. “Lulu” is the name of a dark side diva personna. Many of the songs dealt with his mother’s long battle with cancer, and facing her probable death. Rufus’ mother is Canadian folk singer Kate McGarrigle. His sister is Martha Wainwright, another singer and recording artist.

In January 2010, Rufus’ mother died. In February 2010 the album was released. In August 2010 I went to see Rufus in concert, again in Seattle, again with the longtime friend. I arrived scatter-brained and distracted. My friend was very patient. Martha Wainwright opened. I had her solo album I Know You’re Married, But I Have Feelings Too. The writing was clever, but her voice reedy and tough for me to listen to for more than 1-2 songs at a time. As the opening act? Martha was feral and worked the crowd and the microphone stand and seemed ready to break and to pounce in turns. Very moving presence, and her voice was in great form. Her prowling had me shifting in the seat. I was bowled over. It was fun to discover that next to my friend and gave a sense of now I was lacking earlier. We were buzzing and inspired during the intermission.

When it was time for Rufus to take the stage, there were explicit directions given to the crowd: no applause for the first section of the show. Why? We would soon discover.

Rufus performed the entirety of his album as Lulu, in a long blue dress, tall plumage, and heavily marked up face. He deliberately booked six months of solid concerts after his mother’s death in an effort to get lost in music, delay the grieving. This was his last show of the tour with his sister. Below are the opening two numbers: “Where are You New York?” and “Sad With What I Have”:

The next song is “Martha” about trying to reach his sister with their mother near death and an estranged father. After the series of songs were over, he got up from the piano, exited the stage as the crowd stayed silent until the long blue train of his dress almost slipped out of sight. After a few minutes Rufus entered the stage as himself and gave a performance on piano and guitar, and sang several of his solo songs with his sister along with some favorite songs of their mother. Very affectionate, very engrossing. All throughout I was delighted by the music, taken to deep places and memories and glad to have an attuned friend who was also having an enjoyable time. “Martha” below, to close the loop:

Rufus is now a father with his longtime boyfriend, a ferociously handsome and funny German dude. Rufus plays off the contrast in their dispositions in “Sad With What I Have”. The mother is the daughter of Leonard Cohen. Looking forward to what he does next.

Pop Culture

Yes, I know.

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Two nights ago I made a post about Marky Mark dancing in his underwear 20 years in the past. About an hour later, I sat down and processed out my feelings about the news of someone’s death that day. Life hops around.

Parenting, Poetry, Reading

A gal I once kissed died today.

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We’ve all had moments where the conversation starts: “Hey, do you remember so-and-so?”

Answer: “Oh, sure!” Cue mental memory of last interaction with that person. What the person was like, what you were like. If fond memories (almost always), a sweet haze surrounds the evocation.

“So-and-so is dead.”

Cue giant scythe swooshing down and cleanly slicing the reverie, slicing the moment to something horrible and abruptly sad.

That didn’t happen today. But I got word someone I once kissed died after a protracted fight with cancer. Same age, endured through her birthday last week and then surrendered following a visit from long-time friends and surrounded by family.

When someone we know dies, we become the sole caretakers of those moments. That person can no longer speak up with a smile or a head shake and say “Oh, yeah! I was there with you.” Even minor moments. A stark experience.

In high school, she was wavo/goth. By junior/senior year, pancake makeup, clove cigarettes. Usually second or third banana. Content to be in the background.

I went to college in another city for two years. Moved back into my hometown where she was by then in regular social rotation with a pocket of long-held friends.

The anthropology of dating was never my forté. I was a keen observer, but a lousy participant in picking up/acting on cues. Shy, easily daunted despite tendency toward extroversion and saying severe things very loudly to the acclaim/dismay of those within earshot.

So, in this small social circle she was initially unattached. She had also really blossomed. Dropped weight, got confident about her appearance. Went out into the sun. Got a retail job. A decent car that she painted colorful fish on. Strong sense of humor. Good listener. Fun to be around – good with a supplemental joke to follow someone else’s start. I got interested.

She had no problem dating. One of her boyfriends was a Deadhead guy who was the typical tightly-wound “It’s all good” mellow affectation, VERY PARTICULAR about the type of mellow to be, and who became highly agitated when his sensibilities were challenged. 22 years later, I wonder if he detected my circling around her and reacted to it, or if I was laying topical landmines for him to step on because I was jealous.

Eventually, I had a chance. I invited her to watch a movie with me at my parents’ house out in the country. I had just moved back and transferred to the hometown state university and hadn’t found a place yet. Can’t remember the movie we watched. She was wearing capri pants and I spent much of the movie semi-absent-mindedly stroking her lower leg, which she had rested on my lap.

I drove her back home to her apartment, dropped her off, and we kissed in the doorway. She put her hands in my pants pockets and said: “Oh, what have we here?” “Keys” I answered with a smile. She laughed. No invite in. Never kissed again.

I was still hanging around in group settings, sometimes hanging out in restaurants. I was still interested. I talked the ears off of mutual friends (thank you for your patience). They knew it wouldn’t work even if it DID happen. I kinda knew it, too. But I still liked her. Hadn’t dated for a while other than her. It was a goal.

She finally admitted to others that she wasn’t interested in me, but did like having me around for the attention. Mutual friends told her it was mean to waste my time like that. She reacted with a shrug. *GASP* was my reaction upon this report. Still I continued to hang around. Can’t recall for how long.

A sister of hers was getting married. Among her sisters, she was the only one NOT yet married or engaged. The Catholic wedding was on a Saturday, but she asked me to go as a date. Met a lot of her family, dull as I was, I was clearly a beard or being used to keep the pressure off her a bit. In advice column parlance, in this phase I had the knack of falling into the “friend” track instead of the “boyfriend” track.

During the wedding, someone had taped letters onto the soles of the groom’s shoes so when he kneeled for Communion it said “Send Help”. Really, really funny.

Later that night, I was to carpool with my brother to meet our parents for a weekend at the beach. As I drove with her to the reception, I mentioned looking forward to the beach. She got huffy and said: “Well, if you’re looking forward to the beach so much, you DON’T have to go the reception!” Then the weeks of being kept around, being a prop boyfriend/fiancé, not getting a thank you for sitting through a wedding all fell into place and I felt a bit of a spine forming. “Okay. I’ll drop you off, then.” Did just that. She slammed the door. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends. Drove to one friend’s workplace. We cracked up. Reported later that she was FURIOUS for days afterward, and they reinforced to her that I got fed up of being dragged around.

Eventually I think she moved to Seattle. Then a long while later I heard she got married.

A year ago I heard she had cancer, and that it was severe.

A few days ago mutual friends gave updates on her condition: fatal. She’s a mother and wife.

One of the friends posted a recent photo of her. The trend toward coming out of her shell continued. She looked radiant, proud, even prettier than when I knew her.

I feel for her grieving spouse and children. A horrible loss for them, and an awful burden for her, to know you will die and not get to see your children become adults. This children you love losing a parent. Your spouse burdened by your permanent absence.

My memories of her will remain true to the time. I’m still proud of my little stand, slow-coming though it was, but I’ve no illusions: that moment in no way fully reflects on the people we each were and became.

News and contemplations like this can lead to new resolve to strive for something inward, or for something outward. As it does in the plots of books and movies. Even now, though, through the sympathy and sadness I still sense myself wanting what I want, as before. Am feeling the impermanence of things more than usual. Slightly increases the resolve of “capture the day” when it comes to projects and other ambitions, but that could fluctuate based on what’s on tv or other distractions. And had the last few lines of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” running through my head today:

              We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Goodbye, S. I regret not knowing you better, but am glad to know you became a mother with a supportive spouse and children. I wish them well, and can imagine the depth of their loss knowing an aspect of you (and being drawn to it), though I will never meet them. Life goes on. Until it doesn’t.