OneSaneVoice

In Praise of Freaks

OSV — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:13:00 GMT

I recently wrote a paper for a graduate lit class comparing 19th century literary ideals to the 1932 cult classic film Freaks. If this sounds like a heady topic for a seminar paper, trust me, it beats analyzing the social rhetoric of mid-1800s slave narratives or discussing the scientific hubris inherent in Hawthorne's The Birthmark. I'm not a literature major and these papers don't come easy to me in any form, but getting permission to use a landmark horror movie for a final paper was a gift from the literary heavens.

Freaks was the brainchild of director Tod Browning of Dracula fame, and it represents his first foray into talking pictures. Even today, it stands as a things-that-go-goosebumps-in-the-night story of circus intrigue, class warfare, and the ultimate penalty for just plain crossing the line. In a nutshell, the story involves the sideshow midget Hans, who dumps his midget lady love when he becomes dangerously infatuated with the normal-sized trapeze artist, Cleopatra. She and her lover, the circus strongman, Hercules, conspire to dupe Hans for his inherited fortune and then kill him. This sets in motion a tale of revenge and retribution by the sideshow freaks that ends in the horrific mutilation of Cleo and Hercules, and the return to "normalcy" of the circus culture. Good times.

The backstory is every bit as fascinating as the movie itself. The Freaks cast includes a pair of Siamese twins, a group of microcephalics or Pinheads, a Living Torso, two Armless Wonders, Half Boy Johnny Eck (pictured below), a Human Skeleton, several Bird Women, and three midgets who went on to appear as Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (Hans was one of the Lollipop Guild). In the 1930s, there were limited roles for actors with such extraordinary physical appearance. Might I add that the situation has not changed much in 80 years, although nowadays Johnny Eck, with his resonant voice and leading man looks from the waist up, could easily have occupied the anchorman desk on the evening news. As long as no one yelled "Fire!" and he had to leave the set in a hurry, the viewer would never know.

The urban legends surrounding the movie are legion. MGM had to set up outside tables where the freaks could eat after regular diners in the commissary complained that the sight of them was too disturbing. F. Scott Fitzgerald is rumored to have seen the Siamese twins looking at a menu and he ran from the room and threw up. Supposedly, MGM wanted to borrow Myrna Loy for the role of Cleopatra, but after reading the script she begged her studio not to let her out of her contract. MGM also sent it to Jean Harlow's agent, who basically responded with WTF? So second tier actors wound up playing the leads, but it wouldn't have mattered who the stars were, the film got pulled from circulation shortly after it was released. Apparently the public felt the same way as the people in the commissary. The film only achieved cult status in the counterculture 1960s when it was rediscovered and embraced with fierce acceptance. By then, freak had a whole new meaning.

The most interesting factoid I discovered in writing my paper was regarding the movie's final scene. In the original ending, the mob of knife-wielding freaks castrate the strongman Hercules and mutilate the beautiful Cleo, turning her into the Duck Woman. The film ends with Hercules singing falsetto from an opera written for the castrato, while Cleo quacks pathetically along with him. This is a perfect ending and clearly Tod Browning thought so as well. The punishment for the conspirators' transgression is banishment from the center ring as main attractions and assignment to the sideshow of freaks. They would be together forever in their hideously altered state, a denouement of poetic justice.

But the Hollywood censors of the new Motion Picture Production Code were appalled. They feared such a horrific mutilation of even a grade B male actor would be rejected outright by the audience. So they made Browning change the ending, and now Hercules is stabbed to death. Cleo is still mutilated into a Duck Woman, only now she quacks alone. It's an incomplete ending and one that shows the way Hollywood reflects the male gaze and marginalizes the woman. It was all too much for Browning who never recovered personally or professionally from the ordeal. The film remains a powerhouse, but the original ending has been lost forever. And with it, Browning's brilliant quest for equality.

Click here to watch a scene from Tod Browning's Freaks

Daughter's Featured Fotos travel from NYC to the Southern Caribbean

do it

pinwheel tree

double peace

old san juan

new new york

purplish

return of the hippies

The Opposite of Ransacked

OSV — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:10:29 GMT

I'm going to assume you don't know me and tell you that among people who do know me I'm considered something of an obsessively neurotic housekeeper. I concede that things are rarely disheveled in my home, at least the places that visitors can see, and I won't try and defend myself by saying there are baseboards behind furniture that have not been dusted since the last presidential election. Declarations such as this would sound self-serving in my own defense against insanity so I won't bother. All I'm saying is now you're prepared.

I will also tell you that there is a Target almost within walking distance of my neighborhood, but it's a hateful place. The employees are lazy, the shoppers rude and the displays a mess, so this is why I happened to be forty minutes away at another Target when I got the phone call. I was just loading my precious cargo of Bounty Select-a-Size paper towels, All Free and Clear in the handy forty gallon drum, etc. onto the checkout belt when my cell phone sounded. The voice on the other end was a lady from ADT Home Security telling me my burglar alarm had been activated.

OSV: What does that mean, activated?

ADT: The alarm is sounding in your home.

OSV: (panicking) You mean someone broke a window or pushed in the front door?

ADT: No, not points of entry. The motion detector is indicating movement inside your home.

OSV: (truly idiotic now) What does that mean?

ADT: Would you like me to send the police to your address?

OSV: No, I'm leaving now. Wait. Yes, send the police. I'm not sure what to do, this has never happened before. Yes, send the police and I'll be there in half an hour.

ADT: I'm notifying the police to go to your address and you will meet them there in thirty minutes.

OSV: Well, maybe forty. No, I can make it in thirty if I really step on it. But don't tell them I said that. No, tell them whatever you want. I'm sorry, I have to go.

Which was hilarious in a way because it's not like she called to shoot the shit and I had to apologize for cutting off our little chat. OF COURSE I HAD TO GO. I had to make a forty minute ride in half an hour with the cops waiting at my door holding a radar gun to ticket me for speeding while all my eBay costume jewelry was being dissed inside by professional thieves.

I told the checkout person I had to go because my house alarm had gone off and she and the customers behind me said, "Go! We'll put everything back in your cart and hold it for later," which was a huge difference from the scenario that would have taken place at my local Target where they would have all rolled their eyes and said something like, "Bitch, you think you're better than us having a house alarm? You think you have something worth stealing? Shit." I swear that is one mean store.

I arrived at my house in twenty-seven minutes and I'll deny that if it ever comes up. The two police officers were just pulling out of my street but I waved them to come back. There was no way I was going into my crime-ridden habitat alone.

OSV: Hey, where are you guys going?

COPS: We walked all around the outside of your house and no entries have been disturbed so it's probably a false alarm.

OSV: Well, that may be, but can you come inside with me while I look?

I don't know if I had this image of them crouching room to room with their weapons drawn yelling, "Clear!" but I asked them anyway. They said sure.

I unlocked the door and we all walked in and they threw their hands up at the same time and started laughing. One of them said, "Well, you'd sure be able to tell if something was out of place in here!" and the other one said, "Wow, this is like in a showroom!" and they both walked around respectfully nodding their heads and paying me more compliments on how insanely neat the house was and I was mortified. I wanted to say, hey, maybe you should have my back while I check upstairs, but they were convinced no one was in the house besides the three of us. They were right. On their way out, my cell phone rang and it was the neighbor across the street calling to say he saw the guys from the gutter cleaning service on my roof before the alarm went off.

COP#1: That explains it then. The vibrations set off the inside motion detectors.

COP#2: We could tell this was a false alarm. Nobody robs a house and leaves it looking better than when they broke in.

OSV: I'm sorry you had to make the trip.

COP#1: Are you kidding? You made our day. Most of the time the house we're called to is in such a state we assume it's been ransacked and then the residents say, "No, this is how it always looks." You get the Good Housekeeping Award, ma'am. Have a great day.

I can't even explain it, but after they left I felt the urge to vacuum.

Daughter's Fotos go City To Country with nothing but color

blue on blue

orange mushrooms

patriotism

pony

subway sticker art

the road

First Aid on a Winter Night

OSV — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:25:29 GMT

The following is a dialogue I submitted for my graduate Playwriting class. The script includes stage directions and instructions for the actors such as (BEAT) which means to take a brief pause between lines. As a note to anyone who knows me and anyone who doesn't, it is entirely fictional.

Characters: CHERYL and DENISE are women in their early forties, each with two children. They have been friends for several years after meeting in a yoga class. Both are attractive, although Denise could be mistaken for a former model, while Cheryl is more the girl-next-door type.

Setting: The scene is Denise's well-appointed brownstone in Park Slope, an upscale section of Brooklyn. Large works of modern art adorn the walls courtesy of Denise's part ownership in a Manhattan art gallery. The living room sofa and love seat are a deep burgundy Italian leather. Cheryl, a teacher's aide, lives with her children in nearby Windsor Terrace, a more middle-class neighborhood.

Time: A Saturday evening in winter. Cheryl enters Denise's living room.

CHERYL

(UNRAVELING HER SCARF)
Oh my God, will this frigging cold ever stop? I can't remember a winter like this since I was a kid.

DENISE

(TAKING HER FRIEND’S COAT)
And that would be where again – Minnesota?

CHERYL

Wisconsin. (BEAT) Same difference. All your chickenshit New York winters have got me spoiled. What you guys call cold is shirtsleeve weather back home in Madison.

DENISE

(CHUCKLING)
There's an appealing thought. A city full of cheese-eaters with pasty white arms clomping around in snowshoes. Get me a plane ticket, quick.

CHERYL

(LAUGHING, PLAYFULLY SLAPS HER FRIEND’S ARM)
Stop! It's no more ridiculous than Park Slopers prancing around in Uggs until summer.

DENISE

(GESTURING WITH HANDS IN AIR)
Okay, okay, I give up. (BEAT) Although Uggs CAN be worn in the summer, just not in the pool.
(BOTH WOMEN LAUGH)

CHERYL

Thanks for letting me come over tonight. My house is so silent with the kids at Daniel's. (BEAT) I wonder if Wanda-the-Amazon is there with her Heidi Klum push-up bra.
(CROSSES HER ARMS UNDER CHEST AND SQUEEZES UP)

DENISE

(WAVING HER HAND IN A SWEEPING MOTION)
We won't let her ruin our evening. (BEAT) White or red?

CHERYL

(DISTRACTED)
What?

DENISE

Wine. We have Chardonnay, Merlot and a nice Cabernet.

CHERYL

Oh, right. Which one of those is red and which is white? And which do you have the most of? I may need a trough.

DENISE

Us, run out? Victor buys it by the U-Haul. I have a Merlot open from dinner; want to start with that? It's a red.

CHERYL

(SETTLING HERSELF ON THE SOFA)
Fine. (BEAT) Speaking of Victor, where is he tonight?

DENISE

(POURING WINE INTO TWO GLASSES)
He's at his Model Train Club thing. A bunch of wannabe Choo-Choo-Charlies out to wow each other with their gonzo layouts. I swear if that set-up gets any bigger it'll take over the whole basement.

CHERYL

At least you know where he is. (BEAT) I thought I always knew where Dan was, but that old cliché really is true about the wife being the last to know.

DENISE

(CONSOLING BUT SHARP)
No one knew, honey. He's a dog. They're born and bred dogs.

CHERYL

Not Victor. Right?

DENISE

No; not Victor. (BEAT) He doesn't have the imagination. He only has eyes for one kind of caboose.
(THE WOMEN LAUGH AND KEEP DRINKING)

CHERYL

(SARCASTIC)
No problem there with Dan. Wanda-the-Amazon has enough caboose for THREE trains.

DENISE

You see, there you go. He marries you with your nice body and cheats with the poster girl for Jenny Craig. (SHAKES HEAD) I don't get it.

CHERYL

Our separation is not about my body, Denise. It's not even about sex.
(TAKES GIANT GULP OF WINE.)
(BEAT)
How about you open up a white one next?

(DENISE FETCHES A BOTTLE FROM THE WINE RACK. CHERYL HOLDS UP HER GLASS WAVING IT IN THE AIR.)

DENISE

(GRABS CHERYL'S MOVING GLASS AND STEADIES IT BEFORE POURING)
I know how it is. (LOWERS VOICE TO SOUND MALE) You're too involved with the kids. You don't value my job, just the paycheck. You don't kiss my feet every time I walk in the door.

CHERYL

(SQUEAL OF LAUGHTER)
OMIGOD! It's like you were right there at the marriage counselor! (BEAT) What a load of horseshit.
(PUTS HER HAND TO HER MOUTH AND LOOKS AROUND)
Should I be talking so loud? Where are your kids?

DENISE

Amanda's at a sleepover and Jared's at the Garden watching the Knicks. The Buckleys had an extra ticket and invited him along.

CHERYL

Nancy and Eric Buckley. Now there's a good marriage.

DENISE

Oh, God, Cheryl, you are so naïve.

CHERYL

(LEANING FORWARD)
Why? What do you know?

DENISE

It's not what I know. It's what I don't. (BEAT) No one knows what goes on in a marriage.

CHERYL

(MOODY)
You're telling me. I didn't know what was going on in my own marriage. Sixteen years! Then he turns to me on the couch in the middle of a Clint Eastwood movie and tells me there's someone else.

DENISE

Dickhead.

CHERYL

A fucking Clint Eastwood movie! A comedy even. (BEAT) The one with the monkey.

DENISE

(SHAKING HEAD)
Christ.

CHERYL

(DRAINING WINE GLASS)
The SECOND one. That asshole dumped me during the FUCKING MONKEY SEQUEL.
(BEAT) (HOLDS HEAD)
I think I'm feeling this wine.

DENISE

You think? You're chugging it like Gatorade. You need food in your stomach. I have some mini quiches left over from the art show last night.
(RETRIEVES TRAY FROM TABLE BEHIND SOFA AND POINTS TO SELECTION)
These are goat cheese and basil, the ones in the middle are asparagus, and those over there are portobello mushroom.

CHERYL

(LOOKS AT TRAY STILL HOLDING HEAD IN HANDS)
Don't you have any Doritos?

DENISE

Doritos? You're kidding. Is this Superbowl Sunday or something?

CHERYL

Oh my God, you are such a snob! Doritos are almost a side dish at our house.

DENISE

Let me guess breakfast: Captain Crunch?

CHERYL

(PLAYING INDIGNANT)
I'll have you know the Captain is fortified with eight essential vitamins.

DENISE

Oh, that Captain. Men will tell you anything to get in your mouth.
(BOTH WOMEN LAUGH LOUD)

CHERYL

(PUTS WINE GLASS ON COFFEE TABLE)
You know, once we're separated for a year, the divorce is automatic. Did you know that?

DENISE

Yeah, my cousin Marlene got divorced. It's all no-fault now. Just like a car wreck. It happened, but nobody's to blame.
(BEAT)
How long has it been now?

CHERYL

Six months.

DENISE

Have you given any thought to moving on?

CHERYL

God no! That house is for me and kids. No way I'm moving.

DENISE

No; not moving, sweetie. Moving on.

CHERYL

(STUNNED)
You mean dating?

DENISE

Why not?

CHERYL

How about because men are pond scum? Which box on the Cosmo questionnaire do I check for that?

DENISE

Okay, I get you're not ready to jump back in the pool. But don't you want to know what's out there? For the future?

CHERYL

And what kind of future would that be, Denise? Parents Without Partners dances at the American Legion Hall? I'm 43 years old with two kids in therapy. Oh, yeah, I'll be beating men off with a stick.

DENISE

(ENCOURAGING)
Cheryl, have you looked around lately? It's like everyone is starting over. It's a freaking movement. Sometimes I feel like married people are in the minority. Do you know how many dating sites there are?

CHERYL

No. Do you?

DENISE

As a matter of fact, I do.
(RETRIEVES LAPTOP AND OPENS IT UP IN FRONT OF THEM ON COFFEE TABLE.)
You can go on a religion-based site like JDATE or ChristianMingles, a general site like Match.com, or one that asks you a thousand questions for a personalized profile like eHarmony.

CHERYL

(RAISES EYEBROWS)
Have you been on these sites?

DENISE

(DISMISSIVELY)
No, of course not. But you'd have to be living in a cave not to know about them. (BEAT) Don't you watch TV?
(TYPES ON KEYBOARD WHILE SPEAKING.)
Which one do you want to start with?

CHERYL

None of them. (PAUSES WHILE LOOKING AT SCREEN. POURS MORE WINE.) Well, certainly not the religious ones.

DENISE

Great. Match.com it is.

CHERYL

I don't want anyone emailing me.

DENISE

You do everything on the site. You know, in your profile. We have to set up a profile for you. Pick a screen name. Something catchy.

CHERYL

(CONCENTRATING)
Umm, how about Sweet Mama?

DENISE

(STUDYING HER FRIEND)
Really? Is that the image you want to put out there? Maybe you should re-think the religious sites.

CHERYL

(ADAMANT)
That's the one I like.

DENISE

(TYPES ON KEYBOARD AND SHAKES HEAD)
Unbelievable.

CHERYL

What?

DENISE

It's taken. Pick something else.

CHERYL

(RESTS CHIN ON HAND THINKING. BIG SWIG OF WINE.)
Madison.

DENISE

Cute. For Wisconsin. (PUNCHES KEYS) Taken. Put a number after it, but not your birth year.

CHERYL

Why not?

DENISE

Because it's too obvious and guys want younger. You'll have plenty of time to scare them off with something that matters. (BEAT) What's your lucky number?

CHERYL

My Girl Scout Troop was #423.

DENISE

(LOOKS AT CHERYL)
Girl Scouts? Really? (PUNCHES KEYS) Done! You're Madison423.
(BEAT)
Now we'll create a profile. Let's list your attributes. (SILENCE) Cheryl?

CHERYL

(THINKS THEN SHAKES HEAD)
Forget it.

DENISE

Fine. I'll do it for you. You're smart, pretty, clever, and you love to dance. You're looking for the real thing; that movie kind of love that everyone says isn't possible but you know it is. You've got an adventurous spirit, a centerfold body and you believe in the magic of fate.

CHERYL

(STARES AT DENISE)
I hate dancing.

DENISE

(BUSY TYPING PROFILE)
Huh?

CHERYL

And I think fate sucks.

DENISE

(KEEPS TYPING)
Everyone exaggerates the truth.

CHERYL

You're exaggerating a lie. (BEAT) Whose profile is this anyway? It sounds like yours.
(THE WOMEN EXCHANGE LOOKS. CHERYL PUTS HAND ON DENISE’S ARM)
Are things all right with Victor, Denise?

DENISE

(SITS BACK AGAINST SOFA CUSHION AND SIGHS)
Victor who? He's never here. If he's not with his train buddies he's at the gym or the racquetball court or the golf course. Victor's idea of fun does not include me, Cheryl. If I didn't have the art gallery I'd go crazy.
(BEAT)
I get hit on quite often, you know.

CHERYL

What? Hit on by who?

DENISE

Art dealers. Artists. Customers. You name it.

CHERYL

So is that your idea of fun? Denise, don't do anything stupid. Talk to Victor. See if he'll go to marriage counseling.

DENISE

And where did that get you and Dan? He's with Wanda-the-Amazon and you're shitfaced on your friend's couch.

CHERYL

(FROWNING)
Wow, you're a mean drunk.

DENISE

(REFILLING BOTH GLASSES)
I'm not drunk and I'm not being mean. I'm being honest.

CHERYL

Oh, you want honest? (SITTING UP STRAIGHT) Okay. Here's my profile for your dating site: I'm a great mom who loves going to Little League games and pizza parties. If you're an asshole to my kids, you're history. I believe trust and respect are the most important things in a relationship. And I know what losers look like so make it real.

DENISE

You know who you'll attract with that? Nobody.

CHERYL

Perfect! Then it's the right profile.

DENISE

You are a great mom, Cheryl. You're also a great friend.
(SUBDUED VOICE)
What you aren't is married to someone who makes you feel all dried up.

CHERYL

I'd rather feel dried up than like a failure. I failed myself, my kids, my marriage. . .

DENISE

(ANIMATED)
Let go of that! You have the whole world open to you now. You're free!
(THE WOMEN EXCHANGE A LONG LOOK AS THEY SIT TOGETHER ON THE SOFA.)

CHERYL

(SQUEEZING HER FRIEND’S ARM)
I'm serious. Don't do something you can't undo.

DENISE

(SHRUGGING)
If it doesn't work out I'll just take my profile down.

CHERYL

You'd still be cheating, Denise. Think of your kids. (BEAT) It's no fun being alone.

DENISE

(TURNS HER ATTENTION TO THE LAPTOP AND RESUMES TYPING)
A lot of things are no fun, Cheryl. Alone is just one of them.

(SCENE ENDS AS LIGHTS GO DOWN TO THE SOUND OF CLICKING KEYS)

Back to Daughter's Featured Fotos where anything is Possible

house-pede

whoa

Morticia's Lair, NYC Chocolate Show

Mr. T underground

Leo (courtesy guest photographer S.L.)

The right and wrong of it

OSV — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:54:29 GMT

I took a Celebrity bathrobe from the last cruise we were on. I could make excuses about it, but I won't insult you by pretending it was acceptable behavior. I admit it outright and you may remember I have confessed before about other vacation pilfering (see That's the Word on the Street) so that must add up to some kind of virtue. The thing is, I would never STEAL anything, and that means within my definition of taking something that doesn't belong to me. The Celebrity robe BELONGED to me. I wore it every day for a week in our stateroom and on the balcony, lounging around drinking coffee and watching cruise ship TV, even while reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, my vacation novel of choice. So naturally when it came time to pack our bags, I folded my Celebrity robe and searched for a way to transport it home.

OSV: I'm taking this robe. Do you think it's okay if I do that?

HUSBAND: Are you asking me if I think it's stealing?

OSV: It isn't, right? This is an ALL INCLUSIVE cruise. That's what we paid for. Wouldn't this robe be considered included? I mean we paid a premium to be on this ship.

HUSBAND: We got a great deal. It's one of the cheapest vacations we've taken.

OSV: If you think I should feel guilty, you'll have to work harder than that. Besides, we've totally overtipped the cabin steward. He'll never sell us out.

HUSBAND: If you're afraid of being caught, then you know exactly what you're doing.

We studied each other across the neatly made bed with the ocean waves lapping in the background.

OSV: Well, the thing is, I don't have any room in my suitcase. I bought all those gauzy cotton separates in Puerto Rico. Can you put it in yours?

Here Husband looked at me with a full and exhausted knowledge of what he signed on for when he said "I do."

HUSBAND: Hand it over.

OSV: If you get questioned at Customs I will totally support you and say you packed it under duress.

HUSBAND: If the Customs Agent is married he won't need an explanation.

There was this movie years ago with Lindsay Crouse called House of Games in which she played an uptight therapist who gets conned by Joe Mantegna, and after her initial fury at being a victim discovers the thrill of the con. Up until meeting Mantegna's grifter she always saw a clear definition between right and wrong. But once the gate blew open there was no reining herself in. The movie ends with her stealing an expensive trinket from the purse of a nearby diner in a restaurant, and the look on her face shows the feeling of forbidden pleasure that comes with defying the rules of accepted moral behavior. I don't know why I'm telling you this because it's nothing like my situation. The Crouse character stole from a person and I only take things from corporations. And we all know that despite Governor Mitt Romney's assertion, corporations are not people. But perhaps I'm being too kind to myself.

Let me backtrack and confess I really did identify a little with Lindsay Crouse in the movie. I have always been a very good girl. I've taken care of more sick and dying loved ones in my life than most people, and I can't remember a time when I didn't put my children's welfare before my own. I get up early to squeeze fresh orange juice for my husband and brew Starbucks coffee, and I always tell the cashier when I've been undercharged, unless she's too busy texting. I have very few secrets and none would qualify as scandalous. In fact, I was probably one of the last seniors in my high school class to lose their virginity, waiting as I did until the summer after graduation so there would be no school hall gossip and to make sure it would be a memorable experience with a boy I really liked and respected. My only regret is that there were other people in the tent.

catch me if you can

Daughter's Featured Fotos Recognize Winter when they see it

snow salute

recalling santa

early valentine

guns 'n roses

Get Back On Board

OSV — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:48:47 GMT

Husband and I returned last week from a Celebrity cruise to the Caribbean, and while we were flying home to JFK on JetBlue, Husband glanced over at me with a strange look that wouldn't be explained until the next day. Seems while I was watching Law & Order on the inflight TV, he was viewing the news. So he knew about the Costa Concordia running aground and tipping over with 4,200 people onboard a day before I did. Which explains the evasive smile and shoulder shrug on JetBlue when I asked him what he was watching. What he didn't want to watch was me go berserk in midair over a disaster that he knew I would see us narrowly avoiding by being on a different ship. Such is the intimate knowledge marriage bestows regarding a spouse's neuroses.

True, I tell people I'm not afraid of flying, just of crashing. On the other hand, I've never had the slightest fear of getting on a floating city that will be miles from land for days on end. Far from feeling trapped, I always find it liberating. I've even told others who express uncertainty about cruising that it's as safe as checking into any luxury hotel. Provided that the hotel's captain is not a lying coward willing to sacrifice humanity to save his pitiful ass. America has Bernie Madoff, and now Italy has Francesco Schettino.

In case you've been on an intergalactic cruise and aren't aware of this current event, the Costa Concordia is sinking into the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Giglio even as we speak. More bodies are being found daily by rescue crews risking their lives to find the victims of Captain Schettino's criminal negligence. Schettino made the decision on Friday to sail too close to the coastline in order to make a grand showing of the towering vessel under his command. In so doing, he caused the gigantic liner to be gouged by an underwater rock formation, flooding the ship and requiring an immediate evacuation which he didn't stick around to oversee. Description of the captain's actions almost defy believability, so here is the actual transcript between the Coast Guard and the commander of the Costa Concordia.

The day following the disaster, one New York paper ran a headline above the captain's picture proclaiming, "Chicken of the Sea!" In Italy, people are already sporting T-shirts emblazoned, "Get Back On Board, Dammit!" For the loved ones of the twelve confirmed dead and the 20 still missing, the time for jokes will never come. My heart aches for them and their families. The disgraced Schettino, currently under house arrest, has added insult to injury by saying he never intended to leave the ship; he just fell overboard and landed in a lifeboat. How do you say as if in Italian?

Husband and I took a Costa cruise several years ago and our trip was the subject of a blog entry written shortly afterward entitled Talk Amongst Yourselves. It was a humorous look at being onboard a ship where almost no English was spoken. I said to Husband at the time that if the ship was going down, we'd be the last to find out. On the doomed Concordia, speaking English was only a minor handicap. The main one was putting faith in a captain with no honor.

Daughter's Featured Fotos survey the Surroundings on Land

birds on a wire

gun crossing

electric windows in beacon

wanted: dead

roll down wilma

Memory Alley

OSV — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:36:27 GMT

My 40th high school reunion is coming up now that it's 2012, so go on and figure out what year I graduated. You didn't know there'd be math involved, did you? So far I've attended every reunion my exalted reunion committee has organized, although if truth be told they didn't all happen the exact year they were supposed to. Which is fine because the dates being fungible fits right into the dazed and confused aura of going to high school in the seventies. Maybe our 20th was really our 22nd and maybe one didn't happen at all. I seem to recall attending three reunions and each time I walked into wherever they were held the memorial table with pictures of classmates no longer with us was a little longer. I'm preparing myself for this next display to stretch out like a bowling alley. There's nothing sadder than seeing the Homecoming Queen's face look out at you from behind a piece of glass propped up on a tablecloth labeled In Memoriam. Except, of course, being the Homecoming Queen.

Reunions these days are usually organized on Facebook or Classmates, which I believe was recently renamed Memory Lane. Maybe not even recently since I haven't visited their page in like a year. They wore me out with their incessant Guess Who Wants to Get In Touch With You, OSV? emails and finally one bad day I said out loud I Don't Give A Shit and canceled my membership and hoarded that $5 a month fee somewhere I'll never find it. What Groucho once said turns out to be true: I don't want to belong to any group that would have me for a member. What is even more true is that nothing is ever canceled online. Yesterday I went onto the site for the first time in a dozen months and was greeted with WELCOME BACK, OSV! Mind you, I didn't enter a password or login name or anything. It was genuinely creepy.

The reason I went on was to check if the 40th reunion was still scheduled for September of 2012. I RSVP'd back in 2010 with a decisive Yes and the hopeful comment How nice if this really happens. I meant it optimistically, but I discovered my words might also be taken as sarcasm, as evidenced by another person's comment. In the many months that transpired between my visits, quite a few classmates responded. I read down the list of names and recalled snippets of information regarding each of my former fellow students. Things like how this one was such a good artist, and that one an amazing athlete, and this one was an asshole, and that one I had no recollection of whatsoever. Several left comments about wanting to see everyone again and so forth. One or two gave regrets with way more information about why they couldn't attend than anyone could ever be interested in. Then I got to the name of the guy who's organizing the reunion and he left this comment a few days after I left mine back in 2010: Those individuals who display negative attitudes to this event in public shall be penalized by the planning group. So while you shall remain nameless but have the initials of One Sane Voice, beware.

WHAT?! I couldn't believe I'd been called out over a year ago with my full name in front of the whole class and was oblivious all this time. Which come to think of it is also about right for attending high school in the seventies. Going through the thousand emotions high school memories wreak, I sat in my reclining desk chair and stared at the computer screen. I felt like I was wearing that puffy white gymsuit with the elastic leg bands that cut off your entire blood supply below the thighs. How mortifying. And now I only have nine months to plan my revenge.

Daughter's Featured Fotos are all over the map and double the usual dose

picturesque pennsylvania

raw bacon on a subway bench

all together now

west side sunset

window sill at the farm

central park

bowery wall

we built this city on rock and pole

Santas, Slow-cookers and Sears

OSV — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:03:41 GMT

Cooking and I have never been passionate lovers, so when two friends told me at dinner last week that they love their crock pots, I decided it was time to try and spark a romance. I went online and compared the various brands and models and discovered you could spend from $25 to $125 and there were equal pros and cons for all of them. The interesting thing was that the exact same model could elicit a "Best appliance I ever bought!" from one reviewer and "Fire Hazard!" from another. Then I noticed an online special from Sears for a Hamilton Beach 4-quart cooker for $9.99. It got decent reviews and if I picked it up at my local store there was no shipping. I figured for $10 I could test the crock pot waters for myself and decide after a few meals if it was worth further investment in a more advanced model. I prepaid it and got the email confirmation from Sears to come on over.

Here's what you do to retrieve something from Merchandise Pick-up at Sears. You go to an area attached to the main store and scan the bar code from your email receipt. On a monitor above the waiting area you see your name appear next to the item being picked up along with the estimated time before you'll have it in your hands. There were two other women there when I arrived and we all had 5 minutes next to our name. One had been there half an hour and the other an hour. I figured that it was ten days before Christmas so things might not be running at top efficiency. I would come to find out it was just another day in paradise at Sears.

One woman had returned a giant box containing an elliptical machine that was defective. She was exchanging it for a new one that was supposedly waiting for her courtesy of an hour-long conversation she had with the Returns Dept. that morning. The other woman was picking up two pairs of men's Levis that were reserved for her by another Sears that didn't have the size she wanted. I was there for my ten dollar crock pot. The more time that passed, the more I came to see us as those famous biblical characters The Three Wise Women with only a bar code to guide us.

The young male warehouse clerk came out and asked the Elliptical Woman for her credit card so he could make the exchange. She told him the machine was paid for; it was just an exchange. He showed her paperwork to show the amount had been credited to her card. She showed him paperwork to show the credit was because Sears had charged her card twice.

CLERK: It says here you owe us because we refunded it.

ELLIPTICAL WOMAN: You refunded your own error. I paid for the machine. I actually paid for it twice. I'll be damned if I'll pay for it three times. Please get me the manager.

The clerk turned to the Levis Woman and gave her the jeans, which she inspected carefully, no doubt because she'd been to Sears before.

LEVI WOMAN: Perfect! My son will be thrilled. But the security tags are still on them.

CLERK: Oh. We can't remove them here so I'll have to take them into the store. Be right back.

No one believed him.

The manager appeared and stood in front of the Elliptical Woman looking almost at her but not quite, perhaps due to grogginess or vision problems. He repeated the same story about needing to charge her credit card before she could get the new machine. Words were exchanged and he retreated back into the bowels of the warehouse to do more research and possibly catch a nap. The clerk reappeared with the Levis and presented them proudly to the woman waiting for them.

LEVI WOMAN: These are the wrong size. They're not the ones you left here with. Bring me the ones that were just here.

CLERK: These are them.

LEVI WOMAN: No. These are the right jeans but the wrong size. The ones you gave me with the security tags on them were the right size.

CLERK: But you saw me leave here with the jeans in my hands.

LEVI WOMAN: Then whose hands did you bring them back in? Go get me my jeans. Please.

Before he left, the Elliptical Woman caught his arm and begged him to get her someone to speak with who wasn't the manager. He went into the warehouse and then left again with the Levis.

Several moments passed during which I further bonded with my fellow captives. They were lovely women on the brink of desperation. The warehouse doors swung open and the manager walked over to the Elliptical Woman.

MANAGER: (moving his head around to get her in focus) How can I help you?

ELLIPTICAL WOMAN: WE JUST SPOKE! Don't I look familiar to you? Am I wearing a different face? Go get me someone I haven't seen!

He disappeared and the Elliptical Woman watched him go through the glass part of the warehouse doors. She raised her hand excitedly and pointed in my direction.

ELLIPTICAL WOMAN: Someone's coming with your slow-cooker!

The three of us clustered around the badly damaged Hamilton Beach carton. The Levi Woman advised me to open it before I left. She inspected the glass lid and the ceramic pot and pronounced them damage free. The Elliptical Woman insisted I remove the metal base. I told her it wasn't breakable. She looked at me wearily and said, "Make sure it has a fucking cord." It did. A plug, too. We rejoiced. My new friends held the box still while I replaced the cooker and closed the carton. I felt bad leaving them there. I wanted to ask if there were any messages I could give their loved ones on the outside. We wished each other a joyous holiday and delicious slow-cooked meals.

I wish you all the same.

Daughter's Featured Fotos take us to SantaCon NYC 2011

Santa6Train

Santa-packed

Santas lost on the bus

Santa-Con-Edison

SEASON'S GREETINGS TO ONE AND ALL

Ticket to Ride

OSV — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:29:38 GMT

A long time ago, five years today in fact, I sat down to write some thoughts and they turned into a half decade of blogging. This entry marks the 417th post to appear in this space and a cumulative total of over 266,000 words. Thank God for punctuation because that would be one mother of a run on sentence. My articles have been graced with more than 1600 amazing pictures taken by Daughter, a gifted photographer and professional educator. A stunning array can also be credited to Cousin, a world traveler and ace shutterfly. During the years that we have been meeting on this page, Son graduated college and Daughter got her masters. I went to school for court reporting and then graduated somewhere else with a bachelors degree in writing. Along the way, Husband taught me how to balance on the back of his motorcycle so I wouldn't tip over and make a mess in the road. The learning goes on. At the moment I am in graduate school working toward my MFA in Creative Writing. Before all that, I was a newspaper reporter and columnist. Needless to say, I'm only a kid at heart.

I have mixed feelings about this, but this post will be my last for the time being. I need to concentrate on my degree and the substantial collection of written work that will comprise my MFA Project and which I have yet to write. This page will stay up right where you find it, though, since I prepaid a multiple year package, wise shopper that I am. Besides, this spot has become like a home to me and you don't sell your townhouse just because you want a month in the country. I cannot predict when new entries will appear, but please don't forget about me. A post might pop up from time to time on no particular schedule. If you are a subscriber, you will receive your usual notice of publication by email, and if you aren't, perhaps you wouldn't mind checking back every now and again. If it's these same words you see, there might be a post in the archive that you missed the first time, or some photos of Daughter's you'd like to revisit. The site is easy to explore, and if you hang around while we're away it would thrill us both.

Thank you so very much for reading. Without you, I'm just putting words on a page. The best part of writing for me is knowing I'm being read. Writers always like to say they write for themselves, and while that's true, it also may be bullshit. Of course we write for ourselves. Sometimes we're our only readers. Writers write because it's what we need to do, but the most satisfied writers are those who connect with others through their written words. Writers also like to say they love writing. That might be another whiff of meadow burger. I think the sentiment that hits closer to the bone is what Dorothy Parker once said: "I hate writing, I love having written."

See you later.

Daughter's Fotos are from her Pennsylvania visit to Boyfriend's Family Farm

the waterfall

the peacocks

the butcher shed

the heart within

the mushrooms

the city girl

Horoscope for Taurus: Potential problems are deflected when you are protected by intelligence

OSV — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:55:20 GMT

FINALLY the astrology lady shows Taurus some love. For quite some time, it has been the practice at our house for me to read the daily horoscopes to Husband at breakfast and point out how underappreciated our shared birth sign is. The newspaper astrologist routinely showers us with cracks like, "Today people will give you credit for more talent than you have." Husband pretends not to care (or sometimes even notice I'm reading to him) but I know how deep the Bull pride can go since I have horns of my own. Then a few mornings ago, we May babies awoke to find our cleverness acknowledged with the above-mentioned accolade and I knew the rest of the day would prove it out.

Right away something popped up on eBay to show me I was on the right track in my thinking. I did a search for Vintage Women's Watches because I like vintage watches and I needed something to warm up with before I searched the online college library for journals to use for my lit paper, and I came across the following description: "Vintage Bulova circa 1950, a beauty, pristine crystal, original bezel, missing one hand. Not sure if that's how it was made." Well, here's the thing: I WAS SURE! It was made with two hands! All the clean crystals and original bezels in the world aren't going to get that puppy to tell you the time without that other hand. So right away I had a potential problem deflected by my intelligence. I logged onto the school library feeling very protected by my superior brain power.

I scrolled the online database for texts that might inspire me in the direction of focusing my very broad paper theme toward something more specific. I did a Boolean search for toni morrison AND murder AND suicide since when it comes to Toni Morrison, you damn well better expect murder and suicide to be showing up before chapter one is over, and sure enough, JSTOR spit out a dozen pages of hits. I downloaded a slew to peruse later and then jumped in the car to keep an appointment with my fitness trainer, Faith, the individual entrusted with keeping me from being a humpbacked hag crackling with osteoporitic bones in my golden years. Five miles on the parkway brought me to a complete standstill with the digital traffic sign overhead blinking: EXP*CT D*LAYS EX*TS 18 TO 25 and even with all the missing letters and hidden cryptic meaning I KNEW I WAS SCREWED.

I glanced down at my vintage watch and noticed it was running fast, but that still didn't tempt me to bid on the one-hand-wonder in otherwise pristine condition on eBay. I reached into my purse to call Faith and let her know I would be late only to realize I left my phone by the computer. Potential problems were now coming at me faster than my intelligence could deflect them. I looked over to my right and saw that if I moved quickly I could exit the parkway, so I borrowed from the Gemini advice that promised "Lightning fast reflexes lift you up and lighten your load" and found myself on an unfamiliar stretch of road miles from my trainer's town. Fortunately, the GPS was stowed under the passenger seat, and even though Husband is baffled by how someone as bright as I am still doesn't know their way around an area they've lived in for twenty years, I had Virgo whispering in my ear, "You know that those who make decisions based on fear are sure to fail" and believe me when I tell you that being lost scares the crap out of me almost as much as being late aggravates me.

The problem with using a GPS is that it keeps trying to get you back on the highway you just got off of because it's the only way it wants to take you, possibly due to control issues of its own. To direct the device to avoid major highways, I had to go into its settings and that meant pulling off the road to stop the car. Squeezed onto the shoulder with the other cars whizzing by, I persuaded my Garmin 350 to guide me to Faith's on a roundabout route just short of Canada and I arrived fifteen minutes late with Faith watching at the window looking worried. "What happened?" she called out. "You're never late." I opened my mouth to begin my litany of excuses, but then Libra tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Acknowledge your faults and listen with your heart because what you hear as criticism may be genuine concern." That annoying Libra is always such a smarty pants.

Daughter's Fotos travel to us from Boyfriend's Family Farm in PA

the barn

the berries

the king

the fungi

the dog

Old News, New News

OSV — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 04:03:48 GMT

Several stories I followed in the past have come around again for another layer of spectacle, opinion, justice, or resolution regardless of justice. One is the Amanda Knox case, which I wrote about in An American in Perugia in 2009, two years after the American exchange student from Seattle was imprisoned in Italy for murdering her roommate. This story hit extra close to home since Daughter had studied in Perugia only five years before Ms. Knox, and we spent the most wonderful week visiting her in the exquisite medieval mountaintop village that hosted her. After following the original trial in which Amanda and her Italian boyfriend were railroaded by a frenzied Italian media and corrupt judicial system, I was delighted to hear that her appeal would be ruled on this month. Having been sentenced on tainted and manufactured evidence to 26 years for the murder, Amanda will soon find out if she's to be set free or re-sentenced to life in prison. That's the crap shoot on the table. Either freedom or something much worse than what she already has. Lifeboat or anchor.

Another case in the news reignites the 2009 circus that was The Death of Michael Jackson, an event I first wrote about here in The Full Marilyn. Testimony is now being heard for the jury to determine if the pop idol's personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, should be held responsible for the drug-related death of the superstar. New "never before heard!" recordings of an incoherent Jackson babbling in a frightening manner weeks before his death have been released to flood across the media and social network sites like a punctured artery. The charge the doctor faces is involuntary manslaughter and it carries a sentence of four years. According to news sources both here and in the UK, it will come down to whether the jury believes that Murray negligently administered a lethal dose and then failed to apprise paramedics trying to save the star, or that Jackson took other sedatives without Murray's knowledge, thus rendering the combination of drugs a "perfect storm." When you consider what's going on in Italy at the Knox trial, it's hard to ignore the fact that convicted or acquitted, Dr. Conrad Murray should feel downright joyous to be an American.

The fresh story is that a New York inventor has patented a device that he promises will bring snowman building out of the ice age. You probably didn't realize that making a snowman the old fashioned way was, well, old fashioned. This new invention, approved for a patent only weeks ago, is a plastic sphere that holds an electric charge that enables snow to cling to the surface. The result is a hollow, symmetrical snowman light enough to be maneuvered anywhere on your lawn. A snowman even a child can lift. Possibly even throw, if a new terror alert needs to be added to the list. Somewhere in the world of inventions, someone must have already built that better mousetrap we're always hearing about so the attention of brilliant minds sought focus elsewhere. Calling his creation the coolest thing no one ever thought to make before, the inventor is searching for a manufacturer to handle the orders he feels are bound to roll in. Perfect storms, perfect justice, now perfect snowmen. Type A personalities rejoice.

Daughter's Featured Fotos plumb the Depths of Irony

the age of no

food for thought

can i be the cantaloupe?

america humbled

One under par from the roof

OSV — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:08:55 GMT

Yesterday I was out of the house all day on various errands, which included a workout appointment and an extended research session at the local library to gather sources for an upcoming grad school paper. When I got back it was mid-afternoon and I ran upstairs to get out of my workout clothes. As I stripped off my top to the spandex exercise tank underneath, I glanced out the window to a swarm of insects. Oh no, I thought in despair, the hornets-flies-wasps-winged ants, whatever, are back, since we've waged battles in the past with all of them. Getting closer to the window I looked down onto the roof overhang and saw the attraction: a dead bird. He was on his back with his feet straight up, and if there was still any doubt in my mind that tweetie wasn't just a sound sleeper, there were insects all over him. I can't be certain of course that it was a him, even with his legs up like that, so I'm just using the first gender identifier that comes to mind and no deeper meaning should be ascribed.

Our upstairs is an addition to the house that was added back in the seventies way before we bought it, so if you look out the window of our dressing room, you see the pitched roof of the original ranch. If you looked yesterday, you'd see a dead bird that would be lying there indefinitely as a food supply for all manner of vermin unless it was removed. I pulled up the screen to survey how far away the bird was and the insects all made a beeline for the inside of our house, so I flailed them away and shut the screen. Hmmm, this would require a plan. A plan and a stick.

I looked around the room and spied a spring-loaded curtain rod behind the door that looked plenty long, so I opened the screen again and leaned out the window with the rod in my hand. It was too short. The bugs came at me again and down went the screen. I went downstairs and toured the house in search of a long instrument to move the bird, and found Husband's vintage yardstick. As I prepared to open the screen again, I looked closely at the ruler and realized Husband might not appreciate feathers and bird guts on the end of it, so I put it back in his office and headed for the basement.

There was a Darth Vader Lightsaber on top of some boxes and I waved it around to check its suitability. It made me feel strong and invincible, especially in my royal blue spandex tank top, but it didn't seem longer than the yardstick so I put it back where I found it. I made my way into the furnace room and saw a free-standing box next to the water heater filled with a bunch of Son's old hockey sticks. Perfect. I could totally score with one of these. I picked out the longest one and wrapped my hands around the black tape that wound down the shaft all the way to the blade. Satisfied, I jogged back up the two flights.

It was a quarter to three as I lifted the upstairs screen for the last time and leaned halfway out onto the roof with the hockey stick in my hand. The elementary school had just been dismissed and bunches of kids and their parents were piling into the cars that lined the street in front of our house. I balanced my weight and took a swing at the bird, missing him entirely, but scraping the hockey blade on the roof shingles loud enough to draw attention from the people below. The insects were flying into my face and I realized I was committed now to finishing the job, so I leaned further out and swung the stick again sending the bird sailing across the roof and into the storm gutter. "SHIT!" I yelled, frustrated that after all my effort I would have to call the gutter service to come get tweetie out before the next rain or everything would back up.

Then I noticed my audience. About twenty parents and children were anchored to the ground by their cars watching a woman in a neon spandex tank top swing a hockey stick out an upstairs window and yell obscenities. Obviously no one could see the bird. Not knowing what else to do, I pulled one of my hands off the stick and waved. "Hi!" I called out. They scurried into their cars, some of the smaller children with their mouths gaping open in confusion and wonder. Hey, I may not be She-Ra: Princess of Power, but I do what I can.

Back to Daughter's Featured Fotos which Never Disappoint

round

Keely

creeping

That's the Way God Wants It

OSV — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:51:13 GMT

Having grown up in a TV-loving family, it's hard for me to work in total silence when I'm at home. Even while Husband and I were on vacation recently I usually had the television on in the background while I was reading or on the computer in our hotel room. During this vacation it was invariably The Weather Channel, something I've never even watched before, but because we were in the southwest while our house was being assaulted by Tropical Storm Irene back east, I needed to obsessively monitor the atmospheric conditions from a distance. Husband would walk into the room and moan, "The Weather Channel again? Why can't you give it a rest? It's eighty-five degrees and sunny here. Turn off the TV and look out the window already." He was absolutely right, of course, but it was like my spirit was possessed by Al Roker. I couldn't help myself. When we left Arizona and checked into our hotel in New Mexico, the first thing I did was grab the TV remote to see if they got The Weather Channel. Husband just shook his head and threw up his hands. In my defense, I did do my best to be fun in other ways and you can go ahead and use your imagination about that.

One nice thing about The Weather Channel is that there are limited commercial interruptions. It's like they know to cut to the chase, no pun intended here for the storm chasers, those testosterone-addled lunatics too crazy for any wind to blow away. I have to say I didn't miss the never-ending parade of insipid televised ads for things like Christian Singles dating. All the we'll-find-you-your-soulmate-online commercials are much more annoying than actually being on the sites, which, if I recall, can be quite entertaining unless you believe every guy who tells you he's been mistaken for George Clooney. Uh-huh. Maybe Marvin Clooney, the parolee cousin the family won't talk about. He's on EVERY dating site.

The difference between the Christian Singles commercials and the others, like JDate, Match dot com, and e-Harmony, is that the TV ads for Christian Singles act like they were written by someone very close to God who's been appointed spokesperson for The Almighty. Like dating is this religious experience instead of the horror show it is. The TV spots urge single Christian viewers not to wait for God to lead them to their special someone. The voice-over reassures with calm authority that sometimes God is telling you it's time to do it yourself. And what, I wonder, does this heavenly sign look like? Your last blind date showing up in socks and sandals? The tattooed remnants of an ex-lover's name? Across the neck? Is all this saying you could do no worse online? Can I hear an amen?

I know many couples who have met on dating websites, and a few even got married. It's interesting that people are still skittish about saying that's how they met, as if it makes any difference what road leads you to happiness. I guess if you're really concerned that others might judge you for meeting your soulmate online you can always say something more traditional, like you met in a karaoke bar and you got so hammered you puked on his shoes and he had to put you in a cab head first. I'm sure Mom would much rather hear that.

Today's Fotos are from our Southwest Vacation where the weather was great, or so I'm told

eagle dance

Gallup war memorial

hot pursuit

donkey lost

take it easy

Disaster Prone

OSV — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 00:17:45 GMT

It all started a couple of weeks ago as I sat in my home office working at my desk. Something moved. I thought it was me, then I thought it was just my stomach that went whoops and skidded sideways. Then I realized it was my rolling desk chair. Then the phone rang and it was Husband calling from his evacuated building to see if I was okay. I said, you know, I'm feeling a little dizzy. I hope I'm not coming down with something. He said you're coming down with an earthquake and I said WHAT? If you're reading this from California or Japan you're thinking what a weenie, she doesn't know what an earthquake is. And you'd be right. Here in New York we don't know from earthquakes and the one we all felt that day was technically an aftershock. But now we know what it feels like and as The Who famously predicated, we don't get fooled again.

Husband and I left for a two-week vacation to the Southwest before hints of Hurricane Irene were in the air and flooding the Weather Channel. Husband would eventually tell fellow travelers in New Mexico that we were from New York and just evacuated further west than advised. The same day we flew out to Arizona, Son and Girlfriend departed for a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic. They were due home the Sunday Irene hit NYC. Daughter was in rural Pennsylvania at Boyfriend's parents' farmhouse and due back the same day. Watching the Weather Channel in our Flagstaff hotel room, I realized both my kids would be stranded wherever they were. I emailed Son and he said JetBlue had already canceled his return flight.

I called Daughter's cell and asked if she was back in New York early because of Irene and she said, "Who's Irene?" I said don't kid, this is a serious storm and she asked why I thought that and I said it's all over the TV and she said the farmhouse doesn't have TV. Boyfriend's parents apparently enjoy a more natural lifestyle than we do and probably even eat fresh food. I said Bloomberg is shutting down the airports and subways Saturday at noon and Daughter said now you're just talking crazy. The subways NEVER shut down. I said FIND A TELEVISION.

I emailed Son from Gallup, New Mexico and he said JetBlue got them on a plane leaving the Dominican Republic the following Saturday, that's the best they could do, and it's a good thing Son speaks Spanish so he could negotiate a good rate at the resort where they were extendedly staying. Daughter's boyfriend drove her to NYC the week following Irene and it took them five extra hours because New Jersey was such a hot mess. I emailed Son from Santa Fe a few days later to tell him to keep an eye on Hurricane Katia which was then making its way toward the DR. He said he and Girlfriend better be getting on that plane or JetBlue would have to deal with Hurricane Son.

The next morning in Taos I got an email from a friend in our neighborhood saying her basement got flooded from Irene so I started feeling anxious because we'd be gone another week and who knows what we'd find when we got back? I emailed Son to please go over and do a walk through when he got home since we live in the same town. The day he called from our living room to give his report, Husband and I were sitting in a rug auction at the Navajo Totah Festival in Farmington, New Mexico. The rug I was waiting to bid on hadn't come up yet among the 200 rugs being sold. The Totah rug auction is a yearly event held in the town's Civic Center auditorium with the bidders sitting in the mezzanine and the Native American weavers in the balcony. It's like nowhere you've ever been. This year there were three older, white-haired women who looked like Iowa church ladies and they were bidding up a storm. They spent over $20,000 on rugs with one going for $7,500 alone. The weavers in the balcony kept giving them standing ovations. It was crazy. My bidding limit for the very small one I was waiting for was $200 and I was hoping none of the three rich old ladies wanted to buy it for a placemat.

Just as my rug hit the podium my cell phone rang.

SON: The first floor looks perfect and so does the basement.

OSV: Great. How about upstairs? (holding up bidding card) One fifty!

SON: One fifty what?

OSV: Not you, the rug. I'm bidding on a rug. (waving card again) One seventy!

SON: Okay, upstairs looks great.

OSV: Great!

WOMAN NEXT TO ME: Yes, it is a great little rug.

OSV: No, my upstairs. It's not wet.

WOMAN: (nodding with a strange smile) How nice for you.

I looked behind me to make sure none of the Money Sisters were bidding. Their cards were down. My treasure was too minor for them.

AUCTIONEER: Sold to number 25!

SON: I'm taking off now, everything's fine here. Did you get the rug?

OSV: Got it.

SON: Good going, Mom. Relaxing vacation, huh?

Daughter's Featured Fotos contemplate Stability

dragonfly

look inside

flying

check your balance

Every Picture Tells

OSV — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:42:06 GMT

Husband looked around our house the other day and made the same comment he's been making almost since we got married ten years ago: there's too much stuff in here. Of course, after a decade of living together a nice chunk of the stuff is also his, but never mind that, he happens to be correct. It also happens that I received a magazine in the mail that day with a whole section on how to decorate your house with taste and minimality, sort of a feng shui guide to shit removal. I glanced around at our open space living/dining/den/kitchen area and realized with chagrin that our decor broke about five rules on the first page alone.

Interestingly, Husband and I both have passions for collecting; his is Southwestern artifacts and mine is Depression Glass. Somewhere along the way, his stuff became a collection and mine became tchotchkes. I agree that collecting glassware that was once given away for free in boxes of laundry detergent might seem offbeat, but in my own defense, we do use many pieces of my collection in our everyday life. Others should not be touched under penalty of starched boxers. That said, the real issue is the photographs. I am a freak for artistically framed pictures of the people I love. These individuals include the group you might already suspect: those I gave birth to, those who gave life to me, those who gave life to them, and the lovely man I married who gets to look at all of them in multiple variations. When you add his loved ones pre-me, you have quite a museum tour. The magazine article advised to "display family photographs sparingly" in the living room, and reserve them for places like bedrooms, family rooms and hallways. Well, here I have to admit that EVERY SINGLE room in our house displays family photographs. Unsparingly.

What to do? The magazine suggested removing all photos and then display only the favorites in clever odd-numbered groupings in unexpected places. With a hollow pain in my chest, I swept away all the vintage framed images of my dearly departed elders, the kids' graduation photos (high school, college, graduate school, 6th grade, you get the picture), and our wedding, cruise and vacation shots and laid them all side-by-side and end-to-end on Son's old twin bed. Looking down at the vast array of candids and posed portraits made me feel like I was viewing my whole history in a panoramic slide show. I must have stood there for a half hour in Son's silent bedroom conjuring up memories from each frame of frozen life.

Then I chose my favorites: winsome Daughter in front of our house on her way to junior prom; a birds-eye view of Son in his basketball warm-up suit and game face; Husband kissing me suddenly as the cruise photographer said Smile; Husband with his stepsons when they were (all) young; my parents; his parents; our wedding picture. An odd assortment in the recommended odd number. All perfect and now perfectly displayed on the bay window ledge, piano, and middle bookcase shelf. Seven photographs that hint at the boundless memories our house and our lives hold. Husband and the magazine were right. Less can be more just as much as more can never be enough.

Daughter's Featured Fotos always show what Needs To Be Said

amen

pothole

sad

LOST!

The Price of Miracles

OSV — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:50:26 GMT

This morning while I ate my bowl of 80 calorie Fiber One, I watched a story on the Today show about an 11-year-old kid at a charity hockey game out in Minnesota. Seems his name was drawn in a halftime fundraising raffle and he went out there and hit an 89-foot shot that sent a 3" puck into a 3-1/2" hole. Needless to say, the crowd went wild. I went wild just watching it. I imagined Son at age eleven streaming up and down the ice during his hockey games and how it must have felt for this kid to hit a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Then came the story. Seems the kid who took the shot was the twin brother of the boy whose name was called. As the father related it, the son whose name was chosen had stepped outside for a moment, so the dad told his twin brother to take the shot instead, thinking what the hell, what are the chances the puck goes in? A million to one? And yet, there he was. The roar of the crowd. The huge smile. $50,000 ready to be awarded. No one would have ever known otherwise.

Except that the next day the boys' father called the event organizer and explained what happened, saying, "We thought honesty was the best policy, and we wanted to set a good example for our kids." The mom, however, wondered where it was written on the raffle ticket that the person whose name is on it has to be the one who takes the shot. Clearly there's some wiggle room here as to what comprises a good example when college funds are at stake. I asked a sports fan I know what he thought about the situation and he said, "Oh hell, give the kid the money; he made a miracle shot." I asked the fan if he'd feel the same way if it was him who organized the event, and he answered quickly "Absolutely not." So I guess it depends on which side of the $50,000 you're standing. Proving once again that it's all fun and games until someone gets pucked in the eye. According to the news report, no final decision has been released yet so we'll see how it all turns out. I'm rooting for the twins. In the end I guess it's not MY money.

A commercial came on after the story and it got me to wondering, when did death become a side effect? Those television ads for the new miracle drugs that will save us from high cholesterol clogging our arteries and psoriasis caking our skin all come with a disclaimer that they could cause tremors or diarrhea or death. Seriously? Isn't that kind of an unacceptable leap from diarrhea to death? I mean one of those things will pass. The drug companies slip death in like it's on a par with dizziness. I don't think so. Maybe the word 'death' has been so overused that it's lost its meaning. Perhaps it would get the public's attention more if the commercials said, "May cause sleeplessness, irritability, skin rash, and the feeling that comes with hitting a brick wall at eighty miles an hour in a Beetle." Now we know what they're talking about. I personally would rather the feeling of cholesterol the consistency of motor oil coursing through my veins than that last one.

I gave Son a ride to the airport the other night, and I told him I had dinner recently with a friend whose son was in Alaska in the same area as the teens who were just attacked by bears. I said my friend was a nervous wreck over it. Son said he doesn't blame her; he's terrified of bears. I asked him if he's ever had an encounter with one and he said no; he doesn't have to to know it would be scary. I told him we live in a low bear area and if he ever thinks it's becoming a phobia he can always talk to a professional about it. He looked over at me and said, "Why would I want to reverse that fear? It's a healthy one. What's to be gained by thinking a bear could be my friend? Where would that get me?" Diarrhea and death crossed my mind, but I kept them to myself.

Cousin is back from China with these amazing Featured Fotos. Thanx cuz.

Dragon Boat on the Yangtze

Panda Cubs - Chengdu

Terracotta Army - Xi'an

Fisheye Bund - Shanghai

Transport on the Hong Kong Harbor

"You can let go of his neck now. He's dead, Harry."

OSV — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:48:52 GMT

When I bought my MINI Cooper this past spring, it came with a free one-year subscription to Sirius/XM radio. At first I thought big deal, canned music. Then Husband turned me on to a station that runs classic radio shows from the forties and fifties. I have to admit that I am a whore for noir and all the tough guy talk and floozy banter. The lost art of radio melodrama is one that has left a large hole in interactive public entertainment, one that people don't miss because they have no memory of it. That includes me, having been born in the fifties at the same time as television for the masses. Today's blockbuster mega-movies think they offer something so real the audience feels right in the action, especially with IMAX and 3D, and those venues do entertain. Where they miss the point is that it doesn't take any imagination to watch something catch fire, even if you feel like you're burning too. Old time radio shows draw you in simply because there are no visuals. You hear a scratchy sound and then a hot sizzle and know you're listening to the detective strike a match and light a cigarette. He inhales deeply, then breathes out his next line coated with gritty smoke that you can hear so plainly it's right in front of your eyes. Classic radio shows make you feel like you're seeing with your ears. It's like mental multitasking, and it's nostalgic and uber cool at the same time.

The half-hour show I heard yesterday while driving around on errands was "Death is a Double-Crosser," one of the Inner Sanctum shows that aired in 1951. A diamond cutter's housekeeper alerts her recently paroled husband, Harry, that her employer is about to cut the King Midas diamond worth over $100,000. Their plan is to wait until the old man has it scored for the final cut and then murder him, after which Harry will cut the diamond himself since he's such a talented guy he's spent half his life behind bars. But Harry's so worried he'll cut the diamond wrong and make it worthless that his hands shake uncontrollably. Mrs. Harry gets pissed and yells for him to cut the damn thing already; they didn't plan all this for his nerves to screw it up. Harry gets even more anxious and then slightly psycho so he turns on the Mrs and slashes her neck with the cutting blade, then walls her body up in the basement. The police close in on him, but I can't tell you if Harry gets the chair or not because I arrived at Trader Joe's and went inside to buy blueberries. Not to worry though; even if he only got fifty years he's dead by now, so carry on.

Today's Rhymes with Orange sounds like gumshoe paw prints in a dark alley

You also don't have to trouble yourself anymore about those three siblings who went on a crime spree last week that spanned half the country. The Dougherty kids, a sister and two brothers all in their twenties, led police on a high speed chase in Florida and exchanged gunfire, then robbed a bank in Georgia. I became aware of the story a few days later when I saw their mom on TV, her face obscured, giving them some motherly advice. "Only mom knows what good people you are inside," she said. "Please prove me right and everybody wrong by doing the right thing now and turning yourselves in." Husband and I looked at each other like, "Yeah, that ship left the port a long time ago," and not to cast aspersions on anyone's parenting skills or make gross generalizations, but a household that turns out three youngsters with lengthy rap sheets and a Dillinger mentality is not a place I'd ever send my kids on a play date. The Dougherty siblings, whose mug shots look like Facebook photos, were captured yesterday when they crashed into a police roadblock in Pueblo, Colorado. I know we mothers always think the best of our children, but really, WTF??

Continuing our crime wave broadcast, another missing tourist has been reported in Aruba, the site of Natalee Holloway's disappearance and presumed murder. Another extremely attractive blonde woman has gone missing, this time reported by her male travel partner, not to be confused with her boyfriend, who was for some reason not on the trip. The male friend said his companion went missing as the two were snorkeling. Aruba's police force refused to allow the man to leave the island since parts of his story sounded hinky. This was an excellent decision on the part of law enforcement there since they had released their main suspect in the Holloway case only to enable him to murder a young woman in Peru a year later. What made the male friend's account so suspicious was 1) no witnesses saw them go snorkeling, and 2) the woman's boyfriend said she would never go snorkeling in the first place because she wouldn't want to ruin her makeup or get her hair wet. That's good enough for me. Guilty all the way.

Daughter's Featured Fotos have something to say All Around the Town

taboo

mac people

water tower blast off

plastic yarn balls

caged hawk

The Battles of Marwencol

OSV — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:18:10 GMT

Several years ago, I opened an art magazine and read a feature about an upstate New York man with an astounding story. His name is Mark Hogancamp, and in April of 2000, he was beaten senseless outside a bar in downtown Kingston. Thirty-eight years old at the time, he came out of a nine-day coma with a surgically rebuilt face and a head kicked clean of all memory. After his state-sponsored health care and rehab ran out, he returned home to deal with the cognitive damage and severe post-traumatic stress that resulted from being attacked by five strangers who hated his guts. Why did they hate his guts, you ask? Because in the drunken camaraderie he mistakenly thought they were sharing inside the bar, Hogancamp confided that he sometimes likes to dress in women's clothing. They waited for him outside and nearly killed him.

The reason he was written up in an art magazine was because the therapy he devised for himself to deal with the trauma he suffered was a town called Marwencol. Named for Mark and two friends, Wendy and Colleen, Marwencol is a 1/6 scale Belgian World War II town Hogancamp constructed of plywood, sweat, and determination in his backyard, then populated with action figures and Barbie dolls to represent him, his friends, the townspeople, the Nazis, and anyone else his imagination could conjure up. He devises elaborate serial stories for his alter ego, Hogie, to act out. First, he has Hogie crash land in Marwencol and rally the townspeople to fight the SS and regain control of their village. Once the Nazis are driven out, Hogie makes it a place where everyone can coexist peacefully. No one passes judgment; people don't gang up on each other. The town's only rule is to be friends. But it's WWII and the SS come back, so Hogie and company have to beat the bloody crap out of them. It's all Mark Hogancamp's way of dealing with his pain through play. Instead of acting out his anger and frustration on real people, he lets Hogie do it for him. After all, it's wartime. Aggression is expected.

But war isn't the only thing on Mark's mind. Friendship, love, heroism, betrayal, joy, insecurity -- they're all part of life in Marwencol. Mark's uncanny artistic talent survived the attack and aids in rebuilding his fine motor skills. He repaints the factory faces on his figures so they are instantly recognizable as the people they represent, right down to the scars on Hogie's face from Mark's surgeries. The town is crowded with people, buildings, battles, and celebrations. In meticulously staged, brilliantly captured photographs, Mark fills Marwencol with the memories he wishes he had.

After the magazine spread in 2005, Mark was approached by an art gallery in Manhattan about having a one-man show. With great trepidation he agreed, and White Columns had an exhibition of his breathtaking photography in 2006. Around the same time, Mark was asked by a documentarian to make a movie. Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol was released last year and won several indie film awards. It is now available on DVD and it's a knockout. This is all overwhelming for Hogancamp, who says in the movie, "My mind can't decide what world to go in. The realistic world? There are dangers out there. I feel safe when I get in my town and it just takes everything away. I prefer to live in my world. I want to live here, in Marwencol." It may be the real world's loss, but at least we can visit.

Click the link below to read more, watch a trailer, or buy the DVD.

Scenes from Marwencol, where fantasy meets reality and the good guys always win

alter ego Hogie

the SS rides into town

buddies for life

women to the rescue

wartime wedding

After the Wheel

OSV — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:40:57 GMT

Today I went to our local post office to drop some letters off. I am a big fan of the mailboxes that sit across from the post office entrance, the boxes for people doing the drive-by-drop-off thing without getting out of their car and actually entering the purgatory that is our local post office. Our branch is a stellar example of the current postal system, meaning that it takes forever to park near, an eternity to conduct any business in, and a time-sucker all around since 3/4 of the staff is on break at any given time. So I use the drive-by mailboxes and buy stamps at the supermarket.

When I pulled over to the curb and opened my window to let in the 100 degree heat, I realized the SUV ahead of me wasn't moving. I could see there was a guy's head behind the wheel and the motor was running, but no forward motion was happening. I gave a gentle beep to alert the driver of my presence, and when that had no effect, I beeped again. Finally, I drove around him and pulled to the corner where I parked my car and walked back. The SUV's driver side window was open and inside sat a young guy in his twenties texting on his phone, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was blocking access to every single mailbox. As I mailed my letters just inches from his face, he didn't even look up from his phone.

OSV: Excuse me, but you may not realize that you're blocking people from reaching these boxes.

JERK: People can go around me.

His withering tone of entitlement washed over me in the baking sun.

OSV: People can poke you in the eye, too. But that doesn't make either thing right.

JERK: Stupid bitch.

OSV: Your apology is accepted.

I walked away feeling oddly satisfied with our verbal exchange. He called out some more salutations that were hard to discern. Maybe it was due to the distance; maybe because of the bulging neck veins strangling his voice. Either way, I like to think he was wishing me a nice day.

Earlier in the week on my way to school, I was stopped at a light on a busy road when I observed a driver on the opposite side suddenly attempt to back into the gas station he had just passed. People idiotically do this stuff all the time, except here there was a pedestrian walking across the entrance. The driver just backed right into him and the guy was knocked against a fence. When he realized he bumped something, the driver looked back and saw the guy against the fence, and STARTED YELLING AT THE PEDESTRIAN. I was facing the wrong way to get involved, but a car going in that direction pulled over to assist. Hopefully not in chewing out the guy who got hit.

Speaking of preventable accidents, nothing could be more tragically ironic than an incident that appeared in the newspaper on July 4th. A motorcyclist at an upstate protest against helmet laws died after he flipped over his bike's handlebars and struck his head on the pavement. He was part of an entourage of Harley riders who were protesting New York's helmet law by not wearing helmets. The doctor who attended the biker following the incident said his death could have been prevented if he had simply been wearing a helmet. I don't know where to take this, except to say we must respect the things man has invented in the name of progress. Things like the wheel.

Dealing with the wheel actually goes back to ancient times. Many people are not aware that the enterprising caveguys who started it all traveled a rocky road on their way to making history.

MORG: It was my idea to make it round. Your prototype was a hexagon. Those test rides were kidney busters.

GROK: Maybe that's because you drive like a girl. Why don't you go play with fire? Hahahaha!

MORG: You are such a freak. Evolve already.

GROK: You don't think I'm evolved, you monkey turd? Evolve this: we're partners. And my half will always be bigger than yours.

MORG: Your HALF is bigger? Do you have any idea how stupid you sound? The Babylonians over that ridge have some numeral etchings you should look at, genius. I'll see you in court. I'm gonna wipe your name right off that patent.

GROK: I don't think so, partner. I got Zuckerberg's lawyer.

Daughter's Fotos are from Under the Influence at the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival

window display

Inner 907

dark clouds

Tony Bones

Infinity