Blood, water, and all that jazz

A week of travel in which nothing is certain ahead of time, so the traveler is never sure what to expect, makes for some surprises. Zelda and I drove through several waves of rainy weather Saturday on our way across southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Indiana, and western Ohio. There were brief showers on Friday in La Crosse, but not enough to prevent us from seeing what we wanted to see on a day-long walk down memory lane in my childhood hometown.

The big storm was Thursday, while my brother Rock and I drove back to La Crosse from Spring Grove, heading down Norwegian Ridge on route 44 toward Hokah, Minnesota. It was a gulley-washer, almost no visibility, then just as quickly it stopped before we crossed the river into Wisconsin. We had some time before meeting the sisters for dinner, so I went outside for a workout and did a taiji form under a big tree by the river. About the time my form was finished, here comes the storm again, and the big tree wasn't much shelter, so I got a nice soaking before dinner.

No big deal. I changed clothes, and we met the rest of the group at Schmidty's on the South Side. The House Fish was excellent with a local brew. Afterward, we all gathered at Jeanie Beanie's hotel downtown to play Catch Phrase - you know, that game where two teams match wits with verbal cues and try to beat the timer. It was fun for young and old. Thus ended a long, eventful day that began with Uncle Chuck's memorial service in the form of a jazz concert in a Presbyterian church.

An open, airy structure of wood, stone, and glass with lots of flowers and an eight-piece band. Second son Russ Anderson greeted us and said "This is going to be a celebration," which it was. Chuck's band opened with several old favorites, including St. James Infirmary, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Amazing Grace, and The Old Rugged Cross, all played New Orleans-style with a somber kind of joy.

The minister talked briefly, and a bandmate spoke about their shared musical history, playing with Bob Hirsch, Milt Hinton. Les Brown, Jay McShan, among others. The minister told some stories, like when Chuck and my dad took over my grandpa's restaurant and changed the name from Al's Lunch to the C&D Cafe, advertising "Chuck your troubles and Dunc a donut at the C&D."

The band closed with Wonderful World, and everybody gathered nextdoor for lunch in the church dining room, where a CD of more tunes accompanied slides of Chuck's life. Baby pictures with his little sister Helen, high school photos, in the Army during the war, a group shot of the 1947 Spring Grove Homecoming beard contest in the C&D, with Marion and their babies, grandchildren, and of course playing bass with the band. I spotted Terry Grosskopf, the current bass player, and told him I enjoyed his rock-solid solo on Amazing Grace; he told me Chuck had lured him from a teaching job in Chicago and recruited him into the band. And the beat goes on.

After lunch we got in cars and drove the half-hour over the bridge to Spring Grove, where just sighting the water tower and the church steeple brought back memories. There was a big group gathered at the cemetary and lots of casual conversation before the urn of ashes were lowered into the ground. Words were said, taps was played, and a flag was presented to Marion by a unit from the American Legion. Some of the oldtimers are still around, and I met a guy named Carty Onstad who played basketball with my dad back in the day. It was a sunny summer solstice afternoon in southern Minnesota.

After a little while all the Andersons and Duncansons regrouped in the park to take group photos. You know the drill: those in the picture hand their camera to someone else, say 'cheese', and then the next group poses. There's more shade in the park than at the cemetary, so it was a nice place to chill. Someone got the bright idea to go get ice cream at a the Blue Moose, which was recently opened by a guy about my age who grew up in Spring Grove when the C&D was still open and yearned for that kind of hangout. The place was hopping, and the chocolate shakes were excellent.

While enjoying her ice cream on the back deck of the Blue Moose, Helen decided to take a walking tour of the town, egged on a bit by her kids. Jo Jo, Rock, Anna Banana, Zelda, and I went along, followed by an entourage numbering around twenty and ranging in age from 4 to 86. We walked down Division Street to the house she and Chuck grew up in, then to the big brick house their two families shared, with commentary on when her dad built the smaller house out in back, the spirea bushes that used to grow in the front yard, and lots of other memories (which I can't remember a week later).

Summer is

strawberries
sunshine
swings
stakes (for tomatoes)
Sauvignon
salvia/sage
spider lilies
spirea
softball
screendoor slam
skin
shades
sunscreen
swimming
cycling
seashore
sand
sandals
swimsuit
songbirds
singing
suntan
snakes
sunburn
salads
snapdragons
shedding
shorts
seashells
shovels
shears
solstice
. . .

A toast composed two hours after the reception

Barry and I first met in a book. I was interested in progressive education and China, so my philosophy professor (thank you, Dick Garner!) thrust a book at me about John Dewey's experimental schools in China between the wars. What I found in the pages of that book was a kind of conversation between Dewey and some other social revolutionaries, mediated by Barry Keenan, in the presence of Marx, Wang Yang-ming, and Confucius.

A few years and a couple of teaching jobs later, I found myself joining this church and taking an adult religious education class called Building Your Own Theology (BYOT). What a great course title, and who should I meet the first night of the class but Barry Keenan. I quickly learned that he wasn't just a theorist, but he was working hard to walk the walk. We both ended up joining the same men's group, and we've been meeting every week ever since.

Other serendipitous things happened. One Thursday night in my taiji class at the rec. center, I was using a phrase from Confucius, "root and branch," to describe a turn that starts in the legs and works its way up the spine to the arms, the idea being that if you pay attention to the root of the action, the outward details, the branches, will turn out fine. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than in the door slides Barry, who happened to be across the hall with the folk dancers, to say hello.

This story has a beginning and a middle but no end. Connections are made, like an electrical circuit or a synapse between neurons, and the conversation continues. This past week, our men's group got together for sushi, sake, and song (no strippers, sorry) and shared some poems in honor of this marriage. So I offer 24 syllables, and the spirits of John Dewey, Mao Zedung, Li Bo, and Confucius may or may not be present in this room.

After five seasons
Watching twelve animals circle the sun
New growth for a firmly rooted tree

Here's to Karen and Barry!

Cleveland does indeed Rock

Is it true what they say, that half the hot young comedians in NY and LA are from Cleveland, and that half their jokes are about their old stomping grounds in rustbelt heaven, the mistake on the lake, the flaming Cuyahoga, et cetera, et cetera, and that the joke works because the punchline ends with the word Cleveland?

Is it also true that when those now-famous people come back to the city they grew up in, it isn't there anymore? Chrissy Hynde wrote a song about it. Urban business districts have been replaced by strip shopping centers, housing blocks have been replaced by parking lots, factories replaced by empty factories. It's a strange phenomenon, a monumental industrial city well on its way into a long decline. Take Detroit - please.

The architectural gems of Cleveland are still there, and you can still drive through beautiful neighborhoods. The amazing shrines to art in University Circle are still alive and well, but there are also big holes blown in the landscape, and who knows what will fill the vacuum. If you enjoy a certain kind of midwestern city, it's a concern.

Gven and I drove up to Cleveland a couple of weeks ago for a play our friend Rick was in, stayed over with Rick and Angela, and came back the next day. They had a rare day free and showed us around to some of their favorite haunts - Coventry, Little Italy, the Coffee Cup in Bedford - your basic Grey Line Tour. As far as this roadtrip goes, Cleveland = Rick and Angela, like a single phenomenological entity.

Act I. Dramatic Entrance

Scene 1. Chagrin Falls

It's a Friday evening and we haven't really had a chance to unwind yet, so there's just a wee bit of tension in the air as we cruise north in Gven's Honda Discord. As we near the city on I-271, the dashboard goes dark momentarily and the engine quits, then immediately revives, and we drive the rest of the way around the east side to the charming village of Chagrin Falls. In the middle of Main Street in this pretty, upscale town, the engine quits again, but this time we have to wait a few minutes before it will start up again. We make it to the parking lot of The Little Theater in plenty of time to rendezvous with Angela, say hello to Rick, and find our seats.

Scene 2. These People

The name of the play is "These People," and it's a hoot. A musical comedy about a neighborhood threatened by gentrification, it's set in a bar frequented by a colorful assortment of characters. Rick has been in a million musicals, and he carries this one on his baritone and his back. It's community theater at its best: funny, warmhearted, and populated by nonprofessional actors with enough talent and guts to pull it off.

Scene 3. Cast Party

It happened to be closing night, so of course there was a cast party, and we were lucky enough to be included. We ate, we drank, and we met some of the cool people who have the time and energy to hold down a day job AND put in the work it takes to stage a decent theatrical production. It was even more fun than I thought it would be, and the car made it back to Rick and Angela's house with only one brief stall-out.

Act II. Everything Is Connected

Scene 1. Bedford

First things first, we called the local Honda dealer, which is just around the corner on Broadway in the blue-collar suburb of Bedford, and they can look at the car if we bring it right in. The guys in the service department will call when they have diagnosed the problem. Service technician Mutt thinks there might be a recall on the ignition of that year and model, but service technician Jeff is doubtful. We'll be at the Coffee Cup eating breakfast if you find out anything. We go and eat a hearty breakfast served by a shapely young waitress who speaks a Northeast Ohio dialect I can barely understand, and it's all Cleveland Browns jackets and big hair.

Scene 2. The Rec. Center

Rick has promised to help some people from a neighboring church set up the gym of the Bedford recreation center for their annual spaghetti dinner, so off he goes. Gven and Angela and I take our time finishing breakfast and meet him there. Three generations of men are in the kitchen stirring huge vats of sauce, adding a bucket of oregano here, a shovelful of basil there, talking about where so-and-so is going to college when the graduate in June. Three generations of women are just about done setting tables, so it's mostly stand around and talk. One of them happens to be the mother of the manager of the service department at the Honda dealer. I admire the spacious and squeaky-clean rec. center. Out in the hallway I spot a framed photo of Ohio Stadium, an image of the Horseshoe itself hanging there among the trophy cases like a holy icon.

Scene 3. University Circle

No word yet about the car, so we have some time to kill while we construct a contingency plan just in case. We could call Zelda to drive up and give us a ride home while they work on the car, and while she's here we could go see the Monet exhibit at the art museum. Rick and Angela have a membership, so we decide to all go. It's a beautiful sunny day, so we take the scenic route through some lovely old residential neighborhoods - Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, I can't remember the streets - and pass some places Gven and I remember from our years in Oberlin long ago. We end up at the museum of art and get in free.

Scene 4. Monet in Normandy

The throngs of people don't bother me because I'm caught up in the visual power of the paintings in the galleries. The four of us split up and wander at our own pace, and for me that's the only way to see it, moving around, stopping to look more closely, moving on to look from another angle or distance. Room after room of well-designed spaces hung with dozens of paintings in groupings that make it easy to see Monet's work changing and developing as he tried different approaches in different sites along the coast that he clearly adored. Something erotic about the way the light acts in the presence of cliffs meeting the sea and the sky.

When we are near the saturation point, we head downstairs for a cool lime soda at the snack bar and the obligatory stop at the gift shop. So many interesting people, or are my senses just juiced up by hanging out in the presence of world-class art? Rick says there is an outdoor event there in June, and I vow to go.

Scene 5. Sven in Cleveland

Long story getting longer, we got word from the Honda people that Gven's car was indeed part of the recall, so they replaced the ignition and it solved the electrical problem. No pun intended. No charge. We picked up the car and went back to their place to hang out for a couple of hours. I chose the back deck, lying in the afternoon sun and getting rejuvenated by a short workout. We ate a light lunch of Angela's special chicken salad, and totally high from our adventures, headed down the road toward home.

Act III. Denouement

Scene 1. Peninsula

Chance has taken us through Peninsula, Ohio, on several occasions, and I've gotten fond of the place. It's on state route 303 about halfway between Oberlin and Kent, so when Jessi and Zelda were both in school, it was a pleasant spot en route. It's barely a wide place in the road, down in a gorge where there's a nice bicycle path along the Cuyahoga River, where there once was a towpath for barges traveling up and down. We needed gas and weren't totally rushed to get home, so Gven and I stopped to look around, saw a few things we hadn't noticed before, and headed home. Note to self: go there again.

Mayday!

Today is the real Labor Day, but here in central Swingstate - or at least my small circumscribed, self-involved bubble - you'd hardly know it. So imagine my surprise when, simply by clicking the link at Priya's place, I stumble upon unexpected signs of life in the universe.

Like Mitt Romney's dad back in '64 (or was it '68?) I'm able to poke my head outside the news machine just enough to see that I've been absorbing a lot of fabricated history. But I'll grind that ax another time. For now, I'll just ponder the dilemma of whether to celebrate a proletarian anarchist workers Mayday or a pagan fertility rite of spring Mayday. What would a fusion of those two things look like?

Slava

Some things ultimately can't be explained.

I seldom listen to music at my desk. I have an old set of headphones our office administrator gave me a few years ago, and once in a while I listen to a CD or something online, like if the cube farm is noisy and I'm having trouble concentrating. Last week I was listening to Bach's cello suites on a 1995 CD by Mstislav Rostropovich. It's by turns soothing, rousing, sensuous, turbulent, and calming. Something about the cello has a kind of visceral effect that's almost painfully beautiful, like I'm hearing it through the third chakra as well as my ears.

So last week my Wednesday night men's group tackled the topic "What is beauty?" and the six old coots generated some interesting responses. Among other things - sunsets, women, forests, the usual suspects - the Bach cello suites were mentioned in passing. Friday I was listening again while correlating a textbook, and I got so worked up I had to ask my nearest co-worker if she likes that kind of thing, and would she like to borrow the CD some time? She said her significant other might, because he enjoys "otherworldly" music, and we went back to what we were doing.

That evening on the way to Cleveland, I heard on NPR that Rostropovich had died earlier in the day in Moscow. They played short selections of his work on the radio and interviewed Yo Yo Ma, who couldn't say enough about Slava's (his friends called him 'Slava') boundless energy, love of music, critical ear for nuances in a performance, eagerness to share with younger players, and ability to keep learning new pieces well into old age.

To paraphrase the old saying, I don't know anything about music but I know what moves me. JB suggested the possibility that a last burst of Rostropovich's life-force reached central Swingstate all the way from Russia (via the CD drive on a Dell desktop PC). Works for me.

not a story

It has a beginning and a middle but no end, so how could it be a story? No plot, just character(s) and setting. Signs and symbols are everywhere. Language is so secondary, it almost gets in the way. And there's the rub. I'm not sure declarative sentences are possible without distortion. Where does subject end and predicate begin? Did subject X do that to object Y, or did things mutually and simultaneously shape themselves and each other?

Can you dig?

After my meeting Saturday morning, I had a second breakfast and went directly to the compost pile. Something told me it was time for the ritual dismantling of compost from the past year, marrying its remains with the vegetable beds, and thus preparing the garden for this year's planting, amen.

The wooden structure surrounding the compost had been in place for about a year, so it was time to liberate the alchemical stuff to begin its next incarnation as soil. I raked the lower two-thirds out into the bed and spread it evenly over the ground. Now it will settle and mingle, get rained on, blend in, and spread all that organic goodness.

The sun was out in all its glory, so I took my shirt off and got a mild burn, but it was worth it. Like Steve Zink, a friend of a friend at Purdue back in the day, who admitted that listening to Hendrix at full volume on headphones probably caused some permanent hearing loss, but he insists he got the better end of the deal.

It was just a great day to be outside, what can I say, not much. I didn't do much except pull a few weeds, transplant a few perennials from full spots to empty spots, empty the week's kitchen compost scraps into the now nearly empty enclosure, and cover it with a wheelbarrow full of weeds, and call it a day.

Somewhere in there, Gven Golly came outside and we talked about a pergola. Meals were eaten, coffee, water, and beer consumed. Rumor has it more (weeds, compost, soil, vegetables, raking, digging, food, drink) will follow in the future.

Vonnegut

I was lucky to be born in the right time and place to stumble across the novels and stories of Kurt Vonnegut when I hit my stride as a reader and he hit his stride as a writer. There are some things you can't plan and that schools, curricula, and academic advisors can't require. Being set on fire by an incendiary work of art just kind of happens, if you're lucky.

Slaughterhouse Five had that effect on me at a very impressionable time, turning me on to antiwar literature, The New Journalism so-called, and the blurring of genre distinctions between sci-fi, pop, and literary fiction. As a budding would-be journalist myself at the time, this was hot stuff indeed. Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter Thompson, and Joseph Heller were part of a vanguard of writers my friends and I idolized.

I remember one article in particular, I think it was Vonnegut's review in Harpers of Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, so it must have been the politically nightmarish year of 1972. The review began with a statement something like "Some days I have Hunter Thompson's disease..." the symptoms of which include a mixture of hopelessness, rage, contempt, and disbelief. Another statement in the same review that hit me in the face was Vonnegut's assessment of Thompson's thesis that there had been a sea-change in the two-party system: "It's no longer the Democrats vs. the Republicans, it's the winners vs. the losers, and the fix is on." Subtext: If this is news to you, then guess which side you're on.

I don't mean to romanticize the writer or the historical situation, because it wasn't the first or last time those things could be said about American society. The last two presidential elections prove it. And there were more sophisticated commentators than Vonnegut among the literati. But I can't think of any during my lifetime who put as much heart into their work while seeing through the lies, deceptions, and rationalizations of power, and yet maintained a sense of humor on the whole macabre spectacle of war and money and the vanity of domination.

He was just a guy from Indianapolis, albeit with the advantages of family wealth and privilege that happen to fall to some people and not others. To his credit, Vonnegut didn't take those happy accidents - or any sense of entitlement - seriously. Good buy, Billy Pilgrim.

On being a walking boomer stereotype

"How should I know, why should I care?"

I've heard that song, which I really like by the way, so much lately, covered by someone, performed in concert on PBS for a nostalgic audience by the old but identical-sounding Zombies, or on TV in a car/drug/phone commercial, that I'm almost sick of it.

"But she's not there!"

More evidence. I own a copy of George Harrison's solo triple album "All Things Must Pass" - not the vinyl but the CD set issued thirty years later with altered cover art, new liner notes, and additional tracks added by the older Harrison who was not long for this world. Not only do I own it but I listen to it and respond to it's over-produced wall of sound, against all reason, like getting the willies from hearing a Puccini aria and not understanding a word of Italian, but still.

Certain tracks, the predictable ones, still speak to me in the same ways they always did, both viscerally and spiritual, if that's possible, and no one can tell me it's not. The first few songs on Disc 2 - Beware of Darkness, Apple Scruffs, Let It Roll, and the knockout punch, Awaiting on You All. I'm a product of my time, and I guess cultural forces (whatever that means) have a real and lasting effect on individuals, try as they might to get outside them.

Don't the songs take themselves a little too seriously?

It can hit you, it can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

Yet others hold up pretty well...

Let it roll across the floor
Through the hall and out the door
To the fountain of perpetual mirth
Let it roll for all it's worth
Let it roll

I confess, in this confessional space, that songs from 1970 still ring true; that the extreme reverb in recordings by the villainous Phil Spector still shake me up somatically; that I still respect the quiet Beatle; and against all reason still buy into his transcendent vibe.

Dodged a bullet

Or some other fast-moving projectile. Actually it was a large limb from a hundred-year-old Norway maple demonstrating once again that Galileo and Newton were onto something. I really did want it to come down, I just hadn't resolved to take the chainsaw up as far as the extension ladder would go and decisively cut it. Now I don't have to.

We'd had a violent storm two nights earlier with hail and heavy winds that brought down some big branches. One of the branches nicked a gutter but missed the roof, saving us the water damage and expense of fixing a leaky roof. So I had some big limbs to clean up.

While I was at it, there was another limb, lower on the trunk, that I was able to reach with the ladder, and the saw cut through it easily. But it got hung up on the low-hanging curve of the higher limb, and instead of dropping neatly to the ground as I'd hoped, it just hung there suspended.

I still wasn't ready to reposition the ladder, climb it to the top, and cut the upper limb. Is this what they call a gut-check? So be it. So I trimmed the branches I could reach off the cut-off limb, buying time while cleaning up some of the mess I'd gotten myself into. This is why some people hire professionals to do their tree work.

It's just hanging there, right? Maybe if I pull on one end of the cut-off limb, it will tilt itself off the fulcrum of the hang-up and let gravity do its work. Fat chance but worth a try, and as I pulled with all my weight, I felt something begin to give, then a big old CRACK, and sure enough something is coming down. Before I could duck and cover my head or spin away in a ward-off move, I fell forward and felt the other branch hit my calves, just a glancing blow to the gastrocnemius, dontchaknow, and just like that everybody is on the ground where they belong. Me, the hung-up limb I'd cut, and the other limb I hadn't cut.

Not exactly the way I'd planned it, but I'll take it. Which I did, piece by piece, after trimming off the branches, back to the woodpile for next winter, luckily with life and limb still intact.

Jim Hightower tells us explicitly what we already vaguely knew

Just in case there's any doubt, let's find out why we're in Iraq.

The future is in eggs

A play by Eugene Ionesco, if long-term memory serves me. The so-called Theater of the Absurd, it must have been freshman year, and it was a whole new world of literature that rang true in my adolescent mind. I think it was the sequel to "Jack, or the submission," in which Jack takes his place onstage alongside a girl (Jill?) as their families press in from both sides, and others (stagehands?) gradually fill the stage with eggs. Those ideas occasionally resurface, reminding me of the value of a hodge-podge liberal arts education.

The scene at the rec center Thursday night, which sparked the title which led to the blog that lived in the house that Jack built, was a trip and a half. It was my first time at the rec center's home away from home for a year or two while the building on High Street - the real rec center next to the library - undergoes renovation. It will be a wonderful space when it's finished, and for now all the programs will take place in an older building , a former elementary and middle school in the middle of an aging neighborhood between Clintonville and Worthington, built in 1945.

An architectural walk down memory lane, the brick and block structure sits on one end of a small park lined with mature spruce and maple trees. Woodwork is dark, polished, beautiful. Floors are tile inlaid with letters of the alphabet and animal figures. Lots of glass bricks everywhere letting in light. It's definitely old school and a source of nostalgia, even for the neighborhood people who went to St. Michael's up the street. Rumor has it that it's destined for the wrecking ball, since population is shifting and schools are closing, and the city wants the space for parkland.

My classes ran their course in an unheated upper room, succeeding in what the first class of the quarter wants to achieve. To wit: get to know the new students enough to gauge the vocabulary that will register with them, find a pace that will be challenging but not intimidating, find out where they're coming from and what they're looking for. And if the stars align, get a workout, get a clue, learn something new.

I guess the stars aligned, because it was a highly satisfactory two and a half hours in the city that knows how to keep a secret. As the advanced students were winding down from a long, slow short-form, teenagers with flashlights were scurrying around the yard outside our windows searching for eggs among the trees and flowers, making noise and having fun under the watchful eyes of rec center staff and parents huddled in doorways and hallways, waiting patiently for closing time.

Good Friday came and went. I proofed pages and found correlations. Instead of going to a movie, I ended up staying late to respond to an e-mail by making a motel reservation for a small-town homecoming, family reunion, and memorial service beginning midsummer night in LaCrosse. Saturday I cleaned, baked bread, made soup.

Easter Sunday arrives, bittersweet. The bags under my eyes lift a little after I've had coffee and moved around. It's still cold outside, so the trees and flowers that started to open up last weekend are in a state of suspended animation, tulips drooping over looking at their shoes. I forget to bring a cut flower and trust that there will be extras.

The packed sanctuary is a mixed bag of rambunctious kids, parents who don't set boundaries, other kids afraid to look sideways, and parents with nothing but boundaries. I recoil just a bit from the cute story about bunnies seeking bunnies, and the country-rock arrangement of "Amazing Grace" isn't working for me, so I begin to feel like the perpetual first-time visitor judging everything about the service and deciding whether to ever come back to the Church of Existential Doubt.

Then I notice two young families two pews in front of me, parents whom I kind of know, and their beautiful kids whose hair and eyes and stature and manner echo or embody their parents' past, present, and future, like time-traveling while sitting still. Rev. Susan notes in passing that this is the 150th Easter Sunday service in this building. Her reading (Mark 16) tells a familiar story, but what I hear this time is the question, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"

I start to plan a quick getaway, but the kids save the day by passing out flowers to each person in the congregation; a young lady in jeans, whose dad I know from committee meetings, hands me a long-stemmed carnation. Instead of bolting, I make my way to the hubbub of the back room for coffee and run into a friend from a drum circle. She wants to talk about a relationship she's dealing with after the fact, and I appreciate her willingness to connect on any level - musical, intellectual, platonic. She goes back for more coffee, and I stop at the social justice table to buy two bars of Fair-Trade Very Dark Chocolate, which will be, like the coffee and the carnation, kind of a sacrament tonight after quiche and sourdough and Chardonney.