Fair Use

I say all I want to do is live in a cabin in the woods and read, but it's not true. Whenever I get started on something good, I get sidetracked quickly. Is it neurological? An influx of too much stimulation, an excess of messages received by the brain, an interruption in the flow of thoughts and the processing of linear information in a nonlinear world? So in response I slow it down in a procession of bits that can be tracked in an orderly way, making a list, checking it twice.

Where is the line between fair use and piracy, which is just an inflammatory word for copyright infringement, which is just a legalistic way of saying 'Don't touch my stuff'. Everybody references somebody else all the time. Or did Apple trademark the word internet so nobody else can use it? So it seems that it's just a matter of degree. How many words of text is too much to repurpose, plow back into the site, and cannibalize the parts for free without asking (and paying)? Somebody already owns that idea. Here's another idea somebody owns:

The Common Sense of the Fair-Use Doctrine 1
(c) 2011 The Chronicle of Higher Education
1255 23rd Street NW
Washington, DC 20037

Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle

By Patricia Aufderheide

While checking final edits on their new book, two media-studies scholars are informed by their publisher that they must secure permission to use a magazine cover as an illustration of one of their assertions. Instead of dropping the graphic or making cold calls to the magazine, the scholars explain their fair-use rights under copyright—and the publisher's general counsel agrees.

A researcher asks a librarian if the librarian can provide her with a clip from a major motion picture, relevant to the researcher's presentation at the annual meeting of her academic association. When the librarian demurs, the researcher explains her fair-use right to show the work.

MIT's OpenCourseWare designers, who develop free online curriculum materials, are preparing a course on sound engineering. The professor has included in the lecture several audio examples­—all of them copyrighted. Instead of stripping out the examples and turning the material into a skeleton course, the designers include the material under fair use, allowing consumers worldwide to benefit.

Those users and many others in academe were able to employ their rights because they learned them from their peers who had created codes of best practices in fair use. They are re-establishing the normalcy of a longstanding free-speech right.

The right of scholars to use unlicensed material for research and publication purposes is clear under the U.S. doctrine of fair use. Fair use—a broad, flexible part of copyright policy determined on a case-by-case basis—permits users to repurpose, or transform, an appropriate amount of original material. If it's so easy, why are so many smart people so scared of fair use? In the work that the legal scholar Peter Jaszi and I have done since 2004, and have synthesized in our new book, Reclaiming Fair Use, we have seen members of many professional and creative communities express that same anxiety. And we believe we understand why: They lack a common-sense understanding of their rights.

Twenty-five years ago, fair use was widespread and uncontroversial. Journalists, scholars, and documentarians employed it regularly. Publishers and other distributors routinely issued works rich with fair-use claims. But increasingly over the last two decades, that has changed, as large media and software companies have fought for greater copyright protections and ramped up their public-relations campaigns and legal actions. Meanwhile, their critics, including academics and artists, have often made alarmist claims about the dangers of overreach by copyright owners, causing further confusion. Many scholars, as well as members of various professional, creative, and research communities, simply misunderstand their rights, whether they seek to use or protect a work.

Now that codes of best practices are returning fair use to normalcy, it is time for scholars to reclaim fair use. Some dos and don'ts:

* Do exercise your fair-use rights to teach and research using copyrighted materials, just as your peers are doing. Insist on your rights with publishers and librarians. Learn about codes of best practices assembled by communications scholars, film-studies scholars, and poets to find out what other academics regard as normal. If your field has not yet developed a code, considering crafting one.
* Do teach best copyright practices. You are both a model to your students and a crucial source of current information. Students often come to us weighed down with a lifetime of misinformation, mixing up file-sharing (sometimes a clearly illegal use) and fair use (entirely legal when properly reasoned). They will enter a world where gatekeepers are often misinformed as well. Educate them about their right to help combat fear-mongering by copyright holders. Students and scholars who understand the basic logic of fair use have nothing to fear.
* Don't mix up fair use and educational exemptions. Teachers and scholars have significant rights within copyright law, but they are limited to mostly traditional educational settings. As both students' and professors' work moves outside the classroom, whether in a video posted on YouTube or a slide presentation on SlideShare, they'll need to employ their fair-use rights to participate in 21st-century education.
* Don't expect to get a pass on fair use because your use is noncommercial, but don't be afraid of fair use in commercial settings, either. Noncommerciality is a consideration in fair use, but a minor one. The key issues are transformativeness and appropriate amount matched to the transformative purpose. Litigation is almost universally on commercial uses, and judges tilt heavily in favor of transformative, appropriate fair use.
* Don't confuse fair use with the open-source movement or Creative Commons. The open-access movement works to expand the amount of material available on either a copyright-free or a copyright-light basis, such as a Creative Commons license. The impulse to share scholarly research more freely is an admirable impulse for any creator who wants to do so. Fair use, however, focuses on a different issue—specifically, when new creators and researchers want to use work that its creators do not want to give away. It permits unauthorized use of material that is normally closely guarded. It keeps copyright holders from becoming private censors of future culture by denying access to building blocks of new work.

Scholars in all disciplines need access to copyrighted work to enrich their research, their courses, and their public presentations. They must be able to effectively and economically publish and present their findings. Anxiety about whether their use of copyrighted material will get them, their institutions, or their presses in trouble is an obstacle to the creative and scholarly process. Worse, when scholars and others do not employ fair use, they shrink its effectiveness as a right. Fair use is like a muscle; the more it is exercised, the stronger it becomes. Robust scholarship requires robust fair use.

Patricia Aufderheide is a professor of communication and director of the Center for Social Media at American University and co-author, with Peter Jaszi, of Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright (University of Chicago Press, 2011).

See how simple it is? As long as everybody agrees on commonsense things like how much is an "appropriate amount" of somebody else's material. How hard that it be?

While I'm in recovery mode from a week of high productivity, I could probably afford a day off to pretend I'm on vacation, but that would only push back another week the many things I have so far succeeded in leaving undone. A co-worker said she was looking forward to a weekend of doing nothing. I asked what that's like, and she mentioned watching movies, not the kind of recovery I had in mind, but she probably means not getting anything done in particular. So I'm safe. Nothing much is likely to happen here, productivity-wise.

When in doubt, rearrange the furniture, move plants and lamps, wiggle it a little at the risk of being misinterpreted. The back yard is a quilt, and the quilt is a back yard. Somewhere to play, and something to work on while playing, to make it a better place to play. Moving materials around, pulling up some and piling them elsewhere, lining up fibers, stacking stalks, or spreading stuff out that's been steeping and saturated somewhere else unaccustomed, juxtaposed with other materials native or transplanted. Thus the play becomes the work becomes the play. I'd like to draw the line, but it keeps moving.

When is the best time to dismantle the compost pile and distribute it over the vegetable beds, the better for tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and asparagus to be nourished? Today! Today is also a good day to transplant peonies and forsythia and mulch around them with sawdust from the stump grinder's work. While working in the garden, I'm planning my next book, "Groundwork for a Metaphysic of Mowing," to be followed by my magnum opus, "The Critique of Pure Pruning." Instead of writing that opus, or any opus, I think I'll emulate Kant by taking a walk at precisely 5:00. Or later if I feel like it.

Character-driven

Speaking in incomplete sentences. The weather is definitely changing. Joints ache in anticipation of rain, but practice is the best medicine.

Who goes to Caribou on Saturday? The new barista is doing the best he can, but he doesn't know a cranberry scone from a black raspberry. And what's up with all the loud, animated conversations. Is it me? Or course it is, why else would everyone around me be unattractive and obnoxious and stupid? The West Side is its own little freakshow, but so is uptown Clintonville, and Westerville, home base of the strongman Colonel Qaddasich, don't even get me started.

People should wear uniforms with colorful insignias - stripes, stars, bars, oakleaf clusters, crossed fasces, swords, pentacles, rods, cups - indicating their tribe, rank, level of education, political orientation, astrological sign, religious affiliation, dosha. It would be so much more efficient than the random, rootless, free-market fashion statements of name-brand apparel and the inevitable unsuccessful attempts at upward mobility by wearing the knock-off uniform of the tribe/rank/credit rating sought but not achieved.

The checklist, written or unwritten, on paper or digital file, acknowledged or tacit, functions as a personal measure of accomplishment and simultaneously as an autotelic artwork, checking off items as an end in itself, tracking is its own reward. Birds seeking seeds, bark breaking down from a hard life as cells protecting living plant tissue to become in the next life a footpath across a garden, eventually becoming soil itself, and back up the food chain to reconstitute as plant cells again of some other species.

Plot-driven. There was a reason for the confusion between cranberry and black raspberry, involving white chocolate chips, three bicyclists talking with a mail carrier, and a woman waiting outside the bank, looking up the street, and pulling a book from her black bag. A fire truck goes by, then another. The loud talk subsides, as if the whole point of the conversation was to finish it.

A couple comes in, young woman leading young man with confidence, orders drinks and sits down, her jeans more flamboyantly worn than his, his smile more reserved, almost dour, but behind his youthful haircut a calm awareness that he is going where she is going. Even after he cracks a slight smile, he talks behind his hand like a pitcher to the catcher to guard against stolen signs. Somatotype, attitude, and body language as cultural artifacts, signs seeking a common denominator in the indefinitely recurring language game of ratings and rankings in a narrative of ordinary discourse by natural selection.

Guy walks into a bar. Name of the bar is Phenomenal Cafe, and his immediate reaction is to like the place. He stands inside the door just a moment to check it out, and when a chorus of other people's heads turn he self-consciously continues walking, thinking about what he will order: "Coffee, dark-roast, large, slice of herb bread, toasted, butter." He pays and sits down at a table farthest from the counter where the distracted barista is getting his order. The main thing is to keep moving.

There are two kinds of people in the world. The disheveled employee brings a steaming ceramic cup and a small plate. Those who report on the state of their lives, sometimes in the first-person and sometimes in the second but usually in the third-person, and by the second sentence you know enough to not believe a word of it, because the content of the story is effectively masking how they really think and feel. This line of discourse is their way of deflecting attention, misdirecting intention, putting up a facade of believability.

Then there are those who would rather die than report on the state of their lives, which would be too hard, too soul-crushingly revealing, too self-absorbed in its implicit attention-seeking and too depressing to admit openly what and who they really are. By the extreme neutrality, general niceness, and businesslike discretion posing as polite decorum, you can tell there is no one home and nothing to talk about, so why even knock on the door.

Random Dreaming

I had just parked my car on the street, and I was walking away when I heard a loud cracking sound. I turned around to check, and someone had thrown a brick or some heavy object at the windshield, leaving a hole in the glass with broken shards radiating out from it. I saw a young man running away, so I ran across the street after him. He looked back and sped up, zig-zagging through a crowd of people. I managed to keep him in sight, and people in the crowded street saw that he was fleeing and I was chasing him. People in the busy street were slowing him down but also getting in my way, but I was confident I could catch him. Finally I saw an opening and tackled the guy, but the man I tackled had sudden grown old and shriveled.

I dreamed that the sheets and blankets on the bed were made of digital documents like a quilt made from stitched-together paper and disks and electronic files .

So I'm coming in the back door to a porch of some house I don't recognize, and a young woman I do recognize is coming out the door to the porch holding her knee in pain; she explains how she was knocked down and banged up her leg, which I put my hand on with healing qi.

I dreamed there was a large, winged insect hovering around my chest and neck with its long tendril-like tail hanging down like the tail of a kite. It seemed harmless, benign, almost friendly. It landed in front of me and crawled out of its skin, leaving behind an exoskeleton that looked like a crab's shell. Having shed its skin the red, soft-bodied creature slithered off like a slow-moving lizard.

Melo Drama for the Knicks

By now everyone has heard that Carmelo Anthony has been traded to the New York Knickerbockers, making the Knicks instant contenders in the talent-rich Eastern Conference of the NBA. The Knicks acquired Amare Stoudemire from Phoenix before the season started, taking a big step toward respectability, but they missed out in the LeBron sweepstakes. Anthony played college ball at Syracuse and made no secret of his desire to go to either the Knicks or the New Jersey Nets, but it took a long time to consummate the trade. The Denver Nuggets got four players plus two draft choices and cash for one prolific scorer and an old point guard named Chauncey.

By the way, FYI to anyone in Ohio, this is about basketball. Remember basketball? It's the sport with a round ball, five-on-five, indoors, played between the Michigan game in November and the Scarlet and Gray game in April. Maybe you've heard of it, very popular in exotic places like North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, and Indiana. No? Oh well.

For Carmelo to join Amare in the Big Apple is very good news for Knicks fans. A prolific scorer to go with a top-notch power forward could make them one of the elite teams in the league. What everyone seems to ignore is the difference that Chauncey Billups will make. Here's the real key to this trade vaulting New York into the thick of the championship race: they now have a seasoned point guard.

Make no mistake. Chauncey may have lost a step or two since he directed the Detroit Pistons to the NBA title with his buddies Wallace, Wallace, and Hamilton. But he is still one smart, tough, unselfish passer who can distribute the ball and hit the three when it's needed. He isn't pretty and he isn't the star, but he wins games by making his teammates better. Melo will score 25 a game and make it look easy; Amare will get his 20 plus ten rebounds; Chauncey will score 10 with 15 assists and bother the hell out of the opposing guards as the Knicks win another one in the Garden.

The Eastern Conference appeared to be a season-long build-up to a showdown between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat, but now who knows? The Knicks might have a shot. With LeBron pretty much carrying Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and the rest of the Heat on his shoulders, they are clearly a force to be reckoned with. The Celtics are aging but playing great basketball. How do the Knicks match up against Boston and Miami?

None of them has a dominant center. Nobody does. Name one great center. Dirk Nowitski's best inside move is a 20-foot jump shot. Kevin Love is getting there but needs players around him, like his mentor Wes Unseld a generation ago. The best teams have a decent journeyman center who can rebound, defend the paint, and set picks for the guys with the ball.

At power forward, the Celtics have Kevin Garnett, who is a little better than Bosh and Stoudemire, but it's close. At small forward, there's LeBron and then there's everybody else. At shooting guard it gets interesting, with Wade against Anthony against Ray Allen. All of them are amazingly fluid scorers. Slight advantage to Miami when Wade is healthy.

Trouble is, Miami doesn't have a top-notch point guard - unless LeBron plays the point and passes to Dwayne, Chris, Zydrunas, and himself. Boston has Rajon Rondo, who is no longer the weak link but rather the youthful spark on a balanced team full of veterans. But now New York has Billups, who is the opposite, a cagey old point guard, the catalyst for two scoring machines who have not played together, and he will take Rondo to school. Advantage New York.

I haven't mentioned the Chicago Bulls because even with Derrick Rose they are a year away. I haven't mentioned the Los Angeles Lakers because even with Kobe Bryant they are just Kobe Bryant end four other guys. I haven't mentioned the San Antonio Spurs because even with Tim Duncan they are too old.

Why do I care? The NBA isn't as much fun as college basketball, and the NCAA tournament is right around the corner. But these men are artists who do what they do better than anyone else in the world. And what else you gonna do in February in Ohio?

Regularly scheduled randomness

I'm the first to admit that I'm a little superstitious. As in "When you believe in things that you don't understand..." (S. Wonder) Okay, very superstitious. So who 'believes in' things that they do understand? Do you understand gravity? Do I understand inertia? Things that are undeniably real remain wonderfully mysterious.

Hence the desire to build a fire at the end of the day and not just turn up the thermostat, to cook rice and stir-fry some tofu with carrots, onions, fresh ginger, broccoli, and home-grown peppers instead of ordering a pizza. It's time to bring to a close another week, turn in a timesheet, call it a day, enjoy a Danish vodka, and prepare to bid adieu to the Year of the Tiger.

It's just another week, and it's just a calendar, an arbitrary number in a mathematical system invented by an astronomer working for an emperor (lunar) or a Pope (solar) that makes sense within the community of the faithful, for whom it defines something important, but at the end of the day, it's just another day on the blue-green planet.

The key is to "Be heavy and still have a sense of humor," as my friend Terry in the UP used to say, quoting Frank Zappa. With that wisdom in mind, I consult the oracle, which I used to consult almost daily 35 years ago when another friend named Shea introduced me to "the old man in the yellow coat," in an effort to keep things in perspective. Coin toss, marks on paper.

Before Completion (64) when the transition from disorder to order is not yet completed, presents a parallel to spring. "But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing, gets its tail in the water, there is nothing that would further." Leading the world out of confusion back to order, one must move warily like an old fox moving over ice....Deliberation and caution are the prerequisites of success.

This divination is pure T'ai Chi, and every new beginner gets it drummed into their head when we are learning to walk like the old fox, placing each foot weightlessly in front, pausing to test the ice before committing to take a step in that particular place, lest the ice give way underfoot and we lunge forward to an icy end.

Six in the fifth place means perseverance, as victory has been won, and success has justified the deed. The new time has arrived and with it good fortune. As the sun shines forth in redoubled beauty after rain, or as a forest grows more freshly green from charred ruins after a fire, so the new era appears all the more glorious by contrast with the misery of the old.

So I slept soundly, woke up holding hands, and had a biscuit with my coffee before Saturday morning class. I could have gone to Lowe's to look for a storm door, or I could have walked the dog or renewed Zelda's car tags at the BMV. But it's nice to know that the victory has been won.

Instead of the errands on my to-do list, I played it by ear in the randomness of an open-ended Saturday, and driving east from High Street I spotted a crew of tree workers bringing down a gigantic ash, so I asked them if they wanted to get rid of some of the wood. The head honcho was more than willing to cut a few of the oddly shaped limbs into lengths I could carry, so I filled up the Ranger with free firewood.

Happy accidents happen sometimes, but you can't plan them or they don't count. I had just enough time to go to the thrift store and found an almost new pair of jeans that fit - nine dollars - and go to the regularly scheduled randomness of the Clinton-Como drum circle.

Nick was there, of course, smiling as usual, and Mark was there, brooding as usual, and a couple of other familiar faces. Pretty soon more people began to trickle in, a young woman I didn't know, three young guys I had met before, an older woman, and everyone found a place to sit in the circle. A couple of kids wandered in from the gym still wearing their basketball shirts, one left after five minutes and the other stayed for an hour. You never know.

Out of office

Being gone for the better part of a week has consequences. I took a few days off last week because my mother was in the hospital with pneumonia. I talked to my manager, made arrangements with a dependable co-worker to cover my project, and drove south on Saturday.

My sister Anna Banana Golly-Gosh had been visiting my parents for a week, and the day I arrived she went back to Michigan. My brother Rock Golly was there for the weekend, so it was my turn to grab the baton in the sibling relay and accompany Dad through the next few trying days.

Long story short, everything went fairly well. Drs. Sawabini and Mehta saw daily progress in Mom's condition from Sunday through Wednesday: "Her numbers are better." She was unenthusiastic about eating the bland hospital food, but eating unassisted was a big step forward. The physical therapists coaxed her into taking a few steps with a walker, and she felt better after being up out of bed.

Monday and Tuesday, Dad and I visited two "skilled nursing" facilities in Cumberland County and one just across the Putnam County line. Of the two in town, we chose the one that looked more professional and organized. By Wednesday morning, the pneumonia threat had cleared, and we moved her across town to a semi-private room in the rehab center. We spent the afternoon getting acquainted with nurses and therapists, generally being the squeaky wheel and getting their attention.

Thursday I came home to a snowstorm in central Swingstate just in time for my qigong class. They say falling snow has very positive, cleansing qi, and I believe it. Friday in the office was surprisingly trouble-free because Courtney had taken care of business while I was gone. There was exactly one page still to be approved before all files were released. Update the schedule, answer a few emails, touch base with the production team, and call it a day.

On the home front, there was work to do. I hadn't seen Gven Golly in almost a week, so I unpacked the salient details of my visit with the folks and did three loads of laundry. It was cathartic. I cleaned the rooms that I inhabit the most, shoveled snow, built a fire, watched basketball - Ohio State vs. Illinois, Tennessee vs. UConn, Minnesota vs. Michigan, Purdue vs. Michigan State.

When I called Dad, he reported that with a little butter and salt, Mom is eating more and is lucid if not altogether happy and cooperative. She had a successful physical therapy session on Friday that pushed her limits and left her a bit tired. Dad got her a TV and some large-print Readers Digest books. Someone from their Methodist church had visited, and there is a group in the rehab that gets together to sing hymns.

Zelda came over for dinner on Sunday, always a welcome respite from the hum-drum of the week. We had a nice evening with turkey burgers and mashed potatoes while the Packers beat the Bears in the snow of Soldier Field. However, the oven igniter had stopped working, so there was no way to bake bread, and I would have to make do with pita and tortillas for the week's lunches. A whole week's worth of New York Times sits unread on the kitchen table, so I will have to read two sections a day to catch up with the newspaper of record.

Hanging with my boys

My desk is like a home away from home. When I'm there, I sometimes listen to music. Not all the time, not even every day, so it's not like I make it a practice. But it is a great way to break up the day, screen out distractions, and spend quality time in the presence of familiar voices.

I like these guys. They're not my friends exactly, depending on what that means. Some of them know each other, of course, and none of them have ever heard of me, I can safely assume. Let's just say I enjoy hanging with Adrian, Bob (of course), Charlie, Chick and Bela, Christopher, Dave, Eddie and Joe, Irving, Jerry and David, John, John, Leon, Matt, Miles, Mstislav, Ralph, Red, Ute, and Yo-Yo.

It's a small, select group. I might have the most limited iTunes library in the office. I would attribute that to quality over quantity. Just ask my boys.

Wrandom

I jotted down the first few words I heard on each channel while flipping from channel 3 all the way up to channel 99, just to see what fragments would fall together. This sample of tube talk from a Friday night is the language of TV.

Beginning

A kind of strange egg creates tomorrow. Car wash, okay, I’ll speak to the catering manager.

Men, HD 3-D mobile TV. My sister said to me the other day, when I find the dress, as they’re thumbing their noses in the face of truth, justice, and the American way. Thus Butterworth entered the funeral business.

Down across southeast Ohio, mother, tomatoes, Maria, the house looked so gorgeous for the holidays. One carat, I love it, Michael, you’re so fabulous. McIlhenny stores 60 thousand barrels; 14 thousand gallons of vinegar are mixed with 3 thousand pounds of mash. (Sousa’s Washington Post March) I thought we were best friends.

Middle

Poetry in motion, injustices we are forced to suffer, and now the conditions for selected locations puts you in a coma. More legitimate as an edited version, or are they both equally despicable?

Strong muscles and healthy bones, in seafood is enjoying it together too consistently not to make it, love coming back unless he changes his mind now. A versatile guard who can do a lot of different things. It’s Chuck’s last call after the game right here.

Congratulations, guys, we’re thrilled to have you. You may speak too, half-breed vermin, but first catch up on everything that’s gone down. It may be cold outside, but it’s still hot in Cleveland. Congratulations, and don’t worry. That’s not a bad omen at all.

Under the gig, pumps pulsate a stream of water. It’s eating you up inside, and you know I never molested that boy. I may be mud, but I have standards. Invisible electric fencing, it’s the latest thing. I think it sexifies the dish a little bit putting the chocolate on top. Maximum strength musinex DM breaks up the musus and quiets coughs. At Burger King you get a second one for free.

Hey, are you famous or something? Or something. Stir up a smile with Hershey’s syrup. Set a good example to lead you in the right direction. What about me? Finally there’s a choice in high-performance detergents. Why don’t you put some pajamas on? That’s not a good situation. Where are you going? Call the number below or log on to get a bow flex dot com.

I love you, Tron guy. Now Ritchie, you don’t have auto insurance coverage right now. He’s square with the house again, so keep off him. Roger’s sick. The film is in about two hours. Wanna go? What’s the name of it? Cross Creek. Never heard of it. Why was he so upset and uncomfortable? I think it had something to do with being socially awkward.

End

The butcher’s paper blowing in the wind, the floating bridges, trying to get something going just for that one game. Any time you get a set of horns the first time and rattle them, that’s a good set of horns. We got a special place here, you know? They’re drunk and disorderly, and police already know they’re a threat to public safety.

PGA shot tracker puts you in control. President Clinton’s secretary of commerce, something in this field could be releasing the chemical into the air when there’s too many of us together. I don’t know anything about anything anymore. By the way, what are you planning to do with your talent, sing, dance? If I do say so myself, now where is that baby unicorn?

We could control Tommy, and by trailing Tommy we could control Celati. It’s like the story of the lion sleeping with the lamb. It happened naturally. Instead of fighting it, I worked with it, you know? Sabor a verdad, I’m gonna call ya in a few hours, okay? A few hours, why? What’s for dessert? Your favorite: crème brule!

Museum as church, church as museum

Our arrival in New York was delayed by the closure of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a missed entrance ramp to the New Jersey Turnpike, but in the end our timing was perfect. We were traveling two days after the storm that dropped a foot or two of snow on most of the Northeast, and the evidence increased the farther east we got along I-70. By the time we crossed the Verrazano Bridge from Staten Island into Brooklyn, snow was piled up everywhere on major streets, and many side streets were impassable.

When we finally turned onto Dean Street, a couple of men had just shoveled an SUV out of a parking space two door down from our rental just in time for us to pull in. One of them was our landlord for the week, Niya [NAH-yuh] Bascom, who was kind enough to be out there to guide us in after a long drive. We didn't move our Toyota Echo for the next three days. By Friday some of the snow had melted and the plows had come through, so it was easy in and easy out, the kind of thing you can't plan.


Niya's house is a nice six-unit brownstone on a quiet, tree-lined street a couple of blocks from where Crown Heights meets Bedford-Stuyvesant. Our two-room studio on the first floor had plenty of space and all the amenities we needed. He was a great host. In fact, we had only positive encounters in our Jamaican neighborhood. The civility of Brooklynites was impressive. Maybe it was the leveling effect of everyone having to deal with two feet of snow. Or maybe it's just Brooklyn.

What were we doing in New York, you might ask. Our son Jessi had spent the week of Christmas in Ohio, so Gven and I decided to drive back with him and stay a couple of days to see his new place and a bit of the city. When we got settled on Dean Street, we walked a few blocks up to Fulton and Nostrand, then up the four flights to Jessi's apartment. Yup, that's a lot of stairs for us old folks, but it probably keeps the rent low.

So part of our mission was accomplished. We met two of his three housemates, inspected their very neat, updated space, and verified that yes, you can indeed see the Empire State Building from the kitchen window. We went out to get a bite to eat, and the man at the juice bar on the corner knew Jessi and asked him how his Christmas had been in Ohio. Jessi grinned and asked how things are in Burkina Faso. He introduced us. We got a papaya juice and a chili dog and called it a day.

We slept like we had just driven for 14 hours and walked to breakfast at a bar called Bush Baby on Fulton St. Then, because the Franklin Ave. shuttle wasn't running, we walked about a mile to the Brooklyn Museum. The sun was shining, most sidewalks had a narrow path shoveled through the snow, and it was fine.


Each of us likes to move through a museum at our own pace, and it was easy to spend half a day there, take a break for coffee, and not get lost. I had never seen Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, and it more than lived up to it's inspiring reputation. Gwen told me I should see the exhibition by Fred Tomaselli on the fifth floor, and she was right, it was stunning. He layers materials - leaves, feathers, pills, cut-out images of body parts - in acrylic with a collage-like effect that has to be seen.


Just as it was getting dark, we walked across a tiny corner of Prospect Park and down Flatbush to Cubana Cafe for dinner. Excellent mojitos, excellent service; bring cash because they don't take VISA. Then we walked around some more, but the really cool bars were too crowded, so we walked some more and found a great little bookstore. Why is there more of everything in New York? Because it's New York! And bring your walking shoes.

We had a definite goal the next day for breakfast. On our last New York trip, Gven and I stayed in the East Village and met Jessi at B & H Dairy, his favorite diner on Second Avenue, which is said to serve the best borscht in the universe. It was Saturday morning and the place was packed, but we found a small table in the back and drank coffee while observing the Polish matriarch at the end of the counter keeping an eye on the place while peeling potatoes. When Jessi arrived, there was nowhere to sit, so I suggested that we find another place to eat. Later I regretted this decision, so this was our second chance at the B & H.

It was totally worth it. I didn't see the old lady, but the young man waiting tables refilled our coffee cups and yelled our order to the cook: "Pierogis, cheddar-apple omelette, French toast, Mummy, Daddy."


It was a sunny day in Manhattan, and our mood was ebullient on the way to our next destination in SoHo. Gven wanted to look at knitting supplies at Soho Purl on Broome Street, a place she had admired online, and Jessi took me a block north to The Evolution Store on Spring Street, where among the fossils, stones, and bones I found a book about the natural forms of flowers, stems, shells, and skin that made my eyes bug out the way Fred Tomaselli's art had the day before.

We were beginning to figure out a few of the worst-kept secrets of the New York subway system and quickly found ourselves on the Upper West Side at a table in the back corner of a Hungarian cafe across the street from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Am I in heaven? No, but it's probably a little like Budapest. I can still taste the almond pastry.


The cathedral itself is somewhat overwhelming, which might be the point of Gothic architecture in general and this amazing specimen in particular, built on a rocky outcropping in the most exclusive quarter of the wealthiest city in the richest country in the world. If the vaulted ceilings, tiled floors, stained glass windows, larger-than-life statues of saints, ring of chapels encircling the altar, and string orchestra rehearsing in the nave don't take your breath away, you might want to check for a pulse. Not quite a conversion experience, but close.

Did I mention that it was our anniversary? Yes, our last day in New York - and part of the rationale for the trip - was the 32nd anniversary of the wedding of Sven and Gven Golly all those years ago in Atlanta. We celebrated year 30 in Chicago and now year 32 in New York, maybe our 35th should be . . . in Budapest, or Prague, or Oslo! Let's think about that for a few years.

Our tour guide Jessi and co-conspirator Alex had picked out the perfect restaurant in Greenwich Village. Like kids out on a date in the big city, Gven and I navigated the A train to Washington Square and walked a couple of blocks to Bleecker Street and Trattoria Pesce Pasta. The lobster ravioli was righteous, the tortellini was terrific, and the wine was wonderful.

The Donut Diner in Park Slope was our final breakfast destination and another favorite place of Jessi's where they know him and welcomed us. The Greek omelette was average, but the complimentary glazed donuts were melt-in-your-mouth yummy. Long story longer, we emerged from our free parking place unscathed, crossed back over the Verrazano Bridge and out the Jersey Turnpike, and with the help of a rivetting book on CD by Nick Hornby made it home a few minutes before midnight to toast the New Year.

Chores as ritual, rituals as chore

Writing the date in numerals separated by slashes, not dashes: 1/1/11

Drinking strong coffee and herb bread, reading the Sunday Style section. Remembering that whatever happens on New Year's Day, unlike Vegas, doesn't stay on New Year's Day but penetrates, permeates, replicates, indicates, and echoes throughout the year, so take note of your actions.

Changing to the 2011 refill in my old weekly planner; recommitting to pen and paper, knowing I'm not ready to organize my life on a hand-held computer, thus admitting that I am old school, a throwback, an anachronism.

Chronicling the salient facts, not for reference later, just for the sake of intentionally writing them down. Making a list of verbs attached to objects both direct and indirect; entertaining a fantasy of expanding it into a blog entry, a short story, a novella, an epic; settling for a journal entry.

Taking out the trash; recycling paper, glass, metal, and plastic; sweeping the floor of the kitchen and den; shovelling ashes from the stove; doing laundry; watering indoor plants. Cleaning up borders between beds in the garden; sweeping the patio, raking away debris, moving rocks upsteam or downstream, redistributing leaves and bark as needed.

Ignoring TV and football until a midafternoon dream turns nightmarish in Big Ten matchups with Southeastern and Big 12 teams. Michigan ouch, Michigan State ouch. Penn State not so bad, Northwestern not so bad, Wisconsin not so good.

Eating a peasant supper of sour kraut and pork.

Playing the three-penny opera of changes: After encountering comes gathering in union, bringing people together, assembling with a common purpose at the ancestral temple with somewhere to go, repairing weapons to guard against the unexpected. After marrying comes abundance with no additional room for growth, as the sun at midday begins declining with the time to be treasured and enjoyed.

Happy Holidays, Family & Friends

As we look back in appreciation of the abundance around us, we are looking ahead toward new growth and more sustainable perspectives. Join us in taking a break from the struggle and acknowledging the people who matter the most. It’s like a balancing act between glasses half-full and half-empty.

The changing seasons have been abrupt in central Swingstate. I’m looking out at a snowy garden teeming with birds. Our dog Ruby bounds around the yard keeping the squirrels at bay. She is a two-year-old golden retriever-Irish setter mix, and we adopted her just after Gven’s birthday in May. Ruby has her own room (cage) in the corner of the living room, and she has made herself thoroughly at home.

The major event of the summer was a gathering of the Golly clan to celebrate the patriarch Chas’s ninetieth birthday. Anabanana, Jeaniebeanie, Jojo, Sven, Rocko, their spouses, children and grandchildren joined Helena, Chas, and dozens of their Fairfield Glade neighbors for golf, boating, and a big party in his honor. For good measure, we celebrated Helena’s eighty-ninth birthday and their sixty-seventh wedding anniversary too. It was an awesome weekend for older kids to appreciate their parents and younger kids to catch up with each other. The stairstep age distribution of Sven's four siblings, eight nieces and nephews, two adult children is a tribal wonder to behold.

It has been an eventful year for Scott’s parents. After years of macular degeneration, Helena’s right eye had become painful as well as nonfunctional, and they decided the best treatment option was a prosthetic eye. The process of making and fitting an acrylic eyeball was fascinating and a little scary, but the surgeon and the ocularist who built and painted the eye are an impressively skilled pair. The support team, especially our sister-in-law Cindylou Who-Golly, helped manage the logistics, and the new eye looks perfect.

Jessi’s custom builder and handyman business in Brooklyn is keeping him busy when he isn’t working for the electrician at an event space in SoHo. During visits to Ohio, he spearheaded our long-planned bathroom renovation by doing new plumbing, wiring, framing, and tiling with help from Gven, Zelda, and Sven. In October, Jessi and three housemates moved to a new apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant that allegedly has an awesome view of Manhattan.

Gven and Sven will be in New York for a few days after Christmas, so they will see whether you can really see the Empire State Building from the kitchen. They weathered a rainy July weekend in Michigan exploring corners of Antrim County we hadn’t seen in a long time. Our meandering led to Camp Maplehurst, where Sven worked briefly in 1973 with his traveling buddy Scott Hastings. By pure coincidence, campers from the last 50 years were having a reunion that day, and they welcomed us as though we were one of them.

Zelda gets smarter and more beautiful every day – just my opinion – as she approaches her four-year anniversary at Half Price Books. It’s an additional bonus that she lives close enough to drop by for an occasional Sunday dinner. Zelda took a vacation in April to visit her friends Anton and John in Chicago. She balances the demands of work with passions for baking, knitting, hiking, and spending time with her cat Nora.

Sven made the challenging transition to production coordinator/grumpy old man at McGraw-Hill – and he likes it! Adapting to change is the name of the game, so he looks forward to learning a lot more about digital publishing as the industry morphs into a whole new definition of textbook. Thanks to the expanding taiji classes at the rec centers and the good folks in the drum circle, Sven has ample opportunities to get grounded, find a rhythm, and sometimes even shoot baskets.

Gven teaches yoga at police and fire academies, the county courthouse, a major insurance company, a recreation center, and her home base at the Yoga Factory. She joined her sisters and cousins in September for a fun reunion weekend in Helen, Georgia. Sad news came in November when her Dad and the Surratt family suffered the sudden loss of Gven’s stepmother Mavis to a heart attack.

Jessi and Zelda are home for the holidays. The tree is up, and there is a fire in the hearth. We’ll have lutefisk, mashed potatoes, and peas. Some things don’t change so much. Have a fertile, cautious Year of the Rabbit.

Peace on Earth & Peace of Mind,
Sven and Gven

Recipe for a successful Xmas

1. Shop for tools at Sears Hardware, books at Acorn or Half Price Books, shoes at Macy's, food at Weiland's and the Clintonville Community Market. If they don't have it, you probably don't need it.

2. Appetizers: egg nog (alternative: Brooklyn brown ale), herring in mustard sauce, aged gouda, sharp cheddar, wheat crackers.

3. Dinner: lutefisk baked with garlic and butter; mashed potatoes with garlic and cream cheese; pork-beef meatballs with garlic, bread crumbs, pine nuts, parmesan, romano, and parsley; peas; tossed salad with poppy seed dressing; braided bread; sauvignon blanc.

4. Dessert: apple crisp and tea while watching a movie and dozing off in a comfortable chair.

5. Go outside and do qigong in a light snowfall.

6. Stay up late. Sleep late.

7. Breakfast: coffee with Bailey's, walnut-date bread, smoked salmon, cream cheese, blueberries, yoghurt, apple crisp.

8. Open presents slowly. Try on the new wool socks, new boots, new jacket. Read the first chapter of the new book. Listen to music that everyone likes, or at least music that nobody hates.

9. Go off to separate rooms for awhile and take a break from each other. Bring in more firewood. Take the dog for a good long walk.

10. Dinner: flank steak marinated in Jamaican jerk rub, baked sweet potatoes, green beans with garlic and slivered almonds, pinot noir.

11. Attempt to watch a movie but doze off in a comfortable chair. Go outside and revive by hanging from a trapeze and doing qigong briefly because it's getting cold. Must be that nor'easter that's about to slam into the whole Eastern Seaboard.

12. Don't stay up so late. Don't sleep so late.

13. Get up, read the paper, meditate, eat a spartan breakfast of bread and apple crisp; clean the kitchen and den; dispose of all the wrapping paper, boxes, and miscellaneous packaging materials.

14. Supper: leftover sweet potatoes with salmon, leftover mashed potatoes with meatballs and peas. Marshmallow fudge for dessert.

15. Go out to an actual movie in an actual theater; engage in complex four-sided negotiation whether to see Black Swan, The Fighter, or The King's Speech, and end up seeing True Grit instead. Not bad.