Bathsheba Monk's Blog, page 6

Time to Buck Up...

I denied it for a long time--look he just won BIG in North Dakota! He's going all the way! --even when the count was impossible and those tantalizing super delegates were swinging on the vine like low-but-forbidden fruit and we tried to steal them, because what the hell, right? They're right there! and then I got angry that those super delegates existed for the express purpose of overriding an upstart population--like Bernie supporters-- who might not agree with the foregone conclusion of party apparatchiks and media and they'd be damned fools to give them up, so we said, "Look. Ok. The numbers don't add up, but it wasn't even about Bernie, REALLY, it was about his ideas , so why don't we just throw Bernie under the bus and put his ideas on the platform and it will be like Bernie is STILL ALIVE! Right?" And we struck a bargain -- Numero uno: that Wasserman-Schultz babe has got to go! She's like personally responsible for this whole election mess. And she did go and we were so pumped by that that we upped the ante, "And don't go giving her any big ass jobs on the Clinton campaign like a booby prize" and of course they did, so we demanded that when Bernie spoke at the convention he be given a free pass to say whatever the hell he wanted and he did: he talked like he was Hillary's spokesman "Hillary's going to do this, like I told her to do" and "Hillary's going to do that, like I told her to do" to the point where I was starting to wonder if Hillary had any idea what Bernie was promising in her name, and the camera kept panning to Bill who was eating a carrot and pretending to be interested so I guess it was okay. But it really wasn't okay, you know? We were all crying because we knew it was over except for the shouting, so we started to shout to speed things up.  And then we crashed.  It's just so depressing. Bernie really is dead.  All the platforms in the world aren't going to raise him up. It's not like he's Jesus and can do that. He's an atheist and atheists have no arrows in that quiver. And then, Michelle gave that fabulous speech, which made it kind of hard not to like Hillary, because Michelle called her "our friend" and anybody who Michelle likes is okay.  I mean, didn't Michelle dance with a giant carton of low-fat milk to cure childhood obesity?  That took a lot of nerve. When you think about it, we owe her. Our children aren't the laughing stock of the universe anymore. So, if she says Hillary's okay, maybe she is. She's not The Donald, at least. That's something, isn't it? Although nobody I personally know is anything remotely like The Donald.  Okay, push that thought down. She has a lot of experience in DC and I hope she's learned something from it. We have to accept it, Bernie is not going to be the Democratic nominee for prez.  Wishin' and hopin' ain't gonna bring him back. We got to think of another strategy for keeping our democracy from going to hell in a hand basket. So, okay, Hillary. I wonder if she accepts small bills?

Pardon my reality

A late friend's mantra was "things are bad and they're going to get worse" and I laughed when she said it although she appears to be have been prescient because every conversation now crashes in the ditch of "I don't think we can fix the world anymore." And really, what can you say to the rat-a-tat-tat of Orlando, Baghdad, France, Turkey? except, "I've been hit!" Even that crocodile in Disney world ripped our hearts out and that was almost understandable--an animal following its instincts after all. The child was following his instincts too, though--he was bored and exploring. Maybe we ought to give more thought to our creature instincts. Paul has this theory that seems to stand up, that every living organism (or organization for that matter) will keep trying to feed itself, expand, and dominate. It's as true for a growing kid as it is for a croc. It's as true for corporations as it is for labor unions. Unless a third party intervenes, they will just keep keeping on expanding and trying to dominate. That's what government was supposed to do--intervene, referee--but somewhere in the 1990s--dare I say the Clinton era?-- that concept fell out of favor. Greed is good. Get you some! Our elected officials started looking out for themselves, stopped looking out for the common good and that's the same time we stopped looking out for one another. We turned our attention away from policing the corporations that promised to be "job creators" (yes they are, albeit in other countries paying kids chained to sewing machines .45 a day) while they hoarded all the goodies and forgot to trickle down to our working class, all the while pointing the finger at "greedy" poor people and immigrants. Get them! First we kicked single moms off the dole and now we're trying to kick people off the food stamp program and hound the refugees from our wars out of safe haven. And we're cheering. Get those lazy bums off government subsidy! They're taking our stuff! Here's the news: They aren't the enemy, bubba.  The enemy is a lazy populace that doesn't demand that elected officials do their job and intervene and referee and pry open the hands of the "job creators." The enemy is a population that has agreed to play a game of musical chairs at the "job creators" whim, and the rule of that game is that there is always one less chair than players. So we're always one song away from losing our seat. And we're armed. And we're on edge. Are mass shootings really a mystery? I would like someone to explain to me--very slowly--how the TPP and expanded globalization is going to fix that. Because economic inequity is at the heart of all our social ills. How is granting immunity from the law to international corporations going to ease our anxiety over losing jobs and make the world safer from each other, yes, as well as from the corporate overlords when it will pit us against each other like fighting dogs as they dangle jobs in front of the lowest bidder?  It won't. And you can waste your energy joining in the new game that our corporate overlords invited us to play, which is blame the "other"--the other color, the other religion--when the simple truth is that when there is enough we get along just fine. So come on. Let's have it. Give it to us! And that's why I'm voting for Jill Stein.

Goodbye to All That

Yesterday the nice people of Wintersteen Trucking, specializing in Arts and Antiques, picked up the collection of paintings that have been stacked under our beds and in our closets and took them to the Wolfs Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio. I say nice people because the couple, who have been transporting art around the country for decades and are based out of Kansas City, have two rescue dachshunds that ride around in the cab of their 28 foot truck with them. "We always get our dogs from shelters," the wife told me. One dog had a cataract--"she's 18"--and the other dog dragged himself over to greet me.  He has spine damage from when his former humans--and I use the word humans ironically--moved and thought throwing an individual out of a speeding vehicle onto a six-lane highway is how you treat your friends. The woman trucker was petite and chic--tight jeans high boots--and after discussing the art of handling a 28 foot diesel truck, we talked about fine art and its worth.  "I love this job because I'm not stuck in an office and I get to meet interesting people and handle beautiful things." We talked about Clarence H. Carter, the artist whose work Paul and I own, and how he was one of those people who could adapt. He was born in 1906 and his career spanned a century that saw representational art replaced by abstract expressionism replaced by minimalism replaced by conceptualism. And he always landed on his artistic feet, successfully experimenting with styles that worked in each era. It makes him hard to categorize and therefore a harder sell to collectors, but much more interesting than artists who spend a lifetime doing variations on a theme. My favorite of his styles is the Over and Above series of compositions (like the one pictured here that he painted in the 1960's) of animals leaning over a wall, as if they walked up to have a chat and stayed to have Carter paint their portrait.  There is dignity in these animal portraits. This is what Carter had to say about these paintings:

...the world of other creatures.  We look at them in fascination and wonder.  From this strange world of fact and fancy stare back images both real and unreal of what perhaps we might be to others, but never to ourselves—the Somebody Else.

He loved other species, plant and animal. A local newspaper asked him once what he wanted for the new year and his reply was, "More trees and fewer people." He had guard geese, Hector and Cora, at his farm in rural New Jersey, and mourned with them when their egg failed to hatch.  He took it into his studio, one inspiration for his eggs paintings, I'm sure. He always had free roaming cats and dogs.  He was heartbroken, later in his life, when his beloved cat, Billy Carter, failed to come home one evening. Billy's disappearance heralded his own decline.  

I think Carter would have liked the truckers who loved animals and their two dachshunds who escorted his work to its new home.

Two Kinds of People

I've had an excellent week.  No particulars, just imagine your own excellent week times 4.  Like that. I attribute the excellence of this week to a confluence of factors, but mostly a decision I made a while back to toss from the side of my boat individuals whose first word is "no," variations: "we've tried it and it won't work,""you need lots of money for that," "it's too hard," and "nice girls don't do that."  Gawd.  I'm feeling vertigo writing this. Let's face it, it's a sign of desperation to throw out good girl rules.  People on the climbing side of the roller coaster have time for niceties, people on the descent can see the end and holler out: "You know this ride is over in 5 seconds, IF we live!" So--did you see it coming?--I am hurtling into what is about to become a Bernie ad. The people in my boat have 5 seconds to make up for their negligence during the comfy ride up. We saw that tracks were damaged, that seats needed repair, even that some safety bars were coming unscrewed and we said nothing. Too expensive, too hard, and don't rock the boat because it might ruin our ride, affect our affluent status quo.  We said no, because what can one person do anyway?  We said no, because  our ride is over in 5 seconds.  And now we have a chance to say yes.

Bernie and Hillary and How Things Work

  
In my misspent youth I was in the U.S. Army and then I worked for the biggest employer in Massachusetts, a health insurance behemoth. It gave me a front row seat to see how things work, mostly who does what in a corporation and how things get done, or don’t get done. And this is how I see the race between Bernie and Hillary: basically they’re applying for different jobs.

This is how the army works and bear with me I’m getting to Bernie: the Commander in Chief creates policy both foreign and domestic say, “My policy is we will have peace on earth,” or “I want to be the first nation to put men on Mars.” His policy people propose three or four major initiatives to support the results, say, “to have peace on earth we have to 1. cut down the threat of nuclear war, and 2. stabilize warring populations” and they give these initiatives to the Chiefs of the different branches of the military (general officers) and with the help of their planning divisions create plans to realize these initiatives and also contingency plans in case things don’t go the way they think they will. The plans are given to the general officers of the brigades and divisions who make plans to mobilize or do whatever is necessary to achieve the goals they are given. These plans are given to the field grade officers who assign tasks to their companies, until you finally have squads of soldiers worrying about how to take a hill or whether or not to trust that kid with a grenade in his hand. You see where I’m going here. The criticism of Bernie for not being a foot soldier or even a brigade tank commander is spot on. But that’s not the job he’s applying for. He’s applying for the job of Commander in Chief. He’s the leader. He has the vision. Much like the CEO of that behemoth insurance company I worked for. The CEO didn’t care how the customer service people paid claims or even what criteria they used to deny claims (sex change operations or no?), he just wanted to insure the most people in Massachusetts. He also wanted our company logo on a sign big enough to be seen as you drove into downtown Boston on the Mass Turnpike, but that’s another story.

So now here’s where Hillary and Bernie come in. Bernie is applying for the job of the person who says “I want peace on earth.” I’m not voting for his ability to put together plans to make that happen. I’m voting for the person who wants peace on earth. Because I do too! I get all tingly about that. And I trust that Bernie will hire people to make that happen because there are plenty of smart policy wonks around. And here’s the difference: Hillary is applying for the job of the person who makes stuff happen. Nothing wrong with that, per se, except I’m not sure what big stuff she passionately wants to make happen except to etch her name on the oval office. I don’t doubt her ability to make stuff happen, and maybe she is the most qualified person for the job of making stuff happen, in which case, I’m sure Bernie would be thrilled to hire her. Much like Obama was.

Womanly Arts

The Weather Channel has whipped me into a state of hysteria over the coming storm and I respond to hysteria by throwing things away....if I have to flee I want everything to fit on my back to be fleet of foot..a  primal instinct going back to my genetic sojourn in the Steppes...and today I turned my eye to an entire shelf of cookbooks and torn-out-of-magazine recipes that I have lugged around for a lifetime.  The last couple of fancy meals I made came straight from the internet, so who needs all this paper.  Two piles: stay or go. Okay. Joy of Cooking? Well, that's a classic and I snowed my first serious boyfriend by opening it up--cracking the spine actually--and pretending I knew where to find things. Stay. The New Basics Cookbook by Rosso and Lukins? It was gift from a former boss after he and his wife had dinner at my house. Stay. Okay, all the cookbooks with pictures of French and Italian meals with beautiful countryside backgrounds can stay too. They're books for god sake! I'm a writer! I can't throw books away. But wait, here's something: the full Thanksgiving dinner menu and recipes I tore out of  Gourmet Magazine. I'll never do that again. It took all day and all twelve guests were smashed by the time we ate and in fisticuffs about whether it's immature to smoke pot and Marilyn, the photographer, was busy photographing me basting the bird then secretly sold the photos on some photo service even though I expressly told her not to because I look cross-eyed when I'm high. Someone admired the white tablecloth: where did you find something so long? The bed sheet of the invalid father-in-law whose house we were at. The stoners found it hilarious, the drunks not so much. The old man's accountant came by that night and said "the lights were on when I drove by" then scolded us for wasting the old man's money on a party he was clearly enjoying.  It was his last. Four of the people at that dinner are now dead--five if you count the father-in-law-- the others scattered beyond my reach. Please. Stay.

Yeah, I believe in Santa

although when I think about it, Santa is clearly an old-fashioned paternalistic symbol that harkens back to when men were white knights on horses swooping in to save women--with a marriage proposal usually--although now women don't need that kind of saving...women don't even need a husband to have a child anymore: 40% of all children in the US are born to single moms. Back to Santa. I used to get God and Santa Claus mixed up when I was a kid.  They were both big judgemental guys in the sky, although Santa was a lot more generous with immediate tangible rewards and his criteria for being good were much more transparent.  Kind of like my mom's. God's rules were murky and a lot depended on who was telling the story AND what edition of the rule book you were reading. Then it turns out that there are even entirely different books. So there are more guys in the sky to worry about. All men. People are always getting in fights over whether or not women should be allowed into the various priesthoods, but I never see anyone saying, you know, why don't we just create a female god who isn't as belligerent as a male god. Who isn't all hung up on rules and punishing you "to teach you a lesson."  We don't learn lessons, we're a flawed species. We keep doing the same stupid stuff over and over as if we have pierogies for brains.  I can, however, see God as SuperMom. After a long day of cleaning up your physical and psychic messes, and you ask for yet another special dispensation, SuperMom just closes her eyes and says, "Whatever."  Because---well, you wore her out--but, she really only wants you to be happy. She's your MOM! Isn't that a great God?  It's only guys in the sky who insist on extremely uncomfortable and humiliating trans vaginal probes, re-arranging female anatomy to suit whatever crack-pot interpretation of the rule book they follow, and pushing gays off cliffs. Maybe those guys in the sky should fight out it out amongst themselves without involving us, let SuperMom God bake some cookies and clear the deck for Santa and his bag of presents.  Because we were good.

The Thank You Note is In the Mail

My dad was a complicated person. He subscribed to both Time and Newsweek to get all sides of an issue.  He was a total realist, but he loved movies and novels and was delighted that his daughter had a talent for telling stories. He could flirt and flatter with the best, but accepted compliments only if they were true.  He knew when he was being manipulated to do someone's dirty work--like when he got his draft notice--and even though he took care of business and then some, don't tell him a war wrapped in stars and stripes smelled any better than a war wrapped in other shapes.  He was there and he had a nose. He dismissed the label Greatest Generation for what it was--a marketing gimmick to sell product--and knew that if his generation was successful it was because of luck and circumstance: a roaring economy, the GI bill and an intact social contract.  He died before the war machine came up with the brilliant piece of propaganda of thanking vets for their service and I can picture his reaction if someone had the naivety to do so:  you aren't the person who should be thanking me.  

Can't Live Without You

I came late to the fraternity of humans who can't live without animals.  A few years ago a stray cat staked out our back yard for himself, so technically I was rushed. There's more. Earlier that year two people died and left a crater I couldn't stop staring into--so death came late to me too. After that I was ashamed I ever had the nerve to write about death, and although in the re-reading my writing sounds authentic, I know what I was thinking and, believe me, I had no idea what I was talking about. So then, this cat. Those who have had animals save your sanity, I don't have to tell you. Part of the appeal of animals is they don't talk.  Their physical presence is the magic potion. So, when Jim McGarrah's manuscript came in over the electronic transom and I started it one cold snowy night, planning to read a chapter and go to bed, but then couldn't put it down, I knew I was reading the real thing.  It's the story of a warrior coming home and not having the words to breach the chasm between people who have stared into that particular crater--combat--and those who have not. And then his father buys this horse.  And Jim decides to train the horse.  And the rest is a funny, sad, riotous bout of first rate storytelling.  And the best part?  It's all true.       

Let Them Eat Cake

Did you see this one coming?  No, not the fact that EVERYONE is finally allowed to form families--although that WAS a pleasant surprise--but that some OTHER people who had this right all along would think they were being persecuted because now everyone else COULD?  Or that men who are too COWARDLY to take off their hoods would sob in public like little babies that their way of life was being threatened because people were finally calling them out for their non-American attitudes,actions and their confederate flag.   Of course the confederate flag is racist. How stupid do we think we are?  You know, South Carolina, it really IS time to move on.   We know you lost your free labor, but you lost the war and your right to keep that free labor, so think of something else.  You know how you guys are always telling people to work hard and everything will be all right?  Take your own advice.  Work a little harder at advancing the human race.  And get yourself some health insurance.  You look terrible.