Virtual Reading Group — The Mother Thread
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Marta Randall – 08:39 pm PST – Mar 17, 2000 – #3147 of 3276
It’s Friday of a week that seemed to last a good 10 days since Monday, or more. Perhaps its the turning of the weather that made this week seem so long — I think we have transited from winter into deep spring and into those delicately balanced few weeks in Northern California after the rains have greened the hills, and before the natural cycle has started browning them again. Great billows of wild mustard pillowing up between rows of grapevines or in lush patches through the pastures, amid grass high enough to soften the outlines of the hills. California poppies bright orange amid the blue of lupines, and more delicate patches of wild radish, tiny pink and white flowers on tall stalks. Red-winged blackbirds in the pastures, sitting on the barbed-wire fences or swooping across the road, vivid black and red movements against the green. The fruit trees are in flower now, too, and the California walnuts have taken on that slight green buzz that means that leafing out is imminent. The weather prophets claim that it will be in the 80s tomorrow. Wish you all were here.
Raising your kids differently from how you were raised? Why?
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Patrice Janda – 10:16 am PST – Mar 21, 2000 – #194 of 215
…Your relationship with your dad reminds me of my relationship with my brother (seven years my senior). He believed in me and respected me (although as we grew into adutlthood his admiration became qualified by my being the perfect Woman of God). He thought I was the most amazing woman (girl) and always told me so. He lived his philosophy as well, and when I was very young I considered him the most brilliant man alive (once I asked him why he couldn’t be the President–I believed in him passionately).
To disappoint him, well, let me say it did devastate me. I don’t know why I’m sharing this, it’s just that something between you and your father triggered this comparison. What is it about brilliant men and those they inspire? Is this kind of reverence a thing of the past?
My father “passed on” early, so my brother kinda felt he needed to watch out for me. And looking back I think it would have devastated me to displease my father as well (but not my mom–she wasn’t critical in the slightest and loved me and pretty much everyone without qualification). Not that my father was the imbalanced man my bro turned out to be…he wasn’t. I just think it’s odd this kind of fear a great father can inspire. And by fear, I sort of mean respect and mixed with something else, though I’m not sure just what this other ingredient is.
To this day I harbor the feeling that there isn’t a man alive as great as my father. Loving, quietly stern, generous, kind, well-respected, a doer, hard-workering, earnest, loved and protected his wife, fair, compassionate, much loved, humble. The few times I recall disappointing him remain with me to this day.
Once he caught me walking down the road with another little girl. We were holding a stick between us and swinging back and forth saying, “we hate Shari, we hate Shari,” or something really mean about the this other girl in the neighborhood. He walked up to us, this giant of a man, and I knew I had seriously fucked up, he was stopping from whatever he was doing and coming over to reveal himself. And he told us what we were doing was wrong. Not the right thing to do. He didn’t raise his voice or yell. But he looked at me and I knew he found no joy in telling me I my behavior was out of line and my god… my heart sank so low in my body, pinning me to that spot where I stood in the hot sun by the side of the road. Something was passing between my dad and I and I wanted to tell him that I was so sorry. But I knew it wasn’t about me. It was about Shari. He wanted me to understand what my actions were doing to Shari. He knew I was capable of coming to this higher place–so he didn’t say it more than once. His words were kind and direct and swift. And I remember him walking away, staring at his huge back as he returned to his work around the house. And me and my friend dropping the stick at our feet–not knowing what to do with ourselves.
I want to know how he got where he did, my Father. How did he find the core of me? And though he was there, holding my personhood in his large calloused hands–how did I know it was without question still mine? Mine to do with as I pleased.
When I see kids today who lack an obvious respect for their parents, it makes me sad. Because it’s their loss. I’m not talking about that undeserved you respect me regardless of my actions kind of crap–but something else much less tangible. Along with respect, I so trusted my father. It was easy to do as he asked of me, because I felt he wasn’t asking anything more or less of me than he would ask of himself. I want so much for my daughter to know this kind of love.
What I’d *really* like to say to my boss is …
href="http://tabletalk.salon.com/webx?14@@.eea8d00/4">Business and Work Life
Lisa Simpson – 09:30 am PST – Mar 22, 2000 – #5 of 13
“You are a really good boss and a good person. I actually LIKE you, which is remarkable at this organization, considering my previous boss was a witch and the boss before that was transfered elsewhere after he harassed/disciminated against a number of his female subordinates, primarily me. So I’m grateful to finally have a boss who is not only a human being but who also understands that there is life outside work, and who has a sense of humor.
That said, it’s really hard to maintain a positive attitude when I hear you constantly complaining – sometimes justifiably, sometimes not – about one or another of our colleagues; when you are generally WAY more stressed than the situation requires (my therapist thinks you may be a candidate for anti-depressant medication); when you give only negative reactions, zero praise and vague criticisms about my work (e.g., what does “you need to stay on top of this” mean in terms of ACTION?); when you focus on things like how messy my desk is rather than how good my work is – and it is good, and it could be better if I just got some good guidance, some constructive feedback, and a light pat on the back now and then.”
Food Nazis: Fine! Eat whatever you want, just SHUT UP about it
House and Garden
Lola G. – 01:07pm Aug 3, 1999 PDT (# 61 of 106)
I went to the Red Cross & gave blood a bit ago, and as I was at the recovery table, sipping juice & eating cookies, I got lectured by another woman at the table that giving blood was a good way to lose weight if I’d skip the cookies. Uh huh. Bloodletting as weight control. “Sorry, I love Nutter Butters.”
Speaking of gastroporn, I was just on vacation with my family. My mom’s not been able to smell for probably 6 or 7 years, and so really can’t taste other than knowing something’s sweet, salty, bitter. So I spent a week tasting her food and describing it to her in luscious, overripe detail. I really enjoyed it. I think I may take up menu editing as a part-time profession.
Best (or least awful) Airports
Home and Away
Michael Wise – 07:44pm Jul 31, 1999 PDT (# 33 of 41)
I generally have a profound hatred of airports. They are lousy places to have to spend any time at all. Train stations are much more interesting, especially in Europe, because they are centrally located, which means escape is easy, you’re not a victim of concession stands, the decor is unique (it would be hard to distinguish one airport from another), and trains are just cool.
That said, while I would recommend our own Union Pacific station, I would have to say that Salt Lake City International Airport (that is an offical designation, from the years before Customs decided that there would be only a small number of in/out portals to the United States) is a genuinely good airport. Less than ten minutes from downtown Salt Lake, it has a wide range of transportation away (bus, cab, hotel shuttles, ski resort shuttles; no rail, though that is on the drawing board), it has nice accomodations (beer is available, smoking facilities are more ubiquitous than you would expect in Utah, there’s coffee in the form of Starbucks), and a good layout. Being a fairly small airport but a Delta hub, there are lots of places you can get without a high price or a lot of hassle.
Now, who wants to rent my place for the 2002 Olympics while I jet off to Paris?
Married and no kids? How do you define your “marriage”?
Social Issues
Stephanie Dobler – 12:19pm Jul 27, 1999 PDT (# 72 of 110)
I’m pretty sure I don’t want to have kids, but I still want to marry my
boyfriend. (He wants to marry me too, but he isn’t as ready as I am.) So,
why, when you count the hassle and expense?
I guess because the symbolism of marriage, even though I’m not religious or
spiritual, matters to me. I love language, literature, art and poetry.
Ritual, metaphor, language, all have deeply informed my sense of what makes
life worth living. To me there is a real, not just on-paper difference,
between single and married. I want to have a husband, not a boyfriend. I
want to be his wife, not his girlfriend. I don’t think these differences
are trivial. You may think so, but I don’t. I think naming has real power
and naming us husband and wife will be a powerful meaningful change in our
relationship. I’m not saying it will be a magic fix for our fights and
disagreements–not at all. But it will put them in a different context and
I think that matters.
The Trouble with Public School, Aside From the Lack of Funds
Education
Paul Ricciardi – 01:49pm Jul 29, 1999 PDT (# 507 of 548)
MaryBenAmi, again you have hit the mark. Children, in fact all of us, are learning organisms. The amount that children learn before they even come to school is enormous, but never fully taken into account. Their greatest self-teaching has been learning to speak. that it is done by simple imitation, very little attention is paid to it. In fact, learning to read is far more simple to master than learning to speak. Maria Montessori recognized the powers of children long before the educational establishment even began to think about them. In fact, many who call themselves educators today don’t recognize what children bring with them to school. If teachers understood the powers children have and applied those to the learning of reading, writing, math, etc., you would see great changes in educational results.
Has drama finally killed literature?
Books
Jordon Flick – 01:20am Jul 30, 1999 PDT (# 84 of 87)
Dramatic movement tends to work in quarters. Where do we see this? A lot of opera, all one hour television (as a strict rule, in fact), just about all feature film. Why? If you look at drama as being driven by the needs of performance, you can trace it to any number of needs or traditions. In classical opera the act was measured by how long it took the candles lighting the theatre to burn down….
Classical stage is very heavy on the first two acts length-wise. If I were taking Hamlet, I’d plug acts 1 & 2 into “Act 1,” act 3 into “Act II,” act 4 into “Act III” and act 5 into “Act IV.”
One hour television obeys this act structure to the book and is also heavy on the first two acts; they usually consume 60% of the story time (besides generic traditions this also ensures the viewer won’t switch channels to a half hour show at the act 2 close).
Modern cinema obeys this form religiously. The typical feature, 120 minutes long, divides its time among these acts into four neat half hour pieces. Unbalancing them can be deadly. (Note: it is common to refer to Acts II & III as “the third act” in any given screenplay, but this “third act” still consumes the second and third quarters of the movie so the story still moves in four half hour quarters).
Modern stage tends to defy many rules, but many plays I’ve seen tend to omit this structure’s “Act I” and plunge straight into “Act II,” using the luxury of expansive dialogue to inform us of what “setup” from “Act I” we need to know. This is typical of the modern two-act play; the first act an extended “Act II” ending in a high note, and the second act a sprint through “Act III” and “Act IV.” Coming to mind: The Fantasticks, Cabaret, a Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Accomplice, Hapgood. (It’s worth noting that the end of its “Act II” tends to emphasize failure, while the end of the “Act II” in plays like this emphasize the victory we don’t know yet is really failure.)
This structure can also be found in music in an eerily rigid way. It is very similar to the sonata form and exactly the same as the form for the basic song. You can also find this structure in smaller dramatic movements. Some scenes follow this structure, even some monologues. Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech from Romeo & Juliet comes to mind; it fits almost mathematically in form as well as content.
I asked the question of this thread because I noticed many modern novels, if not most, appropriated this structure. The novel doesn’t need this structure to tell its story, but literature, high and low, has pushed itself this way, Nobel laureates and potboilers alike. If this is true, does this mean “drama,” the way we tell stories to an audience, has killed “literature,” the way we tell stories to a reader, by having the latter abandon its sanctions for those of the former?
Class in America- Is it Money, Breeding, Manners, What?
Social Issues
Sarah Burt – 02:10pm Jul 26, 1999 PDT (# 18 of 168)
I think there are different levels of class distinction in this country, which contribute to the confusion, not the least because they overlap. Certainly, there is a level of class distinction that is based almost exclusively on money. However, there is also a level of class distinction that is based more upon educational level and expectations and associated mores. Probably as a result of the cost of higher education in this country, most of those who are on the “lower” end of the financial spectrum are also on the “lower” end of the educational spectrum. However, that is not necessarily true at the upper ends of either: ie. you may be very well educated and not have much money or have lots of money and little more than a high school education. The ones who are really stuck are the ones who never make it out of high school.
In my own family, I have been able to see some of this. My family has long held education as a value in and of itself, for men and women. I am the 4th generation of women in my family to attend college, for example. We have been predominently middle class in our thinking and economic level, but not particularly wealthy. I would say comfortable. Each generation has to work for a living, but no one is likely to starve and no one has had to forego education in favor of food. My sister married a man who is the first in his family to graduate from college. No one in his parents’ generation or before has ever even attended college. Interestingly, she works and he does not. He “married up” and “married money” and now feels that his job is complete. She works to maintain the family (barely) in a lower middle class economic situation. Their values are completely different in this.
