Toe Games

"See?"  Ms. 5 contorts her chubby but flexible little body and
twiddles with her toes.  "It's a contest.  I put the baby toe
over the next one and wiggle my feet to see how long they stay on top
of each other."

"I used to do that!" I plop myself down and pull off my socks.  "Only I did it a different way.  What I did was...."

"I know, I know what you're going to say!"  Ms. 5 flashes her
gap-toothed grin.  "You put ALL your toes over each other and see
how long..."

"...you can keep them there!  Yeah!"  I beam, weaving my
toes.  "Oh, shoot, look.  My toes are old and flabby and
don't stay on top of each other any more."

"Mine do!"  Ms. 5's pudgy little fingers have crossed all
her pudgy little toes, which remain neatly stacked in a tight little toe-package.  We both smile
at the effect in great satisfaction.

The spouse and the sister were looking on with a faintly superior air
of confused amusement, but I'm so glad the Toe Game Gene was
successfully passed on to someone.

Nothing to Lose

Once, in my misspent youth, I went through a period of renting a movie a night.  I grouped my viewing by the star (males only - so okay, I was young and female).  The salient lessons learned were that even established performers do some exceptionally execrable work.  And that actors who love their craft as much as the limelight (Bridges, Hopkins or Cage) can, in the course of a career, explore an amazing range of the human condition, from the heights of honor to the depths of depravity.

Yesterday I read a piece of compelling oratory in the New York Times centered around the age-old concept of "he who has nothing to lose."  Propelled, I suppose, by the same sentiment that drove my movie-viewing, I Googled up the phrase and came out with a set of other orators through the ages who've worked that theme for a range of purposes:  theatrical, military, political, emotional.

Comparing the use of one phrase, like comparing the use of one actor, is an artificial construct that begs the question of its formulation as much as it informs.  It's fun as trivia (how many of these speakers can you identify without peeking?), but is it otherwise useful?

I think so. Ironically, as these quotes all imply, the man reduced to nothing assumes great power:  of empathy, of fear, of entreaty.  He rightly demands that attention be paid.  And particularly in light of the last citation; in light of our tendency to ignore the message because we abhor the messenger, I submit that it's useful to step back from the context to explore the concept, before making summary judgement. 

1590
[He] now lives ... at his ease / Where, having nothing, nothing will he lose. (1)

1755
The origin of political society....it would have been insane for the poor, having nothing to lose but their freedom, to give up willingly the only possession that remained to them, to receive nothing in return; but since the rich, on the other hand, are sensitive, so to speak, in all parts of their possessions, it would have been much easier for them to be harmed.  They therefore had to take greater precautions to guarantee their security...(2)

1847
[We] labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.  [We] disdain to conceal [our] views and aims.  [We] openly declare that [our] ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.  Let the ruling classes tremble at [our] revolution.  [We] have nothing to lose but [our] chains.  [We] have a world to win. (3)

1940
He will have to break us in this island or lose the war.  If we can stand up to him, [we] may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.  But if we fail, then the whole world ... including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age ... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if [we] last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' (4)

1967
There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose.  People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it. (5)

2006
Your minds will be troubled and your lives embittered. As for us, we have nothing to lose. A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain. You have occupied our lands, offended our honor and dignity, let out our blood and stolen our money, destroyed our houses and played with our security.  We will give you the same treatment. (6)

'Sins' of the Mother

When I was a teenager my mother got a full-page spread in the local
paper as a paragon of frugality.  There was a picture of her in
all her wholesome beauty, with a big smile and her long brown hair
wound up on top of her head in Laura Ingalls Wilder braids, sitting
next to her flourishing greenhouse-raised tomato plants.  The
article talked about my folks' passive solar guest house, my mother's
raising all the produce and meat we consumed, and her
resource-saving, labor-intensive cleaning, mending and
used-clothes-buying habits.

I'm very proud of my mother, and I frequently stop to realize that by
her standards my own lifestyle is hopelessly wasteful.  I live in
a made-over log cabin only somewhat larger now than the original
building, and I drive two cars born in the previous century --
still.  Sometimes we do buy (ssshhhhhh)  processed
meat.  Or turn on the gas heat to warm the house before the
woodstove catches up.  Cheating stuff like that. 

On the
other hand, there are certain influences I don't even recognize until
they're called out. 

At my book club the other day we'd moved from literary discussion
to wife-mom-middle-aged-woman chitchat.  We host the club
round-robin fashion, and although my mind was wondering, I think the
conversation had veered to discussion of the host's furnishings. 
Or that's the only excuse I can think of for one of the prim, proper,
my-new-car-is-immaculate women suddenly saying:  "Faith, do you do
laundry at home, or do you .... go somewhere to do it?"

I was a little taken aback and more than a little defensive.  "I
have a washer and dryer at home," I said overloudly, thinking even as I
said so of my mother's 60+ years of hanging out her washing in all
weathers, at all times of year (neither a dryer nor a dishwasher does
the true resource-saving paragon own, you understand).

"You do?"  There was a pause while she obviously mulled over the layout of my house. "Where is it?"

"In my basement.  Well -- my root cellar, actually."

"She has to go outside to go down in her cellar, though," put in another woman.

"She does?!"

I raised my eyebrows.  Frankly, I'd never really thought of that as unusual.

The Man in the Suit ... and the Man in the Mirror

So I stole some time for a belated first look at "The Revenge of the
Sith" last night.  And what is my one-word impression of this much-heralded,
thirty-years-in-the-waiting, massively high-tech, high-cost final
knitting-up of the saga? 

I really do hate to say this, but:  DREADFUL. 

Huge wars
without context, vast exotic landscapes breathlessly passed by, odd
creatures inappropriately used (Obi and his shrieking blue-ruffed
lizard; yikes), endless high-tech battles interspersed only
occasionally by
inexplicable twists of tale and missed opportunity.  Amidala sits
muttering sadly into her clasped hands, as Palpatine takes over the
Senate:  "This is how liberty dies:  to thunderous applause." 
Hello?  Leap up and give an impassioned speech, Senator! 
We've seen you do it before ....... oh, sorry, I forgot.  You're
pregnant.  Probably that's what's rendered you completely hapless
(and speaking of pregnant:  with all this uber-technology and
super-mental capacity surrounding you, no one got an inkling that the
perfectly healthy full-term birthing that came 'prematurely' out of
your tiny belly were actually twins?  Sigh. Never mind).  "Oh,
and Obi," calls Yoda near the end (stammering in his haste to get
his say in before reaching that 30-second limit on actual plot
development), "You know while you're hanging out on Tatooine guarding
the baby?  Well, I've figured out how to channel dead Jedis, so
you can get some training in with your old master while you're waiting."  What, what,
what??  Oh, never mind, never mind. 

I hadn't, until this viewing experience, completely bought into the
premise that even a good actor can't salvage a bad script, but after
watching the well-credentialed Ewan McGregor stumble unappealing and
unconvincingly around in his great unsplintering coffin of wooden
dialogue nailed with unbreakably unfunny humor -- I'm there.  It
can't be done.  And had I not also taken a look at the "Making Of"
disk, I would have left Hayden in my personal dustbin labeled "Bad
Actors Who Unfortunately Also Grew Up Not To Be Particularly
Cute," much like his predecessor in the hero/anti-hero role, Mark
Hamill, but then I found myself unexpectedly riveted by the mini-documentary "The Chosen
One."  Not only does Hayden suddenly come pleasingly alive, when
asked to chat extemporaneously on the philosophical underpinnings of
his character (maybe there's hope for him after all, paired with an actual
scriptwriter), but hearing Lucas and his team talk about what they meant to
do, and why, definitely brings a much deeper degree of appreciation,
even if what they finally achieved in no way measures up.

"The day I first came out in the Vader suit," says Hayden, "There
was -- awe -- on the set.  It was amazing, being inside
that suit.  There was a real sense of..." he pauses,
word-searching, face lit up, "...empowerment." 
He smiles, relaxed, pleased.  "I won't forget that for a long
time."  One feels, watching this decent young man speak so raptly of
the power of the vestments of the Dark, an echo of the gut-wrenching
emotion (the only real emotion this viewer extracted from the whole
movie) when Anakin goes in to kill the Jedi
children, and then again when he strangles Padme from afar; feelings that mirrored my long-ago, horrified adolescent
double-take, in the darkened theater, when Luke learned that Vader is his
father. 

"No, no, no!" cries the well-trained modern psyche raised on a rich multicultural panoply
of morality myths and fairytales.  Good men can't do evil
things!  Absolute evil
can't father good.  There is Light, and there is Dark.  There
is Good, and there is Bad.  There is God, and there is Satan. 
They are equal, and opposite, and noninterchangeable.

But of course, as Hayden charmingly and Lucas lengthily explains, the
key to this entire tale is not only the redemption, but why redemption
was necessary at all.  Good men do commit unspeakable acts. 
And evildoers can't admit to themselves that what they do is evil,
because
there is indeed purpose to their madness; a purpose that the rest of us
not only understand -- but have, in our own personal moments of evil,
absolutely
and utterly shared. 

If young viewers manage to wrest these ideas from the morass of improbable androids, space
battle, inexplicable politics, heavy-busted aliens, and unconvincing dialogue -- then it all will
have been worthwhile, after all.

The Very First Time

It was 1989, a wet evening in Washington D.C.  The line was long
and I was tired, uncertain of my choice to go out instead of curl up at
home with tea and a book and an early bed.  But I've always loved
going to the movies alone.  I edged my way through the crowded
theatre and found an aisle seat in the middle section.  Settling 
in while the rest of the crowd shuffled and crunched, suddenly someone
spoke right in my ear.

"Is this your very first time, dear?"

I jumped, surprised out of my invisible anonymity and more than a little offended, staring at the middle-aged matron behind me.

"Uh --  what?  Er -- I've never seen this particular movie version, no."

"Ooohhhh."  She smiled broadly into my stiff irritation, sharing a
look of what could only be called longing with her equally staid female
companion.  "Oh, my dear.  It's so wonderful.  But it's
never as wonderful as the first time."

I turned back to the screen, significantly soured.  Sure, I'd been looking forward to it, but what was this old biddy on about, with her 'never as wonderful?'  Fergawdsake?

This Christmas, the one present I clasped to me with instant, honest delight was the DVD version.  I watched it
yesterday, and soared with those exquisitely-chosen, perfectly-cadenced words and that inimitable score into a delight I dearly
hope isn't only shared by former English majors of a certain age.

But you know.

It never is as good as the first time.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage;

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

...On, on, you noblest English...show us here

The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;

For there is none of you so mean and base,

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start.  The game's afoot:

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Note:  Ooops -- okay, for those whose dramatic preference pinpoints more recent conflicts:   I'm talking about
Shakespeare's Henry V. 
There have been two definitive motion picture versions, one post WWII,
in which Olivier took the leading role and played the 'glorious,
victorious war' theme to the hilt, and the second in 1989 in which,
under Branagh's direction, the message tended more toward the 
tremendous physical and emotional toll of military conflict.  As a child of the Vietnam
era, my sympathies are much toward the latter, although the Bard
himself intended the former.  Both film versions are brilliantly done.

Rites of the Season

"We all reach the point you've reached sometimes.  Just remember
that the majority of successful middle-class professionals are all
secretly incompetent and just waiting to be
caught out -- this describes me, anyway," wrote a friend in the course of an email sent to amuse
and uplift me after a particularly Very Bad Hideous Unhappy No-Good day
at the office (which involved, among other things, that unfortunate
moment when an unremarkable comment causes you to burst into tears and
retreat to your desk, sobbing, while your colleagues all sit frozen in
their seats wondering what the hell to do now).

The friendly email did significantly amuse and uplift me, and the bit
about the successful professional began to restore my sense of
equilibrium.  We are all just waiting for that "Aha! 
You imposter!  I knew you
couldn't handle it!" moment, aren't we?  I've never yet met anyone
who doesn't admit to anticipating it, no matter how skilled
and confident
he or she consistently appears from the outside.

It is always at this season of the year -- and sporadically in other
seasons, but always in this season -- when I come smack up against my
Personal Effectiveness Capacity Barrier, burst desperately on through
it, and find my resultant complete ineffectiveness showering down around me (and my friends, family and colleagues) with the force of sharp, icy hail. 

The solution, of course, is to do fewer things; but do them better.  The challenge is to
decide which of the overload of things currently done so poorly most
merits relegation to the 'fewer' pile.  That's the crux of
it.  Do I not [fill in your own a, b, c, d, e and f, ad infinitum]?  And if so, who or what do I then risk insulting/alienating/infuriating/losing altogether?

In the modern American social construct, it's culturally precarious to
'do fewer.'  Seizing one's courage in both hands and going
counter-culture to the degree that cards are unsigned, gifts unwrapped,
special dishes uncooked, or parties unattended does bear significant
risk.  There's that insidious implication of our incompentence again, hovering over every good deed unattempted.

Dare we laughingly meet the spectre of our own perceived inadequacy head-on, this season, and actually let some of it go?

I'm game if you are.

Rites of Passage

Standing on the street corner I heard the quarter-hour strike with that
great distinctive throb.  Still, it was not as
commanding a sound as the ring of its reputation.  "Can that
really be Big Ben?!" I always think to myself.  The woman at my shoulder
remarked to her companion:  "Zygscorbien freinstandt fleurice hortiglisch Big Ben?!"

Here in the shadow of Parliament, there weren't many
of us local to the scene, except the lorry-drivers whizzing by, one
fearless cyclist in their midst, and a large number of
security personnel, all properly accoutered with the standard truncheon -- except for  one short fellow
carting something which could have been a folded-up tripod, but given
the menace of his akimbo-arms had a significantly
deadlier air.

Adrift in London at the tail end of my business trip, visiting for the
first time in over a decade, I was making pilgrimages. 

After Westminster, I always stand for a while at the foot
of Lindow man in the British Museum.  When he died 2000 years ago, he was healthy and about 25. 
The virtual reconstruction has him handsome, pale-skinned,
dark-haired.  He was killed by a blow to the head, drained of
blood through a slit throat, and garroted with a thread twined from
behind.  It was, the anthropologists posit, a dramatic
representation of the Druidic 'triple death' sacrificial offering.

I also always visit St. Paul's.  This time I turned up footsore and
dragging a large bag of overpriced shopping just before the 5 o'clock Mass.  The white-clad choir
boys' angelic voices soared into the glittering dome.  The great
gold cross passed ritually from aft to fore, gleaming in the
gloaming.  The priest broke the bread and poured the wine and
invoked the body and the blood.

Every age, whether it sounds its hours by Big Ben or some other marker, has
rites that reach for something beyond the merely human.  In this land
of memory and ritual, I gladly do homage to their power.

Traveling Stereotypes

You've all seen that irritating AC (Accomplished Traveler), haven't
you?  He or she generally stands quietly to the side amidst all the
bustle, appropriate documents discretely tucked into casual but
comfortable clothing (in unwrinkled beige-and-black), easily-handled
luggage in one hand, cell phone to the ear, issuing calm
authoritative commands to the various lesser beings incapable of
operating in his/her absence.

Then there's the inevitable LP (Late Passenger).  This hapless
person tumbles in from the gangplank twenty minutes after everyone else has
boarded, flushed and panting, shoes under one arm and laptop under the
other, too many carry-ons thrown any which way about the neck, looking
like they might just possibly have a heart attack right there on the
floor -- either that or fling themselves to their knees in a prayer of
thanksgiving.

I don't  have to tell you which type I wish I had been on my latest excursion overseas.  Anyway, fortunately one of my traveling companions was that type, and it's only due to his aptitude with the cell that I'm actually currently at my destination.

I am currently working at overcoming my embarrassment and planning for
my return voyage.  I'm checking out unwrinklable beige at the
local shops and programming in new speed-dial numbers.  More to
the point, I'm verifying that the time between Plane 1's arrival and
Plane 2's departure actually exceeds the time required to travel
between the two terminals.  Ahem.

Nature on the Ground

For a recent town outing I grab a backpack that we
previously used for a Fall hike.  Not having cleaned it out before
we left, I
do
that in the parking lot as the kids call impatiently for me to
escort them up the street.

Many long hours later we drag back to the car.  I'm loading
things on the passenger side while the kids do the usual kid-thing
about getting in (kids being genetically programmed to enter simultaneously on the same
side, usually via the driver's seat, thrusting muddy feet first, sticky fingers dripping stuff along the way).

Ms. 5 (having lost the me-first race, pausing while the sister clambers):  Mom?  Does 'nature' mean 'everything that people don't make?'

I dither, crooked half over the seat.  Should I complain that
hers is an inside-out definition?  That it should be 'man-made is
everything unnatural,' or perhaps 'nature is the undisturbed aspect
of...'  I give up.

Me:  Yes.

Ms. 5:  Well, there's a lot of nature lying on the ground here.

I meander around the car, shutting doors on safely-stowed children as I
go, and only then see the pile of crumbling forgotten treasures from
our hike, heaped in displaced woodsy detritis at my feet. 

I
get a rather poignant sense that there's a major lesson here.

I shut my own door and back out, crunching nature further into the asphalt.

Physics.  And Yes and No

The local university Physics department put on a massive show-and-tell for the community today as a part of The World Year of Physics.  They did a fantastic job, even from the perspective of this English major and her liberal-arts-inclined kids.  The particle accelerator lecture went over my head a bit, but fortunately they'd had the foresight to come up with a elementary-level door-prize:  pennies squashed by the weight of the 5-ton door they shut when they're accelerating the particles.  So that was cool.  And then there were balloons and helium, sound-shattered beakers, balancing tricks, lasers and mirrors, a vacuum-chamber ping-pong-ball gun, and a rideable hovercraft. 

Plus, we were greeted at the door by one of Ms. 7's peer's dads, who I know well, or thought I did ("You know, Carl, he's in one of the science departments at the university?"), and it turns out he's a Nuclear Astro-Physicist.  Er.  Whoa.  The man suddenly seems just a trifle more awe-inspiring.

Anyway, on the way home, her cranial capacity obviously enhanced by close proximity to all this high-level thinking, Ms. 7 demanded:

"Do you think that of all the yes-or-no questions ever asked in the world, more were answering by 'no,' or by 'yes'?"

There was a bit of bumbling on my part.

"Oh, come on, Mom.  If you don't know, can we look it up on the web?"

I averred that it was quite possible the question had never been asked.

Or has it? 

And let me know the answer?