DUCKS ON ICE
Author: Jnana Hodson
In downsizing to a remote fishing village in Downeast Maine, this eclectic writer feels everything's coming together.
MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE PEOPLE
G.I. Gurdjieff’s classic Meetings With Remarkable Men begins to look all too bland when I compare his subjects with people I’ve known over the years. Or even when I gaze around the room assembled for Quaker worship on Sunday morning. Admittedly, his travels are remarkable, especially for the time.
But without going into the details, let me say I’ve been blessed. Both men and women, all so remarkable in their compassionate presence.
~*~
Now, whatever happened to that Gurdjieff circle back in Binghamton? The couple who had the ring of benches around one room of their apartment for their own meetings? Back before I found yogis and Quakers and Mennonites and …
A CONSERVATIVES’ PARADOX
Let me admit to being perplexed by those deep-pocket conservatives who bankroll candidates who squeeze public services in communities throughout the state but, for themselves, choose to live in the most liberal districts – the ones with the highest taxes and top-flight public services. The ones with effete artsy prominence. All the stuff their lackeys publicly deride.
I wish they’d instead practice what they preach. Enjoy the misery they engender or deem fitting for the common folk – beginning with schools, libraries, parks, and health services. The things that make a place civilized and pleasant for all.
Yes, let them practice what they preach. Stay in the stingiest, most self-centered enclaves. Or be exposed and shamed for their duplicity.
BLUE DOORS
A FEW REFLECTIONS ON JURY DUTY
As I discovered at the time … coming off two days of jury duty. More emotionally demanding and exhausting than I would have suspected.
Also, more Quaker dimensions, beginning with my use of affirmation, rather than swearing to an oath, as well as listening intently to the quiet minority.
Getting other jury members to open up personal sides was worth it. A heating-and-cooling guy from a far corner of the county was a real hoot: 61, a scarf that made me think he was gay … turned out to be a biker married 31 years. Also thought he’d be the one pushing for not-guilty findings; instead, he was the last one to back off the second conviction and probably swayed the holdouts to go for the conviction on the first.
At lunch: “Maybe I should go over and visit some of my buddies across the street.” The retirement home? “No, they’re too young for that. The House of Corrections.” Mostly failure to meet child support payments. “How are they supposed to pay up if they’re incarcerated?” Good point.
If you’re called, remember. You won’t know what to expect.
REMEMBERING A PRINCE OF PUNS
Long a staple of the Friday-night Public Broadcasting lineup, Wall $treet Week’s Louis Rukeyser was noted as a master of puns. Or should that be groanster? Or even monster?
So in his presence for lunch one day, I piped up. “You know there are no good puns, only bad ones and worse. So who do you look down to for inspiration?”
He took it in good stride, knowing the sneer puns often earn, and replied calmly that when he was growing up, one of his father’s best friends was Random House cofounder Bennett Cerf – and young Louis gobbled up all of the literary publisher’s pun-filled volumes. I think he said he memorized 14 books in all. Not a bad foundation, for starters, and probably better than the jokes at the end of each month’s issue of Boys’ Life magazine.
Toward the end of his career, Rukeyser increasingly resembled the man on America’s one-dollar bills, an image he no doubt curried with a bit of tongue-in-cheek. Get a shtick in life, you might as well run with it. And how!
He was also an early example of the multimedia celebrity, something I detested in my role as a newspaper editor. I saw enough examples of television or radio personalities who tried their hand at simultaneously writing regular columns for print media, and our side of the equation was obviously the one being slighted. Let’s be frank. Anybody in the spotlight has only so much first-rate material to go around.
(That makes me recall a second-rate Boston newspaper columnist who took on TV features too, and pretty soon you couldn’t understand his content unless you’d seen the show he was amplifying. And then he was unmasked as a disgrace.)
Still, Rukeyser was candid about what we now call a “platform.” His career started as a reporter the Baltimore Sun, and he maintained a newspaper column throughout his run. “It established my credibility,” he said, back in the days when print carried clout.
The TV series, he added, gave him exposure and fame.
But the money came largely from his in-person appearances as a convention speaker. Everybody, after all, knew who he was – and that he could make the “dismal science” of economics and finance a lively, even humorous, topic.
Not every editor, I should note, bought into the argument that his fame as a public television celebrity would translate into newspaper readership. I still share their conclusion.
And then we had Andy Rooney.
WILD CULVERT
HANGING TIGHT
When I think of essential tools, I’ve already mentioned the wheelbarrow and loppers. We could add the Cuisinart in the kitchen. Well, you get the picture.
But let’s not overlook the hammock.
She protested when she unwrapped the hammock we’d landed for her birthday.
Still, it went to the Smoking Garden, set parallel to the barn. And her resistance wore down, bit by bit, till one afternoon she fell asleep in it. She never, I should add, takes a nap. Ahem.
I’d say a hammock is an important garden tool, or thinking tool, even if it has no handles. You can work out a lot of problems there.
At the moment, it’s in pieces, stored in the top of the barn. Like so much else, waiting for warming and thawing.
WE’LL NAME IT AFTER HER
Certain select artists seem to elicit a universal reaction from the public. It’s meant as a compliment, except that it somehow short-circuits itself. For example, a certain select actress is so good at getting into the character she’s portraying – and getting so far away from the way we know she normally looks or speaks – that audience members find themselves saying, “I can’t believe that’s Meryl Streep!”
We can name others, of course. Dustin Hoffman has long earned similar kudos.
Of course, it is intended as the ultimate accolade for a theatrical professional to be so incredibly flexible and insightful, in contrast to the TV or movie star who plays only himself. Think of John Wayne, for instance, who was always John Wayne, no matter the name he was given in the latest round.
The dilemma, of course, is that Meryl and Dustin are still being viewed through two separate perspectives that keep them from being completely merged into the character. We begin viewing their impeccable technique, then, at the cost of being thoroughly enmeshed in the story that’s unfolding. In effect, we become aware of being voyeurs.
I suspect something similar can occur in any of the arts. Classical music, for instance, is too frequently measured on the technical brilliance of a soloist or ensemble at the expense of the emotional and intellectual content of the work being performed. Add your own names for visual arts, literature, pop music, dance, and so on.
For now, we’ll simply call it the Meryl Streep Syndrome.
And, oh my, how really good she is at it.
Care to name others worthy of consideration?
GOOSE NECK
