FeeFiFoto Blog

Wordless Wednesday: Natural Enemies

Like lions and lambs; doctors and lawyers; siblings and... other siblings...

Ladies and Gentlemen, may we present:

Duke Fans and North Carolina Fans!

Ta Dah!

My Dreams Are Annoying

I don't dream of showing up for school wearing only underwear.  I've never had that dream.  My not-ready-for-whatever-school-was-about-to-throw-at-me dream always involved showing up for the final exam and realizing:

1. I hadn't attended class all semester, or bought the book or learned the material, and
2. All along I'd intended to withdraw from the class but had never managed to do it, so now I was committed to taking an exam for which I was unprepared because, see #1

This dream harassed me many, many times, until finally I got wise to its evil intentions and began to tell myself, in my sleep and while still dreaming, that I was just having a dream.  So I was all: "nyah nyah nyah, so there Dreamo!"

But the dream outsmarted me and began to respond: "All those other times you were dreaming, but this time it's real heh heh heh..."  But I was like: "You can't pull this on me.  I know I'm not in school any more."

But then the dream metamorphosed into another version of not being prepared, and suddenly I'm on a cruise ship or in a large hotel and I'm lost and can't find my room and the trip is ending and I haven't packed to go home and I can't locate any of my travel companions, who are usually my sister, parents, kids, miscellaneous friends I've happened to have lunch with the previous week, and sometimes even Bossy.  I'll fret in concentric circles, hoping to recognize my room and find my key in time to pack and get out of the hotel or off the ship before everyone leaves me stranded in Uzbekistan or Tasmania.  If the dream lasts long enough I'll sometimes find myself marooned on some superhighway overpass, driving too fast in an invisible or nonexistent car, passing over the places I want to be but having no idea how to get there other than throwing myself over the side.

Last night's dream offered a new twist: I couldn't find anyone and when I tried calling their cell phones to point out that I'd been left behind, I discovered not only that they'd left without me, they'd also left all their cell phones in my purse.  To make matters even weirder, one of the forgotten cell phones belonged to Kanye West and had a voice message recorded by my mother.

Are your dreams as annoying as mine?  Prove it.

If You Can't Stand The Book, Try The Movie

You know how sometimes they make movies based on books so you can just watch the movie and pretend you know what you're talking about when someone mentions the book?  Or you can even show the movie to your kids because it's completely the same as reading the story? 

Not that I've ever done that, but I've heard of some careless, neglectful parents who do.

Well, back in the days when movie tickets cost a nickel and if you wanted to see the movie again you had to either pay another nickel or hide under the seats until the lights went back down and it was pointless to wait for the movie to come out on video because there was no such thing as video and recording a movie off of a television broadcast wasn't a reliable alternative since nobody owned televisions, you couldn't simply show your kids the movie to get them to stop nagging you to read them the story.  You might, however, be able to find stories on the radio (radio: it's that thing in the car dashboard that you can use to tune in to baseball games when you're not texting, emailing, shaving or snacking).

It just so happens that Orson Welles (remember him?  Citizen Kane?  any of this ringing a bell?) operated this intellectualistic theater company that broadcast productions on CBS radio.  One Sunday night, just before Halloween 1938, Orson and his colleagues broadcast a play based on H.G. Wells's (no relation) War of the Worlds, updated to present day and integrated into a seemingly innocuous fake ballroom music program.  The music was interrupted by fake news bulletins reporting the discovery of strange metal cylinders in New Jersey (of all places) and the subsequent rampage of Martians, until some mysterious virus brought them down in a way mere humans couldn't because Jeff Goldblum hadn't even been born yet.

Well.  Even though the program was introduced by an announcement that it was just a dramatization... and even though this announcement was repeated several times throughout the show... and even though radio listings in the newspaper for that evening announced an hour-long radio play called War of the Worlds...

People across the country went nuts.

Here's a long excerpt from a much longer article that appeared in the New York Times on October 31, 1938.

"A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners... last night when a broadcast of a dramatization of H. G. Wells's fantasy, "The War of the Worlds," led thousands to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York.

The broadcast... disrupted households, interrupted religious services, created traffic jams and clogged communications systems... At least a score of adults required medical treatment for shock and hysteria.

In Newark, in a single block… more than twenty families rushed out of their houses with wet handkerchiefs and towels over their faces to flee from what they believed was to be a gas raid…

Throughout New York families left their homes, some to flee to near-by parks. Thousands of persons called the police, newspapers and radio stations… seeking advice on protective measures against the raids.

The radio play, as presented, was to simulate a regular radio program with a "break-in" for the material of the play. The radio listeners, apparently, missed or did not listen to the introduction, which was: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air in `The War of the Worlds' by H. G. Wells."

They also failed to associate the program with the newspaper listening of the program, announced as "Today: 8:00-9:00--Play: H. G. Wells's `War of the Worlds'--WABC." They ignored three additional announcements made during the broadcast emphasizing its fictional nature.

Mr. Welles opened the program with a description of the series of which it is a part. The simulated program began... An announcer remarked that the program would be continued from a hotel, with dance music. For a few moments a dance program was given in the usual manner. Then there was a "break-in" with a "flash" about a professor at an observatory noting a series of gas explosions on the planet Mars.

News bulletins and scene broadcasts followed, reporting… the landing of a "meteor" near Princeton N. J., "killing" 1,500 persons, the discovery that the "meteor" was a "metal cylinder" containing strange creatures from Mars armed with "death rays"…

Telephone lines were tied up with calls from listeners or persons who had heard of the broadcasts. Many sought first to verify the reports. But large numbers, obviously in a state of terror, asked how they could follow the broadcast's advice and flee from the city, whether they would be safer in the "gas raid" in the cellar or on the roof, how they could safeguard their children…"

Tee hee.

Seventy years later it is kind of funny, although I definitely would have been among the first to run screaming from the room.

Anyway -- it just so happened that I own a recording of the original radio broadcast of War of the Worlds.  It looks like this:

And it sounds like this:

I don't know why I own this record.  I bought it a long time ago, probably around the same time I bought the soundtrack to Star Wars. Even though I've forgotten why I own it, though, I remembered that I own it, and even where it was, and I showed it to Cupcake and then took her to my parents' house so she could listen to the record on a real turntable, since I haven't had one of those for years.

Frankly, she was more interested in operating the turntable and asking questions about records (what do you mean you have to turn it over?) than listening to the recording, but I feel I've done my job and I'm finished with War of the Worlds in any form.

When the group chooses Moby Dick, I'm off duty.

Honeymoon Over -- When The Book Club Picks A Book You Hate

Marvin

Cupcake's latest subject for the online book discussion group was H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds.  I was surprised at the choice of this challenging late-19^th Century science fiction novel, since some participants in the group are only nine years old; still, the membership includes students all the way up to high school level so it's the members' choice whether they read any month's selection.  My tentative suggestion that she might want to consider skipping this month's book fell on rejecting ears. 

Before she'd finished the first chapter, however, Cupcake got bogged down in Wells's archaic style of storytelling, and asked me to read the entire thing to her in one day so she'd be ready when the discussion group became active online.

I groaned and pleaded that we just continue with Emma and I'd tell her what happened in WOTW, but she claimed that she couldn't PARTICIPATE in the discussion INTELLIGENTLY without having read the BOOK but the book was too HARD to read on her own and I'm always telling her to ask for help aren't I so now she's asking for help and how can I not help her? 

How can you tell your kid not to read a classic?

Turns out, War of the Worlds is way tiresome.  The writing, I mean.  The story itself is interesting: 

Indestructible metal cylinders fall to earth, which turn out to be occupied by large, leggy Martians intent on incinerating everything in their path with no clear goal aside from world domination.  Eventually, after frying nearly everyone in Britain (but seemingly no where else; jingoism, anyone?) the Martians keel over for unknown reasons which the author attributes to microbes, whose link to disease had been only relatively recently identified by Louis Pasteur.

H.G. Wells was one of the first writers of modern science fiction; his stories laid the foundation for modern science fiction books and film, even the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  War of the Worlds is a groundbreaking piece of literature.  Nevertheless, in spite of the book's importance as a foundation of the genre of science fiction, its tone is stilted and pompous.  Wells employs a tired technique of telling, not showing: first I did this, then I did the other thing; I didn't know it at the time but later learned that...; he told me he'd seen the following...; I think this technique was tired even when he used it in 1898. 

Finally I just couldn't make it through one more chapter describing the exodus from one insignificant English village to another and the narrator's condescending conversations with characters he clearly believes are inferior to him intellectually and socially. 

I declared myself off duty, spoiled the ending, and loaded Independence Day, pointing out that the main difference between the book and the film was that in the book the Martians caught their own cold and dropped dead without any assistance from the human race or Jeff Goldblum, which may or may not be the same thing.

There, I announced.  Done!

Incidentally, according to Cupcake, most of the discussion about War of the Worlds consisted of how much the book club members hated it.

Summer Is A Time Of Self Esteem

My daughter and son came home from camp a couple weeks ago and we still have a few days before school resumes.  This year she'll be in 5th grade and he'll be in 8th.  She completed much of the summer math packet before leaving for camp, and she read way more than the minimum required number of books; now she has to write a couple of essays.  And it's hard.  It's hard to read a challenging book and interpret it on command.  It's hard to solve complex word problems.  It's hard to force yourself into the confining space of school -- can I type my essays or do I have to write them out by hand?  Do I have to write about something from the reading list or can I substitute books I like better?

This summer my kids went to camp.  They swam, hiked, did arts and crafts, hung out with friends, toasted marshmallows.  They did their best and competed only against themselves.  If they passed a swimming or boating test they got to move to the next level if they felt like it; along the way they got to keep trying until they passed or decided to stop trying -- no grades, no competition, no judgments.  The rules they followed focused on mostly safety and kindness.

Now that school is imminent, my kids have to follow a different set of rules in addition to those governing safety and kindness.  For the next ten months any reading they do for school will be followed by assignments, tests, vocabulary lists and instructions to identify themes, characters and relationships.

Summer for my kids is about feeling good and self-esteemish.  Whatever they accomplish comes about because they set their own goals and work towards them.  Now that school is coming, that hard won self image is going to take a beating.  They'll question themselves -- am I getting the idea?  Did I say that right?  Will I get all the points?  Did I write what the teacher wants to read?

While in law school I feverishly wrote down every word my teachers said, even if I didn't understand it, frequently losing sight of the big picture in my scramble to record a professor's every cough and sniffle.  I stressed myself so drastically that during one exam period I landed in the emergency room with chest pains; the doctor put me on tranquilizers and suggested I go home and get some rest because I was toeing the line of a heart attack.

School is work, and while it can deliver gigantic rewards, school is also a source of major vexation and anxiety.  Summer is a time for feeling good about what you're doing, and if it doesn't feel good, you don't have to do it.

Summer, the time when pretty much anything you do is okay as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else, is over. 

More Of What I've Been Reading Lately

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art, by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo, 2009

I've cruised museums and galleries with more than my share of smugness over how knowledgeable, worldly and sophisticated I must be to recognize and enjoy the work of great artists.  Then along comes Provenance, the meticulously detailed true crime story (hey, art forgery is a crime, isn't it?) of John Myatt, a down-and-out, reasonably talented artist who gets caught up in a complex forgery scheme orchestrated by John Drewe, a chronic liar who variously portrays himself as a nuclear physicist, professor, historian, army officer, and weapons expert.  The con man ropes the painter into creating paintings in the styles of famous artists.  Meanwhile, Drewe creates false provenance using documents torn from vintage books and stolen from museum libraries.

This book made me slightly paranoid.  Now I glance sideways at the art in my home and think "Ah haaahh... is this the real thing?  Or is it fake?  It could be fake and how would I know?  I'd never know.  I've been duped, I just know it!"

Lately I recognize new advantages to decorating with my kids' artwork.  At least I know it's authentic.

This book was as exciting as any fiction thriller.  Even my mother praised it and if you knew my mother you'd be just as surprised as I am.  I had only one issue with Provenance, though: where are the pictures?  Seriously, there's not one photo of the characters, documents or artworks, forged or otherwise, although there is a very useful cast of characters at the beginning to which I referred many times.  But really -- a book about pictures with no pictures?

__________________________________________________________________

Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy, by Bruce Watson, 2010

What do I remember about Freedom Summer?  Nothing.  I know 1964 was the summer my parents took my sister and me to Florida, where we tried to catch fish in the hotel lobby fountain, then commandeered an elevator for possibly an entire afternoon, until a couple of bellboys caught up with us.  Little wonder we didn't take another family vacation until I was 12. 

As I was wreaking havoc in Miami, dozens of college students, mostly white, were traveling to Mississippi to register black Americans who'd been cheated out of their constitutional rights by white neighbors claiming that Negroes neither needed nor wanted the vote.  Since no more than 7% of the state's black population was registered before 1964, the white opponents of black suffrage claimed this proved their point; they conveniently failed to acknowledge that beatings, shootings, harassment, threats, vandalism, and murder probably served as effective deterrents.  The story partially revolves around the murders of three Freedom Summer workers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman; the search for their bodies; and the 40-year campaign for justice against their killers. 

This is a story everyone needs to know.  It's a story of how wrong things can be; how insults and barbarism can be counteracted gradually through years of effort by many dedicated people; how you just possibly might not be right simply because you claim to be.

_________________________________________________________________

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, 1965

 

The first time I read In Cold Blood, in my twenties, I had no living daylights left in me to speak of.  The story of a quadruple murder on a prosperous Kansas farm before Thanksgiving in 1959, the search for the killers, their trial and hanging, made me quiver like a feather, and not in a good way.  I've avoided rereading literature's original non-fiction novel for fear of another succession of sleepless, freaked-out nights, but this summer, due to a new interest in Truman Capote, I gritted my teeth and determined to read it again even if I had to confine my reading to daylight hours, turn all the lights on, lock the doors and engage the burglar alarm. 

But this time -- no willies, no heebie-jeebies.  Nothing but utter engrossment in a charismatic story that flows like the music of Beethoven. 

The fact that I made it through In Cold Blood with no trouble this time must indicate that I'm jaded and more cynical than I was in my 20s.  Maybe a dose of cynicism isn't so bad; I suppose I'd be an insufferable bore if I were as delicate and innocent now as I was back then.

____________________________________________________________________________

The common thread in all these books?  Deception, especially self-deception.  How Capote's killers convinced themselves that all their problems and issues and challenges were the fault of someone else, certainly not themselves, and how even their victims were somehow to blame for their own murders.  How John Myatt convinced himself that what he was doing wasn't really hurting anybody and was bringing in much needed money to support his family, and how John Drewe convinced everyone he encountered, including himself, that he was brilliant and entitled.  The scene near the end where Drewe tirades about his innocence and the injustice of putting him on trial for forgery is especially poignant.  And finally, how many, but not all, Mississippi whites convinced themselves that terrorizing their black neighbors who wanted to vote was appropriate and even decreed by the Lord.

In An Effort To Conquer The Imminent Coming Academic Year With Preemptive Organization...

Because I'm addled admirably organized I created a spreadsheet to remind me who likes to eat what for dinner.  I hope it might prevent me from having to endure protests preparing something that one of the kids hates because I've temporarily blanked.

All I hoped for was yes or no answers.

Here are the girl's ratings:

YUMS

The following menu choices earned some form of Yum, YUM, or YUM!:

Lemon Chicken, Roasted Chicken, Burgers, Steak, Waffles and Pizza

• Chicken Soup received a Yummy
• Meatloaf came in at YUM YUM YUM -- the food, not the singer, although I'm sure they'd like this:

  

YESES

Some entries received yes, YES, YES!, or YESSSSSSS, including:

Tilapia, Sushi, Spaghetti, Brisket, Beef Stroganoff, Vegetable Soup, Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons, Hard Shell Tacos, Spinach Lasagna

• Barbecued Chicken received a qualified YES, so long as there was no burnt stuff
• Stir Fry garnered a TOTALLY YES, with a request for pineapple
• Pancakes scored a Yes with a side request for chocolate chips

LOVE AND / OR <3<3<3

Liberal <3<3<3 were awarded to Salmon, Tuna, White Chili, and Twice Baked Potatoes

LOATHING

Hatred was expressed for Cornish Game Hens, accompanied by the following wistful note:

• but I love the little wish bones!

BEYOND DESCRIPTION

• Crepes: *I start drooling*
• French toast: *My mouth is creating a baby pool*

At least she didn't request the dressing on the side.

Anyone know where I can get some tiny wishbones?

Smart Kids: They May Be Unpredictable, But At Least They're Smart

Testing over and not a moment too soon.  Who'd have thought someone could be so resistant to being told she's smart?  Really, does Angelina Jolie tirade when someone tells her she's beautiful?  Does Bill Gates squawk when reminded how wealthy he is?  Does Justin Bieber demur at being told he's talented?

Don't answer that last one.

The tests confirmed my suspicions -- Cupcake's one smart cookie -- but I was forbidden to speak of it because she was positive that being smart equaled being a freak.  Every time I even tried to mention it she was all:

got it here.

So academic tweaks were made.  Stakes were upped, challenges were increased, special projects were introduced, pleas for home schooling subsided.  But not a word was mentioned to my daughter.

While I was at it, I applied her to one of those national gifted educational thingies offering on site programs and remote stuff through summer school, publications and web sites.  I figured it might be a good weapon to have in my arsenal, but again, Cupcake would have none of it.  She assured me, not too congenially, that she would never NEVER participate in any such program and she didn't want to hear anything about it from me again ever.  Ever.

 

here it is.

So I quietly ignored email updates from the organization describing courses, seminars, meetings, conventions, publications, web sites and a book discussion group.

But...

I must have muttered about the book discussion group one evening after I'd fallen asleep on the couch from exhaustion.

W?HAT!!??  she bellowed.  Did you say BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP??!!

As I picked myself up off the floor and brushed Cupcake footprints from my abdomen, I explained that the organization she wanted to have nothing to do with did in fact have an online book discussion group and that the first book on the list was the Lightning Thief.

Well.

Cupcake joined that group the instant it came online.  She prepared her comments in advance.  She stalked other members.  She fretted and nagged that our trip to Israel would interfere critically with her ability to get online while the discussion group was in session.

Luckily for her, we had a hotel with WiFi and she'd just happened to bring along her laptop.

And all that invective about testing and gifted programs?

She was all:

A Show About Scrappers

I don't really want to watch this show. I'm just really looking forward to the uproar when all the ladies find out this isn't a program about scrapbooking.

The Scrappers Premiere Preview! | SpikeTV | SPIKE.com

Major Melodrama Over Aptitude Testing

Who could have predicted how torturous it would be to get Cupcake aptitude tested? 

It wasn't  convenience, because our school district offers all kinds of testing and I was willing to take her out of school any time the testers were available, offering substantial bribage if it would get her on the schedule before the school year ended.

Besides, if I had to I could have used one of those test your IQ web sites simply by providing my email address and selling my cybersoul to companies flogging penny stocks and V!@6R@. 

And it wasn't cost, because the tests are "free", where free means I'd pay nothing to have her tested because I've been grudgingly valiantly paying property taxes since I first owned property, possibly even including the vegetable garden I labored over when I was 12. 

No, the friction originated with the little lady herself.  Just as Miss Puppy can sense when I'm calling her inside so I can lock her up and leave the house, Cupcake could tell that this, ahem -- special attention -- wasn't just for entertainment purposes.

Image borrowed from here.

The tantruming was unrelenting.  I heard:

• These tests give me a headache
• My head hurts
• I'm not taking any more tests
• None of my friends have to take tests
• I'm missing something fun at school (I never heard this one if she was missing gym class)
• Have I told you my head hurts?
• You're not taking me out of school
• I'm not changing schools
• I'm not taking special classes
• I have a HEADACHE

Couldn't she understand that I was doing this for her own good?  Didn't she know that this was hurting me more than it hurt her?  Didn't she appreciate that I'd walked to and from school every day in blazing heat, dragging my school supplies behind me through the snow on a rusty shovel while toting a five gallon water jug on my head?  Or something like that?

I used to love taking standardized tests when I was Cupcake's age.  I could have sat there with that number 2 pencil all day every day, filling in bubble after bubble.  I did really well on them too.  There was no studying, no preparation.  I just filled in those little bubbles hour after hour. 

Cupcake hated it.  Despised it.  Feared it.  She tiraded when the questions got too hard for her to answer -- the hard questions made her feel dumb.

I ignored the complaints, dragged her to the tests, and treated her to copious amounts of ice cream afterwards.