Marcus' World

"On the Perch": Ideas for an Essay

"Hermit Sunday" begins tomorrow--my weekly anti-social binge of writing fury.  I'll very firmly keep Sundays to myself, and finally tackle the essay that, in some form or another, has been rattling around in my mind for years.

"On the Perch" will discuss the complexities of seeing most issues from at least two points of view. Some manifestations:

• I call myself a Democrat but get angry when people say Ralph Nader has no right to run for President.
• I very passionately support the right of gay Americans to get married, but believe just as strongly that many of the people I grew up with--who oppose this right--are not bad people.
• I'd rather live on the coasts than in the heartland, but am glad that I grew up in central Ohio.
• Etc.

Although you have to take sides sometimes (maybe all the time), alienating someone, I really do try to thread the needle and split the difference.  A fruitless quest in the long run, perhaps, but I haven't given up the fight yet.

Why "on the perch" rather than "on the fence?" Because the fence is too close to the action; I like to think  that, most of the time, the "perch" allows one to be more objective.  Maybe the perch is a cop-out.

The essay will address these themes, in a way that guards against solipsism.  For since there is nothing new under the sun,  I eventually need to consult other writings on this issue (maybe I need to talk to Martin Mueller, my professor at Northwestern who says you always have to take sides eventually.)  At first, though, I will write until I'm comfortably able to express my own thoughts.

The ultimate destination for this essay (I hope): a publication such as Agni or TriQuarterly. We'll see what happens.

"America, I love you except in practice."

My college friend John W. Evans has published the "Poet's Sampler" in the May/June issue of the Boston Review. Most of the poems are in print and online, and two poems--"The Five-Dollar Shirt" and "Meliorists"--are online only. A few days ago the Review arrived in my mailbox, after a few fruitless searches at bookstores in Berkeley. Thanks for sending me a copy John!

The accomplished poet Campbell McGrath introduces the collection, offering a taut and vivid appraisal of John's work.  McGrath admires "how deeply he [John] drinks from the wellspring of compassion" and argues that he is a naturally humanitarian rather than a self-consciously political poet. 

While I am no poet at all, the humanitarian route does seem like the road less traveled in contemporary American poetry.  It is easy to find political posturing, and harder to locate real empathy and keen observation.  But that's what you'll discover in this sampler.

To take two examples:

1. In the prose poem "Windows Update," an Islamic interlocutor argues that the Bible is like Windows 95 and the Koran like Windows 2000--an updated and improved version of the old time religion.  The narrator recognizes the gulf between himself and his companions, in regards to the question of religion and (really) all other fundamentals of life.  Building bridges between cultures is a monumental challenge, and there are many false starts for every success.

In a lecture I attended as a student, Classics professor Martin Mueller stated that, eventually--whatever the issue--one had to take sides.  It's hard to stay in the middle forever, even if you can see all points of view.  Mueller said this wistfully and with sadness, enough so to penetrate my 20 year old brain.  "Windows Update" reminded me of that moment.

2. "Laureate" contains the immortal line, "America, I love you except in practice."  This is mischievously (but profoundly) ambiguous--does the narrator try to love America but fail? Or is it America that doesn't live up to its ideals? Or both?

The close of the poem speaks of:

"the Sound full of pinfish, all the
   usual
bullshit about boats, divorce and solitude." 

Another ambiguity--which Sound? Long Island? Nantucket? Does it matter? With one word we're somewhere in the upper-crust Northeast, tuning into predictable and tiresome conversations.

Who would want to be a laureate for this crowd?  Someone who is speaking tongue in cheek?  Or someone who is more viscerally aware than most of us of the gap between what is and what could be?

Both.

Nostalgia Tour: When You Can't Go Home Again...Literally

Last Thursday Helen and I rented a car and traveled from Evanston, IL to Grove City, OH.  The route was deeply familiar, because I drove it many times during college: down Sheridan road along the Evanston lakefront and into Chicago's Rogers Park; quick turn onto Lake Shore Drive, and continued lakefront cruising along Chicago's North Side and through downtown; exit to Interstate 55, which runs along the old blues trail down to Memphis and into Mississippi; quick exit onto Interstate 90, the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road (if you want to avoid the tolls, stay on 55 till you hit 94); eventual merge into Interstate 65, which takes you to Indianapolis (and Louisville, and Nashville, and Birmingham); in Indianapolis, east on 70 and through Dayton until you reach the west side of Columbus; from there, take 270 South to 71 South. Exit at State Route 665 (exit number 97), and take a few turns until you're at Mom and Bob's place off of Quail Creek Drive.

The route wasn't always exactly like this. When I was in college the final exit was off of 270 onto 3-C Highway. After that point you'd make a few turns until reaching Mom and Bob's place off of Red Rock Boulevard.  They moved out of that house four years ago, for a place that's all on one level and in a community where most of the neighbors know each other.  At the time I was happy for them but sad to be losing a house that I considered my childhood home more than any other.

Now that ambivalent feeling is magnified. Mom and Bob are Phoenix bound in less than two months, for a retirement of good weather and relaxing living.  I am happy for them but sad that a very significant tie to my childhood home is coming undone.  My Dad will always be in Ohio, but home base has always been Mom and Bob's.

So this brief visit really was nostalgic.  Helen and I made sure to see family and friends (of course).  Mom introduced us to many staff members at Hilltonia, where she's a middle school principal who is ending her career on a very high note. It's too bad that the librarian only comes around a few days each week these days (although library itself is spacious). The middle school art show is coming up this Thursday at 6 PM; i hope the kids get a good turnout.

After the school visit we drove over to 123 Dakota Avenue on the west side of Columbus, where Mom once lived and where I would spend the night at my Grandma's as a little boy.  Grandma and I had a routine: 1. Eat a delicious dinner, which often involved vegetables that she had canned herself and stored in the pantry underneath the house; 2. Play Connect Four, which I usually won (no doubt because she let me); 3. Sit on Grandma's knee and read the 23rd and 91st Psalms aloud from her large print King James Bible; 4. Head upstairs for bed, where I would lay beside Grandma as she quizzed me on the states and capitals; 5. Pray; 6. Trundle off her high bed, and go to another room, where I would go to sleep.

I recall the house as cozy yet spacious, warm but with large depths when you explored the three upstairs bedrooms. I loved the claw foot bathtub. Grandma's phone was in the more formal living room adjacent to the relaxing family room. She told me to give her 8 rings to get to the phone when I called, in case she was somewhere at the other side of the house.  To this day, I think 8 rings is a reasonable number.

The west side was in a bad way then, and it's apparently gotten worse. For the news of this trip is that 123 Dakota Avenue is now uninhabitable.  The yard hasn't been mowed in months, or maybe years. The front door was locked, but the side door off the kitchen was ajar. Mom opened it, and we were greeted with a scene of a moldy kitchen with a much more modern look than Grandma enjoyed. (For some years after she died, the house must have been in good shape.)

We walked through the family room--which had no furniture--and went upstairs to those old bedrooms.  In the room where I used to recite those states and capitals, playing cards were strewn about the floor and clothes were scattered randomly.  In the room where I used to sleep, lots of child's clothes were neatly arranged in the closet. It looked like the people living there had suddenly fled without any time to gather their belongings.  The bathroom no longer had a claw foot tub, but it did offer a steady leak.

What a sight! Mom and I had trouble believing our own eyes. Helen stayed outside and away from the mold, which was probably the wiser choice.

I'm not sure what to make of the decline of 123 Dakota; there's a fascinating story there, which I will never know.  But in some macabre way it seems like an appropriate symbol for the end of the Columbus era. For Mom really can't go home again, even if she wanted to. It seems that I don't have it that bad after all. 

The Nostalgia Tour Begins

I went to college at Northwestern, where I met Helen. And I grew up in Grove City,OH, just outside Columbus.

At the moment I'm blogging in Evanston, IL, two blocks from Northwestern's campus and where we had our wedding celebration. Tonight Helen and I strolled around campus a bit; we saw the dorm that contained the dining hall where we met, and discovered that the student center now has a Starbucks. (Perhaps Helen already knew this, and it was my discovery alone). I kept trying to distinguish what was new on campus (at least to Class of 1999 graduates like myself) from what was old. The recycling bins seem stable.

Tomorrow morning we're renting a car and driving to Ohio for a few days. Mom and Bob are leaving soon, for permanent retirement in Arizona. And even the Columbus Clippers are moving into a new stadium, leaving behind the Cooper Stadium I grew up enjoying.  So tomorrow night we're watching the Clippers at the old stadium, while we still can.

For all these reasons I'm feeling more nostalgic than usual these days. Blog readers beware! :)

Sarah Lacy Thinks I'm a Sexist, and She's Half Right

"I like women better than men."

Thus reads the opening sentence--one of the clearest and most direct I've ever written--of an essay I've been toying with for a few months about my deep-seated preference for the company of women to that of men.  I haven't progressed very much on the essay at all, but that opening rings true and I will keep it.

This came to mind today, when Sarah Lacy accused me of sexism in response to my review of her book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good.

My review includes this paragraph:

"Lacy portrays [Jay] Adelson and [Kevin] Rose's mutual "man-crush" with good humor and relish, in a way that seems possible only because she is a woman. Despite their ritualistic grumblings about the media, the numerous men Lacy interviews have no trouble opening up to her over crepes at Ti Couz or drinks at the Fly Bar."

On her blog, Lacy responded: "Wow. Usually it's only snarky gossip bloggers or anonymous Twitters that are comfortable being so outright sexist. Way to go, Mr. Banks! I applaud your absolute lack of a filter or political correctness! Of course, it could just be because I've been a business reporter in the Valley for ten years and built a lot of sources, but no, no you're right. It's because I'm a girl."

By now I've responded to Lacy on her blog and she's responded to me, and it's reached a stage of respectful but awkward rapprochement.  Nevertheless I'm saddened, because I was actually complimenting Lacy's ability--after years of her hard work reporting, which I acknowledged at the very beginning of the review--to get supposedly gruff techie guys to open up to her.  I thought it was funny that these guys supposedly loathe the media but clearly love Sarah Lacy. 

This made me smile, and didn't make me think that Lacy only got to where she is today because she's a woman.

But hey--people can interpret words in multiple ways.  Once the words are on the screen (or on the page), they are out of the author's control.  Clearly I touched a nerve in Lacy, and her accusation of sexism touched a deep chord in me.

From a very early age I resisted most "boyish" pursuits--I didn't like roughhousing with the guys, and noticed that the phrase "boys will be boys" excused a lot of ridiculous behavior.  I watched the nightly news and saw that all the murderers and rapists were male. So I figured out pretty early on that men make a lot of messes that women have to clean up.  Given this knowledge, I couldn't believe that female babies could be left to die on a mountainside in some countries, while male children were treasured.  Back at home I thought it was strange that sports coverage dominated weekend television, and that there was a sports section every single day of the week in the paper.  And I noticed that an easy insult on the playground was to call a boy a girl.

And on. And on.

Now I'm a librarian, which places me in a mostly female profession.  I'm also one of the few males in the Haas business school partners club.  So on many occasions, in both professional and social situations, I am the only male in the room.  This is an entirely comfortable setting for me. I'd have a much harder time figuring out how to act in a group of mostly (or all) men.

Maybe I'm maladjusted; perhaps I need a little more yang with my yin.   

So yes, Sarah, I am a sexist.  You just picked the wrong sex. 

First SF Chronicle Book Review Published

Four months ago I had the pleasure of publishing a book review in Rain Taxi. 

Today I'm even more excited, because my first book review in the San Francisco Chronicle is online and will be in print in the May 16 edition.   The book under review: Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 (Sarah Lacy, 2008). 

I hope that this is the first of many reviews to come, in the Chronicle and elsewhere. Book reviewing is a modest public service, as well as an excellent way to force clarity and precision in thoughts and sentences.  Those are worthy goals for all essay writing, but the tight limits of a book review are particularly demanding.

One of my most worthwhile pursuits when we lived in New York was a six week course on the art and craft of writing book reviews, taught by Ben Downing.   I'm very grateful that the class is starting to pay off!

Robert Rauschenberg, Helen, and Functional Objects

My appreciation for 20th century American art is very shallow.  While I'd heard of Robert Rauschenberg, I really knew very little about him until reading the obituary today. 

Fortunately I don't need any expertise to observe that this quote from Rauschenberg made me smile: "I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they're surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable." Later in the article comes the more serious reason for Rauschenberg's dismay--he loved to make something out of (seemingly) nothing.

Helen is very talented at turning everyday goods into functional objects.  Just today I noticed that a jelly jar had become a vase. 

For a dessert exchange party last year she converted a cereal box into a makeshift container.  Everybody else brought Tupperware, and people marveled about the creativity of using a cereal box instead.  At the time I didn't know it, but now I do: Helen's talents would have made Rauschenberg smile.

Bring on $5.00 a Gallon

Today's report that many people are now taking public transportation to work, in response to high gas prices, is very welcome news indeed. There will be fewer pollutants in the air and more opportunity to show that public transit is (or should be) a very viable option for getting around. 

In Tokyo this year--and in Hong Kong, Paris, and London before that--I was once again struck by how far behind US public transit is from much of the rest of the world.  Buenos Aires and Sao Paolo also have decent train systems, and Argentina and Brazil are much poorer than us.

Gas at $3.25/gallon was merely a nuisance, while gas at $3.50-$4.00/gallon seems to be the tipping point in changing behavior.

Come on $5.00! Let's have a revolution.

At the Movies: Tout est pardonne (All is Forgiven)

Today Helen and I ventured into San Francisco to watch Tout est pardonne (All is Forgiven), which is  enjoying its West Coast premiere as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. 

Aside from watching a powerful film, an ancillary benefit of the day was the opportunuty to explore the Pacific Heights neighborhood of SF.  Since we're in Berkeley most of the time, we're only slowly getting a handle on the quilt pieces that comprise the City by the Bay.  Someday we'll have it all figured out, even if takes a while.

In the meantime I can offer this brief report on All is Forgiven: It's about a heroin addict named Victor, who becomes awful to his wife Annette once he the throes of his addiction.  Eventually Annette cuts off contact between Victor and their young daughter Pamela, a terrible fate that estranges Victor from his daughter for 11 years.  Eventually father and daughter reunite during her teenage years.  They form a deep connection, because--in the long run--all is forgiven.

Rest assured that I'm not giving away too much. This is definitely a film to watch, both for its visual acuity and a sense of compassion that never lapses into maudlin posturing.

We all know people who never fully pull themselves together, and we all have traits that seem intractable no matter how much they can hurt those we love.  Few things are truly intractable, but change is hard.  So large measures of compassion are needed, for ourselves and for each other. 

All is Forgiven makes this case gracefully.  Afterwards, screenwriter and director Mia Hansen-Love answered audience questions. At one point she mentioned her initial impression of the "luminousness" and "darkness" within the presence of the actor who plays Victor (Paul Blain). We all have both impulses, and we all have the power to make sure that luminousness prevails in the end.

They Don't Write 'Em Like That Anymore

Today the library demoed a federated search product--a tool that searches many databases simultaneously, rather than requiring that researchers search each database individually. 

If I were a better librarian I would have diligently noted the strengths and weaknesses of the interface and pondered how to improve upon the product.  Instead, with a few errant keystrokes  I found myself reading an article about dental caries published in Scientific Monthly in 1931.

The thunderous opening sentence of this article reads thusly: "Dental caries is without doubt one of the very ancient diseases to which mankind has fallen heir."

My goodness gracious.  They don't write 'em like that any more!