age

A few days ago I found myself wandering around a Target muttering to myself. “Why do they always move stuff around? I can’t find a dang thing in here…where are the calcium chews? I wish they’d stop rearranging this place.” And I realized I’m beginning to feel like my grandmother. Not like my mother, because in my mind my mother is still quite young: the age I am now or even younger. But my grandmother – long dead – will always be, in my mind, that old woman I couldn’t quite relate to across the chasm of our ages.

I loved my grandmothers, both of them. But they were always old women. My mother, although obviously older than I, was never an old woman. She was a professional woman with professional friends, living in a world where she had many activities (most activities, in fact) outside of her relationship with me. She had an identity in addition to her age. But my grandmother was simply that old woman who came to take care of me periodically. Or on occasion we’d go to visit her. But, for this youngster, her existence was pretty limited to being my grandmother and being old. Even though she told stories of her past, even though we went to the zoo, playground, and shows, even though I saw scads of pictures of her as a younger woman, her identity for me always remained locked to her age. She was old. She never quite understood the new fangled ways of the twentieth century. She had no interests outside her grandchildren.

Because the plane on which I interacted with her was only “visiting grandma” I never got to see her in the rest of her life the way I saw my mother having the rest of her life. I knew my mother had portions of her life, major parts in fact, that didn’t revolve around me because I saw them daily. But all I saw of my grandmother was her interaction with me. And in that interaction she was two things: concerned only with me, and old.

So when I found myself wandering around the store muttering I felt, in that moment, pretty old. And in my memory old is assigned to my grandmother, not my mother. I had become a woman who couldn’t handle her own life and needed a grandchild, or guide dog, to help her through her daily activities.

cats

I just figured out that there are three cats living in my basement stairway. As I noisily took out this morning’s recycling two of them ran out of the stairwell and took off over the chain link fence. Down two or three yards they ran. As I looked over the stairwell, I didn’t imagine I’d see anything since I’d obviously just frightened the residents, but one cat remained, legs tucked under against the cold. This shouldn’t surprise me since I’ve seen cats in my back yard several times, these same cats I’m pretty sure. And I’ve heard cat fights nearby. But I am saddened to think of these cute cats living outside in this terrible cold. We’ve been having pretty bad weather so far – it’s been cold and we did have that enormous 22-inch snowstorm. That couldn’t have been comfortable for them. I am inclined to put out food for them, but I know what that would mean so I’m hesitating. One is a Siamese, one tabby-stripped, and one mostly black with some white. They clearly live here, I’ve seen them in the back yard. What to do, what to do. I feel the generous spirit of the new year. But I fear I will soon be caring for a gaggle of cats. Hmmmm.

SQ 6

Noel
Born is the king of Israel
Really? The king of Israel? This seems an attempt at deep co-opting of one religion by another. Clearly – clearly – by the time this carol was written it was clear that this guy Jesus was not the king of Israel. Not even close. In fact, he was sort of the opposite of the king of Israel – Israel being the land of the Jews. Israel had long since been separated from the religion that Jesus followers founded. Yes, it’s true that Christians had been wandering all around this portion of the globe for many years, doing all manner of distasteful things. But to make this guy king of a land and religious people that do not share the path his followers have taken seems akin to the Mormons converting the dead. They do, you know.

SQ5

I’ll be home for Christmas

Presents on the tree

On the tree? This line has always confused me. My limited experience with xmas gift giving has been with presents under the tree. I’m not even sure how one would put presents on the tree. Attach them to branches with alligator clips? Hang them with those easily bendable ornament hooks? Toss them lightly over branches as we do with tinsel? (This last one would work only with fabric gifts, unwrapped at that.) I could swear that sometimes I hear people render this line as “presents ‘neath the tree,” or “presents ‘round the tree,” but I’m not sure I’m recalling that properly. It could be simply my yearning for reason. I really have no answer for the question of what this line means. If anyone might be reading this blog and has a thought, please feel free to share it.

SQ 4

Deck the Halls
Don we now our gay apparel
Well I don’t think it’s so odd, but many of my gay friends are completely enamored of this line. I suppose the image of getting into all that holiday attire – velveteen pants, wide suspenders with enormous buttons, floppy ties, tailcoats and top hats – can seem intriguingly ridiculous. It certainly does make a man look a dandy. And those women, in their long petticoated dresses, bonnets tied on securely. Now what am I thinking of? It’s those Norman Rockwell-ish illustrations that always accompany this song. So I suppose our gay apparel could be a different conception now. Chaps without jeans, leather military hats, mirror aviator glasses for the men. Heavy flannel shirts, wide belts, ill-fitting jeans and motorcycle boots for the women. But why must it be stereotypically thus? What qualifies as gay apparel? What century’s definition of gay are we applying here? It could be merry apparel, brightly colored apparel, homosexual apparel (but only men, because women long ago claimed a separate label: lesbian. I’ve always thought saying gays and lesbians was like saying people and women…but no one consulted me). And what, exactly, is homosexual apparel, anyway? Any apparel a homosexual is wearing? A specific sort of apparel? Is there a gay uniform? Maybe it’s the “donning” that seems so strange.

SQ 3

O Holy Night
The soul felt its worth

Exactly what is a soul worth? And which soul is this that they’re talking about here. This Jesus guy has to appear first and then “the soul felt its worth.” So you don’t feel your soul or its worth until the savior comes? How does this work? Is it the soul of the entire world? I thought inanimate objects didn’t have souls. It seems peculiar to imply that no souls felt worthy until this guy comes since people had been populating the planet for quite some time before he arrived. So we walked around feeling worthless? Why engage in anything then? Like inventing an alphabet, or figuring out how to farm, or looking after your children…or your dead? Seems like we’d been doing soul enhancing activities for some time already. Or had we…?

seasonal queries

Onward, Christian Soldiers

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war

Well if ever there was a line to make the rest of us non-christians fear – this be it. Here it is buried in song, the real purpose and objective of the Jesus-worshippers. It’s a war: a war to move the rest of us to belief. They’ll hope for a revelatory moment – Paul (nee Saul) on the road to Damascus – but they’ll make battle if necessary. This ain’t no idle threat, neither. Think of the hundreds of years of crusades we’ve endured while Christians saw it as their mission to bring and defend the cross. Missionaries traveling into the deepest, most remote, parts of civilization to bring the “good news” to savages who hadn’t heard yet, converting people at any price. Yes, indeed, it’s a war. And a war is as good a bit of material for a holiday song as anything. It’s the tiny fish bone buried in the joyousness of the season, it’s the buried treasure of Christianity, it’s the id of Christmas. “Wahooo, we get to fight.”

seasonal queries

I'm back! The blog continues...

Every holiday song seems to contain a song of questionable seasonal-ness. Herewith a sampling to take us up to the dreaded day:

Winter Wonderland

To face, unafraid, the plans that we’ve made

At first it seems ridiculous to come across such a line in a song of holiday cheer. Why would we be talking about plans of such immensity that they might frighten us here in this song about how lovely it is to be walking in the snow. Might we be, on our wintery perambulations, contemplating the buildup in Afghanistan? Why, when bundled cozily for a winter stroll with a partner, would we be thinking about the quarterly taxes due on the business we’ve just launched? The line seems decidedly out of place.

The carol sings about having a snowman perform your nuptials. Are these the plans to which it refers? Plans to have Frosty “do the job when he’s in town”? Maybe we’re worried that these plans might cause consternation among the guests, render our marriage illegal, or simply make us look fools. It could be the boldest step anyone’s ever taken with a marriage, the wedding planner was at first shocked but came around as we discussed the possibilities for snow globe guest favors.

On further contemplation we might see it is a serious line dropped without warning into a frivolous song. A poignant reflection of our understanding that no matter how lightly we approach the lifelong commitment marriage is meant to be, it can still unearth feelings of discomfort and unease. Lightheartedness is trumped by wedding anxiety.

new office III

We moved our office into our new digs last month (two blog entries about it back in December). The more I’m in the office the more I like the facility. It’s a really nice building and the students have great places to hang out. My office is still the size of a small fish pond, and I still feel cramped. But I’m getting used to it. This is it so I want to like it. I can’t decide whether to remove most of the furniture and feel a little more open, or keep all my stuff (I have a lot of stuff) and feel surrounded by all my fun. Although the furniture is cubicle furniture, it should have those little ¾ walls around it, it’s still fun to have all that surface area – you could play football on the desk system. But there’s something very cozy about the room and I like that it’s simple to find my colleagues.

The first week of class was a bit rocky. I’ve had to shift my entire approach to undergrad classes. I wound up having to fire and adjunct and take on his class. My teaching partner is having trouble showing up. Things feel pretty stressed in oh so many ways. I wish I were an archivist so I could just sit alone all day looking things up.

inauguration II

Random thoughts on yesterday's big event:
I loved that Justice Roberts made the last part of the oath a question: “So help you god?” Barack answering firmly “So help me god!”

I have never been in a crowd that immense. There were times, not moments, but chunks of time, when we were literally jammed together, no movement possible. Poor six-month-pregnant Rachel at one point thought she’d faint. “Pregnant lady coming through” helped a lot at that moment.

We barely made it to the mall, climbing over a fence and skipping any legal, security-staffed entry, before the official ceremony began. We couldn’t hear well, but well enough. Eventually we got to a place where we could see the side of a jumbotron, but all I needed to do was be there and hear it. I’ve already watched it several times on TV since returning home. I weep every time.

I loved the speech. I loved the direct and nuanced attacks on the prior administration (maybe I can not mention that jackass’s name). “We will restore science to it’s rightful place…” oh yes. Yes. Yes!

The coda to the day occurred on my drive home from the train station. I was behind a car that had driven here from far away (I can’t remember the state). The license plate read “obama12.”

inauguration

Although it was incredible to be on the mall today with two million others to witness history. Although it was amazing to hear Barack Obama deliver his inspiring inaugural address. Although it was fantastic to see the full of Washington DC transformed into a hard-to-access event arena. My favorite moment of the day was watching Marine One, the helicopter carrying former president Bush, fly down the mall away from the capital. My thoughts? Good fucking riddance to the war criminal, hope you are arrested upon landing.

rejoice!

Rejoice!! Tomorrow we will have a real president. After eight years of the guy who stole an election, we will finally have a president who won a majority of the votes. After eight years of a guy who pronounced it "nuke-u-lur" we will have a president who can pronounce multi-syllabic words, knows their meaning, and can use them with ease in syntactically varied sentences. After eight years of a president who lied, committed war crimes, and ran an administration based on ideology and political favoritism we will have a president who will listen to dissenting voices and make thoughtful decisions based on genuine information. Rejoice. Tomorrow we make one more step in America's long road away from a thousand isms. Rejoice. Tomorrow I will believe the arc of the moral universe is long, but it does, indeed, bend toward justice. Rejoice!

I am ever struck by the profound essentialness of symbolism. Yesterday’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial welcoming the Obamas to Washington was, of course, rife with it. But even with a replay of Marian Anderson’s famous rendition of My Country ‘Tis of Thee from the selfsame steps after she’d been denied permission to sing at Constitution Hall, even remembering Martin Luther King’s powerful words delivered also in front of Lincoln’s statue, even with all the readings from former presidents and moving verbal reminders of how far we’ve come, even with all that the most powerful event of the afternoon – more powerful even than the handsome, young, black president-to-be speaking briefly against the backdrop of real marble columns – was an almost 90-year-old Pete Seeger singing not just the happy fellowship verses of Woody Guthrie’s famous song, This Land is Your Land, but all the verses. Even the verses that talked about Americans suffering during the depression, about promises not kept, about abuse of power – he sang those too.

The ban commercial television had held against Pete Seeger was long ago, but he’d rarely appeared since the fifties. He was one of only a few artists who never sold out and never gave in through so many eras of dissent. Time has finally made its circuit. Now he sings as the conscience of music. His voice is weaker now, but his grandson, Tao Rodríguez-Seeger, sounds remarkably like him. The three of them, both Seegers and Bruce Springstein, led the assembled masses, a large young person’s choir, the attending dignitaries, and even the president-elect in singing all the verses – the ones of promise and the ones that point out how far we have to go – of the great anthem. They told the full truth, both by standing there and by singing the complete song. For profoundly symbolic moments – this one wins my vote.

cool stuff

Counting today, only five more days until we have a real president. A president who actually won a majority of the votes. A president who can speak in full sentences, who wants to find the best way instead of the ideological way, and who treats people with respect. Yes, he’s a bit too conservative for me (I’ve said this about him since he declared) and yes, I’m nervous about heightened expectations. But oh my goodness, I never thought, in my lifetime, that I’d have the opportunity to vote for anyone but a white guy for president and I did and he won. Racism, sexism, other isms aren’t over – not by a long shot. But what a start this is.

That’s my countdown moment.

I am all psyched up to see this. A program that allows people to draw an object and then have that object behave with the properties that the object would have in the real world. It’s called Crayon Physics. Looks very cool.

Henryton II

I must complete the Henryton story before it goes from my head. We spent the day as usual exploring the buildings on the grounds. The large main building, white stucco with tropical turquoise trim, still had parking spots marked for visitors and we parked there. All the buildings had been heavily graffitied, remaining windows were rare, and there were often inches of dirt and debris on the floors. Most of the piping had long ago been stripped and that also left evidence of random vandalism.

The day was cold, very cold. But our new outfits kept us toasty. Late in the day a small group of six kids came walking across the great space behind the main building where the auditorium and kitchen had been until arson had destroyed it last year. It’s never clear when you run into other explorers whether you’re meeting friendlies or not, we’re never too comfortable until the conversation takes place. After all, we’re running around abandoned buildings, alone and with significant photographic equipment. Often we leave a photo bag stashed in a room somewhere for later retrieval – the stuff gets heavy. The six of them came tromping up the hill and just the number of them made us leary. But it turned out that one kid was like us – a curious explorer with a camera – and the others were his friends. A young photographer who knew what he was interested in; his self assurance drew his friends to him.

But these poor kids had not dressed for the weather, the one girl was wearing tights and a tiny mini-skirt, another of the boys was wearing skin tight jeans with holes in the knees. They were all dress inappropriately for the ten degrees they’d been marching around in. But I guess the folly of youth permitted them to see the day through. They complained. But they stayed the course. They’d already been to two other abandoned places and had turned up here just as the sun was sinking. We took a few photos of them, exchanged website info, and then we each went on our way.

We peeled off our coveralls, packed our stuff back in the car and took off up the long driveway. As we reached the road we couldn’t believe our eyes. The short iron gate across the driveway, open when we arrived, had been padlocked closed. There was no way out. Slightly panicked we drove back down the driveway to the complex and tried every windy road – but the all just led to small parking lots by the buildings. We drove down to the power plant by the railroad tracks. It seemed we could drive along the tracks on the large gravel bed, but there was no telling how long we’d have to drive to find a way out. As far as we could see in either direction, no exit.

We were locked inside the Henryton Psychiatric Hospital. That’s what my partner kept saying on the phone as she began calling people to come help us get out. “Bring big bolt cutters.” “Call a strong guy to come with you.” We knew we could get out. It was simple to just step around the gate. But the car. The poor car would have to stay at Henryton until we figured out who to call, and that would almost certainly be a couple of days. Not a pleasant prospect.

We sat just beyond the locked gate in the warm car (thanks to Zeus for enough gas) watching the traffic go by on the main road. We felt wistfully close to freedom. If only we could just lift the car over the gate. There was no driving around the side – the cold and rain had made a wet mess, and we weren’t even sure the space between the gate and steep hillside was wide enough. As we waited, and my partner made phone calls, a pick up truck stopped on the main road. It backed up, just out of our view and the driver sat for a while. At first we thought he was going to rescue us, but he spent so much time doing other things we assumed he had just stopped for his own reasons. I could see his orange hunter’s hat as he walked around his truck and got back in. Then he sat some more. Finally he started the truck back up and drove the twenty feet to the driveway we sat in. He started to drive by, but then turned in slowly and drove fifteen feet down the driveway to the other side of the gate and stopped. His headlights shone directly into our eyes. I got out of our car, as my partner was still on the phone trying to find us a way out.

“Are you stuck in here?” “Yeah, we were taking pictures all day and it was locked when we tried to leave.” “Can you help us get out?” Just as he was saying yes and I was jumping with mental excitement, my partner showed up at my side. And our rescuer knew her. She had spoken to a class about the photography she was doing. He had been a student in the class. She was famous. We were rescued. He dialed his cell phone and said “Hey old man, what’s the combination for Henryton?” And he undid the heavy, very modern, combo lock that was holding the gates closed. I’d never been so grateful to see a hunter in my life. Obviously he was a local guy who knew just who to call to get anything done. Phew! And Thanks!

It was an adventure we didn’t particularly like having. But underscored how careful we’d have to be on our upcoming trip to New York State. Up there, no one would know us and there’d be no one near by to come rescue us. No taking any chances that could wind us trapped somewhere. Right, no take no risks – that’s definitely not us.

commencement

Yesterday as I was sitting at commencement for the umpteenth time I thought back to my own college graduation in the bicentennial year of 1976. Our ceremony was held for the first time in Washington Square Park, where it’s been held ever since. I had been thinking of teaching high school upon my release from the educational system, but New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy. The front page headline in the October 30, 1975, NY Daily News read “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Schools were scaled back to four major areas: English, math, history, science. Experienced teachers lost their jobs and no new teachers were in the mix. The country wasn’t in much better shape, but at least the president wasn’t explicitly denying them bail out funds.

New York University is the largest private university in the country and gives about eight thousand degrees each year. (The school I teach at now doesn’t even have eight thousand students. Nowhere close.) Those eight thousand students and their teachers had to file into the park at the beginning of the ceremony and then file out again at the end. In order to cut down confusion of regular folk getting in the way of people trying to return their academic garb there was a small sentence at the end of the program reading “please remain seated until the recession is over.” Now that would have been a long sit. And today…an even longer sit, I’m sure.

Henryton I

We had to escape from our latest institution – a long closed, and reputedly haunted mental institution. Henryton closed its doors in 1985. As with several hospitals of its era it opened, in 1923, as a TB sanitarium and was later converted into something else, in this case an institution of human suffering. The buildings, looking very island-like in their white stucco with turquoise trim, are badly vandalized by taggers and strippers. But much of the flavor of sadness remains.

Unlike at the Rosewood Training Center, we didn’t see bars on the windows or any rooms that were clearly used as holding cells for unruly patient. It definitely seemed a lower level security than Rosewood which makes a certain sense since patients admitted to Henryton were funneled through Rosewood Center.

We arrived mid morning to find the gate across the only entryway wide open. My exploring partner had said the gate would be padlocked so we’d been prepared to park and walk down the long, steep driveway. But coming upon the invitation, we drove right in. The complex is much smaller than Rosewood and is dwarfed by Forest Haven, but still the driveway wound around a few large buildings and several smaller houses. We parked neatly in a space marked “visitor parking” – although the print stenciled on the wall was hard to see through the graffiti – and disembarked our vehicle. Now began the long process of preparing to meet the elements. It was a frigid day, with a biting wind and we were about to test out our new winter gear.

In the trunk were our new puffy Dickies coveralls, insulation rated for stationary work outside. I felt like a kid in a snowsuit as I stepped into it and did up the zippers on each leg and the one up my front. Snapping the leg openings around my ankles was a bit of a challenge – bending down was now harder than usual and the snaps were stubborn – but with help I finally got them fastened. There was a face cover over the lower half of said face, a scarf, a hat that pulled down over my whole head, gloves, and finally I put my jacket back on over the coveralls. The only part of me showing was my eyes, I definitely looked criminal-like. Quickly, the neoprene face cover came off – it was too hard to breathe and when we were inside wind wasn’t a factor. But the hat still pulled down over my face so I remained partially hidden. I still looked like a cop show robber. But I was warm.

All of me, that is, except my toes. They felt like little blocks of ice and after only about half an hour it began to feel unbearable. We’d bought toe-warmers, that stuff you expose to air then stick on your socks and it warms up so I tried it out. This required removing my boots, not a happy activity in this cold and dirt. But the end result was a happy face. My toes stayed toasty all day long (after one readjustment of the toe pad’s positioning – yet another boot removal). When I got home that night, after much brou-ha-ha (coming later) the pads were still warm. Still warm when I remembered to peel them off my socks at about 11 PM just before I went to bed. These are a good product.

new office II

We’re almost completely moved into our new digs across the street from our old digs at work. The new building is newly renovated, the old building was renovated eons ago. The old building is three row houses someone sewed together, the new building is an old bank building that we completely gutted…and then put back pretty much exactly as it was, only more annoyingly. Although they were forced to gut the entire building by the presence of asbestos and other harmful chemicals, we were still not permitted to oversee the details of the renovation even though we had some very particular needs.

In fact, it seemed no one was actually in charge. The architect was making decisions. The university was making decisions. The state was making decisions. The technology people were making decisions. Were any of them talking to one another? I’m going to say no.

First, there is, apparently, a state regulation governing the size faculty offices must be. I wonder what that regulation says, or if it actually really exists. We all know that faculty offices vary greatly in size from building to building from university to university. I suppose since this was a new construction, there might be something saying how large, or small, our offices must be. So let’s just concede there is such a regulation. I’m wondering who wrote the regulation and what they thought we do. Perhaps regulations simply cover people at or below a certain pay grade – but that couldn’t possibly include faculty since our pay is all over the scale and we are ungraded. But it certainly seems that the regulation is about people doing a job where they never (and I mean never) have any need to work collaboratively, see students, or essentially have office visitors for any reason.

My diminutive office affords almost no space for me to set up any chair other than my own. And my whale sized office furniture only adds to that problem. As I inhabit the large C described by my desk system, I can put another chair facing into the opening of the C. Problem with that, of course, is that neither my visitor nor I then have access to any writing surface and so there we are, sitting among a sea of desk, writing in our laps.

My neighbor’s office is slightly larger than mine. Slightly. About seven inches. But in the land of teenytiny offices seven inches makes a world of difference. She can place her two small prison-made chairs in front of her desk system. They are backed up almost touching her bookcases, but they are there. Whoever sits in them is knees to the desk-front, however, since, again, no one thought that we might be having visitors where we’d both have to be working at the desk. Desks exist where a second person can sit tucked in under a desk area. But do faculty have these desks? No. They have been given to higher administrators – people who rarely see students.

Never mind that the sort of work we do in my department often requires teachers to collect and review large projects – mounted posters, constructed packaging, formally constructed proposals. There can be no thought to ever laying them out in your office for viewing. But neither is there really room to even store them here in your teenytiny office between the time you collect them and the time you drag them down the hall to an open classroom where you can spread them out to look at them.

The work area in the office might work as a cubicle – a more open space where if you needed someone to come see you they could drag a chair from the adjoining cubicle and sit half in, half out of the entry way. But as an office it’s simply a goldfish sized bowl – the kind you win at the fair. The ones you’re supposed to take home and get rid of after you transfer the poor fish to a larger bowl. Obviously whoever wrote the regulations about faculty office sizes had no real idea what faculty actually do. Or maybe these notions of collaborating with colleagues and seeing students really are passé.

new office

Well, we moved our offices from an older set of three converted row houses to a newer (really?) renovated bank building. The new building has an interesting hum which I heard as I sat alone in my new office yesterday completely surrounded by still packed boxes. I understand it has that energy saving motion sensor lights off feature: always terrific for people whose jobs involve sitting quietly at their desks reading or writing. After 15 minutes of actual work, your lights are turned off so you’ll need to wave your arms around like a crazy person or get up and go for a pointless walk to reilluminate your office. This is a more advanced version of voicemail that requires you pick up your receiver to see weather or not you have a message. You pick up the receiver when the phone hasn’t rung – again, like a crazy person – and see if you have that “stutter dialtone.” So you come back into your office after a brief sojourn to the restroom and, although it hasn’t rung, you must pick up your phone and listen to it. Why not a visual signal so we don’t have to perform an actual task? The light saving feature especially is just another one of those things – almost everything about the new office has this quality – installed without any thought about the actual end user. I could make a long list. Perhaps I will.

VA Hospital IV

The sad beeping of the dying smoke alarms was a not so subtle reminder that the building hadn’t been abandoned for long. Items – mostly technology – still sporting hang tags marked “excess” told us someone had been though the building making conscious decisions about what to do with its contents. Still, much remained. A good friend who volunteers with a medical project sending supplies to Haiti and Africa is always telling me about the donations they collect. They will take anything, down to a few unused gauze pads. In the VA Hospital major equipment – dental chairs with drill equipment and lights, X-ray machines, refrigerators, exercise and therapeutic equipment – all silently awaited the dumpster. It seemed fairly clear that everything the government wanted had been removed.

Although the place was locked up pretty tight on the ground floors to prevent human intruders, the upper floors let in birds and I’m betting other animals will soon be wandering the corridors. Once windows are broken, the elements begin to have their way with everything in sight. Paint peels, bird guano collects, things start to break down. No matter how tightly a building is locked up, explorers will find a way to get in. We did. And not everyone is as gentle as we are. Kids are much more aggressive in their entry-seeking and disturb much more once they are inside. We saw evidence of their exploits throughout the building: a few toner cartridges emptied across a room leaving a thin film of jet black powder, smashed windows, piles of medical equipment in a broken jumble on the floor.

On the upper floors all window air conditioner guts had been removed leaving only the hulking shells of the old enormous AC units hanging outside the windows. Birds enjoyed easy access through these comfortable shelters. We saw more than a few dead birds who’d obviously not been able to find egress as easily.

Although the place had clearly been gone through, still much remained. Much waste, much that my friend would have happily put in a shipping container bound for a nation much poorer than we and in desperate need of anything salvageable. Furniture, a lot of it, could have been donated somewhere. Yes, it’s that unbearably ugly institutional furniture, but that very construction makes it almost indestructible. It should find a home. Instead, it seems bound for the dump. Recycling our waste takes commitment and energy and apparently these are still lacking. Instead, entropic creep takes over what we leave behind.

play review

Attended the theatre Friday night, and am very sorry I could not get to blogging it here until today. If I can save one person from seeing this show, I will consider my duty done. I love Everyman Theatre, they have a solid company of actors and a good producer. But best of all they have consistently, and absolutely, the best sets in the city. The best. Every production goes on in just exactly the right environment. If the play wants realism, the set delivers a cozy living room with not a detail missing. If the play wants an abstraction, the set can make a single post represent the end of a lonely pier. Whatever play is in production the set meets its mark 100%, 100% of the time. So we were not surprised to find a perfect writer-detective’s office in front of us when we sat down on Friday night. Small old wooden desk, 50’s style couch, old typewriter table upon which sat a small simple old typewriter (I could imagine its black and red ribbon), the entire setting the mess of a single guy living in his office. As usual I expected we were in for a treat.

But Filthy Rich was anything but a treat. The play itself was poorly conceived. Although the main character gets drunk and sobers up at least three times inside the two acts, the dialogue seems to indicate that all the action takes place within 24 hours. Not only does the inebriation belie this, but the action itself seems impossible for such a small window. People travel around the city – from one end to the other – learn new things about each other, bring them back to the detective’s office and try to set each other up. A non-character is killed in the detective’s office and the police investigation and removal of the body takes place inside this tiny window of time – still allowing time for all the other events.

Time is not the only problem. The play is a classic example of what writing teachers all over the world call telling, not showing. The major exposition of the play’s backstory takes place when one annoying character reads a letter to another annoying character. So essentially the audience is simply hearing a telling of the story. No action, no actual character driven exposition…just someone reporting a tale. What’s the point of having a characters and a play if all you’re going to do is have one character read off what’s happened?

None of the characters is likable, not even the main sort-of-cute writer-detective. It’s clear he’s trying to be cute and/or funny but most of his humor is just enough off to be only mildly, if at all, amusing. With no humor relief there’s really nowhere for the irritation caused by the non-development of the story to come to rest. It’s just two hours and ten minutes of people walking in and out of this wonderful set, reporting what’s happened off stage, and fretting about who’s betrayed whom. Why the audience should care about any of this is never explained. The set and the film noir music that occasionally plays people on are the only pleasant parts of the evening.

As we left the theatre I turned to one of my companions and asked if he’d liked the play. The sour look in his reply told me he didn’t have to think about his answer, but only about whether or not he should voice his opinion. He uttered a single word: “no.” “Me neither,” I joined. None of the four of us liked the play. My most revealing reaction came during the play’s last twenty minutes – which seemed interminable and were a reverberating demonstration of every character’s irritating and unlikable personalities. I just kept thinking "I could be…asleep."