For an hour or so last night, the words of Harlan Ellison and Ursula K. Le Guin filled a small New Haven coffee shop. No, the noted science-fiction writers weren’t there, but a short story by each was, brought to life by two local actors. The readings were part of an ongoing series called Listen Here!, a joint venture of the New Haven Review, New Haven Theater Company, and the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.

From an earlier reading, as featured in the Times

The series started earlier this fall, but this was the first one I could make. And though not “theater” in the traditional sense, it reminded me of why I like theater so much — real people speaking meaningful words in front of a rapt audience (coffee drinkers and chatterers in the room behind us excepted). I’m always struck by the excitement I feel with each new performance I see, unless it’s truly awful; the spectacle, the magic of live theater never fades. Neither does the amazement that so many people never go to the theater or hear any kind of spoken-word performance.

Certainly there’s been an explosion of opportunities over the past two decades. The economics of producing full-scale live theater and the drive for something new have led to such things as poetry slams, open-mic readings, solo shows (ahem…), and events such as last night’s. Every city seems to have some sort of spoken-word operation, with the most famous probably New York’s The Moth (which now has a Chicago spin-off at one of my old neighborhood haunts). Whether it’s people telling their own stories or reading others’, the events fill a primal need. We crave literary narrative, which mirrors the arc of own lives, and getting that fix in a live setting, surrounded by others, probably dates from when humans first learned how to talk (once they came up with a few adjectives and adverbs).

And for the actor/reader/speaker, the electricity of having an audience respond to your words, your emotions — heady stuff. I got just a taste when I was developing the solo show and read a selection at a “salon” at my instructor’s house. Extreme cottonmouth aside, hearing the laughter, knowing the small crowd was attentive, made me realize the power of the spoken word for both audience and performer.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Unfortunately, the literary curmudgeon in me says films and TV and now the Internet have hacked away at live theater, and the new spoken-word alternatives play to painfully small audiences, when you think about the millions at any moment plopped down in front of inane reality shows or their Xboxes. For whatever reason, people have drifted away from coming together as a group and focusing on real people in front of them telling a story. So maybe the need isn’t so primal. Or getting the narrative through other forms suffices.

The remains of the theater of Dionysus, in Athens

I sometimes wonder: Have people lost their ability to pay attention to something so “boring” as people speaking? Has the new technology made it harder for us to focus? What do students do, to survive hour-long college lectures? Is there still such a beast? But as I realized a few years ago, when I went back to church for the first time in ages, millions of people hear the spoken word every week. A sermon or homily may not be a narrative, but it does bring people together for a shared verbal experience. (Assuming you stay awake, something my father used to have trouble doing… ) And of course theater’s roots go back to the religious festivals of the Greeks, concrete expressions of the revelry associated with Dionysus. Attending a performance of spoken word, dance, or song, wherever it’s held, still provides a divine presence.

I should accept Listen Here! and the Moth and the open-mic storytelling as good things. People do still care about words and will venture out to hear them. Hopefully, each new generation will produce enough writers and actors and storytellers, because I can’t imagine that impulse for the communal sharing of narrative and ideas going away. But if kids don’t get introduced to theater when they’re young, as I did, and we as a society consider drama and literature a frill, are we doomed to ever-more iterations of “Help, I’m An American Idol’s Worst Parent” as our pathway to self-exploration and the divine?

Not a happy thought.

Ah, the solitude of writing...

Writing is a solitary endeavor, but most writers take the chance to reach out to their fellow wordsmiths, and I’m no exception. While it’s taken me a while to feel comfortable sharing new work — my plays, that is — in a class, workshop, or writers’ group, I have benefitted from the experience. I’m still less relaxed about offering my own comments; I feel so unsure about my own writing, what can I say that will help someone else? And given how slowly my brain functions at times, others have usually expressed what I was thinking – and in a more effective way than I ever could.

[An aside — my unease received a boost at the playwriting workshop I attended a few weeks ago. I shared my little piece and got some good feedback from our group of five writers. After another writer read, the rest of the group made comments that reflected what I thought; I pretty much didn’t say anything. When we were done, the writer/reader turned to me and said, “Thanks a lot, you bitch, for not saying anything after I gave you so much feedback.” Maybe that’s why I don’t really like this give-and-take among writers…]

Since the workshops and classes are fairly anonymous,  it’s easy to blow off comments you don’t like,  not worry about any lasting effects from opinions shared. But what happens when someone you know well asks for your opinion? How do walk that fine line between your desire to be supportive of and kind about anything they write – and their desire to hear constructive feedback, and perhaps praise – and the need to be honest? How much honesty is too much honesty? And not just in the criticism; even in the writing itself.

This scenario, as you might have guessed, emerged recently. Someone I know, a relative of a good friend, asked for comments on an essay she was thinking about trying to publish. My first reaction was, “Good lord, woman, I can’t help myself; what makes you think I can help you?” But I wanted to be supportive, and share whatever meager expertise I have. I think, in the end, I was able to do both. But the tricky part was, the essay was personal. The content made it hard for me to judge the form. And she admitted that the emotional rawness of the subject matter posed a challenge: How much of herself should she include, was bringing in her feelings obscuring the people and events she wrote about?

Wrong person to ask, ma’am. C?WC? and the solo show that proceeded it should be evidence enough that I am without barriers, messily so. Finding that line between “honest enough to impact others” and “Oh my god I didn’t need to know that” is not my strong suit. But I’ll share with you what I shared with her, an anecdote from the early days of my writing career, long before the Crisis:

Sophomore comp class in high school. The assignment: I no longer have a clue. My essay: a humorous, if exaggerated, look at the rituals my friends and I indulged in before the burning of a certain contraband substance. Now I admit, the key here, as teachers of non-fiction writing often say, was “know your audience.” This comp teacher was barely out of college, seemed hip, and not likely to report me to the authorities. Though he did say I should probably avoid writing about such things in the future. And he really liked the piece.

So what did I learn? Yes, know your audience. But more importantly, this: Open yourself to make an impact. The forbidden, the negative, the painful – if you can relate them to others in an honest way, you will be on the road to good writing. Of course some knowledge of grammar and such never hurts. And of words – which one should go where. The rhythm they create in that proper order. But when you take that open look into your soul, then hold up what you see; something magical can happen. Or something self-indulgent. Ah, another fine line.

I told my friend this story about my literary past, then said this: “Honesty strikes a chord. Even when it’s ‘too personal,’ too extreme. That’s what writers do. They explore the parts of their lives, of human existence, that everyone experiences but maybe feels reluctant to share.” But each writer has to answer for herself what she can share. Everyone has to find for themselves how honest they can be. With themselves and the world.

It ain’t always easy, in writing, or in life. Ideally, no one calls you a bitch for what you do or don’t share. And ideally, honest writing stirs something in the author and audience both.

Confront your demons, face your fears, isn’t that what people always say? Well, I’m not the confrontational type, and my fears have a way of staring me down. But last week, damnit, I had a small victory.

The scene was a playwriting workshop in New York at Theater Resources Unlimited, which I joined after returning to CT. I’d worried about being cut off from other theater folks, especially writers, after making the move back east. Despite the presence of the Yale School of Drama, New Haven does not seem to have much a theater community outside the ivied walls. Certainly not like what I found in Chicago, where I was just starting to feel I was making good connections, and friendships, in the theater world. Obviously, New York is the place to go around here to build those ties, but taking the train into the city is not like bopping on the L from one part of the North Side to the other. Joining TRU, I figured, would give me the opportunity to take classes and attend talks, as well motivate me to make the trip into New York.

Our instructor

The workshop I took was on writing for the commercial theater. I don’t think most of us there had any delusions of Broadway grandeur; getting any kind of professional NYC production would be a coup. Everyone seemed to have some previous theatrical success, even if only on my level of the occasional community-theater production. One woman had some impressive credits, including a recent reading that featured a Tony-winning actor. Our instructor, Diana Amsterdam, had her own substantial theater resume; she was an effective teacher and personable to boot.

One key to getting commercially produced, of course, is to write a good play, and Diana spent some time going over structure: having a series of events, choices and decisions and dilemmas, that drive the narrative forward. We all know these things, intuitively, when we read a good book or watch a gripping film. We don’t sit there thinking, “There’s an event. There’s another. The action is humming now.” Some playwrights can build the events into their narrative without even thinking. Some of us – me – struggle to structure our plays so they have that forward momentum as well as all the other elements of a successful play.

Creating events, structure, is the craft of playwriting. It can be taught and practiced, like learning scales on an instrument. But as with music, the true artists know how to improvise in ways that dazzle. The best playwrights nail the structure and then take flight with metaphor and poetic passages and deep themes.

I do not. I create marginally interesting characters who sometimes say something a little witty, or profess a semi-profundity that rises above cliche. But don’t hold your breath from one to the next. I guess if nothing else, I can see my own flaws, while acknowledging I can write, sporadically, plays that audiences seem to enjoy. But I don’t practice the craft aspect hard enough, or don’t have the talent to transcend the basics of it and really shine. Which discourages me. Given that, it was good to get that refresher on structure, so when (if?) I tackle that next full-length play, the craft aspect will be in the fore and maybe guide me a bit.

The rest of the workshop was about getting that play in front of audiences, which of course is the rub for anyone not named Mamet or Parks or Kushner, along with a few others. Producing plays, at the highest levels, is a business. Your play, Amsterdam said, is a product. You have to sell it to producers and directors if you hope an audience will ever see it.

What’s the trick? Well, see above – write a good play. But then you have to market yourself and the work. It helps to write a marketable play, which means small casts, simple staging requirements, maybe a built-in audience for some aspect of the play. One workshop participant has a play about NASCAR racers, which would certainly have appeal to NASCAR fans, assuming they go to the theater much. But before you get too calculating in the marketing aspect, I think, you have to write a play you care about it, with characters you and others relate too.

Other marketing steps: Learn how to write a good query letter. Perfect a pitch in case you ever get the chance to meet with a producer. Make connections and schmooze. All the things I don’t do very well.

The last part of the workshop is where the fears and demons came in. I didn’t understand this when I signed up for the class, and I tried to deny it once it sank in a few days before, but we weren’t only going to learn how to pitch a play. We were going to pitch one of our plays, to real NYC producers.

Gulp.

Try to talk while you've got one of these little suckers in your mouth...

At one point, Diana said doing the pitch would be optional. Then TRU’s director kinda said it wasn’t. I hate speaking in public. Especially about myself (hard to tell from reading C?WC?, eh?). Or if I’m going to be judged. Even in the practice pitching we did with other students, split into groups of three and four, my mouth dried as if I were sucking one of those little desiccant packs like it were a Lifesaver. My pulse went into overdrive with the flow of my words matching it, severely limiting their comprehensibility.

Then, the producers came in. I asked Diana if I could skip the pitch. Well, she wasn’t going to force me or anyone else to do it. It was, she told the whole group before the pitches began, entirely up to us. But it would be a shame to pass up the opportunity of pitching to real producers and getting their feedback on what was good, what could be improved. The subtext – ah,  there’s always subtext with us theater folks – was “Don’t be a wuss.”

Patrick Blake, an honest-to-God NYC producer with such credits as The Exonerater and Into the Continuum

About halfway through, I raised my hand to go. Diana seemed a little surprised, but welcomed me. The pitch was a little rushed, though not too bad. The producers made good comments. Within minutes, the pulse dropped down to the normal range. I did it! Yea!

Yes, we go for the small victories here at the Crisis. More important than what I or the producers said was taking on that little bit of fear that erupts when forced out of my comfort zone. I should probably do it more often. I will try. Though I doubt I’ll be making any real pitches soon. Not until I write a better play.

No, that headline is not right. Even though I recently referred to my new hometown of West Haven as the “Little Windy City,” no one will ever confuse any mayor here with Richie Daley. Just as the two burgs will never be misidentified. But West Haven is what it is, and about 125 souls had enough concern for our fair city to come out last night and hear the debate between the three candidates for mayor.

[Bias alert – if you want anything resembling objectivity on the night’s events, check out Abbe Smith’s article in the New Haven Register. And now, back to out post.]

From the left, John Picard, Nancy Rossi, Steven Mullins

I’ve tried to get up to speed on the local politics, and a few things are quickly clear: Republican Steve Mullins does not stand a chance. This is a Democratic town, albeit a divided one. A Better Future Party candidate Nancy Rossi represents the Democratic forces who oppose incumbent John Picard and support his predecessor, John Borer. I assume those folks are one in the same, though  there might be some people who didn’t like Borer and came to dislike Picard on their own. Despite his rah-rah boosterism and can-do persona, the sitting mayor has a few traits that can rub some people the wrong way. In quotes in the local paper and again last night, he’s shown an arrogant streak that is not endearing. At one point during the debate he said, “Maybe I should speak a little slower,” when one of his opponents seemed to miss one of his points. A little snotty, perhaps? Picard exudes a little too much back-slapping testosterone for my liking, but maybe it plays well here.

Rossi, a CPA by training, came across as professional and well prepared, though she was not above her own little digs, noting the mayor’s absence at key meetings and foot-dragging on certain issues. The inaction, she implied, filters through other levels of the government, and both she and Mullins suggest cronyism seems to carry too much of the day (though from everything I’ve gathered, that was also true in the pre-Picard days and seems to be standard operating procedure in the town).

The GOP's sacrificial lamb

Standing outside the Democratic dominance that has brought West Haven where it is – mired in debt, slow to attract new businesses, immobilized by squabbling – Mullins has made changing the status quo his mantra. The town needs new blood, he insists, to get through the political logjams. I just don’t see him as the one giving the transfusion.  He seemed unprepared at times, though his commitment to the city was sincere. And he said something I have often thought as I walked around the town center: downtown is dirty. I can’t imagine how you score points for saying that, but it was honest. I also can’t imagine how you get people to take personal responsibility for changing it, as he proposed. Slogans? Ordinances? Either you’re a slob or you’re not, and unfortunately too many people around these parts are.

But let’s leave aside the impressions. What did the candidates say? Well, they all want more economic development; quelle surprise. Picard insists he has the city moving in the right direction, after the debacle of the Borer years. Rossi says he has not done enough and seems to favor certain businesses or parts of town, a point Mullins echoed. Rossi seems big on reintroducing all-day kindergarten, which, given the debt and high property taxes, doesn’t seem like the top priority to me. Picard points to the coming train station and arrival of a few new businesses as signs of life, Mullins and Rossi want more.

Picard, from what I’ve read, has tried to attack the past problems but has governed with a bit of an authoritarian streak. Last night, he also seemed to beat certain points to death.  Wow, how great is it that A. J. Wright opened a store! Excuse me? That’s the economic panacea? And the store is on a stretch of Route 1 I wouldn’t exactly use to showcase my town’s economic prosperity. I don’t think one budget clothing store is going to turn it around. Picard also harped on the sale of several commercial buildings, and the razing of another, as plusses. Well, if nothing takes those spaces, what have you accomplished?

I don’t want to imply that I would know how to solve the city’s problems, especially in this economic climate. Though I might look at some of Mullins’s suggestions, such as reducing overtime and outsourcing some city functions (assuming the business didn’t go to somebody’s nephew). And West Haven does have things in its favor for the future: the train station, the presence of Yale, a growing University of New Haven, a great waterfront. Real growth, and the lower taxes that might come with it, are possible. But recent history seems to indicate that the city is one with possibilities unfulfilled, either because leaders promise too much, can’t work together, or both.

Hmm, maybe best not to leave these two alone in a room with sharp objects...

And what about the crowd that came out? Polite, largely middle aged, white, and I assume middle class. Most of the younger people seemed to be attending as part of a class assignment. One made me laugh afterward, when she talked about the mud that was slung. Ah, I think it was actually pretty tame, all in all, and given that the three  currently serve together in government, they seemed to be pretty friendly. Or at least civil, Picard and Rossi, though, as the representatives of two wings of a bickering party split more by personality than ideology, might have choice things to say about each other when the mics are off.

All three candidates sound like they truly want the town to improve. Whether lifelong residents or not, they are proud to be “Westies.” I think it’s genuine, though it might be tinged with a slight sense of circle-the-wagons thinking; if outsiders have been prone to scorn you, you gotta put up a good front. So, whom am I voting for? I like Mullins’s message of change; could go for him just as protest vote. Rossi seems sharp, but her association with the Borer folks troubles me. I wasn’t here when he served, but the legacy does not seem a proud one. Why be a part of that? And Picard? I want to believe all the good things he says will come. I don’t know if he’s the only one who could bring them. And I wish he could can the dictatorial streak. For once in my life, I am truly undecided. It might come down to which of them knocks at my door and seeks my vote. Assuming any of them want it.

Is there a “talent for happiness”?

And if there is, does it come from genes? Nurture? Willpower?

I came across the phrase today as I grappled with some of my usual Monday blues. Unfortunately, it was used in the context of describing two of my least favorite presidents, Ronald Reagan and Dubya. Yet, I had to admit – each had a positive disposition that resonated with voters and certainly stood them in good stead during tough times. (Bush, though, I would argue had more of a talent for arrogance that gave him that sunny view. Reagan seemed more sincere in his good vibrations, though Nancy said there was a certain inner wall, erected because of his father’s alcoholism and the family’s frequent moves during the Depression, that even she couldn’t penetrate.)

So, pondering the phrase, I wondered: Why don’t I have a talent for happiness? If it is a genetic trait, then I can blame my parents – again? And ditto if it’s nurture? But maybe it’s actually a choice, as many people have suggested. I came across that thought recently when I read about Michael J. Fox and his struggles with Parkinson’s (though I can’t find the source now), though it’s certainly not a new idea.

So if it’s a choice, why can’t I seem to choose it?

The Crisis has often set me thinking (ironically enough) about my though processes, how I react to life’s occurences both mundane and stressful. Too often, I have found myself wallowing in the negative (though I would argue I’m no pessimist, and I love to laugh and make others laugh). I don’t expect to be smiley-faced, buoyant, and bubbly every single day, but Jesus Christ, as many posts here have shown, I am down way more than I am up. No, that’s not true: I just write about the down more often, trying to figure out where I am at, how I can get to someplace better, and what I have to do to stay there.

I know a lot of this is fueled by the impending milestone birthday. And the frustrations with work, and moving, and not being the prize-winning writer I would like to be. I write, in part, because I want recognition, a pat on the back, whatever. I have gotten some of that, but not enough. I thought today, maybe I should start by giving myself some recognition, realizing all I have done as a writer, husband, friend, son, whatever, that has had some positive impact. I don’t deny there has been some. Just not enough for me to feel I have made a difference with my existence.

Some counsel, “More therapy!” And I appreciate that. I also know that after roughly 25 years of various forms of therapy, I am burnt out. Others suggest meds may be the answer. Maybe. Yet I resist that too, other than my occasional lorazepam. I think about a recent NYT magazine cover article about Jung and his personal journal, now being readied for publication. What I took away (was what I wanted to take away, of course) was that he, and some Jungians after him, don’t necessarily think people should be “cured” of their demons, but just acclimated to live with them, function in spite of them, rather than eradicating them. I like that, even if it’s not ultimately, objectively, “healthy.” Because I worry I might be less of a writer, or like myself less, without those demons. Of course, those with a talent for happiness would argue maybe I’d find just the opposite…

I know some of this is the Monday thing. The week goes on and things get better. Though the next Sunday’s anticipatory gloom for the Monday that will follow seems to come earlier each weekend.  I have to find the things that will make me happy. I have to explore who I really want be as the Crisis meanders on. Do I have a talent for happiness? Maybe, maybe not. But at this stage, a mere penchant for contentment would go a long way in making life a little easier.

We’re number four! We’re number fo -

Wait – number four? Is that really the best we can do? I mean, look at the competition. These are not powerful nations we are talking about. These places are not the good ol’, god-blessed US of A! We have just got to set our minds to doing better.

Oh, I suppose some of you will complain: “We’re in the middle of a recession. We have more important things to worry about than some silly world ranking.” I say to you – And you call yourself a patriot? Look, I’m not saying we have go all the way and try to overtake number one. Even I admit, the execution gap is too high to top China’s 1,718 killings. But with a few more trips to the gas chamber, a few more butts strapped to Ol’ Sparky, we should –

An old Ol' Sparky

[Did he just say “execution gap”? What are we talking about here?]

The Iranians favor a blend of old and new technologies

We are talking about Amnesty International’s report on the number of executions carried out around the world in 2008. (The report was released in May but recently mentioned in a Christian Science Monitor story about last week’s World Day Against the Death Penalty, an event surely marked on the calendars of most Americans.) The United States once again found itself in the stellar company of those other paragons of democracy and free thinking: China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. And just trailing us are some other fine nations we’ve become well acquainted with the last few years: Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan.

I’ve written before about my stance against the death penalty, and I support the abolitionist position for the United States: no executions, anywhere, for any crime. The AI report says that the 37 in ‘08 for the US is actually down – the lowest number since 2005 – and is part of a trend worldwide to reduce executions. Several dozen countries have the death penalty on their law books but rarely carry it out.

Curtis McCarty - years on Death Row before DNA evidence exonerated him.

I think the work of the Innocence Project and others has shown how often we wrongly convict people, and that has helped raise some doubts about the wisdom of the death penalty. So have the studies about the way it is unfairly applied, leaving the poor, minorities, and the intellectually challenged most likely to be the dead men walking. Although the polls show the popularity of the death penalty, which I’m sure bolsters its support among lawmakers, the arguments against ending it are getting stronger.

Yet I can’t help but feel that a sizable chunk of Americans will always demand their vengeance. A poll taken a few years ago found a majority would even support televising executions, which Guatemala actually did in 2000. That reminded me of a piece I wrote back in college, which combined a game show with public executions (one lucky contestant gets to spin the Wheel of Death to see how inmate 26463 will be killed.) So in almost 30 years, that silly satire seems not too distant from reality.

Now that’s progress.

The Big Three of China, Iran, and Saudia Arabia carried out 91 percent of the world’s known executions in 2008, and I doubt there will be huge ideological/cultural shifts in those places to reduce the number. I try to take some comfort from the AI report, focusing on the 139 countries that have ended executions, either de facto or de jure. And I count on more changes in the United States (even as the governor of my once-again home state rejected a bill that would have ended executions in CT), to reduce the numbers here even more. Maybe we’ll be chanting “We’re Number 23!” Though I’d prefer not to be on the list at all.

I barely remember this movie, or buying this CD. Huh.

When was the last time you played your Blue in the Face soundtrack album? Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Or one of the obscure Tears for Fears CD’s, after the hits stopped?

Yeah, it’s been awhile for me, too. Which led to my current musical experiment.

During the Chicago years (my god, I already sound like it was eons ago), I kept some of my less-played CD’s in storage back here in CT, along with all my albums. I’ve already written about rediscovering the joys of vinyl, though truth be told, I haven’t played that many. Actually, over the last few years, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: I just don’t play music much anymore.

From 1975 - OMG I think I had this one...

A painful admission, coming from someone who has defined so much of his life by the music he bought and played, the concerts he saw, the time he spent as a roadie. That lifelong importance of music was one of the conceits of the heralded solo show that, among other things, set off C?WC? I cherish those vivid memories of bopping to my older sister’s 45s in the living room, playing DJ at grade school and in the neighborhood with my little portable phono, scouring Creem and Rolling Stone and Circus for musical tidbits I could include in my first-ever published writing gig, as musical maven for the Glastonbury High School newspaper. (God, what was it called? Something Indian-themed, I assume, since we were the Tomahawks [“on the warpath, ooh, aah,” as the cheerleaders reminded us]. Any alums reading — help me out here, guys!)

EVerybody's favorite mid-70s band, Sparks!

Then there were the early concerts: Three Dog Night at Hartford’s Bushnell Auditorium – a birthday gift for my sister, with our parents by our side; outdoors at Dillon Stadium when I was 12, the first show sans parents, and the first time I think I ever smelled pot (just smelled, mind you…); the efforts to get the best seats possible the day tickets went on sale, which meant precisely timing my mailed check, since there was no Internet and no way my mother was going to let me camp out; Sparks at the Bushnell, with 246 others who actually knew who these crazy guys were; the abysmal failure of trying to produce a bluegrass show while a member of the GHS student council (and yet I still tried to stage the solo show. What the hell was I thinking…). The list could go on and on.

I noticed my personal music dearth in Chicago, especially on the live side. Oh, I saw plenty of great shows, but over five years – and given the amount of good music so close at hand – the average was pretty pathetic. I tried to at least keep up with new artists, buying CD’s strictly based on reviews, but then found myself drifting back to an ever-shrinking selection of the tried and true. Which shaped the little experiment now underway.

With the stored CD’s added back into the collection, I decided I would play them all, once, in order from A to Z. Now, I made some allowances for previous lapses in taste: If a CD really seemed to suck to me now, I’d play just one or two songs and consider that disc done. But what I really hoped was to find some hidden treasures, especially in the genres I tend to neglect: classical, jazz, blues.

I realize this endeavor is not exactly groundbreaking. Not up there with reading every page of the Encyclopedia Britannica or living for a year like an Old Testament Jew (amazingly, or insanely, both done by the same guy). But it’s not a parody of those efforts either. My goal is to reconnect with “lost” gems, and just reintegrate music into my life on a more regular basis. Of course, I know there are dangers; I imagine one day I’ll scream “Oh my god, why did I buy so much Foghat?! Why did I keep it?!” (Actually, the only album I had was on vinyl, and it was purged from the collection ages ago. But you get the idea.)

I am now amidst the B’s, having just completed Bach. I got to hear my favorite piece, the Brandenburg Concerto #3, and some organ music that sounded like it came from a horror-flick soundtrack. The A’s had some delights – I forgot how much I like Laurie Anderson’s Home of the Brave. But I did wonder, apropos of Foghat, why I have so much Asleep at the Wheel. No, that’s not fair – they’re lots of fun live, and their tributes to Bob Wills, especially the first, are killer. But three or four CD’s in a row is a little much. I should have invoked the one-or-two-song rule, but I let them play through. We’ll see if I’m as generous with some of the older Dylan and mediocre Elvis (I gotta lot of Dylan and Costello…).

This effort might lead me to get rid of some things I have outgrown or bought on some inexplicable whim. I hope it leads to more moments like the one with Home of the Brave, or uncovering something cool I had no clue I even owned. We’ll see. At the least, I’ll hear if there’s anything decent on Blue in the Face, which  should be coming up pretty soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Pick a slogan...

I am not a good vegan.

Oh, I call myself that, and I’ve joined several vegan Meetups so I could share camaraderie and food with like-minded folks. But I guess to some of them, I am a phony, claiming a title I don’t deserve.

I am, as I’ve written before at the Crisis, not 100 percent pure in my veganism. We are totally vegan at home – except we sometimes  eat locally produced honey, for its alleged power in reducing allergies. And I never threw out that old leather coat, though I certainly won’t get another when it’s gone (and that day is close, since the zipper is broken and I don’t plan on getting it fixed). But my real transgressions come when I’m out of the house, as I admitted at a recent Meetup, our first in New Haven.

If I’m out and I can’t get soy milk, I’ll use a dash of cow’s milk, rather than drink it black. I could drink it black, and I have occasionally  in the past, but I usually go for the more familiar –and pleasing – creamy taste. At weddings and birthday parties, I’ll eat some of the cake, to be part of the social bonding that marks the event. Let’s face it, food is more than just fuel, when you’re eating with others. Sharing a meal is a cultural ritual imbued with import for millennia. I’ve already set myself apart from the majority by choosing the eating habits I have; so sue me if I want to go for a little inclusion at certain celebrations with omnivores.

Site of our latest Meetup--yum!

That explanation seemed to raise a few eyebrows at the Meetup table. I’ve met lots of great people at those events, but I just don’t have the fervor for the cause that many of them seem to. Maybe because I don’t see it as a cause per se. It’s a lifestyle choice, and it’s on a continuum, for me and lots of others who want to avoid animal products, but can’t always do it, for whatever reason. Yes, I applaud the people who are more devout than I am. And I do see the moral issues at stake. But, as I’ve outlined so many times here at the Crisis (far too many times to provide a solitary link…), I am weak. I can be situational. I am not a good vegan.

Earlier on that day last week, I had another occasion to think about my eating habits. A trip to the naturopath led the good doctor to suggest that some of my chronic pains could be the result of not getting enough/any animal protein. We discussed his theory of the need for humans to have animal sinews/tendons in their diet to strengthen their own muscles. He wasn’t claiming this was a fact, and he wasn’t saying vegetarian sources of the chemicals that the animal products provide couldn’t do the trick. It was more a hypothetical.

But I felt queasy discussing it. Would I go back to eating meat to improve my health? I’ve heard of vegans and vegetarians who return to animal products for that reason (though many more say giving up those products improved their health). My first reaction was, no, I would not start eating flesh, or even dairy/eggs (on a regular basis), even if it improved my health. And my second and third reaction was still no, even though I realized a lot of people would think it’s crazy. So maybe I do have some morality on this issue – even if not enough to satisfy the vegan righteous.

Click the photo for another perspective...

Then, a third vegan issue popped up. Reading a magazine on Connecticut agriculture, I saw a blurb about the need for buying locally produced milk, to keep dairy farms from being developed. Huh, something I had not thought of – a demand for dairy helps local farmers stay in business. This is not the factory farming I’ve railed against here. This is Mom and Pop Farmer, treating their cows well, connecting with their customers, and keeping the state’s dwindling open space intact. So should vegans want these people put out of business, for the sake of saving the cows, and at the risk of land preservation? And do family-owned dairy cows need “saving”?

I think I know how the hard-core vegans would respond. I’m not sure how I would, though I think nobody, vegan or not, “needs” dairy. I know I’m not going to be trekking out to Windham County for some unpasteurized milk, no matter how much it might help a local farmer. But I guess I don’t think it’s bad if people who still eat dairy want to. Still, shouldn’t I be encouraging everyone to give up animal products, for the sake of the animals, the overall environment, their own health? Haven’t I done that before?

Well, not really. I am not a proselytizer. I will answer questions about my own choices, and the larger issues, but I don’t want to get too militant about telling people what to eat. Maybe because I don’t have all the answers in what can be a nuanced issue – factory farming and agribusiness evils aside.

But I do know one thing: I think I’m gonna be drinking my coffee black now, when I’m out in public. And hope the dairy farms still find a way to stay farms.

No, the amount of time on my hands has not exponentially increased. But following the advice of several people – one I know, one I just heard on the radio – I’ve decided to blog about something I’m passionate about: history.

Stop laughing.

Yes, I know that makes me something of a nerd, hence the title of this new creation, which you can see here. I want to use current events as a starting point for brief (no, really, I promise) thoughts on history, all with my own slightly skewed perspective. From now on, C?WC? will mostly put aside things historical, leaving more time for my inane personal blatherings and reports on the things I actually do.  So, add the new blog to RSS feeds or whatever, tell all your friends, and help make the History Nerd a smash hit! Thank you.

In the words of an American leader,

“The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America….Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy….In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote…and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.”

Any guesses who said it, and when? I’m a history nerd, and I wouldn’t have known. Yes, it was President Malaise himself, Jimmy Carter, back in 1979.

Jeez, Jimmy, can't you just turn up the furnace?

What goes around comes around, eh?

Of course, after Carter we had Ronald “morning-in-America” Reagan, and everything was set right. Greed became good, we won the Cold War, and now we just basically kick butt whenever we like. Ol’ Gloom and Doom Jimmy was just such a downer, because we know everything is right with the world.

I came across the Carter quote while reading Andrew Bacevich’s The New American Militarism. It has sat on my shelf for several years; I finally picked it up to see if it had any insights for a bio of Dubya I’ll be starting soon. Bacevich wrote before the Iraqi war turned really ugly, and the surge, and now the gradual pullout. And before Afghanistan started to take on the shape of our next Vietnam. Of course, the key to NAM (huh – isn’t that acronym telling…) is that the militarism exists apart from any one war, or three or five. It is a mindset linked to several key events and attitudes.

"How Americans Are Seduced by War"

Here’s the Cliff Notes version: looming large is the reaction among some Americans, within and without the military, to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Throw in the rise of the neocons and the religious right, allies in opposing the cultural upheavals of the 60s, sharing a hatred of the counterculture, hippies, yippies, any challenge to the cultural status quo, yet at times uneasy ideological compatriots in the effort to rebuild America’s military might and project it around the world. Still, they put aside their differences to pursue their common goals (SUBJECTIVE AND PERHAPS UNINFORMED C?WC? ASIDE ALERT: and illustrated a common devotion to American exceptionalism, revealing the hubris that fuels that laughable ideology. Folks, all your assurances of God’s grace and our inherent moral goodness, [ahem] will not make our empire last forever, any more than the Persians’ or Romans’ or Nazis’ or Russians’ faith in their exceptionalism kept them going).

The neocon/fundamentalist union shaped the Republican Party from Reagan onward, and helped fuel the militarism Bacevich fears threatens us today. Then stir in the rise of what he calls World War IV, centered on the American goal of preserving access to cheap Persian Gulf oil. Carter comes into play here, too, since he spelled out his doctrine for the region in 1980, shortly after the Iranian hostage crisis began, just weeks after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan:

“The region…is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world’s exportable oil….Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

Iran, Afghanistan, conflict in the Middle East – it all seems so familiar. The military interests go even farther back, to FDR’s assurances to protect Saudi Arabia. Oil has shaped our foreign policy for decades. It has led to some of our militarism, though as Bacevich shows, the roots are many. It has helped set up the culture clash between Islam and West that is the latest phase of WWIV, the ongoing, not-ending-anytime-soon war on terror. Count on more militarism, folks.

The war that keeps on giving...

Bacevich has a list of prescriptions for ending our addiction to all things martial. Turning back to the Constitution is at the core of them. “Nothing in that compact…commits or even encourages the United States to employ military power to save the rest of humankind or remake the world in its own image.” So enough of the Wilsonian blather from either party, about “making the world safe for democracy,” which is often just about making it safe for our business interests, or asserting our paternalistic “Tut, tut, we know best” attitude. He also calls for truly adhering to the separation of powers, to reign in the executive branch, which in most cases has led us into war while Congress, as Bacevich says, “has time and again shirked its duty.”

One carp I have with the book: While spelling out the ideological factors that underpin the NAM, and the self-serving one (Reagan, Clinton, and others wrapping themselves in the flag and gushing their love of the troops to get elected), Bacevich seems to minimize the role of Congress and the defense contractors in creating this state. The companies want the contracts to keep shareholders happy, so they’re not going to question whether we need every new military system. Hell, they get the former military guys to help lobby for them. The pols want to say they’ve brought jobs to their districts/states, so they can’t say no either. And who can refuse a little PAC money from Boeing or General Dynamics, hmm? Capitalism itself and its role in the current political process make sure the NAM wheels keep on turnin’.

That aside, it’s a good book. Bacevich, a career military guy-turned-diplomatic scholar, is intelligent and infused with a morality shaped by his Catholic faith (OK, that might not carry weight in all quarters, but the American Church does have a strain dedicated to social justice, which I respect). He wrote another book about the end of American exceptionalism. Like me, he thinks its demise would be a good thing. But don’t count on it, not when telling everybody how great they are helps win votes, and some folks like the idea of walking around thrashing others with that big stick.