Getting Back on the Horse?

Not hardly. Being in this state of "limited mobility" where even the ability to sit up for long enough to blog comes and goes, I have had to learn mindfulness when it comes to moving myself from one place to another.

I fell off the ladder on September 10th. I vaguely remember thinking "oh, I'm in shock. This is what shock feels like." I don't have good recall about the "incidents and accidents" of my fall from grace. Or my graceless plunge. Or my hasty descent in order to avoid having to share the figs in my hand with the hornet buzzing my face. In my many, varied and endless what-ifs (okay, about five of them, maybe) I learned a couple of things:

1. I need an IQ test. Going up a ladder without a container for the figs was careless. Coming down the ladder trying to hold onto both sides with handfuls of figs was stupid in the extreme. The white-faced hornet was just thrown in there by Fate, hoping for a few laughs.

2. Had I jumped away instead of merely slip sliding away, I might have avoided catching my left foot between two rungs of the ladder and in effect torquing my leg as I went down. The position flipped me onto the ground with some force, probably doing some damage to either the muscle or the bone in the lower back of my back -- whatever that area is between the lumbar region and the coccyx.

3. Don't have an accident when your doctor is on the way out of town. The other docs have been willing to prescribe pain meds but no one wants a follow-up visit so I can't get a referral for a back brace...and Lord knows if I'm supposed to do any exercises. I have two choices: (a) do mild back exercises like The Bridge and take a chance on exacerbating the problem since I don't know what I'm doing, or (b) do nothing and take a chance on letting things get set in stone. I've opted for (b) since it's easier to chip away at the stone -- i.e., take longer to come back to some sense of normalcy than it is to mess up with even more damaging and lasting pain. Since I seem to be slowly healing -- it takes less and less time and pain to get from a prone position to standing -- I plan to leave Bad Enough Alone. Or is that a supine position? I get "prone" and "supine" mixed up. I mean, we say "I'm prone to accidents" but we never say we're supine to them. I wonder why that is?

4. Pain and immobility is an excellent excuse to read yourself blind. First I went through what was on hand:

Krakatoa by Simon Winchester. An excellent book to read when the air is full of Katrina...puts her in perspective. Krakatoa killed somewhere around 35,500 people in short order. Too bad it was before the MSM. They could've eaten out on that story for decades.

The eruptions produced two kinds of shock waves. One was a wave that passed invisibly through the air, a sudden burst of pressure that bounced around the world, and was recorded doing so, moreover, a remarkable seven times....

...the other shocks, considerably more complex in the way they moved, of much shorter duration but of equally extraordinary geographic speed [the air wave moved at 675 mph], involved the disruption of the surrounding seawater...

He follows on with several pages of description of the many tsunamis generated by the destruction of the volcano -- which latter disappeared into the sea as it blew itself into eternity, pushing out waves 135 feet high to crash against the coast of Java.

Guess what? Another island is building itself at the rate of several feet a year. Another volcanic island which will, in a thousand, in ten thousand, in who-knows-how many years, again blow itself to Kingdom Come.

That's what happens when tectonic plates get together for a party.

Then, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. I thought I'd gone past fantasy and science fiction, but there I was again, immersed. I would love to have a "Young Lady's Primer" to escort me through life. Primers for women of a certain age wouldn't hurt, either. But that's not the age bracket fantasy and science fiction is meant for.

Alexander McCall Smith, on the other hand, has captured this demographic to perfection. His series about The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, set in Botswana, is so beautifully rendered in small, perfect detail that one is drawn into the scenes, walking the dry land and as much in love with it as Mma is. How he does his magic is beyond me, since I prefer lush southern climes to the arid Kalahari. Nonetheless, his books are a natural anti-depressant for anyone in love with words who finds themselves confined and immobile.

I'm partway through The Barbary Wars by Frank Lambert. Read it if you want to understand how fragile was our federation of states in the early days, how prominent the silly mercantilist views that caused so much disorder and death and mayhem. Greed is but fear in another cloak.

While in the doctor's office for my first visit, I snagged Isak Dinesen's Anecdotes of Destiny. Short stories, it has "Babette's Feast" in it. I rationalized that I'd be back in that office often enough to return the book when I was finished. Turned out I was right, alas.

Among the leftover books from last year's classes, I found the Baron's Boy's The First Americans by J.M. Adovasio. If for nothing else, read it to realize even more deeply what a vipers' pit the world of academe is. He describes scenes of humiliation and outrage that rival anything written about the Curia. These guys make the Curia look like small change. But I did learn what a Clovis Point is.

Evenings in the Palace of Reason I've barely started. It's about Frederick and Bach -- I can't wait to see how Bach slays the dragon, even if the dragon is his son's employer.

The Baron brought home Mona Charen's The Do-Gooders but I think its intended audience has already absorbed all that information. I like Ms. Charen's style, but there was nothing new for me...except this: did you know that the Catholic diocese of New York City accepted Shanker's challenge to take on the worst of his students and make of them decent, intelligent citizens? Turns out that Catholic schools in New York City, whose student population is 85% non-Catholic and drawn from the same demographic as Shanker's Shame, routinely and stellarly outperforms the bloated public school pork house in all academic areas. So did you buy the old saw that Catholic schools do well because they don't take problem students? I went for that once. No more. Yep: the soft bigotry of lowered expectations all over again.

Don't know what to tell you about Koinonia by Patrick de Mare, et al. My intuition says it's much ado about nothing, but I'm going back to it to see if perhaps I missed something. It is very definitely 1970's, but there are authors and ideas from that period which still resonate for me. The notion of community is fraught with problems and alive with hope.

Sooo....no horse. Just lots of pillows and books and thinking about what I might do once I'm mobile again.

Like, maybe I could blog more.

No More Mea Culpas for Breathing While White

Ready for a little soap box rant? If not, skip this and move on to next blog.

What follows is a letter to the editor of our diocesan newspaper. The editor neither printed it or acknowledged my epistle, so -- given the power of blogdom -- here is reprinted my letter for all five readers who are given to dropping into the Neighborhood when they're in the area. That's five more than read it before it found its way into Mr. G's circular file.

First, a little background. The Baron and I are Episcopalians, though we are not what the born-into's call "cradle Episcopalians." We are members in good standing -- at the moment -- because it seemed like a good compromise between my former Catholicism (I had to leave when I divorced and remarried) and his former Methodism, which he remembered fondly from his youth but quit attending as he grew up. Or maybe when his parents stopped going; I forget.

Anyway, I love the potential of the Episcopal Church. I need a faith community with a sacramental basis and one which celebrates a liturgical year that is similar -- if not identical -- to the one I grew up with. I love the rubrics, the traditions, the whole gestalt. Being received into the Espicopal Church felt like coming home.

It doesn't feel much like that anymore. Maybe it's me; maybe it's the people in charge. For example, the Baron got all enthused about church blogging when he read Hugh Hewitt's Blog and he wanted to start one for the diocese. You can imagine the reception that idea got in a top-down hierarchical bureacracy complete with a ministry of communications (run by someone from the MSM, by the way). The fear and loathing evidenced by the p.i.c. (people in charge) was disheartening. Their compromise was to discuss it at their leader's retreat sometime in the Fall and then meet in a committee and assign tasks, etc. Now there's a real prophetic outlook.

But I digress. I came here to talk about -- dare I say it? -- racism. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of talking about it, thinking about it, and certainly giving any more energy to it. All the talk does is bloat the perceived resentments of the "victims" and the masochistic tendencies of those who beg to be forgiven for being white. What follows is a response to a letter from a priest who loudly beats his breast about his racism and calls on us to work harder to eliminate this scourge from our church. We must attend more meetings, give forth with more pronouncements, and generally crawl until we are told we may get up and get on with doing something useful. Like educating our children in the ways of our traditions and the sharing of our faith.

Here's my response to "THE SIN OF RACISM" as it appeared in The Jamestown Cross some months back:

'The Sin of Racism': A Reader's Response

The downward spiral of the Episcopal Church in its rush to irrelevance can nowhere be seen more clearly than in the enormous amount of leadership energy now spent on 1970's-style consciousness raising. Periodically, congregations are subjected to yet more hortatory about the need for right thinking. Once again, congregations are shown to be lagging behind the bureaucracy: whether it be race or gender or Palestine, Episcopalians have to be in line with whatever the politically correct thinking is at the moment.

Surely there is not a white Episcopalian left who has not discovered with great personal dismay his own covert racist thinking? Right? As a racism workshop facilitator once said, "if you're white, you're wrong." This facilitator also told his audience that it's inherently impossible, given the racist culture in America, for a black person to be racist. How's that for the ultimate in condescension?

My bona fides: I am white, but I live in a black community. I was married in a black church. Back when it was authentically cross-cultural, I was a member of the NAACP. In fact, we have some black people in our family.

Those who would condemn others for their failures to think correctly simply don't understand the hard-wiring in the human soul. We are born with a capacity to prefer our own kind. Watch any child encounter a stranger and you can experience the primitive startle effect that leads to a preference to be with one's own. This inclination toward the known is neither sinful nor wrong; it is human.

Game theory has shown that when members of a community are left to their own devices, groups of similars will collect or 'bunch' together. It is not deliberate segregation, it is congregation. Ask the black students on any campus who they prefer to hang with. And then ask them if this preference is racist.

In the continuing rush to right thinking, it is the children who lose out. The Law of Unintended Consequences is easily seen in the effects on children of both no-fault divorce and mandated diversity. The idea that culture can be sorted out and regulated is surely one of the most pernicious legacies from the 20th century. It is past time to move beyond this dated, statist thinking.

I'll be the first in line when a commission is formed to investigate the harm which accrues to children from illegitimacy and illiteracy. With all the oxygen in the room being consumed by correct thinking, though, it seems there isn't any left over for the kids. Bill Cosby had it right when he said the main problems facing black children have nothing to do with racism and everything to do with poor decisions. Now whose fault is that?

We are Christ's people. We need to be about our Father's business and we already have a Creed to tell us what that business is. The statements of Fr. Kelly's Creed - the ones that begin with an individual examination of guilty conscience and ends with a call for a permanent national Episcopal committee on racism - are jarringly wrong-headed. How about a national committee to make illiteracy uncool? That would be both Christian and cogent. How about a church which devotes its energy to strengthening the good rather than a church which is compelled to wallow in its own sinfulness? If I wanted to be a Calvinist, I would not have chosen to be an Episcopalian.

Once upon a time, the Episcopal Church was at the forefront of educating children to the fact of their individual free will and their membership, via Baptism, in the City of God. Now it seems that we stand only for the further balkanization by race which has so grievously retarded our culture.

Race and ethnicity are accidental. They are not instrumental in our salvation.

Dymphna
Emmanuel, Glenmore

I will have more to say about the history of Episcopal schools in this country -- before they became the haven for the well-to-do -- and how they led the way to public education in the 19th century. The Episcopal Church needs to get back to its roots and it needs to get back there quickly. It is becoming irrelevant so fast that it's almost invisible. It is certainly irrelevant.

And lest you think this is not a top-down problem, I leave you with the sentiments of our current Presiding Bishop, stated in the first few days following 9/11. This consecrated man of God, Frank Griswold, elected to his position by members of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, said that he was ashamed to be an American. He made me ashamed to be an Episcopalian.

"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."

You know, I really like these new soapboxes. Much lighter than the old ones...probably made in China.

Stand Back, Please. A Little Perspective Here, Folks.

One of my favorite therapists once asked politely, "so, Dymphna, when did you realize that reading was a neurotic escape?" And then she leaned back and looked at me expectantly with that benign half-smile she'd learned at acting school (she was "studying for the stage" when she was suddenly widowed and decided to hie herself off to medical school. I guess there's more than one way to grieve. Must remember to tell Cindy Sheehan). Neurotic? "NEUROTIC?" NEUROTIC ESCAPE? Oh Lord.

Of course, she was right. She just didn't know that I didn't know that about myself. I mean, it's not the only reason I read. I'm also looking for the key to happiness and the secret of the universe, but in my heart of hearts I know they won't be found in an Elmore Leonard novel or on the back of a cereal box. On the other hand, have you ever seen anyone who could write dialogue more perfectly than Leonard? Have you ever? It is as though he is making notations for music. Admittedly, the sounds flowing forth from the mouth of a Detroit small-time hoodlum are not exactly the music of the spheres, but still Leonard gives such people seat and voice in the world of the living simply by paying close attention to what they say. For that he is worthy of praise.

I should be outside on this perfect September afternoon, clearing out some of the brush that has grown up through the mountain laurel at the edge of the woods. I should be clearing out the clutter in the kitchen and putting the pot roast on so it will be ready when a certain starving Baron comes through the door after his long trek from where he makes his livelihood to his front door.

But I'm doing neither good deed. Nor am I writing thank you notes or folding laundry or...thinking good thoughts. I am neurotically escaping. Thank you, Dr. Weeks, for the truth of it. Who was it that said "the truth shall make you free, but first it shall make you miserable"? Probably someone in therapy.

James Lileks made me read this. The Baron found a mention of Krakatoa in a Lileks’ column -- I cannot for the life of me keep his various writings separate. Like Mark Steyn he is pro…(prolifigate? No, that's not it. Pro…oh I hate it when the words start to go. That word which means there’s a lot of it…proliferous? Good Lord. That’s not even a word. I don’t think. Prolific! That's it)-- as I was saying, like Mark Steyn, Lileks is a prolific writer. There.

The Baron feels a connection to Lileks ever since he found one of his books in a little junk shop by the side of the road in Alpha,VA. In fact, that junk shop by the railroad tracks is all there is to Alpha. He brought the book home and chortled his way through it.

That was years ago. Imagine his delight when suddenly he had access to James Lileks online. Talk about a little kid in a toy store. An Irishman in a pub. A bishop in a belfry. The Baron was in his element, reading Lileks every day. It may be the secret of his sunny disposition. While he’s always been the benign sort, the last few years — since the advent of the internet — have made him positively cheery. I think it has much to do with being able to read Lileks to his heart’s content.

So. Lileks remarks that he’s reading Krakatoa , thus setting off the following events: the Baron goes to Amazon’s used book section and back comes the book in the mail.Whatever the Baron is reading always looks way better than what I’m reading. The same thing goes for his glass of lemonade or wine. So, of course, I picked up the book. I mean he wasn’t going to start reading it for weeks since he had two magazines to catch up on and was in the middle of an Ian Rankin novel. The Baron is an orderly reader while I am a greedy one. In case you didn’t get that when you heard about my lemonade habits, now you know. I suffer a lot from intellectual indigestion. Even now there is a tottering pile of books on my side of the bed. Make that two piles, one somewhat less tottery.

There’s not much in the book about the author, except that he’s a “New York Times Bestseller” writer and he has an impressive list of other tomes on the back page. One of these is The Fracture Zone and it is Simon Winchester’s —for that is his name — “personal account” of his return to Kosovo during the war. He also has books on tape. For those of us who on occasion travel long distances from the Middle of Beyond into Civilized Spaces, some of these books look most intriguing. The Map That Changed The World, for example.

I do wish books on tape weren’t so expensive. One feels guilty buying so many used books and tapes when authors depend on our largesse for their livelihood. Too bad a small royalty cannot go their way each time a book changed hands…but often it’s buy it used or go without, whether it’s books or cameras or the printer I’m trying to find for the Baron’s Boy so he won’t have to trek over to another hall to print his papers. Now that he is working, he has more money than time, which means getting his laundry done and having a printer to hand. Working part-time is a great way to learn how to manage money and time and to figure out which you have more of in any given situation.

Krakatoa, The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 is splendid so far. Mr. Winchester gives you lovely, delicious pages of foreground — oh, I just discovered in a front page that he’s a geologist. Rather good-looking chap. Yum — that lead us slowly to the denouemont, the chapter he calls “The Unchaining of the Gates of Hell.” Here is where it starts to get scary:

“He walked across to the observatory, noticing immediately that the needles and pens suspended by their cocoon threads on his magnetic declinometer were ticking and trembling violently — not in the usual side-to-side sweeps that one might expect from an earthquake, but in a series of buzzing up-and-down motions that did not register properly on the paper rolling from the drum. The more he thought about it, the more he realized something odd: the vibrations were not so much being felt through his feet, as if they had emanated from somewhere deep in the earth; they were in fact being felt in the air. True, there were ground tremors and buildings were shaking — this was self-evident. But most of the shaking was coming through the very atmosphere itself. And vibration of this kind was the very particular hallmark of an erupting volcano, not of the subterranean shaking of an earthquake.”

Wow. That’s as far as I’ve gotten — page 161 of about 400 pages. There are many wonderful contemporary illustrations, including one of the telegraph line being laid from a ship off the coast of Ireland (just to pick one at random), and an illustration from 1680 when Krakatoa was acting up back then. But the big bang was not to happen until 1883.

As far as I know, the world never got around to shortening this to 8/27, or 8/83. Back then, there was more time to say the whole thing. And we have yet to see the like for sheer destruction:

The island was destroyed and nearly 40,000 people were killed. The impact was so great that seismographs in Washington, USA, went haywire, London witnessed stunning sunsets and ships sailing in the Red Sea were covered in ash.

When I get to the part where the volcano causes the whole world to miss a summer, I’ll quote some more. Far better, though, is you should get the book. Or the tape, if it exists and you have miles to go before you sleep.

Do try Krakatoa, though. It will give you a break from Katrina and perhaps some perspective. I haven't gotten yet to the part where people are blaming whomever is in charge, but I'm sure it's in there, dismally the same.

People die and always, someone should have prevented it. And if we choose God as the OIC who shoulda done something, why we can get real mad and stomp our foot and decide not to believe in such a bad deity.

Kansas City, Mondegreens, Litanies and Katrina

I have a mental tic that no one else I know seems to share -- at least no one I know will admit to it. This is it: whatever is on my mind, however subliminally, comes out in a song that I cannot let go of. I don't mean the old commercials that go 'round your brain. This is somewhat different. The song is dependent on whatever my preoccupation is, though I'm not always aware of the connections between them. Sometimes, when someone asks why I’m humming a particular song — why do people do that? Why do they ask you “why”? — I have to sit down and think about it. Ah well, any excuse to sit down.

Today, I’ve been singing “Kansas City.” It took me awhile to figure out why that tune, but finally, it made sense. And if you stick with me through this, you'll find out why, too.

Do you remember "Kansas City"?

I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
They got a crazy way of loving there and I'm gonna get me one

I'm gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
I'm gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
With my Kansas City Baby and a bottle of Kansas City wine

Well I might take a plane I might take a train
But if I have to walk I'm going just the same
I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
They got some crazy little women
there and I'm gonna get me one

Now I thought I knew who wrote "Kansas City: Chuck Berry. Turns out he didn't and not only that, I can't find it on his discography. However, in this search, I ran across alternative lyrics:

I'm goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come
Yes, goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come
They got a crazy way a-lovin' an' a I wanna get me some

I was standing on the corner, of 12th Street and Vine
Yeah, standing on the corner, of 12th Street and Vine
With my Kansas City woman an a bottle of Kansas City wine

Well I might take a plane, I might take a train
If I have to walk, I'm going there just the same

I'm going to, Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come
They got a crazy way a-lovin' an I wanna get me some
Oh yeah

Keep your hands off of her, don't belong to you
Keep your hands off of her, don't belong to you
She's mine all mine, no matter what she do
Well I might take a plane, I might take a train
If I have to walk, I'm goin' there just the same

I'm goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come
They got a crazy way a-lovin' an I wanna get me some
They got a crazy way a-lovin' an I wanna get me some
They got a crazy way a-lovin' an I wanna get me some!
Yeah!

These lyrics are credited to Jimmy Witherspoon and Albert King. However, when you look them up, only Jimmy Witherspoon gets the credit. Interesting. Albert King wrote "Hound Dog" -- yes, Elvis' song. Jimmy Witherspoon has some dysphoric lyrics in his oeuvre. My favorite line is I'm too old for the orphans and too young for the old folks'home. That man could've used some modern medicine.

And it is this second site which gives the alternate lyrics. Is this a case of mondegreens? Probably. It's a common phenomenon and some of the mistakes are hilarious.

Mondegreens, in my opinion, are the result of the poor diction of many singers. On the other hand, it is harder to comprehend words when they are sung as opposed to hearing them spoken. Some audiologist has probably told us why but I know better than to google that one. I'll get lost in all sorts of audiological tangents. Lord, it was bad enough when I just had the dictionary as a distraction. Google is downright dangerous.

Not surprisingly, the term 'mondegreens' comes from an Irishman's anecdote:

This term was coined when an author was referring to hearing "upon the green" as "mondegreen". Malachi McCourt, brother of Frank who wrote Angela's Ashes, titled his autobiography A Monk's Swimmin' which is how the little Irish boys heard the line from the Ave Maria/Hail Mary "blessed are thou amongst women".

Which reminds me of one of my mother's stories, but, my students, it is a story which will require background reading(this won't be on the quiz so cut out the moaning in the back of the room):

In the old Catholic days, pre-Vatican II, we said litanies. They were a kind of chanting prayer, usually devoted to a particular saint or to some aspect of God. One of my favorites was the one to the Blessed Mother. Its poetry moved me, even as a child.

Here's how it was done: the priest would say a phrase or sentence, and the congregation would respond. I don't ever remember them being sung, though they should have been. So, the priest might intone (BVM's litany of praises) "Star of the Sea" and the congregation would respond "ora pro nobis" (which after Vatican II became "pray for us" and post-post Vatican II, as the damage trickled down, litanies were done away with all together). There were many long lists of praises. Here is an excerpt from one of those for Mary:

Mystical rose,
Tower of David,
Tower of ivory,
House of gold,
Ark of the covenant,
Gate of heaven,
Morning star,
Health of the sick,
Refuge of sinners

For each of these, the response would be a rhythymical "pray for us." Chanted in the waning evening light coming through the stained glass windows, such prayers had a soothing effect. The trick was not to be impatient for the end but to surrender to the rhythms of the antiphony.

I suspect my mother was one of those impatient children. She and her girlfriends, feeling quite naughty, would deliberately change "ora pro nobis" to "oh, wrap your nose up," giggling and nudging one another. Little rebels they were. In effect, they deliberately created their own mondegreen. When she told me this story I was quite young and found it amazing that my mother could be so naughty. Those are the stories that make our parents seem a bit more human.

Here's a good mondegreen someone submitted for Amazing Grace:

The real lyrics were:
Amazing grace
how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me

But I misheard them as:
Amazing grace
how sweet the sound
that saved some tents for me

If you go to the site, you can look up songs you may have wondered about and get the scoop on some famous mondegreens. For example, did you know that Hendrix's "kiss this guy" was not a mondegreen but a deliberate piece of schtick he used to do onstage? That's more amusing than the fable. You can also submit your own misheard lyrics. For example, in "Kansas City" the singers always stretched out the word "Vine" into several syllables in order to make it fit the notes. To my young ears, it sounded like "12th Street and Bottom." That puzzled me, but I figured if you can have a "High Street" then why not a "Bottom Street"? I imagined someone saying "yeah, things have gone downhill. I've hit Bottom."

But I digress (digression is how I live my ADDled life): I started out way back there wondering why can't I stop humming "Kansas City"? Simple. Underneath my daily routine, I am thinking of the mess on the Gulf. Outside the sun is shining and the air is so dry the basil and impatiens are wilting. Inside the house, it is cool. The computer is connected, the lights go on, everything is as usual. Dinner will be on time, there is clean laundry -- some of it even put away. But in Mississippi my doppleganger, if I have one in ol Miss, is experiencing something from another world. And so I think of her and her family and her house of memories covered in mud. If it's even standing.

I don't have television images to watch, but I lived briefly in New Orleans and lived long enough in Florida (where I was born and grew up) to have seen a few hurricanes. Thus, I don't need the images to be able to see in my mind's eye what the horror was and what this new one is now. If I had been there, definitely on Monday I'd have booked. Hurricane parties eliminate some members of the lower levels of the gene pool.

Well I might take a plane, I might take a train
If I have to walk, I'm goin' there just the same...
Goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come...

No wonder the Baron insists on living on a plateau. In order for the James River to work its way up this ridge, the polar ice caps would have to melt. To the Baron, water is to drink and to visit. You never go to live there. Remind me to put that in The Little Book of Reasons I Married This Man.