Something very new and different is stirring in the Big Little - national campaign ads on tv, for a primary! All those years we've been reading about the nasty ads barraging New Hampshire and Iowa, South Carolina and California. But we never saw one. Now in preparation for our primary next week (32 delegates!), they're flooding - okay, more like sprinkling - our airwaves. Finally, we get to see what everyone else is so disgusted with! We've never felt so honored to be offended.
My sister used to live in Iowa and she spoke of the wonderful peace she felt when the caususes were over and the Roundup ads came back on tv. The rhythms of America, now including us!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Named Sets
Names are important, not just for how they reflect the individual, but for how they bind a group. Here are suggestions for those of you who might have three cats or two daughters and need the perfect set of names. I'll be updating this when inspiration strikes, or feel free to add you own thoughts.
Two girls: 1) Dierdre and Gumdrop; 2) Savanna and Veranda (recommended for southerners); 3) Maundy and Hashanah (for those of you who are concerned with sin and atonement); 4) Hilary and Mallory.
MIAA families: One girl, one boy: Hope and Calvin. Two girls, one boy: Hope, Alma, and Calvin. Three girls, one boy: Hope, Alma, Olivia, and Calvin. Three girls, two boy: Hope, Alma, Olivia, Calvin, and Albie. (With apologies to Kalamazoo, but it was a stretch too far.)
Three cats: 1) Totem, Taboo, and Fetish; 2) Race, Class, and Gender (Rather obvious, but I heard of someone who did this)
Two girls: 1) Dierdre and Gumdrop; 2) Savanna and Veranda (recommended for southerners); 3) Maundy and Hashanah (for those of you who are concerned with sin and atonement); 4) Hilary and Mallory.
MIAA families: One girl, one boy: Hope and Calvin. Two girls, one boy: Hope, Alma, and Calvin. Three girls, one boy: Hope, Alma, Olivia, and Calvin. Three girls, two boy: Hope, Alma, Olivia, Calvin, and Albie. (With apologies to Kalamazoo, but it was a stretch too far.)
Three cats: 1) Totem, Taboo, and Fetish; 2) Race, Class, and Gender (Rather obvious, but I heard of someone who did this)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Mary Richards: Patron Saint of Single Girls
The best Saturday evenings of my life were spent with Mary Richards. From the age of about 8 though about 15 this was the pattern: my sister and I took the obligatory Saturday evening bath (cleanliness was most important on Sundays) and then settled down for an evening of TV. If we were early enough we could start with Lawrence Welk and if we were good enough we could last through Carol Burnette. But the best was the Mary Tyler Moore Show. The theme song was great, the font was groovy, the house was gorgeous, the cast was perfect, the writing was great. The best part, however, was the invitation to imagine myself as a single girl with a studio apartment and an interesting job in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I longed for a life of independence, with loyal friends, and no need for male approval. The bay window was also very appealing. I was so young I didn’t even aspire to Mary's figure.
The funny thing was that the show seemed to respect Mary’s privacy. Once she came home from a party in the morning. No explanation for her mother (Nanette Fabray, a genius of casting) or for us. What did she do in her closet? We never saw. Did her heart ever break? No idea. This all became clear to me only years later when I was a single girl with an interesting job. As an adolescent it all looked so uncomplicated.
Mary Richards, the Patron Saint of Single Girls, never despaired, never settled, and that was the last we heard of her. I noted during the last season of the show that she seemed headed for a fulfilled life with the former Donald Hollinger (of “That Girl!”) but we don’t know how it turned out. A few years after my MTM fixation, I started reading Jane Austin. Those stories also transported me, but I was frustrated that Lizzy’s married life was beyond my knowledge.
Women are suitable protaganists for familiar stories when they are searching for love. I'm not knocking that process as a narrative subject. The Mary Tyler Moore show is tops in television and Jane Austin's books are tops in novels. But what stories do we tell about mothers? Our patron saint is also a Mary, I guess, but she never did much to drive a story line.
Which brings me to Harry Potter. . .
The funny thing was that the show seemed to respect Mary’s privacy. Once she came home from a party in the morning. No explanation for her mother (Nanette Fabray, a genius of casting) or for us. What did she do in her closet? We never saw. Did her heart ever break? No idea. This all became clear to me only years later when I was a single girl with an interesting job. As an adolescent it all looked so uncomplicated.
Mary Richards, the Patron Saint of Single Girls, never despaired, never settled, and that was the last we heard of her. I noted during the last season of the show that she seemed headed for a fulfilled life with the former Donald Hollinger (of “That Girl!”) but we don’t know how it turned out. A few years after my MTM fixation, I started reading Jane Austin. Those stories also transported me, but I was frustrated that Lizzy’s married life was beyond my knowledge.
Women are suitable protaganists for familiar stories when they are searching for love. I'm not knocking that process as a narrative subject. The Mary Tyler Moore show is tops in television and Jane Austin's books are tops in novels. But what stories do we tell about mothers? Our patron saint is also a Mary, I guess, but she never did much to drive a story line.
Which brings me to Harry Potter. . .
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
A New Year
Four years ago on New Years Eve, Owen I and were invited to watch the bell-ringers of Wimborne Minster in Dorset as they rung in the New Year.
The Minster, a Norman jewel, dates mostly to the 12th century. Wimborne is a small town and half an hour before midnight when we entered the narrow tower, it was not hopping. We climbed a narrow sturdy wood stair 195 feet to a platform at the top. There, the assembled bell ringers, ranging in age from 7 to their 70s, stood in a circle, each at a rope threaded through a hole in the ceiling above. They tuned into the BBC. When it was midnight, GMT, they started to pull. I always imagined a mad free-for-all of exuberant tugging, but “change” ringing requires close attention, fast work, and precision pulling to swing the bell nearly upside down at the right point in the sequence. Through their attention we hear ordered ripples of sound rolling down in waves.
The belfry was cold; few people climbed there and it wasn’t worth heating. I was touched to see that the wall was painted, “Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New. Ring Out The False, Ring In The True.” Who but the bellringers would see it?
When the ringing started, I was terrified; the whole tower shook. Fearing a collapse of the floor, I curled myself in a window seat, a notch in the thick walls. During a break, I asked an elderly ringer about the shaking. With typical English disrespect for risk, he chortled: “If it didn’t shake, the whole tower would fall.” I still can’t decide if this comforted me or not.
It was January 1, 2004. We were living under a stolen presidency that had created a disastrous war. I didn’t support any candidate in particular. (This was before Howard Dean’s Scream in Iowa.) I just wanted a new direction. The assembled bellringers, at the beginning and end of their lives seemed to promise it. The ancient tower shook with the promise of a New Year. The ringing was an old tradition, established enough to cause someone to paint the walls, but what we thought about was the New Year.
I couldn't sort out the hope and the terror. Together they made exilharation. Four years later with my feet on the American ground, it's hard to remember how it felt.
The Minster, a Norman jewel, dates mostly to the 12th century. Wimborne is a small town and half an hour before midnight when we entered the narrow tower, it was not hopping. We climbed a narrow sturdy wood stair 195 feet to a platform at the top. There, the assembled bell ringers, ranging in age from 7 to their 70s, stood in a circle, each at a rope threaded through a hole in the ceiling above. They tuned into the BBC. When it was midnight, GMT, they started to pull. I always imagined a mad free-for-all of exuberant tugging, but “change” ringing requires close attention, fast work, and precision pulling to swing the bell nearly upside down at the right point in the sequence. Through their attention we hear ordered ripples of sound rolling down in waves.
The belfry was cold; few people climbed there and it wasn’t worth heating. I was touched to see that the wall was painted, “Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New. Ring Out The False, Ring In The True.” Who but the bellringers would see it?
When the ringing started, I was terrified; the whole tower shook. Fearing a collapse of the floor, I curled myself in a window seat, a notch in the thick walls. During a break, I asked an elderly ringer about the shaking. With typical English disrespect for risk, he chortled: “If it didn’t shake, the whole tower would fall.” I still can’t decide if this comforted me or not.
It was January 1, 2004. We were living under a stolen presidency that had created a disastrous war. I didn’t support any candidate in particular. (This was before Howard Dean’s Scream in Iowa.) I just wanted a new direction. The assembled bellringers, at the beginning and end of their lives seemed to promise it. The ancient tower shook with the promise of a New Year. The ringing was an old tradition, established enough to cause someone to paint the walls, but what we thought about was the New Year.
I couldn't sort out the hope and the terror. Together they made exilharation. Four years later with my feet on the American ground, it's hard to remember how it felt.
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