Thursday night at 10:31 and 24 seconds

One of the best presents I've ever received is my "atomic watch." Through some mechanism that I don't entirely understand, it gets radio waves from someplace which ensures that it always registers the accurate time, within a fraction of a second. Frankly, I do not think there is anything genuinely atomic about it. You could probably stack a thousand of these things in a big pile and throw a match in and that wouldn't make a big bang and a mushroom cloud.

But it does genuinely appear to work, and I love it.

Among other things, I really enjoy being able to answer requests for the time with: "It's ten twenty two and fifteen seconds." And after saying this, I then snap my finger when that particular exact time is precisely right. I've been doing this pretty regularly for about a year now, and I am puzzled by the fact that nobody seems to notice the absolutely valueless precision of my answer. Nobody has ever commented. Which leads to the clear validation of my theory that pretty much nobody ever pays much attention to anybody. Regardless, I kind of enjoy the sense of valueless precision. I leave it to the Freudians in the crowd to figure out why (if course, sometimes an atomic watch is an atomic watch).

Why do I bring all this up? As Tevye says, "I'll tell you." (Followed by "it's a tradition," but that has no relevance here.) The reason I bring this up is because I wanted to post to my blog today, but didn't have anything particularly potent to say, and so when it came time to write the Title of this entry, I just put in the day and time.

If anyone reading this can't guess from the forgoing that I used my atomic watch to see the time, then please leave the room. (And if anybody actually left any rooms upon reading that last, then I am deeply concerned, and when those of you who actually vacated the premises because of me return to these words, please call some kind of a hotline, because this kind of overly zealous responsiveness to the written word could make it dangerous for you to read the morning paper or for that matter a bottle of aspirin. What's in my mind is that anyone who so immediatley responds to absurd requests, would read the instructions on an aspirin bottle that say, "take two every four hours," and do so. This affliction (which I believe Oliver Sachs would write about if it actually existed), could make it incredibly dangerous to read advertisements in the papers or pass by a pizza shop ("you've tried all the rest, now try the best," could lead such an unfortunate soul on an endlessly fattening journey from pizza parlor to pizza parlor, ultimately exploding -- like the computer in a particularly memorable episode of Star Trek -- with pizza shrapnel spraying out in all directions and the doctor saying, "He's dead, Jim.")

I think it's time to go to bed now, and I'm about to do so. It's critical to me that before I go to sleep, I have enough time to 1) chat with Katherine before she falls asleep 2) watch some television 3) read for a half an hour or more and 4) listen to the radio for a bit. This is my practice and my habit and it works for me.

It occurs to me, however, that my just-described bed-time regimen seems to fit all too neatly with the kind of person who would care about knowing, and telling other people, the time to the excact second. And I need to give this a little bit of thought before I expose my inner psyche any more thoroughly to your prying eyes.

It does make me think of one more thing (actually that makes me think of about eight more things. . . but almost everything I see or hear makes me think of about eight more things, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's very nice, in that I'm never bored. On the other hand, there is a danger of my thoughts engulfing me like some kind of self-eating Hydra.) But the one more thing is this. When Ben was a little boy, before he could tell time, he would sometimes ask how much time remained on a car trip. Saying "an hour," or "twenty five minutes," was meaningless.

This was concurrent with a time when Ben loved watching the Barney the Dinosaur television show (prior to Barney's turning all Hollywood). So, we'd tell it. It's three Barnies, for an hour and a half. Etc. This may have been even better than an atomic watch.

As I was saying.

July 26, 2006


It's a curious paradox, as they say in the Fantastiks. When I go to any kind of theatrical event, I'm always picturing myself somehow being called onto the stage ("Is there anyone here who knows all the lines?" "You betcha!") Once astride the footlights (?) I quickly demonstrate to the rapt audience that they're witnessing the second coming of Ruby Keeler in Forty Second Street. (Which is a most peculiarly mixed metaphor when you think about it . . . the whole idea of Ruby Keeler as the Messiah is kind of chilling, notwithstanding the fact that it would establish tapdancing as a religious sacrament in the New, New Testament). My daydream then goes onto the next day, when the headline in Variety reads: "Man In Audience Boffo at Box Office!"

[Of course, one of the great difficulties I've always had is that I edit my own fantasies. . . and the above fantasy only leads me to wonder about the inconsistency of creating a box office stir, since this particular story doesn't promise any kind of recurring part -- and even if it did, by the time the show would have been over, the box office would be closed. This is why I try not to fantasize about good things too much. . . it only leads to a heightened awareness that really amazingly wonderful outcomes are like an oasis on the other side of a mine field.]

Anyhow, the paradox is this: Even as I like picturing myself up there on the stage, I'm absolutely involvaphobic of people from the production who ask audience members to come up onto a stage. It's just like having waiters sing Happy Birthday to you in a crowded restaurant (note to good friends: please, don't arrange for this).

So, the other day we went to this off-Broadway production. And there was an instrumentalist producing before-the-play entertainment. And he wandered out into the audience, playing his guitar loudly. I was sitting on the aisle seat. (Note to my grandmother, who I like to think is currently playing gin rummy someplace in Heaven: See, Mommer? I sit on aisle seats and always check to see where the exits are.) And the guy playing his guitar stops in front of me. I try not to make eye contact. He plays a little more loudly. I look at my fingernails, as though something interesting may have grown beneath them in the last few minutes. He speaks to me, in an unavoidable fashion. I look up. Trapped! "Why don't you scat with me?" he asks.

"Scat?"

"Yeah, scat with me. Come on. It'll be fun."

"No thanks," say I, ever polite, "I'm not really the scat type."

"Yeah, man. You can do it."

But I can't. I say something about not being "scatological." I think this is a not-so-funny riposte. He thinks I'm speaking another language. Nobody hears anyhow, because the guitar playing is so loud. Frankly, I'm not sure what scatting is, except for some memories of Scatman Crothers from various talk shows late in his life, and even more vague memories of how he could do this fun kind of musical riffing. Or Danny Kaye, who I believe did scat. And Bing Crosby. Alright, alright, I can hear you now (actually I can't, but you knew that), I do sort of know what scatting is. Or at least what it was when movies and tv were in black and white. But I have no idea in the world of how to do it. I suggest to him that I'm disinclined to have anything much to do with guitarists. He doesn't hear me. Nobody else does either. Finally, it's clear to him that he should take "no thank you" for an answer.

Whereupon this guitar player, whom I am sure is a swell guy, and whom I would probably like in real life, decides to turn from me to the person on my left, who happens to be my wife, Katherine. Inasmuch as I had proven myself "no fun at all," which wouldn't surprise many of the people who think they know me pretty well, I wouldn't have thought that this young musician would immediately turn to Mrs. No Thank You. But he does.

I need to back up a little here. While, I'm unhappy with waiters who sing happy birthday to you, Katherine -- who is genuinely one of the most even tempered souls in the world -- would like to see them all sent to some kind of Devil's Island for wait staff ("Hi, my name is Jeffry and I'll be in life-long pain for you tonight.")

She was not so pleasant with this fellow, which brought me some pleasure. But she gritted her teeth, and sort of scatted in her way for him, only to have him milk the audience for applause for her, which -- trust me on this -- did not make things much better.

The rest of the evening was far more pleasant.

Back to the beginning

July 21, 2006

Ben has some kind of a way to figure out the geographic location (roughly) of people who seem to be looking at this blog. He discovered that there are apparently people in Connecticut signing on -- doubtless attracted by my reference to Seth G. Haley (and who, I ask you, can ever hear enough about Seth G. Haley? Or West Haven High School?)

Anyhow, that was rather exciting. It does present me with a new responsiblity, however. I fear that if I now have a readership that has expanded beyond my wife, son, daughter (and one friend of my son who I believe is reading this material out of some kind of misbegotten sense of politeness . . . . in the way some forester might hang around in the woods a lot, in order to protect the feelings of trees that may have fallen in the woods and deserve to be heard, beyond a philosophic certainty). The responsiblity, as you might intuit, would be to keep those Seth G. Haley and West Haven High School stories coming.

Were I to genuinely attempt this feat, it would represent a subtle, yet potent, irony. Here, I asked Ben to put a picture of Seth G. Haley on the site, in lieu of my own. The next step was to start the blog by disclosing that fact, and explaining a little about Seth G. Haley. And now, it would appear, I am perilously close to writing as endlessly as is humanly possible about Seth G. Haley. All of which, were I to attempt it, would lead me to put my picture on the blog, and change the name of the blog to "Seth G Haley's blog." [I suppose that perhaps I could start using his name on credit cards then, but that seems like the kind of thing that not only lands you in jail, but also in one of those funny little "Stupid Bad Guys" articles that the Readers Digest seems to love these days.

This is not intended to cast any stones in the direction of the Pleasantville (honest to goodness) headquarters of the Readers Digest. In fact, up to a certain point in my life I believed that practically everything of value I learned came from the Readers Digest, with the exception of the history and biology I learned in 7th grade (go ahead -- ask me to name a bone in your body. I can do it unless it happens to be the scapula, in which case I'll be confused as to whether that's your collar bone or something else). Also, I think I learned a fair amount from the annual holiday present of the World Almanac, a book I continue to love dearly. And I learned a fair amount from my parents. But, the Readers Digest was right up there.

I learned, for example, that if you're attacked by a bear you should play dead, and the bear will likely leave you alone (for more, see the RD article, "ATTACKED BY A GRIZZLY"). I learned not to take any chances of getting into trouble in school (see the RD article: "High School Hi-Jinks that can Haunt Your Life"). I learned about alliteration (see, again, "High School Hi-Jinks that can Haunt your Life.")

I loved the Laughter, the Best Medicine. And I had dreams -- no kidding here -- about finding huge piles of unread Reader's Digests in some previously undiscovered attic space.

These days I don't seem to find that the Digest holds my attention as much, but Sandy seems to really like it. That makes me happy. Goodness knows, if that turns out to be my legacy, I'll be a trifle disappointed. But it's a start.

A pause somewhere in time

July 19, 2006

I believe with a fair amout of certainty that at least four people are reading what I write here, at least on days when Sandy takes a look. There might sometimes be five, because I sometimes look twice.

And yet, peculiarly, I don't mind. Katherine was always the one who had the capacity to write in journals. I never did. And that was true, in large part, because I never really want to write things unless they're going to be read by others. So, it comes as a surprise to me that this blog that reaches into the ether is so satisfying. This is particularly true since, to paraphrase Auden, I'm pretty sure that when I talk to the ether, the ether answers "No one is home."

All this is by way of clearing my throat for something entirely different. Over the years, I've accumulated a fair amount of poetry (I mean poetry I've written. . .otherwise accumulating a lot of poetry would simply mean buying a bunch of books and that would be more a measure of ridiculous spending than of creative will). But I haven't quite figured out anyplace to publish anything. And now I've got it. To directly quote Jimmy Durante, "Dis must be da place."

So, what follows is something I wrote years ago. Before going on, you should take a breath, because I suspect you're going to anticipate something light hearted. . . which some of my poetry is, but this one isn't.



Walking

Last night, he dreamt of walking
down endless halls of a dark museum
Not noticing the art, but happy nonetheless,
Till a voice from the distance called "Come."

And he awakened to breakfast in his bed
Eggs and toast and juice, coffee with creme
And he told the nurse-type with the food
The she had interrupted a lovely dream.

And he went on, and she pretended to hear
About dreams he recalled of the sky
Soaring with eagles and leaping down stairs
The nurse-type hadn't ever dreamt she could fly

Every week or two or three at most, in years long past
He'd had his flying dreams, and he knew
When he had children -- they too would feel
The sense of air rushing by as they flew

He'd give up much, he thought, if he could capture
once again, the sense of freedom, he'd had then
The sky the palate for pictures his body drew
But the last flying dream. . .he didn't know when

And now the nurse-type took him from his bed
To his wheelchair, and to a large grey room
Where a teacher-type had the New York Times and read
The daily news to a small group gathered there

Later, he was wheeled back, to stare at his TV
And the grey reflection lit his features dim
How long ago, it was, he'd last had flying dreams
That night he smiled in his sleep, as he walked again.

###

Go Westies, Before the Beginning

July 18, 2006

As promised yesterday, a little bit about West Haven High School in the early 1970s.

I learned a lot there. I learned, for example, how to hold it in. I do not mean my emotions (though that was also true, certainly). The fact is that the bathrooms in West Haven High School were dangerous places to be for people like me. By people like me, I mean that portion of the student population that wasn't beating up on the rest of the student population (including me) in the lavatories. (And have you noticed how rarely anyone refers to lavatories, after high school? I begin to doubt that was ever the right word. But I'm sure I remember the little pink pieces of paper that entitled you to rove the halls were called "lav passes." And, in any case, it is the word that immediately came to mind when thinking about my high school's bathrooms, which is something I rarely do these days.)

There really was a Wild West element to High School in West Haven (picture the bathrooms as Dead Man's Bluff, the hallways as Main Street in Ol' Dodge, and the grassy area outside the school as the O.K. Corral -- for those of you who may not know the reference, I suggest you try to see the movie titled Gunfight at the OK Corral, with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster)

It's not like I walked around most of the time numb with fear. Just numb. And just most of the time. And learning to hold it in has been an important life skill. For example, sometimes you find yourself in a meeting with a number of other people, and you're intent on making sure that you get your way in some form or fashion. It is very good to not go to the bathroom all day, because that way you're never out of the room.

[Which brings to mind a story, that I'll share. But readers have to promise (non-verbally, or someone might think you have gotten betrothed to your computer screen) not to think I'm name dropping here, even though I sort of am.]

When I was in college I did an indepndent study about American humorists. This gave me an excuse to find Helen Thurber, widow of James Thurber and arrange to meet her. She suggested we meet at the Algonquin Hotel. To me, at that time, this was just like having a chat with Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House (except that Eleanor Roosevelt was dead at the time, and I was much more interested in reading Thurber than FDR). We met, she was lovely, and it was great. Now fast forward to my asking Katherine to marry me.

Of course, after getting engaged, we made the rounds of all the relatives and close friends. And then I decided that it was only right to introduce Katherine to Mrs. Thurber. In retrospect, I don't know where I got the gall. But I did. And Mrs. Thurber took the two of us out to dinner (Name dropping, on the way: the next table over was occupied by failed Presidential nominee McGovern). It was a memorable dinner, in which stories of the maladies afflicting her were intermingled with comfortable chat about The New Yorker, Bob Benchley, S.J. Perelman, etc. And the highlight (and this is what I've been building towards) was when she told us that she was always frightened to leave the table when Dorothy Parker was there, because she was certain that Dorothy Parker would tear her to shreds the moment she left the room.

This is my only genuinely unique story about the Algonquin Round Table, Thurber and the rest. All the other stories I've read some place. And I'm sharing it with you. No wonder people like blogs.

I'm not done beginning, yet

July 17, 2006

Yesterday was a terrific day. . . just the kind I desire. All four of us were home (an increasingly rare event and one which seems to require Manhattan-project-like planning) and most of the day was spent together.

We played Monopoly. I've always loved Monopoly. I loved it even when I played games with my father (and generally my sister as well). He insisted on playing the "short game." You can find some gibberish about a short game in the Official Rules of Monopoly, but I've always been so fundamentally hurt by the very idea of the notion of artificially cutting short any kind of game (it's kind of like playing baseball without third base) that I haven't read them.

My father's means to a short game was to start out by dealing out the cards out, one at a time, and then playing from there. This did have one small advantage -- in that it meant that everyone started out with an even number of properties. But it also eliminated an awful lot of the strategy from the game. He was always the big boat, I generally took the dog (sometimes the thimble), and that tells you a lot about how I felt playing games with my father (short versions or not).

Ben, meanwhile, has gotten the idea that it's a bad thing to artificially inflate the economy, and thus extend the game, by allowing money for jail fees, luxury taxes, etc., to go under Free Parking, and then be collected when someone lands on that square. It is clear in the Official Rules of Monopoly, that this is disallowed. But I do not believe there are any Parker Brothers Police around to enforce this (and even if they did, it would only be $50 to get out of jail). And I kind of like the idea that even in a hopeless state, with no houses, no hotels, and a puny pile of cash on the table, you can always land on Free Parking and wind up with enough money to buy yourself back into the game.

Nonetheless, the game was fun. Sandy appears to have some kind of genius for Monopoly. I like to think that it's because she plays just the way I do, except that other players (most notably Katherine and Ben) are suspicious of every deal I propose, while Sandy continues to glide stealthily under their radar screens, while snookering them all the way.

On the other hand, maybe there's no truth to the preceding paragraph, but it's a way for me to have lost the game, and still come out feeling like I've had some kind of success.

Before I close out for the day, I wanted to extend a bit on my first posting in which I explained the background of the photograph of Seth G. Haley.

You'll note that there also appears, a little to the left of Seth G. Haley, a fragment of a picture of a building. This building is West Haven High School. Benjamin, who designed this page, decided that it was artistically clever to have it appear that the High School was sinking into the ground (or maybe that wasn't his intention, but simply my Rorschach-test-like way of reacting to it). Either way, it kind of gives me pleasure, because there are few places on the face of the earth (with the possible exception of my junior high school) that I would have wished could have sunk beneath the surface to meet some kind of permanent geothermic fate.

Tomorrow, time permitting, I intend to write a little about high school.

I begin

July 16, 2006

So, the story begins at the dinner table last night. My son Ben, who guarantees me that somebody somewhere will actually read what I'm writing, was talking about his blog(s). I knew a little about blogs. In truth, I knew very little -- just enough to fake my way through conversations with people who knew less, which is really just about everybody I'm talking to these days (except Ben and his sister, my daughter, Sandy . . . both of them are fully aware that an authoritative tone means nothing very much).

Anyhow, I said "Maybe I should have a blog." Then somebody -- it may have been Ben, and it may have been me -- suggested that it be called "Ben's Dad's Blog."

I'm a writer (not that you could divine this fact from the preceding two paragraphs). But, although most of what I write about is really interesting to me, brief synopses of my latest efforts tend to have much the same effect on my friends as would a detailed description of the Heidinger Uncertainty Principle (I've tried both. Trust me.) So, the idea that I could have a place where I could prattle, nearly endlessly, and believe that people will read it was wonderful. I am always in awe of other people who can enjoy life in such a blissful state of thoughtless conviction (which is, by the way, what Texas has turned into with all its prison building, but that's another story).

And here it begins. You may wonder who the gentleman is whose face graces this blog (and do I call this a blog? or is that self-referential?) Truth is, I didn't want my own photograph up there. Can't quite tell you why. So, I decided to go with a Google-searched photograph of Seth G. Haley. He was a very famous educator in my home town, West Haven, Ct. And my elementary school was named after him. While he was still alive. In West Haven, they didn't seem to have any really famous dead people, except a small cadre of revolutionary war figures, but they already had streets named after them (including Captain Thomas Boulevard, which always struck me as an oddly formed street name. Like the President FDR Drive, or the Abraham Lincoln Tunnel. Or the Anna B. Hutchison Parkway). (And more about the Hutch, as it's called hereabouts later. For now, suffice it to say that in my formative years, I heard seemingly endless discussions of whether or not you got someplace via the Hutch, and what maelstroms of vehicular madness would ensue if the wrong choice emanated from that discussion. This is simply one factor that has led to my almost implausible lack of any sense of direction).

I like parenthesis, because that's how I think. And as I age -- however elegantly -- I discover that it grows increasingly difficult, upon endering the warm terrain of the parenthetical, to bring myself back to the main topic. This is why I am forever wondering whether I ever told Katherine (my wife, business partner, best friend, sun, moon, stars, and more) something or another. I'm certain I began the thought, but have no reliable means of replaying the sequence of converation to discover whether it ever reached its initially desired destination.

But back to Seth G. Haley, the very much living (though, to be honest, somewhat cadaverous) gentleman after whom my elementary school was named. Nobody ever much talked about him. He wasn't mentioned in history lessons. And, as best I recall, when I was nine or so, it never even occured to me that there had every been a man who sported that name.

Then I won a spelling bee. It was a tiny spelling bee, that included the 25 or so members of my remarkably unremarkable class. And soon thereafter, I was brought to the principal's office. (I can't remember what led to this, precisely, but my best guess is that I was terrified and excited. All my life, I've been torn between expecting to discover in the newspaper that my name is listed as winning a Nobel Peace Prize or in the obituaries.)

I have described this formidable woman to friends as being eight feet tall with steel-refinforced fingernails. This is intended to make people laugh. But she genuinely did appear to be eight feet tall, and when I met her, years later, and discovered that I was, by then, taller than she, it was as though I could jump higher than the Empire State Building (which, by the way, I can, since the Empire State Building can't jump. At this point, I would type in one of those smiley faces, only I can never quite remember how to accomplish this, and besides it only feels like a modern day equivalent to the letters I got in college in which friends wrote insipid jokes followed by "(joke)" and I always thought that if they felt obliged to tell me it was a joke, it probably wasn't much of one.

Anyhow, I was brought to her office, and met this exceedingly tall, thin gentleman who was dressed not dissimilarly from the undertaker in episodes of Bonanza that were running at the time. I was told that he was Mr. Haley, which was rather a shock to me -- kind of like if I was introduced to Mr. University (founder of Yale) or Ms. River (after whom the Hudson was named). Or Ms. Hall, for whom they named Alice Tulley Hall. (more about that, also, later).

And Mr. Haley -- Seth G. -- gave me a pencil that said West Haven School District. The pencil was yellow. And the lettering was black. And that was the last spelling bee I ever won, so I never met Mr. Haley again, which was really fine with me, as he scared me when we shook hands and all I felt were bones.