tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46522959377269647822024-03-13T08:43:16.660-04:00anything&everythingkaren lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.comBlogger285125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-25540090998020866552014-10-12T20:06:00.003-04:002014-10-13T13:07:11.338-04:00CUCKOO'S NEST -- WEEK 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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the curtains do not look like sheets after all; they look like curtains always look in hospital rooms or emergency rooms. brown/gold trim with holes like shower curtains, then white. i have plenty of time to observe as i wait on the table for 1/2 an hour or more. it makes me nervous. i'm feeling better in general, but neither the tiredness nor the fear have lessened, only the deep dark hole is gone, or masquerading somewhere. my blood pressure and my breathing, dr. andy tells me, are both bad: i<br />
should try to get my pc doc to change or add meds. i write her; we'll see. the thing is, which i don't say to him, is i don't care about my blood pressure, as i hope that within a few years it will lead to a heart attack and kill me. something will kill me sooner or later,, and looking at my parents' deaths--my mother from a particularly virulent form of Parkinson's playafully dubbed 'parkinson's plus,' my father from dementia caused by small strokes and, eventually, one large stroke that killed him. i wouldn't mind the one large stroke; it's a lesser stroke, or dementia itself, that scare me. woody allen once said ' i'm not afraid of dying; i just dont want to be there when it happens.' that's my goal now. well that rules out suicide, so the doc's needn't worry on that score.<br />
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what i dislike most about the treatment is coming out of anaesthesia. theres no pain to deal with, as there is no cutting into the body, but the feeling of coming out, my mind ahead of my body, so i know what i want to say but it emerges stuttering and incomprehensible; i know what i want to do, but only small parts of me will move at a time and i'm very dizzy. it doesnt last long, but it's grim while it does.<br />
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on Wednesday, we meet cheryl in the waiting room. on first glance, she seems quite ordinary. you expect her to be reading romance novels. well, maybe she does and if so, god bless her. she is waiting for her husband to be done with his treatments.we begin awkward conversation: it really is chilly today, but tomorrow is supposed to be more seasonal. what do you do? what does your husband do? are mark and i married?[embarrassed laughter: mark and i are old friends; known each other 50 years; were college sweethearts but when that ended grew into the friendship we have now.) bit by bit the conversation becomes more real. cheryl tells us she is schizophrenic and depressive, but both are being treated successfully with medication. John, less lucky, is deeply depressive but nothing has helped till now. the first effort at basic ect didnt help much so he has continued into more intense forms of ect, which i didn't even know existed.i am releived to know they do, for john's sake and my own. i had thought this was my last chance; now it seems there's further to go if i need to. <br />
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cheryl wants to know about my teaching. when i tell her i teach about women in media and now about other aspects of gender in media, particularly gay and transgender isssues, she is thrilled. people need to understand about these kinds of people and their lives, she says enthusiastically. 'that's the only way the bigotry will stop.' she has begun to design what she calls her 'caring creations'--handmade cards for all occassions ...designed for those brave souls battling cancer and mental illness.' <br />
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when they call me in for my treatment, mark and cheryl continue to talk. mark is bowled over by her; she doesnt fit any of our categories of deep-thinking people. when i come out, i am sad to see that john has finished his treatment and they've gone. i look forward to running into them again. cheryl's goal is to give people hope. she has certainly done that for me.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-60716842001988723522014-10-05T21:08:00.002-04:002014-10-06T08:35:48.846-04:00I FLY OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
so far, so good. treatments monday, wednesday, friday mornings. my retired friend mark comes with me the first day, and he will come with me henceforth. you gotta have someone with you, even with a taxi. that's because every treatment requires general anesthetic, and you are seriously and unpleasantly stoned when you leave, even with sleeping after the treatment and then eating donuts and drinking coffee from dunkin donuts.<br />
so i lay down on the table--one of several hidden from one another with white sheeting (it looks like a small emergency room] and the staff gets busy while dr. barker patiently waits. theyre a friendly crew: alison, anette [two black women with slight central American accents] and dr. andy, the white anesthesiologist who enjoys the fact that they are all three 'A's] and who brings in tomatoes from his garden, harvested that weekend, to share with everyone there. i like their combination of friendliness and professionalism. i notice classical music playing quietly, and comment on it. annette beams. friday, she tells me, is opera day. all day, opera is the music they play. we both recognize 'traviatta' and make small dance gestures. she's excited about her birthday in december: her friends are taking her to new york, to the met. she's never been to the met before.<br />
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meanwhile i am told to lie down on the bed, my head close to the top, and then to take off one sock and put it over the other one. obviously the anesthetics have taken effect, and i am dreaming. i note that it's a very silly dream.<br />
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which it's not. annette is quite seriously telling me to do this. when i can't get up past all the plastic geegaws on my body, she removes the sock for me. Later the anesthesiologist explains: since the anesthesia paralyzes my body, they can't tell if the brain is having seizures, which is the whole point of the thing. so the anesthesia is somehow prevented from going down into the right foot. remember te archetypal mother who warns you to wear clean underpants whenever you go out? from that day for me, for the next few weeks now, it's clean sox.<br />
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then they do the anesthesia and i'm gone. when i wake up it feels unpleasant.i'm not fully awake; moving is clumsy, like im unederwater and can't swim my way up. i try to talk and it comes out in disconnected words. they think i'm awake; i think i'm not. i manage to articulate, very clearly, 'i wish i was dead.' they let me sleep a bit longer for my next treatments. then they direct me to a little recovery room with the dunkin donuts goodies and coffee and gingerale. i gasp dramatically but earnestly,"water!!' and they seem surprised but agreeable. as i eat, i wake up further [i've had nothing to eat or drink since midnight].when mark and i leave i am zonked, and zonked i stay all day. i go to bed as soon as i get home, and it's just about noon. around 5 i wake up and have a combo lunch and dinner and a lot more water. and then back to bed.<br />
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the next 2 days are pretty much the same, and i still feel crappy. but now my brother has come in from new york to be caretaker, giving poor mark the only break he'll get, as far as i can see. but by sunday i can feel the difference in my depression, and it feels good.still dead tired, but not quite in that dark hole.<br />
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we'll see how this goes on in week 2.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-82388578416411882412014-09-28T14:12:00.001-04:002014-09-29T20:34:43.479-04:00big day tomorrow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
wish me luck, readers, if there are any of you left. tomorrow i begin several weeks of CET--i.e. electro convulsive therapy--aka<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">```SHOCK`````</span>in the bad old days. maybe there's a way out of this murky depression after all!</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-57221275153689176382014-07-12T13:35:00.002-04:002014-07-12T13:35:56.836-04:00IT LURKS! [the depressive's lament]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
it's that time of year. only not the same as it used to be.after 3 months with no work, tuesday begin summer classes. usually this time of year, i feel a twinge, but mostly ready to pick up the routine again. this time, having accomplished nothing in my free months and having been invaded by the giant depression for so long, i have merely dread--and pity-- for my poor students. all i want is to curl up under the covers of my bed and stay there. get up to eat, pee, read a little, and cry.then i'm free from misery and fear, my identical twin shadows. maybe it will work out better than i thought. i've had a few respites, after all. maybe teaching again [with incomplete notes; some have vanished] but still, i <i>know most of this stuff.</i><br />
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i really hoped i'd have something light, interesting, fun, illuminating to write here, but nothing emerges. depression defines the keyboard. normally when i have nothing to say that isn't dipped in misery, i don't write. but it's been so long since i've used my blog, i fear i'm letting it bleed to death and no one will ever get back if they think i'm not writing.<br />
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so hold on, fair readers; maybe things will turn around soon and i'll have something worth saying. meanwhile, remember my new little prayer:<br />
now i lay me down to sleep;<br />
i pray the lord my soul to keep,<br />
and if i die before i wake...<br />
Thanks.<br />
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-40804051728906408582014-06-17T20:21:00.003-04:002014-06-18T17:08:36.323-04:00Annie, Auggie, and Little Nell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In 1841, new yorkers stormed the wharfs of the city, desperate for information. and the cry was heard 'round the world: '<i>Is Little Nell Alive?' </i><br />
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Little Nell, for you of the 21st century who may not know, was the child heroine of charles dickens' <i>The Old Curiosity Shop, </i>and the sailors who were carrying the newspaper with the last installment from london to new york called back that nell had succumbed to whatever ailment she had, leaving brits and americans alike in tears [and providing material for the magnificently cynical oscar wilde]. <br />
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i think of this now because a week from today, a year after the show's season premier last summer, thousands of us will crowd the metaphorical wharfs of tv land, crying with equal passion, 'Are Annie and Auggie still together?' Annie and Auggie are the hero and second tier star of USA TV's <i>Covert Affairs,' </i>the summer spy show full of gorgeous people who work for the virtuous CIA [you think the CIA isnt virtuous? you think they hire homely spies?]. We, like little nell's adorers way back when, are probably doomed to disappointment. but that doesn't stop us. I know because i'm on a fan page for the show. the nonexistence of auggie and annie, like that of little nell, is irrelevant. they must be together, or something vital will go out of our lives.<br />
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this didn't happen in the early days of western literature. everyone went to the plays knowing the end: no one cried in desperation, "did they get that damned horse in there?' but somewhere along the lines of fiction's history, someone came up with the idea of telling stories whose endings no one knew, and anindustry flourished. the glamour of fictional characters was interwoven with the uncertainty of real life, however artistic or banal the tale might be. i have no doubt that tonight, thousands of people will move reluctantly from their computers to their tv's to find out if Doc Hank has found love or peace in the past year, of if his charming and manipulative brother has saved his marriage. and will their beautiful associate find love with the homely, personality challenged doc who took in her and her unborn child? I'm fascinated by the ways we all identify with nonexistent people while a planet full of real people remain to us boring and abstract.<br />
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i had a lot to say about this, and i'm sure it's profound. or maybe it isn't. maybe i just wanted to compare my passion for annie and auggie with that of dido for aeneus or hamlet for himself. in any case, i don't have enough time, because it's almost 9 o'clock, and while they're not annie and auggie, i still want to know what's gone on with doc hank and the crowd while they've been gone all year....and after that comes the season start of the woes of the psychotic psychologist in "Perception." i have always enjoyed his chats with joan of arc....<br />
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-10375046527046483782014-05-26T13:56:00.000-04:002014-05-26T13:56:42.436-04:00Memorial Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If we are to remember America's dead soldiers, have we a right to ignore the rest of the world's soldiers? brave, noble, cowardly, heroic; patriotic, pragmatic, cynical; those who died killing others and those who died saving others? the spouses, lovers, children, parents, siblings who lost loved ones to the obscenity of war? the good and bad die together, and we lose them all. i am sad for each american lost to war, but i choose to mourn equally for all war's victims, for those who are dying now as we celebrate the already dead. battles may be won; no on ever wins war. good journey to you all.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-72657523445301225662014-04-25T11:46:00.003-04:002014-04-25T11:46:51.573-04:00Invisible Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
once again, i need to apologize for my absence here. same reason--different illness. while the depression continues, it's overshadowed by another old friend--the worst asthma i've had in decades. no energy to do anything, and orders from dr not to try. threats of ER looming, backed up by threats of hospitalization--this while loaded with prednisone. getting incrementally better each day, but very small increments. ideas zooming in my head for blog things i want to do [like challenge ' bucket list'] but no energy to do them. will return......</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-13024754622933102182014-04-10T15:30:00.002-04:002014-04-12T17:38:24.166-04:00poem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Been very dry in the past few months; nothing seems to want to be said. but i did manage this brief poem, working with travel writing students:<br />
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From her temple<br />
in the ruins of Nimes<br />
Athena<br />
blesses tourists and passersby.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-53596994440804079992014-03-29T14:19:00.001-04:002014-03-29T14:21:36.352-04:00What Powderfinger Said . . . Observations on Life in the Dying Empire: My Wise Friend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
posting a blog of a blog-friend's post of his freind's post.<br />
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<a href="http://whatpowderfingersaid.blogspot.com/2014/01/my-wise-friend.html?spref=bl">What Powderfinger Said . . . Observations on Life in the Dying Empire: My Wise Friend</a>: I think he's about ten times smarter than I, at least. He goes by the monicker "Montag" and he's been blogging here for a...</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-74344054107040579482014-03-18T08:15:00.000-04:002014-03-20T14:59:53.486-04:00Bad Traveler Goes to Israel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Two weeks ago was my travel break from the castle, and off i flew to meet sylvia, the best friend of my childhood with whom i've kept sporadic touch over the years. and now we're a pair of old ladies. The trip started off horribly, when [first] i fell down on the way to what my information said was my my flight spot when i changed planes. okay that was my own fault. but thru a nasty set of circumstances not of my making, i missed not one but two flights, and though it wasn't my fault it cost me 700 euroes. and spent an entire night wandering around the airport at turkish airways alternately blubbery and blustery. two bits of advice from that. dont save money by switching planes when direct flights are available. you may, like me, lose money instead, and even if you do save the money, the aggravation mightn't be worth it. and 2, don't for god's sake do it if the middle airport is turkish airways!<br />
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the worst part of that experience, however, is what it did to my depression. as old readers know, i've spent over 3 years in a varying depression which since october has been extremely mild, thanks to a combo of meds. but it's always felt like skin beginning to scar, weak and vulnerable. that whole airline business broke the fragile scar and i was pretty much of a mess thru the week. but i managed to have fun with sylvia, whose patience is saintly. how lovely to see her again! she lives in tel aviv now, and the weather was what she called awful, i called delightful.<br />
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that tuesday, she was working for an hour with some arab school kids where she does weekly volunteer work. i asked if i could tag along and watch; the organizer asked if, with 3 volunteers out, i could fill in for one of them. so, with no idea of what i would be doing [sylvia tried to explain but that got me further confused, and my mind was in bad shape after the trip incidents] but i ended up as she said i would figuring it out by following what she was doing, and worked with a little girl named monica--adorable but very restless; thank god i teach college kids!<br />
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thru the week we ate and sat in coffee shops and parks a lot, and i of course had to nap a lot, but there wasnt much i awfully cared about seeing except sylvia and the sunset over the Mediterranean in tel aviv. then we spent a couple of days in jerusalem, where sylvia lived until recently and where her friend sue still lives. i knew sue also; she had lived around the block from me and sylvia when we were kids, but in their mutual lives in isreal they had seen a lot of each other and grown much closer. most of our time together was fun. then we went into the Old City, about which i knew nothing, but which sounded great. and i'm sure it is. but a disaster for my addled brain, all b/c of a misunderstood wise crack. they asked if i wanted to go to the catholic cathedral, and i thought they were joking, since i've long been a very ex catholic. i've seen some splendid cathedrals over the years, but the idea of spending limited time in jerusalem at a cathedral seemed silly to me, so i chuckled at their joke and followed along with them. in fact, they were being kind to a christian, even ex christian, friend. which would have been okay but i'm frightened of walking since i fall pretty often and i'm very claustrophobic. we began walking through what i assumed would be a small, bazaar-like area....and walked, and walked, and walked, on lovely slippery steps through a beautiful and endless maze, me afraid to say anything because i needed to hold in what breath i had. luckily a part of my mind stood aside, first of all because it kept me from screaming, running, or crying; second because i was able to make a mental record out of what was a onetime experience. except for the narrowness of the street, leading thru to other narrow streets from whence, i gathered, crawled yet further narrow streets, it looked like mideast bizarres look on US spy shows. the goods sold were beautiful, like walls of multicolored silks reaching almost to the sky [the 'almost' saved me; i could see sky and remind myself that there was an end to the labyrinth, even if no way to reach it]. i was pretty close to sobbing at this point, and finally told my friends what was going on, and just as they began to put their energy toward finding the quickest way out, a friend ran into sue. he was a gorgeously garbed ethiopian. he asked us to sit with him; sue looked pleadingly at me and i pulled up a smile, and found a tranquilizer in my wallet. all around us walked people of different mideast populations, seemingly perfectly comfortable with each other. i was taken by the sight of 2 women passing in different directions: one was a catholic nun in the sort of medieval-based habit of years back, the other a muslim with full body and face covering. the similarity of the outfits was startling.<br />
i tried to focus my mind in the part that saw the beauty of the place, and realized i was glad i was seeing it; also that i would be a wreck the rest of the day. eventually they got me out of the maze, and the sheer sight of open air was magnificent. [it isn't hard to find magnificence in Jerusalem, built on the famed pale beige Jerusalem stone]. soon we were eating at an airy restaurant and laughing. sleeping that night was hard; the claustrophobia and weakness had gotten thru to my bones; luckily there was a lot of light and air through the windows. back to tel aviv the next day, and sylvia and i had a leisurely dinner on the beach. bathers filled the area; the weather was warm enough for brave swimmers, and the Mediterranean, even with a disappointing piss-yellow sunset, was impressive.<br />
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the return of the breakdown has lasted since my return, though today has been a bit better. that's unfortunate, and may mean a new medication when i get back to boston mid april. but worth it, definitely. i wish i could describe the feeling of re-knowing sylvia, exploring each other's thinking, never really enough time and much of it marred by my feeling of dependency on her to get me anywhere, with my fear of everything [part of the whole depression]. two little girl, knowing ech other as teenagers and 20-somethings; years of sporadic communication--even getting together briefly on two of her short trips to the US. and now 2 old women, facing age very differently, having lived very different lives, but the 2 kids still there. i'd love t go back and see her again--on a nonstop trip!--when i'm less dominated by depression. but what i got, i got, and despite the fight with my mind, well worth what it cost to get it.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-30925570667381180172014-02-20T14:57:00.000-05:002014-02-20T14:57:17.717-05:00hello<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
i keep trying to post things on the blog, but the fact is, i'm blocked. noting seems to want to get itself written beyond a sentence or 2. maybe my trip to israel a week from tomorrow to visit an old friend i haven't seen for years will help unblock my sleepy brain. i hope so; i miss blogging. i think the aftereffects of severe depression [down to mild depression, which is a large improvement], plus the medications i take to keep it mild, contribute to a laissez faire [or lazy fare] brainset that's hard to pull out of, so it works only when i have no choice--like doing my classes. so i just thought i'd say hi to anyone to stops by here to see what clever thoughts i've had of late. thanks for looking at the blog. i'll keep coming back, i promise....</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-66304945005295355552014-01-30T16:21:00.000-05:002014-01-30T16:22:28.823-05:00Report from the Lowlands, first 2 weeks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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i had comfortable, uneventful flight with 80 strangers who would soon be familiar, and who were kind and helpful when i needed assistance with my carryon. i became a hero briefly at schiphool airport when students were getting stopped after customs; apparently no one had been told to expect a group of 80 students, and the authorities insisted on getting confirmation from a 'leader.' our 'leaders' were waiting for us outside the gate, and the students were getting concerned, til the RA remembered i was at the back of the line. 'wait,' he told the guy in the glass box, 'we have a <i>professor!'</i> and ran back to get me. i had only a vague idea of what the problem was, but i guess i managed to look authoritative when i went to the head of the line and said, 'hello, i'm traveling with these students; how may i help you?' that seemed sufficient to the flustered offiicer, and all worked well. i slept off and on through the weekend, while the kids went through the orientation drill, which should have been refreshing for me but wasn't; anyway i was able to prepare the first lit class, rereading for the 100th time the first 1/2 of the odyssey. so far classes go well, and all the students seem like nice people, excited about their [mostly] first time in europe, and the thought of living in a castle. and it's great to see my colleagues again.<br />
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last weekend the castle was closed down for the students' required trip to amsterdam, meaning i had to stay elsewhere, so i chose, very wisely, the B&B run by the lovely couple who do the castle's food service. they were horrified that i'd never been to what the students call the Blue Lake [officially the Reindersmeer], and they promptly arranged to take me there saturday afternoon. it was a lovely outing, and the lake really is blue--not the aqua of the Mediterranean or the Adriatic, but a kind of slate grey-blue, quite unusual and very pretty. we ate in the combined visitor's bureau/ restaurant overlooking the lake, and they had mustard soup with no bacon. this was a double treat; few enough restaurants have mustard soup, one of my favorite dutch foods, and those that do tend to have it with bacon bits. on top of that, they had a lovely pannekoek [dutch pancakes; closer to crepes than to american pancakes, but heartier and larger] with brie and syrup. hardly low-cal, but wonderful.<br />
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the only problem was that my insomnia kicked up badly both nights i was there and my first night back, making me so dizzy and weak i missed monday's class--only the 2nd class i've ever missed here. weak all week but got through. realized that the one thing that helps prevent a totally sleepless night is getting up and eating. perfect for weight loss! ah well, whatever gets me sleeping...<br />
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i love having only 2 classes; it will offset some of the sleep problems and keep me off the hectic schedule i've had in recent years. yet one more thing to make me feel my age. and the energy of these kids does that too, in spades. they're like the bunny in the old battery commercial; they keep going and going....and they do that in class too. they seem anxious to learn, very cooperative--and some of them thank me when the class is done! <br />
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so, a decent start, if my body will only cooperate. will start tarot readings next week...</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-14014956280884945962014-01-28T08:21:00.000-05:002014-01-29T15:37:20.441-05:00RIP Pete Seeger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
there doesn't seem to be much more to say. he lived to 94, one of the few greats of our time, joyful while acknowledging and fighting pretty much all the evils in america. and honestly humble through it all. no one can match him; no one can even try. who can fail to be heart-heavy at his loss, and grateful for all he shared with us?</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-32617028824363937412014-01-02T17:30:00.000-05:002014-01-02T17:30:09.676-05:00For Those Who Hate Beowulf...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
...and i am one of them. for several years after i began teaching "Literary Foundations," i forced that dreary creature down my own throat and those of my students. what was interesting to me about the poem was not the poem itself, but its nearly unique position in english lit. but i ignored the nearly, and just dropped the beowulf, which worked quite well in one way: we left antiquity with the aenead and picked up the middle ages with the aenead-influenced inferno, with no nasty early medieval centuries in between to distract us. then curiosity drove me to attend a lecture on the rest of the beowulf collection: some fragments and a possible non-fragment, a complete retelling of the story of the ancient biblical heroine judith. i was entranced, and went home to bask in wikepedia and its links. the same great anglo-saxon rhythms and alliteration, probably written down by the same sort of monk who wrote down the epic beowulf. only here was a hero worth reading about! no prissy good girl, our judith, but also no show-off warrior like beowulf. a job has to be done, and no one else is gonna do it, so it's up to her and her faithful handmaid. she inserts herself into hateful holerfones' tent on the pretense of wanting the jews to surrender before they're all killed, because holerfones is such a great warrior. the beastly boss is impressed with this show of intelligence, and invites her to come back and hang around together. presuming a sexual encounter, he chases all his soldiers away. the virtuous virgin gets him drunk in anticipation of their night of lust, and when he's well soused, she chops his head off. the joy of the monk writer blasts out of every syllable. off go the ladies, freely through the camp of the enemy, carrying the basket in which they had brought goodies for the evening's enjoyment; it now carries past the soldiers the head of their dead leader. now <i>here's</i> a tale. it has its limits, of course. wholly judeo-christian, it has none of the blend of pagan and christian found in beowulf, which makes the epic at least intellectually interesting. but 'judith' compensates with its constant motion, its emotional tone, and its competitively gory ambiance. i still have to lecture about beowulf in the context of explaining the Judith manuscript, but i find beowulf more interesting to talk about than to read.<br />
<br />
judith is only one of the ways i have managed to get some female representation in the Great Works. thought written by a man, it's a great picture of a woman, who is totally front and center. the aenead too, in what is arguably is greatest section, offers an amazing female hero. dido owns the first section of that amazing poem, and one of the most compelling things about her is that she never becomes <i>only</i> the woman who kills herself over her lover's abandonment. she is that, no question. but so much else! she is the only woman who could make a compatible mate for aeneas, and his sadness at his need to leave her is real, his argument sound. what forces him from her is just that. he cannot stay and help her build her city indefinitely; he must leave and found his own. neither can she leave with him; as she tells herself, that would destroy her carthage and leave it to its surrounding enemies. her decision to commit suicide is one of the most amazing scenes in literature. caught up in the fury and pain of his betrayal, she yet rationally considers all her possiblities. goddess-driven, she has made a choice whose consequences leave no other way out. had he stayed and been [as she sees it] her husband, they could rule carthage together, with both their armies. his leaving loses her all credibility; she becomes, simply, the alien's discarded whore. she must die and leave her city to be ruled by other Carthaginians. i can never read that scene without feeling her heartache and ecstasy.<br />
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later in the term, i again get to teach some cool women--and this time, as writers. to understand the canterbury tales, you need to know a little at least of the decameron. but the decameron has other followers, and to progress from the decameron through chaucer to the heptameron by maurguerite de neuvarre is sheer fun. attempting to create 'the french decameron' 200 years after the original, she uses becaccio's structure to invent a wholly different work, whose tale tellers are socially and personally deeply intertwined, and who stories relfect that. and then there is the medieval woman who broke into the nasty 'querelle de femmes' to utter a fully female, almost proto-feminist retort in the form of an imaginary city built at the instruction of three women sent by the blessed virgin mary to the self-fictionalized christine de pizan. the influence of the far superior writer dante is clear, as is that of baccaccio, but the result is a dazzling peice of propoganda, re-use of old myths, and wholly original work that became one of the first pieces of writing to be paid for in western history.<br />
<br />
ah, mine is a tough job......</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-64166065850454205492013-12-26T16:59:00.002-05:002013-12-26T16:59:28.325-05:00Haiku<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
gray Christmas<br />
white boxing day...<br />
sigh</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-27185845098962422902013-12-24T15:17:00.000-05:002013-12-24T15:17:55.121-05:00Santa's Alter Egos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the charms of any feast day that lasts over the centuries is its intermingling with other mythologies. When you feel too sorry for Santa Klaus and all his work on christmas eve, you can rest easy. he has dozens of comrades, some well known, some less so. time and space allow me to touch only on a few here, but they are a few i'm very fond of.<br />
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One, though his identity has been appropriated by Santa claus over the years, is the German Kris Kringle. but chris was originally a far worthier saint than our jolly red giant, or even than the good Dutch bishop sinter klaas who comes by ship from spain to the netherlands. Kris kringle translates to Christ Child; the boy we worship is himself the giver of gifts to the rest of us. which makes sense, when you remember that in christian mythology the reason the boy was born was to give us the greatest gift of all--his life, in redemption for our sins.<br />
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the gift givers have never been an all-boys' club. in the cold Scandinavian countries, it is Saint Lucia who brings light to us, quite literally--she wears a crown of lit candles as she makes her rounds. two interesting, obviously interconnected female givers , are the russian babushka and the northern italian bafana, though bafana seems to be the older of the two. in each case, she was approached by the three kings taking a shelter break from their star-following, and offered them hospitality. in turn, they suggested shes come with them to meet the new child- king of the world. but she was too busy with her housework, and decided to wait. by the time she was ready, they were long gone and the star had disappeared. so every year, she travels the world with gifts for the christ-child, and, failing to find him, gives the gifts to other children.<br />
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i like the idea of the woman punished for taking housework too seriously and who gets a marvelous fling around the world once a year. but more, i like the idea that different peoples from different countries and backgrounds have Incorporated the idea that children deserve gifts and special treatment once a year at least. and that these ideas began long before consumerism took them over, out of a notion of pure love for a pure, poor child. if the world survives its frantic rush to self destruction, i hope these gift givers survive with it. we will need all the comfort and joy possible.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-76064462672881282792013-12-18T16:55:00.003-05:002013-12-20T20:26:27.502-05:00SEASON'S GREETINGS & A FLASH FICTION STORY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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my holiday card to you all....<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fevKGRDCHP8/UrIZssAtghI/AAAAAAAAASI/IGg7yqnF76E/s1600/Scan+2.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fevKGRDCHP8/UrIZssAtghI/AAAAAAAAASI/IGg7yqnF76E/s320/Scan+2.tiff" height="320" width="244" /></a></div>
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-4965464447500345662013-12-17T17:46:00.001-05:002013-12-17T17:46:29.198-05:00The Necessary Sadness in Christmas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Christmas, as we know, is infamous for escalating the level of depression among americans. it heightens loneliness, despair, and fear with its insistence that we all be jolly and love our neighbors and chuckle like a 1940s film santa. it excludes non-christians, throwing them a hanukkah bone and ignoring that hanukkah is a minor jewish holiday, not the year's biggest one. it tortures parents without the wherewithal to buy their kids the goodies advertised since october, all, as is the nature of advertising, promising a degree of fulfillment once imaged only in tales of the heavenly afterlife. it even promises snow on christmas day, a rarely met promise but a pretty one.<div>
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these are the negative christmas sadnesses. the further we can get from them, the better off we who are christmas lovers will be. but there is another side to christmas sadness that we need to embrace, without which our happiness is, at best, a little shallow. the feeling, and the rejection of it, are strikingly present in a popular song from 1944, which first appeared in a pleasantly fluffy film called <i>Meet Me in Saint Louis. </i>Judy Garland plays a turn-of-the-20th-century teenager in love with the boy next store. all is well until her father gets a better job, far away, and the family must move from its beloved home and friends, and from garland's beau. and it's almost christmas. so she sings, with all the garland wistfulness, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." In this version, she gamely tells us that 'next year all our troubles will be out of sight," and that 'someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow,' and that 'until then we'll have to muddle through somehow." Unfortunately, singers like frank sinatra and later barbra streisand got hold of the song and merried it up. in these later versions, <i>from now on</i> our troubles will be out of sight, <i>t</i><i>hrough the years</i> we all will be together, and there will be no more muddling through, just hanging stars on the highest boughs. anything negative just gets pushed aside like broken glass ornament.</div>
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but we need the sadness of christmas, as well as its joy; indeed, the absence of the former taints the latter. some other popular songs admit this: 'i'll have a blue christmas without you' [which my mother played frequently in the early 1970s when my brother was in vietnam]; 'i'll be home for christmas,' which sounds very happy until the last line, 'if only in my dreams.' then there is the 20th century folk hymn, 'i wonder as i wander...why jesus the savior was born for to die.' and that cracks it. the exalted central myth of christmas is the story of death mingled with life. that gorgeous babe in the manger exists solely for the purpose of dying, horribly, 33 years later. and we, celebrating that birth, are equally mortal. we are surrounded by the void of our beloved dead, our absent loved ones, our unmet dreams, and our own ultimate mortality. </div>
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dickens knew this. those who read <i>a christmas carol</i> and see only a treacly happy story miss the point. the happiness is there, all right. but so is the loss--all of it. marley makes that clear when he shows scrooge the suffering poor and the ghosts trying, too late, to help them. we cannot but know that tiny tim's survival comes out only through one man's personal conversion combined with a conveniently curable illness. scrooge had destroyed many lives along the way to his conversion, not least of all his own. [watch the quick-changing expressions on the face of alistair sim in the greatest film version of the book, and see decades of loss mingle with current joy.]</div>
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the secret to a full christmas lies in embracing the whole of the season, of the day. as dickens says in one of his essays, we must invite our beloved dead to join us, in the hope if not the faith that we will one day be reunited with them. we must sigh for our losses. and we must do the grand work of creating happiness, enough to carry us through the cold winter to come: the winter we will likely survive but possibly die from; the happiness we hold through chill fingers as it tries to escape us; the joy of that noble mother who dared to rejoice in her child's birth and death.</div>
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-49861886300079256142013-12-14T19:45:00.001-05:002013-12-14T19:45:17.932-05:00The BLack Piet Controversy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
i wish i had an easy answer here .my love for all things dutch and my moral compass seem to be in some sort of collision, added to which is that the racism of 'schwartze piet' is very different from the racism that imbues american culture. the new york times article on the subject does a large disservice by implying that the origin of piet's blackness is believed in nederland to be the dust covering chimney sweeps. it's less innocent than that and at the same time less ghastly than our racism. [this doesn't let the dutch off the hook, by the way. the main difference between their slavery and ours is that we dragged our slaves home from africa, while the western european slaveowners stayed on their conquered land and maintained slavery there. the dutch were especially cruel to escaped slaves who were captured, and, victims themselves of the spanish inquisition, meted out tortures the pope would have found impressive.]<br />
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but black piet isn't a descendant of those slaves. he is, rather, a moor. their santa claus is much truer to his origin than our coca-cola boy. he's sinterklaas, as in saint nicholas, a genuine [though thin, ascetic looking] bishop who lived in the middle ages. his kindness to the poor evidently transformed after his death into the giving of presents to good children. in once-Spanish-colonized nederland, he remains spanish, and comes over on a ship to holland. schwartze piet is his servant, not slave, and dresses in an approximation of the medieval moors, just as sinterklaas dresses in an approximation [bright red, however] of a medieval bishop's garb. piet is definitely black, and definitely inferior to santa--but no more than any worker for a good but demanding boss would be. over the years, piet has been cloned, so in the children's books i use to practice my dutch, there are often a bunch of piets, each with control over his own department. and though they will give coal rather than goodies to bad kids, they give nuts and fruits and nice presents to the good ones on st. Nickolaus day, dec.5. <br />
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as a political figure, then black piet is less a figure of racism than a reflection of the cycle of war, invasion, imperialism, colonization, and its nasty accouterments. the moors invade spain; the spanish invade the netherlands, the netherlands invade africa and the new world, and round and round it goes. maybe it's nice that the spanish inquisitors gets turned into a kindly saint who gives gifts to children, while the moors who invaded spain hang around to help the spanish guy out. but i'm an american, and the sight of the comic little black figure can only make me cringe. it will be interesting when i go back to nederland next month to talk to my friends there. what does that african figure mean to them? how much is it a necessary part of their culture? and does it matter that the good saint figure comes from the land that colonized the dutch? what would be left of their Christmas mythology if parts of it were changed; what happens to their reputation as the west's most tolerant nation if they aren't changed?<br />
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-49962380052231867062013-11-28T15:08:00.002-05:002013-11-28T15:08:29.698-05:00"two cheers" for thanksgiving...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
family and friends and good food....wonderful things. but like so much of history--american and otherwise--there is the sad and terrible side. so i ask us all to remember, as we celebrate the joys of the day, that it is built on a lie about european settlers and natives feasting together and sharing everything. our ancestors [literal and mythical] committed genocide against the native peoples. ugly word, ugly fact. however we may have redeemed the 'thanksgiving' story by how we have lived it among ourselves, we have an obligation to remember the history. and with that, i do wish you all a happy thanksgiving in the present.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-79773478822084726722013-11-21T19:35:00.003-05:002013-11-21T19:35:51.940-05:00Oh Death, Where Is Thy Sting-aling-aling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>let me start this by saying i am in no way an expert on death and dying. i am not a doctor, or a medical writer, or even an amateur who has read a lot. perhaps more important, i do not have as of yet any major life threatening diseases. i have two chronic conditions, asthma and depression, either of which can be fatal, but also, with decent medical care, can be controlled with medications and to some extent life-style choices. i want to emphasize this because i have strong feelings of what i would want to do facing a fatal illness, and that i am fully aware of the huge gap between what-i-would-do-if and what-i-will-do-now that i have this condition. however, more important than how accurate i am in self-predicting is that i am [a] glad that more options are being publicized and [b] sad that others are ignored.</i><br />
<br />
Dr. susan love recently posted on facebook a terrific new york times article about doctors with fatal illnesses choosing to end cure-aimed or life-prolonging treatment when their illnesses have reached a clear point of no return. instead these doctors opt for palliative care that leaves them in good enough shape to live at home with their families and to do the things they want as long as they can. in place of a possible few weeks longer spent physically but painfully alive in the wake of further chemo, radiation, or surgery, they have chosen quality over quantity. the article lamented that this option is not more publicized and that the medical profession in general does little to promote it, or even to suggest it to patients as a possibility.<br />
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what concerns me, though, is the given that the only options mentioned are the conventional, die-in-hospital-tied-to-tubes-and-miserable or die- at-home-surrounded-by-loved-ones. there are at least two other possibilities that i would like to see get more press.<br />
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does everyone want to be surrounded by loved ones when they are in the last stages of disease, and to be with these loved ones at the moment of death? maybe. probably more would than wouldn't, given the choice. but what i think now that i want is to be somewhere far from anyone i know, being treated palliatively by paid strangers to whom i owe no debt of love and who owe me no emotion beyond<br />
friendly, professional compassion. i want books and a television, a computer if i'm able to write, and solitude. maybe a nice volunteer to occasionally share opinions on the tv shows i watch. mortality is a humbling enough experience; i don't need to be more humbled by the survival of healthy, hovering loved ones. if i'm alone in feeling like that, it doesn't matter if this possibility gets attention. but i doubt that i am--i'm not so original as all that. nor do i think it's a particularly better way to be. but it's one way to be.<br />
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the other concern is that i think the options of suicide, assisted or not, needs to be addressed. i know it is addressed in articles as a separate topic, but i'd like to see it discussed anywhere alternatives to extended medical treatment are discussed. that its illegality needs be abandoned is to me a given. but the stigma needs also to go. i don't think it's crazy or wrong to want to die, and to effect that death oneself, at a certain point of pain, decay, helplessness. 'who's life is it anyway?' is a very legitimate question. i don't want to die like my mother did, of an illness that paralyzed her so totally that she couldn't finally let us know if she needed to scratch an itch. in her more mobile times, she tried, feebly, to smother herself by putting a pillow over her face. she had no strength to make it hold, even if she'd been allowed to continue. had she wished to kill herself earlier? we had no way of knowing. i want the choice of suicide, if i have a progressive and paralyzing disease like she did, and i want the knowledge of how to do it, with or without medical assistance. <br />
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i would hope, as would many of us, that all this would become moot to me-- that like my grandfather, who was a fairly healthy 80-something when as he was he reaching up to get what he wanted at a department store, had a sudden, instantly fatal heart attack. like woody allen, i don't want to be there when i die. if that causes some confusion in the transition to the next life, i'll deal with it. immortality must have its resources. meanwhile, if fate decides otherwise, i want a range of workable alternatives, from the right to cling to every last minute of life with every medical treatment possible, to palliative care, at home or alone, to suicide, and to whatever other possibilities might exist. in the unwinnable battle against death, let me fall on my own painless sword.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-67438441815938542412013-11-17T13:06:00.001-05:002013-11-17T13:06:33.861-05:00 A NEW LIGHTBULB JOKE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-80060757370911133692013-11-11T12:47:00.003-05:002013-11-11T12:47:59.681-05:00Veteran's Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I seem to say this often, but it so often bears saying. I think we should respect the fact that soldiers go to war with the propaganda of chauvinism in their minds. they are told that they are doing something wonderful for US citizens, regardless of the moral justification for whatever war they are fighting. Once in the war, they kill and they often get killed. they watch their comrades die. they live lives of fear and drudgery and horror. and they come home often with terrible physical and emotional wounds the rest of us can barely imagine.<br />
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for those who believe the propaganda, i feel sorrow and respect. for those who go so they can get better education, and/or support their families, and/or offer their children better lives than they have had, i also feel sorrow. i do not feel thankful--at least not towards veterans of any recent war. world war 2, yes. korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan, no. i am sad that they have been used as cannon fodder for the rich and powerful in the US, but i am not grateful.<br />
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what i do feel that we owe them is far from what they get all too often--help, consistent, steady medical and emotional help for the aftereffects of what has been done to them. that there are homeless vets, unemployed vets, suicidal vets, vets living in misery and confusion because of the wars they've fought: this is a national disgrace. instead of easy flagwaving and more propaganda, our government should offer as much healing as is possible for the permanently scarred men and women among this much-heralded and little-helped population. for that, at least, i would be thankful.</div>
karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-28210556082579102402013-11-07T19:04:00.000-05:002013-11-07T19:04:22.655-05:00Facebook and My Castle Dwellers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="userContent">when i first got onto facebook, it was for one major reason: i wanted to be in touch with, or at least know what was happening, with as many as possible of the students i'd had at emerson college's semester abroad program, in which i've taught the spring semester for the last quarter century. although my 'freinds' now include many non-students, that vast and lovely crew has remained core for my facebook experience. recently kim. a 1986 student, posted a challenge to all her facebook buddies: explain why you have stayed with one particular facebook friend over time. instead of choosing one person, i picked all my castle kids. [that's right: we live together in a 17th century dutch castle]. i got a great response to the post, so i decided to pretty it up and post it here.</span><br />
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<span class="userContent"> teaching at the castle has had its ups and downs, so many ups i barely remember the downs. to live among your students, to in some way share their lives--it would be hard to explain what that has meant, and continues to mean, to me. it's actually the decision to get onto facebook was inspired by a very sad event. a few years ago, a castle kid, whom i didn't know well but liked immensely, died of leukemia. the kind of grief i felt was hard to place. i was neither relative nor friend, and i didn't feel the loss of this special young man on that level. but i did grieve, and there was no one to share that with. i wanted to know that from now on, i would have a place to turn if something like that would ever happen again. it has happened again, i'm sorry to say, two years ago--another bright, talented young man died, unexpectedly. this time his fellow students were there, and i could post my own sadness at his loss</span><br />
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<span class="userContent">yet the 'kids' have been so much more. i love knowing what they've been doing. i love when they graduate, and get jobs they like, and marry, and have kids [tough tony from my second term turned beaming daddy, so proud of his kids his smile seems to break out of the confines of his pictures when he posts photos of his family; patty, who spent so much of her time at the castle pounding the piano, and who is now an international pianist/performer], with their happy and sad news. in some cases, i've gotten to know them on a whole different level than i did at the castle. i enjoy the teaching that i do at home, and i do keep up with some of those students as well. but the intimacy of the castle creates a special bond among what the director likes to call her 'castle dwellers,' and that intimacy includes faculty and staff. i have been so very lucky.</span></div>
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4652295937726964782.post-47680702899212910722013-10-31T02:21:00.001-04:002013-11-01T19:10:10.336-04:00TV and Me--Final Episode (For Now)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Briefly, three current shows and why i like them: <br />
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<i>NCIS--</i>Like the other two I'll discuss, this is implicitly right wing: a bunch of heroes who work for the CIA are unlikely to be liberals. But it's terrific entertainment. I have wondered why I've found it so, given the rah-rah-america undertones, few women, and only one person of color, who is the head of the department but far from the lead character. i could argue that one of the key characters, abbie, is female, brilliant, and refreshingly odd. but that would be only partially honest. there was, until the actor's recent resignation, another brilliant female character--ziva, who was annoyingly beautiful but cool. [and yes, i was one of those people who <i>had</i> to see the episode about ziva's departure and her near-romance with tony culminating in a passionate kiss.] The plots are unavoidably repetitive: at least half of the TVGuide blurbs begin with "a marine is found dead in...'' But the action always works, because, i think, it's a terrific acting ensemble. And it has among the cast the terrific, aging [also a relelif to me] david mccallum as the chief medical officer, briskly efficient but deeply compassionate: he always gently talks to the corpses he is dissecting, and these monologues are one of the show's highlights.<br />
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the spinoff of NCIS, NCIS LA, has a good cast, though not as fine a cast as its parent show. but it has something that the former show doesn't--linda hunt. hunt is one of the few female actors who succeeded in hollywood without being conventionally beautiful--or even pretty. She was amazing in the 1982 film, <i>The Year of Living Dangerously</i>, in which she played, believably and stunningly, a chinese-australian male dwarf. A tiny woman and now an elderly one, she sparkles as the head of the agency, and is a constant presence, radiating a strength that easily surpasses the talents of the rest of the cast. the show itself is fun, but i watch it chiefly to see her.<br />
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finally, there's my butterscotch sundae, the show i indulge in with no nutrients, but pure pleasure--the summer show <i>covert affairs. </i>like <i>drop dead diva</i>, it was divided into two sections--half of which played in the summer, half in fall. since <i>affairs</i> started later in the fall than <i>ddd,</i> i get to enjoy it for a few more weeks. it's another cia show, this time occupied by undercover [hence the 'covert'; the 'affairs' is pure sexual come-on] agents. the hero is annie walker, young-and-beautiful, and able to successfully flee from or pursue baddies--usually rogue agents from other countries--in stilleto heels and tight dresses. she can also jump from the shore into a boat moored nearby in a single leap without scratching an ankle [although to be fair, she did this in low-heeled boots].<br />
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so okay, verisimilitude isn't its strong point. in fact the second most important character [competing with annie in importance, if you take the fan mail seriously] is her handler, auggie, who was blinded in iraq and is almost as much a super-hero as annie. through 3 seasons he was also her best buddy, and anyone who doubted they would become lovers wasn't paying attention from day one. last summer's season ended with their first kiss; this season began with them as a couple, with a flashback to their first night of sex, complete with the ubiquitous tv satin blanket covering him to the waist and her to just above her breasts. i always think these blankets are specially made to be 5 inches higher on one side than the other. and while the scene was appropriately sexy, the camera did a lot more moving around than the lovers. <br />
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but they have been an absolutely endearing couple, with as much tenderness as sexiness always in view, even at their most angst-ridden. and honesty compels me to admit that this is what i watch it for. i love the action sequences, and the plotting the cia agents --and yes, they're all gorgeous--get involved in. this season has been a bit darker than the earlier ones, with annie, auggie, and the crowd in their different way out to defeat super-villain henry wilcox, until recently a higher-up in the cia. this separates our lovebirds, as annie 'goes rogue' in her pursuit of wilcox and her determination to disband his evil empire. i do like when we see bad apples in the cia. annie follows henry's trail to geneva, disguised with dyed but not cut hair--no scissors will shear those sex locks!--and at one point actually tortures to death one of his henchmen, whom she has tied to a chair. the scene should be appalling, but the writers set it up with a strain of gallows humor: the henchman receives each of annie's vicious blows with an appropriate scream, then blandly critiques her performance. since we see lots of blood and body goo, she's clearly doing a fairly good job, and one does wonder what his complaint is. when she sets out to use electric torture, sticking both of his legs into pails of water, a lamp gets knocked over into the water, and the obnoxious torturee is dead before she can get the info she needs from him.<br />
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still, none of this is why i watch. i watch for the pure romantic perfection of annie and auggie. they are a gorgeous fantasy of tortured but true love. what straight woman wouldn't want an auggie? what straight man woildn't want an annie? but then, what decent perosn wouldd want to interfere with their terrific symmetry? the show's fan mail is loaded with fierce demands to keep them together, or to separate them and pair annie up with a seasoned israeli rogue agent who often appears on the show. these fans, as far as i can see, are as passionate as the <i>ddd</i> fans but without the friendly banter of the latter. maybe it's the cia influence: these fans are out to kill. but how can i criticize them?--i'm one of them. break up a&a, and i'll do worse than kill. i'll remove one aging spinster from their viewers. that'll show them. jump on those boats without me, annie walker!<br />
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karen lindseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09905540909994791438noreply@blogger.com0