Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Family History
I am looking into the past.
With the help of a powerful convex lens I pore over old family photographs of my grandfather Vincenzo and my grandmother Rosa in the old Brooklyn apartment house they bought in 1920, with money scraped together from my grandfather’s various laboring jobs and my grandmother’s thrift and economy. That was the house I grew up in.
According to census records, grandfather Vincenzo worked as a ‘fur-puller’. I had to look that up: as near I can make out, it involved ‘pulling’ or skinning the fur off of rabbits so that the skins could be used to line coats and jackets. It doesn’t sound like very pleasant or lucrative work, but he supplemented this income selling plaster animal figurines he turned out at his basement work bench, and a second job as a bank night watchman. As a child I remember playing with a set of ‘police’ clubs I was told belonged to him. I bragged to friends my grandfather had been a policeman. In any event, my grandparents raised eight children and bought two houses, so I’d say Vincenzo wasn’t the worse provider who ever lived.
Sorry to say I never knew them; My grandfather died of tuberculosis in the early 1930s, and my grandmother’s heart gave out just as her sons and daughter were coming home safely from war in 1945.
In one of the photographs the family stands around the kitchen table which has been festively set with the best dishes. I easily make out the faces of Aunt Jennie, Aunt Madeline and Aunt Carmella. When I knew them they were already thick and matronly, but here they are three slender girls with bright, merry eyes, eager to get started on the path of life. My mother should have been standing with them but for some reason was out of camera range that day.
This morning’s mail brings a photocopy of the passenger manifest for the Anchor Line of steam packet ships arriving in NYC on June 21st, 1882, carrying to America my grandmother, Rosa Pagano. She was one year old. Seeing her name penned in a florid hand by a harried immigration officer on a fading but still legible document, Rosa seems somehow more alive to me than ever. My father used to brag that he was her favorite son-in-law. He would go down to the basement and chop wood for her stove, then shovel coal into the furnace. In return he sat at her kitchen table and she poured him glasses of red wine and fed him meatballs fresh from her frying pan and drenched in homemade tomato sauce. My father told me that the hallway was always filled with my grandmother’s cooking, an aroma richer than the lushest garden, fragrant with tomatoes and garlic and olives and spices from distant provinces. And right now I only wish I could bite into one of those meatballs, but Grandma Rosa is gone and no one knows how to make them anymore.
With the help of a powerful convex lens I pore over old family photographs of my grandfather Vincenzo and my grandmother Rosa in the old Brooklyn apartment house they bought in 1920, with money scraped together from my grandfather’s various laboring jobs and my grandmother’s thrift and economy. That was the house I grew up in.
According to census records, grandfather Vincenzo worked as a ‘fur-puller’. I had to look that up: as near I can make out, it involved ‘pulling’ or skinning the fur off of rabbits so that the skins could be used to line coats and jackets. It doesn’t sound like very pleasant or lucrative work, but he supplemented this income selling plaster animal figurines he turned out at his basement work bench, and a second job as a bank night watchman. As a child I remember playing with a set of ‘police’ clubs I was told belonged to him. I bragged to friends my grandfather had been a policeman. In any event, my grandparents raised eight children and bought two houses, so I’d say Vincenzo wasn’t the worse provider who ever lived.
Sorry to say I never knew them; My grandfather died of tuberculosis in the early 1930s, and my grandmother’s heart gave out just as her sons and daughter were coming home safely from war in 1945.
In one of the photographs the family stands around the kitchen table which has been festively set with the best dishes. I easily make out the faces of Aunt Jennie, Aunt Madeline and Aunt Carmella. When I knew them they were already thick and matronly, but here they are three slender girls with bright, merry eyes, eager to get started on the path of life. My mother should have been standing with them but for some reason was out of camera range that day.
This morning’s mail brings a photocopy of the passenger manifest for the Anchor Line of steam packet ships arriving in NYC on June 21st, 1882, carrying to America my grandmother, Rosa Pagano. She was one year old. Seeing her name penned in a florid hand by a harried immigration officer on a fading but still legible document, Rosa seems somehow more alive to me than ever. My father used to brag that he was her favorite son-in-law. He would go down to the basement and chop wood for her stove, then shovel coal into the furnace. In return he sat at her kitchen table and she poured him glasses of red wine and fed him meatballs fresh from her frying pan and drenched in homemade tomato sauce. My father told me that the hallway was always filled with my grandmother’s cooking, an aroma richer than the lushest garden, fragrant with tomatoes and garlic and olives and spices from distant provinces. And right now I only wish I could bite into one of those meatballs, but Grandma Rosa is gone and no one knows how to make them anymore.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
In Their Own Words:
"What shall we do when hope is gone"?
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! And on!"
---Joaquin Miller
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! And on!"
---Joaquin Miller
Sunday, April 11, 2010
STORY: Legal Martinis (500 word Challange)
The 500 word challange is just that: create a complete short story in 500 words; this is not exactly my specialty, but I've given it a shot. How well or poorly I've done the reader can decide.
Legal Martinis
The boy had been thinking of proposing since graduation. Dinner seemed as good a time as any.
"Listen," he said, when they were finally seated, "do you think you'd want to marry me?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
The waiter appeared, took their order for martinis and placed a tasseled menu to the left of each plate.
"Isn't it wonderful to finally be able to order a real drink?"
"Why won't you marry me?" the boy asked.
"We have college yet."
"We could become engaged, at least."
"I'm already engaged."
"Oh."
"Sorry."
"Sorry to disappoint me, but not sorry you're engaged?"
"That's about it."
"How come I didn't know anything about it?"
The girl only shrugged.
"So who is he anyway?" the boy asked.
The girl opened her menu and began to scout the entrees.
"Just someone."
"Someone has a name, doesn't he? What's his name?"
"Tom Wilson. He lives on Long Island."
"Where'd you meet him? He didn't go to Watchung Hills?"
"I just told you he's from Long Island. Why would he go to Watchung Hills?"
"Where'd you meet him then?"
The girl made a vague motion with her hand. "My father does business with his father. We were invited to their home one Sunday for dinner."
"And now you're engaged---just like that?"
"Not 'just like that.' We've been seeing each other the last year or so."
"And where was I when all this was going on? How come I know nothing about it?"
The girl shrugged.
"And you are really going to marry this guy? For real?"
"Yes. For real."
The waiter brought their martinis and took their order for dinner. The girl took a sip of her drink and from her expression seemed to like it fine.
"Just think," she said, "to be able to order a real drink anytime we want."
"So I guess I'm pretty much out of the picture then?"
"Except as a friend," the girl said, not without kindness.
After a while the boy asked,
Does he even know anything about you?"
"Can we stop now?"
"I mean what does he really even know about you?"
"I suppose you think because we've lived next door to each other for eighteen years you have some kind of deep insight into my soul or something?"
"Does he know how you used to swipe eggs from the kitchen and hide them behind the furnace because you were certain they'd hatch into chicks?"
"When I was three," the girl said.
"Or about the poetry you used to---"
"Have you tried your martini?" the girl asked. "It's really quite good." She took a long slim cigarette from her bag and held it between her fingers.
"There's no smoking here."
"I'm not smoking it."
"You don't even sound like yourself anymore---'the martini is quite good'"---he mimicked.
The girl stared vacantly across the room. "Will you ever grow up?" she asked.
The boy looked away and took a sip of his drink.
Legal Martinis
The boy had been thinking of proposing since graduation. Dinner seemed as good a time as any.
"Listen," he said, when they were finally seated, "do you think you'd want to marry me?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
The waiter appeared, took their order for martinis and placed a tasseled menu to the left of each plate.
"Isn't it wonderful to finally be able to order a real drink?"
"Why won't you marry me?" the boy asked.
"We have college yet."
"We could become engaged, at least."
"I'm already engaged."
"Oh."
"Sorry."
"Sorry to disappoint me, but not sorry you're engaged?"
"That's about it."
"How come I didn't know anything about it?"
The girl only shrugged.
"So who is he anyway?" the boy asked.
The girl opened her menu and began to scout the entrees.
"Just someone."
"Someone has a name, doesn't he? What's his name?"
"Tom Wilson. He lives on Long Island."
"Where'd you meet him? He didn't go to Watchung Hills?"
"I just told you he's from Long Island. Why would he go to Watchung Hills?"
"Where'd you meet him then?"
The girl made a vague motion with her hand. "My father does business with his father. We were invited to their home one Sunday for dinner."
"And now you're engaged---just like that?"
"Not 'just like that.' We've been seeing each other the last year or so."
"And where was I when all this was going on? How come I know nothing about it?"
The girl shrugged.
"And you are really going to marry this guy? For real?"
"Yes. For real."
The waiter brought their martinis and took their order for dinner. The girl took a sip of her drink and from her expression seemed to like it fine.
"Just think," she said, "to be able to order a real drink anytime we want."
"So I guess I'm pretty much out of the picture then?"
"Except as a friend," the girl said, not without kindness.
After a while the boy asked,
Does he even know anything about you?"
"Can we stop now?"
"I mean what does he really even know about you?"
"I suppose you think because we've lived next door to each other for eighteen years you have some kind of deep insight into my soul or something?"
"Does he know how you used to swipe eggs from the kitchen and hide them behind the furnace because you were certain they'd hatch into chicks?"
"When I was three," the girl said.
"Or about the poetry you used to---"
"Have you tried your martini?" the girl asked. "It's really quite good." She took a long slim cigarette from her bag and held it between her fingers.
"There's no smoking here."
"I'm not smoking it."
"You don't even sound like yourself anymore---'the martini is quite good'"---he mimicked.
The girl stared vacantly across the room. "Will you ever grow up?" she asked.
The boy looked away and took a sip of his drink.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
What's Killing Literature
In A Tale of Two Cities a dissipated young English lawyer named Sidney Carton sacrifices his life by switching places with the French aristocrat husband of the woman he loves, thereby losing his head to Madame Guillotine.
You’ve read the book, you’ve seen the movie, you know the line:
“It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far greater rest I go to then I have ever known.”
Or so you would have thought. A participant in the online Dickens reading group I belong to proposes the following:
“Since Charles Dickens’ day, psychology has made some progress…
...Isn't it strange that a man could not give up or overcome a destructive habit because of the pleasure he takes in it and yet give up his life for some higher ideal?...
...Of course, allowance must be made for the possibility of true sublimation taking place i.e. in the case at hand substituting physical self-sacrifice for oral pleasurable self-destruction through drinking…"
Huh?
In other words, there was nothing very noble about Carton’s sacrifice. He was simply a masochistic, self-destructive individual who traded long-term self-destruction (booze) for the quick dirty thrill of having his head lopped off. Yes, that is the latest word (evidently) from the hallowed halls of enlightened academia, neo-deconstructionist anti-literature division.
Scratch Sidney Carton from the list of literary heroes.
Too bad, but if he has to go, he has to go. But it does lead me to ask…
Why bother to read the book?
You can find more accurate histories of the French Revolution, Robespierre, and the Terror. Why bother with Dickens’ melodramatic twaddle?
Well, here’s why:
For the past 150 years, readers have found Sidney Carton’s death inspiring, ennobling, and somehow redemptive for both the character and the reader. Dickens somehow leads us to believe that we, too, might be capable of such self-sacrifice for something we believe in or love. A bit naïve, perhaps, but this is what millions of readers since 1859 have always found in A Tale of Two Cities. This is what lifts the spirit when the last page of the novel is finally turned.
It certainly lifted my spirit when I was eleven and stayed awake all night reading the book. Then the unlikely duo of Sidney Carton and Cyrano de Bergerac rose in the heavens as twin constellations in my private childhood galaxy, defining for me the upper reaches of human heroism. Trust me that I have fallen far, far short of that ideal. But these days it seems even children are too wised-up and fashionably cynical to believe in the reality of heroism and self-sacrifice in the first place.
Put another way…what kid is going to sit up all night reading about a sublimating drunk who, in the words of my learned correspondent,
{allows} himself to be trampled upon and humiliated {before} he gives himself up to the punishment he has craved for all his life…” ?
Not this eleven year old.
You’ve read the book, you’ve seen the movie, you know the line:
“It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far greater rest I go to then I have ever known.”
Or so you would have thought. A participant in the online Dickens reading group I belong to proposes the following:
“Since Charles Dickens’ day, psychology has made some progress…
...Isn't it strange that a man could not give up or overcome a destructive habit because of the pleasure he takes in it and yet give up his life for some higher ideal?...
...Of course, allowance must be made for the possibility of true sublimation taking place i.e. in the case at hand substituting physical self-sacrifice for oral pleasurable self-destruction through drinking…"
Huh?
In other words, there was nothing very noble about Carton’s sacrifice. He was simply a masochistic, self-destructive individual who traded long-term self-destruction (booze) for the quick dirty thrill of having his head lopped off. Yes, that is the latest word (evidently) from the hallowed halls of enlightened academia, neo-deconstructionist anti-literature division.
Scratch Sidney Carton from the list of literary heroes.
Too bad, but if he has to go, he has to go. But it does lead me to ask…
Why bother to read the book?
You can find more accurate histories of the French Revolution, Robespierre, and the Terror. Why bother with Dickens’ melodramatic twaddle?
Well, here’s why:
For the past 150 years, readers have found Sidney Carton’s death inspiring, ennobling, and somehow redemptive for both the character and the reader. Dickens somehow leads us to believe that we, too, might be capable of such self-sacrifice for something we believe in or love. A bit naïve, perhaps, but this is what millions of readers since 1859 have always found in A Tale of Two Cities. This is what lifts the spirit when the last page of the novel is finally turned.
It certainly lifted my spirit when I was eleven and stayed awake all night reading the book. Then the unlikely duo of Sidney Carton and Cyrano de Bergerac rose in the heavens as twin constellations in my private childhood galaxy, defining for me the upper reaches of human heroism. Trust me that I have fallen far, far short of that ideal. But these days it seems even children are too wised-up and fashionably cynical to believe in the reality of heroism and self-sacrifice in the first place.
Put another way…what kid is going to sit up all night reading about a sublimating drunk who, in the words of my learned correspondent,
{allows} himself to be trampled upon and humiliated {before} he gives himself up to the punishment he has craved for all his life…” ?
Not this eleven year old.
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