Attending to all these humdrum matters has robbed me of any ability to write something interesting for the website.
This morning, I spent more time on the phone waiting for a functionary to schedule a repairman—in this case for the landline phone, which is only partly operative since Optimum set up the temporary Internet connection. It’s a good thing we have the Internet connection, though. We’d be pulling our hair out without that fix however temporary it may be.
It may rain just as Peapod’s truck arrives. Their whole shtick is mysterious. Earlier this afternoon, they sent a note revealing just which of our items will not be coming: No walnuts, no nuts of any kind. No tofu, no ice cream, and limited cookies. The actual order might be missing other things—this is just the official “out of stock” list.
As one waits, it’s hard to stay away from the kitchen—to quit raiding the small amount of junk food we have remaining. There are still some onion-and-sour-cream potato chips and some Ritz crackers. No cheese, however. Each fortnight as we near a Peapod delivery time, we go from near famine to—I won’t say feast, but a more substantial larder at least. Yes, it’s hard to stay away from the cliche of “feast or famine.”
Tonight’s dinner: a ziti salad with snow peas, grape tomatoes, roasted red peppers, scallions, Kalamata olives, and artichoke hearts. On the side, a bit of leftover coleslaw.
Entertainment: Netflix’ amnesia drama Tabula Rasa.
Troubles with my website continue. After further conversation with another rep from the web host Media Temple, who can find nothing wrong, in the late afternoon I tried logging on again—and once again get the message that the Mac’s web browser Safari can’t find the server. Then, a brainwave! I tried getting into www.hardygreen.com using a different browser—Google Chrome. And that worked, so maybe that’s the ticket.
We have numerous problems: At the moment only one landline phone is working—the one we have plugged into the new Altice modem. Other extensions don’t get a dial tone. I suspect there’s a transition underway, and once Optimum has taken over the landline from Verizon, all will be ok again.
Meanwhile, Emily is having problems with medical stuff: physical therapy, mammograms, etc. Rather than going back to Manhattan for these things, she wants to take care of them out here on Long Island. But every new caregiver’s office raises problems. Man (and woman) is born to trouble, as it says in the Book of Job (I think).
Finally, we’re looking ahead to another Peapod delivery tomorrow. Once they come—sometime late in the day—we’ll find out just what they are delivering and just what is “out of stock.” Will we get either fresh mozzarella or pork chops? What about an eggplant or the always essential walnuts? Nothing can be assumed.
At least, for the moment, the heat and humidity has waned. It’s a tad cooler—81 degrees with rain and thundershowers forecast for tomorrow.
Dinner: more beans and rice plus a green salad.
Entertainment: Mhz’ crime drama Murder at the Lake, followed by old episodes of Yes, Minister.
Yesterday, a set of unusual markings appeared in our yard and out in the street—circles, letters, numbers, and arrows in red, orange, and blue. I saw no one making the markings, and they are as indecipherable as the hieroglyphs of an ancient race—but they portend the arrival of our new Internet connection.
I eagerly called our Optimum contact, but after more reflection and investigation, it seems these are likely just the work of a markings crew. A different crew still has to come and install a cable. Then, yet another operative must come and hook up a modem and router.
The blue lines and paint splotches probably indicate the placement of our Suffolk County Water Authority connection. The Optimum folks likely want to avoid damaging SCWA’s stuff. What is the orange paint—electricity? Maybe the red arrows and measurements are where the Internet cable will actually be placed.
I think the Optimum cable will connect to some magic box on the opposite side of the street and run across our yard up to the house. Question: How will they get the cable under the street? In Manhattan, I believe they would get out the jackhammers and make nasty gashes in the asphalt. What do they do here? Use some kind of hypo or dirt-buster to punch the cable under the street? Then, do they tunnel across our yard? We’ll probably never know, unless they happen to make lots of noise that will prompt us to investigate.
Dinner: Frittata with mushrooms and grilled onion, corn muffins, and a lettuce and avocado salad.
Entertainment: nothing, thanks to Internet inavailability.
“And might it not be… that we have appointments to keep in the past, in what has gone before and is for the most part extinguished…?”
—W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
And might it not be that we keep such appointments via our dreams?
“One may be born with the potential for a prodigious memory, but one is not born with a disposition to recollect; this comes only with changes and separations in life—separations from people, from places, from events and situations… It is, thus, discontinuities, the great discontinuities in life that we seek to bridge.”
—Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars
In a dream, it is night and I am with my mother (who died in 2005) at the Memphis house where I grew up. Distantly, I hear her say something like “I’ll be right back.” And she disappears. I search for her in the dark, calling “Geneva” out the back door, then up into the attic via a closet that contains the furnace, then out the front door into the darkness. There is no response. I look out the front and just see the grassy lawn—no one is around.
Freud says all dreams are attempts at wish fulfillment. So maybe this was an attempt to get my mother to return. But my dreams are quite varied and only a few can be interpreted as wish fulfillment.
Places that often appear in my dreams: my grandmother’s dark old house, my childhood home, Macy’s department store and its quaint old wooden-stair escalator, jazz and classical music concerts, and trains—particularly subways both in Boston and New York. What’s with the trains? Is there a sense of movement in sleep, as with Marcello Mastroianni’s floating in the air at the beginning of Fellini’s 8 1/2?And what’s with Macy’s??
It is not unusual for me to make angry, incoherent noises in my sleep—and for Emily to wake me up. In a recent case, I dreamed I was asleep, stretched out somehow inside a car—probably my mother’s Plymouth Valiant. The covers are comfy—then somebody breaks into the car and snatches away the blanket. I begin shouting for this person to bring back the covers.
Another such case: I dream there is an intruder. I see him standing in the living room, turned in profile to me, and behind him I can see the oval, gold-framed mirror that stood on the wall at my childhood home. I can also see Emily in the next room, lying in bed asleep. Angry and afraid, I begin to shout at the man, and to throw things at him, including lightweight barbells. My shouts cause Emily to wake me up.
And yet another night terror: At our house on Long Island, I am looking out the side door. It is dark, but I can see that the trees are filled with large, threatening birds, flapping their wings and cawing ominously. I begin yelling at them to go away. Wake up, Hardy, says Emily.
She says that in such circumstances, she isn’t sure what to do. Should she wake me—or will that just frighten me more?
Not all of my dreams are terrors. Here’s another, peaceful reverie.
I go for a walk after dark, accompanied by a dog and a cat. I give the dog a pat on its belly. But I realize that the duo wants to go home, so we go back. Almost immediately, I see the cat on the bed alongside another cat, both fast asleep. The dog has disappeared, perhaps gone to an adjoining room. I am not sleepy, so I stay awake, content to watch.
Dinner: cold pasta salad with snap peas, roasted red peppers, grilled onions, Kalamata olives, cucumbers, and parsley.
The cable guy from Optimum just came and, after looking around in the house and in the basement, he announced that the cable from the street to our house was old and inoperative. So, he says, he’ll arrange for a crew to come in over the next few days and install a new cable, linking to some magic box, then going under the street, and finally over to our house. Then next week another guy will come with the modem and router and, presto chango, we should have better Internet connection. Here’s hoping.
Meanwhile, it is hard to do much of anything online. Provided I rise early enough, I can check my e-mail and read the paper. Emily seems able to do her Times puzzles on her Android phone. But by 10 a.m. or thereabouts, my Internet connection is kaput. Lately, it seems to work again around 7 p.m.—who can say why. Is it just a reflection of how many people are on their phones at a given moment? Is it related to the weather…or the number of trees between us and the cell-phone towers? Somebody knows, but not me.
I take turns reading a bit of Jane Eyre and then a bit of Innocents Abroad, both downloaded from Project Gutenberg. Both are enormously long—I thought I had read Jane Eyre before, but I don’t remember its being such a tome. Mark Twain says numerous racist things about the Portuguese—and I’m only on page 145. Probably typical of American thinking circa 1869. Twain hailed from the slave state of Missouri and later resided in Connecticut. Perhaps the statues of him should be pulled down.
Tonight’s dinner: a Greek salad with feta cheese and olives, and the remainder of the chicken salad.
Entertainment: Assuming we can connect, old episodes of Rebus on Britbox.
A visitor from another planet–or just a toadstool?
Saturday, July 18
It’s supposed to be hot and dry for the next several days. Limited Internet means I can’t check e-mail or my bank balance easily, nor is it easy to pay bills, so they may have to wait. I’m bringing capitalism to its knees one unpaid bill at a time. Some 25% of New York City residents are believed to be in arrears regarding their rent.
I have now read three Julian Symons mystery novels, each quite unlike the others. I enjoyed The Detling Secret best—a country house mystery set in the late 19th century—then, The Immaterial Murder Case and The Color of Murder. The last of these is a 1950s courtroom drama with an emphasis on psychology, “one of the most acclaimed British crime novels” of that decade, according to the introduction. The penultimate title is a contemporary art-world caper with a Ten-Little-Indians-like, closed circle cast of suspects. It has five sections, each narrated by a different one of these persons. The first, narrated by “the Innocent American,” is very droll, but other sections are sometimes dry and Just the Facts, Ma’am ponderous. I suspect that’s intentional.
I keep thinking I’ll read a Dickens—perhaps Our Mutual Friend or Hard Times. But I’m put off by the length of the novels and the sheer number of characters. Or maybe Mark Twain—Innocents Abroad or Life on the Mississippi. I dunno. Not long back I reread Huckleberry Finn and enjoyed it very much, but something keeps me from these other titles.
A very large number of free e-books are available from http://www.gutenberg.org. I have downloaded and read several Henry James novels: The Lesson of the Master, The Aspern Papers, and Italian Hours. All were quite interesting and not nearly as daunting as the James I have in print, including The Golden Bowl and The Wings of the Dove. Maybe I’ll seek out others in e-book format, when our Internet access improves.
Dinner: chicken salad with apples and walnuts, coleslaw
Entertainment: Final episodes of Netflix thriller London Spy.
It’s very difficult to establish any Internet connection today using our Verizon mobile hotspot. So I have set up an appointment with Optimum to come and install a modem and router on Monday. Then with their cable connection, our Internet and email links should be more secure. Fingers crossed.
Dinner: the Latin stew known as picadillo, a little leftover cold noodles with sesame sauce, and lettuce and cucumber salad.
On this Bastille Day, one can make good use of lockdown time by reading historian Robert Darnton’s penetrating essay on the French Revolution, provided via The New York Review of Books. Consider these words, suddenly more apt than ever: “We take the world as it comes and cannot imagine it organized differently, unless we have experienced moments when things fall apart.” In such periods, engulfed in chaos, we face “seemingly limitless possibilities, both for good and for evil, for raising a utopia and for falling back into tyranny.”
This seems like such a moment, and we can now reimagine American society—but do we have the will and material resources to reconstruct it? Out of the chaos of Trumpian ignorance (‘shine a light in the body”) and dysfunction, a new society can be born. But first, as last night’s dreams inform me, we will have to confront a wasteland of vacant storefronts, abandoned cities, overstocked graveyards, and a disintegrating economy. Mad Max-land in living color.
Darnton also warns us of a possible danger. Along with its inspiring slogans and a will to recreate everything, including not only government and social relations but also time and space (in France, there was a reimagined calendar, new names for streets and buildings, and the sudden adoption of the more rational metric system), “the Revolution unleashed a new force, nationalism, which would mobilize millions and topple governments for the next two hundred years.”
Nationalism, fanatical xenophobia that seeks to rid a land of “impure blood,” remains the potentially most destructive impulse experienced by humankind. Republicans will certainly seek to stir that hornets’ nest in the coming months, in the service of MAGA man and his plutocratic backers. We’re likely to experience a scenario that not even the most imaginative of science-fiction writers would be able to conjure.
Right here and now, we’re imagining yet another Peapod delivery, scheduled for between 3 and 5 p.m. It’s like waiting for a sleigh-load brought by a forgetful or very inefficient Santa: You might get that bike you asked for, maybe even two bikes, but he could easily omit the pants you’ll need if you’re going outside. You have to do a little planning ahead before you can place an order—but once the order comes, those plans may have to be abandoned and new ones made. Yes, bread crumbs but no mushrooms; sure, here’s the pasta but no Parmesan to go with it. What dreams may come?
“The common man is ruled by the expert, certainly. He obeys the persuasive power of the propagandist in his eating, drinking, sanitary, and even sexual habits, in the clothes he wears and the entertainments he attends, in his attitude towards his fellow men and towards God. But at the heart of obedience there is the desire for revolt. There are few things the common man…desires more than to see the expert utterly discomfited….they applaud the expert’s occasional collapse as they are delighted when a top-hatted man slips on a banana skin.”
—Julian Symons, The Colour of Murder
So much for mask-wearing, know-it-all epidemiologists and lockdown-prone mayors! Yea for Trump and all freedom-loving true Americans!
Here, then, is the problem with the assessment that an appeal to reason can defeat MAGA man. New York Times writer Thomas Friedman recently suggested that Biden’s bumper sticker should be: “Respect science, respect nature, respect each other.” This “science,” however, is just what stands behind the blundering weather report that leaves you soaking wet on a supposedly sunny day. Then there’s the constantly shifting advice on diet—drinking alcohol is bad for you, but a bit of red wine is good for your circulation. Be sure to eat fish, which is good for your heart—unless that fish contains mercury!
Radiation can cause cancer—so let’s have another X-ray of your teeth, your back, or maybe that sprained ankle.
And—perhaps we should get a second opinion; the more expertise the better.
It’s no wonder that the public is skeptical of experts, whether they represent medical wisdom, computer mastery, or even military know-how. It was, after all, Colin Powell and George W. Bush’s team of “weapons of mass destruction” discoverers that sent us into a catastrophic war in Iraq—as Trump never tires of reminding us. Trump has his own teams of experts—and he frequently takes issue with them and calls them names. One minute Jeff Sessions is a fantastic pick for Attorney General, the next minute he’s a no-good coward and traitor.
Today’s Times brings a story of yet another bit of expertise that the public mistrusts. A wealthy tech executive named Chris Larsen is spending his own money to install a private network of CCTV cameras around the city of San Francisco.
These cameras are meant to deter the spate of petty crimes, especially robberies, that are taking place there. But Larsen’s CCTV isn’t under the control of government or the city police. Instead, neighborhood watch groups are in charge. “Neighbors band together and decide where to put the cameras. They are installed on private property at the discretion of the property owner, and in San Francisco many home and business owners want them. The footage is monitored by the neighborhood coalition,” says the article.
But wait a minute: Isn’t this Larsen guy representative of the wise-guy Silicon Valley types who are turning Baghdad by the Bay into a high-priced bedroom suburb peopled by snotty tech wonks? Google’s mega fleet of private shuttle buses, a soaring cost of living, and an end to many of the San Francisco quirks so beloved by long-time natives—isn’t that what he represents?
Who elected Larsen? Who elected these neighborhood watch committees?
And why is my smart phone so plagued with problems. Experts, phooey!
Dinner: barbecued pork chops, potato salad, and a lettuce and tomato salad.
Entertainment: Two episodes of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher.
The debate over public school reopening seems to be missing one thing: Kids really do learn a lot on their own.
Maybe what they learn won’t comply with the official requirements, but kids will continue to learn stuff—and be interested in learning—without any bullying from credentialed teachers or school-board commisars. They get information from their friends. They learn everything from self-discipline to cooking and cleanliness from their parents. If parents are bad role models…well there’s little schools can do to overcome that.
Home-schooled kids “miss out on learning gains in reading and math relative to in-class instruction,” says Vox’s Matthew Yglesias.
Baloney. They miss out on bullying, boredom, snobbery, and enforced conformism.
My own experience probably demonstrates little more than personal frustration. Nevertheless, I must say that I already knew how to read when I went to first grade. They gave me a little, unofficial test, and at age 6, I could read virtually everything in the sixth-grade reader; the only word I didn’t know was “Maria.”
But they decided I shouldn’t “skip” any grades. Consequently, for several years I sat and listened as other students attempted to read out loud, stumbling over words or just sitting for lengthy, agonizing periods of silence.
Did this benefit me or other already-advanced kids? I was supposed to gain some maturity or socialization from being around others my age—but I remained hugely immature and shy.
Up until college, it was much the same. In high school, I learned a lot of math and a little biology—most of which I’ve long ago forgotten. The history classes were almost all taught by football coaches—it seems they needed lots of those. I remember one coach reading the textbook aloud to us—that was his idea of a lecture. As he read, students misbehaved, throwing spitballs or wads of chewing gum at each other. Others dawdled, drawing airplanes with firing machine guns rather than taking notes. Some kids slept.
Another memory is of a study hall, presided over by yet another football coach. He amused himself by digging in his ears with his keys. Then, he’d carefully examine whatever he had managed to remove. Occasionally, he’d pipe up and utter some word of criticism at a perceived miscreant.
There was compulsory attendance at pep rallies held in the gym. Memphis Central High School’s fight song was performed to the tune of “On Wisconsin”—or was it the Notre Dame Victory March? I guess there were no original melodies in the hometown of Elvis.
Then there was ROTC, or Rot-C as we called the paramilitary marching around while wearing army-surplus duds and toting disabled, WWII-era rifles. What did we learn there? Obedience? That was already a theme in almost all other classes.
There was really only one class I liked—senior English. There, we read the anti-Semitic Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. (And, famously, 40% of the students at my school were Jewish.) I should note that Ivanhoe did have virtues—it celebrated the Che Guevara-like Robin Hood.
Mrs. Davies, the English teacher, made it known that she disapproved of a group of students who, on their own, were reading J.D. Salinger and admiring Bob Dylan. Today, both figures are on the approved list, I gather. Other authors and popular musicians have to bear the load of official disapproval. They cry all the way to the bank.
