Pandemic Update

Pandemic Update (March 23)

 

I’ve remained at home except for a brief visit to Jewel, where purchases on scarce items such a milk and tissues were limited to one to a customer (and forget about picking up toilet paper). IUN has remained open to faculty but the Governor has ordered all nonessential facilities closed within 24 hours. I’m trying to master a borrowed laptop with a miniature keyboard compared to what I’m used to, and it is going slowly. Thankfully the HELP desk has been very helpful.  I just hope it will continue to be staffed a day from now.

 

When I get slightly depressed, I consider our situation much less disruptive compared to most folks.  Toni and I feel particularly sad that Becca and other young people are missing out on senior year activities and that so many people face economic uncertainty much worse than our own situation.

 

 I watched the six-hour documentary “McMillion$,” about the head of security who stole several dozen winning tickets and in the end got off with a light sentence thanks to a plea bargain while so-called winners paid a heavy price.  I found “Yesterday” on HBO,a humorous fantasy about a singer who discovers nobody has heard of the Beatles and becomes a pop star singing their songs. “Saturday Night Live’s” Kate McKinnon is a hoot as an overbearing manager. My favorite line is when a friend named Gavin says he doesn’t mind being second fiddle and references as an example Pulp’s “Common People.” Singer Ed Sheeran has a prominent role and is quite fetching.

 

I sailed through Olga Tokarczuk’s “Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead.” “The Guardian” described the author as combining an extraordinary talent with an archaic sensibility. Janine, for example, believes in astrology and that one’s fate is determined by the alignment of the planets at birth. A rich man is described as having a saturnine look.  After Janine has had an entomologist stay her for a few days, it reminded her how awkward it was to live with someone: 

  How another Person starts to irritate you without actually doing anything annoying, but simply by being there. Each morning when he went off to the forest, I blessed my glorious solitude. How do people manage to spend decades living together in a small space? I wondered.  Can they possibly sleep in the same bed together, breathing on and jostling each other accidentally in their sleep?

 

I noticed that the Woody Allen movie “Match Point” co-starred Scarlett Johansen so I decided to watch it.  The opening scene, showing a tennis ball being hit back and forth, finally hitting the net is meant to symbolize how luck often determines one’s fate, in this case depending on which side it falls on. Later a murderer tosses evidence into the river only it hits the railing.  Which side it lands on will determine whether or not the villain gets away with the crime.

 

Ron Cohen called to see if I were still going to IUN (negative) and whether my blog entries would continue (doubtful, but we’ll see).  He recently got a call from Danny Mack, a student of ours when we first started teaching 50 years ago. He had been a grader for Ron.   I only used a grader once, when I had a class of over a hundred students. Dave Malham gave almost everyone an A, so I had to go back over them and grade them myself.

I’ve been looking at a map Phil Arnold sent me of General George Washington’s  Montgomery County (PA) itinerary between October 1777 and June 1778  .He stayed in two dozen places while hi troops were encamped nearby including an estate near Oreland owned by George Emlem that in now Sandy Run County Club, where my 55^th reunion took place.  The map identifies township (i.e., Upper Dublin, Whitemarsh), boros (Ambler, Norristown, Jenkintown ), and small towns (Flourtown, Oreland) but not, of course, Fort Washington, which came into existence at a later date.

 

---

Sweet Shine

 “Alice is a chain store, down past First and Vine

You can shop there anytime, it’s all very fine”

“Sweet Shine,” Sonic Youth

I don’t pretend to understand what most Sonic Youth songs mean but enjoy their unique style of Noise Rock.  I just discovered I owned Sonic Youth’s 1994 “Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star,” which includes the classic “Bull on the Heather.”  “Sweet Shine,” contains the line, “you’re always heavy in rotation.”  The CD is now in rotation with albums by Jackson Browne, Nicki French, The Weakerthans, and The War on Drugs.

Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring"

In HBO’s film vault was the delightful Scarlett Johansson historical drama “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (2003). It’s about seventeenth-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer’s infatuation with servant girl Griet (Johansson), the model for one of his masterpieces. Vermeer’s patron lusts after her, but she fights him off, in love with a butcher’s son. Johansson, 17 at the time of filming, has few lines but, as an Entertainment Weekly review noted, “the interplay on her face of fear, ignorance, curiosity, and sex is intensely dramatic.”  It was based on a novel by Tracy Chevalier, who wrote this passage about this titillating scene:

   “Lick your lips, Griet.”
    I licked my lips.
    “Leave your mouth open.”
    I was so surprised by this request that my mouth remained open of its own will. I blinked back tears. Virtuous women did not open their mouths in paintings.

When Vermeer’s wife Catharina saw the finished product, she branded it obscene and demanded that Griet’s employment be terminated. When Griet viewed it, she told Vermeer, “You looked inside me.”  She appreciated that his intentions seemed pure rather than carnal.  I recommended “Girl with a Pearl Earring” to Alissa.

 Barbara Mort, Dee Van Bebber, Kris Prohl, Jimbo; photo by Jackie Roberts

Dee Van Bebber and I finished third at Chesterton Y despite a low board when I doubled Kris Prohl’s 5-Diamond bid, holding the Ace, King of trump and two other kings.  When her partner had no Diamonds, Kris turned to me and said, “I know why you doubled.”  Then she proceeded to take every trick but my two high Diamonds.  Jackie Roberts, who’d interviewed Terry Bauer for Steve McShane’s class, observed a couple rounds.  Terry and partner Dottie Hart were amazed that both Jackie and her husband were attending college despite having 6 kids. They must be getting help from grandparents.  When I told Jackie that Terry Bauer’s partner Dottie Hart was one of my favorite people.  She replied: “She is awesome and hilarious, definitely a breath of fresh air.”

Post-Trib reporter Craig Lyons interviewed me for a feature on former mayor Richard Hatcher.  I concentrated on the 1967 election and his 20 years in office but added information about his formative years in Michigan City. When Lyons stated that Hatcher had a reputation for being rigid, I replied that he would not compromise certain core principles but that he was adept at adjusting to changing political climates.  He worked well in tandem, for instance, with Indianapolis mayor William Hudnut.  Richard Gordon Hatcher remained his own man, true to his ideals, unbought and unbossed.

Phil Arnold noted that the day I posted comments about playing Fats Domino’s “Blue Monday” during my Munster talk, the New Orleans legend passed away. Elvis and Fats got together when they were both playing in Las Vegas in 1969. Arnold’s Elvis Blog contains these thoughts:

Let me just say he was one of the greatest early rock and rollers, and I grew up with his music. I bought his 45s and danced to his songs at parties and sock hops at school. I have 53 Fats Domino songs on my playlist and will listen to them while I write this blog post. I’m going to hear every one of those songs today and appreciate again just how great he was.

          The company I worked for held a huge convention in one of the big New Orleans hotels in the late 80s. The last night of the convention, there was a big party in the ballroom, and to everybody’s delight, our entertainment for the night was Fats Domino and his band.

          It was an awesome night, and there are some things that still live in my memory all these years later. The band had four, yes four, sax players. Their contribution to the music was much greater in concert than on the records. They really wailed. The drummer was either on drugs or drunk, or both, because he fell off his stool right in the middle of a song. He was out cold, so a bald white guy sat in for the rest of the show. I think he was Fats’ road manager or something, and he did a passable job. The unannounced opening act was another New Orleans resident and performer, Clarence “Frogman” Henry. If you are old enough you will remember his hits “Ain’t Got No Home,” and “Troubles, Troubles.”

Playing the Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints players and coaches wore a patch reading “FATS.”