tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-310689602024-03-07T00:16:36.005-08:00Duplex PlanetDavid Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-19704836532099567722009-01-31T06:45:00.000-08:002009-01-31T06:50:55.859-08:00If You Could Be Famous For Anything, What Would It Be?DBG: If you could be famous for anything, what would it be?<br />MARIE FOSTER: Heaven knows.<br />RITA BUTLER: Gettin’ up in the morning!<br />HELEN PETTEYS: Find out what causes cancer and cure it. It makes me so damn mad. They tell you a cure is coming, they tell you it’s just around the corner. But it isn’t.<br />RITA: It never is.<br />HELEN: They won’t put the money into it.<br />DBG: Celia, how about you?<br />CELIA FLATLEY: Oh god, nothing.<br />LEONA BELL: Don’t wanna be famous, huh?<br />CELIA: No!<br />JIM PERRY: BOCE bus driver. Those kids loved me.<br />LEONA: They’re not as well behaved today.<br />CELIA: They’ll smack you in the back of the head.<br />RITA: I never thought about bein’ famous –-<br />PHEBE BROWN: No, I didn’t either.<br />RITA: So I don’t know what I’d want to be.<br />PHEBE: Being a good teacher.<br />RITA: Havin’ a good sense of humor.<br />DBG: You mean being a comedian?<br />RITA: Well, I don’t know about bein’ a comedian.<br />DBG: What don’t you know?<br />RITA: I don’t know anything about bein’ a comedian.<br />CELIA: You have a great sense of humor though.<br />RITA: That’s what I said. What would you want to be famous for?<br />DBG: Interviewing you.<br />RITA: That don’t take much intelligence! <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs)</span><br />DBG: It doesn’t necessarily take much intelligence to be famous.<br />RITA: No?<br />DBG: There’s some dumb people that are famous. What do you think, Phebe, can dumb people be famous?<br />PHEBE: That depends on what you mean by dumb.<br />DBG: Not possessing great intelligence.<br />PHEBE: I’d say so.<br />RITA: You ask some crazy questions.<br />PHEBE: *(laughs)*<br />DBG: What do you mean? Isn’t this food for thought? <br />RITA: Ha! <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs)</span><br />DBG: Don’t you go home and think about this? <br />RITA: I don’t even think about it when you’re sayin’ it!<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(Conversation at the senior luncheon at St. Joseph's, Greenwich, NY, late 1990s.)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-13186571527181841742009-01-04T05:00:00.001-08:002009-01-04T05:00:50.958-08:00Odd Numbered YearsIt’s now the first week in the new year, January, 2009 and I’m about to go through something that happens every other year. As each new odd-numbered year comes into existence, it takes me longer to adjust to writing that new year, than when it’s a new even-numbered year. I’ve been aware of this situation (might it be a syndrome?) for a long time, back perhaps to my late teenage years. At this point it’s occurred to me that my behavior is a response to the belief that this is what happens to me, more than that it actually would happen on its own. I fear that I’ve set the wheels in motion for this minor numerical error by pointing out in advance that it’s what happens every time an odd-numbered year rolls into town.<br /><br />I encounter my error mostly when writing a check. I write a lot of checks. Continuously numbered since I opened the account nearly twenty years ago, it’s up to over fourteen thousand now. (One place I was making a purchase had an automatic reading register that didn’t recognize a five-digit check number.) It’s the check writing that sets up the scenario for my mistake. But now this year, I’m even putting thoughts about this into writing and that’s tipping me back away from the error, and I’ve been writing 2009 consistently.<br /><br />What I’ll miss about 2008 is the confluence of mathematics. It was the year that I turned 54, the same as the last two digits of the year I was born, 1954. In 2009 no one becomes the same age as the year they were born, as it’s always an even number (since it’s their birth year, multiplied by two). 2008 was also the year Norabelle turned 21. Reversing the numbers in each of our ages takes us both back to the same year, nine years ago, when I was 45 and she was 12. I pointed that out to her and asked how to figure out that out as a math problem. She proceeded to do so, making an “x” variable and writing it all out on a piece of scrap paper while we were at a party at a friend’s house near Boston over the holidays. I was trying hard to follow what she did, but between the holiday cheer and the mix of pride and amazement at witnessing her do this, I retained nothing but my question. And the little worksheet paper was lost.David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-83710021548358917762008-11-26T06:22:00.000-08:002008-11-26T06:25:22.994-08:00Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg24GCoQXA5yKRvO1EbFUHLFM5d9orQBHjvqQR_TPWWqudKF98ToiOfrIGYW6GuZYm6VgAMV5oKu_ThtMmpsco2FI-3Hr_k1lyKi4bhJKySn9EepkNXgV4AJRiuVljXKNEnwTop/s1600-h/welcome_sign.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 278px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg24GCoQXA5yKRvO1EbFUHLFM5d9orQBHjvqQR_TPWWqudKF98ToiOfrIGYW6GuZYm6VgAMV5oKu_ThtMmpsco2FI-3Hr_k1lyKi4bhJKySn9EepkNXgV4AJRiuVljXKNEnwTop/s400/welcome_sign.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272971662337248930" /></a>Picture this scenario: You arrive at a small party, are introduced to someone who says a nice "hello." You begin conversing and two minutes into the conversation they toss out another "hello." Two minutes of more talk and yet another punctuation of "hello." Again two minutes later. And again.<br /><br />Whether you call it wearisome, worrisome, or just plain stupid, I've been encountering just this sort of thing, albeit in a different form. I live in a very small town. It's quaint and relatively intact in terms of its older buildings. It's the sort of place that, when people drive through it they think, "This is quaint and relatively intact. Let's stop and see if there's a good restaurant, hotel, book store, and any antique shops." (The answers being yes, no, no, and one, respectively.) A state highway winds its way into the village, making a sharp left turn at the light in the center of town. All along this route, on about every fourth light post, there is a canvas banner proclaiming, "Welcome to Greenwich." That's where the overlay of the jabbering semi-lunatic comes in. An offering of "Welcome" is appropriate when entering the town, not on a continuous basis as you pass through.<br /><br />The number of these banners was doubled a couple years ago when more light posts went up. However these use a smaller font and an image of a park bench by a tree. Given the height they're at and the simplification of the pictorial forms, these now welcome as you're leaving town, but with a noticeable dose of obfuscation. It's as if that lunatic has been handcuffed to you but has become barely audible, repeatedly whispering "hello," causing you to ask each time, "What? What?"<br /><br />When did all these banners become necessary? I see similar ones in other towns, with just the names dropped in. The first welcome banners that showed up here (and are still hanging, now joined by their idiot cousin banners) have a backdrop image of a quaint village building. We have the real things right here! Why put up a clip art picture of a quaint townscape, when motorists can see the real things right out the windows of their car? Banner salesmen and the companies they represent must be having a field day. What one little town sees the next one wants, these being essentially efforts to scare some dollars into the coffers of the local businesses who struggle to survive in the face of questionably sound discounts at big box stores. A rather desperate ploy adopted by most every business on the main street was pitched to them by the local chamber of commerce that got them all to purchase (at a "discount") matching "open" flags. As if the reason people weren't stopping and buying was because they were confused as to whether or not the establishment was open, rather than the fact that there are too many country knickknack and consignment stores.<br /><br />The proliferation of these banners suggests drunken town planning, with decisions having been made just before passing out. What makes them all the worse is that there have previously been some excellent decisions made. There are sturdy, professionally rendered historic-looking wooden signs at a few of the entryways into the village. These were erected after some banners were already up. But rather than take them down, more were added! <br /><br />- David Greenberger<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(originally published in <span style="font-style:italic;">MungBeing</span>, November, 2006)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-68488821813899449552008-09-30T18:35:00.001-07:002008-09-30T18:37:27.850-07:00The Most Expensive Tramps in Bloom<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPoPFUXBNLo8glgWCNfo-RZomvsRqevi6gfoXcb3pOhzpOiNPUo4iHrkZvy4SyMs3KclHRK8_58zNxzYlMgq8FThU4xc4rYE2Hio-RwaJQ9UqxUbwib5S9A2T0IlW-IxpXmjcH/s1600-h/rose49.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPoPFUXBNLo8glgWCNfo-RZomvsRqevi6gfoXcb3pOhzpOiNPUo4iHrkZvy4SyMs3KclHRK8_58zNxzYlMgq8FThU4xc4rYE2Hio-RwaJQ9UqxUbwib5S9A2T0IlW-IxpXmjcH/s400/rose49.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251993336156458466" /></a>My creative and commercial endeavors over the past three decades have been, to the casual observer or international spy, a series of elliptical paths that sometimes overlap or intersect, but often seem to spiral off into outer space. From trying to market a product to send messages through mail on wood shavings, to writing scripts for animated cartoons, one thing just, well, leads to another. <br /><br />In the mid-nineties my little, self-published magazine called <span style="font-style:italic;">The Duplex Planet</span>, was adapted into a comic book series, <span style="font-style:italic;">Duplex Planet Illustrated</span>. Years after publication ceased there was a comic convention held at a hotel in Manchester, Vermont. The guy who organized it, knowing I lived nearby, asked me if I wanted to appear. I did not. He then went on to offer me a table at no charge, where I could display the significant overstock of my discontinued comic, along with anything else I'd care to bring. With the rosy possibility of converting these boxes of assorted and ultimately fragile paper goods into hard cash, I came around. This could be good. Maybe great. <br /><br />I went. It was not great. The large conference room was arranged into aisles lined with tables at which were seated various publishers, writers and artists, selling and signing their goods, most of which was super hero stuff. I should probably explain here that my comic, like my magazine, presented a range of stories based on my conversations with nursing home residents and a range of other elderly people. The connection between my comics and the world of caped adventure was limited pretty much to the fact that they were both produced on printing presses and utilized staples as a means of binding. It quickly became apparent to me that the attendees at this convention, focused on such things as the comparative flexibility of the joints of various action figures, were not going to be intrigued by my anecdotal explorations of the day to day comings and goings of relatively immobile old people.<br /><br />A big name comic book personality had a table next to mine. Such was his popularity that the long line of rabid fans awaiting their moment with him, talked amongst themselves as if he himself had recently turned away an alien armada. His line of almost exclusively male fans went right past my table, effectively closing me off from any potential customer's view. These fans stood directly in front of me and tried not to make eye contact with me or my little cottage industry, lest their fantasies somehow get infected with visions of old people dancing in their heads. Only if I'd been giving out cupcakes frosted to resemble Wonder Woman's bustier would my being there have risen above the level of mutual discomfort into something more robust.<br /><br />Then, lo and behold, a young man looked at the table, saw an issue of my Magazine and said, "Hey, that picture was on the cover of an album by Men & Volts!" <br /><br />Here I should explain a few more things. What he was seeing was an image of a naked man, tactfully obscured by a post hole digging device he was using. This photo was from an issue of the 1950s nudist colony magazine, *Sunshine & Health*, and I had also used it for Men & Volts -- another one of my ventures which caused no distress to the workings of cash registers, but was a rock combo that had its origins as a Captain Beefheart cover band.<br /><br />So you can understand why this woke me right up. “I was IN Men & Volts!” I exclaimed. This seemed to alarm him. "Oh, I've never *listened* to it!” he quickly set me straight. He explained that he worked for a cut-out company, which, if you don’t know, resells unsold albums to used record stores and deep discount bins -- the place where records go to die.<br /><br />Even I had to admit that this made more sense. Regaining my footing, I immediately shifted from embarrassment to wheeler-dealer and leapt into action. I asked if the album from the mid-eighties, *Tramps in Bloom*, was the <span style="font-style:italic;">French</span> version, with actual foil stamped lettering on the cover. He said it was. So I asked about buying some copies of this rare item, especially since at the bargain basement price I could turn them around handily for at least ten dollars each. The company didn't do any direct retail themselves, he explained, but he thought he could make some arrangements. <br /><br />According to plan, I called the following week, but he wasn't in and I left a message. A week went by and I tried again. No call back, but I was a man with a mission and I persevered. On my third attempt I was told the guy no longer worked there. I explained my situation and this guy said he could take care of it. He thought there were about ten copies left. He’d let them go for two dollars each. You do the math: I said I’d take them all. <br /><br />A week later a box arrived for which I paid about $18 which covered the postage and C.O.D.. It felt very light and upon opening found out why: there was only one LP enclosed. I called and it turned out that that was all they had left. The final result of my having reluctantly attended that comic convention was that I had paid more than anyone else ever had for a copy of my own record.David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-86049447718111581242008-09-08T17:36:00.000-07:002008-09-08T17:41:03.261-07:00How Vowels Endure Winter<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1UIHcXaL2jTvVxrKmuS-lGKd-GtPB_8cAXVBoTNT6tscWy2smvnVV_X_R_NcvByfOyr3sUua_HL0RcQKdJ9-aFgx8oBwvYKZNCtNnX1UDyjRehjiYBVswrh55RIXph9tzDde/s1600-h/GreenbergerErieG'wich72dpi.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1UIHcXaL2jTvVxrKmuS-lGKd-GtPB_8cAXVBoTNT6tscWy2smvnVV_X_R_NcvByfOyr3sUua_HL0RcQKdJ9-aFgx8oBwvYKZNCtNnX1UDyjRehjiYBVswrh55RIXph9tzDde/s400/GreenbergerErieG'wich72dpi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243814363289476322" /></a>On a recent family cruise to Bermuda and the Bahamas I took it upon myself to write down the words “Erie” and Greenwich” repeatedly. While saying a word aloud over and over again in succession can turn it into sonic gibberish, writing the words did not obscure their meaning. The pair retained their status as information, representing a city and village. I tried to hold the pen in a relaxed manner, successfully forestalling writer’s cramp. This activity was not meant to be meditative, as it took some focus to keep my printing consistent.<br /><br />The similarities and differences in these two words came to occupy much of my conscious mind. I’d made them unavoidable objects of examination. On a personal level, the primary similarity is that the largest part of my life has now been spent living in one or the other of them. Erie. Greenwich. They’re both two-syllable words, and they both employ the same vowels: two E’s and one I. But this is where the differences come in to play, allowing for a solid example of how English has absorbed a broad range of approaches to the construction of words. Both words have a long E sound, but arrive at them through different means. <br /><br />For me, the most compelling fact is that Erie uses only one consonant in delivering its two syllables, while Greenwich has latched on to a half dozen. Thinking about each name in relation to the geography where that municipality is located opens the door for a metaphorical overlay. Erie, on the shores of the Great Lake which shares its name, can be a bracing place to be in the winter, as winds blow across the frozen waters. With but one R stuck near the center to barely keep them warm, E, E and I look exposed and vulnerable. Meanwhile, out in the rolling, protective hills of Greenwich, the same trio wrapped themselves in a pair of double consonants at the front at back ends, with an additional pair near the center, making for a warm, two-room shelter. <br /><br />Words appear in my mind in upper and lowercase, though I print in all uppercase. I enjoy thinking of words as their shapes, and Greenwich offers a tidy little yard, with the taller end letters shading the row of seven within. My first name, when not busy reveling in its alternating consonant and vowel construction, also enjoys a similar sort of responsibility. Erie, short and with its height all at one end, looks powerful, like a locomotive. That’s a connection I may have made in my youth because of the General Electric plant there where my father worked and which still makes those mighty train locomotives to this day.<br /><br />- David Greenberger<br /><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">(originally published in my column "I Still Feel Like Myself," <span style="font-style:italic;">Main Street</span> #56, 2006)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-8667330291165445342008-07-29T20:35:00.000-07:002008-07-29T20:41:24.881-07:00This Is The Duplex Planet<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_wViAvCrNwSnrbavdbzqYRMBJRZu87MijLp8E9Uy4lts6wUSCXd-sqolIRAX_DBy4KAt82jEc6MHKeBWOdGpoZLN-UTg34pqc2WT0doyDQnLdy37Y-VJZUURyr4VhyphenhyphendaRgAhA/s1600-h/DPF&FBookthumb.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_wViAvCrNwSnrbavdbzqYRMBJRZu87MijLp8E9Uy4lts6wUSCXd-sqolIRAX_DBy4KAt82jEc6MHKeBWOdGpoZLN-UTg34pqc2WT0doyDQnLdy37Y-VJZUURyr4VhyphenhyphendaRgAhA/s400/DPF&FBookthumb.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228647026579599314" /></a>In 1979, a year after graduating from art school in Boston, I took a job at the Duplex Nursing Home, where I worked for a couple of years as an activities director. There I found not only a rich pool of potential friends, but also recognition of something in myself: a long-standing interest in capturing, through the written word, the character of a person—in particular elders.<br /><br />Oral history has a valuable place in our culture, but that isn't what I'm looking for. I don't see old people as merely windows on their past. No matter how much I’m told about events that predate my life, I'll never be able to go there. On the other hand I do hope to grow old.<br /><br />Most of the important decisions we make about our lives, from career choices to whether or not to have a family, are made from observing what other people do in these situations. When it comes to aging, our glimpses of the process are primarily limited to watching family members grow old. Witnessing the aging and decline in older generations can't help but draw attention to one's own mortality. Furthermore, having known these elders over the course of an entire lifetime, it's hard not to mourn the loss of who they used to be.<br /><br />I can trace my interest in befriending elders back to a trip I made to Palm Springs in the mid-seventies where my grandmother would spend the winters with her elder sister. This visit was notable because of time spent with her neighbor, Herb Feitler. Herb and Hannah Feitler had been childhood friends of my grandmother. During my time there, Herb and I made several excursions into the surrounding desert communities, mostly stopping at flea markets. I was in my mid-twenties, and to me, hanging out, driving around and becoming friends with a guy in his late seventies was the height of exotica. He wore one of those cloth fishing hats that I associate with Jack Klugman, Norman Lear or Woody Allen. Herb was authentically who he was and that simply connected with me.<br /><br />When I returned home to Boston, Herb and I stayed in touch through occasional letters and postcards. Though I didn't recognize it at the time, what was so striking to me about meeting Herb was that I never knew him before. I had no familial connections or past history with him. Unanticipated and unforeseen, our friendship was borne out of a chance confluence. He was an engaging contrast to my grandmother, with whom I had a clearly delineated (and ultimately rather limited) relationship, based solely on the grandmother-grandson dynamic. Herb became my friend.<br /><br />I moved to upstate New York from Boston twenty-two years ago. The Duplex Nursing Home has long since closed its doors. As with any of my friendships, with the passing of time (especially if they're no longer living) many of those residents show up in my dreams. What began as an interest has become my life's work. I set aside the brushes and canvases that had been my focus before, during and briefly after college. I found my voice as an artist, in a different medium. Words fit me like a better-tailored suit. First I created a little magazine called The Duplex Planet, and subsequently book collections, a comic book adaptation, CDs and performances, all based on my relationships and conversations with a range of elderly people. My Washington County neighbors and trips to other parts of the country are now the source for my work and ongoing friendships.<br /><br />We already know the obvious things that old people have in common with each other; I want to know what makes them individuals. The more people I meet, the more different they seem from each other. Amid all these differences there is room for us all.<br /><br />- David GreenbergerDavid Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-64069715432617463502008-06-21T13:09:00.000-07:002008-06-21T13:12:57.644-07:00My Paris Map<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjU3Rx9zhjKAo2phrOkoWmJXU6TS8TxLqeBGAgJlPQBG0aXrcKLpSEETNISx4rwhgE5e0JUVOaQN3e3ypRg8_JLYynXqhRA1jX8aiAHqHIfy-zbwrjUms1H2WxTlzAJRGK32v/s1600-h/NRGPArisMapJan2008.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjU3Rx9zhjKAo2phrOkoWmJXU6TS8TxLqeBGAgJlPQBG0aXrcKLpSEETNISx4rwhgE5e0JUVOaQN3e3ypRg8_JLYynXqhRA1jX8aiAHqHIfy-zbwrjUms1H2WxTlzAJRGK32v/s400/NRGPArisMapJan2008.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214429988464154402" /></a>Paris, the city of lights. My daughter, Norabelle, is there for the entirety of her junior year of college. We went to visit her in January, renting an apartment for our ten day stay. It was in a five story building on Rambuteau, a block or so from the Pompidou Center and near the edge of the Marais.<br /><br />This is Norabelle's world, all the more so since she speaks the language and I don't. She knows her way around. These circumstances dispensed with the dynamic of the parent being the one who holds the knowledge and the child as the one who learns. We saw all manner of compelling, historic places and ate great foods in Paris, but the thing that I feel will be a deathbed memory for me was walking a dog. <br /><br />Norabelle has a room in an apartment with a woman who has grown children and takes in a student each year. We walked the twenty minutes or so from our place to hers, as the dog, Saba, needed her evening walk and no one else was home. I knew how to get there from the map she’d drawn us a couple nights prior, but this time learned shortcuts and side streets with Norabelle leading the way. We got there, walked up the few flights of stairs, with Saba audibly scrambling about, relieved when she heard the key in the door. It was drizzling so lightly that it required no rain gear, but gave a shiny glow to the night lit streets. We walked around the block, just Norabelle and me and the dog on her leash. <br /><br />Life’s ordinary moments allow for our personal emotional overlay to give them their meaning, whereas extraordinary events are generally defined by their own particular dramatic arc. I find that it's not the extraordinary things that stay with me and move me more and more through the years, but the ordinary things. The small map Norabelle drew for us to get to her apartment is now in a big envelope labeled “Paris, 2008.” Going for a nighttime walk on some of those same streets with my daughter and a little longhaired white dog created potent images that will flicker in my mind for the rest of my days.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(Originally published in MungBeing magazine #19, April, 2008)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-371580689555068782008-05-18T04:40:00.000-07:002008-05-18T04:44:58.550-07:00Jimmy Giuffre Free Fall<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMp066iluRERvwX0QN9tzijBZ8OrmUi5iXsw2IEEFC-CsK1X36oCQhrKBXhNH-I63I5l1HnCqA64h1TmQr6cyvqks-31Jhq4sWL7t6g03hRGoDqOfxoMyxE3DELitiTGoPopSz/s1600-h/GiuffreFreeFallCD.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMp066iluRERvwX0QN9tzijBZ8OrmUi5iXsw2IEEFC-CsK1X36oCQhrKBXhNH-I63I5l1HnCqA64h1TmQr6cyvqks-31Jhq4sWL7t6g03hRGoDqOfxoMyxE3DELitiTGoPopSz/s400/GiuffreFreeFallCD.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5201681491125879282" /></a>Jimmy Giuffre<br />1921-2008<br /><br />High on my list of places I’d travel to if a time machine were available is a recording studio on the west coast in the year 1955. Jimmy Giuffre was playing a short original composition called “So Low.” He played a clarinet, accompanied only by his own tapping foot. Already in his mid-thirties, this three minute recording serves as a perfect entry point into his music, for it is at once both modern and infused with a folk-like timelessness. Giuffre’s work invites a listener in with its small, quiet bearing, but once inside, it’s a complete and remarkable world of its own.<br /><br />On what would have been Giuffre’s 87th birthday, the news reported that he had died two days earlier, on April 24th in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. <br /><br />Jimmy Giuffre was born in Dallas, Texas in 1921 and took up the clarinet when he was nine, followed by the tenor saxophone in his teens. During a four year stint in the Army he played in a quintet entertaining troops in mess halls, after which he moved to Los Angeles. During the forties and fifties he found work as a writer and arranger with Buddy Rich, Jimmy Dorsey, Woody Herman. His best known composition, “Four Brothers,” was written for Herman’s band. With the formation of his trio, The Jimmy Giuffre 3 (he always used the digit rather than the word) in the late fifties, he pioneered a chamber scaled approach to jazz. The drummerless trio boasted Jim Hall on guitar and, for a time, Bob Brookmeyer on trombone, though that spot was also occupied by one of several different bass players. Following his artistic inclinations, by the early sixties he was moving further away from traditional song forms. However, the intimate scale and neighborly volume continued apace, making his endeavors markedly different than those of such contemporaries as the Art Ensemble of Chicago or the Sun Ra Arkestra.<br /><br />My introduction to Jimmy Giuffre’s music came in 1973 when I was living in Philadelphia. Hitchhiking out of the city one day, I received a ride from a guy who was a jazz fan. I learned that he had a brief flurry of notoriety in the sixties when he perfected using Parker pen caps as a means of making music. By the time I was riding in his car he’d pretty much set that aside for a more traditional career and family path, though he would sit in with local bands from time to time. He was knowledgeable about both jazz traditions and more contemporary experimentation, and invited me to call him sometime. He invited me over and played me a range of different recordings, but one in particular spun me around. It was Jimmy Giuffre's <span style="font-style:italic;">Free Fall</span>. I was 19, and a fan of such albums as Soft Machine's <span style="font-style:italic;">Third</span> and King Crimson's <span style="font-style:italic;">Lark's Tongue in Aspic</span>. Having neither the repetitive patterns of the former or the more foreboding architecture of the latter, I was in new territory and completely mesmerized. Giuffre’s clarinet was like a bird, and with pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow they seemed to have harnessed the natural rhythms and organically elliptical cadences of the earth itself. <br /><br />I started from that point and worked my way backwards, discovering such marvels as his arrangements of songs from <span style="font-style:italic;">The Music Man</span>, scored for nine pieces (Giuffre along with three trumpets, three saxes, bass and drums), and the four movement <span style="font-style:italic;">Western Suite</span>, recorded with his trio. Moving forward with him through the seventies, I discovered he’d put together a harder edged trio. Still utilizing clarinet, he built this more around the sound of his tenor, Throughout his career he’d also proven to be a singularly expressive player on the baritone saxophone and various sized flutes. I regret never seeing him perform back then, as he was teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where I was living. (He also taught at a number of other institutions, including the prestigious Lennox School of Jazz.)<br /><br />Suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he had not performed since the mid-90s, staying at his home in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. While never much of a commercial success, he followed his own creative path over the course of a fifty year career. Happily for the world at large, the CD era has brought forth a worthy array of his recordings. His influence can also be heard in the music of players and composers who have followed in his wake, including much of the ECM label roster and Bill Frisell’s blend of jazz, folk and classical idioms.<br /><br />Maybe because of its human scale, I’ve always related Giuffre’s music to moments in my own life. On the day he died I was at a radio station in Milwaukee. Standing by their wall of jazz CDs, I wondered how in depth the collection was. I knelt down to check out the “G” area. Jimmy Giuffre? None. When two days later, I learned he had died, I immediately recalled that moment. I’m not assigning cosmic connectedness; given how often I think of the man’s music, it was bound to line up with outside events. Jimmy Giuffre is gone, but I can’t imagine not having his music in my life for the past 35 years. It even feels as if I’ve been listening to him as long as I’ve been alive.<br /><br />- David Greenberger<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(originally published in Metroland, 8 May 08) </span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-42807389774720972182008-05-11T09:01:00.000-07:002008-05-18T04:39:59.090-07:00Driving Fast<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoPN52xsgeHVAUhcJ_Tk_g8nu5oBNq2MygO-0-dlo-1s-04D_v1IW7MVio6ubhLrKiUxV5nLXtIA45SC4KrCZt__CetmKj33OHGnr9TCFWTImb664mUzSNA9z2y6Z4JZ1R3itz/s1600-h/David_Greenberger_Angus_T_Jones_2005.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoPN52xsgeHVAUhcJ_Tk_g8nu5oBNq2MygO-0-dlo-1s-04D_v1IW7MVio6ubhLrKiUxV5nLXtIA45SC4KrCZt__CetmKj33OHGnr9TCFWTImb664mUzSNA9z2y6Z4JZ1R3itz/s400/David_Greenberger_Angus_T_Jones_2005.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199152562842386914" /></a><br />DAVID GREENBERGER: What's the fastest you've ever driven? <br />ROSE DWYER: I'm a speedster. I'll find myself sort of dreamin' and I'll discover I'm goin' really fast and I have to stop and think about it, because at my age I could lose my license. <br />HELEN PETTEYS: I go fast enough to get there safely. <br />CAROLYN HARTWELL: I keep within the speed limit, David. When it says thirty, I go thirty – especially in the village because they're right on your tail. <br />DAVID: If it said eighty, would you go eighty? <br />CAROLYN: No, I'd still stay at fifty-five. It might be I'd creep up to sixty, then I'd have to slow down, go back to fifty-five. <br />DAVID: Rita, what's the fastest you've ever driven? <br />RITA BUTLER: I don't know, probably seventy or eighty. We went to Cape Cod and they had a lot of construction and we found ourselves going some way and going in to Boston. We got so far and we stopped and asked a man and he said we were on the turnpike. So my cousin wanted to know how we would get off and he says, "You can't, not until the end of it." We were on the two lane where we would get off and they were goin' seventy or eighty miles per hour on the turnpike, through the tunnel. And I was the one who was doing the driving! <br />DAVID: Did you love the speed? <br />RITA: I didn't love the speed. I had to watch what I was doing. <br />DAVID: That's the way it is with driving. <br />RITA: I have to go get my hair done. Helen Petteys is driving me. I don't drive anymore, I gave up my license. I'm eighty-six. <br />DAVID: Do you miss the speed? <br />RITA: <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs)</span> No! When it says thirty, i go thirty. When it says forty, I go forty. When it says sixty-five, I go sixty-five. Well, I used to. I just gave up driving. That's all you're going to get out of me today. <br />CAROLYN: Be nice to him! <br />RITA: I am, I'm nice to David. I'm nice to you, aren't I? <br />CAROLYN: I think it was last week I saw him out on the street and we talked. <br />RITA: I see him and blow the horn. <br />CAROLYN: Oh, I wouldn't want to startle him! <br />RITA: I have to go now. <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(Helen walks over to Rita an helps her up from her chair) </span><br />RITA: I have oxygen constantly. <br /><br />DAVID: What's the fastest you ever drove? <br />RAY BROCKWAY: Oh, I wouldn't know, probably eighty, ninety, when you get on the Northway or somethin' like that – only on the major highways. I go thirty in town. <br />ROSE DWYER: I try to drive the speed limit on the highway. <br />RAY: I drive fifty-five and everybody goes right by me.<br /><br />DAVID: Do you like to drive fast? <br />BURDETTE BUCKLEY: No, but women do! Once in a while you get the speed up and don't realize it. No, I like to stay within the speed limit. <br /><br />DAVID: What's the fastest you ever drove? <br />JERRI TITUS: Sixty. I'm a slow driver. No speeding tickets. <br />DAVID: Do you like to be in a fast car? <br />JERRI: No, I get nervous. When I'm in my daughters' cars, they drive fast and I almost put my foot through the floor. <br /><br />EDNA FELT: I've driven sixty, if i knew nobody was looking. That's not too often. I usually go forty and they go around me 'cause I'm driving too slow. <br />HELEN SHERIDAN: I'm still driving. <br />DAVID: What's the fastest you ever drove? <br />HELEN: That's a long time ago. that's a long, long time ago. <br />DAVID: How fast was it? <br />HELEN: Eighty. <br />DAVID: Alright! <br />HELEN: We had a car that if you stepped on the gas it'd be goin' eighty within the length of the car! That was power. That's the way it was, but it got so it used as much gas as it did mileage. <br />DAVID: Florence, what's the fastest you ever drove? <br />FLORENCE PERRY: <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs) </span><br />CAROLYN HARTWELL: You'll love this! <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs) </span><br />FLORENCE: Do you mean in the village or on the Illinois and Indiana turnpike? <br />CAROLYN: <span style="font-style:italic;">(still laughing)</span> Whatever! <br />FLORENCE: I'd say eighty-five, to get away from the truckers. When you get one on either side of you, you want to get away from them. Sometimes my foot gets a little heavy, too. <br />DAVID: Do you like the speed? <br />CAROLYN: <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs) </span>You get where you wanna go! <br />FLORENCE: It depends on who's watching how fast I go. (laughs) <br />HELEN: It depends on what kind of car you're driving. You need the power. <br />FLORENCE: In the village I go the limit. <br />DAVID: Thanks, I just needed some stories about speed. <br />FLORENCE: You mean L.S.D.? <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs) </span><br />EDNA: You're a jokester! <br />FLORENCE: Well, he said speed!<span style="font-style:italic;"> (laughs) </span><br /><br />DAVID: What's the fastest you ever drove? <br />JERRY ST. CLAIR: Mostly on a motorcycle at that time, about a hundred-ten. That was on a motorcycle, headin' north. And that was back close to sixty years ago. I drove a car once as fast as it would go, it was an emergency. I had the pedal right to the floor and it went about ninety-five. My wife cut her head and it was an emergency. I had to get her to the doctor, she was bleedin' pretty good. that was quite a while ago, too. She's still got a scar on her head from it. I've got a lot of experience with automobiles.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(from issue #2 of the online magazine The Precipice, October, 2003. The same issue also included my answer to a question that was posed to me - see below. The photo above is of me with Angus T. Jones (Jake on the TV show "Two and a Half Men"), pretending to be driving fast in a parked car, November, 2005 in Venice, CA.)</span><br /><br />THE PRECIPICE: What is your favorite method of transportation?<br />DAVID: I walk quite a bit to get around in the village where I live, sometimes going days without driving anywhere. Many other villagers just know me as the guy they see walking to and fro. That said, walking is of limited use to get to many other places I like and do other things I do. So driving a car is actually my favorite. (is walking even really a transportation method? It's more like the default setting, the free space in bingo.) However, to really have it be my favorite it'd have to be a better car than our sad set of wheels. Trains are nice, but the romantic allure of it supercedes the reality. And there's flying, there's something wonderful about falling asleep on a plane. Actually, my favorite part of flying is that time after I'm checked but still with a comfortable amount of time before departure. Security check done, I'm at my most relaxed. I have very little with me, usually a book and I buy a magazine and it's the only time I'm completely removed from my usual scrambling around. This of course changes once boarding begins. But I suppose what I'm refering to there is not the transporation that I'm responding to, but the absence of any responsibilities before being transported.David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-31110769077569010362008-05-06T15:31:00.000-07:002008-05-06T15:33:39.802-07:001936 Drawing and Letter by Frank Greenberger<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfz1VJTgmDYHmD4b-aYalmAmWp3kAaNtR9kT5D7NpPqXTnbkx7QKJ4PxAOEdMqWB3BXP47Z4-YP_b_2rfj0XIPbq6FjyTHX6pxzUR4bRsSneLJ9oTsI63A3e_y-99StuAxabq/s1600-h/DadsDrawing.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfz1VJTgmDYHmD4b-aYalmAmWp3kAaNtR9kT5D7NpPqXTnbkx7QKJ4PxAOEdMqWB3BXP47Z4-YP_b_2rfj0XIPbq6FjyTHX6pxzUR4bRsSneLJ9oTsI63A3e_y-99StuAxabq/s400/DadsDrawing.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197396465446350770" /></a><br />The day my father showed me his childhood design for a military plane marked a turning point in my life. <br /><br />There were three pages. The first was a standard page of drawing paper with a simple sketch and descriptive text on both sides. The second was a letter on stationary with The Mayfair logo at the top. My father wrote, “Dear Sir. This is an invention of mine that I thought might be useful to you. I live at the Mayfair Hotel in Chicago,” signed “Frank Greenberger.” It was stamped “received November 11, 1936,” a week after his tenth birthday. The last was a typed note on a sheet of letterhead from the Adjunct General’s Office of the War Department in Washington, DC, which read “While your interest is appreciated, the War Department does not desire to undertake work in connection with your proposed invention.”<br /><br />Being introduced to these documents as a child had an immediate impact on me. I saw I was free to develop ideas and contact anyone I cared to in pursuit of a response, a process that continues to inform my art today.<br /><br />- David GreenbergerDavid Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-16625382045660484332008-03-28T03:46:00.000-07:002008-03-28T03:51:56.500-07:00If you could be famous for anything, what would it be?MARIE FOSTER: Heaven knows.<br />RITA BUTLER: Gettin’ up in the morning!<br />HELEN PETTEYS: Find out what causes cancer and cure it. It makes me so damn mad. They tell you a cure is coming, they tell you it’s just around the corner. But it isn’t.<br />RITA: It never is.<br />HELEN: They won’t put the money into it.<br />DBG: Celia, how about you?<br />CELIA FLATLEY: Oh god, nothing.<br />LEONA BELL: Don’t wanna be famous, huh?<br />CELIA: No!<br />JIM PERRY: BOCE bus driver. Those kids loved me.<br />LEONA: They’re not as well behaved today.<br />CELIA: They’ll smack you in the back of the head.<br />RITA: I never thought about bein’ famous –-<br />PHEBE BROWN: No, I didn’t either.<br />RITA: So I don’t know what I’d want to be.<br />PHEBE: Being a good teacher.<br />RITA: Havin’ a good sense of humor.<br />DBG: You mean being a comedian?<br />RITA: Well, I don’t know about bein’ a comedian.<br />DBG: What don’t you know?<br />RITA: I don’t know anything about bein’ a comedian.<br />CELIA: You have a great sense of humor though.<br />RITA: That’s what I said. What would you want to be famous for?<br />DBG: Interviewing you.<br />RITA: That don’t take much intelligence! <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs)</span><br />DBG: It doesn’t necessarily take much intelligence to be famous.<br />RITA: No?<br />DBG: There’s some dumb people that are famous. What do you think, Phebe, can dumb people be famous?<br />PHEBE: That depends on what you mean by dumb.<br />DBG: Not possessing great intelligence.<br />PHEBE: I’d say so.<br />RITA: You ask some crazy questions.<br />PHEBE: <span style="font-style:italic;"> (laughs)</span><br />DBG: What do you mean? Isn’t this food for thought? <br />RITA: Ha! <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs)</span><br />DBG: Don’t you go home and think about this? <br />RITA: I don’t even think about it when you’re sayin’ it!<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(From a conversation at the Washington County senior citizen mealsite held at St. Paul's Parish House, Greenwich, NY, in the mid-1990s.)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-37665030522300678952008-03-25T18:50:00.000-07:002008-03-28T03:50:22.910-07:00Ordinary FloydsDAVID B.GREENBERGER: What do you think of the name Floyd?<br />JERRY ST. CLAIR: What’s the matter with it? I have a brother named that, if that means anything to you.<br />DBG: You don’t hear that name so much anymore.<br />HELEN PETTEYS: You used to hear Biblical names a lot, and you don’t hear them so much now either.<br />JERRY: There’s a celebrity named Pretty Boy Floyd. He’s a pool shark.<br />DBG: Oh yeah!<br />JERRY: You mean I told you somethin’ you didn’t know?!<br />DBG: You always do. Rita, do you know anyone named Floyd?<br />RITA BUTLER: A first name or last name?<br />DBG: Either one.<br />RITA: Oh, I know some Floyds. I can’t tell you anything spectacular about them, they’re just ordinary people.<br />DBG: Ordinary Floyds.<br />RITA: Yeah, ordinary Floyds.<br />JIM PERRY: Floyd Nolan -- The Hotdog Specialist!<br />RITA: Floyd Morehouse, he lived up on Prospect Street there.<br />JERRY: I got one for you, how ‘bout that guy that the famous song was named after, Floyd Collins, “The Death of Floyd Collins.” I could almost tell you all the words to that song. <span style="font-style:italic;">(starts to quietly sing the song to himself, in almost all la-la-las, except for the line, “The Death of Floyd Collins.”) </span><br />RITA: I never heard that.<br />JERRY: That’s an old-timer. I used to square dance to that.<br />RITA: Well, I square danced, but I don’t know as I square danced to that.<br />HELEN: How about Floyd Wright?<br />RITA: Oh, the architect.<br />JERRY: You know, that Pretty Boy Floyd was the guy that started pool in the barrooms. Billiards they used to call it. It’s still billiards –- it’s billiards to me anyway.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(From a conversation at the Washington County senior citizen mealsite held at St. Paul's Parish House, Greenwich, NY, in the mid-1990s.)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-81437446071017432382008-03-11T14:49:00.000-07:002008-03-25T19:00:24.659-07:00C53-24AAs with most people, the narrative arc of my dreams dissipate shortly after I wake. Confronted with familiar scenes and routines, as well as the world of logic, they crumble to dust as quickly as I try to capture them with my conscious mind. What I can recall tends to be settings rather than stories, but even these elude me. They are made of forgotten memories, imagined scenarios and scenes from movies, television and books, working in concert. Often they recur, creating an atmosphere suffused with comfort and melancholy. Now that I’m solidly within my middle age years and the inevitability of mortality has switched from theory to reality, one such place has become a regular setting. Very small but specific memories from my elementary school days have come to the fore. <br /><br />I’m in the third or fourth grade and I’m walking to the newly constructed YMCA about eight blocks from our house. I’ve got to get there for swimming lessons or some sort of craft activity. I’m not thinking about the destination, only noticing the details along my route. I leave the quiet confines of the residential neighborhood and turn a corner down the sidewalk along a busier street. The cars go faster, passing through to fancier neighborhoods. I’m not curious about where they’re going, but feel in touch with a bigger world where adults go to work in tall buildings. I imagine myself with a long coat and a briefcase. The sun is warm on me. I reach a corner and wait for the light to change. A car goes by and someone yells my name out the window. I don’t recognize them or the vehicle. I’d forgotten I am wearing a black sweatshirt with my name diagonally across the front of it in white letters.<br /><br />That’s all I remember. I think that YMCA and the sidewalk route comes back to me regularly because of one simple moment of memorization. One late afternoon when I was leaving the Y to walk home I crossed through the parking lot. Scanning my eyes across the cars, there was a license plate, which, as soon as I saw it, I knew I would remember. It was C53-24A, or, in the parlance of some police or military TV show I watched at the time, “Charlie-five-three, two-four-Arthur.” The perfectly interlocking way in which the descending first pair of numbers align with the ascending second pair struck me as the most durable arrangement possible, while the names bookended and humanized the data. <br /><br />I’ve had that license number in my mind for over forty years. It’s been a sort of mantra that runs continuously through my life. The lot where the car was parked, as well as the route home on foot have become welcome, reassuring settings in my dreams. I like to think that committing that plate number to memory caused it to bring along the streets, sidewalks and houses that are now called upon to be a backdrop to the fractured narratives that play out in my sleep. Believing so celebrates a small, private action I took as a boy, a memory so apart from the daily comings and goings of family and school, that it too seems like a dream.David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-20763662937159917002008-03-08T04:51:00.000-08:002008-03-08T04:59:27.337-08:00Standing On My Name<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZmGEdNzV2Ck0WevPDZCKXpj_7avmZkrhiWEvETf7vApQdjfzNOk6u5jy1jMIIod7Coudl0qCMAWXRHak7vo2P9Nf2_8HxJFCAwJnPsehek9q19YO9_FhBqtZxYZ9-u9ovOcdP/s1600-h/greenbergerPoster.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZmGEdNzV2Ck0WevPDZCKXpj_7avmZkrhiWEvETf7vApQdjfzNOk6u5jy1jMIIod7Coudl0qCMAWXRHak7vo2P9Nf2_8HxJFCAwJnPsehek9q19YO9_FhBqtZxYZ9-u9ovOcdP/s400/greenbergerPoster.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175354393984735138" /></a>I just spent the first of three non-consecutive months in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All of February on the shores of Lake Michigan. I’m artist-in-residence for the UWM’s (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee) Center on Age & Community. I will be meeting and conversing with a range of elderly who are in the midst of varying degrees of memory loss. Going through all the eventual recordings (I’m anticipating 20 to 30 hours), I’ll create a series of short text pieces that will then become one long monologue, about an hour long, with music woven through it all. My musical collaborator this time is Paul Cebar, who’s been leading his band The Milwaukeeans for a couple decades. Popular throughout the area and with a satchel full of classic songs, his musical palette moves fluidly into other areas as well, include intimate duos and trios which manage to sound traditional and fiercely modern, some of which will form the sound of our undertaking. (see www.paulcebar.com)<br /><br />The residency is for three months, and I was free to choose my schedule, with a preference on the part of the CAC that it be during the school term. So I chose February, April and October. February in particular seemed a good idea for a couple of reasons. One is that I’ve done similar projects in the past, and, fearing that I’d fall into some sort of familiar routine, thought that winter would be a way of dropping some logs onto the tracks in front of my train. The other reason is more of a poetic overlay, as the people I’ll be meeting and talking with are in the so-called winter of their lives.<br /><br />Winter was in full vigor, that’s for sure. The cab driver that brought Barbara and I from the airport to our university apartment gave us a running commentary on the cityscape we traversed. He also had up-to-date statistics on the season’s heavier than usual snowfall, with 55 inches having fallen by the end of January. Well, halfway into that first week of February, another foot fell, canceling a day of my preliminary appointments. A couple more snowfalls in the following weeks, while smaller, made many side streets impossible for two cars to drive simultaneously in opposite directions, one waiting for the other to pass. However, I was using cars only intermittently, renting a Zipcar to get to the facilities were I’ll be spending time (assisted living and day centers), and it was all fine with me. This was like the winters of my youth in Erie, Pennsylvania. Also, Milwaukee, with its ethnic neighborhoods and manufacturing history, struck me as a larger, healthier, and more attractive Erie.<br /><br />The nature of this project, and the fact that I’ll be talking with and recording many people who no longer have the cognitive skills to sign a release for themselves, meant that this aspect took longer to set up than my previous experiences. Additionally, a short documentary is being made about the process leading to my final work, so language reflecting that had to built into the release form. Family members, or whomever has the power of attorney, needed to sign on their behalf, which meant that I needed to fully present myself and my work to the directors or other people in charge of these programs and sites. They could then both point me in the right direction for the people I want to record, as well as knowing which ones would be the easiest to gather the releases for. This was all made easier by the fact that Anne Basting and the CAC are known and respected and my initial meetings were all set up through her office.<br /><br />In the final week I gave a lecture about my work at the university and was surprised and delighted by the poster that was created for the event. Having done such things at similar institutions in the past I never expected such a cool graphic – I mean, I’m standing on my name!David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-58416255911510783452008-01-30T20:31:00.000-08:002008-03-25T19:01:43.375-07:00All That Was Left<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQJ09vf5xKaZffyC3VaA0Afxu6YQ0yvSje6W56ZhMsnEc_6UBPZC-sry-kqf8zUviXx0gdyAvsOa49Igg86Wn7-mcSqQIoMLkT2RzH4G1T4kNHGkobbuV9HFWYdUk6fYzU7GuY/s1600-h/SnellSwashbuckler.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQJ09vf5xKaZffyC3VaA0Afxu6YQ0yvSje6W56ZhMsnEc_6UBPZC-sry-kqf8zUviXx0gdyAvsOa49Igg86Wn7-mcSqQIoMLkT2RzH4G1T4kNHGkobbuV9HFWYdUk6fYzU7GuY/s400/SnellSwashbuckler.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161493770126603266" /></a><br />Irving Snell died within the first half year that I worked at the Duplex Nursing Home. By the time I met him in 1979 he'd outlived his wife and most of his other relatives. He had no children. He was unable to walk unassisted and was in pain. He was good humored, proud, somewhat private and ready to die. Irving shared a room with a man named George MacWilliams. After he died Walter McGeorge moved in as George's new roommate. <br /><br />Outside of some clothing, Irving's possessions amounted to an envelope containing a handful of photographs. With no one to claim them they were being discarded, so I kept them. I saw them as a map of this man. It starts in the late 19th century, with points in the early 20th, and then a gap until the 1960s. The things he told me and these photos - that's all I ever knew of him, but my brief time spent with him feels somehow complete. The dying, yet vivid man I met was who he had become; the long-haired toddler, the strapping swashbuckler and the barbecuing retiree were all who he had been but no longer was. The mystery in these photos is compelling, but not nearly as rich as the presence of the man himself, no matter how profound <br />his decline. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(originally published in The Duplex Planet #153, 1999)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-85703220679508501192008-01-30T20:27:00.000-08:002008-01-30T20:38:08.860-08:00Irving<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWNvWqk2HDeqMRQCzBH6422l5pOTAkCvvIbI4Da6Ht1R3Gl6ZdzvVEioEn_H7KfbhjIAYesYMECQrIQWEMyjT-lHTMOHAiQA61yp05az0rbx-kcg99bDhHWt_41Z2m1j06Fyd/s1600-h/SnellLate1970s.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWNvWqk2HDeqMRQCzBH6422l5pOTAkCvvIbI4Da6Ht1R3Gl6ZdzvVEioEn_H7KfbhjIAYesYMECQrIQWEMyjT-lHTMOHAiQA61yp05az0rbx-kcg99bDhHWt_41Z2m1j06Fyd/s400/SnellLate1970s.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161492885363340274" /></a><br />"I can't believe I'm so old. I don't feel 85, I feel about 50. That's an old age. I would never tell anyone how to live their life, you should never advise someone of what to do. I think they should make up their own minds not to be frivolous or running here and running there. I was advised and I was given good advice but I never took it. The trouble with me is that I was a headstrong kid that couldn't be talked to. You figure you know everything and don't want to be told anything. Some are lucky with chances and others pass them up, chances to benefit yourself. <br /><br />"Eighty-five and I can't believe it. I never worked hard. I took fancy as they came. I'm not sorry, because I had a good time. I traveled a lot. I had no responsibilities. I never give advice. The advice you'd give them would probably go screwy. At my age I should keep my mouth shut and be a good listener. "<br /><br /> - Irving Snell <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(originally published in The Duplex Planet #153, 1999) </span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-73958643015736765282008-01-14T19:25:00.000-08:002008-05-06T15:36:49.046-07:00Mr. DuffyMy friend Tom called me yesterday and told me about his recent days with his father, who's just entered a nursing home. He was telling me of the sudden shifts in subject his dad would make, usually introducing a topic that he was quite certain of, but that no one else was at all aware of. For example, that he was just on a long flight.<br /><br />These seeming leaps reminded me of something else I'd been thinking about lately: my tendency to fall asleep on the couch at night whilst watching a movie or late night program, and the peculiar juxtapostions which ensue. I'm certainly not alone in this tendency, and I must say, it's not an altogether pleasant way to fall asleep. The reason being, that so much additional energy goes into: 1) trying to not fall asleep, and 2) using extra reserves to futilely maintain the appearance of being awake.<br /><br />A common scenario finds my wife and me on the couch, and a movie in progress. Various factions of my psyche begin lobbying for control, with a deal generally being struck that decrees something like, "I'll just slouch down here a bit and rest my head on the back of the couch, but this is not to go to sleep, only to be a bit more comfortable." Yeah, right. I end up in a state of mixed inputs: the television, whatever my wife is saying, and dreaming. She catches on fast, but I try and cover by answering whatever she said, that I had in some way heard, but didn't in any way comprehend. It's always a failed attempt at covering up, but it's an automatic reflex.<br /><br />Other times something else happens, and this is what reminded me of what Tom was hearing from his father. I'll be in that same state of basically being asleep, and I'll say something. What I say won't make any sense –– "It rained on the wood chips" –– but the act of saying it, coupled with the immediate realization that it made no sense, has me instantly and totally awake. Another automatic reflex kicks in and I go into immediate spin control, trying to mix whatever I'd said into either the context of the movie that I'd lost touch with, or a conversation that I'd lost track of (also losing track of how long I may've been asleep, though it's usually only seconds –– like falling asleep at the wheel). I of course fail at coherence, but do spout forth all manner of Dadaist prose in my flailing.<br /><br />I don't know if that's exactly what's happening to Tom's father, or to anyone else in a similar condition of increasing frailty and decline. But it does strike me as a remarkable sort of precedent –– an early familiarity with a circumstance that may be encountered later in life. Tom's father's reactions to the knowledge that he slipped into something that no one else could follow, seem to be one of calm bemusement and acceptance. He makes no efforts to explain away whatever he may have gone off into. When he gets back from it, he just moves on. His family is often shaken by this once strong and gruff man becoming a mortally vulnerable surrealist. However, his bearing, no matter how far divergent from previous expectations, is truly blessed with the confidence and experience of age. Cheers, Mr. Duffy.<br /><br />(<span style="font-style:italic;">This originally was aired on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" in November of 1996. Mr. Duffy died in 1999.)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-42676100421133846292007-12-29T11:31:00.000-08:002008-03-15T15:38:16.169-07:00Primarily CatsWHAT KIND OF ANIMAL WOULD YOU WANT TO BE IF YOU HAD TO BE ONE? <br /><br />RITA BUTLER: Ha! I’d love to tell ya!<br />DBG: Tell me.<br />RITA: I wouldn’t want to be any animal. I have a hard enough time bein’ what I am without bein’ an animal.<br />MARION KINNIN: You must be feelin’ better today.<br />RITA: Oh, I am. I’ve got two more pills to take.<br />DBG: But say you had to be an animal – what kind would you want to be?<br />RITA: A cat I guess. My daughter-in-law’s cats seem to have a pretty good life.<br />DBG: Marion, how about you?<br />MARION: <span style="font-style:italic;">(shrugs)</span> Maybe a little sheep.<br />RITA: A little lamb?<br />MARION: Yeah.<br /><br />JIM PERRY: Jesus, I don’t know. . . Well, let me see. . . Elephant! By geez, they live a long time!<br /><br />ROSE DWYER: A horse.<br />DBG: You said that unhesitatingly.<br />ROSE: I love horses.<br />RITA: I was gonna tell him what kind of animal I would be, but I didn’t think he should write it down!<br />MARION: You rascal! Tsk-tsk!<br />ROSE: A jackass probably! <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs)</span><br />RITA: *(chuckles)* That<br />CELIA FLATLEY: A horse.<br />DBG: Rose is already going to be a horse. We can only have one of each animal.<br />RITA: Who says?<br />DBG: It’s a rule I just made up.<br />CELIA: A dog.<br />ROSE: That would be my next choice!<br />RITA: You’re not supposed to be makin’ up rules.<br />MARION: You tell him!<br /><br />MARIE FOSTER: Good Lord! <span style="font-style:italic;">(thinks)</span> A cat – they’re petted and loved.<br /><br />CAROLYN HARTWELL: Do I have to tell you why?<br />DBG: Only if you want to.<br />CAROLYN: Well, I guess a cheetah because they’re really slick and fast.<br /><br />FLORENCE PERRY: I guess a cat, because I can make some good catty remarks sometimes! *(laughs)*<br />MARIE: They’re petted and loved.<br />FLORENCE: I can purr gently and I can be catty.<br />MARIE: That too.<br /><br />HELEN PETTEYS: A cow with wings.<br />FLORENCE: Jump over the moon! *(laughs)*<br />HELEN: Do a lot of high flyin’.<br />CAROLYN: I thought sure you’d say a squirrel.<br />FLORENCE: No, she shoots them.<br /><br />HELEN SHERIDAN: I’d like to be a rabbit – you can be either tame or wild.<br />CAROLYN: And you want to be wild!<br />HELEN S.: That’s right.<br />HELEN PETTEYS: A male or female rabbit?<br />HELEN S.: If I had my choice I’d like to be a male.<br />HELEN P.: More fun that way.<br />RITA: I think the party’s getting dirty.<br />CAROLYN: It all depends on where your mind is.<br />RITA: Mine’s right out front.<br /><br />LEONA BELL: I think I’d like to be a deer, so I can roam the woods.<br /><br />DOROTHY WHALEN: I’d love to be a cat.<br />DBG: We’ve got way too many cats.<br />RITA: Don’t let him change your mind, Dorothy – if you want to be a cat, you be a cat.<br />DOROTHY: Okay. There, I’m sticking to a cat.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(Conversations at Washington Country elderly mealsite, St. John's in Greenwich, NY)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-81347338448470251722007-12-12T14:33:00.001-08:002007-12-12T14:33:52.303-08:00SnowThe elderly are said to be in the winter of their lives, and winter is synonymous with the end of life. That does not make winter the grim reaper. Rather it is a time of reflection, a hallmark of those for whom childhood is long gone and the novelty of being an adult has been worn away for years. The calendar provides a vantage point.<br /><br />Winter is a potent force, not just in terms of the weather it brings, but also because of the emotional backdrop it creates, and its place in the cycle of our lives. I am in my fiftieth winter, yet the season is still primarily defined by my relation to it as a child. Any snowfall which brings traffic to a standstill and closes schools takes me back to a singular excursion somewhere back in the single digit years of my youth. On that day school was closed due to the weather, but that detail could be wrong, since I recall my father was home, so it was either a Saturday or he stayed home from work that day. But weekday or weekend, it doesn‚t matter; what resonates for me is a six-block walk I took with my father from our house to the post office. He bought me stamps for my recently started stamp collection. For me this was a leap beyond the wild assortment of cancelled stamps from around the world, which I’d get by the bagful from Grant’s or Woolworth’s at the nearby shopping plaza.<br /><br />I have no specific memory of the walk itself, though I can retrace the route in my mind. I know what we set out to do and the sense memory of that walk remains, the feeling of being warm and secure, walking on snow covered sidewalks and streets. It was unusual to be going for a walk with my father during a non-vacation day and so close to home. The bulky feeling of being bundled for the walk informs any winter bundling I’ve done since. I never reminisced about that walk with him, nor thought about it much. It appeared to me about a decade ago, an old memory now returned to the forefront. I have become even more aware of that memory in the past seven and a half years.<br /><br />My father died in the summer of 1997. For me, his final months resembled the patterns of settling in for winter, a turning inward and slowing down. In the end his breath grew more and more shallow until there was just the quiet, like that of a deep blanket of snow after a blizzard.<br /><br />As January gives way to February, there are undeniable emotional powers that accompany the season. The blanket of white ties the landscape into a continuous and undulating whole. The snow is a backdrop for shadows, as the curve of hillsides and the foundations of houses all are connected. While snow-covered land creates quiet and the season sends us indoors, thoughts and feelings turn inward.<br /><br />We need to demarcate the passage of time. It’s how we take stock of ourselves, seeing where we are in relation to our plans and expectations. I’m in southern California as I write this, a place where winter expresses itself as rain. It would be easy to live in a climate where there are no freezing temperatures and snow. But I would still define the shape of the year by winter as I knew it from my childhood. My response to winter is a part of who I am.<br /><br />- David GreenbergerDavid Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-22878377053588877842007-11-30T11:36:00.000-08:002008-03-15T15:39:50.737-07:00Neckties vs. Bowties<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJdgNUGkML4kTpPcR6bjyMMXDoC-QILObqhWevWH-v66S-hwKODBbiMr8AWn2TfdSuJYNAP2lKUerVHT3InfN3t0yLn5UN_5Grhq5PAFBTV_4P3jfZt5Vj2rd1iHF8D8riyFI/s1600-r/DP149.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii37c6mGTdKNQh9iTNOTNIky8F4tllsYK8hNoVPognb6heXOZlSPrBZru272CJhEI6ETBACUYY5mR8wHSA4RGLq8p0N-7oteOOE-_7anZ00RZiax3jEZ5VeE47nW6wjeLRHa-3/s400/DP149.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5138719841832021634" /></a><br />WHICH DO YOU PREFER, NECKTIES OR BOWTIES? <br /><br />DAPHNE MATTHEWS: Bowties, they’re beautiful. They look so nice when they’re tied. You can buy them already tied, they have clips and you just clip them on.<br /><br />JERRY ST. CLAIR: Neither. Nope. Well, when the case comes, I’d rather have a neck, ‘cause then I can tighten it up myself. When I was in the service I had a doctor’s certificate to leave the top button on my shirt open – I’d have the tie on, but that way I could keep it loose. That’s on account of I’ve got an adam’s apple that’s set in so far. <span style="font-style:italic;">(points to his Adam’s apple) </span>Otherwise I’d gag and choke. I was almost discharged for that before I ever went overseas. It’s one of these things where the adam’s apple’s so far into the throat so that even touchin’ it puts tension on it and it gags me. That’s why I hate a tie, period.<br />PHEBE BROWN: I don’t like anything around my neck, but I don’t think it’s because of my adam’s apple.<br />JERRY: I wear these string ties –- I got three or four of them and I wear those. I got my senior citizen pin and I hook that up to it, and when we go out on trips I wear that as a necktie.<br /> In the service I think they’ve changed that now so you don’t have to wear a tie anymore with the uniform, unless it’s a ball or some formal event. Used to be so you had to have it tied just so and have the buttons done just right, too. Patton, he was a sonofabitch. I think they’ve changed those tie regulations now, but don’t quote me on that.<br /><br />ROSE DWYER: Well, I think I prefer neckties. My husband liked bowties and he would wear them quite a bit and he looked very nice because he was quite tall. I think a bowtie looks good on somebody tall, but I don’t think it looks good on a short person. Usually a short person has a short neck, and it looks too –- um –- what am I trying to say? I can’t think of the right word.<br />DBG: Crowded?<br />ROSE: Yeah. Somethin’. It makes their neck look too short.<br /><br />BURDETTE BUCKLEY: Necktie, if I wear one, but that’s not very often. Weddings, funerals and church – once in a while, but not always. <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs)</span> That’s enough!<br /><br />JIM PERRY: No way! If I don’t have to wear it, then I’m happy. Havin’ on a necktie is like havin’ on a noose.<br />FLORENCE PERRY: And if he puts on a tie when we go someplace, when we get there, he takes it off.<br />JIM: If I have to wear one, I put on one that clips on. Those ones you tie go around your neck just like a noose. Someone said to me, “Why don’t you wear your tie loose?” Now how the hell can you wear a tie loose?!<br />ALICE RYAN: Why wear a tie then?<br />JIM: Exactly! That’s what I said to them.<br />ALICE: But they look so nice.<br /><br />MARION KINNIN: Oh neckties. I don’t care for bowties. In some cases they’re okay, but as a rule I don’t care for them.<br /><br />BOB HARTWELL: No tie.<br />BURDETTE BUCKLEY: How do you tie that, Bob?<br /><br />HELEN PETTEYS: I think a necktie’s the best thing because if you want to get ahold of a guy, you just grab ahold of the necktie and you’ve really got somethin’ to hold onto then!<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(from The Duplex Planet #149, 1998)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-19935108970391747682007-10-24T03:55:00.001-07:002008-01-14T19:31:17.632-08:00This I BelieveI believe in learning about growing old by meeting people who are old already. In the late 1970s I worked at a small nursing home. Those residents show up in my dreams. Most of them were at least three times my age. Now, I never encounter anyone even twice my age. <br /><br />For three decades I've continued to seek relationships with the elderly. They are people who have gone from the robust vigor of youth and middle age to the ever smaller range of movement that accompanies growing old. But they were old when I met them and I never knew them before. That's part of the wonder of relationships: anything that happened before we knew each other is slightly mysterious and can never be brought completely into focus.<br /><br />I met a man named Herb Feitler while on a trip to visit my grandmother thirty years ago. Herb and his wife Hannah were old friends of hers. He and I spent the better part of a day together, going to flea markets and into the desert communities around Palm Springs where they all spent the winters. Driving around with this guy wearing a wrinkled fishing hat at the wheel of his Oldsmobile, seemed to me, then in my early twenties, like the height of exotica. Later I realized what made the experience so novel. He was the first old person I spent time with who wasn't in my family. I never knew him before, and he never knew me. We had no preexisting dynamic between us and we responded to one another like any two people enjoying each other's company.<br /><br />Years later I saw a change take place in my father. Having suffered a stroke, he started going to an adult day center. No longer only around people who viewed what had befallen him as tragic, he met a new group of people who never knew him before. They understood that the way he was now - needing assistance when he walked, speaking quietly - was not the way he always had been. They simply accepted him as he was. This was liberating for him. He had needed new friends, he was meeting new people. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was more engaged in life.<br /><br />Even with all the time I’ve been doing this it’s hard to give an easy description of what I’ve learned. It’s a mistake to think the elderly have secrets to impart. the most valuable things I’ve gotten from them has been simply to establish relationships with them, getting to know them in the moment, rather than through often told tales from their past. Saving a puppy from a burning building makes for a decidedly exciting narrative, but it can overshadow the human being who spent most of their life not rescuing canines from flames, but the thousands of little things we do. An easy tag line can be hung on any of us by the extraordinary things we do, but it’s the ordinary things that make for the deeper portrait. <br /><br />Life is filled with opportunities, the chance to experience something new. As I grow old, I know issues that were of great concern to me at one time will no longer matter. It will be a new vantage point from which to consider everything that happens to and around me. I believe all of my elderly friends have shown me that having something new happen, no matter how small, is what makes for a healthy day, no matter how many days may be left. <br /><br />- David Greenberger<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(This was first aired as part of the "This I Believe" series on NPR's Morning Edition, April 2007)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-8212248479734706412007-09-30T04:04:00.000-07:002008-03-15T15:42:23.046-07:00Why Do We Celebrate Halloween?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHidDVDRFGbyxQYeLkM8NQwHukDtCi5l9HO8bpudpoTUyCdDoBRnchYxL3GVlonLQpBRyiHxiDHXxSD0SnQg3O_Hdy2cfsrinW-E7Vu9fN6O6V3oh9U9-D7VF6A0cEVWWlK6pf/s1600-h/DP116.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHidDVDRFGbyxQYeLkM8NQwHukDtCi5l9HO8bpudpoTUyCdDoBRnchYxL3GVlonLQpBRyiHxiDHXxSD0SnQg3O_Hdy2cfsrinW-E7Vu9fN6O6V3oh9U9-D7VF6A0cEVWWlK6pf/s400/DP116.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115951877356668386" /></a>HERBIE CALDWELL: Well, they have a good time, don’t they, and everything else, don’t they? I don’t know much about it, that Halloween licks me. The other’ll be sportin’ and I’ll be licked, right?<br /><br />WALTER KIERAN: Christ! Nobody knows that! I don’t even know myself! I bet you can’t tell me where Halloween originated. It started up in Salem, with the witches. The kids go around and knock on the doors and they have to give ‘em something to get rid of ‘em.<br /><br />GEORGE MacWILLIAMS: Damn if I know. I’m not interested in that stuff. It’s a kids holiday, they enjoy it.<br /><br />LARRY GREEN: To make pranks. Scarecrow. The Devil. Skeleton. Witch. Goblins. That’s all. Play pranks. Set fires. Empty wooden barrels. Bonfires in the middle of the street. Once I got arrested for setting fires, put on probation for the rest of the summer. Set fires. Stealin’ apples. Breaking and entering. That’s Halloween! You always had it in for your enemies. Take a baseball bat and get behind a hedge and wait for your enemies. Your enemies would turn out to be witches and they gave you a bag of candy. That’s where you met your wife. I met her Halloween, took her to a party. It was rainin’ like hell. Soakin’ wet! Put me to bed, gave me a couple of aspirin tablets. I got pneumonia. they put me in Lynn Hospital. That was twenty years ago. It was rainin’ like hell!<br /><br />BILL SEARS: Celebrate Halloween, I don’t know. Pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns and, ah, noisemakers. Masks. That’s about all. It’s for the witches down at Salem Hill. They hang the witches. That’s all I know.<br /><br />WILLIAM “FERGIE” FERGUSON: On account of the clowns.<br /><br />KEN EGLIN: I don’t know, honest-to-god. You can ask me all about Halloween and I don’t know, I swear to God I don’t know. It has something to do with Salem. What do you call ‘em -- witches, spooks? I guess we celebrate it for the spirits, witches, scarin’ people. I used to put a sheet on and cover my head and stand behind a big tree. Now this is gonna sound silly to you, but I’m serious. I used to scare the shit out of all the girls. I didn’t have anything on them, they were smarter than I was. I used to ask them things, and I couldn’t stand them. I’d scare them and they'd run home screamin’ to their mothers! Pumpkins and all that bullshit.<br /><br />BERNIE REAGAN: That trick or treat is a good thing. Go up to the house and say “trick or treat” and they pass you a little bag of candy. I don’t know how long ago the first Halloween was, but it was some time ago, quite a long time ago. They call them goblins, they go around dressed up. Sometimes they put on their father’s clothes or their mother’s clothes and they go around with a cape on and a funny hat. She rides on a broom. They had a play one time and was up in the air, the witch, and she was all lit up. I played the part of the witch one time and they had a rope suspended from the ceiling and I was swinging back and forth.<br /><br />JOHN FAY: Well, let’s see. <span style="font-style:italic;">(thinking) </span>Because, you know, ah, they dress up and light pumpkins and what have you. what do you call it? It’s right on the tip of my tongue, ah, right on the tip of my tongue. (thinking) I can’t think of it, too. they go door to door, trick or treatin.’ That’s about all, Dave.<br /><br />WARNER DAY: Because of the witches? There’s a lot of witches in Salem. Most of them were hung to death. I’d say that was the seventeenth century.<br /><br />BILL LAGASSE: For the kid’s sake. I guess it’s a good day. The kids have firecrackers on Halloween day, don’t they? Pulled up this morning and Charlie was there sayin’, “I want some firecrackers!” I said, “Get in big boy.” We went to Germany -- I mean, ah, where did we go? New York! We went to New York and got ‘em. Some kids dress up in uniforms -- I mean costumes. Like Superman, Batman and stuff like that. They have suits now, underwear, and they go out in ‘em in the streets I guess. Superman and Batman underwear. I guess their mother has to take care of them, dear old mum. Halloween is a good day for kids. they go out looking for candy and gum. They go out with their mothers. Their mothers take them around and take them in when it gets too dark.<br /><br />ROBERT CLEAVES: Well, it used to be a sacred religious holiday, All Hallow’s Day. Now it’s ghosts and goblins, but it got started as a religious holiday. All Hallow’s Eve.<br /><br />WALTER McGEORGE: I don’t know. Good question!<br /><br />ABE SURGECOFF: The witches, the witches. It took place in this country, and these witches were spread out one night, certain parts going one way and certain parts going another way. the witches put a death on these houses and so forth and so on. And they might stay out of the windows and yell into the windows. They wanted to kill him or kill her. See, some of them landed in the hospital and some died of scares and fear that they would die. Excuse me if I get the wrong word, it was something like klu Collar, Klu Cut, Klu, ah, Duplex, ah -- Klu Cut Can! They have them down south with the mask over their face.<br /> The witches were ancient. After they find the witches they hang them on the trapeze -- I think it’s called a trapeze, it’s up on a stage with a noose. They’d kill ‘em on a platform with a noose, over the plank. Well, there was in that time they didn’t have no medicine. They used to haunt these people at their homes, the witches. and they used to carry around a torch to burn the house, or the farm. Nobody knew about the farm and the witches doing damage to their wheat fields. And the stable and the fields, these would be combined. People would just do this. Some of this is in the American history book.<br /> Let’s see, ah, some of the witches used to go out in the fields and hide their faces amongst the trees -- at night they go out and do that. There was a group of witches, 365 I think, and they would destroy house, barns, wheat fields, fences. In the center of town where they hang the people they make a big fire in the center of the square and burn up these witches and people. It’s in a circle, they get the witches and the plain people who lost their parents. They found that the town hall gave the preference of the witches that were left behind to be hung. And then they would be burned, too.<br /> Let’s see now. These witches used to blame the Klu Klux Klan for not helping them out. They wanted them to come along and watch and see. When they found out, they put them to the altar. I don’t know how good this story is. Is that right? This happened, it all happened, in the history book it’s there -- not all of it, but some part of it. I think it was fifteen years ago, sixteen years ago. The eighteenth century. 1905, 1905 -- that was the First World War, something like that -- and that was when these witches and Klu Klux Klan came into existence. It’s bad for the people.<br /><br />BILL NIEMI: Halloween? Because it’s Halloween. It’s really supposed to be a Christian holiday, isn’t it? You’re supposed to get dressed up in different costumes and light pumpkins and have some sort of a party and entertain and dance and play games and have some sort of refreshment suitable to the day.<br /><br />FRANK KANSLASKY: Because the people wanted to make money. Ain’t that right? It’s supposed to be fun, but now it’s a money business, ain’t it? It’s all greed.<br /><br />TOM LAVIN: It’s a good day to take it off.<br /><br />FRANK HOOKER: I enjoy myself two different ways, you know, get dressed up and tricks or treat. One day last year on Halloween I was down at Pimlico Racetrack -- now I was workin’ for Pimlico Racetrack understand -- and I got dressed up as a clown and went around to all the stall areas and the livin’ quarters, and I’d knock on each door and I’d say, “Tricks or treat.” And for that day alone I got fifty dollars! They’d hand me bills and change.<br /><br />ANDY LEGRICE: Put a mask on. Spooks.<br /><br />FRANK WISNEWSKI: I don’t know. Trick or treat is all I know of. Why we celebrate it, I don’t know. Put a candle in the pumpkin I think. Don’t they dunk apples on Halloween? Don’t they dress funny? Like the boys will dress like girls and the girls will dress like boys.<br /><br />ERNIE BROOKINGS: It’s supposed to be a hilarious occasion. There’s usually Halloween clothing. Will we have a Halloween party this year?<br /><br />JOHN LOWTHERS: Well, ah, as far as I can figure, it’s an Indian celebration. I just don’t know why they started it. There’s feasting and having the pumpkins. At night you put on the ghostly attire and visit the neighbors.<br /><br />EDGAR MAJOR: It’s the last day of the month, isn’t it?<br /><br />FRANCIS McELROY: You got me boy!<br /><br />FRANK BURNS: Well for one reason, it’s my birthday, Halloween eve. <span style="font-style:italic;">(chuckles) </span>October the thirtieth. Halloween’s on October thirty-first, but I was born Halloween eve. So I liked Halloween eve. I used to go from door to door dressed up, and people would give you candy and everything. It was nice, a nice evening. Trick or treat!<br /><br />BARBARA TOWERS: Oh, it’s evil, they’re gonna do away with it. It’s evil. But I used to like it. Last year I dressed up as a witch and a punk rock. <span style="font-style:italic;">(laughs) </span>I was a witch in the morning, I was a punk rock in the afternoon and night, all the rest of the day. The teenagers all thought I looked great because I had a punk rock long wig on, you know? And then I had the leather jacket on with a flapper girl outfit.<br /> But I gave all my Halloween stuff away because I had to move from a big apartment to a smaller apartment so I got rid of a lot of things. I love it over here, it’s so quiet. I lived in an apartment on Palmer Avenue for sixteen years – the people downstairs used to fight, dogs used to bite – oh! It’s heaven over here. But I get along with everybody, you know? They never bother me and I never bother them. ’Cause like I say, I get along with both – younger and older, it doesn’t matter. I’m Sagittarius, I get along with everybody. I love my life.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(from David Greenberger's conversations with residents of the Duplex Nursing Home, Jamaica Plain, MA, 1980 and publihsed in The Duplex Planet #116, with the exception of the Barbara Towers piece.)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-41592074908832611302007-07-11T03:32:00.000-07:002008-01-20T16:03:25.137-08:00Swimming<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHp0sN1OYJbQf4LX9SI3W0RjBF5KsWdbIW2yhSz_3eEy1Pz8-5wi26_KEWIeB-LCxSNN05DRLt2Y-B8m-FLeqMe1bbPES2LSPvGEozzuRS0r_NnsGVbx1bgjyR8UrRmhzPZ43/s1600-h/DP48.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHp0sN1OYJbQf4LX9SI3W0RjBF5KsWdbIW2yhSz_3eEy1Pz8-5wi26_KEWIeB-LCxSNN05DRLt2Y-B8m-FLeqMe1bbPES2LSPvGEozzuRS0r_NnsGVbx1bgjyR8UrRmhzPZ43/s400/DP48.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5085885458522718130" /></a>FRANCIS McELROY: It’s great to be a swimmer, and not to overdo on it. And it’s the greatest exercise a person can get, at any time. And it’s very refreshing. and it’s also wonderful for your health. I would say that would complete it all.<br /><br />JOHN LOWTHERS: All I can say is there’s a couple of different kinds of strokes you can use: overarm, breaststroke – if I said Australian crawl that’d be a little heavy.<br /><br />WILLIAM “FERGIE” FERGUSON: It’s an art that everyone should learn. A-r-t. L-e-a-r-n. Naturally you’ve got to have water, that’s the main subject, w-a-t-e-r. H2O, that is water, those are the symbols for water. It’s good to drink, it’s what we all drink. That’s what we’re all made of, that is the original source of our anatomy. Who was the first one that picked it up, I don’t know. And I don’t know anyone that does know.<br /><br />BILL SEARS: You go to the beach. Breaststroke, you learn the breaststroke. Overhand stroke. Australian stroke. Float, you float. that’s about all. (thinking) Oh yeah, underwater swimmin.’ That’s all.<br /><br />ABE SURGECOFF: Swimming is a physical handicap. And, ah, it’s good exercise. and, ah, it makes a movement of the heart. When you sit you’re absent minded and you recuperate. the body is worked up to a heart condition. Another thing is this here: some people get heart conditions by the sun ray, it strikes them if they be down at the beach. It causes the heartburn and the heart attack. Another person works too hard and he can’t save his life on account of his heart condition. And, ah, they eat less food to cover heartache patients. One thing is this: people that are being worked on for a heart condition are single, single people. Married people, too. Oh, and the people that come to the beaches see if they can get relieved of the heart condition. <br /> Let’s see now, ah, swimming is good exercise for the hands, legs, and body, moving at all times when swimming.<br /><br />WALTER KIERAN: I was never a swimmer because I couldn’t do it. All I can tell you about is the Salem Fire of June 25, 1914. It burned up the whole city, a week – seven days. I wrote a book on it.<br /><br />FRANK KANSLASKY: Don’t drown, that’s it. You swim or you drown. I don’t know any more about swimming.<br /><br />GENE EDWARDS: Oh, I can’t swim. I don’t know how to swim, but I can splash in the water. And I don’t like water if it’s too deep. that’s all I can think of right now.<br /><br />BILL NIEMI: Most people, you have to be in the proper mind to go swimmin,’ don’t you? And, ah, it doesn’t pay to go too far out in the water, like in a lake, ’cause it stands to reason that it gets deeper and the water gets higher as you go out further into a lake. And you’re liable to tire yourself out, and then you won’t be able to breathe and something’ll happen that you won’t be able to use your legs or your arms, so you’re liable to start probably, to drown.<br /> And, ah, after you eat your meals you should wait at least an hour before you go in swimmin’, because if you go in right away – a lot of people eat heavy meals – if you jump in the water you’re liable to sink to the bottom and drown.<br /> And in a way it’s bad to go swimming by yourself, because you never know what will happen. And if you do decide to go swimmin’ with someone, make sure it’s someone you like and that likes you, because if you get swimming with someone you don’t exactly like or you had a fight with, or you don’t agree with on certain principles, then you’re liable to get into some kind of an argument or a fight, and one of you is liable to drown if you start fighting in the water, or around the water and you get pushed in, or you happen to fall in or something like that, because accidents do happen.<br /> It’s kind of hard to teach another person how to swim, because you have to know how to swim yourself and you also have to know the other person pretty well, and what their mental and physical conditions are. And you have to know the other person pretty well because there’s a lot of people that hate the water – they don’t like to go swimming. And in a way it’s kind of foolish to try and persuade another person to go in swimming if they don’t want to. That has to do with if you ask someone so go swimming and they say no, and then you persuade them to change their mind and they go swimming, and then if something should happen to them it would be your fault, because you persuaded them.<br /><br />FRANK WISNEWSKI: If you don’t know how to swim, you drown. If you don’t go in the water, you won’t drown. The water’s cold. Down at Revere Beach the water’s very cold. Lot of waves down there too. Lot of clams. Lot of girls, in bathing suits. I love girls. I love girls down at Revere Beach in black bathing suits.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(from David Greenberger's conversations with residents of the Duplex Nursing Home in Jamaica Plain, MA, and publihsed in The Duplex Planet #48, May 1983)</span>David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-7530446987829098222007-06-16T08:46:00.000-07:002007-09-30T04:18:50.070-07:00Tales of Summer<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9LisEbp4lldhOMVtsOSnrmPjGGoDblptYIDnIiKMUTZsq0D46FBQM_MtQfkZu04QlrOMxr0BVSlYcMkDOEJIPB5aq-LZdfgj9h_5GBjQm_p-zOA7r-oQBQx3VStef-vCZ8He/s1600-h/DP38.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9LisEbp4lldhOMVtsOSnrmPjGGoDblptYIDnIiKMUTZsq0D46FBQM_MtQfkZu04QlrOMxr0BVSlYcMkDOEJIPB5aq-LZdfgj9h_5GBjQm_p-zOA7r-oQBQx3VStef-vCZ8He/s400/DP38.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076689467220130610" /></a>ABE SURGECOFF: People like to go down to the beach and bring their lunches, so they can go swimming. Some would go and buy a meal at the stands. They like to swim. And layin’ in the sun can make a sunburn. They take a bottle of Calomine lotion and it stops the burn on the sunburn. They enjoy being out on the beach with a swimming party. the children like to play in the sand. When they let the baby play in the sand he gets a sunburn. And some of them have a worse cold at the beach. They caught a cold and they figured they’d lay in the sun and that would disappear the cold. Well, it helps to disappear the cold. Let’s see, they bring their own radios, transistor radios, to hear the broadcast and they have to buy tonic to keep the smoothness in their mouth. and walking on the sand causes foot callouses.<br /><br />JOHN LOWTHERS: A good time is had by all in the summertime. Goodtime weather. Here, there, and elsewhere take the bathin’ beaches in, attend to the baseball games, and attend my working. You get a couple weeks vacation out of it, I do. I work for the American Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, which I own. So I can take as long a vacation as I wish. I’m still on vacation, I’m takin’ it now. I’m stayin’ right here on my vacation, a rather long vacation.<br /><br />GENE EDWARDS: I don’t like nothin’ about summer, it’s too hot. I know it’s better than winter, but that’s all I can say. I like spring and fall.<br /><br />RODNEY BRAGG: I swim in cold water, I always go swimmin’ in cold water. I dive right in the water and go swimmin’ under the bridge. One time my sister fell in a mud hole out in the woods. I pulled her out of the mud hole, I had to get a rope and pull her out. Had to buy a rope at the store, it cost money. You can’t get nothin’ for nothin.’<br /><br />BILL SEARS: In summer you go to beaches, go swimmin,’ go fishin,’ go to the amusement park. You go on the roller coaster and you go on the Dodge-’ems. You go on the Whip, you go for a boat ride. You go on a train, a train ride. You go on the Ferris Wheel. you go blueberry pickin.’ And, ah, you go ridin’ horses. You take a tramp in the woods. that’s about all.<br /><br />WALTER KIERAN: I used to go from Salem Willows to Nantasket Beach in a passenger boat. It was about two hours and cost two dollars. you buy your food on the boat, that cost you a dollar or two. they had movin’ pictures on the boat, and a six piece orchestra would play. You could dance, there were girls there. you’d take a girl out to dinner on the boat and then you’d hire a room outside the boat and give her a little lovin.’ and after that you’d take her to the movin’ pictures. then after that you’d take her to Salem Willows and give her popcorn and kisses -- candy kisses, homemade ones by the Woods Brothers of Salem, candymakers. Besides that work they were salesmen for the Kennedy Clothing Company. you could buy a suit of clothes from them for fifty dollars, no hundred dollars. they had a tailor, used to fix you up, Bill Hanson his name was. He left Clark & Friend Clothing Company and went to Kennedy & Company clothing Company. I worked at Clark & Friend’s as an errand boy. I got all my stuff for nothin’ from Clark & Friend’s, I didn’t have to pay for it. for workin’ for ’em, instead of just gettin’ money, I’d get clothes.<br /><br />WALTER McGEORGE: Summer’s a beautiful time of year when almost all winter dreams are possible. You can put into operation all thoughts of the past, and make them as realistic as possible because they’re simply too good to last. It’s very easy in the summer to make your winter dreams come true.<br /><br />(from David Greenberger’s conversations with residents of the Duplex Nursing Home, Jamaica Plain, MA, 1982, and published in The Duplex Planet issue #38, July, 1982.)David Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31068960.post-89020268389288745012007-03-08T16:07:00.000-08:002007-03-08T16:08:48.170-08:00Mortality, Aesthetics and a Smooth ShaveIn 1954, the year I was born, the D.R. Harris Company of London, one of the oldest pharmacies in England, was located on the street where they were founded. They had originally opened for business in 1790 at 11 James Street. In 1836 they moved about a block up the street to number 55. At the dawning of the twentieth century they moved again, this time to 30 King Street, staying for forty-one years when they returned to James Street, this time to number 27. While I was emitting my first infantile howls in Illinois, seven time zones away, D.R. Harris, Chemists and Perfumers, were going about their business, until nine years later they moved one door down to their present location at 29 James Street.<br /><br />My story and the D.R. Harris story intersected this past June when friends in London sent me a birthday gift of the company’s shaving bowl. It’s a mahogany bowl, with lid, containing shaving soap in their Arlington scent, indicated on the elegantly designed and sized label as “A Classic English Fragrance For Gentlemen.” This Harris establishment can lay claim to matters Barbasol never dreams of: They hold the Royal Warrant as chemists to Queen Elizabeth and in 2002 were granted an additional Royal Warrant for the Prince of Wales. <br /><br />Bringing the shaving bowl, lid in place, out to my desk provided a couple small revelations. I discovered that the company is not that of Dr. Harris, but the aforementioned D.R. Harris. Also, it’s not their Arlington Shaving Bowl, rather, it’s their Arlington scent, one of four they offer. I have my glasses on all day, except when I shower and shave.<br /><br />Some thirty years ago when my various explorations included brief stabs at vegetarianism, making granola and wearing overalls, I tried using shaving soap and a brush. When the ceramic mug of soap was emptied I never refilled it, the brush hung around for a while and then disappeared while I went on sporting a beard or shaving with whatever brand of shaving cream was on sale. <br /><br />My morning routines constitute a fairly rigid program. Though not all components occur on an overtly conscious level, one leads to the next in comforting ways: opening the medicine cabinet with my dominant left hand, removing the can of shaving cream with my right, squirting it into the palm of my left, then dipping into the mound with the fingers of my right and applying foam to my face, leaving the left then free to pick up the razor and commence shaving.<br /><br />But with the accumulated wisdom and deepened aesthetic sensibilities of middle age, the return to brush and soap shaving revealed the new sequence for what it is: better. My new shaving bowl is too deep to fit in the cabinet. This earns it a place out in the open, on the glass shelf over the sink. Not only was this addition welcomed by my wife, with whom I share the limited surface space, she also procured a small saucer for the shaving brush to stand upon sentry-like when not in use. (If shaving takes me approximately two minutes, then that brush is in use for .0014% of my day.)<br /><br />Over the course of the first month the shaving soap so completely filled the container that its top surface was even with surrounding rim, allowing dollops of watery bubbles to nearly spill over the edge. As time has gone on it’s being imperceptibly depleted. The process reminds me of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when the witch turns the large hourglass over and tells Dorothy, “That’s how long you have to live!” My experience with cans of shaving cream yielded no such overtones of mortality. While they did become lighter as the contents were expended, the end would come quickly, as the mixture of air pressure and shaving cream lost its special balance, giving out like the final sputtering exhalation of a hundred year old man. It was just an empty can I’d toss out and start with a new one on the following day. Such is the power of the D.R. Harris & Co. Arlington Shaving Bowl that I’m reconsidering all shaving experiences that transpired before its arrival. <br /><br />In case this gives the impression that I’m thinking about shaving matters at all hours of the day, I hasten to point out that, other than the time spent writing this, the thoughts about issues of mortality as sparked by a shaving bowl arise only while I’m shaving. Based on its rate of depletion I’m quite certain I’ll be getting a full year out my initial bar. Henceforth I will be measuring the passing of time by the slow repeated rhythms of opening, and then exhausting, a succession of shaving soaps.<br /><br />- David GreenbergerDavid Greenbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03927539329950830597noreply@blogger.com0