The Boxer

While the Fifties Beat poets howled against the machinery of Moloch, the current corroded state of the industrial complex that was America, a great mass of popular culture was emerging, led by network television, but also supported by the pervasiveness of radio driven primarily by the music industry. The broken, disenfranchised characters that populated Howl and other writings of the Beats were at polar opposites with the bubble gum chewing bobbysoxers at sock hops, the Cleavers, baseball loving, apple pie chortling Americans who spread like moist butter into the crannies surrounding all our big cities to become Suburbia. These were those who bought into the American Dream and had begun spreading their wings.

Most of the kids of these families, the Boomer generation, listened to Top 40 radio for at least a portion of their young lives. People like Murray the K and Cousin Brucie on WABC, the top rock station on the AM dial, owned the airwaves, slinging out the super hits one after another from sea to shining sea. Consider the contrast between I Want To Hold Your Hand (#1 song of 1964) and the opening line of Howl:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix...

But during the Sixties the dark themes were seeping into popular music through various channels. The Animals took House of the Rising Sun to #38 that same year. And the songs of Simon & Garfunkel dealt with territory the Beat poets dredged like alienation (I Am A Rock, Fakin' It), suicide (Most Peculiar Man, Richard Cory), adultery (Mrs. Robinison) and brokenness (America, Over).

Which is why The Boxer was such a powerful song of that time, one of those songs which takes you places you don't expect....

The Boxer

I am just a poor boy
though my story's seldom told,
I have squandered my existence for a pocketful of mumbles,
such are promises;
All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear
and disregards the rest,
mh -- hmm.

When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
in the company of strangers
in the quiet of a railway station
runnin' scared,
laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
where the ragged people go,
looking for the places only they would know.

Lie-la-lie ...

Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job
but I get no offers,
just a come on from the whores on Seventh Avenue.
I do declare
there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there.

Lie la lie...

And I'm laying out my winter clothes
and wishing I was gone,
going home,
where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me,
leading me, going home...

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
or cut him till he cried out in his anger an his shame:
I am leaving, I am leaving,
but the fighter still remains

Lie la lie...

Do you think this song would have had the same impact had been called The Golfer? Make the most of your weekend. Food for thought.

How To Teach Writing To Young People

A few years ago I had the privilege of participating in a workshop for coaches of youth soccer led by Buzz Lagos, head coach of the Minnesota Thunder, a professional soccer team. Coach Lagos showed us all kinds of neat games that would engage our kids while helping them learn basic skills. It was a fun experience and I learned a lot.

At the end of the evening he conducted a highly informative question and answer period, fielding questions with the same skills he showed us when demonstrating ball control. One attendee asked a key question that has across the board applications for all teachers or instructors. He asked “What skill level should we be expecting eight and ten year old soccer players to be at?” The answer surprised me, but then made perfect sense. Coach Lagos replied, “You should not even be thinking about skill levels at that age. What you want is for every child to learn the rules and enjoy the game.”

The coach’s reply demonstrated his love for the game. Buzz Lagos also showed a deep understanding that if the children do not enjoy playing, they will not apply themselves to mastering its fundamental skills. Instead of laying heavy expectations on eight and ten year old kids, let them simply have fun. Sure enough, this was how I developed my skills in baseball as a boy, and later as a young artist.

I also believe this is exactly what our children need when it comes to learning basic skills like reading and writing. If we can somehow foster a love of reading, and an enjoyment creative self-expression with words, we have done a remarkable thing. To give our children a love of learning, a love of reading, and the pleasure of self-expression through writing and art... what a wonderful gift!

I may be wrong, but I have always believed that children are filled with an innate desire to learn, to create, to explore, and to express themselves. In other words, as they begin life these are natural, innate motivations. Our role, then, is not to attempt to motivate, but rather to avoid quenching this natural desire. Here’s an example of how to kill the love of reading. Recently, my wife was at someone’s home when an argument erupted between the two children regarding what to watch on television. The father, infuriated, resolved the matter by punishing the one in the following manner: “Go upstairs and read a book.” Yikes! Reading as punishment is hardly the way to foster a love of reading!

Perhaps one day I will finish my book of exercises for training young people to become better and more interesting writers. In the meantime, take these words to heart. If your children have a passion for self-expression, whether through art, music or the written word, rejoice. Encourage. And worry about technique later. You never know where it will lead.

Cooties

Childhood is a magical world where you have yet to learn the limits of imagination. Everything, every object, place or idea is a playground for the mind, and every game puts the stakes as high as possible simply for the thrill. "Don't let this touch the ground or the world will be blown up!"

And oh the games we played....

They say that some of the themes Beethoven incorporated into his symphonies came from the little tunes he heard being played in the villages while walking through the countryside. In the same manner, I would speculate that game manufacturers like Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers and Hasbro got many of the ideas for their games by sifting through the pop culture for ideas that were already pervasive. For example, Battleship.

My dad showed us how to make a grid and play that game on sheets of paper. We did not need a game board, fancy plastic molded ships and the like. We did it all for free, and had hours diversion. Best of all, besides price: you never had to worry about losing a game piece. But today, it is yours for only $38.78 from Milton Bradley and Hasbro. "You're the commander of your fleet, so prepare your strategy and lead your troops to victory!"

Other games have roots that initially seem a bit more obscure. Barrel of Monkeys, Ants in the Pants.... and today's theme, Cootie. I remember being in elementary school, running around being chased by girls on the playground and avoiding them because we didn't want to get "cooties." None of us had a clue what cooties were, only that it was bad. When we went to Grandma's house in the 1950's we used to play this cool game called Cootie. I never connected this game by the Schaper Mfg. Co. to what was going on in the playground till now.

If I remember correctly, each person started with a torso and by rolling a dice you got to add various components such as a head, antennae, eyes, legs and that little spiral shaped tongue. The first one to assemble a complete cootie was the winner.

So, a couple days ago I came across an article from the February 2, 1942 edition of Time magazine titled, Death Rides a Cootie. What!? The headline yanked me right in. And the first paragraph had me lashed on for the ride.

During World War I the cootie was a joke to many people who had never been bitten by one. Even itching soldiers stoically made a joke out of it. On the Western Front, thanks to frequent delousing and other precautions, the cootie seldom brought anything worse than a comparatively mild infliction called trench fever. But to millions of Germans today as to other millions in many of history's wars, the cootie means horror and death in the form of typhus.

The reason why the Cootie game was about assembling a bug is because the real cootie was a bug. Cooties were lice. And the reason boys ran from girls on the playground to avoid cooties must have certainly metamorphosed from certain adult games between men and women that could result in venereal diseases, cooties and crabs.

The lice in the trenches during the war were even more devastating, and one more reason why war was hell. The article Death Rides a Cootie is an informative read. But I'm still not sure why someone would make a children's game out of a louse.

John Updike On Ted Williams

My junior year in high school at BRHS-West I wrote a paper for English class on the theme, "Who was the greatest baseball player of all time." I was passionate about my theme because I was, at the time, passionate myself about the Great American Game. I researched my butt off, wrestling with the problem of establishing criteria for comparing stats of old timers and current players. I likewise had to determine how much weight to give fielding skills, leadership, base running, and pitching.

When all was said and done, I wrote what I thought was a stellar paper. Ty Cobb was the greatest. And when all was said and done, Ms. Saltzbart graced that paper with a U and U-. U for research, and U- for the writing itself.

Now for the record, I was an A student. I was in the honors programs, and even in Ms. Saltzbart's class I had almost all Aces throughout the year so that my final grade averaged to be a C in the fourth quarter even with these bad marks, my first C in high school. And like the dutiful "good kid" I was, I accepted my fate... except, I had to ask why this happened. Where had I gone wrong.

When I went to speak with her after class the following day she replied that I failed because, "Joe Dimaggio is the greatest baseball player of all time." That was the sum total of why I failed. She had nothing more to say.

All these years I dismissed her conclusion as wacko. Until today, actually. It may be that all my rambling comparisons of baseball stats missed something important. In Hemingway's Nobel Prize-winning Old Man and the Sea, Santiago took inspiration from DiMaggio, the man who never gave up. The theme song from Oscar-winning The Graduate features this Paul Simon line, "Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio." The great pop culture status icon Marilyn Monroe even married the guy. In other words, I never factored in the effect Joe DiMaggio had on the broader culture.

Seven player strikes and all the wrangling over contracts, salaries and taxes for stadiums has taken a lot of luster off the Great American Game. There was a time when It Happens Every Spring played on Saturday Night at the Movies the weekend before the season opener. There was a time when everyone knew at least a few of the stars. And literary giants wrote about the men who played it.

One such literary giant of our century past was John Updike, and the player he wrote an incredible baseball essay about was Ted Williams. Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu is a must read if you were ever a fan of baseball. The essay, which begins as follows, appeared in The New Yorker in 1960, back when I was reading Casper the Friendly Ghost comics. The opening is wonderful.

Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities. Its right field is one of the deepest in the American League, while its left field is the shortest; the high left-field wall, three hundred and fifteen feet from home plate along the foul line, virtually thrusts its surface at right-handed hitters. On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 28th, as I took a seat behind third base, a uniformed groundkeeper was treading the top of this wall, picking batting-practice home runs out of the screen, like a mushroom gatherer seen in Wordsworthian perspective on the verge of a cliff. The day was overcast, chill, and uninspirational. The Boston team was the worst in twenty-seven seasons. A jangling medley of incompetent youth and aging competence, the Red Sox were finishing in seventh place only because the Kansas City Athletics had locked them out of the cellar. They were scheduled to play the Baltimore Orioles, a much nimbler blend of May and December, who had been dumped from pennant contention a week before by the insatiable Yankees. I, and 10,453 others, had shown up primarily because this was the Red Sox's last home game of the season, and therefore the last time in all eternity that their regular left fielder, known to the headlines as TED, KID, SPLINTER, THUMPER, TW, and, most cloyingly, MISTER WONDERFUL, would play in Boston. "WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT TED? HUB FANS ASK" ran the headline on a newspaper being read by a bulb-nosed cigar smoker a few rows away. Williams' retirement had been announced, doubted (he had been threatening retirement for years), confirmed by Tom Yawkey, the Red Sox owner, and at last widely accepted as the sad but probable truth. He was forty-two and had redeemed his abysmal season of 1959 with a—considering his advanced age—fine one. He had been giving away his gloves and bats and had grudgingly consented to a sentimental ceremony today. This was not necessarily his last game; the Red Sox were scheduled to travel to New York and wind up the season with three games there.

Ted Williams was another of the great ones. It may be that had I read Updike before writing about Ty Cobb I would have produced a better paper. Or if I had taken a typing class freshman year instead of senior year since my handwriting may have been a tad too illegible for a teacher staring at a pile of term papers through eyes befogged by cocktails. ("Objection! Calls for speculation.")

I would strongly encourage you to follow this link and bookmark the Updike piece. It's a masterful work and one of the greater bits of baseball literature ever written.

Trivia: Joe DiMaggio's contract, when making appearances, stipulated that he be introduced as "the greatest baseball player of all time." May we ourselves never be so vain.

De Elliot Bros. Sighted at Swamp Sisters

Saturday morning customers of the ever crowded Swamp Sisters restaurant near Twig MN were treated to ninety minutes of live music by de Elliot Bros. Jugband. The sun was shining brightly and your faithful blogger was there to add harmonies, a little rhythm on the washboard and be part of the music. One patron said it was "the highlight of his summer." Probably says more about his summer than the band though the spontaneous appearance of the band really was a treat for many.

I remember when I was young going into Greenwich Village a couple times, hanging out and hoping to see Bob Dylan show up at one of his haunts. This was, obviously, the days before the Internet so a Bob sighting was truly a chance manifestation. Nowadays, one can simply go to a Dylan site online and notice that he is in Amsterdam or Tokyo, and very unlikely to make a spontaneous appearance in the Village.

Actually, Dylan will be in Sturgis tonight at the Buffalo Chip Campground. The famed motorcycle rally of motorcycle rallies has been attracting more than a half million bikers to this sleepy Black Hills town of 8,000 or so. This year will no doubt be even more raucous as the rally turns 70.

Here's Dylan's set list from Sunday's performance at Haymarket Park in Lincoln, Nebraska. What a great catalogue of songs to choose from. Based on the selection, it looks like the band was ready to rock Sunday night.

1. Watching The River Flow
2. Lay, Lady, Lay
3. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
4. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
5. Rollin' And Tumblin'
6. Just Like A Woman
7. Cold Irons Bound
8. Workingman's Blues #2
9. Highway 61 Revisited
10. Tryin' To Get To Heaven
11. Thunder On The Mountain
12. Ballad Of A Thin Man

De Elliot Bros. playlist includes a number of Dylan tunes as well and last Saturday we gave a pretty serious rendition of Slow Train Coming.

Rumor has it, de Elliot Bros might show up yet again next Saturday morning as well. If you decide to go, the Swamp Sisters food selection is wonderful. Here's a snapshot (right) of Bonnie's Swamp Skillet, with real buffalo meat. They also have very large pancakes for very small prices, and wonderful French toast. Better bring an appetite.

Photos at top portion of page are de Elliot Bros this past Saturday at Swamp Sisters. Click images to enlarge.

Paths of Glory

I have placed this early Kubrick anti-war statement on my top ten list both for its originality, great acting, compelling story line, plot twists, and surprisingly beautiful and inspired ending. This one is a heart-breaker account of a moment in history that must have repeated itself endlessly in that horrific bloodfest called the trenches of World War I. To some extent Kubrick returned to the theme in various ways with Full Metal Jacket. Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax is perfect here, demonstrating the challenge of maintaining honor within a system that has turned values on its head. The story illumines a crisis point in the life and career of Colonel Dax, who has lived by the watchword of Duty with a capital D throughout his career while holding fast to his ideals as regards faithfulness to his men. The army's absurd effort to capture "the Anthill" results in a tear in the fabric of his idealism. The ugliness he sees is an eye opener for both Dax and the audience, who sees the political machinations behind the scenes with tragic clarity.

Colonel Dax, identifying with his men, is an inspiration in contrast to an empty culture of power and prestige cut loose from its ethical moorings.

The following is a review from imdb.com which gives a fairly good summation of the film.

"Let the men have a few minutes more", 15 October 2006
Author: nora_nettlerash from Ruritania

Although Kubrick's films are marked by their massive variation of genre and tone, one theme that crops up again and again is a strong anti-war sentiment, and this was never stated more strongly than in Paths of Glory. A relatively early Kubrick picture and, despite coming before what is considered his classic period, it is one of his best.

In contrast to his previous picture, The Killing, a definite Kubrick style is beginning to emerge now. One notable example is the scene in which General Mireau tours the trenches, walking towards the audience with the camera retreating away from him. This technique would be repeated years later in Kubrick's other war film, Full Metal Jacket. There is also something about the arrangement of objects in the frame, as well the tracking and dollying which hints towards his more familiar later style. His recurring chess motif appears as well, albeit subtly. At the court martial the floor is chequered, and the soldiers on trial are seated with guards standing behind them as if they are pawns about to be sacrificed.

The light and contrast in this picture is put to good effect. The palatial officers' headquarters is light and airy with few shadows. The trenches are gloomy and cramped. Kubrick was becoming a real master at contrasting locations and getting the look of a place just right.

The use of music in Paths of Glory is bold and brilliant. The pre-recorded score is almost entirely percussive – all rhythmic sounds with no melody. A weird kettle drum track is used to help build tension in the night patrol scene, while in the climactic scene the funeral march drumming instills a sense of dread, further heightened by having the shots edited in time to the beat. In the emotional final scene we get the complete opposite – a beautiful vocal melody. This has all the more impact after hearing nothing but militaristic drums for the rest of the film.

The casting is absolutely flawless. While there are no big names apart from leading man Kirk Douglas and the now elderly Adolphe Menjou, there isn't a single weak performance. The despair and resentment of the condemned soldiers feels so absolutely real. In contrast the smugness and fake sympathy of the upper class officers is brilliantly portrayed.

Throughout his career Kubrick never seemed to be particularly keen on blatantly emotional moments. Paths of Glory is the exception. The later scenes are incredibly poignant and moving, and the final moments in the soldier's bar are what makes it a masterpiece more than anything else – the icing on the cake.

No question this film foreshadows techniques which Kubrick would use again in future films. The kettle drums in the night patrol scene, especially the slowed pace, is re-created to eerie tension-building effect in the second duel scene in Barry Lyndon.

I am especially awed at how deftly Kubrick is able to paint so many characters with such vividness and depth in such a short amount of time. From the generals to the men in the trenches, we get clear snapshots of their motivations and basic drives. From acting to story line to cinematography... a great film.

With regard to the central action, the effort to take the Ant Hill (itself a hilariously symbolic objective), I am reminded of a story from General Schwartzkopf's autobiography when he writes about the surprise assault on Granada. According to Schwartzkopf, they achieved their objective swiftly and without loss of life, an incredible achievement in any case scenario involving guns and soldiers. But then, a phone call came from Washington, and he was given further instructions. The mini-war was being run from afar, without appreciation for the real situation. Two helicopters and more than two dozen men were lost, marring an otherwise remarkable accomplishment. When asked to lead Desert Storm years later, he agreed to do it only if he were in charge, and not people in Washington. The PR aims of higher ups are often out of touch with the realities on the front. Perhaps this is a problem in any situation where there are excessive layers of bureaucracy.

Trivia: The German woman singing in the final scene went on to become Kubrick's wife.

When Hard Rains Fall

Floods can have a variety of causes but in most instances it is rain, rain and more rain. Last night we had a very heavy, sustained rain. Sheets of water fell from the sky faster than the ground could absorb it. The window well filled and water came into the basement through a window there. For a couple hours I had to periodically empty the window well using a bucket.

Our house is on higher ground so at worst I have been only inconvenienced. This is not the experience people in Iowa experienced when the Mississippi overfilled after heavy sustained rains in 1993. When your home fills with five, ten or twenty feet of water, it is more than just a nuisance. Furniture is ruined, property is ruined, and there is a huge mess to clean up as the receding water leaves silt and debris everywhere it has slowed.

I remember that Iowa flood because I was driving across Wisconsin listening to an audio version of Michener's Mexico. The newspapers had said that if Iowa got one more inch of rain (it had been raining heavily on and off for a week) the river would burst the flood dams and Iowa would be underwater. Three inches fell that day and volunteers spent weeks helping clean up the mess.
At this moment flooding has done serious damage across parts of Asia where unremitting rains have mercilessly caused the worst flooding in memory. According to reports an estimated 4 million Pakistanis are facing food shortages and an estimated 127 people have been killed in China. India, too, has been hard hit with an estimated 132 people killed in Kashmir by flash floods. And an estimated 2,000 people are missing in China's Gansu province as a result of the deluge. (Here's a two minute snapshot on YouTube.)

When I went to bed last night I was planning to write about the flood damage in Northern Mexico caused by Hurricane Alex last month. I did not know that two hours later I would be using a bucket to keep water from going into my basement during a driving rain. I also did not know about the misery in Pakistan, China and India caused by the excessive rains this summer. As serious as the loss of life is, the widespread loss of crops is likewise tragic.

While the Internet buzzes about Sandra Bullock, LeBron James, Michelle Obama, and the WikiLeaks, let's remember those who have been displaced by the flooding and devastation beyond our borders.