Is there no appreciation of the significance of surprise these days? The New York Times's Michiko Kakutani published her review two days early, and while her review only revealed the shape of the conclusion and not the details, she managed to take some of the fun out of our finding out the "resolution" of the story when we were supposed to - in two days' time.
Apparently others have followed suit, and probably their thinking is that because this is the last in the series, to hell with whatever agreements might have been signed with the publisher and its distributors.
Yes, it's probably true that book purchasers will open their copies to the end of the book in order to know what happens to their loved and hated characters, but it seems to me that all this leaked information is simply taking the fun out of the surprises.
Adults just spend too damned much time lousing it up for the kids, kids who have loved speculating about each book as it arrived, kids who discovered the joy of reading.
We just can't leave well enough alone. Poor us!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Ever Think About Applause?
For some reason, the other day I began to think about the word applause and its physical meaning, and then being it was early in the morning, the phrase "standing ovation" came right into my head.
We in the midwest part of the USA will celebrate any performance, however misguided, lame, or inept with a standing ovation, and it comes, as these things do, in three different forms.
There is the immediate standing ovation; this occurs when the performer appears to be near retirement or worse or is of such world significance that the audience wishes to convey its appreciation that (fill in the blank - examples include Madonna, McCartney, Streisand) deigned to take time from counting his/her wealth in some distant world capital to come visit us and charge us only $400 a seat for a 90 minute set of what are often "golden oldies."
There are two subsets of this model - both have to do with time. Our normal standing ovation is a couple of minutes in order to coax the performer to play what s/he has already scheduled to play as an encore. As the clock approaches 10 pm, the ovation begins to diminish as people's minds turn to such things as a toilet, a drink, escaping the parking ramp, and getting home in time for the sports on tv.
The rarer standing ovation is the one which goes on and on, often involves the throwing of bouquets on the stage, and represents the highest accolade an audience can give a performer or performance.
As ballet dancers have been retiring from major dance companies lately, this kind of ovation has been experienced more frequently in recent weeks. It is honest, heartfelt, determined, generous, loving, and an immeasurable gift.
Then there is the reluctant "Aw, shucks" standing ovation, our equivalent of "Well, you did pretty good, didn't you?" In this model, not everyone stands, and those who do wait until well into the applause before they issue their verdict.
I have never stood often, but I can recollect performances by Hillary Hahn, The Globe Theatre of London, anytime Elisabeth Söderström graced us with her artistry, and the second performance of Hamlet at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis on May 8, 1963, but who's keeping track? Sometimes, in truth, I stand to stretch my legs and plan my escape from the venue.
Applause comes from the Latin meaning to strike upon or to clap, and ovation also comes from the Latin - supposedly, after a victory, a general would burn a sheep, and all would stand to witness.
You may draw your own conclusions about all this. What I know is that too many audiences these days don't have a clue as to what an extraordinary performance is, and by standing all the time, they reinforce the ordinary.
They don't know, but I'll wager the performer does, cf sheep, op.cit.)
We in the midwest part of the USA will celebrate any performance, however misguided, lame, or inept with a standing ovation, and it comes, as these things do, in three different forms.
There is the immediate standing ovation; this occurs when the performer appears to be near retirement or worse or is of such world significance that the audience wishes to convey its appreciation that (fill in the blank - examples include Madonna, McCartney, Streisand) deigned to take time from counting his/her wealth in some distant world capital to come visit us and charge us only $400 a seat for a 90 minute set of what are often "golden oldies."
There are two subsets of this model - both have to do with time. Our normal standing ovation is a couple of minutes in order to coax the performer to play what s/he has already scheduled to play as an encore. As the clock approaches 10 pm, the ovation begins to diminish as people's minds turn to such things as a toilet, a drink, escaping the parking ramp, and getting home in time for the sports on tv.
The rarer standing ovation is the one which goes on and on, often involves the throwing of bouquets on the stage, and represents the highest accolade an audience can give a performer or performance.
As ballet dancers have been retiring from major dance companies lately, this kind of ovation has been experienced more frequently in recent weeks. It is honest, heartfelt, determined, generous, loving, and an immeasurable gift.
Then there is the reluctant "Aw, shucks" standing ovation, our equivalent of "Well, you did pretty good, didn't you?" In this model, not everyone stands, and those who do wait until well into the applause before they issue their verdict.
I have never stood often, but I can recollect performances by Hillary Hahn, The Globe Theatre of London, anytime Elisabeth Söderström graced us with her artistry, and the second performance of Hamlet at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis on May 8, 1963, but who's keeping track? Sometimes, in truth, I stand to stretch my legs and plan my escape from the venue.
Applause comes from the Latin meaning to strike upon or to clap, and ovation also comes from the Latin - supposedly, after a victory, a general would burn a sheep, and all would stand to witness.
You may draw your own conclusions about all this. What I know is that too many audiences these days don't have a clue as to what an extraordinary performance is, and by standing all the time, they reinforce the ordinary.
They don't know, but I'll wager the performer does, cf sheep, op.cit.)
Monday, July 9, 2007
A Walk At Dawn
Islay the Scotty and I were out for our very early morning constitutional, partly because we wake up early and partly because I wanted us to get done before the heat of the day arrived in full blast. She and I have this agreement - I get to ride my geezer trike slowly, and she gets to trot next to it. In addition, she has the right to pause pretty much whenever she wishes, and I have the right to admire the light, the wildlife, and so on whenever I wish.
This very morning we headed out the driveway and down the bikeway next to the lake - about 6:10 am, I guess. A few hundred yards from home I saw a woman walking briskly towards me with that dreaded arm position of the cell phone affixed to the ear.
As she came nearer, I heard the voice chattering away and at quite a volume, I thought. She went on by without a nod, and the voice receded in the distance.
Islay and I achieved our usual goal and turned around to head for home. Not long after starting, I recognized our cell phonatic returning to her starting point, and yes, the hand was clutching the cellphone next to the same ear, and the chatter continued as loudly as before.
En route, Islay and I had paused to observe the egret standing along the shoreline, mother goose and her goslings working their way along the northern shore, and several gatherings of ducks moving around a bit further out. It was blissfully cool with the sun just about to come over the treeline, and one could hear various species of birds chattering away throughout the trip.
I doubt that our walking caller took in much of it, and if she did, it was certainly at a remove from any direct experience of mother nature and her wonders.
There is a time not to multitask, and walking along the shore of the lake on a gorgeous summer morning should be one of those times.
Harumph!
This very morning we headed out the driveway and down the bikeway next to the lake - about 6:10 am, I guess. A few hundred yards from home I saw a woman walking briskly towards me with that dreaded arm position of the cell phone affixed to the ear.
As she came nearer, I heard the voice chattering away and at quite a volume, I thought. She went on by without a nod, and the voice receded in the distance.
Islay and I achieved our usual goal and turned around to head for home. Not long after starting, I recognized our cell phonatic returning to her starting point, and yes, the hand was clutching the cellphone next to the same ear, and the chatter continued as loudly as before.
En route, Islay and I had paused to observe the egret standing along the shoreline, mother goose and her goslings working their way along the northern shore, and several gatherings of ducks moving around a bit further out. It was blissfully cool with the sun just about to come over the treeline, and one could hear various species of birds chattering away throughout the trip.
I doubt that our walking caller took in much of it, and if she did, it was certainly at a remove from any direct experience of mother nature and her wonders.
There is a time not to multitask, and walking along the shore of the lake on a gorgeous summer morning should be one of those times.
Harumph!
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Driving Is Not For Monotaskers
Every day when Islay and I go for her walk, I note with fascination and a certain amount of real dread all the drivers who pass us by, generally well above the speed limit and nearly every one on a cell phone.
It is probably true that talking on one's cellphone is no worse than having three young children, a chatty passenger, or a balky GPS unit in your vehicle. It is probably also true that most of the conversations on the cellphone in the car are not about world peace, the imminent collapse of a building, or some politician's brilliant comment on what really is wrong with (fill in the blank).
Multitasking in general is a way for you to persuade yourself (and perhaps others) that your frenetic behavior indicates that you are doing something significant or memorable - unless you are a female, in which case you were born to multi-task, you do it well, and to keep the spinning plates in your life on top of their poles, you have no choice but to multi-task, and don't please get me started on the multi-tasking charade which men perform, almost always unpersuasively.
Last year I observed a Dutch mother manage three males, one three, one five, and her husband in early middle age, in the Reykjavik airport. It was a performance of such subtlety and grace and accomplishment that I damn near applauded. There isn't a man on this earth who could have managed to do what she did, and women do this every day and generally without an ovation. Men remember to put their dirty clothes in the hamper and expect the Hallelujah Chorus by way of both notice and gratitude. Sorry for the meandering, so let me get to the point:
When you are pushing several thousand pounds of metal, plastic, and human tissue around above about fifteen miles an hour, you are a damn fool if you are multi-tasking - and quite possible a dead one, if not today then down the road, both lit and fig.
Yes, I've read my mail while I drove, and I've tried to find somebody's phone number or address from some electronic device, and I've been passed by people with a newspaper on their steering wheel, mascara enroute to an eyelash, or at a recently picked up meal.
Recently, I had a problem with one of my eyes - the vision declined rather quickly in one eye, and that led to some recent retinal surgery. Somewhere in that stretch I decided that if I got behind the wheel, I had to be a committed monotasker. I'm still not perfect, but then when a woman driving a large SUV backed into my relatively new car in a parking lot and told me she had three girls in the car, I decided to be understanding.
It did occur to me to talk to her about monotasking, but I thought better of it. She had come into the pet food store to search out her victim, and she promised to call her insurance agent, and I thought there was no point in discouraging her any more than she already was.
The damage, which appeared modest, will cost something over a thousand dollars to repair. Needless to say, I have repeated my monotasking vows to avoid finding myself in the same situation she did.
For us men, some days monotasking is all of which we are capable, barely.
It is probably true that talking on one's cellphone is no worse than having three young children, a chatty passenger, or a balky GPS unit in your vehicle. It is probably also true that most of the conversations on the cellphone in the car are not about world peace, the imminent collapse of a building, or some politician's brilliant comment on what really is wrong with (fill in the blank).
Multitasking in general is a way for you to persuade yourself (and perhaps others) that your frenetic behavior indicates that you are doing something significant or memorable - unless you are a female, in which case you were born to multi-task, you do it well, and to keep the spinning plates in your life on top of their poles, you have no choice but to multi-task, and don't please get me started on the multi-tasking charade which men perform, almost always unpersuasively.
Last year I observed a Dutch mother manage three males, one three, one five, and her husband in early middle age, in the Reykjavik airport. It was a performance of such subtlety and grace and accomplishment that I damn near applauded. There isn't a man on this earth who could have managed to do what she did, and women do this every day and generally without an ovation. Men remember to put their dirty clothes in the hamper and expect the Hallelujah Chorus by way of both notice and gratitude. Sorry for the meandering, so let me get to the point:
When you are pushing several thousand pounds of metal, plastic, and human tissue around above about fifteen miles an hour, you are a damn fool if you are multi-tasking - and quite possible a dead one, if not today then down the road, both lit and fig.
Yes, I've read my mail while I drove, and I've tried to find somebody's phone number or address from some electronic device, and I've been passed by people with a newspaper on their steering wheel, mascara enroute to an eyelash, or at a recently picked up meal.
Recently, I had a problem with one of my eyes - the vision declined rather quickly in one eye, and that led to some recent retinal surgery. Somewhere in that stretch I decided that if I got behind the wheel, I had to be a committed monotasker. I'm still not perfect, but then when a woman driving a large SUV backed into my relatively new car in a parking lot and told me she had three girls in the car, I decided to be understanding.
It did occur to me to talk to her about monotasking, but I thought better of it. She had come into the pet food store to search out her victim, and she promised to call her insurance agent, and I thought there was no point in discouraging her any more than she already was.
The damage, which appeared modest, will cost something over a thousand dollars to repair. Needless to say, I have repeated my monotasking vows to avoid finding myself in the same situation she did.
For us men, some days monotasking is all of which we are capable, barely.
Islay The Scotty
A while back I adopted a Scotty from the local humane society - she is probably the last in a long line of them in my life and has been the most intriguing one of all, probably because she does everything a little better or faster or higher than all the others I've known. I named her Islay (eye-lah) after my most favorite island in Scotland's Inner Hebrides.
A couple of weeks ago, she became seriously ill with blood showing up at both ends, a bad case of listlessness and no interest in food at all. Off to the vet we tore, and after a lot of expensive tests, she got antibiotics, a potion to put good bacteria back in her gut, and some anti-nausea stuff. Accompanying her home was a supply of canned dog of the most bland variety.
My response to all this? I stayed home from work for three days to keep watch over her. I don't recall ever doing that for any other dog, but just before I took her to the doc, I saw "the look" in her eye, and that changed everything.
You know about "the look" from a partner, companion or spouse...something along the lines of "If I had a blunt instrument, I would...." "The look" from a dog translates to, "I'm in real trouble here, and I hope you're a bright enough person to figure that out."
Islay lay around for two days, and on the third day she became more alert, tasted her bland chicken-rice food, and pricked up her ears. By the fourth day, she was bouncing around and hung at 90% for a few days, and then after about a week, she was back at full speed.
I found some tastier bland dog food, and when she sees it going into her dish, she leaps off the floor again and again in anticipation - she's never done that before, and when I put the dish down, I have to get my hand out of the way before she chomps down on it.
So at last the crisis, probably colitis, slipped away for good, and I feel very lucky. When I hear the nails clicking across the bare floor or Herself tearing into her food with happy crunching sounds, these are reasons enough to keep getting out of bed in the morning.
Yes, I do have others - reasons that is, but not many that bring as much pleasure as those.
A couple of weeks ago, she became seriously ill with blood showing up at both ends, a bad case of listlessness and no interest in food at all. Off to the vet we tore, and after a lot of expensive tests, she got antibiotics, a potion to put good bacteria back in her gut, and some anti-nausea stuff. Accompanying her home was a supply of canned dog of the most bland variety.
My response to all this? I stayed home from work for three days to keep watch over her. I don't recall ever doing that for any other dog, but just before I took her to the doc, I saw "the look" in her eye, and that changed everything.
You know about "the look" from a partner, companion or spouse...something along the lines of "If I had a blunt instrument, I would...." "The look" from a dog translates to, "I'm in real trouble here, and I hope you're a bright enough person to figure that out."
Islay lay around for two days, and on the third day she became more alert, tasted her bland chicken-rice food, and pricked up her ears. By the fourth day, she was bouncing around and hung at 90% for a few days, and then after about a week, she was back at full speed.
I found some tastier bland dog food, and when she sees it going into her dish, she leaps off the floor again and again in anticipation - she's never done that before, and when I put the dish down, I have to get my hand out of the way before she chomps down on it.
So at last the crisis, probably colitis, slipped away for good, and I feel very lucky. When I hear the nails clicking across the bare floor or Herself tearing into her food with happy crunching sounds, these are reasons enough to keep getting out of bed in the morning.
Yes, I do have others - reasons that is, but not many that bring as much pleasure as those.
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