You Know You Are Getting Old When ...

Okay. I'm now reduced to this; blatant stealing.

My friend Nicki posed the question on her blog - "You know you are getting old when ..." She commented on the new refrigerator that was installed in her apartment. It didn't have an ice maker. http://nickilovesdrama.blogspot.com/

I thought about that question. I thought about that refrigerator. (No, I am not seriously in need of a life ... at least not seriously. Not TOO seriously.) In case you don't know this fact about me, I'll tell you. At the moment I am deeply engrossed in writing a play. In short, there are people who think this play is completed. I have no idea why they think that. Well, maybe I might have a suspicion. In any case, I'm working away at this thing, and take a few minutes to breeze thru the blogs I enjoy. And there is Nicki's question - a distraction. So here's my secret. when I'm under self-induced pressure, I am drawn to distraction. The more pressure, the more I cling to distraction. It's like moss growing on the north side of a tree. (Does moss really grow on the north side of a tree? How does it know which way is north? I learned this bit of trivia from a John Wayne movie, so it must be true. John Wayne has never lied to me. Actually, I think it was William Holden who said it, but he was standing beside John Wayne at the time, and if it wasn't true, John Wayne would have corrected William Holden. I don't recall anybody ever correcting John Wayne.)

Where was I?

Oh. Yes.

Anyway, I was drawn to Nicki's question. I can easily remember a time before refrigerators HAD ice makers. Does that mean I know I'm getting older? (Don't tell anybody. When I was really young - I mean minus two or something like that - I can remember a friend of my parents who had a refrigerator that had no electricity. It was a big wooden box with ice in the bottom drawer. But that was in Chicago in the summer. In the winter they didn't even need the wooden box. They just put their milk and hot dogs out on the window sill, and whatever was out there stayed cold just fine. But that was Chicago - very progressive.)

In the meantime, I thought the question was a good one, and - being a writer, I'd love your response. How do you know when you are getting older? (And I'll make it easy on you - you don't have to talk about refrigerators, or even Chicago, if you don't want to. Personally, I think Chicago is a pretty interesting place, and I think there's plenty to write about, but not much of it makes me feel older. S0 maybe you shouldn't write about Chicago.)

On the other hand, I'm not at all suggesting that you CAN'T write about Chicago if you want to. I mean, if Chicago makes you feel old, I'd love to hear about it.

So. Ya got it? "You know you are getting old when ...

(And to make it even easier, the kind blogger people have provided a comment box for you. I'm not kidding. It's about three inches down from where you are reading at this very minute. If you don't believe me, go ahead and scroll down and see, and then come back. That's okay. I'll wait.

Do be do be dooooo ...

See? It's there - waiting for you. Ya ready? "You know you are getting old when ...'

Fun.

JB


And how was your day?

The Case For Leni Riefenstahl, PART TWO

A postscript of sorts ...

In regard to Leni Riefenstahl, in my mind it comes down to "what did she know, and when did she know it?" It seems pretty obvious the bulk of her important work was completed long before the Nazi atrocities were widely known. It seems to me that she was taking advantage of being in a position very few 34-year-old women could even dream about.

Hitler had brought Germany out of a monumental depression, gave work to people by building a roadway system that became the envy of Europe. He ordered the creation of the Volkswagen (laid the cornerstone at the factory), restored the military, the economy, and national pride. On the other hand - at the time - a small percentage of the population (the Jews) were beginning to be profiled as being responsible for most of the problems in the country.

Is this too high of a price to pay for national peace of mind?

We know what came next.

(1) The invasion of countries that were perceived as a threat to natural security.
(2) The imprisonment of people with no real charges or trial
(3) Allowing and/or encouraging the suspicion of people, based solely on religious differences.
(4) Torture
(5) Taking away of citizen rights and privacy.
(6) A government where the leadership was not held accountable for actions.

Should we judge Leni for not reacting when she saw these things happen?

Yes! Absolutely!

So ... Should we judge any less harshly the people in any country where these things occur?

JB


And how was your day?

The Case For Leni Riefenstahl

In my opinion, Leni Riefenstahl was one of the great film directors of the 20th century. Her images are powerful, with often a dream-like quality. Her choreography is always exactingly precise, moving literally thousands of people with seeming ease.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6-0Cz73wwQ

Later in life she switched to still photography, captivated by tribes of people in the heartland of Africa.

Even later, at the age nearing 100, she was still active as a photographer, now under water.

Still, I’m hesitant to admit knowledge of the woman, much less admiration. What you may not know, and I’ve been hesitant to mention until now, is that for the greater part of her career, she worked for the greatest monster of the 20th century, and she is known almost exclusively for glorifying Adolph Hitler and the 3rd Reich.

Here, then, is my question. Is it possible to be drawn to powerful images, and at the same time repelled by the subject matter? I have this feeling of guilty pleasure, and I don’t like it very much

What are your thoughts?

JB

THE TEAPOT COLLECTOR

So. I make all these noises about being a playwright. But it's been a couple of years since one of my works has been produced. Am I now writing for my own amusement?

That ain't it, kid.

So. Last year my buddy Julie and I entered a play in the WRITER'S DIGEST PLAY COMPETITION, and it did well.

So. This year I entered my latest work in the same competition. I mean, that's doing something.

Right? Right.

So. A minor complication. The play has been entered, but so far only 25 pages of it have actually been written. I mean, if it wins something, what are the chances that somebody might actually want to read part of it?

So. For the past few days I've been writing like the panicked idiot that I am. Here's a bit of dialogue nobody else has seen yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Madeline, age 55, is talking on an antique cell phone.)

MADELINE: Betty? Madeline. Would you do me a favor? Look out your window and tell me if Bill is home yet. (SHE pauses.) Good.Yes. I'm still here. His Highness hasn't come out of the bathroom in three hours. I mean, nobody is that full of ... on the other hand, I could be wrong about that. (SHE pauses.) I don't know. A couple of hours, most likely. I want to make sure he's taking his pills. Not that it would be such a big loss, if you know what I mean. (SHE looks around.) God, look at the dust. I'm in the tea room. The TEA room. The GARAGE!

(SHE runs a finger over the top of a dusty teapot. At that moment OWEN, age 72, enters.)

OWEN: If you break that, you pay for it.

MADELINE: Why don't you clean these once in awhile?

OWEN: Go home. Clean your own teapots.

MADELINE: Teapot. Singular. More than one is an excess.

OWEN: Too bad you don't feel that way about husbands.

MADELINE: I beg your pardon?

OWEN: As well you should.

MADELINE: I'm sure I don't know why I come over here.

OWEN: You're masochistic.

MADELINE: I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.

OWEN: And it's no fun at all if I have to explain it.

(MADELINE speaks into the cell phone.)

MADELINE: Betty? I'll call you back. (SHE ends the call, hands the phone to OWEN.) You really should get a new one of these.

OWEN: Why?

MADELINE: It's old.

OWEN: So am I. There. I've fed you a straight line for once. Make the most of it.

MADELINE: Of what?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Comment?

JB

And how was your day?

TURN TURN TURN

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.


It's time to return to work; people to see, friends to love, an agent to apease. It's time to write words again - better words. Always better words. The desire to communicate ... in ... plays alone, plays with another, plays for others. Contests. Words. Acting and writing classes to teach. It's more than making a living. It is living.

It's time. Time time time. Turn turn turn.

JB


And how was your day?

My Funny Valentine

My Funny Valentine

My funny Valentine

Sweet comic Valentine

You make me smile with my heart

Your looks are laughable, unphotographable

Yet you're my favorite work of art

Is your figure less than Greek?

Is your mouth a little weak?

When you open it to speak, are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay little Valentine, stay

Each day is Valentine's Day

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

I'M BACK!

Details later ... It's gonna take me awhile to go thru the mountain of emails ...

JB

Looking Back. Looking Forth. Looking Around.

Another year is over.

Traditionally some people list events of the past year that left an impression on them. This list will usually take the form of a (painfully) handwritten page of information, and sent to people who already know most of it anyway.

Another year has begun. (At least it has begun where I live. If you are living somewhen else, please wait awhile before reading this.)

For the new year some people vow resolutions that are usually born in the passion of the moment and likely as quickly and easily ignored and/or forgotten.

Some people will go out of their way to bore you with both efforts. Normally I avoid these people if I can. This year I am one.

So I caught you unaware. Whoever said life was fair? I didn’t.

A couple of things happened to me in 2008 that I thought were interesting, and here they are (in no particular order):

For the first time in twenty years the man I voted for (to be president) actually won! But it’s my own business who that is.

My dog died. Every day I miss him.

My retirement fund lost $60, 000. I told my daughter I was going to move in with her. She moved to Atlanta. (Okay, so it was over a year ago. She was taking no chances.)

I have a friend who lives in Canada. (Although I have noticed she hasn’t invited me to lunch yet.)

In 2008 I acquired a literary agent. He lives in England, with offices in Portland Oregon. It occurs to me that he commutes a long way to work, but it’s really none of my business.

In 2008 I got a new sofa and a ceramic chair. I love both, but I only sit on the sofa.

In this past year, I became closer to people I truly care about. One is a gifted screenwriter, the other is a divorce lawyer. We have interesting conversations.

In 2008 I was given a digital camera. This is the greatest invention since sliced bread.

A man emailed me from somewhere in Europe. He designs and manufactures teapots, and sent me pictures of them. My life is now complete.


And so, in the year 2009, it is my great resolve to:

Wear shoes occasionally. I wear moccasins everywhere and in all seasons. And they really aren’t all that comfortable when you are stomping grapes.

Wear glasses when I am driving, reading, or when there’s something I might actually want to see.

Constantly remind my friends that I appreciate them. They care about me, and they don't even have to. (Warm fuzzies …)

Take life more seriously.

Take life less seriously.

Live life.

Write stuff. Write more stuff.

Write something that might actually make a difference to somebody about something.

… and that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it?


JB

And how was your year?

It's All Write, Baby

Time weighs heavily, sometimes
pressing down, at once a comforter warming
sometimes cloying. Fevered. Difficult to breathe.

Night is eternal, still, I see the end of it.
Over there.

Don't press it.

Words are unbidden. Don’t think right. No. Wright.

Cute. Semantics.

Still they tumble, those … They tumble out, jumbling together, defying, daring me to make sense of them. Run the shredder backwards, please.

With wonder and loss I gather them. The image of a hen gathering hatchlings comes to mind.

That’s funny. That’s funny. That’s funny. That is so funny. I know nothing of animal husbandry.

I remember a cherished thought primal. Rather I have a memory of the memory, and it feels pause worthy. A star exploding in a distant galaxy. I empty, reaching down and back. What does it mean?

Pointless. Even if I captured it. Again. Intact. It wouldn’t be the same. It exists for the first reverie only. Examination is demeaning. Put it away – deep in the closet. Among the many others. At some point – years ago from now, take it out, fuzzy.

Why did I keep this?

Ah, there’s that time thing again. A gift. Numbs the pain.

Tomorrow I’ll be better. You betcha. Not fine, exactly. Too many of these, uh, too many of these. But tomorrow all – this – will be put away. One more meaningless verbal twitch of synapses. In company.

Let it pass. Breathe deep. Watch the jaded repetition that is CNN until sweet oblivion is everything. A drunk reaching that point.

Tomorrow … and tomorrow … and tomorrow. Yes. Yes.

And then? Excuse me if I can’t find the words.

Oh, The Shark Has Pretty Teeth, Dear ...

Recognize this woman?
Yes? No?

I’ll give you a clue. She’s a famous actress – world famous, in fact. Here’s another clue. Her husband was also in show business, and he was more famous than she was, and their greatest successes were when they worked together.

Got it yet?

So it’s an old picture. (I believe it was taken in or around the year 1928.) A little before your time, maybe. Certainly a little before MY time.


Okay. Another clue. In 1958 Bobby Darrin sang about her. In Mack The Knife Darrin claims she was one of the “girl friends” of the title character.

“Jenny Diver, Sukey Tawdry,
Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown.
Oh, the line forms on the right, babe,
now that Macky’s back in town.”

She is Lotte Lenya, married to the composer of The Threepenny Opera, Kurt Weill. As famous as they both were, this is the only picture I could find of them together.

For someone I stumbled across by accident, Lotte Lenya has proven to be a truly fascinating individual. Not only did she cross back and forth easily between stage and screen, but she also was exactly the right age to go through the evolution to modern theatre. She starred in Threepenny Opera when it first opened in Germany in 1928. Later – much later – she had featured roles in such popular films as the James Bond thriller From Russia With Love, and three years later she won a tony award for her role in the Broadway musical Cabaret.

But this gifted artist caught my attention for another reason. She survived. She went through some of the worst that the world could throw at her. (She and her husband went through a severe depression in Germany, escaped that country with Adolf Hitler hot on their heels, and landed in New York City just in time to face another depression.) They encountered open hostility and suspicion because they were German and Jewish at a time when neither was popular in this country.

Even when her husband died in 1950, Lotte not only survived, she prospered. She just refused to quit.

I admire that quality. It has occurred to me that most of my true friends are that way. Artistic people, they went through a period of adversity and came out the other side – sadder, wiser, maybe the walking wounded. But they kept going, and the world has been the better for it.

Am I talking about you? You know I am. Go back to the top of this post, take another look at the picture – another look deep into the eyes of a survivor.

See yourself there?

The Day Is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Being with you this past year has been grand. Let's do it again in 2009.

Merry Christmas and may God bless you.

J

THIS WINTER

(No, I didn't write this - wish I had. But it spoke softly to me, and in volumes. So I thought - since your taste is so like mine - you might enjoy it as well.)

JB


I suppose, with the wind and rain outside, and more to come, we’ve cocooned with blankets, warm fires. I suppose, like the change of season, freezing cold, instead of sun, inward, instead of outward, the season of that endless war, killer hurricanes, loved ones lost, I’ll just turn the page, start over.

I’ve often wondered if I’m a winter writer, rather than summer. Throw on thick sweaters, coats, gloves and trek high up the mountain to my tower, to “bear” for winter. One small, frosty window to look out. “Countless tales,” I write in my journal shivering, “layers of rain, snow, and wind, to overcome.”

It is this imagination that binds. Pen in hand, fingers spread evenly on a keyboard. Wipe the frost, find the pulse. Tell them what ails, or inspires. Reveal the colors, be it agony, intense and miserably cold, or thoughts of romance, desires, engulfed or enflamed by simple candlelight. Set the temperature and tone, open the page, begin.

I suppose, from my mountain view, the lights below, mere weeks before Christmas, that I’ve got something significant to share. A vast landscape, glistening jewels of light, smoke billowing from thousands of chimneys. Don’t know, can’t tell yet. Maybe nothing.

I stroke my long beard, smoke my pipe, pull the flaps of my hat lower. We are, the words of every season, all of us, to our last breath, touching hearts and souls, scribbling blindly, breathlessly, designing, building, hunkering down.

But all is silent, save the wind, howling at my back.

Look, tell them of the pain of death, so recently endured, what my eyes have seen, tortured, beaten, abused. Tell them of flying high above the fray, a view so magnificent, it begs to say, to express, to share. Create an unforgettable character, that mighty hero of mind and heart that gives, saves, knows all. One who carries us to that tearful page of victory. Lie down here, another blanket to keep warm.

I suppose there is no greatness, not now, perhaps later, but we trudge through, press on. Every day, every season, different.

High above the howling storm, frost on my beard, eyes searching wanefully to heartfelt losses, human touch. Seasons that follow, lead, churn deeply. Imagination does not go cold. Or does it? Here, take this pen, write it. Eyes, alive and moving beyond the snow, conjuring winters across the ridge, snowflakes dreamily to the page.

We’re not gone, only adjusting, acclimating, different sights and sounds, binding. Takes time to see, peel the layers, undress. There is nothing to say, not yet, the world at our feet.

“Countless tales,” I write, “layers of snow and wind, to overcome.”

Charles Mariano

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost