Hello. I'm Listening.

Personal space in public places is a shrinking commodity. 

I understand that the very nature of public spaces makes it difficult to build the case for privacy. And sometimes, while our private bubble seems punctured in the great public arena, we find out more about ourselves as we deal with the world around us. These were my thoughts while taking the train into Philly on Friday night.

As I quickly found my seat on the fairly empty car, I revelled in the one hour I would have to read alone.  The revelling ended by the next stop.  Interpreting the unwritten rules of cell phone etiquette on public transportation is tricky, but I daresay they are stretched unevenly.  I shared a three seat bench with another female passenger, who conducted several phone conversations in full voice.  This could have tainted my one hour of "me" time.  Interestingly, it didn't. The woman spoke an Asian language. (I apologize because I really had no idea which language I was hearing and I immediately wondered about how I could have figured out if she was speaking Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc.)  I did learn some things throughout her multiple, and quite animated conversations.  

First, hearing a language that gives me no cues as to what is being discussed provided unquestioned privacy for the speaker. I kept thinking if she spoke Spanish or French I would have been more distracted because I would have been unwittingly listening for familiar words or parts of words.  (I don't speak either language but studied them years ago.) Hearing a decidedly foreign language created something like white noise for me because the words/phrases/sentences could not distract my reading.  Only when the woman said "Trader Joe's" and "Facebook" did my ears prick up.  Second, hearing a foreign language spoken in rapid-fire progression is brain crushingly incredible.  I could not understand an iota of what was being said, yet the speed at which it was being uttered drew me closer.  What an attractive/repulsive force!

The gentleman two rows behind me conducted his phone conversation in English as he gave every possible location marker he could muster, minus the longitude and latitude, for giving the train's movable whereabouts to whomever he called.  I'd like to invoke the royal "we"  when I say, "we were not amused." His seat partner did ask him to tone it down and, thankfully, he did.  

As I sat in a tire repair station awaiting what turned out to be a lousy diagnosis for my car tire(s) on Saturday, a fellow customer, whose burly, verbose comportment dominated the small space, made multiple lengthy phone calls regarding his situation.  It was 9 AM. His car repairs were leaving him stranded there until noon.  I empathized with his bad news as I tried to read.  He then used his cell phone endlessly to conduct what seemed to be a maintenance business that he managed.  Just as my empathy was melting into irritability, the man ended his final phone conversation by sending a quick kiss into the mouthpiece.  Apparently the "boss" he referenced an interminable number of times over many calls was his wife. He then looked across at our wee community of problem automobile owners and sighed, "My wife; she's the greatest."

Yes, to paraphrase Renee Zellwegar, he had me "the greatest."

Here is what I unearthed from these unwelcome cell phone encounters: 
-I can never have too much patience;
-chances are good that I have committed most cell phone transgressions in public;
-burly guys can have soft dispositions;
-being both a participant in and observer of life serves my blogging efforts.

I chuckled as I remembered watching Kelsey Grammer's psychiatrist character, Frasier, in the same titled TV sitcom, greet his radio show listeners with the endearing phrase, "Hello this is Dr. Frasier Crane and I'm listening."  Sometimes I think his character was only hearing instead of listening and wondered how much of each we do in a day.  

One thing is certain: when speaking on our cell phones in public, someone may be listening, but everyone hears.

Update: Author Ted Gup Discusses "A Secret Gift" at BMFI

Michael Smerconish (l.) interviews Ted Gup at BMFI

Serendipity is a delicious word since it is most often used to describe a delightful and unexpected moment or set of moments.  I enjoyed some serendipity last night.  Bryn Mawr Film Institute was the setting for Michael Smerconish's first installment of his 2011 Book Club and the guest author was Ted Gup.  On November 9, I posted a blog entry (One Good Deed) about the author and his book, "A Secret Gift." To be sitting in a theatre full of book enthusiasts hearing Smerconish interview the author was something just dripping with, well, serendipity. 

Smerconish bubbled with enthusiasm as he introduced the author. He conducted an interview that really allowed Gup to expand on the book and the very personal journey he made to uncover the generosity and fractured beginnings of his maternal grandfather, Sam Stone.

Gup tried to put into context the very real feeling of loss and misery in 1933 when the nation's unemployment rate was 25 percent and, in Canton, Ohio, it soared to 50 percent.  "It is hard to imagine living in an America where there was nothing in place to catch you," Gup remarked. Acknowledging the current difficult economic times, Gup offered a perspective about the psyche of Canton residents which mirrored that of Americans during the Great Depression.  "Entitlement was not in their language let alone in the Federal budget," Gup noted.  "People were raised to believe that resourcefulness and determination would see you through."  They came to discover these attributes were often sadly not enough.  "The quality of human dignity is what defined this generation," Gup stated.  To write letters in reply to an ad offering no-strings attached financial assistance showed the level of need and despair in Canton. 
   

Ted Gup, author of "A Secret Gift"

Being financially crippled by the Depression, Americans dug deep to find ways to support themselves and their families only to find the odds insurmountable.  Understanding hardship firsthand, Gup's grandfather, Sam Stone, anonymously offered the financial help. "Touching those letters and reading their contents, you see there is an inherent eloquence regardless of the writer's place in the world," noted Gup, who heads the Journalism School at Boston's Emerson College. "It is what defined this generation which came of age during the Depression."  Comparing the articulate quality of writing and thoughtful tenor of the letters to current efforts, Gup wryly commented, "you can see the death of grammar today." Gup added that every one of the 150 people who were helped responded with thank you notes shortly after receiving the money.  They often identified specifically how they used the funds with repeated requests to either pay back the gift or imploring the unknown giver to allow them to work in some fashion to compensate one so generous in a very dark time.

Gup spoke with eloquent ease, ever aware of the uncanny nature of how the events unfolded to bring him to this story of generosity.  Gup is a natural storyteller. Gaining further insight into his beloved grandfather's psyche became a poignant result from his research.  Asked why his Orthodox Jewish grandfather would refer to Christmas in his ad as the appropriate time for giving, Gup knowingly replied, "My grandfather was very ecumenical in his beliefs.  Sam was moved by the notion of justice and of giving with no strings attached. The highest form of giving is doing so and wanting nothing back."


In 2010, three Canton residents repeated Sam Stone's generous efforts, using his anonymous name, B. Virdot (an amalgam of his three daughters' names, Betty, Virginia and Dotsie). They pooled  $15,000 of their own money so 150 more families could each receive $100 to help allay today's weighty economic problems.  As news spread of their efforts the total pot of money increased to $52,000; this included a donation of $15,000 from a donor who was a child recipient of Stone's original 1933 gift. Gup acknowledged that generosity is nothing new to Americans and humbly understands Sam's story is but one of innumerous anonymous efforts that occur daily.  Giving voice to Sam's has been "one of the most moving and important things to occur in my life," Gup mused.

I also learned about Gup's life as an investigative reporter. He worked for The Washington Post and New York Times.  His controversial 1992 report on the existence of a large underground bunker created below West Virginia's posh Greenbrier Resort to house US Congress members in the event of nuclear fallout continues to make headlines.  Smerconish ended the evening peppering Gup with questions about the topic, which in no small way intrigues the ebullient talk show host. Here is the link to the Post article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/july/25/brier1.htm

There is nothing more illuminating than hearing an author share their journey, live, about the contents of their novel. It simultaneously humbled and delighted me to connect with Ted Gup.  There is a series of book club events planned in the next months at Bryn Mawr Film Institute (BMFI). http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/ Smerconish's web site lists the dates and scheduled authors with bios.  http://www.smerconish.com/book_club.php
The original letters of request and thank you notes that serve as the basis for "A Secret Gift" are being donated by Gup to a library in Canton Ohio.  Relatives of the letter writers and community members can have access to a painful, yet powerful period in their history, when one man's good deed stretched beyond even his wildest imaginings. 

Here is the link to my original post about "A Secret Gift:" http://asubjectforconsideration.blogspot.com/2010/11/all-for-one.html

The 3 Ps: Pen & Pencil to Paper

CBS Sunday Morning's top feature story today focused on penmanship.  I was delighted about the topic, entertained by the musings of youngsters learning to write in cursive, and a little melancholic about the waning of what I believe is a magnificently primitive art form used every day around the globe. Well, perhaps I am being a little too optimistic about the suggested frequency.  In a world where 294 billion emails and 5 billion text messages are sent daily, (yes you read that correctly - daily) is penmanship teetering on irrelevant?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nONgyP43Lo&hd=1

 Learning to write in cursive is one of those childhood thresholds that looms large.  Forming letters with rounded shapes that perfectly connect to make words is a milestone of early education.  According to the CBS report, penmanship legibility "peaks at about the fourth grade."  Yikes!  It seems as we increase our writing speed, we often do so at the sacrifice of letter clarity.  I learned to write using the Palmer method in parochial school.  Cursive writing was taught, practiced, graded as seriously as any other school subject.  I liked forming letters and having what was often called, "nice handwriting."  I think it is what led me to try calligraphy after graduating from college.

As I noted in my last post (1/14/11) about viewing letters and notes written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the decline in handwriting is nothing new, but it seems to be happening with little concern. Will children suffer critical thinking skills due to reduced time spent morphing letters into words?  "Probably not," noted Steve Graham, a literacy expert at Vanderbilt University, who was featured in the CBS report.  "You want to be able to make your text legible, and you want to be able to do it quickly, okay? It also can help you learn new words if you trace them or write them out. But if you're asking, 'Does it help you become a better thinker?' there's no evidence that that's the case."

 Naturally, there is disagreement with Mr. Graham's comments by those who assert that penmanship helps stimulate memory and language skills. Mr. Graham is not writing off penmanship altogether, however, he is clear that students are not less served by less time spent on penmanship. As long as there are schools and homes that do not have computers, and as long as paper and pencils are more portable than their larger electronic counterparts, the case for penmanship has staying power.

The question of clarity and quality of handwriting does rise, but not with the stringency I experienced in my grade school education. Handwriting does not have to be beautiful or ornate with multiple flourishes.  I believe it has to be personal and say something about whoever is forming the letters.  I feel connected to the writer when I see his or her handwriting; this results in my saving short notes I receive. It is this very attachment that makes me especially soft on the all too infrequent letter that arrives in the mailbox at the end of my driveway.  The correspondence is the tangible result of someone's hand touching a pen or pencil, which touched the paper, which wound up in my hands.  This physical form, along with its intangible sentiment, softens the sometimes too harsh world.

Listening to Frank Sinatra croon, "I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter," I wonder if that is going to be the only way we receive any handwritten correspondence in the all too near future.  Even the ultra smooth, uber cool Old Blue Eyes can't soften that uncanny possibility.

A "Write" of Passage

During an informational tour of Boston University taken by my family a couple of years ago, there was an inevitable stop at the school's library. It was here I first heard of one of the school's more famous alums.  I strayed from the tour to get a closer look at some glass top tables filled with journals, photos, handwritten and typed documents generated by this individual. 

I recall a feeling of peace as I viewed the scribbled notes, lengthy letters, and deliberate imprints made from a long ago manual typewriter. Handwritten documents immediately give off a personal quality that invites you in.  I often feel melancholy over the popular decline in handwritten notes and letters - there is something so identifying and creative about forming letters by one's own hand instead of typing them, as I do here. 

I have dabbled with calligraphy since I was in college.  A course instructor once noted that calligraphers have a love for handwritten alphabets and their work helps restore the art form.  That statement resonated so strongly with me.  I do care about letter formations and how they relate to one another.  It was liberating to hear someone express those thoughts out loud.  I love viewing the work of calligraphers - it is high art made from low forms.  Handwritten notes rank the same for me. They are exquisite because they directly link the author and thoughts in a one-of-a kind manner.  We show more of ourselves when we take pen in hand.

Wistfully viewing the personal papers in the BU library that day, I thought about the cultivated work of the author and momentarily felt connected to it.  The papers were written well before he became a household name. They supplied a sliver of perspective into his thoughts before his world renowned status would emerge.

The items belonged to Dr. Martin Luther King.

Dr. King received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1955 from Boston University. Years later, in 1964 between the time when he was nominated and awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, he contacted BU to donate his papers to the university as a way of protecting and preserving the work done up to that point.  The tumultuous times that surrounded his notoriety foretold the possibility that the papers would not be safe in Dr. King's  care. He had seen enough of the world and how his work resonated with supporters and detractors to know he was a lightening rod for both.

The following You Tube video made by BU briefly provides insight into how catalog of work made it to the school and how the the university makes it available to the public.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yfzvVNajTM

A few months after our initial visit, we returned for a second look at BU.  Coincidentally it was the day the university had a planned celebration to mark the completion of the digitization of Dr. King's work, making access that much easier for those seeking firsthand knowledge of the civil rights leader's early writings.  His sister and only living sibling, Professor Christine King Farris, was honored by the university that day and spoke at the ceremony.  As noted by the university, "Professor Farris’ talk was a moving discussion on the importance of education in the development of her brother’s work and career and an inspirational call to uphold the ideals of social justice and public service. She also spoke on her very personal memories of the King family."

Asked how he wanted to be remembered, it is said Dr. King insisted that no mention of his awards or honors be made at any funeral service for him.  All too soon, in 1968, that request was honored.  Instead, Dr. King was memorialized as a man who helped "feed the hungry, clothe the naked, be right on the [Vietnam] war question, and love and serve humanity".

I was deeply touched to see some of Dr. King's handwritten work.  Even after all that I had read and seen regarding his extraordinarily full, yet brief, thirty-nine year stay in this world, nothing was as powerful as looking at his penmanship and expressions first hand.  He was not perfect.  He just wanted to serve.

Epic Word Choice

Epic.

That is the 2010 People’s Choice word as reported in The Hot Word blog on the dictionary website,  www.dictionary.com  I did not vote for this word – well, truth be told, I did not vote at all. I was a little disappointed with the victorious choice. Hearing or reading about someone having an epic adventure or seeing an epic concert rings with a teenage or twenty-something feel in its current use - sort of a Wayne’s World word. I find I rarely use ‘epic’ which may speak more to the lack of “epic-ness” in my life. 

I am good with it.

I favor synonyms such as colossal, monumental, huge.  Scanning Dictionary.com’s thesaurus I found ginormous to be a synonym for epic.  Who knew that was a real word! It sounds so contrived. And, once again, it seems like a generational adjective – something someone under twenty would say.

Ironically, epic poems are those written in ancient times.  Homer's poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey were written somewhere in the 8th or 9th century BC; Dante's The Divine Comedy, was written in the 1300s.  Epic indeed.

There seems to be little middle ground with epic. 

This got me thinking about words that are used in the extreme, which led me to the announcement that an altered version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is soon to be released.  The author, Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, at Montgomery, Ala., has replaced the word nigger with slave in Twain's novel.

I first find it ironic that just around the time the first volume of Twain’s autobiography is released, (100 years after the author’s death – talk about a farsighted marketing strategy!) another author opts to significantly change Twain’s word choice.  Professor Gribben is not the first, but he is the latest author to tamper with Twain.  There is no middle ground with the word nigger. In a way, it is epic.

In her Salon.com article, “Huckleberry Finn loses the N-Word,” author Mary Elizabeth Williams cites that Twain uses nigger 219 times in his novel.  She writes, “Mark Twain's novel has for years endured an uneasy relationship with the reading lists and libraries of children. Is it a classic work of young adult literature, or a racist tract? Should it be removed from school curricula, pulled from the shelves of libraries? It's one of the most banned books in print.  It's also one of the most beautiful.” http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2011/01/04/huckleberry_finn_cleaned_up

In a recent interview with Publisher's Weekly, Professor Gribben’s apparent intention is “not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind."  From his office at Auburn University, where he's spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department, Professor Gribben notes that, "Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/45645-upcoming-newsouth-huck-finn-eliminates-the-n-word.html

Co-founder Suzanne LaRosa of New South Publishing Company, the publishing house printing this newest version of the text, interestingly notes in the same article that, “he's (Gribben) so compassionate, and so believes in the value of teaching Twain, that he's committed to this major departure. I almost don't want to acknowledge this, but it feels like he's saving the books. His willingness to take this chance—I was very touched."

I am not African American.  Hearing the word nigger is offensive to me nonetheless.  I grew up in a home where it was not part of the vocabulary.  However, I did have relatives who bandied the word about easily.  It was odd to feel the all-encompassing warmth of a dear uncle who also could thoughtlessly and regularly use the word nigger.  It was such a mixed message.  We are complicated beings.

I disagree with Professor Gribben’s choice to update and remove the raw language in Twain’s work.  I don’t appreciate someone playing the self-appointed role of protective parent when it comes to literature.  Why do we run from the complicated, uncomfortable conversation?  Reading the work as intended, and providing age appropriate conversation about racism, slavery, and other issues that arise creates an environment where thoughts are valued and protected – not only words.  I applaud the teacher who takes on this challenge because there is nothing easy about it.  And that is okay.  Discomfort in learning is good.  How else can we possibly nurture critical thinking?

Students learn to discern and come to their own conclusions by hearing discourse all around a subject.  Socrates based his method of discourse and questioning in airing out opinions on a subject and using the conversation as a tool. 

Making pabulum out of literature because it does not seem “current” is dangerous. Altering authorship is wrong.   

In 1907, three years before his death, Mark Twain was no stranger to the uproar his books caused.  Book banning was nothing new in his time.  He chuckled at the uneven ethics taking place when a library would ban his work and keep others.  I think his sharp wit and refusal to take life seriously make the following quote sing.

"But the truth is, that when a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me."

Letter to Mrs. F.G. Whitmore, February 7, 1907

Wishful Thinking

 Years ago, my twenty-something niece, Catie, introduced a little wishing game to us when she would stay at our house, usually to  babysit my kids.  When the clock displayed time by repeating the same numbers, it was time to make a wish.  So at 3:33, it was wish time, as it was at 10:10 or 5:55. Bemused by the simple magic of the idea, we made our wishes.  This little game stuck.  So, at the turn of the new year, when my daughter noticed that the time was 1:11 on 01/01/11, I texted Catie to alert her. She replied, in kind, saying she and her friends just made some powerful wishes on this notable, momentary event.  I smiled at the sweet simplicity of it all. (I also marveled at how perfectly a text can connect me to loved ones.)

It made me consider wishing and the tricks we may choose to employ as vehicles that contain our intentions, sending them out to the universe - what do we hope for? dream for? wish for? and why?  So many toasts over the holidays held hopes and desires at the end of a raised glass.  Christmas cards and holiday greetings filled our home with all sorts of wishes- a merry, happy, peaceful, blessed, holy, safe, healthy, joyful holiday.  I love the change in how we greet one another in December - we go from Good Morning or Good Evening to Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah - we are transformed into veritable wishing machines. All of those aspirations shower the molecules that bounce and collide invisibly around us and make me think anything is possible.

Do we really feel the power of making wishes, whether we blast them out into the universe or keep them protected in our psyche? I think wishes and prayers are twins separated at birth.  They contain the same bones and wiring, yet travel different paths by their users. I try not to get mired in wishing for actual things - like being one of the lottery winners in the recent $355 million lottery jackpot. (Of course, actually buying a ticket would have helped nudge that potential wish along.) How many of us staring into a birthday cake of candles have really taken that moment to make a wish worthy of the day we arrived on the planet?  I become so overwhelmed by hearing the voices of loved ones singing the familiar birthday song for little old me that the wishing part gets jammed up in my mind.  The singing chokes me up every time.     

When we wish, are we practical or does wishing by its very nature impel us to go toward the fantastical, beyond our every expectation?  Are we trying to push away some, what I like to call, 'bad ju ju' that may be weighing too heavily in our lives?  Do we ask for the tools to make the negative go positive or do we bottom line it, and say, "make this happen?"  And how do we react when our wishes don't come true? What is it in us that gives us what it takes to survive life's unfortunate events?

A recent article in the New York Times Health section reports on a few studies done recently regarding the role that any number of adversities may play in our resiliency. 

Titled "On Road to Recovery, Past Adversity Provides a Map," there was a surprising 

outcome in one of the cited studies. Of the 2,000 people studied between the ages of 18 and 101, 194 people answered "none of the above" to questions regarding upsetting life events that happened to them before and during the study. Of the 37 choices offered, which included but were not limited to, divorce, death of a loved one, a serious illness, 194 people answered they had not experienced any of the events.

Nothing.  Nada. Zippo.

Now this got my attention. The article notes, "We wondered: Who are these people who have managed to go through life with nothing bad happening to them?” Dr. Cohen Silver, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, said.  “Are they hyper-conscientious? Socially isolated? Just young? Or otherwise unique?”  It turns out the answer to these inquiries is no. These individuals had a sense of well being that "was about the same, on average, as people who had suffered up to a dozen memorable blows."

Interestingly, it was the individuals who were somewhere in the middle of having had anywhere from six to twelve negative life events who were the most resilient. The article notes, "In short, the findings suggest that mental toughness is something like the physical strength: It cannot develop without exercise, and it breaks down when overworked."  People with twelve or more of these events struggled the most with their ability to cope and had the ragged emotional edges to prove it. 

While the degree of suffering will vary from person to person, and event to event, the studies suggest that recalling the tools used to weather difficulties creates a coping memory that can serve us time and again. If we decide to see what we learned about ourselves and how we built some emotional muscle, the next difficulty along life's road may be more manageable.   

Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist, psychologist and author, who suffered the devastating mind and body cruelty of the Holocaust wrote in his book, "Man's Search for Meaning," that "everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."   Frankl noted that we are not just human beings, "we are deciding beings."

Making our wishes come true is within our grasp when we decide how we are going to choose our way. We decide our thoughts and our feelings.  This is more than wishful thinking and loads more powerful.  Here is to a thought-filled 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/health/04mind.html?src=me&ref=general