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Facing Atticus and Ourselves

Say it isn’t so, Atticus. Isn’t that what we’re all thinking? For generations he has been the hero, the decent guy, the mensch we all hoped we would be in the circumstances. Didn’t hurt that we also picture him as Gregory Peck, standing tall and leaning down to explain to Scout about walking a mile in another person’s shoes.
I’ve been thinking–and talking with friends about–why the idea of Atticus’s feet of clay causes such distress. Even though the new book was written decades ago, I find it hard not to see it in current political terms: “To Kill a Mockingbird” was the magic of November 4, 2008, in Chicago’s Grant Park, that beautiful young family center stage, so much ugliness behind us, and that feeling that everything was possible. “Go Set a Watchman” is John Boehner’s declaration two days later that the Republicans’ top goal was to make Barack Obama “a one-term president.” It’s Citizens United and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. It’s the racism we’ve been seeing in the news over the past year and so much more, the scar on our country’s heart since the 17th century. 
This new Atticus wounds us because he was us at our best.  It is the gift of fiction to allow us the chance to have our own mental picture of the characters on the page. We’ve carried Atticus in our minds and hearts, taking in what we thought he was saying about human dignity. Children were named for him. People went to law school because of him. And now it turns out he was against racism before he was for it? He anti-evolved? Or we did. Just as Scout grows into Jean Louise and recognizes the messiness of real life, we have come to terms over and over with schoolbook heroes–Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt–whose lives and actions were significantly more complicated than elementary school let on. 
So now what? I haven’t read the book yet, of course, but I’ve been reading the articles about it, about Harper Lee, about Harper Lee’s editor. Big front page articles by thoughtful writers. I’ve read the first chapter, released ahead of the book’s debut. And I guess that what I’m thinking right now is that along with my great misgivings is also the great pleasure of seeing how a work of fiction can still spark heated discussion and soul-searching thought.  Whatever the fortunes of fictional characters, the power of books endures. 

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Reading the sound bites

Sometimes all you need are the quick quotes–the print version of the sound bite. Like today, when I’m looking at the online version of The New York Times.
Of course the overwhelming news is the shooting of nine people in a church in Charleston. Nine black people in one of the country’s oldest black churches. The shooter was white. If it weren’t so horrifying it would sound like a game of Clue. In a church with a gun. In a church with a gun??? 
We do not know the details yet. But we can guess. We can speculate about the role of hate-filled public rhetoric. We can guess that here are nine more victims of racial hatred. 
And nine more victims of guns available everywhere.  I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says, “motorcycles are everywhere.” I have no idea what that means or if it’s true. But what are truly everywhere are guns.  Why not in church where, let’s face it, you can easily envision the need, right?
It could have been in a movie theater or in a school, or some other place where those gun-toting sportsmen (and, sadly–let’s be fair–sportswomen) feel the need to be armed.  Don’t the pandering politicians talk about shooting for sport? Why not be ready? Never can tell when you might see a deer. On college campuses, in Starbucks (guns and caffeine–what could possibly go wrong?), carried in pockets and purses just in case. And if we couldn’t control gun ownership when a classroom full of first graders was mowed down, we know it’s never going to happen.
The Charleston gunman has apparently been found and arrested. In his Facebook photo shows he wears a jacket decorated with apartheid insignia. No surprise.
I saw this sound bite, the Times “quotation of the day.”  It’s from one Jeff Funicello, who is apparently selling his 1975 armored truck, which has bulletproof windows and sliding rifle portholes. Mr. Funicello’s quote is, “This is America. I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one.”
Not much of a surprise there either, unfortunately. Yes, let’s protect our right to firepower, our right to stand our ground and shoot from the hip. Let’s gut food stamps, reproductive choice, workers’ rights to organize, scientific research. Let’s keep our tax rates low, education and infrastructure be damned. But above all, don’t pry our guns out of our warm, live hands.
One other little sound bite caught my eye, this one the “On This Day” feature. It felt to me as if it might somehow be related to the news from Charleston:  on this day, June 18, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its International Declaration of Human Rights. That was in 1948. The United States has never endorsed it.

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Thinking about typewriters

This blog post comes with a sound track:  A few months ago Dr. D. and I went to see “Red Hot Patriot,” a play about Molly Ivins. It was presented at the Lyric Stage, with fine acting, our brand of politics, and lines that left us weeping with laughter. As a final pleasure, as we left the theater I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in years. But, in addition to all that, I found myself afterwards consumed by thoughts of one of the play’s props, a typewriter–manual, portable, powder blue, just like my old beloved Smith Corona. 
I know that belongs to a different age.  I am more than happy to do my work now on my nimble little MacBook. I like correcting mistakes with a keystroke instead of with whiteout or that little round eraser with the attached brush. I like printing out as many copies as I want instead of layering carbon and onionskin. I remember marveling at my first sight of line wrap–that miracle of coming to the end of a line and having the type move down to the next line without my involvement.  I would never want to give those up. And yet….
There was something satisfying about the little bell that announced the end of the line, the zip of the carriage return–a tiny accomplishment.  All those non-mysterious parts had names I knew–the platen, the ribbon guide, the slim type hammers each with its single mission. Well, two missions–upper and lower case. The typewriter was straightforward, never down. If there was a problem, I could fix it–change the ribbon, unjam the keys. The only thing that needed restarting was me. Even the electric wasn’t mysterious though if you weren’t quick you could end up with a long line of a letter you only wanted one offffffffffffff. 
Before the portable Smith Corona there was an Underwood in my  life, square and important looking. It was portable only in the sense that it was actually possible to lift it, though not without effort and sometimes inky marks on your arms. It was my gateway device, a clunky thing, but magical, turning my words into something that looked like what books were made of. Even to-do lists looked more to-doable typed. As for fonts, I debated for days over whether my new portable should have pica or elite. 
I sometimes think difference between using a typewriter and a computer is like the difference between stick shift and automatic transmission on a car. The quality of attention and engagement is different. I used to sit and figure out what words deserved the effort of being put on the page. I made notes, tried them out in writing first before I made the commitment of type. Now I watch my thoughts spilling onto the screen almost before they register.  Change my mind–zip it’s gone. 
I’m not going back, of course. Just reminiscing. I’m hearing the sound in my head.

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The Occasional Recipe: Chicken with Shallots and Cherry Tomatoes

I’m not taking credit for this recipe. Or any of my other “occasional recipes,” for that matter. They each originated elsewhere: I am not a creative cook, just a good follower and dumber-down of  recipes. So this one came from a recent New York Times Magazine. But I feel all right putting it out here because, as Sam Sifton notes in the article that includes it, the recipe originally came from a Martha Stewart magazine and went through several tweakings to become “Rishia Zimmern’s Chicken with Shallots.” And it went through a couple more when I made it, to become “Not Exactly Rishia Zimmern’s But Still Chicken with Shallots.” Or, since it includes cherry tomatoes, which, until I discovered the Kumato (oh, wow!) had been the only tomato I could bear to look at during the winter, maybe “Chicken with Shallots and Cherry Tomatoes.” 
So here, from Martha to Rishia to Sam to me to you!
Chicken with Shallots and Cherry Tomatoes
(serves 4-6)
8 chicken thighs
a little flour
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 Tsp. unsalted butter
8-12 small shallots, peeled but left whole
2 c. white wine
2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
2 sprigs fresh tarragon or 1/4 tsp. dried
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1–Rinse chicken thighs, pat dry, and sprinkle with flour, salt, and pepper.
2–Melt butter in large skillet or heavy pot. When the butter foams, cook chicken until well browned and crisp. You may need to do this in batches so the pieces aren’t too crowded to brown.  
3–Remove chicken pieces and set aside. Add shallots to pan until they begin to soften and caramelize, about 10-12 minutes. Deglaze the pan with wine and add mustard, tarragon, and the chicken. Cover the pot and simmer 30 minutes.
4–Remove lid and allow sauce to reduce 10 minutes. Add tomato halves and cook another 5-10 minutes.
5–Enjoy!

A salad and warm fresh bread works well. I made baked apples for dessert, as, hopefully a little good-bye to winter. 
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Meeting with fame

I did a reading at Newtonville Books last week and had the delightful experience of meeting a reader of this blog. Someone I’m not related to. Someone I didn’t even know. I always wonder if anyone reads it, aside from the near-and-dear group that e-mails me comments.  So having this person introduce herself was a gift. But then I was wondering what it would be like to have A Following–some unknown number of readers Out There.
And then I was wondering about fame, how people find it, whether it’s something to be sought.
And THEN I was thinking about my own reactions to people who are famous. You know those classic “what writer would you most want to meet” questions. My reaction was, “Yikes.”
I really don’t yearn to meet my literary heroes and heroines. No desert-island companions. No fantasy dinner parties either.  (I get a little ferklempt just picturing it–Shakespeare’s coming? Along with Jane Austen, maybe a few others? Forget the logistics–allergies? anyone vegan? You’d really want to sit there and try to make conversation while wondering why Vaclav hasn’t touched his salmon or noticing that Emily’s wine needs topping up? Or even follow the conversation they make among themselves. What was that Gerard just said–spring rhythm? sprung rhythm?) 
Maybe I’m thinking that writers are at their most comfortable on the page rather than in the flesh. Maybe I’m picturing how intimidated I would be in their presence, my admiration an awkward hedge between us.  The people who imagine these cosmic meet-ups may just be way more assertive than I am. But maybe, too, I’m wondering what it is I would want from the encounter, especially after their written words had already given me perhaps the best of their minds and hearts. 
I’ve read of writers who dropped notes of appreciation to those whose work they admired, and that seems fitting.  I’ve done it, too. I don’t need a closer brush with fame.To respond with the written word to one who lives in the written word, to say thank you for the pleasure of reading, that, to me, would be enough.
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“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” part 2

Hearing now about yet another shooting incident made me think about a scene in the book that I didn’t write about earlier. It takes place in the Dallas Cowboys locker room. The Bravo soldiers are being taken through, introduced to the players. Billy, through whose eyes we experience the book’s action, sees the players as so massive that they appear to be almost another species.  In fact, he thinks the war in Iraq could be won quickly and easily if only the NFL players were sent to fight there.
But what I was thinking about this afternoon was the moment when the players begin asking about the guns Bravo uses in Iraq. They want to know in detail about the guns and the injuries each type of weapon could cause. The Bravo guys, more familiar with this information than they want to be, are taken aback, don’t know what to make of this intense interest, and finally, just edge away.
Like so many moments in the book this rings true as piece of Americana. There are people in this country who don’t want to live around easily-available, easily used weapons and those who are think guns should be even more widely available.  The problem is that the two groups live intermingled.  
I’m sure that around dinner tables tonight are people who firmly believe that if only they had been at the Washington Naval Yard today with a gun, things would have gone differently. I am in the camp of those who believe that if only no one at the Washington Naval Yard had had a gun today, more people would be sitting around their dinner tables tonight. 
There’s an old theater adage that if there a gun appears in the first act, it will go off by the end of the play. 
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Good work!

We’re in the fix-up-the-house mode–painting, patio repair, garden plans, floor refinishing. And I’m in redo-the-website mode, making room for the new book, pruning the outdated reading dates, changing the pictures. And nothing is easy. Well, the painting was easy for us, since Steve, painter and cabinetmaker extraordinaire, does it all so meticulously. And although the web site is still not glitch-free, Adde is on the case.
And I’m thinking, with gratitude, about how what they’re doing is not only the task at hand but, in a very real sense, making my life better. Steve, Adde, Flor, Andy who delivers the mail with noticeable kindness and professionalism, Kathy whose garden expertise brings us great pleasure–everyone whose work creates something larger around them.  
The demonstrations of the fast-food workers for better pay is a reminder of how the benefits of work can’t be all in one direction.  And the Poetry Foundation has a group of wonderful poems up about work. Just now, at the moment between the anniversary of the March on Washington and Labor Day I am cognizant of the beauty of work, how, done well, each job adds to the world around us. 
Isn’t that what “a day’s work” mean? A chance to to notice the dignity of work well done. A chance to notice how the work of each of us can make someone else’s life better. A chance to notice. 
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The art instinct, part 2

A day or two after I wrote my last blog post about 40,000-year-old evidence of art as a basic human instinct, I read a wonderful article in the New York Times on pretty much the same subject. 
The reporter, Anand Giridharadas, saw a young woman sitting in the lobby of the Brooklyn Museum. It was a hot day, it was a cool lobby. The article described how 16-year-old Chanel Baldwin, sat out the doggiest days of summer in the cool air of the lobby, though venturing no further because of the “suggested $8” price of admission. But on the free side of that lobby was a painting, “Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps,” by Kehinde Wiley. And day after day Chanel looked at that painting, looked more deeply, perhaps, than most of the museum-goers inside who graze past one work after another. She noticed things about the painting, thought about it, formed an opinion. In short, she responded to the art.
And when Giridharadas pointed Chanel to the part of the admission sign that said “suggested” next to the $8, she went inside and looked some more.  
The article had several important points to make, about exclusion, perceived and real; about the cost of keeping art and the public separated from each other. Not to mention–in this week that marks the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s march on Washington–about white privilege and who feels entitled to what in the public arena. 
Yes, the big draw for Chanel might have been the air conditioning. But, from the description of her careful attention and response to the works in front of her, it sounds as if it was the art. 
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The art instinct

I recently bought a book I’m finding fascinating.  It’s called “Ice Age Art” and it was  written by Jill Cook as a companion to a British Museum exhibit I wish I could have seen.  It’s filled with photos and discussions of art works made as much as 40,000 years ago.  Not, for the most part, cave paintings, these works are primarily sculptures small enough to be carried in the hand. There are heads and figures of people, animals, and imagined creatures like lion-men. Their beauty, which could be at home in a 21st-century museum or gallery, astonishes. As does the sure knowledge that, behind them, was a mind capable of imagining. But what I find most amazing is how they clearly point to the existence of a basic human need for art.
The works have no utilitarian purpose. They can’t hold anything or cut anything; they’re useless for cooking or making fire. It’s been shown by recreating the work in similar material with similar tools that it might have taken as long as 400 hours to finish a small sculpture. Four hundred hours of painstaking work,  of time taken–and given–to the creation of an object whose only use was to be looked at. 
I am knocked out by the thought that people we can only think of as “primitive,” who lived lives that revolved around the most basic needs included art as one of their necessities. The need for art, the need to raise our eyes from the hunting and gathering, from our plates and our bellies, to see ourselves and our world in a different way: this is an ingrained part of who we are. 
Have we spent the past 40,000 trying to deny that? Certainly we modern and evolved humans often manage to marginalize art. We’ve pushed the making and enjoying of art into the confined spaces far not always near the center of our world. I’m thinking of how hard our arts institutions have to work for their existence. And I’m thinking of how our schools have decreased their arts programming at the same time that sports programming has ballooned. Imagine this–a generation of children growing up with not only sports, but also arts as the focus of their recreational time. You want competition? Teams of painters and writers and musicians. Team Picasso up against Team Leonardo. The Oils against the Charcoals. Go Sonnets! Go Odes! 
Maybe we just need to have enough faith in instinct to believe that someday, when soccer practice is in the distant past, that art impetus will kick in and all those former athletes will discover the life-enlarging possibilities that the arts can give them. It could happen. After all, it’s in our genes.
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The Occasional Recipe: Panzanella

In mid-summer it’s hard to avoid coming home from the farm markets without too much of something that looked delicious. My downfall is tomatoes. Off-season I don’t buy fresh tomatoes: the world is too filled with heartbreak as it is. So during the summer I tend to go a little overboard. Ok, a lot overboard.
On this particular day I had beautiful ripe tomatoes and was thinking of panzanella, that summery Italian bread salad. It seemed easy enough…some tomatoes…some bread…olive oil…..let’s see.  I looked through my three shelves of cookbooks: nothing. (Really, “Nigellissima”?? Really, “VB6”??) I looked online: too much. Too many ingredients, serving too many people. Maybe in the summer you’re always suppose to be cooking for a crowd. Tonight I’m cooking for two. So, as often happens (admittedly, not always with marvelous results) I made up a recipe. And I’m sharing it with you as I made it. No specific amounts, no specific proportions–you’re in charge. I’m just telling you there are ripe tomatoes out there–go make panzanella.
What you need:
tomatoes
red onion
basil
cucumbers
dried cubes of French bread
olive oil
salt/pepper
I cut the tomatoes, bread, and cucumber in nice-size chunks; you can do the same depending on your idea of nice size. I cut some red onion in smaller pieces, because that’s what I prefer. I added a little olive oil and salt and pepper. I tore a bunch of basil leaves. Not “a bunch” as in what Whole Foods puts in a rubber band, but a “bunch” as in what my plants were offering and what I thought looked like a good amount.  I tossed it all and took a moment to enjoy how it reminded me of the Italian flag. And then I set it aside in a (non-metallic) bowl for a few hours. Do not refrigerate it. Refrigeration does terrible things to tomatoes.
At this very moment it is still in progress, the tomatoes’ juices and the olive oil doing their magic on the bread cubes. I plan to taste a little throughout the afternoon because the one amount I was unsure of was the olive oil. But I’m thinking this is going to be very good. And I’m hoping that if you find something that could make it better, you’ll let me know.