admin – Page 20 – The Constant Harper

Otter Bliss

otter-baby-1 — Mama and child, rockin' in the ripples.

“Look at the baby beaver!” Face pressed up against the glass, the little girl stared wide-eyed at the furry creature nestled on a ledge at the side of the tank.

“Stay behind the line,” cautioned one of the volunteers monitoring the otter exhibit at the Seattle Aquarium.

It had been a little more than two weeks since Aniak, one of the aquarium’s female otters, had given birth to an adorable three pound ball of fur. Crowds have been arriving by busloads to see the baby. You have to act fast when it comes to baby otters – they grow so fast. The new pup has already doubled in size, and soon her baby fur will be replaced by a sleek coat like her mother’s.

Those sleek pelts were what led early explorers in the Pacific Northwest to hunt the once thriving sea otters into local extinction. Fortunately, in the last few decades, with protective laws in place and concerted efforts by environmental agencies, sea otters have been making a comeback in the Great Northwest.

And the Seattle Aquarium has played a significant role in that process, by caring for orphaned sea otters, educating the public about marine life, and in 1979 the aquarium was the first to successfully breed sea otters in captivity.

I had never seen a sea otter before I moved to Seattle. At my first encounter with them at the Seattle Aquarium six years ago I was enchanted, thrilled and completely smitten. The experience inspired my most recent novel, The Goddess of Green Lake, the story of a young woman whose life takes an unexpected turn after she rescues an orphaned baby sea otter.

The other day as I watched Aniak cradling her baby on her chest while she paddled serenely around the small pools at the aquarium I felt that same sense of enchantment. Waves of children and their camera-toting parents came and went, ogling the otters for a while and moving on to other exhibits. The little girl who mistook the baby for a beaver wasn’t alone. Probably beavers are a more familiar animal to most kids. After all, when you think about it, there aren’t that many mammals who make their homes in the water aside from beavers and muskrats, and when was the last time you saw a muskrat?

Certainly few animals seem as at ease in the water as sea otters, who sleep, eat and give birth to their young in the water, staying afloat in any kind of weather, unperturbed by the frigid water temperatures, coming back from the brink of extinction still buoyant, even when confined to a life in a fishbowl surrounded by gawking humans.

I admire their insouciance. I marvel at the wonders of the sea. I am grateful to the Seattle Aquarium for making it possible for us to witness the magic of sea otters.

Between The Woods and the Frozen Lake

Snowy-Evening — "The woods are lovely, dark and deep." Robert Frost

Sometimes I can see the appeal of hibernation.

Forget slush. Forget black-iced roads. Forget the crack and thud of falling trees festooned in tendrils of live power lines.

Just curl up somewhere warm and dry and wait it out. Dream of spring.

Or, if you live in Seattle, dream of July, when the warmth of spring may arrive for a few days.

Do I sound bitter? I have no cause. Many in our wet and chilly region lost power for five days or more during our recent snowstorm. And the rains which followed the snow launched mudslides all over the area. All those dramatic hillside lake views come with risks.

So, all in all, I am grateful to be on the return slope of winter’s worst peak. The days are getting a few minutes longer with every sunrise. The robins have already returned. The perfume of the sweetbox blooming outside the kitchen door floats in the damp air.

We’re still a long way from turtle weather, but I see them in my dreams.

don't-stop-dreams — Hope, denial, call it what you will, we are a nation of dreamers.

The Pirate Principle

pirate-princicple — There's a little pirate in all of us.

The blizzard’s coming. Are you ready?

Got milk?

Got toilet paper?

Got internet?

Hold on to your routers, ladies and gents. If some members of Congress have their way, the world wide web is about to get squeezed to stop the freeflow of opinions, information and ideas that we here in the big old US of A like to think of as our birthright.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the Protect I-P Act (PIPA) before the Senate aim to criminalize the sharing of images and music we’ve come to take for granted out here in the real world.

To protest the proposed legislation, internet giants Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist and others will join in a blackout of their services from midnight Eastern time tonight until midnight tomorrow.

President Obama and even some members of Congress have weighed in on the side of internet freedom. Rupert Murdoch, who wears his wallet on his sleeve, wants Google strangled. No surprise there.

As we hunker down and prepare to wait out a rare snowstorm here in Seattle, where internet access is as common as rain, we will watch this particular debate with concern. Some might think that as far as the internet is concerned the genie is out of the bottle and there’s no stuffing him back in. But censorship is a powerful and crippling tool. When government alone can tell people what to think there’s a danger that people may stop thinking for themselves.

Of course it can’t happen here, right?

There’s a reason history repeats itself. We forget the lessons our founding fathers worked so hard to codify.

The snow is getting deeper. The path grows more perilous. It will take more than hope to get through this mess.

Some principled pirates may have to lead the way.

A Game of Throws

In an ideal world, for every throw there is a catch.

Yet we all know that human life is compounded of some successes and countless errors. We treasure the successes. We brood on the errors. And in the brooding a world of trouble breeds.

Readers who casually pick up Chad Harbach’s first novel, The Art of Fielding expecting it to be another baseball story about the struggle for greatness and its cost will not be disappointed. But this remarkable novel portrays a rich and complex emotional terrain that extends far beyond the diamond.

Through his careful, compassionate, and at times comic depiction of five characters whose lives become intimately connected at a small Wisconsin college, Harbach has created a work which transcends the sports novel genre, while at the same time remaining true to the love of the game which resonates throughout the book like the heartbeat of a team.

The story of Henry Skrimshander, a gifted shortstop whose uncanny fielding ability raises expectations in all who encounter him, The Art of Fielding is both an examination of the way we try to become the people we want to be, and how one slip, one bad throw, can change everything.

Set on the shore of Lake Michigan, the novel is enriched by a nautical theme anchored in a bit of Melville worship which works much better than you might think. As the Harpooners go through the long baseball season, we feel their pain, we share their hope, and ultimately, we come to believe in the redemptive power of the struggle itself.

The important thing is not whether you win, or lose, or make a great play or an error. It’s being in the game.

Put Down Your Pencils

buy-more-stuff — Mantra of the Material World

Sometimes it feels as if all of life is a test, and none of us did the homework.

In the quiet pause between the old year and the new, tradition tells us to make bold new plans, reaffirm commitments, rid ourselves of past baggage.

Yet how those old habits cling. The vows to eat less, exercise more, live more sustainably and help uplift the planet all sound good and right in the watery afterglow of fireworks and festivities.

But come the dawn, the old demons also awaken. The forces of destruction keep pace with the ongoing work of creation. Perhaps this is part of The Plan. You know. The big one. The one many have claimed to see, yet none have convinced me. It all seems awfully random – the kindness and cruelty woven together in a tight mass of tweedy confusion. I sympathize with all the systemizers – the folks who claim to have figured it all out, to have gotten a message from God or one of His Facebook friends. It’s only natural to want to know why things are the way they are, and, of course, being human, we want to know whom to blame.

Some say we have only ourselves. Certainly that’s true in part. But it’s difficult to assess the situation from our limited perspective here on Earth. We’re like ants contemplating lightning. We can only ride out the storm and hope the bolts land someplace else.

So, another year older and deeper in debt. So sang Tennessee Ernie Ford some fifty years ago. Yet it’s still a good old life, in parts. Sure, it’s harsh and cruel and sometimes stupefyingly dull. But that only makes the moments of joy, the transcendent flashes of clarity and peace, more precious.

It’s a New Year. Breathe in, breathe out. Enjoy your moments. This is only a test.

Portage-watercolor — Into the mystic we go.

Transporter

He came. We saw. He conquered my heart again.

As a lifelong fan of all things Woody Allen, I expected a pleasant evening when we got tickets to hear his New Orleans style jazz band play in Seattle. I hadn’t anticipated the joyous love-fest that filled the Paramount Theatre for two hours, as Woody and his band of top-notch musicians performed haunting melodies and foot-stomping tunes with hardly a pause for breath between numbers.

As the winner of numerous Oscars for his brilliant writing, Woody Allen has earned a place of honor in the American lexicon of filmmaking, but one of the most remarkable things in nearly all his films has been the soundtracks, all of which share the distinctive blend of classic songs from the golden age of American swing and jazz. It is from this rich storehouse, and from a deeper, less well-known reserve of blues, gospel, and dance hall tunes from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s that Woody Allen’s repertoire derives its evocative power. This is music that can make you laugh and cry, sometimes in the space of a single song.

In his critically acclaimed 2011 film “Midnight in Paris,” Woody created a sublimely beautiful vision of the Paris every romantic has imagined, but it’s the soundtrack that works the magic, effectively transporting the audience from the crass materialistic sensibility of the modern world to the enchanting mystery that was Paris in the 1920s, when many of America’s best and brightest flocked there to partake of the city’s physical beauty, its cultural richness, its intellectual energy. Some of the soundtrack was performed by the same band members who just played in Seattle.

We’re still a long way from Paris, but it felt closer last night.

Paramount-panache — The gloriously restored Paramount channels a bit of Paris glamour.

Merci, Woody.

Lost Out Here in the Stars

man-on-the-moon — If we can put a man on the moon...

At this time of year it’s customary to see a spike in the belief gauge. We all need to believe in something, even if it’s only the infield fly rule.

But the majority of believers aim higher. Truth, justice, freedom, salvation – these are the flickering candles held aloft on the dark nights of a long winter.

Yet it doesn’t take much to snuff out a candle. Torches, on the other hand, burn longer. Your unruly mob wields torches. Hopeless lovers, ditto. Rebels and romantics share a taste for reckless passion.

Unfortunately, reckless passion will only take you so far. Once your unruly mob has gotten out into the streets, they need a plan, or at least a strong sense of direction, to accomplish anything. And I’m not talking about a GPS system, although the view from the stars can be instructive on a lot of levels.

When the first astronauts sent back the breath-taking photos of our small blue planet there was a momentary pause in the surface strife, only a blink perhaps, but a certain readjustment took place as all the various believers and scoffers took note of the view from above. Notably absent in that view are the dividing lines over which humankind has fought and died for millennia.

Like children with crayons who scribble freely at first, all humans learn quickly, from their parents, their schools, their cultures, where the lines are, and who’s allowed to cross them. Our maps have grown more accurate as our technology has grown more sophisticated, but the arbitrary nature of the lines we draw between countries, states and cities, remains as quirky and imaginary as ever.

And yet, we go to war for these lines. Our parents fought and died for them. Our children die for them. Will we ever reach the end of the lines?

There are no lines between the stars. The imaginary figures that astrologers produce by connecting the dots of light in creative patterns are no more real than the border between Mexico and Arizona. It’s a crazy world, but not many people get shot for being Sagittarians.

The daily headlines reveal all too clearly how far we have to go before we learn how to love one another. Some say hope is for fools. I say to hope is human. Look up. Connect the dots. We could spell peace in the stars.

Let’s Cookie!

It was the slogan “Let’s Merry!” that pushed me over the edge.

I’ve got nothing against Starbucks. They’ve raised the bar on coffee quality and encouraged a whole new economy, which isn’t always a bad thing. But their slogan, which transforms another innocent adjective into a dubious verb, irked the placid English major dozing inside me.

It used to be that only sports broadcasters and financial gurus made a practice of taking respectable nouns and turning them into hotrod verbs. Now everybody’s doing it. And one part of me says, yay! As a child of the fifties I was born and raised with a healthy appetite for jargon and the glamour of commercial lingo. As a lover of literature I value the organic muscular nature of English, its rough and ready quippery, the slippery DNA of its slang, even the gobbledygook of acronymic nonsense.

But whether it’s something in the holiday atmosphere, or the eggnog, in this season of mirth and marketing, the wanton verbing (yes, mea culpa) of law abiding nouns is getting out of hand. Perhaps to deck the malls with crowded folly you gotta learn to urbify the wordiage. Verbify the messaginistic wave of urgency defying all buzz-killing ratiocination. You gotta spendify to splendify!

And if you buy into the madness that is Christmas marketing, ’tis the season to cast your credit limit to the winds.

But suppose you find yourself a bit cash-strapped, or afflicted by a nagging conscience about the morality of spending like there’s no tomorrow when, really, there’s plenty of evidence which, while blithely ignored by a vocal segment of our fiercely independent nation, nonetheless strongly suggests that our current self-indulgent ways may turn out to be a self-fulfilling strategy to ensure that there will, in fact, be no tomorrow?

Of course contemplating all of this is fatiguing to say the least. Thus, as the days get shorter and darker, and clamorous with the chanting of the discontented and the incessant Christmas music, some weary souls may feel the urge to let go of the tiller on the good ship Reason and fling themselves headlong into the drink.

But wait. There’s light at the end of this holiday tunnel.

How to cope? In a word: cookies.

Yes, Virginia, there are Christmas cookies. Long after all faith in the fat man has vanished, along with dreams of world peace, or true love, or even a modestly satisfying one-night stand, the simple pleasure of a well made Christmas cookie endures.

When I was young, so much younger than today, my father worked in a small law firm where the annual Christmas party was a family affair. For my brothers and me there was only one memorable aspect to this event. We called her The Cookie Lady. You know the type. Before Martha Stewart and all the modern blogging kitchen vixens overwhelmed us with their clever and arty creations, there were always women like The Cookie Lady, who somehow found time and energy to make dozens and dozens of fantastic cookies – and I don’t mean just the typical iced sugar cookies. We’re talking bars and logs and layered confections, dipped in chocolate, rolled in nuts. These weren’t some slice n’ bake, prefab bland biscuits. These were ethnic, ancient, evocative cookies with a past. Proust would understand.

Perhaps a cookie seems a trivial thing on which to plant a flag of hope. It would have to be a small flag.

But that’s kind of the point. When the holiday season inflates expectations so far beyond the scope of our short time here on Earth, a step back from the edge can work wonders. Even in these mega-sized, over-priced, under-nourished times, a certain measure of comfort and joy can still be found in something as small and fragile as a home-made, hand-made Christmas cookie.

Take a moment. Take a bite. Try to remember when a cookie was enough.

The Up Side of Losing

People who don’t get sports sometimes don’t get that it’s not just about winning.

It’s about playing. Being in the game. Being part of a team. Kind of like being human.

While many great films have been set in and around the world of sports, it’s the rare film that uses sports to convey a broader message about what it means to be fully human.

In cautious sectors of the film industry the popular trend embraces repetition. The Hangover leads to The Hangover Two, Mission Impossible leads to Mission Impossibler , Zoolander spawns Twolander, etc.

Yet there are some films, critically lauded as they may be, which you know will never be shadowed by a sequel. The simply stunning Winter’s Bone, a gray brooding brilliant story of survival on the edge of our country’s crumbling economy, is a fantastic film, but hardy likely to start a franchise. Yet it’s the real thing – proof that America still has filmmakers able to drill deep and tap into the true grit that fuels this nation of passionate extremes.

Thomas McCarthy is one such filmmaker. He’s also a gifted actor and writer (he wrote the story for Up, and wrote and directed The Visitor, among others). In McCarthy’s most recent film, Win Win, for which he also wrote the screenplay, he offers another finely observed portrait of a man losing his grip on his own moral compass as he tries to support his family without losing his soul.

The peerless Paul Giamatti holds it all together, even as his character falls apart.

As offerings go on the cinematic menu, Paul Giamatti is a bit like Brussels sprouts. Not as universally popular as, say, French fries. I love Brussels sprouts. And I’ve been a Giamatti fan ever since he blew me away in the underrated Duets, in which he played a downtrodden traveling salesman whose life is unexpectedly altered by a chance karaoke experience.

In Win Win Giamatti is again cast as a kind of loser – a struggling small-time lawyer whose only emotional outlet comes from his role as a part-time coach for the local high school wrestling team. When a young kid with a troubled past and a gift for takedowns shows up in town, the plot veers into deeper waters. In other hands, this kind of material could have easily devolved into the predictable drivel of the standard Lifetime Channel tearjerker.

But with a steady hand and a clear eye director McCarthy has crafted a quiet study of the universal need for dignity. At times funny, thrilling, and ultimately moving, the film never lapses into maudlin clichés or cloying cuteness.

Some moviegoers may fail to see the appeal of a film without a single car chase, with no pyrotechnical explosions, no raunchy sex scenes and no computer-generated special effects.

But for those who enjoy a well-wrought, thoughtfully directed small independent film, Win Win is a winner.

Unoccupied

sunset-grid — The Space Needle evokes a time when the future seemed brighter.

The twin stars in the firmament of Seattle are the Space Needle, which hovers over the downtown skyline like some abandoned probe left by interstellar tourists, and Mount Rainier, a majestic snow-capped magnet with its head in the clouds most of the time.

These two iconic sights provide a kind of branding device for many who hope to make a buck in Seattle. And because these images are about as much in the public domain as it’s possible to be, anyone with a T-shirt or a toothbrush to sell can use them and set up shop, or at least launch a start-up table on the sidewalk. This is both the beauty of capitalism and its Achilles heel.

Anyone can play, if they can get a foothold in the marketplace. But when the physical market space is limited, or over-priced, breaking in becomes almost impossible. And when opportunities shrink, while population keeps growing, there’s trouble ahead.

The continuing spread and evolving character of the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects the great disconnect between the haves and the have-nots, not only in this country, but around the world. While we in the United States like to pride ourselves on our democratic principles, the current playing field is warped and hobbled by a labyrinthian legal system and the fundamentally flawed nature of humanity.

We are not a perfect species. Greed, fear and laziness hold us back. We could be so much better.

In the District of Columbia, the other Washington, the tall pointy pillar which lures tourists is named for the nation’s first president, a man who didn’t particularly want the job, who didn’t have to spend a gazillion dollars to win it, and who never could have imagined the reality show aspect of our modern electoral system. The Washington monument itself is kind of a ho-hum structure, though it works well enough as a backdrop for fireworks, mass demonstrations and political hay-making.

Occupying it might be a challenge. But if we really want to change things for the better it might be a good iea to put the message where it will get the most bang for the buck.