The Constant Harper

Nothing To Fear

I don’t know about you, but I’m scared.

I blame the media. I know how they operate. I used to be one of them. They feed on Bad News. The Badder the Better.

But there’s a limit to how much of this stuff an ordinary person can take before they start to feel, you know, paranoid. And I know from paranoid. So when I say I’m quaking in my boots, I kid you not.

Not to bum you out or anything, but if you have come up for air any time in the last couple of months you may have gotten wind of the Ebola epidemic, the beheadings by extremist groups, the widespread leakage and spillage of data relating to security, privacy and general peace of mind. It’s enough to make a person want to curl up in a ball and wait for the all-clear siren to sound.

But when the going gets apocalyptic, the diehards get going. That’s what I’m counting on — those hardy, “not-on-my-watch” types who refuse to give up no matter how bleak the outlook. I aspire to be like those guys. Aspiration will only get you so far, however. To cover those last critical inches in time to hurl yourself through the closing gates of safety requires perspiration.

Thus, after a lifetime of resisting the idea of regular exercise classes, I now lift weights, do crunches and attempt push-ups. I put up with the relentless cheery chatter of the instructor, who is, of course, twenty years younger than I am. That’s the new normal for me. Everybody is at least twenty years younger. I don’t mind. I’m stronger now than I was when I was nineteen, when I took good health for granted and thought joggers were obsessed weirdos. Now I realize all those people running everywhere had the right idea way ahead of the rest of us.

I’ll never be a long distance runner, but I give my all in sprints. And what keeps me going, aside from the daily news and the rising tide of dread in my heart, is the thought that, if the zombies ever make their move, I’ll be ready. I may not be able to outrun them myself, but if I can at least help the kids to reach the safe zone, I’ll feel it has all been worthwhile.

It’s not Zumba that keeps me going. It’s zombies.

Swing Boat

I don’t usually look to the best seller list for reading material. But recently a Seattle friend sent us a copy of “The Boys In The Boat,” and it ran away with my heart.

This remarkable account of the true story of the University of Washington crew team who rowed their way into history as they pursued the gold medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin brims with drama and beauty. It’s got real life heroes and villains, thrilling adventure, heartbreak and romance, even a touch of humor. But what makes Daniel James Brown’s brilliant book so deeply compelling is his keen appreciation for the almost spiritual aspect of the sport itself, and the reverence it inspires in its followers.

Among the fine portraits in the book is that of George Pocock, the British boatman whose careful crafting of racing shells, combined with his astute observations on the fine points of rowing, gave the Washington team a priceless advantage.

Describing the mysterious alchemy of character and strength that produced the eight-man crew team that defied all the odds, Brown’s prose at times borders on poetry. He grounds his narrative in the particular experience of Joe Rantz, one of the eight boys, and Joe comes across as pure of heart and brave of spirit. But in order to become one with his crew mates, he has to learn to let go of his self and trust the team.

Perhaps the most evocative passages in the book deal with a thing called “swing.” When the eight boys are rowing as one, when their hearts and minds are “in the boat” and the pain slips out of sight, the crew is said to have found its swing. And when that happens, well, you just have to be there.

Set in the darkest years of the Depression, the story pits the under-financed Western team against the privileged teams of the East. But when the team had to compete against Hitler’s specially picked and specially favored team in the cold Berlin waters, they demonstrated all that is best about Americans on the world’s largest stage, at one of the pivotal moments in history.

In the current self-obsessed state of our nation, where self promotion and self fulfillment, not to mention the plague of “selfies,” are viewed as perfectly natural, Joe’s willingness to sacrifice and struggle for the good of his team is inspiring on every level.

For anyone feeling discouraged by the rude and random waves of our current world, I suggest dipping into “The Boys In The Boat”.

They didn’t walk on water. They rowed their way into the stars.

No Ordinary Book

The Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., includes telling quotes from the New Deal era, as well as World War II. — The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., includes telling quotes from his momentous twelve years in office.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

I used to be this fiction person. Never willingly read anything else. But something’s come over me in the last year or so. Call it reality, at long last rearing its hydra heads, or maybe it’s just the anesthetic of youth finally wearing off, but whatever it is, I find myself increasingly drawn to long, detail rich, laboriously researched and exhaustively annotated books about history.

Fascinating.

I’m not sure where this is coming from, though I suspect it may be rooted in the sense of vertigo that came upon me after losing both my parents. Suddenly there’s no one holding down the floor anymore. It’s up to me to know what came before. And before that. And boy there’s a lot.

While I’ve more or less abandoned hope of ever fully grasping the ups and downs of the Byzantine Empire or the Balkans, and European history is so full of incident and horror that I doubt I have the intellectual stamina to get far in that field, I feel the least I can do is try to get a grip on the story here in North America.

You might have thought that, as product of Virginia public schools, I would have picked up a bit on my way through. But back then I was unable to really care about what happened before I was born. I mean, you know, life begins when you’re born, right?

However, I just finished reading “No Ordinary Time,” Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 1995 Pulitzer Prize winning account of how the extraordinary partnership between Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt changed the United States during World War Two, and I’m beginning to realize that I owe a lot to Eleanor. Also probably FDR. But honestly, as I worked my way through more than 600 pages filled with incident and amazing detail, it was Eleanor’s courage, determination, and vision that inspired me most. Her influence on civil rights, labor, and social justice for all helped change the nation. She took a lot of heat for being an uppity woman back before people had learned to appreciate the wonders an uppity woman can perform. She paved the way for generations of crusaders.

The 1940s were indeed “No Ordinary Time.” Yet perhaps no time is ordinary. We live in an age of such breathtaking miracles and heartbreaking terror, sometimes it makes me want to curl up on the couch and take a nap.

But then I think, what would Eleanor do? She was no napper.

I’m trying to measure up.

No ordinary dog, FDR's beloved Fala has a place of honor at the memorial. — No ordinary dog, FDR’s beloved Fala has a place of honor at the memorial.

Open Minded

Rising stars shine brightest in the tennis world.

Because the game is, for the most part, an individual sport, the cult of personality can sometimes play havoc with discipline, attitude and sanity. Often when a talented new player bursts into public view on a stage far bigger than the local tennis court, the ensuing media storm proves a more dangerous threat to competent performance than the wiliest opponent.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more merciless than at the U.S. Open. Now underway in New York City, the final major tennis event of the year takes place on the biggest, and often most raucous, venue in the professional tennis circuit.

A few days ago, fifteen-year-old American CiCi Bellis thrilled the crowd with an exciting upset victory over the No. 12 seed, 2014 Australian Open runner-up Dominika Cibulkova, a fiery player from Slovakia recently ranked No. 10 in the world. The veteran Cibulkova, who is twenty-five years old, was expected to win.

The media went nuts. Bellis appeared to take it in stride. This is the beauty of being fifteen years old. You don’t know how lucky you are, until you aren’t.

Two days after her stunning victory, the young star had to play a night match against twenty-year-old Zarina Dyas of Kazakhstan. The crowd was solidly in Bellis’s corner from the first point. They cheered when she got over her nerves and began playing well, after the first three games. They cheered every time her opponent made an error, not exactly classic tennis etiquette, but not unusual with a New York crowd. And they went crazy when, after losing the first set 3-6, Bellis went on a tear and won seven games in a row, taking the second set 6-0.

But then one of those almost imperceptible shifts in momentum occurred. Dyas maintained her composure throughout, in spite of the crowd applauding her every mistake. She quietly dug in and battled back hard, fighting her way to win the third set handily before finally sending Bellis back to San Francisco with some things to think about.

However, in case there was any doubt about who was the winner as far as the media was concerned, consider this: usually, at the conclusion of every match, the media representatives swarm the winner to grab footage and quotes. At the conclusion of the Dyas-Bellis match, the microphone was thrust not in Dyas’s face, but in Bellis’s.

I was sorry to see this. Dyas, playing in front of an almost hostile crowd, carried herself with the kind of grace and stoic grit that has been the hallmark of many great tennis players. Bellis, in contrast, was cute as a puppy, frisky and playful. You couldn’t not like her. But I don’t think she would have been damaged if the media had had the good sense to first congratulate the winner before fawning over the newest darling of the tennis world.

No doubt I’m just bitter. I remember how it felt to have to play singles against a much younger opponent. When I was in my mid-forties, new to tennis and pie-eyed with enthusiasm, I entered a charity tournament at the local rec club. I don’t know how they came up with the draw but I’ll never forget my opponent. She was fourteen. She was blonde, leggy, with a killer topspin forehand that took the wind out of my sails in a hurry.

And to make matters worse, she was kind and polite. It was obvious from the first point that she was going to beat me. The only question was, would I be able to win a game. When it was over she shook my hand and I wished her well in the rest of the tournament.

I kept playing tennis. Over the years I won some matches, and lost more. But my appreciation for the game, for the skill it demands, for the energy it requires, for the passion it inspires, still keeps me playing.

In any sport, winning is more fun than losing. But losing teaches you that no matter how good you may think you are, there’s always someone who can beat you. Yet in tennis you’re expected to be gracious whether in victory or defeat, because, at least in tennis, good manners are supposed to be part of the game.

Just another thing to practice.

Dock of The Bay

I paused for reflection at the end of the dock.

Something there is about a pier that leads us to walk to the end of it and stare aimlessly into the distance. There’s a metaphor floating around in there, no doubt, something to do with the brevity of life, the vanity of all aspiration, the transcendent beauty of the quiet sea.

The geometry of movement and stillness, reflection and shadow, produces a captivating grid.

It’s quiet on the dock in the early morning, before the sailors and fishermen begin the rock and roll of boats in motion.

Take a deep breath. Take another. Time drifts on the silent tide.

Birds on the bay share the view every day.

Birds may have tiny brains but they know how to drink in the moment. I’m still working on it.

Shell Game

The gopher tortoise is faster than it looks.

The air was hot and still, the ground dry and sandy. High above in the clear blue sky the shrill cry of an occasional osprey broke the silence.

We were hiking along a secluded trail through the slash pines and palmettos when we noticed something moving rapidly through the sparse undergrowth.

My first thought was rattlesnake. The park signs caution visitors to stay on the paths to avoid this danger. But our son was with us, and he’s been throwing caution to the winds since he was very young, so off he went.

We caught a glimpse of the creature, a tortoise, motoring with surprising speed over the sand. We tried to keep it in sight, but within seconds it vanished.

Then I happened to see a tunnel entry, perhaps a foot wide and tall, only slightly obscured by the rough grass growing beside it.

I was elated to have finally seen the Florida state tortoise in the wild. Sightings are more rare than they once were, as the gopher tortoise, like so many other Florida native species, is endangered. Threats include loss of habitat, predation from other creatures, and humans, who continue to catch the tortoises to keep as pets or to eat, even though both these activities are illegal.

No wonder gopher tortoises spend most of their lives in the tunnels they dig. Often ten feet below the surface and as much as forty-eight feet long, the tunnels are used by hundreds of other small animals. Because of this the gopher tortoise is considered a keystone species. Its presence in the neighborhood has a ripple effect that supports the entire local ecology.

I guess the humans who trap and eat gopher tortoises don’t care much about such issues. I wish they did. I wish that mere legislation were enough to stop the damage we humans continue to wreak on our splendid planet.

I realize that in the big picture a small tortoise doesn’t grab the public imagination the way, say, a horde of zombies, or a deadly contagion does. We humans tend to be self-centered and hot-tempered, a lethal combination. We treat each other with such savage disregard, I shouldn’t be surprised at our cavalier attitude to the environment which sustains every living thing.

A gopher tortoise looks for all the world like a little tank. You’d think that would be enough to keep it safe.

If things keep on the way they’re going, we may all wish we had our own personal tanks.

A baby gopher tortoise is as cute as any panda. Photo by Steve Beger.

The Shadow of Our Style

Wonk this way. Just steps from the Capitol, a garden offers secluded serenity.

In our nation’s capital, a place normally immune to the dictates of fashion, detail-oriented paranoia never goes out of style. For people who want to be taken seriously — that is to say, almost everyone except the tourists who come to do the museum half-marathon, take in a few memorials and buy some cupcakes in Georgetown — the gold standard for the District Look remains The Suit, and nothing but The Suit.

Obama may get away with shorts while he’s on vacation, but bare knees never look presidential.

However, D.C. in the summertime often feels like a clambake from the clam’s point of view. To get by without wilting it behooves the locals to head for shade. In most of the city this is easy. Washington is a city of trees. Their storied canopy is even protected by local law (the Urban Forest Preservation Act of 2002). You have to pay a hefty fee if you want to take down a big tree on your own property ($35 per inch of the trunk’s diameter). And that’s not counting the cost of paying some tree service to do the job.

So, D.C. is a good place to be a tree. However, the one part of town where trees and the canopy they provide is less apparent is where the federal government occupies most of the real estate. Lots of massive marble and granite buildings, not so many oases, unless you count the National Mall, which is most often awash with tourists or protesters or celebrators of one thing or another. Still, wily wonks find quiet nooks where even the most weary policy analyst can enjoy some peace and quiet in the midst of the capital’s hubbub.

There’s a tendency in other parts of our great nation to look on Washington, D.C. as a kind of foreign country, perhaps even a hostile one. Yet if you prick us, do we not bleed? If you don’t vote for us, do we not air our views in the media anyway? The point is, everybody’s got a dork side. You just have to know where to look.

Go Wes!

The Bristol-Palace Hotel in the spa town of Karlovy-Vary, Czech Republic, served as an inspiration for the setting of Anderson's latest film. — The Bristol-Palace Hotel in the spa town of Karlovy-Vary, Czech Republic, served as an inspiration for the setting of Anderson’s latest film.

I confess. I am a fan of the films of Wes Anderson.

Although my infatuation with all things Anderson began with the very first film he co-wrote with his friend Owen Wilson, the offbeat but endearing Bottle Rocket, it wasn’t until 2001 when The Royal Tenenbaums came out that I realized I had found a director whose oddly surreal view of life resonated with my own.

And while a few Anderson films since then have failed to engage my passion (notably The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a sodden misstep in my view) more often a new Anderson project is cause for celebration. Moonrise Kingdom, for instance, in 2012, featured all the elements that make Anderson’s vision unique: a flawed but likable hero trying to negotiate a trajectory through the jungle of reality, gentle humor, great music, and meticulous set design.

Anderson excels at creating on film worlds as finely detailed as a Faberge egg yet emotionally complex and surprisingly buoyant. His most recent work, The Grand Budapest Hotel, released this past spring, is a remarkable fairytale for adults. Set in a fictional European alpine state in 1932 during a respite between two wars, the film evokes the elegance and civility of a lost era. The hero, Monsieur Gustave, is the concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel. The plot involves murder, stolen art, and exquisite pastry.

Ralph Fiennes, as M.Gustave, is marvelous. The pace is brisk, the dialogue snappy, and all of the characters bring something to the party. But perhaps top billing really should go to the hotel itself, which Anderson devised after researching and studying archival photos of grand European hotels at the Library of Congress. One of the inspirations for the Grand Budapest Hotel was the Palace Bristol Hotel in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic.

For the film Anderson had several small scale models of the hotel produced, including one fourteen feet long and seven feet deep.

I never wanted a doll house as a child, but I find myself yearning for that pink hotel.

Of course, few these days can afford the sort of extravagance that flavors the Old World vision suggested in parts of the film. But it isn’t simply the trappings of wealth that give the world portrayed in The Grand Budapest Hotel its timeless charm. It’s the passion for civility, the idea that good manners and kindness clothe any human with dignity. And that without those things our haloes dim, our lives lose something intangibly precious.

And so it is with fairytales. There’s more to win than the crown. There’s more to lose than the throne. Happily ever after is the flimsiest of predictions. But to strive for perfection in the face of inevitable decline is perhaps the last best hope for humanity in a graceless age.

You Cannot Be Sirius

Hungarian artist Gabor Miklos Szoke created this giant wood sculpture of a Hungarian Puli dog, an ancient herding breed, for the 2013 Folk Life Festival on the National Mall. Everyone loves a big dog.

They’re here! The hottest weeks of summer. That time the Romans called caniculares dies, or, for those of you who skipped that class, dog days.

Tradition holds that the dog days of summer usually occur between July 3rd and August 11th. But why do dogs get blamed for searing temperatures?

The Roman notion apparently arose from the whimsical idea that the Dog Star, rising with the sun during that time frame, added to the sun’s heat. Which may be true for all we know, though I suspect Neil de Grasse Tyson could offer a more fact-based explanation.

Still, as a lover of myths and fables and a lot of ordinary nonsense, I’m going with the Dog Star on this one. We give credit to the moon for making humans crazy, romantic, or, in some cases, exceptionally hairy. We trust rainbows to bring us good fortune. Many people spend more time reading horoscopes than they do reading scientific reports or even People magazine. Clearly, among our many cherished freedoms in this country is the freedom to believe just about anything.

As a writer of fiction I’m grateful for our national credulity, although I sometimes wish we were a tad more patient as a species. However patience is a virtue, I’m told, and we all know how hard those are to master.

So, anyway, here we are, temps in the 90s, humidity in the high 60s. Good times. Actually, to be honest, today is one of those blissful exceptions that proves the rule. The thermometer was chillaxing at a cool 59 degrees on my back porch this morning, thanks to some passing cold front. By the weekend we’ll be back up in the heat stroke zone. That’s D.C. weather. It’s a pendulum town. What with the constant politics, the thousands of visitors, and the determined lobbyists all with their pressing agendas, life in the nation’s capital is rarely laid back and mellow.

But even D.C. idles in late July and early August. It’s the only way to get through the dog days. Slow down, think pleasant thoughts, drink a lot of lemonade, or the beverage of choice. To paraphrase Noel Coward, only mad dogs and bureaucrats go out in the noon day sun. Or, to quote G. Gordon Liddy, who knew something about taking the heat in Washington, “The trick is not to mind it.”

September will be here all too soon, with its back to school, back to work agenda. We’ll all have to suit up and buckle down. Until then, I say let’s make the most of Sirius, the brightest star in the firmament, blazing down on us from Alpha Canis Majoris, the constellation of the Big Dog.

Woof.

Et Tu, Anthony?

"The Big Train,"pitcher Walter Johnson led the Washington baseball team to the championship in 1924. — Baseball has its own history. Walter Johnson led Washington baseball to the world championship in 1924.

There is history, and there’s History.

Lower case history tends to be personal. It happens to all of us as we go through our little lives. Upper case History more often involves the rise and fall of nations, civilizations, great leaders and vile despots. Such history generally relies on a fair amount of hard facts and reliably recorded data.

Hard facts have always been a stumbling block for me. I’m inclined to step around the side of any fact and imagine how it would look without its makeup. It’s my firmly held belief that perception influences data. At least that’s how it seems from my angle.

This aspect of history baffled me throughout my academic years. I struggled to get through every history class. The sheer volume of history was just too discouraging.

However, as we learn if we give History a chance, Time changes everything. Including history.

Television has dramatically enhanced the way history is shared. Ever since Ken Burns began making his engaging documentaries about defining events such as the Civil War, the Dust Bowl, and World War II, as well as his inspiring films dealing with social and cultural topics such as Prohibition, Jazz, and The Brooklyn Bridge, history has escaped from the quiet pages of books. In Burns’s films the soul and passion of history are revealed.

As may be apparent from the gushing, lately I’ve come around on History. While reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s thrilling Team of Rivals I was enthralled by the wisdom, the patience, and the sheer goodness of Lincoln. Now I’m reading David McCullough’s fascinating The Great Bridge and learning things about Brooklyn I’d never known, in spite of the fact that my Dad was born and raised there.

Admittedly, history may never grip the general population the way reality TV apparently does. But I’ve been delighted to learn that history buffs come in all sizes and uniforms. As regular readers of this blog may be tired of hearing already, I am a baseball fan. I have my favorites among the teams and certain players whose skill and style lift my mood. One of these is the National’s Anthony Rendon, who shines wherever they put him on the field.

However, Rendon ruffled a few feathers recently when, in answer to a reporter’s question about whether he would be watching the All Star Game during the break, he replied that he didn’t like to watch baseball because it was too long and boring. And that he preferred to watch The History Channel.

The way the media fell all over themselves analyzing this shocker was good for a few laughs. You would have thought he’d insulted the Pope. Some fair-minded reporters suggested that perhaps he had been kidding.

Well, all kidding aside, I’d like to think Rendon enjoys The History Channel from time to time. I mean, Ken Burns made a great documentary about baseball, too. What’s not to love?