2.7.2021 – American Satire

American Satire
American Reality
Where does one stop, start?

In answer to the question, in a recent interview, “Do you consider yourself a satirist,?”, satirist Fran Lebowitz said, “In a way, yes, but, American reality has been so extreme of late that satire is almost impossible. Anything you could possible imagine actually happens. It would stump Jonathan Swift.”

It was Jonathon Swift who wrote, “Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”

I have to admit I am not sure what this all means.

I think it boils down to, you can’t make this stuff up.

How did a national response to a global pandemic become a political statement based on wearing or not wearing a mask?

Ms. Lebowitz also said in this same interview:

“When I was young there was a very strict idea of the boundary between the public and the private life.

So, things that you might do in the privacy of your bedroom, you wouldn’t do on 12th St.

That seems to have disappeared entirely and it is not just the young; it’s true even of people my age, who were brought up in a certain way and then forgot about it.

It is surprising to me just how unconscious people are of themselves in public, considering how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time”

Is that the answer to the question?

Consider how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time.

I like Ms. Leibowitz a lot.

Just when you think she has gone off into the happy world of hyperbole and complains that New York City spent $40 million dollars researching how to and then putting lawn chairs in Times Square, you find out she was telling the truth.

When I consider how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time, I am reminded of an essay on the future by one of my favorite writers, Michigan’s Own, Bruce Catton.

Mr. Catton wrote, “The dismaying world we confront was given its vast intricacy and its perilous speed by human beings. The one basic resource we have always had to rely on is the innate intelligence, energy and good will of the human race. It is facing an enormous challenge, but then it always has; and it meets each one only to confront another. If now we give way to the gloom of the apostles of catastrophe we are of course in the deepest sort of trouble. The old reliance is at our service. It can bear us up if we put out full weight on it.”

This is where that comment of Ms. Leibowtiz comes in to play.

American reality has been so extreme of late that satire is almost impossible.

Anything you could possible imagine actually happens.

If we have to rely on the innate intelligence, energy and good will of the human race while at the sane time we consider how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time I think we are of course in the deepest sort of trouble.

Not something I would dare put my weight on at this time.

12.15.2020 – four way stop, wait turn

four way stop, wait turn
democracy in action
signal of the end?

I have long thought that the first signs of the end or at least the beginning of the beginning of the end would be a disregard for the traditional four way stop.

I am not referring to what was called the ‘Michigan Slide’ as you slowed for the stop sign and zoomed through if no cars were at the intersection.

I mean if drivers paid no attention at all the rules of the four way stop.

The State of Michigan publication, What Every Driver Must Know states: “You reach a four-way stop intersection with a stop sign at each corner of the intersection. The driver who arrived at the intersection and stopped first has the right of way through the intersection. If two or more vehicles reached the intersection at the same time, the vehicle on the left should yield to the vehicle on its right.”

I have to admit that when I started writing this I did not expect such open ended language as the vehicle on the left should yield to the vehicle on its right instead of MUST yield but I will go on.

I have to mention my pet peeve on this though.

No where does it say you wait until cross traffic has cleared the intersection completely before you enter the intersection.

I guess this leads to my ‘snooze you lose’ comments when I give up waiting for that driver on the left.

Now to go on.

The four way stop is a picture democracy and cooperation at its most base level in the ideal.

The greater good for the greatest number of drivers.

Everyone gets their turn.

Everyone has to wait.

Everyone has respect for the other driver.

Everyone is fairly inconvenienced.

No one is singled out and picked on.

No one is singled out and gets special preference.

It requires cooperation.

For the most part it works out okay.

It works when everyone follows the rules.

It works when everyone follows the same rules.

It works when everyone follows the same rules and they know what the rules are.

What happens when folks every don’t know the rules, don’t follow the rules or just don’t care?

Anger.

Frustration.

Chaos.

Hard to imagine that the four way stop could be improved on.

Like all things in America however, there are those who think this can be improved.

Don’t want to pick on anyone but it sure seems like traffic engineers are folks who can’t leave well enough alone.

Mr. Bill Bryson writes that traffic engineers cannot fix traffic problems but then can spread them out over a larger area.

And to digress, if you took all the cars in the United States and put them end to end in one place what would you have?

ATLANTA!

The answer to the ‘problem’ of the four way stop that is turning up more and more is the traffic circle.

This is happening despite the traffic laboratory that has been maintained for years in Washington DC with such nightmares as the circle around the Lincoln Memorial.

To me it would seem that if any local traffic council spent 10 minutes or 2 hours or a day or two stuck going around Mr. Lincoln they would never approve a traffic circle.

Here in the low country there is a love affair with traffic circles.

The love them so much they make them two lane circles.

The outer is supposed to be for drivers making a right turn.

The inner lane for drivers going straight through or what would have been a left turn.

The only directions at the intersection is a sign that says, “YIELD TO BOTH LANES.”

It can be a head scratcher.

Some drivers approach boldly and enter the circle at speed and weave back and forth across the lanes.

Most drivers approach tentatively and yield to any and all traffic both real and imaginary.

You can feel the frustration build up as the bold drivers and tentative drivers mix with each other.

But it at least eliminates the questions of who got their first and who is on the left.

You buys your ticket and you takes your chance and you drive right in.

It can be downright scary.

Also for some reason the State of South Carolina doesn’t seem to beleive in either street lights or roadway reflectors.

On reflectors, that may be because the State of Georgia took them all.

Anyone who has driven through Atlanta on I75 at night and gone through the I285 interchange will know what I mean.

I sometimes thought the just tossed handfuls of reflectors out there for no reason.

But back to the circle.

I can say this, it would never work in a snowy, slippery climate.

Not that that would stop the State of Michigan from trying them.

There are the latest thing after all.

I like the four way stop.

I think they work.

I can handle the circle, sure.

In place of cooperation, drivers go and expect other drivers to get out of the way.

Both get you to the other side of the road.

But if you aren’t careful.

All you do is go around in circles.

3.20.2020 – Like breathing out, in

Like breathing out, in
I’ve grown accustomed to the race
makes the day begin

I get up.

The coffee is ready.

Read my Bible.

Read the morning papers.

Drink my coffee.

Then it is off to work.

And I work into our back room.

No morning commute.

No speeding cars.

No trucks.

No cop cars.

No traffic.

No available minutes to sort out my life.

No time to question the great questions.

No audio book.

No music to pass the time.

Like breathing out and in.

After 10 years.

52 weeks a year.

5 days a week.

1 and a half hours a day.

I have spent 162 days on I85.

The drive that makes the day begin.

I don’t miss it.

I don’t miss it one bit.

But it was a big part of something that has gone missing.

Have I grown accustomed to the race?

But I’m so used to hear her say
“Good morning” every day

Her joys, her woes
Her highs, her lows

Are second nature to me now
Like breathing out and breathing in

I’m very grateful she’s a woman
And so easy to forget

Rather like a habit
One can always break

And yet I’ve grown accustomed to the trace

Of something in the air
Accustomed to her face

From I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face in the musical, My Fair Lady.

3.5.2020 – driving rain driving

driving rain driving
nothing delicious to it
dark that absorbs light

“There’s really something rather delicious about walking in the rain,” says Willie Keith walking in the rain in New York City in Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny

“You wouldn’t think so if you had do it,” says his girlfriend.

It started raining here in Georgia sometime in December or November.

In the last three months Georgia has had over 25 inches of rain.

50 inches of rain in a year is normal for Georgia.

The current 14 day outlook from today shows only 4 days without rain in the forecast.

That 50 inches per year average is more than Michigan’s 33 inches of rain but Michigan has 52 inches of snow.

Looking out at the rain is down right depressing.

Driving in it.

Driving in the rain.

Driving in the driving rain.

Operating a motor vehicle at speeds that should scare me over rain slicked pavement that not only takes away my ability to stop my vehicle but through some trick of physics, also absorbs the light right out of the air so I can’t see why I might need to stop my vehicle.

This is stupid.

This is scary.

It is scary that even though I know its stupid, I do it anyway.

It is stupid that I am not more scared.

Why do I do this?

Like the people in their accidents will say, “I never think it will happen to me.”

2.20.2020 – I leave tomorrow

I leave tomorrow
how will I get there today
I want to break free

A benefit of a long commute is time to think.

It’s my thoughtful spot I guess.

In The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne writes, “Halfway between Pooh’s house and Piglet’s house was a Thoughtful Spot where they met sometimes when they had decided to go and see each other, and as it was warm and out of the wind they would sit down there for a little and wonder what they would do now that they had seen each other. One day when they had decided not to do anything, Pooh made up a verse about it, so that everybody should know what the place was for.”

This warm and sunny Spot
Belongs to Pooh.
And here he wonders what
He’s going to do.

On another rainy morning, I merged onto the the freeway, got in my line and switched to auto pilot and began to think.

Think, think, think.

I had been talking with my wife that this was shaping up as the summer of the big change.

Lots of new things are coming from new babies to new places to live and lots in between.

Most of what might happen depends on what will happen first.

And when.

My list of things to think about in my thoughtful spot got longer and longer and more involved until I felt like I had gone into a revolving door and came out earlier than I had gone in.

Or was it later?

I can’t leave until tomorrow.

But I have to be there today.

I went back into the revolving door again and again and kept coming out at places I didn’t want to be.

Or at least wasn’t ready to be.

Traffic came to a sudden slow down and I came off auto pilot and back to this world.

Songs had been playing on from my iPhone in the background.

The next song’s intro starting playing.

I recognized the tune and a smile came across my face and my heart lifted out of the mud.

I turned up the volume.

Freddie Mercury sang, “I WANT TO BE FREE.”

For a few minutes, I was.

Not for the first time and not for the last, I want to be free.

Me, Freddie and most everybody.

I got to laugh.

And I got to laugh at myself.

I got out of the revolving door and entered another door.

And drove on through the rain to work.