Surprising chicks

People and birds have surprised me.

Imagine sitting in a park that does not have enough trees, but does have a river view. Imagine watching the tides, another park goer on a green wooden slatted bench reading a newspaper, an occasional bird. My friend ate a muffin and tossed the muffin wrapper on the ground! Litter. But wait: a bird  began pecking at the crumbs stuck to the wrapper, and another bird joined it, and then another. The birds were the size of an egg, brown, and didn't walk so much as hop.

Then one bird grabbed the muffin wrapper in its beak, and flew several inches away with it! "I want it, I want it!" I imagined it saying as the other birds scattered, then came back. Their whole body would tilt forward as they pecked, then they would bob back up. Occasionally one would blink an eye! I stared. Then, disaster struck: the wind flipped the muffin wrapper over. The little brown birds pecked, but the crumbs weren't accessible any more.

What to do?

The birds wandered, the birds came back, looked at the upside down wrapper, dumbstruck.

I was surprised by how much joy I felt at seeing them finally flip the wrapper, gleefully pecking again. Then another bird grabbed the wrapper in its beak, and flew maybe a foot with it. This time the others did not hesitate to follow, but the new spot was under the railing. With each peck, the wrapper shifted position slightly, now partly overlapping the water. It felt like "The Perils of Pauline": would the wrapper fall to the river? But it was saved, as the birds pecked the paper further away from the water, away from the railing, and then they---

Then the birds dragged the paper behind a bench, and I couldn't see the drama anymore. I was surprised by how disappointed I was.

People I expect to like, but when I went to a new support group meeting, I felt like a "chick" (forgive the pun) out of place: in opening introductions I heard nothing I could relate to, and a bit that I disliked. One of them said something I would never say, another wore something I would never wear, a third I can't even describe my reaction to.

You can guess the punchline: I was tempted to drop out of the group,  gave it one more chance, and, could barely believe that I was feeling connected to the experiences of the ladies who, on the surface, I had so little in common with. I'm looking forward to the next meeting.

Whether it's as trivial as birds being fascinating, or as important as a support group, I've been pleasantly surprised recently.

If only I could remember this the next time I'm bored, or the next time something that might be "good for me" is a little uncomfortable. Maybe I'll start that diet the day after tomorrow, I mean next month.
:)

Collecting "magical"

Have you ever had the feeling of joy when an awaited package arrives for you?
Can you find peace in a room of books, public or private?

Okay, so I'm talking about myself, though not only myself. About a decade ago I visited an acquaintance who graciously allowed me to visit for several hours in his home library. Some of the books were rare, they were organized, and the cases were of finely polished wood. Wow.  Last week I joined a private online forum and swooned at photos of a few more acquaintances book collections, all nicely arranged in cases of finely polished wood.

As a youth I decried the commercialism of collecting, but now I'm not so sure. What I've learned with time --I am older than I used to be :) --- is that book collecting, for me, is calming. It's not just the excitement of getting a new book for the shelves, that's just the exciting part. The larger utility, if I'm not overstating, is that I look at books on shelves, mine or someone else's, with joy.

I won't go so far as to say that I advocate collecting ---I think that advocating should be reserved for things where the consequences are life and death: water shortages, starvation in the midst of plenty, and such. And I don't doubt that buying things can be done without heart, mindlessly, to numb some sort of emotional pain. And therefore be self-defeating, of sorts, even if it is not resulting in financial trouble.

But a wall full of books about a favorite subject can stir my heart, as it has for most of my life. Just because buying _can_ be self-destructive does not mean that it has to be.

And my preferred subject, mostly, is Houdini, his predecessors and successors. They were entertainers who brought joy to people, and they brought that joy by pretending ---pretending--- to defy science....

I could wax poetic, but the truth is that a bookcase full of biographies of these mostly forgotten, mostly itinerant entertainers reminds of the precious times that I have been given joy by the performance of the impossible: Ricky Jay's graceful cheating, Peter Samelson's magic as metaphor, Doug Henning's sense of fantasy, David Copperfield's magician-as-rock-star.

I'd type more, but I want to get back to reading a book I got in the mail today about the different meanings of the word "magic." And then, I'll carry it over to my bookcase and admire it next to all the others. There have been magic books for as long as there have been books, more than ten thousand of them, and what they mean has changed with the centuries. But that's a post for another day.

A "Hedy!" experience

The inventor of your cellphone was a Hollywood star.
Called the most beautiful woman in the world,
Her name was Hedy Lamarr

From the famous Louis B. Mayer she chutzpah-ed a better contract,
but complained that her looks always did distract
in film she was a star, but in real life,
Being judged only by her looks caused her strife.

She escaped boring husbands and helped out in World War II,
performing and serving and hugging for USO,
and co-patenting a technology used by me and by you.

She meant it to save lives in the guidance of missiles
but the smart woman's invention of radio wave frequency hopping
eventually was used from cell phones to wireless online shopping.


OKAY I'm not a great poet, but I am giddy after seeing a play that I enjoyed more than any I can remember. "Hedy! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr" had me laughing almost non-stop, and thinking too, so enjoyably. It's fitting that Richard Rhodes, who could make physics a narrative, wrote a history of Hedy Lamarr and her technological contribution to the world.

It didn't come out that she was Jewish until her death, and her technological research was only declassified (?) in like 1985?

My friend Heather Massie wrote and stars in "Hedy!" I was worried that I might not like the play but I LOVED it.

The next performance is in November, so you have plenty of time to plan for it. Seriously, the audience laughed out loud through the whole performance today. And it made me think, and it wasn't even idolatry: she made some bad decisions about who to marry, and then did it again. And in addressing her life, the play addresses glamour culture, technological dependence, bureaucracy, sexism, the horror of war, the importance of self confidence. In the advance preview I saw today, Ms. Lamarr scolded a patron whose phone went off, the audience cracking up in the process. Ms. Massie's Hedy! is charming and smart.

"Hedy! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr" will be performed on November 9th, in the cool days between Halloween and Thanksgiving, in New York City.

EDIT: THE SHOW IS ON NOVEMBER 9TH. Buy a ticket. :)

Trees & birds

Recently walked down the street in NYC and noticed that a tree was chirping. A lot. I looked up and there were little brown chicks throughout the tree, each was chirping. Like a playground full of young children, a beautiful high pitched collage.

Trees are amazing: most trees & plants leaves will wilt in response to drought. Why? So that the leaf has less surface area for sun absorbtion. How does that relate to water? Because water for the most part gets to the leaves via the roots, replenishing what the sun dries out in the photosynthesis process. And here's a secret: tree leaves are usually brighter on the top than the bottom. I had not noticed this until it was pointed out, and now I see it everywhere...

And, strolling through the park one day, in the very merry month of --June, sorry-- a remarkably colored bird landed in front of me: it had a sleek gray body, white tail, black head, and red crown. And then it flew off before I could ask its name. Does anyone know?

So trees & plants are more ingenious than I realized, not just ---forgive me here--- for the birds.
::lass ducks, runs away::

EDIT: fixed typo.

Holocaust anger

Elie Wiesel died today, and his book NIGHT moved me deeply about one of the most important depths of humanity's history. The holocaust MUST be remembered because if it happened before, maybe it could happen again. If there are lessons to be learned, let's learn them!

I'm angry because the TV news show I watched gave scant coverage to his death, a story as short as any other on tonight's program. Maybe, maybe, his death was too recent, and they'll do a longer piece tomorrow, but they COULD have done more tonight. He is famous enough, his work well known and documented enough, there were plenty of ways they could have made the story longer.

I mean, compared to their stories on Ali, Prince, and other celebrities. Seriously!

Aside from climate change and nuclear weapons, no story is more important than the holocaust, and no one told it better ---others equally well, other parts of the story--- none told it better than Eli Wiesel. And his courage for living through it, and thriving afterwards.

I will try to write a funny or light post soon, but this tv news prioritization thing is pissing me off, and is important. It is what news is for!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Gay execution

Saudi Arabia stones gay people to death. Legal murder! Imagine being the mother or father of someone who is kind, industrious, and happens to know in their hearts that the people they love are of the same gender. Yet, in perhaps 78 countries, same-sex sex is illegal. 

But the tide is turning: in 113 countries, it's legal. 

In some US states, it was legal to arrest people, just for who they love, as recently as 2003! 

But the tide is turning. 

The data is from The Economist magazine, October 11th, 2014. 

Respect for consenting adults is from being human. 

Love is love. 

Same sex couples can have trouble being allowed to adopt. 

If we deny parental rights to homosexuals, 

are we saying that opposite sex spousal abuse is healthier than same-sex love? 

Is that the message we want to send? 

Being straight is great, 

but straight needn't be narrow. 

Words to describe lesbian, bisexuals, gay men:

sister, brother, daughter, son. 

All of the 49 people shot to death were someone's son or daughter. 

Celebrity or trade laws?

The death of a celebrity compared to a blow to international trade law? How does US TV news coverage of trade law compare to its coverage of celebrity deaths?

How many people could be impacted by the "British exit" or the TPP?
What stories were covered the most in US TV news?

It's not like the "Brexit" or TPP could affect employment prospects in many countries, is it?
Or that the TPP or Brexit has the potential to effect climate change, is it?
When a celebrity dies, what story does the news cover more?

Could the tv news humanize the TPP debate if it tried?

Seriously?