Not in Our Front Yard

Newburyport liberals make me sick.

Considering that I’m one of them, that may be a terminal diagnosis— unless I’m an antibody able to cure many friends and acquaintances of Think-Globally-Ignore-Locally Syndrome.

That’s not a typo.

Years ago, the slogan—with the verb “Act” in front of “Locally”—was a hit with all of us at first sight.

Shirts and hats appeared all over town, and we still see the bumper stickers on cars.

We embraced it because it left no room for the cynicism that says things are hopeless or can’t be changed. It stamped “participation” back into “participatory democracy.”

Though cheerful in tone, it slapped the face of apathy, making it embarrassing to hide behind lazy excuses such as “way of the world” and “you can’t fight City Hall.”

Impossible to say without a smile, those four honest, humane words brooked no tolerance for complacency, nor left any room for innocent by-standing.

As a pair of directives, they cannot be denied. Nor can the implicit command that unifies them: Globally or locally, we have an obligation to pay attention.

In recent years, my liberal friends have done quite well upholding the first half of the resolution. Social media has made it possible for them—for us—to hold demonstrations soon after acts of injustice and to gather in support for victims of targeted violence:

On High Street when the Republican-stacked Supreme Court gutted Roe v. Wade, on Market Square following Trump’s unwitting (or not) admission of fealty to Putin in Helsinki, at Congregation Ahavas Achim after the shootings at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Soon after Trump’s attorney general issued a deliberately false summary of the Mueller Report to make it sound like exoneration, we read the actual summary aloud on Market Square, point by damning point.

The organizers let me read the lengthy intro, if only because I need no microphone.

But that was then. And I must admit that my conflict now with the very people I have stood with, read with, and always voted with may result from my taking that bumper-sticker too broadly.

When we think of the Supreme Court and of Bill Barr in the nation’s capital, of Trump in Helsinki, of a massacre in Pittsburgh, we “act locally.” Immediately. Every time.

In the face of wrongs here at home? Crickets.

This is not to equate anything in Newburyport to the repeal of a civil right or to mass murder, but to expose the limits of my friends’ attention as anything outside a ten-mile radius.

Does the bumper-sticker actually mean that, yes, we can fight the White House and the State House, but City Hall gets a pass?

Are our actions—our demonstrations, vigils, letters to the editor—all limited to global and national issues? Are we not to “think locally”?

Tempting to use the social media joke here—“Asking for a friend”—but my friends are the ones I’m asking.

And they may remain friends even though their silence on character assassination at the Newburyport Public Library makes me sick.

“A lot we don’t know,” they say in the very same breath they complain of hearing too much about it.

Only things that haven’t been revealed are any details of the charges made against the volunteers or any proof that an honest investigation has ever been made.

Put all those details and proof in a box, and you have an empty box.

That’s a sure symptom of information being withheld by a side with something to hide. What my liberal friends are really saying is that there’s a lot they do not want to know.

Yes, some have come through, but I’m not talking about writers of many letters you have seen on these pages.

I’m talking about the ones in public office and others of influence, including those who accept awards for community service from the very people who oversaw last year’s smear campaign to oust the volunteers and head archivist from NPL.

The ones who pose for smiling photos of congratulations as proudly as they once wore and displayed the proud slogan they have turned into a craven lie.

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Note: This appeared today (4/29/24) as an op-ed column in the Daily News under the headline, “Think Globally, Avoid Locally.”

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/think-global-act-locally-dave-johnson

Rhapsody in Deep Blue

A woman I do not know waltzes into the Screening Room, merrily announces it’s her birthday (mid-50s? I’d never ask), and sings of delight to find me there.

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’ve been wanting to tell you that my son is reading Moby-Dick.”

Occurs to me that, after 50 years of plagiarizing Herman Melville, maybe some people think I am Herman Melville. With a hint of offering advice she might pass on, I mention that students who read it as an assignment are too in awe of the book’s reputation to allow for–or get–the jokes that run throughout.

“Oh, no! He’s 33, an avid reader. I gave him your column about it.”

“Which one?” I quip, but as if to prove that I’m no Ishmael, I’m at a loss for words to say much more, and other customers begin to arrive. Two hours later, however, when the film is done, she’s among the last people to leave, and I flag her down:

“At Renaissance faires, when we find out that patrons are having a birthday, a group of us will surround and serenade them with our own renfaire song.”

“You’re going to sing to me!”

“Well, I’m never included in these. And since none of the others are here, you’re about to find out why” (to the tune of “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay”):

This is your birthday song

It isn’t very long–

Abruptly as I can, I then turn to the popcorn machine to make a new batch as if she is no longer there. “Thank you! Thank you!” she laughs over her shoulder as she dances out the door, a bit more bubbly than when she bounced in.

Next day, a Newburyport friend sends a Bizarro take on my favorite novel, clipped from the Boston Globe a week back. Bizarro is a long time favorite comic strip of mine, mostly due its many puns, as is the one I pull out of the envelope:

https://comicskingdom.com/bizarro/2024-04-19

Had it arrived a day earlier, I’d have passed it on with a “Happy Birthday” to the dancing woman with the suggestion that her son use it as a bookmark. But she did say he was on page 450 of a book that is about 550 in most editions, so he may be floating on Queequeg’s coffin by the time she sees him again.

Instead, I’ll keep it in my wallet to show anyone else who approaches me to volunteer any news of Melville and Ishmael’s 500-plus page rhapsody in deep blue. I’ll tell them it’s a sequel I’ve just published and offer to send them signed copies for just fifteen dollars or two pints of Guinness in the nearest pub.

Next day, I’ll send them Once Upon an Attention Span, brand new and signed, containing just enough quotes from and references to Melville that they might not notice the difference.

Call it a whale of a bait and switch.

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https://buskersdelight.home.blog/once-upon-an-attention-span/

Photo by Michael Boer: https://onewe.wordpress.com/
The model for the cover of *Attention Span* (shown above), this is a replica at Alki Beach in West Seattle where immigrants arrived from the other direction. The photo as is, but B&W, has a two-page spread in the book’s opening with an inscription by, who else?, Herman Melville describing a wave of immigrants in Liverpool boarding an American ship bound for New York. From *Redburn*, 1849:

There is something in the contemplation of the mode in which America has been
settled, that, in a noble breast, should forever extinguish the prejudices of
national dislikes… Settled by the people of all nations, all nations may claim her
for their own. You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood
of the whole world… We are not a narrow tribe of men… whose blood has been
debased in the attempt to ennoble it by maintaining an exclusive succession
among ourselves. No: our blood is as the flood of the Amazon, made up of a
thousand noble currents all pouring into one. We are not a nation so much as a world…

Wicked Little Women

I’m not saying that Wicked Little Letters is the second coming of The Full Monty, but when a film draws more viewers in its second week than in its first, the comparison is inevitable.

Not much has been written about it, nor has there been much advertising despite Oscar-winner Olivia Colman playing one of the lead roles. Several Screening Room patrons told me last week, they wanted to see Colman due to her performances in The Favourite and Empire of Light.

Will she play yet another psychotic whack-job?

This week, more are telling me they heard loud, laughing recommendations from the earlier crowd. If we were to grade films according to word-of-mouth success, Wicked Little Letters may never reach the gold standard set by Full Monty, but it’s a solid A nonetheless.

And it is the same British sensibility that weaves slapstick with intrigue. Rather than men scheming to solve their problems with their own burlesque show, Letters casts a cabal of women to solve, as the poster puts it, “not a who-dun-it, but a who-wrote-it.”

Set against the backdrop of women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom, concurrent with ours a century ago, Letters is based on an actual mystery and a resulting trial that gripped England for months.

To say more about the crime, or crimes, would risk tipping the sleight of hand of a plot that keeps turning corners, not to mention give away the jokes. Worth noting, however, are the roles of two young girls, daughters of mothers as diverse as they can be, both absorbing and trying to make sense of the changing times.

One is the child of a rowdy Irish migrant, the other of a daughter of a “woman policeman” played by Anjana Vasan, a character–and a performance–that takes Letters from the categories of mystery and comedy into the realm of making you feel like a better person for having seen it.

Officer Ross is the daughter of an Indian (as in Calcutta, Mumbai) immigrant who, according to the chief who supervised him before supervising her, “knew his place.” In that one scene, that one moment, Wicked Little Letters reveals places that are not all that changed from the 1920s to the 2020s–or from that side of the Atlantic to this.

Good thing, too, because if I were to even begin talking about the plot, the mystery would disappear and many of the jokes would all fall flat.

Come see for yourself if Olivia Colman plays yet another whack-job.

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Wicked Little Letters plays at the Newburyport Screening Room Tuesday, April 16, through Sarturday, April 20, at 4:15 pm; and on Wednesday and Thursday (17th & 18th) at 7:00 pm.

“Be careful what you post.” Who says snail mail–or for that matter, the 20th Century–has no relevance in today’s hiigh-speed, hi-tech world? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20234774/

Detective Gladys Ross (Anjana Vasan) flanked by two extra-legal cohorts: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20234774/

Facing Perception

Whoever first said “perception is reality” may have been joking, but it is now the law of the land.

Nor am I exaggerating to make a point when I call it “law” as if it were as expected and enforced as a red light for stopping traffic.

The very phrase itself became the latest example–and victim–of the dumbing down of America this past weekend when the Republican candidate for president announced his position on reproductive rights:

My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land — in this case, the law of the state.

Put aside for a moment the fact that, in the very same speech, he boasts of “getting rid” of Roe v. Wade. Put aside, too, his attempt to appeal to Nikki Haley voters, particularly women, by declaring that the recent Arizona ruling “went too far” moments before he takes full credit for the Dobbs decision which made that ruling possible. And if it’s possible to keep putting things aside, pay no attention to his implicit, yet transparent assumption: He fully believes and is openly boasting that his three appointees to the Supreme Court exist to do his bidding.

Though his new and re-worked claim is nothing more than lipstick on a pig, let’s treat Porky as Porky says he is:

The placement of the word now in the prepared statement from which he read is curious. As an egomaniacal reality TV-star, he was all pro-choice, and he has wavered since then depending on where and to whom he speaks. Does “now” mean “for now,” as in temporarily?

Far from that, he wants it to sound certain, as a core value should. For his base and for those who take things at face value, that’s the perception. Considering that his track record is null and void of core values, we can bet on now meaning from here to November. That’s the reality.

Where everybody wanted it is equally revealing. This distorts language in much the same way that the Electoral College distorts democracy. As many as 49.9% of voters in states as large as Texas and Florida can go one way, but all 38 and 29 electoral votes go the opposite.

Republicans bank on supporters who identify as citizens of rural red states–“the real America” as they sometimes call it–in opposition to the “urban, coastal, liberal, elites” as they call the rest of us. Their “real” America now has what they want: bans. The rest of Trump’s “everybody” have what we want: reproductive rights–or, what they would call sin. That’s the perception.

The reality is worse. Most judges are not elected but appointed, and their approval comes from legislatures in states highly gerrymandered to favor Republicans. This explains why voters in states as conservative as Kansas overwhelmingly favor reproductive rights when they are put as referendum questions on ballots. News commentators have a word we keep hearing more and more to describe this: circumvent.

Then comes his sleight of hamfistedness of by vote or legislation or perhaps both. Vote comes first to create the impression of freedom, free choice, a democratic, truly American process. That’s the perception.

Reality? Republicans hope vote will mask the legislation already coming from and much of it already passed by the many state senates and houses of representatives they control. The word perhaps in front of both is a cute, Trumpish touch.

At the end of the statement, he adds another such touch, in this case… Intended as a qualifier, it suggests that the land–which has always been understood to mean America–can exist as one country in which people live with different sets of civil rights. That’s the perception.

Reality? As Abraham Lincoln told us, a house divided cannot stand.

If that’s reaching too far back, then let’s consider the reality check we experienced in the weeks after the Mitch McConnell-stacked Supreme Court gutted Roe v. Wade:

Until that decision, all Republicans were calling for repeal on the grounds of States Rights. As soon as Roe was overturned, Republican-controlled states were like a long, straight city street where you can see all the traffic lights lined up for six or seven blocks. Imagine them all changing at once. The green of States Rights went off, and with no hint of yellow in between, the red of a federal ban came on.

To call for a national ban, Republicans ditched States Rights like a used condom. (Well, it served it’s purpose, and then it was messy, so…) They may be letting the states quibble about the number of weeks, if any, or the nature of exceptions, if any, but all of them called for bills out of the US Senate and House of Representatives.

The historically accepted term for what they want is the law of the land.

Of course, they need a Republican president to sign it, which is why their presidential candidate dodges the question about signing such a bill–as well as why he conflates popular votes with party-controlled legislation. Instead, he hides behind States Rights, just as Republicans have done since 1973 when Roe v. Wade became law of the land.

The challenge for Democrats from here to November is to force voters to face perception. They can do that by putting reproductive rights on the ballots of every state they possibly can. As happened with the issue of same-sex marriage back in 2004, the wording of the question may vary from state to state, but that doesn’t matter. Worded to elicit a yes or no answer doesn’t matter. All that matters is that all Democratic candidates attach themselves to it.

That’s the reality.

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American history or 21st Century congestion, all the lights are red. Photo taken from in front of Chicago’s Museum of Art, 2008, by Michael Boer: https://onewe.wordpress.com/

Roe’s Role Reversal

We’ve seen this movie before except that the blinders were on the other sets of eyes.

And our own eyes at that! The year was 2004 which began with George W. Bush looking like a weak incumbent doomed to defeat in his bid for re-election.

Took the Democrats a while to settle on John Kerry, but as I recall, all of his primary opponents and their followers united behind him.

Twenty years ago, however, the hot-button issue was not abortion. It was same-sex marriage, and the country simply was not ready for it–as it is now. In the Bush camp, strategist Karl Rove recognized this and put the word out to Republicans in the battle-ground states to find some way and some wording to get it on the ballot as a referendum question. Many who never bother to vote, he figured, would be out to turn it down. Once in the booth, they’d fill another oval in for the candidate–or party–associated with their cause.

Exit polls proved him right. Voter turnout was considerably higher in several states, a few of which the issue likely flipped, including Ohio with 20 electoral votes that would have changed the outcome all by itself. Same-sex marriage went down in flames, taking Kerry with it.

Though the issues have flipped into public favor, the plot is the same. If Democrats need someone to play the Karl Rove role, I hereby volunteer. And there’s a lot to work with…*

Last week, a court in Florida ordered that reproductive rights be put on the November ballot. Some pundits are now saying that, in November the state, despite DeSantis, will be in play.

This week, an Arizona court returned its state back to draconian laws written 50 years before statehood–and before women had the right to vote–that would make all abortions illegal, no exceptions. What’s to stop Arizona Democrats from putting the issue on the November ballot? What’s to stop Democrats from putting Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia in play?

Do it in Texas, and you might not top Trump, but you might get Colin Allred to replace Ted Cruz in the US Senate. Do it in Ohio, and you’ll give Biden a fair chance while guaranteeing Sherrod Brown’s re-election to the Senate. Do it in New York and other states where you may think you don’t need it, and you’ll pick up seats in the US House.

Give Biden and Harris a Democratic House and Senate, and Roe v. Wade will be restored as law of the land.**

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* & ** Turns out that Law of the Land, a time-honored and immediately-understood phrase, has this past weekend been turned into yet another verbal trick–a value steeped in patriotism now stained in deceit. Tomorrow’s blog, “Facing Perception,” dissects Trump’s recent statement on abortion which is, all by itself, plenty to work with.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/are-close-presidential-elections-new-normal-n1250147

Already in the Bucket

Last eclipse that passed through the USA curved from the Pacific Northwest across the Rockies downward through the Central Plains and deep through the heart of Dixie into the Gulf of Mexico in 2017.

Path of Totality was so far removed from New England, that few of us paid much attention. Still, the warnings went out to avoid staring at the 74% or so, or to wear those glasses if we wanted to watch the moon’s slow motion over the sun.

Perhaps thinking of it as a reminder of witnessing a total eclipse in 1979, I was most interested in seeing it. Since it was a Thursday, I knew I’d be making deliveries to Western Mass, and was sure to be finished and on the way home on Route 2–a.k.a. The Mohawk Trail–by mid-afternoon when it was due.

Worked out so well, that I was able to sit and enjoy falafel at a favorite restaurant just after my last drop and still have nearly an hour to reach a Starbuck’s halfway back, as I often still do. Tables and chairs outside awaited me as if the eclipse was simply another stop on my manifest.

Pulled into Starbuck’s to see the patio filled with people awaiting the show–which began just as I stepped back out of the coffeeshop with a cup. First words I heard: “Join the party!”

About twenty people passing around several of those glasses–which turned out to be not so lame as I always assumed. When I said that aloud, a woman asked: “Your first eclipse?”

“No. I saw one in North Dakota up by the Canadian border, 1979. Total.”

In an instant, I had everyone’s rapt attention, and for the first time I noticed that I was among people who, every one of them, were young enough to be my kid. They wanted a description, but it wasn’t so much for a total eclipse. I learned long ago that, when you tell someone that you lived in one of the Great Plains states, they seem lost. If you say California, Florida, New York, or Texas, they understand immediately. If you name a state in the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes region, the South, the East Coast, they have some idea. But say names such as Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and jaws drop, necks tilt, faces twist, eyes squint, brows furrow.

Just as well, because my experience 45 years ago is hard to imagine anywhere but on the Great Plains. A friend and I were grantwriters for an intertribal organization based in Bismarck in the dead center of the state where the projection was for about 97%. We deliberately arranged for a meeting with tribal leaders that day on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, about an hour and a half drive north.

The tribal offices are in Belcourt, the largest town which would be tiny in most other states. Put another way, dozens of homes very well spread out, all of them with small structures beside and beyond them–sheds, stables, pigpens, chicken coops, barns. Very few trees to conceal anything from us–my friend and I with a feisty young tribal chaiman named Clark and a few of his assistants–as we gathered at the top of a slight rise, bundled up against a frigid February day passing around pint bottles that Clark provided for all of us to brace ourselves.

My new friends at the Starbucks in Fitchburg seven years ago laughed at the image and started chiding each other for not bringing similarly filled flasks. When I pointed out that the shirt-sleeve weather we enjoyed that day, unlike the six degree chill I endured in 1979, required no bracing, they asked me to continue.

As I recall, I told them that all was silent except for our own chatter and maybe chattering teeth. And we fell silent when the moon reached the sun. For a minute there was no sound at all in Belcourt, but it was about then, a third of the way in to totality, that the dogs started barking, cows started mooing, pigs squealing, goats bleating, chickens clucking, horses neighing. Animals that were not restrained moved in circles or zigzags. Nothing violent, but all quite vibrant–and loud.

In response, Clark and his friends, and my friend and I started hooting and hollering, waving fists in the air. I had this odd urge to yell “Happy New Year,” but that may have been Jim Beam or Jack Daniels trying to talk. As it got darker, what few streetlights there are in Belcourt came on.

The crowd in Fitchburg was impressed, but I could detect a pall of disappointment. A cheer went up at the moment the moon was halfway across, but this 74-percenter wasn’t inspiring any hooting and hollering. Furthermore, rather than looking out over a sleepy village alive with wide-awake farm animals, we looked out over a crammed parking lot and a neon mall.

“You’ll have your chances,” I consoled them as the sky began to lighten again. “You may have to travel, but it’ll be there.”

Today, I learn that a friend here in Newburyport took his young son all the way to Wyoming to see the 2017 eclipse in totality:

We flew into Denver and drove to Jay Em, WY (population <100) and paid a rancher $100 to camp out in his hayfield… Besides the moon blocking the sun, the coolest thing was watching the horses run back to the barn, and the antelope running all over the place, quite confused by the midday darkness. The drive back to Denver, normally 2-3 hours, took us TEN hours…

That last line struck home. As recently as yesterday, I was planning another attempt to talk my cousin into a six-hour round-trip to Vermont tomorrow. But as if to update my friend’s account of 2017, other friends posted pictures of Interstates 93, 91, and 89’s northbound lanes. Had Sheila agreed to the daytrip when I first proposed it, I’d now want to talk her out of it.

All those kids in Fitchburg were openly envious of an old man who could claim that he saw just one, so it doesn’t qualify for my bucket list. And that outdoor party in Newburyport that I mentioned yesterday–with a telescope, cold beer, and snacks where the eclipse will be about 95% –promises to be as or more memorable than a random pitstop on the road seven years ago.

Moreover, I’m so vain, I’m starting to think the eclipse is about me.

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Eclipses may come and go, but the International Peace Garden has graced both sides of the North Dakota-Manitoba border since its dedication in 1932. The American side is on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, and I spent a day there in July of 1979–so, like a total eclipse, it needs no spot on my bucket list.
https://peacegarden.com/

Eclipsomania

On Friday, a travel agent friend of mine fielded a call from a woman looking to rent a car while she spent the weekend in Dallas for her monthly National Guard training.

Told that the only car available within a 50 mile radius would be a Ford Focus with a no-name, off-airport car rental company for $250/day, she was shocked:

“I don’t get it! What’s going on? Dallas/Fort Worth is a large airport, and it’s not the Super Bowl this weekend!”

“Eclipse mania,” my friend replied, explaining that Texas was in the “Path of Totality” and that hotels, campgrounds, cars, flights, have been booked for over a year. She continued: “On the bright side, if you can stay until Monday, you’ll have a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a total eclipse.”

“What? I live in Virginia, so I don’t get the news in Texas. I can’t believe this! The government only gives us a $500 allowance for travel expenses to these trainings. The rest we have to pay for. I could care less about the eclipse! I just want to get this weekend over with and get back to Virginia!”

My friend’s reaction-Talk about head in the sand–might apply equally to the woman in Virginia and the National Guard. But she followed it with a curiously undeniable charge:

I bet [the National Guard] wouldn’t make the mistake of planning training on Super Bowl weekend!

Don’t know how far in advance the National Guard plans training sessions, but looks like they’ll have to start consulting astronomical charts–much the way I now must consult tidal charts (which are, by definition, astronomical) to know if there’s a chance I cannot reach the mainland during the cycles of full and new moons.

Planning ahead? I’ve read that there are American towns and cities all along the Path of Totality–from the Rio Grande on the south of Texas to the St. John on the north of Maine–that have assigned “Eclipse Managers” to coordinate the efforts of public services, private businesses, and law enforcement. On the Canadian side, the tourist town of Niagara, Ontario, has called a state of emergency, expecting over a million people.

Another friend in Western Massachusetts tells me of a neighbor whose daughter attends the University of Vermont. The school has an arrangement with local entreprenuers who offer rooms at $150/night to parents, but tonight and tomorrow it is $450.

Frankly, I thought the $150 was price gouging, but before I could say so, she told me of another neighbor flying to Austin, Texas, where she will pay $750 for a room, about $200 more than the flight. My friend exploded:

Eclipsomania! Imagine if all this money went to good causes! Of course, the localities and all the businesses are rejoicing with a surge in revenue, so I guess there’s some good in it.

As one Wyoming publication put it in headline after a Path of Totality passed through in 2017: They came, they saw, they spent. However, Buckrail was able to report in that same story that permit requests for roadside animal sacrifices were nothing more than urban myth. As my travel agent friend noted, “What kind of group planning such a thing would ask permission?”

Apart from monetary concerns, there are also psychological considerations. One highly regarded radio astrologer offers both a warning and encouragement:

Just be extra careful and give everyone lots of space… There is a lot of energy coming through with this eclipse, and it is triggering peoples weaknesses. A lot of misdirected anger can be expressed at this time. For those who have been working on bettering themselves, there is a great potential for directing the energy like a launch pad for new projects.

Also practical considerations which a retired Maine state trooper delivers as only a Maniac can:

No one has asked, mainly because they typically ask for directions to the freshest doughnuts, our badge number, or inform us that they “didn’t do it.” The latter commentary usually accompanies an index finger pointing to another person in their party or group. It’s funny; I mean, it was funny in the early 80s.

We gathered a group of great minds and developed some tips for those driving through Maine for the eclipse. They are in no particular order…

1. Carry snacks and water—if you’ve not been here before, we don’t have convenience stores on every corner. Sometimes, we don’t even have a corner. There are just lots of straight roads with holes placed strategically. Frankly, the roads are not all that straight, but I was upfront about the holes. Check your tire pressures. There are very few air pumps at the gas stations you won’t find. That leads us to number two.

2. It is a good idea to ensure you have enough gasoline to make it from our border at New Hampshire or Massachusetts all the way to Canada…

He continues in this vein for another eight laugh-at-your-own-risk points, but I had already ruled out Maine when I first heard of the eclipse nearly a year ago. I immediately thought of it as an excuse to return to Fort Kent–actually a few miles north of the Path of Totality–for the first time since I lived there for three months in 1975.

But I read further in the story that all hotels & B&Bs already were booked. Can’t imagine I’d find anyone who’d remember me–or whom I’d remember–after 49 years. And with the indirect roads to bypass the Allagash, the St. John Valley is no mere day-trip.

Tomorrow morning I’m having breakfast with my cousin in Plaistow, New Hampshire. She has already said no to my proposed five-hour round-trip drive into Vermont–six for me, but Plaistow is a head start. Still, I’ll make one more attempt to change her mind.

If not, well there’s an outdoor party with a telescope, cold beer, and snacks on the mainland where the eclipse will be about 95%. And according to the Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book, we’ll be two hours past high tide when it will be time for me to drive over.

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Post Script: If I seem ambivalent about my cousin’s resistance–or my own motivation–it’s because I witnessed a total eclipse in North Dakota in 1979. Will describe it tomorrow under the headline: Already in the Bucket.

https://www.necn.com/news/national-international/best-new-england-viewing-total-solar-eclipse/2001517/

An Equality of Difference

A friend writes to tell me that he has been paying “slightly more attention to March Madness, but only because of NPR coverage of the watershed moment when the women are getting bigger audiences than the men.”

No doubt the main reason for this is the sensation caused by Iowa star Caitlin Clark, her rivalry with LSU star Angel Reese, and the intensity of so many games that aren’t decided until the last minute of play.

Also, many of the men’s games are over as soon as they begin. That’s to be expected in the first two rounds, but the Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen weren’t much better, several of them decided by twice the number you’ll ever find in a Vegas spread. And if that’s not enough, most fans expect UConn to knife their way to the men’s championship as if the butter is already melted.

But there’s another reason why women’s basketball has taken several years since the formation of professional leagues and the increase in television coverage to catch on. Why Clark and Reese have gained attention that eluded so many excellent players such as Tamika Catchings, Rebecca Lobo, Candace Parker, Sheryl Swoopes, and Diana Taurasi–with Sue Bird and Britney Griner on the cusp.

Life-long fans, especially those of us who grew up playing the game, have always been used to seeing jump shops from hands up over the forehead. I recall being taught that when I played for St. Augustine’s Elementary School in a league that limited all players to a weight of one hundred pounds or less.

That’s always how it has been in men’s games–pro, college, high school. Back in the 50s and into the mid-60s, you still saw the two-handed push-shot that came from below the neck while both feet remained on the court, but Bill Sharman and Bob Cousy impersonators are long gone. Nor do you ever see Wilt Chamberlain’s underhanded shots, while Tommy Heinsohn’s hooks are nearly as rare as Sam Jones’ bank shots.

When networks and cable stations started broadcasting women’s basketball a decade or so ago, it just looked and felt unnatural, wrong. I recall having that reaction just last year after a brief look.

Their hands start down by the chin, and at times the shot is two-handed and a bit further down, much like the push-shot that disappeared from the men’s game. By the time of release, the ball is slightly higher, and extended in front of them–while men keep it above them. At times the release may be as high as the forehead, but the sight still contradicts all that we (men anyway) had been taught, grew up with, did ourselves, and continue to watch.

The breakthrough this year is that we’ve become used to and have accepted the difference.

In fact, many of us have moved on, and despite any reluctance to root for Goliath over David, we here in New England can’t help but notice that UConn is contending for both men’s and women’s crowns.

On the other shooting hand, North Carolina State is also contending for both. As an 11-seed, the NC men are in the proverbial role of a “Cinderella Team,” while the 3-seed NC women are also up against a heavily-favored 1-seed, South Carolina.

Regional loyalty versus pulling for the underdog. That’s a tough call no matter where or how the shots are taken.

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Ohio State Guard Jacy Shelton
https://www.statesman.com/story/sports/college/basketball/2024/03/16/womens-final-four-2024-dates-schedule-location-march-madness-ncaa-tournament/72960743007/

This link eventually offers a video of Carmelo Anthony taking numerous jump shots when he played for the New York Knicks several years ago:
:https://www.statesman.com/story/sports/college/basketball/2024/03/16/womens-final-four-2024-dates-schedule-location-march-madness-ncaa-tournament/72960743007/

Films to Fan a Firehouse Flame

There’s an alluring, bordering on infectious new film titled Sweet Dreams that will not be playing at theaters near you.

Not even the Screening Room, nor will it be on Netflix or any other streaming service anytime soon.

But it will play, all eleven minutes of it, at the Newburyport Firehouse, 6:00 pm, Sunday, April 21, as part of the 10^th Annual Earth Port Film Festival.

I’m not saying it’s my favorite of ten selections that other festival judges and I chose to fill a 90-minute screening. In fact, I gave it a low score on first viewing.

A young woman named Sarah starts paying attention to environmental news, and then finds she can’t stop thinking of climate change and pollution. We see her at work, and soon unemployed; in a relationship, and soon single.

Not much comic relief, but the relevance of Sweet Dreams to anyone who would rather not whistle past environmental and political graveyards today is impossible to deny. Not to mention to those of us who try to stand against anti-Semitism while we crumble under the weight of genocide in Gaza.

As one of the other judges put it, “The images stick with you.” Stuck with me long enough to change my mind.

My involvement is no doubt a by-product of life as a projectionist at the Screening Room where I showed and saw all ten Oscar nominees for Best Picture.

Just as I thought each of the ten worthy of Hollywood’s top award, I found each of the 37 films we rated worthy of inclusion for the public showing at the Firehouse.

Thankfully, all 37 clocked between three and 21 minutes, totaling under six hours—all for the sake of finding nine or ten for the time of an average full-length film.

Only in retrospect did I realize how most of our selections are as much personal stories as documentary, as we might expect for an annual festival “inspired by a desire to highlight and raise awareness of both pressing environmental issues and the important role of community media.”

Don’t know who first struck the match, but both Elizabeth Marcus of the environmentalist group Transition Newburyport and Sarah Hayden of Port Media have fanned the flame since 2012 save for the pandemic’s intermission.

With so much to show, the festival offers a representative sampling, after which the audience casts ballots for their favorites.

This year’s selections range from cartoons to documentaries, with titles ranging from Rubbish Trip to Ocean Farming, and settings from Maine to New Zealand.

Themes and moods range from worrying to whimsical, from sobering to hilarious, from alarming to inspiring.

Might say from zany to provocative, but Just Can’t Stop is both at once while putting the “Mad” in “Madison Avenue.”

No matter the mood or content, all offer some hope—especially one of an electric airplane, the brainchild of a teenage nerd who never stops smiling in one of the longer films.

My use of the word “longer” may break a festival rule. The two main categories are “Short” and “Very Short,” a distinction that still sounds like fingernails on the chalkboard of this ex-English teacher’s memory.

That there’s a third category called “Young Filmmakers” is by itself cause for hope—not to mention an indication of the festival’s high energy and engagement.

We judges were mostly in sync. Of the ten selections for the Firehouse screening, just one was not on among my top rankings.

My one pick that missed, Thatch to the Future, was not about improbable roofing, but a sharp, stabbing satire of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher likely lost on anyone under the age of 50.

Better that you see Puppet Back Up about interactive shows by buskers in the streets of English cities whose puppets engage people young and old in conversation about climate issues.

Not at all surprising to see street-performers cast as environmentalists. It’s a connection I made in my book about busking, Pay the Piper, ten years ago, a measure of how healthy a city is–with an analogy to the proverbial canaries in the coalmine.

If a local young filmmaker wants to treat it, I’ll go from judge to entrant in next year’s Earth Port Film Festival.

-30-

A still from Sweet Dreams: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26693827/

Sarah Hayden introducing a previous Earth Port Film Festival; https://www.earthportfilm.org/#

Literally in Other Words

A good and long-time friend has advised me to avoid name-calling. Pretty sure I have avoided that in print–and if I didn’t, an editor would let me know.

As well as in these blogs, although there are times when I get so caught up in the raucous tone of satire, I may have let fly a Trumporon or Trumbecile at those in the crowds who laugh and cheer, hoot and jeer everytime he “jokes” about inflicting violence on judges, juries, and their families–or, as he is emphasizing in recent weeks, promising to pardon all the convicted criminals who desecrated the Capitol and inflicted violence on police on Jan. 6, 2021.

Don’t quite know how to be polite to–much less respectful of–those who cheer for violence and laugh at suggestions of hangings and firing squads, but if you see me put the term “human beings” in quotes, you’ll know I’m trying.

My restraint is especially tested when I see or hear a well-used analogy that calls for completion. When the same friend posted a meme telling us that…

DJT selling Bibles is like Hannibal Lechter selling cookbooks…

I suggested that he might be calling those who buy those damned or blessed books–depending on your point of view–cannibals, all while being mighty careful not to use that word myself.

Perhaps he’s a political vegetarian. He didn’t take the bait, and so I started reeling myself in–only to find that another friend, one here in Newburyport, has decided to try his hand at poetry. And there, as a screaming subject line on an email, was the title of his first attempt.

Before I reveal it, let’s be fair to the good fellow, a man of my boomer, often boomed, but still booming generation. Turns out he and I were colleagues (of sorts) for one summer in the late-70s or early 80s, whichever came first: he, a white-collar guy for 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota; me, a temporary assembly-line roustabout in a huge warehouse 3M built to avoid Minnesota taxes just over the state line in the college-town of Brookings, South Dakota.*

In other words (literally in other words), he and I share a turn of mind that has both of us looking for new ways to express ourselves when we “find wrong and try to right it.” Obligation may be the driving force, and solutions–ranging from fair treatment of local workers to clean air and world peace–may be our destination.

But damn it, don’t we deserve to have some fun along the way? Don’t we need to laugh? Quaff some Guinness? Don’t those willing to hear us want and need to laugh? Quaff what they will?

As my turned-poet friend puts it, “Thirst is a dangerous thing!”

And I keep finding over and over again and again that those who don’t laugh make me thirsty, in part because I have this odd intuition that their inability or unwillingness to laugh betrays a thirst that is killing them.

But I ingest. Before anyone gets drunk on that metaphor, let me remind you that I found this email when I had just resolved to guard against name-calling. So the title came as a shock, and my initial instinct was to change it. But no, better to offer it under the title that he gave it, a title that has honest resonance in American history with a name as proudly worn by apologists for slavery in the 19th Century as we hear their descendants call it today in their 21st Century translation, Anti-Woke:

Curses of the Know-Nothings

by Walt Thompson

No one seems to be listening

As a fog

Settling over City Hall

Silently rolls in from over the Merrimack

Silence they welcome

Dulling, oblivious, obscuring

Going along

To what ends?

Burying ethics

Staying in lanes

Comfortable in silos

Creating word salads

Ignoring options and possibilities

Why?

Not for power

Not in a small city

Not for long hours

Not for $5,000 yearly

Aspirations changing

Foggy thoughts not keeping pace

Actions impeded by imagined guilts

Imbedded

Resistant

Spineless

Prairie-dog sensing danger

Hiding

Time will pass

Curses of the Know-Nothings

Reaping non-awards

Suffering inactions

Evolving downward

If you’re reading this outside the ten-mile radius of Newburyport City Hall, it might be tempting to dismiss its message as limited to the locality. That “staying in lanes” line, for instance, may seem like nothing more than a re-wording of “mind your own business,” but doesn’t it also summarize the adopted MO of a national political party now in thrall to Donald Trump?

If nothing else, re-consider the last two lines. These are times that try us with questions that scream whether we want to ask them or not–rhetorically, angrily, or fearfully: How did things get so bad? How did America become so divided?

As this poem concludes, inaction is devolution.

-30-

*3M = Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing