Lots of fish this time

Fishing in the Keep of Silence

by Linda Gregg

There is a hush now while the hills rise up
and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship
of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully
as he lies dreaming in the lap of the world.
He knows the owls will guard the sweetness
of the soul in their massive keep of silence,
looking out with eyes open or closed over
the length of Tomales Bay that the egrets
conform to, whitely broad in flight, white
and slim in standing. God, who thinks about
poetry all the time, breathes happily as He
repeats to Himself: there are fish in the net,
lots of fish this time in the net of the heart.

"Fishing in the Keep of Silence" by Linda Gregg, from All of It Singing. © Graywolf Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission.

An Assassin When We Need One

“Where is Lee Harvey Oswald now that we need him?

The small bumper sticker on the back bumper of the white panel truck smacked me in the face. I had pulled up behind it to wait for the car ahead to turn left. The famous picture of Oswald and his rifle illustrated the provocative and disturbing question.

The truck may have been just old enough to carry such a message with George W. Bush in its sights. But even if that truck did go back to “W’s” administration, I doubted Lee Harvey Oswald was being wished on him. I know to whose head the question was aimed.

There were no other markings on the back of the truck to tell me if its driver might be a plumber or electrician or any of the many people who drive such vehicles. The bumper sticker was so low on the truck that you might not notice it if you walked around it, or toward it. It was almost as if the owner wanted it on his vehicle, but not so it would attract too much attention.

We moved forward, and I pulled to the truck’s left as it prepared to turn right at the next light. No markings on its side, either. I tried to catch a glimpse of the driver’s face, but just as I passed he raised his left hand and blocked my view. Chance or intention, I don’t know.

I am willing to guess he thinks himself a true Patriot. But he isn’t, not at all. We elect and with equal fervor un-elect our leaders. When we don’t want them any more, we use the ballot box to turn them out to pasture. Those who wish Lee Harvey Oswald to come and do the work of democracy for them, or over the will of the majority, simply do not get being citizens of this nation. It’s not patriotism and it’s not democracy: it’s anarchy and it’s chaos.

That driver should hide his message and his face; he should be ashamed. But he shouldn’t be shot.

A Comment on "Comments"

If you read my blog you have perhaps noticed that there may be no way for you to comment on it. I think it used to be easy to do, a box for comments prominently displayed at the end of each post.

Recently I was able to post a test comment by signing into my Google account, but I don't know where that leaves the few who have not yet fallen into Google's clutches. I have tried to implement the online directions on how to open it up to ordinary citizens, but to no avail. Of course, I can't call a human being and ask about it.

Fortunately, a Facebook friend responded to my cry for help, and I now have information on what to do to fix the problem. I know you are eagerly waiting to shoot down my always insightful commentaries, so I will try what she suggested in the next day or two. Meantime, if you can comment on this post, do so...and tell me how you did it on what kind of computer/smart phone/tablet, etc.

Thanks!

Victims of Violence

Underlying the controversy over guns in our country is the reality of our attraction to and love of violence. Television’s commercial "breaks” are awash in the blood of promotions for violent TV series. They promise increasingly gruesome and graphic crimes and punishments. Just the ads turn my stomach, and I don’t watch the shows they hype. Fact is, I don’t watch much television at all, so I am no expert on what’s out there. I depend upon the reports of people like James Poniewozik

In the March 11 issue of Time, Poniewozik writes about “Serial Killing: How TV dramas, good and bad, have become addicted to blood.” He tries to distinguish between shows that include violence as an element in well-constructed plots involving fully-realized characters, and those that simply use violence as a means to attract the coveted young adult male demographic. Either way, violence now plays essential roles in dramas that aspire to success.

We argue about whether immersion in virtual and visual violence makes it more likely some people will resort to real violence as a way to solve real problems and settle real issues. Scientific studies are reported to be inconclusive on the debate. Common sense tells me that if you grow up being told and shown violence as the preferred way of dealing with life you are more likely to chose violence when you feel life pointing a gun at your head.

Strange, isn’t it, that “Christian” America is fixated on violence. I have always thought Jesus was about love, forgiveness, and redemption. When it comes to violence, violence came to him, and he suffered at its hands, not returning evil for evil. If any violence was to be brought into the world, it would come as a result of the judgment of God, not of us visiting it upon one another. Suffering was to be eased, not inflicted, and if it could not be eased, it was to be borne, not brandished. “The one who lives by the sword, dies by the sword,” he who wished the death of no one asserted. “When will ‘they’ ever learn...”

James Poniewozik writes (mostly) approvingly of The Walking Dead, reporting that in one episode a character dies in childbirth. “Before she slips away, she says to her young son, ‘Promise me you’ll always do what’s right.’ After she dies, he picks up a gun and –so she won’t rise as undead–shoots her through the head. Because he loves her.”

Then he writes:

“It’s deeply affecting and human, as mother-son mercy rekillings go. But you know what else is affecting and human? Falling in love, and out of it. Growing up. Chasing a dream that doesn’t involve running guns or drugs. Coping with illnesses that do not terminate in zombieism. TV’s new golden age has given us shows that couldn’t have existed 20 years ago. But it hasn’t yet found much room for personal, grownup dramas like...”

I’ll leave the shows he feels meet that test up to your judgment, you who know television much better than do I. All of us could well take a hard look at how our culture’s obsession with violence afflicts our own souls and the quality of our life together.

Washington as String Quartet?

I've been trying come up with something original and interesting about "The Sequester" and how we got into this mess...one mess among the many. Then Garrison Keillor came to my rescue again with today's Writer's Almanac.  Makes me think of the "Congress As Choir" piece I wrote several months ago.

String Quartet

by Carl Dennis

Art and life, I wouldn't want to confuse them.
But it's hard to hear this quartet
Without comparing it to a conversation
Of the quiet kind, where no one tries to outtalk
The other participants, where each is eager instead
To share in the task of moving the theme along
From the opening statement to the final bar.

A conversation that isn't likely to flourish
When sales technicians come trolling for customers,
Office-holders for votes, preachers for converts.
Many good people among such talkers,
But none engaged like the voices of the quartet
In resisting the plots time hatches to make them unequal,
To set them at odds, to pull them asunder.

I love the movement where the cello is occupied
With repeating a single phrase while the others
Strike out on their own, three separate journeys
That seem to suggest each prefers, after all,
The pain and pleasure of playing solo. But no.
Each near the end swerves back to the path
Their friend has been plodding, and he receives them
As if he never once suspected their loyalty.

Would I be moved if I thought the music
Belonged to a world remote from this one,
If it didn't seem instead to be making the point
That conversation like this is available
At moments sufficiently free and self-forgetful?

And at other moments, maybe there's still a chance
To participate in the silence of listeners
Who are glad for what they manage to bring to the music
And for what they manage to take away.

Trombone Lesson

Trombone Lesson

by Paul Hostovsky

The twenty minutes from half past nine
to ten of ten is actually slightly longer
than the twenty minutes from ten of ten
to ten past ten, which is half downhill
as anyone who's ever stared at the hillocky
face of a clock in the 5th grade will tell you.
My trombone lesson with Mr. Leister
was out the classroom door and down
the tessellating hallway to the band room
which was full of empty chairs and music stands
from ten past ten to ten-forty, which is half
an hour and was actually slightly shorter
than the twenty minutes that came before or after
which as anyone who's ever played trombone
will tell you, had to do with the length of the slide
and the smell of the brass and also the mechanism
of the spit-valve and the way that Mr. Leister
accompanied me on his silver trumpet making
the music sound so elegantly and eminently
better than when I practiced it at home
for hours and hours which were all much shorter
than an hour actually, as anyone who's ever
practiced the art of deception with a musical
instrument will tell you, if he's honest and has any
inkling of the spluttering, sliding, flaring,
slippery nature of time, youth and trombones.

"Trombone Lesson" by Paul Hostovsky, from Bending the Notes. © Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2008.

Man of Music

I stood in the door to Mr. Lehr’s office, cornet in hand. It was time for my weekly lesson with the only instrumental music teacher in my small Iowa hometown. He had been teaching me since I was in fourth grade, and now I was on the verge of junior high–seventh grade. Mr. Lehr motioned me in.

The Instrumental Music Office, just off the high school band room, was a jumble of music, stray horn parts, drum sticks, and those mysterious papers all teachers possess. A hint of daylight through a small window lifted the basement space above grade. Mr. Lehr bore the faint smell of cigarette smoke, transported from the teachers’ hideout in the boiler room.

I do not remember if either of us closed the office door. On that summer day, we may have been the only two people in the sprawling building, so there was no need to. If anyone thought about the risks of adults and children–teachers and students–being alone in a room or building, it was never mentioned. And I never had reason to be concerned.

I handed Mr. Lehr the printed form on which I had recorded my practice hours during the previous week. A line at the top urged me to “Practice for Results.” As usual, it reported that I had invested the recommended half-hour each day–3 1/2 hours for the week–in my nascent music career. My mother had signed my practice record, so what it said was true. “Results” were Mr. Lehr’s call.

I sat down on a metal chair next to my teacher, placed music on the stand in front of me, and gently blew a few puffs of air through my battered, second-hand cornet. My parents had not invested in a new horn when I started. If I had quit in a month, what would they have done with it? I was ready to demonstrate the week’s results to my teacher.

Before I could play my first note, Mr. Lehr brought up a subject I had hoped we might avoid. At my last lesson he had asked me to play music that was sort of a “test,” though he probably used every other word available to describe it. The purpose of that call-it-anything-but-a-test, test was to help determine whether I should continue to play cornet, to study music. I knew I was not very good at sight-reading, and still felt the sting of my previous week’s performance. I had spent the seven days since hoping Mr. Lehr would let the whole “test” business fade into silence. If only I’d spent as much time Practicing for Improved Results.

The embarrassing matter was not be be ignored. Mr. Lehr, as he always did, sympathetically moved right to the point: “Dean, do you remember the music I had you play last week?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you played some of it very well. But I am afraid you did not do well on the rhythmic patterns; you know, on counting.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. That’s the way it is. Unfortunately, the result is that it says you probably shouldn’t continue studying music–taking lessons, being in the band, and so on–because, according to it, music is just not something you’ll ever be able to do well at.”

I sat there. What could I say that wouldn’t give way to tears?

A pause, and Mr. Lehr continued: “But I know how much you like playing cornet, and I know how hard you work at it. And you were very nervous last week. So I am not going to pay attention to that report. I think you can learn to count, and I will work with you for at least another year. I think you should continue.”

I hope the next thing I said was, “Thank you.”

Practicing’s results the following two years were good enough that as I entered high school my parents bought me a beautiful Olds Super Cornet. I played it in the concert, marching, and swing/pep bands through high school. I became a decent musician, good enough to win first chair. I did well at contests, mastering challenging solo pieces with Mr. Lehr’s help. On Wednesday evenings through each summer I took my place on the bandstand just east of our massive stone county courthouse and played with the best of the town’s musicians in the city band, under Mr. Lehr’s direction. I wasn’t always first chair in that band, but I got paid for it. It is the only time in my life I have been paid for making music.

In my senior year, Mr. Lehr talked me into playing a jazz solo as part of an all-school talent show. I worked and worked on it, but was never at ease with it, and never got it right. Improvising jazz’s rhythms was beyond me. If he recalled our conversation of several years earlier about whether I should go on, he didn’t say so. Such was the timing of our relationship.

I haven’t played my cornet in decades. I have been told I could sell it for a good deal more than my mom and dad paid for it, but it’s hard for me to imagine parting with it. It awaits its future in our attic.

Charles F. Lehr was the constant “music man” in our town, teaching there for 32 years. Vocal music teachers came and left, and string programs didn’t have a chance in rural Iowa in those days. But he was an institution as solid as the courthouse, and more reliable than the clock that overlooks the town from its tower. When I heard of his death, at the age of 90, on February 15, 2013, I remembered the last time I saw him, about three years ago, and that I tried to thank him in a way he would know was for real.

My love of music and my active participation in music-making have been constants throughout my life, largely because, one day in the mid-1950s, Chuck Lehr judged me by my person and not by some “test.”