Ramblin' with Roger

1972 – the surprise party

New Hampshire primary

Mar 5 – After playing pool with Uthaclena, I stopped at the vending machine. I took off my boots to keep my roommate’s floor clean. One of my socks came off. I walked into my room. I saw a stranger, the Okie’s roomie, then my father near the window, and my sister Leslie near my roomie’s mirror. SURPRISE party! Shocked was more like it.

Marcia, Mom, and of course, the Okie and the roomie were there. My family brought Kentucky Fried Chicken, cake, and some beverages. The roomie made a general birthday page in the dorm, and a few people came by. Leslie took her friend Joe to the bus station, then returned. The Okie’s mother and baby sister visited.

I got from my family two rolls of Scotch tape, a bottle of Stridex, 24 8-cents stamps, underpants, a nice blue shirt with a strange VOTE button, and some albums:
Color Blind – the Glitterhouse
Stoned Soul Picnic – the Fifth Dimension
Santana III
There’s A Riot Goin’ On – Sly and the Family Stone
The Okie was worried I wouldn’t like the Leadbelly album she bought me, but I did, especially Bourgeois Blues and Gallows Pole.

The Okie’s father arrived before my family left. Apparently, he was nervous to meet them for some reason, the Okie told me later.

The Okie and I went to see the movie Last Summer, which she found very upsetting, relating to Cathy Burns’ Rhoda. (Burns, who died in 2019, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.)

After the party

Mar 6 Yesterday must have really thrown me because I was so disorganized. Couldn’t find my checkbook or notebooks. Forgot the meal ticket booklet, the fact that one of my classes was canceled, and that my gym stuff was in my laundry

Mar 7 My 19th birthday. Also, the day of the New Hampshire primaries. According to WNPC: Muskie 42%, McGovern 34%, Yorty 8%, Hartke 4%, with votes for supposed non-candidates Mills (5%) and Kennedy (1%). (Official numbers were slightly different.)

Did three loads of laundry. Uthaclena gave me the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album.

Later, I suddenly became very depressed, in part about off and on communication with the Okie.

In general

A lot about snowball fights, doing schoolwork (I really like my Basic Economics II class), Uthaclena reading comic books (e.g. Green Lantern/Green Arrow 89), the Okie’s unreliable car, writing letters, and eating ice cream sandwiches.

Feb 24 – Uthaclena received the Bangladesh album. I gave him Absolutely Live – the Doors. A couple of days later, he bought Pictures at an Exhibition – Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.
Feb 26 – Bruce Goldberg had said on WNPC (college radio) that Muhammad Ali was going to meet the kangaroo boxing champion of the world. Apparently, MSG was going to sue Bruce for defamation of character over what was a joke.

Movie review: CODA [child of deaf adults]

translated

My wife and I watched the movie CODA on Apple+ late last month, just before it won the Screen Actors Guild award for outstanding cast in a motion picture. We enjoyed it a lot.

It occurred to me that the framework of the story was fairly conventional, but that it worked exceedingly well. Part of it is the specificity of these particular characters. Another is the strong performances by the actors. But a big chunk of it is that we really hadn’t seen this narrative shown.

Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing member of a deaf family. CODA means child of deaf adults. She’s trying to fit in at school, though she’s taken some grief because of the idiosyncrasies of her family. In particular, her father Frank (SAG award winner Troy Kotsur) “speaks” his mind, as it were. Among other things, he adores his wife Jackie (Marlee Matlin).

Frank, and Ruby’s older brother Leo (Daniel Durant), work on the family’s struggling fishing boat, and Ruby helps out before school. But when she joins her high school choir, she finds her time conflicted. This is especially the case as her exacting choirmaster Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez) is trying to mentor her so that she can ao apply to a prestigious music school. And she likes hanging out with her duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo).

But how can she even about going when her family needs her? I “believed” this collective. The parents who want to hold onto their daughter but the brother may have a different need in the family dynamic. Miles doesn’t always do the right thing.

Not unlike the immigrant story

My wife noted that it is often the case that some of her English as a New Language students serve as interpreters for their immigrant parents. It turns the usual family dynamics on its head. So too with the story in CODA.

And one interesting element of the film is the David v. Goliath economic story, which all of the fishermen were subject to.

At the end of the credits were the names of the actors voicing the dubbed versions of the film into French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Castilian, Chinese (I think), and some Cyrillic language.

The reviews were largely positive (95% by the critics, 93% by the audiences).

Word debates: sheroes and herstory

Nellie Bly

Someone on a Facebook page that is about words asked a question. “Heard on NPR a discussion of heroes and sheroes. What’s wrong with heroine?”

Folks on the list replied that heroine is a diminutive for “hero” and may demean and trivialize the qualities of the women. They noted that words such as comedienne and poetess have fallen by the wayside. I remember that, in my lifetime, some people were trying to reintroduce the word authoress. For what purpose, I no longer recall. It hasn’t been embraced, fortunately, except as an “old-fashioned” word in some dictionaries.

The one word that has survived is the word actress. While I’ve often heard “actor” used for all performers, “actress” still is in the lexicon for awards, such as the Oscars and the Tonys. That is understandable. Getting rid of categories by gender might be someone’s idea of “equitable,” but one could reasonably believe that men would end up receiving the lion’s share of recognition.

Addictive

“Heroine” also has people thinking that it sounds very much like something else, which I’ve believed for a half-century. Even the Free Dictionary and others note this. “Not to be confused with: heroin – highly addictive narcotic derived from morphine: He had a hard time kicking heroin.” This I did not know: “The name heroin was coined from the German heroisch meaning heroic, strong. Heroin is stronger (more potent) than morphine.”

One objection to sheroes was this: “I just think it’s mostly patronizing. If a woman is a hero, she’s a hero. ‘Sheroes’ sounds like the Women’s Auxiliary of Heroes. It’s the ‘Hear Me Roar’ version of heroism.” I don’t hear it that way, but OK.

We can beat them, just for one day

Another noted all the female heroes we have had for decades. “Alice Stebbins, first American woman police officer hired in the 1910s. Loretta Walsh, the first woman to enroll in the military in 1917. A whole century earlier in 1815, Molly Williams was the first woman firefighter and I’m pretty sure women have been doing ‘everyday stuff’ since the beginning of time.

“I mean, sure, let’s go with sheroes but don’t excuse it thinking that women police officer/military/firefighter are some progressive new thing. That’s just the wrong narrative and honestly, most of my personal heroes are some (my mom and grandma for example) and a new word just seems unnecessary in my opinion.” Ah, but what of severe pushback are some of those women still receiving, particularly in the US military?

“Language is a social thing and if the majority decide to start using this kind of language, then my opinion becomes irrelevant. Let society decide.” Which, inevitably, it does. I really don’t have skin in that game. Maybe it’s because of the ease people are presently dubbed heroic, IMO. Though I’m rather fond of the Misty Copeland-inspired Barbie ‘Sheroes’ Doll.

Reform

On the other hand, I’m rather fond of herstory, though my spellcheck is not. Sure, women’s history IS history, just as black history IS history. But there are so many examples where it’s not as well-known as it should be.

I was particularly taken by a monument of several statues honoring journalist Nellie Bly opening on Roosevelt Island. It was created by sculptor Amanda Matthews. “In 1887, Bly went undercover as an inmate at the island’s asylum. Her report ‘Ten Days in a Mad-House’ revealed the deplorable treatment of women in the facility and prompted outrage and reform.” On the backs of the sculptures are engraved with the quote from Bly’s writings that inspired the selection of each subject.

“Matthews also made a sculpture of educator Nettie Depp. It will be installed next year at the Kentucky State Capitol. She said she made the statue after she discovered the state lacked sculptures honoring women.” The only female who had been honored with a statue in KY heretofore was a horse.

“‘Women’s history didn’t show up in our history books the same as men. It’s not written down as much. It’s not portrayed as much. So, we have to reach back into history, find this information, bring it into the 21st century,’ said Matthews.” And I would agree. For instance, I had never heard of Alice Stebbins Wells, Loretta Perfectus Walsh, or Molly Williams.

What do you all think of sheroes and herstory?

Roger is 69, or 69, if it’s upside down

soixante-neuf

ny 69 — **From https://www.alpsroads.net/roads/ny/ny_69/ Idea stolen from Arthur http://amerinz.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-annual-increasing-number-63.html**

Rumor has it that I’m turning 69 today. This means I’m exactly a year younger than Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers and Lynn Swann of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Every year, I wonder if I can recall how old I am during the year. How could I remember when I turned 59? Je ne sais pas. Whereas I recall the mechanism for 52 (deck of cards), 57 (Heinz), 61 (Roger Maris), 64 (Beatles), 67 (chaos).

I’ve loved the number 69 at least since 1969 when I turned 16. It’s just the look. I also have been told that 69, or more specifically soixante-neuf, has a rather sordid meaning. But since I’m so young and innocent, I have no idea what that is.

On the other hand, turning 69 makes me recall a song on the first Steppenwolf album called The Ostrich. The depressing lyrics:

Then you’re free
And forty years you waste to chase the dollar sign
So you may die in Florida
At the pleasant age of sixty-nine

In turn, this reminds me of the one thing I miss since I retired. I would take off work on my birthday. If my birthday were on Saturday, I’d take off Friday; if Sunday, then Monday. It’s difficult to blow a vacation day when I only worked two days in 2021, Election Day and the training beforehand.

Anyway, I don’t blog on my birthday, so see you manana.

Movie review: Drive My Car

Uncle Vanya

My wife and I saw the Oscar-nominated movie Drive My Car recently at the Spectrum Theatre, the Landmark venue in Albany. There were only a few things about the film I knew. It was three hours long. The movie was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture and International Feature Film, what they used to call Best Foreign Film. And it was three hours long?

And here’s a spoiler that’s right in the trailer. Oto Kafuku (Reika Kirishima), the wife of Yûsuke, dies unexpectedly. They love each other dearly, though it’s… complicated. She’s a teller of tales. He listens to Uncle Vanya by Chekhov repeatedly in the car. The first forty minutes I found a tad tedious.

THEN the opening credits run. What? And the rest of the story is far more compelling. Yûsuke, “a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima.” The catch, which he doesn’t realize until he gets there, is that the stage company requires that the director use a driver.

Not related to the Beatles song

Misaki Watari (Tôko Miura) is a very good chauffeur of his beloved red Saab. But she’s not particularly communicative, at least at first. Meanwhile, Yûsuke is busy selecting the cast, which is a diverse group that communicates in Japanese, English, Korean Sign Language, and others.

One cast member is an impetuous and hot-headed television actor Koshi Takatsuki (Toshiaki Inomata), who is trying to befriend the director for some reason. There is a couple in the production that my wife and I truly enjoyed.

As the rehearsals unfold, involving a lot of driving from the hotel to the rehearsal hall, Yûsuke and Misaki each start to address the pain and complexities of their pasts.

My verdict: I wish the first 40 minutes of Drive My Car were edited down to maybe 30. Yet the remaining 2:15 seemed to fly by. If you should see it, be patient with the first section because I think the payoff is worth it. The Rotten Tomatoes score was 98% positive from the critics, and 80% positive from the audiences.