I’m besieged these days, as I’m sure we all are, by emails from the political, or quasi-political, organizations to which, in weak moments, I revealed even the mildest interest in hearing what they might have to say. Worse, I am sent missives, though they are more like missiles, at far less frequency, from my more assertive friends on matters political.

It works out, given what comes out of my mouth, and the impressions I apparently convey to other folks, that my proclivities are liberal in nature. Hence, most of the epistolary traffic that ends up in my mailbox derives from individuals with a similar bent (and I mean that in many senses of the word, particularly with the sense of the peculiarly compelling insult that was current among my friends back in the 1960s).

I wouldn’t ordinarily think that I’d say this in any context, but I prefer the mail from the "Truthouts" and even from the noxious "Moveon" to that from the amateurs who seem to have decided, at any particular moment, that the sky is falling, and only we, "we happy few, we band of brothers [though the latest email was from a ‘sister’]" stand between utter destruction and the fate of civilization as we know it (in third millennium America).

The glibness and slickness that the more established liberal organizations have developed aside (and I worked in marketing and marketing communications for over 30 years, so I know glib, and I know slick) is preferable to the Chicken Little style of rhetoric that pervades most home-grown campaigns. These individual rally-criers could learn a little bit from the pros (though the pros could learn something about the frequency with which they inundate the ‘Net — they’re as insidious and unavoidable as the fund-raisers on NPR stations — from the amateurs).

Perhaps the most vexing aspects of the emails I get to join the latest fray — one of the latest frays, by the way, is to give the Democratic caucus in the Senate the steel required to mount and sustain a filibuster; some of that steel, according to one strategist at least, will apparently have to come from moderate Republican forges: the object of the filibuster, the defeat of the nomination of one Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the position of Associate Justice of the United States of America Supreme Court — are the rhetorical and typographic strategies of emphasis.

Curse the day (and I say this as a professional graphic designer, who has also taught the discipline in university) that civilians were shown how to make type on a computer boldface. What those civilians don’t learn, apparently, is that, to use a culinary metaphor, boldface is like pepper. A little goes a very long way. And some people really don’t like any spice at all.

The presumption of these warriors is that we (we happy few, etc.) are possibly too stunned or distracted at most times ever to put our brains in gear. In any event clearly there is the expectation that we are, for the time it takes to read an email concerning a matter "that will have an enormous impact on all our lives, and the lives of our children and grandchildren [O woe that the baby boom is about to enter its dotage…]," no longer susceptible to reasoned argument with the objective of raising us from what is apparently a generation-wide torpor, sufficiently long and sufficiently energetic enough to send a line or two to our Senatorial delegation.

Those who know me, indeed, those who merely read this blog, will know the irony of my advice that, at least in this case, shorter is better. Simpler is better. Indeed, as Einstein allegedly advised, make it as simple as possible, but no simpler. He might have added, "and don’t repeat yourself, not even once."

Hence, these emails, without exception are repetitive, redundant exhortations.

The famous St. Crispin’s Day speech, from Shakespeare, Henry V, the opposite of exhortation, but the model of inspiration (to the point of cliché, I shamefacedly admit) is 223 words, 1175 characters, including word spaces.

The last email I got, as I say, mustering the troops to "pull out all the stops" and presumably all the boldface, in two different weights of type, but mainly bold, and two different typefaces (for no particularly good reason), and get those Dems and Mod Republicans to filibuster their little hearts out, was 690 words, 4,624 characters (with spaces). And I assure you, not the least bit of inspiration to yours truly to do a damn thing.

Worse, the tone of the piece is the rhetorical equivalent of pure boldface (I have another friend, who resides largely on the Right side of the tracks, as it were, equally exhortatory, who had a habit of sending all email in ALL CAPS, but he started the practice as a novice; then he tried to plead as an excuse a problem with dyslexia; all in all it took about two years of invariable responses simply saying, stop putting everything in all caps or I won’t read it, and finally ignoring all emails altogether, to get him to stop; his emails are no less crazy or convincing today, but at least they’re readable). Bold-face exhortation. Like they say, white on rice. Yuch.

Perhaps it’s petty of me. Perhaps the reason for my inaction is purely psychological, self-defeating resentment of the messenger, and not the message. But I must say, it is not in response solely to the message, as the messenger in this case is an inveterate exhorter, foam-at-the-lips, and gleam in the eye and she lost me a long time ago — though I remain sympathetic to many of the causes, and I believe I remain, as I characterized above, a reasonable person in possession of my intellect, and susceptible to rational argument, and even responsive to reasonable call to action. She also has not learned the value of intelligent typography, even in so mundane a thing as email. Even when the fate of American and the World is at stake.

In this case, this entry in the blog is my rise to action. I have only one piece of advice.

Can the bold in every sense, and maybe next time I’ll give Teddy K, and Big John F. K. a buzz…

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DUTY FOR MEHMET ALI AĞJA

So here’s this Turkish nutball, who attempted to put the big sleep on Pope John Paul II back in the days, released back among us (is it still January? yes, just this month). Why he did it, heaven knows, also John Paul presumably, as the two put their heads together a couple of years after the assasination try and the Pope, in his largeness and holiness said what they talked about was between him and Ali. Certainly no one has gotten anything cogent out of the irrepressible Turk as to motive, before, during or since.

He’s been in a Turkish prison lately, for crimes not related to the attempted murder of a pope (because John Paul pardoned him, he somehow got off that hook). Ali had already killed somebody in Turkey, but that only warranted a short prison term, and he escaped anyway. He wasn’t in prison most recently for that misdeed, but another. The details are not important.

In any event, you’d think, or at least I would, that the guy would be like 65 by now. His attempt on the Pope was back in 1981 (and remember he already had a yellow sheet, as they call it on those NYC crime shows that are so addictive, and a prison record, back in Turkey, but who knows if they differentiate between juvenile offenses and any other kind in that place no one in the West is ever likely to comprehend). But no, he’s only 47. Which means he was 22 when he took a shot at putting a cap in the Pope’s ass (I know it’s irreverent; but we don’t blink when they talk that way on Law & Order, and they’re still talking about killing a human being… so, like, what? The Pope is more important than an African-American in Harlem, more deserving of like rhetorical niceties?)

One of the results of Ali’s checkered life, and the facts on his rap sheet, is that, according to Turkish law he must now serve in the military, as he never quite managed to fulfill that obligation before taking to a life of demento crimes.

Turkey. You know. On the edge of Europe. Eligible for membership in the European Union in less than a dozen years. Mainly Muslim. The bridge and gateway to Asia. Capital is Istanbul, the cradle of the Caliphate. When what we can no longer can politely call the Infidel had overrun a significant part of Asia Minor and, well, Europe, and kind of ran the civilized world, they were based in what is now Istanbul, which was the center of Muslim political power. Where that is now is up for grabs and is, arguably in any number of places, including a really big, say half-dozen, including Saudi Arabia, and going around the world from there.

There are those, especially Europeans, who are afraid that Istanbul may very well lay claim, still, to the title. And if Turkey is admitted to the European Union, well wouldn’t that be a nice kettle of lentils, my pretty?

So, Turkey. An enigma. A problem (a political problem). Cradle to many facets of what we now call civilization, though we’re reluctant to say it.

Turkey. Where at the moment they don’t quite have a handle on this little problem with avian flu, which is scaring the bejesus (not to mention the bemohammed) out of epidemiologists who make a living in the Western world. You’ll recall from your recent current events not only that Mehmet Ali was let out of prison (convicted murderer, convicted attempted assassin, convicted of a bunch of other crimes) in Turkey, but that the Turks couldn’t quite seem to bottle up a little outbreak of avian flu among their human population. Seems they sent out teams to destroy infected birds, but they only managed to be effective in front of TV reporting crews. In the really little, really poor villages and towns, grandmas and grandpas simply locked their chickens away, and who knows how many sick birds, not to mention healthy ones, have been overlooked.

Anyway, now we’ve got Mehmet Ali, buck private, soon to be assigned once he finishes basic training (which he badly needs, one would infer, as he kind of didn’t quite get the hang of using a gun on his own). I would guess even the Turks would like to put him somewhere where he won’t attract too much attention and maybe get it into his sick little head to pull some new caper that will just add to the pile of reasons, big and small, that would vote them out of the EU when the time comes.

Well, I’ve got the perfect solution.

I know what Mehmet Ali Ağca’s military assignment should be. Let’s set him loose in those native villages, and let’s let him wring the neck of every bird he can get his hands on.

I’d even let him have a protective mask.

THE MEMORY OF SAMUEL ALITO

In the recently ended hearings in the U.S. Senate concerning the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr., just one of the things that seemed to put every caring liberal person’s private parts in a vise was his less than forthcoming explanation for his membership in something called "Concerned Alumni of Princeton," which apparently has been characterized as a racist and sexist organization bent on restriction of admission to that hallowed academic institution of minorities and women. Indeed, he alleged, or at least implied, having no memory of membership whatsoever.

Those of us who recall Princeton from the 60s, and earlier, have to wonder where all these current conscientious objectors to such blatant prejudice were back in them days, when there were NO women in Princeton, not enrolled in the college anyway, and people of color were rare on the campus. It’s not my point here, but just an aside, that it’s a wonder there aren’t about 50 such organizations related to the return of Princeton and Ol’ Nassau to the status quo ante.

Maybe Alito is a racist and a misogynist — it was an old Princeton tradition after all among some small part of the student body and ensuing alumni body for many years — who knows?

What I wonder about is getting our knickers in a twist about whether he "remembers" belonging to such an organization.

Consider for a moment our esteemed president, George W. Bush, alumnus of two equally illustrious, and no less ivy bestrewn institutions (and, by indictment of the pious and sanctimonious left, as guilty of any number of similar racist, ethnicist, misogynistic crimes as any Princeton — or Dartmouth or Brown or Penn, you name them… — can be called to account for in its history).

Ask him what he remembers about his college days. Or any number of days of his early alumnus-hood, up to the age of 40 (Alito was 35 when he mentioned on a job application that he belonged to the "Concerned Alumni Etc…."). If Bush didn’t remember, or claimed not to, nobody would bat an eyelash.

We’d just figure, well he was probably smashed out of his gourd most of the time from early teenhood on, until Laura put the fear of God and no more sex into him, and it’s surprising he remembers his name.

So I figure, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. is a secretly redeemed coke head, or pot head, or drunk, or something like that. He certainly aspires to all those things those of a divergent ethnicity (divergent from pure WASPishness, the lifeblood of the Ivy League going back to the 17th century — yessirree, racism and misogyny with a three hundred year-plus pedigree) aspire to: prestige, power, control, money. And soon, the U.S. Senate will deliver to him on a platter a significant handful of the first three. No reason he would not also have succumbed to the excesses of those in power, prestige, and control: drugs and alcohol. At least while he was in training, back there in Princeton and thereafter — his Wanderjaren.

And we’re worried about his memory. Call him a coke-head and forget about it. We manage to do it most of the time with the President.

© 2006, Howard Dinin. All rights reserved.

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In my last post to this blog, the one from November 16, in which I was actually responding to an editorial (or so it called itself) in a new local free newspaper here in Cambridge, I went on forever, well at least to the length of 3500 words. The editorial itself was much shorter, barely 550 words. It hardly warranted so much of my attention—not because I am any more important than anyone else, except to me of course. Rather, the editorial was written, or at least it read, like it was wrung out by a freshman science major, with a penchant for stating the obvious as if it were an argument.

But my problem was not even with that—why get started? My problem is that the simple observation that the MBTA should have planned a green line route to carry the as yet non-existent residents of North Point to Harvard Square (and simply because without such a green line, they will make a bee line to the boutiques of Back Bay, while whining about how hard it is to get to Harvard Square) was a single point, an asymptote, on a larger sphere of problems.

Addressing the single point would be as effectual in coping with that world of problems, as relieving a hungry village in Nepal with a single bag of rice.

So, what is my defect? Being set off by a single point to attempt to address a galaxy of of points. And I always seem to try to address the entire sphere at once.

As George Bernard Shaw observed, "The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time." In short, there’s a universality to things, to all things, and any one thing, if one only seeks it.

I write at length because there are so many things that make up the universe that we experience, each in his or her own way, in the shorthand we call "life."

The world says, get to the point, or can’t you be brief? Marc Levy, the editor of Cambridge Day, responded to me by email, when I sent him a link to my blog entry, by saying, "I’m not sure how many people read your blog; if you wanted to share your thoughts with others, you could shorten it and have it run as a letter on the commentary page."

Don’t bother with War and Peace, man… Cliff Notes!

Even if no one reads, I will write. The few who get it will, eventually, read it. Those who don’t, like Mr. Levy, will make newspapers to boost the local economy. That will get people to Harvard Square for sure…

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The history of Cambridge, Massachusetts, nowadays still smirkingly referred to as "the People’s Republic" (though the reason for the smirk is a function of the politics of the smirker), dates to the beginnings of the Massachusetts Bay colony (it was established in 1630 as a village with the name of Newtowne; for perspective, let me just say that Plymouth Rock was a discovery in 1620, and Boston shares 1630 as the year of its establishment). So promising was Newtowne, for any number of strategic geographic and political reasons, it was long considered as the likely site of the chief city, or capital, of the newly founded colony—especially once it had gotten its feet on the ground. That is, once it was clear that no external threat, or internal scourge, such as disease or dissension, would annihilate the stalwart inhabitants.

A fellow named John Harvard helped establish what I will whimsically call a bible college (preparatory to the training of ministers of the faith, who would be needed in greater numbers as the population of the colony swelled). He died young, alas, but left a bequest of profound worth to the fledgling school—his personal library. Books being worth, possibly as much as, if not more than, their weight in gold, this was an estimable legacy. Apparently, considered in concert with the character, if not the piety, of the newly deceased benefactor and his generous gift, it was decided to name the college after him. Further, as if this signal honor were not sufficient (the full significance of which may not have been realized until several hundred years hence—after all Harvard did not become Harvard with the the mere signal honor of the name bestowal—"Tobias, we must rename the college Harvard. Instant prestige, my good sir! The endowment coffers will swell. At the moment we have but books, and three Holstein cows. And when Yale College is founded 65 years hence, we will be well ahead of them in applicants…."), the gratitude of the city fathers extended so far as to conclude that the only full measure of their gratitude could be taken in the re-naming of Newtowne as Cambridge. Cambridge was, of course, the seat and eponymous namesake of the very much older, and already famous, University of which the young John Harvard was so proudly an alumnus.

Not that the two facts were associated (at least I don’t think so), but it was at about the time of the renaming of the community, or town, or village (which is all it truly was at the time—Harvard Yard famously being the cow pasture formerly grazed by the kine of any townsman who cared to lead them to it) that any idea of making it the capital of the colony went out the window (the year Cambridge was renamed was 1638; Harvard College was officially founded two years earlier). Boston went on to glory in this role of primacy among incorporated towns within the Commonwealth. Cambridge was left to seek its own glory in its own inimitable way.

The only other salient fact to bear in mind is that Cambridge remained a village for quite some time. It was in 1846 the town incorporated itself as a city, though it was in signal recognition of its having exceeded being the mere home of a very old college. Harvard was, and the laws of physics being what they are still is, the oldest in the nation. In 1846, however, Harvard made only a plodding and obstinate claim to academic merit, based on its sheer venerability, if nothing else. And many academic historians say there wasn’t very much else to speak for the claim of any distinction, but the vocal and loyal and already very rich members of the rolls of alumni.

Cambridge had become as well a center of commerce and light industry, including tannning and candy manufacture among its main occupations. A village no longer, Cambridge has struggled with its role as a city, and whatever that may mean. In the present day this seems to remain as obscure a fact (seem like simple questions: "what is a city? are we a city?") to the current residents, but especially those most and best endowed with educational attainment, social standing, and financial success. It is as if none of them have ever heard of Ms. Jane Jacobs and her seminal theory—generally, though not universally, accepted as definitive—about what makes a city and, concomitantly, what unmakes it: The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Cambridge, incidentally, originally incorporated as a city as the result of the merger of three smaller villages: Old Cambridge (which centered around what is now called Harvard Square), East Cambridge (then and now the nearest point in Cambridge to the center of Boston being separated by an inlet to the Charles River) and Cambridgeport (which, to the extent it constituted a port, was a port on the Charles River). The three original villages have quite distinct personalities, if not a sense of unique community within each, even today, and even as the city has grown to include several other distinct quarters of readily differentiated traits. But that’s the point of this opinion piece about this small city.

I am biased, as Cambridge is, and has been for 20 years, my home town, but I think, small as it is, it is not a village, but a great American city. I’m not so sure it was great then (150 years or so ago). In fact, it seemed to have exhibited some of the same dubious conduct on the part of the citizenry that remains intractable, if not ineradicable. The official history of the City on the City Web site suggests the three villages that merged as a city had, to that point, engaged in a kind of rivalry. Unfortunately it is not clear of what sort the rivalry might be classified. Given the vagaries of human behavior and the persistence of idiocy as a human trait I am content to suppose that it must have been akin to the benign rivalries that exist today.The ones that become news every Thanksgiving when this "traditional" rivalry or that pits the football team of one town’s high school against that of another. Of such are cherished human memories made.

There’s a new newspaper in this city, my hometown, Cambridge MA. It’s called Cambridge Day, and it seems innocuous enough. It’s been out there, distributed free in the quantity of 15,000 per day each weekday at various points throughout the city. My very casual observation indicates that these are usually retail outlets or the door-stoops to same. The Editor (and apparent publisher; there is no masthead as it is commonly expected to appear in a periodical publication) is one Marc Levy, who offers his paper’s mission, in very personal terms here: About Cambridge Day.

Ads have begun to appear in Cambridge Day, in less than the three weeks or so that the paper seems to have been in circulation. It seems that Levy expects ultimately that the thing will be self-sustaining, or so I infer. Reporting and editing, I can only further infer, seem to be largely on a voluntary basis. But, as there is no shortage of opinion (ranging from the sage to the hortatory, if not bloviatory)  in town, and no shortage of folks who believe they have the makings of vigilant, highly observant investigators, and, likely, no shortage of successful graduates of the Harvard College compulsory course in Expository Writing still in residence within the city limits, and absolutely no shortage of self-appointed experts or chutzpah of other varieties, Levy should never suffer from lack of material or contributors.

There have been a number of editorials, and one of the latest (from the November 14 edition) is the text, or at least the leaping off place for this opinionated, bloviating, vigilant and observant reporter (alas, I have had to gain what few expository writing skills I may have entirely on my own, with some minor tutelage in my Advanced Placement English courses in the 11th grade).

The theme is the observation that "for Cambridge as a community, the T’s green line makes no sense whatsoever" [the green line, as opposed to the red, orange and blue, and the new silver lines, is a light rail trolley and underground system run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority throughout Boston and several of its suburbs, including Cambridge, in a quite abbreviated spur line to the Lechmere section—in fact it consists of a single stop, the terminus, within the city limits]. I believe the editorialist means that to get from any one point in Cambridge to another, the green line is inherently inefficient (the logic is irrefutable: the green line makes only one stop in Cambridge, and it’s the end of that particular route).

Why make this obvious point? Because the underlying subject of the piece concerns the imminent start of development of a very large tract of previously industrial zoned land in the northeast corner of Cambridge, and which has lain fallow since the days of the great retreat of Cambridge residents to the suburbs, which occurred, as it did all over the nation in the days immediately followig the end of World War II. These 45 acres have been designated "North Point" by the planners, and big ideas are afoot with a grand vision of creating a new "community."

I put that in inverted quotes, because reference to "community" appears several times in this editorial, and it would seem to have a slippery meaning, at least with regard to the locus of application. Variously, Cambridge is a "community" (as quoted above, one for which the green line is "no sense at all"). A sentence or two away, we see that North Point, an as yet unrealized venue, is an "entire community" (Platonic as it may be, or shall we say, a conceptual community?) that, because of the absence of a green line, will find it "easier to go to Boston or Somerville than anywhere in Cambridge."

Now, Cambridge is a seat of great learning, the home of life-changing discoveries and earth-shattering intellectual attainments. It is not the custom of Cantabrigians to preoccupy their better-than-average intellects with the obvious.

That we leave to editorial writers whose self-appointed mandate is local boosterism.

Looking at a map (not the one appended to the editorial in Cambridge Day — it’s a subway system map, distorted and out-of-scale, and the stuff of the nightmares of Edward Tufte) points one immediately to the irrefutable truth of the foregoing editorial assertion. Even with no vehicular transportation whatsoever, of any hue (green or otherwise), it’s easier to get to Boston or Somerville from North Point than to almost anywhere else in Cambridge, except what is immediately contiguous, that is, the neighborhood of East Cambridge. That’s because North Point borders on Somerville to the west and north, and is immediately proximate to the bridge that takes one out of Cambridge and into the now defunct West End of Boston (a lovely walk, may I say, but perhaps not in the winter). Indeed, it will always be easier.

Maybe we should start stating some truths here: if you are anywhere on the planet, you have to be next to something. Northpoint happens to be next to Boston and Somerville. It’s not next to Harvard Square.

The writer further asserts, having established the brutish and hostile neglectful treatment of future North Pointers at the hands of the MBTA and, by implication, those of the city planners, that there’s "not much impetus to go to Central or Harvard squares, though, when the green line [there it is again, the nasty green line, its tracks implacably and relentlessly taking all of its riders away from places they should want to go, presumably, as members of the greater Cambridge "community"] can carry you to Copley Square or Newbury Street [ed. note: this would be the same stop] as fast as you can walk to Kendall."

Obviously the writer has not sat in a green line car in the Government Center station, or in the tunnel just outside of the Boylston Street stop, interminably and always for reasons it would not deign the conductors of the vehicles to inform their passengers; that, or the author walks really really slowly.

But enough of this, as much fun as it is. The point is not one concerning the inadequate rhetorical skills of the editorial writer. Rather it is one that concerns a larger issue, not only for Cantabrigians, but for all of us faced with the issues life in America forces us to confront.

The editorial quotes Terrence Smith, Director of Government Affairs for the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce [full disclosure here: I am a member of the board of directors of the Cambridge Chamber, as I have been for 14 years; in effect, Terrence works for the President of the Chamber, and she presides at the pleasure of, well, me and the rest of the lively gang of business and institutional leaders that comprise the Board]. The theme of the obvious must have been implicit somewhere in the question that elicited this statement from Terrence:

"Historically, East Cambridge has been sort of its own neighborhood with a unique personality compared with the rest of Cambridge. Look at a map of Cambridge—it looked like different communities. If you’re going to buy or rent in East Cambridge, you’ve already figured out that East Cambridge is harder to get to than Riverside, mid-Cambridge or North Cambridge."

Let’s sort this out, as the editor has done Terrence the disservice of removing any point of reference, and perhaps, methinks, the greater disservice of some brutal editing and lifting out of context. Terrence seems to mean that East Cambridge is further away from some unnamed point of departure than other neighborhoods and distinct communities in the City. In fact, in the second to the last paragraph of the editorial, the writer makes the questionable assertion that "Harvard Square is the geographic heart of Cambridge…" and one may suppose that this is the reference point that is required to make any sense of Terrence’s statement.

I don’t want to put words in Terrence’s mouth, but the reference and informational materials themselves that the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce publishes (and produced at great trouble and expense, I might add, on a yearly basis) does just that. I’ll consult with Terrence about any possible conflict he may feel with regard to the descriptions about the appeal of Cambridge as a whole that are posted on the Chamber Web site, and in its literature.

If there is anything to be celebrated in even as small a city as Cambridge is (and this is one reason I feel it is a great city—it manages to manifest a diverse character in as small an area as 7+ square miles and with a population of barely 100,000, and to serve some of the most arcane needs that exist on the planet), it is the diversity of its population, the unique neighborhoods it embodies, and the profound differences in feeling, not to mention the experience in the quality of life, reported by so many when comparing Inman Square to East Cambridge, or Central Square to North Cambridge, not to mention the invidious comparisons of all of these to Harvard Square, the putative heart of the City.

May I just say, if Harvard Square is the heart of the City, Cambridge is doomed to some serious cardiac intensive care.

The beef in this editorial is that short shrift, if any shrift at all, has been given to the transportation needs of Cambridge—a city apparently in desperate need of better means for citizens within the city itself to get from one part of the city to another. Indeed, it is practically made the responsibiilty of the MBTA to ensure that such means are planned and developed. The implication is that the absence of such means is worse than somehow ensuring that there is enough of a lure in any one neighborhood to entice inhabitants of another neighborhood to come on by for a visit. Not to mention the possibility of attracting entrepreneurs and shop owners who have truly unique things to sell, not only to North Pointers, not only to Cantabrigians, but to the world.

Implicit in all this is a state of mind that most benignly and efficiently can be called provincial. It’s not uncommon in Cambridge, this most famous of cities on the world stage (but famous for what happens in the minds of its residents and inhabitants, not for what happens in its streets) to experience the daily manifestation of provincial thinking.

The great lesson of Jane Jacobs, if there is merely one lesson to be learned from this wise and thoughtful woman, it’s that one thing and one thing only characterizes cities. A city changes. It’s dynamic. This is how it stays alive.

Further, of course, she makes clear that our sense of cities, the sense that Americans hold as a cherished ideal (and it may, indeed, be an outmoded ideal, if not already archaic, sadly; dare I say, it might itself be provincial to think of cities in this way). It’s an idea that nevertheless still holds, in practical and day-to-day terms and mainly for perfectly ordinary people who must live in cities.

I’ve never heard anyone argue convincingly otherwise than that a city neighborhood—perhaps one of many neighborhoods, if not hundreds, depending on the scope of the city—is a living thing, and its chief constituent is people, people who are there for many purposes: living, yes, but working as well, and providing services to those doing the living and the working, and finally those transporting people and goods into and out of the neighborhood. People constantly entering and leaving it; people seldom leaving it because it is their home.

Now, I ask you (and the writer of this idiotic scolding of the MBTA), should people want to go to Harvard Square because the green line has conveniently placed a stop there, as well as on the corner nearest your condo in North Point? Or should they want to go because there are stores like Clothware and Setebello and Harnett’s and Burdick’s, and the Brattle theater, and the restaurants Casablanca and Algiers—and because places like that just don’t exist anywhere else?

Is it unfair to have city planners consider that there might be other modes of transportation, less disruptive of street traffic and the building of which would be less disruptive of residential and commercial life for the years it would take to build it than a light rail line (which, let’s face it, is designed for commuters, and other travelers who must traverse great distances in cities of far greater breadth than Cambridge—here’s a point of reference: New York City is 800 square miles; Boston, not a very large city itself, is nevertheless over 48 square miles within the city limits)? Is it fair to think that Cantabrigians, indeed, above all because they are Cantabrigians, cannot consider walking from one neighborhood to another? Or riding a bicycle? Or renting a Zip Car for two hours (less than the cost of a cab ride from one end of Cambridge to the other, never mind into Boston, never mind onto Newbury Street at mid-day).

There are repeated testimonials, not to mention exhortations, in Cambridge Day as to the virtues of shopping locally, "Shop Local First." I’m all for it, but I may be missing something if I fail to see the connection between the absence of a green line strategy for joining North Point with Harvard Square, and shopping locally "first." If there is a failure of the local citizenry to shop locally, it just might be either because the local shops aren’t worth the patronage, or because local shops would rather blame the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which services 175 cities and towns covering over one thousand square miles, and over two million people, than assume responsibility for more effective marketing, offering more interesting, better differentiated products and services, and inviting folks from every neighborhood into their own.

The absence of green line access across Cambridge neighborhoods may not be an incentive to greater communal solidarity (it wouldn’t be in any event if there was nothing in any other neighborhood to go and get), but it is certainly no impediment.

The lament seems instead to be that this big change, called North Point, is coming. Something new will appear among us, and it will be called North Point. What I wonder is, what will there be in North Point that I might want to go there to get? But there is no mention made of that. Rather, there seems to be an undercurrent of fear. There will be a new "other" at the outskirts of our village, and they may shun us.

Well, we are no village, and if we are shunned, it may be because we should be.

Cambridge is a city and it must change if it is to remain vital. Just as the Necco building is now Novartis world headquarters for their chief research facilty, and just as the continuing development of University Park continues to exert changes on the rhythm and make-up of the neighborhoods surrounding it.

We’re good at pushing back here in Cambridge, and that’s a good thing, even if the energy comes from some provincial impulse to keep the intruder out, or at least keep the intruder from changing my daily routine.

At worst, we will not even notice that some time in the not too distant future (and here’s hoping I live that long) there is an enclave of thousands of people in a place someone arbitrarily (and unimaginatively if you ask me—the name is stupefyingly dull) called North Point that never gets a foot closer to where I hang—Harvard Square, Porter Square, Inman Square, and East Cambridge.

If they’re spending all their time on Newbury Street, it just means it won’t get harder to get a seat at the bar at Casablanca for a glass of Booker’s small batch bourbon, neat, with a soda on the side. And if I’m feeling hungry, maybe a plate of Ana’s Short Rib. That’s a combination I know I won’t find anywhere else: on either the green, red, blue, orange, or silver line.

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2005 has been a year to replace some commonplace, but indispensable, household items.
Until now I have been blessed in two ways with regard to consumer behavior, my own that is.

First off, I was somehow imbued with a high regard for quality of workmanship. Aspects of this point of view derive no doubt from my father. He was, if nothing else, an admirer of fine things. An admirer mainly, as he was not naturally disposed to easy acquisition of such things—translation: he was a Russian immigrant, a Jew to boot, and he wasn’t rich. Nor was anyone else in the family, at least not once they stepped off the boat at Ellis Island in 1923, fresh from a sea cruise from the port of Buenos Aires.

This sterling object, actually it’s chrome, was acquired new by my father sometime in the mid-50s at a medical convention. He was sales manager of an over-the-counter pharmaceutical products company and often on the road, helping man the company booth while pitching the virtues of the company’s products and doling out samples in tiny tubes with crimped ends and screw-on tops—these being the days before, I have only one word to say to you, "plastics." Then, as now, members of the medical profession had acquisitive instincts, high incomes (to indulge those instincts) and, among the males, a taste for gadgetry. In the grand tradition of Great American Salesmanship, many companies, at some several removes from the strict salutary precincts of the ward and the laboratory, nevertheless availed themselves of exhibition space at the going rate, and hawked their wares as well. It is true that the products of the Waring company, makers of very fine, very sturdy, high powered blenders and mixing machines could be found in the laboratories of hospitals and schools of medicine, if not, as well, in the compounding chambers of the local apothecary—being ideal to pulverize, puree, and blend whatever nostrum, or biological sample, as the case may be. The ne plus ultra of their machines was the specimen you see here: same powerful motor, same dependable two-speed switch, same sturdy glass cloverleaf carafe, with integral steel cutter, but with a handsome fully chromed base, for all the luxury of which one was required to part with 50 dollars—a princely sum, even for doctors and sales managers in the mid-1950s, yet always offered (demonstrating the wisdom of Waring marketing strategy) at a substantially discounted "show" price. I remember my father bringing this home and proudly unpacking it in our kitchen, where it had pride of place.

It was mainly used for years, as I recall, on the rare occasions that my father, a licenced pharmacist, was called upon to concoct some old formula, the compounding of which younger druggists in the local apothecary had never been taught. In the fullness of time, and as the chrome pitted microscopically, and the cloverleaf (it’s trademarked by Waring, incidentally; a fact that is still touted) carafe developed a crack, I inherited the device, which I had coveted for utterly inchoate reasons (such a display of negative capability should have made plain to one and all that I was doomed to an artistic temperament). I thought once it might have had something to do with validating my incredibly short-lived ambitions to become a doctor—my father’s heart swelled, not unhealthily—and that perhaps through some misbegotten association between expensive chromed kitchen gadgets and the arcane impedimenta of the medical arts.

Miraculously, I found a replacement for the carafe, and have used this wonderful monster through the course of three marriages in 34 years, and hundreds of pureed concoctions, ranging from frozen daiquiris to the smoothies my wife craved through her cancer treatment, to the roasted parsnip and apple soup recipe I re-engineered from the dish served at Casblanca in Harvard Square. It was the preparation of the latter, which required extended periods of pulverization at the high speed setting, that convinced me, sadly, that this too was due for retirement.

The second way in which I have been blessed is with the sense that if it hasn’t worn out, and if it does a good job, there’s no reason to replace it. This is a rule that works better with appliances, and perhaps other less interactive furniture, at least furniture that neither plugs in to an electrical outlet, or requires the regular replacement of consumable parts and components. This gift, if such it is, brings with it an obligation: the obligation to choose one’s possessions wisely and, if they are to be put into regular service (with an emphasis of all the words that derive from or at least are cognative of "regular," like regularity, regulate, or, for those with an etymological bent: "plays by the rules—you know? regulations" and "canonical," as in, endorsed by the Pope who, as we all know, is infallible.
In short, it has been my penchant when I can afford to do so, to buy something that will work well, last a long time, do its job, and serve useful life.

This is the least we should, and the most we can, expect of our appliances, we of this nation of appliances. Plug it in, turn it on, use it, shut it off. No more instruction than that.

Hence, a 50 year-old blender is on the verge of biting the dust. it’s still sold, as the heritage model, or some such, but the base is different, if still chromed, and it has lost its art-deco-in-its-death-throes stylistic charm—also the cloverleaf carafe, in a capitulation to more recent versions of convenience and the appearance of greater control, now sports a molded handle; thereby obviating—obliterating actually—the unassailable utilitarian elegance of the cloverlead design in the first place: four different handles built-in so it can be grabbed from any angle, and the gentle curve was designed to fit the hand, while at the same time affording a grip on the carafe itself, rather than an appended graceless loop of thin, and therefore delicate, glass.

The trick now is, as well as finding a worthy substitute, somehow to keep in mind by other means the thoughts and recollections, the memories and reminiscent emotional states, as opposed to direct recall of specific incidents, elicited every time I hauled this ungainly object from the small appliance cupboard—thoughts of my father and his partricular apothecary’s preciseness and fastidiousness (I have forced myself to follow my own prescriptions, my recipes, barely ever measuring a thing), and the ceremonial way he seemed to approach the use of any such device, as if it contained powers conferred by the gods and, through whose agency, which he was privileged to harness. My father was born in 1905 in rural Russia and electricity may have been an iffy proposition, if it was any proposition whatsoever, during his childhood.

I get my taste for fine things (not just caviar and champagne, but fine workmanship on products that last, and which are beautiful to look at when not in use, or even when in use, though watching the blender in action was a rare indulgence) from my father. But I am left to wonder, where did he learn it? My uncle, his younger brother, had it also, which suggests a genetic root. I suspect though it was a recessive trait.

Whatever the source, it has served me well, certainly at least until this banner year, when we have replaced, in succession: a toaster: the first of the single slot models, and hence very modern, and also very 70s, with its pristine white plastic housing adorned only by a highly graphic stylized logotype, typographic at that, in a brilliant carmine red. It made great toast for 30 years, took fat slices and thin, and was easy to clean. That one-slot design meant a small footprint on the dengerously small countertop spaces in my last three kitchens. It finally stopped toasting. We’ve replaced it with a Braun single slot toaster, no longer modernistic, but with a slight frisson of post-modern Buck Rogerish swoopiness, all in matte stainless steel, but with glowing multi-colored lights, slab shaped that signal the most basic of status conditions. As few moving parts as its predecessor, and with the singular improvement of the addition of a levered lowering bar, which also allows cantilevering smaller toasted objects above the level of the yawning mouth. It’s bigger, but not by much, so there’s a net retention of counter space, and little disruption of now imprinted motor skills. 30 years though, for a toaster, that will be hard to beat.

We finally gave in and replaced our refrigerator, which was a classic generic branded ice box, with the minimal modicum of features that made it competitive. A GE, of course (it was either that or Fridgidaire it always seems), and it was already used when I bought the condo 20 years ago.

I always hear about rules concerning what you take with you and what you leave in the way of appliances (I guess there are, in fact, statutes to this effect), but if memory serves, you leave the stove, which usually has a gas pipe plumbed into it, and remove the refrigerator. Well, I needed a refrigerator, and it seemed like a dumb custom, and it was only five, well maybe six or seven, years old at the time.

By the time we gave in, it was expelling puddles from deep within itself, onto the tiled floor of our kitchen and seemingly infinitely replenished from reservoirs of water, always with some beige growth on it that collected between cleanings, that collected in pools beneath the produce bins. No adjustments of the temperature and humidity controls altered the cooling and keeping capabilities. Sometimes liquids and semi-solids froze within the refrigerator compartment, but only in the summer, and this seemed to signify sufficient cold was still possible.

It had a frost-free freezer, which remained so to the end. Taken for granted by most users I’m sure, it was always a source of wonder and pride (and gratitude) to this writer. I still have memories quite fresh of the ordeal required of Peggy, our "cleaning woman" in the tenement apartment we occupied, whenever the cubic foot-and-a-half sized freezer compartment frosted over, encasing the perishables in an adamantine grayish casket of ice.

My guess is the former owner bought it at Sears, on sale, for several hundred dollars. I don’t know how long he expected it to last him (he and his wife moved from here to a 3,000 square foot house in Winchester, one of one of the derivative benefits of making partner at Ropes & Gray, the white show law firm downtown).

That old GE didn’t disgrace him. It lasted him what it lasted him, let’s say six years, and it lasted us 20, including the exciting last few when we spoke often of its replacement, took several "serious" shopping trips, slammed shut a few doors, and kicked a few kick panels and dent proof stainless doors, and wondered if we would, in fact, be forced to make an emergency purpose before getting off our asses and giving in to the inevitable.
2005, the year of the inevitable.

It took six hours to empty the old refrigerator, including the time to pack perishables into insulated freezer bags and coolers, and to dispose of and clean out the containers for a variety of foods we had collected, and which filled two 33 gallon plastic trash bags. It took 20 minutes to place everything that was left in the new box. Also simple. No ice maker (this would be too much for this Bronx boy to accept as suitable to his worth, not as a bank customer, but as a humble human being). Only a single temperature control—electronic it’s true, but simple to the point of possibly being useful aboard major U.S. weaponry. No more moving parts than necessary. The doors move, open and closed, and the freezer drawers siide, on simple runners. A single light in the refirgerator compartment.

We had two veterans of the coffee wars see either retirement this, the first year of George W. Bush’s second term, retirement or, well, a premature demise.

We’ve replaced a Krups automatic drip coffee maker for the second time in this marriage alone. We’re trying a new brand, one which seems to take itself very seriously in the design and reputation of its products, called Capresso. So far, so good. It makes very good coffee, and it does it very much faster than the previous models (the latest of which died after only ten years of service—what is happening to quality?)

We trusted the Capresso brand to replace as well another estimable war horse from our stable of domestic beasts of all work. We retired a Braun burr-grind coffee grinder, originally a wedding present for one of my more youthful unions, and which ground many a pot-full of beans, morning after morning, for a total, I’m embarrassed to say, of about ten thousand mornings. Like faithful Dobbin, we let that brave little Braun (with its spare design, deservedly the winner, with the entire line of appliances it came from, from the days that Dieter Rams, one of the gods of modernist industrial design, we head of design at Braun, and they just kept turning out a succession of very very dandy small appliances, clocks, and eventually hand calculators and other gadgets that presaged the current Golden Age of gizmos for technology gluttons) go to pasture with dignity, rather than the ignominy of stopping mid-bean, never to revive, and three measures short of a pot.

A new grinder, with the same specification: simplicity, minimal moving parts, an on-off switch, and heavy-duty burr wheels, now sits, squat and rounded, but so black as to brood in moody elegance—sort of a cross between R2-D2 and Darth Vader. But Imperial centurion or rebel, it does the job. So far.

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A number of friends, knowing we are Francophiles and, more importantly, knowing that we own a medieval maison de village in the south of France, wish to have our point of view on the still current and recently extended unpleasant youth uprisings in the outskirts of a number of French cities. We do have a vested interest in seeing that the French preserve the integrity of the social fabric over there. We also intend, and certainly wish, to spend extended periods of time in our little fantasy realised chez nous.

However, my point of view, at least, is informed better than the average American only because I take a greater interest and read a bit further, and listen a little harder, and pay a great deal more attention to the news in France than we in the U.S. are otherwise wont to do. There are no mysteries to what is happening in France, and there is nothing hidden about it.

The briefest observation I can give, delivered with the slight bemusement, but fundamental sang froid, with which my late uncle used to say it: “So?” In short, it’s not a surprise.

I made an allusion to the prevailing conditions in the banlieux, the status quo, in a story to be published in bertha, the magazine I am developing for introduction very soon, if not imminently. This story, a sample, is available (see below) and has been since I wrote it 16 months ago. I was being neither prescient nor insightful. I was merely informing my English speaking readers of what every Frenchman has known for years.

Let me not suggest, however, that it is discussed with any regularity. Certainly not here. But rarely in France. And I’m alluding to discussion, not the ejaculation of peremptory derisive epithets in demotic French.

Nor was I in any way an early reporter. It was hardly reporting. I merely was able to make reference to the facts as discovered by earlier investigators.

One of the best of them, and one of my favorites, is an old newspaperman (I believe, actually, he is younger than I am). That would be Mort Rosenblum, among whose many accomplishments (and a fact not mentioned in the following biographical blurb I lifted from one of his books) is that for 30 years he was among the great war correspondents for American journalism. He now writes chiefly about food-related subjects. And, amazingly, and wholly serendipitously, he lives on a Provençal olive farm he immortalized in a best-seller (also mentioned below) and which is located perhaps 20 minutes from where we elected to buy a modest little stone house.

In his book, A Goose in Toulouse, Rosenblum made of what seems to be his naturally peripatetic nature an excuse to explore France with a largely culinary eye. The excerpt I have included—to help explain what’s going on now with the riots, and the torching of cars, and the terrorization of the bourgeoisie, and the response (such as it has been) of the French government—demonstrates however that Rosenblum always has another eye open. His political eye gives us views on even the most innocuous subjects (or, shall I say, compelling, for what is more compelling, if wholly benign and innocent, than the subject of great food) so as to make them real. As he does in the case of this crisis of the French culture (a culture of great food, if it must be reduced to a singular abstraction). That culture is threatened by the some of the same forces that have formed the hideous banlieux, which, in the perverse justice of the streets, are being consumed in flames.

First, a note on Mr. Mort Rosenblum, from the endpapers of A Goose in Toulouse:

Mort Rosenblum is a special correspondent for the Associated Press, based in France, and former editor-in-chief of the International Herald Tribune. Equally at home in the worlds of international politics and haute cuisine, his acclaimed books include the James Beard Award-winning Olives. He lives in Paris and Provence. [HD note: his latest book is Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light / Amazon.com link to this newest book: Chocolate book].

[About this excerpt: Goose is the regional bird of the Southwestern corner of France in which Toulouse is located, and hence part of the foundation of the cuisine of that terroir. The cooking fat is goose fat, and the quintessential dish is the heavenly stew (requiring three days preparation and cooking if it’s done right and from scratch), called cassoulet, and among whose components are goose confit, and a sausage indigenous to Toulouse. The distinctive taste of cooking in the fat of a goose (or duck, for that matter) in some ways helps characterize the precise distinctions of Toulousean life in the broad range of experiences collectively known as la vie Francaise. Rosenblum has been talking about Southwestern food and other reasons for being there… This book was published in 2000. He was reporting on events that took place in 1998 and 1999. Bill Clinton was still President. September 11, 2001 was two years hence. The dot.com bubble was still expanding. Afghanistan was run by the Taliban, and Iraq was ruled, of course, by Saddam Hussein; as a consequence, neither of these sovereignties suffered a riot, not even a Molotov cocktail.]

Goose grease or not, I returned often to Toulouse because I like it there. The city calls itself a model for the third millennium. It might be. If anyplace now represents France and its extremes, it is Toulouse.

Polls repeatedly rank Toulouse the most liveable city in France. It is comfortably sized, rooted in its past but open to anything new. Its hypermodern hospital in stately old buildings is among the best in Europe. For any number of reasons, it is where most Frenchmen say they would like to move.

For starters, la ville rose is lively and beautiful. When sunlight sets fire to the salmon-hued bricks, it is even stunning. People gather on the grass by the arched Pont Neuf, as in Paris much older than its name suggests. The Place du Capitole, a tile-and-cobblestone esplanade, throbs with music, markets, and meandering in any weather. Cafes and cabarets jam solid with university students.

The tourism office is a tower keep by leaf~shaded fountains and elegant shops off the adjacent Place Wilson. Inside, friendly people can tell you that Toulouse has 150 parks and plazas, 4,000 public benches, 160,000 trees, and 400,000 flowers.

The old center radiates from red-bricked quais on the Garonne, built in the eighteenth century by trade-minded city fathers who meant to show the world some grandeur. From the port, the Canal du Midi begins its long meander across the
bottom of France toward Montpellier and the Rhône. Back from the river, the Rue de la Dalbade is lined with gorgeous old homes built by the local nobility between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Toulouse is also technology heaven. Ariane rockets are made there. The supersonic Concorde was born in Toulouse, still ahead of its time a half century later. It is Europe’s Seattle, headquarters of a French-dominated Airbus consortium that builds wide-bodied planes that compete with Boeing.

Aerospatiale in Toulouse builds those heat-seeking Exocet missiles so beloved by military dictators. During the Falklands War, assembly line workers cheered with pride when Argentines used their handiwork to smoke a British warship. But in a French spirit of fair play, diplomats passed secret aim-spoiling codes on to London so that did not happen too often.
Industrial suburbs stretch away from Blagnac airfield and Aerospatiale’s soo-yard-long main hangar. The city’s four universities, four engineering schools, sixteen institutes, and thirty-four other schools of advanced studies are sprinkled just about everywhere.

Clearly, town planners put in some thought. You can even follow the road markings and find a place to park in the
medieval part of town. For the rest, urban architects designed outskirts that were to live on in greater glory, pilot planning
for the third millennium.

Le Mirail, for instance, an expanse of high-rise apartments and suburban businesses around a university campus, was supposed to house a dynamic, youthful, and convivial mix of young workaday families. As it turned out, Le Mirail offered France a chilling example of what happens in a well-fed society when too many people find no place at the table.

Le Mirail evolved into what other sizeable towns call la banlieu. The word means suburbs, but the connotation is neither Grosse Pointe nor Scarsdale. It is now code for the more specific term, "quartier sensible." That means, essentially: a ghetto populated by immigrants, darker-hued French citizens, and white working-class French families who are not able to move elsewhere. They are no-man’s-land expanses around Paris and Lyon. But Toulouse?

So I was surprised late in 1998, after a visit to France’s lovely model city, to see a headline reading, "Day of Riots in Toulouse After Death of Habib, 17."

Nothing was really clear about the spark that set things off. From most accounts, a police patrol had come upon some kids breaking into a car at 3:30 A.M. on a Sunday. Officers fired but did not chase the fleeing kids. At dawn, someone walking his dog found Habib Ould dead with a 7.65 caliber police bullet in him. He had run a hundred yards from the scene and collapsed. By noon, when the news circulated, crowds gathered in the tough La Reynerie section from all over Le Mirail.

By nightfall, cars were aflame. Rocks rained down on the besieged police. Outnumbered, faced with something new, the riot troops fired plumes of tear gas. Molotov cocktails flew back in riposte. At least six officers were injured in the first clash, and sporadic pitched battles went on for most of a week. Meanwhile, thousands marched through Toulouse holding aloft photos of a smiling Habib and banners in French and Arabic that read, "They murdered Pipo."

The story had the familiar buzz words evoking an underlying malaise that was troubling all of France: "integration" and "assimilation." What they meant was that after centuries of absorbing new immigrant groups, Frenchmen of the old sort saw themselves faced with a people who prefer a different sort of Sunday lunch, which they would rather eat on Friday.

For years, occasional flare-ups drew attention to the "sensitive neighborhoods," usually around Paris or Lyon. The film La Haine, "Hate," traced the patterns of frustrated, youthful exuberance to final gunplay. But the Toulouse spark ignited hot spots smouldering all across France. Habib was shot in mid-December. Over the Christmas holidays, shops and cars burned in Lyon, Saint~Etienne, Lille, Paris, Longwy. Tranquil Strasbourg saw the worst. In a single weekend, twenty cars were torched and city buses were stoned.

Vehicule flambé was a favorite dish. In Grenoble, for instance, kids stopped a bus and flung a firebomb under the seats. The driver crashed into a tree and escaped, with his passengers, before the bus exploded.

Across France as a whole, no one kept careful count.

In less likely places than Toulouse, frustrated ghetto youngsters tried their hand at the violence they watched nightly on television. Arles caught the fever, among other tranquil southern cities. And often the police, overwhelmed or fearful of criticism if they overreacted, simply stood back and watched.

By the time 1999 got started, French society had a new classification: les sauvageons were disaffected youths capable of violence just for the hell of it. Magazines scoured their Rolodexes for sociologists, who came up with conflicting analyses and forecasts. Clearly, this was something to watch between meals.

In a thorough post-mortem, Le Monde wrote, "Riots in parts of Le Mirail were no worse than elsewhere, but because they happened in the ‘the city where Frenchmen most prefer to live,’ according to all the polls, they showed the depth of the social crisis in France."

Sociologists had explanations. Sophie Body-Gendrot, a friend who loves dark chocolate, drafted a study for the prime minister’s office. In short, she said, an excluded class of kids do not feel connected to the same institutions and values of those around them. Repression, the usual answer, only makes it worse. And neither tolerance nor understanding can be enforced. Certainly not at any individual level.

"It is easy to single out suburban kids, or National Front voters, but it’s much more widespread than that," Sophie had explained in Paris. "Whole segments of society are rejecting authority, not paying rent, refusing the old norms of civility. It’s getting worse, and I don’t see solutions."

The predominant reaction in the government, she said, was to tighten the screws, putting out more police and imposing more severe sentences in courts. That would likely make things worse. "We need much more dialogue," she concluded, "but the French don’t know how to engage in dialogue. " When I returned to Toulouse a few months after the riots, I walked around the old center to sniff out sentiments. Near the Garonne quai, I stopped at a small news and stationery shop owned by a slim woman of a certain age, with severely angled clear-framed glasses and a fussy but not unfriendly manner. She was straight out of the manual: shopkeeper, mother, petit bourgeoise, who ruled her small domain.

Yes, she explained, the problem was down in the banlieue. Police killed an Algerian, or something. But a lot of them marched into town to demonstrate.

"That makes you afraid, you know," she said, with a little shudder. "Mind you, it’s not that I have anything against ‘les Arabes,’ but they come here and don’t fit in with our way and yet expect everything for free from us."

"Les Arabes," in this context, has nothing to do with the Middle East. It is a semi-polite term—there are much worse—for North Africans from Algeria, Tunisia, or Morocco, three former French territories. Many of these "immigrants" are second or third generation descendants of French citizens who as soldiers died defending France. Others include Zinedine Zidane, the French-born son of an Algerian night watchman from Marseille, who did the most to help France win the 1998 World Cup.

The stationery store lady warmed to her theme. She was no racist, she assured me, as I paid for my papers and turned to
leave. "You just have to understand," she concluded, "ces gens-là. . ." That translated to: those people. Everyone knows roughly who is included in that collective reference, but the connotations vary slightly as you move around France. In Toulouse, it means olive-hued, Allah-fearing people who would rather eat lamb on a spit than duck or goose.

Mort Rosenblum, A Goose in Toulouse, pp.131-135
©2000 Mort Rosenblum, Hyperion Books, New York
[Amazon.com link to this book: http://tinyurl.com/bmzcq ]

This is the link to the story I wrote, “The Homeless of Provence,” which I alluded to above. It touches most obliquely on the same philosophical issues raised by the plight of the downtrodden, and their reactions against it:
http://www.02138.com/pdfs/02138_coverpage-1b_p7-10.pdf

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There’s no greater gift involving time than creating the kind of life that allows you not to predicate how you use your time on the impact of that use on your ability to make the money you require for living your life as you see fit. In short, the more time you can give yourself, the better you are going to feel. That is, as long as there are other people in your life important enough to you to give them some of your time as well. If you can give yourself more time than the amount you need to make a living in order to meet the cost of necessities, you are on the road to heaven on earth. The problem, of course, is how to “make” such time. (side thought: what do make time out of?)

Many pretend that philosophy is the solution, often the same people who really don’t need to worry about these things, because they have the money to do, more or less, as they please. More often than not the common wisdom is the only philosophy that works universally is “make your life simpler.” Dispense with possessions, except the precious few. Reduce your obligations, in number, if not in magnitude. Eat less. Drink less. Consume less electricity, water, natural gas. Eschew the use of vehicles that are fueled by carbon-based fluids, solids or gases.

This is obviously horse shit, except for the lives of those who have embraced a monastic life within the confines of their chosen religion, and they happen to have a vast garden of food they maintain year round in a temperate climate.

Outside of criminal behavior, there is no custom, there is no set of tasks, that, in the aggregate can be termed simple, however basic and uncomplicated any one of them may be in the particular. Those I know who espouse, if not embrace (a smaller number), the “simple” life in the sense I am attempting to define it, spend most of their time engaged in tasks in pursuit of such a regime. Aside from the observation that one should embrace his or her spouse once in awhile, especially if you actually mean it, I would say, there is no simplicity to their lives at all. Not from the outside. Rather, given the theme of this essay, the more important consideration is the extent to which they devote time to themselves in a way they see not only fit, but they experience as pleasurable also. The fairy tale they tell themselves, and the majority of their friends, about simplicity is not only besides the point, but harmless. It’s not worth the time – aside from observing it and commenting upon it in public – to consider its obvious and pertinent internal inconsistency. If it is not a fairy tale, but told, nevertheless, in hypocrisy or perversity, well, you have some interesting friends, and you should spend more time with them observing their behavior. Unless, as I say, it’s criminal, in which case, be prepared, in sticking around, to accept the consequences of association.

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This is inspired by a spot inventory of the contents of the small pad of paper I carry in my left hip pocket. I have used them for years now (the first of the current series starts January 27 2002; they have 80 leaves that measure 4.1 x 5.8 inches [the odd dimensions derive from the fact that I effect the use of specific brand of “carnet,” French for notebook: it’s a Rhodia Bloc #13, with a bright orange cover, scored to allow folding the front cover over the binding; each leaf is covered with a grid of ruled squares, five to the inch horizontally and vertically]). I write, usually on only one side of each leaf, and each is perforated, so the pad serves the purpose as well of a repository of any needed scrap notes. I record everything here: bits of conversations, ideas large and small, drafts of essays and stories, shopping lists, to-do items, and, for three years, the names of all the oncology specialists treating my wife, her medications, appointments, etc. At the time of the account that follows, I had just started my tenth of these notebooks. This method has outlasted every system (e.g. Filofax, Day-Runner), gadget (PDA), device (Apple Newton computer), on which I have spent thousands of dollars over a 30 year professional career. The notes from which the following is copied says "Transcribed 2005 February 6." I leave the significance, never mind the meaning, of this, if any, to my future literary executors and scholars. Of which I have no doubt there will be an army.

[There are] chores, monthly house payments, auto maintenance, and the workplace
vs.
[the] the classic representation of the artist as monomaniacal with disorderly studio, paint-spattered clothes, unwashed, [eating] makeshift meals, etc.

Just below this entry is the self-stick tracking number ID from the Express Mail pack I sent to Fleet Bank Repetitive Funds Transfer Unit.

This is a typical chore for me. We have to send money, in euros, to our French checking account with the bank that holds the mortgage on our maison de village in Provence, so that our mortgage and mortgage insurance can be automatically paid on the tenth of each month. There are also the usual utility bills, which in France are paid bi-monthly, except for water and sewer, which, as here, are semi-annual.

Woe betide however if you miss a payment, especially if you have arranged, as we have for most of these bills, automatic payment. Miss one payment and the service is cut off. It’s happened with the phone and the water. Once is enough to teach you never to have it happen again. And even an anguished artist will be sufficiently bestirred not to allow this daily need to be interrupted.
Of course, the French are masters at circumventing the system, even in the eventuality of a service cut-off. For example, when I told a French acquaintance about the temporary water shortage chez nous (once we discovered it after a hiatus of several months) he told me that, if needed, he has the special square-headed socket wrench used by the Water Service both to turn on and off your supply (under a cover in the pavement, in our case, in the alley just next to the maison).

Perhaps characteristically, I am somehow more inspired in France, and even in the absence of my usual inspirational mood-altering nostrums, am capable of prodigious amounts of work, including a great deal of the content of bertha magazine. This was true of visits to St.John USVI where, alas, I have no property, but where a very good friend, indeed, resides and where I have been a not quite frequent enough guest. My duties in France are not unlike those at home, as I must still track the course of household expenses and pay the bills. The car is a rental, but needs, perhaps even more than at home, the ministrations that all automobiles require to keep running (or at least a steady eye on its condition and the level of fluids, especially its most precious, the petrol) because the maison is in the middle of nowhere, with about seven or eight kilometers (4½-5 miles) to the nearest gas station. Naturally, it’s open on its own schedule as well.

Further, there are the usual standard responsibilities to assume, preparing every meal not eaten out, with the accompanying kitchen cleanup. The never-ending chores, few and far between it is true, but always, somehow disruptive. There are, as well, the chores that fall into the category of feathering-one’s-nest. These include the delicate task of furnishing and decorating a house from the bare walls—the condition in which we received it from the previous owner.

The latter set of tasks is particularly tricky in France as it is the custom to strip one’s former house as one vacates it of all property, save what is “permanently” attached to the wall, floor, or ceiling. This does not include light fixtures (there were but two, a wall sconce on the third floor, and a storm fixture on the outside wall of the house overlooking the roof terrace enclosing a yellow “insect-repelling” bulb). Even mirrors were stripped from bathroom walls. It was our good fortune to have all the appliances bestowed upon us by the previous owner: an upper-middle-class matron, wife of a successful Marseille lawyer, who was abandoning the house for one they were building closer to the coast and which, presumably, the old appliances did not suit.

It satisfied this would-be artist’s sensibility (and pocketbook) that the left appliances included a Godin range, the cream of the French crop. Our model (with two electric burner, two gas, and an electric grill top, plus two ovens, with built-in rotisserie motors) is a little long in the tooth, though the latest versions of it, little altered in terms of convenience, and in some sense even of design, sells in the United States at “select” outlets for as much as $8,000, depending on the configuration. I’d have to sell a lot of photographs to pay for that.

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lyrics from Merrily We Roll Along, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

MARY
Hey, old friend,
What do you say, old friend?
Make it okay, old friend,
Give an old friendship a break.
Why so grim?
We’re going on forever.
You, me, him,
Too many lives are at stake.

Friends this long
Has to mean something’s strong,
So if your old friend’s wrong,
Shouldn’t an old friend come through?
It’s us, old friend —
What’s to discuss, old friend?
Here’s to us,
Who’s like us — ?

CHARLEY
Damn few.

I guess there can be such a thing as a surfeit of emotion. Certainly there are many of people who have commented to me the effects of being almost overwhelmed with feeling. It’s a curious quality in the human animal that our particular form of consciousness allows us to interpret the sensation of a myriad of physiological changes as a surge of feeling. We experience different feelings in different ways, and less pleasant feelings, of anxiety, or fear, of grief raise a greater spectre of being overpowered.

Yet even an abundance of good feeling, of love, of joy, even of deeper forms of satisfaction, a penetrating sense of comfort or well-being – perhaps as rare as deep, cathartic grief – can as well evoke a sense of enough, even a bit more may be too much.

Against the possibility of these experiences I wish to propose yet another condition of sensibility. Is it possible as I suppose it to be that one can have a desire for certain feelings, and to prolong the experiences or at least the conditions that are the occasion or at least the setting for having those feelings. In regard to setting a stage, let me further propose that a theatrical performance, if not that the quintessential American theatrical performance of a Broadway musical, seeks to concentrate in a short span of time serial instances of deeply felt sentiment, if not genuine feeling. Such concentrations are best realized in song, for the music alone creates a context that transcends the limitations of language per se in expressing strong feeling. Further, the songs harness the emotive power of the human voice, whose greatest strength seemingly derives from what has to be supposed to be the shortest synaptic travel for any sound arriving at the ear en route to the brain. All other instruments seek mainly to emulate the emotive power of the voice, if not through mimicry then at least through aural stimulation at the extremes of tonal scales or of volume.

The lyrics of the most affecting of songs are simple. Opera lyrics are simple. The simplicity maintains the primacy of the substance of the subjects of most songs, the great themes, the great abstractions. Love. Loss. Fear. Hope. Self-validation.

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There is no denying that the country is divided on the subject of the administration of George W. Bush.

I wonder what a prudent politician must do to deal with such a condition, on the presumption that one does so because one is at least 1% devoted to the proposition that I represent, to the world, the entirety of the American population. If all you are concerned about is achieving and holding office for as long as possible, presumably for other goals to be sought, attainable only as the result of being in office, the strategy is simple. You must only achieve one vote more than required than the other guy.

George W. Bush is clearly content to serve only that part of the electorate that is sufficiently satisfied with his performance to vote in favor of keeping him to continue with it. His objective is simpler still than stated above. He must only gain, if needed, the additional votes necessary to keep him in office.

A president of the United States unconcerned about the significant opposition of his people — by what measure we call it "significant" is beyond my sense of it at the moment, but I am not in the position of being concerned about the size of the opposition — is as president too sure of himself to deserve to be president. As a practitioner of the black arts of psychiatry intimated to me recently, he wishes Bush were more neurotic.

Long since, President Bush has proven himself impervious to nay-saying. The likeliest reason is that he never seeks it, and, by extension, it is never brought to his attention (at least not at his behest).

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