Fifty years ago today

The Feminine Mystique was published fifty years ago today. About a year later I read the paperback and discussed it with the little book group to which I belonged.  Young housewives and mothers, we were not angered by her emphasis on women in the working world.  I do not remember the discussion but I think most of us knew we would pursue careers when the time was right.  We did. We are all now "retired" -- at least from the job that pays the rent although I feel I'm still working at the writing career I always wanted

Shortly after that book "consciousness raising" discussions, events, books filled our lives.  I went to a gathering at which Friedan spoke.  She was articulate but I came away thinking -- inappropriately! -- that with that nose and unkempt hair she was probably the ugliest woman I had ever seen.  Ugly or not, she had a head full of insight about the lives women were living and the changes that were needed.  Someone must always be first, some one must exaggerated the results of the research, someone must take the criticism.  We now have several strong women to admire, not just pretty Jackie so beautifully attired. Hilary is one of the most admired women in America and will continue to contribute greatly.  There are many others. Last night I watched a video clip of Elizabeth Warren at a hearing (yes, I voted for her) pinpoint the way the big banks are avoiding trials when they are sued, hiding their methods behind settlements. Warren pointed out that federal DAs all over the country are bringing to trial smaller con men, making an example of their dealings in courts so the public will hear how they have cheated others but that no big bank has ever yet gone to trial and revealed even a smidgeon of their manipulations. 

We used to say to one another when someone had raised their family and begun a successful career, "You've come a long way, baby."  It's true.  But yesterday I heard from a woman who had worked years for Wal-Mart, always aiming for a management position, never given it even when she seemed the only good choice, and then was fired for a  small accident.  The fight is far from won but Betty Friedan fired the shot that still echoes. 

A puzzling novel

Summertime, like other novels by South African novelist, J.M. Coatzee (Nobelist)  that I have had read was curiously dry, as if they are echoing the supposedly dry and barren homelands of the Boers that they clung to so fiercely.  Summertime is the most confusing, although I understand from reviews that two previous somewhat biographical books were also confusing and not really enlightening about who and what kind of man Coatzee is.

Summertime appears to be a book of material put together by a biographer after Coatzee's death (although he is not dead). It includes notebooks by the author and interviews about him, most notably with three or four women who had some role in his life.  He paints the man in the book named John Coatzee as unkempt, antisocial, inarticulate, entirely inept as a lover.  He is living with an even more inarticulate father, aged beyond his age.  Apparently the real Coatzee shares a dislike of pubic appearance with the fictional one -- he did not attend the prestigious Mann-Booker awards the two times he was the winner. 

In the course of the story we see that  Coatzee at least has a strong conscience about the inequality of apartheid in South Africa -- as was true in other books as well.  A reader is very much thrown off base -- surely this was intended by the writer -- upon reading this book.  Various writers make themselves characters in their novels, usually making themselves at least a bit grander than in real life.  The opposite tack may be the flip side, psychologically.  It's a curious matter to ponder, this identity thing. 

Documentary Class: Maya Linn

After all our blizzard difficulties nearly everyone has power again, my classes are back to normal, except for the five or ten minutes of catching up with everyone's outage stories.  Yesterday's documentary film class was the biographical film about Maya Linn, the architect-sculptor who won immediate national fame in 1981 (I think that date is right) with her design for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington -- hard to believe it was thirty years ago, and hard to remember the resistance and outcry that she, at the age of 20, withstood to maintain the integrity and purity of her conception which has since proved to be one of the most powerful memorials to those who died in a war. 

Women's history month is next month, but this is Black History month. The showing of the film was not intentionally meant to celebrate either but it does, as she also designed the Civil Rights memorial -- very different and yet very much the same sort of quiet, elegant design that allows people to relate very directly and emotionally to an event in our history.  She is, I suddenly realize, no longer this "young" woman, she is a mature artist and architect who has produced and continues to produce other powerful work.  I have read much over the years but this film skillfully and tastefully brought the story into perspective. 

Storm Stories

Everyone has a story, some are of shivering for four days without power, spending most of that time in bed trying to read when there was enough light.  But many storm stories are of helpful neighbors, friends, family.  In the relatively affluent areas where most of the people I've been talking to live, usually a neighbor had a generator, or the house had a fire place that kept at least one room comfortable. 

Some have to deal with burst pipes, many discovered that cell phones are not so wonderful when there's no power to recharge them -- someone remarked to me on the second day being "powerless" -- "About now everyone's losing their cell phone power."  And it was true.  How quickly we begin to take our conveniences for granted!  How stunned we are when we have to cope without light and heat and are housebound.

The majority of people I've been talking to are older people -- my generation. They have long lost the young person's sense of adventure -- and the ability to pursue it -- when one could strike out through the drifts to visit friends, or just to enjoy a different world outside.  They are, however, philosophical and grateful for the helping hands that cleared their drives, the kind neighbors who provided a bed  while the neighbor slept on a sofa or in a sleeping bag.

And now we are putting it behind us, going on with our lives and our sense of privilege for having electricity. Cell phones, microwaves, efficient heating systems will once again become things we take for granted.  Comfort makes the memory short.

Yes, the blizzard was real

Yes, the blizzard was real, but Cape Cod had less than many other parts of the state and area.  The piles of snow here in the horseshoe shaped main entrance to my apartment complex look impressive.  However the amount of the ground was maybe 6 or 8 inches.   That bright sunshine is today, Sunday, after the blizzard did it's worse -- mainly wind -- for some 24-hours from Friday evening to Saturday evening.   For us, worst meant power outage that began at 10:00 Friday night and lasted 42 hours.

A couple of blocks away, this morning, my daughter was out shoveling the drive, with her husband.  I lent a hand a bit belatedly.  The problem was not really the snow, it was the reminder of how much we rely on electricity.  It controls our thermostats and regulates the temperature in the houses.  My apartment dropped to 55 in about 8 hours.  Not a disastrous temperature but unpleasant although I put on layers and only my fingers really felt the cold. 

Suddenly: no light, no stove or microwave or coffee maker, no visibility in the bathroom without a candle, no sewing machine.  My eyes are too old to read comfortable by candlelight.  A  progressiong of little book lights have died and been discarded. Fortunately I could quilt and embroider okay and, since I had a long term project that was languishing, I turned to it and made a nice amount of headway.  Always I have many projects I'm jugging -- I include reading and writing in that definition. 

Rachel remembers well that as she was growing up in upstate New York, near Syracuse, we often had snow storms like this, often with far deeper snowfall, but rarely had power outages and roads were cleared promptly. Perhaps that's why I felt unconvinced by all the dire warnings during the day Friday.  I find the day after -- as today was -- beautiful and stimulating. Yes, it's cold, but a little shoveling warms you quickly.  The contrast of trees with snow clinging to branches and trunks with brilliant blue sky is beautiful.  And tomorrow it's to be in the 40s, possibly with rain -- much of the snow will disappear and the rest will become a sloppy mess.  Such is the cycle of these winter storms.

Hysterical voices again

They're at it again -- hysterical voices telling us we're in for one of the great blizzards of all time. Well ... maybe ... maybe us ... maybe someplace else ... maybe not much snow at all.  I'm really tired of this Be afraid, be very afraid! hysteria that hits the media regularly and indiscriminately -- as if someone knew just what the storm is going to do, just where it's going to hit.

Maybe a blizzard will hit Cape Cod; maybe not -- last year we heard three such warnings and, as we say here on the Cape, none of them made it over the bridge.  People are saying, "stock up" and "what will you do if the heat goes out?" And so on.  Jez ...  if the lights go out, I'll lose the food in my freezer, say the thoughtless ones.  Why lose any frozen food when there's a foot of snow outside to keep your food well frozen?  Really, where's your common sense? Almost everyone I know has enough food of various sorts in their homes to keep them feed for a couple of weeks -- maybe not with the variety they are accustomed to but, hey, we are the lucky ones.  We have enough food.  Would we be cold if the electridicity went off?  Maybe a little cold, but not freezing cold.  Why do we think we should be afraid just because someone in a cozy TV studio, under megawatts of bright lights tells us we should panic? 

I'll keep my eyes open.  I'll be surprised if there is more than two inches of snow on the ground tomorrow morning -- I'll be surprised if there is one, actually as today was totally without percipetion.
I simply protest the penchant of all news media to try to instill fear. 

I'm reading an article in the current New Yorker magazine about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on Staten Island. It was very serious understand that. Now that the papers have once said "Super storm" they've added the words to their vocabulary.  G'mme a break.

Two Quartets -- confusing

Only a few weeks ago I saw the wonderful movie called The Late Quartet, the title is a pun, meaning one of Beethoven's late string quartets and a quartet of players who had been together for
 for many years. They were in serious trouble as an organization of very, very close friends.  The movie starred Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walkin, Kathleen Kennar and Mark Ivanir. It had several themes about friendship, aging and about music.  The acting was superb -- especially Walkin -- the story nuanced and adult and the periods of music, which were not constant at all, were wonderful. The final scene in Carnegie Hall was heart rending and wonderful at the same time.  Unforgetable.

Today I saw a movie called The Quartet which was directed by Dustin Hoffman and is getting far more attention in the press than the earlier movie did -- due to industry politics and probably money.  I enjoyed this movie because music was almost constant. It was set in a retirement home for musicians in a grand British mansion with grand gardens whereas the former movie was set in nice, but sometimes gritty parts of New York City.

This movie has Maggie Smith as a retired opera singer and Pauline Collins, Tom Courtney and Billy Connelly as appropriately voiced other retired opera singers who had once upon a time sung Rigoletto together.  The story here was  far thiner, the acting thiner too. Maggie Smith is not convincing as a retired opera singer; she is grande dame in the wrong sort of way.  What a shame that the better movie will have the smaller audience.