Good morning.
If you did not take a French course at a certain level, at a certain school, at a certain date, you probably have not read the above play.
It is a play by Romain Rolland, written probably pre-World War Two. Its title is, "Dr. Knock, or, The Triumph of Medicine."
Dr. Knock is a young smart-ass who graduates from medical school and then sets about to buy a practice. That's what you did to set up on your own; you bought an already established practice from an old doctor who was about to retire. Then you walked in on your new life with a set of patients already set up for you.
Dr. Knock walks into his new post in time to have a farewell conference with the good old retiring doctor. "I'm afraid you have chosen a very quiet place to start your practice," says the old doctor."Up here in the mountains, we have such healthy air and water that nobody is ever ill. You'll never make much money or have much business if you stay here." And he departs.
Dr. Knock knows better. His first day in town he puts up big signs: FREE CLINIC. FREE HEALTH TESTING. And the people, tempted by the prospect of getting something for nothing, all show up.
Surprise! Turns out that they only thought that there was nothing wrong with them. Le Dr. Knock soon has everyone diagnosed with something. They are all sick, and didn't know it!!
The play progresses until, at the end, Dr. Knock is up in the middle of the night looking out at his hillside cottages all with a light on. "Look," he says to his servant,"See those cottages with a light on? That means that in each one, there is an ill person with someone up to care for him. I did that! I made all this happen!"
Dr Knock goes mad, of course. But medicine has triumphed! Is there anything familiar about this scenario? Doesn't it seem kind of like the last time you went to the doctor?
When I think of all the new diseases I just cringe. It means some pharmaceutical company has made a new drug. "Gosh, why is there so much autism now?" someone wondered the other day. Follow the pharmaceuticals, I answer. What about Type 2 Diabetes? There used to be none. You either had diabetes or you didn't. Follow the pharmaceuticals, stupid.
We have to eat as well as we can, be careful not to fall down, get some exercise and then get some rest, and say our prayers. And think about Dr Knock the next time we get handed a new prescription. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Trivial Pursuits
Good noon.
This has been a busy week. Nothing much has been done, as far as my personal check-off list is concerned.
Outside, things are happening. The fencing man, Richard, is there with his faithful crew, trying to finish up the back yard fences before the rains hit.
They have finished the long front to back part that's between our lot and the clinica. That's in cedar. We decided against replacing it with redwood, and the fence guy has hauled off tons of valuable redwood boards, weathered but OK, to his advantage.
Then at the back lot line, the cedar fence turns the corner and continues about twenty feet. At that point, it becomes chain link which will serve to delineate a dropping off place up here , down to the lower forty. We are keeping Theo's staircase, but the gate up top will be chain link. And only three or four feet tall. Our view will be augmented, and the neighbors' view of our yard will be greatly augmented since it will be opened up for the first time ever, ever since the redwood fence was put up twenty five years ago at least.
Will I like it? Will it be what I'd want? No. I have learned to compromise. It is strange that we are in a recession but everything is 'way more costly than it used to be anyway. If a fence cost 500 dollars eight years ago, you can bet on its cost being 900 now. And there's the cost of the labor. It, too , has gone way up. If there are any bargain workers out there I have no idea how to find them. C'est la vie.
That reminds me of a naughty joke. A Mexican and a Frenchman are standing on a street corner when a pretty girl walks by. A breeze blows her skirts up around her waist, and the Frenchman turns to the Mexican and says, "Ah, c'est la vie." The Mexican turns to the Frenchman and says, "Yo se la vi, tambien." Every man in Brownsville Texas thinks he made that joke up himself. YAZZYBEL
This has been a busy week. Nothing much has been done, as far as my personal check-off list is concerned.
Outside, things are happening. The fencing man, Richard, is there with his faithful crew, trying to finish up the back yard fences before the rains hit.
They have finished the long front to back part that's between our lot and the clinica. That's in cedar. We decided against replacing it with redwood, and the fence guy has hauled off tons of valuable redwood boards, weathered but OK, to his advantage.
Then at the back lot line, the cedar fence turns the corner and continues about twenty feet. At that point, it becomes chain link which will serve to delineate a dropping off place up here , down to the lower forty. We are keeping Theo's staircase, but the gate up top will be chain link. And only three or four feet tall. Our view will be augmented, and the neighbors' view of our yard will be greatly augmented since it will be opened up for the first time ever, ever since the redwood fence was put up twenty five years ago at least.
Will I like it? Will it be what I'd want? No. I have learned to compromise. It is strange that we are in a recession but everything is 'way more costly than it used to be anyway. If a fence cost 500 dollars eight years ago, you can bet on its cost being 900 now. And there's the cost of the labor. It, too , has gone way up. If there are any bargain workers out there I have no idea how to find them. C'est la vie.
That reminds me of a naughty joke. A Mexican and a Frenchman are standing on a street corner when a pretty girl walks by. A breeze blows her skirts up around her waist, and the Frenchman turns to the Mexican and says, "Ah, c'est la vie." The Mexican turns to the Frenchman and says, "Yo se la vi, tambien." Every man in Brownsville Texas thinks he made that joke up himself. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Poor Henry James
Good morning.
I think I've told you that, like Bertie Wooster's uncle, I get my best ideas when my navel is immersed in warm bath water. Often, the idea hits as the two elements come in contact. Bingo.
That is what I felt yesterday, as I began my bath. Henry James had Asperger's Syndrome.
Is that revelation important to the world? I don't know. It might be, to a scholar who's studying James'life. It might be, to an interested observer like myself, in the context of making relationships, to a person who has always found it not easy to make relationships.
Or to a person who does not care deeply about making relationships. Or does not, more specifically, need to make relationships in order to have a meaningful life. That is kind of where I am.
I've always wondered how I could have in my life moved so happily (relatively) from one place and set of friends to another place and set of friends. It's been difficult for me twice in my life, the rest not...and I have moved about a lot.
I do make relationships and I do make friends. Sometimes through circumstances these relationships are lost. Basically, I remember them well but I move on. I enjoy the new relationships very much. What is the matter with me? I have begun to think.
The problem began to surface lately with thinking about the relationship-capacity of a friend (always easier to see from the outside.) I was prowling the web and came upon a page, "Take the Asperger's Test." Actually I was looking for Autism. I took the test and came out at 28. If you score 34, you definitely have got it. Normal women's score is 14 or 15, whichever. Bingo again.
Asperger's is high-functioning autism. A good syndrome for musicians (soloists)...writers...and others who do not have to be part of a team. A bad syndrome for us ordinary folk who would like the warming support of lots of others around us doing what we're doing sometimes. But--we can deal with it. We have to.
It explains why as I child was called Greta Garbo by my mother. " I want to be alone," was my motto often during a day when the family played games and I wanted to read. But my favorite reading was often done in a big chair nearby as they wrangled over the card table. I wasn't completely hopeless.
It explains why my favorite things have always been writing, painting, piano-ing, solo singing. It explains why I am so ill suited to be in choirs and choruses. It explains why I am not an orchestra member. It explains why I don't like art classes (they are the most sociable of group artistic studies, it seems to me; admirable). It explains why I hate committees and don't function very well at parties.
It explains why I am adverse to bridge although I am more amenable and happy at card-playing in general than I used to be. Even at cards, I used to win at games where I was on my own, no partner. Now, I am not disturbed by a partner though I'll take no nonsense.
What does all this have to do with Henry James? Do you remember my post of several weeks ago where I was writing about the novel, The Master, by Toim Cobin? That novel has stayed with me, in my mind and heart, so much in the weeks since I finished it. What a nice, good person he was. What a tragedy that he was really totally unable to have a relationship with almost anybody...he tried. He was the prisoner of his nutty family, and his nutty upbringing. But everyone has those. He was really the prisoner of his genetic makeup, and for that nobody can ever be to blame. He was not really sad about it. He saw the world with new eyes and kept writing. No doubt he thought about (and perhaps wrote about) his disability in a more lucid and cogent way than I could ever hope to approach. So, if he wasn't lugubrious about it, should we be? No. Henry James wasn't poor at all. Nor am I. YAZZYBEL
I think I've told you that, like Bertie Wooster's uncle, I get my best ideas when my navel is immersed in warm bath water. Often, the idea hits as the two elements come in contact. Bingo.
That is what I felt yesterday, as I began my bath. Henry James had Asperger's Syndrome.
Is that revelation important to the world? I don't know. It might be, to a scholar who's studying James'life. It might be, to an interested observer like myself, in the context of making relationships, to a person who has always found it not easy to make relationships.
Or to a person who does not care deeply about making relationships. Or does not, more specifically, need to make relationships in order to have a meaningful life. That is kind of where I am.
I've always wondered how I could have in my life moved so happily (relatively) from one place and set of friends to another place and set of friends. It's been difficult for me twice in my life, the rest not...and I have moved about a lot.
I do make relationships and I do make friends. Sometimes through circumstances these relationships are lost. Basically, I remember them well but I move on. I enjoy the new relationships very much. What is the matter with me? I have begun to think.
The problem began to surface lately with thinking about the relationship-capacity of a friend (always easier to see from the outside.) I was prowling the web and came upon a page, "Take the Asperger's Test." Actually I was looking for Autism. I took the test and came out at 28. If you score 34, you definitely have got it. Normal women's score is 14 or 15, whichever. Bingo again.
Asperger's is high-functioning autism. A good syndrome for musicians (soloists)...writers...and others who do not have to be part of a team. A bad syndrome for us ordinary folk who would like the warming support of lots of others around us doing what we're doing sometimes. But--we can deal with it. We have to.
It explains why as I child was called Greta Garbo by my mother. " I want to be alone," was my motto often during a day when the family played games and I wanted to read. But my favorite reading was often done in a big chair nearby as they wrangled over the card table. I wasn't completely hopeless.
It explains why my favorite things have always been writing, painting, piano-ing, solo singing. It explains why I am so ill suited to be in choirs and choruses. It explains why I am not an orchestra member. It explains why I don't like art classes (they are the most sociable of group artistic studies, it seems to me; admirable). It explains why I hate committees and don't function very well at parties.
It explains why I am adverse to bridge although I am more amenable and happy at card-playing in general than I used to be. Even at cards, I used to win at games where I was on my own, no partner. Now, I am not disturbed by a partner though I'll take no nonsense.
What does all this have to do with Henry James? Do you remember my post of several weeks ago where I was writing about the novel, The Master, by Toim Cobin? That novel has stayed with me, in my mind and heart, so much in the weeks since I finished it. What a nice, good person he was. What a tragedy that he was really totally unable to have a relationship with almost anybody...he tried. He was the prisoner of his nutty family, and his nutty upbringing. But everyone has those. He was really the prisoner of his genetic makeup, and for that nobody can ever be to blame. He was not really sad about it. He saw the world with new eyes and kept writing. No doubt he thought about (and perhaps wrote about) his disability in a more lucid and cogent way than I could ever hope to approach. So, if he wasn't lugubrious about it, should we be? No. Henry James wasn't poor at all. Nor am I. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Easter 2012 Pictures
Easter 2012
Happy Easter!!
And Happy Paysach too!
Church was especially nice today because they baptized two babies, too little boys of the year old category....very cute and sweet. One was a little younger, the other a little older. People (women) around me said, "Awwww...," softly as the babies were borne by in the arms of their fathers or another male relative. I liked seeing them kiss their babies on the top of the head. An irresistible impulse, that, isn't it, if you're holding one?
The flowers were all white, and my favorite thing is all white flowers. But this year I felt they were a little lacking. St Paul's has a number of great huge copper window boxes that go underneath the stained glass windows, and some years they have just been burgeoning with spring blooms of all kinds and all colors. This year, things were a little sparse. There were Easter lilies only, and not a huge lot of them. Perhaps it's the recession....
There were a number of strangers today, probably because it's Easter and because of the baptisms. Two elderly 'girls' came in and sat next to me and proceeded to chitter and chat and giggle at every moment of interval. I even thought we were having that Easter earthquake that I gloomily anticipate every Easter, as the pew shivered and shook under their spasms of merriment.
I almost assumed a proper Episcopal attitude to ask them to tone it down, but held back. When we passed the Peace, I chatted too. Turns out they were having a joyful reunion, friends from the seventh grade, and were so happy to be together. I am glad I didn't say anything snippish. Episcopal women are often held to be snippish, and sometimes are. Their happiness and rowdy joy were really more appropriate to the day than any comment I could have made on deportment.
I wore a skirt today. A skirt suit, of pretty grey material. As I sat down I had a Madeleine Allbright moment that made me remember why I think pants are really more graceful than skirts unless the skirts are long and full. Madeleine used to make me suffer in the nineties, there, where I saw her on the news amongst presidents and sheiks, her middle-elderly plump legs in their tight skirt barely making it for decency's sake. Short tight skirts are not made for legs and figures like mine nor Madeleine's. Happy Easter, everybody. YAZZYBEL
And Happy Paysach too!
Church was especially nice today because they baptized two babies, too little boys of the year old category....very cute and sweet. One was a little younger, the other a little older. People (women) around me said, "Awwww...," softly as the babies were borne by in the arms of their fathers or another male relative. I liked seeing them kiss their babies on the top of the head. An irresistible impulse, that, isn't it, if you're holding one?
The flowers were all white, and my favorite thing is all white flowers. But this year I felt they were a little lacking. St Paul's has a number of great huge copper window boxes that go underneath the stained glass windows, and some years they have just been burgeoning with spring blooms of all kinds and all colors. This year, things were a little sparse. There were Easter lilies only, and not a huge lot of them. Perhaps it's the recession....
There were a number of strangers today, probably because it's Easter and because of the baptisms. Two elderly 'girls' came in and sat next to me and proceeded to chitter and chat and giggle at every moment of interval. I even thought we were having that Easter earthquake that I gloomily anticipate every Easter, as the pew shivered and shook under their spasms of merriment.
I almost assumed a proper Episcopal attitude to ask them to tone it down, but held back. When we passed the Peace, I chatted too. Turns out they were having a joyful reunion, friends from the seventh grade, and were so happy to be together. I am glad I didn't say anything snippish. Episcopal women are often held to be snippish, and sometimes are. Their happiness and rowdy joy were really more appropriate to the day than any comment I could have made on deportment.
I wore a skirt today. A skirt suit, of pretty grey material. As I sat down I had a Madeleine Allbright moment that made me remember why I think pants are really more graceful than skirts unless the skirts are long and full. Madeleine used to make me suffer in the nineties, there, where I saw her on the news amongst presidents and sheiks, her middle-elderly plump legs in their tight skirt barely making it for decency's sake. Short tight skirts are not made for legs and figures like mine nor Madeleine's. Happy Easter, everybody. YAZZYBEL
Friday, April 6, 2012
Good Friday
Good afternoon.
It's Good Friday so I went to church. Sat with three other hens. Made a lunch date with one of them.
The service was a wonderful one. It's odd that though I don't really 'like' Good Friday, I am always glad I went. The music was beautiful and the service, though it lasted for almost an hour and a half, simply sailed by in the lovely sounds of Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ.
There was a choir of four and an orchestra of four. The singers were soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. The instruments were 2 violins, a viola, and a cello. Altogether they were a beautifully blended mixture of rich sound. All singers are excellent.
There were prayers, with enough standing and sitting to satisfy even my range-of-motion demands. And the Bishop gave four (or was it three) fine meditations at intervals.
The Seven Last Words of Christ by Haydn, though fraught with the stark tragedy of the worst day of the Christian year, is a beautiful piece of music to listen to. It is never lugubrious. And before you smile, believe me. It's possible for the finest intentions to become lugubrious. I have received many communications on the Internet regarding the nature of dogs, that were quite lugubrious. And if it is awful to be lugubrious about dogs and such, it is worse to be so about our Creator. And I get those too. I just don't send them on to other misfortunate readers with the threat of grave bodily harm if people don't send them on.
The Seven Last Words are quite brief, even as augmented by the librettist. I wonder if it was Haydn. The music--flows. That is the only word for it. It is just beautiful and the flow is not stopped by the glottals (if that is the word I want) of German. That is all imagined anyway, the glottal part. German is a beautiful language, and this piece couldn't have been written in a lovelier.
That is all I wanted to say. It isn't a requiem, so it is okay that I went to it. Yes. YAZZYBEL
It's Good Friday so I went to church. Sat with three other hens. Made a lunch date with one of them.
The service was a wonderful one. It's odd that though I don't really 'like' Good Friday, I am always glad I went. The music was beautiful and the service, though it lasted for almost an hour and a half, simply sailed by in the lovely sounds of Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ.
There was a choir of four and an orchestra of four. The singers were soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. The instruments were 2 violins, a viola, and a cello. Altogether they were a beautifully blended mixture of rich sound. All singers are excellent.
There were prayers, with enough standing and sitting to satisfy even my range-of-motion demands. And the Bishop gave four (or was it three) fine meditations at intervals.
The Seven Last Words of Christ by Haydn, though fraught with the stark tragedy of the worst day of the Christian year, is a beautiful piece of music to listen to. It is never lugubrious. And before you smile, believe me. It's possible for the finest intentions to become lugubrious. I have received many communications on the Internet regarding the nature of dogs, that were quite lugubrious. And if it is awful to be lugubrious about dogs and such, it is worse to be so about our Creator. And I get those too. I just don't send them on to other misfortunate readers with the threat of grave bodily harm if people don't send them on.
The Seven Last Words are quite brief, even as augmented by the librettist. I wonder if it was Haydn. The music--flows. That is the only word for it. It is just beautiful and the flow is not stopped by the glottals (if that is the word I want) of German. That is all imagined anyway, the glottal part. German is a beautiful language, and this piece couldn't have been written in a lovelier.
That is all I wanted to say. It isn't a requiem, so it is okay that I went to it. Yes. YAZZYBEL
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Just Dont Like Requiems
Good afternoon.
I am watching the end of Amadeus, where, dying, Mozart is pushing out of himself with his dying gasps his wonderful Requiem--in C, is it? Don't remember. It's magnificent.
But I dont like requiems. I just refuse to go to any, any more. Perhaps it's because to me they are a requiem for a civilization that has gone to the dogs, through stupidity and cupidity and greed at all levels. I know; that is very depressed and negative thinking. So I don't think that way too much; I don't let myself think it. I think of other things like animals, farms, music, all arts, books and reading, of food and cookery, some little bit of religion . I think of the goodness of Mexicans I have known, and that of some Americans (fewer). When I think of religion I think of Christianity as personified by the Episcopal Church, and how,even if it is all just a made up myth, what a fantastic myth it is, what a fantastic creation. Perhaps we made it up for our own consolation, or our own vindication, or our own--castigation. Nowadays, it doesn't work for that last phrase because the word from Above as I last heard it was that we were all already forgiven before we were born. We can't even commit our own sins nor suffer for them. Wait a minute--I am going too far. Better stop and go back to animals.
The other night I saw a beautiful special on whales. They are so fascinating. It is a bizarre thing to feel sympathy for a brother or sister whose eye, alone, is bigger than one's whole person. But there they were capering around in the ocean as free as birds, living life on such a large scale that it's hard to imagine that life. I wrote a poem about whales a long time ago, and here it is.
Sometimes at night I cannot sleep
Until I think of whales..
Out in the wet and dark and cold,
Rolling with the Grace of God
In vast and frigid cradles of the waves.
If there is a moon they're watching it.
Their blood is warm,
And oh, so long ago they left safe earth,
Dryness, and the comfort of warm snuggling,
The usefulness of arms and hands
To touch and work for one--
Their little ones bob at their sides,
Never to be grasped.
And the vast awe I feel at their bravery
In that tremendous dark water
Sends me off to sleep.
That is a very corny and incompleted poem but I have not seen fit to change it since 10-7-79 which is the date I wrote it on. Of course it didn't say one tenth of what I wanted to express, but it's all true anyway. YAZZYBEL
I am watching the end of Amadeus, where, dying, Mozart is pushing out of himself with his dying gasps his wonderful Requiem--in C, is it? Don't remember. It's magnificent.
But I dont like requiems. I just refuse to go to any, any more. Perhaps it's because to me they are a requiem for a civilization that has gone to the dogs, through stupidity and cupidity and greed at all levels. I know; that is very depressed and negative thinking. So I don't think that way too much; I don't let myself think it. I think of other things like animals, farms, music, all arts, books and reading, of food and cookery, some little bit of religion . I think of the goodness of Mexicans I have known, and that of some Americans (fewer). When I think of religion I think of Christianity as personified by the Episcopal Church, and how,even if it is all just a made up myth, what a fantastic myth it is, what a fantastic creation. Perhaps we made it up for our own consolation, or our own vindication, or our own--castigation. Nowadays, it doesn't work for that last phrase because the word from Above as I last heard it was that we were all already forgiven before we were born. We can't even commit our own sins nor suffer for them. Wait a minute--I am going too far. Better stop and go back to animals.
The other night I saw a beautiful special on whales. They are so fascinating. It is a bizarre thing to feel sympathy for a brother or sister whose eye, alone, is bigger than one's whole person. But there they were capering around in the ocean as free as birds, living life on such a large scale that it's hard to imagine that life. I wrote a poem about whales a long time ago, and here it is.
Sometimes at night I cannot sleep
Until I think of whales..
Out in the wet and dark and cold,
Rolling with the Grace of God
In vast and frigid cradles of the waves.
If there is a moon they're watching it.
Their blood is warm,
And oh, so long ago they left safe earth,
Dryness, and the comfort of warm snuggling,
The usefulness of arms and hands
To touch and work for one--
Their little ones bob at their sides,
Never to be grasped.
And the vast awe I feel at their bravery
In that tremendous dark water
Sends me off to sleep.
That is a very corny and incompleted poem but I have not seen fit to change it since 10-7-79 which is the date I wrote it on. Of course it didn't say one tenth of what I wanted to express, but it's all true anyway. YAZZYBEL
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