Hope for the Holidays

Once upon a time, the comedy show In Living Color featured a skit lampooning Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign. Jackson's campaign slogan "Keep hope alive" morphed into a sketch in which Jim Carey, the show's token white guy, played an ancient, wheelchair-bound Bob Hope. "Hope" was clad in a hospital gown and connected to an IV while the rest of the cast, dressed as doctors, nurses and orderlies, fussed over him and vowed to "Keep Hope alive".

Jackson wasn't the first politician to spin hope into a slogan, and he won't be the last. Bill Clinton's biography is "A Town Called Hope". Barack Obama titled his autobiographic tome "The Audacity of Hope". Artist Shepard Fairey used the word all by its lonesome under his bold, Warholesque portrait of Obama to create what is probably the most famous American political poster since Uncle Sam Wants YOU!

The Obama victory, and the impending departure of Bush and Cheney are a great relief to most of us (67% of the population, according to Bush's latest approval rating) but these days, it's hard not to feel like hope is on life support. The global economy is globally lousy. Unemployment goes up every week. The stock market keeps dropping, like the sea level right before a tsunami, exposing a variety of invertebrates, parasites and bottom feeders. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Healthcare is broken. The polar ice caps are dissolving while Tennessee drowns in toxic sludge. Our kids are ignorant and proud of it and the cost of educating them has never been higher. Iraq may or may not hold together if and when we finally pull out, and Afghanistan ain't looking too good. The environment remains on the global back burner, with the temperature on high. Israel and Hamas are at it again, apparently mutually incapable of learning from experience.

Even as I write this, I have to keep reminding myself that 'tis the season for hope. For Christians, Christmas is a yearly reminder of the hope Jesus gave mankind. For Jews, Chanukah represents the hope of religious freedom. And for anyone who's had a lousy year, this is your time to hope next year will be better - especially encouraging when next year starts tomorrow.

If you're suffering from H.A.D. (Holiday Affective Disorder) try remember that hope isn't just seasonal: it's eternal. A uniquely human expression of the survival instinct, woven into our DNA. And it's contagious. Hope inspires, connects and motivates. It's overthrown dictators, cured diseases, signed peace treaties and cleaned up toxic waste sites. And it starts with you and me. So here's to the hope in our hearts. May it grow, and thrive and spread to everyone around us. May we all look forward to a healthy, healing, peaceful and productive new year. And above all, may we keep hope alive.

The Thing about Yoga People.

Here's the thing about Yoga people. Most of them are lovely human beings, mellow, peaceful, honest and kind. They enjoy every little bit of beauty life affords them, be it as simple as a dandelion growing from a crack in the sidewalk. They make you ashamed of your drama and navel-gazing over banal human problems you should regard as just another opportunity for personal growth. Yogis and yoginis have mastered the art of taking life, not just one day, but one moment at a time. Their existential goal is to live completely in the present, free of regret over yesterday or worry about tomorrow.

Living fully in the moment has its drawbacks. It makes it hard to be on time for anything - even yoga class. I hadn't been in Berkeley very long before I heard someone described as being "on Berkeley time", a polite euphemism for chronically late. People who use this term tend to be transplants who feel a certain nostalgia for punctuality, which they quaintly perceive as a form of courtesy.

Existing in the present is also problematic when it comes to making plans. I recently attended a birthday party for a delightful yoga instructor who was turning fifty. A week before the party, I received an email, addressed to the entire guest list, about what, if anything, to get for the profoundly non-materialistic birthday girl, and whether anyone would go in on a group gift. I immediately responded that I had already bought some earrings, but would happily reserve them for a different friend if they needed my contribution. The emailer had to send out two subsequent communications on the same subject. By the third one, she was grumbling about herding cats. The day of the party, the group still couldn't decide whether to go in on a massage or donate to protect an acre of Costa Rican wilderness. And that was only half of the people on the guest list, the rest having not gotten around to checking their email.

Even conversation with the yoga folk can be challenging. Those of us who are not on the path to enlightenment spend a lot less time in the present. We like to speak of the past - anecdotes, memories, regrets - or the future - fears, plans, hopes, aspirations. When we do discuss the present, we often turn to politics and current events. This doesn't get you anywhere with hardcore yogis: most of them will tell you they don't read or watch the news because it affects their world view in a negative way and makes it hard to see the divine in people like Dick Cheney, Robert Mugabe or Bernard Madoff.

So you default to what's going on around you and talk about your trick knee, or the weather, or that cute dog over there. You feel a little frustrated, and lets face it, bored. It's not that you're unaware, or immune to the charms of the here-and-now, the humming bird resting on a power line - how exquisite and magical he is and how his little wings must need a break from all that stroboscopic beating. But that's just the background, an occasional respite from conversation. You're enjoying the walk, or the sunshine, or the vegan nutmilk smoothie with agave syrup, but you still need to shoot the shit. Sometimes, the present isn't so interesting. It just is. And for you, is is not enough. You need conjecture. Theory. Gossip. Sarcasm. Wit. Debate. Heck, you may even occasionally have to get a little bitchy. You can't do this with yoga people. Bitchiness is an unfortunate condition. It's a bit indecent. How sad that you revealed it.

Meanwhile, the yoga person is probably thinking he or she can't talk to you about finding your real self, seeing the light in all beings, or striving for spiritual enlightenment. Which is probably true.

Diversité in the Université

Mt. Ararat, Armenia


"Please describe any aspects of your personal background, accomplishments, or achievements that will allow the department to evaluate your contributions to the University's diversity mission..."

This is THE essay question to apply for a graduate degree at a prestigious California university. Not a degree in teaching, political science, or social work, mind you. ANY graduate degree. In other words, if you're white, middle class and grew up in a homogenous suburb, you're going to have to punt.

Oh, boo hoo, get over it, you bourgeois Caucasian troll. Yes, I know, except for the fact that the applicant in question is my daughter. As I write this, she is in serious brain-racking mode, trying to put some kind of ethnically compelling spin on her lily-whiteness. Having a Jewish grandfather is pretty mainstream nowadays. Nor can she expect any props for her French grandmother: There's gotta be at least one francophobe on the admissions committee. The Mormon grandma? Better keep that quiet in the wake of prop 8's passing. Besides, my mother-in-law converted to Catholicism at a very young age.

A few days ago, my daughter thought she'd found an angle - along with a potential scholarship for young women of Armenian descent. I had to point out that having two great-great-grandfathers from Armenia is not a great-great qualification. I'd hate to see her rob some deserving, doe-eyed young woman named Siranouche Katchaturian of a chance to be honored for her roots and her hard work. And while I've always suspected there was a genetic component to my disproportionate fondness for eggplant, I honestly can't remember anyone in my mother's family pining for the slopes of Mt. Ararat.

Diversity is a beautiful thing. It's what I love about America. Certainly more than the Flag, or the National Anthem, or even apple pie and ice cream. I wept at Obama's acceptance speech. I can't imagine San Francisco without gays and lesbians, or Asians, or people of color. Bo-ring. And for sure, we all have a moral obligation to practice diversity in our lives. To speak out against injustice. To be openminded and colorblind and intellectually curious when it comes to our travels, our cultural experiences, our choice of friends, who we hire, or how we raise our children. But I have to draw the line at diversity as some sort of litmus test in the admissions process at a major university. My daughter wants to make art - serious, thoughtful art with a message. Right now, her paintings are about modern man's alienation from the disappearing natural world - I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. It's a message that paints all humans as passengers on the same sinking ship. It's us vs. the planet, which, unless you want to get on your high horse about the evils of Western civilization and blame the Europeans for the Industrial Revolution, is about unity, not diversity.

In 1996, California passed proposition 209, which states: SEC. 31. (a) The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting. You can argue 209's fairness 'til the cows get PHDs. No doubt affirmative action has been a fine thing for many deserving students and workers, and for society as a whole. And from an historical perspective, affirmative action was probably more necessary in 1996 than it is in late 2008, as our nation's first black president is busy putting together a cabinet that is clearly ethnically diverse (if politically pretty darn homogenous). But the fact remains, 209 is the law, and the diversity essay question on my daughter's grad school application is a blatant workaround.

They want diversity? They should weigh her art work against what their current students are doing. Is anybody else working in heavy impasto? Do the performance or installation types outnumber the traditional painters? Do they have a glut of lesbian feminist neo-realists? Frieda Kahlo's work is inseparable from her Mexican ethnicity, but Rothko's is about paint and it doesn't make him a lesser artist. By demanding that a prospective student display his or her diversity credentials, the University appears to be requiring an artistic emphasis on this issue, a history of diversity-related activism, or both. In short, they are acting like the thought police. If you think I'm full of malarkey, look at the question again:

"Please describe any aspects of your personal background, accomplishments, or achievements that will allow the department to evaluate your contributions to the University's diversity mission..."

Now, substitute "American values" for "diversity mission." And let me know when your skin starts to crawl.

Alternate Reality

I come from a family of doubters. Whatever you have to say, they challenge. If you repeat something you've seen on the news, you're being brainwashed by the mass media. When you share a story someone told you, you're reminded that the teller could have been exaggerating or messing with you. Had your feelings hurt? Don't expect solace or sympathy. You're overreacting. Misinterpreting. Being melodramatic. Besides, whatever happened, it's probably your fault. You get no credit for emotional intelligence because you can't possibly have any. Even your personal anecdotes are questionable – your perspective is tainted by your subjectivity.

This phenomenon is partly due to a belief that the majority opinion is the result of group-think, and disagreement makes you look smart. But it turns out that being a contrarian, like everything else, is genetic. I know this because I am the mother of a 15 year old conspiracy theorist.

We got an indication of this when our son was ten and started questioning whether George Washington ever really existed. Just because they put some funny looking guy on the dollar bill and call him George doesn't mean he was ever flesh and blood, right?

As the boy matured, the theories got a little more sophisticated. We never really landed on the moon. How could they have done it with those huge computers and tin can technology? And why is the American flag flapping in the lunar wind when the moon has no atmosphere? Proof positive that those photos of Neal Armstrong were the product of some primitive, pre-photoshop trickery.

Now, we've graduated to the big time. The kind of conspiracy theory paranoid geeks make into "documentaries" for other paranoid geeks to watch on their computers. The "9/11 was carried out by the Pentagon " conspiracy theory. Or the "AIDS is actually a polio vaccine gone wrong" conspiracy theory.

If there's a down side, or a dark side, my son will find it. The police, politicians and basically all forms of authority are evil and corrupt, and the only valid system of governance is anarchy. Last year, an older friend entertained himself by telling the boy Ben and Jerry were members of the KKK. It took me at least fifteen minutes to convince my son that the two ice cream magnates were actually die-hard liberals.

A fifteen year old anarchist is challenging to raise. But that's OK, because, as said anarchist explained to me last week, "Mom, teenage boys like to raise themselves."

Good luck with that, kid. I hope you do a good job.

Namasteak

Today, I tried a new Yoga class, taught by a scarecrow of a guy who looked like Edvard Munch's screamer if he'd only stop screaming and realize he was one with the universe. The teacher's gaunt face was accented by bizarre, C-shaped sideburns so thin and precise, he probably needs a French curve to shave. A black, horn-shaped plug had distended one of his earlobes almost to his chin. He was just the type of guy that makes me nostalgic for the days when all a man had to do to look cool was let his hair and beard grow long like Jesus.

When our class entered the studio, the instructor had been practicing alone for over an hour and the room reeked of stale sweat. Stinky did, however, turn out to be quite good at his job, and as my nose got used to the funk, I started enjoying the workout. He paid me lots of special attention, coming by repeatedly to pull on my arms, push on my thighs, adjust the position of my feet.

I began to wonder why I was getting twice as much hands-on correcting as everybody else. It wasn't that I lack skill - I was actually more advanced than a lot of the people in the room. It could've been my newbie status, but yoga instructors usually leave you alone once they determine you know what you are doing. Nor do I harbor any illusions that he found me attractive. Although I've lost ten pounds and am quite taken with myself at the moment, I'm still an old broad. Maybe ten or twelve years older, alas, than anyone else in the class.

After fifteen minutes or so of sun salutations, I started to smell grilled meat. I looked around in puzzlement. No nearby restaurants as far as I knew. I refocused and got in the next pose as the instructor came around to adjust me yet again. Then, it was time to hit the ground and do some supine poses, which is when I got a whiff of my mat. Having spent the previous night in the kitchen, it had absorbed the smoky, appetizing smell of yesterday's flank steak.

Now I understood all the special attention: Like all yoga instructors, our teacher was undoubtedly a vegan. But once upon a time, before seitan and Himalayan goji berries, dinner was mom's pot roast or dad's cheeseburgers, and my meat-mat must have triggered some kind of Proustian sense memory. No wonder he kept coming back around to adjust the lady whose mat smelled like dinner, long ago.

Welcome to my dark side.

Greetings, Ladies and Germs.

I have a new blog in which I intend to express my most pithy, nasty thoughts. Posts will be short and most definitely not sweet.
You can check it out by clicking below:

http://snideties.blogspot.com/

The Lilliputian Sculpture Garden

Hello, elves. Greetings, goblins. Welcome faeries, leprechauns and pixies, to the Lilliputian sculpture garden.

High up in the Berkeley Hills, in the front yard of an unassuming ranch house, some Sunday sculptor has planted a knee-high assortment of shrubs and flowers to complement his small clay statues. Heads peek at you from behind bushes. Hands rise out of the mulch. Female nudes hide behind veils of flowers. The effect is mysterious and a bit disorienting. The first time I stumbled upon this garden, I felt like the fifty foot woman.

It's not like you've discovered the visionary oeuvre of some suburban Howard Finster: the sculptures lack the naivete and insular confidence of outsider art. Despite their classical aspirations, the pieces feel a tad amateurish. They're lacking in detail, and the proportions are off. It's the kind of work a talented high school student might bring home to mom.

Displayed on a coffee table or bookcase instead of their landscape setting, these works would lose some of their charm. But the sculptures manage to communicate the artist's love of the process, and of people. The figures may be awkward and anatomically off, but they've got soul. And their artful placement in an otherwise ordinary front yard is an invitation to take a little detour through a small, quiet world.

Art Lovers

I'm doing as much yoga as my body will allow, yet inner peace continues to elude me. I get emotionally involved in current events, and the ignoble behavior at the McCain rallies has me tearing up, ranting and obsessively checking my yahoo landing page for news. I am becoming an expert in right wing hate groups and the Alaska secessionist party (whose founder was a right wing hater in his own right). As they say in yoga speak, I need to get centered. I can't spend my days wringing my hands over the fate of our nation and the character of a goodly number of her citizens. The only antidote to this vast, existential big-picture worrying is focusing on something really small and deliciously petty. So I am going to tell you about something I encounter regularly on my hill walks.

The thing in question is a sculpture that recently landed in someone's front yard at a very prominent bend in the road. I think it's made of white sandstone (I'd have to trespass to get close enough to tell) and, counting the pedestal, the statue stands about eight feet tall. A stylized representation of a man and a woman locked in an embrace, it merges the couple into one sihouette, like giant conjoined twins. You can identify the male twin by his broad shoulders. The female half of this unholy fusion has a huge, paleolithic fertility goddess rump. The effect is Henry Moore-wanabe meets Baby-got-back. Tackier yet is the stylization of the two heads, coming together in the unmistakable shape of a heart.




Every time I pass this monstrosity, I cringe. Its size and artistic intentions elevate it beyond the status of your garden variety lawn gnome or pink flamingo. And yet it's every bit as kitsch. So bad, it's good. It's simple. It's corny. It has just enough subtext for the artistically naive - you may need a few seconds to pick up on that giant heart head. If Hallmark saw it, they'd pay off the artist, trademark the piece and mass produce it as a white porcelain music box that plays "I'll stop the world and melt with you" while the mutant paramours slowly revolve in an endless circle of love. Just picture the possibilities. Giant ice sculptures for celebrity weddings. Hand-carved wood copies made in the Philippines, perfectly sized for the mantelpiece. Vanilla-scented soaps - watch the lovers literally dissolve into your bath water - and each other. Hell, you could do a chocolate version - available in white, milk or dark to mirror your ethnicity. What a classy way to say "Will you be my valentine"!

If the world gets wind of this thing, it could be as ubiquitous as Durer's praying hands. I'm starting to think I should never have told you about it.

Off By Two Grand

Just a brief Needlefoot update. Our son finally had the needle removed from his heel. The kid was very macho, allowing himself to be I.V.'d and injected without complaining, and entertaining the nurses with his dead pan humor. The surgery took an hour and a half because the needle, weakened from the weight of a 5'10, 170 lb teen, had broken into four pieces. Three stitches later, our son's foot is swaddled in cloth bandages and protected by an orthopedic boot. We were discharged with a $200 pair of crutches which the kid refuses to use as they don't fit his image. He's walking on that foot far more than he's supposed to, and we are hoping his heel doesn't burst open like an overripe fig. The boy has, however, happily heeded the warning about not getting his bandages wet and managed to avoid showering for three days. Last night, he wrapped his foot in two plastic bags and decided to get clean. I think he was starting to smell himself.

I underestimated the cost of the surgery by $2000 - we are now up to $7000, with two follow up visits to go.

Needlefoot

Somewhere between neopunk, rockabilly, death metal and folk art, spins the pecular planet of my son's fashion sense. Never mind the T shirts for bands with gross graphics and offensive names - that's not exactly atypical for males this age. His choice of pants can be a little eclectic - there's a bright red pair with "bondage straps" and a pair with one black leg and one white leg - again, these are items you can buy at clothing stores in Haight Ashbury. But you won't find a lot of 15 year old boys painting the toes of their combat boots (one teal, one copper). Or deconstructing a perfectly good jacket by covering the sleeves in clashing animal prints. (I can't even bring myself to describe what he's done to his classic navy sport coat. Suffice to say it's not classic anymore). My son also likes to experiment with his hair, draw on his pants, adorn his baseball cap with safety pins, staple studs on everything but his boxers and accessorize the look with a necklace or two. The essence of his signature style, though, is the patch. He is constantly acquiring patches and sewing them all over his clothing. Sometimes, it all comes together with flair, and sometimes it reminds you of grandma's overly adorned Christmas tree. Like that tree, our son occasionally loses a needle or two, but unlike grandma, he doesn't vacuum.

When the boy came back from boarding school this past June, his foot was hurting. He was convinced he had stepped on a bee, and the school nurse had even taken him to a clinic to have his foot looked at. The area around the sting looked infected. I took the kid to a podiatrist, who suggested there might be some glass in the foot and asked if he could "poke around". My son refused. It had to be an insect bite. He distinctively remembered the burning jab of a stinger. Over my better judgement, we decided to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. I paid my hundred bucks and left.

The foot got better, and then worse. Last month, Mike took our son to a new podiatrist. A smart one: She took an X-ray. There, gleaming white and perfectly parallel to the bottom of the heel, was a sewing needle. Mike made an appointment to get the needle out the following week. We got to keep a copy of the X-ray, a cool visual aid which I am sadly too technologically challenged to upload here.

When time came to operate, the podiatrist rolled up her sleeves and went to work, jabbing the poor kid in the foot every ten minutes or so to keep it anesthetized. The needle had been in my son's body for three months and was tightly encapsulated in a protective sheath of scar tissue. Coming in from the back of the heel, the podiatrist got a grip on the needle several times but was unable to dislodge it. After nearly two hours of trying, she gave up. The surgery would have to take place in a medical facility with access to constant visual imaging so she could see what she was doing. This failed surgery cost $900.

When I told my father the doctor all this over the phone, he was very concerned. If the needle were to move too close to the bone, it could cause a dangerous infection. What we needed was an orthopedic surgeon, not a podiatrist, and sooner rather than later. Doctor Dad suggested taking the boy to the emergency room at Stanford. They'd know what to do, and they probably would remove the needle on the spot. Having been raised with a boundless faith in the medical profession, I took this advice.

We made a family outing out of our two-and-a-half-hour round trip to Stanford, enlisting our daughter to come along and provide her brother with sympathy and comic relief.

As you might expect, the famous university's ER is pristine and state-of-the-art. The candy stripers bring you coffee and snacks and there's even a special waiting room for minors with Winnie the Pooh picture books and colorful sorting toys. It's all very fancy, but Stanford keeps you waiting just as long (seven hours) as everybody else and they don't do needle removal surgery. That's a podiatrist's job. Orthopedic surgeons have bigger limbs to butcher. Of course, they took more X-rays, even though we brought ours, which added up to another $1,800 to confirm the fact that junior has a needle in his foot.

So now we've had a post-op check up, ($200), stitch removal, ($200) plus an unscheduled visit due to foot pain and concern over possible infection ($200). Because Mike and I are self-employed and like to choose our own doctors, we have an insurance policy with a very high deductible. Since we haven't met it yet, we look forward to spending more money on the outpatient surgery and ensuing stitch removal. By the time we're done with needle-related procedures, we'll be out five grand. I guess my son is lucky he's not one of the nation's ten million uninsured children, for whom the only option would be to just live with the needle and hope it doesn't migrate and cause a bone infection.

So how's Needlefoot holding up through all of this? With dignity, grace and (sigh) his usual style. The other day he came upstairs to show us his latest creation: a 10' by 10' square patch that he had sewn onto the rear bottom of his jacket. It hung down like a loin cloth, or like one of those mud flaps they put over the wheels of semis. If tails ever make a comeback, he'll be all set. In the meantime, I'm going to sneak down to the kid's room when he's not home and inspect the floor for needles - that is, if I can see the floor.