Rock ‘n Roll is here to stay

Posted on November 7, 2011 by sheilawill

I never saw “The Last Waltz” before today. Dan and many other folks say it’s the best rockumentary ever made. It was 1976 when Martin Scorsese interviewed and directed The Band’s last concert in San Francisco, with such rock/blues icons as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison joining them.

My surprise was I had no idea The Band was so fantastic. Guess I was pregnant with Brook when the movie first came out, and all I knew was that Dylan had played with the group. Lead singer Robbie Robertson was astounding, trading off with Clapton on electric guitar riffs. But it was drummer Levon Helm’s Memphis blues sound that I grooved to.

Here’s the rub: I counted only a dozen people in Tucson’s Fox theater for the 2 p.m. show. What a shame. When I checked on Fox website the other day 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. were listed for movie times. I called to check and was told the movie was at 2 p.m. This has happened before at the Fox, which is way too bad.

Before the movie, I walked over to the Tucson Museum of Art for the first free Sunday of the month viewing of “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History 1955 to the Present,” curated by the Brooklyn Museum. The place was packed. Yay for Tucson culture! I peeked at the entire exhibit, enough to know that I want to go back, take a closer look at a video of swivel-hips Elvis, Keith Richards and his wife, Patti Hansen, smiling at their new baby girl.

Quickly making my way back to the Fox, anticipating another big crowd, I crossed Congress Street to see the Occupy Tucson encampment on the corner. About 100 people are there, behind signs like “I will believe a corporation is a person when Georgia [Texas?] executes one.” I’ve decided to switch my bank account from the  corporate Wells Fargo to a local credit union.

Taking my place among the handful of moviegoers, watching “The Last Waltz,” it hit me — it’s fine to be getting older. I’m enjoying myself more than ever. I had a rockin’ good day!

Posted in Bopping Around Tucson, It's only rock 'n' roll | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Role model #1: Ashley Bryan

Posted on November 5, 2011 by sheilawill

Renowned children’s author/artist Ashley Bryan is 88. He’s also my neighbor, well sort of, it’s a half-hour boat ride from the town dock behind my house in Southwest Harbor to his home on Little Cranberry Island. We’ve been friends for more than 25 years, and he’s always at the top of my list of people to visit when I’m in Maine every July.

Today Ashley and I had a wonderful visit by phone. “I’ve got lifelines, not deadlines, for upcoming books,” he told me. “I didn’t get to paint in the garden till late August this summer.”

“That’s just wrong,” I said. Ashley’s made the best use of Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug slogan, “Just say no.”  That’s what the sign says taped to the dial-up phone near his studio, so he won’t spontaneously agree to go to the ends of the earth to tell stories, entertain kids, recite poetry and read from his award-winning books.

The creator of more than 34 children’s books, dozens of puppets made from found beach items, hundreds of gorgeous paintings, and thousands of toasted cheese sandwiches, a few years ago after much prodding from his editor and friends, Ashley finally wrote his picture book autobiography, “Ashley Bryan: Words to my Life’s Song.”

“Wait till you hear this amazing story,” Ashley said today. After presenting at a recent conference in Boston, two women came up to him whom he hadn’t seen in 70 years. Drafted into the military at 19 from Cooper Union School of Art, Ashley was sent to work in the Boston shipyards as a stevedore in 1943. Ashley drew everything around him, including two 12-year-old girls who years later turned into 82-year-old women and wanted to see him.

Ashley got through World War II “with his drawing pad and his gas mask.” That’s how he survived Normandy. That’s how he kept his sanity, he says.

“You know veterans don’t like to speak about their experiences,” he reminded me today. “They’re all bottled up.” Ashley first talked publicly about being an artist/soldier at a Children’s Literature New England conference on war and peace. (That must have been before his sign because he wasn’t able to say no).

In the late ’90s I took my U.S. history class to Little Cranberry Island when we were studying WWII. It was a magnificent island blue Maine day in early June. Tears rolled down all of our faces by the time Ashley finished his true story. I could see that it had taken its emotional toll on him, yet he became the pied piper as we followed him down the road to catch the ferry. Ashley played his recorder. We all sang “He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands.”

“The world is falling apart,” Ashley said today. Yet I felt great after I got off the phone with him. Nothing stops him: “I’m going to Kenya in January!” He’s the epitome of someone who sees life’s tough realities and the beauty that’s still there. Yeah, pass that lifeline, Ashley, you’re the most remarkable human being I know.

Posted in Baby Boomers, Tucson Festival of Books/good books | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Not that every business can be Starbucks…

Posted on November 1, 2011 by sheilawill

What, you mean the guys making a fortune adding a little syrup, a dash of whipped cream to good ole’ coffee and selling it for four bucks?

We’re willing to pay for it, so good for them. I can’t blame Starbucks for their ingenuity: those adorable mini-vanilla bean scones or chocolate sprinkled donuts; tiny bags of healthy snacks — dried blueberries or cranberries — to embellish kids’ or grown-ups’  otherwise boring lunches. Starbucks sells just a few choice CDs, so you know they’re really cool. They  encourage bonding with their attractive buying cards, offering free drinks and a gold card (you’re special!) after 30 hits.

Now Starbucks is touting the Create Jobs for USA Fund, “a shared initiative among Starbucks, the Opportunity Finance Network, and You” (Me? More bonding.) By contributing $5 online you get a free (!) wristband. Best of all, this new initiative will provide financing to community businesses that need help. I can’t argue with that. I’m in.

A few days ago I heard an NPR story about Dow Chemical Company. It’s all well and good that they’re pitching in by helping their employees exercise, giving classes in nutritional counseling, generally teaching folks about our disastrous obesity and its consequences. But wait a darn minute.

Dow Chemical may be providing their employees with good stuff these days. Once upon a time they provided the U.S. military with Agent Orange and napalm to annihilate those bad, bad Vietcong, also killing, maiming and sickening many innocent Vietnamese and American soldiers. Dow Chemical still maintains that Agent Orange wasn’t harmful and takes the position that the company was an agent of the U.S. government. OK. At least tell the truth about what that crap did to people.

I’m reminded of Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who finally, when he turned 80, wrote “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.” What took him so long to lament the mistakes of the Vietnam War? If you can bare it, watch the superb “The fog of War,” one of the best documentaries ever. Maybe the best.

I’ve already seen the film. I lived through Vietnam War horror, hearing of high school classmates dying or the agony of friends trying to gain conscientious objector status or instead, how they fled to Canada. It’s hard to forget.

I’m all for enjoying those yummy coffee drinks at Starbucks. I’m just trying to shed a little light on history.

 

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Coffeeeeed up and/or how my brain works

Posted on October 27, 2011 by sheilawill

“I’m going to Occupy Wall Street in New York,” I blurted as the cheerful guy at the coffee drive-thru handed me my glass of iced buzz. But it’s not just coffee that gets me going.

“Are you leaving now?” he asked. “Nope, when I go see my kids at Thanksgiving.”

“Well, good for you,” he replied.

I had no idea why I said what I did. I hadn’t even had coffee yet. Sometimes I look at a sentence differently than other people. Proofreading at work yesterday for the latest issue of the newspaper, a headline jumped out at me: “Is your parents’ driving driving you nuts?” Whaaaa, why does it say “driving driving?” It didn’t look right, and I said so to Phyllis. She looked at me like I was nuts. Yup, we’re all different in our own ways, and I’m gratified that we changed the headline.

Neuroscience, the brain, mental health  have always fascinated me. We’ve learned so much more since I read R.D. Laing as a graduate student. If I could remember anything now, I’d steep myself in the land of endorphins, serotonin, and neurons. Instead, I read books.

If I had known that Mark Vonnegut’s — yes, son of the famous one — “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir” was such a gem I would have gone to his talk at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe a few weeks ago. I would have stayed overnight for the breakfast talk with Vonnegut and a local shrink. I would have enjoyed having a conversation, maybe even an interview, cause that’s what I do. I would have driven through the night to get there.

“Part of what happens when one goes crazy is that there’s a grammatical shift,” writes Vonnegut. “Thoughts come into the mind as firmly established truth. There is no simile or metaphor. There’s no tense but the present. The fantastic presents itself as fact.”

Vonnegut is a Harvard Medical School-trained pediatrician but the profession that “saved his life” didn’t come easy. He has bipolar disorder. Vonnegut has been hospitalized four times, the last time 14 years ago at the hospital where he practices medicine.

Now 60, the good doctor also wrote an earlier memoir, “The Eden Express,” depicting his earlier “crazy” times, which took the form of psychotic breaks.

In his latest book, somehow he’s managed to tell about his life in such a down-to-earth, lighthearted but profound way, with insight into his own twists and turns, what it takes for him to be a doctor, husband, father and friend. I devoured “Just Like Someone…” in two evenings. I found his raw honesty inspiring, as was his way with words, his wit. I entered Vonnegut’s world and came away with hope and practical wisdom:

“It’s possible within any given moment of any given day to choose between self and sickness. Rarely are there big heroic choices that will settle all matters once and for all. The smallest possible step is probably the right one. Try not to argue. If you’re right, you don’t need to argue. If you’re wrong, it won’t help. If you’re okay, things will be okay. If you’re not okay, nothing else matters.”

I’ll read “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So” again, probably more than once. It’s that damn good.

Posted in Mental illness/civil rights, Neuroscience needs me | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

“Dopey Ideas”

Posted on October 23, 2011 by sheilawill

Apparently Steve Jobs had some “dopey ideas,” says Walter Isaacson, his only sanctioned biographer. But Jobs had mostly good ones. He said that the way states certify textbook adoption is “corrupt.” He was right about that. Jobs also didn’t want to be cut open, and refused potentially lifesaving cancer surgery for nine months, to the dismay of friends and family. Maybe that was a dopey decision, which he supposedly lamented a few weeks prior to his death earlier this month.

Who among us hasn’t had a dumb idea? And who’s to say what’s dopey?

I like to quote statistics sometimes. I even remember some. When I taught economic geography at Mount Desert Island High School in the ’90s, I read in a geography annual that the majority of the U.S. population would be Hispanic by 2017. My students thought that was dopey: “No way,” they all insisted. “That can’t happen.”

“Why not?” I asked. And here we are on the way to it happening.

I’m interviewing a 100-year-old woman to write a history for her family. I asked her last week what had surprised her most during her life. “I was never astounded,” she told me, noting that change happens gradually so it’s not so surprising when new ideas became commonplace.

We were just bopping along in this country; most middle-class folks figured their kids would go to college, they would always have jobs and homes. Who ever thought there would be such a disparity in the growth of American incomes? One percent of the population having more wealth than the remaining 99 percent of us didn’t happen overnight: Deregulation of business regulations, corporate greed, corrupt politicians, you name it.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that 50 percent of U.S. workers earned less than $26,364 last year. “According to the Social Security Administration, there were fewer jobs, and overall pay was trending down — except for the wealthiest Americans. The number of people making $1 million or more soared by more than 18 percent from 2009.”

Is it any wonder that Occupy Wall Street protests are growing? According to a recent Time magazine poll, 57 percent of those polled approve of OWS, while 27 percent approve of the Tea Party.

In Arizona, the minimum wage will soon be raised to $7.65, which gives a low-income working person an annual income of $14,500 to live on. Now there’s a dopey idea.

 

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An October evening out

Posted on October 20, 2011 by sheilawill

It’s now possible to sit outdoors for a happy hour without melting, this one with Julie and Penny at Lodge on the Desert. From 4-6 the bar menu and certain drinks are half price. I opted for the prickly pear mojito. I’m always on the lookout for a serviceable mojito, knowing full well that nothing will match the original concoction ( I drank quite a few) in Cuba, April 2002. Lodge on the Desert’s version was enough to make me happy, filmy pink in color with sprigs of real mint squished into the glass. Always a good sign.

The bar patio at the Lodge was lovely, bordered with sparkly lights, and seemed far away from surrounding city streets.  Enter the Centurians: a group of around 100 men, according to their website, who conduct support activities for Tucson’s St. Mary’s Hospital.

Without a civilizing woman in sight, the guys got louder and louder the more bottles of beer were carried out to them. Luckily, we ordered our appetizers while they were in the early stages of partying, or doing whatever they were doing to help out the hospital.

Slightly spicy chicken wings with thick homemade ranch dressing, chunky guacamole sans chips and shrimp cocktail soon appeared at our table. We had ordered a shrimp fritter appetizer, so our smiling server was kind enough to bring our second shrimp delight no charge. Yum.

“What,” Penny and I both frequently asked over the roar of the Centurians. Young Julie said she was able to shut out the noise, which impressed me as very Zen.

For those of you wondering what we talk about at our sporadic ventures to different Tucson restaurants, here goes: word game apps, other restaurants, cooking and grocery shopping and who goes alone or with a husband or partner (and what to do if a partner slips a liter coke bottle into the shopping cart). What activities each of us enjoyed sharing with said husband/partner required conversation.

As we mulled over such essential topics, the Centurian men finally retreated to the Palm Room for dinner. When their howling grew to a fever pitch, I figured a stripper or a woman emerging from a giant cake was the cause.

You know how women are always considered the big talkers? These guys were blabbing away, even before they reached their beer limit. I wonder what they were talking about.

When they got too drunk to formulate words, the wild rumpus began. I wonder if their wives and girlfriends showed up to drive them home.

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“We who believe in freedom…”

Posted on October 15, 2011 by sheilawill

What year was that American Booksellers Convention? Was it in D.C. when I was invited to an intimate concert with “Sweet Honey in the Rock?” My memory may be spotty but I can picture around 100 of us. I brought my friend, children’s author/illustrator Anne Sibley O’Brien. We couldn’t help ourselves, and jumped up whooping and clapping after every heart-grabbing song.

Back in the day of American Booksellers conventions in LA or NYC, when publishers wined and dined independent booksellers large and small, I made the party scene. I was invited to fancy dinners at elegant restaurants because I was part of the in-group of national children’s booksellers. Probably because I spoke up (blurted?): “This is what we should do…blah blah blah.” I was young, or at least younger.

These days, I think of my 15 years owning Oz Books as my life’s work. A challenge that I took on myself, and succeeded. It all came back to me this morning at Gus Balon’s, when our server talked about families coming into the restaurant with their babies, watching them grow into adolescence as they nibbled scrambled eggs, French toast and humungous cinnamon rolls.

My current Southwest Harbor winter renter remembers Oz Books, which lasted — and changed the world for many kids — from 1982 to 1997. Now those grown-up kids may read iPads, Kindles or real books, but they got their start loving words and ideas by coming to OZ. Many of their parents and grown-up kids have told me so.

Occupy Wall Street protesters will remember this experience for the rest of their lives. I would be there in a second if I didn’t live thousands of miles away. I wouldn’t sleep in a tent, or hang out in the park when it gets cold. Been there, done that. But if the protesters are still there at Thanksgiving time, I’ll visit. I commend those who are now taking a stand, young and old, speaking up for 99 percent of us. Somebody has to.

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest.”

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Saltwater caramel gelato and Buddhist Thai food

Posted on October 14, 2011 by sheilawill

Every October thousands of folks head to City Hall plaza, partaking in what is lovingly called “Tucson Eat Yourself.” It’s a three-day celebration of Southwestern cultures, but mostly it’s about food. I had the day off from work so I biked downtown on the quietest day of the festival.

Scoping out the food booths was the first order of business. There’s Danish and Afghan, Laotian and Norwegian, lots of Thai, Sonoran hot dogs —  with everything on a hot dog to induce a heart attack that you can possibly imagine. And that’s a mere sampling of the multicultural feast. Bordering the plaza I found the Croatian Wagon, Mama Joy’s Catfish, and the Thriratana Tucson Buddhist Temple’s Thai food. They also had that delicious, slightly sweet Thai iced tea I love. Contributing to a Buddhist Temple sealed the deal. No long lines on the plaza in front of the main library, so I stepped up for a combination plate consisting of delicate chicken curry, pad thai and a yummy skewer of chicken satai.

As if that wasn’t enough for my unusually early lunch, I remembered seeing the Frost gelato cart shortly after I locked my bike when I arrived at the festival at 11 a.m.  Following smooth saxophone sounds, I ambled over the walking bridge crossing Congress St., found the lively military brass band and sat down to read the newspaper and listen. Nice to have a day off to enjoy this, I thought.

After my Thai lunch I passed the Hub Restaurant cart with its scrumptious salted caramel ice cream, but decided to go for the gelato instead. Half the calories, right? Luckily, it was a short search. It was probably 90 degrees. I spotted a woman strolling along happily spooning gelato out of a Frost cup and asked her for directions. I smiled at the young Frost scoopers, who offered me a taste of espresso with my saltwater caramel cup.

The festival is brimming with choices. I’m happy that today mine were easy. Plenty of music was being played that I could have swayed to. There were craft booths that I hurried by, dogs for adoption, city council members to complain to or laud, even talks about borders, gluten, meditation and healing techniques.

But I got what I came for. Tucson Eat Yourself, indeed.

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Fear-mongering among the 1 percent/Promoting innovation among the rest of us

Posted on October 11, 2011 by sheilawill

C’mon, New York Times columnist and Princeton University economist Paul Krugman isn’t some flaming radical; he’s one of the intelligentsia. But that’s part of the  fear-mongering that’s rampant: Mistrust those smart guys. What do they know? They’re not like us. Are the super-rich like the rest of us?

The super-rich are playing the remaining 99 percent of us, clutching their greed close to their chests, and horribly misleading working people. What’s really pathetic is that it often works, aligning those who have jobs with millionaires. DON’T TAKE WHAT WE HAVE is the message. It’s something many ultra-rich and working people oddly agree on.

Why do so many Americans fear the smartest among us not the richest, although they’re the ones who are screwing the rest of us? The average American CEO makes 475 times more than the average worker. So much for the false Reaganite trickle-down economics. I earn the same as an average high school graduate, even though I have a master’s degree and lots of professional experience, but I’ve made my choices. (When 9.6 percent of recent college graduates can’t get any job, they have no choices to make).

Here’s what I’d love to see: the federal government awarding grants to people over 55 with a creative project based on their life experiences, which will better the lives of their fellow citizens.

Far-fetched? It’s got to be a better idea than sinking trillions of dollars a day into endless — and fruitless — wars.

Who else has any vision? John Boehner? “I laugh just thinking about the question,” writes Tom Friedman in yesterday’s NYT. “What is President Obama’s vision? I cry when I think about the question,” he continues.

“We cannot bail or tax-cut our way to prosperity. We can only, as [Steve] Jobs understood, invent our way to prosperity,” writes Friedman.

So why is innovation, education and entrepreneurship that benefits all of us, or as the 14th Amendment states, equal protection under the law, so scary?

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A New-ish Year

Posted on October 8, 2011 by sheilawill

May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life by whoever does the inscribing. May we dip apple slices in honey, munching and crunching, smiling and saying to those we love, “Life is sweet.” May we curl up on a comfy couch reading a good book, transported to new worlds. May we send energy and hope for more equitable happier lives to young protesters everywhere, from New York City to Cairo. May we truly love who we love.

That’s my prayer on this Yom Kippur, the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar. It doesn’t serve me or anybody else to sit in a synagogue for hours listening to words that mean nothing to me. I like to think for myself not blankly recite somebody else’s words. There’s no comfort there.

At 65, I’m still a rebel in my heart. I weigh more than ever and my silvery short hair looks weird. (Plus, as Dan just said, I sing funny). I’m not one of “The Crazy Ones” like Steve Jobs who will change the world but hell I’ve done my part.

Starting this new-ish year, I’m grateful that Dan is here. I’m grateful that Ethan and Brook are well and happy, contributing to the world of ideas — the only thing that can change the status quo. Occupy life, “Occupy Wall Street.” Speak your mind. They’re doing it in their own ways. I’m a proud mama.

The status quo sucks right now. I’m obsessed with Steve Jobs, not because he followed his heart like some new-agey mantra, but because he could sit down, think clearly and accomplish his dreams. As The Onion says, maybe he was the last American who knew what the fuck what he was doing.

I remember parents who came to Oz Books, my children’s bookstore in Maine, during the 1990s, lamenting that their kids only wanted to read fantasy. They asked me to recommend nonfiction; they wanted their kids to read true stuff.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge,” I always told those parents, quoting Albert Einstein. So in this new-ish year, my hope is that more people tell the truth — and use their imaginations — for the betterment of us all.

Posted in Baby Boomers, The Rest of the World | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments