Monday's Poetry: "Evolution" and "Buffalo Dusk"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

1936 was the year that American black athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, causing no end of personal consternation and embarrassment to the new leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, and his evolving theories of Aryan superiority.  It was also the year that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to the American presidency, defeating Alf Landon (the governor of Kansas) who managed to carry only two states:  Maine and Vermont.  Governor Landon’s drubbing in the election of 1936 led to the rewording of the old political axiom:  “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” to a more succinct and politically accurate:  “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”

It was in 1936 that Edward VIII became King of England and, a few months later, also in 1936, abdicated the throne.    Joe DiMaggio played his first major league baseball game in 1936 and came away from that experience with three hits.  On the literary scene, Margaret Mitchell’s epic Civil War novel, Gone with the Wind, was published in 1936, and that was the year the Life Magazine first hit the newsstands. 

It was quite a year.

1936 was also the year that the buffalo nickel which I received in change this morning at the local McDonald’s drive-thru was minted in the city of Philadelphia.  The last time I received a buffalo nickel in change had to have been at least twenty-five years ago, and I suspect that this will be the last one that I encounter while engaged in the daily commerce of life.

The buffalo actually adorns the obverse (tail) of the five-cent piece that was minted in the United States from 1913 through 1937.   The front (head) of the coin is an engraved depiction of a classic American Indian.   Now all three symbols of our proud heritage (the old nickel, the buffalo, and the Indian) have slipped into relative obscurity.  (The nickels have been hoarded by collectors, the buffalo are restricted to a relatively few public and private herds, and the noble Red Man has been marginalized onto reservations and into deep poverty.)  If there is any one coin that encapsulates the essence of the western frontier in the United States, it would be the buffalo nickel, a coin which turns a century old this year.

To commemorate that special coin, including the one that I came across this morning, I have selected the following two poems for inclusion in today’s post.  In “Evolution,” Indian author and poet Sherman Alexie, provides a disturbing look at the modern American Indian culture.   Poet and biographer Carl Sandburg uses “Buffalo Dusk” to lament the destruction and disappearance of America’s once vast buffalo herds.   Alas, the intentional destruction of our natural resources is an old story.

Evolution

by Sherman Alexie

Buffalo Bill opens a pawn shop on the reservation

right across the border from the liquor store

and he stays open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

and the Indians come running in with jewelry

television sets, a VCR, a full-length beaded buckskin outfit

it took Inez Muse 12 years to finish.  Buffalo Bill

takes everything the Indians have to offer, keeps it

all catalogued and filed in a storage room.  The Indians

pawn their hands, saving the thumbs for last, they pawn

their skeletons, falling endlessly from the skin

and when the last Indian has pawned everything

but his heart, Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks

closes the pawn shop, paints a new sign over the old

calls his venture THE MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

charges the Indians five bucks a head to enter.

Buffalo Dusk

by Carl Sandburg

The buffaloes are gone.

And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

Those who saw buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs,

       their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,

Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

And the buffaloes are gone.

   

Showing Our Class

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I don't know whether it's a talent, or a gift, or some type of weird karmic payback, but every time I get in a line at the grocery store, it immediately slows down, or stops.   The line can be staffed by the fastest checker in Arizona who normally clips along at breakneck speed, but the minute I commit to joining that particular checkout line, the person up front decides to pay in pennies, or drops a change purse that sends coins rolling all over the store, or can't find the right coupon out of a stack of hundreds.

Today I only had a few items in my cart, with just a couple being frozen, so I didn't get too aggravated when the line I was in began slowing up and then came to a complete stop.   I had my phone, so I could have entertained myself by checking my mail or texting (ugh!), but suddenly I found something more instructive within easy reach.  There, literally staring me down, was the magazine rack featuring the tabloids.

I have read a tabloid or two over the years, but basically I lost interest when the Weekly World News quit publishing.  (Watching Batman on the big screen just doesn't compare to reading about Bat Boy in the WWN!)  It was good to notice that National Enquirer is still publishing.  The cover story on this week's issue, "Best and Worst Celebrity Diets," was accompanied by several photographs of obscenely obese people.

January, of course, is the month of resolutions when the world vows to quit smoking or lose weight.  American entrepreneurs fill the airwaves with advertisements for expensive nutritional plans and exercise equipment - all of which are unbelievable easy - so easy the pounds just slide off.

One magazine had a photograph of a slender Paula Deen on the cover leading to a story about some successful diet she had been on.  This is the same Paula Deen who invented a cheeseburger that used two Krispy Kreme donuts for buns!

One of the other magazines featured a cover on the best "comfort food" to eat while watching ball games on television.  I guess that was there to appeal to the people who have already given up on their New Year's weight loss resolutions.

In Style's cover promised pictures of 65 celebrities without make-up - a little something for the narcissist and voyeur in us all!  And at least two other publications had leads about Jen and her man of the moment, Justin, heading to Mexico - one thought it might be an elopement and other sensed it would be more of a wild weekend.

But this is America, and we care what our vacuous celebrities are up to!  (Last week a photographer died while snapping pictures of Justin Bieber's car - not taking pictures of the skinny Canadian himself - just his car!)

For those interested in celebrities who really could sing, mark those calendars:  Elvis would have been seventy-eight this Tuesday.  And for the political junkies:  Richard Nixon would have been one hundred on Wednesday!  And for those who have no idea who Elvis or Richard Nixon were, stick with Bieber and don't strain your brains!

The NRA's True Agenda

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I was out and about earlier today doing my Saturday morning shopping when I became aware of a young man who was pushing a shopping cart down the aisle directly in front of me.    His proximity gave me a clear view of the message on the back of his tee-shirt.  It proclaimed rather proudly that he was a supporter of the 2nd Amendment and a member of the National Rifle Association.  The message was clear and concise, and it left no doubt that he regarded himself as a good American, just like all of the other members of "his" group.

The NRA would be happy if it was perceived a big citizens' organization, funded by their voluntary members, and out doing good works and safeguarding the 2nd Amendment.  Because the 2nd Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments), the NRA has even stooped to referring to itself as a "civil rights" organization.  And even though most of the members think (proudly) that the organization belongs to them, in point of fact they belong to it.

The primary funder of the National Rifle Association was, is, and probably always will be the gun industry, and the overriding objective of American gun manufacturers is to sell more guns.  Members pay dues and thus feel ownership, but they are not the big dogs in the equation.  The members are the tails of the big dogs.  They are the mailing lists, the flames of paranoia that get fanned whenever any legislative body has the temerity to even discuss anything that would cut into gun sales and profits.

Guns are big business, and the NRA is the lobbying arm of that business.

I found the following at Daily Kos today and thought it was worth disseminating a little further.  The author is Hugh S. Bailey writing in the Connecticut Post.

"If the federal government wants to get you, your basement arsenal will not be much protection. 

We spend about as much on our military as the rest of the world put together. If you get to thinking another American Revolution is in order, it's a guarantee you'll be outgunned.
This would appear obvious. It's apparently not. The nation's debate on guns is forced to accommodate people who believe they are poised to stand up to an Obama-led reign of tyranny, egged on by interest groups claiming to stand for freedom but who are mostly interested in selling more guns."

So keep buying those guns - big-assed automatics with monster clips - and keep having those wet dreams of rushing off into the hills and defending your nation from itself, or the Mexicans, or the North Koreans, or the gays, or Muslims from Kenya, or armageddon.  The future of America will rest on your personal firepower!  Or not.

And keep paying those NRA dues because those suits work for you!  Chuckle.

Vacations are Good Things, Even for Democrats

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

What is it about the fact that the President of the United States feels the need to take an occasional vacation that drives the right-wing loonies so nuts?  Surely it isn’t simply the fact that he absents himself from the Oval Office a couple of times a year.  Our current President vacations far less often than his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, and certainly much less than Ronald Reagan did while he was in the White House.  

Some of the angst seems to originate with the Presidential vacation destination.    George Bush clearing brush and driving his big pick-up truck around the Texas countryside was perfectly acceptable.  It was manly.  It was Texas.    But when the Obama’s go to his home state of Hawaii, well, hell, it might as well be Kenya.  Hawaii, it would seem, is too exotic for a vacation funded on the public’s dime.  It is far, far away from red meat America.

Every conservative politician and pundit in the country seems obligated to figure out a way to slip a dig into their talking points about the President’s expensive and totally unnecessary overseas vacations, while implying that if he were a true American he would limit himself to one two-week vacation a year, someplace in the continental United States, and he would travel there by Greyhound.

Barack Obama has a tough job – possibly the toughest job in the world - with unbelievable responsibilities.  He deserves some time off, and our country will be much better served if he gets occasional respite from the rigors and craziness of Washington, DC.   His job never stops, whether he is in the White House or strolling the beach on Maui, Hawaii, USA.  The President must be ready at a moment’s notice to switch into work mode and step before a battery of microphones and cameras - or get another world leader on the phone – or head back to Washington.

(Interestingly, some of the President’s harshest vacation critics are members of Congress.  Congress basically works three days a week – Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – and grants itself numerous vacations.  The Senate, in fact, left for vacation yesterday immediately after the new senators were sworn in.)

The presidency is a demanding job, and Hawaii is indeed part of the United States.    Conservatives need to recognize those facts – and they need to deal with them – just like they do when there is a Republican in the White House.

A Rite of Spring

by Pa Rock
Sentimentalist

Some days in Arizona are worse than others, and I often punish myself with thoughts of what I would be doing if I were back in the real world - the world with trees, and grass, and thunderstorms, and seasons.  Right now it is the "seasons" that I am particularly missing.

There is snow on the ground at home, back in the Missouri Ozarks.  And while too much snow staying on the ground for too long a time can make life difficult, and sometimes even painful, a modest amount of snow over a few days can make for some of the best times of the entire year.

I have gotten too old for sledding or snowball fights, but I still could enjoy walking into the woods following the trails of hungry rabbits or any of nature's other creatures who are battling to survive the rigors of winter.   Snow is also great to look at through the window while sitting next to a comfortable wood fire.  And there is always snow ice-cream, a wonderful winter treat.

One of the things that I have always looked forward to in the depths of winter is spending hours, again - by a warm wood fire, going through seed catalogues and making plans for a garden, or a few raised vegetable and flower beds.  Everything is picture-perfect in a seed catalogue, and the message is that you can bring that same perfection to your yard and your ego with some hard work and a lot to tender, loving care.

Seed catalogues are harbingers of resurrection, the pathway to renewal.  But in Arizona they are little more than junk mail.

Cactus and cotton grows well in the Scorpion State, but anything else takes almost constant water and a goodly amount of artificial shade - and still the heat slips in and snuffs the life from most seedlings.  A couple of years ago I bought some strawberry plants and put them out in a nice plant bed.  I have grown strawberries back in the real world and know how it is done.   I gave them plenty of water, kept them well weeded, and even held long discussions with each of the plants, but when I had to leave and go to work, the desert heat crawled in and took them away.  It was so disappointing.

So I won't even look at seed catalogues out here, but I long for the days when I can not only look - but order as well.  Planning and planting a patch of good earth is a true rite of spring.

I also miss composting, but don't get me started on that!

Les Miserables

by Pa Rock

Film Fan

Les Miserables has been translated very successfully into film, but it remains, nevertheless, a property best suited to the stage.  The film, which I had the pleasure of seeing on New Year’s Day, uses sweeping cinematography to bring the poverty, strife, and glory of revolutionary France to the big screen in large, lush images.  And it is good, very, very good – and the movie audience in which I was seated broke into applause at the flag-waving finale.   But still it lacked an essential element that was present in the staged version, the element of intimacy.

The movie was just too big, too grand, and often too impersonal.  As one overtly obvious example, it was a challenge to form emotional bonds with the young French revolutionaries who were running through the streets shouting and singing with English accents.

But even so, it was a very good movie.

The acting was exceptional.  Hugh Jackman delivered a standout performance as the ex-convict, Jean Valjean, whose evolving life served as a continual foil to the heartlessness of the state.  Amanda Seyfried delivered well in the role of Cosette, an orphaned waif who was protected and raised by Valjean.   Samantha Barks as the young revolutionary, Eponine, also gave a touching performance.

Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were stellar in their portrayal the Thenardier’s, a pair of fast-talking (and singing) con-artists who were always on the lookout for an easy sou.  Cohen and Carter were absolutely perfect in their renditions of those two somewhat lovable scamps. 

The other exceptional actor in this production was Eddie Redmayne who played Marius, a revolutionary from a prominent family who fell in love with Cosette and inadvertently trampled the heart of Eponine.   Redmayne was mesmerizing – though not everyone in the audience thought so.  I followed three older women out of the theatre who were commenting that he had been wrong for the role – basically because they regarded him as not being handsome enough.  I had seen the actor earlier in the week playing a young monk in the movie The Black Death, and also noted that he is the male lead in the hit, My Week with Marilyn which is currently playing on cable.  My prediction is that he will soon be a household name.

Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe also gave strong portrayals of their characters, though neither struck me as Oscar-worthy.

I recommend the film version of Les Miserables – unless there is a good stage production of it playing nearby.

A Random Act of Kindness

by Pa Rock
Grateful Recipient

This is the first day of 2013, a year that some might tend to pre-judge as potentially problematic because it contains the dreaded "13," an historic portend of evil happenings.  But I have had a sign, however, that this is going to be a wonderful year - full of hope, and promise, and good deeds.

This afternoon I drove into Goodyear to go to the movies.  My objective, which I met, was to see the film version of Les Miserables (more on that in a subsequent post).  After I parked and walked toward the theatre, I encountered a small line of patrons waiting to buy tickets.   A woman was approaching the line from another direction and wound up stepping in front of me.    Technically, I was there first, but I was in no hurry and honestly did not care about my placement in the ticket line.

But the woman's husband did.  He stepped up to his wife, looked at me, and said "Are you really going to butt in line in front of this guy?"  She turned to face me,  and we exchanged a couple of humorous remarks.   There was no problem, but the husband stepped out of line and seemed to be truly bothered.

When we were almost at the box-office, the woman turned to me and began chatting.  "What movie are you going to see?"  she asked.  "Les Mis," I replied.  She said that was what she really wanted to see, but was going to another movie instead - apparently one that appealed more to her husband.  Minutes later after completing her ticket purchase, the lady turned around and handed me a ticket to Les Miserables stating that it was her "random act of kindness" for the day.

I was flabbergasted.  I tried to buy her a random bag of popcorn, but her husband was already at the concession counter taking care of that.  Now I will be on the lookout for a random act of kindness to pass along to someone else - knowing that it will make me a better person and 2013 a much more pleasant year.

Thank you, my anonymous friend, for getting the year off to such a nice start!

Tomato Red

by Pa Rock
Reader

Novelist Daniel Woodrell lives and writes in the Ozarks community of West Plains, the county seat of Howell County, Missouri.   He refers to his writing style as “country noir,” and the novel, Tomato Red, certainly fits that tongue-in-cheek description of his literary form.  The novel is set in the slightly fictional Ozarks community of West Table in Howl County, Missouri, a place the author seems to know and understand remarkably well, even the notorious “Venus Holler” section of town which is located just over the tracks from the slightly more respectable portions of West Table.

I also know the setting fairly well myself, having lived in northern Howell County for several years when I was a young schoolteacher, and currently with a son and grandson residing in West Plains.  That history gives me a total appreciation for the critical eye and writing ability of Daniel Woodrell.  He presents his West Table and its drug- and life-addled inhabitants in a clear and acute manner.

The story:  Sammy Barlach is a druggie ex-con who has just turned up in West Table and is working at the local dog food plant.   During an afternoon of drinking he winds up following the suggestion of a bad angel and breaks into the home of some rich folks who are away on vacation.  The drunken Sammy falls asleep during the break-in and wakes up in the company of a couple of other house-breakers:  a young adult woman with tomato-red hair, Jamalee Merridew, and her seventeen-year-old gay brother, Jason, “the prettiest boy in the Ozarks.”  Jamalee decides that Sammy might be able to provide the necessary muscle to help her and Jason get where they need to be in life, and invites him to move in with them in Venus Holler.  Drop into that mix Jamalee and Jason’s occasional prostitute and snitch of a mother, Bev, who lives next door to her children in Venus Holler, the timely arrival of a gun, and an unfortunate incident with a group of mean rich people at the local country club, and tragedy becomes as unavoidable as the rumbling and screeching of the next passing train.

Woodrell’s characters are largely the mutts who live in the bottom cages of life’s big kennel, without hope of moving up and passively accepting what falls from above.    But when life suddenly throws something down on their heads that is too awful to deal with in a civilized manner, they rise up and lash out.   The angry response is almost as predictable as it is certain to end badly.

Tomato Red tells a good story, one that can be read in a couple of hours, but will disturb for days.  It is a window on poverty and social stratification in America, with a view that may be entertainingly lurid, but certainly not a neighborhood that fosters much in the way of hope.  On the one hand we know that Venus Holler is worlds away, but on the other we can see it standing defiantly, mocking our self-righteousness and property values, from just across the tracks.

And those tracks, like most material things in life, are only temporary.