Earthly Powers

An opinion piece in the Economist was catalyzed by Europe shutting down air flight in reaction to the Iceland volcano.  It comments on the asbsence of the usual sense of human power.   The article argues that sense of limits of power was welcome by many in Europe.  (I can say that part of the appeal to me of sailing, is exactly that lack of overwhlming power to shape.) 

While the earth recovers from earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, the article discusses the much rarer events such as asteroid strike, very large volcano eruptions that reduce agricultural production and large coronal mass ejections (about every 500 years.) The distinction (and relationship to power) with global warming, however is the chance of cataclysmic climate change. Despite the limitations of our power over nature, we do need to face up to our power to prevent this catastrophy.   And like the lesson from the volcano.....we should have planned for it in advance, we need to plan now and urgently to prevent the climate change to come.

(Click on title to go to article.)

Sunday Drive

I can recall that spring through fall our family indulged in that great American postwar prosperity can culture institution of the Sunday drive.   In 1951, my parents bought their first new car, a green 'fastback" chevrolet.  (When we first got it, my father and I searched for an unduly long time to find the ash tray for my mother, which was camouflaged in the verticle chrome strips that made up the dash board.)

So on Sundays spring through fall we often climbed in the car and went on a half day drive with picnic.   My father's favorite route was up route 19 along the Palisades Parkway that followed the Hudson River north.   We'd usually stop at the US Military Academy at West Point with our picnic.   The Hudson and its views from the cliffs that make up its banks is an under appreciated beauty.   We'd also stop to gawk at the mothballed fleet of Victory ships that were anchored  side by side, waiting for another war, along the river:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/4164580
They were really spooky.  Eventually they were mostly cut up for junk.   (When my career turned to occupational health, I learned that the workers that built these and other WWII ships sufferred incredible death rates from asbestos related disease caused by exposures constructing the ships.)

A second destination was High Point...where PA, NJ, and NY come together.  There's a tall fire tower there we'd climb to look out across the hilly countryside.   We'd usually stop on that trip at the Delaware River Water Gap.

When we were more ambitious we'd go west to Pennsylvania Dutch country.   I remember the colorful "hex" signs on the barns.   Once my dad took me up on a sightseeing plane ride.   It was awesome, but also scary.   I remember I was sitting next to the door and it was just canvas and shook back and forth as we flew.   It didn't make me feel very secure.  I kept thinking about falling out.

I wonder what killed off the Sunday Drive.   Maybe it was the financial and physical accessibility of longer and bigger vacations further away.

I'd usually fall asleep coming home in the dark.   I liked to sleep on the back shelf under the back window.   We weren't too concerned about safety at that point.

Speaking of which, we had that car when we moved to Springfield in 1954.  Heading down rt 22 coming home from the first big box hardware store (Rickel's?) we had a big car accident.   I was sitting in the front between my parents and hit the side of my face into the steering mounted shift lever.   I had to be taken to the hospital and stayed 4 days.   I was swollen up like a grapefruit.  I remember going to a photographer to take a picture of my deformation.   We got some money from the accident for this.....and that's why we cold afford to send me to National Music Camp at Interlochen the next year.   It also caused me to stay home from camp that summer and work on my Barnegat Sneakbox sailboat restoration.   I can still feel the scar tissue under my cheek from that accident.   My smile is kind of lopsided because of it.   Maybe that's why I don't smile in pictures.  

Nobody else was hurt in the accident, but the car was totalled.  My father was shocked how little money we got due to depreciation.   He vowed never to buy a new car again.  

He didn't for a long time.   After that we owned a 1948 Nash Rambler, two 1951 Chryslers in succession, a 1954 Plymouth, a 1948 Plymouth, and a 1958 Plymouth.   In 1961 they bought a new Mercury Comet.  My father usually drove panel trucks he used for his floor scraping business.

Aha moment from Standard Oil

Before I learned to read I knew there was a gas station company called Esso.  I heard it mentioned many times:   "Stop at the Esso Station."   "Let's get gas at Esso."    Well, I knew my letters then but hadn't put them together to words.   So I really thought this place was called "S" "O."   Big moment occurred when I sounded out the sign and saw that it was really "ESSO."

Checking all of this out in Wikipedia, I see I wasn't so wrong.   ESSO was not an acronym itself, but the phoneticized version of S O, for Standard Oil.

Holding the Tape

This weekend I assisted a canvass maker in measuring Fortune for a sun cover over the cockpit.   At one point, he asked me to hold the tape measure.  This reminded me of an earlier tape measure experience.   At some point in my toddler life, my father would occasionally take me with him in his truck to do work estimates.   My father laid, scraped and refinished wood floors.   He usually had two work crews to drop off each day and then would do other customer service or office work, or go out on estimates.   He had a lot of customers down the Jersey Shore...big old Victorian type mansions.   So (assuming I was lacking other child care) he would pack me up in the 1938 panel truck or the new 1948 Dodge panel truck and I would ride with him and (best of all) hold the tape while he measured the floors.   I really felt useful.   Besides it was fun.

My dad was pretty perceptive about kids, and had the insight that kids didn't like long car rides because they were too short to see out the window.   So he built me some kind of sit up seat so I could see the world going by.

On one of these trips he asked me to interpret the following riddle:

Time Flies
I cannot
They go too fast

I had to be told to make the "time" into a hortatory verb.   I've subsequently stumped many folks with this one.

Maestro Alex Chiapanelli

I started piano lessons at 5 yrs old.   Originally a friend of my mothers...it didn't go very far, so my mother moved me up to a very eminent Newark piano teacher:    Alex Chiapanelli, referred to by us as Maestro Maestro .   I think he liked me, but he was very old school.   I would definitely progress in technique.   He did not threaten or hit with a ruler, but he leaned over me with horrible garlic breathe and I was terrified of him....totally.   My first recital, I played some piece that had something to do with going up in an airplane.   So before I started to play, I had to say "contact."   as in how they started the old planes.   I was sharp enough to know this was small kid stuff and be embarassed by it.   Still I went along.   I was pretty proud at this first recital and got a lot of positive attention...not the last time in my piano life.

Maestro Chiapanelli had an old house on Holmstead Place, a rare cul de sac a block or two from Hawthorn Ave.   He had the world's biggest piano.   It went on forever....really like an ocean liner.   Parents had to sit outside in the parlor while the lesson went on.   We were also required to take theory lessons from one of the Maestro's young adult daughters.   She was tall, dark, and also scary.

Well I learned a lot of piano, but no much music.   My mother (dancer, violinist) could see I could win competitions but not play musically, so she moved me on to my life long piano mentor, Milton Peckarsky.   I'll tell more about him in another blog.

Vatican blames pedophilia on homosexuality...totally unfounded

On April 13, in Chile, Vatican Cardinal Vacisio was correct in saying that pedophila is not linked to celibacy. He was way off base in blaming pedophilia on homosexuality. Research shows that most pedophiles are married men. And that most abuse both genders of children. The target seems to be lack of adult sexual development.

 

Click on blog post header to go to link for article.

Global Warming Early Warning

In  July of 1956, the American Scientist published an article by Gilbert N. Plas titled "Carbon Dioxide and the Climate."     Time followed up that year with an article titled "One Big Greenhouse."

18th and 19th century scientists also published work linking atmospheric CO2 and climate.

Nothing new under the sun.  (hehehe)

face in the dirt

I'm not proud of this memory, but it keeps floating up, so maybe I can excise it by publishing.

Diagonal behind our house in Springfield lived a family that we were friends with...including the boy who was my age.   We weren't best friends, but we did hang out after middle school.   One time we got into a playful scuffle that was quite normal for the times.   Just wrestling around.   I was winning and took my chance to humiliate in victory.  I rubbed his face in the dirt.   I have no idea why.   The memory really bothers me, since I don't see myself as a bully, macho, etc.   But at that moment, I guess the running hormones overwhelmed whatever kindness I had at that age.   I don't have many life regrets, but that is one of them.   Maybe carrying the memory is a good reminder.   Alan Yablonsky, I'm sorry.

Lip and Lup

In 1954, the Beckers moved from Newark to Springfield.   This was certainly about upward mobility for my mother and me.   My father had no interest.   He had grown up in Brooklyn suburbs.   His condition for going along.....he would not mow the lawn.   My mother and I agreed, and so he kept his vow, till I was gone and it got difficult for my mother 30 years later.

I remember  the first trip when my mother took me to Springfield to see the house they had bought (yes it was aluminum sided pink; they hated the color for 20 years but wouldn't spend the money to paint a house that didn't need painting..)  We stopped at a car drive in restaurant.   The name was written in script and I read it as Lip and Lup.   Kind of confused me.  Only later did I figure out it was Sip and Sup.....an early sign that I didn't fit in the suburbs.

Cub Scout Cookie Sales

The glory:   I think it was my dad's idea to make a wooden stand out of wooden crate with verticles that held a sign for the cookies.  Each year I walked with this booth and a stock of cookies to the front of Beth Israel Hospital down at the end of Huntington Terrace.   What a great idea!

The misery:   Hardly sold a thing!

Mini memories

Brenner Street: 1948:  Grandma Sarah, cookies, milk, gray hair, tiny woman, big heart

Huntington Terrace, 1952:  Horse chestnuts in the fall, so smooth to the touch,  leaf pile jumping

Springfield,  1955:   First slice of thin pizza I bought myself....mmmm greasy great

Lake Owassa 1952:  Rowing boat from cottage to grocery store, creaking sound, water running down oars, facing back is mystically great

Springfield, 1956:  Mom's dinners always a colorful arrangement,  bright intense green peas

Since 1960:  standing on my head, still do it

Wall Street Likes Obama

(Click title to link to article)

Business Week points out the a national poll conducted by Bloomberg finds that Americans 2-to-1 believe America's economy has worsened in the last year, Wall street as polled by the Standard & Poor 500 Stock Index is up more than 74% from March 2009.   BW also says Obama's programs are consistent with the general view of Robert E Rubin, Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury

Business week says Wall Street is right and that public confidence will return soon as well.   Its argument is that the public just has not seen what Wall Street sees.

Is there an alternative interpretation:   the public reflects the populist distrust of wall street as well as their own experience with the economy.   Wall Street reflects policies that benefit the fat cats on Wall Street.   Perhaps their financial success will trickle down and create jobs.   Still it's not the way I would have flown this ship.  The alternative would have been to nationalize the banks, rather than provide them with additional capital to stay afloat.

BW does credit Obama with reducing economic inequity.   The corporate world understands too much inequity is destabilizing.

New York Times Changes Headline on Tea Party Poll Article

 Click on headline above for link to article.

Yesterday the NYTimes published an article about a poll of the background and views of Tea Party members.   The headline stated something to the effect of Tea Party being class based.   Today the headling changed to "Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated."   When I read yesterdays version I had problems with the headline.   Apparently the Times did too, since they changed it online for today.   While the reports of the poll do indicate that Tea Party Backers are mostly wealthier middle class white males, their views don't appear to be primarily class based.

 The most significant driver for Tea Party members (as reported in the poll) is a view that the current administration is favoring poor people over middle class people.   It is also an important view that Obama is still considered a Muslim and not American.   Tea Party members consisitently hold on to the view (reported as incorrect by the Times) that Obama has raised taxes on the middle class.   According to them, Obama does not share their (Tea Party members') values.

While Tea Party members report that they are better off financially than most Amercans self report, they are  profoundly pessimistic about where the current administration is taking our economy.  All of this is bound up in not just dissatisfaction but a large degree of anger with Washington.

Here's a reported quote:“He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says. He’s been in office over a year and can’t find a church to go to. That doesn’t say much for him.”

While there is a class aspect to this view, my own take is that in the end much of this is deeply motivated by personal distrust of Obama, and a significant part of that distrust is due to his being an African American.   LIkewise, "the poor" continues to be code for black people.

I'm glad NYTimes removed the "class based" headline.   I wish their poll had explored the issue of race.

My comments on classical performances for musical showcase

I last performed classical piano in public in 1965. Since that time I’ve learned blues and the accordion.   Preparing this showcase has been a treat, particularly finding the joy and discipline to work on challenging classical pieces.

 It’s been almost hypnotic to practice the Bach.   The music continues to turn, move, and manages to be both abstract and highly emotive.  It’s also a tremendous challenge.   Because Bach did not compose extraneous notes, each note needs to be in focus, yet completely in service to the direction and movement of the work.   This piece was not written for the harpsichord.   It needs to use the entire depth of tone and dynamic of the piano(forte.)  I hear this music as deep dark brown, like hands sifting through rich loamy soil.

The Mozart Fantasie is kind of a big piece, but also kind of a hoot.  Its style is highly operatic.  You can almost hear the baritone and soprano answer each other.  In contrast to Bach, Mozart masters the pause, the empty space, the hold.  They need to be respected.  The challenge with this piece is to keep the whole together leaving the listener with a single impression of the whole piece.

The Debussy Arabesque is ultimately impressionist.  I can feel the water moving in the arpeggios.   When the piece switches to A major, the first five rhythmically dissonant 3 against 2 notes are as close to saccharine as you could get while still staying on the right side of the expressive/saccharine divide.  I like to dig into most music, so the light touch is a challenge for me.  

Interviewees' Revenge

The frequently interviewed clearly get tired of certain obvious questions that they are repeatedly asked.  Here's a couple of answers intended to stop the conversation:

Bobby Huggin,s coach of WVU bsketball team, asked just before half time with his team behind:
"What are you going to tell your team?"
Answer:
"Score more points."

Chinua  Achebe, 80 year old author of Things Fall Apart, asked by NYTime interveiwer:
"Are you writing every day?  What are you working on?"
Answer:
"I'm working on this interview."

Brenner Box

Reading about Da'Shan Butler (WVU basketball player from Newark) clicked in another Newark memory.  After living briefly on Broadway, we moved to Brenner Street near 10th St and Springfield Ave.   Later this was the heart of the area for the Newark riots.   (oh yearh...also home of the Jewish ice cream story.)

A huge discovery, brought to me by neighborhood kids was the fun to be had with very large boxes.   The day a refrigerator or washer was delivered was a great day.   Cut out the ends, climb inside, roll....and roll....and roll.   Looking back it seems like it should have been painful, but it wasn't.   You could roll yourself.   Others could roll you.   Sometimes we tried more than one kid at a time inside the rolling box.   That was a bit of a problem.    I can't begin to communicate the delight, excitement, and great fun brought by a box.   Big day in the 'Hood!

At Brenner Street I attended one semester of a private kindergarten....something or other Country Day School.   I don't think I was to crazy about the place.   One time they had a pet day.   I was maybe the only kid without a live pet.   My parents had me bring my bronze statue of a cowboy horse.   I don't remember suffering at all for that.   I think they (and the school) did a good job of convincing me my statue was just as significant as the live pets.   Go Abe and Harriet parents!   I still have that horse, though one leg has been half broken off since I was about 10.

Anyway, I left that school for public school at the end of the semester.   Now I wish I was the fly on the wall hearing the parents discuss why first I went to private school, and then I didn't.