The Grapes of God

     It ain't as bad as The Grapes of Wrath.....yet, but there are some who firmly believe our country is enduring the wrath of God.  John Steinbeck has GOT to be doing underground somersaults.  The differences in our fair land from 1929 to 2009 have been dramatic and profound.  Unfortunately, there are areas of education beyond the most basic that have been neglected as badly as any of the basics of readin', writin' etc., etc.  It has been said that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it, and if that doesn't describe the USA today, I can't imagine anything else coming any closer. History and finance are not areas of expertise for very many of us, but we do have a few very good historians and economists who have spent their careers describing our habits and needs.  Not many choose to believe the realistic economic forecasts, and most of us either forget our history, or more likely, ignore it.  For many of us baby boomers, these indeed are the times that our parents told us about, the times that try men's souls as Thomas Paine would put it, The American Crisis.  Even someone as low on the totem as myself can remember telling ex-wife number one as early (or late) as 2005 that when the housing finance bubble burst and this economy took a dive, it would make 1929 look like a tea party.  Now there really IS a tea party???

     As I spend my days feeling a great deal of kinship with Tom Joad (a later column), I wonder when things really will turn around.  I know about President Obama's plans for job growth, I'm not sure how that is actually going to play out.  Though I have ultimate faith in our country to deal with this, we are all on a world stage like never before, so the situation may be a little more complicated.  On the other hand, if it took an overtly aggressive nation like Germany and later, Japan to put our population back to work on a national scale, then the picture becomes clearer.  Whether we like it or not, the actions of Iran, the radical Islamic world, religious fanaticism everywhere, and our own national self interests will keep us in a fighting posture for many more years to come.  If we started calling in the debts other nations owe US, and we as Americans begin saving more and avoiding so much debt ourselves, we could begin to regain our national solvency.

"History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

                      Mark Twain

Dat's Who...or What I Did on Super Bowl Weekend

     Sometimes, watching history making events unfold can be fun and enjoyable.  Take for instance, Super Bowl 44, where New Orleans earned some much deserved joy by defeating the Indianapolis Colts last night.  Purple Grannie Annie and I were among a small group of friends enjoying the game projected onto his wall by Jim, our former next door neighbor.  Food, fun and good times were a pleasant contrast to much of 2009 and in some ways, a kind of unofficial end to the holidays.
     Coach Annie and I even had a pregame warmup of sorts, and though she didn't make me run laps, I WAS out of breath for a few minutes.  After the game, which we had originally thought we would leave at halftime but didn't, we retired to our mobile bungalow-by-the-pond to finish our week at "Moose Dance".

     Now, "Moose Dance" is our little version of Sundance, our own private film festival at the moose lodge RV site.  Showing only much older dvd's rented from the local library, they were all still first run for me, since for various reasons I had never managed to see them during the original release.  We watched "The Last Picture Show", "Do The Right Thing" by Spike Lee, a PBS version of Mark Twain's "Puddn'head Wilson", a kind of chic flick about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, as well as the original film version of "Les Miserables" from 1957, and almost 2 versions of "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder.  I say almost 2 versions because after we watched the Hal Holbrook version, it was impossible to finish watching the Lincoln Center Spalding Gray version, though both were endorsed by Wilder's estate and were in the same dvd box.  We decided that Hal and his cast, including Ned Beatty performed the all time definitive production of that play.
     Somewhat of a surprise to me was that it seemed each movie dealt with two of the same or very similar themes, sex and the human condition.  Each movie was equally bittersweet and poignant without being too overly sentimental.  Each movie was well acted, written and directed and each story explored different aspects of human emotions.  Above all, none of these stories could have been performed or directed as well as they were if the writing had been less profound.  Altogether, this combination and selection of particular movies gave me a lot of pause to reflect.  It also seemed that no matter what I was doing or saying, it felt rather like dialog from whichever movie we had just watched.  That impression persisted for the entire weekend and was contrasted only by watching a different movie.  I have never quite had that observation before.  This is the kind of writing that Hollywood rarely produces anymore, but should.  Story telling, especially ORIGINAL storytelling just NEVER gets old.....


"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?"
                            OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder

Jon