Another year

Only through herculean effort do I summon the strength to write this valedictory blog for 2017.  Ever since returning last Tuesday, from a very enjoyable Christmas with family in Oxnard, I've been laid low by a cold virus, one that seems to have been making the rounds and that has had me virtually knocked out and lying in bed.  The fact that lots of other people have been equally miserable should make me happier, I suppose, but it somehow doesn't.

What can I say?  2017 has been an annus horribilis -- a horrible year -- for our nation and the world.  It has seen changes to our government and the kind of people who control it that I would never have dreamed possible as a kid -- it's the sort of nightmare that I thought happened only in Africa or South America.  What frightens me most isn't what this administration has done, but what it may be planning to do, with the willing complicity of the party in power.

But I'll say no more.  While history churns about you, it's easy to ignore the evils that are occurring, but it's also easy to become overly hysterical.  Time will tell, as it always does.

Personally, the year has been happier.  I hiked in Westmorland, and I visited with family in Thailand, Cambodia, and Bali.  I escaped being nuked in Seoul  or incinerated by Bali's Agung volcano, although my sister's house did not escape incineration by the Sonoma county wildfires.  I'm in good health, as are all the members of my family, and my two young great nieces continue their winning ways.

And so might have said a Roman writer in the fifth century -- "The government is a disaster of backstabbing and corruption, its incompetent policies are threatening our national security, the barbarians are at the gate.  But little Lucius and Julius are excelling at their studies; we hope to send them to the Academy in Athens once they reach their teens.  The crops are doing well and, all in all, life is good.  It's silly to worry about things one can do nothing about."

Best wishes to all for the year 2018.  May our world be a happier place a year from now than it is today.  May the barbarians be kept yet another year outside the gate.   And may I soon recover from this damn cold!

Living in Provence

Vaison-la-Romaine
November 2010

Seven years ago, I celebrated American Thanksgiving, together with my sister and two friends, in Vaison-la-Romaine -- a little town, not far from Avignon, in the heart of Provence, France. 

We had a wonderful week, living in a rented house across the road from a Roman amphitheater.  We wandered around the small and extremely picturesque town.  We hiked out into the adjacent countryside.  We drove to other towns in the area -- mainly to the north and east -- making day trips, wandering through markets and sampling small restaurants.

The month, of course, was November.  The weather was cloudy, cool, chilly at night.  The tourists were elsewhere -- we shared Vaison almost entirely with the Vaisonites (or whatever they call themselves).  We dropped into restaurants without reservations.  We were greeted cheerfully on the streets. 

I was with three companions who liked to cook.  They joyfully combed the local markets.  They prepared excellent dinners.  They served up roast turkey and the fixins' on the big day.  For my part, I distributed compliments liberally, and backed up my compliments by my eating.

At the time we were there, I had heard of Peter Mayle and his memoir A Year in Provence.  The book perhaps initiated the craze for settling in Provence -- a craze that appealed especially to his fellow Brits.  But what I didn't realize was that the town in which the Mayles lived -- Ménerbes -- was only about 40 miles south of Vaison.  Had I known, I think we would have paid it a day's visit -- just to get a feel for the place, despite Mayle's warning that the town itself was somewhat drab.

I've just reread A Year in Provence, and it was both a pleasure to read and somewhat disappointing.  Disappointing, because I couldn't duplicate the Mayles' experience -- even if I could afford to buy a house in Provence at today's prices -- and I probably wouldn't want to.  First off, the Mayles spoke -- despite his self-deprecatory disclaimers -- pretty decent French.  Decent enough so that they could socialize with the townspeople and supervise the many contractors who worked on their house during the year in question (in the late 1980s).  Second, the Mayles were extroverts, at least to the point that they loved getting to know all of the townspeople, and -- despite continuing complaints about inconveniences and delays -- the builders.  They threw parties, and attended parties thrown by others.

And third, much of the book is devoted to the local food and wine.  My sister and our friends might well have joined Mayle in his ecstasies over the many ways in which lamb can be prepared, and the joys in sipping wine from the various regions of France, or even the pleasures to be had in joining a local for a common glass of pastis or marc.  I enjoy eating, too, of course.   And drinking.  But I can't build my days around meals.  On the other hand, Mayle does persuade me that the food in tiny one-family Provençal restaurants is so good that even I might eventually evolve into a gourmand, like it or not.

In any event, as the above suggests, Mayle's book is a catalogue of the dangers and joys of renovating a house in Provence, and a catalogue of the pleasures of eating.  Both aspects of the book give him ample opportunity to introduce us to the many eccentric characters with whom he dealt, found himself surrounded, and ultimately befriended.  As he suggests, after they had sampled for a time the rich wine of life in Provence, life in England seemed weak beer indeed.  Hard to go back to, even for short visits.

Our visit to Vaison was devoted more to architecture and to seeking out nearby villages and their market places, and to appreciation of the region's landscape, both natural and agricultural.  We sampled good food, but we also cooked many meals for ourselves. Both my lack of ability in French and my introversion precluded much engagement with the local population -- certainly when we were there for no more than a week.  I would love to visit a welcoming American, a resident in the area, who had already broken the ice with the locals, and could allow me at least a peek into their lives.

Finally, if, like me, you know but little French -- be prepared to pick up little nuggets of conversational phrases as you read the book.  Mayle never translates these phrases that he throws off so casually, but their meaning is usually obvious from the context.  (And if not, there's always the internet!). 

And if none of this tempts you to read A Year in Provence, to seek it out as an entertaining and informative travel book, tant pis!  You can always try Paul Theroux instead.

Derailment

Ironically, in a November 30 post I pontificated with enthusiasm about Amtrak's new Tacoma bypass, while also expressing regret that I wouldn't have one last chance on Friday to travel the old Point Defiance route, which follows the Sound and goes under the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

Needless to say, things haven't worked out as planned.  Yesterday's derailment of the very first scheduled passenger train to take the new route -- a 6 a.m. Cascade from Seattle to Portland -- jumped the tracks on an overpass over I-5, with the loss of at least three lives, and possibly more.  The train entered a tight curve shortly before the derailment, traveling 80 mph in a 30 mph zone.  Engineers on test runs had complained about the difficulty in reducing speed at that point.

Everyone has a point to make, of course.  Trump pushes his infrastructure bill (even though the track had just been rebuilt where the accident occurred), and as an afterthought expresses condolences for the casualties.  A long series of online comments on the story -- written by writers who knew nothing of the cause of the accident, which is still being studied -- heap scorn on Sound Transit which had constructed the track, on Amtrak for being Amtrak, and on the government for not enforcing various safety rules.

An underlying theme of many comments is that the Good Lord gave us automobiles with internal combustion motors, and we have been inviting his wrath by ignoring his wishes with our trains, subways, streetcars, bikes and bike lanes, and who knows what other sorts of foolishness.

My trip south to Oxnard on the Coast Starlight remains scheduled for Friday.  The Amtrak website indicates that today's Coast Starlight is leaving on schedule.  The track in the area of yesterday's accident still needs to be cleared (as do the southbound lanes of I-5), and undoubtedly has been damaged by the derailment.

I guess I'll get my one last look at the Point Defiance route.

Boom town

When I worked downtown, I took my Toyota in for oil changes, tune-ups, etc., to a Toyota dealership in what we then called the Denny Regrade -- the part of Seattle on which Denny Hill had once perched, before it had been washed into Elliot Bay to make room for development that never occurred.

For decades, the Regrade was a desert of enormous parking lots, empty spaces separated  in places by one or two story shops, small industrial buildings, and run-down residences.  Walking to the Toyota dealership from my office building was a matter of only a few blocks, but I felt I was walking from civilization into the abandoned and mostly flattened ruins of a town that had once existed seventy or so years earlier.

The dealership is now gone.  The entire block on which it was located is now an enormous pit -- soon to be the third and final tower constituting Amazon's world headquarters.  The entire portion of the Regrade between downtown and Lake Union -- now renamed "South Lake Union" -- has become a vibrant continuation of the traditional downtown.  But its population is younger and more spirited than the older office workers in the traditional (i.e., ten years or so older) downtown.  They walk faster, they speak more quickly and more articulately, they look more purposeful, than the businessmen, corporate executives, and lawyers to be found elsewhere.  And they know how to code.

These changes have all occurred within the last 15 years or so, but with ever increasing speed.  Every time I walk through the area -- which I do fairly often, simply as a fascinated observer of the urban scene -- I'm amazed at how many new buildings are under construction, and how buildings that were in the initial stages of construction a few months ago have now shot into the sky.

Yesterday, I took the photo reproduced above, looking east down Blanchard Street from the intersection of Eighth Avenue.  Five years ago, only the yellow-hued hotel at the extreme right, seen in the distance on Westlake, existed -- and it had been built only a short time before.  All the other buildings viewable in the photo were non-existent.  Whatever they replaced -- whether small buildings or parking lots -- were so unmemorable that I don't remember them.

And I did not take this photograph from a clever angle, to make the construction appear more impressive than it is.  Behind me, and to my left, is all the new Amazon construction.  It's the same all over South Lake Union.  To only a slightly lesser degree, it's the same all over Seattle.

It can't go on forever, of course.  Amazon is already looking for another city to bear some of the burden of its success.   But these are good times for Seattle.  Nine years ago this month, I wrote a gloomy discussion of Seattle's economic condition, trying to douse my readers' joy over Christmas 2008.

In Seattle, today, not all is well behind the glossy surface. The shops are crowded with shoppers, but actual sales are reported to be unnervingly poor. Towering buildings are being erected by mobs of hard-hatted construction workers -- but, if you notice, no new construction has begun within the past six months, maybe even a year. The streets at lunch hour are packed with office workers, but each day the newspaper carries stories announcing new lay offs.

I didn't foresee the rapidity with which construction would resume.  You're right -- maybe I'll write, years from now, that I didn't foresee in 2017 how soon the city's glory years would come crashing to an abrupt halt.

But, right now, for once, I feel optimistic.  I'm delighted to be a Seattleite.  Merry Christmas!

Eat your eyes out

I worry about a lot of things.  Global warming.  Trumpal tweeting.  Over population.  Falling asteroids.  Swollen adenoids.  Flying off the earth, should gravity suddenly fail.

But behind all of these worries lurks the fear that -- should I die and not be discovered immediately -- my cats will eat my eyes.

I don't know where I heard that this might happen.  I've perused the internet for support or dismissal of this concern.  Opinions are all over the place -- some expressed seriously, others with disturbing levity. 

One article says that a cat will begin eating his owner's body within 24 hours of death.  Another reports that cats, being essentially feral, will be far more interested in hunting down living and scurrying critters outside than in eating rotting meat.  But, of course, if they are locked inside with their owner, with no other food, all bets are off.  Yet another reader provides anecdotal evidence that a cat was locked in a room with the deteriorating body of his owner for 17 days -- the cat was starving when found, but the body was untouched by feline teeth. 

In England, on the other hand, Janet Veal, 56, was discovered partially eaten by her numerous cats.  She had been dead, police estimate, for several months.  Some of the cats had died as well.  Those still alive, I suspect, had developed anti-social culinary tastes.  But, then, this was England -- and if your name is "veal"?   Right?

Even if my two furry friends were willing to partake of me, I have to wonder -- my eyes?  My eyes are fairly well enclosed in my skull.  I suspect they'd first go for my lips, before trying to gouge a bit of vitreous humor out of my eyeball, using their sharp tongues..

I just don't know.  I'm convinced that it's doubtful that my cats would chow down on any part of me -- let alone my eyes.  Doubtful, but not impossible.  Ms. Veal does give me pause.  I'm a bit squeamish about being eaten, even post mortem, but it's not as though I'll be using my body for much else at that point anyway. 

I'm more concerned about the psychological damage to Loki and Muldoon, once they've been rescued and re-nourished.  Like Donner Party survivers. They'll have flashbacks. They'll wake up at night screaming. They'll experience guilt.  They'll be embarrassed to look each other in the eye (just a figure of speech).  They won't remember me with fond memories of being petted, of being fed, of sharing my electric blanket at night. 

They'll just recall that I was ... well ... tasty.

Stars fell on Alabama

I haven't been so happy watching TV since the last time my team went to the Rose Bowl!  I'm of course talking about watching Doug Jones eke out a Democratic win in the Alabama Senate race.

After the champagne bottles are put away, and Roy Moore finally concludes that neither God nor the Alabama elections officials are going to intervene to reverse the decision, the Democratic party will want to mull over the implications of their win.

First, no one thought Jones could win (and he probably wouldn't have won but for the allegations regarding Moore's personal conduct).  But he fought for the win both before and after those allegations came to light.  You never assume the cause is hopeless (Jones didn't, even when it really did seem hopeless); you also never assume you have it in the bag (as the Democrats did a year ago in the states of the Rust Belt).  You fight for every vote right down to election night.

Second, American politics is always local.  Jones knew his state.  He knew what he could support and what was best left unsaid.  He knew how to appeal to Alabamans, at least to those who were open to persuasion.  I listened to his victory speech, and admired the combination of sophistication, generosity, and down-home Southern charm.  He was a winner, and would have been a winner even if he hadn't won.

Third, and related to the above, don't impose litmus tests on candidates.  Alabama is a tough state nowadays for a Democrat.  Jones was a perfect candidate and he almost lost.  Bernie Sanders -- whose ideals can't be faulted and whose honesty is both an asset and a problem at times -- could never have won in Alabama (even assuming he lived there).  The Republicans over the past twenty years have denounced some of their most prominent and intelligent office holders as RINOs -- "Republicans In Name Only."  Let's not do that.  Democrats have always been a "big tent" party, an inclusive party.  Let's stay that way.  Let's be happy with a half loaf occasionally, when the alternative is no loaf at all -- but always fight for the whole loaf until it's time to make the hard choices.

Fourth, energizing the black vote was crucial to the win in Alabama.  Energizing votes of other ethnic groups will be equally crucial in other states.  Considering the positions of today's GOP, such energizing shouldn't be difficult.  Get those voters to the polls.

Fifth, recognize that the Republicans have handed us a gift.  Over the past twenty years they have largely alienated a group that was once a primary component of their base -- the educated, suburban middle class.  Like the black vote, the suburban vote in Alabama was crucial -- both the votes for Doug, the write in votes for others, and the passive vote of those staying home.  The high turnout in the black areas was crucial, and so was the low turnout in the suburbs.  That low turnout was the best that could be hoped for in Alabama, but in other states -- like Washington -- I've watched the wealthy suburbs swing completely from Republican to Democratic in a couple of decades.  Democrats need to satisfy this group as well as other more traditional Democratic constituencies.

It was an exciting evening.  I hope it's a precursor of the coming year's elections.  I hope strategists for the Democratic party learn from it, and make wise decisions in the coming campaign.

Bullying

“Why do they bully? What’s the point of it? Why do you find joy in taking innocent people and finding a way to be mean to them?”

That's the question, isn't it, Keaton?  The video of middle-schooler Keaton Jones, talking to his mother with tears running down his cheeks while she's driving him home from school after lunch, had been viewed 20 million times -- on YouTube alone --by yesterday evening.  It was carried by the New York Times today, and was one of the most viewed articles in today's on-line edition.

Keaton's classmates had poured milk on him and stuffed ham inside his clothes.  This was nothing new.  The bullying had been constant and relentless.

Bullying is nothing new.  I was with more or less the same group of kids in both seventh and eighth grades.  I don't recall any physical bullying -- no fighting, no slamming of kids into their lockers.  No pouring of milk on them at lunch. 

But there was a constant undertone of verbal abuse against certain class members.  Repetitive abuse that continued day after day.  The abuse I recall happened to have been against girls, not boys.

One classmate was a Native American (then called an "Indian") named Diane Bear Paw.  I don't recall her being teased so much because of her ethnicity, although she may have incidentally been called "squaw" on occasion.  She was teased because she was silent, she was stolid, she never smiled, she never cried.  She was not "girl-like."  She was totally impassive, except when pushed too far, when she would show a flash of anger.  I recall no one ever talking to her in a normal manner.  She had no friends.  She sought no friends, and no one approached her except to tease her, to provoke her.

As I look, just now, at my seventh grade class photo, I see Diane with a beautiful smile on her face.  I'm startled.  I don't remember her ever smiling.  I don't recall her being attractive.  But there she is.

I remember a girl named Jean who I had known in earlier grades as well.  She also was silent and impassive.  But she never showed anger.  She was just vague and "absent."  She was noted for having a desk covered with used Kleenexes, and a load of used Kleenexes inside her desk as well.  Her nose seemed to run constantly.  That made her different enough to require ostracism and teasing.

And I remember a girl named Eloise.  A girl with a constant tense frown.  Eloise was a simmering mass of anger with a very short fuse.  Boys, when bored, could have a little excitement by lighting her fuse.  Her explosions were quite satisfying.

What impresses me now about these three girls, and others as well, is the loneliness they must have experienced.  None of them was a good student.  None had any obvious hobbies or interests that would attract envious attention.  None was verbally articulate.  They were all non-entities, as far as the rest of us were concerned, except when they could be used for our amusement.

I happened to be a leader during those two grades, and president of our class.  But my leadership was always insecure, always based on my sense of humor, my ability to act a bit crazy as compensation for "being a brain," and my ability to get along with most fellow students. These attributes were definitely less firm bases for popularity than athletic skills or ability to make girls swoon.  I never took part in the general teasing.  It didn't interest me; it seemed stupid.  I felt sorry, in a very casual and offhand way, for the girls being teased.  I wasn't outraged.  I'm sure that sometimes I laughed.

I certainly never told anyone to "knock it off!"  A leader -- especially in seventh grade -- can only lead the mob in directions that the mob already wants to go.  Unless he is far more confident of his role as leader than I was.

True, I certainly could have helped the girls without threatening my precious place in the class ecosystem, without offending my classmates.  I could have said "hi" to Diane when I saw her.  I could have asked her about an assignment.  I could have shown some interest in her life.  I could have, perhaps none too tactfully, even asked her about her Indian background.  It never occurred to me.  If I had approached, if I had tried to talk to her, I might possibly have been kidded about having an "Indian girl friend," but no one would have thought less of me. Of course, she may have ignored me, even resented me -- when you're the butt of jokes, you are suspicious of sudden attempts at kindness.

But it just never occurred to me.  At 12 or 13, my ability to act socially according to plan, rather than just to react, was undeveloped.  I went with the flow, and was satisfied simply to not join in the teasing.

I listen to Keaton's tearful video, and realize now how he feels.  And how those girls in junior high felt.  It's not so much having milk poured on him at lunch, or being the butt of an occasional insult.  It's the feeling that he not only has not one friend on earth, but that no one will even talk to him as a normal casual acquaintance.   He feels totally isolated.  He sounds like a suicide risk.

I have no idea what happened to Diane or Eloise after eighth grade.  I did read a submission from Jean in a reunion class book, years later.  She sounded happy with life.  She apparently had fought her way through all those Kleenexes, and past her social isolation.

I hope the same is true of all those other kids I knew in school.  I hope it will be true for Keaton.  I'm sorry that so many kids suffer so much from bullying and teasing during their young years, years that should be fun and exciting. 

In response to Keaton's video, a number of athletes and actors have contacted him and offered their encouragement.  His mother has thanked everyone for their friendly concern and messages.  But, as she notes, Keaton still has to go to school, still has to face the same kids tomorrow.  Those kids won't be impressed by Keaton's video, by his tears, or by his sudden fame. 

Not much will change.

Taking a short cut

Amtrak will make a rare change to its route between Seattle and Los Angeles on December 18.  The change will eliminate the traditional circuitous routing through Tacoma, around Point Defiance, under the Tacoma Narrows bridge(s), and then inland to cross over I-5 and head south.  Instead, new tracks will enable trains to head directly south from Tacoma, following I-5.

I have taken trains south from Seattle for decades.  Frequent travel by train from Seattle to my home town, just north of Portland, while a graduate and law student.  Vacation travel since then, either to Martinez, where I'd be met by a relative for the drive to Sonoma, or to Burbank, where other relatives lived.

I've always enjoyed the route, following Puget Sound, that is about to be eliminated.  It was familiar, and  I perhaps didn't exclaim at its beauty, as a tourist might.  But I'd look up from my reading and watch, especially as the train went through two shoreline tunnels, and then under the impressive Narrows suspension bridge.

I often wondered why Amtrak chose to follow such an indirect route, even for the short twenty miles that it did.  The reason, as I now understand, is that, until this month with the completion of new tracks, there was no shorter route available.  The new route will take only about ten minutes off the scheduled time -- but because of conflicts with BNSF freight traffic, actual delays from scheduled time were often much longer.  Also, Amtrak will be able to run more frequent Cascades regional service, now that the Tacoma bottleneck will be eliminated.

I'm always happy when Amtrak improves service.  But I'm sorry to lose one of the more scenic segments of the route south.  Amtrak's trains -- both the long distance Coast Starlight and the regional Cascades -- are booking up with travelers who want one last look at the old route.

Unfortunately, my train trip to California on the Coast Starlight is booked for December 22 -- four days after the switch-over.  Or maybe, "fortunately" -- I'll be one of the earlier patrons to travel the new route. 

"I'd rather keep the views and lose the minutes," a Kelso WA passenger commented to a Seattle Times reporter.  I fully understand that reaction, but -- if asked -- I'd vote to approve the new route.     

Lost time

Combray: Proust's home town

À la recherche du temps perdu.  In recent years, this overall title of Proust's series of seven quasi-autobiographical novels has been generally translated as In Search of Lost Time.  Appropriate, I've always felt.  Over the years, my impression has been that this is a masterpiece to be admired, to be quoted, to be the subject of allusion -- but not, God forbid, to be read.  

Lost time.  Life is too short.  My remaining years are now too few; they were too few when I was 35!  Too much time is lost in too many ways, without my reading the never-ending reminiscences of a neurotic man who worries his memories of the past to death, like a dog with a bone.  I never really understood exactly what Proust was attempting to accomplish in his masterpiece -- I still don't, really -- and I wasn't all that interested in finding out.

Then, twenty or so years ago, I spent one early morning after another, before anyone else awoke, sitting on a patio in Maui reading the four books of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.  Beautiful, strange, thought-provoking books.  Somewhere I heard them described as "Proustian."  Hmm.  But I still wasn't tempted.

Later, in 2009, I read André Aciman's earliest novel, Call Me by Your Name (released this month as a movie), and learned that Aciman was a noted scholar of Proust.  His writing style and his obsessions intrigued me, and over the years I've read yet another of Aciman's noveIs, and his memoir of growing up in Egypt, and a couple of collections of his essays.  There's a thread that runs through all his works -- a focus on how we perceive time and how we construct, perceive,and reconstruct memory.  His work is also called Proustian.

Today was the last straw.  I was reading an essay by David Foster Wallace -- whom nobody would ever classify as a Proustian writer -- describing his experiences as a teenager playing tennis in Illinois.  He described the flatness of southern Illinois as one crosses it by automobile thusly:

...you could see any town you were aimed at the very moment it came around the earth's curve, and the only part of Proust that really moved me in college was the early description of the kid's geometric relation to the distant church spire at Combray.

Wallace, not surprisingly, didn't sound like a fan of Proust -- but he was familiar with Proust.  He had read Proust.  He knew Proust well enough to use an episode from Proust to make a point.

Before dinner, I realized I had nothing planned for the evening.  I could fritter away my time on Facebook, or in looking up odd items on-line.  Or I could dip my toe in the Proustian waters.  The first novel in the seven-volume series -- Swann's Way -- was available on Kindle for 99 cents.  I couldn't afford not to buy it, and so I did.

I've now read the first ten percent of Swann's Way -- a novel of over 500 pages.  The adult narrator is describing his memories as a young boy, maybe nine or ten years old -- a boy who, like Proust, is significantly named "Marcel."  What's happened in this first ten percent?  Essentially, Marcel has been distraught because he was put to bed without having a chance to kiss his mother good night.  And because there's a party downstairs, she won't be coming up to his room to kiss him good night in bed.  When I say "distraught," I mean that he is sobbing and on the verge of a total breakdown.  He finally entices her to his room, but is unable to enjoy his triumph because he knows he has irritated and gravely disappointed his mother -- his parents have been trying to get him to "grow up," to stop being such a "mother's boy."

And that's pretty much it. 

A book can be like a hike.  Some hikes have a goal so enticing that you'll endure any hardship to hike all the way to the end.  Other hikes also have a goal, but it's the hike itself you enjoy.  You are sampling the scenery and the trail; if you get bored or short of time, there's no shame in returning home short of the goal.  My decision to sample Proust is closer to the second kind of hiking.  I do hope to read Swann's Way all the way to the end -- but if I get sufficiently bored I won't hesitate to toss it aside and go on to something else.  We'll see.

I suspect that if I do complete Swann's Way, I'll be satisfied.  I won't need to read the six succeeding volumes.  Summiting Mt. Rainier didn't force me to go on to tackle Denali and Everest.  And I didn't.

Manchurian president

Hey, I have no idea.  It's just crazy talk.  And I'm just joking.  That movie was pretty farfetched, right? 

But, would it hurt if someone waved a Queen of Diamonds in his face?  Maybe while he was tweeting?  Just to see what happened?

No, seriously, I'm just joking.  I think?  But just for fun?  Why not?

The Gray Lady isn't a cheap date

My first newspaper subscription was as a freshman in college.  I believe it was the San Francisco Examiner.  It was delivered right to the door of my dorm room.  I thought that was very cool, and I felt very adult.  

I grew up in a family that subscribed to both a morning (Portland Oregonian) paper and an evening (Longview Daily News) paper.  I assumed everyone read two newspapers a day; it therefore seemed mandatory for the 18-year-old adult that I'd become to read at least one.  Even so, considering my financial plight, I would have been too money-conscious to have subscribed if the price were more than a nominal amount.

I've been trying to recall what I paid for the Examiner. I paid about $2.98 per year for  Newsweek, a weekly news magazine, but that was a special rate for college students. I wouldn't have subscribed to a newspaper if its price wasn't somewhat proportional.  The per issue cost at a newsstand was five cents, so maybe $1.25 or $1.50 per month.

Why do I continue brooding on this subject?  Because two days ago I received a notice from the New York Times advising me that they were -- again -- raising my subscription price.  I tend to roll my eyes at these notices, and then continue subscribing -- especially since the Times deducts the price from my checking account, sparing me the pain of actually filling out a check.

But I did a little calculating.  According to the notice, I'll be paying $20.25/week for home delivery.  That's $1,053 per year.  Really?  I mean that's a pretty big chunk of money for a newspaper.  Even for an excellent newspaper.  Even in today's inflated dollars. 

Especially when the Times offers an impressive on-line version, which often -- to my irritation -- publishes the best features to be found in the approaching Sunday edition days before Sunday.  The on-line edition is included in my print subscription, but I could subscribe to it alone for just $9.99 per month for the first year, and $15.99 per month thereafter.  We're talking $119.99 for the first year, and $191.88 per year thereafter.

All things considered, I feel like an idiot subscribing to the print edition.  Except for a few considerations.  I like to spread the paper out on the floor while I read it.  I like to take it to a restaurant to read while I have breakfast.  I like fetching it from my front yard, just as I liked opening my dorm room door and finding it as a student.  I'm fixed in my ways.  I'm still the child of my parents, good people who subscribed to two papers per day.  I'm a romanticist.

But I'm not sure how much longer my romanticism will support what has become a very expensive habit.  For now, I guess, I'll let inertia carry me along into the Times's latest subscription price zone. 

At some point, however, I'll have to admit to myself not only that I'm paying a fortune for an outmoded technology, but that I've become a bit of an irritant to a newspaper that really wants to focus on digital content -- not on consuming and distributing vast amounts of newsprint.  They won't be offended -- to the contrary, in fact -- if I go digital.

But I'll be sad.