Backstage

Mention George Orwell, and most of us think of his classic 1984, or maybe Animal Farm. But Orwell was a fairly prolific writer, and I just finished reading his early semi-autobiographical work Down and Out in Paris and London.

Based on his own experiences as a starving young man in the late 1920's, Orwell describes his work as a plongeur (restaurant dishwasher) in Paris, primarily in the dining room of a luxury hotel; and as a tramp roaming about in southern England. I was most fascinated by the Paris chapters of the book. Although I have close relatives who own and manage restaurants, my own familiarity with such establishments has been pretty much limited to sitting at a table and eating. I found Orwell's lengthy description of the loud, cramped, smelly, sweaty, chaotic conditions in the kitchen of one of Paris's finest hotels illuminating:

It was amusing to look round the filthy little scullery and think that only a double door was between us and the dining-room. There sat the customers in all their splendour -- spotless table-cloths, bowls of flowers, mirrors and gilt cornices and painted cherubim; and here, just a few feet away, we in our disgusting filth. For it really was disgusting filth. ... It was an instructive sight to see a waiter going into a hotel dining-room. As he passes the door a sudden change comes over him. The set of his shoulders alters; all the dirt and hurry and irritation have dropped off in an instant. He glides over the carpet, with a solemn priest-like air.

Only the Pixar movie Ratatouille comes close to Orwell's effectiveness in showing the contrast between the customer's experience in the dining room and the reality of how food was prepared in the kitchen. But the kitchen in Ratatouille was a shiny, sterile hospital operating room by comparison with Orwell's stomach-wrenching inferno of culinary madness.

As I pick at my next restaurant meal, I'll recall that I've been in the kitchens of both my nephews' establishments. They are clean and relatively orderly. Also, unlike Parisians of a century ago, we Americans today are protected by generally well-enforced state health regulations. Nevertheless, I remember that I'm always at the mercy of the cooking staff's whims and moods. "It is not a figure of speech, it is a mere statement of fact to say that a French cook will spit in the soup." Probably not just French cooks. Human nature transcends national borders.

Perhaps, it's best not to think too much about such things. Bon appetit!

Pedestrian ethics

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

--Immanuel Kant

I was standing on a street corner this afternoon, waiting (it seemed) interminably for the "Wait" signal to turn to "Walk." I saw no traffic coming in either direction, so I ignored the signal and strode into the crosswalk. Several people on the opposite corner looked at me, and then at the traffic signal, in apparent confusion. One woman started automatically into the crosswalk, then pulled back. Finally, everyone crossed against the "Walk" light.

This happens all the time, especially in a nice honest, clean-cut town like Seattle, filled with nice Scandinavian people who instinctively obey the law. (New York readers are free to move along to the next blog.) This isn't the first time I've noticed others ill-advisedly follow my lead when they see me cross the street impatiently.

As I walked on, fortunately unscathed, I recalled Kant's "Categorical Imperative." Mr. Kant's rule of ethics would require us --paraphrasing sloppily -- to ask ourselves each time we act whether the world would be better or worse if everyone did what we were about to do. In other words, said Kant, pretend that by each of your actions (or failures to act) you are prescribing universal rules of conduct.

When I crossed the street against the light, others took my act as permission for them to do the same thing. The Categorical Imperative suddenly became less abstract. I had in fact legislated morality -- traffic morality -- for some of my fellow citizens.

If everyone ignores the traffic signals when they feel it's safe to do so, is that good? Is that the kind of world I want to live in? Some people would reply, "Of course!" Those people are called New Yorkers, and we have five boroughs set aside for them, a playground where they -- free souls who thrive on chaos and mayhem -- can rub up against each other.

And who knows? Maybe I really am a New Yorker at heart. But I don't think so, or anyway I hope I'm not. At least not in this one respect. From now on, I think I'll ask the question posed by Immanuel Kant anytime I'm tempted to override the traffic control and step blithely off the curb -- do I really want everyone to be doing this?

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Today was to be Seattle's 29th consecutive day without measurable precipitation. As such, it would have set a new record for the months of May and June. We have had a really remarkable stretch of beautiful weather for this time of year.

But, of course, the rains did arrive, just in time -- at about 5 p.m. Nothing of Biblical proportions, you understand. Not at first anything you'd dignify with the term "a shower." Just a few drops on the car's windshield, just enough that I turned the wipers on for a swipe or two. Around 6 p.m., however, we had a bit more, enough rain to dampen the street. That should be "measurable" rainfall. So much for the record.

I should have known it would happen, because today is the day that my sister flies up from California to attend a multi-day business conference. She won't be surprised. We both grew up in this state, after all, and no one up here relies on sunny weather until we get safely past the Fourth of July. Still, it would have been nice to show her Seattle at its best.

Despite my disappointment, I'm happy. When I walk out the door I breathe in the unique fragrance released by that first rain that breaks a period of drought. It's beautiful. I love it. I feel like going out and walking in the rain. Actually, I would, if the drizzle hadn't already stopped.

If it weren't for my visitor, and the hopes of breaking a record, the prospect of a few days of refreshing wetness from the heavens would delight me. How sick is that? Hey, no apologies. I'm a Northwesterner.

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(6-18-09) No rain fell at Sea-Tac airport, where the official records are kept, and so we did in fact tie the record of 29 days.

Politics and foreign policy

Senator John McCain has now reassured me that we acted wisely in keeping him in the Senate, rather than putting him in the White House.

While the Obama administration has exercised caution and restraint in its response to the Iranian election and its aftermath, McCain has plunged loudly right into the fray. President Obama is not talking "tough" enough, in McCain's opinion. According to the Associated Press:

The Arizona senator says President Barack Obama needs to speak out about what McCain calls Iran's "corrupt, flawed, sham of an election."

First of all, while the presidential election returns do seem suspicious in some respects, there is as yet no clear evidence that they were in fact fraudulent. Even if they were tainted by fraud, we have no reason to believe that the result -- as opposed to the margin of victory -- would have been different in the absence of fraud. Clear class divisions exist within Iran, and Ahmadinejad appeals to a wide assortment of rural, poor, and less sophisticated voters.

Second, as the president has stated, in light of the unfortunate history between Iran and the United States -- with our country's having supported Britain's overthrow of a democratically elected government in the 1950's and then having supported the unpopular and despotic Shah for decades later -- the last thing we want now is give the Iranians -- both the people and the rulers -- the idea that we are "meddling" in their internal affairs. Sen. Frank Lugar, ranking Republican on the foreign relations committee, agrees.

Third, as President Obama stated today, there is no reason to believe that a Moussavi government would follow policies all that different from the incumbent Ahmadinejad administration. Moussavi is not a new face in Iran. He served as Prime Minister throughout the 1980's. Even if he proved somewhat more liberal on certain domestic issues, foreign and military affairs would remain under the control of the unelected Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While we correctly would prefer to see a freely elected government with liberal domestic policies, the choice of president has little bearing on the policies of the Islamic Republic that most concern us -- its relations with Israel and Arab states, and development of nuclear weapons.

Fourth, exactly what would "speaking out loudly" accomplish? Capitulation by the Iranian government, a government that persists in developing nuclear fuel despite every sanction we can impose upon them?

We had enough of "talking tough" in the prior administration. McCain is not exercising leadership or statesmanship. He should keep quiet and avoid complicating the president's task in developing a constructive relationship with Iran.

Great moments in advertising

The Quiet American

In college, I read -- and re-read -- some of Graham Greene's best known novels: The Power and the Glory (1940), Brighton Rock (1938), The End of the Affair (1951), and The Heart of the Matter (1948), works that Greene himself considered "serious" novels, as opposed to his many popular "entertainments." One novel that I did not read at the time was The Quiet American (1955).

In fact, until this past week I had never read The Quiet American, although I'd seen the 2002 movie, starring Michael Caine in a performance that earned him an Academy Award nomination as best actor.

My fascination with those Greene novels that I did read in college lay in Greene's examination, from a theological vantage, of the thoughts and actions of a number of very human characters who were either struggling to live virtuous lives, seemingly against all odds, in a complex moral universe; or struggling to escape from that moral universe and from God's "twitch upon the thread," as Greene's compatriot Evelyn Waugh described it in his novel Brideshead Revisited. I suppose that the theological component in The Quiet American did not seem sufficiently overt to draw my college-age attention to the book.

The references to religion are far less prevalent in The Quiet American than in earlier Greene novels. The book can be read simply as a period piece, a story of intrigue in Vietnam in the early 1950's, at a time when Vietnam was a French colony, France was fighting a colonial war against the Communist Vietminh insurgents, and the United States itself had no official involvement in the dispute. The narrator, Thomas Fowler, is a British correspondent who has lived in Vietnam long enough to feel at home in that country and to have shed his original desire to return to England and to his estranged wife. In Saigon, Fowler has picked up a mistress, Phuong, who serves submissively as his lover, but without failing to keep her eyes wide open with respect to her own welfare.

Fowler fears that Phuong will leave him eventually if he doesn't marry her, but his English wife, a Catholic, refuses him a divorce. His career as a newspaperman has become farcical: the French authorities provide correspondents only that news about the war they choose to provide, and his dispatches home must pass through French censorship. His life has reached stasis, a state of extreme passivity reinforced by his daily intake of opium.

The tedium of Fowler's daily life is interrupted by his relationship with a young American, Alden Pyle, the "quiet American" of the title. Pyle is the embodiment of one of the two principal mid-twentieth century British stereotypes of Americans (the other being the "noisy" American): earnest, sober, crew cut, boyish, likeable, idealistic, polite -- and wholly ignorant of the complexities of the human soul and of the sordid realities of political life. (Sort of a much younger, more likeable version of George W. Bush.)

Pyle has come to Saigon, attached to the American Economic Aid Mission. He brings with him little real knowledge about the country, but a strong commitment to a doctrine espoused by a much worshipped former professor at Harvard. Based on this "book learning," Pyle is convinced that a "third force" (neither French nor Communist) should be encouraged to seize power in Vietnam, and he has hit upon General Thé (an actual figure from those days) to head such a government.

Pyle falls in love with Phuong, despite his friendliness to Fowler, and Phuong leaves Fowler for the young American. Fowler despairs of his ability to compete with Pyle's youth and wealth, and remains inert. He discovers that Pyle is assisting import of material for plastic explosives, which General Thé's forces use for terrorist bombings against the civilian population -- thus undermining the authority of both the French and the Vietminh.

A Communist acquaintance suggests to Fowler that he invite Pyle to dinner at a favorite restaurant. Fowler senses that an assassination is being planned. Fowler is revolted by the carnage resulting from Thé's terrorism -- made possible by Pyle's assistance -- and, of course, Pyle has become inconvenient to him personally as well. He hesitates, issues the invitation, and then has second thoughts. Fowler finally encourages Pyle to skip the dinner, but does so vaguely, half-heartedly, and without ever actually warning Pyle of the danger he faces.

Pyle is never again seen alive.

Following Pyle's death, everything breaks Fowler's way. Phuong, having lost her opportunity to marry an American, quickly seizes the second best option and turns her affections back onto Fowler. Fowler unexpectedly receives a letter from his wife, granting him a divorce. Fowler can now take Phuong back to England, as has been her dream, where a promotion with his newspaper now awaits him. He has every reason for happiness.

Fowler is a totally passive man, the man supposedly archetypical of the 1950's. Throughout the book, he takes virtually no action of his own volition. He reacts rather than acts. Pyle, in his eyes, is a hapless fool. But Fowler, while far better attuned to the reality of life about him, is incapable of using his knowledge to help himself or others. Fowler's only act of consequence is his seemingly innocuous invitation to Pyle to join him for dinner. Lacking any real sense of morality -- any sense, as Greene would have put it in earlier books, of God's presence -- and confronted by the demands of his own self-interest, Fowler's genuine sympathy for Pyle is insufficient to compel him to rescind his invitation and warn Pyle of the danger. Fowler has too much to gain by Pyle's death.

I thought of the first day and Pyle sitting beside me at the Continental, with his eye on the soda-fountain across the way. Everything had gone right with me since he had died, but how I wished there existed someone to whom I could say that I was sorry.

So ends the book. Fowler is the modern man whom Greene fears, a man almost too bland and too passive to be considered a human being.

A creature too lacking in virtue for Heaven, but too ignorant of the demands of moral conduct to merit Hell. And "no one," in any case, to whom he could say he was sorry.

Gotta Dance

When so much of the news is bleak, and so much of what passes as entertainment seems both inane and depressing, it was refreshing to watch Billy Elliot, The Musical walk off with ten Tony awards last night.

The movie on which the Broadway musical was based was a brilliant evocation of the power of dance and of the exuberant hopes of youth, even when those hopes are lonely flowers growing in the desolate coal country of Thatcher's England. The musical was an immediate hit in London, and the American production has been a sold-out hit ever since it opened last fall in Manhattan.

It was a nice evening. The three boys who alternate from night to night in playing the lead role -- a role that requires acting and singing abilities, in addition to their training in ballet -- were funny and touching as they stood before the audience, accepting their awards. Elton John, who failed to win the award for best score, was unusually gracious in praising the winning composer and lyricist (for the show Next to Normal), even while pointing out that Billy Elliot was a team effort and that everyone on the team was a winner.

The show, and the Tonys it received, reveal an increasingly widespread American acceptance of dance as both art form and entertainment, and approval of its mastery as a legitimate aspiration for young people (including, notably, young boys). The publicity resulting from the awards will result, moreover, in increased future interest in dance in general and ballet in particular. (And the staffs of the three regional ballet academies, thanked by their students as they accepted their awards on nationwide TV, must have been justifiably jubilant.)

The major lift, the minor fall

And even though it all went wrong,
I'll stand before the lord of song,
With nothing on my tongue
But hallelujah.
--Leonard Cohen

It was but five days ago that I triumphantly posted the news -- my house was to play a major role in a major indie film starring major Hollywood actors.

Pride goeth before a fall, they say. On Friday, I negotiated minor changes to the producer's proposed contract, giving them access to my house for just over two weeks. Los Angeles counsel agreed to my changes. The price was right, the terms were agreed to, the contract was signed. By me, that is. As soon as the contract was signed by the producer, the check would be cut, and my cats and I would have four weeks to find somewhere else to live during the filming. I notified relatives. I bragged to friends, even as I sought their help in finding a temporary home for my cats.

I worried about the cats, of course, but was otherwise ecstatic. Not only because of the amount I was being paid, although it would make a significant contribution to my budget for the year, but because I was -- however marginally -- becoming part of a movie production. Well known actors would be occupying my house! Bright lights! Filming! Show biz egos expanding all the way from my basement to my attic!

The stature of the stars who would be in the film ensured that the film would be released widely. Next year, I would sit in a theater, I daydreamed, and watch those stars enact a story in my very own house.

The check didn't come on Monday, as promised, but I'm used to checks not arriving on time. But then, today, the bombshell. Let me quote the email, sent to me and my next door neighbor, in its entirety:

Don and Lisa,

It is my sad duty to inform you that our movie has been cancelled. I will call you later to explain but wanted to let you know immediately.

[Name deleted]
Location Manager
"The Details"
1310 Mercer St. Suite 200
Seattle, WA 98109

That's it. I still haven't received an explanation. How can a major film, scheduled to begin filming in four weeks, be simply "canceled" with no advance warning? Beats me.

Am I upset? Dunno. My cats are happy -- they never fully supported the idea of living in a cage for two weeks. Having all my goods moved out of the house and back in again would have been a pain. I'm a bit embarrassed, after bragging to one and all about my good fortune. I'll certainly miss the cash, which I'd already mentally spent to a large degree.

But hey -- it was fun and glamorous, even for a week or so, to believe myself part of such a big production. The gods gave me a present out of the blue, and the gods have taken it back. I haven't lost anything I actually earned. I won't have the film to watch, but I've had a chance to look in upon the world of film for a very brief time. I'll remember the experience. And the excitement.