Rain

Yeah, well, so we hardly had any summer this past summer. Oh, we had a warm day here and there, sometimes even a few warm days in a row, but what we mostly had was not summer. What we mostly had was clouds and un-summery cold temperatures.

So, sure, it does seem unfair to suddenly discover that summer is over, even Indian summer, and to realize that there'll be no going outside again without a jacket for at least another six months. Even though the "summer" that is over this year was a mythical construct, a merely formal place on the calendar, not anything that non-Northwesterners -- those real kinds of people we used to read about in our Dick and Jane books -- happy families with glowing cheeks who visited farms with bright red barns and silos and celebrated hot, non-rainy Fourth of July's and shouted with joy on snowy sleigh rides to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving -- those kinds of folks -- would recognize as summer.

But, surprisingly, this post isn't a lament for our summer that never was. Au contraire, as the French would say, when not out on strike.

I walked through my neighborhood today, onto and around the University campus, down into U Village (an unenclosed shopping center so upscale that there's nothing there that you really need to buy -- but where you feel better about life for just having walked through it), and then back home. It was overcast. In fact, the "cast" wasn't "over" us at all; we were right in the middle of it. We were sort of "intracast," I guess. Which is to say that it was cloudy, and that at times I was walking through bits of the clouds as they touched down to earth. It was drizzling, which is something it does a lot of here in the Northwest Corner. It was drizzling, then it was lightly raining, then drizzling again -- and then sometimes just foggy, foggy at that point where you know it really wants to and intends to start drizzling all over again but hasn't yet quite summoned up the gumption to begin.

The trees -- and my neighborhood and the campus and all the surrounding area are forests of trees --were at the stage where most were still green, but where many species were turning to yellow, or had already turned yellow; and where a few of the more surprising species had avoided yellow altogether and were a mass of flaming scarlet. But the greens and the yellows and the almost yellows and the scarlets were all muted by the overcast and the fog -- their colors still eye-catching, but toned down, as though the painter had stirred a little black into their pigments.

And it was quiet, hushed, even in the middle of campus, with that muffled quiet that comes along with the overcast's dipping down and dripping down and becoming fog. Fallen leaves were soggy underfoot, and the air smelled of fog and fir and drizzle and rotting leaves. It all brought back happy, secure memories of walking to school through similar leaves and wetness and dripping trees when I was a kid.

So I walked, feeling sad and nostalgic and subdued, as well as damp, but experiencing all these feelings in a strangely contented and satisfying way. I was quietly at one with my surroundings, feeling happiness of a sort that Dick and Jane -- living in their Manichean world of sharply differentiated seasons, a world where it's pretty much either hot and dry, or cold and snowy, depending on the time of year, a world so much in contrast to my cool, drizzly world, my soggy world of ambiguities, my woodsy world where rotting dead plants give life to wondrous mushrooms and toadstools and other fungal forest growths, some beautiful and some grotesque, some delicious and some deadly, and some all of the above -- probably never experienced.

Don't get me wrong. I can get mighty sick of rain -- even soft drizzle along multi-hued forest paths -- after I slog through it nonstop for months on end. But today, the rains were just beginning. I was still at the stage when the drizzle takes me back to childhood, when every season, when life itself, was fresh and ever interesting and new. The season's rains had just begun, and I was feeling that I was living in the best of all worlds.

And I suspect I really do.

Give it back to the kids

The head coach of the Texas Longhorns was on the tube last night, a few hours after his team's humiliating loss to Iowa State. His men showed a disgraceful lack of intensity on the field, he admitted angrily, shaking his head. He'd noticed their slackness all week during practice. He did everything he could to put some backbone into them, but it obviously had not been enough.

The game had been all about him, in other words, and the damn kids hadn't allowed him to win.

This coach's performance -- suggestive of an NFL coach's post-game show -- illustrates, to me, at least, what's wrong with college football. Long ago, football stopped being a sport for students and became semi-professional entertainment only loosely associated with the academic goals of sponsoring colleges. I've written at least one diatribe giving my opinion about college athletics, and won't repeat it here.

I hate the ritual at the end of the game where the winning and losing coaches hug and congratulate/commiserate with each other before the TV cameras. In the South, especially, each coach ventures onto the field surrounded by his own complement of uniformed state police; they look like two Central American generalissimos attending a conference. Are they anticipating assassination attempts?

In my ideal world, the student captains of each team would meet at midfield and exchange appropriate post-game respects. The student captain -- if anyone -- would appear on TV to be interviewed about the team's performance. The teams would be turned back to the students. The coach would certainly be honored for his coaching abilities, but in the same way that a fine professor is honored.

When a student wins academic honors, the focus is on the student. His professor or professors don't receive six or seven figure bonuses as the result of the kid's success, and they aren't fired if he fails.

We can't go back and start from scratch. We're stuck with the semi-professional teams that history has bequeathed us. Schools have learned to depend on the wealth that media exposure provides. Most schools, short of funding, can't afford the course taken by the Ivy League -- abolition of athletic scholarships and withdrawal to less competitive Division I-AA play.

Today, television is king. Historic conferences are being torn apart and reassembled for no reason other than maximization of profits -- profits for TV and thence for the schools. The absurd BCS process has been foisted upon us, because of the media's obsession with identifying a national champion. Now, already, the media have turned on the BCS, and are demanding a national playoff system. We have been conditioned to accept this media-created "need" as real and legitimate. The championship of a conference -- once a team's highest goal -- now appears a paltry prize, desirable only as a stepping stone to a national championship, whether mythical or somehow legitimized by postseason play.

But if we can't reverse this transformation, we could at least step back and ask where we're going. We could remember that college athletics are primarily for the benefit of students, not for entertainment of the public. We could make future decisions regarding the future of college football based on that understanding.

But who am I kidding?

Voting without hope

I'm resigned.

I mailed in my ballot over the weekend. I voted to re-elect our Democratic senator. I then picked my way through an unusually long list of state and local initiatives and referendums.

In general: I voted for schools. I voted against two propositions to abolish the state's liquor monopoly. (It seems well run and I'm familiar with California, where liquor is sold like milk and toothpaste; I see no advantage to that system.) I voted against measures establishing minority-rule when it comes to new taxes. (Again, I'm not interested in watching my state follow California -- into chaos and insolvency.)

I voted against repeal -- heavily financed by out-of-state interests -- of sales taxes on candy, bottled water and soda pop. Similarly, I voted against repeal -- supported by out-of-state insurance companies -- of our state's worker's comp system.

With some hesitation, I voted in favor of imposing a state income tax on folks making over $200,000. People living in large lavish houses in the nicest parts of town who prominently brandish "Vote No on 1098" signs in their well-manicured front yards did their cause no favor -- at least, not in winning my vote.

The initiative and referendum were progressive innovations of the early 20th century. They were intended to permit average citizens to overrule the decisions of corrupt legislatures, which were then dominated by big corporations. At one time, I had a bias in favor of supporting -- or at least seriously considering -- any citizen initiative. But the entire process is now dominated by the same big business interests which it was designed to control. Collecting signatures on petitions has become a profitable cottage industry. One idiot -- Washington residents know who I mean -- has devoted his entire life and career to proposing and obtaining passage of initiatives that have the design and effect of crippling the state's ability to function.

As a result, ballot propositions -- aside from support of schools -- now come before me with a presumption of undesirability. The burden's on you -- fresh-faced kid on the corner soliciting signatures -- to persuade me that your sponsor's motives are pure and that the possible outcome, if the measure should pass, will be worth the risk of the experiment.

Conceivably, my attitude is merely a manifestation of an increasingly rigid and conservative personality, hiding under the guise of support for liberal politics. I hope not, and I doubt it.

This will not be a good year for liberals, under even the most favorable projections, at either the federal or state levels. I'm just hunkering down, doing what I can, and hoping the country -- and the millions of citizens who are suffering through this recession -- can survive the next two years. If the Republicans win and show an unexpected brilliance of leadership, compassion, and expertise -- well, good for them. I might even consider rewarding them to some extent, come 2012. I'm not worried, however, that anyone's going to call me on this promise.

As I say, I'm not happy. I'm not hopeful. I'm resigned.

Birthday girl

Maury Sachasinh Lane

celebrates her

First Birthday

Happy Birthday Maury. Your sweet disposition and cute face have given us all so much happiness and enjoyment this past year. It seems like just yesterday that you popped into our world, looking all puzzled and bewildered. Now, so soon, you are One Year Old, and already walking. Well, a few steps at a time. And talking. Well, at least your mom and dad claim the odd syllables that you repeat with a grin on your face to be actually euphemisms for ma-ma and da-da!

We can't even begin to imagine what you'll be up to a year from now, when you turn two. Have a very happy year, keep smiling, keep learning, keep growing. (And remember, you have just 16 more years to submit your Stanford application!)

City of God, City of Man

A new strain of flu, a world-wide pandemic, a death rate apparently exceeding that of 1918-19: No one should have been surprised, but no one was prepared. Moreover, this influenza virus frequently attacked the brain, leaving survivors with varying degrees of brain damage and memory loss.

The government was crippled -- the American president herself suffering from memory loss -- but continued to function. Goods and services were in short supply. As in earlier troubled times, people turned inward, seeking fulfillment within themselves rather than in consumerism. Christian fundamentalism thrived. Many concluded that the last days were upon us. Believers awaited the "rapture," the Second Coming, the Last Judgment.

This is the setting for Sigrid Nunez's sixth novel, Salvation City, the coming of age story of an intelligent youth named Cole, during the months before and after his fourteenth birthday. Cole -- the son of nonreligious Chicago professionals ("he'd been raised to believe religion was for retards") -- regains consciousness in an orphanage, after being severely ill, and learns that his parents have died. Eventually, he meets Pastor Wyatt and his wife who take him to their home in "Salvation City," a small, evangelical community in Indiana. His world is turned upside down. His parents had always lived in nervous fear of death; in his new community, on the other hand, everyone was eager to join Christ -- any moment now -- in His heavenly kingdom.

The story is told from Cole's point of view, with flashbacks to his earlier life as he gradually regains those memories.

All the ingredients seem available for a formulaic science fiction adventure. But Nunez understands that for any 13-year-old, in any society, the world he faces is always baffling, scary, turbulent -- but also exhilarating. To an intelligent boy growing up, say, during the decline and fall of Rome, great historical trends like barbarian incursions at the frontiers of empire, debasement of the currency, and the decay of domestic government would not have been among his primary concerns. Like boys of every age, his daily thoughts would have centered on his first love, his need to establish an identity apart from his parents, his search for vocation, his desire to find meaning in the universe.

Nunez's story is primarily about a boy's discovery of himself. The pandemic is the backdrop.

Even before the pandemic struck, Cole had been separating himself emotionally from his parents, especially after he discovered that his mom was making plans to leave his father. Silent and withdrawn, in the throes of adolescence, Cole was intelligent and observant and a gifted artist (drawings and graphic stories), but a bored student, an academic underachiever.

Cole's hostile response to the adult world represented by his parents is challenged by the warm Christian environment he encounters in Indiana. Nunez neither ridicules nor idealizes this less sophisticated world. Pastor Wyatt is conservative theologically, but loving toward everyone. He displays a full understanding of -- and sympathy for -- human weaknesses. He does not share the excitement of many in his flock that the"rapture" is imminent, and he reminds them repeatedly that their task is to live Christian lives, whether the world ends tomorrow or far into the indefinite future. His love and that of his wife for Cole, who becomes the son they were unable to have themselves, is touching and convincing beyond doubt.

Cole learns much about himself, about other people, and about the search for God while living in Salvation City. He falls in love with an older girl, and learns about heartbreak. He learns that even the best of adults have their own weaknesses, just as he does himself. He gains confidence in his artistic abilities. He learns to shoot a gun, despite his dislike of hunting or even fishing, realizing that, in the more dangerous post-pandemic world, an adult who does not know how to defend himself is at the mercy of others. He learns compassion for his parents, some degree of understanding for their problems, and regret they died still stinging from his rejection.

But he suspects that, even after all the Bible study that he has done together with the Pastor, he doesn't really possess the same strong faith as do the Pastor and the others in Salvation City. Too often in his prayers, he feels he is speaking only to the air or to himself.

Also, he realizes that his education before the pandemic was mediocre, and that his home schooling by the Pastor's poorly educated wife has been a disaster. Watching TV, he learns of a highly selective school in Washington, D.C., attended by bright students who -- unlike himself when attending public schools -- are neither bored by their studies nor bullied by their fellow students. He is overwhelmed by envy.

A huge misunderstanding had been allowed to take place. Why hadn't anyone seen that just because he hated school didn't mean he was lazy and dumb? It was unfair; it was a mistake. Somehow it must be corrected. If not, he would grow up to be something worse than an underachiever. He would grow up stupid, an ignoramus.

If he spent his life in the comforting world of Salvation City, he realizes, he would always be considered an uneducated bumpkin. Maybe bright kids, like those on the TV show, wouldn't bully him, but he knew that, as he was now, they'd never want him for a friend. "They would ignore him. Maybe even feel sorry for him. The one thing worse than bullying."

Always quiet, always withdrawn, Cole slowly decides that the folks in Salvation City are wrong about at least one thing: the world is not about to end. He doesn't reject the religious training the Pastor has provided -- he is more than willing to reserve judgment about questions of faith -- but he strongly feels the need to learn and to experience much more than he can ever learn or experience in Salvation City. He has a long life ahead; he's excited about living it. He begins making plans to leave.

He knew the things he wanted now he wanted badly enough that nothing would stop him. It was only for a little while longer that his place was here. He knew that he would stay, and then, when the time came, he would go away. He did not know if he would return.

He is speaking about residence in Salvation City. He also is speaking metaphorically about his life on earth.

And he is finding himself. Cole is growing up.

Slouching toward Facebook

Here at the Northwest Corner, we don't review hit movies. If professional screen critics are reviewing a movie in every newspaper in the country, I'm not going to waste my time trying to compete. You're better off checking out the film on Rotten Tomatoes. The only exception has been "Slumdog Millionaire," but my post discussing that film was written the day after its opening in Seattle, well before anyone dreamed it would win the Oscar for best picture.

So I won't try to review "The Social Network." The fictionalized account of Mark Zuckerberg's invention of Facebook, which opened nationally last night, has been reviewed favorably by virtually every critic across the country. In addition, the film and its director (David Fincher) are the subject of a feature-length, five-page article by David Denby in this week's New Yorker. The film is already notorious. It is highly controversial in its unflattering portrayal of Zuckerberg; it deals with the perhaps defining societal change of the past decade; it purports to reveal the world of a tiny but influential segment of today's youth to their elders -- and to their peers and to themselves. For all these reasons, the film will be widely viewed, and no doubt, win many awards.

It's an important film. It is well directed and extremely well acted. Until I read the Denby review, I expected it to be little more than a below-the-belt attack on the kid who is today the world's youngest billionaire. It's not exactly that, and it's certainly much more. I saw it last night. I loved the film, and I recommend it.

Just two observations -- any more, and this post would, in fact, end up being a review! The film's Zuckerberg is a brilliant Harvard student who is obsessed with creating something that will set him apart in the eyes of the world. Because of this obsession, together with his underlying personality, he has little patience or concern for the feelings of the people around him. As the film points out, he creates a social network of 500 million "friends," but ends up with not one real friend of his own.

Regardless of whether the fictionalized Zuckerberg bears any resemblance to the real Zuckerberg, the fictionalized Zuckerberg is not unique in the world's history. Many, if not most, great artists, scientists, musicians, philosophers -- those great enough to change their world -- have had an equal or greater inability to relate normally and compassionately with others. Their devotion to their art, to the pursuit of their dreams, is so all-involving that they seem unable to take the time or devote the minimal energy needed to empathize with even those most eager to provide help and support.

The movie's Zuckerberg says and does monstrous things. But he never seems a monster. His cruel behavior toward others reminds me of the absentminded slaps we might give bugs that land on our arm. The blows are fatal, but not really intentional. We have always recognized that greatness of accomplishment may sometimes overshadow lack of human decency. We admire Caravaggio's paintings, even as we deplore the events of his life. It's not that we excuse anyone, even a genius, for cruel and thoughtless behavior -- but we nevertheless applaud the contributions of such geniuses to our world.

My second observation is simply that Jesse Eisenberg is a wonderful actor. I first remember him from "The Squid and the Whale," a 2005 film (under-rated, in my opinion) in which he played a sensitive teenager -- a boy who idolized his father, a boorish professor, and was in danger of following in his father's footsteps. He shows the same sensitivity in his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. His Zuckerberg can behave in the most cruel and callous manner, making jokes -- often very funny jokes -- that devastate the people about him. And even while he trades his soul for an elusive, always-receding goal of internet "connectivity," trampling on the feelings of everyone around him in the process, pain and confusion flicker across Eisenberg's face, revealing his character's bewildered inability to understand the dislike and hatred he arouses, especially in the people he most wants to impress.

I liked Eisenberg's Zuckerberg, even while I deplored his actions. He was very funny and very bright. I admired his excitement and his ambition. I liked the way he talked, which is the way bright college kids tend to talk. I felt sorry for his inability to accept and respond to the friendship that his best friend and business partner offered him, and to the affection that his girlfriend -- who dumped him during the opening credits -- had obviously once felt for him.

But then it was easy for me to like him -- he had never squashed me underfoot like a bug.

There is much more to this film -- many deeper concerns to appreciate -- than these two quick observations. Go see it.