June 2021 - Page 2 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Death Cafe and talking to strangers

“how not to be real”

Back in 2018, I wrote about a concept called the Death Cafe. Here’s the website.

“At a Death Cafe people drink tea, eat cake and discuss death. Our aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives”

Although I only attended a single event in person, I’ve been to about a half dozen sessions remotely. I’ve even facilitated a couple of breakout sessions since one wants no more than 4-6 people in a given virtual room.

The last session organized by the Albany group in may had people from New York City and central Europe. It is one of those rare events that, arguably, might be enhanced by Zoom.

One relays stories, largely to strangers, which is oddly therapeutic. I might tell of some specific disappointment about an absence at a recent funeral. It might be easier to share the story there than in this blog.

Food

I could talk about the tons of food that were brought to my parents’ house after my father died in August 2000. I specifically remember that someone came by at 10:30 pm, my mother looking exhausted from the day.

Conversely, almost no food was brought to my MIL’s house in April 2020 after my FIL died. It wasn’t just different norms between North Carolina and upstate New York, plus the passage of time. There was a pandemic, so the extended family wasn’t at her home. On the other hand, a pair of my wife’s friends brought us some food, delivered appropriately in a socially distanced manner.

Back in 2012, Jaquandor reviewed Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie by Beth Howard. It’s a lovely reflection, which you should read.

Ken Levine on the sudden death of his friend Arlen Peters: “Order the pie. You never know.”

My May 31 post has a few more examples.

AmeriNZ

One of those food narratives was linked from Arthur’s blog, He’s been writing a LOT about death, bravely and quite insightfully. For instance, he wrote about people being very good actors. “We learn what to say, how not to say things, and how to present ourselves in a way that the people in our lives expect. We learn, in other words, how not to be real.”

Or finding the right words. “I’ve seen many people dealing with profound grief who say that they stop talking about their grief journey because they sense that the people they talk to don’t want to hear about it, or else they’re visibly uncomfortable. In such cases, the grieving person will, essentially, adopt what they see as the socially expected behavior: Silence.”

And there are others.

My point in linking to these is that talking about issues surrounding death doesn’t glorify death. It contextualizes death in this world rather than making it a verboten topic.

If you’re so inclined, check out a Death Cafe. There will be an in-person one (finally) in Albany County very soon.

Death Cafe Flyer June. 30 2021

Openish in the liminal space

standing on the threshold between two realities

I went to two events recently which made me feel more OK mentally than I’ve felt in a long, long, long while.

This is not to say that I hadn’t felt glimpses of this before. Eating lunch on April 6 with friends Carol, Karen, Bill – all of whom I’ve known since kindergarten. Also, Michael, who I only met 35 years ago. This was 13 days after my second vaccine shot, so I was still feeling tentative.

On May 1, I had a date day with my wife, seeing the tulips in Washington Park, visiting Peebles Park, and eating indoors for the first time in 15 months, which made me a tad wary.

The Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library had a small reception for our Literary Legends for 2021 this month. The accomplished Lydia Davis signed my copy of her collected works back in 2013. I knew Gene Mirabelli 30 years ago as a mentor of other writers, in addition to his own prodigious output, and, remarkably, he looks about the same.

I got to chat with both and their families and later introduce the authors. This felt… normal. In another time, this might have been No Big Deal. But in light of the last 15 months, it felt like, to quote Joe Biden when the Affordable Care Act was passed nearly a dozen years ago, a BFD.

It helped that the day was PERFECT. Not hot and humid, or chilly and raw, or rainy, since the event was held in the garden of the Bach branch of the APL.

Then I had a delightful conversation with the two librarians, Christina and Deanna, about why I play my CDs in birthday order, which, because they are librarians, made sense to them. It’s SO good to be understood.

Church

Then on Father’s Day, my wife and I attended church in person, as opposed to on Facebook. We were asked if we felt ill (ill and well sound the same with a mask) and were seated n socially-distanced “pods”. But it was in the building. No one could sing except the soloist; I discovered at least one other person besides me moving their arm as though they were singing the individual notes. Hearing Trevor on the organ in that space was a vast improvement over listening to it on the laptop.

In the sermon, the pastor used a word I had heard only on a single occasion before. The same pastor talked about liminal space.

From here: “The word ‘liminal’ comes from the Latin root, limen, which means ‘threshold.’ The liminal space is the ‘crossing over’ space – a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else.” An example would be “that time in the early morning when you are floating in and out of sleep.”

Or from here: “In certain spaces under certain circumstances, you’ll experience a feeling of things being slightly off. An altered reality, if you will.”

So we are in a liminal time. Not quite back to “normal”, as much as some folks want like to believe. Vaccine reluctance in some parts of the country could – strike that; probably will – bring on a surge in the Delta variant of COVID-19. We need to protect the children who haven’t had the opportunity to get the vaccine, which is why APL still requires masks indoors.

But we’re getting there.

Movie review: In The Heights

Washington Heights, NYC

My Father’s Day present was my wife taking herself, our daughter, and me to the new movie In The Heights. After church, someone had noted that it’s airing on HBO Max or whatever. Goodness, no thanks. I’ve seen too many films on the small screen in the past year.

We walked to the Madison Theatre. Not only is it our neighborhood cinema, but it had been closed for months because of the pandemic, though it did offer takeout food.

Will this be a private showing? We were the first three people in the theater. There was a party of four that came in during the many previews for films not in my queue, mong them Quiet Place II, F9, the Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, and the new Top Gun.

We all enjoyed the story of a bodega owner named Usnavi (Anthony Ramos from Hamilton) telling a tale about the folks in his Washington Heights, New York City neighborhood. Nina (Leslie Grace) is home for the summer after her first year at Stanford, the pride of the neighborhood, especially her father Kevin (Jimmy Smits). His cab company employes her old beau Benny (Corey Hawkins).

Usnavi is assisted at the store by his cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV). The proprietor has ad a long-standing, but unstated crush on the artistic Vanessa (Melissa Barrera). Meanwhile, Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz) is a cross between the mayor of Washington Heights and everyone’s mother.

There are lots of good tunes, most largely unfamiliar to me; the Abuela song was quite touching. Some impressive dancing is taking place, especially 96,000, in and around a swimming pool, which had to be a technological challenge

I’ll allow that at 2:24, it’s about 15 minutes too long, even with some of the songs from the Tony-winning score left out. This is a regular sin of musicals, in my experience. Still, I was never bored.

Bust

This begs the question, then. Why has In The Heights been a commercial failure thus far? After a mediocre opening, the box office dropped some 67% in its second weekend. The reviews were good; on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics were 96% positive and were 95% of audiences.

Is it because some of it was in Spanish? I didn’t find it a barrier myself since most of the film is in English. But potential viewers may have worried nonetheless. Did the color controversy, mentioned by Ken Levine in paragraph seven, have anything to keep people not only home but off HBO Max? I don’t know.

I’m recommending In The Heights, in the theater, if you can see it there. Lots of funny Hamilton touches. Phone music featuring You’ll Be Back. Christopher Jackson (George Washington) as the ice cream truck driver competing with the ices seller (Lin-Manuel Miranda, who of course, co-wrote In the Heights and Hamilton.) And wait until the very end.

“Too much time on their hands”

It’s OK to veg

I’m self-analyzing why I so loathe the phrase, “They must have too much time on their hands.” I heard it recently. It wasn’t directed at me or anyone specifically. Still, it raised some irrational ire in me.

It’s partly that non-conventional people are often nudged into being more like “everyone else.” I have a specific example, but since it’s someone else’s story to tell, I shan’t.

Maybe it’s that I get such JOY in what some people think is a waste of time. For instance, those people who set out a bunch of dominoes, just to set them off in an intricate design. It took many hours to set them up, and just a few minutes to have them create the display. And one misplaced domino can ruin the effect.

Likewise, those folks who set up the Rube Goldbergesque contraptions – my spellcheck likes Goldbergesque! – bring me joy. But it doesn’t have to be entertaining or useful. I don’t feel the need to be a scold.

Now if it were just “Not my cuppa,” we’d be talking Arthur’s Law – I like this song, you like that movie.

But “too much time on their hands” feels judgier. (My spellcheck does NOT like that word OR “more judgy.”) It is as though only certain categories of activities are “customary”, e.g., work, housework, volunteer work for acceptable entities. But you shouldn’t be doing that OTHER stuff because your purpose in life should be… well, whatever “I” think it ought to be.

Chill

You would think that, after a year of COVID, people would be more tolerant of “time wasters.” Sometimes, playing video games on the phone or tablet is precisely the right thing for me to maintain a modicum of sanity.

Hey, maybe I’ll watch some “junk television” programs that are not at all informative. Although who knows what you’ll learn. An 11-year-old girl used blue slime to help identify her would-be kidnapper. She got the idea from watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. You may wonder if an 11-year-old should even be watching SVU, but it’s not my call.

I guess I want us to be more gentle, less prescriptive about other people’s lives, as long as no actual harm is done.

Comments: Ask Roger Anything

ask away!

I recently received this comment from a Canadian yahoo calling themselves Mr. Comment; the email came from a yahoo.ca address. They wrote: “Saw you wrote some bs about moderating comments on Levine’s blog today, dude you’ve had like 3 comments in 7 years, LOL.”

What I had written to Ken Levine was “I’ve approved comments on my blog since 2010. Some people tell me I’m violating their First Amendment rights if I don’t approve of their scurrilous ranting. Their understanding of the Constitution is… somewhat lacking.”

I’m fascinated by this person. As far as I know, they are a stranger to me, and yet they would see my comment on another blog and decide to make a snarky comment on mine. So now I have 4 comments in 7 years.

For the record, I replied to yahoo something like, “It depends on the topic. I got a few on my anniversary post and more on the sitcom piece. And I got one from you today, so I can walk under ladders.” That’s a Joan Armatrading reference, BTW.

Now, I do get more comments on my Facebook links to my blog posts than the actual site. And I get fewer comments on the blog than I did a decade ago. Some of those were fascinating when two commenters would argue with each other while I’d sit back.

And I did get a lot more responses when I was participating with ABC Wednesday from 2008 through 2019.

But I suppose that’s not the purpose of the exercise.

That said…

I reckon that I do the Ask Roger Anything regularly so that I might have some dialogue on the blog. Yet I will answer your questions, generally within a month, no matter how you transmit them. You may leave your questions, suggestions, and interpolations in the comments section of the blog, of course, but you can also do so on Facebook or Twitter. On Twitter, my name is ersie. Always look for the duck.

Do you prefer to remain anonymous? OK but you’d better tell me that. E-mail me at rogerogreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com, or send me an IM on FB and note that you want to be unnamed. Otherwise, I’ll attribute the queries to you.