I want to share the music video with you because it’s so good. Also, it sparks a memory for me. When the Talking Heads’ movie Stop Making Sense, was released in 1984, I was living in NYC and was engaged to be married to Abby. My fiancé and I went to a theater on the East Side of Manhattan to see the film. The unexpected thing that happened during the movie was how many people left their seats to dance in the aisles during the show. The only time anything like this had ever happened to me before was during The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Stop Making Sense was beautiful and we had such a good time.
Here in the Ozarks, there have been unending periods of quiet interrupted by long periods of quiet. The quietest it got in this part of the Ozarks was after a heavy storm that didn’t start off so quiet. This was a couple of months ago. I call it a storm, but there was additional drama. The tornado siren went off here in Alma. There was thunder and lightening and the wind was pretty strong around the house, but nothing that reminded me of the tornadoes of my youth. Then, the lights went out. And the lights staid out for two-and-a-half days. According to the Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company, a large swath of what’s called the Arkansas River Valley was without power. Somehow, having so much company didn’t make the misery of not having power feel any easier. When I finally saddled up Mom’s Accord and ventured out, I was very impressed by what I saw.
Large trees were uprooted and tossed about like pick-up-sticks. As I wrote in a previous email, Mom’s house is situated below the ridge line of a slope that leads down to Lake Alma. All the other houses nearby are located on top of the ridge and those were the houses with the damage. In many cases, trees had fallen on houses and cars and were generally scattered around like pick up sticks, torn up by their roots. It was wild. There’s still a big mess that needs to be cleaned up, but, gratefully, that’s not our problem.
Fortunately, I have a couple of battery-powered radios and Mom has some flashlights, so we weren’t completely in the dark. I guess the worse part of the experience for us (other than losing some of the food in the refrigerator) was having to do without coffee, so we were very blessed.
Outside of the meteorological news, the other big event that’s happened is that Mom and I are going to get some help to come in every other week. I’ve been on the front line here 24x7 since the beginning of September, so I am very grateful to my brother who has solved this problem for us. I’m not sure how it will work out as Mom is uncomfortable around strangers, but I’m eager to try.
Mom and I had some difficulties last week. We were supposed to see her dentist for a regular check up on Monday and her cardiologist on Tuesday. I had scheduled both appointments in the afternoon to give us plenty of time to get ready. When it came time to leave, Mom was able to negotiate the first seven steps down to the carport door, but that was all. She couldn’t go any further. The final seven steps were too much for her to even try. I canceled both appointments and we spent the rest of the week at home.
Yesterday, Mom got fixated on the fact that I’ve moved in with her and am her caretaker. She was stuck on the fact that I “gave up my life” to move in with her. The reality is that I did have nice rooms in Madison and I do have a nice community of friends in Madison and still belong to a nice shul there, but I also had a succession of awful little jobs that sucked out my energy and spirit. Right now, I wouldn’t be anywhere other than the Ozarks with Mom. I’ve been here for ten months now. Although fear about Covid is subsiding somewhat, Arkansas is one of those states where there is still a big problem. Soon, I hope I’ll be able to go out and invent a new life for myself.
One of the things I intend to do now that I’m going to have some help taking care of Mom is to meet some people. The president of the nearest synagogue, United Hebrew Congregation, lives in Van Buren, which is a community next to Alma. He’s actually something like a family friend. For years, when Mom was sending me Jewish holiday cards and care packages, she always went to the same clerk at the Alma post office and, being the type of person she is, had to explain what she was mailing, who she was mailing it to, and why. It turned out that the clerk was Jewish and started writing me messages in Hebrew on the outside of my mail. And that mail clerk turns out to be the president of the synagogue in Fort Smith. He remembers Mom and now he knows me, virtually, but soon in real life. I’m going to ask him out to lunch.
Mainly, I spend my time waiting. I wait for Mom to get up so I can serve her two cups of coffee and toast and morning meds. I wait for her to go down for her morning nap. I wait for her to get up from the nap so I can serve her lunch which she thinks is breakfast because she just woke up. I wait for her to take her afternoon nap and then I wait for her to wake up so I can serve her dinner (breakfast) and give her the evening meds. I wait for her to go to bed at night so I can retreat to my room upstairs. I wait for her to have a nightmare, panicked, calling out my aunt’s name at the top of her voice. I wait for her Xanax to kick in so I can go back to my room. I wait for my heart to stop racing so I can finally go to bed. I wait.
I’ve seen many movies since I’ve last checked in with you and some television too. The last movie I saw was The Tomorrow War, which received a bad review in the NYTimes, but I could tell by the way the review was written that I would enjoy it. And I did. It’s one of the only time travel movies I fully understood.
I’ve also been watching Joss Whedon’s latest television effort, The Nevers. It’s science fiction set in the Victorian age so there’s plenty of steampunk in the production design and I like that. I’ve watched three episodes and I’m hooked. I watched the second season of Dickinson and loved it as much as I loved the first season. I loved it so much that I bought a book of her complete poems and have been reading one a day. And the second season of Lupin is in my queue.
Speaking of reading, I finally finished the Stoppard biography. I’ve been savoring the book and it is so good it was hard for me to read more than a chapter at a time. It’s like a dessert that’s so rich, one can’t eat too much of it at once. Stoppard is described as someone with a flawless character which is amazing considering he’s been married four times and has had two extravagant public affairs. But this actually confirms what I’ve always suspected of Stoppard’s character: he’s pretty much perfect. The one place where I part company with Stoppard is in some of his politics. He’s trended moderate to conservative domestically and supported Thatcher which is hard to forgive. Internationally, his politics have been very liberal and progressive. The book is as much hagiography as biography. It’s a hard book for me to recommend because I’ve been over the moon about Stoppard since 1977 when I saw a college production of Jumpers and I’ve had the privileged of seeing several of his plays around the country including NYC and London. I am a total fanboy. Therefore, of course I loved the book. Hermione Lee, the author, is quite skilled and did a massive amount of research for the book. Kudos to her.
I’m still plugging away at chess. I do about ten problems a day. And I keep up with the news from the chess world. I’ve discovered there’s almost always some sort of tournament or event going on. One thing that’s been troubling me, though, are the sexual politics of chess, how the chess world is segregated into male competitions and female competitions. Strictly speaking, women can compete in male tournaments, but don’t tend to. Instead, they compete in women only events. I can understand how the segregation started, but I don’t understand how it persists. I mean, it’s not as if chess is like shot put or professional football. Oh, and then there’s a scandal that’s about to boil over in the chess world.
And I’ve taken up a new hobby. I’m studying Yiddish on Duolingo and have almost 70 consecutive days of study and practice. I know I should probably study Biblical Hebrew, but I feel a much closer kinship with Yiddish given my history “growing up” as a Jew in New York City. I’ve learned how to say, “The cat is in the pyramid,” and “Mother is in a park in London.” Hopefully, I’ll work up to some more useful phrases soon, not that I’ll be able to try them out on anyone. But, one day, I aspire to be able to read Yiddish enough to enjoy and appreciate some of the masters.
That’s about it for my update. My health is good. I’m starting to sleep better (Baruch Hashem), and I finally found sheets that fit my bed. I hope life is going well for you too and I’ll try to get another update off to you before long.
Great to hear from you. Keep the updates coming.
Great to hear from you. Keep 'em coming.