The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, II (81)

We rode the elevator back up and then boarded the bus to head across the Rainbow Bridge to the Canadian side, where we would get a good look at the rapids and whirlpool a little bit downriver from the Falls.[1] Gil and I dropped hands before we began to mingle again with our own group. I’m not sure who made the first move. I hope I didn’t do it. But I might have.

Gil’s energy was high as he stepped up into the bus. I guess the ride on The Maid of the Mist had gotten his adrenalin going because I could hardly keep up with him. We moved quickly to our assigned seats. Mr. Gisborne checked the roll (all present and accounted for) and then took the microphone.

“Okay, people, that was one heckuva ride, wasn’t it?”

Lots of clapping and cheering—even from Harriet, Gil, and me. A surprise. I’d never before applauded anything Mr. Gisborne had to say—and I was pretty sure I never would again, either.

“Now,” he said, “we’re gonna drive down to the rapids and whirlpool area for a little look-see. And then we’ll go back up into town where you can walk around and look at the shops and museums and junk for an hour or so.”

It was a quick time across the border, a quick ride to one of the parking areas. And we all got off the bus and looked at the rushing rapids and marveled at the whirlpool. I stood there with Gil and his mom and Harriet.

After a few moments, Gil said, “Didn’t you say you were going to tell a story here?” he asked.

“Yes!” I said. “It’s another quick story about Edward John Trelawny, who—”

“Was the friend of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley,” said Harriet, sounding authoritative. “And when they burned Bysshe Shelley’s drowned body on the beach—”

“My story!” I cried, interrupting, but in a way I hoped sounded playful to Harriet and the others. “My story!”

Harriet grinned at me, her teeth flashing. “See how fun it is to listen to a SmartyPants,” she said. But I could tell she was joking, too, so I just prepared to go on with the story.

“What happened on the beach?” asked Gil.

“I’ll tell you another time,” said, flashing a silent warning from my eyes at Harriet. The last thing I wanted to do was to tell a story about death to Gil Bysshe, who was living his own death story as we stood there.

“About a dozen years after Trelawny had been with the Shelleys,” I said, “he came to Niagara Falls.”

The others were silent now.

“He wrote later that he was about where we are now—about a half-mile below the Falls. And he decided he was going to swim across.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” said Gil, gesturing toward the river.

“Just listen,” I said, and I pulled from my pocket some pages I’d photocopied. I looked them. He said that the water above the rapids and whirlpool was—let me quote him here: ‘was too sluggish.’ So he swam downriver a little because ‘I was determined to try my strength in those places where the waters are wildest.’”

“How long did he last before he drowned?” asked Harriet.

“He didn’t,” I said. “In fact, he said he swam”—I looked at my sheet—“‘without much difficulty.’”

“I think he’s a liar,” said Gil.

“Well, swimming back, he overestimated his swimming ability, that’s for sure,” I said. “He saw himself getting closer and closer to the rapids and the ‘terrible whirlpool.’ He says that his fear really propelled him to safety—fear and luck.”

“I still think he’s a liar,” said Gil. “I don’t believe anyone could swim in this river—and survive it. And certainly not both directions.”

“Trelawny did have some trouble with the truth,” I said. “Or, at least, that’s what I’ve read.”

“Just like everyone else,” said Harriet. I glanced at her and saw her steady gaze fixed on me.

---

[1] In 1996 it was much easier to cross the international border between Canada and the United States. Remember that this was well before the horrible events of 9/11, and crossing into Canada was not much more difficult than crossing from Ohio to Pennsylvania.

As I Didn't Like It

On Friday night, Joyce and I saw the Great Lakes Theater's production of As You Like It, the first play by the Bard I remember anything about. As I've written elsewhere (and perhaps even here?), I remember--when I was nine or ten--that my dad played Charles the Wrestler in a production in Enid, Oklahoma, where we were living at the time. I didn't actually see the show (why? too young? didn't want to? parents didn't think I could handle it?), but I remember Dad leaving the house, dressed in red tights (long underwear--dyed red with Rit by Mom), flexing his considerable muscles as he posed at the front door. (He'd grown up on a farm in Oregon, had played football and run track in high school and college; he could have kicked my ass at any point before he declined into a wheelchair--and even then it would have been a close call).

And, of course, I can't really remember when I didn't know "all the world's a stage"--not the entire speech, of course--just that phrase. (I do know the entire speech now.) Near the end of my career at Harmon School in Aurora, I used the "Seven Ages of Man" as the framework for one of our final Eighth Grade Farewell-to-Harmon Shows. It was more the "Seven Ages of Middle School"--and we had a good time with it. Kids recited lines from the speech to introduce each segment of the show.

I think As You Like It was the first Shakespearean play that Joyce and I saw together, too--more than forty years ago, a visiting troupe at Kent State. It was not too good, and for a time afterwards I always said I didn't care for the play.

Then, in 1996, I took some 8th graders to see what turned out to be a wonderful performance at what was then called the Great Lakes Theater Festival. The Rosalind was wonderful--but the part the kids liked the best? At the end, the god Hymen arrives unexpectedly to bless the marriages (there are four at the end), and he came out, virtually naked (a fig leaf covered ... It), but adorned in body paint and glitter. The kids went nuts when they saw him and talked all the way home about "The Glitter Guy."

Since then, I've seen it several more times (in Cleveland and Stratford, Ont.), and it is one of my favorite plays now. It's a story about learning how to love, about forgiveness, about loyalty--some of the Bard's greatest themes. And it's got the usual cross-dressing, trickery, horniness, etc. that you associate with his comedies.

But I didn't really like the version we saw on Friday. They set it in early 20th-century America (okay--I don't mind shifts of venue and time: they can be revelatory), but they used actual American songs ("I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now," etc.) instead of the Bard's (grrr); they eliminated Hymen's entrance altogether (grrrr); they changed/modernized some lines (grrrrr). Among other things.

The cast was okay--a frisky Rosalind, a strong Celia, a ripped Orlando, a funny Charles the Wrestler (though nowhere near as good as Dad was, I'm sure!). The Jacques was about as dark as I've ever seen him--but he delivered "All the world's a stage" about as well as I do (!). The rustics were fun. Touchstone worked as hard as he could--Shakespeare's clowns are notoriously hard to play--and could tap dance (to the crowd's delight). But the changes bothered me so much that I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

But ...  I saw in the audience a couple of school groups, one of them clearly middle-schoolers. And that, my friends, got my heart going flippety-flop. I only wish they'd gotten to see a (nearly) naked Glitter Guy.

The One Piece of Sidewalk I Need

Okay, I've not been positive that The World Is Against Me, but there is mounting evidence. I've watched it accumulate over the years, piece by piece, but I've always been able to dismiss it. Coincidences, that's all.  I mean, if I have in a drawer every type of battery except one--guess which type I need that day? Or if I really need that special table at Bruegger's today, guess what I see when I walk in the door? Or if I decide to leave the umbrella in the car--just for a minute? You get the picture.

And speaking of pictures, what you see above is, more or less, my morning route from my house to Bruegger's, where I work for a couple of hours each morning, sipping coffee from a mug that cost me a fortune but allows me to have "free" coffee for the entire year. (How long before I lose it? Or someone steals it?) Anyway, I have a few transportation rules I follow on this route of about a half-mile each way: (1) If it's below 20 degrees, I drive; (2) if it's below 40 degrees, I walk; (3) if it's above 40 degrees, I bike; (4) if it's raining, I walk with umbrella; (5) if it's an electrical storm, I drive. Sensible, mature rules, wouldn't you say.

Now, if you look at that picture closely, you'll see, to the left (the west) are two sets of train tracks. Each has a bridge over the sidewalk, and, as I've written elsewhere, I hate it when I'm under a bridge while a train is roaring overhead. What if it fell? (There's really no what if? here, is there? I'd be dead--that's all.)

What you can't see from the picture is that there is only one sidewalk under the bridge--on the north side of Ohio 303. The south side has no walkway, just a curb. What you also can't see: People drive 1000 miles an hour on 303 in the morning (they just can't wait to get to work!). So ... when I bike, I stay on the sidewalk all the way (thus, I live to ride another day).

Anyhow, on Wednesday this week, I was walking briskly to Bruegger's (mouthing the memorized poems I recite silently each morning), but when I arrived at the portion of the sidewalk that goes under the RR bridges ... orange traffic cones. That's odd, I thought, marching resolutely under the bridge. And when I got to the other end, I saw 2 more orange traffic cones--along with yellow police tape connecting them. Uh oh.

On the way home, I waited until there was little traffic and hurried along the curb-side of 303, feeling like a game animal with some mobile hunters behind me. I knew I could not do that again, not if I wanted to live much longer.

The next day was nicer, so I biked. And when I arrived at the bridges, I saw a sign this time: SIDEWALK CLOSED. So I waited for traffic to slow, biked out onto 303, pedaled rapidly under the two bridges (wishing I'd taken performance-enhancers), then back onto the open portion of the walk. Whew. Same thing on the way home.

But I knew I was tempting the Grim Reaper. When I got home, I emailed the city of Hudson: How long will the sidewalk be closed? No answer, of course.

And so ... until it reopens, I'm going to have to drive, to forgo my morning constitutional.

The only good news in this? I'm now positive that The World Is Against Me. I mean, think about it: The one piece of sidewalk that I absolutely need is closed until ... Forever, probably.

PS--The only other sidewalk route is 1.5 miles each way.

PPS--Saturday morning: IT'S OPEN!!! Forget everything I just said--the world is not against me!

The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, II (80)

We descended a long elevator down to the Niagara River where we would board the Maid of the Mist. As we already knew, there was not just one boat with that name—but several, each with a Roman numeral after it. They were up to Maid of the Mist VI when we were there.

When we got to the bottom, we found Gil and his mother waiting for us, and joined them in line. “I’ve been watching down here,” he said, “and you want to try to be among the first on the boat.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“You want to get up toward the front—”

“The bow,” I said before I realized I was once again saying too much. This thought arrived just about the time Harriet’s elbow hit my ribs and she was coughing eruptively.

“Yes,” said Gil, “the bow.” He looked at me and smiled thinly. “And here’s why. The boats get so crowded that unless you’re right up against the rail—”

“Gunwale,” I said. Another elbow, more coughing.

Gil was laughing.

“Rhymes with funnel,” I said.

And now we were all laughing. “Who needs a dictionary,” asked Harriet, “when you’re friends with Vickie Stone.”

“Anyway,” said Gil. “If it looks like we’re going to be among the last to board one of the boats, we should step aside and wait for the next one.”

We agreed that would be a good idea. But we were lucky. We were among the very first to board one of the Maid of the Mist vessels. I was amazed at the variety of human beings in line with us—it was like attending a riverside session of the United Nations.

As we boarded, they gave each of us a blue plastic slicker to pull over our clothing. “It gets a little wet,” said one of the employees. (He was wrong. It gets very wet.) Gil and his mother hurried to very bow of the boat, and Harriet and I were right behind them. We had a spectacular view as we swung over toward American Falls, then out into the center of the river and then seemed to head right in to Horseshoe Falls—something almost suicidal.

But, of course, we weren’t. We steered to the portside (left) at the last moment and followed the contour of the Falls, so close that we were all getting soaked, slickers or no. It’s astonishing, being at the edge of death while at the same time saying to yourself This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

And then we were pulling away. Conversation had been impossible—not just because of the noise of the Falls but because I don’t think anyone even wanted to say anything. We just wanted to look. And think. And feel.

Back at the dock, we four were among the last off the boat, of course (first on, last off). I found myself beside Gil, his mother and Harriet in front of us. I felt his thin hand clutch mine, and I clutched right back. I looked over at him. He was staring back at me, and his face was wet with Niagara, red with tears.

To the Movies--Alone ...

I haven't gone to the movies by myself for a long, long time. It's happened only rarely since my marriage on December 20, 1969. Joyce loves movies, too, so we go pretty much every weekend--sometimes both Friday and Saturday. We'll see most anything--with a few exceptions. Horror/slasher films (neither of us cares for them). Kids' cartoons. Movies aimed principally at teenagers--though we used to go to these when I was teaching: I liked talking with my students about them. (And so I saw Kick-Ass and Twilight and countless others.)

Joyce also knows that in some ways I remain ... immature (is that a nice word?). I will go see films she would never go to--Die Hard movies, for example. Red and Red 2.  She does not like me to mention on Facebook that she's with me on those occasions, so I comply. She goes only because she loves me. She endures the films--not always silently, though, as countless on-the-way-home car-conversations can certify.

Anyway, Joyce has not liked airplanes, not since, early in our marriage, when we were in a holding pattern over Chicago in a thunderstorm. We bounced noisily above the Windy City for about 100 years until O'Hare decided to get us out of the sky. That effaced the romance of flying for her. Permanently. (I can't say I loved that experience, either, but I've flown since--though nowadays I hate the entire experience--but that's meat for another blog post.) She's flown only once or twice in the last forty years. But that's all right. I love long drives--especially when she's beside me.

So when we started seeing the trailers for Non-Stop, the recent Liam Neeson film that takes place almost entirely in an airplane (a plane under threat), I knew I wasn't going to be seeing it until it hit one of the cable channels and I could watch it while she was working in her study late into the evening. That's all right. I've done that many, many, many times.

Interruption: There have been times I've gone alone to the movies--usually when she or I am out of town. I tend to go see, in those conditions, films I know she wouldn't like to see, anyway. Something with Jason Statham, say. But very rarely have I gone to a film when we were both in town. It seems somehow ... disloyal or something.

But I did last night (Tues.). She had planned to go to a talk by a local historian. I didn't feel up to it. But as the day wound along, I realized I was feeling up to an airplane movie--an airplane-under-threat movie. When I "shared" this information, Joyce was very happy for me (now she would not have to go! though I don't think she ever would have, no matter what trump card I laid on the table).

So off I drove to Cinemark at Macedonia and sat in a small crowd (a half-dozen others?) and watched Liam Neeson do what he seems always to be doing in his recent films: using his "special set of skills" to thwart a variety of Evil Ones who don't usually survive long enough to benefit from Neeson's tutelage.

I also did something else I haven't done in about a year--buy a bag of popcorn. Joyce and I have been avoiding the stuff in recent months (salt, oil, etc.), but the aroma just got me in the lobby, and before I knew it, I was munching cheerfully with my own (medium) bag. I should say here that Joyce and I have never "shared" popcorn very well. We used to buy a large tub, then found that our hands were colliding quite frequently superjacent to and/or in the tub. It was all very primitive, Darwinian. And not very pretty. Which is one reason we don't do it any more, I think--salt and oil be damned.

I got home to discover that Joyce had mistaken the evening of the meeting--Thursday, not Tuesday--so there it was: the possibility of a second film-by-myself this week.

About two in the morning I woke, nauseated, the evils in the popcorn reminding me of one of the reasons I'd quit eating eat.

Never again, I swore.

Wonder what's on at Macedonia tonight?

The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, II (79)

Later, in bed in the dark, Harriet asked me to finish the story about Trelawny and Shelley’s heart. So I did.

“You remember,” I said, “that Trelawny had snatched Shelley’s heart from the fire on the beach in Viareggio? Where he’d washed ashore?”

“Yes. The cremation.”

“Okay. Well, and I also told you that Shelley’s good friend Leigh Hunt—the man he had sailed to see right before the deadly accident—wanted to have the heart of his good friend. So Trelawny gave it to him.”

“Creepy.”

“But when Mary heard about it, she let Hunt know that she wanted to have her husband’s heart. Hunt wasn’t willing. And they had a big argument about it.”

“Double creepy.”

“Anyway, one of Mary’s other friends convinced Hunt to surrender the heart. Which he did. And then—”

“I don’t think I want to know anymore tonight,” said Harriet. And when I heard her roll over, I knew our conversation was over.

Very late that night I felt that … presence … in the room again. It was perfectly dark in the room—not any glimmer of light—but I knew someone—or something—was in the room with us. The foul smell confirmed it.

Frozen in bed, I felt a whisper of movement toward me, felt something bending over me. And then that voice I’d heard before: Watch, Victoria. Watch.

“Watch what?” I asked again. But even before my words were out, I knew it—whatever “it” was—was gone. I hoped that Harriet had not heard anything. Or smelled that rot of death. But there was only silence from her side of the room.

The next morning we all gathered for breakfast down near the hotel lobby, where Mr. Gisborne was going to remind us of our itinerary for the day—our busy itinerary. I’d already memorized it, but teachers are like that—repeating and repeating in the hopes they’ll prevent kids from getting confused. Of course, it never works.

Harriet had shown no sign than morning of having noticed anything unusual in the room during the night. And for that I was grateful. We sat at a small table with Gil and his mother and talked quietly about the day. Gil knew that he couldn’t do all that the rest of us were doing. But he didn’t seem too sad about it.

“I’m definitely going on the Maid of the Mist,” he said. “That’s supposed to be just a wonderful ride.”

“I’ve read the same thing,” I said.

“And maybe that museum in Canada.”

“Yes, the Niagara Falls Museum,” I said. “The oldest museum in Canada. It was founded—”

Harriet coughed loudly—her recent signal to let me know that it was time to shut up.

“Gil, I hope you can join us down by the rapids, too—below Falls. I have a story to tell you there.”

“I’ll try.”

“We’ll do the best we can,” his mother said.

“I know,” I said.

Before the Maid of the Mist trip we did a lot of walking around the town of Niagara Falls looking at all the souvenir shops and wacky little museums. Kids were buying T-shirts that said things like I Survived Niagara Falls and At the Falls I Fell for You and other dumb sayings.

Harriet and I—though we didn’t ever say it—were also keeping our eyes open for Blue Boyle and his friends. And I wondered if that was what the voice in the night had meant when it had said Watch, Victoria. Watch.

RALLY ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS!--Fifty Years Later

As I wrote the other day, a Writer's Almanac entry in mid-March about the birthday of comic writer Max Shulman (1919-1988) got me thinking again about his work and about the films and TV shows that arose from it--specifically, his 1957 novel Rally Round the Flag, Boys!--a story about Putnam's Landing, CT, and the intent of the U. S. Army to build a rocket base nearby.

Last Sunday, I wrote about the 1958 film (with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, & Joan Collins) based on Shulman's novel, a film I'd recently seen (for the first time in a half-century) via Netflix. Well, during the last week I've also re-read the novel and want to talk a little about it--and about some of the differences between it and the film.

A main difference: In the novel, it's a Nike base the Army plans to build. For those of you who are chronologically challenged (young) and think that Nike is a brand of footwear, a couple of reminders: (1) Nike was the goddess of victory (not a bad name for athletic shoes, eh?); (2) Nike was also the name of an anti-aircraft missile, and the army built missile sites all around the country--including a base in nearby Cleveland on Lake Erie. (Wikipedia has a list of all the sites around the USA.) The system is outdated now; Nike has flown away.

So why the change from book to film? By the time the film came out (1958), the Russians had already launched a dog into orbit (Nov. 3, 1957)--Laika, a poor critter that did not make it back alive. But everyone knew it was a matter of time before monkeys--and then men (more advanced monkeys)--would soar into orbit.

There are all kinds of other changes--most of which you expect in a transformation from book to movie. Characters added or dropped. New dialogue (though some of the film's talk comes directly from Shulman). Events added, events dropped, events altered.

A few changes, though, are interesting to think about in 2014. In the movie (as I wrote the other day), the soldiers used the term boojum to refer to young women. The Urban Dictionary tells me that this word first appeared in the final line of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark." Here's that final quatrain ...

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

   In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away—

   For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

(By the way--Jack London fans will remember that he named his yacht the Snark--this, the vessel he used

Jack London's Snark

in his plan to circle the globe in 1907--it didn't work out.)

The OED gives only this definition (also crediting the word to Carroll): An imaginary animal, a particularly dangerous kind of ‘snark’.

The dictionaries of U.S. slang I have do not include boojum at all. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what the screenwriters were doing: avoiding trouble. For the word that Shulman uses in the novel in the same scene is poon. Not exactly the most PC word to write these days--and unthinkable to include in a popular film in the late 1950s. Thus ... boojum. I mean, the screenwriters could always say, Hey, it's Lewis Carroll! How dirty could it be!?!?!

Another big--and understandable--difference. In the film, Joan Collins plays a neglected suburban wife who wants to reclaim her husband's interest by having an affair--and she picks out Paul Newman (not a bad choice), who does indeed get drunk with her once (in an amusing moment, he swings around on her chandelier), but they do not ... Do It. Newman resists admirably--though his wife (Joanne Woodward) is convinced they did ... Do It.

In the novel, though, the Newman and Collins characters do ... Do It--more than once. Newman regrets his actions, reforms, eventually earns the forgiveness of his wife. (The film is a comedy, after call--can't have any lingering bitterness.)

Again--no popular American film comedy of the era could have endured the censure that would have ensued if it had included marital infidelity--multiple times. Thus ... the change.

Remaining pretty much intact are the other principal aspects of the film--the conflicts between town and military, soldiers and young men in town (vying for the attention of the young women), parents and their offspring failing to comprehend one another--with some details changed to keep up with current events.

But the final scene is changed quite a bit--from a Nike base to a full-fledged rocket base. And what happens in that final scene? Somewhat similar, somewhat different.

But I think you should run out and read Rally Round the Flag, Boys! There are used copies for as little as one cent! Or order the film on Netflix.

But I also discovered a problem on Amazon: It seems there is a stage play of the novel, as well (Dramatic Publishing, 1965). Now I've got to order and read that!

But at least I'll have material for another post!

Cover of the play script