Flying Sponge

We have a small kitchen--a very small kitchen--but over our twenty-plus years in this house, Joyce and I have learned to ... adapt ... to ... accommodate ... each other.

Usually.

There remain times when both of us, simultaneously, want access to the fridge, the dinnerware drawer, the stove, the sink, one of our few cupboards, ...  You get it? We've also been known to bump into each other--always (?) an occasion for a self-conscious laugh--never any, uh, resentment!

In our narrow kitchen, the sink is on one side, some counter top on the other. Sometimes, using a sponge to wipe that particular counter top (after some baking or meal-prep), I, instead of turning around and walking the vast distance of three feet (?) back to the sink, will simply toss the sponge sink-ward.

Occasionally--no, rarely--it might fly by Joyce's head--or maybe once in twenty years, hit her in the back.

No biggie.

The other day, after such a toss (which barely missed her), she made a comment about a "flying sponge," and I replied, "Wouldn't that make a great children's book?"

We agreed. And quickly so--just as we (never) do about who-gets-what-part-of-the-kitchen.

And so I started thinking of story ideas: a sponge flies across a kitchen--it stays in the air--soars out an open window (we'll forget about the screen)--outside, still (miraculously) in the air, it's enlisted by other flung household items (newspapers, dog biscuits, dirty laundry, Kleenex, etc.) to go to battle against the Dark Side--and our sponge Saves the Day by ...

... I ain't tellin' you--don't want to share/give up my million-dollar idea. So ... let that soak in!

Banning Books

Yesterday, NBC carried a story about a school district in Alaska that had voted to remove from its curriculum five works: The Great Gatsby, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Catch-22, The Things They Carried, and Invisible Man. (Link to the story.)

I used two of those books at Western Reserve Academy, where I taught high school juniors the final decade of my career. I taught Gatsby each of those years, Invisible Man in 2003-04, when it was the "summer reading" book for my students.

I have read the three others.

Let's pause a moment ...

My belief is that school is a place to learn about things you don't already know--about different ways of thinking--and believing--about other times, other cultures, other ways. It's not a place designed to reinforce what you already think; it's a place for you to think about what you already think. To investigate, to analyze, to consider, to modify--even improve--your knowledge, your critical faculties.

I taught a number of students over my forty-five-year career who seemed perfectly content with what they already knew, believed, thought. I can't say I convinced a lot of them to do otherwise--but I certainly tried.

I was fortunate in my own schooling years to have a large number of teachers who saw it as their charge to show us that the world is a wide, wide (and round!) place, where, throughout history, people have had myriads of perspectives on what it all means--on what we're doing here--on what we should be doing here.

It wasn't always easy to hear or learn about those things. Many of them were challenges (sometimes convincing challenges) to what I had thought all of this was all about.

I learned to see literature as a way to see the world through the eyes of others.  Great literature yanks wide our eyes, jolts awake our minds, informs our hearts.

And all five of the books on that list of banishments do precisely that.

The Great Gatsby (1925) takes us back to the Roaring Twenties--to a time of great wealth (and poverty), optimism, belief that the good times are permanent. We see all sorts of madness on display--Gatsby's idealization of Daisy (who, like the eponymous flower, is attractive--but common), Tom Buchanan's vile racial attitudes, Nick Carraway's dissolving naivete, infidelities of all sorts. And we see the consequences.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), is poet Maya Angelou's memoir about her growing-up years, her experiences as a young black woman, her discovery that, for her, literature is salvation.

Catch-22 (1961), Joseph Heller's wild novel about the madness of war. Yossarian, the protagonist, is a bombardier in WW II, and he sees insanity all around him (even the names of characters are bizarre--e.g., Lt. Scheisskopf ["shithead" in German], Col. Korn).

The Things They Carried (1990) is a collection of connected short stories by Tim O'Brien, stories about the Vietnam War in which he served. In these tales we see the extremes of human experience in warfare--humanity stretched to the snapping point.

Invisible Man, 1952, is Ralph Ellison's powerful novel about growing up black in America. We learn about Southern poverty (and unspeakable cruelty), about living in Harlem, about the oppressive forces that weighed so heavily on his unnamed narrator.

Speaking for myself now ... all of these books illuminated parts of the world, of history, of life in America about which I knew virtually nothing. I was a white kid who grew up in Oklahoma when segregation was still in force. (In Enid, we had the Full-Meal Deal: back-of-the-bus, separate drinking fountains, restrooms, parks, schools).

Although my father went to war (WW II and Korea--though, for the latter, he remained here in the US), I  did not. During the Vietnam War I had a teacher deferment (there was a shortage in the mid-1960s).

I had no contact whatsoever with the Jay-Gatsby kind of world. My parents were both teachers. Financially, we got by. (No wild parties in the back yard! No one dancing the Charleston!)

So ... reading each of those books flung open the shutters of my ignorance to show me views of the world I had never encountered, never even really much thought about.

Those books, in other words, educated me.

I hope that Alaska school board reconsiders its dim decision. They are not protecting their young with such a ban; they are locking them up in a room that has no windows.

Did I Ever Believe in Ghosts?

I'm reading Angelica, a 2007 novel by Arthur Phillips, whose complete novels I'm trying to finish. (It's not all that hard: (1) there are only six of them; (2) they are unique and fascinating--so it's not really any kind of labor.)

Angelica (I'm about halfway through) is, in some ways, a Victorian ghost story. A young woman--a clerk in a shop--marries a scientist who's somewhat older than she. They have a daughter, the eponymous Angelica. She's four.

And, as the marriage sours a bit, both Angelica and Constance (the mother) begin to see evidence of a ghost in the little girl's room. The evidence grows stronger and stronger. Constance eventually invites into her home (without her husband's knowledge) a kind of informal exorcist (she's not church-related). And away we go ...

(I've just reached the part where the point of view shifts from Constance to Anne, her ghostbuster, and is in the case of every Phillips novel I've read, things are not always what they seem. I'll post more here about the book when I finish it.)

Anyway, the novel has caused me to scan my memories ... did I ever believe in ghosts? Really believe?

When I was a little pre-schooler, sharing a bedroom with my older brother (three years older), he used to frighten me by telling me that there was a ... Man in the Closet. I don't recall my brother's ever describing that man, but I do remember this: I was afraid (a) to go into that closet, day or night, and (b) I was afraid to go to sleep. What if the Man came out? In order to ... what? Murder!?!!?

And then there was Casper, the Friendly Ghost, whom I kind of liked in those cartoons that were my favorite literary genre in boyhood. (Link to some video from 1945--when I was a year old.)

I liked him because he wasn't in the least scary--even the music in the cartoons, though occasionally ominous (only vaguely so), was usually light and playful. Just the way I preferred it.

As I watched that old cartoon just now, I imagined that Casper had been created by a man, who, like me, had feared the supernatural in his boyhood and invented Casper not just as entertainment but a kind of self-therapy.

Creator Seymour Reit, a children's author and Casper-creator, came up with the idea in the 1930s, says trusty Wikipedia. It was, for a while, quite a success. A New York Times article from 2001 says the comics are still occasionally published. Don't know if that's still true.

I remember liking ghost movies and TV shows--well, those that weren't too frightening. There was a great one called Topper, which ran from 1953-55, about a man who discovers that the ghosts of the previous owners of his place (man and wife, killed in a skiing accident) are still around. They also have a ghost dog, a St. Bernard named Neil. It was a gentle, funny show. (Link to some video.)

Later on, of course, here came Henry James and the Bard (Hamlet, Macbeth, Caesar).

And the movies--Ghost (1990), Ghostbusters (1983, 2016), and countless others, many of which were in the "horror movie" category, a category I avoid like the Man in the Closet.

Other than those two instances--the Man in the Closet and Casper--I can't say that I ever had any true (or fictional) spectral experiences. I can't remember if any of my boyhood friends did, either. I guess, as I think about it, ghosts just never came up. Or I've suppressed it all.

Now, of course, here is what's going to happen. Tonight--deep in the night--I'll awake--and ...

This Will Be Different

not ours--but a twin from Google Images

As I mentioned here yesterday, our 2010 Corolla died last week--well, its battery did. As I said, I'd been starting it and letting it run about twenty minutes a week, but--annoyed by our inattention otherwise?--it croaked. Wouldn't start. Take that, it seemed to growl.

I just called Don Joseph Toyota in Kent (with whom we've done business since the mid-1970s!), and they now, in these COVID-Days, offer a pickup and delivery service. So ... on Wednesday afternoon they will come over and pick up the car, jump-start it (I warned them!), drive it back to Kent for its scheduled servicing, return it when they're done.

I also warned the service technician that we hadn't driven much lately. She replied, "No one is."

It is weird, recently, not being in the car at all for days on end. Since, well, since birth, I've been in a car just about every single day. The first car I remember was an old green Chrysler, and I trained my parents not to leave me alone inside when one day (left alone while they were in the grocery store) I used the cigarette lighter to burn attractive patterns all over the dashboard.

I'm lucky I'm still here to type that previous paragraph.

Even in my retirement years I've been driving (or riding along) every day. I went to the health club almost every afternoon; in the evenings, Joyce and I would go for a ride (generally culminating in a drive-thru). We went out to movies--plays--bookstores--Kohl's--Office Depot--the grocery store--restaurants--whatever.

Last week was unique: We actually went out twice--once to Seidman, once to Acme Fresh Market here in Hudson to pick up our grocery order for the week. Usually, we're out only once--to the grocery store. As a result (as I mentioned yesterday), we have not been to the gas station in two months. (Though it's just about time.)

Cars, of course, have always meant freedom for people who have them. Coming and going. I still remember the thrill I felt when my parents let me drive somewhere by myself for the first time (I got my license in November 1960). An un-caged bird--or, better, lion. (Tony the Tiger quaked in my presence.)

But now--thanks to COVID-19, thanks to aging, thanks to ...--I am rarely un-caged, and I am no more a lion. More like a gerbil, I think, spinning around on the wheel of routine in his wee enclosure.

Sunday Sundries, 274

1. AOTW (1): COVID-19

    AOTW (2): Yesterday afternoon we went to the Acme (grocery) to pick up the things we'd ordered for the week (an attendant brings them out to the car, puts things in the trunk). We were in one of the parking spots designated for pick-up. Directly in front of us--and facing us from another pick-up spot--was a guy, the AOTW, in a large ... pick-up. When the young man brought out to his truck the things the (mask-less) AOTW had ordered, the AOTW got out of his truck, went to the cart, and unloaded the bags. He was right next to the young man for most of it (the young man, I should note, was also mask-less). So much for social distancing.

BTW: We waited about 15 minutes in the parking lot and saw that very few of the many people who were going in and out were wearing masks--or keeping a safe distance.

Go figure.

2. I finished two books this week ...

     - The first was Ian McEwan's 1998 novel, Amsterdam, a grim story about two principal characters, one a journalist, the other a composer of serious music. The novel opens at the funeral of a woman with whom they'd both been involved (and who, when she died, was married to yet another).

Clive (the composer) is trying to finish a commissioned piece for a big event (and is having trouble); Vernon (the journalist) is about to break a big story about a very unpopular British Foreign Secretary--one whom many abhor.

McEwan cuts back and forth between the two men's stories. And then ... trouble. While on a hike in the Lake Country, Clive (desperately trying to think of a melody to end his piece), sees something ... untoward. And decides not to intervene--doesn't want to lose his focus.

Meanwhile, Vernon's big story gets out a little early, and there are ... consequences.

The two men--friends for a long time--suffer a fracture in their relationship as each gets involved in the problem of the other.

The end is a shocker.

A powerful novel of love, of fractured friendship, of ambition, of arrogance, of courage and cowardice.

(Re: the cover and title: the climactic moment occurs in Amsterdam, where the musical piece is supposed to premiere; although the action of the novel is in the present, the old duel pictured on the cover is an, uh, appropriate metaphor.

And now I have but one un-read McEwan to go--The Children Act (2014). It's on my pile for this week!

     - The second was the latest by Shakespearean authority James Shapiro, Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us about Our Past and Future, 2020.

I've read some other books by Shapiro, who is a relentless researcher and fine writer: 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005), Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (2010), and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 (2015).

I've learned so much from all of them.

This current one looks at the great historical divisions in our country--and how Shakespeare factored into some of the confrontations between the sides. The Bard, says Shapiro in his Introduction, "speaks to the fears that divide us as a nation" (xii).

He begins in 1833 and reveals the disgust that John Quincy Adams felt for Othello--even in his letters he wrote disparaging things about Desdemona (who married Othello, if you don't remember).

He skips ahead to 1845 and the eve of the Mexican War and issues of gender identity and race. And in that year, guess who was primed to play the role of Desdemona in a U. S. Army production on the border? U. S. Grant! Who was in his early 20s at the time--and beardless.

He didn't actually perform--they hired an actress before the production. Apparently, Grant, as a young man, looked, well, not unlike a woman--and had a soft voice.

Shapiro goes on with chapters about class warfare (1849), assassination (1865), immigration (1916), marriage (1948--here, he reveals that The Taming of the Shrew was not produced in America until 1887), adultery and same-sex love (1998).

His Conclusion is about today, about our current culture wars. And he talks about the 2017 NYC production of Julius Caesar that caused outrage among Trump supporters: The director had made Caesar patently like Trump. (He also notes something I didn't know--that there'd been a Minnesota production of the play during Obama's presidency, a production that made a Caesar-Obama connection; no one said anything.)

Shapiro ends by expressing a worry about "how easily democratic norms could crumble" (220).

3. We were happy to see that the Ricky Gervais Netflix series After Life has started its second season. We are slowly streaming episode one.

Gervais plays a small-town newspaper journalist, a man who's recently lost his beloved wife and is experiencing profound grief--a test for his friends, colleagues, and for just about anyone else he encounters, including the local mailman; this 1st episode has some wonderful moments with him.

4. Getting frustrated about acquiring more flour to bake with. I've got enough to last for a few weeks longer, but there is price-gouging on Amazon for the kind I like ($30 for a 5-lb bag!)--and the actual producers of the flour are "out of stock."  Sigh.

5. Our son (Steve) and his family down in Green, Ohio (a half-hour or so away), are doing fine. Spoke on the phone with them last night; he declined to Face Time when he learned we were in bed! Oh, do we miss having them in the house--being in their house--meeting for a movie--a meal ...

6. The battery in our Corolla died this week. We rarely drive that car (2010!), but I had been starting it once/week, letting it run about 20 min. But this week it said, "No way." (Sounded as if I'd dropped a spoon down the whirring kitchen disposer!) It's due for servicing at the dealership anyway (and they are now offering a pickup-and-return policy, so I'll give them a call tomorrow--with a battery warning!

7. Speaking of rarely driving: This will be the second month in a row that we have not had to go to the gas station. When we do drive (a couple of times a week), we use the Prius, which in warm weather gets about 60 mpg.

I know: We should alternate which car we use. BUT: We have a single-car garage, a narrow driveway, and alternating would mean lots of "rotation issues."

8. Last Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from The Oxford English Dictionary--I selected this word because it used to be on the vocabulary list for my English III students at Western Reserve Academy--and it was the occasion, on quiz day, for me to utter a pun. I would read the word aloud (for them to spell), then say this, "She sat her nine children down and encouraged them to share."  Groans always ensued.

Also--I left out all the OED examples--there were tons of them!

saturnine, adj. and n.

In regard to a person's temperament, mood, or manner: gloomy, melancholy, dejected, downcast, grim; not easily enlivened, enthused, or cheered; (in early use) ill-tempered, angry.’]

Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymon: Latin Saturninus.

Etymology: <  post-classical Latin Saturninus of a character influenced by Saturn, melancholy, treacherous (12th cent. in a British source; also in continental sources), of or relating to lead (a1490 in a British source), of, relating to, or caused by lead poisoning (1712 in colica saturnina) <  classical Latin Sāturnus Saturn n. + -īnus -ine suffix1.

And in the evening ...?

I've always found that routine helps me through rough times--keep doing what you love to do until you can't.

I think of poet Edwin Arlington Robinson and novelist/playwright/poet/essayist John Updike, both of whom died of cancer (1935 and 2009, respectively), both of whom were working on their death beds--writing, copy-editing. May I be so fortunate.

Many people have it far rougher than Joyce and I do right now--and I feel simultaneously guilty and grateful for that. We have been donating to others in various ways, but, as I said, we are lucky. We can do that--we should do that. And many, many others are doing precisely that--giving, helping.

But ... my routine ...

Our evenings are not all that different from what they were before the lockdown. We, of course, no longer go out to a movie--or a play--or to a restaurant--or to run an errand to Office Depot or the grocery store or a bookstore or ...

Other than that, however, our at-home routines remain fairly stable.

Here's how they go ...

We eat supper about five each evening. We talk and watch the previous day's Daily Show on the Comedy Central app on our Fire-TV--and host Trevor Noah, recording the show from his NYC apartment, has had some wonderful guests on during what he now calls The Daily Social Distancing Show, Dr Fauci among them. One night this week he spent the entire half-hour interviewing NY governor Andrew Cuomo.

Afterward, we clean up (I've been doing whatever hand-washing of dishes is necessary; Joyce usually does it). Then I head upstairs about 5:45 and change into my pajamas.

Yes, I said it. I head upstairs about 5:45 and change into my pajamas.

If you had told me I would be doing this when I was, oh, 15, I would have cried FAKE NEWS! and unfriended you in the late 1950s way: by ignoring you.

But I'm 75 now; I am on an energy-sapping med; I have to sleep a lot or I am in trouble.

Anyway, in bed about 5:45. There, I read a bit in six or seven books I have going. Right now, these are on my nightstand:

• Wilkie Collins: I Say No
• Louisa May Alcott: Little Women
• Hilary Mantel: The Mirror and the Light
• Cori McCarthy & Amy Rose Capetta: The Sword in the Stars (the 2nd volume in their up-to-date story of King Arthur, Merlin, et al.; Cori attended Harmon School in Aurora and graduated from Aurora High School)
• Kim Ghattas: Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East
• Val McDermid: The Torment of Others
• Ken Bruen: Taming the Alien

(The last two I'm reading on Kindle.)

After the reading, I do the daily New York Times min-puzzle on my iPhone. There's a ... mild competition between Joyce and me re: who completes it more quickly--without cheating (which we both do from time to time).

During all this time, by the way, Joyce has been in her study reading or working on a writing project.

After my reading, I'll stream a bit of a movie I know Joyce doesn't want to see. Recently, I saw, The Other Guys and Step Brothers. These are without exception (as you can tell by the two titles) films that I am somewhat ashamed to be watching--but do so anyway. Can't help it.

When I hear Joyce coming to bed (7-ish), I pause whatever I'm watching, and we begin streaming bits of "our" shows.  Right now, we're watching ...

• Waking the Dead
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Blood
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
• Black Adder
• Death in Paradise
• Bosch
• After Life

A little bit of each one ... then we end with a comedian we like (we just finished the most recent Netflix comedy special by Chris D'Elia).

About 8 ... it's lights out.

Joyce stays with me a bit as we talk in the dark about the day, about events, about ... well, about anything. Then (she likes going to sleep later on) she heads to the other bedroom upstairs to read another hour or so before she surrenders.

My indulgent readers, are you asleep yet? Boredom is an amazing sedative.

To Err Is Human ...

So said Alexander Pope (1688-1744) in his book-length poem An Essay on Criticism in  1711. (Link to entire LONG poem.)

Here's the couplet in which that phrase appears:

Good nature and good sense must ever join;

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this "erring" thing a lot as I've been ... aging. It seems I've been blundering more and more in recent years. (Maybe I always was but just pretended I wasn't?)

An easy example: When I post these blogs, I go upstairs, and Joyce reads them online. She invariably finds a typo (or two or three), which I immediately fix on my iPhone.

You might well ask a couple of things: Why don't you have her read it before you post it? And How well do you handle hearing about those typos?

First, I don't want to make typos. I assume there are not any (or, at least, I'm hoping there aren't). So it's kind of a pride thing, I guess (okay, a male pride thing?). I want to show Joyce something flawless--stupid, I know. For who's flawless?

Second, I don't handle typos well. I say bad words--playfully enough so that Joyce doesn't feel bad (and will keep helping me) but sincerely enough that I acquire thereby a little "venting relief." Takes some ... delicacy ... to curse when your lover is trying to help you!

In other parts of my life, I find I'm blundering more and more. Dropping things. Breaking things. Spilling things. Making messes. For example, I take a little bottle of Coke Zero to bed with me, sip a bit as I read and, later, stream. Never had an accident. 

Until last week when I knocked the full bottle over (we have  a light beige carpet in our bedroom), and I was down on my brittle knees scrubbing the floor when Joyce came in to see what I was doing. (I'd hoped to have it eradicated before she arrived, of course.)

But I guess what prompted all this is what I see on Facebook every day--"information" that's whirling around in memes and in links. Misinformation, I should say.

It alarms me that so many people don't check the authenticity/veracity of the things they're sharing with countless others. In some rare cases I've messaged some people I know to let them know--to share a link that examines the truth of what they've shared. I don't ever do it publicly--as a Reply, for example. Privately.

But I don't think it makes much difference. The old "confirmation bias" has taken over: If the meme/information confirms what you already think/believe, then who cares if it's true or not.

And, I confess,  when I see a meme/picture/link that declares something in line with my thoughts, it is tempting to share it. But I always check first. Snopes is good. PolitiFact. (Link to Snopes; link to PolitiFact.)

Here's a recent one. There were memes going around the other day claiming that you could tell if a product was made in China simply by checking the first numbers of the barcode.

Only partially--and misleadingly--true. Here's what PolitiFact says: Link. Here's what Snopes says: Link.

What's additionally alarming about this spread of misinformation is that we know that the Russians (in particular) are spreading divisive information on our social media--it seems to be far more effective in polarizing us than, oh, old-fashioned propaganda. In the latest Lee Child novel about Jack Reacher (Blue Moon, 2019) Reacher ends up swiftly killing a Russian agent who  is doing this on his computer in an unnamed American city.

I'm not naive enough to think that anything is going to change with this post of mine. I mean, we could continue debating sensibly IF we agreed on what the facts are. But, apparently, we can't. If a fact contradicts what we believe, we call it "fake." QED.

But if we don't clean up our act, if we don't try harder to verify things before we share them, we'll continue to err--and have to trust for divine forgiveness as we watch our democracy crumble beneath our typing and clicking fingers.

To Be(ard) or Not to Be(ard)

That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler ... well, you know the rest, I’m sure.

As this viral stay-at-home business continues, I am beginning to look more and more like some 19th-century poet (Whitman? Longfellow?) and less and less like that remarkably handsome man you all know.

Just before the stay-at-home stuff began, I was planning to get a haircut. Didn’t. And now it’s been, oh, a couple of months since my last one.

And it shows.

My hair is flowing around my collar now—and my beard? Well, you can see the pic at the top of this post, a selfie I took yesterday. (When I showed it to Joyce, she laughed harder than she has during this entire lockdown!)

Time for some backstory.

I did not grow a beard until the summer of 1984 (I would turn 40 in November). Our son, who had just completed sixth grade, asked me—quite casually—what I would look like in a beard. (I have no idea where that question came from.)

I said I didn’t know—and promptly began to grow one. Which has stayed on my face since then—close to thirty-six years now!

(I just remembered: I’d tried one earlier—didn’t like it—shaved it quickly. It was back in the late 60s/early 70s when I was wearing my hair very long. I already had sideburns and a mustache, both on display when I got married in December 1969. See pic below. )

And I discovered that I loved the beard—for two principal reasons: (1) it covers much of my face (a boon to those who see me); (2) I have to shave my neck and upper cheeks only about twice/week (I hate shaving).

I have a great barber (Mickey) here in Hudson who does a fine job with my beard (and with the rest of my white hair). Not all barbers have been so successful. When I retired from public-school teaching in January 1997–and saw the resultant drop in income—I tried Best Cuts a couple of times, and the first time, the clipper asked me how to trim a beard! (She’d never done one.) I decided not to be her first case, went home, bought a razor, and did it myself for a while. (Let’s not discuss how well I did.)

So ... no real beard problems until now.

Joyce has quietly/tactfully/lovingly implied that, you know, she could give it a whirl—a trimming. But I’m more inclined right now to employ a more direct and even brutal approach.

Cutting it all off. Letting it grow back during the ensuing lockdown weeks.

I think I’m probably gonna go for it.

PS—Any shrieks you hear are from folks here in Hudson who have the misfortune of seeing all of my face.

To the Cancer Center in Viral Times

Seidman Cancer Center\
Orange Village, Ohio

April 22, 2020: morning

On April 8 I had an appointment up at Seidman Cancer Center for a bone scan—and for some blood draws. My oncologist checks my PSA every month, and I’ve been getting bone scans a couple of times a year to try to determine how much the cancer has progressed. (It began in my prostate, has metastasized into my bones.)

But on April 8 I was frightened—not by the cancer (which is frightening enough) but by COVID-19. I was afraid to go to a medical facility (there’s not just a cancer center in the building) where there might be people who are carrying and/or suffering from the virus. Both Joyce and I are vulnerable enough without dancing in the living room of the virus.

About a week ahead of my appointment I started calling the center—but could not reach a human being (lots of other people were changing appointments, I’m sure). It took several days before I actually reached a nurse.

I told her of my fears—especially the bone scan, which requires a couple of steps: (1) an injection of radioactive material, (2) a two-hour wait for the stuff to circulate through me, (3) a return for the scan.

Ordinarily on scan-days, Joyce and I would go sit in a coffee shop somewhere. But by April 8, things were shutting down. Nothing open. There was no way I was going to sit in the waiting room for that long—or out in the car. So I canceled the appointment and would reschedule later.

The nurse also told me I did need to come in for my quarterly Trelstar injection—the testosterone-inhibitor that denies the cancer the “food” it wants.

That appointment is on Wednesday, the 22nd. Today.

But the nurse also told me one other thing that stunned me: My oncologist (with whom I’ve been for a half-dozen years or so) is leaving University Hospitals and moving out of the area. Now what? I was supposed to see him today, as well.

A nurse left voice-mail for me on the 20th, telling me that I would not be seeing him—he was in the process of clearing out. But I still must go in for the Trelstar. They would call back with further instructions.

So ... that’s where I am right now. About 9:15 we will head up to Seidman. When we arrive, I will go in; Joyce will wait in the car. I’ll get the shot—and scurry home.

Or that is my hope.

After I get home, I will complete this post, letting you know how it went.


10:30 a.m.

We just got back from Seidman--and this was certainly the quickest trip in my entire Seidman history. I was not at all looking forward to it--to being in a medical facility in Pandemic Time--but I had to go to get the quarterly injection that has been prolonging my life.

We pulled up right in front, and I went through the doors (automatic) and met two masked nurses (I, too, was masked), who asked me some questions about my health and took my temperature with some sort of laser-looking device that would have driven a cat mad. (It didn't touch me--just a red dot: Was I being measured? Or assassinated?)

Into the waiting room I went, and no one was there but the two receptionists, who were now behind solid glass. They took my info, told me to sit, and I did.

A few moments later an aide came for me--took my temp again and my BP (which was higher than usual--hmmm, wonder why?), then told me to wait for the Nurse with the Syringe.

Which I did.

Turns out, she lives in Reminderville and has a seventh grader at Harmon School, where I taught for about 30 years!

No trouble with the shot (she was good), then I washed up, called Joyce (who'd stayed in the car), and she drove from the lot to pick me up, and off we zoomed home. Before I left each encounter, though, I made sure I thanked all the health-care workers for what they were doing. I was afraid to come in for a swift appointment; they are there all day.

I was surprised at the traffic, both on I-271 and on Ohio 91 (our two main roads): It didn't seem all that reduced to me--nor did some of the drivers seem to have ... improved ... since last I saw them. Some bizarre moves by some of them.

Anyway, we're back safely; we've scrub-a-dub-dubbed; we're back at work.

By the way, I have not still not heard who my next oncologist will be. So I've got to call down there this afternoon and try to find out. (None of the folks I dealt with knew.)

I know that medical professionals have some different priorities right now, but I do need to know who will be guiding my treatment(s) from now on.

My (Relatively) Placid School Years

Adams Elementary School
Enid, Oklahoma

I began Kindergarten in Enid, Oklahoma, in the fall of 1949 (Mrs. Dugan!) and graduated from Hiram High School (Hiram, Ohio) in June 1962. And, for the most part, I had a fairly placid time.

There were exceptions: harassment by bullies (D. McDonald, I’m talking about you), guilt about not getting my work done (I learned to deal with that guilt quite well, thank you), a broken heart now and then.

Here's the first of those I remember. Back at Adams School (fifth or sixth grade) we learned square dancing. I was decent (no more than that, believe me), but, somehow, I was chosen to be in a group that would perform for parents. So there we were: four girls, four boys. One of those girls, Linda, had a pretty sizable apartment in my heart.

The teacher told the girls to pick their partners (not a bad idea--no fights broke out), but when it came time for Linda's pick (my memory is that she went first), she picked ... the New Kid, a boy whose name I have long suppressed, a boy who'd been in the school only a few weeks.

My heart shattered like a fragile wine glass and clattered to the floor with a sound that must have awakened people in different time zones.

But everyone in that Adams room that day pretended they didn't hear.

Another traumatic event in my elementary years: going to see the many rattlesnakes held in cages at nearby Phillips University (only a block or so away), snakes that had been captured during the state's annual rattlesnake roundup. We marched by the cages, which were very close to us, while the snakes coiled and rattled and leapt toward us, banging their heads into the wire-mesh doors. I think I died a half-dozen times that day.

But the worst thing? We had periodic atomic-bomb drills. We would crouch under our desks, fold our arms over our heads--a certain survival technique--and think about those Soviets that just might attack us here in Enid. Scared the hell out of me.

Later on I became a teacher myself, and for most of my career, all we had were occasional fire drills. Later, we added tornado drills, and seeing the kids coil their arms over their heads reminded me of A-bombs.

By the end of my career, though (June 2011), we were having mass-shooting drills. Locking doors, crouching in classrooms, staying out of sight, remaining silent, waiting for the all-clear. I could tell that a number of the kids were terrified--in a rattlesnake-cage sort of way.

Now, we have grandsons who are in school (one in fifth grade, one in ninth), and they have had to deal with some horrifying things--not just the school-shooting drills but this current COVID-19 situation. Distance learning. Missing their friends and, yes, their teachers.

But other horrors have existed for them, too--and I use the word horrors seriously here. The horrors of continual standardized testing. I've written here before that both our grandsons have taken more standardized tests already than I did, K-Ph.D.

These tests, in my view, have had many deleterious effects: the tension and pressure on young students, the narrowing of the curriculum (teach what's on the test!), the handcuffing of teachers to some rigid (and fairly arbitrary) standards. I think of some of the most wonderful teachers I ever knew (as a student, as a colleague), and I cannot imagine them marching lock-step through a prescribed curriculum. It would be like cutting off the leg of an Olympic gymnast.

Oh, and I should not neglect the rise of social media--and how easy it has become to bully in so many different ways now. When I was in school, bullies knocked the books out of my arms--or punched me in the upper arm--or muttered dire threats as they passed me in the halls.

But now? Bullying spreads online like--like--well, like a virus.

Sourdough Bread

yesterday's loaves

In these days of quarantine, many people are now baking at home. I see the pictures on Facebook; I see the shortages of flour and yeast and other ingredients. In normal times I'm kind of a pack rat, so I've always kept "extra" bags of flour around, but I'm still checking every day for more--and not having much luck.

Anyway, a few FB friends have asked for my sourdough bread recipe, so I've reproduced it below--but, first, some caveats:

• Although I've been baking bread every week since, oh, about 1971, and even though I've been doing sourdough baking since the summer of 1986 (when I acquired my starter in Skagwa, Alaska), I am not an authority. I do not try a lot of different things. I've found what Joyce and I like, and I pretty much stick to those things--
• bread and rolls, waffles, pizza, muffins
• Much of what I do--and what you will likely do--depends on experience. I screwed up a lot when I was first baking (glad I didn't have a camera-phone then!), and I still have occasional (okay, rare) disasters, so all I can tell you is that you need to play around with it--don't be afraid: Sourdough is pretty hardy stuff.
• Also--don't go by the clock; go by how the dough looks and responds. Temperature and humidity affect rising times. Sometimes it takes 2 hours, sometimes 3. Be patient. It's gonna do what it's gonna do, and all you can do is be patient--as with a child or pet!

Here we go.

1. Once you've fed your starter and separated it--some for baking, some to return to the fridge for next time--take about 2+ cups of starter (at room temp), put it in your electric mixing bowl, put

   

   starter ready to separate--and bake

   that on LOW and slowly add the following ingredients:
1. 1 cup of warm milk
2. 1/4 cup of melted butter/margarine
3. 1/4 cup of honey
4. 2 teaspoons of salt
2. Slowly add flour to the mixture until it's kind of a thick paste--but not too thick. 
1. I use multiple kinds of flours (as many as sixteen!), but you want to make sure that you use more of flours that have gluten, less of those that don't. Reason: It's the gluten that allows for a smooth rise.
1. Some of the flours I use: oat, whole wheat, white, barley, flaxseed meal, graham, spelt, soy, brown rice, quinoa, teff, millet, kamut, raw flaxseeds, etc.
2. Again--be careful: don't put in too much and make the dough too thick for the beating (!) that will follow
3. When you have the paste ready, put it on medium-to-low speed and let it go for 7-8 minutes. This activates the gluten and will allow for a good rise.
4. When those minutes are over, return mixer to LOW and slowly add whole wheat flour (or white) until it's so thick that the dough is adhering almost completely to the beaters.
5. Here is where I use a dough-hook to complete the dough's transformation into a ball (return to MEDIUM for this). But you can throw it out on a floured board and do the same by hand.
6. Slowly add dough as the dough-hook rotates until it is cleaning the bowl and forming a fairly solid ball.
7. Remove it, toss it on a floured board, and knead vigorously, adding more flour as needed so that when you finish, it's not sticky. I knead mine 100 times.

   

   almost ready to shape

8. When it's a nice, doughy ball, put it in a greased bowl (I use spray oil to do so), cover it with Saran Wrap--or a damp towel--and set it aside on a rack in a warm place to rise. As I said, it could take 2 hours or 3 to double in size--which is what you want.
9. When it's doubled in size, toss it back on the floured board and, using a knife or pastry cutter, cut it into the number of loaves you will be making. (This recipe produces enough for a large round loaf and a smaller one.)
10. Shape the loaves by hand and place them into greased pans (or use parchment paper, which is what I do now)
11. Cover and set aside on a rack for Rise #2 (about an hour and a half--could be more or less) until it's again doubled in size.
12. Preheat oven (350--or whatever temp your baking pans call for). Just before the oven is ready, scatter some flour over the tops of the loaves (I use a sifter to do so), then use a very sharp knife to slice the tops.
13. Pop them in the oven for about 40 min or more (keep an eye on them--the time varies).
14. When they're done, they will be brown (duh) and will sound hollow when you tap the top.
15. Remove them, put them on racks to cool, and, later attack them!

I should note that I use a variety of pans--mostly clay these days--sometimes with tops, sometimes not. Follow the instructions that come with those pans for temperature, top-removal, etc.

Again--I play around with things almost every week. I guess I'm just advising you to figure out what you like--and go for it!

Sunday Sundries, 273

1. HBsOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Is there any question? This week? Any week? Every week? HEALTH CARE WORKERS.

2, I finished three books this week: one on Kindle, one that's on my nightstand and gets attention every night or so for about ten pages, one that I read during the week.

     - The first was A White Arrest, 1998, by Ken Bruen, whose novels about Jack Taylor I devoured after streaming the TV series about him (called, oddly, Jack Taylor).  (A "white arrest," by the way is cop slang for a great one--an important one.)

This volume is part of a series about London Detective Sergeant Tom Brant, a crude and violent fellow who may, perhaps, be one of the most un-PC of heroes. This book is part of a trilogy (The White Trilogy)--and, yes, I'm going to start the second one tonight. This story is about some brutal murders of the English cricket team by ... ain't tellin'.

Features of Bruen's style: short chapters, lots of space breaks, dark humor, much dialogue, literary allusions (Brant loves Ed McBain novels--I ate them myself quite a few years ago). I would say one of the principal characters in his novels is Mr. Unexpected.

The books ends with a grim surprise--also characteristic of the Taylor novels--but we'll assume the best because Brant returns in the next book, Taming the Alien.

     - The second I finished was Heart and Science (1882), a late novel by Wilkie Collins (1824-89), whose complete novels I've almost ... completed. (He is probably best known for The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868).)

This one is very dark (most of the way) and involves a young physician (who is ill himself), Ovid, and a young woman, Carmina, with whom he's fallen in love. (Complication: She is his first cousin--though that was not the problem then that it is now.) They pledge their love, plan to marry--but Carmina's mother (and Ovid's aunt) is horrified, and, believing a foul story about Carmina's mother, refuses to sanction the marriage.

Meanwhile, Ovid has left for Canada to recover his health, and Carmina, stunned by her aunt's behavior, swoons and seems near death.

Another physician in the story, Benjulia, is a heartless man, experimenting cruelly on animals and (as we later learn) on people. He is watching Carmina--not really to heal her but to see how her illness progresses! There's also a creepy piano teacher (who gets his).

The resolution arrives ... Ovid returns ... and Carmina ...? Ain't sayin'.

Anyhow, I love this paragraph about vanity--has some contemporary relevance, wouldn't you say?

The general opinion which ranks vanity among the lighter failings of humanity, commits a serious mistake. Vanity wants nothing but the motive power to develop into absolute wickedness. Vanity can be savagely suspicious and diabolically cruel. What are the two typical names which stand revealed in history as the names of the two vainest men that ever lived? Nero and Robespierre (204 in Broadview Press edition).

I've got only four Collins' novels left!

     - The third is The Egyptologist, 2004, by Arthur Phillips, whose complete novels I've been reading (thank goodness, he's not in the same prolific group as Dickens, Trollope, Collins).

This story--told entirely in letters, journals, and interviews--is about a young man Ralph Trilipush, whose name I learned elsewhere, is an anagram for Arthur Phillips! (Wish I had figured that out; I didn't.)

Trilipush believes that there is a previously unknown Egyptian king, Atum-hadu. And in the early 1920s, as Howard Carter is about to discover the tomb of King Tut, Trilipush raises money from some wealthy investors (one has a daughter whom Trilipush successfully courts). And off he goes in the search.

Oh, and he's also self-published translations of some poems supposedly written by the mysterious king and discovered in the desert. Throughout the book he's continually giving signed copies of the book to other characters (in a sometimes vain hope to impress them).

Trilipush's back story--WW I, Oxford University, his status as a Harvard adjunct--comes into question--as does the entire Atrum-hadu business.

We jump ahead in time, too, to the 1950s when an old private detective, now in a nursing home, is telling the story, via letters,  to another investigator.

Well, Trilipush finds a tomb (or does he)--and inside, lots of ...

This is a powerful novel about obsession, about self-delusion, about how arrogance and outsized ambition can lead to lots of trouble.

I like this: A small scrap of words can yield as many interpretations as there are interpreters (334).

Phillips is astonishing. I've read five of his books now, and each is so different from the others--in subject matter, time period, style, narrative technique. Oh, the research this guy must do!

3. It was a sad moment last night when Joyce and I streamed the final episode of the two-season series The Detectorists, about some English metal-detecting folks. Gentle and wise and moving and funny and sad and ... you-name-it. It's available on Amazon Prime. Thanks to friend Chris for pointing us toward this one.

4. But we've started the new season (6) of Bosch on Amazon Prime (based on the LA detective created by Michael Connelly, who produces here). One difficulty: trying to remember what happened last season!

5. We finished the latest Netflix comedy special by Chris D'Elia, who has an incredibly expressive face and body. Definitely not PG-13 (or PC), but we both laugh a lot when watching him. It's his 3rd special, I think.

6. I've been able to get back on our exercise bike. My dizziness--so constant now--allows it, and I handle it better than walking.

I haven't worked out at all really in the past month or so, except some mile-walks with Joyce during the quarantine, but I'm riding 10 minutes now (burning about 100 cal) and will slowly increase the time as my breathing and leg strength allow.

7. Final Word: A word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from The Oxford English Dictionary

Henriad, n. With the and capital initial, as the Henriad: Shakespeare's four historical plays, Richard II , Henry IV, Pt. 1 , Henry IV, Pt. 2 , and Henry V , considered as a group or performed as a cycle.

Origin: From a proper name, combined with an English element. Etymons: proper name Henry, -ad suffix1.

Etymology: <  Henry, the name of two Lancastrian kings of England who ruled between 1399 and 1422 (as Henry IV and Henry V) + -ad suffix.

 

1935 Observer  31 Mar. 17/3 It was a good idea to supplement the first part of the ‘Henriad’, now on view at His Majesty's, with its even greater sequel.

1944  J. Gielgud Let.  14 Aug. in Life in Lett.(2004) 76 I wanted to do the Henriad—Richard II-Henry V—at the beginning of this year.

1975 Criticism  17 195 Throughout the Henriad such concepts as ‘legitimacy’, ‘divine right’, and ‘divine justice’ are evoked and examined.

2004  A. F. Kinney Shakespeare's Webs  iv. 109 The Henriad is, finally, a tribute to Henry V's ability…to restore firm rule. 

The Snow Is Melting ... Again

Here in Hudson, Ohio, yesterday's snow is disappearing fairly quickly--nothing like above-freezing temperatures and some sunlight to speed the process.

We've had snow here the past couple of days, but, like most snow-in-April, it won't last very long. It's almost as if it somehow knows it should not even be here--like an ex-boyfriend who shows
 up at his ex's wedding. Stays a little bit. Departs.

Yesterday, though, it was depressing. Not only are we house-bound (and you know why), but the skies were dark all day, and clumps of snow were perched atop our new magnolia blossoms like whipped cream on a fancy pink drink.

from our bedroom window

But as I look outside right now (about 8:45 a.m.), see that the whipped cream on that pink-magnolia drink has disappeared, consumed by Old Sol, and I can almost see the snow melting in the yard, on the sidewalk.

Ah, the wee pleasures of quarantine!

Because of the gloom and the cold and the snow yesterday, I was not in exactly the most sanguine of moods. (More of a sanguinary mood!) I had to force myself to get up at my wonted time (6 a.m. these day), force myself to clean up, dress, do my chores (unload the dishwasher, etc.), and settle in for my morning's work, which yesterday included finishing a book I'm reviewing for Kirkus Reviews, then writing and filing the review online.

This was an odd one for me--not the book. I review general nonfiction for Kirkus (history, memoir, etc.) and have been doing so for twenty-one years. But yesterday I finished my first book in .pdf form, a text I read on my iPad. Apparently, the magazine is going to be doing this from now on--no more ARC editions (Advanced Reading Copies), pre-publication paperbacks that I've been reviewing since I began in March 1999.

And I actually liked it. Two principal reasons: (1) I could enlarge the text, and the first time I did so, my aging eyes sighed in unison in gratitude; (2) later, when I was writing the review on my laptop in my study, I could quickly check quotations and spellings by doing a simple search in the Adobe Acrobat program.

So ... all of that improved my mood--even though the snow was continuing, the sun was hiding.

Later, in the afternoon, I began reading Ian McEwan's 1998 novel, Amsterdam, and, as usual, he limed me on the first page.

(Okay, limed? I love that word--learned it from the Bard. It derives from the old practice of catching birds to eat by putting a lime mixture on branches they like; the substance catches them--they cannot fly. So ... if you're limed, it means you're caught. Here's an example from Much Ado About Nothing. Some of the characters have planned to trick both Benedick and Beatrice, who love each other but won't admit it--not even to themselves--and as the conspiracy is in progress,  Ursula, one of the servants, says: She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam. (3.1)).

But it's hard to feel too sorry for myself for too long--even on a mid-April snowy, gloomy day while under quarantine: We have food, shelter, services, safety.

Each other.

And How Remembered?

Yesterday, I read the news accounts of the death of actor Brian Dennehy, 81. (Link to New York Times story.) Several of the headlines mentioned him as the “star” of Tommy Boy, that wild 1995 comedy starring SNL pals Chris Farley (RIP) and David Spade. This was the headline on Yahoo News: Brian Dennehy, "Tommy Boy" Star, Dies at 81.*

He was hardly the star, was he? It’s his death near the beginning of the film that propels his son (Farley) into his position as an on-the-road salesman (with Spade) to secure contracts for the late father’s auto-parts business. Some crazy stuff happens—as you may recall.

I’m sure, of course, that those headline-writers wanted to remind readers who Dennehy was, but I bet he would laugh if he could hear how important Tommy Boy became in his career!

I do remember that film (and, confession: I’ve seen it more than once), and I remember him in some others like First Blood and Cocoon. And as I look at his complete film list in IMDB, I realize a couple of things: He did a lot of films; I saw a lot of them.

But what I remember most clearly about him? His stage performances. Joyce and I used to attend the Stratford (Ontario) Theatre Festival every year—from, oh about 2002-2017. We saw eleven plays in six days, and, several times—several memorable times—we saw Dennehy.

And he was something to see, live.

We saw him as Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a production that updated the setting, not the language. (He was a guy who loved golf.)

We also saw him in a one-man production: Krapp’s Last Tape, a one-act play, by Samuel Beckett. The play is about a man with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and at one point on the day we saw it, the recorder stopped working. Dennehy paused, stood and walked off the stage. A bit later, a crew member brought out a different one, and on they went, as if nothing had happened.

The last time we saw him was in a great production of Waiting for Godot, also by Samuel Beckett. There was a Q&A after the production, and there he was, in make-up, obviously weary, but answering questions with intelligence and aplomb.

We had seen him one other time, too—exiting another Stratford performance with us. We’d noticed him in the audience—it was an arena theater venue, and he was directly across the acting area from us. Couldn’t take our eyes off of him. Watched him more than the play.

And it was quite by accident that we ended up right behind him in the exit flow. It was all I could do to stop myself from tapping him on the shoulder, telling him how much his performances had meant to me. Didn’t do it—wish I had. (And I cannot even remember what we were supposed to be watching that day!)

Dennehy’s death headlines made me pause a bit. We can’t really know what we’re going to be remembered for, can we? Will it be the great things we did? Or the mistakes? The right moves we made? Or the wrong ones? The people we loved? The people we hurt?

I guess I’m glad I don’t know. I realize all too clearly the good, the bad, the ugly of my life.


*You'll note that the Times headline is more ... generous.

Ahab Limps On

from New Yorker, 13 April 2020

Some of my Facebook friends have no doubt noticed that I periodically share a cartoon that employs the images of Captain Ahab and/or Moby-Dick. (I shared one today--see pic at the top of this post.) The captain and his white whale continue to endure in the comics--if not necessarily on the book shelves.

As I kid I read Moby-Dick in its Classics Illustrated comic-book format. I read it lots of times then--an exciting story of a crazy guy chasing a white whale--and losing all in the process.

Later, in high school, I had a bizarre schedule one year: four consecutive study halls in the afternoon. I really had no excuse for not having my homework done, did I? Sure I did: sloth.

Up in front of the Hiram High School study hall was the little school library, and I would often go up there, browse through, oh National Geographic (hmmmm, wonder why?), The Saturday Evening Post (loved the cartoons), and other magazines.

Or I'd check out a book to read--usually something about cowboys or baseball players.

But then that John Huston film of Moby-Dick came out in June 1956 (I had just finished sixth grade, and we were moving from Enid, Oklahoma, to Hiram, Ohio, where my dad would teach at the college). That film arrived in Hiram (where the college sponsored Sunday night movies) on November 11, 1956 (my 12th birthday!); I saw it and loved all the action. Oh, Gregory Peck as Ahab! Link to some video. And, checking IMDB, I see that Orson Welles was in it, as well--I'd totally forgotten that.

So perhaps that memory, still percolating in my head a few years later, sent me over to the M's in the Hiram High library, where I pulled from the shelf Moby-Dick and took it back to my desk, which, appropriately, was, like all the others, bolted to the floor.

And I read it.

Sort of. I'm certain that at age 15 (or so) there were vast portions of it I could not have comprehended; there were numerous words whose meanings I didn't know (and couldn't infer) and so ... skipped.

But--with those, uh, exceptions--I read it. My parents, I'm sure, were stunned.

I've read it quite a few times since: college, grad school, later on for pleasure and/or edification.

When I was teaching at Western Reserve Academy the final decade of my career (2001-11), I taught Melville's story "Benito Cereno" (about a revolt aboard a slave ship), so I read a lot by and about Melville during those years. I read all of his other works (even that endless poem Clarel) and every major biography of him (and some minor ones, too). And some modern versions, too--like Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife: Or, The Stargazer (1999).

Anyhow, there's something about that story that has engaged the American imagination. Even though many people have probably not read it, the images of Ahab, of the white whale, are so firmly entrenched in our cultural memory that we can look at a cartoon about the book--and there are many--and smile.

First printings of the book (1851) remain real collectors’ items. Dedicated to Melville's friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, the book did not sell well. (That's generous: It sold poorly.) In fact, Melville's career began its nose-dive about then. By the time he died in 1891 (he'd been working as a customs inspector in NYC), he was pretty much gone from the prominence he'd earned with his earlier works--like Typee (1846). Many apparently thought he'd died years before.

So, if you're thinking of picking up a first printing to give, say, to your former English teacher, be prepared: I just checked, and a good one is going for about $84,000 on abebooks.com.

the $84,000 copy

So maybe we should end with a little more humor--yet another Moby-Dick cartoon, this one from August 2014.