Fun at the Gynecologic Oncologist's

First of all, I don't have a gynecological cancer, at least not as far as I know.  I'm trying to avoid having one which is why I spent my morning hanging out in an examining room for my local five-star gynecological oncologist.  Really, she was great - she started by pointing out that she owned the same pair of Danskos that I was wearing.  I then noticed that the resident and medical student who were tagging along with Five-Star were also wearing Danskos. (This happens a lot in Vermont, wherever professional women are gathered, but I digress).

I had to wait for quite awhile in that examining room and, as always when left alone in an examining room, I see what there is to see.  This one featured the first SPECULUM WARMER that I have ever seen.  I write SPECULUM WARMER like that because the typeface was huge - like 50 point.  I wondered about this.  Perhaps it was meant to calm patients who want to know why the doctor is reaching into that little microwave.  No, it's not to get a muffin  Lean Cuisine, just a nice, warm speculum.  (If there had been post-it notes in there, I would have left one saying NO MORE COFFEE IN THE SPECULUM WARMER PEOPLE!  THIS MEANS YOU!  There weren't any though).

The other thing that caught my attention was the panel that had been placed over the fluorescent lights in the ceiling above the examination table.  It was a vibrant scene of a coral reef.  Instead of "close your eyes and think of England" you can keep your eyes open and find Nemo.  There were three clown fish.  I counted. I sort of knew I would have to make fun of this, but I was also a little touched that someone, architect, nurse, doctor, whoever, took the trouble to hang a marvel of nature over those who are subject to examination.  Honestly, coral reefs always make me reflective about our creator.

I also spent a few minutes contemplating the screen saver on the laptop the nurse had left behind.  It showed the facade of the new part of the hospital in Burlington.  Like all venerable east-coast hospitals, ours has Dickensian bits linked to slightly newer bits, linked to parts of the set of Logan's Run.  The new part of our hospital, Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, reminded me very much of the Hilton at Terminal Three at Heathrow.

New Entrance at Fletcher Allen Health Care minus door person

Honestly, I was happy to have this shiny new building in which to wait for my doctors. It made me think that America really still has a lot to recommend it.  Better not to have to be the patient, of course, but when it happens you want a warm speculum, clean windows, and a tropical fish panel.  At least I do.

Why Would Anyone Care? Morrissey Autobiography Review

I am asking myself that question about my view of Morrissey's book.  (Not about the book itself, of course.  Millions want to know!) It seems an appropriately Morrissey-esque question as I serve up my opinion.  I kept thinking as I read this book how likely Morrissey would be to despise me if he knew me (he despises so many) and how I would actually be a little afraid of him if we ever met.  Not much risk of that, thankfully.  So here's the review.

Autobiography by Morrissey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you have ever wanted to visit Morrissey's inner life (and I guess I have) it's in here. Quel surprise! It is a difficult, uncomfortable place to spend time. He is so vulnerable and so judgmental all at once, I kept thinking as I read (or skimmed the dull Morrissey's revenge bits) that it must be exhausting to be him (or be around him). I was, however, interested to hear about his family background and to see the few photographs of family that are reproduced here. There is an incredible charisma on view there, so it is not really true that he is the son and heir of nothing in particular. Also, among the screeds and puffed out calendar entries there are passages of pure poetry. The one near the end, where he is alone on a Mexican beach and feeling tired, is a passage I intend to go back to. This is not a careful or crafted book but it's his book and he is really something special.


View all my reviews

Morrissey's Best Song

Here's a picture that I took in a London market in Islington (near Camden).  It's here because I don't like blog posts with no pictures and because I liked these stamps.  (I bought three, then left them on a London bus. But that's another story).

Camden is a borough of London.  It has a famous market and a famous canal.  It's interesting, like all London neighborhoods.  Morrissey sings about it in "Come back to Camden," a somewhat obscure number in the Morrissey canon that first appeared on his 2004 album You Are The Quarry.  It was co-written by Boz Boorer.  (I looked Boorer up and he's famous, at least inside the music industry.)

I am a longtime Morrissey and Smiths fan but not an obsessive one.  I heard the song for the first time only about six months ago when it spun up on my Pandora playlist.  I  stopped what I was doing to listen. I  heard it again, made note of the title, and bought it on iTunes.  Then I bought it again when  iTunes told me that my computer wasn't authorized to play the track.  (I wondered if prickly Morrissey was requiring hyper-vigilance by Apple to make sure no one's cheating with his music).

I have since decided that "Come back to Camden" is Morrissey's greatest song. (Hold on, there's a link below to a fan-made video so you can listen after I've shut up). I admire the song for the way Morrissey and Boorer invoke the real Camden, with poetry that stands inside the circle of W.H. Auden - e.g.:

Drinking tea with the taste of the Thames, 
sullenly on a chair on the pavement; 
here you'll find my thoughts and I,
 and here is the very last plea from my heart. 
My heart.  
For evermore. 

Where taxi drivers never stop talking, under slate grey Victorian sky, 
Here you'll find despair and I, and here I am 
every last inch of me is yours...YOURS...For evermore. 

That physical Camden is thus summoned economically and powerfully, as is the damaged survivor of a broken love affair:

Your leg came to rest against mine, then you lounged with knees up 
and apart, and me and my heart - we knew... We just knew...

What makes the song truly great, however, is that "Camden" is also a metaphor: a garden of Eden where love bloomed until the shocking eviction.  The hopeless plea at the end of the song,

Come back to Camden and I'll be good, I'll be good!

is delivered with elemental desperation, as heart rending as the screams of a confused child in a hospital.  It is made more searing by our certain knowledge that there is no getting back to that Garden.

In his autobiography (which I am reading now and which is surprising and not surprising all at once - more on that in another post), Morrissey said: "The magical properties of recorded noise had trapped me from 1965 onwards [note, that Morrissey was six in 1965]. Song made a difference to everything, and permitted expressions that otherwise had no way through."(emphasis added).  When I read that, my thoughts flew to "Come back to Camden:" which conveys this world of meaning in its tidy, listenable four minutes and fourteen seconds, thanks to the singing.

All songs are more than the sum of their parts but this song: words, music, and that voice, carry a payload all out or proportion to the apparently modest package.  I hope you will like it as much as I do.

Last Night I Dreamt of New York City...

I dreamt that my fifteen-year-old daughter had rented a nice one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise somewhere in mid-town.  I was impressed. How had she managed this at fifteen? I wondered in my dream.  I have been underestimating her, I thought, as I noted that the three rooms were all decent-sized.  I was also worried, however, because there was something menacing about the crepuscular streets below.  Also, though her roommates had not yet arrived, a lot of people had left skis and snowboards in her living room. I was worried these ski owners were taking advantage of her and apartment in Manhattan - and then I woke up.

I know dreams are among the dullest topics of conversation but indulge me. I'm struggling here.  I am trying to stay awake until a grown-up's bedtime.  I am blaming my dream-filled morning for my fatigue.  That and work.  My daughter recently got her first job and she's showing a certain terrifying initiative.  Manhattan is down there waiting. Apparently, I have things on my mind.

OK.  So it is now just past 9 PM and I think I can retire without being  positively geriatric.  Actually, one bit of excitement remains in this short evening. I just downloaded Morrissey's autobiography to my iPad and I'm going to read it as soon as I get my teeth brushed.  I'll report back here.  Here's what they're saying about it over on Goodreads.  What kind of dreams might Morrissey's life story trigger?

Good night.  Thanks for bearing with me.

Great Free Stuff

Do you see that banner?  (The Swan up there?)  I love it so much I may have to go and lie down.  And, (are you sitting down?) a high quality download of the image was free to me (and to us all) from the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  They are inviting people to get into their art, download images, make stuff.  Doesn't it give you hope for humanity?

I got this there tonight:

I would wallpaper a room with this cat.  Have  I mentioned about my Dutch ancestors?

And this.

Let's talk about this bourgeois skating owls who are wearing their (poor) lunch for a moment.  What could this possibly be about? Somebody write a story about it please.

While we're on the subject of FREE and stories, I have to mention that my ebook is free to download on your Kindle or with your Kindle app all weekend.  Here's the link.

I wish it were as wonderful as those owls.  Happy weekend.

An Open Letter to Fred Armisen - Vermont Calling!

Dear Fred,

We were all so excited here in Vermont to see you last night at the Unitarian Church in Burlington (of all places!).  

 Really, your show was excellent and (I'll say it),  I was a bit thrilled that I got to ask you a question during the Q&A.  

Sorry if I took liberties, like, where you didn't actually call on me, but you made eye contact while my hand was up so...   

My question, by the way, was whether you "should maybe move to Vermont." (Awkward phrasing.  Sorry).  But it was a real question, not an applause line (or not just an applause line).

About your answer... You said something about how with your personal ban on sugar you couldn't face the ice cream situation here   

It was the second time you brought up your sugar restriction during the show.   My friends and I were commenting after the show, BTW, that you were looking very well, if thin in that (celebrity) way associated with people who have restricted diets and can get expensive (vegan, usually) food.  I chalked your answer up to the fact that you are perseverating about the sugar thing and that, expert though you are at improvisation, some things just require a little thought.  

Now that you have had a night to think it over, and have actually woken up, at least once, in Vermont, I expect that you have been pondering my question.  (I hope it didn't keep you up or give you trouble unwinding last night. I would hate that!)  A couple things I felt I should pass on to you as you reflect on your Vermont situation, or current lack thereof.

1.   Lots of famous people live in Vermont,  E.g. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (he's dead now, but he lived here for a long time), Julia Roberts (not sure if she actually lived here, but she visited a lot for a while, or so I have heard), David Mamet (he wrote something once about how he got help on his Vermont taxes, not sure what he's up to these days), Harvey Keitel (I think he's got a house around here. I heard once that he used to go to this restaurant that I like in Stowe), Michael J. Fox (I don't think he's still around, but he definitely did live here for awhile). You get the picture.  Soviet dissidents, playwrights, international film stars. At home in Vermont. Also, Phish.  (I met one of the guys from the band once and he was super nice). Also, either Ben or Jerry.  I can't remember which one left for Arizona.

2.     It's easy to get from VT to NYC.  You can take Jetblue, at least if you don't have a private jet timeshare or whatever.  Maybe you don't want to be, or become, the kind of person who has a private jet timeshare.  While I'm here giving you advice, I'll add that. 

For my part, I like to go to New York now and again and this has been made a lot easier by Megabus service from Burlington.  Megabus, if you didn't know, is a place to see some real This American Life stuff, including drug dealers on a budget.  I actually prefer to drive down to the train station in Albany, New York and ride Megabus into NYC then take the train back up (both leave from the Rensselaer station).  One tip. Don't lean against the headrests on Megabus.   

While we're on the subject of drugs, do not be misled by the person who shouted out last night that we "smoke a lot of weed!" here.  Nonsense. Opiates have become more popular.  Also, we ski. (If you're a skiing type of person [read, "middle class" who hasn't squandered money on drug]s).  Other orders snowmobile and ice fish.] 

3.     If you like Portland, You'll Love Vermont.  You didn't want to compare Burlington to Portland but kind of got stuck there last night, didn't you? I hope you would agree that one of the best things abut "Portlandia" is that it is not a "real" place altogether, but a stand-in for a lot of real places/emotional states.  E.g., "Chinatown" (like, from the movie), The Hotel California, Your Own Private Idaho, Margaritaville, etc.  I don't mean that "Portlandia" is like those places, of course, only that it is also partly metaphorical.  (I was in London visiting friends in September and met people who were trying to bring back organic agriculture on canal boats in the Thames - like, container gardening on these skinny boats. "Londonia?"  I think so).

4.     The License Plates. A pleasant green, no nonsense. 

   In short, I think once you have had some time to let the seed that I so cleverly planted germinate to reflect, you will see that you have a future here in Vermont, like other sensible, occasionally brilliant, famous people before you.  I actually wouldn't recommend downtown Burlington because part of living here in Vermont is keeping it real and Burlington it is just getting to be too much like Burlingtonia. Of course, it is a nice place to visit, as you have now seen. 

Really, we all loved the show and we're so glad you came. Hoping to catch you at grocery store around here sometime soon.

          Your fan,
           Kim




     

Snow Giddiness

I was surprised when I parted the curtains just after six this morning to find snow all over everything. It looked like this:


My son is twelve and I am pleased to report he had the appropriate enthusiasm for the first grass-covering snow of the season.  We pulled out the sled and the next thing you know I was throwing church to the wind and making a movie trailer.  I am lucky that my son has a sense of humor.  The value-added part of this is that it's almost like a real movie trailer (and I thought it was funny).