Wilmette Notes: Dismayed at the idiocracy

     I have a certain genius for tuning out the world, closing my eyes to the horrors and the injustices. Just ignore it. That is a luxury that Caren Jeskey doesn't permit herself, as is clear from today's report. 

By Caren Jeskey

Among The Multitude
Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.
Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by my faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.
           — Walt Whitman

     The average life span for a man when Walt Whitman died on May 31, 1892 was about 45. He lived to 73. Does having a calm and present demeanor increase life span?
     Stress is a precursor to depression and anxiety. Biden’s White House website noted, “As we mark Mental Health Awareness Month, our country faces an unprecedented mental health crisis among people of all ages. Two in five American adults report symptoms of anxiety and depression, and more than half of parents express concern over their children’s mental well-being. Over forty percent of teenagers state they struggle with persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.” 

      Dismayed at the idiocracy all around, I asked some friends who are either from other countries or are now ex-pats how they feel about the U. S. of A.

     An expat now living near Mexico City says “I think of a country that was founded on the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African Americans, that was built by the exploited labor of Asian Americans and Latin Americans, that has more military force than any other country and uses it to imperialist ends and for the aggrandizement of US corporations, that has lower quality of living indicators than many peer nations (healthcare, education, etc.) yet still tries to propagate a myth of innocence and superiority.” 

     I got to see the blight of this reality as a social worker. We still stand on the backs of others to get what we want.
     Personally, privilege has created a climate of greed in me. I want want want. Comfort, gourmet food, high quality distractions. The tragic thing is that our country is literally falling apart and we are in a serious, collective mental health crisis. It’s inspired me to simplify even more, to give things away, to reach out to help others in small ways, and try to imbue meaning into my life whenever I can.
      Our image conscious society is broken. We don’t raise people up to be solid and content. Adults are a mess, so how can they (teachers, parents, etc) lead young people to internal safety? They can’t until they find it themselves. Research clearly tells us what to do, but we won’t. Most people point to underfunded social service agencies, churches, and to countless forms of “them” to solve the problems that must be solved by the community itself. They rail and complain but don’t take action to help.
     A local friend originally from Croatia (who’s there visiting now) said the first thing that popped into her mind when she thought of the States was “Simon and Garfunkel, second thought, Arlo Guthrie.”
     Similar to our dear Mr. Whitman, these gentlemen spent time honing their creative sensibilities, observing themselves and the human condition, and getting it down on paper for us. We feel more connected to life through them.

     “Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together. I’ve got some real estate here in my bag. So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies and we walked off to look for America.”                      —Simon & Garfunkel, "America"

     Arlo Guthrie writes on his website “I want our country to be the one that helped everybody, no matter their politics, religion, or traditions. That would be a country to be proud of.” In his song City of New Orleans written by Steve Goodman, he sings, “Good morning America how are you? Say, don't you know me? I'm your native son,” imploring his land to help him feel welcomed. “Through the Mississippi darkness, rolling down to the sea, but all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream.” Why are we so prone to ride the rails and sing about how lost we feel?
     My Croatian comrade remarked “whether in super subtle ways like Paul Simon, less subtle ways like Steve Goodman, or totally direct ways like Chuck D, I grew up learning from truth tellers. No illusions about the US in my young head. Btw it's now exactly 20 years since I moved to the US.”
     A friend from Skokie notes that we are “a country with a groundbreaking constitution that is no longer serving us. And has been hijacked by minoritarian protofascists and confederates.” I had to look that one up. Thanks wiki: “In minoritarianism (or minorityism) is a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority segment of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that entity's decision making."
     So what will I do with all of this? As my mind swims with fear and dread, I am more committed than ever to do my best to stay out of ruminating about the past or fearing the future. I’m running my second 5K this month tomorrow. I took a ten mile walk the other day. I’m marveling at the pops of green all around, and spend time in the woods.
     I met someone and we dated, casually, for about 6 weeks. It ended last week, much to my chagrin (even though there were yellow and red flags there since Day 1). But we had fun together! I was heartbroken— maybe more than I should have been after such a short romance.
     As Walt said in the poem above, “some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.” I guess I thought my moment for partnership had finally come. The one who gets me. I’d be like the normal people on TV. House, yard, partner. Then I realized that this was my Disney brain falling for a false knight in shining armor, and Walt probably meant self-love anyway. Or so I'll tell myself.
     I may get shot to death anywhere at any time. I will pull from the many great minds in my life, those who have come and gone and those who are still here. I will learn to continue to tolerate this human experience, and day by day do all I can to soak up every nuance of my fragile precarious life.

My opponent is a fiend who likes Joe Biden

Mayim Bialik is the latest host of “Jeopardy!”

    My routine is fairly fixed. I wake up, write something, walk the dog, eat something, water the flowers, write some more. A little exercise, maybe run an errand and it’s time for dinner. Not what I would call a life of thrill and triumph. Maybe even a rut. Even so, it’s my rut, shuffled by me, and I’m content enough. It not only could be worse, it will be.
     At least there isn’t a lot of television. Sometimes, if my wife is working downtown, I’ll sneak in half an hour of “Peaky Blinders,” a BBC program about a violent crime family in the 1920s. There’s a quality about Irish actor Cillian Murphy, a wide-eyed, expressionless stare that is endlessly satisfying to watch. Another numb, shell-shocked witness to numb, shell-shocked times.
     My mother, however, is in the hospital, and for the past two weeks I try to drive there every day, sit at the foot of her bed, and make small talk. Wednesday I was there at 3:30, and she announced it was time for “Jeopardy!”
     I don’t have to explain what “Jeopardy!” is, right? A popular game show where answers to questions on a range of subjects are given to three contestants, who try to provide the questions that evoke them. “Jeopardy!” debuted on television when I was 3, and I’ve been watching it ever since, when somebody else watches. “Let’s watch ‘Jeopardy,’” is not a thought I’ve ever had.
     Since I’m always with company, I like to blurt out the answers to show off how smart I am. There is something very circle-of-life about watching it with my mother now. We watched it in the mid-1960s, hosted by Art Fleming, on our black-and-white Zenith. And we’re watching it still, on a flat screen TV, almost 60 years later. That’s sweet, right? Or horrible. Or both.
     This being primary season, most commercials were a Punch and Judy Show of Republican candidates having at each other. Their opponents are all liars and scoundrels and, worse, closet Democrats, either on their payroll, or harboring the secret shame of having voted for Joe Biden. Montages of awkward photos narrated with frozen contempt.

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Is that the Second Coming or the First?

     All religions are nonsense given a somber patina by the span of centuries and the endorsement of millions. I get that. All have some useful moral precepts they pretend to endorse — treat people kindly, don't kill folks, etc. — that are perfectly fine unadorned and on their own. But believers feel obligated to dress up their basic morality with the most rococo impossibilities and time-killing ritual imaginable. Angels. Prayer. Heaven. Miracles. That kind of thing.

     And I understand that any hope or suspicion that my own team might be slightly less ridiculous than the norm is mere self-love and chauvinism. Jews believe their own forms of silly, tedious spoodle: the obsessive waste of keeping kosher. The years spent learning an arcane language like Hebrew. Debating the Talmud. 

     But at least those are the familiar, acceptable tranches of gibberish.  There is something extra disturbing when a faith conjures up something new and ridiculous.

      Not that the tendency of Lubavitch-Chabad Hasidic Jews to announce that their late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is the messiah is anything new. Ever since he died in 1994, and his flock eagerly awaited his resurrection (which, spoiler alert, did not happen, yet) the sense that he has come to usher in a new age is embraced by many — Joseph Newfield claims most — Chabad Hasidim.  

     Non-fanatical Jews are either ignorant of this, or embarrassed and try to pretend it doesn't exist. Even the Lubavitch often downplay the Schneerson-as-savior bit. They generally like to present a benign, earnest face to the world, as joyous cheerleaders of Judaism, hoping to move the world toward salvation with each tiny act of religious obligation, whether pressing weak tea Jews to wear tefillin and pray, an imposition I have written about, or encourage Jewish women to light Sabbath candles, or distributing matzo at Passover.  To be honest, I find them inoffensive and admire their ability to conceal the contempt they must feel for supposed Jews who don't do any of the obligations they consider essential for living a good life. To add to those 613 commandments of Judaism a 614th, to believe that a cleric dead more than a quarter of a century is the second coming of Christ is a step too far, and off-brand for them, so they suppress it.

     Which might be why true believers are now opting for a more in-your-face approach. The world is becoming less restrained, more vigorous about imposing one's private fantasies on others. Why should Jews be any different? I saw these mini-posters slapped on Walk signs on the East Side of Manhattan during my recent visit. As with all expressions of zealotry, you have to wonder what impact the fervid perpetrators hope to have. Do they really expect any Jew not already on their bus to see these little posters and think, "He is? Oh good! About time." Perhaps it's more an expression of power: we're here, we actually believe this enough to march around Manhattan with stepladders and posters and paste. Deal with it. 

      Or not. I truly don't mind that people embrace an enormous spectrum of spiritual hoo-ha. It makes them feel better. Life is a long time, laden with boredom and tragedy, and it helps to have a pretty story to glance at when the world gets ugly. It's a shame they can't believe it quietly, and must try to wangle their ridiculous notions in the faces of those simply trying to get down the street unmolested. But such is the world. Yes, claiming this guy is the savior — if he is, then why aren't we saved, huh? What's the hold-up? — is part of the ugliness, not part of the relief that faith can offer. But then, that's me. And the world isn't all about me. As the years go by, I'm more and more certain of that. It's a shame religions couldn't push that concept more. That's a good word worth spreading around. 

What are offices for?

     “We should have both worn babushkas,” I whispered to my wife, after the guard scanned our IDs, took our photos and directed us toward the bank of elevators, one already open, waiting to whisk us to the 39th floor. “I should be carrying a chicken.”
     Well, not both. I was being succinct. My wife’s hair would be in a kerchief, but I would wear some large, sincere peasant hat. Plus a scattering of straw on our clothes.
     “That’s how I felt when my parents came to see my office,” my wife remarked.
     Of course she did. Most kids do. While not as culturally prominent as traditional rites of passage, like communion or commencement, the parental office visit is no less real. The pivot between the first quarter of life — childhood, education — and the subsequent half century of adult employment.
     Though like everything else, the Mom and Dad Inspection Tour takes on new meaning thanks to COVID-19, and our often depopulated workplaces.
     It’s less traumatic, for starters, when your new colleagues are mostly virtual. There is nobody to cringe before. Our inability to embarrass our unflappable older son, even a little, sapped some of the fun.
     “These are my parents!” he called across the polished wood and granite vastness, to a group of well-scrubbed young people.
     “Nice to meet you!” one young man shouted back, though we hadn’t met, or even broken stride.
     “He’s my summer associate,” our boy explained.
     I’ve been in my share of swank law firms, with glass conference room walls that turn opaque at the touch of a panel. But this joint, in New York’s financial district, took the prize. It had the quiet immensity of a pharaoh’s tomb, or an unused set for the movie version of an Ayn Rand novel directed by Fritz Lang.

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Bottomless

 

     Our son works in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. So when we visited him last week, we got a hotel room next to the new One World Trade Center, steps away from the site of the old, and of course we paused to contemplate the 9/11 Memorial, "Reflecting Absence."  

     If you've never been, the footprint of the north and south towers of the old World Trade Center have been preserved, two squares formed by bronze parapets, listing the names of the 2,983 people who died that day in the terrorist attacks, plus those lost in the 1993 precursor bombing.
    Water cascades 30 feet down each side — the largest manmade waterfall in North America— and in each pool, what I consider the brilliant stroke, is "a smaller, central void," in the words of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Those two square pits you can't see the bottom of, a perfect physical evocation of endless grief after profound loss. You yearn to see a bottom, but there is no bottom. Only emptiness.

    The design, by the way, was done by an Israeli-American architect, Michael Arad, his work picked out of more than 5,000 submissions. While not generally a fan of memorials, some events are so enormous, our humanity demands it. Which makes me wonder how we will commemorate COVID. Arad has proposed something interesting to honor the 50,000 New Yorkers who died of COVID: a "floating sanctum" at the bottom of the Central Park Reservoir.  It would only appear when the water is lowered for maintenance. Most of the time it would be out-of-sight, which is fitting, since even the most terrible events submerge in our consciousness. Time heals whether we want it to or not.

     “I liked the idea that for one week each year, you could access a place in the city that at other times is just a submerged memory,” Arad told Architectural Digest. “The Reservoir exhales, the level of the water sinks, and the dam appears so you can traverse it on foot.”

     I imagine, on that one week a year, it'll draw quite a crowd. For a long time. But not forever. Nothing is forever. Not even grief.

O (You Aren’t Fleeing to) Canada

Canadian cultural institution

The world’s a fine place and worth the fighting for. — Ernest Hemingway

     Every day that Americans agonize over abortion, decry the war in Ukraine or rake their fingers bloody over the brick wall of guns is another 24 hours closer to the day Republicans try to steal the 2024 presidential election, with better odds this time. More pliant secretaries of state. More true believers waiting in state legislatures. A hyper-partisan Supreme Court.
     And as much as I’m concerned about women’s rights, Eastern European atrocities, school massacres, etc., those issues pale compared to the prospect of the United States no longer being a functioning democracy. Where a candidate like Donald Trump can lose, as he did in 2020, by 7 million votes — quite a lot, really — yet insist he won and, far worse, be supported by an enthusiastic mob of leering lackeys and blind bootlickers.
     With that in mind, I posted on Facebook a chilling column by the Washington Post’s Max Boot. “We’re in danger of losing our democracy. Most Americans are in denial.”
     The very first comment ended: “The outlook is bleak. I’m going to study a move to Canada.”
     Again with the Canada.
     The “Ho for Canada!” crowd has to realize they represent a vein of weak, selfish, cowardice that is among the worst qualities of the Left, almost as bad as the subservient, anti-democracy terror that causes supposedly free Americans to sprawl before seditionists like medieval peasants groveling at the passing of a nobleman on horseback.

There are many potato diseases in Canada.

     First, have you been to Canada? It isn’t free; it’s empty. A nation a little larger, in area, than the United States with 1/9th the population. California has more people.
     Second, if the point is we are trying to avoid letting the United States devolve into the white fantasyland of Republican dreams, well, some 80 percent of Canada is white. I’m surprised Republicans aren’t mooning about escaping there. The national health care system must put them off.
     Yes, I understand there’s a “Why-didn’t-they-get-out-when-they-could?” dynamic. All those good German Jews who stuck around as the nation went insane in the 1930s, hoping for the best when they should have been on the next boat out of Bremen.
     But we aren’t anywhere near that, and if Democrats can find a spine, maybe we never will be. Pre-emptive surrender is not a success strategy. The United States isn’t 1938 Germany. It’s 1931. There is still time to avoid the catastrophe. But that takes work. And people.

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New York City is quiet

     On Wednesday, the day we arrived in New York City, we joined 3,432,047 other riders on the subway, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or 58.2 percent of the ridership on a comparable day before the pandemic struck in early 2020. 
      As it happened, that was the last time we were in the city, Valentine's Day, 2020, and you could feel a palpable difference. It was a little quieter, the streets a little emptier. We always got a seat on the subway. Though accuracy demands that I point out the above picture was taken after boarding at the World Trade Center stop of the No. 1 train—near the beginning of the line. It got busier soon thereafter. But never too busy.

    I don't want to overstate the case. New York isn't a ghost town. Katz's Deli was jammed when we hurried there for our welcome-to-New-York hot pastrami sandwich and chocolate egg creme. (And what does a hot pastrami sandwich cost at Katz's? $25. In its defense, the sandwich must have had a pound of warm, juicy pastrami—we split it—and was worth every penny).
     The High Line, a hiking trail salvaged from abandoned elevated train tracks, was certainly populated, losing a bit of charm since we first went there, after it had just opened. "It's more crowded than the street," I groused. Still, an amazing amenity, and good to see it so popular. We walked the entire route.
     We did some fun things I can recommend. My son popped for the "Chaos at Hogwarts" virtual reality experience at Harry Potter New York. I agreed, but reluctantly—I couldn't imagine it being worthwhile. But it really was. You don VR goggles, a backpack, wristlets and foot monitors. The experience plunks you in the middle of the Hogwarts world, the VR headset augmented by fans and dripping water and vibration as you walk gingerly through the castle and finding yourself contemplating vertiginous vistas, the shifting staircases and dining hall and such. You have a wand, and help battle various creatures. Someday we'll occupy our movies as they unfold around us.   

     We went to the Guggenheim, not expecting much—we hadn't gone in years, and the main show highlights Vasily Kandinsky, who always left me cold. He hadn't improved, but we appreciated his twee, colorful paintings. And there was an unexpected treat, a show "Wearing Masks" by British artist Gilliam Wearing, on the issue of identity, that was challenging and weird and quite enjoyable.
     But the best part was walking the streets, seeing the buildings and the people. The murder rate here is far lower than Chicago's—I guessed a third; it's actually a sixth. There just isn't the sense of menace you can feel on some streets in Chicago, though that might have been visitor's naivete. I hesitate to say it: but New York feels safer than Chicago.