Prophet Song Terrifies

Dystopia: an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

In the 1990’s I taught Atwood’s Handmaids Tale to Grade 12 students and much later, it became the series of the week. We were pinned to the television wanting to know  Offred’s  future, if she had escaped from her situation to safety in Canada. We knew that every hideous attack in the book against humans had been committed somewhere in the world previously, from deprivations , tortures, rapes , hangings, impulsive and erratic slaughters, and we were shook by the horrors that happened and terribly, continue to happen. And yet Atwood provided the stories of the Handmaids with small streaks of joy from hidden friendships, babies’ chatter, a smile, a glimpse of green.

In Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, from the outset, there is only darkness, fear and grief, all whispers or minuscule peeks to alleviate the overwhelming canceling of human life. From the first knock at Eilish Stack’s door by two nondescript men, her world is polluted, invaded by a virus that is so heavy that it changes the very air she and her family breathe. From that moment, her world begins to collapse “…for something of that darkness has come into the house.” And we experience her unease, “she wants to put the baby down; she wants to stand and think…  and into the hallway of its own accord, something formless [is] felt. She can sense it skulking alongside her as she steps through the living room.”

Although the signs were all ready in place, that heaviness, that invasion of brutality envelops more and more. The location of the story is Ireland but the details, the whys, the actual opponents are not named, not competing religions nor nations, merely repressive acts. She is encountering the government, agents of the Garda National Services Bureau and later as they rise up, the rebels, who will further tear apart her life. Our entry into the demise is through this one single family and Eilish, scientist, wife, mother, daughter and friend who attempts to hold her world together as it is dissembled, initiated by that initial corrupting knock at her door.

Nothing important, the men say, just have him ring us. Paul, her husband, deputy general secretary of the teachers’ trade union is the first block to be removed from Eilish’s scaffolding. Her children resent her, believing she is somehow responsible, for all children think we can protect them endlessly. Indeed, she tries. She’s just an ordinary person making calls, reaching out, engaging lawyers, doing her limited best to unravel the tangle in which she finds herself.

Bailey, her 12 year old, calls her an old bitch, blaming her for sending their father away. Yet she attempts to maintain the routines of normalcy for her children, getting them up for school, going to work as manager in her biochemist job, attending to her father’s needs, keeping the semblance of everyday life alive as her existence continues to come undone . But in spite of her ongoing endeavours to have Paul released, he has been sucked up into an unknowable vacuum of blank faces, meaningless words, useless outreaches.

Bailey admonishes her with talk of “ the worm” who has gotten them. She brushes that attack away, but it is true. This world where there are more and more restrictions, more barriers, more limitations  marked by controlling newsrooms, national emergencies, armed guards, nondescript detectives, illegal arrests and detentions, silenced lawyers, increased spying, more bombings… does resemble a burrowing worm. It quietly works beneath the surface, digesting the once recognizable surfaces by infiltrating  quietly, insidiously, overturning familiar space into ugly unrecognizable lumps.

Her sister Aine in Canada beseeches  Eilish to leave as quickly as possible, but like people tied to their homes and certainly too many Holocaust dwellers before the final solution, she is rooted, unable to cast off her associations, relationships and ,of course, is determined that Paul will be released( is organizing a peace march a crime?) and she must look to her father Simon’s needs as dementia creeps into his life, and what of Molly’s sports and Mark’s girlfriend, Samantha? Aine repeats, “history is a silent record of people who did not know when to leave, yet leaving is not simple. Ironically, occasionally Simon does see clearly as he reminds Eilish that she believes in rights that don’t exist, “the rights you speak of cannot be verified, they are a fiction decreed by the state”. He implores her to leave him behind and go to Canada – anywhere but here. Eilish pushes the idea aside.

And yet Paul does not return and Mark at school receives a call up for the army. So in spite of Eilish holding things together, the platforms of her existence are cracking: Molly quits sports, refuses to eat; both Mark and Bailey disregard government curfews, people disappear from jobs and on the street and at work, and Eilish cannot stop the darkness, the troubling invader that has arrived at her door with the knocking of those two men.

Lynch’s style reinforces the terror as sentences of thoughts, and spoken interchanges are not separated on the page, nor designated by quotation marks. We are caught in Eilish’s world, held captive to her thinking and doing. It is difficult to immediately discern sentences spoken out loud from sentences in her mind. And there is that continual confusion of the mind’s darkening paranoia.

The word “body” is a motif repeated throughout. She is merely another body to either group that shoots innocent people at barriers, dispensable, faceless, grist to their mill, to be moved about, made to disappear. She experiences events in her body, not intellectualizing them. Details are grounded in concrete experiences and when Bailey is hit with shrapnel that requires an operation, Eilish is caught in a labyrinth of hospitals, lies, equivocation and horrors that are more dreamlike than real. The reader, you, is increasingly and more and more deeply drawn into  this unrelentingly breathless style that Lynch commandeers so we cannot disregard the ground crumbling beneath our feet  along with Eilish’s holding at bay the entrapping reality that is swallowing both her and her son. We whirl in meaningless obfuscation, talk that hides and manipulates the ordinary person when we need answers to our worst nightmares; the only question: where is my son?

Life as Eilish once knew it plummets and plummets. the truth of anything cannot be known; she “learns again and again that there is so little we can control and understand in the face of societal collapses.”

Indeed, when he wrote Prophets Song, Lynch said that  he was then thinking of “the unrest in Western democracies [and] the problem of Syria — the implosion of an entire nation, the scale of its refugee crisis and the West’s indifference.”

In these unbelievable days of totalitarian and fascist governments, horrors worldwide, Paul Lynch’s novel continues to frighten, almost documenting attacks in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza… bringing them closer. “The end of the world is always a local event,” Lynch writes near the end of his tale. “It comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore.”

No packing up, no exit, no reprieve, no Canada as sanctuary, and nowhere to run. Well written, engaging and troubling, and although one friend described it “ miserable”, I find it worse .

 

 

The Curious Case of Lisa LaFlamme

Much is being written about the sudden denouement to Lisa LaFlamme’s career. Much like a swift bullet in the night, we were surprised and unprepared for the sudden termination( OK end of contract) of the broadcaster who intelligently and elegantly presented the news to Canadians. She had background experience, communication and engagement skills, a compassionate yet balanced approach to her craft and a wise stance to the nightly news. And we, especially women, are pondering why?

Strangely, the early part of the 21^st Century has not been treating us women well. With the reversal of Roe vs Wade, the return of girls to former subjugation in Afghanistan, along with the perpetual wish that older women just vanish, we see the signs of women as unwanted people, to be mocked, hidden, treated as less than we are. How much of The Handmaids Tale foresaw a tale of women as mere pawns. More and more, information of sexual abuse crimes are emerging, evidently allowed to persist in realms of gymnastics and the military. Sadly, it’s old news but heralded the feeling : women do not control their own fates. In deed, the freedom of most countries can be ascertained by how women are treated.

When Farah Nasser was promoted to the NationalNews on Global, I did not recognize her for her appearance had been altered , her beautiful dark hair lifted, poofed and highlighted blonde, her clothes refashioned: to ensure she appeared younger and more appealing: to whom? She might have been a host of Entertainment Tonight or some other silly show, not news at 6:30.

Maybe it was Laflamme’s return to grey hair during the pandemic that signalled to her bosses that she must go. Experience, presence, knowledge be damned. And should you think I’m making too much of hair colour, just turn to the front page of The Globe Thursday August 18, where Robyn Dolittle reproduces Michael Melling, Laflamme’s boss, preoccupation with her locks that they were looking too purple under the studio lights.

Years backs I noticed that Lisa LaFlamme had also been made over for the television screen. Her wild thick hair tamed, and more attention given to her clothes. I suppose, her bosses deemed that she was to be made sophisticated, appropriate, well heeled, groomed, in control and worthy of her audience’s gaze. Her former life of copy writer, script person, parliamentary, co- host roving reporter in Africa to be eclipsed , now brought into the studio, tidied, now anchored to a desk, respectable and classy. In this subsequent makeover, she’s been remade right out of her nightly chair all together and gone from the screen.

Inspite of the unreliability of the newspapers to get the story totally straight, the facts remain, that LaFlamme is gone. And I think we know the answer.

In attempt to connect with younger viewers, LaFlamme unlike Nasser could not be made to look sufficiently younger, apparently ,and her boss was intent on the need to reach out to a new demographic audience. Ageism is written all over this. Throw in a general dislike of older women who most would prefer return to their children/ grandchildren or vacation away in Maui, and you get the idea.

Ironically, the younger audience CTV desires has such a short attention span, they get their news, fake or not, from sound bites, pod casts, social media, one another, maybe perusing a mag or zine at the dentist office, but by and large, they ain’t watching the news and more and more, newspapers are disappearing too. Fortunately for the older, seasoned journalists, most bylines are not accompanied by pictures and names are ambiguous.

Plenty of research (and internal media demographic surveys) show clear generational divides in news consumption habits, with baby boomers still choosing to watch TV’s evening news. The Millennials and Gen Z instead, go to social media for news updates. Data from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission substantiate declining rates of traditional TV consumption each year among Canadians aged 18-34, whereas rates among those aged 65 have stayed relatively consistent.( Robyn Urback, The Globe and Mail)

The older, more careful , researched, interviewed methods have gone the way of the dodo replaced by sound bites. This new generation just ain’t watching. Their attention span initially corrupted by Sesame Street’s quick three minute scenes of muppets has been accelerated so that the attention span of our populations familiar with speed, entertainment has dwindled considerably. And if this revamped watcher happens to tune in, the anchor person should be newly packaged like someone hosting the Bachelorette or resembling them. Apologies to Nasser.

Again, it’s so ironic, when shape, size and gender are not supposed to matter, a role model who has risen to a position of importance is ousted. As if to say, over again, out with the old women. And from where I sit, she isn’t old, looks young and vital and has many many years of action. I’m thinking of Hazel McCallion, Judy Dench, Nancy Pelosi and the respectable others. Even prepped for prime time Liz Cheney, and she’s blonde although dowdy, has gone down in the last round of primaries by 35 %!( and she’s about the same age as Laflamme). Speaking out against the male bastion in the Republican Party, wanting to bring Trump to Justice is not the way to succeed . At least right now. Thoughtful, moral, intelligent , rational behaviour are not the standards to be upheld. Fie on the Marjorie Taylor- Greene and the idiotic Sarah Palins who are deemed popular and relatable, given onscreen time.

I’m unsure why women are being removed from positions of authority. Once there was Golda Mier, Kim Campbell and even the horrible Margaret Thatcher who were electable. Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Barbara Frum were respected people in the public eye and they were women. Not to mention Judge Judy! Have we all ready forgotten RBG, her pearls still a symbol of dignity and brains in motion!

Are men and male corporations so insecure that women must be sent back to the kitchens? In a world, where everyone is supposed to be equal, all given fair and just chances, it appears that those in power are still men, men who pull the strings and are uncomfortable with women who remind them of the reality. Dare I say it? Their mothers and sisters and wives: and worse yet, that truth that youth does not last forever, that we are all grist for the millstone. Even men out there. I thought the glass ceiling might have been breached by now. Didn’t Sheryl Sandberg tell us that it was possible to “ lean in? And Joanne Schneller wrote,

LaFlamme joins a long list of women anchors who appear to have been replaced for aging out (among others, Ann Curry, Gretchen Carlson, Meredith Vieira, Carol Anne Meehan). “Business decision” is often code for “She gets paid too much.” And on Tuesday, Canadaland reported through an unnamed source that LaFlamme was ousted by a white male vice-president who “doesn’t like it when women push back.” Allegedly, she fought for more funds to cover the war in Ukraine and to keep a long-time colleague. But the reason for replacing her is likely not what she fought for, it’s likely just that she fought – full stop.( Globe @nd Mail; Aug 18).

And The Beaverton tongue not so far in cheek, added to that by saying..

…that Bell Media expressed regret over unceremoniously replacing LaFlamme at 58, “when clearly she should have been fired the day she turned 50. … We cannot apologize enough for subjecting our viewers to the sight of a woman who is almost 60 years old.”

When you write, when you present and speak, you must know your audience, and believe me, those young’ ums at 11pm are not watching your news so unless you decide to go the way of the station doing news in the nude, your viewer count is not going to rise.

And as Heather Malick also stated on August 17, she won’t be watching CTV. Neither will I tune in. But then neither will the sought out audience that the station is pitching to.

We do have wonder at this hideous revisiting trend of repressed and insidious attacks on women, especially for our girls growing up. Savvy and intelligent just aren’t in vogue these days.

Miss Understanding

Frankly I don’t get the world today: likely my parents felt this way too as they aged.

With the leaked draft document of Roe v. Wade, I am incredulous at the state of the world. But then a Trump and post Trump world have left me quaking, not just at the man himself but the followers and the shape of a world in which Matt Gaetz, Tucker Carlson, J.V. Vance, Marjorie Taylor Green and their ilk are paid, not only elected but move about, spewing such lunacy that one wonders if we have not returned to the terrain of the Dark Ages wherein folks were dazed and mesmerized, truly illiterate, believing in superstition and literal religious dogma as once written. In deed, the fisherfolk in Outlander come to mind in the 18 th Century as they scream at Claire for her witchcraft because they are incapable of understanding science and research.

Here in the 21st Century where issues of race and inequality have been more deeply examined to right wrongs of past ignorance: dissected, corrected championed in attempts to repair damages. Yet we are still held back by the petty minds that prefer to cling to their caves, chattering about nonsense. Those rejecting vaccines most recently come to mind, especially those who shamefully defecated on downtown streets, the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, and those who blocked passage to hospitals in Toronto, protesting their rights.

The US Supreme Court is leading the most recent embarrassment. A sanctified place where educated people, apparently, who were supposed to leave their personal bias at the door is more than disturbing. We laughed at Clarence Thomas’s wife, her ridiculous extreme Conservative views, but there is a saying about choosing one’s bed fellows carefully. Now, one should not be tarred by the same brush as their companions. But we tended to believe in independent thinking, that each person is capable of following their own mind, being honest and true, deciding by principles, not willynilly.

But Neil Gorsuch ( “abortion was settled law”, he said in his culling for entrance to the judicial highbrow set), and Brett Kavanaugh who also lied for purposes of entrance to that lofty chamber, stated on record that abortion had been “ settled as precedent”. And Amy Coney Barrett, with her five minutes as a judge, in her Jacksonville lecture, said she expected that the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision “would be hollowed out.” No one should have been surprised at how she would vote either. In short, these fine exemplars deceived out right and did not follow their original dictums. But again, this is Trump and Republican territory.

You can obviously maintain falsehoods bare faced and then ignore your own words. Mitch McConnell has no problem talking out of both sides of his mouth either. Yet in this cases, these Trump appointees’ stayed true to their original religious beliefs rather than coming to the big questions unbiased as they swore they would. Bred in the bone, as it has been stereotyped, these judges fit the bill. And if these so-called great minds , leaders of free and impartial ( HA!) thought have succumbed to prior prejudice, can we be amazed at the behaviour of the mere locals who follow their loud mouthed leaders.

In my mind, this movement back to ignorance recalls for me Pieter Brueghel’s(1568) painting of The Blind Leading the Blind, a chain of sightless souls, blind to their own downfall and destruction trip over one another. In deed, the rationale behind the justices’ interpretation is called “ originalism” and “ textualism” wherein the Constitution and other laws are interpreted as they were understood at the time of their crafting.( See Adrian Morrow’s If Roe v. Wade is overturned, Globe and Mail, May 7, 2022). Even Ben Franklin posted in papers for his runaway slaves until he reasoned that his slaves had rights and deserved freedoms! We often refer to this kind of thinking as creating “artefacts,” bits of life that are frozen in time and place, and do not interact with contemporary context, thus outdated for people in the present. Unless laws change, make sense, they hold no relevance to present day actions. They belong in dusty museums – of what was, not what is.

Alito in the draft says it’s time to heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the peoples’ elected representatives. Oi.

With no required educational requirements, these representatives of the people are driven, much like the Supreme Court justices, terribly, by their own motives of ignorance, greed, political goals, and personal biases. How terrible terrible. Already, there are 13 states with “trigger laws” which will extensively ban abortion poised to go in effect if Roe is defeated( Rosie Dimanno , May 4) and 26 other states “ teed” up to ban abortion too. Worse yet, abortion in Louisiana would be classified as homicide, parents, doctors possibly prosecuted for murder.Progressives fear for the demise of other rights resembling Brueghel’s descending men overturning gay rights, same sex marriage, civil and voting rights also landing in the ditch.

In deed, welcome to Gilead. I ponder once more ,incredulous, that women are not permitted in the 21st century to rule their own bodies! Ironically 80% of Americans do support abortion. For more than 40 years, abortion has not even been much of an issue – except to the poster-carrying masochists who gather at corners to terrify little children. Yet the peoples’ elected representatives are not showcasing their constituents’ voices, rather -they prefer to be Trump’s bumboys, following a party line of extreme right, pro- religion ultra Conservative white guys and women( shame) who still need to control the trajectory and sanctity of another’s life. And that Susan Collins believed Kavanaugh’s drivel that he would vote fair mindedly on Roe, only makes me want to tear my hair at her stupidity. Yet only in her inconsistency has she been consistent.

When I taught Handmaids Tale in the 90’s in a North Toronto high school, we demonstrated that we valued girls as individuals, capable of thinking, choosing, directing personal choice. In the classes , students were incensed by the attitudes and restrictions on women’s lives and bodies, amazed that Atwood’s exemplars were rooted in reality. Back then, I would have imagined with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, election of Obama, the demise of Apartheid, Perestroika ,attempts at Arab Spring were moves towards a more just world that would deepen understanding of motivation, psychology, difference, diversity along with a growing acceptance that instead of a narrowing of rights of minorities, society would have blossomed for the sake of Justice .

Instead, many of these movements did not succeed, and sadly there have been a reawakening of selfishness, an increase of callousness, an increasing provincial outlook that reduces all of our freedoms. The election of Trump should have been the signal that stupidity had again risen and with it, the ignoscenti have made not only made their views known, but spread their contagion through social media where an opinion stands in for science, proof or dialogue, discussion or even thoughtful reflection. Where are our Zelenskys, and the noble aspirations of a society with true goals of democracy?

Lately I watch in cynicism at John Oliver, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher as they lambast these politicians, justices and society’s too many dimensions of folly: the politically correct, cancel culture, the tender feelings, the outright craziness( how about testicle tanning????).These tv talk show hosts attempt to counteract the idiocy with laughter and ridicule, holding up to the light the bravado of new outrages.

But continually I feel they are railing at the starless heavens, for Trump remains free, de Santis stupidly closes down Disney, and so many others spew garbage and little or nothing happens to counteract their effects to curtail their venomous trash talk : protected by free speech, a freedom once upheld but now twisted and distorted into falsehoods in the mouths of these crazies.

Still, I’m thinking that like the Supreme Court’s retreat on the attack of New Deal when FDR threatened to expand the court in 1937, the swell of protests, the real people will triumph and Alito’s pronouncement will remain in draft, with these Trump kids returning to count the number of angels dancing, not fornicating, on the head of a pin.

To hell with them, I say. Biden, stock the court with sympathetic jurists. These righties will attack you and call you names in any case. But in the end you will have done “God’s Work”! And future generations will sing your praises, not stand watch for Jewish aliens who eat babies.

Memes and Quid Pro Quo

I’ve always loved reading. Not a big surprise that a former English teacher admits it. I’ve found it interesting to hear new (really old words) or expressions revived, somehow finding their way into common day usage today. Especially as my eyebrows rise as words or entire sayings are being morphed to their essential bits or just plain ( not plane) letters.LOL, BTW.

My theory is that there is an elite unit or governing body that wishes to destroy our use of writing, hereby being able to control us, returning us to the dark ages of illiteracy and pre writing. Communicating in truncated letters in texts is not much more than the vernacular of grunts or the base fragments of words undressed to bare minimum. No need to cover those naughty vowels! Avoiding correct spelling, of which I am terrible, or due to sheer laziness, people delight in acronyms or scruffy bits of reduced words. In truth, z’s and s’s have also made me wonder: which is which. Not which is witch? Although I suppose a which could really be a witch. But isn’t that the fun, the untangling of homophones such as bear and bare, not homonyms such as to, two or too, and certainly not homophobes – which is something totally different all together.🤣 Language opens up a way to play, express, confound, confuse and dazzle. Just ask a politician or a comic how they entwine, pun, draw on metaphorical language: to manipulate their audiences to respond in guffaws, wildly cheer, jump to their feet or erupt into applause.

However, both the Quid Pro Quo example and memes reminded me of stories from my life. Of course, “quid pro quo” is Latin and I adored my Latin classes, even being elected president of the Latin class in the terrible days of high school:the role of president which actually no one wanted because everyone thought Latin incredibly dull and the responsibility was not cheerleading, fund raising or welcoming new students; it consisted of taking over lessons should the teacher be late or absent.

I thought of Latin as a game. Most decried its uselessness as a dead language and unless, they quipped, it was only necessary if you had decided to go to work in the church. Not something that 99.9% of Jews at Forest Hill contemplated as a profession. But for me, it was a hoot, playing with declinations, even the names of ”ablative, accusative, genitive, dative.. “ were a tickle to my mind. Much like English grammar, but more confusing, you had to prethink, parse, create. I wondered how Virgil and Ovid had managed a fluid sentence when every word had to be parsed differently.

And who could not love the first introductory expression we learned upon stumbling into our Grade 10 class , over which we giggled ourselves silly : semper ubi sub ubi. Or always wisely, always wear under wear. So Latin was not only a code language, it was hilarious. In Latin, I shone, recognized, in spite of my awkwardness and curly hair, as a star. But truly, who wanted to be a star in a dead language that most in that class would not have chosen if it had not been a required course. For after all, our school motto emblazoned over the auditorium was Non Nobis Solum which when I just checked meant “ Not for ourselves alone” although I had recalled it as something about reaching for the stars, Per aspera per astra: as most of the overachievers did at that school. Like spices to the soup, Latin sparked up the conversation or added a hint of mystery. Although, who ever dreamed of lowering their eyes and fluttering Latin bon mots seductively to their suitors.

The recent reference to the word “ memes” also awoke a memory. I never really understood the words “meme,” or even how to pronounce it properly . I did seek dictionaries, but like the difference in east and west coast time changes and/ or some mathematical equations, I don’t get them, believing there is a faulty wire in my head that refuses to ignite the synapse that makes meaning in those departments. Back in the 90’s when I taught at Northern Secondary, not only was Atwood’s Handmaids Tale ( not tail) on the curriculum, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was the choice for Grade 12 Gifted. It is the truth is stranger than fiction kind of book that follows seven generations of the Buendia Family in a series of repetitions amidst real and terrible events that actually occurred and are documented in South America, but are transferred to the fictional Macondo, a city of mirrors. Even names such as Arcadio and Aureliano, for boys or Ursula, Amarante and Remedios for girls are used over and over again throughout.

I’m ashamed to recount that the when I taught the book, I did not focus on Renata Remedios’ nickname which was Meme: one aspect of the brilliance of Marquez’s genius escaping me in the meaning and tautological cleverness!True, I think I did a pretty good job of pointing out the iterations, reoccurences,etc except for the attention to Meme’s name. I most definitely recall an assignment that allowed students play to explain a particular theme, likely the recycling or repetition of an idea. I remember one girl, maybe Kristen, baking copious amounts of pale sugar cookies to explain the proliferation of fecundity of the seasons as even the animals at the Buendias could not stop reproducing. David, I think- it’s been since the 1990’s- diagrammed reoccurring waves of abundance and scarcity in physics, linking a mathematical equation to explain the rise and fall of the fortunes of the family.

In all the discussions, I did not address the meaning of Meme and why it was so well chosen and woven into the surreal story. Mea culpa. ( see how useful Latin is. Even avoiding regret sounds loftier in Latin) , but again this expression has made its way into our daily usage too. Funny that. But these days, as I hear the words, no doubt correctly pronounced and used over and over. With the current focus on “memes”, I again returned to sources, and re- examined both pronunciation and meaning.

A formal definition states,

“’ Meme’ was coined by the often controversial evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. In it, he states the following: We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation”.(Jun 25, 2012).

On the Internet, I found Today I found out: Feed your brain, the writer almost reflects my confusion, when they say,

In its early days, “meme”, which incidentally is often mispronounced as “me-me” or “meh-meh”, but in fact should be pronounced “meem”, primarily was only known and used by certain academics, but today this neologism is beginning to reach widespread use thanks to describing the viral spread of jokes, ideas, etc. via the internet.

So ah- ha, the Internet has contributed to the spread of viral memes, BTW, viral’s etymology associated with virus – which is not a good thing at all.

For me, I give myself numerous lashings and apologize to all of my former students for not pointing out the connection between Meme, Remedios and all the repetitions in that wonderful book.

Meh.

Or WTF.

Naming and Food

My new granddaughter’s name in Hebrew is :Tova Shoshanna. The first name “ Tova” means good and the second, Shoshanna ,connotes for my daughter a happy memory of a beloved Hebrew school teacher who showered her students with delicious delicacies, thereby making after school learning sweeter.

I like the idea that Jews are, in a sense, double agents, in that they have public names, but also private secret ones in a foreign language, Hebrew, as if a secret code ring will only reveal their true identity to the persons who know the covert language.

People play fast and loose with the naming, some insisting that the letter of the English and Hebrew be the same so for example, the” J” in the English one Jordan and the Hebrew one Joseph ( actually Yosef) be related by the first letter of each. When I named my children, I wanted the meaning of the names to coalesce so that Jordan’s second name Bryan, strong, warrior, and meant the same as the name Israel,  ( written in Hebrew or Yiddish -Ysrul, for the person named) .

Yet totally unrelated, my grandfather’s name in English was Sam, no doubt , someone assigning the Jewish monikers, Sam and Sarah, to all Jews, even though my zaida had arrived from Romania early in the 20 th century, not post war. What connection had Sam to Ysrul- a name my daughterinlaw insists does not exist at all !(curious and curiouser, says Alice).

And because the vowels in Hebrew are added at the bottom of the letters in Hebrew, Ithought I would again play with the interchange between the English and Hebrew names so that I changed my grandmother’s name Molly to Amanda for my elder daughter, Ariel’s second name, (which for some reason she deplores) and which means well loved. But Sam/Ysrul’s wife was Molly, Malka, or queen in Hebrew (someone more than a hundred years ago following the first letter “M” rule) so I figured in my own strange logic that since there are no real vowels in Hebrew, I could transliterate and add the” A” to Molly’s” M “and make it Amanda. Besides queens such as Purim’s Queen Esther were extremely well loved as in Amanda.

And similarly , my husband Howard’s Hebrew name is El Channon, the El disappearing into the first consonant “H” for Howard so his mother must have figured likewise. In the end, the child winds up having two separate names, usually only being called the secret one in a Hebrew Schoolroom when he or she is called formally to the Torah.
Or to confuse even more, if the English name given is actually a Hebrew one such as  Orly or Shira , it stands in both languages.

I like the idea too that Shoshanna is associated with a delightful food experience for my daughter. When I taught English at Northern Secondary, twins Helen and Mia, who worked at Phipps bakery were given the cakes that did not sell after two days. Over German chocolate cake or peach pie, we would discuss Shakespeare or Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale, lessons made more palatable by an atmosphere that included coffee and cake. The entire tone of the classes changed. Instead of bleary sleep-filled eyes and lax limbs, students perked up in their early morning class, providing powerful insights to discussions. I too looked forward to the excellent bakery’s leftover treats that could feature foamy meringue, streams of bursting blueberries, and gooey moist caramel embedded in their baked goods. I am forever a patron of the bakery restaurant pondering which to select for my family’s birthdays, such as The Celebration Cake or Dad’s Special, their offerings as delicious as they were twenty years ago.

As well, sharing a desert or a meal seems to me an important feature of bonding to Jewish families. Marc Chagall wife’s memoir,Burning Lights from her life in Vitesbek, Russia, evoked for me the holiday meal, of a clan gathering and being together so many years ago. And for secularized Jews who may go light on the services, meeting for the family meal to inaugurate the beginning of a new year( Rosh Hashanah), or commemorate a biblical tale or triumph over slavery such as Passover , is based on our coming together to eat symbolic foods.There is the lamb shrank, the bitter herbs and the all time favourite of Chorosets, which is a mixture of apples, nuts and wine to commemorate the mortar Jews were forced to make for their bricks in Egypt under Pharaoh.

My favourite story concerns one of my grandsons on Passover. Thinking it great fun to dip fingers into the wine glass when reiterating the Passover Plagues, but not comprehending the Hebrew words, he enquired what were the words we were singing out, associated with dipping his fingers. Solemnly explained, they were the plagues of grasshoppers, darkness, frogs, locusts… death of the first born, he stopped and open mouthed, eyes huge, announced , “Those are not good things.” Indeed, they are not.

But the connections with food and love do continue. And I think fondly of finding something especially delicious to greet my grandsons when I get them at school. When the elder was at daycare, he developed a passion for macaroons, then just becoming popular. The tiny pastel- coloured gems were his delight for awhile. His brother, a chocolate addict is wild for the golden coins, Lindt bunnies and an entire wide range of anything sweet and chocolate. Tonight for their pickup, I made a special trip to the Chocolate Messenger to purchase the chocolate marshmallow treats adorned with multicoloured sprinkles. Their interest in cupcakes, even from Bakes and Goods, that uses Belgian chocolate and to my mind, the best bar none in the city, wanes and waxes. The occasional bag of sun chips or cheesies may suffice although I much prefer something homemade..

This is all to say that my daughter in naming her child reached deep into her store of memories that included a beloved teacher’s name, one that was fused with food. On Friday nights, my mother prepared her fricassee, chicken soup and roasted chicken, but her fricassee was outstanding. When asked what was the special ingredient she used, her answer was always the same: love.

Being Here

The other night at supper, a friend suggested that there was little point to the Women’s March. He said, “The women should wait until there is something to protest, like a bill or an action.” 

 I disagree
.

As a huge presence, the women were saying I am watching. We are witnesses. Of course, they did not want to have to take action and did not want to be violent. But they had to assemble peacefully.They did what women do: they gather together: to support, to console, to make themselves known as a huge body who wanted to assert and proclaim their power as an entire gender that does not support the politics all ready lived and dictated by Donald Trump.

Historically significant, the point was to send a message. Ironically, the women who massed together likely had not voted for the candidate so they had been unable to change the presidential results. So in spite of their numbers, they had not tipped the scales away from Trump at election time.

There have been peaceful marches before such as the 1963 Martin Luther King on Washington, Gandhi’s salt March to Dandi in 1930, the Selma to Montgomery March, all forms of civil disobedience to goad oppressors and declare there has been mistreatment in the world. However, the march may be the first to be a “ Women’s March”, although there is no doubt the suffragettes had gathered too: referred to as the suffragette “ parade” in 1913 in Washington, the word, of course, deriding the seriouness of the protest to a show or spectacle.
And on television last Saturday in San Diego, there were scenes from old age homes where grannies unable to physically join the march declared they could not believe how the attitudes towards women have been so set back.They sat besides their daughters and granddaughters, incredulous at the president’s tweets and twitters and offhand banter towards their gender.

Young girls today scoff at Feminism, laughing at its origins, but I recall Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug and even Marilyn French’s Ladies Room book when suddenly women were loudly pushing back, burning their bras in protest and demanding parity of pay ,opportunity, respect and control of their own reproductive functions. In Washington last week Gloria Steinem, now in her 80’s!, encouraged those who had come, to be there with their bodies as a statement against the policies that will decry and limit women’s rights.

Margaret Wente in Tuesday’s Globe wrote,

“But will this weekend’s march change history? Not a chance. Women’s solidarity is a mirage. Forty-two per cent of U.S. women voted for Donald Trump. Among white women, it was 53 per cent. The people we saw on Saturday simply reflected the Democratic base: big-city urban and suburban professionals, overwhelmingly white, along with people from minority groups. ”
I often read but do not agree with Wente although she presents another opinion, not an “ alternative fact” , and not necessarily a truth, although it may be her ” truth”. We used to be encouraged to listen to, not silence a diversity of voices so that one might ponder, or weigh their thoughts and perhaps come to a conclusion, or even consider there might be room for expanding or re- thinking  one’s original rumination.

 In the past , strides towards women’s rights were made slowly and even if the glass ceiling has not been broken, we did edge forward with more women doctors, lawyers, engineers,CEOs” leaning in”. I recall my own Aunt Marion involved in VOW, Voice of Women, an international group in the 50’s, protesting above all- nuclear bombs.Once when I travelled with her to Norway, we met with a member in Norway and I caught the passion in their voices as they discussed world issues. With David Muir, Trump trumpeted, “The world is a mess.”And how will building walls, policies of protectionism, isolationism, refusing refugees safe harbour, water boarding improve the state of affairs? Maybe if we stare at pictures longer and repeat the same slogans enough times, people will be brainwashed into accepting that repetition of untruths somehow converts them into truths. Shades of Clockwork Orange, Handmaid’s Tale and 1984.

To be repudiated, mocked and seen as fodder for sexual groping from the President of the  United States returns women  to the dark ages.It is demeaning, and infuriating- for oldsters and the future generations. Yet, that so many places in the world protested along with those in Washington recalls Helen Reddy’s song “I am Woman…see me roar”. Would that we didn’t need to roar, although we demonstrated yesterday it can be done civilly, quietly , with dignity, uniting all women.

As uplifting as it is to witness the rise of women power is the flip side: that it is necessary in the 21st Century to have to take these tactics towards a repressive 50’s minded male- in spite of Ivanka’s declaration that Look at me; he’s not like that. Just ask Rosie O’Donnell or the victims of sexual harassment. It makes you want to cry or scream out that the same stupid games are played over and again and that so many can turn away, wipe away the facts and ignore the reality that has matched forward.

 But the thinking goes along with the jingoism of America First. Where we thought we shared a global village, that we were all our brothers/ sisters keepers, and that together we are stronger, Trump has perpetuated the image of carnage, the Hunger Games, TS Eliot’s terrible post war vision of The Wasteland.

In all places, there is poverty, disease, brutality and sadness, but the idea of the American Dream had been a leitmotif that has underpinned what has been seen possible and the best in America: from education to financial stability and security from oppression and the rights that accompany democracy. Above all, rather than mongering fear, Barack and Michelle Obama offered hope for the country, reaching out and with their efforts, returning people to work, and making the White House, the People’s House, as it became to be called.
That green light at the end of the peer, beckoning.

In truth, I’ve always thought the idea of the American Dream a fantasy. Reading Philip Roth’s American Pastorale, I have stated that if Gatsby’s green light marked the symbolism of the dream, the forests of decay  in Roth’s novel signified the end. Yet people need something to move towards, to believe their hard work and dreams will amount to something more than a slavish life, corruption, and that at least as they yearn for those far shores, that the lives of their children will be improved, their potential realized. That vision and the freedoms we cherish have motivated others, extended a life line: likely  dead to those suffering in war ravaged countries.  What hope do they harbour now? 

In case, Trump has totally smeared the Obama years, The Washington Monthly lists some of Obama’s achievements which I quote here:

1.$787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid the most severe downturn since the Great Depression.

2.The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. The law tightens capital requirements on large banks and other financial institutions,  

3.Obama led six nations in reaching an agreement with Iran that requires the country to end its nuclear weapons program and submit to a rigorous International Atomic Energy Agency inspections regime in exchange for lifting global sanctions. This blocked Iran’s pathways to building a bomb, slowing down the development time for a weapon from three months to one year if Iran were to break its commitments.

4.Global Agreement on climate change was also achieved.
..

Wente again believes women’s rights will be safe. Once more, she writes,

“As one protest sign read, ‘We Not Go Back Quietly To The 1950s.’But that’s not going to happen. Cultural norms have changed too much. The laws have changed too much. Women’s gains are too entrenched. Women are no more likely to go back to the kitchen… ”

Would that be so, and there are enough thinking people who will refuse to turn back the clock, even as the Doomsday one pushes forward. Still in these times of fear and words that are easily bantered rather than carefully conceived and spoken aloud, we need as my friend Anne insists, something of beauty, upon which to dwell. And if that beauty has been clouded over by the darkness of Trump’s policies, at least the Women’s March took the pussy image and transformed it into a pink pussyhat.
And gave us a tickle, a smile .

In the 4th Century, Phrygian Hats, soft conically shaped provided the symbol for freedom for slaves from Europe.During the French Revolution, there was the bonnet rouge and for those old enough to remember Dickens’ Tale Of Two Cities, there was Madame Dufarge, one of the knitters who sat beside the guillotine. Ian Brown in referencing the symbolism of hats brought this character to mind as he referred to the sea of knitted hats that provided wave after wave of cat ears and colour , conflating both slurs and women’s reproductive organs. Besides the seriousness of the image, it also suggested a lightness, a way to reduce the repulsive intrusive comment used by Trump.
I can image Madame Dufarge holding her needles aloft, streams of pink pussy eats cascading over the heads of the marchers.

In deed, my daughter at an appointment last week, observed her doctor emerge from surgery wearing such a little hat.

Still, I cannot but hold that dark picture of the tricoteuse Dufarge in the novel, head bent, silently knitting as the heads rolled. The women in  the Women’s March  refuse to be silenced and sit quietly by the side of the guillotine chopping up the hard earned rights of the past. Like the pussyhats, they are essentials voice in a democracy to be taken seriously .