Siegfried Farnon or Lieutenant Columbo?

Siegfried Farnon (Robert Hardy)

Even at my age, it isn’t a bad idea to have a role model; perhaps especially at my age.  It is always good to step back and take a look at things, assess your weaknesses and opportunities.  All things considered, in my case  a role model seems like an especially good idea.

I have two candidates, both very suitable for the task.

On the one hand I present the urbane country gentleman Siegfried Farnon from the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small.  On the other is the scruffy and self-effacing Lieutenant Columbo, iconic NBC Sunday Mystery Movie mainstay from the 1970s.  I challenge you to find two better choices.   (Mother Theresa and Ghandi don’t count, unless you’re a beauty pageant queen.)

Interestingly, for all their differences, Columbo and Siegfried are remarkably similar.  Even apparent differences are little more than differences in style, rather than substance.  It makes me wonder if the difference isn’t entirely cultural.  Farnon English, Columbo American.  A comparison between the two reveals a lot. They  are like opposite sides of the same coin.

• Siegfried acts as if he knows more than he knows.  Columbo acts as if he knows less than he knows.
• Columbo has one dog.  Siegfried has several.
• Both men wear a suit to work, but Siegfried has a tailor.
• Columbo has one suit.  Siegfried has several.
• Siegfried has bad memory.  Columbo remembers everything.
• Both men drive old beat up cars, although Farnon upgrades as times get better.
• Siegfried is a better talker than listener.  Columbo listens better than he talks.
• Siegfried drinks frequently.  Columbo doesn’t drink…much.
• Columbo smokes cheap cigars.  Siegfried smokes a nice pipe.

The list can go on and on and on.  Both characters possess charm and panache.  Both are very adept at life and would make a wonderful role model.  So which should I choose?

Lt. Frank Columbo (Peter Falk)

I’m tempted to make a choice based on lifestyle and wardrobe, but I don’t want to brag about my tastes.  Besides I think there is a better way to compare and evaluate these two potential role models.  The comparison should be made on the very subtle way each relates to other people.  I will argue that Siegfried pushes and Columbo pulls.

Siegfried Farnon, the middle aged country veterinarian possesses wisdom beyond his years and has charisma to match.  And yet he remains very much like a child.  Forgetful, mischievous, and somewhat irresponsible.  Thus he must be the leader, pushing and dominating.  He’s everyone’s older brother and has that sort of paternal, clubby respect that we think of when we think of gentlemen.  Farnon is a sophisticated wit, a full voice, and a charming eccentric.

Not to be outdone, Columbo also is a charming eccentric.  Columbo, however, backs into his relationships with people.  He minimizes himself, retreats, and is careful to stay a rung or two below his subject.  He’s a master of deception, obviously, and in this way he pulls people to him.  He is disarming as much as he is charming, but he doesn’t necessarily put people at ease.  He is more nuisance than comfort.  But by appearing unkempt and inept, he invites people to make mistakes and he draws out the truth behind their personality.

And Columbo is super man.  Let’s face it, Columbo solves the crime as soon as he arrives on the scene.  Every time!  It is a standard that can only happen in 68 episodes of network television and make any sense.  And that’s key.  Columbo is full on entertainment.  It doesn’t try to be anything else.

Even a passive Columbo viewer knows what every fan knows.  Columbo has figured out the crime before the first commercial break.  So where’s the suspense?  There really isn’t any in Columbo.  You don’t worry that a criminal might get away.  That won’t happen.  There is very little danger or mystery in the Columbo series.  What there is instead is the interesting interpersonal dynamic of Columbo picking apart and reassembling the clues he needs to prove his suspicion.  It is brilliant!

So who do I pick as role model?  Siegfried Farnon, of course.  He’s more real world.  He dresses better, too.  But let’s face it, Columbo simply is a little too slick in a crime-solving sort of way.  Even though he pretends to know nothing, he knows everything.  He doesn’t mess up, he only looks messy.

Columbo is not the kind of role model a guy like me needs.  No sir.  A more flawed character is a more appropriate match.  Siegfried Farnon, for all of his refinement, is a very human character.  He is successful despite himself.  He drinks, smokes, has a temper.  In episode one it is suggested that he has a girlfriend, whom he left waiting due to his poor memory.  (This seems to be a well-established Siegfried characteristic.)  His book keeping is a mess and he stores his cash in a silver cup on the fireplace mantel.

Siegfried is perpetually happy and optimistic, however; for Siegfried Farnon, attitude drives everything.  An exuberant, forward thinking approach to life simply rolls over any troubles an inconvenient habit might cause.  He’s Siegfried Farnon and he isn’t going to wait for you to figure that out.  I kind of like that.

Best of all, Siegfried style isn’t easy.  One is born with characteristics and opportunities with which one must make the most of.  So it is good — it is imperative — that you aspire to someone who makes the very most of a lot.  No taking good fortune or bad for granted, and no ditching responsibility.  Siegfried sticks his chin out, shrugs off mistakes, and marches forward.  That is your role model.

Now I do indeed like Columbo.  Don’t get me wrong.  He’s just a little too good at what he does.  I have no choice but to look forward to a failure or two.  Columbo record is too solid for me.  He’s entertainment.

Farnon’s a way of life.

 

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GOP Rhetoric and the Power to Dismantle It

Conservatives, as we know, speak broadly in clichés and generalities, very little of which has any foundation in real circumstances.  Mastering the craft of empty bullshit is the surest way to the top of GOP politics, it seems.  And because achieving status with tactics such as these means it must work; there must be believers out there ready to accept even the simplest lies as truths and trash their own best interests in the bargain.

That in itself is trouble, but perhaps understandable in a sad way. People want to hear things that promise a simple way to a happiness they want to believe is theirs and familiar.

What is more troubling and less forgivable, are the lies and the liars who tell them.  But where do we pitch our fight?  Do we keep calling out the liars or do we need to unsettle the complacent?

If your power and advantage depended upon unfair policy favoring your interests, you would want to keep people away from the facts, too; unless — of course — you were a person of moral integrity, I suppose.  That’s another issue and one perhaps more troubling than ignorance.  It is better to be in ignorance of such things.  (Which, I believe, many conservatives choose to be.  Facts hurt the conservative position and we’re all naturally pain averse.)

So perhaps people like Bachmann, Santorum, and Romney are not all that skilled after all.  Perhaps they’re empty conveyors of canned messages.

Nevertheless, it is the bumbling so-called “moderate” or political middle in American society that troubles me.  How can we be so easily duped?  In an age when information is everywhere and accessible like never before, we don’t seem to care much for facts.  We care more about tripe like this from GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his vision for America.

“It is an America driven by freedom, where free people, pursuing happiness in their own unique ways, create free enterprises that employ more and more Americans. Because there are so many enterprises that are succeeding, the competition for hard-working, educated and skilled employees is intense, and so wages and salaries rise.”

Good lord.  Shut up.  At best this sounds like mocking dialogue from a Christopher Guest film.

The key words and phrases here — America, Freedom, Happiness, Unique Ways, Hard Working, etc — are abused and insulted in this sophomoric pitch.  Missing is any sense that these words have meaning other than serving as hooks for catching the gullible.

Conservatives use this trope of equating capitalism with freedom and happiness all the time and it is naive, simple, and stupid.  Exactly how is capitalism going to make you free and happy if you’re left on the outside?  Certainly capitalism enables economic growth and opportunity, which even in today’s Gilded Age, benefits everyone to different degrees.

Listen to Romney.  He simply presumes associations.  Freedom, free people, and happiness follow free enterprise which blesses the world with greater employment.  Jobs are the answer, always the answer, and the only answer.  It is that straight forward.

Well, not really.  (Especially if you cannot work.)

Anyone paying attention to the past two decades can see that free market — even regulated free market — doesn’t inherently equate with freedom and happiness.  Nevertheless, the myth persists and that myth can only persist as long as the public remains disengage from facts and the common sense of its own experience.  That bothers me.

We are a people which increasingly votes against its own future and best interests.  This comes from an inherent misunderstanding of our opportunities and risks in a rising global community.  Whether it is a matter of education, economics, environment, security or anything else, we cannot resort to the ideals and beliefs of past — whether true or not — to address the future.  Conservatives are inherently about conserving past practices and biases.  Ironically, however, they seem to understand least among us all how our great society and nation worked and rose to power in previous decades.  Under the banner of American Exceptionalism, they are systematically dismantling the social contracts and public goods that helped raise that banner.

Better than any GOP cliché is another that tells us knowledge is power, and that kind of power can dismantle GOP disinformation.  Until America’s majority wakes up and stops supporting political backwardness, we should not expect change.  Ignorance is not bliss.  The blame falls on us, the voters.

Related articles

• Romney’s Magical Capitalism (themoderatevoice.com)
• Ezra Klein on Mitt’s Vision Thing (seniorsforademocraticsociety.wordpress.com)
• Romney’s Disconnect With Average Americans (crooksandliars.com)
• The Gullible Center (nytimes.com)

The Most Significant Thing About Me Is…

I am thinking about it.  Are you?  The most significant thing about me is…

I am thinking about this on the fly.  Let me get some thoughts started.

I had been busy writing www.wheresgeorge.com on dollar bills and pondering aloof relationships.  I presumed such trivial efforts would set my thoughts free.  Alas, I was wrong.

So I sought sleep.  I have a preference for sleep, but sleep seems to be on par with relationships tonight.  Aloof.

Then I realized that all of these seemingly different questions could be related.  Fumbling with wasted time, missing persons, sleep and dreams…I was looking for an escape.

Sleep often has been my escape.  Dreams my escape.  However I think these escapes serve better as tools.  Dreams don’t free us from reality, they reconfigure it for us.  These reconfigurations point out patterns.

In dreams, as I have mentioned in an earlier post, being disconnected can be more real and tangible, almost in a comforting way, than the questions we live when awake.  Dreams are valuable counterpoints, a kind of therapy.  Therefore I have to believe that in the back of the dreaming mind is a dim awareness that it is all just a dream.  That reassures me somehow.  After all dreams are about working out patterns of physical experience, right?  Without the material that living the waking world gives us, we would have no dreams.

So sometimes I think the most significant thing about me is my ability (or liability) to believe in dreams.  I make the leap.  I conclude that dreams and non-dreams are necessarily interconnected and in hazy way, equally real and true.

Things can get better.  Things can get worse.  Whatever the situation, it will change.  What we take for granted — or fear — today will all be different one day. It is the same whether we dream or not, but a skilled dreamer understands how to steer the course of uncanny wanderings and wake up with either gratitude or relief.

The catch is learning to live in dreams as much as learning to live with them.  Accomplishing that is accomplishing a lot.

Let me give you Exhibit A:  The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.

Upon reflecting on my state of affairs, I thought I would turn to a movie that sometimes feels like a parody, but never fails to inspire me nonetheless, even if I am naive.  So I watched The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1956).  (Once upon a time I did start reading Sloan Wilson‘s novel, but I got sidetracked, misplaced the book, and never resumed reading, so my assessment of the story is all about the film, not the book.)

The film is very much about dreams, both good and bad, and it is about answering the question “The most significant thing about me is…” within the parameters of many dreams.  All the stock themes of dreams are there:  Identity, morality, responsibility, fate.

Our protragonist, Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) is haunted and harassed by both dreams and memories.  I think the key here is he does not resort to fighting them.  The epitome of stylized psychological cool.  Peck is comfortable in his dreams, good and bad.  They might be challenging, but they motivate him too.

Tom Rath’s more or less well-intending wife, Betsy (Jennifer Jones), pushes him along, sometimes in a belittling mean-spirited way, but for the most part Tom prevails in holding to his own course and values, even as he appears to defer.  This relationship dynamic repeats in nearly every interpersonal interaction he has with people in the story.  Again, Tom appears cool, comfortable in his own skin; but I think it is deeper than this.  He is in control with what dreams have done — as well as what they can do — for him.

And I think that is the accomplishment of the skilled dreamer.  You might be able to escape a dream, but you cannot escape how the turns of fate and stations in life meet and intertwine.  It is just going to happen.  Add competing wills, previous obligations, and life’s memories and the waking world is very much a dream — or at lease dreamlike — and it is one that you cannot escape.

Michael Arnzen's Notebook on the Strange in Everyday Life

Freud was onto this, of course.  He was a sharp guy with a special place for dreams.  In fact, as I plod along here, I think it might be time to pick up a copy of Freud’s Uncanny for a careful re-reading.   (There is an academic thesis in here somewhere.)  Of course we should review one of my favorite films, Wild Strawberries, once again, too.  (Don’t ask questions.  Just do it.)  But I am digressing…let’s get back again.

In short, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit is about defining yourself in a world of competing interests and perceptions, it is about accepting one’s fate and making something better of it, including taking responsibility for one’s fate and one’s station in life.  It might seem naive or cliché, but it is about the existential truth of the American Dream, and by that I mean “dream” in a very literal sense.

Dreams are never predictable; they lack permanence.  Logic often fails in dreams.  It is easy to see Tom Rath as a figure moving through a dream — the American Dream — and gaining control.  I like that.

Imagine trying to make Tom Rath’s character work today.  I am not sure it could.

We don’t know how to live with dreams — both good dreams and bad, literal and figurative — as we once did.  We prefer to have our world immediate and present…and very much contained within the presumption that all under control.  I don’t know if I like that.  I don’t know if that is a  rich and enduring life.  I think we’re getting weak and shortsighted, too eager to forget and too willing to believe we are best alone.  We no longer have a firm grasp for metaphors and allegories, especially for making them real.

The most significant thing about me is…I don’t know.  I am working on it.  Check back.  Presently, it is indeed the time for sleep.

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The End of Happy Hour and a Man with the Movie Camera…and Some Books and Things in Between.

Typical.

Tonight we celebrate World Book Night so I thought I would go out.  All in all a very good night, but one with some unsettling discoveries.

First off, it seems with a new staff at one of my frequent stops comes something of a hardship.  I no longer get all day happy hour at Amore Victoria.  This might be good for me specifically and good for society generally, but it is a shocker to pay double my familiar rate for house wine.  I might as well go back to the Brunello.

But not so fast…I did manage a glass or two and made myself friendly despite the absence of happy hour.  It was very simply a quiet pre-World Book Night stop and there’s no need to over prepare for that.

Magers and Quinn Booksellers hosted a World Book Night get together tonight with authors Kate DiCamillo, Leif Enger, and Laurie Hertzel.  I read a lot and spend plenty of time in bookstores, but I have to confess that I had no idea who either Leif Enger or Laurie Hertzel were…I’m still kind of in the dark as to Hertzel.  I discovered, however, that Enger was raised in Osakis, Minnesota, the location of an annual family vacation proudly called the Fracas on Osakis.  I felt an immediate bond.  Naturally.

Kate DiCamillo just seems smart and cute and kind of sassy so of course I knew about her.  I feel a bond, too, of course.  Naturally.

Tonight’s discussion was your typical love of books kind of stuff with typical questions to the authors about the art of writing.  I was dismayed to hear (once again) that success in writing requires discipline.  Really?  What a thing to tell me.  I do write my blog posts, but as any casual reader of my blog can tell you, there isn’t much thought or editing that goes into it.  I pretty much throw it up there and because it is my blog, it sticks.  I choose when the macaroni is done right.  Regular posts organized around a subject or goal…forget about it!

Well, no…maybe not.  I think I will do it the DiCamillo way and put in my 1000 words a day.  (Ask me in a few weeks how I am doing.  Maybe I will write about you.)

Unsettling.

On the way home I noticed the sky.  (I seem to look at the sky a lot.)  Tonight was a special treat.  I think we call it nautical twilight or some such thing when the sky glows a dark deep blue.  Directly west above the horizon a beautiful crescent moon hung below a brightly shining Venus.  The air is desert dry tonight in Minneapolis so the outline of the moon could be seen clearly.  I almost like this more than full moon.  My camera — which is my phone — did a poor job, alas, of capturing it.  (I really do need a true camera.  I think this would be a good starter camera for me.)

I played with the pictures at home and found that cropping the sky photo gave me a respectable silhouette of a treeline on the horizon.  That’s not so bad.  Just don’t look at it too closely.

I believe the sky might look even better tomorrow.  If my thinking about this is correct, the moon should be closer to Venus at the same time tomorrow night, although we will have a much more humid and therefore more hazy nighttime sky.

Cropped Twilight.

I’m not sure what’s unsettling about that, but I like to remind myself that I need a real camera whenever I get a chance.

This brings me to a Man with the Movie Camera.  This is Dziga Vertov‘s study of everyday life in 1929 Kiev and Odessa.  It is a must see.  At just under 70 minutes, the film clips along and never drags.  Throughout you see the filmmaker — which is kind of interesting…who’s film are we watching? — and footage of the film making process.  But this is secondary to the people, places, and life captured by the film.

About 40 minutes in, the film delivers its best in a segment called “On Sports.”  Technically the photography is exceptionally good and the athletes, including several women, perform to impress.  The motion and accomplishment is good to the point of almost being erotic.  In fact, the film does prove that the bikini is not post World War II fashion.  There are two pieces (and less) captured on the beaches of the Black Sea.  In fact you get a sense that in 1929 society was fairly egalitarian among the sexes — if not the classes, despite claims embracing a Marxist vision — in Kiev.

I am guessing Dziga Vertov was happy with his camera.

That cheap Cabernet has caught up with me.  I feel a nap coming on.  Someone edit and clean up this post for me, would ya?

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Down by the Lake and through the Woods

It is a quiet night in the woods.  There are plenty of robins, but no crows or owls.  The cardinals and jays were quiet, too.  But I did see a few deer along the trail.  They’re almost as common as squirrels and twice as tame.

I missed a great photo along the lake.  (Parents tend to give a guy a stern eye when he wants a  photos of the kids.)  A young girl — probably not yet in school — was leading a large dog on leash.  The dog looked absolutely humiliated…After all this was a child half the dog’s weight tugging him along and screeching in his ear.  The dog’s pride was just a bit bruised.  It didn’t help when I chuckled a bit when they passed me.

The dog would be happy to know he wasn’t the only one who would be laughed at tonight.

The north side of Lake Harriet is a great spot for watching planes taking off from the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.  I stopped to watch a few planes fly overhead, as I usually do, when I heard some laughter.  I turned and saw two couples looking my way quickly turn away.  A few “shhhes” and embarrassed looks on the girls gave me a clue.

They probably saw me and thought they saw a cute old guy impressed by the big fancy plans.  That’s very odd because I am neither cute nor old, I just look that way.

You just shrug off that sort of stuff and I did.  I resumed my walk.

Note the photo of the two young boys and the ducks.  Looks like a sweet photo, doesn’t it?  Sure.  The kids are spitting on the ducks.  I’m sure it is harmless enough — what will a duck care — but there was something dastardly about boys.  Cute boys, for certain, but not very respectful of ducks.

So that’s it.  This is all I have tonight.  A few bad pictures and hastily written explanations.  Kind of off my game.  It is Sunday.  I think I’ll watch an episode of Columbo and read something from Philip Dick.

(I should get a real camera…)

Related articles

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Saturday In Minneapolis

Linden Hills

If you see me out and about and it looks like I just rolled out of bed, there’s a reason for that.  I likely did just roll out of bed.  I am told, in fact, that I literally roll out of bed although I’m not quite sure what that means.  And on a day like today, I have already allowed myself several opportunities to roll in and to roll out of bed.  It is rather damp and grey after all, and the pubs, bars, and restaurants can wait.

Earlier, however, I was out searching for something to write about.  It isn’t always that easy.  Today especially, my mind wandered, it wandered too much.  Not much to look at, I suppose, and I found myself focusing on women with children.  In my neighborhood we have quite a few of those; they are hard to avoid.  Women, children, and squirrels.  Cute little things.  Usually though I kick them aside as I race toward Tilia or the hardware store, not paying them much attention.  Not today.

I had stopped at a small park — a bench, really — on a corner set in our neighborhood’s shops.

Walking up the hill, slowly in big long strides a slender woman pushed a carriage while pulling along a stumbling toddler.  Walking past me toward the coffee shop another woman pushed along an infant in a stroller, wrapped in pink and blue.  Perhaps a third child, the sibling of an older brother and sister wrapped in hand-me-downs.  And across the way, walking toward my direction home, still another woman, dressed in a lime green rag sweater and black tights, herded along two young boys.

None of the women I saw today could be said to have much in common.  They likely live in nearby and have a child or two.  That’s it.  But there is still something unmistakably similar about them.  It is the way they move, I think.  Whether hurried, annoyed, or slowly rambling, each of these women moved with sense of contentment.  Maybe it is a sense of responsibility that’s just part of being a mother.

The woman in the sweater stuck with me.  I watched her walk toward my place, slowly and deliberately.  I watched the boys.  And I had one of those “what if” experiences.  An epiphany.  There never has been and likely never will be a woman in my life with two young boys walking to my home.  And this seemed like a brutally honest fact.

The women seemed to understand something entirely different.  That’s what they had in common.  They had achieved something; evolved into a role, maybe.  At any rate, they appeared comfortably resigned to an unalterable fate that entitled them to a smug, happy walk.  They had individually achieved a shared accomplishment and thus shared a destiny both fulfilled and just begun.

Me, on the other hand…well, guys like me end up standing on street corners, reading billboards aloud, and scaring the neighbors.

But then I don’t know.  We all can’t be mothers, obviously.  We all don’t need to have children.  And isn’t it good that someone does take the time to watch it all?  I’m sure the people who created the billboards appreciate it.  Just a little.

So anyway…what is going on in Minneapolis today?

Chickens, Eggs, and the Castle Doctrine

Don't you feel safer?

Now we have pictures of George Zimmerman’s bloody head which some say bolsters his self-defense argument.  Like so much of today’s thinking about rights and responsibilities, this one seems rather simple and misguided.  If that is indeed Zimmerman’s bloody head, I guess my reaction is so what?

A couple of things to keep in mind.

First and most obviously, if Zimmerman had been minding his own business he wouldn’t have had to “defend” himself.  All the 911 transcripts support a telling of the events that show Zimmerman trailing a person completely within his rights to be out and about in free America.  Even after being told not to follow Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman did so anyway.  But this is an old story and one that raises obvious doubts about Zimmerman’s justification for shooting Martin.

But I think there is an even simpler concern about which I don’t hear much talk.  If the so-called “Castle Doctrine” is indeed designed to ensure that people have the right to defend themselves if they feel threatened, who has that right?  Everyone, right?  Under these laws a person may use deadly force if he feels his life might be at risk or feels that serious bodily may occur.

We don’t know when Zimmerman pulled out his gun to shoot Martin, but wouldn’t being stalked by a man with a gun look like a threat to you?  Maybe just being stalked by an angry guy talking on a cell phone might be a threat.  Trayvon Martin didn’t have a gun.  If Zimmerman’s story holds up, one might easily surmise that Martin was acting in his own self defense.   (And doing so without the use of a weapon, by the way.)

So when does one person become the victim and the other the attacker?  Moreover, as these self defense laws are more broadly applied to public space, couldn’t one even imagine a scenario when criminal becomes victim and in turn applies his right to self defense?

Imagine a situation in which a person is caught stealing something and the owner of that property becomes enraged and starts beating on the thief.  If the thief feels that his life is at risk, can he pull out a gun and shoot the property owner?

What is it with all these macho guys and guns anyway?  How tough are you if you need to resolve threats with the service of a firearm?  It seems to me that we are a rather paranoid and insecure society that values property rights over human rights and this sort of self defense argument is only one more manifestation of that twisted set of priorities.

But logically the real issue here is very much like the chicken and egg puzzle.  If we’re going to start letting people make decisions with firearms based on a fear, whose fear trumps another’s?  Who gets the right to say they are entitled to defense over another?  This is especially an issue when people take their defense into public spaces.

Pay attention to who supports this stuff.  They are not right.  The civil society we once took for granted is being taken away from us.

Related articles

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My Love for You is Ruining Me

I often dream that I am alone, back in a place where I lived years ago and far away from me now.   I don’t know how I get there or why I’m there, but I am back and I a stranger full of memories.

In a typical dream I am nervously, uneasily walking by myself.  My legs are weak.  I feel anxious, almost panicked, too.  My ears hum and buzz and I really cannot hear anything clearly.  My eyes rapidly seek everything, but find nothing.

I don’t know which way to go until I find myself wandering into my neighborhood.  I lived there once, but don’t live there anymore.  I recognize no one and no one looks at me.  But at least now I know where I am and it frightens me not to belong.

As I walk deeper into my dream, I see many more people, happy and active people, like I was when I lived there.  But I don’t have a place there anymore.  Everything has changed.  I look around as if I should walk right into where I had been and be home again, but I can’t.  No place is mine.  It is a sad dream.

I have thought about what these dreams mean and I have an idea.  It is an idea best described by a torn relationship that I am sad to see go away.  It is about a couple I knew for their easy, happy love for each other.  And now it is all but entirely lost.  There isn’t much to do.  It isn’t my business.  And like my sad dreams I see it unfold in a slow and confused way, distant and lost.

Stress has taken her away from the relationship.  Some fairly heavy experience has hit her and she isn’t good with that.  She feels the weight of the world coming down, pressure from all sides closing in upon her.  Work and success overwhelm her.  Even old lovers demand her time.  She says she is no longer available.

What can he do, he asks?  Too much stress, she tells him.  She needs space to escape and get away, she says.  So he offers the space and escape they once had together.  It makes sense to him.  But she says no.  The more he tries to go back to where they started, the more she pushes it all away.  He pursues her, tries to reassure her, but there is no space for him.

When I look at this relationship I see myself moving through my dream.  My lonely dreams bring me to places of my past because I am unknown and unseen — I am unattached — in a place that was mine.  I have lost something now and my dreams send me back to these distance places to experience that loss.  What else could explain the feeling of loss and emptiness when one dreams of home?  I experience my loss as a place that no longer has room for me.  I dream these dreams precisely because I don’t feel that I belong.  That makes sense, doesn’t it?

What is a broken relationship if it isn’t a feeling of not belonging?  It is a connection that once existed and doesn’t anymore.  It is lost.

So I think I understand my lonely dreams, the feeling of sadness they convey.  These are dreams of lost love, one of having no place with another person or memory or feeling.  Lost wandering is sad, it’s bad…it sucks.  And in my sleep my dreams work it out for me, bringing me back to a home that is no longer mine, and let’s me walk it off.

If dreams stem from reality, you never really awaken from a dream.  The truth behind a dream is always there.  In this sense dreams are very real.

So I wonder if my friend’s partner might not feel the way I feel as I wander through my lonely dreams.  Perhaps she feels like there is no place to go, no way to escape, and thus she has no place for him.  But my friends are not dreaming.  On the contrary, they are very much alive, although perhaps not entirely aware of the lonely mistakes they make.

My friends, losing a relationship they started and shared, can reclaim the truth.  They can close the distance that has come to separate them and still live a happier dream.  I believe that.  They still touch and hold each other, still see deeply through living eyes a life with a soul that longed for the other.  This at least isn’t a dream, but it will become one. One day each will awaken with a memory hanging to a dream.  Whether it becomes a sad dream or a beautiful one is none of my business.  But I believe we wander seeking happiness and I hope my friends seek happiness, too.

Oberstar is Gone, the Delta Queen, too…Which Might Come Back First?

I like most Democrats and I hate to see them fail.  Even the best have their failings, however.  A failure of particular significance belongs to former United States Congressman, Jim Oberstar.

One might easily defend the position that Jim Oberstar‘s greatest failing was losing New Hampshire’s newest resident, Chip Cravaak, a little guy from Lindstrom, MN, but I think there is a bigger stain on Oberstar’s record.

Jim Oberstar sank the Delta Queen.

In fact this is the rare — possibly only — opportunity for me to link with Katherine Kersten, the StarTribune‘s on-staff xenophobe bigot.  Kersten called out Oberstar for his errors as chair of the House Transportation Committee the prevented a hearing on a bill that would have exempted the Delta Queen from updated Coast Guard regulations governing passenger vessels.

The Delta Queen isn’t deemed seaworthy under these regulations because it is a mostly wooden structure.  Oberstar claimed he was protecting the public from a fire trap by blocking legislation that would have kept the boat on the river.

Pish posh.  In today’s world, we don’t care about federal law, we go around it.  Oberstar, old pedant that he is, did not see the future.  And now that we are here in the future, let’s turn things around.  With the “free market” Republicans in office, perhaps we can lift some of this burdensome government interference from the hardworking riverboat people and get the Delta Queen sailing again!

This is Chip Cravaaks’ opportunity to roll back a liberal mistake and save Minnesota — and the country — from his predecessor’s misguided legacy.  That’s the great conservative promise, is it not?  Well…here you go!

Alas, it might not be that easy.  First of all, Cravaak would have to do something — you know, write a bill — and good luck with that.  He probably thinks the Delta Queen is a twisty cone franchise anyway.

More importantly, the Delta Queen is tied up to a dock in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it is set up as a floating hotel and party facility.  It is sad to see any boat condemned to perpetual dock service.  It is even worse when that second life fails to pay the bills.  The old Delta Queen isn’t quite right tied to the dock.  So while we might hope that the free market Republicans might do for the Delta Queen what Jesse did for Willy the killer whale and set that boat free!…well, don’t hold your breath.

A group formed to save the Delta Queen and get it back on the river, but I haven’t received email from them in months.

This is a rare opportunity for conservative principles of less government to coincide with a worthy cause.  For my part I would like to see a conservative success for which we can all be proud.  Why not?  So let’s get that river boat rolling!

Crows, Owls, Woodpeckers, Turkeys, Loons, and More…

Good birding in the woods today.  Ubiquitous wrens, sparrows, robins and warblers are everywhere with another year of many, many cardinals throughout the woods, too.  Back in the rushes the red wing blackbirds are loud and clear.

There was a first today.  A turkey in the woods, walking in stride with a young deer following behind a pace or two.

Woodpeckers seem to be common this year, too, and they don’t easily spook.  Unusual.  I got fairly close to what might have been a yellow bellied woodpecker before it flew off into the woods.  The real treat was a large pileated woodpecker.  I got within two yards of the bird which was feeding on the ground.  I spooked it, but it didn’t go far; it just hopped up the trunk of a nearby tree seemingly unconcerned about me.

And a Great Horned Owl is back in the woods.

Often the best way to find birds is to hear them first.  A year ago I explained how to use a form of audio triangulation to locate owls.  But let me suggest an even better way.  Let the crows to the work.

Great Horned Owl

Crows don’t seem to care for owls and they make an enormous fuss when an owl is in the woods.  I thought I heard the soft hoots of an owl, but I couldn’t tell for certain because the owls were causing such a fracas.  That’s when I put two and two together…

Off the trail a bit a dozen or more owls where gathered in a tall tree and if my hunches were right, that’s where I would find the owl.  Sure enough, there he was.  Spotting an owl can be tough, especially when the trees leaf out, but you want to look for something about the size of a basketball perched on a branch.

If you’re lucky, as I was today, the owl will be very active and move about, spreading his wings and grooming.  This behavior surely is nothing but taunting behavior.  The crows hate it.  As long as the owl remains still, the crows remain relatively quiet.  As soon as the owl does so much as twitch, the crows lose it.

Crows are cowards.  They won’t get within 10 feet of the owl, but I can’t imagine the crows are much fun for the owl.

Today was double-lucky day.  The owl chose to fly to another tree while I was watching.  As he glided off the branch a string of noisy crows, like a string of tin cans tied to a car bumper, trailed behind.

Crows are fairly large birds, too, and it is amazing to watch the owl and these large crows move through the branches so easily.  Ducks are a little less skilled at flying through clutter.  I saw one more or less crash through low branches last year.  He appeared unhurt, even a bit smug about his less-than-graceful flight, so I figure it’s just what ducks do if they find themselves in the woods.

It is well known that crows are fairly intelligent birds.  Eventually a few of them got bored with the owl and flew off to find something else to harass, perhaps some road kill or something.

I took pictures of these birds with my phone.  Unfortunately they show nothing.  I really do need a better camera.

Out on the lake a pair of loons is back.  I didn’t notice the migrating loons this year though.  In recent years a group of a dozen or more loons would appear on the lake for a few days.  Not this year.  Or I missed them.  In the back of my mind I cannot help but think about that oil spill…

Thanks for wandering with me.  I am just killing time.  I am not sure what you’re doing, but you should be scrolling through this blog and finding better things to read.  Tell your friends and family what you find!

Related articles

• Great horned owl (apostcardaday.blogspot.com)
• Owl species may be making a comeback in New York City (seattletimes.nwsource.com)