November 28, 2020
Good morning.
Tales from these times.
A nearly-lifelong friend of mine wrote to me how sad he was that Thanksgiving had to be celebrated in isolation; it's his favorite holiday of the year and a time for a large family gathering plus with others.
I knew exactly what he meant, and told him so, only he and I have different favorite holidays. I am quite sure I will have the same reaction when Christmas comes that he had about Thanksgiving. I love Christmas because that's when we have a larger family gathering, I like the tree and the music, and I really like giving presents. Some are serious--what Elliott or Kathy would like--and some are fun and some are goofy. The hardest part of the holiday was finding humorous, oddball presents for stocking-stuffers (which we actually put in a grocery bag because they were too big and numerous to fit in any stocking), such as a book on the biggest jerks in history, little mechanical toys that make the cats jump, and whatever I could find at strange gift stores. But as with my friend's Thanksgiving, surely my Christmas is gone as well, especially given the spiking coronavirus numbers.
Thanksgiving for me has always been less meaningful and interesting, although I enjoy the family gathering. But I did not enjoy it this year. In fact, I missed it more than I thought I would, probably because we haven't been able to see people very much (summer deck events notwithstanding). Kathy made a marvelous dinner and will deliver two plates' worth to her mom and a friend at their senior living place.
I figured out the other night that this would be the first time since I lived in an apartment on Loring Park (1975-79) that we won't have a Christmas tree. We have always—for 30+ years—driven up to Stacy to a tree farm to cut our tree (today) and then spend the day decorating it and the house. Ever since he's been old enough, Elliott has cut the tree while I hold it. Even he, who's not a big holiday guy, was disappointed that we aren't going up to get a tree today, but he recognizes that it would be far too risky. Since we will have no company over the holidays, Kathy and I had decided against any tree at all. (We do have her artificial tree, which is a good one, but we weren't even going to put that one up.)
Upon reading that we'd decided to bail
out altogether on Christmas, my friend fired back an email. "But here is
where I think you are wrong: put up the damn tree. You say that Christmas is
even more important to you than Thanksgiving, so, like Thanksgiving, you should
make the best of it. Yes, you lost the trip to Stacy to cut it down. But you
own an artificial tree and all the ornaments, you are bored, and there is no
reason to not put up the tree. Just because you won't have guests? Not
persuasive. Christmas is, unfortunately, at least a month long, which means a
month of noticing that it doesn't exist in its normal place. " I apparently
am highly susceptible to influence from long-time friends. I showed Kathy his
message; we promptly went down the basement, dragged out the artificial tree,
and spent the next hour assembling it and putting the lights on it. (The last
time it was up when Kathy lived in her townhouse, before we got married, so ten
years ago. She's actually tried twice without success to sell it on CraigsList;
now we're glad she didn't.)
In spite of this gloominess and sense of loss about the holidays, I am not quite as pessimistic as I have been about the future. The vaccine news is promising, and I am now cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to get out of most of the pandemic restrictions by spring (I have been thinking middle or late summer, but now it seems it could be 2-3 months earlier). I've also read a couple of articles by physicians saying that once vaccines are approved, no one should have any hesitation about getting them because they will all have gone through the normal rigorous review process--just much faster than usual. (As one wrote, this is what can happen when scientific research is adequately funded.) I'm also optimistic that this will not have a dramatic effect on the rest of our lives. Some, but I think we'll be able to get back to a reasonably normal level of social intercourse.
* * *
Let me raise a question directly primarily at my women friends.
At one point in late October Kathy and I were briefly discussing the upcoming election and she recited the line about "it ain't over until the fat lady sings. " We both then wondered "where did that come from??? " Kathy speculated immediately that it must be based on Wagnerian opera. Of course we Googled it and she was correct. Per Wikipedia:
The phrase is generally understood to be a reference to opera sopranos, who were traditionally overweight. The imagery of Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and its last part, Götterdämmerung [twilight of the gods], is typically used in depictions accompanying uses of the phrase. The "fat lady " is thus the valkyrie Brünnhilde, who was traditionally presented as a very buxom lady. Her farewell scene lasts almost twenty minutes and leads directly to the finale of the whole Ring Cycle. As Götterdämmerung is about the end of the world (or at least the world of the Norse gods), in a very significant way "it is [all] over when the fat lady sings. "
What did surprise us, however, is the recency of the coinage. Again, Wikipedia:
The first recorded use appeared in the Dallas Morning News on March 10, 1976: Despite his obvious allegiance to the Red Raiders, Texas Tech sports information director Ralph Carpenter was the picture of professional objectivity when the Aggies rallied for a 72–72 tie late in the SWC tournament finals. "Hey, Ralph, " said Bill Morgan, "this... is going to be a tight one after all. " "Right ", said Ralph, "the opera ain't over until the fat lady sings."
As a light-hearted matter, I posted the foregoing on my Facebook page. One of my friends wrote that "Opera or no. It's now considered to be a huge faux pax. I said it (innocently😏) not long ago and my millennial kids inferred it's as bad a slur as many other 1950s acceptable slogans. "
I have mixed feelings about the comment. Yes, it stereotypes women opera singers, who often were large in the early and middle parts of the 20th century (that is far less true now). It's also a matter of language history. Having worked with men and women in college sports, both locally and nationally, from 1975 to 1986, I am fully aware that the men in that business were among the most sexist around. (Many still are, but things have changed.) So I am reasonably sure that Mr. Carpenter didn't give a hoot about whether or not his wisecrack was sexist. He probably didn't even think about it, nor did most of his listeners (I assume the statement was made on a broadcast of some kind).
What's your take?
* * *
On a matter of local weather: with our record-breaking October snowfall, and unusual cold spell, I wrote to my meteorologist and climate science friend to ask if this sharp swing from normal could in any fashion be attributed to global climate change. He wrote back:
It is possible that the deep intrusion of cold air during October has a link to climate change, as there is some evidence that some of these intrusions may be egged on by slackening jet stream patterns, which may result from accelerated warming in the Arctic and higher latitudes. It is indeed very difficult to diagnose a single event that way, but this is an idea that is being discussed heavily, studied, and hammered out in the academic literature.
He went on to tell me that the snow and cold don't mean anything.
So, do early snows tell us anything about the coming winter? In short, no. It appears that an October snow is just an October snow, and has no bearing on the remainder of winter. From 1884 through 2019, 45 out of 136 Octobers in the Twin Cities have seen at least one day with measurable snow. The winters that followed those instances of snowfall have spanned nearly the entire spectrum of possibilities: dry, wet, snowy, cold, warm, and of course, average.
So we don't know any more about the upcoming winter than usual, which is very little.
* * *
I had several thoughtful responses to my story about the breakup (on Facebook) with my friend.
"Elliott is right: the recasting of liberalism as the chief enemy of progressive goals has spread to an alarming (to me) degree, and led to the self-defeating tactic of self-indulgently alienating progressives' likeliest allies. "
"Elliott's reaction is right on. As I have put it sometimes, having spent my career trying to convince students that politics is important, I now think maybe I should apologize. Politics is too important to too many people now. "
"I'd say the key phrases are Bloomberg's "your happiness " and your (and her) "very liberal. " Classic cultural compound, as it seems to me. Many of "us " think our happiness comes before everything else, because we grew up thinking because we were taught that way; whereas for them survival in a white culture is a daily and all too often fatal challenge, and "happiness " is a dream at best, for most. They get "The Talk, " We don't need it. Their lives, especially if they're men, depend on it. And "very liberal " is something we can afford to claim to be, because it doesn't cost us much or detract from our "comfortable well-off " condition as white people concerned especially with "our happiness. " We "are so much worse than trump supporters " because they are 'white supremacists' in effect, we are intrenched and closet bigots without even knowing—or at least agreeing--we are. "I rather think that the limitation of defective understanding is on our side: to the extent that we very-liberal whites aren't actively and economically doing something to give blacks a chance to compete on level turf, we are ourselves an obstacle to equality. Since that's most of the way for most of us, it pisses blacks off. How could it not?! It's bloody lucky for us that that's as far as it goes. "
"What a terrible Facebook story. Certainly gives me pause as I have a very disparate group of FB friends (very liberal, liberal, conservative pro-lifers)—I try very hard to only post things that are either benign or important to my thinking personally and I want even my conservative friends to think about it (politically.) This almost makes me want to close my own account—I suspect I have been unfriended but cannot tell. "
"I have to say that I had some of the same reaction your friend did (about disengaging from politics being a privilege of comfortable white people) though I wouldn't have said so in the manner she did, of course. And I see both sides. That day-to-day life and personal relationships do mean more to everyone, but also that some people (especially BIPOC people) are much more affected and constrained and beaten up by the system that our politics produces, so can less well afford to ignore that. At the same time, the political system hasn't helped those folks much—especially those on the lowest end of the economic spectrum—no matter who's been in charge, so in some senses they can and do care less about politics than those of us obsessed with the daily news. Too bad about the rift with your friend. It's hard having conversations across some of these divides, but throwing personal insults is clearly not the way to do that. "
I agree with my friends who made these comments. It is true that some of us may do too little to tackle the economic disparities that lead to such divisions in our society. I wish I had a good answer to the question about what most effectively can be done. Probably many things.
* * *
And one seasonal observation. As we were listening to Christmas CDs after we'd put up the tree, it occurred to us (for the umpteenth time) that the Christmas oeuvre has some odd elements. How did "Ave Maria " or "My Favorite Things " or Brahms' "Lullaby " or "Amazing Grace " or "Panis Angelicus" become Christmas songs? All of them appear on one or more of our Christmas CDs. We always listen to Handel's "Messiah " after we finish with the tree, but it's not a Christmas piece, either. And then there are the songs that are about winter, not Christmas, such as "Jingle Bells " and "Frosty the Snowman " and "Let it Snow, " among others. Those latter songs, as well as many carols, reflect a climate that is surely alien to many who listen to them because they never see snow (e.g., much of the deep South, southern California, Hawai'i). Strange.
Stay healthy. Wear your mask.
Gary
