Why do people line up to see this bull and take photos? I don’t mean why do people visit this fun piece of public art. I love this guy.
What I mean is why do they line up? So organized. So civilized. One takes a photo and the others wait their turns. (The tourists do not act like this when they are walking down the street, nor can they seem to figure out lines in drugstores, or department stores, or coffee shops. It is only when taking photos that they wait their turn patiently and in an orderly line.)
It is always this way. People organize themselves without being told to do so. Don’t begin to imagine this means that humanity is somehow cultured, though.
Speaking of things that you can’t believe you did with your precious free time…
I watched the SOTU. All of it. I haven’t watched a State of the Union since sometime just before 2016. I like speeches to be inspiring and unifying. I don’t care for heckling (not even in comedy clubs) or uninformed criticism from people on the sidelines.
So it was with great trepidation that I watched the entire hour of Biden’s speech.
But friends, I was impressed. Reportage digests the meat down to the gristle and a few choice bits. Watching the whole thing was fascinating: an adult was in charge. Whatever you think of his politics, the current President maintained a calm demeanor and waited for the two or three uncouth screamers to settle. He responded with good humor to direct insults. And most of all: the speech had interesting content. I have seen no reports on much of this content. He spoke warmly about plans to directly address some of the horrible violence against people of color. He spoke of plans to fund cancer research with the ferocity that AIDS research was funded in the late 80s. There is a new bill in Congress that caps those heartburn-inducing and seemingly indiscriminate fees that banks, credit cards, hotel chains and other companies add on.
During the State of the Union, the president spoke of ideas. plans. Hopes.
Reporting on these speeches, though, journalists transform the information into a sport. Two teams, who won?
One clip I wish that the world could have seen: one of the invited guests was the young man who stopped the Lunar New Year shooter. He was not as you might imagine when you hear “a man disarmed the gunman with his bare hands.” His hands were tiny. And soft. They looked less like weapons and more like the trembling petals of flowers. The 26-yr old’s full time job is “front desk clerk at an Asian ballroom dance studio.” He looks like he might someday move up to work in a mall store selling soap. I could not get enough of looking at this small, overwhelmed person. He had never been trained to use a gun, had never shot or held a gun, and until disarming that mass-murderer (the word “shooter” reduces 11 dead human beings who loved to dance to mere “targets”) — this hero who saved another room full of dancers from likely death had never even seen a gun in real life before. Watching him duck to receive the applause of the grateful and amazed room was worth the entire hour.
We all need to take time to experience the world for ourselves and make our own opinions—not judge based on filtered “clips” of life that other people have screened for us.
Imagine if, as a child, instead of reading books you were only given their plot summaries. Imagine if, instead of watching the TV show MASH, you had stood on the outer ring of the circle who had seen it and listened to them talk about it.
We have all willingly become the outer ring. Why on earth have we allowed this?
WRITING NEWS:
I caught up with editing that short story I thought I would finish last week! The press that will publish it is Wandering Wave Press in the anthology Tumbled Tales which is scheduled to come out in June 2023. New creative writing had to take a temporary back seat to a grant application that ended up being 28 pages of writing—the kind I least like—enumerating my past accomplishments. I would so much rather write 28 pages of ideas for how to improve things. Who cares what anyone did last week? I want to know what they are working on for tomorrow.
Random Final Thought:
A dear friend who is a generation ahead of me gifted me with a set of very pretty small plates. She mentioned, in passing them on, that she had used the plates when “throwing luncheons for the ladies” that she knew.
What a different world it was, then—I can not imagine throwing a luncheon for twelve women every few months. I do not remember the last time I had twelve of anyone in my house for lunch. Or even four! The food sensitivities alone would make it impossible. One imagines putting out a chicken salad and assortment of pretty breads… except my chicken salad contains walnuts and would kill my best friend and the mayo would highly discomfort another, and is there anyone left on the planet who hasn’t been gluten free at least a week or two? And everyone else is vegetarian. Or on a diet. Or dairy intolerant.
No, these pretty little plates are likely to be dessert plates, only brought out for birthday cake. A loss, really, since the idea of a large, lively dinner party around a laden table still makes me sigh.