Communication, Heightened Here, Broken There

Saturday, early afternoon, our book group considered Shirley Hazzard’s novel, The Transit of Venus. Her writing was lyrical to some but lost in flight to others as it orbited the room. Like much serious literature her language provoked both gasps of joy and grumbles.

We then raced off to Dodger stadium to witness either an exhibition in offensive ineptitude, the artistry of pitching or both. The single run and lone hit for the victorious opposition came as a result of a miscommunication between our pitcher, catcher and shortstop. The catcher gave hand signals for a pick-off play, not read by the infielder and the winning run scored. Momentary inattention broke the chain. A flubbed gesture of arms so that the good news never reached Ghent. Some what makes it across the abyss and some what fails. During the ballgame we rose, as a collective, for the 7th inning stretch, listened to Irving Berlin’s anthem of God’s blessing and pretended to believe it, as we pretended that the game really mattered. Then we swayed uncaring if we ever got back, under the spell of the popcorn, crackerjacks, green grass and crack-of-the-bat.

Everyone was on the same page at the Lighthouse Cafe, Sunday morning, for the big band of Mike Barone; eighteen musicians seamlessly picking up each other's threads weaving into some crazy quilt. Here was a heated musical conversation between reed and brass punctuated by piano, bass and drum. Trombones and horns answered tenor, alto and baritone sax. Trumpets chased the flight of the bumble bee. Flugelhorn dialoged with dueling saxophones. Melancholy Baby was resonant with our bones as if they were born knowing and had a re-birth rocking us in our chairs. Some of the solos seemed to dive off the Hermosa Beach pier and ride back on the white caps.

Non-Verbal Communication & Non-Communicative Verbiage

What do heads-of-state talk about when push comes to shove? When one is a hawk and the other’s a dove? When there is no lost love and one is below and the other’s above? Blah, Blah. What did he say? zzzzzzz Jet lag. Winston and Franklin seemed to get past the smoke of cigar and cigarette.. Even Putin and Bush wore the same cowboy boots. Did Mao tell Nixon it was opera they were rehearsing? Does diplomacy-speak ever get real?

As authentic as what passes between a batter and a third base coach with 50,000 eyes on them? You have to admire the certitude of the scratch, the tip of the cap and hitch of belt; that elegant dialog resulting in a steal or a bunt.

John Boehner must have his language nuked in the tanning salon. His words die from exhaustion on the way to our ears.

In those Spelling Bees you would get it right or sit down. No mumbles.

Instead, what we get are "talking points"; the re-fried beans they have cooked up for the day's sound bites. Flip the channels and you hear the same limp phrases from dittoed lips; the sound and the fury that signify nothing.

Contrasted with this we can watch a Marx Bros. movie and see Groucho overthrow a government (or Margaret Dumont) with a raised eyebrow and flick of the cigar. Harpo breaks our hearts when he plays as if he is communing with distant stars.

Van Gogh regarded himself as a musician of paint. We hear his voice on every canvas, his howl to the sky, his anguish in the shoes.

Women in high circles spoke volumes the way they positioned their fans. We have to talk she said, as her fingers crossed the ribs. I love you she sighed, her eyes behind the open fan.

In 1919 Nijinski danced for the last time. He spun and whirled and fell apart crashing through the window into the snow. He was deemed to be mad having entered his exile. He said he had danced the war.

Ahead of his time and ours Antoni Gaudi's architecture still sings and shocks us. His aesthetic is a choir of mosaics, a hymn to the pagan and sacred in us all.

Life On Hold

In the Depression decade when breadlines were the headlines we had up to three mail deliveries a day but no telephone. Instead most people depended on “runners” who hung around the drugstore hoping to make a nickel tip, They would dash up the stairs of our four story walk-up to convey messages or summon people to the community phone.

During the war there were none available so I was fourteen before we had a phone in our apartment; a party line, of course. With all these impediments I’m not so sure it wasn’t a better system than what we have today. Fewer digits to dial, friendlier operators to whom you might ask the meaning of life (on a dare) and phone booths where Clark Kent shed his merely mortal self.

Over the years we’ve witnessed one innovation after another from colored phones to match the bedspread to push-button to answering machines along with a monthly bill higher than our old rent.

Answering machines are a symbol of our age; a soliloquy addressing the elongated silence. First it’s just you and the beep. And now it’s your turn to grab the open mike without Interruption and say your piece, or burst into song, wax poetic or rant.

If you are calling a large company you are generally told how important your call is. This is what goes through my mind while on hold:

I’m glad you have a chance to get away from your desk. May I ask why you change your menu more often than my local deli? I’m sure you’re experiencing a high call volume. No, I can’t call back between mid-night and three. You’ve put me on an elevator with your music. Perhaps I was abandoned as a child and you have just opened up the wound. Is it my numb ear you are monitoring for quality assurance or my withered arm? Seasons have passed; my arm is in its foliage. I’ve finished the newspaper, the police blotter, weather reports in Asia and the obits. I’m almost mentioned. The grandchildren have grown. Life is slipping away. There’s no one left but that great operator in the sky and all humanity is on hold with faith that their call will be answered in the order received.

Instead, this could be an occasion for retreat and contemplation rather than reaction, a time to reconnect with a more elemental sense of who we are away from the buzz. Might it be that we are too connected and at some level crave the aloneness?