My Genesis and Exodus

I am looking back to where I strayed from the flock. What flock? Though I’m told I was born on the cusp of Aries I have no identification with sheep except for hearing their Bah, Bah, Bah.  I think of my childhood as being deprived of deprivation unless I count the absence of any belief in the supernatural as a privation.

I could blame it all on my mother. She was part of that familial wave of Jewish immigrants whose first priority was to disidentify with the Old World. That meant speaking with no trace of shtetl life and no observation of any Jewish holidays, high, low or in-between. Of course, she gave herself away with Yiddish curses directed against the gonif grocery clerk with his imagined finger on the scale and the momser landlord for holding back on the heat and against God for God-knows-what. Where was my father, I hear you ask. He was floating above the fray like the figure in a Chagall painting.

My one stab at Sunday school lasted two or three sessions. Two memories are in the residue. One has me sitting around a large table with about a dozen others trying to make sense of some preposterous fable having missed the early chapters. The second and far more vivid one has me opening a bathroom door and staring at the rabbi’s wife sitting on the toilet. This served as my own personal hasty exodus from the room, the house and the Bible.

I was not so much an atheist as an ignoramus which is to say I had not considered the matter and rejected it; rather I was too ill-informed to own that atheist designation. As an ignoramus I was granted the right to ignore. I grew up regarding Biblical text as having no relevance to life as I knew it. In fact, religion took on an association beyond irrelevance into one of exclusion with overtones of victimhood and superiority. I rejected all of it. The divisive walls, the ancient tongue and the tribe. I would like to think a spiritual dimension grew within me in spite of myself and possibly even because of my rejection. I say this since there appears to be something irreligious about religion.

Growing up with God's absence is not nothing; I never felt bereft. Only then can we find our existential  selves. What happens between people is my humanistic idea of holy. This along with our relationship to the natural world inspires reverence and worthship.                                                                                 

In the middle of this narrative lives the anomaly of my Bar Mitzvah. It was for me an exercise into the mysterious world of arcane mumbles. I had no idea what those sounds meant issuing from my mouth. I should take this occasion to apologize to anyone still alive who wasted their Saturday afternoon, seventy-six years ago, having to endure my singing voice which couldn’t carry a tune from here to there. However, my great uncle Peretz was pleased and seeing his face may have been a religious experience itself.

Now in my declining years which could go on for another decade, God willing, I have come around for a second look. Biblical text, with all its myths, has a certain appeal to my poetic sensibility. The tales are no less meaningful than Homer’s poems or Euripides’ plays. Metaphors lie within. I have made room for them. As for being observant of holidays that may take another incarnation. I still regard organized religion through a contrarian lens. As for my orthodoxy I am a devout believer in awe.

  

 

Decade of the Damned Documented

The latest Ken Burns / Lynn Novick / Sarah Botstein documentary, U.S. and the Holocaust, was an often hard-to-watch yet essential historical document. They showed the antecedents to Hitler’s abomination alongside the ever-changing tides of America in that decade. Roosevelt’s progressive and humane principles were revealed as in a constant wrestling match with his instincts as a political player. He embodied a patrician noblesse oblige with empathetic interest in the welfare of the down-trodden all tempered by expediency and certain duplicitous missteps. In spite of his wrong-headed decisions regarding Japanese internment and a cowardly refusal to confront his own antisemitic State Department he gets credit for saving Democracy and guiding us through the war.

I came away reminded of how self-serving politics can become. Faustian deals are made. Constituencies are appeased. The plight of distant people is met with indifference. And all the time, winds of persuasion are shifting. Low information voters are moved by voices such as Lindbergh and then suddenly reversed in large numbers. What is it again that springs eternal from the human breast?

The arc of public opinion from nativism and isolationism to full international engagement and ultimate acceptance of European immigrants is the very chronicle of the American mind. And just when you might rejoice at the evolution of our consciousness there comes evidence of our devolution. Progress is a vast zig-zag.

The team’s writer Geoffrey Ward brings it all home with the parallel to today’s events which have been on our minds all along. Donald got his playbook from Adolph. One can only hope our latent somnambulism and attraction for simplistic authoritarianism is  corrected before they drink the Kool-Aid. The massive plunge into depravity is apparently universal even with Germany’s high culture of Beethoven, Kant and Goethe. One wonders if our pop culture and social media will save or destroy us.

One minor quibble: Never mentioned was the needless delay in opening a second front as a factor in furthering Nazi bestiality. There was, at some point, a suspicion that Churchill and other Western forces had tacitly encouraged Hitler’s attack on Soviet communism. This would have been an extension of assaults against revolutionary USSR in the 1920s. Of course, any such thoughts were dispelled when the Russians took the offensive and decimated the Nazi forces. From their perspective the war was won on the eastern front.

Perhaps the accelerated changes in technology have dislodged historical memory. To the extent we have become a country of amnesiacs Ken Burns and Lynn Novick are true national treasures. For over four decades they have become our conservators and teachers, our visual bards and hopefully our movers and shakers.

Hobgoblins and Imps

I’m not particularly fond of raisins but I do like rum raisin ice cream. Nor do I care for walnuts but if caramelized with shrimp I can set aside my dislike. Thanks to Ralph Waldo Emerson I can live with myself. He declared that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It’s comforting to know I don’t have a little mind. I’ve made room for my hobgoblin.

If it is those goblins urging consistency then I must also contain other imps or sprites. They are the mischief-makers who embody the illogic which leads me away from still waters. They probe and snoop and delight in their deviltry. Shakespeare had his Puck. Mark twain gave us Huck. How else to upset the old order and move the margins an enormous inch?

Back in the day when I knew everything life seemed so tidy. True or false. Natural or synthetic. Ball games and wars were either won or lost. Crime didn’t pay. Elementary, my dear Whatshisname. If this, therefore that. Follow those breadcrumbs and step on it.

Now I reserve the right to be wrong. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I agree with myself. On Tuesday and Thursday, I’m not so sure. On weekends the context may change. In baseball terms the ump may turn into an imp. When a hobgoblin and an imp walk into a bar a brawl is likely. Look out for that flying chair. The poker table is overturned and the card sharp has more than an arm up his sleeve. I wonder who choreographed those scenes? A dance of sprites.

John  Keats said it first when writing of Negative Capability. F. Scott Fitzgerald agreed with these words: The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Catechism is consistent. Poetry is not. Astonishments are inconsistent. So are epiphanies and punch lines.

          Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup?

          It looks like the backstroke to me, sir.

Life is dissonant. It misbehaves. Bring on the improv, the jazz as in a jam. A Charlie Parker riff, the blurt, the mishegoss. The speckled banana is a narrative. The second banana becomes the first banana when the star slips on a banana peel. Who ever thought? Didn’t penicillin come from a nearly-forgotten moldy Petri dish? Segues and non-sequiturs are playing a softball game. The sudden swerve in the road takes me to a eucalyptus grove. The typo is my best line.

The step-by-step argument leads to nowhere as in the cartoon of the construction worker building a staircase on a high-rise and calling down, Escher, get your ass up here. Ray Bradbury’s advice to young writer’s was to go to the edge of the cliff and jump. Build your parachute on the way down.  It’s OK to trust your resourcefulness even if it let you down yesterday; you aren’t the same person you were then. Today, your walnut may be caramelized. Make that two scoops of rum raisin.

Before GPS we had maps in our glove compartments. They were neatly folded like a well-conceived arguments into equal rectangles. Open them and trace your journey, then simply refold the paper according to the creases. Simply? Count me among those who struggled to restore the folds back to their original state. My imp wouldn’t allow me. With the energy expended I could have written a blog.

 

The Arc of It All

History has always been that endless narrative which helps make life coherent for me even as I know it is somewhat of an illusion. It locates me in the montage. Ever since names like Vasco de Gama and Crispus Attucks entered my cauldron of a brain, I have wanted to know my antecedents. What landed me here? Have I seen this movie before? Is this where I came in? More recently I ask myself where did we go wrong?  Sometimes history is a thrill-a-minute adventure in the demi-monde and other times a story of reverence and the power of love. History is that ultimate, once upon-a-time yet there is no ever-after. It just keeps rolling.                                                                                                                                                    

I suspect it is not unnatural to try aligning one’s own history with the greater chronicle. As I see the debacle of today’s socio-political landscape, I want to say it was not ever thus.

My first trespass into the adult world was in 1940. I was seven. I didn’t know a socialite from a socialist but I did know Franklin Roosevelt was spoken of kindly in my household. And I also knew his voice, those patrician intonations I regarded as coming from on high. I collected FDR buttons. My beanie hat was festooned with  dozens of them. Buttons were much smaller then.

At that age I had no sense of nuance. My color wheel, like movies, was black and white. If President Roosevelt was good then his opponent must be bad. It was some years later before I realized the two men and the two parties would never again be so close. In fact, a case could be made that Wendell Willkie saved the day. At that time seventy-five percent of Americans wanted us to stay out of the war in Europe. Mainstream Republicans were Isolationists.

Thomas Dewey and Robert Taft, the two leading GOP candidates were staunchly opposed to our entry yet neither could manage a majority at the Republican convention. Willkie was a compromise choice on the sixth ballot. During the campaign FDR came to realize his opponent was a good guy. So good that Willkie was named by Roosevelt to become an ambassador-at-large as he traveled the globe and later wrote a best-seller, One World. All this is a compressed version of how England was saved at the last minute along with Democracy and Western Civilization.

It was a balm to grow up knowing my country was the beacon for freedom. As a man-child this construct became more than a bit flawed. In a parallel way I also came to know my own flaws. The bipartisan marriage of parties slipped away after the war. Did I become split with inner conflicts? Probably, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing though attempts at reconciliation would be even better.  I suspect we all carry unsolved mysteries for a lifetime.

The usurpation by Trump of the Republican Party has its roots in the post war McCarthyism and the John Birch Society as a minority voice in the conservative ranks. In fact, it goes back to the Southern racism lingering since the Civil War. Before that to slavery itself and before that to the coexistence of Puritanical rectitude versus the more freedom-loving settlers along with Enlightenment thinkers.  Of course, it didn’t begin there either. History has no chapter one; we are always in the middle of the scroll reflecting human nature itself.

I take comfort in knowing even a smattering of the past. It deposits the stain of Trumpism on a far larger tapestry. Where I fit in is still a work-in-progress. November’s election will determine whether the arc has landed us in the abyss or if this period is merely a blip in the grand ledger.

 

Noon-Dark Thoughts

In 1940 Arthur Koestler wrote a book, later made into a movie, which caused an upheaval in ideological alignment. The title of the book is Darkness at Noon. Koestler had been a member of the Communist Party in Germany during the tumultuous thirties. He was among a group of prominent Hungarian Jews who had emigrated years before. Among these refugees were scientists, mathematician, photographers and Hollywood director and producer.

Koestler’s book was condemned by the American left for denouncing our ally, the U.S.S.R. The book exposed the senseless brutality of the Soviet regime which took the lives of many literary and intellectual luminaries, their best and brightest. The American Communist Party was a voice condemning racial injustice and income inequities while supporting labor rights etc…

It is the name of the book which captures my attention. Ironically the title was provided by Koestler’s fiancé who also translated the manuscript into English as they separately fled Nazi occupation of France.

The darkness alluded to what could well be the long shadow we are living under today as American-style fascism is clearly taking root in our state legislative bodies and federal courts under the directive of Donald Trump. He has set up the apparatus for sedition. Just as conservative Germans thought they could use their madman while all the time he was using them, so too is the megalomaniac from Mar-a-Lago cut from the same cloth. While the far right is salivating over the enactment of their reactionary agenda the wreckage of Democracy and destruction of the planet is the toll.  

Whether it be proto-fascism, Soviet communism or Putin-style absolutism the common thread is the aggrieved masses relinquishing their reasoning and their conscience to an charismatic, deranged figure with a pocketful of unfulfilled promises. He excels at generating fear and loathing while all the time his only interest is fealty and self-aggrandizement. The mendacity, vulgarity and imbecility are all disregarded and the individual gets lost in the narrative which belongs to the man at the top.

It is no longer morning in America. It is noon and it is dark. Another title with that word noon comes to mind which belongs to a different chapter of American history. The academy-award winning film, High Noon, was also seen as a cautionary tale. 

Exploiting the tide of anti-Communism in the late nineteen forties Sen. Joe McCarthy threatened the right of dissent with wild accusations aimed at such respected figures as General George Marshall to President Truman’s State Department. as being riddled with Soviet spies. He managed to destroy the careers of Hollywood, writers, directors and actors as well as other public figures.

The movie, High Noon, directed by Carl Foreman and produced by Stanley Kramer, was seen as a rebuke to McCarthyism. Foreman, himself, was among the so-called Hollywood Ten to be blacklisted. The film was told in real time and starred Gary Cooper as sheriff of a town in the wild west. Awaiting the arrival of team of thugs, he is abandoned by the cowardly town folks who represented those voices in Hollywood who refused to stand up against the witch hunt and, instead, named names to save their own careers. Elia Kazan was one of them.

It became a battle of well-made allegories as Kazan tried to explain his role as informer with the film, On the Waterfront. This, in turn, was answered by his former friend, Arthur Miller with his theater piece, The Crucible.

Surprisingly, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton all loved High Noon and played it over and over. Perhaps the message was lost to some. The popular arts are embedded with ideology either reinforcing or challenging values. Sometimes we are blinded by the noon-day sun.

On the other hand…

The art of the above-mentioned films has endured long after their cryptic messaging. The genius of the filmmaker taps into our humanity and engenders our own creative juices. This may be a way of altering perception and breaking the hold of the puppet-master.

Even in these troubled times one hopes the somnambulant MAGAs will wake from their mesmerized state and see the naked emperor. Grievances, real or imagined, need to be addressed. Perhaps the darkness at midday is merely a solar eclipse no match for our collective radiant souls and good sense.  

 

 

Imagine My Surprise When...

The phone rang and it didn’t say Spam Risk. The sender was allegedly calling from inside the Beltway in Washington D.C. Of course, this didn’t mean a thing either since it could have been from a non-existent buckle of the Belt. I pick it up on the fifth ring and said something like, who is this and what do you want, in my most cantankerous tone I could manage. The voice said, please hold for Attorney General Garland. I thought to myself, Yeah, if you are the A.G. then I’m Al Capone. In fact, it was he asking me to serve as the Master.

Surely you must have the wrong Norm Levine, said I. I have never even been a master of ceremonies. But he insisted citing the undeniable fact that I am a man of no importance. I couldn’t argue with that. Garland, may I call you Merrick, said they were looking for someone plucked from a list of nobodies, to demonstrate impartiality.

I was flown to an undisclosed subterranean bunker where I was to review the stash of purloined papers which Donald used to level his tilted tables or doddle upon while watching reruns of himself on The Apprentice.  He had scribbled on a few marked, top-secret documents with his tag, worthy of eBay. Then there was a pile of scented envelopes tied with ribbon which turned out to be love letters from Vlad. It didn’t think it appropriate to pry, but I was startled to find a signed first edition of Mein Kompf.

(To digress for a moment, I need to remind the reader of this malarkey that I really did live on a small street across from Kew Forest School where little Donald spent four or five of his formative years which may or may not all have been in kindergarten. Centuries from now archeologists might dig on this site for scraps of evidence to account for Donald’s pathological behavior.)

My next find was an exchange between the nine-year-old boy’s parents and his teacher.

Dear Mrs. Trump, 

I’m so sorry you were unable to attend parent’s night. We have much to discuss about your son’s behavior. Evidently Donald regards the last four years in kindergarten as the best time of his life. However, running with scissors and disrupting class projects calls for remedial attention. He has also been bullying others with rather abusive language, and there remains a suspicion of your child having embezzled milk money. Furthermore, his assertion of re-election to the office of milk monitor after being soundly defeated has brought dishonor to this institution as a model of fairness and privileged education.

Dear Mr. Trump,

Your support for our beloved school is well-appreciated however you disgrace your position on the Board of Trustees by threatening withdrawal of delinquent tuition. You must know that having me dismissed does no favor for your disturbed child who will likely grow up a menace to society.  

 

At this point the real Norm Levine was ushered into the room along with an abundance of apologies from Merrick. I was immediately replaced by a true Master, whatever that may mean. Perhaps I had transitioned from a nobody to a near-somebody.

 

 

Seasonal Thoughts

I am trying to write myself out of the heat. I’m thinking cold, icy thoughts, wind-chill, frost, brr, remembering those January days back east with gusts in my face and icy sidewalks waiting for a lawsuit. Scarves and earmuffs, three sweaters, galoshes and gloves. I’m feeling better already. If this doesn’t work, there’s always Costco’s room like an ice-hotel where berries and grapes stay happily preserved.       

Here in Southern California, we have no weather, at least none by the coast. Morning fog is transient. Santa Ana winds usually stay inland. The result is a collective outrage when our Fahrenheit numbers climb above eighty or dip under sixty. Seasons are rumors. We live between sixty-five and seventy-five the year round. In sweltering days such as we now have, I long for those chilly scenes of winter in which I probably dreamed about these long, hot summers where I am now yearning for the gulags where my ancestors were likely banished.  

My tolerance for cold is shamelessly low. Maybe I have what the old Geritol commercial called iron-poor blood, a short step to no blood at all. Cold nights are exacerbated by one of the most dreaded and least talked-about maladies known to mankind; namely, creeping-sleeve syndrome, or even worse, creeping-leg syndrome in which my pajamas creep up my several extremities on their own accord. Further research is called for.

The fact is, we are spoiled. We’ve lost touch with the elements. Christmas brings out Styrofoam snow and fake icicles. Palm trees have no foliage season. However, we do have wildflowers painting the desert floor; a little rain wouldn’t hurt.

The cycles of nature have been relocated within. When Wallace Stevens wrote about having a mind of winter it suggests a state of mind detached from our own baggage yet immersed in the reality of the barren field. Winter is the last in the cycle; the dying of the light, as Dylan Thomas described it. Not necessarily Death but a sense of desolation or a period to in-dwell. Pagans noted the diminished light and organized religion ritualized the early darkness with compensatory candles from menorahs to decking the halls.    

Which brings me back to our sizzling September still in the mind of summer. The full flowering of us. A time to frolic with sunscreen protecting us from the bacchanal of cancer cells. Light fare of beach books and summer movies…whatever that may mean. No worries, mate, the seasons run on time even if trains don’t. We’re all part of the great recycling. Have a peach before they grow mealy or a drink with one of those mini-umbrellas. We have over-cooked our planet. We ordered medium-rare and got ourselves not well-done but burned.