Notes - just to be done / Happy New Year kind readers

30 December 13

         2310 hours. I cannot sleep because I am thinking about the account Aunt Patsy recently wrote about Uncle Ernie from notes he dictated to her in November 2013 about his secret intelligence work leading up to and during D-Day operations during World War II. This is material I had not heard/read before. When he was talking about it with family yesterday, he said, “I cannot forget the bodies I saw in the water as we flew over the beach during the battle.” His eyes had a look of remembrance made present I have only seen a few times in life. Most notably by Carol’s Grandfather Hammond who was an upholsterer who helped craft building of the HMS Titanic – he looked at us one Thanksgiving Day in the 1970’s and said, “It should have never sunk.” He heart still wanted to deny the fact he knew was true. And, another, an older comrade I worked with at the Westerville Sewage Plant while in college during the 1960’s. John, a coalminer from West Virginia, said, “My brother and I heard the sharp crack above us and we ran toward the speck of light. My brother didn’t make it.” His eyes were large and in past and present both at once. He continued, “that was my last day working in mines.” In each instance of the personal moments never to be forgotten in life – a sense of momentary remembrance in a present earthy framework shivered into my soul during the eye-to-eye contact. Uncle Ernie, more my father in spirit than my real father in the flesh showed me ‘witness’.

         You are struggling to explain the nature of this vividly lucid eye-to-eye human communication of less than a second or two of measured time I cannot – save say, you were in the moment, not within the five senses, but you were as a witness, a secondary being ‘touched’ by a primary. – Amorella

31 December 13

         Mid-afternoon. You ran some errands and had lunch at Potbelly’s in Kenwood. You bought a new modem (with your own monthly savings), an Airport Express as you were having trouble with the old one last night and couldn’t get the Internet on any of your Apple machinery. – Amorella

         1448 hours. A couple of months ago Time Warner started renting their modems at five dollars a month. It will take seventeen months at a hundred and five dollars cost but from then on the modem will be freely used. While we were at Kenwood Mall I took a picture of the first Tesla charge station, which is right in the covered parking lot. Yesterday I read on Green Car Reports that Apple ‘ought’ to buy Tesla outright and go into the car business as well. That would be an interesting mix. Both products use batteries though so maybe it is not too far fetched as far as a concept goes.

         You are sitting facing south (to catch the shade of a fur tree) at Rose Hill Cemetery crossroad central. Carol is working on balancing her checkbooks instead of reading. In a bit you can work on Grandma Nine, but first . . . about Uncle Ernie, John C. and Henry ‘Harry’ Hammond 1886-1979. You are puzzled over what word that can best be used to describe the twitch-in-the-eye that you saw in each man’s face as he spoke of an unforgettable life memory. – Amorella

         1505 hours. The twitch-in-the-eye is about a third of the observation, but the two-thirds buried iceberg-like behind the eye is what I remember first; the twitch strangely, which was in event sequence first was secondary to the memory which, rising up cause the twitch. But from my perspective chronologically, the most important, the humanity-of-the-specific-memory, was second. Lucidly vivid are the descriptive words that remain in my mind. I personally do not have a memory that is associative to their specific memories here because their memories hold a specific historic memory that others would have shared. We know about the Titanic and D-Day, but somewhere in West Virginia and elsewhere there is recorded and personal knowledge of that specific coalmine disaster where John C. literally outran a crushing death. – I look around at the many leafless trees and naked stones; many with nearby small American flags rippling in the brisk westerly by southwest winds. A winter’s invisible blanket of bleakness without foreboding covers this Rose Hill before quickly shuffling on east by northeast. Makes me wonder if the Dead have moved on from here or not leaving spiritless bones and cremated aggregate to settle into clay waiting for something new to be made of this place and the many others scattered about the world.

         2017 hours. I have spent a couple of hours attempting to set up the new Apple router with Time Warner, all to no avail, so I rewired and had TW reboot the old 2008 router (a Motorola SB4200 cable modem) which is also connected to another older router (a Cisco Linksys VURT110) that I didn’t realize existed under Carol’s computer desk. After the first of the year I will attempt to clear this up with Time Warner before returning the Airport Express. One would think I could easily substitute the new for the Cisco. Carol is happy to be back on the Internet presently. I will try that tomorrow and see what happens. I am assuming I erred in thinking that the Motorola is the modem we rent. It may be the Cisco. If that is the case, then the error is mine. Hmm. This would not be the first time.

         Orndorff, why don’t you post this just to be done. Later, dude. - Amorella

         I wish you, my kind patient readers, the Happiest of New Years!    rho :-)

Notes - affection for Our Town / the humanities / (final) Brothers 9

         Mid-afternoon. You and Carol finished a late lunch at Smashburgers and you are sitting in the Tylersville lot listening to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” on 80’s on 8 while Carol shops for veggies for a tray for Cathy and Tod’s tomorrow. Paul has a replacement for the hospital for a few hours so he can attend. You are happy because Aunt Patsy and Uncle Ernie have only met him a couple of times. Several in attendance have never seen Brennan. You haven’t seen Jeffery since last Christmas (or the year before) when he and Gretchen stopped by Kim and Paul’s at University Heights. – Amorella

         1503 hours. I have been thinking about the atmosphere presented in Wilder’s “Our Town”. What a simple and wonderful and timeless play. Here's what Wikipedia Offline has to say.

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Our Town is a three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder. It is a character story about an average town's citizens in the early twentieth century as depicted through their everyday lives. Using metatheatrical devices, Wilder sets the play in a 1930s theater. He uses the actions of the Stage Manager to create the town of Grover's Corners for the audience. Scenes from its history between the years of 1901 and 1913 play out.

Wilder wrote the play while in his 30s. In June 1937, he lived in the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, one of the many locations where he worked on the play. During a visit to Zurich in September 1937, he drafted the entire third act in one day after a long evening walk in the rain with a friend, author, Samuel Morris Steward.

Our Town was first performed at McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey on January 22, 1938. It next opened at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, Massachusetts on January 25, 1938. Its New York City debut was on February 4, 1938 at Henry Miller’s Theatre, and later moved to the Morosco Theatre. The play was produced and directed by Jed Harris. Wilder received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1938 for the work.

In 1946, the Soviet Union prevented a production of Our Town in the Russian sector of occupied Berlin "on the grounds that the drama is too depressing and could inspire a German suicide wave."

Background

The play is set in the fictional community of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, modeled upon several towns in the Mount Monadnock region: Peterborough, Jaffrey, Dublin and others. The narrator gives the coordinates of Grover's Corners as 42°40′ north latitude and 70°37′ west longitude, which is in Massachusetts, about a thousand feet off the coast of Rockport.

Our Town's narrator, the Stage Manager, is completely aware of his relationship with the audience, leaving him free to break the fourth wall and address them directly. According to the script, the play is to be performed with little scenery, no set and minimal props. Wilder was dissatisfied with the theatre of his time: "I felt that something had gone wrong . . . I began to feel that the theatre was not only inadequate, it was evasive." His answer was to have the characters mime the objects with which they interact. Their surroundings are created only with chairs, tables, and ladders. (e.g., The scene in which Emily helps George with his evening homework, conversing through upstairs windows, is performed with the two actors standing atop separate ladders to represent their neighboring houses.) Says Wilder, "Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind – not in things, not in 'scenery.'"

Main characters

•                Stage Manager - a narrator, meta-commentator, and guide through Grovers Gorners. He joins in the action of the play periodically, as the reverend at the wedding, the soda shop owner, a local townswoman, etc, and speaks directly to Emily after her death

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•                Emily Webb - arguably the main character; we follow her from a precocious young girl through her wedding to George Gibbs and her early death

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•                George Gibbs - the boy next door, a typically vain and irresponsible teenager who matures over time and becomes a responsible husband, father and farmer

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•                Frank Gibbs, George's father, the town doctor

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•                Julia (Hersey) Gibbs, George's mother. She dreams of going to Paris, but doesn't get there. Dies later while visiting her daughter in Ohio. She saved $350 for the trip from the sale of an antique furniture piece, but ultimately willed it to George and Emily

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•                Charles Webb, Emily's father, editor of the Grovers Corners Sentinel

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•                Myrtle Webb, Emily's mother

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Secondary characters

•                Joe and Si Crowell, local paperboys. Joe's intelligence earns him a full scholarship to MIT where he graduates at the top of his class. His promise will be cut short on the fields of France during World War I, according to the Stage Manager. Both he and his brother Si hold marriage in high disdain

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•                Simon Stimson, the choir director and church organist. We never learn the root cause of his alcoholism and later suicide. He is still bitter and cynical beyond the grave

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•                Howie Newsome, the milkman, a fixture of Grovers Corners

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•                Rebecca Gibbs, George's younger sister. Later elopes with a traveling salesman and settles in Ohio

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•                Wally Webb, Emily's younger brother. Dies of a burst appendix on a Boy Scout camping trip

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•                Professor Willard, a rather long-winded lecturer

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•                Woman in Auditorium, concerned with temperance

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•                Man in Auditorium, concerned with social justice

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•                Another Woman in Auditorium, concerned with culture and beauty

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•                Mrs. Louella Soames, a gossipy townswoman and member of the choir

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•                Constable Bill Warren, the policeman

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•                Three Baseball Players who mock George at the wedding

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•                Joe Stoddard, the undertaker

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•                Sam Craig, a nephew of Mrs Gibbs who left town to seek his fortune

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•                Dead Man

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•                Dead Woman

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•                Mr. Carter

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•                Farmer McCarthy

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•                (Bessie, Howie Newsome's horse (visible to the characters, but not the audience)

The Plot

The Stage Manager guides the play, taking questions from the audience, describing the locations (as scenery is sparse) and making key observations about the world the play creates.

Act I: Daily Life

The Stage Manager introduces the audience to the small town of Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, and its residents as a morning begins in 1901. Joe Crowell delivers the paper, Howie Newsome delivers the milk, and the neighboring Webb and Gibbs households send their children off to school. The Stage Manager brings out a long-winded professor to talk about the history and pre-history of Grovers Corners, Editor Webb gives a few notes on local political and religious affiliations and fields questions from the audience about alcoholism, social injustice and culture. After school, George and Emily exchange a few words, and Emily self-consciously asks her mother if she's pretty. The Stage Manager mentions that a time capsule is being lain in the cornerstone of a new bank in town, and noting the lack of information about the common people of ancient cultures, he resolves that a copy of this play will be placed inside. Moving to the evening, Emily whispers homework hints to George through their open windows. On their way home from choir practice, Mrs Gibbs, Mrs Webb and Mrs Soames discuss Simon Stimson, the choir director with a reputation for being a drunkard. Doc Gibbs teaches George a lesson in responsibility, and young Rebecca frets that the moon will strike the earth, causing "a big 'splosion."

Act II: Love and Marriage

Three years pass and George and Emily prepare to wed. The day is filled with stress. Howie Newsome is delivering milk in the pouring rain while Si Crowell, younger brother of Joe, laments how George's baseball talents will be squandered. George pays an awkward visit with his soon-to-be in-laws. Here, the Stage Manager interrupts the scene and takes the audience back a year, to the end of Emily and George's junior year. Over an ice cream soda, Emily confronts George about his pride, and they discuss the future and their love for each other. George resolves not to go to college, as he had planned, but to work and eventually take over his uncle's farm. The wedding follows where George, in a fit of nervousness, tells his mother that he is not ready to marry. Emily, too, tells her father of her anxiety about marriage, saying she wishes she were dead. However, they both regain their composure, and George proceeds down the aisle to be wed by the preacher (played by the Stage Manager). Mrs. Soames is very pleased with the whole affair, as she turns to the audience and gushes.

Act III: Death and Eternity

The Stage Manager opens the act with a lengthy monologue emphasizing eternity, and introduces us to the cemetery outside of town and the characters who passed away in the nine years since Act Two: Mrs Gibbs (pneumonia, while traveling), Wally Webb (burst appendix, while camping), Mrs Soames, and Simon Stimson (suicide by hanging), among others. We meet the undertaker, Joe Stoddard, and a young man Sam Craig who has returned home for his cousin's funeral. We learn that his cousin is Emily, who died giving birth to her and George's second child. The funeral ends and Emily emerges to join the dead. The Mrs Gibbs tell her that they must wait and forget the life that came before, but Emily refuses. Despite the warnings of Simon, Mrs. Soames, and Mrs. Gibbs, Emily decides to return to Earth to re-live just one day, her 12th birthday. She finally finds it too painful, and realizes just how much life should be valued, "every, every minute." Poignantly, she asks the Stage Manager whether anyone realizes life while they live it, and is told, "No. The saints and poets, maybe--they do some." She then returns to her grave, beside Mrs. Gibbs, watching impassively as George kneels weeping at her graveside. The Stage Manager concludes the play, reflecting on the probable lack of life beyond Earth, and wishes the audience a good night.

Awards

•                1938 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

•                1989 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival

•                1989 Tony Award for Best Revival

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The play has been adapted numerous times:

•                Our Town on May 12, 1939, as the 23rd episode of The Campbell Playhouse. Narrated by Orson Welles as the Stage Manager, with George Craven as George Gibbs, and Patricia Newton as Emily Webb, et alia

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•                ”Our Town” (1940 film), adaptation starring Martha Scott as Emily and William Holden as George Gibbs, with a musical score by Aaron Copland. Many members of the original cast repeated their roles in this film, although the ending was drastically changed so that Emily lived [seen]

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•                 “Our Town” (1940 radio), on May 6, 1940, a radio version was performed by many of the same film actors for Lux Radio Theater

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•                 “Our Town” (television) a live musical 1955 TV adaptation on Producers’ Showcase starring Frank Sinatra as the Stage Manager, Paul Newman as George Gibbs, and Eva Marie Saint as Emily. The first and only musical version of the play to be telecast (so far)

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•                “Our Town”, a 1977 television adaptation of the play, starring Hal Holbrook as the Stage Manager, Robby Benson as George Gibbs and Glynnis O’Connor as Emily Webb

             [seen]

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•                Grover's Corners, a 1987 musical adaptation performed at the Marriott Theatre

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•                 “Our Town”, a 1989 telecast of a Lincoln Center stage production starring Spalding Gray, Frances Conroy, Penelope Ann Miller, and Eric Stoltz [seen]

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•                “Our Town” (2003 film) a made-for-TV adaptation of a 2002 Broadway revival starring Paul Newman, this time as the Stage Manager

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•                Our Town (opera), an operatic version of the play with music by Ned Rorem

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            An award-winning revival of Our Town opened at the Barrow Street Theatre on February 26, 2009. The production was directed by David Cromer, who also performed the role of Stage Manager for much of the show's run. Upon closing, the production had played four preview and 644 regular performances, making it the longest-running production of the play in its history. In addition to Cromer, other notable actors who performed in the role of Stage Manager included Helen Hunt, Michael McKean, Jason Butler Harner, Stephen Kunken and Michael Shannon

Selected and edited from Wikipedia Offline – Our Town

** **

         1618 hours. It is fitting that I completed this at the central crossroads in Rose Hill Cemetery. Carol is on page 15 of a relatively new book, The Postmistress by Sarah Blake – stunning parallels to today is what one quick review says. I might be interested in reading it myself.

         You are home before another errand. You have a deep, deep affection for “Our Town” no question about it. From in here the article above even touches your soul, boy. Post. - Amorella

         1635 hours. I have seen several productions listed above and another where Emily was played by a young Sarah Jessica Parker. I used to show one version or another in AP class if there was time – like before Thanksgiving Break.

         Some would say you were wasting the students’ time showing films and/or plays in class, particularly in an AP English class. – Amorella

         1652 hours. I do not regret showing one or more films or plays in any of my classes. I introduced them, we discussed them afterwards, and sometimes the students had to write reviews or expository essays on them. They need to be trained to read specifics and the need is also to see specifics in theatrical works.

         English class was basically taught as a humanities class, is that what you are saying? – Amorella

         No, it is not. The humanities were always in the margins of any class I ever taught. This is how I attempted to catch a student’s heart and soul and mind. Once such a door or window is opened a bit, you touch the student’s life. Once touched there is a greater understanding of how life is and a personal reflection may take place. This was my hope in all my classes even when I taught a strictly grammar class. Why are you asking me these questions? You know my response in advance.

        You do not though. You were angry when I brought it up a moment or two ago but have since mellowed. You have your reasons but sometimes you need to see them right in front of your face. Think of the Dead and how they might now better understand what life was. I want you to see this better while you are alive. That’s what the questions are about. Post. - Amorella

       2207 hours. I completed the (final) Brother 9 in 801 words.

         Recheck it first, then add and post. – Amorella

***

The Brothers 9 ©2013, rho, (final) GMG.One

Richard sat in his favorite black leather chair studying Robert’s pungently worded poem:

                                                       “Nature Junkie”

                                                            a bumblebee --

                                                            the big black one

                                                            with yellow stripes

                                                            enters the bright

                                                            white flower

                                                            of a hosta.

                                                            From the front porch

                                                            my chocolate Lab

                                                            mouths a stinging memory.

                                                            I see the bee

                                                            body working inside.

                                                            I suspect

                                                            other creatures,

                                                            unseen,

                                                            see a meal --

                                                            ants waiting

                                                            its fall to earth,

                                                            or a lizard

                                                            immune to venom.

                                                            if it wanders to ground

                                                            in the chicken yard,

                                                            the hens will rush,

                                                            pop the droning pill.

                                                            I walk off the porch,

                                                            pinch shut

                                                            the flower petals

                                                            to hear the panic of wings,

                                                            to get the buzz

                                                            of bee

                                                            up the fingers,

                                                            hoping

                                                            it will go to my head.

***

            “Good poem, Rob. Precise. I love the line, ‘to get the buzz of the bee up the fingers hoping it will go to my head.’ Rob's poetry always has the feeling of a slight twist of phrase. I wasn’t expecting ‘up the fingers,’ Who would have thought, ‘up the fingers’? I love it.”

            “Thank you. When it comes to poetry we usually agree.”

            “Coney Island of the Mind, ‘Number Five’.”

            “Ferlinghetti. That is was a great poem and still is as far as I am concerned,” stated Robert. “Real poetry, no traa-lee-laa crap.”

            “I’m still stuck there,” voiced Richard. “You moved on with the poets to modern times, but my heart is with the Beats.”

            Robert added abruptly, “That’s when you stopped your style. There are other ways to say things.”

            “I liked the Beats' bluntness.”

            With a sheepish grin Robert asked, “Then you won’t mind me asking you about your automatic writing?”

            “It’s not really automatic, Rob. That is what some people call it. It is a part of my writing process. I have to be in the right frame of mind to write the Merlyn stories.”

            “Is that what you are calling the stories now?”

            “It’s a basic and natural frame of mind,” said Richard, “like my word trancephysics. It is like writing while in a light trance. In fact, there is a word for it that relates to autosuggestion.”

            “Ideomotor action. William James wrote about it,” grinned Robert.

            Richard reflected his brother, “You saw my dowsing rods over in the corner didn’t you?”

            “I saw them; unscientific re-bent clothes hangers, but I knew what they were. Were you looking for water in the back yard?”

            “I was looking for unmarked graves in the cemetery. Dale gave them to me after talking about them with a plumber who used them to find leaks in lines between the house and street.”

            “Dowsing has been debunked, you know, water-witching and the like. Studies show that finding water by dowsing is a fifty-fifty proposition.”

            Richard responded, “The rods do move though, I think it has to do with electro-magnetic energy."

            Ever the medical doctor, Robert comment nonchalantly, “The divining rods work because of unconscious suggestion to small muscles in the fingers that work through subconscious response.”

            “Well then, when I am in form and in a semi-transcendental state while writing. What’s wrong with that?”

            Robert deadpanned facially while saying, “Nothing as long as you aren’t going off the deep end.”

            “Anything that exists whether we know and understand it or not is natural. My bet is that is a quirky nerve impulse within one of my temporal lobes or another nerve response from brain to the fingers. In either case it is biophysical.”

            Robert re-focused, “So why were you dowsing for unmarked graves?”

            “It was fun. I think it is interesting that the finer finger muscles can move by involuntary suggestion alone. It makes you wonder on who pulls the trigger in some murders. I think of Shakespeare’s character MacBeth and his killing of Duncan. Lady MacBeth suggests it. His hands and fingers take up the action whether he is fully conscious, that is, that he is in full realization of what he is doing.” Richard paused, “the rest of the play shows another side of MacBeth. When he fully realized he killed an innocent man and a guest in his own house.”

            “It is just a play, Richie,” countered Robert, “and few would agree with your assessment.”

            “I know, but still it is interesting that a simple dowsing rod can show we are not fully consciously responsible for some muscular action. It doesn’t take much consciousness to shove a knife into somebody, especially if you are a good soldier to begin with.”

            Clearly concerned Robert emphatically replied, “I can assure you that it takes a great deal of consciousness to push a sharp surgical blade into a living human body.” He glanced down at Robert’s poem, “to get a buzz – hoping it will go to my head,” gave him a quiet smile to get up and leave the room with.

***