Three by Dove and One by Quijada

My eldest daughter and I went to the ballet last night. We had great seats. She takes ballet and I thought it time for her to see something more cutting edge than "The Sleeping Beauty," "Swan Lake," or "The Nutcracker." Those are all good ballets to watch when done well, but it was time to mix it up so to speak.

Ulysses Dove was an independent choreographer who combined modern dance and ballet flawlessly in my opinion. The first Dove vignette entitled "Vespers" was based on memories of Dove's grandmother and the women that she worshipped with in a small wooden building. The dance was modern and balletic at the same time and involved quite a bit of balancing and coordinated dance movements using wooden chairs as props.

The next dance entitled "Red Angels" used only four dancers, usually on-stage two at a time, and clothed in red leotards. Dove chose red for this number because for him "...the angels of the senses are red." Thrilling and athletic with a bit of the demon vs. angel thrown in. My only complaint, it was too short.

"Serious Pleasures" was the last dance performed. It was described in the program as "a merciless battle between spirit and flesh." I should add, layers of sexuality that thankfully went over the head of my ten-year-old. This may sound odd, but the set and dance moves were part underground gay bar and S&M dungeon, but in a pleasing and aesthetic way although I know that must be very difficult to imagine.

Victor Quijada is an artistic director and choreographer mostly of hip hop and to see hip hop and ballet combined was quite an original experience. The stage was "stripped." All of the staging curtains were up, exposing behind stage lights, ladders, scaffolding and such and the dancers wore street clothes. The stage began to curtain towards the end of the dance and was fully curtained when the dancers moved off of the stage.

I am one of those people who is really moved by certain types of artistic expression. Often I am moved by different kinds of dance. Generally I am moved in some way or another by artistic expression in any form as long as it is well-done.

Letter to Governor Huckabee

Dear Governor Huckabee,

What in the world were you thinking when you pardoned that fiend of a man to ruthlessly roam the streets of Washington state. I guess that you must have been thankful that he was leaving Arkansas after your generous gift. How could you be so inept as to have not noticed the psychopathic nature of this particular criminal (I refuse to honor him by using his name, you know who I am talking about).

In all of the time he has spent in prison, I find it difficult to believe that his hatred of police was hidden. Certainly there were written records attesting to this passionate hate. They must have been "swept under the rug" so that the devil could make his bargain. I find it hard to believe that there weren't other criminals more deserving. I am not a psychiatrist, but as a member of the general public, I could probably recognize a psychopath as deeply disturbed as this individual without much difficulty.

Our streets are clean of him. He was shot by law enforcement officers today. I will have you know that the generous freedom that you gave him led to the massacre of four police officers, all of whom left families behind that will now be missing a parent. It makes me wonder how you ever got elected or if this man had a rich relative or friend somewhere ready to make a bribe. I may be a Northwesterner, but I have travelled enough to know that Southerners are typically insulted when out-of-towners make fun of their intelligence. You have no excuse, I am an out-of-towner and I am insulting yours.

I hope that you think long and hard about the foolish decision that you made to pardon this man and set him free to commit heinous crimes. You deserve to lose sleep over this decision and pay attention next time, some criminals are beyond rehabilitation.

Sincerely,

A Concernc Citizen in Washington

On Thankfulness...

Some days, when I am not viewing the world in a negative or cynical light and when I haven't had to share the road with too many bad drivers, I look around me and take stock in the little things that I am thankful for. This week I have had cause to give thanks to the powers that be for my healthy children. Sure, they get sick every once in a while, but they are not disabled. Their brains and bodies work and I get to experience being a parent of "normal" children. I once heard a poem about the birth of a typical child being compared to taking a trip to Italy and the birth of disabled one being compared to a trip to Holland, not what was expected, but over time parents are generally able to learn and grow in the beauty of each trip no matter how unplanned.

It has been fifteen years that I have worked with children of varying mental and physical disabilities and every so often there is a family that comes through the door to the office that gets me in some way and that happened this week. This family took a trip to Holland, a drastically unplanned one at that, about four years ago and as these problems are genetically related, it is unlikely that this child will have a sibling. The child is beautiful in his own way. I can see where the eyes of the appraising and often judgemental public may miss his beauty and I feel for these parents. Just about everything that could go wrong with a child has gone wrong with this kid.

What I think about though is the grief that parents of only children who are disabled must have to go through. To never be able to see their child change emotionally, socially, and cognitively from a three-year-old to a six-year-old to a ten-year-old onto the teenage years, then college, and independent adulthood. To know that the development will stop somewhere between one-year to three-years of age I think would be very hard for any parent to do. I watch and marvel and the strength, courage, and happiness that so many of these parents have day in and day out, what a gift, what a challenge.

Act of God

I saw the documentary film, "Act of God" last night. I actually had a difficult time following the sequence of stories in the film. Although there were some pretty spectacular images of lightening, I did not like the music used to narrate the film, it reminded me of fingernails on the blackboard. What brings me to write about this film viewing today is, it got me thinking about the randomness of life. Some may call this randomness "acts of God," others may refer to it simply as "chance." I consider myself to be somewhere in between. Yes, I believe in God, but contrary to the views expressed by some of the people interviewed in the film, I don't think of disaster (natural or otherwise) as a blessing or something to be considered good in any way. I also think it is somewhat dangerous to view a lightening strike that kills people as something considered to be "good," because it keeps the people still alive from going through the grief process. The film focused on stories about lightening strikes in South America, Cuba, France, and the United States. The participants in South America definitely had a more "this is God's will" view of lightening induced family deaths. I think of these lightening strikes more as chance rather than acts of God.

In the South American deaths, the young people who died had climbed to the top of an unsheltered hill knowing a storm was going to strike. In doing so, there was definitely a chance that they would be struck by lightening. In two of the American stories the participants were in areas of the country where thunder and lightening storms are not uncommon and were also outside in fairly unsheltered areas. If we take these examples away from lightening and look at the randomness of life in general, I think much of it leads to chance based on choices (knowing or not) and behavior that affects the outcome. I don't think of God necessarily as a puppeteer controlling our lives minutely from above.

Are these deaths sad, yes, all death by any means I think of as sad. One thing that we have to come to grips with in our humaneness is that we all have a finite time on this earth and this is something we can't change or control. Sometimes death comes early and sometimes late. I guess, overall, that I just didn't really see the "act of God" connection to the stories presented in this film. I would have gotten much more out of it viewing lightening scenes and actions narrated by beautiful music.

The Greatest Show on Earth

We went to the circus last night. The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey "Greatest Show on Earth" circus and it was fun. Now I am a self-described "non-circus" person with the exception of the acrobatics that make my palms sweat and those were spectacular. What surprised me the most is how much I actually enjoyed the animal parts of the circus. The horses were gorgeous and the performing dog show was, in many ways, similar to the one that we saw in Sea World San Diego a few years back and I really enjoyed that.

All in all the only downer part of the evening was the group of sour faced protesters stationed at the main entrance and the fact that the circus wasn't actually held under a big top, but that is a different story. Since reading "Water for Elephants," I have been entranced with the notion of the big top. Also, I am old enough to have seen an actual circus under a big top and *sigh* I do miss those old fashioned things. Anyway, back to the protesters. I am given to understand, after completing my cursory Internet search, that the law suit that RBBB circus has managed to keep out of the courts since 2000 is indeed going to court. This suit involves alleged mis-treatment of the elephants.

On many levels I do consider myself to be an animal activist. But I think protesters, even a small group of them, at the circus is ridiculous. I realize that many of them have never travelled outside of the U.S. and been to countries where elephants are used as domestic labor and often treated very cruelly. It is certainly easier to station yourself outside of the doors of a commercial event in your own hometown rather than deal with the abuse of international animal trade. I get that.

But, in my humble opinion, the circus has gone quite P.C. since the big top days of old. What benefit does it give them to mis-treat their elephants. I might add, that at $60,000.00 per year for maintenance, these elephants are a huge investment for the circus. Like I said, I didn't expect to enjoy the elephants, tigers, horses and such as much as I did. I thought that I would be sitting in my seat thinking how much nicer it would be for these animals to roam free, not that they ever could, being too domesticated, at this point mind you.

At any rate, perhaps, probably, maybe there has been more recent elephant abuse in the circus. That is not up for me to answer. I know that the protesters at this event had a picture of one elephant and held posters proclaiming that this one elephant had been beaten to death. If that is true, than of course it is a damn shame. But their evidence was sketchy and limited and seemed a bit fabricated to me. It also disturbed the children and not in a good way. The animals on the floor inside of the event were beautiful and treated well during the performances.

Yes, people have come to enjoy animal free circuses. I am a fan of Cirque de Soleil. I did mention that I enjoy palm sweating acrobatics did I not? But as a sometimes old-fashioned American, I would I think miss the animal portion of RBBB circus. How many decades has this circus been around?

I hope that the outcome of the upcoming trial is fair. And if circus training practices need to change, than change they should and this may mean animal free RBBB circuses in the future. In the meantime images of painted elephants in India with numerous scars and limited nutrition will come to mind when I think of animal mistreatment, not the stunningly beautiful creatures that I witnessed at the circus last night.

Other Movies

I recently re-watched Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal." My kids and I attended a Jim Henson exhibit at Experience Music Project (EMP) and this got me re-interested in Jim Henson and the kids more interested in him. With that in mind, we rented "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal" this weekend. I watched "The Dark Crystal" late last night when I couldn't sleep, yes I did have a glass or two of wine, but I couldn't help but reflecting on the similarities between the male gelfing and Steven Tyler and the female gelfing and Charlie Watts. Look at the picture comparisons. Maybe it was just late at night or too much wine, but the similarities, with younger rock stars, were there nonetheless. I checked out a couple of other sources on-line. The writers had similar opinions to mine. Was Jim Henson "Rolling Stones" and "Aerosmith" fan, or is this just coincidence???

The Visitor

I am not really sure how I missed this one when it was in the theaters. It has caught my eye several times, but I haven't ordered it until now. What a timely and poignant sleeper of a hit. This is a must see for all Americans. We think that we understand the "immigration problem," I thought that I was enlightened until I saw this movie. This is a truly great viewing on many levels.

Reord Heat in Seattle...Makes me want to Rant

I admit that often I tend to be a bit behind the times in regards to current news, so it just so happens that I missed this one when it happened. That would be the breaking news story about the mother who allowed her nine-year-old son to ride the subway alone. She supplied him with quarters, subway tokens, a subway map, and an extra $20.00 for emergencies. This was a well-thought out and prepared plan that mother and son worked on together. The boy really wanted to ride the subway alone, his mother thought that he was ready, so one sunny Sunday afternoon last spring he set out on a short subway ride by himself. The mother said that she just knew, only the way that a mother can know, that her son was ready to do this. Do I know exactly what she means about "knowing?" You betcha, mothers usually do, which brings me to the point of this post.

The flack that this mother received was incredible. One of the reasons that I probably missed this in the "news" is that she was asked to appear on daytime television (to receive said "flack" by parenting specialists and members of the general public) which I never watch. I have noticed that most parenting specialists exist primarily to tell parents what they are doing wrong. You can now google "worst mother" and this mother will appear.

Today I scanned an interview with her one year after the event. The interview pretty much said that she and her son had no regrets and that she would do the same thing again. My question is, "What kind of society have we become when a mother like this is considered to be the worst mother in the country?" Is she worse than mothers who starve or beat their children? Is she worse than mothers who drink or take drugs into oblivion and leave their children in squalor and neglect? Is she worse than the mothers who allow their children to be molested by staying with the offender? I have very good friends who just went through a termination of parental rights process in regards to their two foster children and it seems to me that mother (she lost her parental rights) is more typical of what I would expect in regards to the "worst mother" nomination.

Yes, society puts enormous pressure on mothers to be more than themselves and sometimes to be more than human. It seems like well-educated mothers who are trying to prepare their children for society are easier to target than the truly horrible mothers because other people can feel justified by comparison, "Well, at least I don't do what SHE did to my children?" I also don't like the rush to judgement in this particular case because our society is so overly safety conscious and so over-protective that we allow the kooks, nutcases, and media to control our lives. Children are not being prepared to live in the world.

A friend of mine and I just had this discussion last week. We both believe in giving our children experiences. Sometimes those experiences will turn out well and sometimes... not so much. The point being that we allow our kids to do things like experience the unsafe wilds of nature. We were hiking with our children and had to caution them when we got too close to a real waterfall. In the media experiences that most children have, the characters do things like go down a rushing waterfall on little more than a raft, so some children might not know that you can't do that in real life. I think many children are not even allowed near real waterfalls because this would be considered too unsafe. Of course it is much safer to sit home blitzed out on video imagines and shoving Doritos into ones mouth, child obesity rates are soaring, how does this prepare them to be functional/healthy adults?

As a society we let the media scares dictate our parenting. Our kids stay indoors getting neurological "highs" from playing video games and watching plasma T.V.'s. Our kids by and large don't get enough experience of the real world. Would I send my nine-year-old child alone on a subway if she was born and raised in New York City, probably not, but then she is not mature enough or ready for such an experience. She might be ready for other experiences though that will help her grow into a responsible adult and as a parent it is part of my job to pay attention to the teachable moments in the lives of all of my children. I am a responsible and educated parent, much like the New York subway mom and just because I will probably allow my children to experience some things independently before they reach college does not make me a bad mother, knowing your children and working with them to navigate the treacherous path to growing up does not make anyone a bad mother.

Movies and Books

Lately I have been doing more reading and watching of movies. I think that it has something to do with it being the end of the school year and thus the end of activities for my kids. We are actually home more! Summertime is great. I read "Loving Frank." This was a "required" read for book club, which meets next week, I think that this "true" story will provide the fodder for quite a lively discussion. The book is about Frank Lloyd Wright and his longtime mistress, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. I believe their affair lasted from 1907-1914. I can tell you that the affair ended with her death, it won't be giving the ending away because anyone can find that out via a cursory search of the internet. The details of her death were what ruined the book for me. I guess that there is no way to alter such events. The book is a novel, but based on true events. She died the way that she died and it really can't be re-written. I think of all of the time that I spent living in Frank Lloyd Wright land in the midwest and I have to wonder how I missed this part of his life. It certainly captivated my interest enough to want to read the book. I think there has been a "hush, hush" factor going on for about the last century, distancing America's most famous architect from the scandal that he helped to create.

Onto movies, I finally saw "Gran Torino." What an oversight, I should have seen this one earlier. I loved the story and I liked the way that it ended. In fact I thought that the ending was just perfect. Of course, the elderly pistol carting Clint Eastwood mounting a single man campaign of justice against neighborhood gangs was a bit unbelievable, other than that it is a story true to city neighborhoods all over America. Dirty Harry is bound to live forever.

Last night I saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." This movie made use of a number of Hollywood stock story lines including; the getting hit by a car tragedy, the loss of virginity to a prostitute routine, the aged, sick, and dying mother finally telling her story bit-which narrates the entire movie, resentful, grown daughter included. I haven't read F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story, but now I am curious and will probably have to check it out. Despite its many cliches, this movie worked. Of course there is always Brad Pitt looking devastatingly handsome as always. The movie was well cast so the story matched the visual. Pretty interesting concept, I hate to admit it, but I would love the thought of getting younger everyday. Of course this may mean dying, like Benjamin Button, as a demented infant. Hey, at least I would be "cute" in my "old age."

Happy Birthday Gail Godwin

One of my favorite authors, Gail Godwin, celebrates her birthday today. She is 72. I think that I have managed to read most of her books. "Father Melancholy's Daughter" being my favorite. Her writing is strong and artful, her character development is superb. I hope that she has at least several more years of good writing ahead...I will be reading and waiting!