This is an Outside magazine profile of Laura and Guy Waterman. I heard about their story on the incomparably wondrous "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" (ttbook.org). They are a couple who were avid outdoorspeople and were living and working deep in the New England woods, writing and working on wilderness conservation. The reason why they are featured in the profile and on the show is that Guy Waterman, in early 2000, made it clear he was going to commit suicide, walked up into the mountains, and froze to death. I'm currently reading her book "Losing The Garden", about her marriage.
The stunning and somewhat noteworthy part is that Mrs. Waterman knew what he was planning to do and didn't try to stop him. Comedian Doug Stanhope tells a joke in his act about suicide being like leaving a movie halfway through-if the first half of the movie has been horrible, you really don't have any reason to believe the second half is going to be any better. Laura Waterman seems to have a similar attitude-she let her husband go because she loved him-he made sure she was taken care of, but he had grown tired and miserable at the prospect of more life, and didn't want anything else to do with it, so he left it.
This is a stunning way of thinking. It's realistic, and I can't deny the logic of it. It goes against our typical way of reasoning-in the West, we seem unable to admit that life has an end the same way it had a beginning. It's an involving story, if not a particularly cheerful one. Worth your time.
I'm not prepared to judge her, or him-that's not my job, and I can't even understand my own marriage, never mind someone else's. It's a compelling, if sad, testimony.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
As Spongebob likes to say...
IMAGINATION!
This is the Imagination Prompt Generator, a little dohickey that gives you a prompt for those times when you're stumped to come up with a blog post. Now, I don't have to blog-certainly, none of you have been clamoring for my wit and wisdom, banging on my virtual door, begging me for my views on Tiger Woods, or health care reform, or reforming Tiger Woods, or the health of tiger care. But I am nothing if not stubborn-just ask my son-and I can't help but feel that I am not doing my bloggerly duty if I don't, you know, say something.
So the prompt I settled on was
"Nothing matters..."
Well, that makes me think of a couple of things. First of all, this:
Jaymz and the boyz bringing some semi-soaked noyz, 10 full years ago. It's really a beautiful little song, that I don't think gets enough credit. Kirk Hammett can really play the 'ol six string.
The second thing I think of is the late Tug McGraw, who is nowadays better known as Faith Hill's father in law. He was also a major league pitcher for a number of years, and he used to say he had a frozen ice ball theory, which he would use when stuck in a jam on the mound. He would imagine that, billions of years from now, when the Sun has gone out and the Earth was just a frozen ice ball hurtling through space, no one would care whether or not he got that particular hitter out. Which is true-many more of the people reading this will know who Faith Hill is than those who will know who Tug McGraw was, and the Earth, as of this writing, is not yet a frozen ice ball hurtling through space.
So, with the comforting notion that nothing that you, I, or anybody else will ever do will amount to anything at all, at least cosmologically speaking, I bid you adieu.
This is the Imagination Prompt Generator, a little dohickey that gives you a prompt for those times when you're stumped to come up with a blog post. Now, I don't have to blog-certainly, none of you have been clamoring for my wit and wisdom, banging on my virtual door, begging me for my views on Tiger Woods, or health care reform, or reforming Tiger Woods, or the health of tiger care. But I am nothing if not stubborn-just ask my son-and I can't help but feel that I am not doing my bloggerly duty if I don't, you know, say something.
So the prompt I settled on was
"Nothing matters..."
Well, that makes me think of a couple of things. First of all, this:
Jaymz and the boyz bringing some semi-soaked noyz, 10 full years ago. It's really a beautiful little song, that I don't think gets enough credit. Kirk Hammett can really play the 'ol six string.
The second thing I think of is the late Tug McGraw, who is nowadays better known as Faith Hill's father in law. He was also a major league pitcher for a number of years, and he used to say he had a frozen ice ball theory, which he would use when stuck in a jam on the mound. He would imagine that, billions of years from now, when the Sun has gone out and the Earth was just a frozen ice ball hurtling through space, no one would care whether or not he got that particular hitter out. Which is true-many more of the people reading this will know who Faith Hill is than those who will know who Tug McGraw was, and the Earth, as of this writing, is not yet a frozen ice ball hurtling through space.
So, with the comforting notion that nothing that you, I, or anybody else will ever do will amount to anything at all, at least cosmologically speaking, I bid you adieu.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Holy Moley! There's Baseball News!
Well, after an off season that began with a Hermida, a Boof, a Tug, a Marco, and another Ramon Ramirez (because every team should have a spare), the Red Sox went Full On Kevin's Mom yesterday, inking former Angel John Lackey for the starting rotation and former Brewer Mike Cameron for the outfield spot soon to be vacated by Everyone's Formerly Favorite Canadian, Jason Bay.
Well now.
There are questions left to be answered, still-the Mike Lowell deal to Texas is being held up because the American Hero has health issues (do tell!), and, to paraphrase Casey Stengel, if you don't have a shortstop, you're going to give up a lot of singles to left field. The informed speculation (read: wild a$$ed guessing) is that Cowboy Clay Buchholz will be dealt away, probably for San Diego's young heartthrob Adrian Gonzalez. But all in all, a busy day for the Carmine Hose.
Well now.
There are questions left to be answered, still-the Mike Lowell deal to Texas is being held up because the American Hero has health issues (do tell!), and, to paraphrase Casey Stengel, if you don't have a shortstop, you're going to give up a lot of singles to left field. The informed speculation (read: wild a$$ed guessing) is that Cowboy Clay Buchholz will be dealt away, probably for San Diego's young heartthrob Adrian Gonzalez. But all in all, a busy day for the Carmine Hose.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
100 Words On Hope
This is Velvet Verbosity's 100 Words Challenge-write a post of exactly one hundred words centered on a given topic. This week's challenge is "Hope". The Blog Nosh Magazine Loads of Hope carnival is located here , hoping to bring attention and buzz towards Tide's "Loads of Hope" program, which is bringing a mobile laundromat to Americans affected by disasters.
Here's my entry.
"We chose him. He told us to hope. He told us he was hope.
We chose him, people still strive, and suffer, and get sick, and die.
We chose him, people still cry, rage, scream and shout.
We chose him, people still lie, cheat, and steal.
We chose him. He can't fix it all. Maybe no one can.
People still reach out, hold hands, extend words of comfort.
People still hug, and kiss, and hold, and wonder at the sky.
People still love, and marry, and hold new babies.
We chose him, and we go on, and there is hope."
Here's my entry.
"We chose him. He told us to hope. He told us he was hope.
We chose him, people still strive, and suffer, and get sick, and die.
We chose him, people still cry, rage, scream and shout.
We chose him, people still lie, cheat, and steal.
We chose him. He can't fix it all. Maybe no one can.
People still reach out, hold hands, extend words of comfort.
People still hug, and kiss, and hold, and wonder at the sky.
People still love, and marry, and hold new babies.
We chose him, and we go on, and there is hope."
(NSFW) Rick Astley with narration
A very clever version of the Rick Astley video for "Never Gonna Give You Up", with a narration of the video's activities. Very funny, very NSFW.
Teach Your Children Well
The irrepressible Dan Carlin (www.dancarlin.com) has another great Hardcore History program this week, this time about the history of children and how their role in society has changed throughout history. He makes several interesting points, one of which is: if we are more aware of child abuse than we ever have been (which seems inarguable), why is there still child abuse? Wouldn't we have eliminated something so counter to the health of our species?
You don't need to know anything about history to be aware of the fact that, until shockingly recently, utterly appalling treatment of children (and women, and non white people, too) was completely acceptable behavior. Carlin makes note of these things, and tries to explore some of the reasons why this could be-how could people who came up with so many great ideas (democracy, Hamlet, the printing press) be so daft and stupid in other areas? And you have to agree that child abuse is damaging to the long term health of the adult-and yet, you would think we would see these effects throughout history, wouldn't we? Or do we, and we just can't see it?
Tons of interesting ideas to toss around, especially when you're ignoring Christmas shopping you have to do like I am. Carlin concludes by echoing a thought I have quoted here before. I orginally heard it from baseball historian Bill James-look kindly upon the mistakes of the past, in the hope that future generations will look kindly on yours.
There's another analogy from baseball that fits here. (I, unlike your ordinary mortal blogger, can link everything to baseball.) It is often asked in baseball circles why it is that pitchers could throw 500 or 600 innings per season in baseball's prehistoric era, and even 300 innings in relatively modern times, while the 2009 league leader pitched 233 innings, widely considered to be the maximum for a modern hurler. People with modern training methods and nutrition should be able to exceed the limits of the past, right?
The answer is a complicated one-it is certainly harder to get a modern hitter out, and modern baseball philosophy has changed as well, along with a dozen other factors-but the one I am thinking of is the fact that the 300 inning pitcher of 1969 (league leader Gaylord Perry with 325) is at the summit of a selection bias-the ones who were able to pitch that much were able to survive shoulder and knee and back and elbow problems. There were numerous pitchers who could pitch that well for 9 innings, or 90, but who were injured and never heard from again.
Similarly, the appalling losses of women in childbirth and children themselves, both to infanticide and simple death and disease, create a world where you have to abuse your children-you can't afford to get too attached to them, because they may be gone. The society we have now was somehow built on the survivors of all those dozens of risks that befell women and infants-a horrific, macabre, real life version of Survivor. (Carlin makes this point well. Spider Robinson has a story about this, too, which I wish I had handy, about a woman who is immortal, but has had to follow the roles of women throughout history-burying dozens of children and spouses as the years go by.)
Cheerful, ain't I, on this rainy, gray Sunday?
Anyway, if you're a pod person, go download Dan. He's worth your time.
You don't need to know anything about history to be aware of the fact that, until shockingly recently, utterly appalling treatment of children (and women, and non white people, too) was completely acceptable behavior. Carlin makes note of these things, and tries to explore some of the reasons why this could be-how could people who came up with so many great ideas (democracy, Hamlet, the printing press) be so daft and stupid in other areas? And you have to agree that child abuse is damaging to the long term health of the adult-and yet, you would think we would see these effects throughout history, wouldn't we? Or do we, and we just can't see it?
Tons of interesting ideas to toss around, especially when you're ignoring Christmas shopping you have to do like I am. Carlin concludes by echoing a thought I have quoted here before. I orginally heard it from baseball historian Bill James-look kindly upon the mistakes of the past, in the hope that future generations will look kindly on yours.
There's another analogy from baseball that fits here. (I, unlike your ordinary mortal blogger, can link everything to baseball.) It is often asked in baseball circles why it is that pitchers could throw 500 or 600 innings per season in baseball's prehistoric era, and even 300 innings in relatively modern times, while the 2009 league leader pitched 233 innings, widely considered to be the maximum for a modern hurler. People with modern training methods and nutrition should be able to exceed the limits of the past, right?
The answer is a complicated one-it is certainly harder to get a modern hitter out, and modern baseball philosophy has changed as well, along with a dozen other factors-but the one I am thinking of is the fact that the 300 inning pitcher of 1969 (league leader Gaylord Perry with 325) is at the summit of a selection bias-the ones who were able to pitch that much were able to survive shoulder and knee and back and elbow problems. There were numerous pitchers who could pitch that well for 9 innings, or 90, but who were injured and never heard from again.
Similarly, the appalling losses of women in childbirth and children themselves, both to infanticide and simple death and disease, create a world where you have to abuse your children-you can't afford to get too attached to them, because they may be gone. The society we have now was somehow built on the survivors of all those dozens of risks that befell women and infants-a horrific, macabre, real life version of Survivor. (Carlin makes this point well. Spider Robinson has a story about this, too, which I wish I had handy, about a woman who is immortal, but has had to follow the roles of women throughout history-burying dozens of children and spouses as the years go by.)
Cheerful, ain't I, on this rainy, gray Sunday?
Anyway, if you're a pod person, go download Dan. He's worth your time.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Two Great Posts
What We Talk About When We Talk About Blogging
Bad week in these parts.
I'm not alone in this-you can see the suffering here or here , too. Jelisa is still hysterically funny, and Kelly still rocks my world, but around my little corner of the interwebs, we is feeling us some seasonal affective disorder. Blues. Melancholia. The Darkness Visible. The Noonday Demon.
I could talk about my baseball team-Mike Lowell, American Hero, is gone to play Deep In The Heart Of Texas, traded away for young Max Ramirez, the latest in the long line of Good Young Catchers Who Are Going To Step In Since Jason Varitek Turned Into A Piece Of Petrified Wood. A smart move-dear old Mike doesn't have the spring in his step that he used to. Then again, I hasten to add, neither do I. Plus there's Boof. The Red Sox have acquired a player named Boof. Yes, really. That's his honest to Pete name. On his driver's license and everything. Boof. I swear on Bobby Doerr's grave. Wait, he's not dead? Dom DiMaggio's grave, then. But honestly, I just don't feel passionate about it right now.
For the last two weeks, at least, I have been anhedonic like a mofo. I can't derive pleasure from anything. I was so obsessed with finishing my novel for NaNoWriMo, and I guess that pleased me. The story means a lot to me, but it has reached the repulsive insect stage for me. I've now become hyper aware of its many flaws and the weight of the amount of work needed to fix them just overwhelms me. I want the story to be shared, to be experienced by others-but sometimes I just am nauseated by it.
I don't know what's wrong, exactly-I don't know that anything's wrong, necessarily. I can't shake the feeling that my despair is rational-as Doug Stanhope points out, if the first half of a movie is lousy, you don't really have any right to expect it to improve. Things are not looking well-I just don't see hope for the future. I see more striving and sacrifice and suffering just so I don't lose any ground. I'm not looking forward to that. Sorry.
My thinking doesn't feel disordered, to me. Don't all crazy people say that? It's dark out, and cold, and bitter. I still have to do Christmas shopping, and I just don't feel anything. Not anger, just fatigue-waves and waves of fatigue, physical and mental and spiritual.
I don't get anything, and I don't fit in anywhere. I don't feel like I'm a part of things. There are so many people doing great work, and I just didn't feel like I could add anything to it. Then I posted today, and proved it.
(Apropos of nothing, I added comment verification today. I have been getting spam comments in Chinese on one particular piece, for reasons I do not grasp. So just in case someone is smuggling plans for an anti tank missile using this blog, I'm sure that will stop them.)
I'm not alone in this-you can see the suffering here or here , too. Jelisa is still hysterically funny, and Kelly still rocks my world, but around my little corner of the interwebs, we is feeling us some seasonal affective disorder. Blues. Melancholia. The Darkness Visible. The Noonday Demon.
I could talk about my baseball team-Mike Lowell, American Hero, is gone to play Deep In The Heart Of Texas, traded away for young Max Ramirez, the latest in the long line of Good Young Catchers Who Are Going To Step In Since Jason Varitek Turned Into A Piece Of Petrified Wood. A smart move-dear old Mike doesn't have the spring in his step that he used to. Then again, I hasten to add, neither do I. Plus there's Boof. The Red Sox have acquired a player named Boof. Yes, really. That's his honest to Pete name. On his driver's license and everything. Boof. I swear on Bobby Doerr's grave. Wait, he's not dead? Dom DiMaggio's grave, then. But honestly, I just don't feel passionate about it right now.
For the last two weeks, at least, I have been anhedonic like a mofo. I can't derive pleasure from anything. I was so obsessed with finishing my novel for NaNoWriMo, and I guess that pleased me. The story means a lot to me, but it has reached the repulsive insect stage for me. I've now become hyper aware of its many flaws and the weight of the amount of work needed to fix them just overwhelms me. I want the story to be shared, to be experienced by others-but sometimes I just am nauseated by it.
I don't know what's wrong, exactly-I don't know that anything's wrong, necessarily. I can't shake the feeling that my despair is rational-as Doug Stanhope points out, if the first half of a movie is lousy, you don't really have any right to expect it to improve. Things are not looking well-I just don't see hope for the future. I see more striving and sacrifice and suffering just so I don't lose any ground. I'm not looking forward to that. Sorry.
My thinking doesn't feel disordered, to me. Don't all crazy people say that? It's dark out, and cold, and bitter. I still have to do Christmas shopping, and I just don't feel anything. Not anger, just fatigue-waves and waves of fatigue, physical and mental and spiritual.
I don't get anything, and I don't fit in anywhere. I don't feel like I'm a part of things. There are so many people doing great work, and I just didn't feel like I could add anything to it. Then I posted today, and proved it.
(Apropos of nothing, I added comment verification today. I have been getting spam comments in Chinese on one particular piece, for reasons I do not grasp. So just in case someone is smuggling plans for an anti tank missile using this blog, I'm sure that will stop them.)
Friday, December 11, 2009
And then, there's this...
My very favorite Muppet of all, Beaker, with my very favorite piece of music, Beethoven's "Ode To Joy"
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The Dream Is Over
Twenty nine years ago today, musician and activist John Lennon was shot and killed in New York City.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Don't Know What You Got, Till It's Gone- (#Best09)
I don't have to post every day. I don't have to post any day. Every day, I think I should-there must be something funny, or soulful, or soulfully funny, or funnily soulful, that I can mock or comment upon or agree with or disagree with or argue with or throw my hands up in frustration at. Most days, I do. Some days, I don't. And the Earth just keeps on turning, heedless.
The inescapably marvelous and inexplicably single Katie wrote today about the Best of 2009 Challenge , which is the End of Yeary (and End of Decade-y) thing that the media usually does, assessing and evaluating. What were the Top Ten stories of 2009? Top Ten books, movies, TV shows, plays, actors, writers, golfers, tennis players? Political bloggers will give you the Top Ten Outrageous Things The President Did in 2009, and Basketball bloggers will give you the Top Ten Dunks of 2009. Pause, reflect, look back-because after all, we're about to go buy new calendars.
That's too harsh, really-there's nothing wrong with this trend. I just don't have the patience to try to come up with my ten favorite books from 2009. (That's really the only list I could populate, unless it was Top Ten Things I Said That DMarks Disagreed With or Top Ten Inappropriately Salacious Comments I Left On Katie's Blog.)
This article suggests that social networks, ironically, spread loneliness-that a lonely person, who is bitter or snarky or nasty on a social network to his or her peers will propagate this loneliness to others. Or, as my lovely and deeply patient wife puts it, "misery loves miserable company". This is the reason why I don't spend more time on Facebook, and this is the reason why I don't get more personal on here. I'm sick of scuba diving inside my own head, as Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, and I can't imagine anyone else finding it pleasant.
So this is a roundabout way of getting to the point-Katie's point today is about her lesson-what learning experience or lesson did you learn in 2009 that changed you?
I'll let Tom Keifer of Cinderella explain:
Life is too damn short, and it gets shorter every day. I will miss my father's presence, as much as I couldn't seem to make any time for him while he was here, every single day I am alive.
The inescapably marvelous and inexplicably single Katie wrote today about the Best of 2009 Challenge , which is the End of Yeary (and End of Decade-y) thing that the media usually does, assessing and evaluating. What were the Top Ten stories of 2009? Top Ten books, movies, TV shows, plays, actors, writers, golfers, tennis players? Political bloggers will give you the Top Ten Outrageous Things The President Did in 2009, and Basketball bloggers will give you the Top Ten Dunks of 2009. Pause, reflect, look back-because after all, we're about to go buy new calendars.
That's too harsh, really-there's nothing wrong with this trend. I just don't have the patience to try to come up with my ten favorite books from 2009. (That's really the only list I could populate, unless it was Top Ten Things I Said That DMarks Disagreed With or Top Ten Inappropriately Salacious Comments I Left On Katie's Blog.)
This article suggests that social networks, ironically, spread loneliness-that a lonely person, who is bitter or snarky or nasty on a social network to his or her peers will propagate this loneliness to others. Or, as my lovely and deeply patient wife puts it, "misery loves miserable company". This is the reason why I don't spend more time on Facebook, and this is the reason why I don't get more personal on here. I'm sick of scuba diving inside my own head, as Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, and I can't imagine anyone else finding it pleasant.
So this is a roundabout way of getting to the point-Katie's point today is about her lesson-what learning experience or lesson did you learn in 2009 that changed you?
I'll let Tom Keifer of Cinderella explain:
Life is too damn short, and it gets shorter every day. I will miss my father's presence, as much as I couldn't seem to make any time for him while he was here, every single day I am alive.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
More Flash Fiction: Sneakers
Yet another rejected piece (flash fiction, 200 words or less) from dogzplot.blogspot.com : "Sneakers"
"When he left, she put on her old sneakers. They are white, with some faded blue panels on the side in a checkerboard pattern. They are cut, sliced in places, and worn- friction from curbs and floors and cars and grass revealed in a thousand scuff marks. She wrote on them, once, a long time ago. You can't see what she wrote, but she remembers. They were faded, beaten, forgotten-shoved into the corner of the closet. She had other shoes-flats and sandals and flipflops and loafers and heels that she wears by herself, relishing the way her calves bunch and tighten in the mirror when she has them on. She wasn't trying to look down market and bohemian. She wasn't giving up. She wasn't backing down, or allowing him to dictate how she looked or how she felt.
She put on her old sneakers and wore them because they had been through a lot together, and it was time to rescue things that were forgotten. They looked like she felt, used and ignored and tossed aside in favor of newer, shinier things. She put on her old sneakers, and she walked out the door."
"When he left, she put on her old sneakers. They are white, with some faded blue panels on the side in a checkerboard pattern. They are cut, sliced in places, and worn- friction from curbs and floors and cars and grass revealed in a thousand scuff marks. She wrote on them, once, a long time ago. You can't see what she wrote, but she remembers. They were faded, beaten, forgotten-shoved into the corner of the closet. She had other shoes-flats and sandals and flipflops and loafers and heels that she wears by herself, relishing the way her calves bunch and tighten in the mirror when she has them on. She wasn't trying to look down market and bohemian. She wasn't giving up. She wasn't backing down, or allowing him to dictate how she looked or how she felt.
She put on her old sneakers and wore them because they had been through a lot together, and it was time to rescue things that were forgotten. They looked like she felt, used and ignored and tossed aside in favor of newer, shinier things. She put on her old sneakers, and she walked out the door."
Hotel Illness
This was recommended by @ordinaryart, the magnificent Kel, who can be found writing here . As I have said, and will continue to say, if you're not reading her, you're missing out on someone special.
This is the Black Crowes performing "Hotel Illness". I am home from work trying to recover from another leg infection, a illness my body appears willing to succumb to about once a year. The last time this happened, exactly none of you will remember, the Celtics were in the NBA Finals playing the Lakers, making it June 2008. The reason why I remember things like that, I do not understand. Assuming the antibiotic takes hold, I should be back to normal very shortly. If I never post again, I'm probably dead. In that case, I would expect the number of posts to drop off dramatically.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
How Quick The Sun Can Drop Away
First off, if you haven't been here yet, then you're missing out. The post called "Hymnal" is gorgeous beyond my poor ability to describe.
Secondly, I think this is a really cool site. Dramatically NSFW, but cool. If you disagree, I can probably see your point, though.
Thirdly, these are ten questions I wish my company was smart enough to ask.
Fourthly, seriously , Tiger? Wealthy beyond my capacity to imagine, married to a gorgeous woman, two beautiful children, and arguably the best practitioner of your craft who ever lived, and that's still not enough?
Fifthly, sometimes the simplest messages are the best. Thanks, @ericjfisher!
Sixthly, Tom Heinrich died yesterday. For a blog that is so slavishly baseball centric during the summer months, I have uttered barely a syllable since. Heinrich was a outfielder/first baseman on Joe DiMaggio's Yankee teams from 1937-1950. A feared clutch hitter, Heinrich was one of those "other guys" that never get the big money or the lion's share of the fame, but you don't win without them. He helped bury my Red Sox with 2 RBI in the deciding game of the 1949 season, sending them home with a 5-3 loss. (Boston entered the Yankee Stadium for the final two games of the 1949 season, needing one win to reach the World Series. Naturally, they lost them both.)
Seventhly, I have not given nearly enough love to my pals and brothers from another mother, Eric and Rob at WBRShow. Go here for more information.
Eighthly, this is the always interesting Charlie Pierce's take on l'affaire Tiger.
Ninthly, this guy grew up in the same town I did, and now he's the CEO of a major company. Sigh.
Tenthly, for the funniest, pop culture oriented, NSFW tweets , follow her
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)