And so, here in west central Wisconsin, following six surprise inches of fine, fresh powder overnight Saturday, we find ourselves in the midst of yet another Arctic blast; Polar Vortex II, The Reckoning, you might be inclined to call it, smack dab in the midst of what's almost surely to be remembered as the 'Winter of '14.' (Which sounds kind of weird, actually, leads me - erroneously - to thoughts of Model T's, horse-drawn carriages and chickens kept in people's yards...)
Happily, the media coverage is far less hysterical than two weeks ago, when, to hear your average TV anchor tell it, the Four Snowmen of the Apocalypse were bearing down on us all. But precautions are still being taken this time around: schools are closing, events are being postponed or cancelled outright, and there's a buzz going on about it, on-line and in public places, a uniformity of response centered around a looming danger, which has led to a certain indignation over any class or organization that isn't closing up shop as the Snowmen reach the outskirts of town...
Which, in turn, has led me to wonder if we really are becoming softer as a species.
Surely nobody alive in America today is (or can be expected to be) as hardy as pioneers or American Indians of 150 years ago, but I wonder sometimes, set adrift as we are in the sunny doldrums of comfort and ease, living lives in which every impulse and aversion alike is indulged a hundred times over in real time, if we're as hardy a people as we were fifty years ago, or even thirty.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Wisconsin, a state that's always thrown a hell of a winter (a short description of which helped keep Kate Winslet from throwing herself off the stern of the Titanic), and I don't remember a single day off from school back then merely because it was cold. There were plenty of snow days...a bomb scare once, too, and some kind of spill in the Chemistry lab that was so malodorous, classes were let out...but not once was I ever allowed to stay in bed on a Wednesday morning merely because it was cold outside. I could be wrong about this, but given how high in esteem days off were held, I would think I'd remember any that happened for an unusual reason.
I can see, perhaps, closing public schools when the temperature plunges, making sure our young children are not outside in this type of weather, waiting for the bus or, worse, walking to school. But colleges and vo-techs? Other public (but indoor) events? Really? Is the cold weather that unmanageable? That threatening? It sucks, to be sure...but as we ply our day, 99.9 % of us are only actually outside for 5 to 20 seconds at a pass, usually between the front door and our car. Is brutal cold a reason to cease living, to hole up and power down until it passes? I just don't know...
I might be unusual, that is, not the right person to ask, because the last thing I want to do when the weather's like this is stay in and get cozy. I get restless, start climbing the living room curtains, need to get up and get out. But if it's at all true that we've become weak in the face of winter, as usual, I think the news media's to blame. When you consider its hysterical response to the polar vortex (which, as I understand it, is an archaic meteorological term from the 1940s that is neither an uncommon phenomenon in winter, nor all that threatening), perhaps it's no surprise that it's come down to whole days being ground to a halt, in a winter that isn't even as cold as some in the past.
The news media (and by this, I mean primarily television...) operates under the premise of dispensing vital information, giving us the story, keeping us informed, but Humanity survived just fine from 10,000 BC to 1980 AD, prior to the advent of the 24-hour news cycle. We handled cold, and fire and water and earth in a very worthy way. There was tragedy surely, because there is tragedy from time to time in this life. But at no time was our survival as a species threatened in the days before we gave winter storms their own names and stuck reporters under street lamps in Anyplace, Anywhere to broadcast live for the duration. At no time was a cold snap, or a winter storm, treated or thought of as an Apocalyptic event just to sell more cell phones, SUVs and bags of potato chips (because make no mistake, that's what 'news' - particularly the 24-hour kind - has become: never about broadcasting live so much as generating hype for Madison Avenue).
I think the news media's zeal, the unending search for something to spin into a story (or turn into a scoop) in a world where something isn't always happening, not only succeeds in little more than fostering a culture of fear and paranoia, but erodes our ability to think for ourselves, to rely on wits and common sense and observation, and communication with one another (ironically enough) to arrive at the proper response.
A wicked cold snap is not a good situation; it can be dangerous; certainly it presents the potential for hardship (among our most vulnerable citizens in particular), but it is not the fricking snow apocalypse either, and shouldn't be treated that way.
And though I hate this time of year with a white hot passion I keep hoping will one day melt all the snow, I say again, at least it feels like winter, a winter of old. It's kind of reassuring to be trudging through half a foot of snow that came without warning overnight, to have to 'bundle up' and go out to start my car ahead of time, to have a reason to bitch and complain and declare my allegiance to the Conch Republic. Even if these wintry days are an illusion (and nobody with a brain is claiming our current cold snap is proof that climate change isn't real), it's comforting nevertheless to see - and feel - a winter like those I remember from childhood. Brown Thanksgivings and 50 degree days in December - in Wisconsin - are unnatural; a 'January thaw' is supposed to be a minor hiccup in an otherwise impenetrable winter.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Looking back on how a love of big beautiful berries has led to a life-long fear of bees
To me, no food evokes a sense of childhood, of my childhood, nothing tastes so much like the 'summer of 1980', as fresh, seasonal berries. Every year I vow to go berry picking, both as a novelty (as I get older, I don't feel 'too cool' for nearly as much as I used to) and to secure those sweet baubles of sunshine in as close to what I know to be their divine state as possible, which, like most fruits and veggies, is the very second they're removed from the plant.
But these departures into 'danger' were more than worth it. For it was creeping along the thicket line trying not to get that dog's attention, then finding a quiet spot to indulge my spoils, that I learned the marked difference between 'store bought' and 'homegrown', the difference between the thin, flavor-packed rubies we heisted (the taste of which actually evoked a physical reaction) and the bulbous, overly pithy, largely tasteless frankenfruits my parents bought in the store, usually shipped long distances.
It was crouched behind the neighbor's tool shed devouring the evidence that I learned to expect more, and do so, to this day.
Unfortunately, wild berries are also inextricably linked to a fairly hefty fear that I've carried into adulthood.
One morning, my brother and I were picking our way through waist-high grass between our house and a nearby golf course. It was mid-summer, cloudy but uncomfortably hot and humid; one of those dark days that threatens to storm but doesn't ever do more than sulk. I can't remember what we were doing in the woods, but we'd unexpectedly stumbled across a massive grow of blackberries. We'd gorged ourselves on the succulent fruit, feeling fully entitled to taking our share and vowing not to tell any of the neighbor kids about it, establishing this spot as our private reserve. When we'd eaten our fill, we grabbed as many as we could realistically travel with and started for home.
I was hot and thirsty, and sweat from the exertion of our march and the continuous swatting of mosquitoes and flies was stinging my eyes. It seemed like a long, long walk, felt like we had gone deep into the most primordial depths of the woods and back, but in reality, we probably weren't that far from our house; we never were. Everything seems massive when you're seven, distance most of all. All the go-to places I remember from those days, all the important spots I followed my brother and his friends to, locales that punctuated our existence in the summer months - 'Big Rock', the 'Gully', the 'Sand Pit', the 'Sand Trap', the 'Fort' - seemed like all-day journeys to get to, but were all probably within a quarter mile, half mile tops, of my house.
My brother himself, at thirteen, was a colossus in my eyes, and it was his lead I followed that morning. He always knew the way, not just into the woods and back to our property, but the easiest route through the thicket to get anywhere, trails he and his friends had been charting for a few years, which in kid time is a few decades.
We got within ten feet of the border of our back yard, and I could just see our house in the distance (and already taste the glorious water that would soon be gurgling out of the garden hose, replenishing me head to toe), but before we could step out of the tall grass onto our lawn, a swarm of flying insects started to funnel up from the featureless foliage below us.
"Oh man, I think we hit a bee hive!"
It wasn't my brother's words so much as the unprecedented anxiety with which he spoke that got my attention. It was the first time I remember ever hearing fear in his voice, uncertainty over anything. He dropped his cache of berries and sprinted off in a flash as the swarm intensified. Ten feet away he stopped, turned, and with an anxious bounce on the balls of his feet expressed his frustration that I had not followed.
He called out. I heard him, heard something, but I could not make out the words. I stood completely frozen in the midst of that sudden attack, as though some powerful current were traveling up my leg from the ground, keeping me there and causing me to unwittingly squeeze the berries between my fingers. I was so petrified, I remember feeling as though I were a tiny person trapped on the top floor of a building. I could peak out the window, see the airplanes buzzing me, coming around for another pass, and see my brother in the distance, a mile or two off from this new perspective.
The number of bees (yellow jackets were probably what they were) intensified. They kept coming, funneling up ceaselessly from no specific spot - that is, no visible nest, just the jumble of grass and weeds over which we'd been thoughtlessly tromping not twenty seconds earlier. In my mind they became a single predator circling its prey in ever decreasing circles, and I can remember thinking 'it' wasn't after me so much as the berries. 'It' had caught me taking the berries. 'It' wanted them back. But all that was left of them now was the purple mash between my fingers, and mauve juice oozing down my wrist.
I don't know what would have happened if my brother hadn't dashed back and grabbed me. There were numerous other instances in our youth when, like any older brother, he went out of his way to ditch me at the first opportunity. But not this time. This one and only time, he came to my rescue.
Unfortunately, it was not before one wasp managed to tag me on the fold of skin between the pointer finger and the thumb of my right hand. I shrieked, let go of what was left of the berries with an hysterical shaking of my hands. I grabbed my brother's hand (or maybe he grabbed me by the arm) and we made off for the safety of the house.
The hornets did not pursue us, but as it turned out, my brother had not only dropped his berries when the attack came, but the keys to our house. This turn of events was treated by that 7 and 13 year old like news of a massacre somewhere in another village.
Though he had saved me, I vigorously refused his request to accompany him back to the spot to help him search for the keys. I'll never forget watching from the safety of our patio as he made his way back across the lawn and took his first tentative steps into the tall grass. Nor will I forget my overwhelming relief when I heard him cry out that he'd found the keys, followed a second or two later by a new jolt of fear at the sight of him sprinting out of the thicket at full tilt. Only when he slowed to a leisurely trot across the lawn did I relinquish the notion that the bees were in hot pursuit.
I still have a faint scar on my hand from that sting. It was not the most painful I've endured, but certainly the most memorable for how frightened I was. It is that paralyzed fear, rather than memory of the pain, which makes me uncomfortable around bees and wasps to this day. It's not an irrational fear (like I have of spiders, for instance), but an unavoidable disquiet when they get too close, especially in late summer, when they get bolder, start flying up and checking you out face to face, crawling into your soda can, onto your picnic plate, big as you please. The sight of a paper nest hanging otherwise benignly from the eave of a house, or a tree branch, will almost certainly trigger this unease.
As will, lamentably, the succulent deluge in my mouth at the first taste of a ripe, seasonal berry. Blackberries are the real culprits, but any summer berry will not only unleash as much disquiet as joy, but also a short and powerful impulse toward guilt, as though the berries are still not mine to take.
It was a long time ago; I've strayed further away from youth than I ever thought I would. But it's amazing what I've carried with me, downright astonishing how, in some ways, distance still seems more massive than it actually is.
When I was a kid, I lived in the country and berry picking was a big deal for a while. My older brother, his friends and I spent a couple solid summers in the woods near our house foraging and feasting, always on the lookout for a new grow of the raspberries and blackberries strewn randomly amidst the meadows, gullies and woods I was fortunate to call my own then. There were no strawberries or blueberries growing wild where I was, so procuring them involved sneaking into a neighbor's garden and raiding his mounds and highbushes. More than once, while carrying out these covert ops we were sent sprinting off his property by his monstrous German Shepherd, which always seemed to lunge straight out of the setting sun, pulling its chain taut, threatening to yank the eye hook right out of the doghouse, and then me into the doghouse.
But these departures into 'danger' were more than worth it. For it was creeping along the thicket line trying not to get that dog's attention, then finding a quiet spot to indulge my spoils, that I learned the marked difference between 'store bought' and 'homegrown', the difference between the thin, flavor-packed rubies we heisted (the taste of which actually evoked a physical reaction) and the bulbous, overly pithy, largely tasteless frankenfruits my parents bought in the store, usually shipped long distances.
It was crouched behind the neighbor's tool shed devouring the evidence that I learned to expect more, and do so, to this day.
Unfortunately, wild berries are also inextricably linked to a fairly hefty fear that I've carried into adulthood.
One morning, my brother and I were picking our way through waist-high grass between our house and a nearby golf course. It was mid-summer, cloudy but uncomfortably hot and humid; one of those dark days that threatens to storm but doesn't ever do more than sulk. I can't remember what we were doing in the woods, but we'd unexpectedly stumbled across a massive grow of blackberries. We'd gorged ourselves on the succulent fruit, feeling fully entitled to taking our share and vowing not to tell any of the neighbor kids about it, establishing this spot as our private reserve. When we'd eaten our fill, we grabbed as many as we could realistically travel with and started for home.
I was hot and thirsty, and sweat from the exertion of our march and the continuous swatting of mosquitoes and flies was stinging my eyes. It seemed like a long, long walk, felt like we had gone deep into the most primordial depths of the woods and back, but in reality, we probably weren't that far from our house; we never were. Everything seems massive when you're seven, distance most of all. All the go-to places I remember from those days, all the important spots I followed my brother and his friends to, locales that punctuated our existence in the summer months - 'Big Rock', the 'Gully', the 'Sand Pit', the 'Sand Trap', the 'Fort' - seemed like all-day journeys to get to, but were all probably within a quarter mile, half mile tops, of my house.
My brother himself, at thirteen, was a colossus in my eyes, and it was his lead I followed that morning. He always knew the way, not just into the woods and back to our property, but the easiest route through the thicket to get anywhere, trails he and his friends had been charting for a few years, which in kid time is a few decades.
We got within ten feet of the border of our back yard, and I could just see our house in the distance (and already taste the glorious water that would soon be gurgling out of the garden hose, replenishing me head to toe), but before we could step out of the tall grass onto our lawn, a swarm of flying insects started to funnel up from the featureless foliage below us.
"Oh man, I think we hit a bee hive!"
It wasn't my brother's words so much as the unprecedented anxiety with which he spoke that got my attention. It was the first time I remember ever hearing fear in his voice, uncertainty over anything. He dropped his cache of berries and sprinted off in a flash as the swarm intensified. Ten feet away he stopped, turned, and with an anxious bounce on the balls of his feet expressed his frustration that I had not followed.
He called out. I heard him, heard something, but I could not make out the words. I stood completely frozen in the midst of that sudden attack, as though some powerful current were traveling up my leg from the ground, keeping me there and causing me to unwittingly squeeze the berries between my fingers. I was so petrified, I remember feeling as though I were a tiny person trapped on the top floor of a building. I could peak out the window, see the airplanes buzzing me, coming around for another pass, and see my brother in the distance, a mile or two off from this new perspective.
The number of bees (yellow jackets were probably what they were) intensified. They kept coming, funneling up ceaselessly from no specific spot - that is, no visible nest, just the jumble of grass and weeds over which we'd been thoughtlessly tromping not twenty seconds earlier. In my mind they became a single predator circling its prey in ever decreasing circles, and I can remember thinking 'it' wasn't after me so much as the berries. 'It' had caught me taking the berries. 'It' wanted them back. But all that was left of them now was the purple mash between my fingers, and mauve juice oozing down my wrist.
I don't know what would have happened if my brother hadn't dashed back and grabbed me. There were numerous other instances in our youth when, like any older brother, he went out of his way to ditch me at the first opportunity. But not this time. This one and only time, he came to my rescue.
Unfortunately, it was not before one wasp managed to tag me on the fold of skin between the pointer finger and the thumb of my right hand. I shrieked, let go of what was left of the berries with an hysterical shaking of my hands. I grabbed my brother's hand (or maybe he grabbed me by the arm) and we made off for the safety of the house.
The hornets did not pursue us, but as it turned out, my brother had not only dropped his berries when the attack came, but the keys to our house. This turn of events was treated by that 7 and 13 year old like news of a massacre somewhere in another village.
Though he had saved me, I vigorously refused his request to accompany him back to the spot to help him search for the keys. I'll never forget watching from the safety of our patio as he made his way back across the lawn and took his first tentative steps into the tall grass. Nor will I forget my overwhelming relief when I heard him cry out that he'd found the keys, followed a second or two later by a new jolt of fear at the sight of him sprinting out of the thicket at full tilt. Only when he slowed to a leisurely trot across the lawn did I relinquish the notion that the bees were in hot pursuit.
I still have a faint scar on my hand from that sting. It was not the most painful I've endured, but certainly the most memorable for how frightened I was. It is that paralyzed fear, rather than memory of the pain, which makes me uncomfortable around bees and wasps to this day. It's not an irrational fear (like I have of spiders, for instance), but an unavoidable disquiet when they get too close, especially in late summer, when they get bolder, start flying up and checking you out face to face, crawling into your soda can, onto your picnic plate, big as you please. The sight of a paper nest hanging otherwise benignly from the eave of a house, or a tree branch, will almost certainly trigger this unease.
As will, lamentably, the succulent deluge in my mouth at the first taste of a ripe, seasonal berry. Blackberries are the real culprits, but any summer berry will not only unleash as much disquiet as joy, but also a short and powerful impulse toward guilt, as though the berries are still not mine to take.
It was a long time ago; I've strayed further away from youth than I ever thought I would. But it's amazing what I've carried with me, downright astonishing how, in some ways, distance still seems more massive than it actually is.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Winter, we need to talk...(thoughts from heart of the 'Polar Vortex')
I have a dream of living in Florida one day, only it doesn't involve anything even remotely luxurious. There are no yachts in this fantasy, no palms made of gold, no fruity umbrella drinks, no sun-kissed beauties lying in the sand. Well, there is one beauty actually...she's thin, tall and white, and looks really hot in lots and lots of red.
She is the thermometer.
It's Sunday morning in west-central Wisconsin, I'm in the grocery store, waiting for the bank to open to make a deposit. A grocery store isn't all that bad a place to be on a Sunday early; it's not crowded, still quiet, all the merchandise on the shelves still faced properly; what few shoppers I see are strolling, rather than rushing around, even their children seem unusually calm and placid; store employees gather in contented groups at the end of check out lanes, waiting for something to happen, and for some reason everyone seems freshly laundered, decked out in their Sunday best, content, happy to be there (it's Sunday; if they weren't happy to be there, they wouldn't be). Bakery smells are predominant. Deli food brand new. I don't mind waiting for the bank to open in this environment, and I linger around in the magazine section for a while. I finger through a collection of Oriental recipes, 'skinny' dinners for the slow cooker, and finally bide my time reading the new Jodi Picoult novel, one arm propped up against a vacant cash register.
Pretty soon, though, I get hot and uncomfortable. I haven't moved at all in ten minutes (Gotta say, Picoult lassoed me on page 1) because I'm bundled up in layers: a large woolen parka stretched over a heavy hoodie above a sweater, a black snow cap yanked down past my ears (I'd take it off, but doing so would reveal a frightful nest of bed head...I am not freshly laundered this morning!) and gloves that make me look like Mickey Mouse. I don't normally dress for winter like I'm five years old, but it's 15 degrees below zero right now, and it's unsafe - literally - to venture outside with any skin exposed.
Winter usually isn't this bad, even in Wisconsin. In fact, the last decade the winters here haven't felt much like winter at all. But the last three years have affirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the old man's still got some fight left in him.
All weekend we've been warned of this dangerous free fall toward absolute zero. The media has been feeding us (typically) hysterical headlines drawn in icy blue font colors, designed to ensure everyone gets the point, even those who already live in Florida.
'Polar Vortex!'
"Polar Plunge!
"Life Threatening Deep Freeze!"
Even the normally staid and sensible National Weather Service, in the text of the wind chill warning that popped on my phone, went the hyperbolic route, predicting an 'historic' outbreak of cold.
In this instance, however, maybe it's not hyperbole. This cold snap might very well be historic. It's the coldest it's been, some are saying, since 1994. Interestingly, I remember that particular deep freeze vividly. That was historic. Those weeks in January and February when the temperature never rose above zero have become the place I go in my mind when I'm writing and looking to describe a particularly brutal winter.
15 below zero is bad enough, and tonight they're predicting a low of -25. But the real danger will be the wind chills: -50 to -70 are possible, and at that point skin freezes almost instantly. As a precaution, virtually the entire state of Minnesota has cancelled school classes for Monday; Wisconsin is almost certain to follow suit. You don't want to send your kids out in this. Lots of college campuses, set to resume classes after the holiday break, are being shut down as well, because nobody should be out in this.
Winter is no good for children and no good for adults.
I can admit that there's something comforting about snow and cold this time of year. If we're going to have it at all, winter should feel like winter. A couple of years ago I wrote about the perverseness of 40 degree temperatures and rainy days lasting well into a Wisconsin December, which is what seemed to define the previous decade. So this arctic blast, and all the snow we received last month, at least feels natural.
But I also freely admit that I hate it; I hate winter. The older I get, the more outraged I become by the horrendous, sometimes inhuman conditions which everyone north of the 35th parallel must endure for five to seven months out of the year. Some people love it, I know, but I'd be willing to bet most don't. I think most people deal with it because it's all they know; they've never lived anywhere else and they don't have any other options.
I'm one of those. I'm here because I have to be, for now anyway. I find no pleasure in winter anymore, nor do I associate it with my identity in any way, with being a Midwesterner or Wisconsinite. I don't feel a need or desire to be around for the changing of the seasons, nor does winter do much to accentuate the holidays. In fact, if anything it gets in the way. This Christmas Eve my girlfriend and I had to leave early, get on the road ahead of the worsening weather, and our drive home, which normally takes two hours, took over four, as the road quite literally disappeared beneath an unwrinkled blanket of snow.
So back to my fantasy: nothing fancy, nothing opulent. Just warm. Even moderately warm will do. In this fantasy, I'm not rich, not famous, I'm the same old me, with my little daily routines playing out in temperatures that never sink below 50 degrees. Ever. I want to be in a place where Christmas dinner is not turkey and stuffing, but rather fresh crab and Corona. And I have no problem whatsoever one day being an old pensioner stereotype, rocking the Wii Bowling tournament in a retirement community rec room, with my knobby, chicken white legs and Panama hat and gray chest hair peeking out of an Hawaiian shirt. Just so long as the temperature never drops below 50.
Ever.
I always think about Florida, but that may not be the best idea. The only possible option in the sunshine state would be Miami or the Keys, and just today I read an article about Miami being placed on someone's list of the worst American cities to retire in. High cost of living, high crime rate, et cetera...
Truth is, it doesn't have to be Florida at all. Just above 50 degrees at any time of the year. Southern California? San Diego? (Although the Chargers stole today's AFC playoff berth from the Steelers, so right now I'm hating on San Diego a little.) Maybe central California, on the way up 101 to San Francisco (unless San Francisco beats the Packers). Anywhere in the American southwest would do me just fine as well. It's hot in the summer, yes, but that dry heat isn't nearly so stifling. My girlfriend and I have talked numerous times about Belize for that matter, should we ever find ourselves inclined to live abroad.
I have a few decades before it's going to become an issue, but the time to start planning for it is here and now. My anxiety on the subject is driven in part by my parents' situation. They are elderly, and will most likely live out the remainder of their lives surviving winter. And while it's true that they - like all of us - should feel blessed for each winter they survive, it's not ideal. Not ideal at all. This climate is rough on skin and bones, on backs, necks and joints, on feet, fingers, lips and noses. Even when it's merely 20 degrees outside, the wind can cut through the deepest layers of clothing. I've seen the way my parents suffer, have felt helpless on their behalf, not just in light of the physical assault from brutal cold, not just the difficulty they have just getting around on icy surfaces, but the psychological effects of being buried in snow in a deep and dark December...
Whether winter is any good for children or any good for adults is open to debate. To each his own, I say. But winter is certainly no good, and no place, for the elderly. Any elderly loved ones enduring it should be checked in on frequently. All elderly people enduring it wherever should never be overlooked.
She is the thermometer.
It's Sunday morning in west-central Wisconsin, I'm in the grocery store, waiting for the bank to open to make a deposit. A grocery store isn't all that bad a place to be on a Sunday early; it's not crowded, still quiet, all the merchandise on the shelves still faced properly; what few shoppers I see are strolling, rather than rushing around, even their children seem unusually calm and placid; store employees gather in contented groups at the end of check out lanes, waiting for something to happen, and for some reason everyone seems freshly laundered, decked out in their Sunday best, content, happy to be there (it's Sunday; if they weren't happy to be there, they wouldn't be). Bakery smells are predominant. Deli food brand new. I don't mind waiting for the bank to open in this environment, and I linger around in the magazine section for a while. I finger through a collection of Oriental recipes, 'skinny' dinners for the slow cooker, and finally bide my time reading the new Jodi Picoult novel, one arm propped up against a vacant cash register.
Pretty soon, though, I get hot and uncomfortable. I haven't moved at all in ten minutes (Gotta say, Picoult lassoed me on page 1) because I'm bundled up in layers: a large woolen parka stretched over a heavy hoodie above a sweater, a black snow cap yanked down past my ears (I'd take it off, but doing so would reveal a frightful nest of bed head...I am not freshly laundered this morning!) and gloves that make me look like Mickey Mouse. I don't normally dress for winter like I'm five years old, but it's 15 degrees below zero right now, and it's unsafe - literally - to venture outside with any skin exposed.
Winter usually isn't this bad, even in Wisconsin. In fact, the last decade the winters here haven't felt much like winter at all. But the last three years have affirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the old man's still got some fight left in him.
All weekend we've been warned of this dangerous free fall toward absolute zero. The media has been feeding us (typically) hysterical headlines drawn in icy blue font colors, designed to ensure everyone gets the point, even those who already live in Florida.
'Polar Vortex!'
"Polar Plunge!
"Life Threatening Deep Freeze!"
Even the normally staid and sensible National Weather Service, in the text of the wind chill warning that popped on my phone, went the hyperbolic route, predicting an 'historic' outbreak of cold.
In this instance, however, maybe it's not hyperbole. This cold snap might very well be historic. It's the coldest it's been, some are saying, since 1994. Interestingly, I remember that particular deep freeze vividly. That was historic. Those weeks in January and February when the temperature never rose above zero have become the place I go in my mind when I'm writing and looking to describe a particularly brutal winter.
15 below zero is bad enough, and tonight they're predicting a low of -25. But the real danger will be the wind chills: -50 to -70 are possible, and at that point skin freezes almost instantly. As a precaution, virtually the entire state of Minnesota has cancelled school classes for Monday; Wisconsin is almost certain to follow suit. You don't want to send your kids out in this. Lots of college campuses, set to resume classes after the holiday break, are being shut down as well, because nobody should be out in this.
Winter is no good for children and no good for adults.
I can admit that there's something comforting about snow and cold this time of year. If we're going to have it at all, winter should feel like winter. A couple of years ago I wrote about the perverseness of 40 degree temperatures and rainy days lasting well into a Wisconsin December, which is what seemed to define the previous decade. So this arctic blast, and all the snow we received last month, at least feels natural.
But I also freely admit that I hate it; I hate winter. The older I get, the more outraged I become by the horrendous, sometimes inhuman conditions which everyone north of the 35th parallel must endure for five to seven months out of the year. Some people love it, I know, but I'd be willing to bet most don't. I think most people deal with it because it's all they know; they've never lived anywhere else and they don't have any other options.
I'm one of those. I'm here because I have to be, for now anyway. I find no pleasure in winter anymore, nor do I associate it with my identity in any way, with being a Midwesterner or Wisconsinite. I don't feel a need or desire to be around for the changing of the seasons, nor does winter do much to accentuate the holidays. In fact, if anything it gets in the way. This Christmas Eve my girlfriend and I had to leave early, get on the road ahead of the worsening weather, and our drive home, which normally takes two hours, took over four, as the road quite literally disappeared beneath an unwrinkled blanket of snow.
So back to my fantasy: nothing fancy, nothing opulent. Just warm. Even moderately warm will do. In this fantasy, I'm not rich, not famous, I'm the same old me, with my little daily routines playing out in temperatures that never sink below 50 degrees. Ever. I want to be in a place where Christmas dinner is not turkey and stuffing, but rather fresh crab and Corona. And I have no problem whatsoever one day being an old pensioner stereotype, rocking the Wii Bowling tournament in a retirement community rec room, with my knobby, chicken white legs and Panama hat and gray chest hair peeking out of an Hawaiian shirt. Just so long as the temperature never drops below 50.
Ever.
I always think about Florida, but that may not be the best idea. The only possible option in the sunshine state would be Miami or the Keys, and just today I read an article about Miami being placed on someone's list of the worst American cities to retire in. High cost of living, high crime rate, et cetera...
Truth is, it doesn't have to be Florida at all. Just above 50 degrees at any time of the year. Southern California? San Diego? (Although the Chargers stole today's AFC playoff berth from the Steelers, so right now I'm hating on San Diego a little.) Maybe central California, on the way up 101 to San Francisco (unless San Francisco beats the Packers). Anywhere in the American southwest would do me just fine as well. It's hot in the summer, yes, but that dry heat isn't nearly so stifling. My girlfriend and I have talked numerous times about Belize for that matter, should we ever find ourselves inclined to live abroad.
I have a few decades before it's going to become an issue, but the time to start planning for it is here and now. My anxiety on the subject is driven in part by my parents' situation. They are elderly, and will most likely live out the remainder of their lives surviving winter. And while it's true that they - like all of us - should feel blessed for each winter they survive, it's not ideal. Not ideal at all. This climate is rough on skin and bones, on backs, necks and joints, on feet, fingers, lips and noses. Even when it's merely 20 degrees outside, the wind can cut through the deepest layers of clothing. I've seen the way my parents suffer, have felt helpless on their behalf, not just in light of the physical assault from brutal cold, not just the difficulty they have just getting around on icy surfaces, but the psychological effects of being buried in snow in a deep and dark December...
Whether winter is any good for children or any good for adults is open to debate. To each his own, I say. But winter is certainly no good, and no place, for the elderly. Any elderly loved ones enduring it should be checked in on frequently. All elderly people enduring it wherever should never be overlooked.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
UPDATE: In light of Epic Rap Battles post, it would seem some clarification is in order
So my post last month about Epic Rap Battles of History was a kind of double-edged sword. On one hand, it got the attention of one of the creators, who re-blogged it on his Tumblr. This resulted in a flurry of views from people who otherwise might not know I exist (which is most people), and that in turn generated a flurry of 'likes'. All good, and very much appreciated.
But a few people called me out on my opinion of new media in the digital age, specifically YouTube. To my surprise, what was meant simply as a heartfelt ode to Epic Rap Battles... apparently read, to some, like the jaded grousing of an arrogant puke.
My answer to this charge: yes, that's exactly what it was. At least the jaded grousing part...
In 2006, Time magazine named 'You' as its Person of the Year...that is, all of us. YouTube had been launched just the year before, and Time smartly recognized the tremendous impact it was going to have. The award correctly suggested a paradigm shift, the creation of a whole new wave of information providers and entertainers direct from grass roots level - new faces and voices we would otherwise not see or hear but would become eager to. It could literally be anyone in the world, and here was the rub: in order to watch and listen to them we would, for the first time ever, go to our computers rather than our televisions or radios.
That was huge. Factor in the rise of smart phones in the last seven years, providing uninterrupted, real time connectedness, and I don't think it's an overstatement that the whole thing should be considered nothing less than an evolutionary step for our species.
Now's a good time to state that I don't think everything about YouTube is bad; that was what I didn't make clear in my last post, and so ruffled a few feathers. No question there's been some standouts: ERB, of course, and I'm also a fan of VSauce, as well as the Slow Mo Guys, Postmodern Jukebox is pretty amazing, the Nostalgia Critic pretty damn funny...I guess I'm revealing myself to be a bit of a nerd at heart. The point is, there are plenty of people taking the creative blank check technology now provides and doing interesting, original things.
I just think it's fair to say that most aren't.
While YouTube has delivered on its predicted impact, it hasn't quite lived up to its potential. It hasn't eclipsed traditional television and cinema as our primary fonts of entertainment or information by unleashing a tidal storm of Stones, Scorceses and Spielbergs, or Moores, Spurlocks and Kenners.
What YouTube has produced the most of is the 'open source' crowd, and I'd say these are the only people I'm actually indignant about: the utterly talentless who, simply because technology allows them to do so, throw together their GIFs and movie mash-ups and slide shows set to music, co-opting copyrighted material in the process.
Yes, fine, I admit, here I am a little jaded, even a little pukey, on principle. I understand why Prince - for example - jealously guards his creative body of work from those who would help themselves to it. On the surface, it's easy to think he's just being a tool for threatening legal action over unauthorized use of his image and music, but when you really get down to it, he's not being a tool at all. It's his image and music. It means something now, just as it meant something in 1984, and copyright laws are in place for his - and all of our - protection. In our digital age, the implications of publishing on YouTube (and that's really what it is - publishing) need to be acknowledged, the definitions of 'fair use' and 'satire' sharpened down to a spear point, and all attendant copyright observed, with authorship recognized.
One step up from the open source people on YouTube are what I call the 'day traders', those who see fit to share whatever stuff they happen to catch on their phones, the same stuff they're sharing on Facebook and Reddit and Twitter and Snapchat and all the rest.
Sometimes someone is in the right place at the right time and captures something magnificent:
And sometimes it falls on the sinister side, the cruelty, violence and bad decision making that for better or worse inform our Zeitgeist. But in any case, it's no secret that YouTube day traders trade in precious commodities. The bread crumbs of our daily lives have become as much entertainment as anything. That people actually cash in some of their precious time to watch the most random stuff, stuff they probably have or see or experience at home, and give their approval through their likes and comments and ad hoc reviews (which is really why they do it: the opportunity to chime in) is perhaps another post all together.
And of course, there are the myriad Vloggers, people who have realized that for a minimal expenditure of time and money they can have what pretty much amounts to their own television channel, their own reality show, their own bully pulpit. These folks are at least lifting a finger to be entertaining, but here again, just because they can, it doesn't naturally follow that they should, or that they can. Yes, they're entertaining (verb), but are they entertaining (adjective)? I've tuned in to more than a few vlogs, and there are some funny ones, but most simply aren't. Most of them have flat-lined into not even being interesting. Most, that I've seen, are simply people carrying around cameras and filming themselves doing the most mundane crap, witless and tired and creatively barren. Yet somehow they STILL manage to garner likes and viewers and followers and subscribers!
That seems perverse to me. I'm sorry, I'm trying desperately not to be a hater, but I don't think entertainment should be like a 5th grade soccer match, where everyone gets a trophy and there are no losers. I think when everyone is allowed to present themselves as a creative person - a film maker, a singer, a photographer, digital artist, writer or a composer - in the egalitarian arena of the Internet, everyone's going to. The waters can't help but get muddied and the curve by which we grade it all can't help but get lowered, thus lowering what we collectively expect, and in turn, lowering what anyone bothers to produce. And that's depressing. I don't think there's anything about that assertion that makes me an arrogant puke. I don't think there's a creative person in the world who would disagree. And frankly, whether I'm creative is not the point. I say these things strictly as a consumer, not a creator.
Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter are clearly talented guys, and were it 1994 rather than 2014, each would likely still find success in entertainment in some capacity, together or apart. Their 'story', I think, is that they do what they do, to the extent they do it, in a uniquely 21st century medium - i.e., the Internet, where anybody can conceivably do what they do, but most don't. Most settle for the easy route; they forsake a true creative process carried on the backs of pre and post production considerations, attention to detail, building upon each new success to create something bigger and better (all the stuff I raved about in my last post), and either plagiarize, or in the best of scenarios, simply hoist up a camera and film themselves smiling and saying pithy things, cooking eggs in their kitchen, or running around the grocery store mocking strangers and laughing at the zucchini.
The point is, none of that stuff, none of it, would see the light of day twenty years ago. Were its creators trying to travel through conventional channels to get it produced - the hero's journey through a wasteland of submissions and rejections that once defined the creative world and, though sometimes discouraging, filtered out the worthy from the not-so-worthy - most of it would be lucky to find its way into the 'out' basket on the desk of the secretary of even the most two-bit talent agent in Sacramento.
But now, the 'light of day' is immediately accessible to all of us all at once, a world-wide audience at our fingertips...and thus, nobody is vetted. Dues no longer have to be paid in order to be 'liked'.
What I'm asserting may sound extreme, but make no mistake, this phenomenon of complacency and laziness in entertainment is already at play in conventional channels, and has been for at least the last decade. We know it as 'reality' TV. It is literally why the Kardashians are what they are: 'famous for being famous', otherwise bringing nothing new, innovative or edifying to the party. Producers of these kinds of shows, probably dating back to the first season of The Real World the year I graduated high school (and possibly much earlier), realized it's easier, and cheaper, to just plop these awful people, any awful people (just so long as they're physically attractive and/or have 'big personalities'....), in front of a camera and let them do their stupid shit, say their stupid things, and still garner just as many viewers (in other words sell just as many cell phones, bags of Doritos and cases of beer, because it's all about advertising, baby...) as the shows that actually get conceived and thought through, written and produced.
And people watch. They watch! Do they laugh and mock? Probably (not always). But they still watch. The Kardashians, et al., are bonafide fucking celebrities! Just as (for instance) Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (and Vince Gilligan) are celebrities....even more so.
Even more so! 8-/
And this can't help but beg the question: why are Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter (among others) busting their tails, straining their creative brains to create a legitimate, original product, when they could, for the price of a few bottles of Belvedere vodka and the expense of an apartment rental, get a few kids together, see who barfs first, and where, and what's said about it, and have a 'hit' on their hands?
My previous post was intended not only to express relief that they are doing what they're doing, but that people are responding so enthusiastically. God forbid everyone just throws up their hands and becomes content with the Kardashians, or Bad Girls, or the Real Anybody of Anywhere. That's how we wind up with chocolate chip cookies as the only dessert option.
Anything wrong with chocolate chip cookies? Hell no...but without the promise, the hope, of a well-textured torte once in a while, there isn't really any reason to get out of bed in the morning, is there?
-------------
I was also asked by a couple people what Epic Rap Battle I'd like to see, and with a little thought came up with the following:
1) Stephen King versus Edgar Allen Poe
2) USA for Africa versus Band-Aid (this would be ambitious, but I think truly epic! Worthy of a season finale! ;-)
But a few people called me out on my opinion of new media in the digital age, specifically YouTube. To my surprise, what was meant simply as a heartfelt ode to Epic Rap Battles... apparently read, to some, like the jaded grousing of an arrogant puke.
My answer to this charge: yes, that's exactly what it was. At least the jaded grousing part...
In 2006, Time magazine named 'You' as its Person of the Year...that is, all of us. YouTube had been launched just the year before, and Time smartly recognized the tremendous impact it was going to have. The award correctly suggested a paradigm shift, the creation of a whole new wave of information providers and entertainers direct from grass roots level - new faces and voices we would otherwise not see or hear but would become eager to. It could literally be anyone in the world, and here was the rub: in order to watch and listen to them we would, for the first time ever, go to our computers rather than our televisions or radios.
That was huge. Factor in the rise of smart phones in the last seven years, providing uninterrupted, real time connectedness, and I don't think it's an overstatement that the whole thing should be considered nothing less than an evolutionary step for our species.
Now's a good time to state that I don't think everything about YouTube is bad; that was what I didn't make clear in my last post, and so ruffled a few feathers. No question there's been some standouts: ERB, of course, and I'm also a fan of VSauce, as well as the Slow Mo Guys, Postmodern Jukebox is pretty amazing, the Nostalgia Critic pretty damn funny...I guess I'm revealing myself to be a bit of a nerd at heart. The point is, there are plenty of people taking the creative blank check technology now provides and doing interesting, original things.
I just think it's fair to say that most aren't.
While YouTube has delivered on its predicted impact, it hasn't quite lived up to its potential. It hasn't eclipsed traditional television and cinema as our primary fonts of entertainment or information by unleashing a tidal storm of Stones, Scorceses and Spielbergs, or Moores, Spurlocks and Kenners.
What YouTube has produced the most of is the 'open source' crowd, and I'd say these are the only people I'm actually indignant about: the utterly talentless who, simply because technology allows them to do so, throw together their GIFs and movie mash-ups and slide shows set to music, co-opting copyrighted material in the process.
Yes, fine, I admit, here I am a little jaded, even a little pukey, on principle. I understand why Prince - for example - jealously guards his creative body of work from those who would help themselves to it. On the surface, it's easy to think he's just being a tool for threatening legal action over unauthorized use of his image and music, but when you really get down to it, he's not being a tool at all. It's his image and music. It means something now, just as it meant something in 1984, and copyright laws are in place for his - and all of our - protection. In our digital age, the implications of publishing on YouTube (and that's really what it is - publishing) need to be acknowledged, the definitions of 'fair use' and 'satire' sharpened down to a spear point, and all attendant copyright observed, with authorship recognized.
One step up from the open source people on YouTube are what I call the 'day traders', those who see fit to share whatever stuff they happen to catch on their phones, the same stuff they're sharing on Facebook and Reddit and Twitter and Snapchat and all the rest.
Sometimes someone is in the right place at the right time and captures something magnificent:
Other times it takes the form of the benign:
And sometimes it falls on the sinister side, the cruelty, violence and bad decision making that for better or worse inform our Zeitgeist. But in any case, it's no secret that YouTube day traders trade in precious commodities. The bread crumbs of our daily lives have become as much entertainment as anything. That people actually cash in some of their precious time to watch the most random stuff, stuff they probably have or see or experience at home, and give their approval through their likes and comments and ad hoc reviews (which is really why they do it: the opportunity to chime in) is perhaps another post all together.
And of course, there are the myriad Vloggers, people who have realized that for a minimal expenditure of time and money they can have what pretty much amounts to their own television channel, their own reality show, their own bully pulpit. These folks are at least lifting a finger to be entertaining, but here again, just because they can, it doesn't naturally follow that they should, or that they can. Yes, they're entertaining (verb), but are they entertaining (adjective)? I've tuned in to more than a few vlogs, and there are some funny ones, but most simply aren't. Most of them have flat-lined into not even being interesting. Most, that I've seen, are simply people carrying around cameras and filming themselves doing the most mundane crap, witless and tired and creatively barren. Yet somehow they STILL manage to garner likes and viewers and followers and subscribers!
That seems perverse to me. I'm sorry, I'm trying desperately not to be a hater, but I don't think entertainment should be like a 5th grade soccer match, where everyone gets a trophy and there are no losers. I think when everyone is allowed to present themselves as a creative person - a film maker, a singer, a photographer, digital artist, writer or a composer - in the egalitarian arena of the Internet, everyone's going to. The waters can't help but get muddied and the curve by which we grade it all can't help but get lowered, thus lowering what we collectively expect, and in turn, lowering what anyone bothers to produce. And that's depressing. I don't think there's anything about that assertion that makes me an arrogant puke. I don't think there's a creative person in the world who would disagree. And frankly, whether I'm creative is not the point. I say these things strictly as a consumer, not a creator.
Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter are clearly talented guys, and were it 1994 rather than 2014, each would likely still find success in entertainment in some capacity, together or apart. Their 'story', I think, is that they do what they do, to the extent they do it, in a uniquely 21st century medium - i.e., the Internet, where anybody can conceivably do what they do, but most don't. Most settle for the easy route; they forsake a true creative process carried on the backs of pre and post production considerations, attention to detail, building upon each new success to create something bigger and better (all the stuff I raved about in my last post), and either plagiarize, or in the best of scenarios, simply hoist up a camera and film themselves smiling and saying pithy things, cooking eggs in their kitchen, or running around the grocery store mocking strangers and laughing at the zucchini.
The point is, none of that stuff, none of it, would see the light of day twenty years ago. Were its creators trying to travel through conventional channels to get it produced - the hero's journey through a wasteland of submissions and rejections that once defined the creative world and, though sometimes discouraging, filtered out the worthy from the not-so-worthy - most of it would be lucky to find its way into the 'out' basket on the desk of the secretary of even the most two-bit talent agent in Sacramento.
But now, the 'light of day' is immediately accessible to all of us all at once, a world-wide audience at our fingertips...and thus, nobody is vetted. Dues no longer have to be paid in order to be 'liked'.
What I'm asserting may sound extreme, but make no mistake, this phenomenon of complacency and laziness in entertainment is already at play in conventional channels, and has been for at least the last decade. We know it as 'reality' TV. It is literally why the Kardashians are what they are: 'famous for being famous', otherwise bringing nothing new, innovative or edifying to the party. Producers of these kinds of shows, probably dating back to the first season of The Real World the year I graduated high school (and possibly much earlier), realized it's easier, and cheaper, to just plop these awful people, any awful people (just so long as they're physically attractive and/or have 'big personalities'....), in front of a camera and let them do their stupid shit, say their stupid things, and still garner just as many viewers (in other words sell just as many cell phones, bags of Doritos and cases of beer, because it's all about advertising, baby...) as the shows that actually get conceived and thought through, written and produced.
And people watch. They watch! Do they laugh and mock? Probably (not always). But they still watch. The Kardashians, et al., are bonafide fucking celebrities! Just as (for instance) Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (and Vince Gilligan) are celebrities....even more so.
Even more so! 8-/
And this can't help but beg the question: why are Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter (among others) busting their tails, straining their creative brains to create a legitimate, original product, when they could, for the price of a few bottles of Belvedere vodka and the expense of an apartment rental, get a few kids together, see who barfs first, and where, and what's said about it, and have a 'hit' on their hands?
My previous post was intended not only to express relief that they are doing what they're doing, but that people are responding so enthusiastically. God forbid everyone just throws up their hands and becomes content with the Kardashians, or Bad Girls, or the Real Anybody of Anywhere. That's how we wind up with chocolate chip cookies as the only dessert option.
Anything wrong with chocolate chip cookies? Hell no...but without the promise, the hope, of a well-textured torte once in a while, there isn't really any reason to get out of bed in the morning, is there?
-------------
I was also asked by a couple people what Epic Rap Battle I'd like to see, and with a little thought came up with the following:
1) Stephen King versus Edgar Allen Poe
2) USA for Africa versus Band-Aid (this would be ambitious, but I think truly epic! Worthy of a season finale! ;-)
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