Amaryllis sillyramA

It’s a funny video! Yay!

A sunny day in January! If you open the window, you can hear the cry of the native northwesterner: “What’s that bright light? Aaaah, my eyes!”

We should be outside but we are not. We are inside playing games on the new Wii M got last night. And playing pinball. And just in general behaving as though we didn’t have a million things to do today. It’s pretty great at the moment — just have to keep forgetting we’ll pay for it later.

Past time for a new palindrome. I can’t believe it’s 2008! And January! Here then:

Egad, an adage!

If anyone knows of an adage that would provoke such a reaction, I’d love to hear it.

I don’t often read online books, but twice recently I found myself doing so. It had been a long long time since I’d read Franny and Zooey, but something Lisa wrote on Lemon Gloria reminded me of it. (Again with the LG! Seems I have LG on the brain.) She was talking about not being able to find her car in DC — not being able to remember quite where she parked it. So she’d been walking around looking for it, talking to her mom on the phone.

So as I’m talking to Betty I hear my father in the background saying “Tell her to ask the police to drive her around to find it.” This made me laugh out loud.

He went on to say that at some point when he was in college he and a friend lost their car in New Orleans and the police drove them street by street to find it.

And I was totally reminded of Les Glass and the tangerine. Les Glass is the father of Franny and Zooey (and all Salinger‘s other Glass children).

So I had to go hunting for the bit I was reminded of. I eventually found it, but ended up reading the whole of both stories. Turns out there’s more than one bit about the tangerine. In the first one, Bessie Glass (the mother) is talking to Zooey Glass (the youngest son) about Franny (the youngest daughter (she’s twenty-one)) and her precarious mental state. Zooey is in the bathroom, in the bath actually. The curtain is closed and his mother is sitting outside it smoking and talking to him.

“Oh, I wish I knew what I’m supposed to do with that child!” She took a deep breath. “I’m absolutely at the end of my rope.” She gave the shower curtain an X-ray-like look. “You’re none of you any help whatsoever. But none! Your father doesn’t even like to talk about anything like this. You know that! He’s worried, too, naturally–I know that look on his face–but he simply will not face anything.” Mrs. Glass’s mouth tightened. “He’s never faced anything as long as I’ve known him. He thinks anything peculiar or unpleasant will just go away if he turns on the radio and some little schnook starts singing.”

A great single roar of laughter came from the closed-off Zooey. It was scarcely distinguishable from his guffaw, but there was a difference.

“Well, he does!” Mrs. Glass insisted, humorlessly. She sat forward. “Would you like to know what I honestly think?” she demanded. “Would you?”

“Bessie. For God’s sake. You’re going to tell me anyway, so what’s the difference if I–”

“I honestly think–I mean this, now–I honestly think he keeps hoping to hear all you children on the radio again. I’m serious, now.” Mrs. Glass took another deep breath. “Every single time your father turns on the radio, I honestly think he expects to tune in on ‘It’s a Wise Child’ [*] and hear all you children, one by one, answering questions again.” She compressed her lips and paused, unconsciously, for additional emphasis. “And I mean all of you,” she said, and abruptly straightened her posture a trifle. “That includes Seymour and Walt.” She took a brisk but voluminous drag on her cigarette. “He lives entirely in the past. But entirely. He hardly ever even watches television, unless you’re on. And don’t laugh, Zooey. It isn’t funny.”

“Who in God’s name is laughing?”

“Well, it’s true! He has absolutely no conception of anything being really wrong with Franny. But none! Right after the eleven-o’clock news last night, what do you think he asks me? If I think Franny might like a tangerine! The child’s laying there by the hour crying her eyes out if you say boo to her, and mumbling heaven knows what to herself, and your father wonders if maybe she’d like a tangerine. I could’ve killed him. The next time he–” Mrs. Glass broke off. She glared at the shower curtain. “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

“Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I like the tangerine. All right, who else is being no help to you? Me. Les. Buddy. Who else? Pour your heart out to me, Bessie. Don’t be reticent. That’s the whole trouble with this family–we keep things bottled up too much.”

“Oh, you’re about as funny as a crutch, young man,” Mrs. Glass said.

Later, Zooey is in the living room with Franny. She’s on the couch. He’s lying on the floor mostly out of sight. They are talking.

“Are you finished?” Franny said, sitting very notably forward. The tremor had returned to her voice.

“All right, Franny. C’mon, now. You said you’d hear me out. I’ve said the worst, I think. I’m just trying to tell you–I’m not trying, I’m telling you–that this just is not fair to Bessie and Les. It’s terrible for them–and you know it. Did you know, God damn it, that Les was all for bringing a tangerine in to you last night before he went to bed? My God. Even Bessie can’t stand stories with tangerines in them. And God knows I can’t. If you’re going to go on with this breakdown business, I wish to hell you’d go back to college to have it. Where you’re not the baby of the family. And where, God knows, nobody’ll have any urges to bring you any tangerines. And where you don’t keep your goddam tap shoes in the closet.”

Franny, at this point, reached rather blindly, but soundlessly, for the box of Kleenex on the marble coffee table.

So, first of all, I am in no way suggesting that Lisa of LG is mentally unstable, or that her father doesn’t face things. Really! I was just reminded of the tangerine. Because of the father’s naivete? His sincerity? The simplicity of his sentiment, his solution? (Simplicity being not at all the same as simple-mindedness.) Of course a policeman would drive around helping to find a misplaced car! Policemen are there to help, right?

In any case, it was lovely to be reminded of that tangerine, and it was interesting to read the stories again. I love how Salinger pokes fun at his own stuff. (“My God. Even Bessie can’t stand stories with tangerines in them. And God knows I can’t.”) Sigh. I just love Salinger’s writing.

Somehow, though, this atheist (me) had managed to forget just how Jesus-oriented those stories are. Weird that I could block that out, and weirder that I know I’ll read Franny and Zooey again sometime (for the umpteenth time).

Last, a note about the online version: it seems someone scanned the book with some sort of character recognition software and then stuck it online. As a result, each story is one long page with several weird little character flaws (so to speak). Occasionally it’s hard to figure out what the heck the author is saying, unless you’ve read it before. Plus, there are lengthy footnotes here and there, and it’s kind of hard to figure out what to read first in this one-long-page format. So, if you read a little and like what you see, then go get the book and read it that way. You’ll be doing yourself a favor. Or hey, I’d be happy to lend you my copy. Just kindly refrain from assuming it means I want to talk about Jesus.

On to Geronimo! Recently I was browsing at Etsy and, for reasons that remain unclear to me, I couldn’t resist this Geronimo pendant. Maybe because he looks so grumpy? I don’t know. But I decided if I’m going to go around wearing a picture of Geronimo, then I’d better know a little something about him. First I read the wikipedia article about him, which was pretty interesting, and from there I went to an online version of a sort of autobiography that was dictated by Geronimo, then translated by the son of an Apache chief who was known to him, and then taken down by a white guy who had developed an interest in Geronimo’s story. (White guy’s name is featured prominently on the title page.) I probably shouldn’t call him white guy, since without him the story would probably never have been published. In fact, he had to fight to make the book happen:

In the latter part of that summer I asked the old chief to allow me to publish some of the things he had told me, but he objected, saying, however, that if I would pay him, and if the officers in charge did not object, he would tell me the whole story of his life. I immediately called at the fort (Fort Sill) and asked the officer in charge, Lieutenant Purington, for permission to write the life of Geronimo. I was promptly informed that the privilege would not be granted. Lieutenant Purington explained to me the many depredations committed by Geronimo and his warriors, and the enormous cost of subduing the Apaches, adding that the old Apache deserved to be hanged rather than spoiled by so much attention from civilians. A suggestion from me that our government had paid many soldiers and officers to go to Arizona and kill Geronimo and the Apaches, and that they did not seem to know how to do it, did not prove very gratifying to the pride of the regular army officer, and I decided to seek elsewhere for permission. Accordingly I wrote to President Roosevelt that here was an old Indian who had been held a prisoner of war for twenty years and had never been given a chance to tell his side of the story, and asked that Geronimo be granted permission to tell for publication, in his own way, the story of his life, and that he be guaranteed that the publication of his story would not affect unfavorably the Apache prisoners of war. By return mail I received word that the authority had been granted.

So yes. He did good. But since it’s not a story about him, I leave out his name. Sorry, white guy.

Geronimo’s Story of His Life is a very interesting read, all the way to the end. I do admit I skimmed or skipped a few parts, namely those that weren’t written from Geronimo’s perspective. Because it was most fascinating to see the world through his eyes. At the moment I’m thinking of the part about his time at the World’s Fair. He spent six months there, selling signed photographs, and visiting other exhibits at the fair. His description of one of the shows struck me as kind of crazy, even in context. Out of context it’s quite crazy.

There were some little brown people at the Fair that United States troops captured recently on some islands far away from here….

I do not know how true the report was, but I heard that the President sent them to the Fair so that they could learn some manners, and when they went home teach their people how to dress and how to behave.

I don’t know if it’s the phrase “little brown people” or the reference to the president (Teddy Roosevelt at the time — Geronimo had great respect for him) or the casual mention of U.S. troops capturing people, but something about those passages just gets me.

But most of the story is about Geronimo’s life before he surrendered. He led such a violent life. The violence was actually hard for me to imagine, even right while I was reading it. He suffered great losses which twisted him all up toward revenge. And more revenge, and more revenge. Awful. But I am glad to have read the whole thing. The weirdest thing is to think it was written only about a hundred years ago. A hundred years is not very long.

I’m having trouble ending this eternal post. I’ll just slap this cool little bit up here and let it be the end. A tiny piece of what life was like as an Apache.

“Salt Lake”

We obtained our salt from a little lake in the Gila Mountains. This is a very small lake of clear, shallow water, and in the center a small mound arises above the surface of the water. The water is too salty to drink, and the bottom of the lake is covered with a brown crust. When this crust is broken cakes of salt adhere to it. These cakes of salt may be washed clear in the water of this lake, but if washed in other water will dissolve.

When visiting this lake our people were not allowed to even kill game or attack an enemy. All creatures were free to go and come without molestation.

New palindrome day is here! New palindrome day is here!

No lemons, no melon.

I like this palindrome, even though it is a lie. There are plenty of lemons, and there is plenty of melon.