Notes from Around the Block

Another simple thought

February 6, 2010 · 10 Comments

by cheri block

Last night we left the busy Bay Area, the three of us—man, woman, and dog—and drove down to our tiny spot on the Central Coast of California. It’s important to get away from work every now and then, if possible.

At least that’s the dog’s philosophy.

A blustery wet day here by the sea, this place is one of my favorite places to be.

Every night, no matter what the weather, we sleep with our door open. Winter is the best time to do this, of course.

A weather symphony orchestra pounded out its dramatic music last night.

Two inches of furious rain tried its level best to drown out the roaring heartbeat that is the Pacific Ocean. The slap of millions of raindrops on the deck competed with the comforting roar of an angry ocean.

This morning, the rain continues its rant.

Maybe I will correct my papers. Maybe I will read the assignment for my class on Wednesday night—parts of Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

Maybe I will take the dog for a walk.

Maybe I will do nothing.

My friend, the Sci-Fi Fanatic, reminded me that it is OK to do nothing and just enjoy the simple pleasures of a stormy day.

We don’t always have to be productive.

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Simple thought

February 4, 2010 · 16 Comments

by cheri block

A long time ago, someone lugged a heavy rock up a steep hillside and put it in its place.

Others helped in the endeavor. Who these people were and why they built their walls is a mystery.

Soon these walls would criss-cross the pastoral rolling hills that flank one side of the San Francisco Bay. From Berkeley in the north to San Jose in the south, these rock lines cause pause among those who notice.

Everyday, I walk up my road, see these walls, and think about the people who built them.

They are not the Great Wall of China or Stonehenge in England. They are not Roman ruins in Ephesus or pyramids in Egypt.

They are a simple line of dot-rocks that remind us to produce something.

So, go do it.

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Joe’s Amazing Grandfather…

January 29, 2010 · 8 Comments

by cheri block

Interesting, Baby (not the waitress). Did I ever tell you the story of the time my grandfather Joe from the old country left me three tumulos in his last will and testament?

I don’t remember that one, Joe, I said, placing the digital tape recorder between us on the table.

Well, let me set the scene. My grandfather brought five kids and his wife Katharina to San Francisco from Ustica, a small island off the coast of Sicily. His brother’s kid, Frank, came with the family, so that meant he had five kids he was trying to support. He worked down on the pier at Fisherman’s Wharf shelling oysters.

The walking boss, what we would call a foreman today, told him he wasn’t doing a good job. He got pissed off.

You’re not doing this, right, the walking boss said.

I’ve been doing this since I was seven years old, my grandfather barked back. He quit the job. Right then and there.

He goes back into North Beach to his wife (now with six children, including Uncle Frank) and tells her, We’re going back to the old country.

She says, Not me.

Cheri, can you believe that a woman who spoke not one work of English and who had been dragged over to this country against her wishes, now decides that she is staying here without her husband? A woman with no job and five kids?

My grandfather Joe was a selfish and stubborn bastard, so then he says, Fine, I’ll take the kid who was born here, the American citizen, and go back.

So he grabs a kid and off he goes to the old country and then has eleven more kids over there in Ustica.

Wow, your grandfather was prolific, I comment, thinking back to the time when my old Springer Spaniel Maggie delivered eleven puppies.

Joe continues.

Years pass. Now my grandfather is an old man but still working in the fields.

How did he die? I ask, trying to decide whether I should eat the last French fry.

He was heading back into town  on his way to get laid when he died of a heart attack at age 92.

Ninety-two? He was going to get laid at the age of 92?

Yeah! Joe laughed, enjoying the grand paternal hoorah.

So, before he gets laid, he’s gonna have a bath and a shave. He drops dead on the way home from the barber.

Geez, I marvel.

Now my grandfather is dead, leaving two families and seventeen kids total, twelve in Ustica and five here.

One day, a letter arrives with Italian postage and I learn that my grandfather has left me three tumulos.  I have no idea what a tumulo is, so I call the Italian consulate in San Francisco.

Come on over we’ll have lunch, the consul suggests.  They always wrap business around a lunch. Of course, I am going to have to pay because they’re doing me a favor. I pick him up on Webster Street by the Presidio, a beautiful area of town over there and we go to North Beach.  I spring for a bottle of wine, two lunches and lots of talk with my landsman— all of this just to find out what the word tumulo means.

After lunch, he reads the entire document but has no idea what this word means.

This has now cost me 50 bucks so far.

He’ll do me a favor. He’ll call Rome.

Una mano lava l’altra mano (One hand washes the other hand).

Three days later he calls to tell me his sources in Rome cannot find the origin of the word. They even went to the University of Pisa, according to the consul. They know tumulus (think Beowulf’s tumulus) but not tumulo.

Joe continues.

So, I call my friend Paul, a history and Italian major at Cal Berkeley. He had lots of Italian dictionaries, including a Medieval one.

He finds the word in the old dictionary.

A tumolo is a square rod about 16 feet.

My grandfather left me three of those on the beach in Ustica.

The family over there is very much interested in putting all the tumulos together so they can open a restaurant casino.

How much do you want for my three tumulos?

1000.00

Lira or dollars?

Dollars.

So I get $1000.00 out of the whole good god damned deal.

Joe, your grandfather Joe sounded like an amazing man, I observed.



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The Great Geat

January 26, 2010 · 7 Comments

by cheri block

The Nordic stars aligned yesterday in a series of random conversations that related to my current preoccupation with King Beowulf.

First, I ran into my very charming 40 year-old Australian neighbor, Jason, who was driving down the road. He stopped, and as is our custom, we engaged in a short intense conversation about what we are both doing.

What’s new with you, Jason?

I have a new puppy.

What kind?

A Great Dane. You know, I wanted a dog that has a presence but also one that I can trust around my kids.

That’s ironic. I’m reading about a Great Dane—Beowulf.

Jason is a techie, so I spent the next five minutes summarizing the poem. Jason looked interested, so after adjusting my hat, I finished the summary.

It wasn’t until he drove off that I realized I had misspoken and thus,  made a mental note to amend the record the next time we talked.

I am reading about a Great Geat, Beowulf, who helps a Great Dane, King Hrothgar, I thought.

I came home, showered, and headed to lunch with Joe before going to my office.

Joe and I ensconced ourselves in our usual booth in the bar.

Sammie (who Joe calls Baby) took our order.

Maybe it was thinking of Beowulf’s dragon, deep in his underground lair, that caused me to deviate from my usual order of tomato-basil bisque by instead selecting the mushroom bisque.

And while my thoughts were still underground, I asked Joe, Do you know what a tumulus is?

Did you say tumulo?

No, I said tumulus.

Listen baby, I don’t have the slightest goddamned idea what a tumulus is.

Well, I have been doing some research on Nordic heroes and old Denmark. I must admit my complete ignorance on all things Swedish and Danish. Until this research, the only thing Danish in my sphere is my friend Sam Rasmussen, an 84-year old pistol of a human being. Do you know Sam?

Joe didn’t know Sam and didn’t appear to care about this thread, so I snapped back to answer my original question.

Joe, a tumulus is a burial mound. These ancient burial mounds are all over Sweden. In fact, one tumulus in Sweden is thought to be the historical Beowulf’s.

Joe’s mind immediately scrolled back in time and I could tell a story was coming to fruition.

Interesting, Baby (not the waitress). Did I ever tell you the story of the time my grandfather Joe from the old country left me three tumulos? You see, a letter from Italy arrived in the mail…

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Beowulf’s Dragon

January 24, 2010 · 18 Comments

by cheri block

I never played with dolls.

I played with stuffed animals, setting up scenarios about everything from arctic sea expeditions where the polar bear eats the hunter, to circuses where the elephants, tigers, and lions talk back to their trainers.

Lions and tigers and bears—Oh my!

Most of all, I loved dragons.

Dragons stretched my realm-tickle. I read every dragon story I could find at the local library.

Was it a dragon’s breath, one that could singe a curious boy’s pantaloons in one mighty blow that captured my heart? Or the magnificent body, designed by a primeval artist, intent on using every last glittery tile on his sleek dragonian mosaic? Whatever the attraction way back then, the word dragon was enough to lure me into a poem, a book, a movie.

So imagine my delight in learning that Beowulf was on my reading list

In Beowulf the poem—a folk epic like The Odyssey–written by a Christian about the pagan Scandinavian hero Beowulf, a fiery and protective dragon kills the hero, but not before the hero kills the dragon in their reciprocal demise.

Although I love the battles between the fearless young and studly Beowulf and the crazed Grendel family (mother and son), it was the fatal clash between an older but not- much- wiser King Beowulf and a magnificent dragon that touched my heart, my life-pump that as of late beats with an intensity of blood-rage.

Last week, while riding her tricycle, my mother (deaf and handicapped) was hit and run by a driver who wasn’t cited—an elderly man who “thought he didn’t hit her” but who drove away forgetting to look in his rear view mirror, and whose story, delivered emotionally, was bought by the local policeman.

My mother Joan will recover but a tear in my chain mail, my hauberk, renders me vulnerable.

I find my heart upset about this injustice.

So, instead of dwelling on what is, I  allow my soul-quake to enter the final battle that my current literary hero—albeit a two-dimensional one—wages against himself.

Beowulf and the dragon are one. That’s my thesis for today.

Beowulf was a selfish king in his old age.

Too focused on gold, shields, goblets, and burrows.

Too focused on legacy, boasting, his burial site.

And yet, legacy, booty, and burial sites were part of the Nordic hero’s pedigree.

A question remains.

In King Beowulf’s Jungian-Freudian subterranean wrestling match, did he care about the way he left his people?

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The Big Picture

January 22, 2010 · 10 Comments

My necklace sitting on my computer case...

My new necklace sitting on my computer case

by cheri block

When I was about 25 years old, Joe told me that men see the bigger picture—the universal ideas we all wrestle with—whereas women see the details about those bigger ideas.

I dismissed this outlandish statement as poppycock and told him he was wrong.

But yesterday, evidence of his annoying thesis made itself present in a clothing store in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I admit the experiment I conducted was designed to produce the expected result.  Real scientists would not indulge in such bias.

You be the judge.

Judge Blah arrived in Arizona on Friday night late, lugging his briefcase full of business—about 1 foot thick of business. Along with his rolling office, he brought a full array of wireless machines so that he could stay connected. He did bring Nietzsche’s On Good and Evil and The Gay Science, but those books have thus far, remained closed. In short, Judge Blah has lived up to his name.

Taking care of my mother during the wettest week in recent Arizona history, one in which the sun (think bigger picture here) has emerged intermittently, has been a psychological challenge for me. Sometimes the small things—losing her cochlear implant, burning English muffins, and finding old wine in the refrigerator—do get me down.

We are going out today, to have some fun, I said.

Where are we going? Judge Blah asked.

We are going to the Boulders ( a 50 mile drive) for a cocktail after we go shopping for a few new pieces of clothing for me (A long black sweater and two blouses).

OK, let me know when you are ready to go, he said, reconfiguring his legal document.

Damn, this laptop, he muttered.

What’s the issue? I said, thinking fixable, small technical problems.

A class action labor dispute. This is big, he answered.

Let me help you with your formatting, I offered.

All the way to Scottsdale, I focused on the saguaro cacti, the freeway cameras, and my cuticles.

You go your way; I ‘ll go mine, I said, once we arrived at the shopping center.

It was in a small boutique that I decided to conduct my experiment. I bought a necklace, a piece of costume jewelry with big black shiny baubles, huge dollops of fake glass attached to a pewter chain.

Do you want a box? The clerk asked.

No, I am going to wear this spectacular piece of iron and glass around my tiny neck, I said.

Out into the grey day I walked with my major piece of jewelry (almost like Beowulf’s shield) adorning my smallish frame.

I met Judge Blah in a furniture store.

We looked at furniture. Don’t you think this pillow would look smashing on our bed?, I flirted, holding it in front of my necklace.

Then we went into two more stores, wandering around.

By the time we arrived at a men’s store—where, Judge Blah had told me several times, he would find a long-sleeved black shirt— I had been flaunting my jewels for 45 minutes.

His cell phone rang in the fitting room. I heard it.

Out he came, looking for a size large instead of a medium, still talking to one of the attorneys.

Finally, like a crazed lab rat, I jumped in front of him and pointed at my necklace.

He raised his eyebrows and nodded approvingly while still on the phone.

We drove into the Boulders Restaurant and I found our way to the fireplace and couches.

Judge Blah will have a vodka tonic with Absolute and lime, I ordered. And by the way, is your tonic out of a gun or in a can? I asked.

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Beowulf’s Kennings

January 18, 2010 · 23 Comments

by cheri block

Until Seamus Heaney, Irish poet (and Nobel Prize winner) rendered his lyrical translation of Beowulf, I must admit that this Nordic epic story—the first English poem–sent me to the refrigerator, looking for a snack.  On my second read, I found myself craving kippered herring and mead (Ur, I mean beer) as I romped along with the Geats and the Danes, following the travails of their hero Beowulf.

Let me summarize the story for those of you who haven’t read it.

Beowulf, a Geat from what is now Southern Sweden, comes across the sea to aid  King Hrothgar, the Danish king whose kingdom the monster Grendel is terrorizing each night in the King’s mead-hall, Heorot.  Beowulf not only kills the monster by ripping its shoulder and arm off, but also slays Grendel’s mother the next day in a watery undersea battle. Fifty years later, King Beowulf again confronts and kills another monster—this time a dragon. But in that fight, Beowulf dies.

I have ideas about the meanings of these battles, but more about those on another day.

More than the story itself, I loved the language, the kennings, figures of speech used by early Icelandic, Germanic, and Nordic storytellers and poets to name nouns by replacing them with other nouns, usually compound and always clever and creative.

Beowulf the poem abounds with kennings. For example, the sun becomes a sky-candle. King Hrothgar’s throne becomes a mead-bench. The sea is a sail-road. Mr. Heaney translates the West Saxon Old English into an earthy retelling. I suspect his Irish thirst to maintain the poem’s integrity mixed with his linguistic brilliance helped him to render this gem of a translation.

My soul-quake and realm-tickle help me to unlock the messages in Beowulf.

And I am also making up my own kennings, for fun, of course.

Can you figure out what the two above mean?

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A Visit to Lake Alcyonian

January 10, 2010 · 17 Comments

by cheri block

Animal heroes were my heroes back in the days when I was knee-high to a donut.

Lassie the collie—who could signal for help in Jeff’s mashed potatoes—evoked in me such deep respect, I would sit in front of our TV for hours, stunned by her cleverness and loyalty. I ached for a companion like her.

Rin Tin Tin the German Shepherd—who could speak English (with a German accent)— provided a startling foil to my own mundane German Shepherd Dickens, who could only sit, heel, stay, and roll over.

So you will understand why I leaped at the opportunity to witness a field trial and watch highly trained hunting dogs work in perfect synchronicity with their masters.

I am not Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, but I do revere the forests and hills (and a well trained animal), so I accepted the invitation to Brown Dog Day.

Guess what Dinah? Auntie Alex has invited us to Brown Dog Day next Saturday. And you get to compete in the novice class! Just think, when they catapult that frozen mallard duck into the air, followed by the crack of the pistol, you Dinah, will have a once-in-a-short-lifetime opportunity to retrieve it from a pond.

Will there be an audience? Dinah replied.

Oh yes, about 200 people and their Chesapeake Bay Retrievers will all be watching, I encouraged.

OK, I’ll go, Dinah nodded, but don’t feed me ahead of time. I want my natural hunting skills, evolved from the blustery shores of frigid Labrador, to kick into my performance.

She added, Labrador is a more ancient and cold place than the Chesapeake Bay, right? I will give those curly coated, homely (but talented) dogs a schooling.

And then she laid her blond head with those overly made-up eyes into her donut bed and went to sleep, dreaming of her own daily hunting for wild turkey poop, cat poop, tennis balls, paper towels, acorns and Lego pieces.

The big day arrived.

As we drove up the road to the trial, small signs taped to the trees directed us to our destination:  BROWN DOGS Ahead—5 miles, then 3 miles, then 50 feet, then YOU ARE HERE.

We went directly to the pond behind a big shoulder of an East Bay hill.

People in flannel shirts were milling about.

Dog crates stacked in the back of pick-up trucks held barking Chesapeakes.

Card tables covered with plastic red and white table clothes provided a stable ledge for coffee cups and donuts.

Dinah eyed the donuts.

I whispered to her, Get your eyes off that food and begin your meditation about ducks.

A big curly coated unneutered male walked by her, sniffing her private parts.

Dinah seemed to like the attention from a big guy.

Refocus, my dear, I whispered again.

The man from across the pond with the pistol called out on his bullhorn: All novice dogs be ready. We will start with Number One, the yellow Labrador. Are you ready over there?

Not really, I thought.

Absolutely, I barked.

I walked down and among the clods of earth and snapped a 50 yard yellow rope to her collar. As suggested, I put on heavy gloves to avoid a rope burn when she took off for the retrieve. I told Dinah to sit and wait. She looked back at the donuts.

In an almost Celtic Games scenario, a big man from behind a rock launched a dead mallard duck into the air.

Craaacckk, snapped the pistol.

Down the duck plummeted, down into the pond.

The next thing I knew, the yellow rope was unraveling fast. Dinah was on her instinctual way, heading for the pond, the duck, the ultimate retrieve.

Her ears flattened out on the surface of the water as her shoulders pumped and pushed her body along. She circled the duck and then, as her genetics dictated, she bit the duck and began her swim back to the shore.

Applause from the crowd. A few whoops of encouragement.

Good Dog, I praised her as she emerged from Lake Alcyonian.

Come, Dinah, I commanded.

Just a minute, she said.

Now, I ordered.

Just a minute, she said, in a dilatory move.

First, let me eat the feet off this duck.

The hunting crowd on the hill stopped eating the donuts and drinking the coffee and cheering the Labrador.

Dinah likes Dim Sum, I said, amused at my own wit.

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The Sins of the Flesh

January 8, 2010 · 26 Comments

by cheri block

The word confession is an attractive one to nosey journalists, betrayed wives, and Catholic priests.

The Confessions of St. Augustine, written in the late 4th Century C.E., is the first autobiography.

In thirteen chapters, Augustine tells his story—that he was a sinner as a baby, that he was a sinner as a small boy, that he was a sinner as a teenager.

He tells the reader  he stole a pear from a tree in a garden just because he could.

His father was a pagan (obviously representing the Classical world) who funds Augustine’s classical education.

His mother was a devout Christian (obviously representing the oppressive 1000 years from 400-1400) who followed him wherever he lived—from North Africa to Italy– hounding him about his lifestyle and his sinning.

He adds Sins of the Flesh to his other sins. He writes that his desire for women overrode all his other sins, such as crying selfishly as a baby and eating stolen pears.

Women are flesh. The next 1000 years could be tough for us.

His sins continue to multiply. He took a mistress and  fathered  a bastard.

And then, in another garden in Milan, where is teaching, he sits under another tree—this time a fig tree—crying. He hears a child’s voice saying, Read it, read it.

His friend Alypius (obviously named for the Classical world) witnesses Augustine picking up his Bible and opening it to a random (but not so random) page.

The passage tells him to give up lust and other sins, so he does.

He cedes rationality to faith.

His mother can now die. She does.

He travels back to Carthage, hoping to live the monastic life, but Carthage teems with sinners. The Church crowns him the Bishop of Hippo. He must now contribute to the society at large, far away from the isolated and contemplative monastery.

The joys of the theater, the glory of the human body and its flesh– represented by the Olympics,  by stunning sculpture and art, and by the oratory of Pericles—all will be replaced by a dark cloud and controlling message: we are all filthy sinners and nothing can be done about that fact unless we allow Jesus to save us. He will take the sins off our sagging shoulders.

Pagans, sinners, and non-Christians (no matter what type of lives they have lived) will all go to Hell.

Dante will illustrate this place in 1302 C.E.

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Matrix at the Mall

January 3, 2010 · 46 Comments

by cheri block

Myrtle is the loose woman who eyes rich Tom Buchanan on the commuter train from Long Island to New York City. He oozes money. She, wife of a garage mechanic with grease under his fingernails, sees the moneyed Tom after noticing his shiny patent leather shoes.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, mastered the use of precise detail.

Years after reading Gatsby, one can still remember the crisp images of patent leather shoes or Gatsby’s fake library full of leather-bound and gold gilded classic books with no words.

Great writing must include detail, the type that stays with a reader like me, long after I rest my book on the little table beside my bed, remove my glasses, and switch off the light for the night.

How does one find those choice details, Mrs. Sabraw?

By becoming a keen observer of all around you, I answer. By noticing!

Let’s take a look at a short piece I wrote last fall. You can go to the mall this week, looking for details and a story.


On Halloween last, I observed a Muslim woman with a dark wool head scarf enter the cosmetic store Sephora. She was pushing a stroller, tucked inside of which was a newborn baby whose little head was crowned in dark hair. I followed her into the store.

I was not without judgment.

Postpartum depression will move even a Muslim into a store like Sephora, I thought. With its marketing focus on feminine charm, seductive aroma, and alluring make-up, this store seemed to me to be the last place a modest woman would shop.

Sephora is all about cosmetics, perfume, and skin care. Salespeople, edgy-overly made up girls and women, and spiky feminine guys, dress like characters from the film The Matrix: Black pants with black tunics.

This woman, whom I will call Naheeb, and I entered the store.  They greet us  as we enter the space, stomp over to see if we need assistance, and blink their big lashed eyes and pout their lavender puffed lips.

Can we help you? the stick-figure, whom I will call Valerian, asks Naheeb, whose over sized  brown eyes cry for attention from under her chador.

Black, white, pink—these colors dominate Sephora’s walls, along with enlarged photos of eyeliner, brushes and semi-naked hard bodies in repose.

Music pulsates and undulates. It’s hard not to think of sex here.

Perfume aromas commingle.

The Muslim woman heads for the eye make-up, selects a brand familiar to her, pauses to pick up some lotion, and pushes her pram into the line.

I move in behind her, with my small steel basket full of facial lotions, guaranteed to make a middle-aged woman look twenty years younger. My judgmental eyes scan Naheeb’s garb. I wonder about her in all ways.

Behind the counter, four clerks dressed for Halloween, robotically operate the registers.

Naheeb comes face to face with a buoyant busty blondie thing, whose black open tunic reveals a line of cleavage four inches long. A rhinestone crucifix nestles comfortably there. Is she a Visigoth? A Vandal? A medieval prostitute?

Did you find everything you were looking for? She spouts the prescribed script.

Naheeb answers, Yes, with her head down, rocking her buggy a bit.

And there I stood, evaluating freedom in a store suffocating from it.


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