West Side Story -- a review

 

First watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5GJLwWiYSg

This, friends, is the best movie I've ever seen. Yes, just like the original 1957 Broadway play, it is a musical. So if you do not like musicals, you need not watch it. And if you like musicals because they are joyously light entertainment, you may not want to watch it.

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet inspired Jerome Robbins' original Broadway production of West Side Story. 

        William Shakespeare 1597                                                        Jerome Robbins 1957        

The young daughter and son of two rich,                             A young Puerto Rican girl and white boy

powerful Veronese families fall in love.                               from poor families fall in love.

Two households, both alike in dignity                                 Two gangs, both alike in poverty 

(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),                            in Manhattan's Upper West Side.

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,                         A neighborhood divided by race,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.                     being torn down by Urban Renewal.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes                         Both gangs are losing their "turf."  

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;                         A pair of star-crossed lovers meet.

           ....                                                                              

The fearful passage of their death-marked love                   Hate warps their death-marked love.

And the continuance of their parents’ rage,                          If their love cannot defeat hate.         

Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.                     Can death?

West Side Story is set in the mid-1950s in Manhattan's Upper West Side. The blue-collar neighborhood is already stressed by limited resources and racial strife. Add to that Urban Renewal. New York City intended to remake substandard inner city housing and limited or deficient community services into a clean, safe place for people to live. It, however, ended up destroying neighborhoods and displacing poor and powerless people.

Robbins' Broadway musical reimagines Shakespeare's wealthy and powerful Veronese Montagues and Capulets with New York City street gangs. Tony, a former member of the white Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Puerto Rican Sharks. Their love story inflames already explosive neighborhood racial tensions. 

The musical's dark theme focusing on real life, contemporary social problems ending in violence and tragedy expressed in music and dance marked a turning point in American musical theatre.

From the mid-'50s into the '70s, West Side Story's theme was real life experience for the people living in Manhattan's Upper West Side neighborhood. In April, 1955, Mayor Robert J. Wagner, Jr.'s Slum Clearance Committee approved Lincoln Square for Urban Renewal. Committee Chair Robert Moses defended his forced displacement of poor and minority communities saying, "I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without moving people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs."

The Broadway production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The 1961 film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. 

2021 Enter Steven Spielberg
Is there anything he can't do? And do it better?

I chose this photo of Spielberg, because in it, he looks like someone I would like to know. Okay, so I've never seen Jaws or Saving Private Ryan and don't intend to, but his movies -- The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Lincoln, The Post, and now the remake of West Side Story make me think he is the kind of man I would like to know.

What is different, 1961 to 2021? Lots and little. The story is the same. 

The cinematography has, as one would expect, changed the most in the 60 years since the first West Side Story movie. Technology, technology! Remember they didn't even have cell phones in 1961. No human had yet stepped on the moon. The movie industry was still dangling space ships from wires.

                

from the 1961 movie                                     from the 2021 production

The new production's light and color seem to heighten the sense of an old neighborhood being torn down to be rebuilt, all shiny and new, for shiny new people because its current residents will not be able to afford to live there.

Top: Rita Moreno as Anita in 1961. Scene shot on a set in a studio.
Bottom: Ariana DeBose as Anita in 2021. Scene shot on the streets of Harlem.

2021 Rita Moreno
as Valentina,
the voice of reason in 
Spielberg's West Side Story

The Sharks' leader and Maria's brother Bernardo

  
1961 Sharks                                              2021 Sharks      

        George Chakiris definitely sexier            David Alvarez, pretty attractive, too  

The Jets' leader and Tony's best friend, Riff

              

                         1961 Jets too cool                                    2021 Jets too eager                                              Russ Tamblyn                                               Mike Faist                 

The Balcony scene

1961

 
Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood

I didn't know if the new Tony and Maria, Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler, could come up to Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood, but they do. If anything, they seem younger which makes the "love at first sight" premise more believable. And their being so quickly swept away by their passion without regard for the tragically strong passions their own would provoke.

2021

Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler

Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics are unchanged, "Almost perfect in every way."

Gustavo Dudemel conducted The New York Philharmonic, recording about 80 percent of the score in New York City. Then the Covid lockdown hit. Shifting to Los Angeles, post production, Dudemel conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic to finish recording the music. 

A man named Justin Peck, just 34 years old, did the choreography for Spielberg's movie. It's possible his parents weren't even born when the first West Side Story movie was made.

The music and choreography build a solid emotional base for the story.

Spielberg uses Shakespeare's pacing -- build tension then break it with humor. Let the audience relax, then drop the hammer.

In this production, Spielberg follows the threatening behavior at a school dance and an even more aggressive clash on the street between the two gangs with a decidedly humorous scene in the court room. Tension builds again only to be broken by Maria.

Celebrating her new love, she whirls and twirls through the department store where she works as an after-hours cleaner, singing "I Feel Pretty." It's light-hearted and colorful, but reminds us that Maria and her fellow cleaners are too low on the social register to shop in the store they clean.

When Maria gets off work, the hammer drops.

The Rumble -- 2021
Take overhead photography,
emphasize shadows,
add music, dance,
threaten death.

Murder happens. More murder happens. Nothing can stop the violence except more murder and threat of murder.

The terrible fabric of violence between people, against love, against hope, woven of music and dance will break your heart.

The Wheel of Time

 

by Robert Jordan
and Brandon Sanderson

The Wheel of Time is now a TV series available from a streaming service which shall remain nameless. To say that I am a devotee of the fantasy series would be a gross understatement. To say that I am disappointed in the TV production would completely misstate my reaction to what they've done to Robert Jordan's epic fantasy.

I understand how remote the likelihood is of most people reading any series consisting of  fourteen volumes and a prequel, totaling 10,173 pages in the hardback editions -- not including glossary or appendix page counts. That's 4,410,036 words according to Wikipedia.

Hard to even think about, isn't it.

But that's even more reason that the TV series folk should have more faithfully interpreted Jordan's story. And they could have done. They could use video in place of many of those millions of words.

This is an overview of Robert Jordan's life's work, so ably completed by Brandon Sanderson.

The Plot, simple, time tested, Good versus Evil. Not unlike every war humans have ever fought. At least from your side's point of view.

     Thousands of years before the book series starts, The Creator created a world
     based on the concept of balance with the Wheel of Time to run it. The Wheel,
     driven by the One Power, spins out threads (the lives of men and women) which
     are woven into the Patterns of the Ages. The One Power is divided into saidin 
     which men can channel and saidar which women can channel. Those who could
     channel, both male and female, were the original Aes Sedai. They worked together
     to protect and serve the peoples of the world.

                      
 Ancient Symbol of the                                    Snake eating its tail    

  Aes Sedai, men and women                                   the golden ring              

               (Looks familiar, doesn't it!)                                  Aes Sedai women                               

     Underpinning the sense of balance in this world, there was a destroyer, Shai'tan, 
     the Dark One. The Creator imprisoned Shai'tan away from the Wheel, but during
     The Age of Legends, also long before the series starts, something happens and
     The Dark One's prison is ruptured allowing him to touch the world and corrupt
     some of the powerful and ambitious people to support him. They attempt to
     free him.

     In that Age, the Wheel spun out the Dragon Lews Therin Telamon to defeat
     The Dark One and his followers. Using seven seals, Lews Therin resealed the

     Dark One's prison, but The Dark One cast a taint on saidin, the male half, which
     caused any male channeler to go insane doing all sorts of damage to the world
     and the people around him before he dies. This left the female Aes Sedai to 
     consolidate their power and rule the part of the world on which the series focuses.

     
     Unfortunately the seals Lews Therin used were flawed and by the Third Age,
     which is when Jordan's book series starts, the seals are failing. The Wheel spins
     out a new Dragon to battle The Dark One and his forces.
    

You don't need to know all this before you start the books. You discover it as you read.

The Theme, also simple and time tested. Seemingly ordinary people from ordinary lives do have what it takes to step up and save the world.

     “Egwene and Nynaeve, Rand and Mat and Perrin. All five from Emond’s Field
     in the Two Rivers. Few people had come into the Two Rivers from outside,
     except for occasional peddlers, and merchants once a year to buy wool and tabac.
     Almost no one had ever left. Until the Wheel chose out its ta’veren, and five
     simple country folk could stay where they were no longer. Could be what they were
     no longer.”

Characters. Robert Jordan was not only a master at world building, he drew characters that you can know well enough to recognize on the street in your own world. Each of the five main characters has their own story arc. Indeed, the supporting characters have their story arcs. And even some of the minor characters.

The three young men from Emond's Field are twenty years old, only just coming into adulthood. Egwene is a couple of years younger. Each comes from a stable home and is raised with traditional values. Nynaeve is several years older and holds a position of power in their community. She was trained by the town Wisdom to provide medical care to the Emond's Field people. When her mentor died, she became the Wisdom  and she took on the responsibility for the well-being of the town with a passion. That passion became an obsession focused on the four young people forced out of Emond's Field by the Wheel's will.

These young people travel through their world. They learn about and from the many differing cultures. They flee from and battle against The Dark One and his devotees. And they become powerful enough for Good to defeat Evil.

Now about this TV production.

Contrary to the perverted television series, Perrin was not married at the beginning of the story and did not kill his wife, accident or no. Mat's father was not a drunk and womanizer. Nor was his mother crazy.

For that matter, Egwene's father owned the Winespring Inn and was the town's mayor. Rand's father made the cider and brandy served there and was a respected member of the town council. Egwene's mother cooked the meals served in the inn's common room and was active in the town's Women's Circle. I can assure you, the inn was clean and the patrons there, orderly, even during festival.

And don't get me started on the misbegotten costume designs!

They did do a good job of the Trollocs.

Perhaps if the TV production were intended to fill the niche left empty at the end of Game of Thrones, this abomination might be understandable. Understandable, not acceptable. 

Please, please, please. Enjoy the TV series, if you must. Just remember, it in almost no way reflects Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's well-crafted story. 

Why Not The Fourth of July

As an American, I took for granted celebrating the 4th of July with a parade complete with the local high school marching band, horses from all the roundup clubs in the area, and Shriners in every imaginable conveyance -- miniature cars, miniature motorcycles, motorized bowling pins. I kid you not! Bowling pins. 

Rodeo queens and their princesses, in color coordinated Western hats and boots, riding horses with ribbons braided into their manes and tails. (The horses' mains and tails, of course.) There were princesses representing every organization you can think of. Local beauty pageant winners enthroned on new convertibles, by courtesy of local car dealerships. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, children from the local dance schools. Local children on their personally decorated bikes. Floats with patriotic images fashioned from chicken wire and crepe paper. Floats with square dancers and country music. Floats with polka music. And more people downtown than you'd see all the rest of the year combined. 

            

Then it was off to the park for music, politicians' speeches, and free watermelon. 

Or a private family picnic with homemade ice cream. The little kids would sit on the churn while the men turned the crank. I can't tell you why the little ones sat on the churn, but somehow it was an honor. And there would be fireworks in the yard, set alight by the men or the big cousins. Sometimes that would get pretty exciting if something went awry and the screaming, sparking, exploding whatevers got loose among the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. 

The city sponsored fireworks displays. Music, more politicians, and much safer fireworks displays.

I'm quite sure I was grown before I really knew what all the brouhaha was meant to be about. We got the bare-bones history in school. July 4, 1776, the date the Declaration of Independence was signed. But it wasn't until I read David McCullough's 1776 that I came to understand that that document was the formal declaration of war against Great Britain. A war that had already been going on for some time.

The Boston Massacre happened in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773. In September, 1774, twelve of the original thirteen British colonies in the Americas sent representatives to the First Continental Congress to draft a petition to the king and parliament asking for the repeal of the so-called Intolerable Acts. They got no reply.

Actual fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts in April, 1775 with British troops then controlling Boston. That same month George Washington was appointed to form the Continental Army and drive the British out of Boston.

So what about that 4th of July date and the Declaration of Independence? 

The Declaration of Independence

It does seem that it came a little late to the game. But it announced itself as "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America."

Truth be told, "states" at that time meant "sovereign" nations. Our country would be a confederacy of independent states until The Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1788 and took effect in 1789. Even then, it took a second war with Great Britain and a civil war to make the United States imaginable. We continue to need some serious work to realize the concept of a unified nation.

The Declaration of Independence also said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I remember thinking that "all men" meant "humanity." No. Those "unalienable Rights" only applied to Englishmen who owned property and that property could include enslaved people.

I grew up in the failing, whites-only world of a segregated Oklahoma. It was obvious to many of us, even in the 60's, that the way it had always been, had always been wrong and must change.

Amendments to our Constitution, court decisions, and elections have brought us on a winding, rocky road to our current understanding of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" for all Americans and "a more perfect Union." Here we are in 2021 still far short of the goals of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. 

             

A mass burial on Hart Island in the Bronx borough of New York. 

Pulitzer Award photo by AP photographer John Minchillo (04-09-2020)

        

        A protester in Minneapolis unrest following the death of George Floyd

     Pulitzer Award photo by AP photographer Julio Cortez (05-28-2020)

I want to trust that we are coming out of a dark time in our history and that I will live long enough to see those goals achieved and have good reason to celebrate this nation. 

 

E Pluribus Unum

E pluribus unum. 
(From many, one.) 

From the Potomac River, we're looking east along the Mall toward the Capitol of the United States of America. The nearest building is the Lincoln Memorial, the next lighted edifice is the Washington Monument, and then the Capitol.      

The Washington Monument was dedicated in 1885 to commemorate and honor George Washington, the first President of the United States of America and the first Commander-in-Chief of all America's military. 

But when Washington first became Commander-in-Chief, there was no United States. There were only thirteen British Colonies. Colonists were allowed to run their separate colonies under the direction of  Governors appointed by the English government. Each colony was very different from the others, by topography, by religion, by custom. The one thing they had in common was that they considered themselves Englishmen. Indeed, it was because these Englishmen felt their rights as Englishmen were being denied them, that they rebelled.

Keep in mind that the only Englishmen who had rights were English men. Women, non-Whites, non-English, and men without property need not bother themselves or anybody else about their civil rights. They hadn't any. And even in that rebellion, the Englishmen were divided among themselves into Patriots and Loyalists. (Too much to go into here. This being a blog post and not a book.)

George Washington was one of the delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies sent to the First Continental Congress which met in September and October of 1774. They agreed to meet again the following year if the English did not agree to their demands. Needless to say the English did not agree and in April, 1775, the English tried to seize Patriot military supplies in Lexington and Concord, Province of Massachusetts. The running battle that ensued is considered the beginning of the Revolutionary War. 

Three weeks later Washington was again in Philadelphia as a delegate from Virginia to the Second Continental Congress. In June of 1775, recognizing his experience as a leader in what our school history books called the French and Indian War, the Congress named George Washington Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army which they had created the day before. On July 6, a little more than a year later, in the midst of continuing armed conflict, the Continental Congress (now including delegates from all thirteen colonies) ratified the Declaration of Independence stating, "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America ... declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States."

The Continental Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation March 1, 1781. The first article established the nascent country as The United States of America, but stipulated that each state would retain "its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." 

Any act of that Congress required the votes of nine of the thirteen states to pass. The Congress had the power to make war and peace; conduct foreign affairs; request men and money from the states to fight wars; coin and borrow money; regulate Indian affairs; and settle disputes among the states. There was, understandably enough, no executive branch of government, no individual head of government. The only provision for a judiciary was to establish "prize courts" during times of war. "Prize" referred to captured enemy commercial vessels. Disputes between states would be resolved by the Congress.

Before returning to civilian life after the war ended in 1783, George Washington called for a strong union. He sent a circular letter to all the states calling the Articles of Confederation no more than "a rope of sand" linking the states. He stated the nation was on the verge of "anarchy and confusion" and vulnerable to foreign intervention. England and France, no doubt, would have been glad to step in and save the former colonies should they falter in this experiment in self-government. Washington called for a national constitution that would unify the states under a strong central government.

After Shays' Rebellion in 1787, when rebels marched on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government was unable to finance troops to combat the rebellion, the rebellion was put down by the Massachusetts State Militia and a privately funded local militia. This stirred the call for a Constitutional Convention. Representing the State of Virginia, George Washington was a delegate. 

The Constitution they wrote was ratified by the thirteen states June 21, 1788, and became effective March 4, 1789 with Washington inaugurated as the first President on April 30th.

The Constitution of the United States of America begins:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a

more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic

Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote

     the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty  

to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish
 this Constitution for the United States of America."      

This Constitution provides a mechanism for making changes as changing times might require. It has not and does not provide allowances for insurrection, secession, or dissolution.

E pluribus unum.

The Lincoln Memorial was opened to the public in 1922.

 Abraham Lincoln, our sixteenth President, came to the office at a time when our nation was coming undone. He was elected in November of 1860. In January, 1861, six southern states seceded from the Union. They named Jefferson Davis of Mississippi to be their President on February 9. Because of a rumored plot by Southern sympathizers to assassinate him, Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington, D.C., near dawn on February 23, 1861, for his March 3rd Inauguration. Fighting broke out April 12 when slave state insurrectionists opened fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina. It was the beginning of the American Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln led this country through its most perilous period since its inception. A combined number of 506,272 Americans in the two contesting militaries died, counting those killed in action, dead from disease, and dying in prisoner of war camps. The historian James McPherson has estimated that an additional 50,000 civilians died during that war.

President Lincoln was one of the last casualties of the war. He was shot by a Southern sympathizer on April 14, 1865, and died early the next morning. A little more than two months later, on June 23, Cherokee leader Stand Watie was the last Confederate general to surrender his forces.

Lincoln's memorial bears two inscriptions including the Gettysburg address which calls us to resolve that "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

And from his Second Inaugural Address delivered March 4, a month and ten days before he was shot, come these words, "With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Another attempt to achieve E pluribus unum.

That brings us to the third structure in the beginning photo, the Capitol of the United States of America. The third structure and yet another fall short of a United States of America. January 6, 2021, our Capitol was assaulted by insurrectionist followers of a failed President.

I do not believe that today's divisions in our country started with Donald John Trump. Being an opportunist, he just saw the train, worked his way to the engine, and drove it off the rails.

We are reaping the tainted harvest of a nation planted in the barren sands of slavery and grown to maturity under a cloud of prejudice and xenophobia.

Keeping in mind that the original purpose of this nation was to 

"...form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure
 the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."                               

The Statue of Freedom is 19 1⁄2 feet tall and weighs about 15,000 pounds. Facing east toward the sunrise, she stands atop our Capitol Dome. Freedom holds a sheathed sword in her right hand and a laurel wreath and the Shield of the United States in her left. Her helmet is topped by an eagle head and a crest of feathers. She wears a Native American style fringed blanket over her left shoulder. Freedom stands on a cast-iron globe inscribed with E pluribus unum.

A definition of Persistence is to begin again and again. And, if needs be, begin yet again. 

Let us persist.

E pluribus unum

Inauguration Day

 
“That little girl was me.”
designed by @briagoelier and @goodtrubble

Today our Vice President Kamala Harris strides into the future alongside the shadow of Ruby Bridges.

"The Problem We All Live With"
by Norman Rockwell 

In 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges was escorted by her mother and four U.S. marshals to school every day that school year. She was the first Black child to attend public school in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America. 

Sixty years later, how far have we come? It may seem like we haven't come very far at all. With Washington, D.C., filled to the teeth with armed and armored National Guard troops. The Mall is fenced and that part of the city I love is closed to the public. It's not bad enough that America, along with the rest of the world, is besieged by a pandemic, but America in particular is under threat from terrorists born and bred right here. Terrorists just like those that threatened Ruby Bridges. 

Kamal Harris
on the campaign trail

But, you know what? We have come a very long way. Thanks to the courage of those two young New Orleans parents who knew how important it was for all their children and for so many children they didn't know to have a fair and equal chance in the America they believed could be. And to the courage of the two young adults who came to the United States, one from India and one from British Jamaica, to study. They stayed to give their children a chance in the America they believed could be.

I thought my country had taken a giant step away from its shameful, hateful history of racism when Barack Obama was twice elected President of the United States. I was proud of the people who elected him. What's that old saying? "Two steps forward and one step back."

The November 2020 election put us on the right road again. The road to building a country that will share the American Dream with all its people. That shining city on a hill.

Since the election, I've waited for today with a mix of effervescent anticipation and bone-deadening dread.

Dread be damned. 

I will trust the courage of Americans. We will get through this pandemic. We will inaugurate our first woman Vice President. Eventful enough on its own. Add to that, she is a woman of color!

We will not only step up, we will stride forward.

Today is the day.

Stress Relief

.

My last nerve!

I don't know about you, but with the pandemic and the upcoming inauguration, stress sits on my shoulders like a 12-foot, hundred pound python named Charles. It's gotten to the point that I find myself holding my breath doing such death-defying stunts as writing blog posts, getting the dogs back in the house, waiting for the bread's second rise, or trying to go to sleep at night. 

Of course, during the evening, sitting on the couch, watching George Gently -- my current British cop show of choice -- I fall asleep easily. I do miss the ending, but that means I can watch it again and still enjoy the mystery. I do find cop shows very relaxing. First off their focus is narrow, the crime is local and has no far reaching consequences. There's a mystery for me to solve and whether or not I can suss out the whos and whys, the cop on the case does. The villain is apprehended and I'm satisfied there will be a trial, a verdict, and a sentence.

Or I can read a book. Oddly enough, I find nonfiction to be better therapy during these trying days. Fiction seems somehow too frivolous. Yeah, right. What sort of frivolity can I get up to reading narrative histories, or books about theoretical physics? Actually, Shelby Foote's Civil War in three volumes, reassures me that my nation has indeed been in worse straights than it is today. And
S. James Gates, Jr. and Cathie Pelletier's Proving Einstein Right is an engaging travelogue -- scientists' early 20th Century adventures following solar eclipses around the world, doncha know.

I was reading Barack Obama's A Promised Land. It's really quite good. It not only gets into the nuts and bolts of running for office, but why run and what his goals were. I was reminded of Arthur Schlesinger’s Robert Kennedy and His Times which I read some forty years ago. Back then I was inspired that there was hope for a better world and politics could play a positive role in achieving that better world. Then January 6, 2021 and the assault on the United States Capitol.

I needed something else to read. Something as far from politics as possible. So I went back to a book I enjoyed the first time through and each time I've dipped into it since. Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer, Random House's Chief Copy Editor.

And you thought the other books I've mentioned would be anything but light reading. Of course, you're right. But Dreyer's English IS light reading. Mr. Dreyer says out loud, or rather in black and white, all those things you've ever thought about English grammar rules. Like his admonition against sentence fragments where he then quotes his "favorite novel opener of all time" from Dickens's Bleak House:

     "London. Michaelmas Term lately over and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall.
      Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly
      retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus,
      forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering
      down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as
      full-grown snow-flakes -- gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun."

The quote runs on for a good, full page. Mr. Dreyer challenges us to count the excerpt's complete sentences and let him know when we get past zero. He enthuses, "Isn't that great? Don't you want to run off and read the whole novel now? Do! I'll wait here for three months." 

That was one of my best laughs of the day when I first read it and it continues to make me laugh every time I read it. Anybody who's ever read Dickens gets it! 

Maybe, after Trump is gone, Biden is safely inaugurated, the fences along the Mall are taken down, and the National Guard Troops have gone home, we can breathe normally again and read whatever we want. Even Dickens.

I Am So Angry

 I am so angry, I could spit.

Why?

This

 

25,000 National Guard troops deployed to Washington, D.C.

to protect the Inauguration of the 46th President of the United States 

and this

National Guard troops and fencing on the Mall

This is Washington, D.C. in January, 2021. This is the capital city of my country. The area around the Capitol complex is normally a beautiful park. The Mall is lined with museums reminding us of our national history -- yes, the dark and shameful parts, but also the great and good. Monuments and memorials celebrate our heroes, the people who faced and fought wars to secure our Republic. And  those who led the fight to extend liberty to all. 

It is a walking city, meaning that it is best seen on foot at human speed. I have always felt safe in its subway system and on its streets at dusk as the lights come on at the Lincoln Memorial or at dawn as I first saw the rising sun streaming across the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Razor wire! Razor wire around the Capitol. Subway stations closed and fences across the Mall to keep us out. This is so wrong.

How did this city that I was so proud of come to look like this?

It was because of

This

and chants of "Get Pence" and "Get Pelosi"

And because of these

  

inspired and incited by

his lies

and the politics of hate

His GOP enablers and apologists are also complicit.

Shame on all of them.

Assault on the Capitol

 

This is not Broadway's les Mis.
This is the assault on the Capitol of the United States of America,
my home.

It was yet another "where were you when" moment in my life. I am old. I am from Oklahoma. I am not unique. The only differences between you and me is our ages and where we live. We've seen too many of these moments. Disasters, natural and human-made. As I'm sure they did you, each of these moments frightened me. The human-made ones made me angry. The damage all of them did made me just so sad.

Watching TV. That's where it seems I've been when these moments happened. Of course I wasn't watching TV at the moment most of them happened. I was hunkered down in storm shelters or school basements for too many tornadoes to remember. I was in high school gym class when President Kennedy was shot. In college and working during Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement. And when Senator Kennedy was shot. When Dr. King was shot. The 1989 San Francisco earthquake. (That one I saw live. I was on maternity leave watching baseball's World Series televised from Candlestick Park.) When the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, I was working. I was in school again when 911 happened. The Iraqi War, Hurricane Katrina. The wild fires. All that and more.

Then 2020, aptly named "The Dumpster Fire Year" by a local TV newscaster. I have been "Safe at Home" since the middle of March. I've always read. A lot. During this nearly a year, I've read more. And I've watched more TV than ever before. Mostly binge-watching cop shows -- Icelandic cop shows, Swedish cop shows, French cop shows, Italian cop shows, British cop shows. Thank goodness for MHz Networks and Acorn. And subtitles. (I can't stand Blue Bloods' constant shouting and Danny's foot chases any longer! Haven't been able to for a while.) 

Oh, yes. There is a jigsaw puzzle in progress on my dining table.

For self-preservation, I cut my TV news to less than half. Thirty minutes of local news. Thirty minutes of international news from the BBC. Thirty minutes of national news from ABC. And PBS's News Hour. I count most of the TV journalists among my friends. After all, they come into my home every day and with the pandemic, I've been to their homes. I know what books and treasures are on their bookshelves. I know their cat. They give me a lot of bad news. More bad news than most of my real-life friends give me. Pandemic death numbers. Economic numbers. Election campaign rhetoric and bombast. Really, political news has been awful these past five years. But this year, the worst.

It's been a question of survival. The first goal was to survive the pandemic, but it's still going on. No more travel for us. No out-of-state visitors. No visitors of any stripe. Except the TV people.

Things I normally looked forward to -- a day trip into the mountains, a games party now and then, exercise classes, walking and coffee with my friends, going to the movies, eating out -- not gonna happen. My friends and I still walk. Our town has many parks designed and maintained to encourage walking. And our weather is usually comfortable enough year round. We wear masks and maintain the recommended six-feet social distance from one another. We carry folding chairs in our cars so we can visit in parking lots or in driveways. Not to tempt Fate, but so far we've avoided contracting Covid-19 or any of its variants. In fact we've had many fewer colds and no seasonal flu.

In years past, I would have looked forward to the Fourth of July with watermelon and barbeque. Then Labor Day Weekend, the final opportunity to drive to the top of Mount Evans before the road is closed for the winter and October before Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park also closes for the winter. But not this year.

So there was the election to look forward to and the very real possibility that Joe Biden would win. He may not have been my first choice, or for that matter my second, but by election time he was my only choice. The GOP's politics-of-hate campaign and their blatant disregard for the safety measures we were practicing would finally end. Trump would step aside and we could get back to the business of living our lives in an America for all. 

The election came and went. Thanksgiving came and went with no relief from the Trump lies and accusations, even though the election was over and he lost. Trump's rallies and rants escalated through December as the Electoral College cast their votes and those votes were certified by the States. 

The mood in the United States has been ugly for a long time, but it got uglier as Christmas neared. Too many people either followed the Trump/GOP line that the pandemic was not that serious or they had had  enough of it and they decided what-the-hell. They travelled. They rallied in Georgia for the Senate election there. They partied, including at the White house. Ignoring the CDC and Dr. Fauci's warnings.

Of course, I believed those dire warnings. I knew that the world and life do not blindly follow our calendars, do not observe our humanly fanciful time limits, do not adhere to our traditional dates of endings and beginnings. But didn't 2021's possibilities shine and sparkle in our imaginations. Vaccines to vanquish the pandemic. Children back face-to-face in school. Long term care facilities no longer locked down. A new administration in the White House. Jobs coming back. Couldn't we put 2020 behind us?

A metaphor for 2020/2021:   

     "Have you ever driven west through Kansas to get to Denver? You hit the Colorado border 

     and think YES, MOUNTAINS! But then you realize the first half of Colorado is pretty much just             more of Kansas. Slowly, you see the blue peaks [or white depending on the time of year] and            
     the joy of the mountains slowly becomes a reality." -- Charlie Worroll.

Interstate 70 through Kansas is the metaphor for 2020. The country is High Plains Desert. Not many trees and those not very tall. It is just flat land and high sky. You can see from here until tomorrow. 

From Salina, Kansas, to Limon, Colorado, is 343 miles. That's more than five hours of your life at
75 miles per hour, slowing to go through the very few small cities and smaller towns.Their church spires and grain elevators rise from the vast land into the infinite sky. 

At Limon you see this.

   

There,                                                
that faint white on the horizon.
Mountains!                    
Mountains?                    
Or is it just a cloud?                          

From there it's still an hour and a half to Denver where you can see this by looking west from the third floor terrace of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. You're still on the prairie and the mountains are another half-hour west. That's if there's no ski traffic.

After New Year's, I looked forward to January 6, 2021. The United States Congress would formally count the Electoral Votes that were certified and forwarded to them by the States. Joe Biden would be the 46th President of the United States. Kamala Harris would be the first woman and first person of color elected Vice President of the United States.

I was ready. At 12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (10:30 a.m. Mountain Standard Time) I turned on my TV to watch PBS's live coverage of the confirmation of the Biden-Harris victory.

PBS did not air Trump's rally prior to the mob's surge down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. Watching PBS's coverage of the joint session, I had no idea what had gone on less than an hour earlier and just blocks down the street.

It begins.

Announcing the votes is done by State alphabetically. Alabama and Arkansas the votes went to Trump. Arizona the votes went to Biden. The first objection came from Ted Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas. The Joint Session was suspended. The Senators went to debate the objection and vote yea or nay to uphold the objection. The House of Representatives met for the same purpose. Two and a half hours or so later the Joint Session was reconvened to announce that the objection was rejected and the count went forward.

    

                          Lisa Desjardin, PBS journalist                Amna Nawaz, PBS journalist
                             Inside the Capitol                                          Outside the Capitol

These two women are my friends. They've been in my house. I've been in theirs. At least electronically. Lisa has a black and white cat who lounges or cavorts on the couch in the background while she reports for PBS News Hour.

Amna was among journalists, on air, covering the activities outside the Capitol. We could see Trump supporters milling around, hurling obscenities at the reporters. As time went on, we could see the mob clambering over the Capitol, unimpeded.

  

                                  I was truly afraid for the safety of the reporters outside

Inside, Lisa was on air when the mob started bashing at the front doors of the Capitol. She was on an inside balcony, the next floor up and could see the doors. We could hear the glass in the doors shatter.

The mob had breached the doors and was pouring into the building. Lisa could see no Capitol Police. She started looking for a safe place. I think she must have been videoing from her cell phone and she kept it on. I was terrified for her.

At one point she was crouched down behind a counter. When she raised up to try to see what was going on a police officer in full protective gear carrying what looked like an assault rifle appeared. He told her to get down and stay down.

She was soon escorted to safety along with members of Congress transmitting video the whole time. At one point, she blocked our view saying "We're not supposed to photograph this area." (I almost laughed at the irony.) She continued to do her job despite the fact that her life and the lives of those around her, was at risk,  And yet she followed the rules designed to protect the Capitol. 

The Capitol was locked down. National Guard were brought in, much too late. The building was cleared and secured.

Documents and papers of all kinds were scattered. I wondered where the boxes containing the certified electoral votes were. What would happen if they were stolen or destroyed?

 

When the Joint Session was reconvened the boxes were carried in ahead of Vice President Pence. The votes were safe. Pence gaveled the Joint Session into being, pronounced the Trump Mob a failure and the count continued.

The count went forward. To be considered, objections had to be in writing, signed by a Member of the House of Representatives and a Senator. Following the violent mob assault on the Capitol, Senators who had signed onto the objections for Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada withdrew their support. No interrupting the session for debate was necessary for those states. Thank Goodness.

That left the objection to Pennsylvania's certified votes. And yes, the Joint Session was suspended while the House and Senate separately debated the merits of the objection and voted to uphold the objection or dismiss it. 

I have a long-standing interest in United States Constitutional Law. These past few weeks I have read and researched, researched and read, afraid that this whole affair could go awry or be delayed. The night of January 6 bled into January 7 before we had a resolution. At 3:41 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 1:41 a.m. Mountain Standard Time, Vice President Pence in his role as President of the Senate announced that the electoral votes had been deemed correct and counted. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. of Delaware was elected President of the United States and Kamala D. Harris of California was elected Vice President of the United States.

I could go to bed. And I did.

The vote may have been confirmed, but the storming of the Capitol by a delusional, hate-filled mob will take longer to deal with. Five people died -- a member of the mob was shot by a Capitol policeman, three people died of medical emergencies, and one Capitol Police Officer was bludgeoned to death. Rioters will be identified and prosecuted. Whether Trump will be held accountable for inciting the violence and destruction is yet to be determined.

It's like the I-70 metaphor for 2020 and 2021:
"The first half of Colorado is going to be more Kansas. We won’t hit Denver until the summer at the earliest. But not even western Kansas lasts forever, no matter what it feels like on the drive."