Best of Enemies -- a review

image from blu-ray.com

Best of Enemies, a 2015 documentary available streaming from Netflix, chronicles the 1968 televised debates between conservative William F. Buckley, Jr., and liberal Gore Vidal.

In 1968, three television networks vied for American audiences. CBS was first among equals, closely followed by NBC. ABC was a distant third. Those were your choices. No FOX. No CNN. No cable at all. Not even PBS.

CBS and NBC planned to cover the 1968 political conventions gavel to gavel. ABC couldn't afford to. They had to come up with something to draw ratings away from their two rivals. And as someone in Best of Enemies says "nothing draws an audience like the sugar of a fight."

Do I hear the names Jerry Springer and Donald Trump?

In 1968, ABC gave birth to modern political punditry and point/counter point political commentary with these end of the convention day debates between America's most television savvy intellectuals, both from Eastener aristocracy stock. Pompous, but well-spoken and mostly restrained, each was absolutely confident he was right and the rest of the world could acknowledge that or be damned.

1968's national political conventions found the United States mired in the Vietnam War. The Civil Rights Movement continued unabated. Women's Liberation and the youth movement further fractured the nation.

Everything happened on TV.

January 30, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive.

March 31, sitting president Lyndon Johnson announced "I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term" as President of the United States.

April 4, Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee.

May 4, four students were shot dead by National Guardsmen on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio.

June 6, Robert F. Kennedy, a leading contender for the Democrat nomination for President, was murdered in Los Angeles, California.

And every evening on the national news no matter which network we watched the TV news anchors gave the numbers. How many Americans were killed in Vietnam. And how many North Vietnamese.

August 5, the Republican Party opened their four-day convention in Miami, Florida, to nominate their candidate for President of the United States. The leading contenders were former Vice President Richard Nixon and then Governor of California Ronald Reagan.

August 26, a demoralized Democrat Party opened their four-day convention in Chicago, Illinois, a city run by iron-fisted Mayor Richard J. Daly.

Best of Enemies mixes extensive footage of the actual debates between Buckley and Vidal with comments and clips from the conventions and the real world then swirling around the conventions. There are illuminating comments from people close to the political actors of the time and to Buckley and Vidal.

In Best of Enemies, we get to hear again the dulcet tones of Senator Everett Dirksen speaking at the Republican Convention. We see snippets of the luminaries of the times -- Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, Dick Cavett, the Kennedys, Norman Mailer. There's a clip from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, the iconoclastic TV show that gave a comedic raspberry to the foibles of American society and introduced the American public to fringe, go-go boots, and psychedelic humor.

Best of Enemies reminds us that passionate political views can be expressed at reduced decibels, intelligently.

Janis: Little Girl Blue

Janis: Little Girl Blue, Official Trailer

Instead of a still pic of Janis, I'm putting up the Official Trailer. Give it a watch. I think you'll enjoy it.  For Janis, you need sound and color and motion. The Amy Berg documentary has it all and more.

I heard about Janis: Little Girl Blue on NPR December 1. I wanted to see it, but where was it showing? It supposedly aired on PBS's American Masters on November 25 which should mean that I could stream it on my TV at home. Easy-peasy, no driving. Wear what I'm wearing. Have a nice whatever I want to eat and drink. Sounded lovely. But it was not meant to be. Janis: Little Girl Blue doesn't show up on PBS's American Experience website.

Surely it'd be showing somewhere in Denver. Yup. December 4, 7:30, The Sie FilmCenter. Of which I'd never heard. Located on East Colfax which was somewhere downtown.

The Sie FilmCenter is separated from The Tattered Cover by a sort of alleyway re-purposed for outdoor dining. I've been to the bookstore several times, but had never noticed the theater. You get me near a bookstore or library and I can't see anything else.

Colfax is Denver's primary east/west surface street. I knew how to get there. Except, it was December 4, the first of two holiday Parade of Lights. The parade would cross Colfax west of the theater -- that was between me and my destination. An alternative route would be necessary.

No problem. I'd just go the way I go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, my favorite place in Colorado. Cut north to Colfax and voila, I'm there.

Thank goodness, my daughter was with me, navigating. Who'd a thought the traffic would be so bad?! Guess it was Friday night in the big town with a parade that traditionally brought people into downtown by the hundreds, maybe thousands, from what I was seeing. And, like me, those folks weren't used to driving downtown in the dark with roads closed for a parade.

We got to the theater in plenty of time, took the elevated down from the parking garage to a subterranean theater lobby complete with bar and snack bar. And me, I thought I was so grown up at my regular movie theater where I can get a nice cappuccino and popcorn. Here I could get a nice margarita and popcorn.

We got to the window and Janis was sold out. BUT, we could take a number and see if anyone who'd bought a ticket online then cancelled or whatever, didn't show up, in which case we could buy those tickets, but we'd probably have to sit in the front row and may not be able to sit together. They'd let us know in about ten minutes.

I'd just driven through that traffic. The parade hadn't started yet and getting home would still be through that mess. The next showings of Janis: Little Girl Blue were sold out. My bad attitude was ignited and I wasn't about to come back downtown again anytime soon.

It worked out that we got two seats together and the front row seats have high backs so it was surprisingly comfortable to lean back and watch the show. And with the audience all behind me, it was as if they didn't exist. It was just Grace and I, our entire field of vision filled with the sights and sounds of my youth.

The documentary is very well-done. Lots of footage of Janis performing. It's matter-of-fact about the difficulties of being Janis Joplin, but not dreary. She did everything, be happy or be sad, full-tilt, just like she performed. And the film shows that.

Janis also has snippets from her letters to her family and interviews with her brother and sister that were enlightening and comforting. You get the idea that her family loved her and cared about her, kinda like the rest of us.

Janis: Little Girl Blue with its sights and sounds from an intense and turbulent time in our nation and lives brings back Janis's own passionate exhibition of that longing and laughter.

It was more than worth driving home in Downtown Denver traffic. All the lights and noise and people on the street just extended the experience.

P.S. I misread when Janis: Little Girl Blue will air on PBS's American Masters. It's next year some time. So we can all watch it again without the traffic.

P.P.S. Still glad I got to see it on the big screen.

( Explanation )

image from blog.acronis.com

I had a dream. In my dream someone was talking about IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices) but when they handed me one, it was an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) which exploded some kind of repulsive goulash all over everything. Without sound or smell. (Sometimes my dreams are like that. Visuals only.) But the feelings were there -- fear, revulsion, nausea, anger.

I live in Colorado and I love it here. Colorado is famous for world class skiing, majestic mountain scenery, and three-hundred-thirty days of sunshine annually.

And for mass shootings. (None involving Muslims.)

In the most recent here in Colorado, a man entered a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado Springs and opened fire. During a snow storm. While the shooting was ongoing, the images on our television screens showed flashing lights, ambulances lined up waiting, military style vehicles. And people with ATF, CBI, CSPD, CSFD, etc. on their jackets moving through the snowfall. It was like a snow globe gone mad.

Somehow the letters made it all worse. It's like the world needs parenthetical explanation. And there is none.

Today the sun is shining. The air is clear and cold. I am going for a walk with friends who do not espouse hate, celebrate war, or speak in acronyms that need explanations.

Someone from Home -- Flash Fiction

image from saintpaulalmanac.com

"Know what you want?" she asked him.

He hadn't slept well since he got there. Hotel beds never felt right. Hotel cuisine was uninspiring and too expensive. "Home cookin'," he said.

"Depends on where home is," she said. "Ray there, bless his heart, is from Chicago so I guess it's Chicago cookin'."

He rubbed the stubble on his chin and turned the menu over to look at the breakfast offerings.

"Breakfast 'til ten," she said. "You've got three hours. Take your time."

"Not breakfast without grits and biscuits and gravy." He laid the menu down.

"Honey, you are so right." She laughed. "Where're y'all from?"

He laid the menu down and looked at her for the first time. "Tyler, Texas, ma'am. Rose capital of the world. Where're you from? Not Saint Paul with an accent like that."

"Accent? Why ever would you say that?" She looked down the counter to check her other customers. "Back in a jiffy." She grabbed a coffee pot and was gone.

He felt more alone that he'd felt the whole time he was up here. Just Thursday. Meetings all week and it wasn't Friday yet.This world was cold and windy and cloudy. And the snow looked like it would be here until April. He missed his family.

She returned to him taking up their conversation where she'd left off. "Greenville, Mississippi, by way of New Orleans. Ray can fix you potatoes any way you want 'em as long as you want hash browns."

"Okay. Hash browns. Coffee, black. Two eggs, over easy. Bacon. Whole wheat toast. You got Tabasco?"

"Does the Mississippi run east past St. Paul and New Orleans? Of course we got Tabasco." She relayed his order to Ray and poured him coffee.

"Does it run east past St. Paul and New Orleans?"

"It does," she said over her shoulder as she went to the cash register to take care of a customer.

She was taller and thinner than his wife. Probably about the same age, but Brenda was prettier. Both their girls looked just like her. He should be home in time to see Meagan's school Christmas play.

The waitress plunked his breakfast down in front of him and retrieved a bottle of Tabasco from her apron pocket. "Eat hearty, Tex."

"Ted, actually," he corrected her.

"Well, Ted Actually." She winked at him. "Enjoy your breakfast." And she was off again.

He hadn't thought about how he looked when he left the hotel. Sweats, a fleece lined hoodie, gloves, a knit cap. He'd gone for a run before breakfast. That's how he found Ray's Diner. He'd not showered or shaved. He felt good working up a sweat in this cold country.

When she smiled, she was pretty. Watching her take somebody else's order, he felt grimy.

She was back refilling his coffee cup.

"desJardin," he said. "Ted desJardin. How'd you end up in Minnesota?" he asked before she could go away again.

Still holding the pot, she put her other fist on her hip. "I'm a refugee," she said.

What could he say to that? She must have seen his confusion.

"Katrina, honey. The storm?"

"Can I have some ketchup?" he asked.

"Me and Gene just kept driving north. Neither of us wanted to get away from the river. We both grew up on it. We had a baby then and we've had two more since then. Kinda made a home for ourselves here. I'm even getting where I like snow."

The food was good. He ate slowly and watched the waitress work. He asked her questions as she passed back and forth. What kind of work did her husband do? Did she cook at home? What was there to do for fun in Minneapolis? But he didn't ask her what time she got off work.

She put his check in front of him and leaned her elbows on the counter.

"Listen hon. I get off at two. How'd you like to go for a late lunch?"

He didn't know how to answer that. He had afternoon meetings scheduled. He was leaving in the morning.

"I'm married," he said quietly.

She smiled and laid her hand over his.

Had he said it so quietly that she hadn't heard? Did he hope she hadn't heard?

"Why, honey, I am, too. But Mama Susie's Creole Cafe is just about five blocks from here and it's the only place I know of that you can get decent red beans and rice north of  Monroe." She patted his hand.

Maybe he could miss the last meeting of the day.

"Meet you there at three-thirty. Gene'll pick me up about five. That'll give us an hour and a half to have a good meal and talk about home."

Yes. It was all he could do to keep from pumping his fist in the air.

"Are you any kin to the desJardins over at Lake Chicot?" she asked.

He laughed out loud. He didn't think so. He didn't know where Lake Chicot was. And it didn't matter. He was going to have a late lunch with someone from home, no strings attached.

Art -- An Essay

image from mountainmusictrail.com

The definition of art, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. 2a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium."

My definition of art is more what it does than what it is. It helps me experience my world.

It takes me places I've never been and where I'll never go. 

 Sometimes beautiful. 

Northern Lights, Iceland, 

photo by John Hilmarsson for National Geographic

Sometimes a disturbing view of a place half-way around the world
but very like where I grew up.
 
Vincent Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows

I can read Jack London's The Sea Wolf or watch the movie 'Perfect Storm,' and art will bring me close to experiencing a storm at sea without my ever stepping foot on a ship.

Art helps me feel and find my way within that nature ambiguously referred to as human nature. 

The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash makes me happy. I laugh every time I hear it. And I've never understood the words.

Saturday when the band on Garrison Keillor's radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, played and some in his audience sang La Marseillaise, I cried. And I do not understand the words to that song either. 

It doesn't matter that I don't understand the words, it's the feelings that count. And art does that. It lets the feelings count.

Art helps me find sense, and helps me find a way to accept senselessness if there is no sense to be found. A friend brought me a passage from Stephen P. Kiernan's novel The Hummingbird to help me understand PTSD.

     "If you kill a man," he continued, "whatever the circumstances, he is on your
     conscience for life. Whether you used a tomahawk three centuries ago, a
     bayonet two centuries ago, a rifle one century ago, or a drone last Tuesday,
     his death was violent, premature, and by your hand."

Art, whether it be visual art, music, dance, the theater, or literature, has always helped me understand my world. Sometimes it reinforces my own peculiar understanding. And, sometimes it utterly destroys my understanding, which opens the way for me to embrace a wholly new one. 

Sometimes I get caught up in the science of our world. But that's an art form, too. It's just that the languages of science are not as easily accessible to many of us, whereas the languages of art are. 

We are all artists whether we can draw the proverbial straight line or not. We must be artists to respond to it. And we do. All of us. Maybe not to all art forms. Maybe not to all expressions within any one art form, but we do all get it.

Art is as natural to human beings as breathing.

Friday the 13th -- Nonfiction

image from katsbookofshadows.blogspot.com

Okay, my kocka Kocka is not black, nor smooth coated, but I recognize the expression in those eyes. And it is Friday the 13th. It was most assuredly so until eleven o'clock this morning.

My husband has been trying to cure me of superstitions for many years now. And I use the plural for both superstition and year on purpose.

Most of my superstitions I inherited from my grandmothers. Black cats never figured into any of them. Probably because Grandma W. didn't like cats of any color anyway so bad luck never attached itself to any particular colored cat, as far as she was concerned. She taught me not to move a broom and to eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day.

And Grandma H. had nothing against black cats. She liked animals in general without regard to their, species, color, religion, or gender. She taught me not to sew on Sundays, not to open an umbrella in the house, and not to put a hat on the bed.

Friday the 13th, however, never figured into our family superstitions. The fact that Grandma H.'s birthday, September 13, periodically fell on Friday may have played a part in our failure to adopt that particular superstition.

Until this morning, that is.

I couldn't find my purse. Now that, in and of itself, is not unusual. But it was nowhere in the house. It was not in the car.

The local news anchor reminded all who were tuned in that it was Friday the 13th. Just a silly superstition, I reassured myself.

Maybe I'd left it at the assisted care home where my dad lives. The last place I knew I'd had it. I called him and asked him to look. True, Daddy often cannot see what he's looking at. So, when he couldn't see it, I figured it must be there and I'd go soon to look for myself.

Then my father's Occupational Therapist called to discuss his blood pressure. I asked her to look for my purse. She did, but she didn't see it. And she still drove so I trusted her vision.

"If you left it here," she said, "it's gone. These places are notorious for theft."

I defended the home saying we'd never had that kind of trouble there. But she'd planted the seed. And it was Friday the 13th. And my husband was not here to remind me that I'm not superstitious nowadays.

My credit cards were in that purse. They'd have to be cancelled. I could go by the two banks I use and cancel them. But would they let me cancel them if I didn't have a photo i.d. to prove I was me? My driver's license was in that purse. I'm seldom ever in either of the banks so they probably wouldn't recognize me.

And what about getting a replacement driver's license. Would they let me pay for it with a check if I didn't have a photo i.d.?

Maybe I could use my Rec Center i.d. It has my picture on it. But it was in my purse, too. The people at the DMV certainly wouldn't recognize me. I've only been in there once almost four years ago.

And what if I got stopped by the police for something on the way to the DMV to get the replacement driver's license. I couldn't prove to them that I was driving legally which of course, technically I would not be because I didn't have my driver's license. And even if they checked the records to see if someone by my name is a licensed driver, I couldn't prove I was me, by any name.

And the bank may not let me get cash to pay the DMV to get a replacement driver's license so I'd have a photo i.d.

Friday the 13th, indeed!

What happens to a person who can not prove who they are? I was undocumented. To be on the street, unknown to anyone of authority. The people who could vouch for me were not easily available. My father, my husband, my children. They've seen my documents or even used them in one form or another. The rest of the people who "know" me, only know who I am because they've taken my word for it.

Things were not going well.

I needed to take Daddy's clean laundry to him, so I decided to go by the banks afterward to cancel the credit cards. I would just have to trust that they'd have a way to confirm I had a right to cancel said cards.

And that brought up another problem. My husband was out-of-town today. What if he needed to use his credit card for something? Like gasoline to get home. If I cancelled the credit cards, he wouldn't be able to use his. He wouldn't be able to buy gas. Or get home.

And as I thought about it -- Daddy's credit card was in my purse, too. If someone stole it, they could clean out his bank account. If someone had stolen all our cards they could clean us all out.

And it is the holiday season when people who don't have a lot of money are feeling the pinch. I could understand the temptation to take advantage of some woman's failure to insure her purse's security.

There was nothing for it. I just had to suck it up and drive to my dad's without a driver's license. I scrupulously observed every traffic signal and every speed limit. I was hypervigilant for any other driver who might involve me in an accident that would require I show my driver's license. I was a wreck -- trying to think of every possible danger.

I reminded myself that Friday the 13th is just a silly superstition. Of course, it is. Unfortunate things could happen any day. These particular unfortunate things never had. At least to me. But they could have.

Thankfully, the drive to my father's was uneventful.

And better yet. The moment I walked into his apartment I saw my purse exactly where I'd left it. Its contents intact.

I knew I was tense, but I had no idea how tense until the tension was released. I needed to eat. It's just a good thing there's a Panera's on my way home. Diet or no diet. Saving money or no saving money. I stopped there for lunch and paid with a credit card.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Dearest Pol -- Flash Fiction

image from heartwhispers.weebly.com

As a writer, I often use prompts to get me to write. The prompt from which this bit came was "Write from the point of view of a literary character who changed your life." It was not easy for me to choose just one. I've met so many -- both fiction and nonfiction -- who introduced me to ways of living and thinking that I would never have imagined on my own. This one is from my very early childhood and she has saved my life too many times to count. It comes from what I imagine her as a grownup to be like. She would have lived through both World Wars, which seems appropriate for this Armistice Day.


Dearest Pol, I love you.

She looked away from the letter. I love you, too. The thought came as automatically as she would have said it had Jim been there. She tried, but she couldn't think of a thing to be glad about.

I'm looking at a slip of a moon. I know that, if you are looking at it right now, it looks the same there at home. In a couple of weeks I'll be shipping out. I can't tell you where they're sending us, but the moon will be full there then, she read.

Hadn't she been through enough? She didn't remember her mother at all. She remembered her father teaching her the "glad game." She had so wanted a doll, but the only thing in the mission barrel for a child was a pair of very small crutches. He said she should try to find something to be glad about the crutches. Together they decided she could be glad she didn't need them. It didn't help much at first.

And then he died when she was barely eleven, the same age as her own Jenny. The Ladies' Aiders sent her half a continent away to live with her Aunt Polly whom she'd never met. Things got better and worse and better again as life had a way of doing. And most of the time she could find things to be glad about.

Aunt Polly died of the Influenza but Uncle Tom came home safe from the Great War. Then they made it through the Depression. And now her own dear Jim was going into this new war leaving her and their Jenny to do the best they could without him.

Remember the best way to play the game is when it's hardest to find something to be glad about, he wrote.

He was reading her mind. Finding something to be glad about him going to war had eluded her since before he left. He was right to go. She tried to be glad he was a doctor and could save lives, when what she was really glad about was that surely they wouldn't send doctors to the front. But that didn't feel right somehow and took away the "glad" part.

I don't know how soon you'll get this letter, but if you're having a full moon, show Jenny. I'll be enjoying it, too. Then we won't feel so far apart. Sometimes a thing to be glad about is not something hard to find, but something that's there all the time, if you just look.

Kiss our beautiful Jenny. I love you Pollyanna Pendleton. Your Jim