Author: Pulitzer Guy

#54 The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1990): Summer of Love II or The Summer of Acronyms – SCOTUS and USWNT Let Love (and Equality) Rule

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[Editor’s Note: Pulitzer Schmulitzer! is where we count down our favorite Pulitzer Prize winning novels for fiction according to the unpredictable and arbitrary whims of yours truly. To learn how Pulitzer Schmulitzer! started and read about the methodology or complete lack thereof behind the rankings, look no further than right here. If you want to see what we’ve covered so far, here you go. Now, on to the countdown.]

Could the summer of 2015 be the Summer of Love II?

There are a couple of indicators leading me to the conclusion that this might be the case. First, back during New York Fashion Week last fall, several top designers such as Tommy Hilfiger, Zimmerman and Vera Wang all paid homage to the 1960s and the Summer of Love. Turns out they may have been on to something more than just an affection of floral patterns, ruffles and maxi dresses.

Then, on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, guaranteeing a right to same-sex marriage. I could try to summarize the majority opinion, but Justice Kennedy’s final paragraph is one of the most beautiful you will ever read in a court case so I’ll defer:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Or, as distilled into Haiku by McSweeney’s:

Hark! Love is love, and
love is love is love is love.
It is so ordered.

That day of elation was based on decades of awareness, activism and perseverance, and as soon as the decision was announced, Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets quickly began to fill with rainbow-themed images. And one of those was a precursor to the third indicator that the summer of 2015 may indeed be the Summer of Love II.

Screen Shot 2015-07-27 at 8.13.54 PM

You see, on that very same June 26th in Ottawa, Canada, the U.S. Women’s National Team was preparing to face China in the quarterfinal matchup of the Women’s World Cup. This was already a special World Cup for me as I had taken my daughter Lily up to Vancouver a week prior to watch the U.S. play Nigeria in the group play round. When Lily was eight, we diligently watched the USWNT play in the 2011 World Cup in Germany, and were heartbroken when they lost in the final to Japan on penalty kicks. But Lily knew then that the next World Cup was going to be closer to home in Canada, and asked if we could go. I can think of few better role models for my daughter – and also I figured she’d forget over the next four years – so I said yes. She never forgot.

Women's World Cup

By June 26th, however, the women of the USWNT had become not only solid role models for girls, but also had become the most prominent sporting symbol of the United States during 2015. This, I might add, occurred without a ton of support. First, all the stadiums hosting World Cup games had artificial turf, a feature that many complained about loudly. Putting aside the arguments in favor of turf fields, there is no disputing that FIFA would have never ever in a million years forced the men to play on anything other than grass. Why? Maybe it’s because sometimes artificial turf gets so hot that it melts shoes. There’s that.

But it wasn’t just the turf issue. Sports Illustrated writer Andy Benoit tweeted that women’s sports in general – not just soccer – are not worth watching. It was such a stupid tweet that you would have thought he was being sarcastic if he tried to defend his statement by pointing at TV ratings.

Screen Shot 2015-08-06 at 9.27.53 PM

The reaction to this tweet was fast and furious from both men and women with my favorite being Amy Poeler and Seth Meyers reuniting for a segment of Really.

Unfortunately, his opinion, although not usually expressed so publicly, is more widespread than is should be. For winning the World Cup, for example, the USWNT received $2 million. Seems like a fine sum until you realize that the US Men’s Team got $8 million just for reaching the round of 16. How much did the winning German team get? I’m glad you asked. That would be $35 million.

So it was great to watch the naysayers proved wrong as the World Cup progressed. The popularity of the team – of women – swelled in unison with their victories, culminating in a 5-2 victory over Japan in which we scored a ridiculous four goals in 16 minutes.

The final game averaged a stunning 25.4 million viewers, making it the most-viewed soccer game ever in the United States–men’s or women’s–by a giant margin. How does that compare to men’s sports Andy Benoit? Game 7 of the San Francisco Giants/Kansas City World Series game drew 23.5 million viewers. Game 6 of the Golden State Warriors/Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Finals – a Finals series that drew more viewers than any series since the Michael Jordan era – had only 13.9 million viewers. And don’t even try to compare to the Stanley Cup Final. That came in at 7.6 million.

Everyone watched the USWNT finals match! Everyone loves women’s soccer! Everyone can get married! Which made me wonder, can you have too much love? I assumed that since the Beatles said “All You Need Is Love” the answer was no, until I read The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos, the 1990 winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

The first novel by a United-States born Hispanic to win, Mambo Kings is the story of two Cuban brothers and musicians, Cesar and Nestor Castillo, who immigrate to the United States from Cuba and settle in New York City in the early 1950s. Like The Tinkers and The Stone Diaries, the story takes place at the very end of the protagonist’s life. Told from the perspective of the older brother Cesar, it chronicles his last hours as he sits in a seedy hotel room, drinking and listening to recordings made by his band, the Mambo Kings.

Cesar, the Mambo King himself, is an old man, and the book describes his memories of his life (and loves) in Cuba and New York. Cesar and Nestor arrive in New York full of ambition and desire to be musicians. Other than their love of music and shared DNA, however, the brothers are complete opposites. Nestor is an incredibly talented trumpet player and songwriter, but he forever mourns the loss of his first love, a woman named Maria. His demeanor is sad, soulful and tormented. Cesar, on the other hand, is a handsome, macho, player. For Cesar, everything in his life is indulgence: playing music, dancing, eating, drinking, and having sex. In fact, as we’ll get to shortly, Cesar measures his life by his many sexual escapades.

The brothers are talented and willing to work hard, and with some luck put together an orchestra they call The Mambo Kings. The mambo craze of the late 1940s is still in full swing, and the band grows in popularity. They even get a guest appearance on I Love Lucy after Desi Arnaz catches their nightclub act one evening. This appearance gives them a measure of celebrity and helps them to sell some records, but true fame remains just beyond their reach.

As the mambo craze begins to fade, the fortunes of Cesar, Nestor, and the The Mambo Kings decline as well. Although Nestor marries a lovely woman and starts a family, he still pines for Maria and spends his life constantly re-writing one song about his lost love, “Beautiful Maria of My Soul.” His deep melancholy ends only when the car he is driving skids off the road in a snowstorm, killing him.

Cesar has always been the driving force for the Mambo Kings, and, as alluded to above, is a favorite with the ladies. He’s a handsome, suave, baritone who naturally charms the audience and spreads his love among many women. But not in a totally dickish way (there’s a pun here, but you’re not going to get it until later). He’s generous to a fault, freely bestowing gifts and money on those he befriends, as well as supporting his family members still in Cuba. But after Nestor dies, he simply cannot continue to be the leader he once was. He descends into a depression that begins slowly to eat at him, fueled by drinking and excess. Pretty much, the end.

For me, The Mambo Kings is a tale of two books. Sixty percent of this book is really great. It is a melancholy story for sure, but lyrically told and in a style that evokes the rhythms of Cuban music. Does that last sentence sound too pretentious? Lets just say I like the writing style. I also like the general theme of immigrants coming to the U.S. and how they see themselves in relation to their new culture in contrast to the culture of their birth. It’s like Scarface without the blow and chainsaws.

And compared to some of the other novels that sit in this area of the countdown because their stories are rather dull (e.g., The Stone Diaries and Breathing Lessons), the subject matter of The Mambo Kings is inherently interesting, at least for me. It’s an immigrant story set in 1950s and 60s New York with Spanish music, a Fidel Castro-led revolution, dancing, and unexpected cameos from real-life mambo dudes Desi Arnaz and Tito Puente. It also has a ton of sex. And that, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, may actually be the problem.

You see, the other 40% of this is really, really bad. Thirty percent of the book is comprised of sex scenes. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good soft-porn novel as much as the next guy, but these were more monotonous than provocative. But it was the final 10% that really got me because that part contains Hijuelos’ weird and disturbing fixation on Cesar’s penis. Seriously, if you’re the kind of reader who really likes to know how the protagonist’s dick is doing, this book will be great for you because there’s a dick status update on just about every page. If that isn’t your cup of tea, then this is a tough 10% to get through.

So it turns out you actually can have too much love. At least in Pulitzer Prize winning novels. But the good news is that won’t affect the summer of 2015 (possibly) going down in history as the Summer of Love II. My four year wait to attend a Women’s World Cup match with Lily seems insignificant when compared to length of time same-sex couples have waited for the right to get married, but on a personal level are both are hugely meaningful. Lily will always remember this as the summer the rainbows took over Instagram as she watched the USWNT advance in the World Cup. She turned 13 this summer, and her entire adult life will be in a world where love is love is love is love. And after watching the USWNT kick ass in the finals, her love for soccer is now cemented. You want proof, and another dick status update? Well here is what Lily re-tweeted the other morning while watching the opening weekend of the English Premier League:

Lily's Tweet

I love her.

#livelikefrank

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ 2 Comments
Photo by Sam Seldon
Photo by Sam Seldon

If you’ve ever read Pulitzer Schmulitzer!, you know that I usually begin by telling a story and then connecting that story – albeit very tenuously and with many contortions – to the book I’m reviewing. Well, today I’m throwing out that formula and I’m going to tell you a story that has absolutely nothing to do any book because the story I’m going to tell is a unique one.

This is a story about Franklin James Clary. I met Frank four or five years ago because we both took the same lunchtime yoga class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have no recollection what spurred our first conversation, but it probably had something to do simply with the fact that we more often than not placed our mats in the same area of the room and had thus gained some level of familiarity. Or that we’re both kind of chatty.

Whatever the impetus, once we started talking, we quickly made multiple connections. Frank was a foodie and I worked at OpenTable. Frank worked at ToyTalk and the company’s CEO was my neighbor. We both loved music and tattoos and, of course, yoga. You get the point. As you get older and life gets busier, you tend to make fewer and fewer new friends, but this friendship seemed pre-ordained.

As our friendship developed, I quickly learned that Frank was great at everything. Seriously, it was almost annoying. He was way better than me at yoga (granted, a low bar). He could surf and ride a skateboard through SF’s busy streets like a champ. He was an amazing cook, knew a ridiculous amount about wine, and had great hair. He could even dance. And although his day job was a Creative Director of Toy Talk, he also somehow made time to write and photograph for Nopalize, the food blog sponsored by Nopa and Nopalito restaurants.

But I say it was “almost annoying” because when you were with Frank, you didn’t notice that he was good at everything, you noticed that he simply tackled life with a passion rarely rivaled. He got a job at Lucas Film because as a teenager he loved Star Wars and thought it would be “rad” to work there. And it was that same passion and focus that he brought to yoga, photography, writing, surfing, cooking, and whatever else he decided to take on. He would simply will himself to succeed.

But perhaps Frank’s greatest trait, however, wasn’t his ability to improve himself, but instead was his ability to connect with people – and connect people with each other – better than any person I have ever met. A lot of this, I think, had to do with the fact that when Frank added you to his orbit, you were there to stay. One perfect example of this talent occurred last year when I mentioned off-handedly that I was going to Japan for work. Frank asked if I’d be interested in meeting some friends of his while I was there, and I said, “Sure,” not really expecting much to come of it. A few days later this was in my inbox.

From: Frank Clary 


Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 4:31 PM

To: John Orta; Tatsuya

Subject: Friend meet Friend 


John, 


Allow me to introduce you to my dear friend and colleague Tatsuya. Though we met as professionals in film, it quickly became clear that we also shared a passion for food and lifestyle. When you’d mentioned you were heading to Japan, Tatsuya was the first person that came to mind as he’s someone whose character and tastes I can trust with anyone in any scenario. 
I’ve passed along your schedule including your more specific plans to visit Kyoto and Tatsuya believes he can help accommodate your visit in both Tokyo and Kyoto. He lives in Tokyo himself and mentioned knowing a good person for you to meet in Kyoto if you care to. 


Tatsuya,

Thanks so much for being so gracious and responsive. I look forward to the opportunity to pay the courtesies back upon your next visit, or for anyone you know who might be visiting the states. 
John is a great person who carries with him a wonderful spirit whenever we cross paths and I’m excited for him to share that with Japan on his journeys. It’s a great fit. I’ll let you both take it from here.

Cheers!

どうもありがとうございます Franklin

Who does that? In this day and age when we live such busy lives, not only did Frank follow up and make the introduction, he made the greatest email introduction in the history of email introductions. Only Frank could describe me as one who “carries with him a wonderful spirit” with a straight face or be genuinely excited for me to share that with Japan. Only Frank could so easily bridge the gap between two strangers who shared neither continent nor language. I have saved this email because it makes me happy every time I read it.

I’m telling you this story because over the 4th of July weekend, Frank was killed in a car accident at the age of 36. I’m still a little in shock but I’m not alone. Tatsuya, the guy Frank introduced me to and who I absolutely met and bonded with in Japan (just as Frank knew would happen) reached out across the globe to share his sadness. And the outpouring of stories on Frank’s Facebook page clearly demonstrate the impact that he made on the Lucas Film community, the Toy Talk community, the Nopalize community, the Yoga community, the CrossFit community, and probably a ton more communities that I don’t even know are communities.

A quick scan of the words and phrases contained in the various posts reveal everything you need to know about Frank: passion, energy, awesome, indelible, friend, love, curiosity, charismatic, energetic, warm, lived life to the fullest, never without a smile, and he made me a better person. Nopalize reposted this interview from last year that is wonderful. But my favorite tribute was a simple hashtag that one of his surfer friends came up with: #livelikefrank.

When tragedies like these happen, people tend to stop and take a moment to hold those close to them a little closer and say things like “remember to live every day like it’s your last.” And, don’t get me wrong, we should definitely all do that. Frank certainly lived life to the fullest. But Frank also took it one step further because he wanted everyone else to live their lives to the fullest as well. He focused on the good in people and nurtured that goodness. Moreover, he then fostered connections between people that he knew should meet but without him probably never would. He created the Community of Frank.

It’s been a tough week. I haven’t been to yoga class since the news and I’m sure when I go and his mat isn’t next to mine it will be even tougher. But I was lucky to know him and for that I’m thankful and because of him I will try to #livelikefrank.

On a Nopalize Seasons field trip.
On a Nopalize Seasons field trip.

#55 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1995): Reality Bites, but that’s Totally OK

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ 3 Comments

[Editor’s Note: Pulitzer Schmulitzer! is where we count down our favorite Pulitzer Prize winning novels for fiction according to the unpredictable and arbitrary whims of yours truly. To learn how Pulitzer Schmulitzer! started and read about the methodology or complete lack thereof behind the rankings, look no further than right here. If you want to see what we’ve covered so far, here you go. Now, on to the countdown.]

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” T. S. Eliot

“Back to life, back to reality.” Soul II Soul

This was my first weekend in a while without Game of Thrones and it was a little rough. I’m slightly obsessed with the show. Ok, strike “slightly.” How obsessed am I? When I watch the show on TV, I will pause it just to see how much time is left. And no matter what the answer is, I’ll feel sad that it’s not enough. I still have the last episode saved on not one, but two televisions in the house in case I want to re-watch any of the super depressing things that happened last week.

In fact, not only am I totally caught up on the show, but I’ve also started to go back and read the books. They are, and this is an understatement, dense. But in a good way. And as with any novel/film comparison, there are a ton of details in a 700-page book that could never be included in a 10-episode television season. For example, Thrones has the most sprawling cast on television and I already struggle to differentiate all the Aryas, Ashas and Oshas, but there are literally thousands of named characters in the book series.

Another thing that gets short shrift in the television series are the references to dozens of songs conveying the oral history of Westeros – one of the lands Thrones inhabits. In Westeros – as in our own actual medieval times – most of the general populace did not have the ability to read or write. As such, ballads are the vehicle through which the people remember the past and express their emotions. Like “Brave Sir Robin.”

In the novels, George R. R. Martin created verses for almost a dozen songs but most haven’t made it into the show. They have names like “The Rains of Castamere,” “The Dance of Dragons,” “A Rose of Gold,” “The Last of the Giants,” “The Bloody Cup,” “The Day They Hanged Black Robin,” and “Lord Renly’s Ride.” They tell the stories of individuals whose brave deeds, loves lost, and revenges taken will live on lost after their fictional demise. And I will somewhat shamefully admit that it makes me a little sad that no one will write a song about me.

But on those occasions in which I’ve drifted toward narcissism (they happen more often than you think; or maybe not), Thrones usually comes through with teaching moment. In this case it came at evil King Joffrey’s wedding as one of the singers serenades the crowd with a song about the bravery of Joffrey and his mother Queen Cersei at the Battle of the Blackwater. Despite the fact that it was Joffrey’s uncle, the dwarf Tyrion, who actually turned the tide of that battle, the singer sings endless verses about Cercei’s and Joffrey’s valor. Sansa, Tyrion’s wife, sits silently for a while, but when she can’t take it anymore, blurts out “She never did that.” In response, Tyrion tells her, “Never believe anything you hear in song, my lady.” Lesson learned.

My takeaway from these wise words is that I shouldn’t be sad because even if someone wrote a song about me, you shouldn’t believe it anyway. A point that was recently emphasized to me in the Audience Award winning talk that author and fellow Piedmonter Kelly Corrigan gave at The Nantucket Project earlier this year.

In her talk titled “The Power of Acceptance,” Corrigan tells us that we’ve been taught that a good story involves likeable characters overcoming obstacles and reaching a neatly wrapped resolution. In her words, we find stories satisfying because they offer us a “catharsis,” followed by “a return to normalcy.”

The problem, however, is that life rarely follows this script. The 1980 US Men’s Olympic Hockey Team, for example, is an exception that proves the rule. We remember them precisely because their feat was remarkable in its rarity. In Westeros there would have been a song written about them. Maybe “The Song of 20” or “Brooks and the Bear.” In contrast, “reality is hard,” Corrigan says. “And so, we leave out the scary, problematic bits.”

According to Corrigan, rather than escaping reality, we need more acceptance – “the Mount Everest of human emotions” – in our lives. Acceptance of our parents, children, spouses, jobs and all the other crazy shit that has and will happen to us. We need more acceptance of ourselves. But in this day and age of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, acceptance has become so difficult because we – and I am absolutely including myself in the royal “we” – have become little PR machines, retelling our stories on social media in a truth-ish sort of way minus the scary, problematic bits.

Part of the solution, Corrigan argues, is to look for stories that embrace life in its full complexity. Like Game of Thrones? Maybe not. But not surprisingly, The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, the 1995 Pulitzer Prize winner, is a perfect example. The Stone Diaries follows the life of Daisy Goodwill from her birth in her mother’s kitchen in 1905 to her death in the 1990s. At first I thought it was just a simple and interesting (but not spectacular) account of a woman’s life. But as I continued reading, I realized that although on the surface it appears deceptively simple, in reality it is fairly complex and multi-layered. Like reality. Like life.

The book leaps from decade to decade and each chapter of the book is titled for a specific – and for most of us familiar – stage of her life: Birth, Childhood, Marriage, Love, Motherhood, Work, Sorrow, Ease, Illness and Decline, and Death. It begins when her mother, the absurdly fat Mercy Stone, dies bringing her into the world. (But not before, I might add, Ms. Shields provides an unexpected description of the erotic life of Mercy and her husband that involves phrases such as “vast regions of pink flesh,” “trembling generosity of her arms and thighs,” and “exalting abundance”).

And from there, the book never provides a conventional plot to the story. Daisy is simply the consummate Every Woman and her crises are the normal ones. After her mother’s death, Daisy is raised by a neighbor and meets a guardian who, years later, will become her husband. At the age of 11, she is reunited with her father at a time when they are complete strangers to one another. Daisy marries and is widowed. Twice. She has children. She has a career. The novel ends, similar to The Tinkers, with the death of Daisy as images from her long life such as fragments of overheard conversations, lost recipes, shopping lists and book titles, spin through her mind.

In the end, it’s a story about an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life, and dying an ordinary death. She is of “moderate intelligence” and an average-sized ego. She has no claims to distinction except for the fact that during her life, the world changed almost beyond recognition. And while that might not sound like a positive introduction, I can without hesitation say that, for me, although Daisy’s life is ordinary, it is still utterly absorbing. Emphasis on the “for me” part.

I enjoyed this novel predominantly for two reasons. First, I love the way Shields tells the story. Although Daisy’s life is presented mostly through narration, it is buttressed by letters, tombstones, a family tree, photographs (which occasionally contradict the narrative), words etched into a Victorian plate, a luncheon menu, Aunt Daisy’s Lemon Pudding recipe, to-do lists, a list of books read, and a sheet with every address at which Daisy lived. Moreover, though it is written as if it’s an autobiography, the book moves both backward and forward through time, giving perspectives and experiences of many of the supporting characters, including Daisy’s father, the woman who raises her, her husband, and her children. And in one of my favorite parts, a paragraph lists the things Daisy had never done or experienced in her life, including driving a car, skiing, body massage, pierced ears, and cigarettes. This list of exclusions couldn’t have given me a better understanding into the life and times Daisy lived and lived in.

The second reason I love this book, and this you may have already guessed, is that it demonstrates that all of our ordinary lives are actually extraordinary. And for most of us, it won’t be a single person or plot twist or moment that makes it memorable. There will be no Olympic gold or Battle of the Blackwater. Instead, it will be the culmination of lots of smaller moments, including the “problematic, scary bits.” The Stone Diaries may not be hopeful and mushy with a “catharsis” and “return to normalcy” ending; but it is a valiant attempt to capture the complexities of one’s life; one’s family and friends; and one’s place and purpose in this crazy, non-linear world. This book is truly about the journey.

The book also provides a related message that is worth mentioning. Despite the fact that the story is told from the viewpoints of multiple characters, many of whom are very close to Daisy, we never feel that we truly know or comprehend her. Some readers may find that annoying, but this may be a far more accurate assessment of our understanding of the people around us. Because our actual lives are far more complex than the stories we love (even Game of Thrones), we create the stories we want to hear. As Shield’s notes, “our own stories are obscenely distorted.” And this realization hits on another truth, which is that we all make assumptions of what others think about us, but these assumptions spring from our own subjective self-image and, therefore, could never truly be accurate.

So what Game of Thrones, The Stone Diaries and Kelly Corrigan have taught me is that when I begin to obsess that my story isn’t following the preferred plot line, I just need to pause, take a breath, and say to myself, “You know nothing, John Orta.” Or maybe just, “Accept.” Climb the Mount Everest of human emotions and accept things the way they are. Even if chances are that no one will write a song about me, and I won’t say cool things like “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die,” or “Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder,” or even “Make the bad man fly,” it’s ok.

Because you know what else I learned this week? Sometimes life does follow the preferred plot line. Sometimes dreams do come true. We just watched the Warriors complete their fairy tale season that wasn’t supposed to happen. Jump shooting teams aren’t supposed to win championships, right Charles Barkley? Guys who don’t start a single game during the regular season aren’t supposed to win MVP awards, right Andre Igloudala? And certainly if you start Draymond Green at center there’s no chance of victory, right Steve Kerr? In fact, Draymond summed up the whole experience during the post-game celebration when he spied his mom in the crowd and yelled to her over the fans unmistakeable “WARRRRUUUUURRRS” cry, “They told me I can’t play in this league.” (At 0:40s)

We should write a song about them. And I’ll believe every word.

#56 – March by Geraldine Brooks (2006): The Road Yes Travelled

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ 3 Comments

[Editor’s Note: Pulitzer Schmulitzer! is where we count down our favorite Pulitzer Prize winning novels for fiction according to the unpredictable and arbitrary whims of yours truly. To learn how Pulitzer Schmulitzer! started and read about the methodology or complete lack thereof behind the rankings, look no further than right here. If you want to see what we’ve covered so far, here you go. Now, on to the countdown.]

Crossing a river in Thorsmark. Seatbelts optional.
Crossing a river in Thorsmark. Seatbelts optional.

In the middle of February, I found myself in a snowstorm in Iceland with my son Sam. We were in a jeep preparing to cross what appeared to me to be a very large and uncrossable river, when we had the following conversation with our guide.

GUIDE: I think this should work.

ME: You think?

GUIDE: (ignoring me) We should take off our seatbelts though.

ME: Why?

GUIDE: In case we need to get out of the car it’s one less thing to worry about.

ME: Just so I’m clear, what we’re going to do is so dangerous that we’re actually better off taking our seatbelts off?

GUIDE: That’s fair. But if we need to get out, don’t panic.

So how did I end up in a jeep in Iceland, in winter, in a snowstorm, agreeing to cross a freezing river without a seatbelt without panicking? A fine question, but maybe we should just start with this.

IMG_2284

This doesn’t make me happy. At all. And if you’ve been on the Internet in the past few weeks, you understand why. If you don’t know what those little yellow tags are, let me explain. Microsoft’s newest analysis tool – How-Old.net – has become the latest Internet craze. The tool allows you to upload a photo of yourself and wait for the program to detect your face. It will then guess your gender and age. I couldn’t wait to try it. I look good for my age, right?

Wrong. Whatever algorithm Microsoft is using hates me. And trust me, it wasn’t just the one picture above. As soon as I got one response, I began frantically flipping through my camera roll uploading shots that I assumed made me look if not young, at least younger. Although I succeeded in moving the needle a few years, it never ever said I looked younger than my actual age which, for the record Microsoft, IS NOWHERE NEAR 60! (And also for the record, I am yelling).

I’m sure I’m not alone and How-old.net has undoubtedly led to a spike in eye cream sales, but this is really torture for me. I have an acute sensitivity to the passage of time. Or more specifically, my passage of time. Some call this a mid-life crisis, but “crisis” seems both too short in duration and unnecessarily negative. My mid-life crisis and I have been together for years now, and for the most part, we co-exist rather well.

Sure, I’ve had some clichéd mid-life crisis-like moments – like my nonsensical yet very real desire to buy a motorcycle – but mostly my crisis and I have a very symbiotic relationship. Like a barnacle and a whale. Or the Internet and Kim Kardashian. In its simplest form, my fear of growing old has freed me (or prompted me) to do more stuff. I say “yes” to more things. And at the top of this list of stuff I say yes to is travel.

And in their relatively short lives, I’ve tried to pass this “just say yes, especially to travel” attitude down to Sam and Lily (and even, to a lesser extent due to her lesser years, Macy) and they have already seen a fair share of the world. We’ve been to New York, Washington D.C., London, Paris, Seoul, Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague. We ventured to western Pennsylvania to see Hershey and Gettysburg. We’ve camped in the Grand Canyon and stayed at the Madonna Inn, and traveled by car, plane, train, subway, helicopter, boat and funicular. To continue to promote this attitude and foster a love of travel and exploration as the bigger kids move toward teendom, I’m always asking them where in the world they would most like to go next. They know that, chances are, I will say yes to whatever they come up with. So it wasn’t a total surprise that one day last summer my then 13-year-old Sam said to me while shooting hoops:

SAM: Dad, I’ve got two ideas for where to go.

ME: Excellent. Let’s hear.

SAM: First, I want to go see the Aurora Borealis.

ME: That sounds cool. But where actually do we go to see it?

SAM: You can go pretty much anywhere up by the Arctic Circle, but I think the best place is in Iceland.

Randomly enough, I spent two weeks on a backpacking trip in Iceland right before Sam was born so I’m about to sound knowledgeable and cool.

ME: Iceland is great. And super nice in the summer.

SAM: (looking at me like I’m a moron) “Uh, here’s the deal. You can’t go in the summer BECAUSE THE SUN’S OUT ALL THE TIME.”

He didn’t actually yell but I could tell that he was explaining this to me slowly BECAUSE I’M A MORON.

SAM: You need to go in mid to late winter.

ME: Just so I’ve got this straight, you want to go to Iceland in the middle of winter?

SAM: February would be best.

It sounded cold. And not in the Aspen or Chamonix sense. This was going to require a new wardrobe. But as a parent you need to walk the walk so I aimed to be supportive while also maximizing my optionality. I needed to say “yes.”

ME: Okay, what’s your second idea?

SAM: Have you ever heard of this thing called Burning Man?

ME: (Missing shot wildly). I have. Have you?

SAM: Yeah. I want to do that.

I’m not sure what bucket list he was “researching” on the Internet, but he was fully brushed up on the ins and outs of the Burn.

SAM: This year’s theme is the Silk Road. (They have a theme, I thought to myself.) I read the whole kids guide to Burning Man. You know though, we missed it by a year. Kids under 12 go for free.

My inner voice was saying “that’s because kids under 12 shouldn’t be going to Burning Man!! Kids under 12 should cost like $20,000!!” But all I said was…

ME: I guess we’re going to Iceland.

So that’s how Sam and I ended up visiting the Gullfoss Waterfall, driving a jeep through a river in Thorsmork, taking selfies with Icelandic horses, climbing on a glacier covered volcano, and yes, seeing the Aurora Borealis. And to anyone who asks how the trip was, I tell them Iceland in February isn’t for everyone. You’re not drinking margaritas on the beach or working on your golf game or getting a facial. But it was an adventure, and it was cool (literally and figuratively), and it was an experience we’ll never ever forget. It’s what happens when you say “yes.”

Gullfoss waterfall.
Gullfoss waterfall.

Which leads me (finally) to March by Geraldine Brooks, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. March tells the previously untold story of the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. For those of you that haven’t read Little Women (a group to which I belong), the reader only gets to know Peter March through his letters sent home to his family from the Civil War. Brooks uses March to tell not only of Mr. March’s time in the war that changed him both physically and mentally, but also of his early life as a traveling salesman, of his first kiss, of the meeting of his wife, of his connections to Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau (he’s like a Civil War era Forrest Gump), of his strong abolitionist sentiments, and of misunderstandings and wrongs that were never made right in his life.

In many ways, March stands apart from the other books we’ve ranked so far at Pulitzer Schulitzer! in that it is very readable. It isn’t poorly written (Guard of Honor), over-flowery and rambling (A Fable), drug-trippy weird (House Made of Dawn), or boring (Martin Dressler). It’s conceptually interesting, at least for those who read Little Women. Brooks is a fine writer and the story moves forward quickly and easily and I had no trouble finishing it. The two main issues I have with March are (a) it is somewhat clichéd like the middle-aged guy wanting to buy a motorcycle; and (b) I don’t love the protagonist.

Brooks paints Peter March as a vegetarian, Unitarian, abolitionist, transcendentalist, book-lover from the North. In other words, he’s one huge cliché that, frankly, probably did not exist during the Civil War. But clichés by themselves (and in moderation as we’ll see later) are not unlikeable and if that were the only issue I had with Mr. March, I’m sure we’d be ok. The bigger problem with March the character – and hence March the book – is that he isn’t a person who says “yes.”

The glacier at Eyjafjallajokull.
The glacier at Eyjafjallajokull.

He hates war and he hates slavery (not a unique opinion by any means) but his actions in opposition to both are more whiny than productive. March is constantly struggling with an overly simplistic inner battle: “War is bad! But slavery is also bad! So is war to stop slavery good?” I get it. But March makes little effort to affirmatively resolve this turmoil and instead of trying to change the world, lets the world change him. And most of the time, he does this in a negative way to both himself and those around him. March is a “no” guy.

In fact, March is not only a “no” guy, but he also tends to project that trait on others, even those he loves. For example, March is very jealous of his wife’s admiration for John Brown (one more famous person that they happen to know): ”I could see that Brown ignited the very part of my wife’s spirit I wished to quench; the lawless, gypsy elements of her nature.” People looking to quench other people’s spirits in any way make me mad. Like Microsoft.

I fear I’m piling on a little right now, but I’m on a roll. Not only is the book an oversimplification of war in general, but in telling the story it employs every cliché civil war plot twist: (1) interracial romance; (2) old urbane southern woman with power; (3) bloody field hospitals; (4) inverted moral systems; (5) corrupt preachers; (6) the use of the terms “rod” and “score” to measure distance and time; (7) a well-stocked plantation library; (8) gorgeous, educated slave women who turn out to be of mixed blood; (9) the senseless suffering of women and children at the home front; and (10) southern families torn apart by Visigothic Union soldiers who smash grand pianos.

Black sand beach on the south coast.
Black sand beach on the south coast.

Although I’m already feeling a little bad about critiquing this book possibly more harshly than I should, I must add that there are more than a couple cringe inducing sentences. I’ll give two quick examples. First, when March sleeps with Marmee for the first time in the woods with unwitting musical accompaniment from Thoreau: ”We married each other that night, there on a bed of fallen pine needles — even today, the scent of pitch pine stirs me — with Henry’s distant flute for a wedding march and the arching white birch boughs for our basilica.” I have two things to say. One, it sounds uncomfortable. Two, his pine needle fetish is just…ew.

The second example sums up March in a nutshell for me. Throughout the story, March’s path crosses several times with Grace, a beautiful, ”astonishingly eloquent” slave who March (not surprisingly) falls for. Their last meeting occurs in a Washington hospital after March has been sickened with fever and grazed by a rebel bullet, and Grace shows up talking like a double major in civics and psychology: ”He loves, perhaps, an idea of me: Africa, liberated. I represent certain things to him, a past he would reshape if he could, a hope of a future he yearns toward.”

In the end, although I’m harsh, you should take my words with a grain of salt. Others that I know really liked this book, and I was excited to read it as well so there is the possibility that I simply set the bar too high. Or possibly I just wrote this while I’m still pissed off at Microsoft. Maybe trying how-old.net was the one thing I should’ve said no to. But after reading March, I am even more likely to say yes to things. So pass me the eye cream. I’ve got places to go.

Icelandic horse selfies.
Icelandic horse selfies.

#57 – House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1969): When the Moon is in the Seventh House, Sometimes Peace Will Guide the Planets, but Sometimes You Just Need to Tone Down the Drug Use

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ Leave a comment

[Editor’s Note: Pulitzer Schmulitzer! is where we count down our favorite Pulitzer Prize winning novels for fiction according to the unpredictable and arbitrary whims of yours truly. To learn how Pulitzer Schmulitzer! started and read about the methodology or complete lack thereof behind the rankings, look no further than right here. If you want to see what we’ve covered so far, here you go. Now, on to the countdown.]

I see a lot of concerts. A lot a lot. Always have. I’ve seen some all time greats like Prince, The Rolling Stones, U2, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, David Bowie, Van Halen, Pearl Jam, Tom Petty, Journey (with Steve Perry), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters and Neil Young. I’ve seen the current crop of great live acts like Green Day, Mumford & Sons, Arcade Fire, Kanye West, Kings of the Stone Age, The White Stripes, Bruno Mars, Adele, The National, Tame Impala, Florence and the Machine, My Morning Jacket, and the Black Keys. And because of my 12-year-old daughter Lily (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), I’ve seen Taylor Swift (twice), Katy Perry (twice), Pink, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus (the slutty one, not the Hannah Montana one), Selena Gomez and soon Arianna Grande. I’ve seen some mediocre bands too, like the one-hit wonders who end up playing their one hit more than one time. In the end, I have loved every one of them.

My favorite concert? Hard to say. But my favorite concert moment? No question. In the fall of 1997, Jane’s Addiction, who had been broken up since 1991, reunited for the Relapse Tour with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing bass. The tour was overwhelmingly successful selling out shows from coast to coast, but the band took it up a notch when they came to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco and hosted the neo-pagan extravaganza, the ENIT Festival. With drum-and-bass artist Goldie and DJ collective Funky Tekno Tribe opening up, and Jane’s scheduled to go on at 1 a.m., the show was more rave than concert. Perry Farrell, Jane’s lead singer, called the event “a lavish celebration of the senses.” So given that backdrop, the audience was not surprisingly surprised when, late in the evening (early in the morning?), on the stage appeared, not Jane’s Addiction, but Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.

Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1962) and Sometimes a Great Nation (1964), neither a Pulitzer Prize winner, was a pivotal countercultural figure in the 1960s. But really he’s famous for taking a lot of drugs. A lot a lot. In his most well-known act, Kesey, Neal Cassady, and others in a group of friends they called the Merry Pranksters took a cross-country trip in a psychedelic painted school bus nicknamed “Further.” This trip, chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, was the group’s attempt to create art out of everyday life, and to experience roadway America while high on LSD. A lot a lot of LSD.

Given that the Merry Pranksters were a generation removed from their heyday, their inclusion at the ENIT Festival seemed ill conceived. And when Kesey and the Pranksters – all dressed in black plastic trash bags — wandered onstage after Goldie and performed an extemporaneous spoken word exposition about JFK’s assassination (it happened to be the anniversary of his death) accompanied by video footage of the tragedy, it was no celebration of the senses. Given the festival atmosphere that preceded this performance, the crowd’s reaction, and my own, was no bueno. It was not making me happy. At all.

But that’s when the magic happened. It turns out that Kesey believed that the Kennedy assassination marked the point there the world turned from black and white to Technicolor. I didn’t know that. All I knew was that one by one the members of the Merry Pranksters started to remove their trash bags revealing fluorescent clown costumes underneath, and when they did, they also transitioned into singing “Let the Sun Shine In” from Hair. The crowd was peaking, singing along with the Pranksters, when at exactly the right moment, the lights dropped, Dave Navarro’s mellow guitar intro to “Ocean Size” filled the arena, and the crowd took a collective breath waiting for Perry Farrell to scream “Three, Four!” before all hell broke loose. I just got chills. And to this day, I believe that moment would have been wonderful on its own, but the inclusion of the Merry Pranksters beforehand made it better.

And lucky for me, and now you, the whole thing was captured on film for a movie called Three Days so that I can relive the moment at my whim. The clip below starts first with a crowd shot to set the stage (44:38), cuts to some dude explaining the Prankster’s bus outside Bill Graham (45:00), moves to Kesey and the Merry Pranksters on stage in their trash bags (45:30) and then culminates with Perry, wearing a Mardi Gras-inspired mask, jumping down on to the stage while Dave Navarro (in a black mini-skirt, hose, feather boa and silver cape) and Flea hit the first power chord of Ocean Size. Roughly 2 ½ minutes of bliss to me that I recognize will mean very little to most everyone else.

But my focus here isn’t on Jane’s (chills again) but instead on The Merry Pranksters because they remind me a lot of House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1969). I’ll explain in a moment.

House Made of Dawn tells the story of Abel in four distinct parts. In Part I, we meet Abel, a Native American who returns to his reservation in New Mexico after fighting in World War II. Emotionally, he’s a wreck, and when he arrives he’s so drunk he doesn’t recognize his grandfather Francisco, a man who not only taught him Native American traditions, but also raised Abel after the death of his mother. Although he tries, he never quite fits in and things invariably go off the rails ending with Abel deciding some guy is a witch so he stabs him to death outside a bar. As with many murderers, Abel is sent to jail.

Parts II and III take place in Los Angeles 6 ½ years later, but tell the story from different points of view. In Part II, Abel has been released from prison and has begun hanging out with a local group of Native Americans led by Reverend John Big Bluff Tosamah. They aren’t good people. He’s also made a real friend named Ben and starts dating a social worker named Milly, but neither are enough to keep him out of trouble. Abel ends up drunk on the beach with his hands, head, and upper body beaten and broken, but eventually pulls himself together enough to walk to the apartment he shares with Ben.

In Part III, Ben puts Abel on a train back to the reservation and describes what has happened to Abel in Los Angeles. After being ridiculed by Reverend Tosamah during a poker game, Abel is too drunk to fight back, remains drunk for the next two days and, not surprisingly, misses work. When he returns to his job, the boss, not surprisingly, gives him shit and Abel quits. A downward spiral begins (or, depending on your definition of “downward spiral,” continues) and Abel continues to get drunk every day, borrow money from Ben and Milly, and laze around the apartment until Ben finally throws him out of the apartment. Abel then picks a fight with a corrupt cop that leads to him almost being beaten to death.

In the last part, Momaday brings the story full circle as Abel returns to the reservation to take care of his grandfather, who is dying. His grandfather retells him the stories from his youth and stresses the importance of staying connected to his people’s traditions. In the end, Abel participates in a traditional ritual and it feels as if he may be coming back to his people and his place in the world.

So what is the connection between the Merry Pranksters and House Made of Dawn other than they were both created in the 60s and involved a lot of drugs? In both cases the actual work is less important than what the work represented. If I painted a bus today and drove it across the US while simultaneously taking a lot of drugs, people would think it was silly. Maybe fun, but silly. But when the Merry Pranksters did this in 1964, it truly was revolutionary. It was the link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. The act itself doesn’t stand the test of time, but what it represented does.

Just as I feel that Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters have more social importance than artistic, Momaday’s book has more social and political importance than literary. Specifically, Momaday’s novel is important less because it breaks new ground thematically (it doesn’t, really) and more because of its status as the first novel by a Native American author to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize (and because it is seen as paving the way for the Native American literary boom that would follow) and because of its structural/formal experimentation. And while both are undoubtedly significant, with the benefit of hindsight, the novel itself isn’t as strong as some of the other Pulitzer winners.

Momoday’s writing can be undeniably beautiful at times, but he took a fairly simple story and made it equally undeniably confusing by using a non-linear and stream of consciousness method of story-telling and then on top of that shifting perspectives of the characters without warning. Doing so may be interesting or even, dare we say, revolutionary for the time, but it also demands a lot from the reader. It is a hard book that requires close reading. Or a lot of LSD. A lot a lot.

But, to be clear, “hard books” are not “bad books” and I enjoyed this one. The literary tricks, however, seemed more contrived than necessary and ultimately subtracted from the story itself. The characters get lost in the process. I never gained any real perspective into Abel (or any of the other characters for that matter), which then, unfortunately, makes Abel’s journey–from alienated returning vet to ex-con in the big city and back to the reservation, where he finds a sort of healing and begins to return to his people and their way of life—seem like one seen from a distance, not one I actually cared about.

House Made of Dawn, while admittedly trailblazing in some respects, feels like a premature Pultizer. The Prize committee made this award on what the novel represented rather than the novel itself. Just as I applaud Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters for what they did but it doesn’t mean I thought it was good (other than opening up for Jane’s Addiction in fluorescent clown outfits), I similarly I applaud Momaday for giving us a glimpse into his world even though I though it could have been a lot better.  A lot a lot.

#58 – “Breathing Lessons” by Anne Tyler (1989): Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before, but nothing says the 80s like Journey, Anne Tyler, and bad marriages

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ 2 Comments

[Editor’s Note: Pulitzer Schmulitzer! is where we count down our favorite Pulitzer Prize winning novels for fiction according to the unpredictable and arbitrary whims of yours truly. To learn how Pulitzer Schmulitzer! started and read about the methodology or complete lack thereof behind the rankings, look no further than right here. If you want to see what we’ve covered so far, here you go. Now, on to the countdown.]

Nothing’s changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
Only slightly, only slightly less
Than I used to, my love 

-The Smiths, “Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”

There was article a few weeks back in the “Modern Love” column of the Sunday New York Times called “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This” that seems to have struck a chord with many readers. In the piece, the author talks about going to a bar with a man who would later become her boyfriend and asking each other 36 questions, followed by four minutes of uninterrupted eye contact. According to the Times (and these stats are now a little dated), the article generated more than 5.2 million visits to the website, and over 365,000 shares of Facebook and has even spawned some parodies. Clearly, Tinder hasn’t solved all of our love problems.

The questions, proposed by Dr. Arthur Aron, were originally designed to measure closeness in strangers, but have since been used to try to form romantic bonds between people. They are divided into three sets, with each set intended to be more probing than the previous one. The theory is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness, and because people have trouble allowing themselves to show vulnerability, this exercise forces the issue.

For example, you start off sharing who you would want as a dinner guest, whether you would like to be famous (and in what way), and when was the last time you sang to yourself or someone else. Then it moves into in more personal territory such as what is you most treasured memory? Your most terrible? It forces you to talk about what roles love and affection play in your life, and your feelings about your relationship with your mother. And woven throughout are maybe the most difficult questions that force you to say things about the other person such as this one: “Tell your partner something that you like about them already.”

What would I have said if I could go back in time and do this with Gigi? I find all 36 questions interesting, and I’m sure I would’ve been fascinated and smitten with Gigi’s childhood memories and simultaneously mortified by her relationship with her mother, but all of that fades away to leave the spotlight on the one question that really matters: What do I like about you? Would I have said I like that she’s obsessed with the Giants or that she can line dance or that she’s really good at word games? And how can I answer that now, knowing that she actually watches or listens to all 162 Giants games every single season, or that she can beat me 47 straight times in Scramble? Maybe we would have connected over music but I would have been disappointed that she hates Tom Waits. How could I have known that despite her hatred, she is open-minded enough to one day add “I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love with You” to her not-yet-existing Spotify favorites playlist because she decided that one was pretty good, and that I would love that about her. As we stared into each other’s eyes for four minutes, would I have realized that she would become a successful lawyer, would be an even better mother, or that we’ll argue for years over whether Jimi Hendrix was overrated? I have no idea but I wish I had the chance to find out.

And regardless of whether you think asking each other these 36 questions would actually work, you have to agree with me that it certainly isn’t a horrible idea. What percentage of now-divorced couples would have never made it past question 4 (“What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?”) before realizing their nascent relationship was doomed and went their separate ways? Again, I have no idea but I know the percentage is greater than zero.

Speaking of separate ways, immediately after writing that sentence I looked up the video for Journey’s “Separate Ways” and watched it three consecutive times. How could you not? Take arguably the biggest band of 1983 and throw them in an empty shipyard, have them play invisible instruments and lip sync while a hot girl with bad hair in a leather mini-skirt walks around for no reason whatsoever and what do you have? Pure gold (or Solid Gold for those of us that remember the decade). We just had an 80s party for work and the cover band – albeit awesome – inexplicably failed to play this gem. We should have just looped a video of this song all night long.

So while we’re on the subject of couples who could have benefited from asking each other at least 4 of the 36 questions, and the 1980s, we might as well tackle Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons, the 1989 Pulitzer winner. Breathing Lessons tells the story of Maggie and Ira, a middle-aged couple who both believe that their lives have failed to live up to their expectations. Maggie, who gave up going to college because she got pregnant, is someone who now doesn’t hesitate to reach across from the passenger seat and honk while her husband is driving. She’s buggy, for sure, but at least she does shit. Or at least tries to.

Ira is the opposite. Uncommunicative to start with, he has reached the point where Maggie can divine his moods only from the pop songs of the 1950’s that he whistles. Besides whistling, his pleasure is playing solitaire. He had dreamed of working on the frontiers of medicine, but after he graduated from high school his father, complaining of a heart problem, dumped the family business on him, as well as the duty of supporting two unmarriageable, unemployable sisters. As Ms. Tyler writes: ”Ira had been noticing the human race’s wastefulness. People were squandering their lives, it seemed to him. They were splurging their energies on petty jealousies or vain ambitions or long-standing, bitter grudges…He was fifty years old and had never accomplished one single act of consequence.” You totally want to hang with this guy.

Their son, Jesse, is a high school dropout that wants to be a rock star to escape the drudging anonymity he sees as his father’s fate. ”I refuse to believe that I will die unknown,” he tells Ira. But like many budding rock stars Jesse made his fair share of mistakes, including knocking up Fiona, a fellow dropout, when she was 17. Those relationships rarely turn out well, and after the inevitable blow up, Fiona moved away to her mother’s and neither Ira nor Maggie have seen her for 7 years.

In contrast to Jesse, their daughter, Daisy, is actually an overachiever. At 13 months she had undertaken her own toilet training and by first grade was setting her alarm an hour early in order to iron and color-coordinate her outfit for school. At this point, Ira and Maggie can only watch as she grows away from them and heads off for college knowing there is nothing they can do to stop it. Not long ago Daisy had said to Maggie, “Mom? Was there a certain conscious point in your life when you decided to settle for being ordinary?”

The book’s principal event is a 90-mile trip that Maggie and Ira make to attend a funeral for the husband of a high school classmate. Serena, the widow, wants the funeral service to be a reenactment of their wedding, which included Maggie and Ira singing ”Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.” For whatever reason, this messed-up situation works Maggie into such a state that she convinces Ira to have sex with her in Serena’s bedroom during the reception, until Serena catches them and kicks them out.

So on the way home, Maggie decides that this would be a good time to go visit Fiona and the granddaughter they haven’t seen in 7 years. Convincing herself that she can get Jesse and Fiona to reconcile, Maggie then persuades Fiona to come back to Baltimore with them. It seems that everyone except Maggie is both indifferent and skeptical about this plan, but, nonetheless, everyone goes along with her suggestions. And, of course, it all goes nowhere.

Ms. Tyler loves writing about marriages and families. But not happy marriages or families or even super unhappy marriages or families. She’s not that interested in divorce or infidelity. Instead, she focuses on people whose dreams and ambitions have vanished to the point where they’ve lost hope but aren’t actually self-aware enough to realize it. Clinging to a low rung of the middle class, these folks have long given up on promotions or success and instead simply try not to slide into bankruptcy, booze or prison. All anyone ever does is react, and then usually wrongly. But mostly they remain totally bewildered by most major ”decisions” in their own lives, particularly by how they came to marry their spouse. They never grasp how a month or two of headlong, blind activity can lead to years and years of inertia. They are desperately in need of the 36 question test.

As a general rule, I like these types of stories and I like Anne Tyler. But Breathing Lessons sits at #55 for two reasons: One, like Fay in The Optimist’s Daughter, Maggie is just not that believable. She’s constantly meddling in everyone else’s problems but is singularly unable to organize her own existence. She’s full of self-justification, but seems to have developed absolutely no powers of self-analysis or reflection. And her horribly inept driving skills border on slapstick.

Two, I liked Breathing Lessons. I just didn’t love it. It’s hard not to like Anne Tyler. Like Journey, she ruled the 80s, with three novels in a row nominated for the Pulitzer Prize: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1983) and The Accidental Tourist (1985) in addition to Breathing Lessons. And If you’ve read any other Anne Tyler books, I can safely say that Breathing Lessons is a super Anne Tyler-ly Anne Tyler book, but not the best one. If I’d never read any of her other works, I might have rated this one higher. But alas, it wasn’t my first and for me, this book had that “been there done that” feel to it. Giving her the Pulitzer for Breathing Lessons was, to me, a little like giving Martin Scorsese the Best Director nod for The Departed after not giving it to him for Raging Bull or Goodfellas. Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before, but although I love Anne Tyler’s works, I love this one only slightly less than her others. We probably would’ve discovered that by question 4.

#59 – The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty (1973). More meh than boo-yah! But there’s something to be learned from meh.

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ Leave a comment

[Editor’s Note: Pulitzer Schmulitzer! is where we count down our favorite Pulitzer Prize winning novels for fiction according to the unpredictable and arbitrary whims of yours truly. To learn how Pulitzer Schmulitzer! started and read about the methodology or complete lack thereof behind the rankings, look no further than right here. If you want to see what we’ve covered so far, here you go. Now, on to the countdown.]

Sunday was a little sadder for me because it saw the passing of Stuart Scott. He was 49. For 21 years, Scott was one of ESPN’s and ABC Sports’ most recognizable and quotable personalities and one of the most popular sportscasters around the world. He bridged the world between sports and hip-hop. He reportedly coined the phrase “Boo-yah!” And I really liked him.

Granted, I didn’t actually know Stuart Scott. Never met him. Can’t call him a friend. Playing six degrees of separation, the closest connection I have is that my friend Mike met him once when he was working at Epic Records. I’ll let Mike tell the story because Mike tells stories like no other:

Had the pleasure of meeting Stuart Scott in Dave McPherson’s office at Epic. Five of us quoted him to himself. “Call him butter, cos he’s on a roll.” “Cool as the other side of the pillow.” Dropping two entire Pras lines from “Fugee-La” before a homer landed in the bleachers. And he sat there like it didn’t prolly happen to him ten times a day, with other groups of clowns like us, loving it. He just wanted to talk about music. He was as original as he was genuine. Huge loss for lovers of sports and the vernacular. RIP.

And so although I never met him, it is stories like these and the many others that have been shared this week that make me think I knew him. At least a little. At least enough to convince me that I liked him.

I’m old enough and savvy enough to know that sometimes the face people show the world– especially those in the public eye – doesn’t match who they really are. But Scott had been fighting a very hard and very public battle with cancer since he was first diagnosed in 2007. In this fight, he displayed determination, spirit and a positive attitude that inspired countless others. I don’t think you can fake that.

In July, Scott accepted the Jimmy V Perseverance Award at the ESPYs. During his speech, Scott shared his approach to fighting cancer. “I also realized something else recently,” he said. “I said, I’m not losing. I’m still here. I’m fighting. I’m not losing. But I’ve got to amend that. When you die, that does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live. So live. Live. Fight like hell.” If you haven’t seen it, take a moment.

The idea of living even in the face of adversity lies at the center of The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty. The Optimist’s Daughter tells the story of Laurel McKelva, a middle-aged widower living in Chicago, called to New Orleans to support her father, Judge McKelva, during a minor surgery to correct a torn retina in his eye. Laurel has had some bad breaks. Her mother has passed away and her father is now married to the self-centered Fay who is not only her new stepmom, but also younger than Laurel. Moreover, Laurel’s husband, Phil, has also met an early demise when he was killed by a Kamikaze pilot in World War II leaving Laurel a widow.

So if that wasn’t bad enough, her father’s supposedly minor surgery goes awry and the Judge unexpectedly takes a turn for the worse and then dies. I know, brutal. Laurel is now alone in the world, having lost her mother, her husband, and now her father. It’s not easy becoming an orphan at any age and she must come to terms with the loss and the fact that no one will ever call her “daughter” again. Welty writes: “But the guilt of outliving those you love is justly to be borne, she thought. Outliving is something we do to them. The fantasies of dying could be no stranger than the fantasies of living. Surviving is perhaps the strangest fantasy of them all.”

But if that wasn’t hard enough, Laurel now has to hang out with Fay and return to the family home in Mississippi to bury the Judge. Just how awful is Fay? I’ll give you an example. When the Judge is diagnosed with his retina problem, she declares, “I don’t see why this had to happen to me.” She’s awful enough that you want Laurel to channel her inner Stuart Scott and shout: “You ain’t got to go home, but you got to get the heck up outta here.”

This is pretty much the extent of the plot. Nothing much happens beyond this, but through conversation, and Laurel’s silent observations, the book focuses on the two themes of memory and death (which, given our last review, appears to be a theme with these Pulitzer winners). Without giving everything away (which honestly, isn’t a ton), Laurel goes back to her parents’ house and spends three days rummaging nostalgically through her parents’ things. When she discovers that Fay has ruined a breadboard carved by Laurel’s husband as a gift to her mother, Fay and Laurel have a bitter confrontation, until moments away from hurling the breadboard at Fay, Laurel realizes that it’s not about the breadboard. It’s not about a thing at all. Her aha! moment is when she realizes her memories need not be attached to things, but instead with can remain within her always. Laurel puts the breadboard down, and with it, puts down her attachment to the past. Laurel finally realizes that she doesn’t need to hold on to the past to be happy and heads back to Chicago and the rest of her life. She realizes she is free to live.

The Optimist’s Daughter is a well-written book so why does it live at #56 and not higher? Two things mainly. First, Fay. She does not have one redeeming quality, and that, almost by definition, makes her character unbelievable. There isn’t even an attempt to provide some sort of backstory as to why she’s so selfish. She just is. She’s like the wicked stepmother in Cinderella. Which totally works if you’re writing a, say, fairy tale. But we’re talking Pulitzer Prize winning fiction here. So when the Judge dies and the doctor says sadly, “I couldn’t save him,” and Fay’s response is “You picked my birthday to do it on!”, it just loses credibility. And even if you thought this behavior believable, why would the Judge, who by all accounts is a smart and well-respected person, be attracted to her? I get that she’s 30 years younger, but that isn’t enough by itself to sway me (unless she was really really hot and that description wasn’t in the book).

Second, and I alluded to this above, it is not a very exciting story. I like a good moment of introspection as much as the next guy, but I also like something to happen. When the biggest moment in a book is a near fight over the condition of a breadboard, I can only get so excited.

All that said, a book whose fundamental message is to live – regardless of how (un)thrilling the message is delivered – deserves some kudos. And what I can take from it, because really, it’s all about me, is that even though Stuart Scott won’t be there every night to recap sports for me, he is still there. Like the breadboard, gone is not forgotten. I will never forget what Stuart Scott stood for, what he fought for, what he represented, or what he meant. So before you go to sleep tonight, shout out a “Boo-yah!” and flip your pillow over to the cool side. And remember. Remember to live. And fight like hell.

#60 – Lighting the corners of my mind: Mem’ries of Led Zeppelin III and The Tinkers by Paul Harding (2010)

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ 1 Comment

I am certain I have forgotten way more things than I actually remember. I just finished listening to Serial, the NPR podcast phenomenon that asks whether Adnan Syed was wrongly convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend. The main problem with Adnan’s defense is that he can’t remember what he did after school on the Friday afternoon that she was killed. Several hours of his life are missing from his memory. I feel bad for Adnan because I can’t remember a lot of things. Huge chunks of my life, like the winter of 1994 or a single woman I dated before Gigi (go with me on this one), let alone 3:00-5:00 p.m. on a day 15 years ago.

Case in point: Just a few days ago, Gigi was trying to remind me of the place in San Francisco where we used to eat Sunday brunch. Not only did she remember the name, location, décor, and what she ate, but she also remembered what I ate. And whether I liked it. In contrast, not only did I not remember the restaurant (or what I ate) when she was describing it to me, I have now already forgotten what it was that she reminded me of. And I also can’t remember what I had for breakfast today. Honestly, it’s one of the benefits of documenting my life in Facebook and Instagram, and I actually order the Facebook book so that I can remember what I posted on Facebook. None of this existed 15 years ago, when Adnan allegedly killed his girlfriend.

I should probably be concerned, but then I remember that I can recall every lyric of every song on Led Zeppelin III. In order, both sides. I can also recite every defensive player on the Pittsburgh Steelers 1976 Super Bowl Championship team, play The Sting from memory although I learned it when I was eight, and tell you the last 44 Best Picture winners at the Oscars.

Which begs the question: why do we remember what we remember? I have no idea but my guess is that we don’t necessarily remember things we did, instead we remember things that we did, plus something. The “plus something” is the key, but it can be anything. It can be contextual (where I was when I heard about 9/11), personal relevance (where I was when I first kissed Gigi) or simply repetition (Led Zeppelin III). Brunch in San Francisco, while I’m sure fantastic and enjoyable, is not a plus something for me. And so, all memory of it is gone. (As an aside, Gigi jokes that I eat “fud” and not “food” and this may be true. Meals have significance to her but not to me, unless Mohammed Ali or Heidi Klum is eating next to me. And then I’ll only remember what they said to me, and not what I ordered.)

I was in Japan this past October and saw some incredible things. I looked over Tokyo from Roppongi Hills, walked through Happoen Garden, visited a LOT of temples that involved me lighting a lot of incense. I did a lot of bowing. I rode a bullet train past Mount Fuji and saw a Geisha in the Gion Kobu area of Kyoto (on the street, not as a customer). Will I remember them in 20 years? Questionable. It’s already a little hazy. But what I will remember is an intersection.

You see, there is an intersection in the Shibuya area of Tokyo that is considered the busiest in the world. There also happens to be a Starbucks on one corner where you can watch this intersection from the second floor. It is mesmerizing. I must have spent 20 minutes drinking a Venti coffee (yes, still called that in Tokyo) watching the light change and the pedestrians stream across the street only to somehow make it back to the sidewalk by the time the walk sign turned red and the light turned green and the cars came. It was Tokyo in a nutshell.

But why I really remember this intersection while the other memories already begin to fade is that I took a video that I can’t stop watching.

At the 15 second mark of this video, when the walk light turns green, there is a man in a white shirt that darts from the bottom of the screen toward the top on the right hand side of the cross walk. As he gets to about the halfway point, three men – one from the top, left and right of the screen – meet him in the middle of the street and knock him down. There is a flurry of activity, and then they all get up and exit stage left.

What happened? Was it a robbery? Or was I just watching a group of kids playing around? If the latter, what was it they were trying to do? It certainly didn’t look like fun. Especially for the guy who landed on his ass. Whatever the setup, I’m also fascinated that the mass of people around them seem nonplussed by the whole event and don’t take a second look. Was I the only one watching this? I’m obsessed with my video. The event itself is now significant to me because I have watched my video at least 300 times, and this minute will be my Tokyo memory that stays with me most clearly because of the repetition. Did I even eat in Tokyo? No clue.

Which is a fine intro to The Tinkers by Paul Harding, the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner. The Tinkers tells the story of a New England patriarch named George Washing Crosby as he lies dying on a hospital bed in his living room, “right where they put the dining room table, fitted with its two extra leaves for holiday dinners.” The book recounts Crosby’s difficult childhood in Maine where his father was a tinker and travelling salesman who also suffered from epileptic seizures, and (small spoiler alert), the most traumatic event in Crosby’s life centers on his father’s abandonment of the family on learning that his wife was planning to have him institutionalized. But really, the book is less about what happened in his life than what Crosby remembers happening. It’s the story of the journey we will all go through at the end, and Crosby’s life, seen from its final moments, becomes a collection of memories that make sense only to that one person.

It’s a sad story, which isn’t at all surprising because most of the Pulitzer Prize winners are. But this one hit a little closer to home than most as I just went through something similar with my dad. For about six weeks beginning in mid-April of this year, we knew my dad was going to die. As such, I spent a fair of amount of time with him during those weeks, and I often thought that odds are that this is how we will go out. It won’t be an aneurism, a plane crash, or an underwater poisonous snake. Most of us will die slowly. We will die in a bed in a hospital, hospice, or at home.

Death, as they say, is one of life’s certainties (along with taxes and the Giants winning the World Series every other year), but that doesn’t make it any easier. And I wondered what my dad thought of the whole thing. I wondered if he thought about the fact that he wasn’t going to see another birthday, or presidential election or, for that matter, another World Series. He won’t see his grandchildren get married or the end of House of Cards. Everything he did he was doing it for the last time. And this gets only more acute when you think about what the very last days will be like, assuming our pain has been managed, when we are laying on our bed, no longer able to communicate in a meaningful fashion with whoever is sitting – reading or knitting or texting – in the chair beside us. What will we think about then?

That’s the place where The Tinkers lives. In the eight days before his dies, Crosby will think very little of the traditional narrative of life. Crosby’s life is summarized early and quickly: “[He] got a master’s degree in education, counseled guidance in high school, went back north every summer to fly-fish with his poker buddies – doctors, cops, music teachers – bought a broken clock at a tag sale and a reprint of an eighteenth-century manual on how to fix it, retired, went on group tours to Asia, to Europe, to Africa, fixed clocks for thirty years, spoiled his grandkids, got Parkinson’s, got diabetes, got cancer, and was laid out in a hospital bed in the middle of his living room.”

Instead, Crosby fixates almost equally between his father’s epilepsy and the floorboards below the hospital bed that has been set up in his house. He spends far more time thinking about the night long ago when his father bit his hand in the midst of a fit than he will spend thinking about the years that he spent teaching at the local high school. He recalls the passion for antique clocks that marked his retirement and how he would meticulously repair them. He focuses on the moments that made him. He focuses on the “plus somethings.”

So why doesn’t it rate higher on the countdown? First, Harding has some Faulkner-esque moments where sentences either stretch nearly the length of a page or border on self-loving: “Let those grassy crafts be listed alongside the iron hulls that cleave the sea, for they are all improvisations built from the daydreams of men, and all will perish, whether from ocean siege or October breeze.” Ugh. Second, George’s death is too free of pain and terror and doubt. Or maybe just for my taste. But he just seems so calm and normal about the fact that he is dying that it doesn’t seem realistic. But lastly (and most importantly), although the story meant a lot to me personally because of my own dad’s death, I didn’t really care about the story. I wasn’t invested in George or his memories beyond what they told me about myself.

There was an article in the New York Times about six months ago written by a hospice nurse who spoke about the regrets of the dying. They regretted working too much, not being true to themselves, not having the courage to express their feelings, not keeping in touch with friends and not letting themselves be happier. I get that. But we all know what we’re going to regret. I mean, duh. But what will we remember? Regret is what we’ll think about when we can still choose what to think about. When that time is passed and we are at the point where we can no longer control our thoughts, we’ll think about those moments in our lives that are plus something. Those moments that defined us. The good shit. Like every word of every song on Led Zeppelin III.

The Cuteness Factor

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ 6 Comments

2014-09-20 15.05.56-1

So I’m going to cheat a little with this entry of Pulitzer Schmulitzer! and share with you something that I wrote that doesn’t have anything to do with the countdown. It does, however, actually contain the words “Pulitzer Prize” in that order, so I’m going to use that very thin connection to justify its inclusion here. And if that doesn’t sit well with you, I’d like to remind you that the only rule here at Pulitzer Schmulitzer! is that there are no rules at Pulitzer Schmulitzer!

Why would I choose to do this you ask? Well, I might possibly tend to hold grudges. For a long time. And I hold them deep deep down inside. Which, people say, isn’t great. So this is like therapy and you get to come along for the ride. You’re welcome.

You see, about a year and a half ago there was an essay contest associated with a charity event that will henceforth go nameless because I love the charity and the event despite whatever I might say that follows. The topic of the essay contest was “Transitions” and the description said they’d expect to see “stories ranging from starting a family, recoveries, graduations, aging, career changes/promotions, marriage and divorce.” I could totally do this.

I could totally do this because, as you may or may not know, I have a 14 year old named Sam, a 12 year old named Lily, and a 4 year old named Macy. That is a long break between #2 and #3. But as you may or may not also know, we adopted Macy from Korea back in 2011, and I could think of no better transition to write about than that one. It’s a story about jumping back in to the proverbial parental pool after many years with an international travel angle to it. #Winner.

But there was something about the contest – namely the name of the co-sponsor that will also heretofore remain nameless – that made me think that it was aimed primarily at women. So before I spent any time writing, I lobbed in an email and asked if that was the case. Happily, I was told the contest was open to all genders, and I equally happily put pen to paper.

According to the rules, they were going to name 30 semi-finalists and post their essays on Facebook for the public to vote on. Although I had absolutely no idea how many people would enter this contest, I figured I had to be in the top 30 (in addition to holding grudges, I also tend to think highly of myself) and then I figured that I could rally some significant Facebook support to win this thing. I was in the driver seat.

So when the day approached for the announcement of the semi-finalists, I quickly scrolled down the list of names to find mine. Instead, this is what I found (last names excluded): Christhal, Judy, Vanessa, Rose, Kat, Generation X Girl, Tonja, Kim, Vicki, Dolores, Tanya, Kelley, Mihee, Heather, Ashley, Stephanie, Abigail, Terry, Kim, Shannon, Marsha, Christie, Leslie, Nancy, Lisen, Laurel, Kerri and Sierra.

Huh. I don’t want to make too many assumptions, but that sounds like a lot of women. Admittedly, there is a Kim (Coates) on one of my favorite TV shows Sons of Anarchy who is a man, and a Terry (Bradshaw) who is one of my favorite quarterbacks of all time and also a man. And I guess Generation X Girl could be a man as well and just trying to throw the judges. But let’s be honest, that is a list of women.

So, bottom line, my essay, The Cuteness Factor, never got its fair shake on Facebook so I’m going to rectify that right now. Even though there are no prizes, it will just be one less thing to hold a grudge about. We’re all winners. And that, people say, is a good thing.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: REMEMBER, THIS WAS WRITTEN 1 ½ YEARS AGO WHEN MACY WASN’T YET THREE AND SAM AND LILY WERE EQUALLY YOUNGER. AS WAS I.]

The Cuteness Factor

I have a Korean toddler living in my house. I am not Korean. She calls me daddy.

Three years ago, our family was firing on all cylinders. My wife and I had two fantastic kids who were in the sweet spot of ages. My son was 9. My daughter was 7. They weren’t old, but they were old enough. Old enough to put on their own socks. Old enough to walk themselves to school. Old enough to enjoy movies that were not only non-animated, but also questionably inappropriate for their ages. Old enough to travel overseas and let me watch wholly inappropriate movies. Old enough to wipe their own butts. Life was great. Finally.

It’s not that life wasn’t great when they were younger. It’s just that parenting little kids blows. If you have parented little kids, you know it’s true. And if you haven’t yet parented little kids, don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Yes, it has its moments. And yes, it is rewarding. But on the whole, it blows. Diapers blow (no pun intended). Bubbles blow (pun intended). Bath time blows. Reading Hop on Pop blows. Spending your days at the playground or the zoo or play dates with other little kids? All blow.

Moreover, little kids aren’t “old enough” and therefore can’t do anything they NEED to do by themselves like eat or pee or use the remote control. But at the same time, they ARE perfectly capable of jabbing themselves with scissors, drowning in a pool, climbing up and falling off objects of all sizes, and eating Legos. Until kids turn four, it’s exhausting. And boring. And there’s the added stress of knowing it is your job to keep these children alive and apparently their job to try to kill themselves.

So in my mind, we were done. So done. Not only was I physically done (a pregnancy scare three months after baby #2 will send any sane man to the urologist), but I was mentally done as well. I often calculated how old I would be when my youngest went to college. Fifty-two. That was still young, right? At fifty-two, I could still snowboard and drink Redbull & vodka. Maybe even at the same time. I could summit the world’s seven highest mountains and learn to spear fish. I could join the Peace Corps.

And then, my younger one turned four and it started to be fun. My wife and I remembered who we were and started listening to music that wasn’t sung by grown men in colorful shirts, reading books with words that didn’t rhyme, and traveling to places that didn’t have princesses. And we were sharing all of it with our quickly growing kids. As they inched toward tween-dom, we began to enjoy our lives again, having made it through the not old enough years and not missing it one bit. Or so I thought.

Apparently, the joy of raising older kids is accompanied by a proportionately inverse emotion experienced only by women: loss of babyhood syndrome (LOBS). In those very same years that my joy was compounding, my wife’s LOBS also compounded. Then a friend of ours got pregnant in her 40s, and I casually commented that if that happened to us (mind you, a physical impossibility), we would have another baby. My wife heard only one thing: we should have another baby.

But life is busy and it wasn’t until shortly after my 43rd birthday that my wife’s LOBS hit capacity, and she made a call to an adoption agency. It turns out, Korea thinks old people make crappy parents, and won’t let you adopt if either adoptive parent is 45 years old at the time of the adoption. That gave us two years, and the predicted wait time to adopt from Korea was running approximately 24 months. So I did what any other supportive husband would do: I agreed to submit the application figuring that by the time it happened, I’d either be too old or they would find a cure for LOBS.

My wife and I were each given our own application consisting of at least ten pages of essay questions covering our finances, education, ethnic background, religious beliefs, and parenting theories. I knocked mine out in seventeen minutes before work one day. Unfortunately, it turns out that they actually read them.

So when the social worker came to our house to review our application, my wife got a gold star for her Pulitzer Prize-worthy answers. I (deservedly) did not. For the question that asked how we were going to pay for the child, a question intended to elicit information about our financial situation, I answered: “Money.” Another question, designed to determine if your Korean baby-to-be is going to feel out of place, asked “if you have children, describe their physical characteristics and if they have any special needs.” In response, I wrote: “My kids look like normal kids. No special needs.” It went on. No one was amused.

Moreover, the older kids were unsure of what another kid in the family would mean. My son already had a little sister. He wasn’t all that interested in another one, and wasn’t all that afraid to tell that to anyone who would listen.

But despite my worst efforts, we were approved, which meant I now had 24 months to make this go away. Except I didn’t. They lied. Three months later, that’s right, THREE months later, my wife received a call: “We have a baby for you.” She actually said: “I think you called the wrong family.”

Upon hearing the news, I was in total disbelief that they could overestimate the time it would take by 800%. How is that possible? It was against the rules. The rule was 24 months. My wife explained that they “matched” us with a baby. What? This wasn’t eHarmony. How exactly did they match me to a six-month old Korean baby? We both like Japanese whiskey and Ozzy-era Black Sabbath?

A few months later we were all on a plane to Seoul to meet the newest member of our clan. And that newest member, a little girl we named Macy, is amazing. Yes, I have to deal with diapers, playgrounds, zoos, and swallowed Legos. And yes, they all still blow. But Macy will be three in a few months and could not be cuter, nicer, funnier or smarter and I’m reminded that they have to be not old enough to get to the coveted old enough age.

The other kids are smitten. In fact, our son, now 12, routinely gets Macy out of bed in the morning, gets her some milk, plops her on the couch next to him, and turns on the TV (she is the third kid, after all). He gets upset if he misses her bed time group hug. One recent evening, I was driving him home and he asked if Macy was still up. I couldn’t help but tease him a little about his love for his sister given his initial reluctance. He turned to me, and with all sincerity, said, “I didn’t take into account the cuteness factor.” Neither did I.

#61 – Let’s Give Credit Where Credit Is Due: How Parenting Taught Me Not to Totally Hate Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (1997)

~ Pulitzer Guy ~ 1 Comment

Somewhere between generations, parenting became a verb. My dad was my parent. I parent. I do it because I have to, and that’s what “we” do now, but it is not entirely self-fulfilling. I often think I should get some sort of credit for my efforts. Recognition of some sort. You know those people who make self-deprecating comments about how they should get an award for being “parent of the year”? I kind of want one.

Case in point: one night a few weeks ago I came home late to find my wife Gigi, a huge (some might say giant) Giants fan, watching her team clinch the NLDS over the Washington Nationals. It was late and I didn’t need any more to drink, but hey, I like a significant sports win as much as the next guy, so I poured a (completely unnecessary) drink and watched post-game highlights with her and we reveled in the win for far too long.

As the clock approached midnight, we agreed that we needed to go to sleep because it was a school night, and Gigi says: “Hey, can you set your alarm for 4 a.m. and wake up Sam?” I stare at her blankly. “He wants to see the blood moon. It’s happening at 4 a.m. and he’s worried he won’t hear his alarm.” I continue to stare. If I were a computer, a window would’ve popped up that said File not found.

Undeterred, she continues. “Actually, why don’t you get up at 3:55. That way you can check to see if it’s cloudy outside and if you can’t see the moon you can turn off his alarm.” That was the last straw. “That sounds horrible. I don’t want to do that.” I reply. “Sam doesn’t want you to do it either. But it’s not about you. You should help him,” she says. Oh great. He doesn’t even WANT me to wake him up. But good parenting dictates that’s what I’m supposed to do.

Don Draper would have poured another scotch and given her that “get out of town” look and refused. Me? I set my alarm for 3:55 a.m.

“Get out of town. And make me a chicken pot pie.”

Secretly I hoped that I would be the one who didn’t hear the alarm. Unfortunately, my alarm is in fine working condition, which meant that at 3:55 a.m., I awoke to the sounds of waves crashing and sea gulls making their sea gull noise. Yes, that is actually the sound of my alarm. I think it’s supposed to wake me gently, but in reality, it evokes a terror something only Hitchcock could understand.

Once convinced I was on land and not being attacked by birds, I dragged myself out of bed and dutifully made my way outside to look for cloud cover. Unfortunately for me, the closest view of the outside was from the balcony of my 12-year-old-daughter Lily’s bedroom. Lily values her sleep, so I made my way through her room as stealth as Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. This was no easy task, given the landscape of her room, which included old issues of People magazines in various states of disassembly, scissors (for aforementioned magazine disassembly), a rainbow assortment of nail polish bottles, grapes, empty bags of goldfish and Tostitos, several fallen soldiers of soda consumption, laundry, an old lunch box, and at least one soccer ball. I was like Private Ryan navigating the land mines of Normandy, and quietly made my way outside. There, I saw it: the blood moon. And, admittedly, it was kind of cool.

I paused for a few moments to look at the moon before realizing I was FREEZING because it was four in the morning and I tiptoed my way back through Lily’s room quiet as a mouse to wake up Sam. Because, remember, it wasn’t about me.

Me: (shaking Sam) Hey. Wake up.

Sam: (snoring)

Me: (still shaking) Seriously dude, wake up.

Sam: (eyes opening). Huh?

Me: Mom told me to wake you up so you could see the moon.

Sam: OK

Me: You good? It’s kinda cool.

Sam: Yeah.

Me: It’s kinda cool.

Sam: What?

Me: The moon. I’m going back to bed.

So I went back to bed and tried to achieve instant narcolepsy, but as we all know, sleeping is not my strong suit. I remember looking at my clock at 4:30 and then drifting off to peaceful slumber …only to be woken up at 5 a.m. by the screams of Macy, my 4 year old. As is my standard practice when any of my children wake up in the middle of the night – I immediately turned to Gigi. She’s the mother. She instinctively hears every noise our children make. Or so I thought. Apparently that skill only lasts through two children. By the third kid, she can sleep through it all. And she was happily doing just that. Macy was screaming and my wife was completely unaware. So, it was up to me. The parent who heard her, ready to comfort her. I dutifully got up and made my way into her room where Macy was lying on her bed…

Our conversation went something like this:

Me: (whispering) What’s wrong?

Macy: I HURT MYSELF!!!!!

Me: Ok. How?

Macy: I FELL OFF THE BED!!!!

Me: Ok. Lets take it down a notch. Are you ok?

Macy: I HURT MYSELF!!!

Me: Yeah, I got that. We need to stop yelling. (rubbing her back) Shhhh.

Macy: (eyes closing) I fell off the bed…

Me: I know. That sucks. Go to sleep.

And because she isn’t old like me, in about 30 seconds, Macy was sound asleep again. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing. If I’m up at 5 a.m. and have an actual conversation and interpersonal exchange, there is no way I’m falling back asleep. So I tossed and turned until it was time to get up. I was tired, but at least I could take solace in the fact that my family knew I was there for them. I was like the father of the year! Or so I thought.

I ran in to Sam in the kitchen eating breakfast.

Me: How was the Blood Moon?

Sam: I missed it.

Me: What?

Sam: I woke up at 4:30 and it was already over.

Me: But I woke you up at 4.

Sam: You did?

Me: Yes.

Sam: Why?

Me: Because Mom told me to.

Sam: (super annoyed) I told her not to do that! (leaving room in a huff)

Huh. Not exactly the heartfelt outpouring of gratitude I had anticipated. Luckily, the little one was now up and came downstairs rubbing her eyes.

Me: Hey Macy. How are you feeling?

Macy: (Says nothing. Not good in the morning.)

Me: You know. You fell off the bed last night.

Macy: (Staring blankly as if I’m insane person.)

Me: Remember I got you back in bed and rubbed your back until you fell asleep again?

Macy: (Still staring) Where’s momma?

If there can be less gratitude than none, I had now achieved it. By now, not only am I not getting the love I so rightly deserve, but I’m also beginning to think that I imagined the whole experience. That is, until Lily arrived.

Me: Hey Lil. Hope I didn’t wake you up last night.

Lily: You totally woke me up. What were you doing in my room in the middle of the night? You were stomping around. Stomp stomp stomp.

Me: I had to wake up Sam. Did you fall back asleep?

Lily: No. (With some sort of annoying face expression that probably involved an eye roll.)

So there you go. Not only did I not get credit for my outstanding acts of parenting, I actually achieved a trifecta of disappointment in my kids.

So I decided then and there that it is important to give credit where credit is due and I’m not sure if Pultizer Schmulitzer! has lived up to that. Until now. Part of the problem is the format I have chosen. Because I’ve set this up as a worst-to-best list, by definition, I’m going to spend a chunk of time talking about books that I didn’t like or at least like less than the others.

But it is also important to note that all of these books are legitimate works of literature. It’s like ranking your favorite Martin Scorsese movies. Eyeballing the list goes something like this:

  • The “Are You Looking at Me” Division (Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, Raging Bull, Mean Streets, Goodfellas): 30% of the Pulitzer winners are undisputed classics that we all love. Enough said.
  • The “Bob the Butcher” Division (Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed, Gangs of New York, Aviator): The next rung down is still pretty awesome. There are no slouches here …but, and this is a big but, you can also see the flaws. Roughly 20% of our books can be found here.
  • The “So in Other Words – I’m F**ked” Division (The Last Temptation of Christ, Cape Fear, Age of Innocence, Casino): This category houses the 40% of the books from the list that range from somewhat boring to slightly painful but on the whole I still consider reading them a worthwhile endeavor or at least a net positive.
  • The “Tom Cruise” Division (The Color of Money, Boxcar Bertha, Shine A Light): The last 10% of books I don’t like. At all, really. My time would have been better spent re-watching the Joe Peshi “you think I’m funny” scene 87 consecutive times.

But just as the Martin Scorsese movies that I didn’t like are better than vast majority of the movies out there, even the worst Pulitzer winners deserve a little respect. So from here on out, Pulitzer Schmulitzer! will attempt to do a better job accentuating the positive and toning down the snarkiness. Lets give it a go.

And so we (finally) get to Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Milhauser (1997), a cautionary tale for ambitious people. It’s kind of like Atlas Shrugged, but the complete opposite. And it’s short. Which is for sure opposite. So if you hated Atlas Shrugged, you might like this one. Positivity? Check.

So what’s it about? Work. And not even glamorous work. Our hero Martin Dressler begins the book as a clerk in a cigar store in New York at the dawn of the 20th century. He’s got intelligence and ambition and a little luck and as he watches the city spring up around him, he’s filled with his own entrepreneurial ideas. He starts with a restaurant, which becomes a chain, then moves to hotels. He builds a hotel called the Dressler, follows it with the New Dressler and, lastly, the Grand Cosmo. Each version becomes more and more absurd in its design and extravagances. The Grand Cosmo, for example, has thirteen underground levels full of parks, a theatre district, replicas of famous people, mechanical birds, fake caves, and real streams brought over from other lands. As with many dreamers whose dreams get to big, it ends badly.

So what landed Martin Dressler so low on our list? Boredom. I was so bored with this book. I was so bored that I didn’t even want to go back to it to see why it was so boring for this review. But I’ve got a job to do so here goes. First, there is a lot of talking about the mundane in a mundane way. I’m not kidding. The author included pages of lists in this book. Like to-do lists. They are boring.

Moreover, in the midst of all of this, there is a love story. Of sorts. Martin ends up meeting two sisters. Emmeline is dark, intelligent, plain. Caroline is pale, beautiful, boring, barely says a word. He marries Caroline (of course) and she (of course) ends up being completely uninterested in his dreams. But before then (and after then), I could never figure out why any of the characters were acting the way they were acting. To say they were one-dimensional is insulting to dimensions. And the constant description of Emmeline’s hair pulled back tight against her head was beyond annoying.

Bottom line, the story, despite being boring, was at least constantly moving along, toward (I assumed) something, but nothing ever happened. Kind of disappointing. But let’s remember our new found perspective and keep in mind that disappointing is not worthless. Or devoid of any redeeming features. It’s just disappointing. Maybe a little more disappointing that most of the novels on our countdown. But it still deserves credit. I may not have gotten mine, but I still saw a blood moon. Maybe it really is about me.