POETRY: Stephen Cushman

After the Bombings

After the bombings it’s hard to hear
any seduction in the sound of sirens
harrowing streets sapped of traffic,

as though this weekday, fed up with its workload,
had suddenly quit to become a sabbath.

Even an upstart day of rest
must have its share of usual stabbings,
smaller states of private emergency,
the overdose here, attempted rape there,
which some of the sirens must be announcing,

or is the worst not nearly over
and this the music of final uncovering
when cruciform you, church, tree, or friend,
will fold me in your transept arms?


Stephen Cushman is a professor of English at the University of Virginia.

STAGE: The Peanuts Gang, Dazed and Confused

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
By Bert V. Royal
Directed by Keith Alan Baker
Studio Theatre's 2nd Stage
Through Aug. 6, 2006

James Manno as CB

By Alexander C. Kafka

Hard times have fallen on Charlie Brown's old gang. His pen pal hasn't written back in years. Sally's gone goth—Wiccan, to be more precise. Linus, traumatized when CB and Lucy burned his blanket, has turned into a stoner. Pigpen's cleaned up his act, but at the expense of becoming an obsessive-compulsive, glue-sniffing, homophobic jock. Schroeder's a terrified, bullied recluse who, it seems, was abused by his now-jailed dad. Lucy is in the loony bin because of an unfortunate incident involving fire and the Little Redheaded Girl. Peppermint Patty and Marcie spike their lunch milk cartons with booze, and there are bitchy insinuations that Frieda is a bulimic Jesus freak.

Good grief, Charlie Brown! We’re in high school.

That’s the hideous and hilarious premise of Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God. But, alas, despite an appealing cast, it works better as a campy thought experiment than it does as theater.

The obscure title refers to a line from Schroeder, who like all the characters, has had his name tweaked (in his case, to Beethoven), no doubt for legal reasons. “They say a dog sees God in his master,” Schroeder tells CB while attempting to console him about the recent death of his beloved beagle. Yes, that’s right. Snoopy’s been put to sleep after contracting rabies and eating Woodstock. And CB, understandably, is in a pretty morbid state of mind.

Linus (or Van, in this show), tries to console CB with his rambling Buddhist-inspired explanation of why nothingness is preferable to reincarnation. That might explain, too, why he recently smoked his burnt blanket. “We all handle grief in different ways,” he muses.

Pigpen, now called Matt, sees the expression of grief primarily as a way to trick girls into having sex with him.

Sally (CB’s Sister) thinks CB’s embarrassing—the way he invited all their friends to Snoopy’s burial. (None of them came, needless to say.) She might miss the pooch, but she’s got other things on her mind, like her one-woman performance-art show (which she’s worked up in her one-woman drama club). It’s called Cocooning Into Platypus.

Fruitlessly taking his friends’ readings on the meaning of death, and in passing recalling the simpler, if not easier, days of their youth, CB makes other key adolescent discoveries too. At some point around the hot-tubbing during an ecstasy party at Marcie’s house, that shakes the whole gang’s world.

James Manno is a sympathetic CB. He looks constantly a little bewildered and terrified—as if A.J. Soprano wandered into A Charlie Brown Christmas. James Gardiner, as Schroeder a.k.a. Beethoven, is wonderful in his sinewy, palpable fright and suppressed eagerness to connect. You suspect he’ll either go on a headline-making rampage or become David Byrne. Lauren Williams stands out as the Sally figure, her cocooning both in and out of drama club palpable in her every hormone-pumped, excitable, neck-craning syllable. Evan Casey makes Linus—er, Van—a sort of philosopher in early-90s Matthew McConaughey mode. (His buzzed rant on the illogic of cafeterias’ Mexican pizza is a hoot.) And Regina Aquino is memorable in her brief appearance as Lucy all grown—and grown psycho—still playing major head games with her pal CB when he goes to visit her in the institution.

But the drama’s pacing is scraggly, and its multi-rectangled Stage 4 set, while geometrically apt for a neo-comic book tale, is too sprawling to give us a sense of intimacy with these troubled folk.
The real problem, though, is a mediocre script that doesn’t live up to its clever initial concept. It takes some gawky, polemical turns. But worse, it doesn’t persuasively connect these characters with the Peanuts gang they were, nor does it flesh them out enough to be interesting personalities in themselves. Adolescence may be a kind of limbo—but not that kind.

Nonetheless, there’s a real emotional spark now and then, particularly toward the end. “I never wanted to feel this much,” CB and his sis intone in unison. But then Charlie Brown always was the sensitive type.

Maybe he thought if he could just be normal enough, he’d outgrow that sensitivity. For all its faults, Dog Sees God makes you glad he hasn’t, and gives the rest of us hope that we too might buck against our story frames and someday reach each other with our sad, lonely little speech bubbles.

Photo by Scott Suchman, courtesy of Studio Theatre

STAGE: 'Divas' Delight

3 Mo' Divas: A Musical Celebration of Class, Sass and Style
Created by Marion J. Caffey
Musical supervision, orchestrations, and arrangements by Joseph Joubert
Musical Direction by e'Marcus Harper
Arena Stage
Through Aug. 13, 2006

Jamet Pittman, N'Kenge, and Gretha Boston

By Alexander C. Kafka

On the heels of its Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, the one-woman show about Billie Holiday, 3 Mo' Divas sustains Arena's savvy summertime transformation into a turbocharged nightclub. While Lady Day was lushly melancholy, Divas is hard-driving and, for the most part, upbeat with a vengeance. While the former treated the source music with a careful, if not curatorial, care, this show treats its musical source material confidently but sometimes roughly in its variegated bright packaging. Fortunately, its stars and dashing production values play up its best qualities, making the revue a rousing summer treat.

The gimmick, echoing that of creator Marion J. Caffey's 2000 production, Three Mo' Tenors, is that the divas perform works from the last several centuries. But gimmick is really what that amounts to, given that the first of those centuries is handily disposed of almost by the time you're fully settled in your seat.

The demanding show is double-cast. To musical supervisor Joseph Joubert's piano accompaniment, Sunday's divas--Gretha Boston, Jamet Pittman, and N'Kenge--established their operatic credentials elegantly in such standards as "Quando M'En Vo" from Puccini’s La Boheme and "L'Amour est un oiseau rebelle" from Bizet's Carmen. And, in the Puccini, the stereotypical divas’ penchant for upstaging one another is nicely sent up.

Still, as if to confirm that this classical opening was the tasteful but dutiful braised asparagus to the satisfying tenderloin to come, lighting designer Richard Winkler’s cool blues warm to reds as Dale F. Jordan’s splendid deco-arch-framed set reveals, in scrimmed silhouette, a half-dozen band members. And only now, as the divas move from La Scala to Broadway, does the show fully shift into drive.

This is also when the women’s stage personalities blossom. For this show’s purposes—though we can be sure their ranges are miles broader—N’Kenge is the bright, brassy, cute and sexed-up soprano. Pittman is the earnest, lyrical, doe-eyed, emotive mezzo. And Boston—the evening’s musical and dramatic center point—is the supremely controlled low alto with a voice so casually and artfully powerful that, when she wants it to, it will toast your day’s distractions, then melt your heart and spread it over them. Often her opening gambit—and that of some of her best numbers here—is the simple declarative, so instantly persuasive that it’s sad and funny at the same time, like “You’re mean to me” from Ain’t Misbehavin’. Her “Downhearted Blues” was another Boston solo highlight, as was “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” during the divas’ rousing gospel sendoff.

Pittman shone most brightly in “Your Daddy’s Son” from Ragtime and “Solitude.” Though her self-accompanied rendition of the Oleta Adams hit “Everything Must Change” was not Pittman’s musical peak of the night, she so obviously enjoys the tune, is so clearly connected and comfortable with it, that Sunday’s audience lapped it up.

N’Kenge, blaringly versatile even in the context of this versatile trio, draws dashingly from Rent’s “Seasons of Love,” The Wiz’s “Home,” and even—so sportingly—from Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher.” She’s also a splendid model for costumer Toni-Leslie James’ superb lace-over-silver dress in the opening and a neo-Calloway zoot suit, among other items.

The trio’s harmonies were exceptionally sharp and vibrant throughout, particularly striking in “Harlem Nocturne” and “Moody’s Mood for Love.”

Joubert’s ensemble was tight in the good sense, and invariably sensitive to the divas’ pacing and intensity. But the instrumentalists were also sometimes tight in the not-so-good sense, hanging back, for whatever reason, when a blues or R&B number practically begged for, say, a collar-loosened sax or guitar solo. The synth strings would have blended better if they were a little quieter, and the synth horns were grating against the group’s overall quality. Where's a real trumpet player when you need one?

Some arrangements and song selections were also unfortunate. Maybe it’s because the more powerfully stark version of “Strange Fruit” from Lady Day still resonated in my mind, but despite Boston’s and Pittman’s faultless rendering, the pseudo-operatic version here sounded, well, a little pretentious. And I’m sorry, but giving a powerhouse like Boston “Memories (The Way We Were),” is like asking Mahalia Jackson to sing “Raindrops Are Falling On My Head” or a timpanist to do “Flight of the Bumblebee.” It can be done, yes—but for heaven’s sake why?

Unsurprisingly, the production pleases least when trying hardest. Medlies, which should perhaps be classified as a felony in any circumstance, serve these superb performers particularly poorly. A trace of “Seasons of Love,” for example, in the Broadway/Movies Medley doesn’t leave us wanting more in the classic showbiz sense—it just feels unfinished.

And the Divas Soul Medley, if it weren’t for these amazing voices, would feel at home at a theme-park musicale. It’s simply unworthy of these women. The show’s self-promotional subbed lyrics in “Let the Good Times Roll” are forced and unnecessary, too.

If the show is tweaked, or followed with a Mo’ Tenors/Mo’ Divas combo production (whimsically but logically suggested by Paul Harris in a Variety news feature), let’s hope that Caffey and Company ease up on the high-concept throttle a bit and let their wonderfully cast stars shine in the way they shine best—by singing. They’re real divas, after all, so give ’em some space.

Photos by Scott Suchman, courtesy of Arena Stage

POETRY: Lisa Russ Spaar, Ken Pobo, and J. Fisher

Five Fetish Poems by Lisa Russ Spaar

Swallow Fetish

I want to join their
sagittal muster
sculling summer’s muslin sky,

capsized now from air to sea
& back again by motions
broadcast, cant, & infidel –

my earthbound body,
sleave of shadow,
nothing but a scree of cloud

& all distance between us
turned into this plural force,
seminal & fleet,

a sum of thirsty sound
held, mouthed,
& sewn by wings.




Cicada Fetish

If bliss be fleet, how then
this weird undressed exhilaration

in tree arcade above, this fermata
isiration, this stretto, this aria?

How such trussing, nacreous,
now so strenuous in jet-trailed striae

of scroop, of tesselated sustain?
How this high torching duration

of filament, of summer metabolizing
in incessant minus, in valance of vanishing?




Rose of Sharon Fetish

In trance, lovesick,
I travel the bosk suburban vale

of hedge, curb, cul-de-sac
for glimpse, beyond fence

or carport, of your chaliced,
scar-leafed wicker

flocked with crimpled
chaste pleatings & claret-lipped

bells, each corolla throat igniting
the edges of my love’s absence

& offering one wet pistil
to this historic, toxic heat.




Russian Olive Fetish

Tree caparisoned with lush,
verdigris flosses,
orioles, titmice, bladed stems
beaded with black, crimped fruits

until the hush
of pre-storm fervor
stammers your plural mantles,
weird embroideries

silvering with torque,
wind divorcing leaf from under-
leaf – dressed,
then undressed –

smote tongues imbrued
with nacreous, tidal foam,
devouring our history,
our lost home –




Sumac Fetish

Fields folding into winter’s sallow diptych,
pallid shuck scut under a scleral sky,

then, in rutting ambush, anarchic as let blood,
this crimson pinnated & purple-druped drag saint

of the ditches – tatter-sleeved mendicant
bearing scarred antler crown, an empty cup

on fire, a retinal burn against which, now,
a barbed starling flock lifts its roweled shroud.

Copyright 2006 Lisa Russ Spaar

Lisa Russ Spaar is the author of Blue Venus: Poems (Persea Books, 2004) and Glass Town: Poems (Red Hen Press, 1999), for which she received a Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Women Writers in 2000. Twelve of her new poems appear in Exquisite History: The Land of Wandering: Poems & Prints (The Printmakers Left, University of Virginia Press, 2005). She is also the author of two chapbooks of poems, Blind Boy on Skates (Trilobite/University of North Texas Press, 1988) and Cellar (Alderman Press/University of Virginia, 1983), and is the editor of Acquainted With the Night: Insomnia Poems (Columbia UP, 1999). She is editing an anthology of London poems, forthcoming from the University of Virginia Press in 2007. Her work has appeared in many literary quarterlies and journals, including Poetry, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Denver Quarterly, Image, Shenandoah, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. The recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Spaar is the director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia, where she is an associate professor of English.

***

Three Poems by Ken Pobo

Soften

In the Iraq War,
women, kids,
killed,
whole faces
scraped off—

in living rooms
across “the greatest country
in the world,”
TV beams
gadgets, creams,
ways to soften
wrinkles.

Let Me Get This Straight

Friends ask me to write
and read a poem. Their wedding.
How to write encouraging words
from behind wire—
wish them well as they do

what we can’t. You’ll be sitting
in a pew, alone, while I’m up
at a stand, the bride and groom

hand in hand. My poem
for friends who marry
while we risk our lives
on most streets, or worse,
in a church like this.

Blue State Blues

Pennsylvania is a drag—
a red state
in blue clothes.

One Senator stabs gays.
The other shrugs,
money-eyed, blank. Fire ant

churches poison. Family values
carry concealed weapons
in a Reading mall. I’m blue--

blood seeps past my ankles,
reddens my knees. Soon
I won’t be able to breathe.

Kenneth Pobo teaches Creative Writing and English at Widener University in Pennsylvania. His book Introductions came out from Pearl's Book'Em Press in Atlanta in 2003. He enjoys gardening and collecting obscure 1960s music. Starting in September, his "Obscure Oldies" radio program can be heard online at WDNR.com each Saturday from 6-8pm EDT.

***

Two Poems by J. Fisher


under seige in the Garden City

she asks
“why do you always drink so much?”
as she crosses those
$70.00 legs like
closing the gate
on a local hot-spot
where i’m no longer welcome.
the spit bubbles plunge southward in my pint
as i struggle against lust
and the light pollution
of an afternoon drunk
to form a hot answer
this hustler will believe
to keep her buying.
‘ ... well, it’s simple really
the local dealers don’t carry any Algren
or Nowlan
you’ll never find ’em used
so, i’m off to suffer
the indignation of retail
and everytime i ask
someone who should know
they send me
somewhere else
where another book geek
regrets to tell me
they don’t keep stock
’cause the copies don’t sell
and then i freak out, i mean
what the fuck is going on
in these oversized book warehouses
when there’s not a thing
worth reading?
and it gets me down, so
i make my way back home
and there’s always
a pub, always
a cold beer store
on one corner
or the other ... ’

it’s no good.
her eyes glaze
and she crosses those
heavy paying legs
even higher.
the bolt is thrown.
the waitress comes by
says "...well Eden, you wanna notha round, Hon?”
Eden points at me and says
“na, i’m fine
but bring this bum another
he’s no good for much else
can’t even tell tales like he used to.”
i grin down at my glass
and rate the battle
that just cost me
the war.


skyrocket pocket blues

ass rashes mix
with mysterious blisters
lesions on the skin-contact dermititis
egged-on from the heat
like making out
in the back of a blue van
spewing licks of flame.
it makes no sense
to open the mail
so i kick out the glass
and fall forward
down the concrete reminder
to the liquor store coolers
struggle thru the plastic
people and aluminum vessels
to extract the pretty yellow liquid.
sweat-soaked and moaning
ringed around the pits, making
bouillabaisse in the loins i
command no respect
like a modern Boris
or Ivich with
none of the incestous overtones, parting
the shit broth crowd
stumbling back
towards the heartless apartment
i fake a smile
and a swollen skyrocket
to keep the Angel from guessing
the full extent
of our impending
depression.

J. Fisher's first collection, Death Day Erection, was published by Frontenac House in 2004. He lives in downtown Victoria, Canada.

WEAR WOLF: Suits Ya

"The gent who's evolved from South Padre to Club Med, from styrofoam Bud-can insulator to gin fizz at sunset, might also consider swimming against the tide, as it were, taking body and look as seriously in paradise as he does at Equinox, and braving the brief."

When it comes to swimsuits, too often “sensible” is synonymous with “dowdy.” Doesn’t have to be so. Modesty really is becoming in this Victoria’s Secret one piece from DKNY--and surprisingly sophisticated, too, say these superb offerings from the Australian company, Jets.

The tasteful ring on that Jets halter, from the line's White Label--not too ludicrously big and '70s--is echoed all over this year, as in Lisa Curran's Shimmer Gold Ring One Piece.

The ring's keyhole cousin is popping up in unusual contexts, too, like Brette Sandler's sleek string bikini. And in general, accents like tassels, beads, and other ornaments are making cameos on otherwise classical string designs, like this pink Mara Hoffman.

If you're looking for maternity swimwear, a great beginning might be this Great Beginnings, with built-in shelf bra.

WW's not a big fan of print jams but likes these bold Ralph Lauren board shorts.

The gent who's evolved from South Padre to Club Med, from styrofoam Bud-can insulator to gin fizz at sunset, might also consider swimming against the tide, as it were, taking body and look as seriously in paradise as he does at Equinox, and braving the brief. There's always the classic Speedo black racer. But the man with the right body, poise, and waxing appointment might venture further, to Undergear's Greek or even Italian cutaway.

Hmm. Looks like that might require foregoing that second slice and second pint for a few weeks, or months, or years. Hey, beauty requires sacrifice--just ask your s.o., who's been slaving away every spring on the elliptical while you yanked on those same quick-dry Nike shorts without a second thought figuring, jeez, that's what drawstrings are for.

Whatever you go with, remember, more exposure requires more sun protection. One vastly undervalued form is the indoor pool. Short of that, WW seeks shade umbrellas as large as--no, make that larger than--our erstwhile Upper West Side studio. But if you insist on worshipping the sun, at least do it with the appropriate pagan fear and awe. We've had success with Blue Lizard Sunscreen, carefully reapplied every hour to hour and a half. For more casual protection, Neutrogena's Sensitive Skin Sunblock Lotion SPF 30's done nicely, though despite its non-comedogenic boasts, it left us feeling a tad shellacked and had a slightly odd citrusy sent. Olay Complete SPF 15 or 30 absorbs better and smells just mildly floral.

-Sasha Triella

Fashion images are from the designers, shopbop.com, and amazon.com. Top image is by Hansjoerg Morandell via stock.xchng.

CAREER: Managerial Focus

"Avoid being among those who mistake activity for forward motion."

By Jim Stroup

The two great elements of competitive advantage, so clearly obvious yet so elusive, are mission and execution. Simply put, know what it is you do, then do it. Very few organizations are able to develop even an adequate focus on these elements. Those that do possess an inherent competitive advantage of inestimable value. It is a tool that offers an intellectual framework and an organizational sense of balance, increasing both momentum and agility.

KISS

Albert Einstein purportedly said, “Physics should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Not just physics, but everything should be no simpler than possible--and no more complicated than necessary. Unfortunately, it is exceedingly difficult to find, and to consistently navigate, the safe zone between. Managers are often seduced by oversimplified formulas touted as solutions, but which inevitably prove to be shallow and inflexible. On the other hand, there are temptations in every quarter driving us to overcomplicate. While we often reel with disappointment from one simplistic promise to another, it is the insidious tendency to overcomplicate that proves the more enduring and damaging.

There is great satisfaction in creating complex procedures and Byzantine organizations. It helps convince managers that they are intelligent and accomplished. It also constitutes a sort of flak which they can throw up to confuse those, whether analysts or shareholders, who keep pressing them for results. But the truth is that these ungainly concoctions are not the result of managerial brilliance but the sclerotic accretions of ill-discipline.

Montaigne said, “No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.” Unfortunately, these days, an awful lot of wind is used up in just identifying the port. Forget the poetry and the lofty rhetoric. Leave the consultant-facilitated vision-drafting sessions for senior executives in glamorous off-site locations. Let your misguided competitors indulge in unveiling the marble-engraved products of such nonsense in their corporate headquarters. As for you, keep it simple.

The best way to find out what you do is to ask those most likely to know (and, by the way, senior executives are typically not in this group). Ask your front-line employees. Ask your sales staff. Ask your vendors and your customers. Ask your competitors. You might be surprised--even inspired--to learn what others think it is that you do. Then, ask certain of them, especially your customers, what they want you to do, what they would like to be able to gain from your services. Ask them what problems they identify with your organization.

This is the critical step, so do it right. The greatest--and most common--error made in problem-solving is failing to properly frame, or define, the problem. Take the time to learn what object you should be directing your attention to. Avoid being among those who mistake activity for forward motion.

The lazy and the stupid

Years ago, a German field commander observed that since all military officers are either smart or stupid, and also either energetic or lazy, it is relatively simple, really, to classify them for assignment. The smart and energetic ones, for example, treat every tasking with equal importance, and they work as hard as can be on all of them. As a consequence, they make great staff officers: devoted, tireless, and, best of all, undiscriminating.

The smart and lazy ones, on the other hand, make great commanders. They prioritize with ruthless institutional selfishness, determining which of their taskings are really vital to mission accomplishment, focusing on those, and, with the most blithe disinterest, simply ignoring the rest.

As for the stupid officers, the lazy ones can be tolerated, but the stupid and energetic ones are a grave danger, and need to be discovered and weeded out before they destroy the unit from within.

There certainly is an often-missed organizational lesson in the moral of the stupid and energetic manager, but let's stick here with that of the smart and lazy one. Managers like this are more accurately seen as disciplined and focused. What, exactly, is their secret?

Managerial laziness

They have developed command focus. This is the threefold ability, or discipline, to: 1) keep your eye on the goal, 2) prioritize by working only on those activities that advance you toward your goal, and 3) prioritize by ignoring all the distractions which will run you aground short of your goal.

Remember, this is really only practical when the validity and efficacy of the goal is inherently sensible and widely acknowledged and agreed. If your organization's strategic vision and operational goals are only found hanging, impressively framed, in the lobby, then forget it: You're doomed to drift aimlessly and to wash up on the first reef you strike, confusing it for your destination. If, however, your strategy and goals are sharp and straightforward, then you know how to identify the fair winds from the foul, and how to trim your organizational sails to them.

The flip side of activity

Prioritizing doesn't mean what to do first, or what to do in which order. It means what to do, and what to ignore. The hardest part, and the one that actually requires the greatest and most ruthless discipline, is to be inactive where that is vital to advancing (or, more typically, to removing impediments to the advancement of) your organization toward its goals. These temptations come from both without and within.

Warren Buffet once remarked that CEO’s must know when to be active--and when to resist the temptation to act. When everyone is doing M&A deals, downsizing, globalizing, process re-engineering, aggressively expanding their markets, “visioning,” or the like, maybe you should just take a look at your business model and, if you're on track, stay there. Your obligations are to your shareholders and your business--not to the press or the consultants banging on your door. Your goal is to define what is good for your business and to execute it--not to let others make those determinations for you, and to simply slot in alongside all the other cows in the herd stampeding along, panicked to avoid missing the latest managerial fad.

But avoiding ill-disciplined activity within your organization is just as important. Discipline is defined as doing that which advances you toward accomplishment of your valid goals. Is your method of operating your business doing that? Take a look at your procedures, your reporting requirements, and your intra-organizational communications. Which are really necessary, and which not? Which actually inform and advance organizational productivity, and which simply satisfy an ill-disciplined and ill-defined instinct for accumulation of irrelevant detail and imposition of pointless control?

The competitive organization's managerial culture is one that implicitly subjects every proposed activity to this sort of scrutiny--and not just by managers, but by employees. Everyone should know what the organization's goals are, and how what they are doing contributes to achieving them. If they don't see that connection, they should be encouraged to question the tasking. Doing so will reinforce the goals, and either remove pointless activities or increase organizational energy directed at relevant ones.

The competitive organization has the institutional discipline to be both smart and lazy. Does yours?


Jim Stroup is an organizational leadership and strategy consultant, and the author of Managing Leadership. See http://www.managingleadership.com, or e-mail jhs@managingleadership.com.

Photo by Michal Koralewski via stock.xchng

PHOTOGRAPHS OF INDIA: Frances Borchardt

Frances Borchardt lives in Churchton, Maryland. She can be contacted at francesborchardt@comcast.net.

CARTOON

Distributed by MinutemanMedia.org

SPORTS FREAK: Some Modest Proposals

"Hockey doesn’t leave enough room behind the goal for cool lacrosse-style passes to charging forwards—it should knock out a few rows of seats at each end of the rink and make room."

By Michael Nelson

Here’s a bad idea: play a game for two hours or more and then, if it’s tied, decide who wins by playing a different game. Imagine the seventh game of the World Series going scoreless for 12 innings, only to be settled by five minutes of home run derby (or running bases, for that matter). Or imagine—well, no need to imagine, because it happened last Sunday—the biggest contest in all of sport, the final game of soccer’s World Cup, being called to a halt after 120 minutes of 1-1 play, only to be decided by something called a penalty-kick shootout. The way to fix soccer is to keep playing until a team wins, not to settle one game by playing another. Other sports cry out for other remedies to their chronic ills.

Soccer, known everywhere on Earth except the United States as football, actually provides a remedy for what plagues American football: the seemingly endless length of its game. What football should do is what soccer does: never stop the clock for anything. If injuries bring play to a halt for a few minutes, just tack a few minutes on to the end of the game. But everything else—incomplete passes, runs out of bounds, first-down measurements, whatever—should happen on the clock.

Football has another problem that shouldn’t be too hard to solve. Athletically speaking, place kickers are a breed apart from all the other players on the field, yet the points they put on the board by kicking PAT’s and field goals usually exceed the points scored by even the best backs and receivers and often decide the outcome of a game. What football needs to do is abolish the kicked extra point (make 'em run or pass for it) and reduce the point value of a field goal from three to two.

Baseball suffers from one of the same problems as football—games have become way too long—but requires a different remedy because it’s played off the clock. Happily, the remedy lies in our past—that is, the past of our own youth. Remember the seven-inning games? Did they seem at the time to lack completeness? No. Were they over soon enough that you didn’t have to miss a meal or phone in sick the next day if you stayed for the whole game? Yes.

As for basketball, what’s worse than the last two minutes of a close game, which between timeouts and intentional fouls invariably last a half hour or longer. Why not reduce the total number of timeouts by one for each team and abolish them altogether during the last five minutes of each half?

Lacrosse and hockey are great games that each could benefit from borrowing a feature from the other. Lacrosse is one period too long—it should go to three periods like hockey. Hockey doesn’t leave enough room behind the goal for cool lacrosse-style passes to charging forwards—it should knock out a few rows of seats at each end of the rink and make room. (While you’re at it, hockey, get some pucks a person can see, maybe even white ones against ice that’s dyed midnight blue.)

Golf needs to learn something about noise from every other sport. At golf tournaments, a rule of silence prevails that even monks abandoned years ago. The result is that the tiniest noise—a camera click, a child whose foot has been stepped on, a modest burp—can turn a 300-yard drive into a shank.

Golf needs to learn that it’s the tininess of the noise, not noise itself, that is the problem. When the slightest snap, crackle, or pop breaks a silence, it breaks an athlete’s concentration as well. But loud and continuous noises, the kind that crowds make at other sporting events, don’t distract athletes at all because the noise is general, a buzz or a roar. Can you imagine Roger Clemens stepping off the mound or Kobe Bryant refusing to take a free throw because it’s too loud?

Whoop it up, golf fans. And when there’s a tie, don’t break it by playing putt-putt.

Michael Nelson is a professor of political science at Rhodes College and a former editor of Washington Monthly.

FICTION: Midnight Sun

By George Chase

The first coherent thought Hank has, upon coming to, is How am I standing? He peeks down, not entirely sure what to expect, but there they are, his stubby legs, stretched out to their fullest and offering their service as supports. His blue chinos show the dark butter stain he hasn’t the ability to vanquish, and the wingtips are scuffed at the toes, proving they are his. There’s no evidence of foul play, so he assumes that he is to blame for his body being upright. He gives this fact some deserved brow-furrowing, since, last he knew, he was sitting and falling asleep. He tries to blink his way back into alertness--it works in the movies--but despite his firing synapses his eyelids feel like oversized wings, a body part that he struggles to control.

When Hank gathers himself enough to peek at his knock-off Rolex, he sees one hand pointing NNW and the other SSE. It takes him a while to work out that his watch is trying to tell him it’s 11:25, and that brings up the question which 11:25 it is and what this number means in relation to the possible times and possible parts of the day--dinner? morning?--but he soon becomes sidetracked by yet another mystery: Where am I?

He turns as swiftly as he can and looks out at the earth below, but the land out to the horizon, to his horror, is a flat expanse the color of rusted metal. It appears that he’s surrounded by miles of red dirt. He wonders if something catastrophic has happened to disintegrate all the grass and soil and layers of fossilized bones and limestone, leaving him in a field of ore unfamiliarly close to the earth’s center. I’ve got it, he thinks, collecting his thoughts--we’ve mistakenly landed on Mars. Then with a shock, with the same sort of gradual realization as resting your hand on a hot radiator for a second before feeling pain, it hits him that it’s daylight. He looks through the maddeningly small windows for the undebatable sun, yearning for more proof than his currently untrustworthy sensory perception that day is here, but he cannot find it. Still, the light tells him that it’s 11:25 in the morning, even though it makes no sense that it’s 11:25 in the morning.

Someone bumps him, suggesting that it’s time to move, so he hoists his carry-on bag onto his shoulder and drags his obstinate feet forward. The effect of whatever has happened has left him somewhere far shy of his best. Bodies trudge along, faceless forms with heads bowed to the ground, and he wonders if they are as scared and disoriented as he is, but with a topic of discussion as difficult to broach as this one--that fact that he can’t imagine where he is or what’s going on--he thinks it wise to keep quiet. The purring of a female voice fills the air and whispers into his ear, her lilting accent placing in his head the image of a Swedish divorcée lying in bed clad only in a frilled, short, powder-blue nightie. But despite his great interest in what this angel has to say, her words don’t make any sense to him. He can see her mouthing the letters, her lips rippling, but instead of words forming in his head he sees only jumbles. Th-ef-vil. He pinches himself in the arm to make sure and winces, opening up the flood gates of anxiety. Sko-ga-foss. With panic he wonders if it’s possible to lose the knowledge of a mother tongue while asleep. Esk-en-thlee. He yawns wide, making his ears pop, grimaces in deep concentration, and then realizes that she is not speaking English.

Bit by bit recollections take shape in his head. He sees himself opening up a foil packet of sleeping pills, and perhaps more than a couple airplane-issue mini-bottles of Scotch, but he can’t be sure if that was last night or some other indistinguishable night in the past. Oh, and he is nearly positive his wife just left him after 18 years. "It’s getting serious with Louie the electrician," she said. "At least he gives a damn." He opts to let that thought pass, realizing that it’s more important to concentrate on placing one foot ahead of the other.

At the end of the corridor a sprawling room opens before him, with banks of 10-foot-high windows that start from the floor, walls and ceilings of honey-colored wood, all held up by stark metal beams. It looks just like a modern ski lodge, but Hank is starting to come around, and he thinks he knows he is not in a ski lodge. Miles of dirt that look more like toxic fallout still stare at him from outside the windows. He stops walking, unsure of the point of continuing, unsure of how moving forward will improve his situation any more than merely standing and watching. Like a bullfighter does. Letting things come to him. A few bags hit him in the back of the legs, but no one says anything and the bags’ owners make their way around him. He spots a digital clock on the far wall that reads 3:32 a.m. in bright red numbers, even though the clock is hung right above one of the huge windows in which, for all to see, is the damn sun. Its resemblance to the real thing is uncanny, a pomegranate that has been thrown high up in the air and at its apex has stopped frozen in the sky. Sunlight pours in through the glass, flooding the room with hazy orange-ish air. As if a gas has been released. His watch says 11:32, and he stares at it until he sees the second hand move five seconds’ worth, to be sure. The saliva around his tongue is viscous, and causes his lips to stick together.

To the left are more windows and a stretch of diligently polished floors, and to the right lies a desk, behind which sit two round-faced blonde women. Their twinkling eyes and exuberant chipperness are palpable from across the room. Above them he sees a sign, which he regards with the anticipation of a penniless drunk looking up at a TV at the OTB. It reads “Information: Reykjavik.” His mind races. Reykjavik. Reykjavik. Reykjavik. Is that Iceland? What the hell am I doing in Iceland? he wonders aloud. Hank’s breathing stops in mid-exhale, a feeble whimper sneaks out unattended, and his sphincter tightens. With trepidation he reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out his ticket, the fibers on the paper thick and teeming, spider-like. He glances down slowly, almost not wanting to know, but it’s as he expected: Rome.

A jumbo jet’s worth of passengers is standing around looking lost and confused, waiting for something to happen. It doesn’t appear as if they really know what to make of being in Iceland either. It’s unsettling to land in an airport but have no smothering moms or condom-packing boyfriends to greet at the gate. Only uninterested airport employees mill about. Passengers cluster together in small tense groups, rub their eyes with their palms, and blink with confusion out the bright windows. Even though the angelic women at the help desk hold the answers, everyone is afraid to approach them, realizing that it's impossible for a disheveled, weary traveler to stand in the glow of these Nordic goddesses, have to face their perfect skin and their nonchalant upbeatness, and look anything but haggard and worn. The light above their desk is soft and seems designed especially for them; it glances off their hair and creates an aura that is usually seen in frescos in Italian churches. Every feature of their faces is the exact right size and shape. Grown adults out and out gawk at their beauty, too dazed from the circumstances to remember anything about proper decorum. Small children grab their mom’s fingers and point.

Finally, sneering at opprobrium, two ample corn-fed moms in '60s print dresses approach the information desk. They walk with wide shoulders that have had to support families through tornados, drunken husbands, and factory layoffs; they should be able to handle the Venuses. They approach the desk with shoulders touching, relying on bulk to defeat beauty.

Just then one of the stewardesses marches past Hank, with her off-to-one-side stewardess-issue hat and slimming royal blue skirt as if she has walked out of 1956. Her rolling bag is wheeling its way behind her as would an obedient pet, and he takes off after her. He grabs her elbow--he heard somewhere that it’s the least threatening and least sexual spot to touch a person--and as she turns he is jolted by her thick mascara and plentiful rouge, and he recalls this very woman handing him mini-bottles of Scotch to wash down the sleeping pills--but he can’t shake the nonsensical feeling that this was only a few hours ago.

"I … I’m sorry to bother you," he stammers. "Can you tell me what’s going on. Where are we?"

"We’re in Iceland, honey," she says. "You nod off?"

"Iceland! Will we be back in the air soon?" he pleads.

"I’d get comfortable. We have to fly in Italian union mechanics, then they have to fix the plane. And they haven’t even gotten up for their espressos yet," she continues with an insouciance that he quickly finds irritating. "I bet we’ll be back in the air tomorrow."

"But why?" he continues, disbelieving.

She scowls. "Where have you been? We just had an emergency landing!"

He finds his way to the head of the information line and there before him are the two stunning blond women. They both have skin the color of Cream of Wheat, with raspberries for lips, and eyes the color of perfectly faded denim. Their hair is pulled back and put up in a bun, as if it’s a treat only to be taken out for special occasions. Or if gentlemen ask very, very nicely. On top of the counter is a brochure showing a woman perched on a recently conquered mountain top, flashing a perfect smile, but what gets him is that this woman is the spitting image of the woman sitting in front of him. He finds it disconcerting.

"May I help you?" he hears, and looks up from the brochure to see both ladies smiling genuinely at him, looking unlike anyone in the service industry he has ever seen. He doesn't know who spoke, and he was looking forward to being irritated at someone, but the fact that these women are chipper at 3:45 in the morning disarms him. They both carry expressions that say "there is nothing at all to worry about," which, understandably, makes him worry.

"Yes, I uh, I think I need a room for the night."

"Of course, sir," she says in an English accent that would impress the Queen. "It has already been taken care of by the airline. You may pick up your van ticket two booths down and it will take you right to your room. Please enjoy your stay here in lovely Iceland." Her wrap-up smile is an example for beauty-queen contestants worldwide.

He staggers off from Miss Iceland’s eyes in a daze. "How great, a room!" he thinks. He walks away overheated and lightheaded, pleased that he lost his paunch in the stress of divorce, trying to recall the last time he had a conversation with a woman that fetching. Still, as he picks up the van ticket, he’s not in the mood to be marooned on a rock in the Arctic Circle. Being back on the plane and knocked out from the liquor and the sleeping pills, tucked underneath a thin airline blanket, heading invisibly toward the baptismal streets of Roma, that’s what he wants. Meanwhile, he's beginning to wake up enough to understand how difficult it is to function under the constraints of this debilitating mix. He has noticed that once words leave his mouth they seem to change shape in midair, possibly affected by the lag between his mouthing the words and the words existing. It’s all somewhat confusing, and it's hard for him to tell if he actually has been speaking very slowly, or if his perception is off and he just thinks that he has been speaking very slowly. No one else seems to be speaking at a sluggish pace. Or are they?

His headache has won more territory, staking its flag on the entire right side of his head. The rays of the sun are becoming stronger; he can feel their warmth on his hands, even though it's only 4:00 in the morning. He plants his weary backside on the ergonomically perfected Scandinavian-designed airport seats, but its wonders are lost on him. He wishes for a companion, not to share the experience with, but to complain to. Neither staying in the airport, exhausted, nor getting into a van to be taken to some strange locale sound appealing to him--he had to have his therapist talk him into this very controlled tour-package trip to Italy to begin with--so he defers to fate to decide things for him. He glances up to see the duty free store and its armies of liquor bottles standing facing him, scotches and vodkas and wines, taunting. His head begins to spin and his stomach threatens action. It is decided: The exit and the great unknown beckon.

The air outside is startlingly fresh and crisp, as if the place was just given an enormous mint. The van he’s supposed to be taking is there on the curb, and Hank is somewhat shocked that it has four wheels and is van-shaped, and that, well, it’s a Ford Aerostar and vans are the same here. Out of nowhere an Icelandic version of Eddie Munster takes Hank’s bags out of his hands and wordlessly tosses them in the back. The man is nothing but right angles, a body of building blocks, squares and rectangles. Hank shrugs mentally and heads to the side door, but the van is teeming with silhouetted heads, so he walks up to the empty front seat. He opens the door to see, sitting in the passenger seat, a midget. He has a substantial head of curly hair, looks to be in his 40s, and his feet dangle off the edge of the seat. He glares up at Hank, scowling as if to guard his territory, but through the front seat Hank sees Eddie wave him into the van before lugging his enormous square shoulders into the driver's seat. The van, as anyone can see, is full. "Thanks, I'll just catch the next one," Hank says, and starts to close the door. "There is no next one," Eddie monotones to the steering wheel, and then slowly nods his brick jaw in the direction of the passenger seat, or at least to the tiny portion not being used. The midget plays possum for a second, staring straight ahead as if there isn’t a person standing next to him, but as Hank grabs the door frame and begins pulling himself in, the fellow grunts and noisily shifts himself over.

Any fledgling urban qualities evaporate as soon as they drive away from the airport. In fact, the only other visible structures are two sheds, both shabby white huts made of corrugated metal that serve to mark the end of paved roads. The van is in a barren wasteland in mere seconds, engulfed by reddish oxidized dirt and an endless sky full of clouds the color of dirty bath water. Hank shudders and grips the door handle.

They settle on a course straight for the sun. Hank’s lids become powerless at the hands of the resurgent efforts of the sleeping pills and the lulling of the van, and he nods off for a bit, but the sun’s intrusive rays pierce his closed eyelids. Defeated, he forces himself awake and stares through bloodshot eyes at the road ahead. He notes that the sun looks bigger here, though maybe it’s because it has only dirt and sky to compete with for attention, and he tries to work out if Iceland is closer to the sun in June, but he doesn't have any round items handy to use as props.

The little man, meanwhile, has been subtly nudging Hank off the seat while he dozed, taking advantage of the bumps to move him and then stay there. The result is that Hank has found himself with not quite one butt cheek on the seat. Hank starts wiggling himself back onto the seat, but the midget capitulates no ground. They both eye the highway looking for potential bumps, and then at the slightest imperfection in the road push themselves into each other trying to gain terrain. Hank is even pushing off from the door. A harmony of guttural noises is issued forth, a series of grunts, huffs, and sighs that, in the end, do nothing to make either of them more comfortable.

Hank can’t even guess how long they’ve been battling when Icelandic Eddie, for reasons unclear to his passengers, slows down and pulls over to the side of the two-lane highway. The little man and Hank halt their skirmish and peer over at the driver to try to gauge what is going on, but Eddie is focusing on the road and not giving away any secrets.

The driver shifts into park. His face is as blank as the sea. He leans forward into the dashboard with his hand reaching out for something, looks to Hank, and says, "You can get out here," before flipping a switch. At once the passenger-side door--on which Hank is leaning--opens, spilling him and his shoulder bag out of the van. He tumbles out of the vehicle and lands on his side, his fall cushioned by his bag. Above him is stifled laughter.

He gets up off the tar listening to the back doors of the van creak wide open, and assumes that Eddie’s fishing for his bags. His heart speeds up when he fails to recall seeing a house or structure of any kind since the airport. He takes a quick view to his left and behind him and realizes that this land they've been driving through, to which he hasn’t been paying any attention, is an enormous lava field. The area is void of flora; no trees, no shrubs, no grass. Green is not on the color wheel. The land looks as if, somehow, it is unfinished. Black rocks the size of bathtubs cover the earth as far as he can see, boulders piled to his thigh and higher all the way up and down the highway. A fierce wind, its speed quickened by its unimpeded path, hits him across the face.

The van doors close and Hank looks back to see the driver staring at him with his snowy eyes, a bag hanging from each balled fist. Eddie turns away, revealing behind him a car parked on the shoulder, a black VW Jetta--born from the lava, for all Hank knows. There’s a poof of white hair on the woman at the wheel. Eddie walks to the trunk of the Jetta and sticks the bags in, and Hank understands that he is supposed to get in the car with the strange woman. Eddie nods to him, bends down to say something to the driver, and walks back to the van. Hank is paralyzed. After Eddie ducks his square head in, the van pulls out into the highway. Hank reaches a hand out for it, involuntarily.


The van shrinks until it is a speck half in the rich blue of the sky and half in the relentless black of the lava, with the sun hung above it like a ripe orange on the branch. The highway is otherwise abandoned, the only thing breaking up the incessant wind being an idling German motor. It seems he’s on a rock that has somehow separated from earth and has been sent hurtling through space. Another frigid gust hits his back, bringing a sensation he wasn’t expecting on his trip to Rome, and prods him into the car. The old lady barely acknowledges him as he settles in, and with the door still in transition she steps on the gas and takes off. His head bounces off the headrest. "Damn," he mutters. The tachometer needle threatens to hit red before she changes gears, and she throws the stick into fourth as if she has spent a season on the Grand Prix circuit, her surprisingly powerful legs working the pedals like pistons.

She reaches 120 kph in no time at all, and he asks her what the rush is all about, but she keeps silent. He gets the feeling that he has been keeping her waiting, and opts not to tell her that her speed is frightening him. He finds himself focusing on the hills that form and recede out his window—they pop up over the crests, then retreat. No tree, shrub, or blade of grass has made itself present yet. Or anything living, for that matter. Off to the left, past his chauffer, lies the ocean, a dark blue of the night sky in the city. Asphalt and lava blend together in the distance, and with the highway sunken in the fields of rocks, he wonders for a minute if someone just came through with a steamroller and flattened out the lava. He becomes convinced that the natural substances that make up Iceland only consist of the colors rust, brown, and black. Straight out the windshield is a squintlingly bright blue sky, to his right are foreboding charcoal clouds, and to the left the sky teems with puffy cotton shapes of irate Vikings and bleating sheep. There is so much horizon here that he can actually see the earth bend at the edges. He absentmindedly grabs the radio dial and clicks it on, but instantly feels a sharp pain in his hand. He looks down to see his driver’s fingers turn the radio back to the off setting and then she gently places her hand--exquisite he realizes, aged and knotty, yet not wrinkled or spotted, like smooth stones at the bottom of a stream--back onto the 2:00 position of the wheel. It wasn’t even on long enough to receive a signal.

The longer they drive through the soulless lava the more his mind closes in on him. He begins to fear that he won’t make it to Rome at all, a trip on which he has placed so much importance for his future well-being that he can barely remember why he wanted to go in the first place: so that he could ask out his café waitress Francesca, a goal he has thought about so many times that if he doesn't go through with it his trip will have been a disaster. It will be back to the alternate self-pitying and self-loathing. Why can’t I take life by the horns, he’ll ask himself, sweating in the sun-drenched courtyard café and watching Francesca's hips sway, with her mountain of black ringlets gilding her face like a frame. She’ll approach the table where the recently divorced, nothing-to-lose, Italian-tutored gentleman sits. She’ll set down the second cappuccino, maybe even hoping that this bright-eyed American traveler who has been shooting her glances all afternoon will ask her what time she gets off work. And even though he’ll have spent an inordinate amount of time looking into his bathroom mirror and repeating the phrase "A che ora smetti di lavorare?" he’ll open his mouth to speak, then spot a woman at a nearby table looking at him and stifling a laugh, then looking back at her companion as if she could see the whole thing coming, had already seen this man ask out the waitress and have her turn him down, had already seen him stammer dejectedly and flounder to cover up his gaffe. But instead of all this happening he will have decided not to tempt fate and will merely look into the froth and mumble for the check.

Suddenly his neck strains as his driver takes an unannounced left turn. Why now suddenly the regret that he couldn't be bothered to join his wife in marriage counseling when they both knew the marriage was on the rocks? If she were here now he might even tell her he was sorry.

They are still surrounded by nothingness and there isn't a single person within miles of him except an old lady who doesn't speak English. He finds himself overcome, a year of anguish bubbling to the surface, and he begins speaking. "Maybe it's not what I do but what I don't do that's the problem. What on earth am I afraid of?"

Without a word or glance from her they take another quick turn. There, he sees farmhouses and silos. Then houses constructed of corrugated metal, surrounded by fields of short, wispy grass blown supine. In the distance he can see what looks like a town, the sun glowing off the white buildings, their rooftops primary colored as if by children with crayons, deep reds and blues and yellows. A farmer on a tractor. Fat-cheeked kids on bikes. He lets out a deep breath.

Before long they pull into the driveway of a two-story stone structure with Guest House Leifer Eriksson carved on a large piece of driftwood and hung on a spike in the wall. "Thank you," he says to the old woman as the car stops, and she smiles at him and nods. She grabs his hand and squeezes gently, startling him a bit, but he squeezes back. He clasps her hand with both of his now, and suddenly it's like two doomed lovers being torn apart.

The scene inside the Leifer Eriksson is celebratory. A spread of assorted cereals and a full set of dairy containers all different shapes and sizes are laid out buffet style, and a dozen people are sitting around a large table drinking coffee and eating shining hardboiled eggs. A ruddy-faced man slaps Hank on the back, hard. "Welcome to Iceland, land of the midnight sun!" he says to him happily, before taking his bags from him and carting them down the hall. His back muscles stretch his shirt. A mid-30's couple in fleece smile at him and raise their cups of coffee in welcome. They look American, and he can only guess that he does too. He returns a wan grin.

He wants to ask what everyone is doing up at this hour, but it's so bright outside that it doesn't seem all that weird. They all seem thrilled that they are about to be kayaking down rapids or climbing up vertical sheets of ice by 6 a.m. He sits on a couch, the leather cushion slowly wheezing under his weight. A coffee table in front of him is covered with brochures of all sorts: SUV trips into the wilderness, afternoons at hot springs, excursions to Viking restaurants. But one in particular catches his attention, a hiking trip across a glacier. He marvels at the idea and its wonderful hideousness. The photo on the front shows the guide, standing on an enormous piece of ice in hiking boots and shorts, with his wispy gray hair aloft. He has wisdom in his eyes.

"Ah sir," the ruddy-faced man calls to him, "will you be here just one night?"

Hank scratches his head, looks up, and smiles. "Longer, I think."

George Chase lives in New York City.

Photos are from stock.xchng, the second image by Brandon Keim (see http://www.earthlab.net/).