Notta Book Review

Summer vacation is coming (June 12 -- YAY!!!!!!!!!!) and with it, lazy days of reading on the back porch punctuated by afternoon naps. In preparation I have put a number of books on hold at the library. Just to update my interested bookaphile readers (all 6 of you!) here is my current reading: I have taken a break from Queen Bees and Wannabes, Silk Road, and The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins. They just weren't grabbing me, if you know what I mean.

Now I am reading In A Dark Wood Wandering: A Novel of the Middle Ages, first published in Europe in 1949, and translated from the Dutch. I picked it up on a whim at the public library friends' shop It's a tome -- 574 pages of dense print -- but so far, so good. I'm finding it to be very engaging.

Next up: Daniel Pinkwater's The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went To Hollywood, and Saved Civilization. Followed by The Iggyssey, also by Pinkwater. He is an author I frequently forget about, but I am always delighted by his writing. We used to torment our childless friends -- the ones who were scared of our children back when we were all younger and I hadn't yet become a hermit -- by forcing them to read Pinkwater's picture book The Wuggie Norple Story aloud. (Our youngest daughter, however, gave us our just desserts by insisting that we read it every night and change all of the characters' names to people she knew. Reading it became an ordeal of her barking out corrections at us: "NO, not Wuggie Norple. Petey!" Oh, how I miss those days now.)

Anyway, stay tuned for further book reviews.

I'd move to the Netherlands if it weren't so darned flat!

I read this wonderful bit of news on Boing Boing. Now, this is the kind of unemployment problem our country should have!

For your enjoyment ...

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrator James Braithwaite have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack. A spellbinding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit and timeless message, I Met the Walrus was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short.



(Hat tip to TR for sending this my way. I love it!)

Violence Against Women

As I write this there is an ongoing manhunt in our city for a man who shot and killed his wife 2 days ago, the day their divorce became final. As it turns out, the suspect is "Fokky Weber" the very same bully who used to beat up my husband when they were kids. Mr. Ether says that one time he got sick of being hit over and over by said bully, and slugged him, making him cry. It didn't stop him though. Apparently he once mugged my brother-in-law, shaking him down for a nickel. Brian ran home and told his parents, who called the police. The police came and said, "He comes from a bad home, there's really nothing we can do." And the events of this week are the culmination of all those years of thuggery.

Where I'm going with all this is that the new issue of The Nation (which I read at the dentist's office) has an excellent column by Katha Pollitt, "Unnatural Born Killer":

We are so used to violence against women we don't even notice how used to it we are. [my italics] When we're not persuading ourselves that women are just as violent toward men as vice versa if you forget about who ends up seriously injured or dead, or pointing out that most murders are of men by men, we persuade ourselves that violence against women just comes up out of nowhere. Murder is serious, especially if the victim is young, white, middle-class, pretty; harassment, abuse, domestic violence, even rape, not so much. After all, as I'm writing, I read that Houston, taking a leaf from Sarah Palin's Wasilla, is requiring rape victims to pay for the processing of their rape kits. Los Angeles has a backlog of 12,669 unprocessed rape kits, some so old the crimes have exceeded the statute of limitations. It's controversial to even use terms like "misogyny" and "male privilege" to explain the prevalence of these crimes and the shameful inadequacy of our social and legal response to them. And if you really want to be branded a square and a prude, try talking about the hatred and contempt for, and objectification of, women that permeates pop culture.

We have an awfully long way to go as a culture. Food for thought.

Dental Work

I went to the dentist today ... first time in a long time. Even with insurance we have a pretty big outstanding debt from some crowns, and that puts a damper on things like preventive health care. I finally went however, and I need some work done -- no surprises there. But my dentist is cool*. For example, how many dentists' offices have The Nation as office reading material? How many dentists are former Union steamfitters? So I'll be going back in a few weeks to rack up some more debt. What the hell?

*Other cool facts about my dentist:

• He does free dental work for people who cannot afford it, such as homeless men.
• He junk-picks bicycles from off the curb and fixes them up.
• His office is decorated with his wife's artwork, not the usual dental office schlock.
• He plays good music.

Woo Hoo!

A statewide smoking ban (in all workplaces including restaurants and bars, but not cigar bars, obviously) will be signed into law on Monday! Madison has had one for the last several years, and as the spouse of a working musician I can't tell you what a difference it has made. I am happy to see this go through.

The Merry Merry Month of May

Regretfully, I missed our local annual May Day celebration this year. It happens on May 1st at dawn. The Morris dancers, the Pagans, and other people who are in the know all converge at the end of Picnic Point to ... um, er ... erect a Maypole, dance, sing, leap over a bonfire and other fertility rites, and welcome summer. I love going to it, but it's so darned difficult to get up even earlier than usual, drive across town, then drive across town again to get to work by 7:30 a.m. (not to mention having to explain why I smell like a campfire!)

May is my favorite month, and May Day is one of my favorite holidays of the year. So I bring you The Watersons singing Hal-an-Tow:



And here is the genuine article, filmed in May 2008, in Helston, Cornwall. Someday I'm going to go there.



If British folk traditions are your cup of tea (ha ha, cultural reference intended) you should most definitely read the book In Search of Albion by Colin Irwin.

Happy Mothers' Day!

Following My Muse

I just got home from my bi-weekly guitar lesson. More and more I am finding that I look forward to these lessons. What I mean by that is, that although I have been enjoying learning to play, I often feel a sense of shame around lessons: I haven't practiced enough, I'm going to make a fool of myself, and so on and so forth. However, my new teacher is so encouraging and the music that she is giving me to learn is exactly what I want to be learning. It is a very good fit.

As I was driving to my lesson today I was musing about me and the guitar, and I realized that when I'm playing -- when I get into what Mr. Ether calls "the zone" -- it really is playing in the truest childhood sense of the word. When I can let go of my inhibitions, and quit feeling like I'm channeling the Eugene Levy/Catherine O'Hara duo from A Mighty Wind, I feel so happy.

The late, great educator John Holt addressed that in a book he wrote about learning to play the cello as an older adult, Never Too Late. It's been a few years since I read it, but if I remember correctly, he wondered if we set up psychological barriers when we talk about "practicing" an instrument, and would it be different if it was just referred to as "playing." I haven't thought about that for a long time, but I suspect he was onto something.

That's it for now. I have to go and play my guitar.

Book review: Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway

Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali chronicles Kris Holloway's two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, Africa and also tells the story of a remarkable young woman, Monique Dembele.

Kris Holloway was 21 years old and just out of college when she was assigned to the village of Nampossela, Mali. Her host in the village was 25-year old Monique Dembele, the midwife and general health care provider for the area. Monique had been born in the nearby city of Koutiala, and as is traditional, came to her husband's village to live after her marriage. Because she was fluent in French as well as the local language, she was selected by the village leaders to receive training as a health care worker. This work became Monique's passion.

One of the things that really struck me about Monique Dembele was that, although she had very little formal education and was relatively isolated from many of the ideas that women growing up in the Western world take for granted, she had an amazing feminist sensibility about her. To me it is the essence of feminism to be concerned about what's best for women and children. Monique knew from her health work that multiple successive pregnancies were often deadly for women, as was too-early weaning of babies, so she worked to make birth control pills available in her village.

Another example of this (and a very touching part of the book) was when Kris became aware of and was shocked by the Malian practice of female circumcision. Monique was equally shocked by the revelation that it was not universal practice, that women in the United States are not cut, and can actually enjoy sexual intercourse as much as men. This set Monique on the road of thinking about her younger, pre-pubescent sister, as well as her young daughter.

Over the two years that Kris lived in Nampossela and worked with Monique, the two women became fast friends, a friendship that endured after Kris returned to the United States. Monique visited the United States for a month in 1993. The two women corresponded, sharing their joys and sorrows. More than anything else, this book is a beautiful tribute to a friendship.

Holloway wrote the book after Monique's tragic death in childbirth with her fifth child. (This is not a spoiler. It is included in the book's introduction.) Kris returned to Mali in 1999 to try to understand her friend's death and to advocate for the education of Monique's three living children. The proceeds from Monique and the Mango Rains are directly benefiting her children, as well as helping to fund Clinique Monique outside of Nampossela, a medical clinic founded and run by Monique's cousin. Monique's younger sister Angelé followed in her sister's footsteps by becoming a midwife, and works at the clinic.

I highly recommend this book.

Definitely Beautiful

I posted a couple of things about work on Facebook, which elicited a chat with my friend Dave in Ottawa. (I have lots of friends named Dave, by the way.) He gave me some nice strokes -- just the sort of thing a teacher needs to hear on a Friday afternoon -- and sent me the link to this video of poet Taylor Mali. It made me cry.