Cultural Commentary
As I see things …
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Santa is not God, and God is not Santa
Last Christmas Eve, my 8-year-old grandson asked me if I had ever tried to catch Santa. “Well,” after figuring out what he was asking, I said, “I’ve tried staying awake all night but always fall asleep.” Brightening, he told me he had some ideas how to catch Santa. “If you have a chimney, sprinkle powder or flour on the floor in front of the fireplace and in the morning you can see Santa’s footprints.” My grandson’s house does not have a fireplace, yet in his imagination, he could see just how such a plan might work at my house. He also thought of setting up a video camera to catch…
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How Our Stories Affirm Eternal Truths
A play, a film, a book, each story sets out to consolidate something true about life. The narrative winds its way through characters, setting, scenes, and plot to capture in time what otherwise takes a long time to learn in real life. A director directs actors, hoping the audience will get caught up in the story and feel all the feelings, experience a reality that embeds itself in memory, almost as if the events portrayed had happened to them. “I’m awfully interested in how big things begin. You know how it is; you’re twenty-one or twenty-two and you make some decisions . . . then whissh! you’re seventy. You’ve been…
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When Sane People Believe Lies
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, a book written in 1841, spawned the title for Louise Penny’s latest book. In her author acknowledgement, Louise Penny explains that the original book by Charles Mackay “offered a series of nonfiction essays looking at why sane people believe the nuttiest things,” begging the question, “What happens to tip people over into madness?” (434). People do behave differently in crowds. Crowds begin small, adding numbers like wood to a fire. Words that influence crowds can serve as a weapon. Reading that Disturbs the Peace The Madness of Crowds, (#17 in Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series), takes place back in the tiny village…
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Drinking from a Pool of Ignorance
“Timmy fell into a well and he can’t get out.” Quoting my husband, he repeats this line to accentuate my overreaction to some perceived crisis. These words reference the television series Lassie. As Timmy’s dog, in each episode, Lassie invariably had to seek help when Timmy got into trouble. The dog barks in a way that somehow people understand Timmy needs help. Timmy never fell in a well, but the actor who played Timmy, Jon Provost, titled his memoir Timmy’s in the Well. The expression has become a trope for attempts to communicate something unintelligible. Like a dog’s bark. So, using a high-pitched, sing-song voice, my husband signals when he thinks whatever…
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“Satan Never Sleeps”––An Early Life Lesson
Part of my childhood education came from film. Cinema. Motion pictures. Movies. Whatever you call it. I remember going to the drive-in before my dad and sister had died, saying, “Daddy, take me to the snake-bar.” And the next morning I awoke confused as to how I got in my own bed when I didn’t even remember falling asleep before the movie ended. Mom and Me When it was just Mom and me, we continued going to the drive-in movie. I loved those Friday nights when I got to move to the front seat instead of sit in the backseat. My mother made me ride in the backseat wherever she…
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Checkpoint July 2021: Is the Media Helping You Feel Better About Your Life?
(From the archives, this article was posted a year ago. Unable to write new posts the past 2 weeks, this article contains edits to update. Thank you, Readers, for checking back with me.) Mark Twain lived most of his life in the 19th century and Malcolm X lived during the 20th century. These men could not have existed further apart in history, society, or proximity. Consider these quotes. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” MARK TWAIN, B.…
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The Best Books Reveal How People Think
The Summer Before the War tells a story that takes place in “The town of Rye . . .” (first line of the novel), a real place in the county of Sussex, England. Carefully researched, the idyllic coastal region contrasts not only the losses of WWI (World War I), but chronicles the end of an era––or rather the beginning of the end of an era––where class distinction slowly disintegrates under the weight of its own hubris. “Here’s to taking the future at a run.” Helen Simonson, The Summer Before the War, Acknowledgements The above quote is the last statement in the author’s note to recognize the contributions of others who…