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238 Mondays Is a Hard Time, #1

8/31/2022

Many a long year ago, I think while I was still in high school, I acquired a conviction that I was going to be rich, famous, and dead by the time I was twenty-five. So far, I’m batting 0 for 3 for that conviction. A bit later, I developed a serious belief that I would, at some point, write a novel which would establish my famousness, although not necessarily lead to my death. That hasn’t happened, either, and if I’m honest, at this point I have grave reservations that it ever will (or that I particularly WANT either of these to happen). However, even at that relatively early stage of my life, I had noticed that many (probably most) people in our society have something of an aversion to Mondays.

Even those of us (I include myself) who, much of the time, actually get (got) some pleasure from the work we do (did), seem to have at least a little harder time getting up and moving on Mondays. There’s really no rational reason to explain this except that Monday follows Sunday, and Sunday is, for a great many people, at least slightly less hectic and frantic than the “typical” working day. I think that’s a fairly weak excuse, but it could be all that’s necessary to explain this phenomenon. Anyway, the great “beatnik” novel I was going to write, which was going to set a new mark for literary brilliance on the model of Kerouac’s On the Road, is still waiting to produce even the beginnings of an outline of chapter one, but it DID have a title. That title was the name of this post: “Mondays Is a Hard Time.”

In any event, over the years, especially since I have retired and started writing these posts, back in 2014, I have made a habit of looking at the comics in the daily paper and watching email and web stuff for pictures, signs, comics, etc., which relate to various ideas which interest me. I’ve also noticed that Mondays don’t seem to be all that much of a problem to me anymore, but that the “Mondays Is a Hard Time” notion has occasionally surfaced into what I laughingly refer to as my conscious mind. Probably MOST often the strip which has occasioned that surfacing has been Jim Davis’ strip, Garfield, although occasionally something different (comic strip, poster, etc.) seems to catch the spirit of Monday pretty well. Garfield, however, perhaps because he is a cat, seems to have a greater than usual aversion to Mondays, so it is that strip which is most likely to bring the phrase to mind.

In any case, I thought I would try to get a post out of some of the material I have collected, especially since the school year is starting to get under way, which suggests that the “Monday” phenomenon will soon be even more common than usual across the country and reminds me that I DON’T have to be concerned about that anymore! I’ll admit that I ALMOST miss it, but every time that starts to happen, I remember all of those early morning meetings and eight o’clock classes, which makes it easier not to miss the start of school very much. Anyway, here’s some, hopefully amusing samples of things I have collected about Mondays (if that’s possible)!

This isn’t from Garfield, but from Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis. However I think it captures the Monday problem pretty well, especially if you have a “helpful” spouse, roommate, or “friend.”

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, has an unusually strong aversion to Mondays, given the relative frequency of Monday references in Garfield. Anyway, here are a few of my favorites from among the ones I have collected.

This one goes back several years, before I discovered how to find strips I liked online, so I had to take a picture of it from the newspaper. I do think it captures the overall “essence” of Mondays quite well.

On the other hand, there HAVE been Mondays (especially in the last few days before opening a show, for example) for which this can be considered a perfectly reasonable and understandable reaction.

Tech Week Mondays, I should hasten to point out DO tend to be even less pleasant than most; which is not to say that Mondays are ever likely to be a high point of the week. Some, even if they don’t come during Tech Week, can be made worse than usual through circumstances which have nothing to do even with the fact that it’s Monday. AS they say, “Stuff happens!”

I will admit, just in passing, that the three conditions indicated above would be enough to make ANY day something of a “hard time,” at least for me. Of course, as almost any of my former students could testify, coffee has been a significant part of my existence for virtually all of my adult life. AND, it still is. Hmmm, there’s probably a blog post in that somewhere. I’ll have to give that some thought….

I have to admit that, while I don’t take advantage of it very often, being retired has the advantage (rather like that of being a pampered house cat) of not actually HAVING to get up if I don’t want to do so. Of course, being old tends to come with the need to take pills at various times of day, etc., so I really CAN’T just sleep in until I choose to drag myself out of bed. On the other hand, I AM somewhat likely to take an afternoon nap, an idea which I have learned from my cats, which probably does nothing to explain the strip below, but I DO understand the motivation behind it.

I could go on at considerably further length, but I won’t as I may want to return to this theme again sometime. It IS probably worth noting, however, that even Mondays do, on occasion, have some sort of redeeming value, as Jon demonstrates to Garfield in the strip below:

I suppose that one has to be as fond of tacos as Garfield is known to be for that to make much sense, but, the point still stands that, for many people, much of the time, Mondays IS a Hard Time. The grammar may not be the most correct, but I think it expresses the concept pretty well.

I think that’ll do it for this time. I expect I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, “If the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” as they say. On the other hand, between the recent floods in some parts of the country, the drought in other parts, and the wild fires elsewhere, who can predict what the situation will be by then. I do PLAN to be back about then, though.

Anyway, until next time,

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
— Nelson Mandela

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”
― Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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237 Blog Post Witch Hunts: Past, Present and Stupid

8/17/2022

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Almost exactly 330 years ago, I had a relative hanged about this time of year during what is known as “The Salem Witch Hunt.” At least that was the story in my family as I was growing up. Actually, that story is not quite true. The best evidence I am currently aware of (mostly from my sister, who has actually done a lot of work on the genealogy of our family through family and official records, “23 and Me,” “Ancestry,” and other sources), is that we had at least four relatives hanged on August 19, 1692, and a couple more who were hanged in September of that year. The small amount of research I have done and the evidence I have seen suggests to me that that list may well not be complete, but I have not actually pursued research into these suspicions in sufficient detail to be sure that is true.

However, based on the evidence we have, what seems to be pretty well established is that my family probably included numerous people who were involved in virtually ALL aspects of this, the most famous witch hunt in American history. This evidence suggests that at least three of the young women who formed the group of “afflicted/accusers;” ten or more others who were among those accused of witchcraft, but not executed; six or seven of the men who sat as members of the Court of Oyer and Terminer (which “tried” the cases); and several of the leading clergy members from Boston, who offered religious advice to the Court and community, were ALL related to my family in some fashion, albeit not always especially closely.

As my (almost) yearly posts on this topic at about this time each year suggest, I have become interested in the phenomenon of the Salem Witch Hunt and have spent a fair amount of time studying a good number of the various works dealing with it, including reprints of many of the actual records of the various “court” proceedings, etc. I do NOT suggest these as “light” reading, especially since these records are, obviously, written in what is now referred to as “Middle English” (much like the language of the First Folio of Shakespeare) and, having been created during the actual proceedings, are often rather ungrammatical (at least by modern standards); crudely abbreviated and inconsistently spelled. They are NOT easy to read, although I would not trust transcriptions into modern English, as the creation of such “transcriptions” would amount to a translation of the documents, with inevitable interpretation issues, which would, almost certainly, have an impact on their accuracy.

I think it is worth noting that ALL of the victims of the Salem witch hunt have finally been exonerated by the Massachusetts legislature (although it took until the end of July of this year (2022) for that to finally happen). Not too many years after the actual “trials,” however, many of the families of those who were executed were paid (token) compensation for their losses and the general thinking among modern scholars of this historical episode seems to be that the events of Salem were largely a result of personal disputes over land boundaries and local political squabbles, combined with established fears relating to wars with indigenous peoples, etc. That conclusion is not universally accepted, however.

To the best of my knowledge, only one of the accusers remained in the area for an extended period of time after the conclusion of the Salem affair, and she eventually “confessed” that she had wrongly accused some of the victims, although she claimed that “…she had not acted out of malice, but had been deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people.” (I think this is known as “the Devil made me do it” defense.) Since she made this “confession” in order to become a member of the local church with which her parents had been deeply involved and which was an important center of the community, I admit to being unkind enough to have strong reservations as to the sincerity of this “confession.”

Personally, I suspect that this “confession” may well have been an attempt to quiet suspicions that this individual may have enjoyed the attention and power which being an accuser gained her. It’s quite clear that such attention and power would have been quite unusual for a teen-aged girl in that society. She was 13 when the “hunt” started, and it seems quite plausible that she lied to get and maintain the attention she desired, but, obviously, I can’t prove that.

So, why am I spending all of this time trying to establish some degree of credibility for my thoughts about the Salem Witch Hunt? Well, to be quite blunt, I have grown increasingly tired of a certain group of political figures (who MUST be described as being members of the Party they claim IN NAME ONLY, as they do NOT support the traditional values and ideas of that party) maintaining that OTHER political folk are engaging in what the first group insists on calling a “witch hunt” against them. That, of course, ignores the fact that it is this first group (the one who claims to be being “hunted” by others) who is using the exact tactics used by the accusers during the Salem Trials.

I suspect that they are attempting to use the “witch hunt” idea to claim the idea that THEY (of course) are completely correct in their beliefs and actions so that they are the ones who SHOULD be “hunting” the politically unacceptable characters who disagree with them, but, they claim that they are, in fact, the VICTIMS of a “witch hunt” engaged in by those “other” people. Of course, by claiming to be the victims of a “witch hunt,” they complicate the issue tremendously. Apparently, they would have us believe that the “hunt” is being staged by this undefined and unnamed group of citizens which THEY would like to call the “witches.” However, by claiming to be the innocent accused, they seem to be suggesting that THEY are actually the witches, but, of course, they are the innocent ones, in spite of the fact that THEY are the ones making the accusations. Are YOU confused yet? I have a strong suspicion that that’s the point of this verbal nonsense.

The point of this “witch hunt” talk, of course, is that ideas (other than those of this one group) must be stopped at all cost because they are “unsacred;” “unpatriotic; “unAmerican;” and, probably, fattening. This is, of course, hogwash, as the entirety of the Constitution and the other founding documents were designed to encourage debate, discussion and compromise, because we had had enough of authoritarian, “royal” rule. I am reminded that this same group wishes us to refuse to acknowledge the existence of slavery in the US, or the broken treaties with indigenous people, or the locking up of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII, or a lot of other FACTS of American history because the truth “might make someone feel bad.” I prefer the old idea of “the truth will make you free,” but I guess I’m old fashioned.

In any event, this “witch hunt” notion crops up every so often to provide those who don’t like republican democracy a chance to “hoot and holler and carry on” about how “ONLY THEY” have all of the “correct” answers and the rest of us should just march in goose lock step to their tune. The last time this was tried that comes to my mind was in the early 1950s when the term “witch hunt” reemerged being used in relation to the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee (which had been around since the late 1930s) and the investigations led by former Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin , who

… rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950, when he asserted in a speech
   that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring"
   who were employed in the State Department. In succeeding years after his 1950
   speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the
   State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of
   America, and the U. S. Army. He also used various charges of communism,
   communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians
   and other individuals inside and outside of government. (Wikipedia)

I think it’s worth noting that, to the best of my knowledge, Senator McCarthy NEVER actually produced specific evidence of “spying” in his hearings or speeches, and it is worth noting that it was NOT a crime to belong to the Communist Party in the U. S. until 1954, so McCarthy’s charges related to someone being a member of such a party really had NO legal validity. I would suggest that his accusations had the same importance as accusing someone of being a Mason, for example. (Another “secret” society which has been accused of nefarious deeds over the course of history by a number of groups, despite the fact that a substantial number of our Founding Fathers, including nine signers of the Declaration of Independence, were members.)

I am particularly fond of a quote from Edward R. Murrow, the outstanding radio (later television) news figure, who, while discussing the antics of Senator McCarthy, once said, in part,

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that
   accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due
   process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by
   fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and
   remember that we are not descended from fearful men—not from men who feared
   to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment,
   unpopular.

As an individual whose family has been made to pay a price for the unsubstantiated claims and persecutions of an ACTUAL witch hunt, I find it unacceptable that the “McCarthy” types of the world should be allowed to attempt to glorify their crude attempts at forcing their opinions and beliefs on our entire society by implying that those they would destroy actually have done something wrong merely because they don’t agree with some particular group.

I find it especially unacceptable for a former President and his followers to deny the basic principle of law that, “Evidence: something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter” is, or should be, required in order to have a meaningful impact on judgements. The current quibble, in some (especially political) circles, that unless something can be proved beyond all possible doubt, it is just a “theory,” just someone’s opinion, is hogwash. A career in teaching forces me to point out that: “A theory is a statement or principle devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.” Thus, a theory is something which has NOT been proven beyond all possible doubt, but which seems to explain a phenomena better than any other available alternative. An example might be the Theory of Gravity, which we find handy to explain why, if we jump out a window, we are going to fall until something stops us. It IS a theory, we haven’t proven (or disproven) it, but it seems to works pretty well.

To insist that, after filing many lawsuits declaring that the election was improperly influenced, illegally conducted, rife with fraud, etc.; and having lost every one of these suits due to an inability to produce ANY actual evidence to support these claims, except for the insistence of one of the candidates that “The election MUST have been stolen because that’s the only way I could have lost.” makes about as little sense as can be conceived. In fact, this argument would seem to be only explainable as essentially identical to the “spectral evidence” which was the basis for the accusations and convictions of the Salem trials, which would make these nutcases the perpetrators of the “witch hunt,” not its victims. So, it’s important to understand what is meant by “spectral evidence,” since it seems to be the only “evidence” being offered.

According to US Legal.com (http://definitions.uslegal.com/s/spectral-evidence/):

Spectral evidence refers to a witness testimony that the accused person’s spirit or
   spectral shape appeared to him/her witness [sic] in a dream at the time the
   accused person’s physical body was at another location. It was accepted in the
   courts during the Salem Witch Trials. The evidence was accepted on the basis that
   the devil and his minions were powerful enough to send their spirits, or specters,
   to pure, religious people in order to lead them astray.

In spectral evidence, the admission of victims’ conjectures is governed only by the
   limits of their fears and imaginations, whether or not objectively proven facts are
   forthcoming to justify them. [State v. Dustin, 122 N.H. 544, 551 (N.H. 1982)].

I would suggest that this definition was accepted during the Salem affair to allow acceptance of the idea that, if I SAY you sent your spirit/shape/spectre into the world to do harm; then this should be considered as legally acceptable evidence that such an event did, in fact, happen. If that is accepted, then the entire notion of fact: (knowledge or information based on real occurrences) MUST be denied, as we are then defining “reality” as being whatever someone says it is, which seems contrary to the basic concept of law and/or logic.

I must also hasten to point out that the only people who would appear to benefit from the statement that they are the “victims of a witch hunt” would appear to be (as was suspiciously true during the Salem experience) the only people who say that they can “see” the “evidence.” It’s clearly established that only the accusers of Salem saw the “little yellow birds,” and the “black man whispering in the ears of the accused,” and such. In the same light, only those who have declared their intention to overthrow the Presidential election seem to be able to “see” the “clear-cut” evidence of “Massive voter fraud.” (NOTE: I am unaware of ANY challenge to ANY of the other elections which were held at the same time.) Obviously, ALL of the recounts, audits, and court challenges related to the Presidential election were fraudulent, but all OTHER elections were FREE of fraud, as they were never challenged. I suspect there are a lot of crooked politicians who would love to know how THAT was done. As my ancestor, Martha Allen Carrier said in 1692, during the trial which led to her execution during the Salem witch hunt “It is a shamefull (sic) thing that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits.” (From the official record of the examination of Martha Carrier, May 31, 1692. Document #235 in Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, Bernard Rosenthal, General Editor.)

As this post obviously suggests, I have little patience with the whole notion of the “witch hunt” argument. I think it ranks right up there in stupidity with the “alternative facts” argument as a pseudo-intellectual con. I have never seen anything to suggest that there has EVER been a “witchcraft” trial, from at least the time of Joan of Arc (1431C.E.) to the present, in which it could be successfully demonstrated that actual “witchy” magic was used in some nefarious way to damage someone else. And, considering the “miracles” of Jesus and other Biblical figures, I am forced to suggest that the only real difference between “miracles” and “witchcraft” is public relations. I certainly pray that we will reject the stupidity which the notion of a “witch hunt” represents in the future. After all, this sort of thinking is too reminiscent of the fascination with the occult of so many desperate despots. Such thinking “… is not healthy for children and other living things.”

I’ll be back,

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
— Nelson Mandela
“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.” ― Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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236 Thoughts Inspired by Quotes I like, #1

8/3/2022

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Along with the cartoons which I collect from across the internet (and the daily papers), I also keep my eyes open for quotes I encounter which I find interesting, inspiring, or otherwise memorable and thought-provoking. So, for this post, I thought I’d take a look at some of them and just see what develops. I think it’s going to be interesting, but I’m not really sure where it will take me.

We sometimes watch various programs on PBS (we can get PBS programming from TWO different states [Iowa AND Nebraska], which gives us quite a broad spectrum and a variety of broadcast schedules). I was, understandably enough, I suppose, particularly interested in some of the programs which were broadcast related to the “rebirth” of Broadway theatre after the trials of the COVID pandemic. One of these was a “Great Performances” program called “Keeping Company with Sondheim,” which discussed the closing of the newly revised production of Company, just a few days before it’s scheduled “official”opening, and which then waited 600 days to officially “open.”

Christopher Fitzgerald, who played David, discussed his experience through the time of being closed and the pre-reopening. I think he said something rather profound about his experience which sheds some light on the meaning of doing theatre for many of us who have spent much of our lives in the service of that art. He said,

It was like a death, it was. It was. It was like, it was, it was a death of our connections, our,
     you know it is the…. Being in a room with a group of people and telling a story is so
     elemental to being human and to just like strip that in the moment of its happening was
   like, it felt like a death to me, and I think to a lot of us. And so, it really feels like coming
     back to life.

I think I understand that feeling, even though I’m no longer actively involved in producing theatre. The end (closing) of a show was always a bit of a “downer,” even if you were moving directly onto another one, as I did most of the time (and, sometimes, even before the current production actually closed). Just the idea of having a show in limbo for such an extended period of time, had to be excruciating.

Of course, Broadway (and the rest of the theatre world) has more, or less, managed to reopen after the worst depths of COVID, but I do strongly identify with Kristen Chenoweth when she gave a brief “curtain speech” at the reopening of Wicked on Sept. 14, 2021. Her first words were, as she stepped out in front of the (closed) curtain were; “There’s no place like home.” I think she expressed a feeling many theatre people were having about that time, and since.

While I’m discussing “theatre” quotes, a long time ago (sometime around 1970, as I remember it) I encountered the statement that; “Acting is the art of making an audience believe that real things are happening to real people.” I confess that, at that time, I was quite unsure that I believed that. In fact, I still think that not ALL acting necessarily has to have this as its ultimate aim, as not ALL theatre is about “human-seeming” characters, nor need it be. However, thinking about this led me to decide that the statement might be more correct if it read; “Theatre is the art of making an audience understand that the imaginary reality of the stage can help us to better understand the actual reality of real life.”

I suppose that that quibble is at least partially the result of my work in children’s theatre where characters may be animals or other fantastic beings, and I don’t mean to deny the commitment to honesty which is ALWAYS necessary in acting, but it IS hard to think of a squirrel, for example, as a “real people.” I also don’t think that Theatre is the only art which creates an artificial reality which reflects on “real” life, but I do think it is an important one. And that it was important enough to devote much of my life to it. And I am NOT (at least in my mind) in any way limiting the idea of Theatre to just acting.

I think the notion of assisting an audience to better understand “real” life must be a part of every mind engaged in the creation of theatre. That’s why I enjoyed the idea of having computers, etc., to assist in the control of lighting, sound, etc., as a part of live performance, but was always nervous about “automating” the performance too much, even on the technical side. I firmly believe that if theatre becomes too “mechanized,” “computerized,” or, otherwise lacking the emotional commitment of all of its creators each time it is created, it will cease to truly be theatre. It MIGHT be worthy of our attention, but it won’t be “Theatre.”

Some of my former students will probably remember my saying that; “Theatre is an art of pursuing perfection, in the face of the certain knowledge that it will never be achieved.” I don’t believe that I ever claimed that that was an original thought of mine, or that I was unique in feeling that way, but it IS an idea of which I have been fond for a long time. Needless to say, when I encounter a statement which seems to be closely related to this notion expressed by someone more eloquently than I think I ever achieved, I have tried to take note of it, so here are a couple of quotes which, I think, may help make this point more clearly than I have.

On CBS’ “Sunday Morning” a while ago the architect, Frank Gehry spoke about his idea of “creative insecurity.” He described this creative insecurity as a constant questioning—looking for ways to bring a fresh perspective, new idea, or different angle to the work. The reporter suggested that as he listened, he thought of the concept of having a “beginner’s mind,” which he described as a Zen Buddhist concept that maintains that only when you are a true beginner can you really learn anything. Through that lens, we discover without the weight of preconceived beliefs and thoughts. There is an openness to embrace something novel and the courage to take a journey.

It was suggested that Gehry’s creative insecurity didn’t seem to come from a tenuous place of fearing the unknown or of thinking little of himself, but from a place of wanting more to be revealed. That even as a master or expert in our field, we can approach situations with a beginner’s mindset. That constant questioning is a mainstay of curiosity, which leads to a creative impulse to seek out new information and experiences. I can’t be sure, but I think that’s much the same thing as my notion of seeking perfection while knowing that it won’t be achieved.

Peter Hall, the British director, in his book, Making an Exhibition of Myself, discussed the impact of theatre on a person’s life. Among the many things he said, he noted that,

The theatre keeps you humble and it keeps you young; you learn your job to the very end,
and always feel unsure with every new job: 'Can I still do it? Shall I be found out?'

Ralph Richardson defeated the fears; he liked long runs: he was able to go on practising.
     He often told me that he loved the nightly expectation of going down to the theatre. He
     felt like a woodcarver trying to repeat an ever more delicate decoration. He would re-carve
     his performance each night, making it a little finer, a little more economical. Some nights,
     the knife would slip and he would spoil a whole section. He knew that perfection was
     impossible, but the important thing was to continue carving. If the run was happy, the
     carving would improve, though the improvement might be hardly discernible from
     performance to performance.

Well, I’ve rambled on for long enough for now. Having reached my elder days, I’d like to think that at least some of what I have learned and thought about through my life might be useful to some others. I hope that’s the case. If it’s not, I accept that I should have followed Yoda’s advice: “If Stupid You Are, Speak You Should Not” and I’ll try to do better in the future.

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
— Nelson Mandela

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”                                                                       ― Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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238 Mondays Is a Hard Time, #1

237 Blog Post Witch Hunts: Past, Present and Stupid

236 Thoughts Inspired by Quotes I like, #1

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