Laurel Massé

So simple even a child

By the time I was standing up in school to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the straight-arm salute had been dropped, the hand-over-the-heart had been substituted, and the Pledge already included the words "under God" that were added in 1954. As a child, I did not give it much thought. I thought more about horses, and why the teacher was always so mean, and how much time was left before I could go home and read my book.

But I was also thinking about politics - in a little kid sort of way, of course -  and I had ideas. A platform of sorts, or a manifesto, that was something like this:

1. Sometimes it's the grownup who is wrong, and so the child shouldn't always be the one who has to apologize.
2.No hitting. No making fun. No being mean, and no leaving other people out. Some people can catch a ball, some people can spell big words (I got my first concussion in second grade, courtesy of a baseball. Guess which group I was in). But everybody belongs, even when they are different.
3. Share, and be fair. The person who gets to cut the cake into slices chooses last.
4. Stop worrying so much about the Communists. All we have to do is really be what we say we are, the land of the free, the home of the brave, one nation under God, the best country on earth, and then everyone will want to be like us and to be our friends. Even the Communists.

Simple. Now let's have cookies and milk!

It still seems simple, and I don't see much reason to change it. For grownup, read powerful, any kind of powerful. For child, read deprived of power. For Communists, read the name of the current ideological foe, the perceived, or invented, threat, i.e. [your fear inserted here]. The rest is pretty straightforward, I think. But then, I also think Jesus' words are pretty straightforward. Love. Share. Take care of each other. Rejoice when the lost are found.

And, well, hey, kids! Let's try that. Because I don't think we really have, not as a nation, not lately.

There is one more plank in my platform. Parents who promise a pony for good grades should, when excellent report cards are forthcoming, deliver the pony as promised.

I am Laurel Massé, and I approve this message.

A different epidemiology

On December 16th, two days after the horror of the Sandy Hook shooting, I took a fall while away from home. Some very kind folks picked me up from the pavement, and the good monks at the monastery put me up for the night. I drove back north the following day, jaw set in determination against the pain of what turned out to be a broken arm.

In the following days of forced inactivity, I noticed on Facebook that a friend had broken her collarbone. Another, his ankle. Another, her wrists. Suddenly there seem to be gravity vortices everywhere.  A bronchial thing is going around, too, a virulent strain that lasts for weeks. Many of the people I know are sick, coughing, sniffling, wheezing. Others have been felled by a stomach bug. And I read last night that there are already a record number of flu cases reported.

I am not a doctor, and I'm not a scientist and I can't prove what I am about to say. But I have a feeling about all this. I believe that, because of that happened to those children, our collective heart broke, is broken, and with God-given wisdom, our bodies have refused to continue with "business as usual".

Sometimes the show cannot, must not, go on.

Many religious and cultural traditions allow (or even require) the mourner to step away from chronological time for a set period. The Jewish custom of sitting shiva comes to mind, as does the true Irish wake. Both practices - and I know there are countless others - surround the mourners with community, helping hands, and memory keepers.

I pray that those who lost their loved ones, their precious jewels, the light of their lives, had such rituals and help. I am sure they did, at least in the immediate days and weeks. But the rest of us, gut-punched yet not killed, may not have taken full stock of the personal damage. Loosed from traditions of faith or ethnic origin, as many now are, we try to go on as if, like Shane, we can handle everything on our own. I think the lone hero is a particularly American vision and ideal. We feel empathy with and sympathy for the parents, the teachers, the children of those who were killed, without recognizing the magnitude of our own wounding. Falling down or being taken ill can be explained by ice on a step, germs in the air. And yet, I am certain there is more: the contagion of grief, inhaled. The heart so heavy that trying to lift it alone makes you stumble.

There have been several shootings and other large tragedies since then, and small ones beyond counting, as there always are. "Blows upon a bruise", as Evelyn Waugh once wrote. There is nothing we can do to prevent all such events. But we need to consider, thoughtfully, prayerfully (if we are of that mind) what we can do. And to truly accept the notion that no one of us can carry these burdens alone.

Cool school

This is wonderful on many levels. It's a great story about jazz and the culture of jazz, a story about being, and trying to be, cool, and, most wonderfully, a story that can teach you how to tell a story.

 

The Manhattan Transfer opened for Mr. Cosby at the Las Vegas Hilton in - oh, what was it? - 1975? Maybe. It was an amazing experience, and not just because of Cosby. James Moody was in the house orchestra! Which was very cool.

Rests between the bright shiny notes

Mrs. Peel and I are sitting side by side, looking out the window. The morning chatter-clatter of starlings on the postage-stamp lawn in front of my apartment has already abated, leaving us to gaze at metal and bricks, the traffic passing by, the boxy building across the street. And at people on the sidewalk with and without strollers (about half and half), and with and without earbuds and iPhones (almost all busily with).

Ever the Capricorn, I recently took the stubbornly contrary action of trading in my somewhat-smart phone for a single-minded dumber one that only knows how to do one thing: phone calls. I did this because I need to hear what the person on the other end of the call is saying more than I need to check my emails all day, or send and receive messages. I had a feeling that the more "gifted" phone I had been using to relieve my stress level was actually adding to it.

A month into this experiment, I can report that I was right. Checking emails pulled my attention repeatedly away from the present place and time. The way that little "ding!" hooked me was disruptive of both conversation and quiet, because I do not multi-task very well. I think I am not alone in this. In fact, I don't know anyone my own age  - i.e. grew up without computers and adopted them later - who truly can multi-task. Rather, we get several balls going in the air, and think we're doing great, but we can drop one or two without noticing. Then we fume over yet another email exchange about all the same things, or a double-booking, or an argument about what was actually said and agreed to.

The iPhone is a glorious invention, and I'm not scorning the idea of ever having one. But right now I need all the quiet I can get. I live in a noisy place, where inner quiet is the only available quiet, and for that, for now, for me, the dumb phone is the smart way to go. If ever I move back to the wilderness, you can bet I will rethink. But in the meantime, I am trying to train myself to take and make my calls, when at home, in the corner of my apartment that is farthest away from where my laptop sits, so I am not browsing the internet while saying "uh-huh, yes, I know" to I don't-know-what because I am browsing the internet. It was easier to train my cat to sit on command, because Mrs. Peel has the feline's gift of focus. She is distracted only by string. But for me, anything and everything can be string. That's my personal string theory, and because of that, because I am a 20th Century human in the 21st century, I must decide, every day, when to boldly go, and, with perhaps more urgency, when to refrain from going. Music is in the rests as much as in the notes.

 

Gaga din

I have always been a Beatles fan. Always. I remember the first time I heard them, and from that moment on, as far as I was concerned, they were The Ones.

But I had friends, tin-eared and delusional, who thought the Rolling Stones were The Ones. Poor dears! Their sonic worlds were clearly different from mine, and they were clearly wrong. 

One thing was certain: nobody liked both. In fact, it was tacitly understood that one was not allowed to like both.

Which meant that I deprived myself, on principle, of the raucous splendor of the Stones music for many years. I still like the Beatles best, and probably always will. But I know now that there are times when only Keith Richards' guitar tones will do.

Over the years, I watched heated arguments over whether Kiss was categorically better than Alice Cooper, jazz better than rock, fusion indisputably better than swing, countertenors better than female altos. Yikes! Either/or, either/or. Choose or lose! Yes,  it's necessary, to a certain extent. But it's also choose and lose. The best musicians I know listen to everything, and borrow from everything. Both and all would seem to be their motto, and I think this is the best way to be.

I bring this up today because I am tired of hearing wonderful musicians and singers (including me) complain about Lady Gaga. I think we should stop doing that. Most of us can't do what she does, and there are a lot of folks who really love what she does. Fair enough. Her music and performance style are not to my taste, and so they're not part of my daily life. What does seem to be part of my life is the ceaseless growl of negative comments made by some of the artists I do like.

Most of us are old enough to know better. I think we can do better, if only when in front of other people.

Let's lighten up on each other. Let's speak with a greater measure of grace and dignity, and stop flaying the girls in the meat dresses and the short dresses and no dresses at all. Let's stop muttering about J.K. Rowling's wealth, too (you know who you are). Success does not ensure a trouble-free life. Things can happen. The Wheel of Fortune can turn very quickly. Believe me. I know this very well.

Benjamin Disraeli is credited with having said, "Never complain, and never explain." I'm going to try that, at least for the rest of the afternoon.

 

 

Hello, Santa?

I know it's awfully early to be asking, but please, may I have this?

Thank you.

From datamancer.net

To Sir, with love

A rose is a rose, even when it's a McCartney rose. It was many years ago today (or some other day) that not-yet-Sir Paul McCartney pulled a perfect rose from a table centerpiece and tossed it into my hands as I was singing Heart's Desire with my Manhattan Transfer colleagues at the Brit Awards. At least, I think the event was the Brits. I was completely focused on Sir P. I confess that I was singing right to (or perhaps even at) him, and he... well, the story is going into my memoir, which I had hoped to write this morning, but it's too darn hot.

On Sir's birthday, June 18th, I am going to be singing a few of his tunes in Beacon, NY. Not too many, though. I don't want to hurt Johnny Mercer or Willie Nelson's feelings. Cole Porter can be pretty touchy, too. With me will be Tex Arnold on the piano, and because we had such a good time in Washington CT last month, my sister Babette will again be joining me in a few songs, along with guitarist (and nephew) Alex Brown.

The Howland Cultural Center is a very interesting venue. Built in the "Norwegian" style in 1872 as a library, and placed on the National Historic Register one hundred years later, it is now a performance space and art gallery. It's geothermally cooled (which cannot be said of my apartment, alas). I hope to see some of you there. If you are planning on coming, please do make your reservation right away, so as to be sure to have a seat.

By the way, the McCartney Rose, shown above, is a hybrid tea rose, introduced in 1995. It is described as a hardy repeating bloomer (like me and my career!) with a strong and intoxicating fragrance. This pleases me. Though a rose by any other name would smell as sweet in Shakespeare's time, most of the cut roses one can buy these days have no perfume at all. One sniffs a bouquet, and there's nothing.

Heavy the heart that, via the nose, encounters the unscented rose.

Deep in the heart of Texas

Do not pass "go". And do not wait. Just trot right over to my friend Paul Overton's blog at Every Day is Awesome. If you tend toward tears when in the presence of beauty and noble actions, have a hanky handy.

 

 

 

Mothering

It's Mother's Day here in the States. In every corner of my city, folks are taking their mothers to brunch, or presenting them with flowers, chocolates, world's-best-mom cards, jewellery - all in an effort to say thanks.

Or in an effort to avoid the ill-effects of forgetting, or - heaven forbid! - willfully ignoring Mother's Day.

Or some combination of all the above.

Great moms grow great kids, we are told. These great moms, living and deceased (for this is also a day of memory, and of missing  the first loved one), are already the topic of so many editorials, blogs, coffee mugs, and facebook comments that I want to take a moment to consider the other mother. The not-all-that-good mother. The bad mother. Because surely, somewhere, somebody had her.

And if great moms grow great kids, as the coffee mug says, what do bad moms grow?

Children who grow up with moms who beat them, physically and/or emotionally, whose moms couldn't be trusted, who forced their children to choose between mother and father - might be having a hard time with this particular holiday, and who can blame them? "I can never repay you for the gift of life," sing the cards. "Thanks, Mom." There is no flowery, verse-y card, though, for the gifts of the fist to the face and the assault on the soul.

We have a tendency to want to make things pretty, to look back fondly at a past that may never have actually happened. The happy Thanksgiving family dinner. The forefathers of our country agreeing on everything. Our foremothers happily consenting to be less than citizens. Many of us are taught, in childhood, that the Bible is a cohesive single text, and that everyone coming to America came for and received religious freedom - that kind of thing. But the truth is that life has always been complex, people have always endured great difficulties and confusions, and tried to do their best. And often failed, with consequences.

One of the best mothers I know is the thoughtful daughter of a bad mother, and I know she is not the only one out there. I want to celebrate the kids who had the not-so-good moms, but have carried on, teaching themselves how to trust, how to make friends, how to give and receive love. For these, the good mother is the one they have become to themselves. To all of you: you've done well. You are magnificent. Happy mother's day.

 

 

 

Steed and Mrs. Peel

We don't always know where our strongest influences and deepest dreams are sourced. Nor do we know what event might reveal the man - or woman - behind the curtain. I enjoyed, last night, the first good night's sleep since Mrs. Peel (feline) took up residence here, so I can say, with great assurance, that the arrival of a kitten, however small that kitten may be, can qualify as an Event. My memory gates are being pulled open by a little white-tipped paw.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I saw The Avengers when my family was living in Europe, in the 1960s. The first episodes were in black and white. I think the series went to color when it started showing in the States. Perhaps there was an infusion of dollars into the production budget. But the feel of the show was already firmly established. A little zany, a little camp, very chic, and much more wry and understated than anything else I remember watching. And much much more sexy. Mrs. Emma Peel (and my teacher in Paris, Mlle.Thériot), gave me the first clue about what a sensuous, sexy woman is.

Dame Diana Rigg, at 72, is a stunningly beautiful woman; when she joined the cast of The Avengers, she was 27, and simply gorgeous. Auburn hair, long legs, a lovely figure, a supple voice, and a light in her eyes. Wow. The boys I knew were thinking "that's what I want!", but the girls were thinking, "that's what I want to be", a big difference, as life would repeatedly reveal. She was lovely, very smart (a certified genius, as I recall), quite independent, and self-assured. This suggested that - perhaps - one could get away with being intelligent, and thinking well of oneself. Somewhere, someone would be delighted by exactly that. Confirmation of that radical idea? John Steed.

Steed was a government agent, a Bond but not as young, probably not as promiscuous, and not as gadgety. He was the professional to Peel's "talented amateur", and clearly adored and respected her. Played by Patrick Macnee, Steed was urbane, unflappable, witty, and deadly when necessary.  There was a tremendous mutual appreciation and sexual sizzle between the two characters, even though (or perhaps because) the nature of their relationship off-hours was never clearly spelled out to the viewer. There was also an obvious age difference: Macnee was 43 when the Steed-and-Emma episodes began.

To a certain extent, that kind of age difference is the Hollywood standard, even today. The parts seem to keep coming for aging male actors in a way that they do not for women. In fact, the parts for older women are so few that Meryl Streep can almost play them all and still have days off.

I don't know whether that thinking was in play when Mrs. Peel hit the small screen, and I didn't much care. The sparkling relationship entranced me. In it, I saw (subconsciously) that it takes a very confident man to give a smart woman the kind of acceptance that allows her to reveal how just how smart she really is. That kind of confidence has many roots; one of them is having lived a lot of life. So, perhaps from henceforth, the older and wiser man for me.

John Steed, preferably. But, you say, he is only a fictional character. Yeah, well, that there would be a problem, maybe. Or maybe not. Because to a certain extent, maybe we all are fictional characters. Really, how often do we look at someone and see them as they really are? Or as God sees them? Not very often, I think. We tend to see projections of what we want and need superimposed on the persons upon whom we're focused. When they turn out to be just themselves, and not our fantasy about them, disappointment ensues. Friendships shatter. Marriages fail. Who knew that Lassie would turn out to be a dog with shedding issues, and really big teeth?

I think it is safe to say that I still have not met my John Steed. If I have, I have not recognized him, perhaps because he is already partnered, or because he is only five years old so far in this lifetime. It's OK. I still have a fair amount of work and play to do in the living of this life, and I pray I will keep going, and going strong, until the day I die. At which time I hope that sweet five-year old, aged forty-five or so by then, will think, "Oh, how sad. She always reminded me of Emma Peel."