North of Sixty

North of Sixty Blog

Feb

2017

Loss upon Loss

Dunkirk NY – I’ve been thinking lately about the notion of loss. As I survey the retirement horizon ahead, the idea that, on the whole, there is nothing left but the gradual experience of loss is becoming evident. I think that’s perhaps the hardest thing with which one has to come to grips as a person gets older.

Oddly enough, I have in my life up to now been spared a great deal of loss. Both my parents are alive and nearing 88, which is an achievement in itself. But naturally their loss is clearly on the 10-year-or-less horizon. I’ve been unemployed for only maybe 4 months out of my entire working career, so I’ve never lost a job. Retirement has meant that particular loss. On the whole, life moves forward for me as it always has. But there are some adjustments to be made.

Perhaps this sense of loss feels strong in me because I have no particular ambitions or goals at the present time. I feel no desire to achieve anything, no sense of needing to accomplish anything. My strongest urge is the one to travel. I’ve read many times that spending your money on experiences is better than spending it on stuff, but when you get right down to it, even memories fade, and one loses the exactness of those experiences.

Can loss be embraced? Is it possible to weave a life around loss, to find a way to experience loss as something joyful? Perhaps the answer lies in looking at ruins.

There is always a haunting beauty in ruins. You can see the beauty that once was there, and yet still the sense of loss prevails at what once was. There is always a grace to ruins, and a sense that, if left alone, time will give to the ruins its own sense of beauty and mystery.

It is easy to see this quality in buildings and structures, but less so in people. As a culture, we don’t tend to see old people in the same way we see old buildings or ancient forests. Perhaps the trick is not to grow old, but instead, to become a ruin.

Feb

2017

Upon Further Examination

Dunkirk NY – It appears there is no escape from examining your life and career once you’ve retired. By any objective measure I had a pretty good career. 42+ years of teaching something you enjoy is not really a bad way to spend a working career. Not many people in my profession get to do what I have done, which is making a working career out of the theatre. The combination of teaching and performing was every bit as satisfactory as I thought it might turn out to be. And yet…

What troubles me most when I review my working career is the question “What good have I done?” When you’ve been a teacher, you put a lot of things out there for students to consider and absorb, but you never really get any clear idea of whether or not you’ve offered something tangible and lasting. If you’re an architect, you can see the building you’ve created. A financial adviser can see how she’s helped people earn more money. A sewage plant operator can go home knowing they’ve played their part to preserve the environment. A carpenter or any other tradesperson can see the ultimate result of their work. A teacher? Not so much. And especially not in the arts.

This idea is compounded by the fact that the arts are not appreciated in today’s society on the whole. Generally and broadly speaking, the arts as a function of culture are marginal at best beyond the reach of pop culture. When you have spent a career training young people for work in the arts, you have to inevitably accept the fact that most of them will never have careers in the arts. They will eventually find careers elsewhere, doing something less creative and more financially secure. On a percentage basis, the success ratio of students who actually make a living working in the theatre is very small.

Why, then, did I spend so much of my life working in the theatre? On melancholy days I feel it’s because I was selfish, because it was something I enjoyed doing. When I was younger perhaps I had some notion that training young actors would somehow be valuable to the eventual growth and resurgence of some sort of theatrical renaissance, but of course just the opposite happened. The arts will probably be “zeroed out” in the Trump administration, and the NEA and NEH will be discontinued (at least for the Trump years). When you look at the reality of the condition of the arts in this country, it’s hard not to come away with the notion that you spent all that time training people, not for a renaissance, but for the demise of theatre in any significant fashion. There will always be pockets of activity, but from a cultural lens the reaction will be mostly akin to how people react to the Amish: quaint, but old-fashioned and fundamentally impractical.

I watched All About Eve last night, the movie that probably has the most quotable quotes about the theatre. It occurred to me that the theatre depicted in that movie was probably the theatre I imagined myself being a part of. I did not know in 1972 that it was already dead and out of fashion. Perhaps, if I had known, I might have found something more useful to do with a working career.

But I had some fun. And fun is never anything to regret.

“The Theatuh, the Theatuh – what book of rules says the Theater exists only within some ugly buildings crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris or Vienna? Listen, junior. And learn. Want to know what the Theater is? A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man band – all Theater. Wherever there’s magic and make-believe and an audience – there’s Theater. Donald Duck, Ibsen, and The Lone Ranger, Sarah Bernhardt, Poodles Hanneford, Lunt and Fontanne, Betty Grable, Rex and Wild, and Eleanora Duse. You don’t understand them all, you don’t like them all, why should you? The Theater’s for everybody – you included, but not exclusively – so don’t approve or disapprove. It may not be your Theater, but it’s Theater of somebody, somewhere.” -Bill Sampson, All About Eve

“Every so often some elder statesman of the theatre reminds the public that actors and actresses are just plain folks, completely ignoring the fact that their whole attraction is their complete lack of resemblance to ordinary human beings. We all have that abnormality in common. We’re a breed apart from the rest of humanity, we theatre folk. We are the original displaced personalities.” -Addison DeWitt, All About Eve

Feb

2017

Winter in America

Dunkirk NY – February begins. We are at midwinter. The US has a new president. It looks like winter will be lasting for some time.

I have been at something of a loss as to how to respond to the change in US administration. As a voter, I felt my hands were tied, as both candidates were decidedly unappealing. Donald Trump is, without question, an ignorant, crass, incompetent blowhard pretty much unfit both in temperament and intellect to serve as President. Hillary Clinton espouses a brand of elitist liberalism to which I cannot adhere. While either candidate as president posed problems, given the election of Mr. Trump it’s perfectly clear that he has done more damage than probably Ms. Clinton would have done in the same space of time.

Winter is a harsh, cruel season. The days are short, sunlight is in short supply, skies are grey, and the air is of a temperature that one is forced to hold all that is dear close and tight. One finds warmth and shelter where one can. Venturing out for extended periods of time is accomplished only with great care and preparation. It’s not a season for impulsively stepping out.

This political winter will last for some time. There is little light to be had, as both sides of the political spectrum spew much emotional heat but little light. The lake of state has fissures and fractures across its frozen-over surface. I get a distinct feeling each time I read the news that I am standing on the middle of a frozen lake, with cracks everywhere, not knowing which is the safest direction to turn, or if there is enough solid ice left to get me to shore.

Mr. Trump is, in my view, the unintended harvest of what has been sown by well-meaning but out-of-touch individuals. When the Democratic party, mostly in the form of Bill Clinton, began the process of cozying up to big business and launching the nation on the path of globalization, it’s pretty clear that what they did not realize was how badly the middle-class and working poor were going to get screwed. They failed to realize that many, many people need to work with their hands and their bodies. They failed to realize that a mix of traditional industrial jobs had to be included in the rush to build the service and financial economy. They presumed, wrongly, that there would be opportunity for everyone in the global economy. Why they believed this I do not know. I presume they believed that institutions such as education and job training would keep up. They did not.

Autumn is, as always, a trap. The leaves display a glorious multitude of colors, and the display of all these colors, combined with the still-warm air and the remaining light, lulls one into a false sense of security. One believes that all is right with nature because the displays evoke such feelings of wonder and amazement. In autumn, you feel as if the world holds immense possibility and promise. But it is a false hope, whisked away with the first winter winds that strip the trees naked. Autumn is nothing more than a harbinger of winter.

Obama was America’s autumn. Trump will prove to be America’s winter. We have just begun; spring is a long way away. It will be interesting to see how much spring cleaning will need to be done when this winter is over.

Jan

2017

They Killed All My Heroes Day

(Author’s Note – I first wrote this post 10 years ago, January 15, 2007.)

This is the federal holiday marking the birth of Martin Luther King, but I celebrate it as “They Killed All My Heroes” Day. It’s a day for me to remember and honor all the political figures I admired as a young boy who were assassinated when I was between the ages of 11-18. The roll call:

Medgar Evers – June 11, 1963. I have no recollection of the actual event, but I came to know how he was assassinated as I became older and more familiar with the civil rights movement. The NAACP Field Secretary in Mississippi, he was shot in his driveway after a number of threats on his life and a molotov cocktail thrown into his garage.
John F. Kennedy – November 22, 1963. The first of the “big three.” Mr. Monoco, a huge man and much feared by us all for his gruff manner, came bursting into our 6th-grade classroom completely distraught and red in the face. “They shot the President,” he screamed, and then had us turn on the TV that was standing in the corner of the room. Walter Kronkite broke the news to us. I was a member of the School Safety Patrol, a group of kids charged with being crossing guards when school let out. When I took my post that afternoon I could do nothing else but lean my head on the “No Traffic Past This Point” sign and cry for 20 minutes.
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner – June 21, 1964. The three CORE volunteers in the Freedom Summer of 1964 whose murders were the basis of the movie Mississippi Burning. I learned of their story early in high school as I began to learn the music of Simon and Garfunkel and their song He Was My Brother.
Malcolm X – February 21, 1965. His assassination was all over the New York newspapers. I recall not liking him much because I thought he was for a violent solution and because he disagreed with MLK. I read his autobiography four years later and remember being very impressed with it. It changed my opinion on his contribution to the civil rights movement.
Martin Luther King – April 4, 1968. The second of the “big three.” I don’t recall hearing the news immediately, but I do recall awakening for school the following morning and hearing the news reports coming in on the radio. His eloquence captivated me, as did his stance on non-violence and Vietnam. He was a major influence on my decision to become a conscientious objector and war resistor. I recall the images of the Poor People’s March on Washington. There was so much hope in his tone and so much pride in those who listened and spoke.
Robert F. Kennedy – June 6, 1968. The third of the “big three.” Again, I awoke to the news on the east coast that morning as my radio alarm clock went off. All I wanted to know was who won the California primary (I was pulling for the junior Senator from NY). My first response was “not again!” I had viewed Bobby as the first politician I knew who really was serious about earning the votes of the poor and impoverished. He spoke out against apartheid in South Africa long before it was fashionable to do so. He and MLK started off a bit suspicious of each other, but eventually worked for the same goals. His assassination came so hard on the heels of MLK that I truly thought the country was going to fall apart.
Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller,Sandra Scheuer,William Schroeder – May 4, 1970. I include the Kent State shootings because the entire event grew out of political protests by unarmed students protesting the invasion of Cambodia facing an armed National Guard. It was the spring of my senior year in high school, I was preparing to go to college myself. I had applied for conscientious objector status and was exploring local groups like the Quakers, Fellowship for Reconciliation, the Catholic Peace Fellowship and the War Resistors League. I was nervous about going to college, because in the aftermath of Kent State I thought they were going to come after all student protesters the same way. I had an escape route planned for Canada should I have needed it. I was 18 years old.

By the time I got to college that fall, things began to slow down, protests were minimal (were people afraid? in hiding?), the draft was converted to a lottery system (my number was never called), and the war was clearly being lost. By the time I graduated, the war had only one year to go, civil rights had been largely achieved under law, I had discovered theatre, and Van McCoy would record The Hustle a year later as well. It was over. I spent three years teaching about peace and justice issues in a Catholic high school in Queens, but it had all become passé already. With no more heroes left, there seemed nowhere to turn, and those who were still alive (H. Rap Brown, Bobby Seale, Dan and Phillip Berrigan et. al.) were seemingly ineffective or past their prime. The “numbing of America” had begun.

So happy “They Killed All My Heroes” day to all of you. Let it be remembered on this day that the poor are still oppressed, the weak still downtrodden, the innocent still slaughtered, and the warmongers still in charge. I only hope that there will remain an earth which the meek would even be willing to inherit. -twl

Jan

2017

New Year’s Day 2017

London – I am sitting at the kitchen table in a small flat off the Camden Town stop on the Northern Line of the London Underground. I am here with a collection of students on a study abroad winter break excursion, ostensibly as the second chaperone. I am not really needed much, as one of my colleagues is in charge of this event and is pretty much running the entire show. He’s been doing it for maybe eight years now. I sort of get the feeling that this is a “retirement gift,” because there is little for me to actually do, and I am pretty free to do as I please short of a few gatherings and going to the shows. I am paying nothing for this trip – all expenses paid. So I am very grateful indeed, even if it is “unofficial.”

It is New Year’s Day, and last night I saw a delightful little show entitled The Play That Went Wrong. I wandered about the West End for bit, taking a few photos until the battery in the camera gave out, drank a pint at the Nag’s End Bar, and had to walk some distance to catch an open tube line home. One thing that irritates me about London is that the Underground stops operating about midnight or so, making late-night travel a bit of a pain. But I watched the fireworks on TV and promptly went to sleep. So much for New Year’s Eve.

I am now officially retired from teaching and from running the theatre and dance department. I have one more official responsibility – directing the spring musical The Pirates of Penzance. Technically I don’t have to be at work until rehearsals begin in February. It is an odd feeling, a mixture of relief and anxiety. “Bittersweet” is a good word to describe it. I’ve been asked many times “What are you going to do now?” And my standard answer always is “Decompress.” But I think that will really not happen until Pirates closes and I can truly walk away. The next calendar milestone is April 8. Continue reading →

Dec

2016

More Light

My annual winter solstice post. From Northern Exposure Episode 4.18 “Northern Lights”

Goethe’s final words: “More light.” Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that’s been our unifying cry: “More light.” Sunlight. Torchlight. Candelight. Neon. Incandescent. Lights that banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier’s Field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we’re supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.” “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” “Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom; lead thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home- Lead Thou me on!” “Arise, shine, for thy light has come.” Light is knowledge. Light is life. -Chris in the Morning