Lies

I try really hard not to write about politics. We all live beneath a Niagara of political news, and I figure we could use a break.

But I have to say I’ve been experiencing some angst about this election. I don’t mind a fight where people make up their minds based on facts and policy proposals. I do support one candidate over the other, but I think they’re both honorable people, and I can see how someone might prefer the other guy.

What ties me up in knots is the persistent campaign of lies about Barack Obama. I see many of them at work as I read what readers write on our newspaper Web sites. I also visited a blog on Tuesday, prompted by comments on another blog I frequent, that echoed many of the same lies -- that he won’t release his birth certificate, for example. (He’s done so, and Hawaii has verified it.) Or that he’s a closet muslim extremist, or a radical, or whatever.

I just don’t know what to do with people who willfully disbelieve the truth. As a journalist, it ties me up inside. Democracy is endangered when people make choices based on lies, distortions and conspiracy theories that they choose to believe and perpetuate against all available evidence, and it kills our national spirit as well.

I think this election is vitally important. But last night, I read a wonderful quote from Dean Sluyter’s book, “The Zen Commandments.” I’m going to try to keep it in mind when I feel election angst.

“We’re all temps around here. The entire drama of our life and our world, everything that seems so crucially important, is like a dream that eventually evaporates, along with the dreamer. If there’s nothing after this world, then we vanish into such utter oblivion that it’s as if it all never happened. If there is a next world or next life, then what seemed like the whole story is part of a much bigger picture. Either way, our worries were blown out of proportion.”

(Photo: Ridgewood, Queens, Oct. 2008)

Mosquito

I had a funny experience at the drug store yesterday when I stopped in on my way to work. The line for the cashiers was very long, stretching down one of the shopping aisles. I asked a guy with a cart in the aisle, “Are you in line?” He kind of grunted at me and positioned his cart so it would be more obvious that he was, indeed, waiting. I got behind him.

It was then that I noticed he had a HUGE mosquito hanging off the upper part of his right ear. And I mean HUGE. Apparently the mosquito had the good fortune to land on an area with few if any neurons, because this guy obviously didn’t feel it.

I watched the mosquito for a couple of minutes. It was clearly eating -- it got fatter and fatter, its body redder and redder. I wondered what I should do. I thought about trying to surreptitiously fan it off the guy’s ear, but surely the guy would feel that and think I was up to something. I thought about simply saying, “Hey, dude, you have a HUGE mosquito on your ear,” but then he was likely to squash the mosquito -- which, after all, was only trying to get its breakfast and doing what mosquitoes do. (Plus that would be a mess, because the mosquito was quite full by this time.)

I marveled at the situation. Doesn’t it seem unlikely to witness a mosquito attack in a drug store on Park Avenue at the end of October?

Eventually, the guy moved up to the cashier. I thought she might say something, but she didn’t -- she barely looked up, so I doubt she even noticed the mosquito. Finally, full to bursting, the mosquito flew away just as the guy was getting out his cash.

And that, I thought, was the best possible scenario. The guy never knew he’d been bitten. The mosquito got its breakfast. And I didn’t have to engage a grumpy fellow drug store patron. Problem solved!

(Photo: Graffiti sunset, Montauk, Oct. 2008)

Joan, part 2

Last night Gary and I went to see Joan Baez in concert at Town Hall, and once again she was terrific. You may remember I went to see her speak several weeks ago, and she played a few songs then. But this was the full concert experience.

She kept up an easy rapport with the adoring audience, and told a few funny show business stories -- about meeting Johnny Cash, for example. She said: “The first time I met Johnny he was with his first wife, and that’s how he introduced her.”

She also led a rousing audience cheer for Obama.

Here's Joan's set list, a mixture of some old classics and several songs by Steve Earl from her newest album, "Day After Tomorrow":

Flora
Scarlet Tide
God is God
Peggy-O
Love Song to a Stranger
Farewell Angelina
Gospel Ship
Christmas in Washington
Long Black Veil
Wonderful World
The Rose of Sharon
Swing Low Sweet Chariot (acapella)
The Day After Tomorrow
Diamonds and Rust
I am a Wanderer
Love is Just a Four Letter Word
Jerusalem

(encore)
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Imagine
Amazing Grace (acapella)

(Photo: Shadow of a porch railing in Bushwick, Brooklyn)

Gingivitisaurus

When David and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, we had lunch in the downstairs cafeteria. Right outside the glass door was this eye-catching artwork -- "Gingivitisaurus," by Al Baio. It was staring at me the entire time I ate. Although I don't usually photograph art in museums and galleries, I decided by the end of the meal that I'd bonded with it and needed a photo.

Most of what we saw at the MFA was much more traditional -- Turners, Sargents, medieval altarpieces, Van Goghs, Monets (and Manets), you name it. It was an excellent collection, yet manageable, unlike the Metropolitan Museum, which is so vast that it's overwhelming. We didn't begin to see all of the Boston museum, but we saw a lot.

There's an excellent photography exhibit there now by Yousuf Karsh, as well as a small exhibit by Rachel Whiteread featuring an entire village of lit-up dollhouses in a dark room. Quite captivating!

There's also a show of Assyrian artifacts, but we skipped that. A little antiquity goes a long way, in my book.

Boston

Back from Boston, where I spent a great long weekend with my friend David. We walked around neighborhoods like Back Bay and Beacon Hill, explored Cambridge and Harvard University, and went to the Museum of Fine Arts. I've found another city where I could easily live!

Anyway, I'll write more tomorrow, but meanwhile, here are some photos of Boston Common.



As you can see, the fall colors were out, and the weather was beautiful and not at all cold.

Pause

I'm off to Boston this morning for a long weekend. So I'll post again on Monday. Meanwhile, I leave you with this photo of some street art in SoHo. I think it must have been sponsored by this store, because otherwise they surely would have removed it -- it's pretty great, isn't it? It's done with some kind of adhesive. I love the way it seems to float, suspended over the surface of the building.

Fancy Feast

When my cat began having trouble with her thyroid last year, I began buying Fancy Feast to coerce her into taking her medicine. Until then, she only ate kibble -- but I found if I dribbled her liquid medicine into Fancy Feast, she’d eat it without hesitation, and I didn’t have to wrestle a dropper into her mouth.

After her treatment -- which eliminated the need for medicine -- I kept giving her Fancy Feast every morning, in addition to her omnipresent dry food. She likes Fancy Feast so much, and I think the moisture is good for her kidneys, which aren’t the greatest these days. (She’s 13.)

We’ve developed a very funny routine. Every morning, right around 5 a.m., she begins to get excited. Sometimes she’ll run around the house and jump on me. Or if she’s lying next to me, she’s like a coiled spring -- at the slightest movement from me, she leaps up and runs to the kitchen. She knows she’s going to get fed.

But sometimes, despite all the excitement, she’s not even hungry. I’ll put her Fancy Feast down, and she’ll walk over and look at it. She might take a few bites and walk away, returning to it periodically through the morning until it’s finished. Or, if it’s a type with gravy, she almost always eats the gravy immediately and leaves the rest for later.

Looking at this through my Buddhist lens, it seems so illustrative of desire. We think we really want something, and then when we get it, we find we don’t want it so badly after all. Sometimes we’re not even sure what to do with it. The fact that my cat experiences this shows that it’s really ingrained in all beings -- she wants her Fancy Feast because “it’s time,” it’s her habit, not because she’s hungry.

Isn’t that how we look at a lot of things in life? I want a better job because “it’s time.” I want a relationship because “I should have one by now.” But do we really want these things, or do we just think we do? Are they our Fancy Feast?

(Photo: Chelsea, Oct. 2008)