Shooting Jack into the cybersphere

Between the hours of 4 and 5 PM, you didn’t want to be on the second floor of this building.

Why?

I had finally been forced to buy a printer / scanner / fax.

And I completely disapprove of them. When I worked at Wal-Mart, I would beg students not to print vocabulary lists. They did, so I went to the computer guys and asked, could they disable the printing option on my emails?

The guys just shrugged.

I was ardently, passionately green. I tried to organize car pools, but getting people to share rides was as easy as getting them to donate a kidney—without anesthesia.

“What if there’s an emergency?” they asked.

“When was the last emergency?” I’d counter.

“I need it for my kids,” they’d say.

Of course, of course, this sent me off.

“It is exactly FOR your kids that you need to start being responsible and start thinking about what kind of world you’re gonna be leaving them!” I’d diatribe.

With just a few exceptions, the love between Puerto Ricans for their cars is only matched by adolescent boys in gringolandia. It’s now common, by the way, to have TWO cars—‘cause what happens if one breaks?

You’d be stranded.

Well, it was curb my environmentalism or lose my friends. I chose friends. But I didn’t, I reasoned, have to give in to the whole nonsense. I took the bus, and smiled evilly if inwardly when gas soared to four dollars a gallon. I vowed—no printer.

Then the box came that I’d been dreading.

Readers of the blook know that Eric and I tore through the house, the day after Franny died. He took on the photos; I did the poetry.

Franny, I’m sorry to say, had the terrible habit of printing out multiple versions of her poems—all slightly different. Worse, she didn’t put any date on them. Right—she knew what version was the final. But the rest of us?

So I jammed as much as I could find into a box, which Eric drove away to West Virginia. I hoped—I knew uselessly—never to see that box again.

I justify this by citing Franny, herself. Because Lorraine, Gunnar’s widow, had tried to keep the memory of the great pianist and composer alive for years after his death.

“You know, at a certain point, you just have to let go. History will remember him or it won’t. Or maybe it will forget him and rediscover him—he wouldn’t be the first to have that happen to him….”

Practical advice from a sensible woman.

Well, Eric shipped the box a few weeks ago. I retrieved it, lifted it, and decided to spend the ten bucks to take a three-block taxi ride home. How much is my dorsal spine worth?

And the box sat there, a challenge each morning, a reproof each night.

“Screw it,” I said, “the essence of neurosis is the avoidance of pain.” A nod of thanks here to my friend Sonia, whose wisdom this is. “I’m gonna open that box!”

Well I prepared myself—I got a scissors and a big hunk of Kleenex.

There’s no sense in not crying if you have to. You’re better off to get it out, vent it, and then go on. Walk into the pain, live it, let it go. That’s what grief, or suffering, teaches you.

So I knew the tears would come. What I didn’t know was the source. Because the first documents to spring out of the box were a series of letters from Don Anderson, publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal, to Jack, my father.

Here’s one…. 

Well, I became Lorraine. I knew Jack had fought for the open housing drive, but I didn’t know how hard, or that his boss had thought so highly of him.

Wait—his former boss. Anderson, I realized later, had retired years earlier. I knew because Jack had written the story, and Anderson had replied.

Well, the guy knows how to turn a phrase, doesn’t he? I like the somewhat false but still funny self deprecation of the “hung for horse stealing….”

And yes, that “pretty and talented” wife does smack of smugness—it explains why women were burning their bras a decade later.

And the pretty and talented wife had—it must be said—some mixed feelings about Anderson.

It wasn’t much spoken off—but it was there. She watched Jack’s colleagues rise to editor, managing editor, administrative jobs that—guess what?—paid better. And there Anderson was, “sidetracking” her husband.

And she had a three-year-old (me), a seven-year-old (John), and a 12-year-old (Eric). And hadn’t “worked” in over a decade.

How did she feel, reading this letter? A letter that praises at the same time that it announces—your husband’s going nowhere. You’ll never be the publisher’s wife, you pretty, talented thing.

I think it was easy enough for Jack. He loved to write, he loved his work, and the respect and admiration of the community were pay dirt for him.

For Franny? Washing little Marc’s diapers?

There are three more pages—a typescript of a talk Anderson gave at a company meeting….

No, there never was a great fortune in that wallet—or any other wallet that a journalist has. About all he got were enough money to buy food and clothes and shoes, and six pieces of paper.

Now in my hands.

And time will go on, and people will die, and no one will know—perhaps—that there was a time when the Ku Klux Klan marched in Madison, or that neighbors could threaten to burn the first black family’s house in the neighborhood.

Or that a guy named John Newhouse had fought the bastards.

But maybe they will.

Went out, bought the scanner, sighed deeply, invoked doña Taí—patron saint of technological idiots—and prepared for the hell it would be.

I don’t want another device in my life.

But how much had he done for me?

World—remember. There was a reporter, John Newhouse.

And he did it better than anyone else I have ever known.

No todos

Well, it’s another dog-bites-man moment—I’m left standing alone, watching the crowd race by.

I wrote yesterday about a man who—assuming the reports are correct—had a secret or two. That led him to some people who dispatched him to his death, in a particularly gory and violent way. All for 400 bucks, which he had withdrawn and given them.

Into this picture steps a well-known—if not particularly well-loved—figure in Puerto Rico, and in this blog. La Comay! Yes, the guy who dresses as a woman and says absolutely-to-the-point-of-slanderous things about anybody.

Well, Jack got after me and forced me to sit through the whole thing. Yes—10 minutes of La Comay, which will last me well into my next life.

Really, it was only seven minutes of content. The other three minutes? The phrase aparente y alegadamente—apparently and allegedly. A useful phrase indeed, for La Comay got taken to court years ago, and lost in a highly publicized case.

Besides giving a possible bit of legal protection, the phrase gives the impression of impartiality. Quite needed, because La Comay then dishes up whatever rumor has come to his ears. And since we’ve heard aparente y alegadamente 333 times already—and tuned it out—the phrase does nothing more than announce the coming of a new, more scandalous tidbit.

Right—so what’s La Comay’s version?

José Enrique Gómez—finally to give the gentleman his name—phoned his wife to say that he was leaving a work event at a San Juan hotel, was going to go eat something, and would then come home.

La Comay says no. He was twenty miles away, in the city of Caguas, on a perfectly nice street in the center of town.

Nice during the day.

But, alleges and apparents (nooooo, computer, it’s just a new word! You should be happy!) La Comay, the street is a cesspool of vice—drugs, prostitution, homosexuality! (A fact La Comay never misses an opportunity to insert….) La Comay alleges that José Enrique knew a couple, had had some connection with them, and that because of that, owed them money.  He invites them into his car. Another couple join them. There are four assailants and José Enrique. They force him to go to an automatic teller, and he withdraws 400$. They go to a gas station and buy a container of gas. They then beat him, douse him with gasoline, and set him on fire.

La Comay, taking a high-minded stance, says that all of Puerto Rico is consternated—consternado, or in turmoil! Can we use the ATHs—our version of ATM? Is anybody safe?

Yeah, says La Comay. At least if you’re not on Calle Padial in Caguas after dark inviting a shady couple into your car.

Well, others think differently. Here’s one:

The social networks exploded. A campaign to boycott the sponsors of the television program sprang up. Several companies have already pulled their ads.

In addition, a campaign Todos Somos José Enrique was created. We’re all José Enrique—even Ricky Martin!

Yeah?

I thought the most recent remaking of Ricky was the scenario of a guy raising kids with another guy.

Nor does it help that The New Day, our local rag, corroborates some of the details. The suspects—three of them are in custody—paint essentially the same picture as La Comay.

And it all leads to a moral conundrum—for me, at least.

Let me put it this way.

I don’t walk through La Perla—our famous or infamous San Juan slum. I don’t rack up huge cocaine bills.

And—assuming it’s true—I wouldn’t be on Calle Padial after dark.

Actually, I wouldn’t even know that I shouldn’t be.

I can go 95% of the way with the crowd who decry the tawdriness, the tackiness of La Comay.

Whom I don’t watch.

I’m holding back on saying that we’re all José Enrique. 

On the fifth day of January of this year, I knocked on the guest bedroom door and begged for help.

I was entering another panic attack.

And I knew very little, except that the person who would open the door would stay with me, fight for me, and move heaven and earth—and even hell—to get me out of it.

It was Taí. Who sat on the floor and held my hand and then called my doctor and then emergency rooms and then all her friends who might know a shrink and then called Raf and then put me into a cab and then…

Do I have to go on? She’s wonderful, she always is. It was the day before a major holiday, and Puerto Rico was more chaotic than usual. Christmas time, as well, seems to increase the difficulty of life here.

I got out of it. I pulled myself together. I could do all that by the good fortune of a good family, the love of a good man, the help of a good shrink, and…

A woman ten islands down the Caribbean who has given me gifts as varying as constant love and support to the actual desk I’m writing this on.

Franny grew philosophical at the end, seeing so many of her friends die. But also seeing new people come into her life, almost until the very end.

It’s hard to lose a mother.

But it’s wonderful to gain a sister.

Happy birthday, Taí!

Chastity of the Ears

Morning radio—it’s a thing in Puerto Rico. Yes, everywhere else has it, but we do it with a special zest, a Latin flare; we’re liberal in the use of absurdity and silliness, scandal and gossip.

And virtually no one can resist it.

Not even Mr. Fernández, who normally is even less prone to swimming with the current than I. At 6:30 in the morning, the clock radio will startle me into life, and neither willy nor nilly will keep me from listening.

Today, according to CNN, the world’s eyes are on Cairo, and the president, Mr. Morsi. Well, news to me, but son of a newspaper guy am I. I did my best, and read two thirds of the article.

Right—and what is Puerto Rico occupying itself with today?

The morning radio gave me the first clues. Prostitución. La Prieta—the dark (female) one. Rubencito.

OK—what’s The New Day, our number one newspaper, serving up today? Escalofriantes Detalles reads the front page of the print edition. Chilling details.

A man disappeared last Thursday. His family was distraught. The press gave the matter a lot of attention, perhaps because he was a publicist, and thus presumably known to journalists. His body was discovered two days ago—and now the story is out.

Well, the family is now facing two deaths. The first being the publicist himself.

The second?

Their image of him.

If the accounts are true, he had a little secret. And no, you won’t find it here.

I believe in the public’s right to know. I think it’s very important, in fact, to know who won the bid to build the highway, at what cost, under what circumstances. I want the press monitoring how the elections are held, what the votes are, and what the shenanigans are.

What I don’t get is why I have to participate in the shredding, posthumously, of a man’s reputation. Or why I have a right to know sordid details that must be agonizing to a family already decimated.

Confession—I read the article. Not the two thirds that I gave to Cairo and Mr. Morsi, but the entire article. The details of which I am—high-mindedly—denying you!

Nor can I be very proud of the fact that I never once was tempted to look at Kate Middleton’s you-know-whats. Pretty easy temptation to avoid. But the day Mr. Fernández announced, “Hey, here’s a picture of Ricky Martin nude?”

Well, I violated then what I violated today—chastity of the eyes. Which I remembered from my days of reading about religious orders. Nuns, in the old days, were told to walk with their eyes cast downwards. Temptation was everywhere.

Also, of course, it was self-discipline. The will was exerting itself, taking control of the body.

It may also have been respect. There are some things I shouldn’t, and therefore don’t, see. It’s enough that your life has been maimed. I won’t pry into the shameful reasons for it.

Of course, the issue for me is chastity of the ears. A man with better control than I would rouse himself at the first mention of prostitution, stride to the cold shower, mortify the flesh. Not lie under the warm and prurient covers….

And is it only I, or does anyone else think that it’s far more easy to practice chastity of the eyes than chastity of the ears? Somehow, you have less control over what you hear than what you see.

Or maybe not. Try googling chastity of the ears and you’ll get surprising little. The first citation is from a Father Hardon (and speaking of which—is there chastity of humor?), who tosses the term off with no discussion. Three or four citations down, you come to this, from Morning Talks, October 30, 1967:

Out of the five outgoing faculties of eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste, three are most powerful. Lust attacks us eighty percent through the eyes, fourteen percent through the ears and the remaining six percent mainly through touch.  

Well, now, that’s an interesting fact to know.

If true.

Which I doubt. I’d argue that there are visual guys, tactile guys, aural guys.  I could and did go to bed with wildly divergent guys, visually speaking. Didn’t matter to me, in those long-gone days.

I could never go to bed with a guy who had an unpleasant voice. 

Well, if I’ve sinned, I must do penance. Here taking the form of an utterly silly cat video.

Enjoy!

Going Native?

CNN reports that the battle is over, and that the digital natives have won over the immigrants.

Which is to say that if you remember a time when you grabbed a piece of paper, put a black oily sheet of flimsier paper under it, then put another sheet under that and inserted around a roller—you’re an immigrant. If you cannot imagine creating a document without the program Word, you are a native.

A simpler test presented itself a few months ago. I learned to type on—well, a typewriter. What else would I have used? And so I continued to insert two spaces after a period.

That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?

Wrong.

Anybody learning keyboarding now knows that it’s one space, not two. And if you do do two spaces after terminal punctuation, a couple things will happen:

• the formatting will be completely screwed up if you publish electronically
• publishing houses may not accept your manuscript

It takes a lot of time—in a 250 page manuscript—to painstakingly delete spaces….

OK—so there are people out there whose experience of the world is solely digital. Is it a bad thing?

I think so.

Percy Tannenbaum of the University of California at Berkeley has written: “Among life’s more embarrassing moments have been countless occasions when I am engaged in conversation in a room while a TV set is on, and I cannot for the life of me stop from periodically glancing over to the screen. This occurs not only during dull conversations but during reasonably interesting ones just as well.”

That’s from an article in Scientific American titled “Television Addiction is no Mere Metaphor.” Who doesn’t know the feeling? You’re in somebody’s house, and there’s the TV, to which they are oblivious. You are fighting the urge to go and turn it off, considering the possibility of asking your host to turn it off, and watching helplessly and—you hope—surreptiously.

“Your blood pressure is a little high,” my doctor once said.

“Well, I’ve just seen three rapes, five murders, eight fights, and two high speed chases,” I said.

He was alarmed—where had I been?

“In your waiting room, in front of the TV….”

Which hooks you, by the way, by something called the “orienting response.” Imagine, you are in the jungle, millennia ago, hunting for food. Everything is either still or at least rhythmic—the swaying of trees, the breeze stirring the branches. Suddenly, there’s an unexpected movement—something out of place. An animal has moved, breaking a twig in the process. You turn, you shoot the arrow.

Dinner.

Great—very nice in the jungle. But in the living room?

Because TV is filled with those quick, unexpected movements. Part of the addiction is that we haven’t evolved fast enough not to be hooked by the jumping movements on the screen.

And an addiction it is. I read somewhere that even when promised a substantial amount of money—I think it was a thousand pounds—the great majority of British households could not forego telly for a year.

The article went on to say that the cathode ray tube—the CRT which was prevalent before the LCD—actually stimulates the right side of the brain. Which is, for most of us, non-linear, non-logical, more concerned with emotions than with logic.

Before I post this, I will check and—I hope—weed out typos and grammatical errors. If I printed the document, however, I am sure that I would find many errors that I had overlooked. I’m reading, or editing, with a different part of my brain.

It’s one of the reasons you explode, when the boss sends you a nasty email. Also the reason you say, “dammit, I’m not taking that shit!” and send back a more inflammatory response.

It’s the reason guys get hooked on Internet porn. And probably the reason so many smart guys—David Petraeus does come to mind—do such incredibly dumb things. He didn’t think anybody could trace his email? Of course not—he was thinking in front of a computer, not in a quiet, disconnected corner.

Saying which, I am writing on a computer. I will cruise the Internet, which allows me to tell you what CNN is saying or what the Scientific American published in 2003. I will play Sudoku and Rummikub—both on my iPad. I may well watch TV after dinner with Raf.

Further confession—I can be smug about not watching TV, or needing it much. But when the Internet is down?

Augh!

I also have taken a 40-minute walk by the sea, and heard—yes digitally—the Carmelite Vespers of Handel. I’ve slept alone in a forest. I’ve held a book.

I worry about kids who haven’t….

Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre

Well, what to do when there’s nothing to write about?

The news—just horrible, as always. Who needs it, especially on a Monday?

Talk about the cruise? Nah—vacation stories are boring. (As well as golf and psychotherapy accounts….)

Well, the obvious choice is to borrow someone else’s creativity for a while.

Hey—what about Chris Jordan? He’s dripping with the stuff. Take a look at what he created!

Right—I can hear you. You’ve seen it before; you’re not impressed.

OK, take a closer look…

Starting to get it? The next one makes it obvious.

The project is called “running the numbers,” and here’s what a commentator has to say:

Cans Seurat, 2007 – depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

The work of photographer Chris Jordan examines American consumption – his latest series of photographs. “Running the numbers” looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. Jordan's hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone.

Damn, where do guys get these ideas! Take a look at this….

Investigating further, the story turns grim. And today, this blogger begs you—watch the video below. Try to get to the end—I couldn’t.

Why?

I was weeping too hard.

But it’s necessary.

Now we know what rough beast, its hour come round at last, is slouching to Bethlehem to be born.

Mankind.

Us.

Incorrect or Wrong?

“It’s so much better to be incorrect than wrong,” said my friend Sonia.

I knew exactly what she meant. She had arrived bearing a candy bar bought from a woman with a tragic tale. If the woman used the dollar for drugs, well, Sonia was incorrect. But if Sonia hadn’t bought the candy—and the tale was indeed correct—Sonia would have been wrong.

In my case, I was probably both. I did neither, when the woman approached me, three feet inside the Catholic church. She put her arm on mine, she wrapped her other arm around my body. As well, she moved her body suggestively close to mine.

“I have two children I need to feed,” she said. “And I’ll do anything to feed them….”

It was clear what that anything was….

I was in shock, of course. And then two men approached.

“Not inside the church,” said one, and the other forcibly removed her from the church.

“You got no business pushing me around. You the type likes pushing people around.”

The altercation lasted several minutes.

It was in the town of Castries, St. Lucia. And it was a place where even the few attractive buildings seemed overwhelmed by the prevailing ugliness. Worse, the sense of anger just beneath the boiling point of riot was everywhere.

“Don’t pay dem men no mind,” said the lady, as I left the church. She was still wheedling. I looked at her, said nothing and…

…walked on.

I gave her nothing. She may, however, have taken something. Because fifteen minutes later, I discovered that my boarding card—exactly the shape of a credit card—to enter the ship was missing.

OK—a pickpocket or a prostitute or a woman down on her luck and willing to do anything to feed her kids? What is the correct understanding here, as the Buddhists like to say?

First question—why did I decide to listen to the men and trust their story, rather than the woman and hers? Why didn’t I go to a grocery store with the woman and buy her milk and rice and beans? Moral proximity—if there’s a woman with hungry kids, well, shouldn’t I feed them, if I can?

It might be suggested that the church has a bit of an obligation, as well. And though the Catholic Church is not big on illicit sex, Jesus did help a few prostitutes along the way.

Or did he?

Because I’ve just looked up Mary Magdalene, and it turns out that the first hint that she was a prostitute comes in 591, from Pope Gregory the Great. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

"She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? ... It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts."(homily XXXIII)[17]

Yeah? Seems like male reasoning if I ever heard it.

In the end, I failed her, my lady down on her luck. For she was that, even if she were a pickpocket / prostitute as well. I had money; I could have bought her food. And I had an obligation as well. Being on vacation doesn’t mean that you leave all your obligations behind.

Sad to say it, but I often fail. And I’ve looked just now, on Our Lady of Fatima Online—well, who would have thought?!—to check in on the examination of conscience. And here it is….

The Seven Corporal Works of Mercy

1.     To feed the hungry. 2. To give drink to the thirsty. 3. To clothe the naked.
4. To visit and ransom the captives. 5. To harbor the harborless. 6. To visit the sick. 7. To bury the dead.

Well, it can’t be clearer than that. Not having the relief of a priest who can absolve me, I can say only this:

Forgive me, Reader, for I have sinned.

The Silliness of the Seas

That’s how I felt after five days of it.

It’s a sort of Lord-of-the-Flies experiment, except that not only do we volunteer for it, we pay to have it done to us.

Mr. Fernández had decreed a cruise—I called up a perfectly nice guy in Chicago and gave him numbers. We efficiently received a booklet by email a day later. We counted the days until we were off.

The day came. Mr. Fernández was eager to board the ship.

Well, if size counts, it’s impressive. There are 12 floors—the first is underwater, and is assigned to the staff. Who work, by the way, six months without a day off, and then get two and a half months of vacation.

“Hah!” cried Alberto, our tablemate. “Find me the Puerto Rican who would accept that! You’d have a huelga in twenty minutes!”

Huelga—a strike, and yes, Alberto is Puerto Rican. For we are six Puerto Ricans at the table—five and a half, really, considering my late start—and thus we are merrily trashing our compatriots.

“There was this pick up game on the basketball courts, and it turned into the gringos versus the boricuas. Well, they played more like football than basketball—just killed us. And then one of the Puerto Ricans gets all upset and wants to start a fight. And I’m going ‘hey, tranquilo, it’s just a game….’”

We are sitting with four people whom we would not—under any other circumstance—be likely to sit with. A couple in their forties. Another couple in their young thirties. We’re speaking Spanish because none of them—barring Raf and me—can speak English.

That’s particularly sad because Carlos, age 32, seems bright, honest, and ambitious. He works the night shift in a hospital emergency room, but is also a musician—he sings what he calls música sacra, which for a moment I took to be Palestrina and the like.

Christian rock!

Well, it’s better than hanging with the boys and drinking beer, I guess. He’s gone to Perú to promote his music—but what about the States? He shrugged when I asked him.

There are—as you can imagine—two principal activities on a cruise ship. The first is eating, the second shopping.

I’m only fair at both….

I’m way behind, in fact, in how much I can ingest, to say nothing of digest. Others are far better, and have figured out how to attain an almost constant stream of sugar. The lemonade taste of high fructose corn syrup. The cruise sells you a special glass, which will hold all the Coca-Cola you can drink. There is a dispenser of soft ice cream—vanilla and chocolate!—if you prefer a colder sucrose delivery system.

I, of course, am trying to wean myself off the stuff. So I hit the gym, on the third day. And was startled to find that you have to work like crazy just to burn off 150 calories.

Which is probably half a glass of Coke.

OK—shopping. I managed to spend perhaps 150 dollars. Four bottles of Scotch, a t-shirt, a silly but nice collar as a birthday gift. That’s it.

But it’s taken seriously. There’s a channel on TV about where to buy what on all the islands. There’s also a seminar every day, and a shopping specialist who can tell you where to get free stuff. On the last cruise, a tablemate discussed endlessly with her companion where she might find a special gold bracelet to match a ring she had bought on the cruise before.

None of this, of course, makes any sense to me. I try to put stuff on me that will give no offense to anyone, and that will raise no eyebrows. Beyond that, I couldn’t care less.

The cruise ship sails up to the pier at seven in the morning. At 8:30 you can be on an excursion, which we did—twice. We peered at a Hindu temple through a cyclone fence in Martinique. The tour guide told us that you had to fast and abstain from sexual relations for two days before entering the temple. Oh, and that they practice ritual sacrifice of goats.

Right—nice to know!

In Antigua, we learned that Lord Nelson, at the age of 26, was sent to enforce the navigation acts—wildly unpopular at the time. We were invited to sample a lethal rum punch. Faithful to my readers, this blogger forced cup to lip. And slept all the way back to the cruise ship….

Then there’s the organized silliness. We attended—of course!—the world’s sexiest man contest. I was invited—I mention this with no pride, the organizer was desperate—to participate, but declined. The contest came down to a draw between a very nice gringo from Oklahoma and a Puerto Rican. The audience was asked to decide.

Guess who won!

“I pretty much saw that coming,” said Eric, when I condoled with him.

There are shows, as well, which I hated. There was a black guy who did imitations of Sammy Davis and Motown and Stevie Martin and god-knows-who-all. He took the time to do a parody of classical music. Oh, after mentioning that his sister had sung Bess in Porgy and Bess at the Met.

‘Fuck this,’ I thought, and left to go to the bathroom, where I met a young German paraplegic, who was busy trying to open the door.

He must have been recently paraplegicked, because he hadn’t really learned the tricks yet. And so I found myself on my knees, emptying urine from the bag strapped around his leg, rinsing the urinal that I put back in a bag in a basket at the back of his wheelchair.

“Once a nurse, always a nurse,” said old Val Prock—that loveable lesbian who ruled the nursing department for all those years. (Ooops—sorry! Don’t know whether she actually was, though she had lived with the same woman for thirty years….)

Well, it’s true.

“It must be hard,” I said to him, the following day, when he couldn’t make his room card work.

“It’s very hard,” he said.

It was the realest moment of the trip.

Two Writers, One Gone (reposted)

(Note from the Webmaster: Mr. Newhouse is on holiday, so here's an older post of his, originally published on September 8th…)

I began thinking about it on the daily trot, after reading another review of Iguanas. “I fell in love with Franny,” wrote Mayra, and again it struck me: how could she? Is Franny still making friends, even in the afterlife?

Seems so!

Well, not much surprises me down here. Reality is different in Puerto Rico, as different as the air. So I looked at the ocean, took a breath, and then got thinking about another writer—far greater. John Kennedy Toole, and if you haven’t read A Confederacy of Dunces, stop everything. Get the book. Unplug the phone. Cancel your life for two days. Read.

Well, that's probably unnecessary advice—the book has sold 1.5 million copies. Has also been translated in 18 languages. So you’ve likely read it, and know the curious story behind it. How the book was rejected, how the author despaired and then suicided, how the mother barged into Walker Percy's office after mercilessly harassing him with calls and letters. She demanded that he read it.

There is something about a mother’s love!

What you might not know is that the book was at least partially written in Puerto Rico.

Toole was drafted in 1961. Not being obvious cannon fodder, he was shipped to Puerto Rico, to teach English to the recruits. (Do I hear bells ringing?) He rose meteorically—his word—and got a private office. That’s when he started to write Confederacy.

The insanity and unreality of Puerto Rico itself has been interesting at all times that it was not overwhelming. (Great agreement errors in this sentence, I fear).

That’s what he had to say about Puerto Rico. And knowing Puerto Rico lends an interesting take on Confederacy. The main character is completely unlike any other character in fiction—insane, unkempt, learned. The plot stumbles along in its own illogical way. The absurdities pile up.

I won’t know without doing more research than I want how much of the book was written in Puerto Rico. But I’ll go out on a limb.

The book could only have been written in Puerto Rico.

On Whimbrels and Monkeys (reposted)

(Note from the webmaster: Mr. Newhouse is on holiday, so here's an older post of his, originally published on August 27….)

Well, the news out of Puerto Rico is typically bad—at least eight murders over the weekend, cops getting thrown off the force for falsifying statistics, protests at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. 

Who needs it?

So I turned to a blog doña Taí recommended—repeatingislands.com. And discovered a bird I never knew existed—the whimbrel. Here it is.

OK, not too attractive—certainly no motmot—but boy, can it fly! Through hurricanes, in fact—two whimbrels went right through Irene last year. And apparently they use the back part of the storm as a sort of slingshot. Don’t know how that works, but that’s what the American Bird Conservancy says.

Shouldn’t they know?

The other thing is that they fly thousands of miles nonstop.

Well, that’s tremendous news—stuff we should all know about.

There is a little downside.

Several of the birds have made it through hurricanes only to be shot by hunters.

It seems that on some islands of the Caribbean, there are illegal shooting ranges. Just for fun. And there was the whimbrel and there was the guy with the gun, so…

…he shot it.

No, not as a trophy, not to protect his crop. Just for fun!

In fact, the article reports, it’s not unusual for the killers to leave the killed dead on the beach.

The point was just to kill.

This is a part of the male psyche that I don’t get. I can understand—just barely—the allure of hunting. Michael Pollan, of all people, fell prey to it, and likened it to the time-altering effects of marijuana. And it’s certainly in our collective genes.

But this isn’t hunting, it’s slaughter.

May be something more. There are people, I think, who have an indifference to beauty and to nature that verges on hate. They see something brown and white and moving and they kill it.

Why?

Just because….

Well, well—I was determined NOT to be delivering a downer this morning. What else is stirring in the Caribbean?

Monkeys in Santurce!

Well, I knew that they were running around in the mountains down south, but here? In a very much populated section of San Juan? Just look at ‘em!

It turns out that it’s not just iguanas that are overpowering our eco-system, it’s monkeys as well. (By the way, the iguana population in Puerto Rico is estimated at four million—meaning we have more iguanas than people….)

And these monkeys have an interesting pedigree. They were brought here not as pets but as lab animals in the 1970’s. Originally they were let loose on small islands off the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Just one problem…

Monkeys can swim!

Well, the researchers went away, but the monkeys stayed. And now they’re invading the metro area! It’s too much! 

May watch the Republican Convention after all….