Posts filed under 'citizenship'
Back's feeling better this evening; I think doing exactly what my chiropractor tells me to do may, in fact, be the way to go. (Perhaps it's best to overlook the fact that he's also a rock 'n' roll bassist.) I was even able to walk to my son's school and pick him up today -- giving me hope that tomorrow I'll be able to resume my campus visits. It would really bum me out if I have to miss any more days (I had to skip going to USF this morning; couldn't move, pretty much). Each of my campus sojourns has been revelatory: it's one thing to theorize about what today's students are thinking about democracy, quite another to hear it from them directly. The picture embedded in this paragraph was from my first trip, to UC-Davis, via Amtrak. I was, as I always am when on my way to meet new people -- especially young people -- quite terrified. (I felt the same way about meeting young people when I was a young person myself, by the way.) Would my family stories -- each of which, I hope, will relate to democracy or citizenship in some way -- seem irrelevant to them?
The students at Davis -- and the wonderful professor who guided me throughout my visit, Larry Bogad -- turned out, in fact, to be intrigued by my project. And I got my first taste, in the 26 years since I was in college myself, of attending university. O, the pressure! It all came flowing back to me: being on the cusp of adulthood, longing for autonomy but at the same time missing the suffocating-but-comforting role of child. And these professors -- or, sometimes worse, grad students -- barrel on with their facts and theories, heedless of how desperately we are straining just to hold onto each side of the child-adult chasm. The "learning" we get can feel like just so much more weight piled on top as we dig our nails into the opposing cliffs.
Perhaps in the techno-future all college students will have the option to give up a few decades of their lives -- just go directly from their teens into middle age, where it seems to make more sense to read, say, Plato.
But hey, I had fun on campus. Not just at Davis, but in my subsequent visits -- to UC-Santa Cruz (pictured below, from my hotel room), West Valley College, and CSU-East Bay. My three-day stay in Santa Cruz afforded me the additional pleasure of hanging out with my old college roommate, Jonny Fox, a professor there, as well as his wife Helen (a provost) and their two strikingly wonderful children. Unburdening my nascent ideas about my democracy piece to Jonny, I was reminded of why Jonny graduated college with super-duper honors while I didn't graduate at all: Jonny is really, really smart. As Helen and I gnawed at the pomegranates that my wife had packed for my trip, Jonny went into their garage and came back with six or seven books that related to my project.
It was a moving evening for me. Jonny's family took me in back when I was a lost-soul twenty-something; when his mom Sally, an effervescent nurturer, passed away recently, I felt a part of me pass away as well. As it happens Jonny's dad, Maury Fox, is a distinguished scientist -- and the Foxes, years ago, used to hang out with the large family of a brilliant colleague of his, Gordon Sato. So when -- many years after I'd lived with the Foxes -- I fell in love with Sara Sato, I unwittingly reconnected these two great families. ... On this evening Sara was at home in Berkeley with our son, and I was missing them very much; but in spending this time with Jonny and Helen and their kids, I was with my extended family, and that was good.
How far can our connections extend? We have our family and our friends, and sometimes our friends' families. And then there are the people in our neighborhood, and the other members of our PTA, or church, or antiwar group. And our fellow Californians (say), and Americans (say), and ... From what I've heard from students so far, most of them are sad -- possibly even to the point of hopelessness -- that the connections they hear of among participants in past movements, the passions that their professors sometime try to re-create from the mists of history, are inaccessible to their generation. They seem to feel that history -- at least, of the kind that is made by ordinary citizens -- is over. They see little or nothing out there to engage in. ... But I see tremendous possibilities in them, and among them. Or maybe that's just what I want to see. I don't know yet: I still have many more campus visits to go.
My college advisor, Sheldon Wolin, has pointed out that "theory" derives from the Greek word theoria, or "journey." So I like to think that -- despite my manifold academic shortcomings -- simply by continuing to travel along this road, I am, in some sense, being a theorist. Where will the journey take me tomorrow?
I must stretch!
November 27th, 2006
It was a thrill for me to interview UCLA historian Gary Nash, my guest on tonight's show (at 7:30; repeated on Friday night at 10:30). Nash's latest book, The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America, brings together a panoply of amazing-but-true stories about the lesser-known people who contributed to the American Revolution. As Nash writes in the introduction:
We cannot capture the "life and soul" of the Revolution without paying close attention to the wartime experiences and agendas for change that engrossed backcountry farmers, urban craftsmen, deep-blue mariners, female camp followers and food rioters -- those ordinary people who did most of the protesting, most of the fighting, most of the dying, and most of the dreaming about how a victorious America might satisfy the yearnings of all its peoples.
Like Nash -- and like most of us, I imagine -- I have enormous respect for our famous Founding Fathers. They were, for the most part, brilliant political thinkers and doers, and we are all in their debt. But they were not gods, and they did not achieve the Revolution by themselves. The full story is not only richer and more complex, it also allows us non-geniuses of today to find meaningful connections to our nation's founding: politics then were as messy and divisive as politics now. Too often, our history seems like a distant, static thing -- dead and permanent, like marble. What Gary Nash brings us is a historical narrative that we can connect with -- like us, it's alive, contradictory, glorious. He gives us a history that we can not only study, but participate in as well. ...
I also wanted to see how others in the Bay Area felt connected (or dis-) to American history, so my crew and I walked around San Francisco to chat with folks on the street. As you can see in the resulting "Wandering Josh" segment, from the Fillmore to North Beach (where I got an earful from S.F.'s current poet laureate, Jack Hirschman, outside his beloved Caffe Trieste), people had lots to say on the subject. I hope they -- and you -- find Nash's stories as provocative and inspiring as I did.
Get the podcast, download now, or stream the video (requires Real)
October 30th, 2006
It's all coming together.
Twenty-six years ago, as a sullen member of Princeton's Class of 1980, I failed to complete my senior thesis -- a requirement to graduate. Actually, to be totally honest, I didn't even begin my thesis. It just seemed like too big a task, I guess. My major -- after hitting the wall at calculus my freshman year and abandoning math -- was politics, and my advisor, Sheldon Wolin, was a transcendently brilliant teacher. I didn't want to let him down. But in order not to let him down, I had to think -- come up with my own thoughts, not just reflect Wolin's back to him. (A truly Socratic educator, he had no use for "yes" men or women.)
This seems a daunting task now, at 47. At 21, it seemed impossible. Plato, he had cool ideas. Locke, too. But Kornbluth? I had barely figured out how to focus -- just getting through a single, dense book of political theory without napping, without running screaming to the Student Center for another coffee, without going back to my room and cranking up the Clash, was usually beyond my abilities. To actually think, on top of that? Not bloody likely.
So I didn't quite graduate in 1980. I completed all my coursework, somehow. A mediocre student, I spent many tense hours in the waiting room of the dean of academics, Dick Williams. Dean Williams scared me. As I remember him, he was tall, with a brush-cut -- perhaps a former Marine. Time after time, I'd be sitting across from his desk, trying to explain why, yet again, he should grant me an "incomplete" (rather than an "F") on a course that I had stopped attending after the first week or two. Sometimes he wouldn't do it, and I'd flunk the course. But just enough times, he said okay -- and so I stumbled through four years of indifferent scholarship, not an official failure as a student, but close enough to feel that way.
In subsequent years, both my mother and my stepmother would get on my case about doing my thesis, about making my father (who'd been incapacitated by a stroke the summer before my senior year) proud. But I knew I still didn't have it in me.
Cut to November of 2004. I was walking back from my voting place in Berkeley, and something snapped. While I hoped that the guy I'd voted for would become president, I realized that no matter what happened in that election I still wouldn't feel as if I'd participated actively in the decision-making process. And then, in the days after the election, I found myself almost incapacitated by my frustration at the emerging consensus (at least in the media) that we had essentially become two countries, "red" and "blue," and ne'er the twain shall meet. In the '70s, there had been all sorts of divisiveness, of course, but it still had felt to me like we were one country, albeit one arguing bitterly with itself. Had something irrevocable happened since 1980, while I was attending to other, non-political things? Was America "over"?
My distress drove me to try and track down Prof. Wolin, to try to get some perspective on what was happening. I reached him by phone -- he no longer teaches, but is still a prolific writer. When it comes to democracy, he takes the long view -- back to Athens, and I hope forward as well -- and speaking with him I felt the old excitement of talking passionately about politics. But not politics as just "us" versus "them" -- I mean politics as a way to discover who I am by connecting myself to other people, across time and geography. And sometime in that phone conversation I found myself saying that I finally felt ready to write my thesis, and asking if he'd still advise me.
And he said yes. He started me on a reading list, I've been reading some amazing books with my usual glacial slowness (occasionally napping and often drinking coffee -- the difference at 47 being that I now know the important thing is to keep going) -- and just this month I got the official go-ahead from, get this, Dick Williams (who's still dean of academics; he must wonder if he'll ever be rid of me!) to do my senior thesis with Prof. Wolin. In addition, he's allowing me to submit my upcoming monologue about democracy (opening in San Francisco next May) as my thesis -- pending Wolin's giving it a passing grade, of course.
So if everything goes according to plan, by next June I will be a proud member of both the Class of '80 and the Class of '07. And when it comes time to vote in the November 2008 election, I may even have an idea or two of my own to bring to the table.
September 24th, 2006
As we re-broadcast my interview with underwater explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau (tonight at 7:30; repeated on Friday night at 10:30), I find myself far from the ocean -- up, in fact, in the mountains of Utah. I just arrived this morning at the Sundance Theatre Lab, where for three weeks my theatrical collaborator, David Dower, and I will work together on my next monologue. The new piece will be about democracy, so I think three weeks of development should just about handle it, don't you?
Just kidding ...
Actually, I'm terrified -- as I always am, when beginning a project. But I must say that, as I continue to read some amazing books about democracy (especially the American version), I'm getting more and more excited about connecting with our country's founding political principles -- about trying to become a more active citizen.
Isn't there a Jackson Browne lyric that goes something like, "How long have I been sleeping? ..." I keep thinking of that phrase as I feel myself rising out of an extended period of personal political passivity (a period that seems to have coincided with my having watched lots of sports on TV, by the way).
At this moment, however, I think I'm going to dive into a nice cold bottle of water, in my continuing effort to stave off altitude sickness (which may account for my excessive alliteration in that last sentence). ...
July 10th, 2006
On Friday morning I was on my way to the gym, planning to further hone my Abs of Steel, when I received a call from Michael Isip, head of programming of KQED (in other words, my boss). Michael told me that someone had been flooding station management with emails saying that "Josh Kornbluth" had a "profile" on the website MySpace.com, and that this "profile" contained horrible, pornographic materials. The email concluded: "Your company needs to let him go. I would never want such a foul human being associated with my network."
So much for my workout! I hurried back home and went online. I'd heard about MySpace.com -- apparently there are tons of people who use it -- but had never been to their site before. Now I went there and typed my name into their search box -- all that came up was a list containing stuff like this blog and my little homepage. No filth to be found. For a moment I allowed myself some sense of relief: perhaps, at least, there was no phony "profile" of "me"!
But then Michael emailed me a link to the fake "profile" -- and there it was: a web page filled with publicity photos of me (presumably pulled off the Internet) and semi-literate invitations to "watch my show !!!!" -- along with disgusting, pornographic materials.
What to do?
I searched through the MySpace homepage and clicked on a link called "Contact MySpace." That brought me to another page, with a pull-down menu of possible questions that users might have. Along the side of the page was a list of the "Top 6 Questions" that MySpace receives. I clicked on Number 6: "How do I report Identity theft, Underage User, Cyberbullying, or Copyright Violation to MySpace?"
This, in turn, brought me to a page containing the following Q & A:
Q. Someone is pretending to be me - what do I do?
A. In order to verify your identity, please send us a "salute". This means we will need an image of yourself holding a handwritten sign with the word "MySpace.com" and your Friend ID (your Friend ID number appears immediately after "friendID=" in the web address/URL when viewing your profile). We can then remove the profile that uses your identity without your permission.
Please be sure to include the web address/URL to the profile in question when you send your salute.
If you do not have a profile on MySpace please write in the email address that you are emailing us from instead of your Friend ID.
If the profile is an extremely obvious attempt to be cruel/false, you may not need to send a salute. Sending a salute will definately help expediate things, though! If you are a teacher/faculty member at a school, please click on this link.
You can contact us here.
Well, I'm not a teacher, so I "definately" couldn't "expediate" things -- but I did hope, at least, to definitely expedite things. So, as instructed, I made a handwritten sign, held it in front of me and -- after some awkward maneuvering -- managed to snap a picture that contained both my enormous shiny head and the sign. Then I looked for instructions on how to send a "salute." I couldn't find any! (I'm guessing that "salutes" are things that MySpace members can do to each other, but I'm not a member.)
So, not knowing what else to do, I sent an urgent email to MySpace "Customer Care," requesting that they immediately delete the phony "profile" of "me" and, if possible, track down and prosecute whoever had created it.
An hour went by and I heard nothing back from MySpace. I searched through the MySpace website for a phone number to call, but I couldn't find any. Fortunately, I have friends who are much smarter than me, and one of them found this phone number for MySpace: (310) 917-4920. I dialed the number, and was spoken to by a computer that offered me a menu of possibilities. The one that seemed most potentially helpful was "Customer Care," extension 7. I hit "7" -- and got a recording telling me that "at this time" MySpace.com doesn't have any customer care that's accessible by phone, and that I should send MySpace an email instead. I called back and tried extension 8 -- for "Legal" -- and got a recording telling me that if I was calling about (among other issues) identity theft, I should send MySpace an email.
I thought, There must be someone -- some actual living person -- at the offices of MySpace! As a longtime user of telephones, my experience hinted at trying extension "0" (zero), to reach the operator or receptionist. So I hit zero -- and got a voicemail message telling me that "Hannah" wasn't at her desk, but could I leave a message? I left "Hannah" a message explaining my situation and begging for prompt assistance.
Time went by. Still no call or email from MySpace. The phony "profile" was still up.
Meanwhile, one of my smart friends found this Q & A on the MySpace website:
Q. I'm a journalist and I want to talk to someone at MySpace. Who can I contact?
A. Thank you for your MySpace media inquiry. We want to do our best to meet any pressing deadlines you may have. Please dial the MySpace media line at (800) 905-9324 in order to leave your full contact information, brief story overview and deadline. Again, thank you for your inquiry and we'll speak to you soon. Any non-media inquiries will not receive a response.
Hmm ... Now, I don't know if you could say I was a "journalist," technically -- but I do work in the media. So I called the MySpace "media line" and left a voicemail message with my story idea: A guy finds out that someone is impersonating him on MySpace. This person has created a phony "profile" of this guy, a web page containing filthy, disgusting material. Furthermore, someone has sent an email to lots of people at this innocent guy's company, saying that -- based on this "profile" -- this guy should be fired. And this guy has been unable to reach anyone at MySpace to take care of the problem.
I thought that was a pretty interesting story idea -- it's certainly a story that would interest me -- so I felt hopeful that someone from MySpace would get back to me about it.
In the meantime, my frustration growing, I tried the MySpace phone number again. Perhaps someone would answer at some other extension? I tried "Accounts Receivable" (I'm not even sure what "Accounts Receivable" means!), and ... someone answered! Ascertaining that this was, in fact, a person who worked at MySpace, I began telling him about my urgent and upsetting problem, and asked him please to put me through to someone who could help me. In a tone of great irritation, he told me that I had dialed the wrong extension -- that I should call "Customer Care" instead. I tried explaining to him that there was no "Customer Care." He started yelling at me. I asked him to tell me his name. He shouted, "My name is irrelevant!" and hung up.
Well, that wasn't so helpful.
Just for the heck of it -- and since I didn't know what else I could do -- I tried reaching "Hannah" a few more times. And finally, instead of getting her voicemail message, an actual, live human being answered the phone. I could hardly believe it!
I asked her who she was. The receptionist, she said. At MySpace? I asked -- I wanted to be absolutely certain. Yes, she said. What was her name? I asked. "Lily," she said. (I didn't ask for the spelling -- so if you're reading this, and you're that receptionist, and your name is spelled, like, "Lilly," please accept my apologies.) I quickly explained what my problem was. Lily said she'd put me right through. The phone then rang a few times and it sounded like someone picked up and then -- immediately -- hung up! Without saying a word!
I tried calling back the receptionist's extension several more times -- and after getting a bunch more recordings from "Hannah" saying to leave her a message, Lily picked up again. I explained to her that the extension she'd sent me to had simply hung up on me. She said she'd try again. I thanked her, and also asked, for my future reference, if she could give me the number of the extension she was putting me through to. She told me she was putting me through to "Customer Support" at extension 158. I told her that, in my limited experience, "Customer Support" wasn't very supportive. Nonetheless, she transferred me. The phone rang and rang. And rang. And rang. While I still waited for them to answer on my landline phone, I picked up my cellphone and tried extension 158: it was answered by a recording, informing me that the mailbox was full and I should call "0" for the receptionist!
I hung up both phones, checked my email again for any response from MySpace -- there was none -- and tried to think of who might be able to help. And then it hit me: Of course -- Jack Palladino! I had interviewed this famed private investigator on one of my shows! He'd defended whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand from vicious smears by Big Tobacco (as memorialized in the film The Insider), among many other high-profile cases. So I called Palladino's office -- and he called me back from Europe, where he was vacationing, with the incredibly welcome news that yes, he would help me. (He returns from Europe tomorrow, I think.) He also told me that apparently there's a huge problem with cyber-predators stalking the young people who use MySpace -- and that MySpace had recently hired a security expert to try to deal with the problem.
Later in the afternoon, I got a call from [name removed on 12-18-06, as that person no longer works with MySpace; further references to him, which I've also deleted, are in brackets]. He told me that he handles publicity for MySpace. I explained my situation. He expressed concern, and said that he would contact someone at MySpace and ask them to take down the phony "profile" of "me." I begged him to do this right away. He said he'd try. I asked [him] if MySpace could set up some mechanisms so that this would not happen to me -- or anyone else -- again. He said he didn't think MySpace could do that. I told him that it was very important for MySpace to warn children -- and their guardians -- about the dangers of predators on his website; he told me that the company had, indeed, hired a new "chief security officer" and that they were aware of these problems. He then said that he had a meeting he was late for and had to go.
By the end of the day, I did receive two emails from MySpace "Customer Care." The first -- from a writer identified only by the number "1010" -- told me that before they could take down the false "profile" of "me," I had to send them a "salute" with my photograph, etc. The second -- from "1023" -- said: "Hello, The account in question has already been deleted."
I checked. The fake "profile" was, indeed, down.
That was Friday night.
On Saturday afternoon, Michael Isip called me again. There was now another "profile" on MySpace, again purporting to be me and again containing disgusting materials. And a whole bunch of my colleagues at KQED had received two additional emails, purportedly from two new people, expressing chagrin that KQED would be harboring such a nefarious person as myself on its payroll.
I immediately wrote an email to [the guy whose name I deleted above] and Customer Care at MySpace. That was Saturday afternoon. It is now Monday afternoon, and I have not received any response. ...
I went back and forth in my mind about whether to write to you about this ongoing experience. It's creepy, and disgusting, and frustrating, and scary -- none of which are emotions that I generally wish to evoke in others (or myself).
But some horrible things are happening on MySpace. And based on my experience, MySpace -- to put it mildly -- does not seem responsive (or even available) to those who express concern. I think people should know about that.
If you're a journalist, and you might want to cover this story, you can call the MySpace media line at (800) 905-9324. [This item also used to list the contact info for the guy whose name I deleted earlier, but of course I've now deleted that as well, as it is no longer relevant or helpful.]
If you're Rupert Murdoch, I hope you know what you've bought into.
June 5th, 2006
The idea that every child in America has a right to a quality education -- a notion first propounded by my main man, Ben Franklin -- is a revolutionary one. It implies that the intellectual tools of citizenship should not be restricted to those with the wealth to pay for excellent schooling. And indeed, my parents -- the children of hard-working immigrants -- were able to receive a solid public education all the way through college. Now, with my son attending a terrific public elementary school, I should be confident that he will do the same.
Except that I can't. Because the public schools are under attack, despite the best efforts of heroic teachers, administrators, and parents. The problem is exacerbated in school districts where -- unlike my own -- parents don't have the financial resources to supplement the grossly inadequate funding of their neighborhood schools. I think we all know that public schools in America are in crisis -- even here in California, where the funding (and, not coincidentally, the quality) of public education has slid dramatically from once-lofty levels.
Like everyone I know, I'm mad about this, and frustrated. And scared -- scared about the future of our country when the majority of students are not being adequately prepared to share the democratic responsibilities of self-government. As my late father -- a teacher in public middle schools -- used to point out, kids who move through school without getting a decent education are, in fact, learning something: they're learning that they can't learn. Eventually the beautiful and natural delight in discovering things begins to fade from their eyes. And they enter the adult world knowing that society does not value them -- and perhaps feeling, understandably, that they owe society the same kind of treatment.
So do we just throw up our hands? Well, I admit, that would be my normal inclination. But in my life so far, I've noticed that throwing up my hands doesn't actually change anything (unless I happen to accidentally deflect a Frisbee or something). So thank goodness that -- on this subject, at least -- we have an important new book, Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers, to offer us information, compassion, and pragmatic advice on how we might make our public schools better. I was thrilled to be able to chat with two of the book's coauthors, Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari, on the show that airs tonight at 7:30 (and will be repeated on Friday night at 10:30).
February 27th, 2006
The idea that every child in America has a right to a quality education -- a notion first propounded by my main man, Ben Franklin -- is a revolutionary one. It implies that the intellectual tools of citizenship should not be restricted to those with the wealth to pay for excellent schooling. And indeed, my parents -- the children of hard-working immigrants -- were able to receive a solid public education all the way through college. Now, with my son attending a terrific public elementary school, I should be confident that he will do the same.
Except that I can't. Because the public schools are under attack, despite the best efforts of heroic teachers, administrators, and parents. The problem is exacerbated in school districts where -- unlike my own -- parents don't have the financial resources to supplement the grossly inadequate funding of their neighborhood schools. I think we all know that public schools in America are in crisis -- even here in California, where the funding (and, not coincidentally, the quality) of public education has slid dramatically from once-lofty levels.
Like everyone I know, I'm mad about this, and frustrated. And scared -- scared about the future of our country when the majority of students are not being adequately prepared to share the democratic responsibilities of self-government. As my late father -- a teacher in public middle schools -- used to point out, kids who move through school without getting a decent education are, in fact, learning something: they're learning that they can't learn. Eventually the beautiful and natural delight in discovering things begins to fade from their eyes. And they enter the adult world knowing that society does not value them -- and perhaps feeling, understandably, that they owe society the same kind of treatment.
So do we just throw up our hands? Well, I admit, that would be my normal inclination. But in my life so far, I've noticed that throwing up my hands doesn't actually change anything (unless I happen to accidentally deflect a Frisbee or something). So thank goodness that -- on this subject, at least -- we have an important new book, Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers, to offer us information, compassion, and pragmatic advice on how we might make our public schools better. I was thrilled to be able to chat with two of the book's coauthors, Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari, on the show that airs tonight at 7:30 (and will be repeated on Friday night at 10:30).
February 27th, 2006
Stop me if I've already told you this, but I never actually graduated from college. I went to Princeton, and they required every undergraduate to write a senior thesis. So even though I completed all my other coursework, and passed the "comprehensive exam" in my major (politics), the fact that I never submitted a senior thesis meant that I couldn't earn my bachelor's degree.
But the story doesn't end there -- because Princeton has a policy that, if you submit your senior thesis anytime in your life, you can still graduate! What happens is that you get two grades: the first being your actual grade on the thesis, the second being an "F" (presumably for being way friggin' late). Yes, I aim to put the "senior" in "senior thesis"!
I was Class of '80, so I'm currently 26 years late in submitting my thesis. But I'm finally working on it -- and it's tremendously exciting! I've gotten back in touch with my advisor from back then, the brilliant scholar and teacher Sheldon S. Wolin, and he's graciously agreed to guide me. I can't tell you what a feeling of redemption it would give me to finally write a thesis for him!
What happened to me in college was that I froze. It was too hard! You had to read so much stuff -- amazing stuff, but for a very slow reader like me, an impossible amount. Many books each week for each course! It was like one of those nightmares where you're at the exam and you haven't prepared for it -- except that I wasn't dreaming, and each day I was falling further behind. In everything.
Looking back, I have to give myself some props for holding it together enough to make it through four years of coursework. But my lingering emotion from that time was just a great sense of failure. I was there on a big scholarship (which I'd gotten purely due to financial need), and I knew I was letting down not only my family but also the alumni who'd donated money for my scholarship, as well as the taxpayers who'd helped to fund my grants.
But possibly my biggest disappointment was that I never submitted my thesis to Prof. Wolin. He was one of those teachers you dream of: a thrilling, self-questioning lecturer, an advisor willing to spend countless hours in discussion with his students, and also a profound thinker who believed passionately that those in academia should be active citizens. His writing, in a number of books and periodicals (including a short-lived quarterly that he began soon after I "graduated," called democracy), was (and is) not just deep but also clear -- another relative anomaly in academia.
So here was my chance, after a mediocre undergraduate career, to at least work my hardest to write a decent senior thesis for this great teacher. And I choked. I couldn't even bring myself to begin doing the research. I spent much of my senior year sitting in the Student Center, tearing empty styrofoam coffee cups into careful spirals and trying my best not to think of the thesis-elephant in the middle of my mental room.
And you know, irony can only get you so far. I could be ironic about my failure to do the thesis -- and to graduate -- but only up to a point. And after that point, I had to face the fact that I'd blown it.
Except that now, in middle age, incredibly, I have a second chance. Prof. Wolin -- retired from teaching, but still very active as a writer and thinker -- is guiding me toward a topic (something about democracy ... and yes, I know I need to get much more specific!) and a reading list. At his suggestion, I'm starting with Self-Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy, by the late Robert H. Wiebe. I'm moving through it at my usual snail's pace, but it's a thrilling read. Thrilling! When I've finished it, I'll get back in touch with my advisor about narrowing down to an actual thesis topic.
Maybe at this rate I'll actually graduate from college before my eight-year-old son does!
February 22nd, 2006
So I did it! I took the written DMV exam, and got only two questions wrong out of, oh, umpteens. (Okay, so a thick broken white line doesn't mean you're allowed to go extra-slow -- sue me!) I'd like to think that Rita Moreno, my guest on the rerun that airs tonight at 7:30 and on Friday night at 10:30, would be proud that a fellow New Yorker had made it even this far towards driverosity.
I was incredibly nervous going into the test: the gnawing anxiety reminded me -- unpleasantly -- of my school days. And in fact, I remember very little about what happened beforehand -- except that I chatted with a guy who was watching his adorable baby daughter while his wife took the exam. I had an uncomfortable premonition that this child would get her license before I did.
After administering a perfunctory vision test, they sent me over to the Examination Area. ("No conversation! No cellphones! Violators will be disqualified!") The little pencil they gave me broke after only a few questions -- possibly an indication that I was pressing a bit. And yet -- kind of like a minor Hanukkah miracle -- the pencil continued to eke out checkmarks until the very end.
As I waited on line for the woman grading our tests, I felt a growing sense of apprehension. She had this way of rolling her eyes while grading the people in front of me, as if she couldn't believe she had to deal with such idiots as ourselves. You get three chances to take the exam, and some of the folks in line were down to their last attempt. If actually driving is anything close to this nerve-wracking, I thought, I might have to rethink this whole project.
And then came my moment of truth! The grader took the test from my trembling hands. Knowing that more than six mistakes would doom me to a re-take, I watched her red pen twitch malevolently as she compared my exam with her answer-sheet. Check, check, check, check, ... then an "x"! ... then more checks, one more infernal "x" ... Finally, without saying a word, she handed the marked-up sheet of paper back to me.
"I passed?" I asked breathlessly.
"Yes," she said, in a tone of voice that indicated she found this moment to be less historic than I did.
Smiling at everyone I passed -- something that you apparently don't see often at the DMV, based on their reactions -- I made my way to the exit. A sign on the door announced, in all caps, "FACILITY MAY BE UNDER VIDEO SURVEILLANCE." As I stepped outside, my mind -- newly freed of all the driving rules that had been crammed into it -- explored the possible meanings of this statement. Perhaps the facility wasn't under surveillance, and they just didn't have it in their heart to totally bluff? Or maybe no one at the DMV had been able to figure out whether or not this surveillance was happening, so they were hedging their bets? ...
It was a longish walk back to BART, past many industrial-type buildings surrounded by barbed wire to keep out the likes of me. I wondered what they actually produced at the "Tension Envelope Corporation," and whether people there ever just, you know, snapped. I pondered the Darwinian competition that had left "PICK-N-PULL" with a thriving business while, just across the street, "U-PULL" had been reduced literally to rubble. But mostly, I just noticed what a drag it was to be walking! Some of the route had no sidewalk to speak of, and there were very few traffic signals geared to the needs of pedestrians. The whole layout seemed to be sending the message, "Walkers Are Suckers!"
Finally on the BART platform, I reflected on my current, limbo-like condition -- not yet a real driver, but no longer basking in the Edenic innocence of pure bipedalism. At some point I realized that a man with a suitcase was asking me how to get to the Civic Center station; snapping back to the "Now," I gave him clear instructions (with zero eye-rolling, by the way). Then I asked him what had brought him to the Bay Area. "Oh, I'm with the Eternal War on Television network," he replied, cheerfully.
A bit taken aback, I said, "Wow! I knew television had its critics, but I didn't realize there was a whole network devoted to waging an eternal war on it."
He laughed. "No, it's the Eternal Word on Television. We're a Catholic network."
And for the first time that morning, I truly relaxed -- relieved not only that there was no Eternal War being waged on the medium I am now pleased to call my home, but also that the DMV hadn't thought of giving me a hearing test!
January 30th, 2006
So in my last post I got kind of distracted by the burglary of my stuff from my dressing room (I still haven't heard from the Philadelphia police detectives -- maybe they have more pressing concerns?), and I didn't get to mention the cool celebration I'd attended earlier on Tuesday morning.
Okay, I say "earlier" -- this is a relative term. For a touring theater performer, Ben Franklin's famous "Early to Bed, Early to Rise" dictum might perhaps suggest rising at the crack of noonish. But since this was Ben's 300th birthday, I bravely dragged myself out of bed and rushed down to a really old part of Philly for their annual parade -- starting at 11 a.m. -- in honor of the great man.
The parade began at the American Philosophical Society, which Franklin founded (natch), and made its way a few short blocks to his grave, at the Christ Church cemetery. The paraders were an eclectic mix: Franklin scholars, librarians, city dignitaries, kilted bagpipers (because "Dr." Franklin had gotten his honorary degree in Edinburgh?), a whole lot of Freemasons (Franklin had been one), and several members of the wonderful Friends of Franklin organization. A member of this last group, who'd seen my Franklin show, recognized me and pulled me into the procession. It was a beautiful, cold, crisp morning, and one thing that struck me was that everyone seemed to be smiling -- with the notable exception of a lone man who sullenly held up a sign proclaiming the eternal presidential ambitions of Lyndon LaRouche.
We all crowded into a corner of the cemetery where a prayer was said on behalf of Franklin (whose own religious views were quite democratic, by the way -- he gave generously to many churches, including the substantial sum of $800 to help build the city's first Jewish synagogue). Then a dignitary said a few words, though he was partially drowned out by a helicopter that hovered above us (there was lots of press, including a cluster of TV cameras -- Ben, the great self-publicist, would've loved it). I thought of stepping on a nearby platform to get a better view of the proceedings, but fortunately realized in time that it was actually a very large gravestone.
But I have to say that I still didn't feel totally connected to Franklin. The Franklin I've come to know through my own little researches was -- beneath all his accomplishments, and his deserved fame -- intimate and down-to-earth. These grand and elaborate proceedings, invoking God and country, though heartfelt, didn't evoke that easy, joyful plainness I associated with Ben: Much as I longed to, I didn't feel his presence.
After that ceremony, I headed over to the Downtown Club, where I'd been comped into a fancy luncheon to raise money for Franklin-related projects in Philadelphia. One of the honorees was to be Claude-Anne Lopez, the brilliant Franklin writer who is really the heroine of my monologue Ben Franklin: Unplugged. As a Jewish teenager in Nazi-occupied Belgium, Claude had miraculously managed to escape to America, where she settled in New Haven with her husband, a professor at Yale. Eventually, after their two sons were grown, Claude -- who had never graduated from college -- wandered over into Yale's collection of Franklin papers one day in the '50s and ended up becoming one of the world's great Franklin scholars. (For starters, check out her charming book Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladies of Paris.)
Like Ben himself, this ferociously intelligent woman must have been quite an exacting parent. (At the parade I met one of her sons, who told me that for one of his recent birthdays, Claude had sent him a refrigerator magnet that read: "You're Never Too Old To Find Room for Improvement in Your Middle-Aged Son!") As a friend -- and she has become a dear one to me and my family (she calls me "Joshua the Bear," since I'd once described myself over the phone as looking somewhat bearlike) -- she is a total delight. I love Claude. And I was thrilled that, though she is somewhat frail these days (she's in her mid-80s), these Philadelphia "Franklinistas" (as she calls them) had arranged for her to be honored and to give a talk.
Claude's speech, which was typically charming and erudite, focused on the confusions of one of Franklin's grandsons, William "Temple" Franklin. Temple, the issue of Franklin's son William and an unknown "woman of low repute," had originally been placed in an orphanage in England. Ben -- in London on an ultimately futile diplomatic mission -- took him out of the orphanage and raised him as "William Temple"; the boy didn't know anything about his parentage. Claude speculates that it was only on the boat ride back to America, in the tumultuous year of 1775, that Ben revealed to Temple that he was in fact his grandfather, and that William Franklin (then the Royal Governor of New Jersey) was his father. At the luncheon, Claude began by reading from a diary she has imagined for the teenaged Temple, and which she is currently posting in online installments.
The luncheoneers sat at round, numbered tables, listening politely. It was a fancy crowd: philanthropists, politicians, and those ever-present Masons (no LaRouche guy, fortunately). I watched Claude as she spoke in a firm voice, with her charming accent -- this representative of a vanishing generation of European Jewry. What a remarkable country we have, where all the cultures of the world somehow join together in this still-fragile American democratic experiment! And yet, though I felt a strong kinship to Claude, I still felt as out of place as I usually do at big-ticket events.
And then Claude did something. After reading her entry from Temple's "diary," she called Ellen Cohn, the current editor of Yale's Franklin Papers, up to the lectern. Ellen has always struck me as being quite shy, so I suspect that it was only the mighty force of Claude's will that got her up there. She's also an expert in Franklin's love for music, and Claude -- it turns out -- had asked her to lead us all in singing a love song that Ben had written to his wife, titled "I Sing My Plain Country Joan." (I realize that his wife was actually named Deborah, but I believe that "Joan" was his pet name for her.) At the end of each verse was a line that began "My dear Friends," which Ellen asked all of us to join her in singing.
Well, the song was charming and lovely. And as we all sang along with the last line of each verse, I looked around at everyone's faces -- and I saw delight, joy, humanity. I felt Franklin in the room.
Here's the last verse:
Some faults we have all, and so may my Joan,
But then they're exceedingly small;
An now I'm us'd to 'em, they're just like my own,
I scarcely can see 'em at all,
[All:] My dear Friends, I scarcely can see 'em at all.
As I walked back to my hotel, on crowded blocks past discount-clothing stores and fast-food joints, I recalled a moment from my New York childhood. I was about eight (the age my own son is now), and I'd recently been greatly troubled by nightmares in which my father (then a very hearty man in his 40s) appeared to be old and dying. I wanted time somehow to stop, so that everything would stay the same as it was. But for some reason, as we waited on a subway platform, my question came out like this: "Dad, is there a god?"
Dad, ever the rational materialist, explained to me that, as he had never seen proof of a deity, he'd have to say no. And yet I persisted, as eight-year-olds do: "But if there is a god, what's he like?"
For a time, my father stood there, thinking. Then he said, "Well, if there is a god, then he's all the people, if they would work together."
January 19th, 2006
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