Traveling Companions

 With the departure of two companions over the weekend and the imminent arrival of another this fall, I thought this might be the time to talk about what makes a good partner for the lead character on Doctor Who and who I think have been the best ones (and I've seen at least a little bit of each of them along the way).

I think a good companion has to complement the Doctor they travel with, contribute something to the story and the team that the Doctor does not. A bland companion or one who simply echoes the Doctor's role and abilities is not as asset. That's why I never thought either iteration of Romana worked--we didn't need another Time Lord (or Lady), we already have one.

I also think the best companions are the ones who have shown an ability to work well with more than one Doctor. That's why I think the best companion of the classic series was Sarah Jane Smith. She came to the team with Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor and stayed through several seasons of Tom Baker's Fourth....and she was a fine partner to both. Sarah Jane's strength was her "down-to-Earthness"...though she was never thrown by the circumstances she encountered, she also never stopped seeing them through the eyes of a very human journalist (a trait that also made her character work in The Sarah Jane Adventures). 

A close second was Tegan Jovanka--her feisty attitude was an equally good fit with Tom Baker's somewhat manic portrayal and Peter Davison's laid-back approach. The absolute worst in that period? Undoubtedly, Peri Brown. Her aggressiveness and argumentative style was a nice challenge to Davison...but it simply ground the story to a halt when she confronted Sixth Doctor Colin Baker all the time.

In the reboot period, my favorite companion will be a surprise to many fans--Clara Oswald. During her time on the show, many fans complained that the stories were more about her than the Doctor...and my response is, "Yes, certainly." By the time Clara joined Number 11 (Matt Smith), we had already seen him with Amy Pond, Rory Williams, and a number of one-shot partners. We knew him quite well already--it was Clara we had to learn about. And when she had to switch to the Twelfth Doctor, in the very different guise of Peter Capaldi, she shifted her relationship well--from the flirty girl-buddy to the stand-up daughter figure. (And she showed an ability to relate to Number 10 (David Tennant) and the War Doctor (John Hurt) in the 50th anniversary special.)

Second place goes to Amy, even though we only saw her with Number 11. My feeling for her comes from the idea that she was the first companion to have a real romance and life during her time with the Doctor.

Who is your favorite?

Real Life?

 In 24 hours, the holiday season will be over for most of us, and we will return to real life...or as much of "real life" as we get in the current situation.

Jill will go back to work tomorrow after two weeks off...but, other than not spending eight hours or so every day at her desk, those two weeks were not all that different from the ones that preceded them or will now follow. (FTR, Jill has been working from home for five years now; the only thing the pandemic has done to her work environment is suspend the occasional business trips; her last one was in February.)

And, of course, I've been retired since May 1. I thought my retirement would be filled with things to do--especially community theater. But by the time I actually left my job, there was no community theater to do. And many of the other things I wanted to get involved in (I had proposed a "puppet ministry" for the young people in my church) have been put on indefinite hold.

So, frankly, except for some extra time on Zoom with friends and family and receiving some gifts, these holidays have not been any different from the "real life" that came before or will come after.

I suspect the same is true for most of you.

Patrick Sees a "Who"

 So, what did you all think of the New Year's special episode of Doctor Who (assuming you watched it)? While I'm not a big fan of the Daleks, it's nice to see someone try to use them in a different way. It did lead to a question, though--by this time, in the long history of the show, the people of London have seen Daleks a number of times before, probably some within the lifetimes of people still alive in 2021. Why is it they never recognize this menace when they see it?

Jill suggests it's because the authorities always cover it all up, putting out stories that chalk it up to a hoax, a new technology gone awry, or even--in a case of meta-story--a TV or movie shoot. This one may be a touch harder to explain that way: The prime minister was assassinated on live TV by Daleks. Surely the TV networks kept tape of that!

Trying to avoid spoilers, I was happy to see that the departing companions (or "fam") were left alive, well, and happy...and even with the wherewithal to do some adventuring on their own in the future (leaving room for guest shots, I suppose). I'm not as pleased with the hints that Yaz's friendship with the Doctor may go deeper than that. We went through that with Rose and Martha, and it never plays well, IMO. (And the fact that it's two women this time only gives the incels and social-justice objectors more ammunition.)

Your thoughts? (And if you include spoilers, I will not publish your comments for at least another week.)

What Does a "New Year" Mean?

 Jill just said something to me this morning: "As you hear people talk about how happy they are that 2020 is over, you have to wonder about how we have come to divide up time." I know what she means: has anything really changed in the past 24 hours, other than some numbers on our calendars or the clocks in our computers? Why do we treat this as some great watershed moment? What makes January 1 so different from December 31? I mean, for most of us, even the weather today will be pretty much the same as it was yesterday.

I think about the great "historical" years. People will talk about 1929 as a "bad year," because of the stock market crash that caused the Great Depression....but the crash didn't occur until October. Did that one event color the previous nine months that, up until then, no one had viewed as especially momentous?

On the other hand, in my memory, 1968 was a truly terrible year: April saw the assassination of Martin Luther King, June the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the summer the demonstrations and riots around the Democratic convention in Chicago, and November the election of Richard Nixon (until the last four years the worst president of my lifetime). Those events so overwhelm me that I have little direct memory of anything else that happened that year--even though it was the beginning of my last year in high school.

So, yes, 2020 is forever marred by nine months of pandemic and political/social strife. Too much all at once. The new year perhaps lets us turn a page, like starting a new chapter in a book--building on all the stress of the previous chapter, but writing of new and hopefully better events to come.

What's Ahead

 I'm far from an expert on any of this stuff, and some of this is just my hopeful nature, but here some predictions for 2021:

1. The last ditch attempts by some Republicans to reverse the Presidential election will be a dismal failure.

2. The Georgia Senate run-offs will result in a 50-50 split in the Senate, with VP Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote. That will put, most likely, Chuck Schumer in the majority leader position, allowing him to control what bills come to the floor.

3. By mid-year, theaters (both film and live) will reopen, with some restrictions. In some areas, that might include proof of vaccination before you can use a ticket. 

4. In September, most school districts will offer in-person learning to anyone who wants it, while continuing on-line offerings to those who don't, at least through the winter holidays. The largest districts will likely require proof of COVID vaccination before re-enrollment.

6. Indoor dining will largely resume by early spring, with some restrictions.

7. While state-wide mask mandates will be over by mid-year, some areas and some businesses may continue to require masks for the foreseeable future. The plexiglass shields in retail businesses will remain, I'd bet forever.

8. Because so many people have grown used to using them, restaurant delivery services like Grub Hub and Uber Eats will continue to thrive. Same with grocery delivery.

9. Domestic airline and train travel will be virtually normal by Thanksgiving...although it's possible there may be rules about proof of vaccination or negative tests, on a company-by-company basis.

10. Depending on how much foreign governments trust that the Biden administration has things under control, foreign travel will return to normal as well....but the cruise industry will still suffer.

Mid-Holiday Doldrums

 Even back in my childhood, I always found this time between Christmas and New Year's to be problematic. All the excitement of Christmas had usually dissipated by the morning of the 27th and the weather was not often conducive to being outside. (Staten Island rarely got snow before January, so sledding was out, but it was too cold to be out biking or something like that.) As a kid, New Year's Eve was nothing special, really...my parents would get me up around 11:30 so I could watch the ball drop on TV, but our big celebration was dinner the next day with my father's family.

As an adult, it got better--I would attend New Year's Eve parties, for instance. But December 26 to 31 often felt like a long period of nothing much.

And, of course, in this time of pandemic restrictions, it's even worse. There's so little to do in normal circumstances that the letdown from Christmas just feels that much worse. Don't get me wrong--I'm not depressed, just feeling a bit at loose-ends. Jill and I both have lots of time on our hands...and nothing we can do with it. Normally, we might plan a night out--a movie and/or dinner--but that's not possible now.

I'm hoping it will all make next year's celebration that much brighter.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

 Last night, on the news, Jill and I saw a report on the preparations being made for the traditional "ball-drop" in Times Square on New Year's Eve. The report included the plans New York City was making to keep the crowd within pandemic restriction limits.

It immediately occurred to both of us: "If that's really your concern (and it should be) why are you permitting the ball-drop at all?" If you don't want a crowd in Times Square, the easiest way to avoid it is not to give them a reason to be there. Sure, there will still be idiots who want to gather in large numbers to celebrate, but there will be far fewer if there's nothing to draw them to that one location. If nothing else, they would be spread out among several other places in the city, such as along the Hudson River waterfront to watch the fireworks display instead. (Or, even better, stay home and celebrate sensibly there.)

You might as well announce "Come to our COVID super-spread party in Times Square! There will be entertainment and spectacle!"

A Pain in my....

 Not sure what I did, but somewhere in the past three or four days, I pulled or strained something in my lower back. It's not bad if I stand and walk around, but sitting for any length of time (in any kind of chair) makes it stiffen up, so that when I stand back up it's difficult to straighten all the way for the first few moments. After walking for a bit, it loosens, but I can still feel the tightness and some residual pain. The problem seems to be centered just where my back transitions to my bottom.

I've used heating pads (that helps a bit) and Aleve (that helps a bit more). Right now, I'm trying a spray-on analgesic and a lumbar pad in my desk chair. They seem to be helping some as well.

Anybody got some suggestions as to what the problem is and a solution?

Peace On Earth

 I don't think anything else needs to be said:

Box It Up

 Happy Boxing Day (or, if you prefer, the Feast of Stephen, as it is called in the carol "Good King Wenceslas"). Here's a little history on the name:

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest attestations from Britain in the 1830s, defining it as "the first weekday after Christmas day, observed as a holiday on which postmen, errand boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas box".

The term "Christmas box" dates back to the 17th century, and among other things meant:

A present or gratuity given at Christmas: in Great Britain, usually confined to gratuities given to those who are supposed to have a vague claim upon the donor for services rendered to him as one of the general public by whom they are employed and paid, or as a customer of their legal employer; the undefined theory being that as they have done offices for this person, for which he has not directly paid them, some direct acknowledgement is becoming at Christmas.

It is also the "second day of Christmas" (Christmas itself being the first), so give your true love a pair of turtledoves, if you are so inclined.

 

Merry Christmas

 I wasn't sure what to post for the holiday, so I decided to get a little traditional, from the Gospel According to Luke:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.  (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

 “Glory to God in the highest heaven
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

 

Pardon Me?

 I used to have a standard line I used when people would say, "Pardon me?" I would reply, "Who do you think you are, Richard Nixon?"

After this week, the number of political felons who would fit in that joke must be nearing a dozen...and may well double by the time we reach January 20. As I heard mentioned last night on MSNBC, this kind of flurry of pardons around the holidays is fairly common...but usually they are non-political: people who were given surprisingly harsh sentences, people who had clearly turned their lives around, people with health problems. 

There's one good thing that might come from all this--if any of the folks Trump pardoned in the last days of his term are called to testify about their role in his malfeasances, they can no longer claim the protections of the Fifth Amendment. The pardon means they cannot be prosecuted for their crimes, and hence they have no fear of incriminating themselves.

Crazy Like a Fox?

 Okay, so after months of avoiding any contact with the COVID relief efforts in Congress, now that they've passed--by a veto-proof majority--a minimal package that includes the necessary legislation to keep the government running for another few weeks, Trump decides it's not what he wanted (not that he told anyone what he wanted until now) and suggests he won't sign it.

Has this been his plan all along? To (1) blame Congress for not doing enough; and (2) hand Biden a government shut-down on January 20? "If I can't run the country, nobody gets to do it. Nyah-nyah, let's see you solve this one, wise guy!" And as for the prospect of a continued Republican majority in the Senate? "You're on your own, Mitch! I won't be here so I don't give a damn!"

Hasn't this been his pattern throughout his business career? Run a company into the ground, then declare bankruptcy or sell out to some poor sucker who doesn't realize how bad it really is, and leave it to others to suffer the consequences?

Is this just his biggest bankruptcy and abandonment?

Vote Fraud Found

 ...but it won't make Donald Trump happy. After examining more than 100 allegations of voter fraud or irregularities in Delaware County, PA, District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer and his bi-partisan staff found just one verifiable case--and it was a Republican who illegally voted for Trump in the name of his dead mother. As reported in today's edition of the Delaware County Daily Times:

Stollsteimer said Bartman accessed the Pennsylvania online voter registration portal in August 2020 to register his mother, Elizabeth Bartman, who died in 2008....

Bartman was able to use his mother’s driver’s license number... as [an identifier] in the Pennsylvania system. In the case of Bartman’s mother, Stollsteimer said the system not only failed to catch the information as a registration from a deceased person, it actually uploaded information from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation database.

Bartman then applied for and received an absentee ballot for his mother from the Election Bureau, filled it out and returned it. That ballot was received Oct. 28 and counted Nov. 3 for Nether Providence’s 3rd Ward, Stollsteimer said. Bartman also voted in that same precinct...

https://www.delcotimes.com/news/d-a-marple-mans-dead-mom-voted-for-trump/article_fea7510e-43e7-11eb-aea6-2f7f71b245ec.html

Christmas Prep 2

 You would think that the pandemic would have given us so much extra time that we'd be ahead of schedule on Christmas...and you'd be wrong. We are at least a week behind our normal timing on shopping and shipping. Packages to our children will not be shipped until later today...which means they more than likely will not arrive in time to be opened on Christmas morning.

Of course, we had things beside the pandemic to deal with. The death of Jill's mother and the planning to attend her funeral took up most of a week that normally would have been our wrapping and packaging time. Then, of course, the snowstorm last week meant getting out to the shipping places was delayed as well.

So, we're working on the idea that anything that arrives by Epiphany on January 6 is on time, since the 12 days of Christmas are the period between December 25 and that date.

Christmas Prep

 Did you decorate for Christmas this year? We didn't--except for putting up lights outside.

We disposed of our artificial tree after last season (it was on its last legs) and had intended to order a new one for this year. But as the holidays approached, we realized that we would undoubtedly have no visitors over Christmas--the pandemic restrictions and their own requirements meant that our sons and their significant others would not be joining us.

Getting a new tree. putting it up and decorating it seemed like an awful lot of fuss for just the two of us. It would have meant clearing space in the living room (always more of a hassle than it seems), hauling the decorations out of the attic--and then undoing it all just a couple of weeks later. So, we decided to skip it this year...and maybe do it up even bigger and better next year, as a celebration of getting out of pandemic.

How has your Christmas planning changed?

Let It Snow 4

 Last one of these, I promise--unless we get snow again before the New Year.

I finally cut a narrow path through the packed ice on the sidewalk, thanks to the ice chopper blade I bought at Home Depot. I will let the sun and warmer temperatures expected in the next few days work at widening it, thank you. (But those warmer temps didn't arrive this morning--16 degrees at 6 AM!)

Let It Snow 3

 So, I got the driveway clear, but by the time I could get to work on the sidewalk, the sun had gone down, it was getting colder, and the snow--most of which was from the plows that had thrown the stuff from the road onto my walk--had turned rock hard. It's still rock hard this morning. (Worse, I'm the last house on the street to clear things...but I'm also the one that gets hit hardest by the plows, because the road widens to three lanes right in front of my house, so the plows are clearing right up to my curb--and all that ice and snow has nowhere to go except on my walk.)

I've thrown salt on the top of the ice, hoping that--combined with warming temps and sun--will soften it enough to let me get at it. I've seen some suggestions for a vinegar/water solution and/or boiling water as a help. Anyone have experience with this?

This is the worst I've ever seen it in 20 years here.

Let It Snow 2

 As a kid, I used to love snow. I even loved it as a younger adult. I still think new-fallen snow is a lovely sight...the problem is that it doesn't last.

Soon it is just heaps of plowed up dirty ice along the edges of the roads, or worse at the top of my driveway. When the snow is followed by rain, it just turns into slabs of ice...and even a snow-blower will not clear those easily...so out comes the shovel, trying to crack the ice enough to get it off the pavement. 

I spent 30 minutes so far today trying to dig out...and only managed to clear about five feet of my driveway and the back porch. The sun is out now, streaming down the driveway, so I will shortly go back out to see if that is helping any.

Snow is no longer something I love.

Let It Snow?

 Here I was hoping that, after the last nine months, we would have an easy winter, like last year's. Last year, our area got literally no measurable snow. This year, we are about to have one of the earliest real snowstorms I can remember in the two decades we've lived around here.

We rarely get any snow before New Year's...and that tends to be light flurries that melt within 24 hours. Today, we're expecting anywhere from 3 to 6 inches, some of which might be "wintry mix". I can't imagine what road clearing in a pandemic might turn out to be like.

Cars and Phones

I live on a major thoroughfare, just a few yards from an intersection with a traffic light, so traffic often (almost always) backs up to my driveway. Not a complaint--I knew it would happen when we moved here. Yesterday, though, I observed for what must be the umpteenth time, something that rankles me.

I drove to the end of the driveway and waited my turn to be able to enter traffic. There was a car directly in across my path (again, not the issue). The driver had his face buried in his phone, paying no attention to the circumstances around him. Now, on one level, I understand this level of thinking: "I'm stopped at a red light, it's gonna be at least 30 to 40 seconds, let me check my phone...." But I think it's more dangerous than it seems...and let me tell you why, using what actually happened yesterday.

The light changed, the car ahead of this fellow moved...and he didn't--because all his attention was on his phone. I had to honk at him to wake him up to reality around him. Now, suppose the driver behind him, unaware of the phone-user's inattention, had begun to move? Accident? Quite possibly.

There's probably no way to make this work, but here's an idea for a future phone/car feature. When the vehicle's transmission is in any mode except "park" the phone doesn't work. No texting, no calling, nothing. 

Your thoughts?

Google-Eyed

 Nothing like waking up and finding that none of your usual agenda is working, because all of it is tied to Google.

Normally, we get up, I go to my computer and check e-mail and the like, while Jill turns on the TV in the bedroom to catch up on the news and weather. We get our broadcast news through the YouTube TV service and that was down along with most everything else Google does--e-mail, Google Docs, Blogger, etc. We finally got some news by finding the CBSNews stream.

As of the time of this posting, there's still no word from Google on exactly what the problem was. 

Beginning of the End

 This morning, the news was doing live reports of the first trucks leaving Pfizer's Michigan plant loaded with COVID vaccine. Jill wondered if this were really something that required this kind of coverage, or if it were a circumstance of Pfizer looking for publicity and the media playing along.

I said I think it is a news-worthy event, comparable to coverage of troops boarding ships and planes bound for combat. Since then, another comparison has come to mind: In the days before the launch of Apollo 11, the news media followed the three astronauts constantly. And on the morning of the launch, there were reports on their every move--what they had for breakfast, their farewells to their families, the trip to the launch pad, etc.

 This deserves that kind of coverage...if only to show the public, on a stage-by-stage, day-by-day basis, that the vaccine is real, it is being distributed, it is not being hoarded for the "elite" (and yes, I have seen that accusation being made).

I applaud the media for this.

Hotel Blues 2

 Well, all that agita over a hotel reservation was for naught. Just hours after I successfully made the reservation, Governor Wolf announced new COVID restrictions going into effect at midnight tonight, making our plans for this trip impossible. (We have to go out of state for a family funeral; we had planned to go to this hotel tonight, stay overnight, drive the rest of the way to the funeral Saturday morning, return to the hotel for Saturday night and come home Sunday morning.)

The new restrictions mean the hotel's restaurants will not be serving any meals and, since there is no convenient place to order meals delivered, that meant there would be no food to be had easily at the hotel (possibly at all, since all the restaurants anywhere around would be under the same restrictions). I cancelled the reservation--and may have to pay a cancellation charge, since I was past the 24-hour grace period.

Instead, we have made plans to meet with another relative and share driving so we can do it all in one day. To be honest, I was looking forward to the chance to spend 24 to 36 hours away from home.

Hotel Blues

How hard should it be to make a hotel reservation? I went online to a hotel I have used many times before to make a reservation for this weekend. The online system refused to deal with me because I had my browser set to reject cookies. So, I went in and changed that to allow all cookies. Still rejected. Went in and specifically said to accept cookies from the hotel's site. Still rejected.

So, I gave up on that and called the phone reservation line. Despite being an 866 number (which are usually manned 24 hours), I was told that the office hours didn't start until 9 AM. (It was about 8:50.) I hung up, waited about 15 minutes and tried again. I got the same voicemail message. I left a message.

So I called the hotel front desk, explained the situation, and the clerk said he would check on the reservation staff. He came back to say that the first thing the staff does on arrival is check all their messages, so I would probably get a call back soon.

Thirty minutes later, still no call back. I tried again and this time got a live body in the reservations office. She was apologetic about my problem and immediately began taking my information. Now, I have used this hotel often enough that as soon as I gave my name, she began reading back the info to me. Five minutes later the transaction was complete. I have my reservation.

But should it have taken three on-line tries and three phone calls?

Horrible Year

 Queen Elizabeth II called 1992 her "annus horribilus". (That was the year Princess Diana died and the Queen took a lot of flack for her apparent lack of empathy.)

2020 is turning into my "annus horribilus". It began in January with the death of my mother. While it was not unexpected, it was still somewhat surprising as her final decline was a rapid two or three days. A month later, the pandemic began and all the plans I had made for the year crashed and burned. I had decided in late 2019 that I would retire from my part-time job on April 30, with the intention of spending my newly free time largely on work with local community theaters. Before I hit my last day of work, all the community theaters closed up shop and have remained closed.

All our usual "fun things" have not been possible this year. Our annual get-together with SF fans in the spring was cancelled. Plans to see my family at a memorial for Mom in June have been postponed until next June at the earliest. Thanksgiving, of course, was a bust, save for a three-hour Zoom meeting with our children.

And now, one last blow. My mother-in-law died over the weekend. My wife is depressed--not so much because of the loss of her mother (like mine, we knew this was coming), but by the limited ways we can deal with the situation. At the moment, we will make a 24-hour trip to West Virginia this weekend for the burial, along with just a handful of her children and grandchildren. Any larger memorial will have to wait until later this year.

A year bookended with personal deaths and filled with misery of every kind in between.

Lights Up!

 Christmas has arrived in the O'Neill front yard:

28 Days

What can be accomplished in 28 days? That's what left for the current session of Congress, including the probable recess for Christmas and New Year's. If you take that out, this session has only about 12 days left--less than two weeks!

In that time, the Congress must pass at least a continuing resolution to keep the government funded; it ought to also pass some kind of additional relief bill tied to the pandemic. What are the chances? I doubt either party wants to see a government shut-down timed for the holidays, so the funding bill will pass in some form. I am less sanguine about the relief bill. Mitch McConnell seems adamant about not allowing anything that will look like a "victory" for the Democrats, at least not before the Georgia Senate run-off on January 5.

Joe Biden has said we are in for a "dark winter". I fear he is right.

Remembering My Youth

 How much do you remember of your childhood? As I get older, I find that certain details fade. Certainly, I still remember the layout of the house I grew up in and the neighborhood (the fact that I left that area only about 20 years ago and frequently visited until earlier this year probably helps), but other things have become fuzzy...like the names of the friends I played with.

Some are still clear but others remain just "the family that lived across the street and two doors down." The names of neighbors who didn't have children are even more harder to recall. My immediate next-door neighbors I still can name...but the ones a few doors away or across the street are merely blurry faces without names in my memory.

Weirdly, though, I still vividly recall other parts of my childhood--the Saturday morning shows we watched, and even the schedule they aired on, as an example. The theme songs of those programs and others I haven't seen in decades. The daytime soap operas my mother watched (she was strictly a CBS network fan): The Brighter Day, Search for Tomorrow, and As the World Turns.

Why are some things so crystal clear and others just dimly recalled?

Theater Struggles

 Once again, I'm posting here a letter I sent to my local paper, The Delaware County Daily Times, on a subject near and dear to me:

I commend you on reprinting in Saturday's paper the editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer regarding the difficulties the live entertainment industry has faced over the past nine months and will continue to face in the foreseeable future.

But I note that, in Delaware County, live theater mostly means volunteer community theater...and those venues are struggling as well. They have rents, utilities and other costs that continue whether they are putting on shows or not and they have had no revenues to support those payments since March.

I ask your readers who enjoy live theater to support these organizations with donations. In order to avoid omitting anyone, I simply ask that they search "community theater in Delaware County" on line and see the results. Anything you give will keep these organizations alive until they can once again stage a play, a musical, or a revue.

That plea goes out to you all, too. No matter where you live, find a local community theater and donate.

 

Audition Assets

 This post is mainly for my theater friends. What do you consider the strongest assets you bring to an audition? Not necessarily the assets you bring to a role should you be cast, but the strengths you have that would encourage a director to cast you? What are you weakest ones?

For me, I think my strongest asset is the ability to give a good cold read. I pride myself on getting up on stage with a script or side in hand, one that I may have had only five or ten minutes to look at, and flawlessly perform the part. I know how to pronounce the difficult words, I know how to look up from the page and then back without losing my place, I can find a character and a voice for that character.

As a director, I value that in an auditioning actor, because it's difficult to know how the actor will perform when cast if he or she is stumbling through a cold read.

My weakest asset? This only applies to musicals, of course--I can't dance. I have no training in it and I have the rhythm of a centipede with all left feet. I hate when I have to do a dance audition for a show in which I am trying out for a character who doesn't dance. Want an idea of how bad my sense of rhythm is? Watch this video:

(I can sing in rhythm, of course...but I can't move in it.)

So, what do you bring to an audition that will get you cast? And what do you hope will not be asked?

The Middle-Class Bubble, Revisited

 The Delaware County Daily Times published my letter today (the one I also posted here); strangely enough, they also published a letter from a friend, Paul Kerrigan, who expressed some of the same objections to Mr. McOscar's conclusions, though from a different angle (and no, neither of us knew the other was going to write to the paper on the topic). Paul wrote, in part:

...in Nether Providence where I was an observer, the local Judge of Elections confirmed what appeared to be true, that two contiguous wards had about a 5 to 1 disparity in the number of voters being served. The one ward had no line to speak of, while the voters in the adjacent ward consistently had a wait of an hour or more. Interestingly, the under-served voting ward was the one that had the apartment complex, as opposed to the single home properties in the first. I’m not saying that there was malicious intent, but the nearly all white voters in one ward were impressive when compared with the diverse voters who made up the other.

These subtle discrepancies reinforce the historical racism of the red-lining and de facto segregation of the past. 

Always good to know you are not alone in your thoughts. 

 

Donating

 What did you contribute to yesterday, Giving Tuesday?

As I think you should always give to things that bring you joy and that really matter to you, I donated to the two local community theaters with which I am most involved. Both had connections with groups doing matching donations, so it was very worthwhile to participate. I hope it allows them to stay in business long enough to be operating again in six months or so.

Living in a Middle-Class Bubble

 This morning, my local paper, the Delaware County Daily Times, ran an op-ed, which spurred me to write this letter to the editor:

To the editor:

Clearly, Jerry McOscar lives in a white, middle-class bubble and doesn't understand how his life differs from those who may be poor, non-white, elderly, or otherwise "out of the mainstream".

In his op-ed on Tuesday, after outlining the problems that Julie Berger, a Senior Research Coordinator at University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, observed at a polling place in West Philadelphia--problems that included an inability to locate the proper polling place, long lines, and difficulty in understanding how to operate the ballot scanning machine--McOscar wrote:

"The truth is that most of these purported 'obstacles' are easily remedied by a little pre-election day homework — reading sample ballots, verifying the proper polling place, checking paperwork, voting early if work is an issue, for example. Ms. Berger even admits to being confused at times when voting in person.

"She asserts that voter suppression can take blatant forms, but its more insidious forms can be hard to see for those, like her, who have always exercised their voting rights easily: a labyrinth of registration forms and deadlines, a hard-to-read ballot, 'complex' voting machines, mismatched polling books."

What McOscar fails to acknowledge is that that kind of "homework" may require an access to the internet, or a library, or even the skills to utilize either, that may not be commonplace in areas like West Philly, especially among the poor and elderly. Has he not heard of the "digital divide"? Further, it may require a time and effort that even a younger person, working two or more jobs, holding together a single-parent household, simply cannot manage.

 
I'm a senior citizen who was an "early adapter" to the computerized world, thanks to working in the publishing industry in my youth; but when I took a part-time job in a supermarket in my later years, I discovered a wide swath of people of all ages and races who had difficulty operating a self-checkout or understanding how our loyalty card system operated.

Mr. McOscar needs to realize that what he finds simple and easy may not be for everyone.

Virtual Gatherings

Jill and I spent a quiet Thanksgiving Day with just the two of us. Brian and TJ could not travel--nor did we really want them to. However, we were not completely isolated over the long weekend. As noted in the two previous postings, I made a trip Saturday morning to the Brandywine Museum, and we had delightful Zoom gatherings on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

Saturday evening was a "virtual cocktail hour," organized by our friend Cat, with a group of SF fans from various parts of the country: Pennsylvania, New York, Chicago, and other areas. There's just one rule in these "parties"--no politics. So, for about 90 minutes, we discussed food, family, entertainment and other hopefully non-controversial topics.

The three-hour gathering on Sunday was all family: Brian and his wife, Heather, "zooming" in from Connecticut, and TJ from Brooklyn. Lots of catching up on work, social life, etc. was on the agenda. At the end, it was almost exactly like a conversation we would have had post-dinner had we all been in the same room.

We will definitely be doing more of these until the pandemic eases.

Playing House

 As I noted in yesterday's post, the exhibit at the Brandywine Museum also includes a couple of absolutely exquisite dollhouses. Here's a look at them:

This one was owned by Sarah Cordelia Mellon Scaife and was donated to the museum by her daughter. It is not known when she acquired the dollhouse or the many objects and dolls within it. The museum dates it at about 1900.

This is just one room of the very large dollhouse that belonged to Ann Wyeth McCoy, N.C. Wyeth's daughter. Curiously, she never had a dollhouse as a child and this one was built for her by her husband in 1966, by adapting a tool shed into a nine-foot house with six rooms. When it was donated to the museum, the house was deconstructed so each of the rooms could be displayed individually (the nine-foot height of the complete building would not fit in the galleries).

All Aboard!

 Every year, between Thanksgiving and New Year's, the Brandywine Museum of Art turns one of its galleries into a marvelous exhibition of model trains, many of them once owned by the Wyeth family of artists. (The museum's collection is dedicated largely to the Wyeths and their friends and colleagues, including many of the great illustrators of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.)

Earlier today, I made a visit to the museum, located in Chadds Ford, PA, on the banks of the Brandywine Creek. It is housed in a converted mill, not far from the site of N.C. and Andrew Wyeth's studio and home. (The museum offers tours of the studio as well.) Here's just small sample of the train layouts on display--all are operating and some include pieces that visitors can operate with a foot pedal

If trains aren't your thing at the holidays, there are also exhibits of two wonderful dollhouses. I'll show a little of those in the next few days.

Not Being Thankful

 Continuing to be thankful in trying times can be difficult. Of course, there is much I am thankful for--I and my entire immediate family are healthy; all those of an employable age are gainfully employed; my retirement income is sufficient to allow me to make a contribution to our wellbeing.

What makes it hard to be thankful? Well, the pandemic, naturally, as it constantly intrudes on our lives in various ways: Our children were unable to be with us on Thanksgiving and more than likely will not be here for Christmas, either; the many things we might otherwise do on a long weekend, such as attending a movie, are unavailable as well; the activities I thought would keep me busy and happy in retirement--chief among them community theater--are suspended as well.

The political situation also grates on me--and not just because our President is being his usual recalcitrant, obstreperous self. It's the feeling that a significant portion of the populace (possibly 40 percent or higher) not only refuse to accept reality, they insist that their view of things is the reality, and that we who see things through fact and science are the deluded ones.

On the other hand, I am thankful our courts--for the most part--know that they cannot be the thumb on the scale of democracy, no matter how much their political masters might wish them to be.

Be Thankful

 

TV Drama and Current Events 2

 Following up on yesterday's post:

Last night I watched two more shows presenting new episodes produced since the pandemic: NCIS and FBI. Neither one seemed to make any concession to what has been and is happening in the real world. No one in either cast was wearing a mask or other protective gear. The sets for their respective offices were unchanged--no social distancing between desks, no plexiglass barriers. There was no reference in dialogue, on either show, to the virus.

In fact, on FBI. one of the leads did something that, under current conditions, might be considered highly risky: She slept with a man she had met only weeks before and did not live with. Granted, he's a fellow FBI agent, but....

Unlike the episodes of All Rise and Bull from Monday night, these scripts could have been (and probably were) written before the COVID crisis.

TV Drama and Current Events

 How much should episodic television acknowledge and build stories around current events? Last night, I watched two shows, All Rise and Bull, which dealt in part with things that have happened since they stopped production in the spring. 

Both are, of course, legal dramas, and the new set-up in their fictional courtrooms reflected the pandemic--masks, social distancing, plastic shields on desks, etc. In fact, the courtroom part of Bull actually began with the judge explaining what the new safety protocols would be and why. Once that was past and explained, however, the story could well have been told a year ago.

All Rise, though, was completely dependent on the events of the past few months for its story. And not just the pandemic--several of the regular characters, and the defendant in the central trial, had been involved in the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer and their experiences shaped their actions in this episode and look to do so in the future.

I wonder how this will look to audiences who view these series in syndication or streaming in the future, when the context for them will be long gone. I recall that, as an example, Law & Order had very few episodes directly connected to the events of 9/11 and, indeed, waited a couple of years before delving into them from a legal perspective. The cops all wore black arm bands and black bands on their shields for the 2001-2 season, but there were no overt dialogue references to their experiences on that day or the aftermath. The West Wing did one "special" episode that dealt with the issues surrounding 9/11--but not the events themselves--and then never mentioned it directly again.

Is serial drama better off not paying attention to the "real world"?

A Turkey of a Holiday

 What are your plans for Thanksgiving? I can tell you what mine are--not much of anything. Our children are not coming home (sensibly), so Jill and I are planning a very small-scale dinner: a three-pound turkey breast, stuffing, side dishes, apple pie for desert.

I lost much interest in the parades (either the big one in New York or the local one in Philly) some years ago--and as the ones this year will be almost entirely artificial in nature (is it really a parade if you're just going to bring the floats, bands, balloons, etc. around a corner, show them on TV for a bit, then wheel them off around the next corner?), I have even less interest now. I have never been a football fan, so the afternoon and evening entertainment is not appealing either.

We'll probably find a movie or two to watch, read, maybe catch up with some friends on line. We have tentative plans to Zoom with the kids on Sunday at some point. I'm thinking of it all as practice for Christmas, which will probably go much the same way.

Hoping for a Miracle?

 I've come to the conclusion that a certain part of the political spectrum doesn't really want to do anything to stem the tide of COVID infection. This morning a local columnist argued against closing schools again, as many local districts plan to do. In the past, this columnist has also argued against closing or restricting businesses, and against restricting public worship or other gatherings. So, as I said, I wonder what she does think should be done?

Clearly, we cannot rely on the public "doing the right thing"--too many of them see such things as wearing masks, social distancing or limiting their own gatherings as unacceptable infringements on their personal choices. In those areas of the country where those activities were merely "recommendations" or "suggestions," the majority of the public simply took the attitude of "I don't have to, so I won't"....and now those areas are, on a per capita basis, in far worse shape than the densely populated areas that adopted restrictions much earlier.

Perhaps all these folks are simply waiting for the vaccine...with no thought for the hundreds, if not thousands, of citizens who become gravely ill--or die--before the vaccine spreads effective immunity through the whole population.

Adaptation to Comics

 From the 1930s through the 1970s, comic-book adaptations of movies and TV shows were common place. Until the mid-1960s, the best-selling comic book in the United States was Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, featuring tales of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and the gang. That title and scores more like it were created by the staff at Western Publishing, better known for the Little Golden Books, but published and distributed by Dell, a major magazine publisher of the time. In the mid-1960s, Dell cancelled its deal with Western and Western--who had always held the actual licenses from Disney, Warner Bros., etc.--began publishing under its own imprint, Gold Key. (Later, in the 1970s, some of these titles were also published with a Whitman imprint--another Western Publishing branch, best known for coloring books--and sold through places like Kmart and the surviving 5&10 stores.)

Western also did the occasional movie adaptation and lots of titles based on Western and situation-comedy TV series. Other publishers got in the game as well--DC had series featuring Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and others. Marvel/Atlas had a few. Even tiny Charlton got into the mix, with titles based on B- and C-level movies like Gorgo.

The trend had virtually died by the late '70s (though Gold Key continued to publish its long-running titles), until Marvel's deal with Lucasfilm and 20th Century-Fox for Star Wars changed everything. Suddenly licensed properties were seen as profitable again. But it's remained as tied to blockbuster movies in the SF, fantasy, and horror genres.

Which is a shame--DC Comics, a sister company to Warner Bros., producer and distributor of The Big Bang Theory, might have had a hit comic book based on that show. Marvel, owned by Disney, might be cashing in on Duck Tales even now.

But, today, all the action seems to flow in the other direction, as the film and TV companies see their sister comics publishers as sources for intellectual property and little more.

Why Vote-by-Mail Frightens the GOP

 In an effort to figure out why the idea of universal or near-universal voting by mail is such a nightmare to the Republican Party, I did some research on Presidential election results in the two states that currently have universal mail-in voting: Washington and Oregon.

Before 1988, both states reliably voted for the Republican candidate. In 1988, both went Democratic and have ever since. What changed? Well, vote-by-mail was signed into law as an option in Oregon in 1987 and by 2000 it was universal: Every registered voter gets a ballot in the mail. In Washington, the option went into effect in 1991, and went universal in 2005.

Why should this make such a difference? Over the past 30 years, high turn-out elections have resulted in Democratic wins, both nationally and on a state level. Mail-in voting, as we saw this year, substantially increases turn-out; make it easier to vote and more people will vote. Then the question becomes, why does higher turn-out result in more Democratic victories? Minorities, women, and independents are the groups least likely to vote, traditionally, and they are more likely to vote Democratic (yes, even the independents). Increase turn-out generally and, naturally, more voters from those groups will vote.

This does not bode well for the GOP in the future. Current predictions are that the United States will be "minority-majority" by about 2040 (that is, more people will be black, Latino, Asian, or some other ethnicity than white). When you also consider that women are already more likely to vote than men, and the phrase "demographics is destiny" looks like an obituary for the Republican Party.

Music, Music, Music

 I am a huge fan of orchestral movie music. Right now, as I type this, I am listening to Elmer Bernstein's recording of Miklos Rozsa's magnificent score for The Thief of Bagdad. Just hearing the score summons up images from the film. Rozsa, of course, also scored Ben-Hur, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and another personal favorite Time After Time. (Anyone know where I can get that one? I-tunes doesn't have it.)

Speaking of Bernstein, his music for To Kill a Mockingbird, with its haunting recurring theme for Scout and Jem, is part of what makes that film my favorite of all time and my vote for best film adaptation of a novel, ever.

Naturally, John Williams' many scores for science-fiction and fantasy films, from Star Wars through Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters and Harry Potter, are constant companions as well. But Williams has some other credits you may not be as familiar with: He wrote the theme for TV's Lost in Space, and his score for The Reivers, a non-genre movie, is delightful.

Alfred Newman's score for The Mark of Zorro, starring Tyrone Power, built almost entirely as it is around the stirring theme music, is a standout, and another one I wish I could find a recording of. 

That leads us to Erich Wolfgang Korngold--composer of Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk--and to Max Steiner, famed for Gone With The Wind, but who also scored Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Dodge City, The Searchers, Jezebel (another with a remarkable recurring main theme) and King Kong.

Do you have a favorite film composer or score I haven't mentioned?

Walls with Holes

 Pennsylvania announced new rules for dealing with the surge in the virus yesterday...and two of them concern me, not for what they are intended to do or their direct consequences, but because they impress me as being inherently unenforceable.

The first restricts private gatherings, even in your own home, to no more than 10 people. A good idea, yes, but how do you prevent violations, or even know when they have occurred? What punishment ensues for those who do violate this restriction?

The second calls for anyone entering the state from another state to either have tested negative within 72 hours before crossing the border or else quarantine for 14 days after arriving. Again, how is this to be enforced? Beyond airports and train stations, Pennsylvania has literally thousand of roads (and not just major highways) that cross the state line with Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York. In my own area, there are scores of little local streets that go from towns in Delaware County to towns in New Castle County, Delaware. Many of them do not even change their names as they go from one state to the other; the only indication that you have moved from Delaware to Pennsylvania is a change in the style of the street signs and, possibly but not always, a sign that says "Welcome to Pennsylvania". It is quite literally impossible to guard everyone of these crossings with a state cop or other official to ask for proof of a COVID test.

Why does this concern me? Because regulations and restrictions (whether concerning COVID or anything else) that cannot be enforced lead to a belief (among a certain class of residents) that none of the regulations and restrictions matter. "You can't stop him from coming into the state with a full-blown case of the virus? Then why should I bother wearing a mask in the store?" Yes, most residents will not take that attitude...but if the past eight months have taught us anything, it is that there is a significant number that will use any excuse to defy even common sense rules, if they see them as inconvenient or somehow intruding on their individual rights. And it is that small but significant number who then spread the infection among the rest of us.

Yes, I protect myself...and so I am not likely to contract COVID (I've come through the whole thing so far, even while working in a store for four months, healthy). But my worry is that these people will strain our medical system, will force even tighter restrictions on businesses, and eventually cause severe damage to the state and the nation.

Facing a Brick Wall

 How do you argue with someone who rejects your every source of information, statistics, and data as biased and illegitimate? When they consider established places like the New York Times, UN agencies, even encyclopedias and almanacs, as purveyors of "deep state" conspiracy?

If you can't even come to agreement on well-known historical events like the American Revolution, Civil War, civil rights movement, and how they happened and what their outcomes were, how do you have a rational discussion?

We often talk of speaking to a brick wall. This may be worse. A brick wall simply doesn't respond. This is like getting back a distorted echo.

Two Nations Separated....

 ...by a common language, is how Winston Churchill is alleged to have described the United States and Great Britain. I am beginning to think their ways of producing television are also the same, but different.

Most of the genres of TV we are familiar with in the US are equally popular in the UK: sit-com, soap opera, detective/police, game show, talk show, reality/competition. (It could be argued that last really started in the UK and migrated here, unlike most of the others.) But the way they handle them is very different.

First of all, there is no "season" in the sense we mean in broadcast TV in Britain--no sudden influx of new material on all channels in the fall with shows running 20 to 24 episodes until the early spring. No, over there, the new "series" (as they call it) is as likely to begin in March as in September--and it might run fewer than 5 episodes or as many as 30 (depending on the genre). And, whether the show is on non-commercial BBC or one of the commercial channels, there seems to be no set running time. It might be as little as 25 minutes or as much as 90...or virtually anything in-between.

The style of the shows can be quite different as well. Though not as violent as most American crime dramas, the British ones tend to be more grim...so much so, that Jill and I find we cannot "binge" them in the sense of watching an entire season in a night or even a week. Of course, there are some lighter-hearted ones, such as Rosemary and Thyme or Shakespeare & Hathaway.

Game shows often seem to be a strange combination of quiz and celebrity panel/talk show...even to the point of taking one from each and combining them as in 5 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

In these days of pandemic and lockdown--and having switched from cable to streaming--we're watching a lot more Brit TV these days in our house. If you're doing the same--what do you watch?

Values Shopping

 Whatever happened to conservative values? I remember when conservatives stood for norms and traditions--in politics and life in general. It was conservatives, after all, who forced through the Constitutional amendment restricting Presidents to two full terms, after FDR "broke" the tradition begun by George Washington. It was conservatives who complained when Jimmy Carter appeared on TV for an official statement in an open-collared shirt and a cardigan, instead of the tradition of a business suit. Or when Barack Obama wore a (heaven forbid) tan suit, instead of the "traditional" dark shades.

But now, after four years of a President who casts aside norms and traditions of far more consequence, even to acceding to the results of an election, conservatives rally to his side. Why? Is it because winning is more important than principle? Is it because having your way on contentious issues like abortion is more important than norms and traditions?

Conservatives often deride progressives and liberals for having values that shift depending the circumstances...of not having hard-and-firm principles...as though being willing to see the whole picture, from all sides of the issue, is somehow soft and wishy-washy. 

If that's true, then what the hell are they doing now?

Serial Issues 2

 I realized after posting my first discussion of this topic that I had left out one way of dealing with the characters and world of a continuing series--aging and changing both in real time. One of the best examples of that I can point to is Kathy Reichs's novels about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (which, BTW, have nothing in common--save the protagonist's name and occupation--with the TV series, Bones, ostensibly based upon them). Tempe Brennan ages from her early 30s to her early 50s in the course of the novels, and the cities she works in--Charlottesville, NC and Montreal--reflect the changes in those locales over the 20 years as well.

With that oversight out of the way, let's turn to the problems of dealing with time in comic books. Traditionally, comic-book heroes remain unchanged from issue to issue, so that a new reader can pick up any issue and understand the hero and his world just from the contents of that one story. That has changed a bit in the past 30 years or so, but still the problem remains--we don't want to deal with a 60-year-old Superman. 

Actually, Superman is one of the characters least affected by all this. His origin is not specifically tied to any one real-world event. It is enough to know that he arrived on Earth as an infant about three decades ago--whether that means pre-World War One, as it did when he first appeared in print, or in about 1990, as it must today. Much of the same is true of Batman--except for one thing: It is well-established that his parents were killed, when he was about ten, on their way home from seeing a movie, most often said today to have been about Zorro. When that was first proposed about 30 years ago, the presumption was that it was a revival-house screening of The Mark of Zorro, starring Tyrone Powell. Today, it would be easy to assume it was 1998's The Mask of Zorro, with Antonio Banderas.

Other characters present more challenging circumstances. When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four in 1961, they probably figured the series would last no more than a decade or so--and in that time, the readership would turn over two or three times. Instead, it has lasted six decades--and many of those initial readers are still with it today.

They tied the quartet's origin to the space race...with Reed, Ben, Sue. and Johnny sneaking onto a military base to take off in the ship of Reed's design to be the first humans to orbit the Earth. Now, with the four having barely aged in those 60 years, it's tough to figure out why there mission was so secret.

Even more troublesome is the backstory given Reed and Ben: They both fought in World War Two! In 1961, with the war only about 15 years in the past, that was believable--it meant they were each about 40 years old. But WW2 vets are now in their 90s! Reed and Ben's military service must have been in the Gulf War. Even worse is that they fought alongside Sgt. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos--whose exploits are definitively set in that war. (The explanation of Fury's longevity and eternal youth is a tale for another time.)

And since virtually every Marvel character can date their origin and age in relation to the Fantastic Four--well, you see the problem.

Basically, Marvel just ignores it all. But I pity anyone trying to build a timeline of the Marvel Universe in the comics.

Trump's End Game

 Today on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough wondered why President Trump is continuing his hopeless fight to prove the election was rife with fraud. Paraphrasing a bit, he asked, "Why does the President prolong a story that only makes him look worse with every passing day? He wakes up every morning to a TV screen showing that his numbers either haven't changed or have gotten worse. If he would simply move on, we would do the same and another news story would be our lead."

It's a good question: What is Trump's goal in all this? Is it simply to prove to himself and his base that he is not a loser? That they were right to support him? If so, in the end, it does nothing of the kind. Poor losers are the worst kind of losers. Is it to hold his base together for a potential run again in 2024? In that time, his reputation will only be in further tatters. He will surely face criminal and civil charges in state and federal courts...and even if he wins or those charges are dismissed, his name and brand will be eternally tarnished. No matter how big his base, will the Republican Party be dumb enough to nominate a candidate with those kind of black marks? The negative ads write themselves.

Quite frankly, I don't understand it. 

I do understand why the GOP has, as a rule, not abandoned him to his fate. They hope to hold his base together long enough, at least, to win the two run-off Senatorial elections in Georgia, so that they can maintain at least a slim majority in the upper house. But that can't really be Trump's goal--if he's not going to be in the White House (and he's not), why should he give a damn who controls the Senate?

There's one other possibility, of course. Maybe he's like the ex-lover who kills his former mate: "If I can't have her, nobody will!" In this case, "If I can't be in charge, I'll destroy the country instead."

Serial Issues

 Every writer who begins writing about characters who will appear in a series of stories eventually has to make some decisions. Among them are: Will my characters age in the course of their adventures? Will the world around them change or are they permanently in the period in which they began? Every author--no matter what the genre--answers those questions differently.

Arthur Conan Doyle--although he wrote the tales of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson over a period of some 40 years, from 1887 to 1927, he largely kept their activities in the period before World War One...and, except for the idea of Holmes' retirement in His Last Bow, they remain essentially ageless. 

Another famed detective team, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin (created by Rex Stout), are treated somewhat differently. Their adventures span about the same amount of time, from 1934 to 1975, and like Holmes and Watson, they remain the same ages throughout. (There are minor hints that they have aged somewhat, perhaps five years or so, in that span.) But Wolfe and Goodwin's world advances just as the real world did in those four decades. Cars become sportier and faster, New York's skyline changes, television replaces radio, the Mets replaces the Giants as Archie's favorite team.

Erle Stanley Gardner took the same tack with Perry Mason. Mason remains a man in his prime through pretty much the same period as Wolfe and Goodwin, and his world is always contemporary with the period in which the stories were published.

Yet another team, Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin, began their adventures in a comic strip in 1963 and continued there and in a series of novel and short stories from 1965 to 1996 (the comic strip continued until 2000). Peter O'Donnell keeps them essentially the same age throughout and the world around them reflects the period the stories were written.

This creates interesting problems for two of these series--the Wolfe and Blaise stories. Perry Mason's "origins" are not specifically tied to any one era or event (despite what the current TV series says). Thus nothing prevents him from having been born at the turn of the 20th Century (as he must have been in his earliest stories) or around World War 2, as the last of his stories would imply.

But Wolfe is established as having been a "freedom fighter" in his native Montenegro--at first in the period before the first World War, when the Balkans were a hot bed of various failed revolutions. Wolfe is said to be in his late teens and early 20s at that time and, as he is generally assumed to be about 50 during his career in New York, those events must have occurred around 1900. But if he is still about 50 years old in 1970, and he was 20 when he was a "freedom fighter," those events would have happened during World War 2.

And now, we have a paradox--Wolfe and Goodwin were both working for the US government during WW2, Wolfe as a special adviser, Goodwin as a major in the Army. Those events are frequently referenced in stories that take place after the war, even up to the 1970s.

A similar situation faces us when tracing the origins and career of Modesty Blaise. We're told she was a "displaced person" in the Middle East when she was, perhaps 10-12 years old. As she is in her early 20s in 1963, that would put her "origin" at about 1950, and her circumstances a result of either WW2 or the creation of Israel in 1948--possibly a little of both. But she is still in her early 20s in the 1990s...so what caused her to be a "displaced person" about 15 years before that? Well, the Yom Kippur War was in 1973, perhaps that is the catalyst. And any of the number of other conflicts between Arabs and Israelis between 1948 and the present could explain her beginnings now.

In another posting, I'll deal with problems facing characters such as Superman and Batman.

A Better Way to Honor Veterans

 My father was a Navy SeaBee in WW2; Jill's dad was a career Army officer; we have a niece who graduated from West Point and served in Iraq.

But still I am bothered by the militarism that surrounds Veterans Day...why must our remembrance of these men and women be marked by parades in uniform and military equipment rolling on our streets? Why is this not a day for quiet contemplation of the sacrifices they made and the service they performed? Why not prayer services and graveside visits? Why not an equal emphasis on all the non-belligerent service they have given? Most of our astronauts have been members of the military. National Guard and reservists assist in disasters and emergencies. Coast Guardsmen perform literally hundreds of rescues every year. Why is the honor given for those services not equal to that given in war?

After all, the date we have chosen for this remembrance is the end of "the war to end all wars"--as vain as that hope might have been. Shouldn't we be honoring the service of these men and women with a solemn promise that no future generation will have to add to their ranks?

Inside a Fraudster's Head

 My wife has a phrase she uses to explain Donald Trump's mindset: "Whatever is not expressly prohibited is permitted." In other words, there are no cultural, societal, political norms he feels obligated to abide by, unless they have been codified into law.

I would argue that does not go far enough...as clearly there are legal restrictions he feels he can ignore when it suits him. Fraud, as was the case in the Trump University situation, is one of them--which may be why he thinks he can accuse others of fraud without supplying evidence. "I do it all the time, of course everyone else does. Why wouldn't they? Are they so stupid they would obey a law that is so easily and so profitably violated?"

This is his attitude: If you don't take every advantage, even illegal ones, even immoral ones, you're a simpleton. It's why he felt perfectly justified barging into the dressing rooms at the Miss Teen USA pageant. "It's my show, I'm paying the bills, I'll go anywhere I please...especially if it gives me a thrill."

I'll Take Game Show Hosts for $1000

 Alex Trebek used to host The Wizard of Odds, but he couldn't beat the odds on stage-four pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed in March of 2019 and the general prognosis for the disease is one year. As you all know, he died early yesterday, just a bit over that year.

Now, of course, comes the betting and guessing as to who will succeed him as host of Jeopardy! The producers have some time to name someone--they have enough shows completed to last until Christmas and they can always go into reruns (as they did during the height of the pandemic) for a while. The one name on the top of everyone's list is Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, who joined the show's production staff at the beginning of this season. But Jennings has also been announced as part of the team for ABC's revival of The Chase. It's not impossible he could do both--most game shows only record about one week every month (and a weekly like The Chase could probably get its nine-week commitment done in that time frame). 

Who else is a possibility? No names come to my mind; you need someone with some gravitas, but a light touch when required. I definitely do not want to see a stand-up comic take the podium--Jeopardy! is not Family Feud, after all. A newscaster type? Meredith Viera did a good job on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, so that direction is not impossible. Anderson Cooper? Steve Kornacki (who did a good job on the "game show" portion of his show when he hosted Up on MSNBC weekends)?

The real question, in the long run, is will Jeopardy! survive without Trebek? There were those who said The Price is Right was dead without Bob Barker...and they were wrong.

What--Me Worry?

 

Bells have rung, horns have blown, there's been dancing in the streets. In the oft-repeated words from The West Wing, "What's next?"

I'll tell you what I think isn't next--President Trump actually getting any court to uphold his baseless claims of massive fraud. Courts are historically reluctant to overturn elections--even the famed 2000 Supreme Court decision actually verified the certified results in Florida, even though it halted a recount. What's more, the courts will probably wait until the results in the "questionable" states are certified, by which time the whole thing may be moot, anyway.

So, what am I worried about? What Trump (and McConnell) will do in his remaining 73 days in office. I expect a flurry of pardons for Trump's minions...even the kind of pre-emptive pardon Gerald Ford gave Richard Nixon in 1974. I expect a big push to get even more conservative judges confirmed (I don't know how many seats on the bench are still open, but I expect them all to be filled before January 20). I expect an attempt to codify in law the many executive orders Trump has announced in the past four years (that won't succeed--but it will freeze an awful lot of necessary activity in both houses).

And I worry that at least one of the remaining Senate seats will go to a Republican...meaning McConnell can do to Joe Biden what he did to Barack Obama--stall every nomination, block every initiative--and then bitch and moan when Biden falls back on executive orders to accomplish at least some of his goals.

What do you worry about?

Pounding the Table

 I guess I have to get back to politics, today.

Apparently, it doesn't occur to President Trump that the reason he can't get any high-power Republican lawyers to sign on to his efforts to stop the vote counting is that they have all looked at his "evidence" and determined that, in the words of Dorothy Parker, "there's no there there." There are both Republican and Democratic observers in every venue where counting is going on; all those observers are operating under the same conditions and restrictions; there is constant video observation of the activity, available to the public on the web.

And no reputable, non-partisan observer has reported significant irregularities. For that matter, no partisan observer actually in the room has reported such. Trump and his supporters have reached the point where, in the well-known aphorism about legal tactics, all they can do is pound the table.

You know who else pounds the table when they can't get their way? Toddlers having tantrums and autocrats (see Krushchev and his shoe).

I Love to Sing-a....

 I'm not a great singer--but I have a strong voice with a pretty good range (baritone to second tenor) and I can fill a decent sized room (say, the average church) without a microphone. And I really love to sing.

So, as should have been obvious from yesterday's post, I really like being in musical theater. That means, I have to audition with a song. I have a few that I fall back on, depending on the show and the role I'm trying out for. Two of them are from My Fair Lady, by Lerner and Loewe: "On the Street Where You Live" and "With a Little Bit of Luck." I might also go with two Rodgers and Hammerstein classics--"Some Enchanted Evening" and "You've Got to Be Taught" from South Pacific. If the show is a bit more contemporary, I might choose "Falling" from They're Playing Our Song, by Sager and Hamlisch.

I also like to do karaoke, something I haven't been able to do much this year. Since that tends to be more pop than Broadway, my go-to choices are different. Among them are "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You", made famous by Elvis Presley; "Always a Woman" and "Just the Way You Are," both by Billy Joel; "Daydream Believer," made famous by the Monkees; and one I haven't had the chance to try yet, but really want to--"The Winner Takes It All," by ABBA.

Do you sing? What are your favorites to belt out?

Bucket List Roles

 Every actor has roles he would love to play. But as he ages, some of those parts become unlikely to the point of impossible.

When I was younger, my dream roles included Paul in Carnival!, Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (I'd settle for the same part in Pygmalion), Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Albert in Bye Bye Birdie, Harold Hill in The Music Man. On the straight play side, either of the male leads in The Philadelphia Story. As I got a little older, I added Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly! (I'd settle for the same role in The Matchmaker), Max in The Producers, any of the husbands in Company, the narrator in Into the Woods.

But now, as I near 70, I've aged out of even those mid-year roles. Now, I have a bucket list: Fagin in Oliver!, Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, Alfie Dolittle or Col. Pickering in My Fair Lady (again, I'd settle for the straight play version), Uncle Arvide in Guys and Dolls, Mayor Shin (a non-singing role) in The Music Man. And one straight play part: Henry II in The Lion in Winter.

My theater friends: What's on your bucket list?

Count the Damn Votes!

 I live in Pennsylvania, which only began mail-in voting (without the need to provide an excuse) this year. It has been, IMO, an absolute mess.

First of all, the law allows each county to decide for itself when it will begin processing mail-in ballots, as long as they do not begin before polls open on Election Day (that's 7AM Eastern Time). Some, like Philadelphia County, began as soon as the polls opened. Many others did not begin until the polls had closed 13 hours later. (To be fair, that used to be the standard, when the only mail-ins were a handful of absentee ballots in each precinct.) The law should have mandated a uniform standard.

And that standard should have begun before Election Day. Yeah, yeah, I know all the arguments against doing that--if you start counting the mail-ins before polls open, people will find out who's ahead and that will affect how they vote. Poppycock! Washington and Oregon have had mail-in voting for nearly thirty years, processing ballots as they arrive, and in all that time, they've never had a "leak". That means that, as soon as polls close in those states, they can announce something like 85% of the vote totals. Last night, they did just that and the various news organizations--AP, the networks--were able to project a winner in both states immediately at 11 PM ET. 

I'm not sure how Washington and Oregon maintain that level of security, but I know how I would suggest Pennsylvania could do it. As ballots come in and are processed, the information is stored in a computer file that can only be accessed by the county head of elections...and that requires a two-level passcode. The county head has one code...and the other is provided by the PA Secretary of State (the ultimate election authority in the state) when the polls close on Election Day. Once both passcodes are input, the file can be accessed and the results announced. Yes, some mail-in ballots will not have been included yet (PA permits ballots postmarked on Election Day to be counted as long as they are received within three days)...but that would be a statistically insignificant number most years.

I welcome those with more computer expertise than I to look at that plan and tell me where it fails or can be improved, but there is no reason Pennsylvania's votes should not be substantially already counted this morning.

Election Day: What It's Like

Although I dropped off my ballot at the county seat two weeks ago, I decided to take a swing past a few of the polling places in my neighborhood to see how things looked.

This is my local polling place, in Ward 5 of Ridley Township, at the firehouse. I used to work the polls here until a few years ago. I have never seen lines like this before. Just after 8 AM, about an hour after the polls opened, there were 50-60 people in line...and the line got longer in the ten minutes or so I was there--and it did not noticeably move. I figure the last person in that line had at least a 45-minute wait.

I then went down to the church I attend in Ridley Park, also a polling place.

There are maybe 40 or 50 people on line in this photo. After I took the shot, I spoke to a gentleman who was just exiting and he kindly answered my questions. He had gotten on line at 7:15, he said, and now he was just leaving at about 8:20.

I also swung past two other polling places in Ridley Park, the firehouse and borough hall (which are directly across the street from each other). Lines at both places also numbered 40 or 50, I'd say.

Going to be a long day.

A Head Full of Stuff

 Some mornings it's tough to come up with something to write about...but I made a commitment to myself to post every day at least for the first year of this blog. That means this morning will be something of a mish-mash.

My head is full of what my wife calls "nickel-knowledge". I can sing the entire theme song from any number of old TV shows, among them The Patty Duke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, and Gidget. Speaking of theme songs, did you know you can sing "Amazing Grace" to the theme from Gilligan's Island--and vice versa? Or that virtually every poem Emily Dickenson wrote can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas"?

I can name all 13 Doctors (14, if you count the "War Doctor") in order. I know that Sean Connery was not the first actor to play James Bond (look it up). I know that Peter O'Toole is the only actor to be Oscar-nominated for playing the same character in two movies--one of which is not the sequel or prequel to the other.

See what I mean?

"...And All the Little Saints...."

 Today is All Saints Day, when the Christian church honors all saints, not just the ones we know about.

The title of this post references one of my mother's favorite sayings. Mom didn't take the Lord's name in vain very often, but when she did her fallback was "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and all the little saints...." That naturally leads to the question, "Who are the little saints?"

One of the phrases used in the Episcopal liturgy is "all the saints in heaven...." The belief is that anyone who has entered into God's presence is a saint, whether we know who they are or not. Unlike the Roman Catholics, we do not have a process for determining if someone is a saint, but we recognize all the ones on the Roman calendar from before the Reformation and we acknowledge others who might be worthy of recognition, including modern individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr.

So, if you have a relative who has passed that you firmly believe is in heaven, he or she is one of the "little saints." Honor them all today.