Category Archives: television

Pockets!

Posted on January 25, 2018 | 4 comments

Women’s clothes should all have pockets. 

(A bit later in this post, I’ll explain why.)

I admit it.  I’m a pocket-freak.

When I shop for new pants, I don’t bother buying new pants, no matter how appealing, if they don’t have pockets.  Why?

Because when I formerly bought pants that didn’t have pockets, I discovered over time that I never wore them. They languished forever in a shameful pile of unworn clothes.

It became clear that I liked the benefits of wearing pants with pockets.  Why then would I buy new pants without pockets when those I already had were languishing unworn?

Result:  I simply don’t buy no-pocket pants anymore

Most jeans have pockets, often multiple pockets, and I like wearing them for that reason, among others.  (Please see “They’re My Blue Jeans, and I’ll Wear Them If I Want To,” published in this blog in May 2017.)

Most jackets, but not all, have pockets.  Why not?  They all need pockets.  How useful is a jacket if it doesn’t have even one pocket to stash your stuff?

Dresses and skirts should also have pockets.  Maybe an occasional event, like a fancy gala, seems to require a form-fitting dress that doesn’t have pockets.  But how many women actually go to galas like that?  Looking back over my lifetime of clothes-wearing, I can think of very few occasions when I had to wear a no-pocket dress.  As for skirts, I lump them in the same category as pants.  Unless you feel compelled for some bizarre reason to wear a skin-tight pencil skirt, what good is a skirt without pockets?

Cardigan sweaters, like jackets, should also have pockets.  So should robes.  Pajamas. Even nightgowns.  I wear nightgowns, and I relish being able to stick something like a facial tissue into the pocket of my nightgown!   You never know when you’re going to sneeze, right?

Did you ever watch a TV program called “Project Runway?”  It features largely unknown fashion designers competing for approval from judges, primarily high-profile insiders in the fashion industry.  Here’s what I’ve noticed when I’ve watched an occasional episode:  Whenever a competing designer puts pockets in her or his designs, the judges enthusiastically applaud that design.  They clearly recognize the value of pockets and the desire by women to wear clothes that include them.

(By the way, fake pockets are an abomination.  Why do designers think it’s a good idea to put a fake pocket on their designs?  Sewing what looks like a pocket but isn’t a real pocket adds insult to injury.  Either put a real pocket there, or forget the whole thing.  Fake pockets?  Boo!)

Despite the longing for pockets by women like me, it can be challenging to find women’s clothes with pockets.  Why?

Several women writers have speculated about this challenge, generally railing against sexist attitudes that have led to no-pocket clothing for women.

Those who’ve traced the evolution of pockets throughout history discovered that neither men nor women wore clothing with pockets until the 17th century.  Pockets in menswear began appearing in the late 1600s.  But women?  To carry anything, they were forced to wrap a sack with a string worn around their waists and tuck the sack under their petticoats.

These sacks eventually evolved into small purses called reticules that women would carry in their hands.  But reticules were so small that they limited what women could carry.  As the twentieth century loomed, women rebelled.  According to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, dress patterns started to include instructions for sewing pockets into skirts.  And when women began wearing pants, they would finally have pockets.

But things soon switched back to no-pocket pants.  The fashion industry wasn’t a big fan of pockets, insisting on featuring “slimming” designs for women, while men’s clothes still had scads of pockets.  The result has been the rise of bigger and bigger handbags (interestingly, handbags are often called “pocketbooks” on the East Coast).

Enormous handbags create a tremendous burden for women.  Their size and weight can literally weigh a woman down, impeding her ability to move through her busy life the way men can.  (I’ve eschewed bulky handbags, often wearing a backpack instead.  Unfortunately, backpacks are not always appropriate in a particular setting.)

Today, many women are demanding pockets.  Some have advocated pockets with the specific goal of enabling women to carry their iPhones or other cell phones that way.  I’m a pocket-freak, but according to recent scientific research, cell phones emit dangerous radiation, and this kind of radiation exposure is a major risk to your health.  Some experts in the field have therefore advised against keeping a cell phone adjacent to your body.  In December 2017, the California Department of Public Health specifically warned against keeping a cell phone in your pocket.  So, in my view, advocating pockets for that reason is not a good idea.

We need pockets in our clothes for a much more important and fundamental reason:  Freedom.

Pockets give women the kind of freedom men have:  The freedom to carry possessions close to their bodies, allowing them to reach for essentials like keys without fumbling through a clumsy handbag.

I propose a boycott on no-pocket clothes.  If enough women boycott no-pocket pants, for example, designers and manufacturers will have to pay attention.  Their new clothing lines will undoubtedly include more pockets.

I hereby pledge not to purchase any clothes without pockets.

Will you join me?

 

 

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Posted in American culture, backpacks, blue jeans, boycott, California, cell phones, clothes, clothing, clothing, denim, fashion, fashion designers, fashion industry, freedom, gender equality, gender-equity, handbags, health, jeans, Levi's, London, museums, pockets, pockets in women's clothes, radiation exposure, science, sexist attitudes, smartphones, television, Victorian London, women, women"s interests, women's clothing

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The Battle of the Sexes: One more take on it

Posted on November 20, 2017 | 2 comments

When Billie Jean King met Bobby Riggs on a tennis court at the Houston Astrodome on September 20, 1973, I was miles away in San Diego.  I’d just finished teaching a class of law school students about Poverty Law, and I was blissfully pregnant with my first child.

I was watching the clock, assessing the time it would take me to drive from the law school on the beautiful campus of the University of San Diego to our recently-rented apartment in seaside La Jolla.  Waiting at home for me was my handsome and super-smart husband (I’ll call him Marv), finished for the day with teaching math students at UCSD, the University of California at San Diego.

We were both Professors Alexander that year, and I took delight in answering our phone and hearing a student ask to speak to “Professor Alexander.”  My somewhat amused response:  “Which one?”

Marv had snacks and drinks ready for the two of us to munch on and imbibe during the televised tennis match.  The drinks included nothing alcoholic for me.  Not because the medical profession had pronounced that alcohol was detrimental for growing fetuses.  As I recall, that came later.  I avoided alcoholic drinks simply because I had no desire to drink them during my pregnancy.

Was it instinct or just dumb luck?  When we later that year saw the film “Cinderella Liberty,” in which an often-drunk woman’s pregnancy ends in tragedy, my choice to avoid alcohol was clearly vindicated.

I drove home from USD with as much speed as I could safely muster, arriving in time to watch the much-hyped tennis match dubbed the “Battle of the Sexes.”  In the 2017 film that tells the story of the match, Emma Stone captures the Billie Jean King role perfectly.  She portrays with aplomb not only King’s triumph over Riggs in that tennis match but also her initial uncertainty over her decision to compete against him and her continuing struggle to ensure that women’s tennis be given equal status with men’s.

As one of the estimated 50 million viewers who watched King on ABC television that night, I can’t imagine any other Hollywood star assuming the role with greater success.  Emma Stone embodies Billie Jean King to perfection, and I hope her performance garners the attention of countless moviegoers, including many too young to remember  the match that took place in 1973.

Steve Carell carries off his role as Bobby Riggs in the film equally well, depicting the outrageous antics of the 55-year-old Riggs, who initiated the concept of the “Battle of the Sexes.”  But the focus here has to be on Billie Jean, the Wonder-Woman-like heroine of her day.  By accepting Riggs’s challenge, and then defeating him, she became the mid-twentieth-century symbol of women’s strength and perseverance, advancing the cause of women in sports (and in American culture at large) as much as she advanced her own.  Watching the battle on TV with my adored husband, my hoped-for child growing inside me, I was ecstatic when Billie Jean defeated Riggs before 90 million viewers worldwide.

As my pregnancy advanced, I was frequently asked by complete strangers, “Do you want a boy or a girl?”  I took pleasure in answering “a girl” just to see the reaction on the faces of the nosey parkers who clearly expected another response.

I was in fact hoping I would give birth to a healthy child of either sex, but I knew that I would treasure having a daughter.  When my beautiful daughter was born about seven months after the Battle of the Sexes, and when her equally beautiful sister arrived three years later, Marv and I were both on top of the world.

Maybe watching Billie Jean King in September of 1973 sealed our fate.  We really wanted her to win that battle.

Did the endorphins circulating inside me as we watched Billie Jean triumph produce a feeling of euphoria?  Euphoria that later led us to produce two Wonder-Woman-like heroines of our own?

Maybe.

Tennis, anyone?

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Posted in alcoholic drinks, American culture, American history, Battle of the Sexes film, Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, California, daughters, endorphins, euphoria, fair pay, films, gender equality, gender-equity, La Jolla, law, legal assistance to the poor, mathematicians, movie stars, movies, pregnancy, San Diego, teaching, television, tennis, UCSD, University of San Diego, Wonder Woman

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The Summer of Love and Other Random Thoughts

Posted on July 31, 2017 | Leave a comment
  1.  The CEO pay ratio is now 271-to-1.

 According to the Economic Policy Institute’s annual report on executive compensation, released on July 20, chief executives of America’s 350 largest companies made an average of $15.6 million in 2016, or 271 times more than what the typical worker made last year.

The number was slightly lower than it was in 2015, when the average pay was $16.3 million, and the ratio was 286-to-1.   And it was even lower than the highest ratio calculated, 376-to-1 in 2000.

But before we pop any champagne corks because of the slightly lower number, let’s recall that in 1989, after eight years of Ronald Reagan in the White House, the ratio was 59-to-1, and in 1965, in the midst of the Vietnam War and civil rights turmoil, it was 20-to-1.

Let’s reflect on those numbers for a moment.  Just think about how distorted these ratios are and what they say about our country.

Did somebody say “income inequality”?

[This report appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 21, 2017.]

 

  1. Smiling

 I’ve written in this blog, at least once before, about the positive results of smiling.  [Please see “If You’re Getting Older, You May Be Getting Nicer,” published on May 30, 2014.]

But I can’t resist adding one more item about smiling.  In a story in The Wall Street Journal in June, a cardiologist named Dr. John Day wrote about a woman, aged 107, whom he met in the small city of Bapan, China.  Bapan is known as “Longevity Village” because so many of its people are centenarians (one for every 100 who live there; the average in the U.S. is one in 5,780).

Day asked the 107-year-old woman how she reached her advanced age.  Noting that she was always smiling, he asked if she smiled even through the hard times in her life.  She replied, “Those are the times in which smiling is most important, don’t you agree?”

Day added the results of a study published in Psychological Science in 2010.  It showed that baseball players who smiled in their playing-card photographs lived seven years longer, on average, than those who looked stern.

So, he wrote, “The next time you’re standing in front of a mirror, grin at yourself.  Then make that a habit.”

[Dr. Day’s article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on June 24-25, 2017.]

 

  1. The Summer of Love

This summer, San Francisco is awash in celebrations of the “Summer of Love,” the name attached to the city’s summer of 1967.   Fifty years later, the SF Symphony, the SF Jazz Center, a bunch of local theaters, even the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, have all presented their own take on it.

Most notably, “The Summer of Love Experience,” an exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, is a vivid display of the music, artwork, and fashions that popped up in San Francisco that summer.

As a happy denizen of San Francisco for the past 12 years, I showed up at the de Young to see the exhibit for myself.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the sometimes outrageous fashions artfully displayed on an array of mannequins.  Not surprisingly, they included a healthy representation of denim.  Some items were even donated by the Levi’s archives in San Francisco.  [Please see the reference to Levi’s in my post, “They’re My Blue Jeans and I’ll Wear Them If I Want To,” published in May.]

Other fashions featured colorful beads, crochet, appliqué, and embroidery, often on silk, velvet, leather, and suede.  Maybe it was my favorite part of the exhibit because I’ve donated clothing from the same era to the Chicago History Museum, although my own clothing choices back then were considerably different.

Other highlights in the exhibit were perfectly preserved psychedelic posters featuring rock groups like The Grateful Dead, The Doors, and Moby Grape, along with record album covers and many photographs taken in San Francisco during the summer of 1967.  Joan Baez made an appearance as well, notably with her two sisters in a prominently displayed anti-Vietnam War poster.  Rock and roll music of the time is the constant background music for the entire exhibit.

In 1967, I may have been vaguely aware of San Francisco’s Summer of Love, but I was totally removed from it.  I’d just graduated from law school, and back in Chicago, I was immersed in studying for the Illinois bar exam.  I’d also begun to show up in the chambers of Judge Julius J. Hoffman, the federal district judge for whom I’d be a law clerk for the next two years.  [Judge Hoffman will be the subject of a future post or two.]

So although the whole country was hearing news stories about the antics of the thousands of hippies who flocked to Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, my focus was on my life in Chicago, with minimal interest in what was happening 2000 miles away.  For that reason, much of the exhibit at the de Young was brand-new to me.

The curators of the exhibit clearly chose to emphasize the creativity of the art, fashion, and music of the time.  At the same time, the exhibit largely ignores the downside of the Summer of Love—the widespread use of drugs, the unpleasant changes that took place in the quiet neighborhood around Haight-Ashbury, the problems created by the hordes of young people who filled Golden Gate Park.

But I was glad I saw it–twice.

You may decide to come to San Francisco to see this exhibit for yourself.

If you do, please don’t forget:  “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.”

 

 

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Posted in 1960s, 1960s television, aging, art museums, art, artists,, blue jeans, centenarians, CEO pay-ratio, Chicago, Chicago History Museum, creativity, de Young Museum, denim, fashion, getting older, Golden Gate Park, jeans, law, lawyers, Levi's, long life, museums, nostalgia, psychedelic posters, psychological research, psychology, record albums, rock and roll music, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle, smiling, Summer of Love, television, The Wall Street Journal

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Exploring the Universe with Two Young Muggles

Posted on February 27, 2017 | 2 comments

Last week, I happily accompanied two young Muggles as we explored the universe together.

The universe?  Universal Studios in Hollywood, California, plus a few other nearby spots.

The young Muggles?  My astonishing granddaughters, both great fans of the series of Harry Potter (HP) books written by J.K. Rowling and the films based on them.  Eleven-year-old Beth has read all of the books at least twice, and nine-year-old Shannon has seen most of the movies.  Four of us grown-up Muggles came along, all conversant with HP except for me. (I’ve seen only the first film.)  According to Rowling, Muggles are people who lack any magical ability and aren’t born in a magical family.  I.e., people like us.

For me, our trip down the coast of California was an exhilarating escape from the concerns assaulting me at home:  dental issues, efforts to get my third novel published, and—of course—the current political scene.  We landed at the very edge of the continent, staying at a newly renovated hotel on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, where we literally faced the ocean and walked alongside it every day.

Bookending our fun-filled encounter with Universal Studios were visits to two great art museums.  Coming from San Francisco, a city inhabited by our own array of wonderful art museums and galleries, we didn’t expect to be exceedingly impressed by the museums offered in L.A.  But we were.

On Presidents’ Day, we headed to LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where a long, long entry line stretched as far as Wilshire Boulevard.  Because of atypically overcast skies on a school/work holiday?  Not entirely.  Admission was free that day (thanks, Target), so lots of folks showed up in search of fee-less exposure to outstanding works of art.

We viewed a lot of excellent art, but when our feet began to ache, we piled back into our rented minivan and went a little way down the road (Fairfax Avenue) to the Original Farmers’ Market.  Sampling food and drink in a farmers’ market dating back to 1934 was great fun.  We also took a quick look at The Grove, an upscale mall adjacent to the F.M., buying a book at Barnes and Noble before heading back to Santa Monica for the evening.

The next day was devoted to Universal Studios, where our first destination was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Here I would at last explore the universe with two young Muggles.  We walked through other Universal attractions, but they didn’t tempt us…not just yet.  The lure of Harry Potter and friends took precedence.

We’d been advised that a must for first-timers was a ride called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, so we decided to do that first.  As we approached the ride, we saw Muggles like us everywhere, including swarms of young people garbed in Hogwarts robes and other gear (all for sale at the shops, of course).  As we waited in line for the ride, we entered a castle (constructed to look like Hogwarts), where we were greeted by colorful talking portraits of HP characters hanging on the walls.

Warnings about the ride were ubiquitous.  It would be jarring, unsuitable for those prone to dizziness or motion sickness, and so forth and so on, ad nauseum.  As someone who’s worked as a lawyer, I knew precisely why these warnings were posted.  Universal Studios was trying to avoid any and all legal liability for complaints from ride-goers.

I decided to ignore the warnings and hopped on a fast-moving chair built for 3 people.  I was bumped around a bit against the chair’s hard surfaces, and I closed my eyes during some of the most startling 3-D effects, but I emerged from the ride in one piece and none the worse for wear.  Nine-year-old Shannon, however, was sobbing when we all left the ride together.  Even sitting next to her super-comforting dad hadn’t shielded her from the scariest special effects.

After the ride, we strolled around The Wizarding World, sampling sickeningly sweet Butterbeer, listening to the Frog Choir, and checking out the merchandise at shops like Gladrags Wizardwear and Ollivanders.  Olllivanders featured magic wands by “Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.”  (Prices began at $40 for something that was essentially a wooden stick.)

Overall, we had a splendid time with HP and friends.  But now it was finally time to explore things non-HP.  Our first priority was the Studio Tour.  We piled into trams that set out on a tour of the four-acre backlot of the world’s largest working studio, where movies and TV shows are still filmed every day.  We got a chance to view the Bates Motel (including a live actor portraying creepy Norman Bates), a pretty realistic earthquake, a virtual flood, a plane-crash scene from The War of the Worlds, and two things I could have done without.  One featured King Kong in 3-D (the new Kong movie being heavily promoted at Universal); the other offered 3-D scenes from The Fast and the Furious films—not my cup of tea.  But overall it was a great tour for movie buffs like us.

After the tour, we headed for the fictional town of Springfield, home of the Simpsons family, stars of The Simpsons TV comedy program as well as their own film.  Soon we were surrounded by many of the hilarious Simpsons locations, including the Kwik-E-Mart, Moe’s Tavern, the Duff Brewery Beer Garden, and a sandwich shop featuring the Krusty Burger and the Sideshow Bob Footlong.  Characters like Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Bob, and the Simpsons themselves wandered all around Springfield, providing great fodder for photos.  For anyone who’s ever watched and laughed at The Simpsons, this part of Universal is tons of fun.

The Simpsons ride was terrific, too.  Once again, lots of warnings, lots of getting bumped around, and lots of 3-D effects, but it was worth it.  Maybe because I’ve always liked The Simpsons, even though I’ve hardly watched the TV show in years.

Other notable characters and rides at Universal include the Minions (from the Despicable Me films), Transformers, Jurassic Park, and Shrek.  Some of us sought out a couple of these, but I was happy to take a break, sit on a nearby bench, munch on popcorn, and sip a vanilla milkshake.

When the 6 p.m. closing time loomed, we had to take off.  Once more, we piled into the minivan and headed for an evening together in Santa Monica.  This time we all took in the Lego Batman movie.  I think I missed seeing some of it because, after a long day of exploring the universe, I fell asleep.

On the last day of our trip, we drove to the Getty Center, the lavish art museum located on a hill in Brentwood very close to the place where I got married decades ago.  Thanks to J. Paul Getty, who not only made a fortune in the oil industry but also liked to collect art, the Center features a large permanent collection as well as impressive changing exhibitions.

The six of us wandered through the museum’s five separate buildings, admiring the fabulous art as well as the stunning architecture.  We also lingered outside, relishing the gorgeous views and the brilliant sunshine that had been largely absent since our arrival in LA.  A bite to eat in the crowded café, a short trip to the museum store, and we six Muggles of various ages were off to Santa Monica one last time before driving home to San Francisco.

By the way, at the museum store you can buy a magnet featuring J. Paul Getty’s recipe for success:  “1. Rise early.  2. Work hard.  3. Strike oil.”  It certainly worked for him!

 

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Posted in art galleries, art museums, art, artists,, comedy, driving, family, family road trips, food, Harry Potter, holidays, Hollywood, law, lawyers, Los Angeles, LA, movie stars, movies, Muggles, politics, reading, reading fiction, San Francisco, Santa Monica, sunshine, television, The Original Farmers' Market, TV comedy, Universal Studios, walking, weather

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Happy Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2016 | 3 comments

Happy Christmas!  That’s what the Brits say, right?  I’m thinking in Brit-speak right now, thanks to recently immersing myself in the world of Victorian London, and I haven’t shaken it off just yet.

The occasion? I showed up at this year’s Great Dickens Christmas Fair & Victorian Holiday Party, held every year at San Francisco’s Cow Palace.

I’ve always associated the Cow Palace with the Republican convention held there in 1964.  The one where Barry Goldwater gave his famous acceptance speech, including the memorable line, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”  I remember watching him say those words on TV while I was at home with a high fever.  The whole experience seemed like a feverish nightmare.  A candidate for the presidency of the United States saying those words!  To a Democratically-inclined young person in 1964, Goldwater’s words were shocking.  (Fast forward to 2016, when much more inflammatory speech was hurled at the nation almost every day by another candidate for the presidency.  One, unlike Goldwater, who got himself elected.)

Back to the Cow Palace.  It’s an indoor arena known as a venue for dog shows, sporting events, rodeos, and gun shows.  The Beatles appeared there twice in the ‘60s (and U2 at a special event in October 2016).  I’d never been there before.  But there I was, along with my two daughters and two granddaughters, entering the world of Dickens’s London.

Dickens was an early favorite of mine.  During my teen years, I read David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and became totally enamored of the characters and plot development in both.  (I also read, or tried to read, A Tale of Two Cities, during sophomore year, thanks to Mr. Hurley.  Every girl in our class, including me, had a major crush on him, the only good-looking under-40 male teacher at our high school.  But the book was a poor choice, even for the best readers among us, because it demanded a knowledge of history we hadn’t yet acquired.  When I returned to it years later, knowing something about the history of that time, I found it quite wonderful.  Still, it was and is very different from any of Dickens’s other works.)

Later I moved on to reading more and more Dickens. Bleak House, an indictment of the law as practiced in Dickens’s London, was a favorite.  I saw Oliver performed on stage and in the movies and saw countless dramatizations of his other stories, including the perennial A Christmas Carol.  The 1982 BBC mini-series of Nicholas Nickleby, starring Roger Rees, was especially memorable.

In short, I was—and am—a Dickens fan.

So off I went to the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, not quite sure what to expect.

What I discovered was a whole world of people who turned out to enjoy dancing, music, and theatrical performances inspired by Dickens and the culture of his time.  At least half, possibly more, were dressed in the Victorian fashions they would have worn when meeting Dickens himself.  Perhaps many of these fair-goers like the theatricality of dressing up this way, pretending to be in a different time and place, no doubt escaping the reality of their everyday lives.

A host of vendors offered Victorian-style clothing and hats; many Victorian-clad fair-goers may have purchased theirs at earlier fairs.  Vendors also sold things like second-hand books (some by Dickens), jewelry, vintage photos, and scented items, along with food and drink.  My granddaughters were taken with the stunning dresses, and their mother bought one for each of them on the condition that they wear them as often as possible.

We headed for a few of the performances, including a charming version of traditional Christmas carols (yes, the singers were in Victorian garb), Irish and Scottish dancing, and a typically-British “music hall” comedy.  An over-18 version began after ours and attracted a lot of people waiting in line outside the music hall as we departed (we had two under-18 girls among us).  Finally, we were treated to Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball, where fair-goers could themselves get on the dance floor and twirl to the music of Victorian London.  Just before we left, a beautifully-costumed Queen Victoria showed up, along with her retinue, to wish us all a Happy Christmas and a Good New Year.

The Dickens Fair was tremendous fun.  And it had a bonus:  it reminded me of two special times in my past.  When my husband-to-be Herb and I first began dating, we discovered that we not only lived in the same apartment building near UCLA (where we were working) but we both were also great fans of Charles Dickens.  (In London years later, Herb and I made a beeline for the only house still standing where Dickens lived and wrote.)

Herb somehow garnered tickets for a live performance at UCLA by the British (specifically Welsh) writer and actor Emlyn Williams.  Best known for his plays Night Must Fall and The Corn is Green (both frequently revived on stage and made into notable films), Williams also worked on screenplays for directors like Alfred Hitchcock and acted himself in a number of films.

When we encountered Williams in early 1971, he was touring with his one-man show, in which he portrayed Charles Dickens, bearded and outfitted in Victorian attire, reading excerpts from his famous novels.  (Some say he began the whole genre of one-man and one-woman performances. He appeared in New York as early as 1953 and no doubt appeared in London even earlier. Probably best-known to Americans is Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain.)  Herb and I were entranced by Williams’s stellar performance, and I followed it up by giving Herb a new biography of Dickens as his Valentine’s Day gift.  (Not very romantic, but Herb loved it.)

Ten years later, we learned that Williams-as-Dickens would be performing close to our then-home on the North Shore of Chicago.  At the Northlight Theatre production in Evanston, Illinois, we reveled once again in his zestful reading of Dickens’s writing.

The miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is perhaps Dickens’s most memorable character.  Let’s remember what Dickens wrote toward the end of A Christmas Carol.  When Scrooge discovered the joy of helping others, “His own heart laughed.”

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I send you this wish:  May you have a laughing heart today, and every day to come.

 

 

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Posted in Barry Goldwater, Britain, Charles Dickens, Chicago, Emlyn Williams, English literature, fashion, holidays, law, lawyers, literature, London, movies, music, reading fiction, San Francisco, television, travel, UCLA, Victorian London, Wales

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Italy Was Amazing, and So Were We

Posted on March 24, 2014 | 2 comments

Have you ever watched the TV reality game show, “The Amazing Race”? It features a fast-paced race to destinations around the world.
Competitors are teams of two people who share the tension and the mishaps they encounter along the way, hoping to be the first team to reach the final destination. The teams must be in some sort of relationship, including friends and relatives, and almost every season includes one team composed of a parent and an adult child. The competition is tough, but the reward is great: the winning team shares one million dollars.
I never considered competing on the show myself, but my daughter Leslie and I lived our own version of “The Amazing Race” during our recent trip to Italy. Time and again, we went zooming from one place to another in an attempt to reach our destination on time. Hair flying, clothes flapping, our wheelies spinning behind us at a furious pace, we always got where we needed to go…but it wasn’t always clear that we would.
It all started when we arrived in Rome early on a Monday morning in October. We’d reserved online (with Trenitalia) two seats on the fast train between Rome and Florence scheduled to depart Termini, Rome’s central train station, at 2:30 p.m. Worried that our flight might be delayed, we allowed a long layover between our arriving flight and the train reservation. An Italian friend also warned us that the fast train would be packed with business travelers going to Florence from Rome on a Monday. Hence the reservation.
As things turned out, our flight arrived on time at Fiumicino, the Rome airport, around 8:30 a.m., leaving us six hours to connect with our train. We weren’t upset about the six hours—yet—because we weren’t sure how long it would take to get from the airport to Termini. A taxi would be expensive. Luckily, one of our guidebooks mentioned a new shuttle bus between Fiumicino and Termini, and hustling past passport control, we ran to find the shuttle. It was still boarding, with only a few minutes to spare, and out of breath and sweaty, we found seats across the aisle from each other.
The shuttle bus moved slowly through rush-hour traffic and stopped outside Termini at about 10 a.m. We retrieved our suitcases and entered through the door closest to the shuttle bus drop-off. We knew we had loads of time to kill, and we didn’t want to waste any of our precious hours in Italy sitting around Termini. So, hoping to learn how to get on an earlier train to Florence, we searched for a helpful employee. The first employee we encountered—in a surprisingly uncrowded part of the station–was rude and dismissive, making clear we had to keep our reservation because we had a special price we got online.
Disheartened, we envisioned a long wait at Termini, and the two of us set off in search of food and a restroom.
We walked down a narrow hallway and discovered a small snack shop, where we took turns using the few euros we’d brought from home to get something to eat. While Leslie ate, I headed for a nearby restroom. Employing the very useful phrase “Dov’è …?”, I followed the route described by a friendly clerk and was startled to discover an enormous and busy part of the station we hadn’t known existed. Hundreds of travelers were milling around, eyes focused on a huge arrivals-departures board on the wall above some ticket windows.
I went back for Leslie, and we quickly saw that several trains would be leaving Rome for Florence well before 2:30. But how to exchange our reserved tickets for tickets on one of those? Hopeful travelers like us were grabbing numbers to talk to a ticket agent, and we grabbed a number, too. But the numbers being served were hundreds away from new numbers like ours.
Even more disheartened, we resigned ourselves to hours in Termini, probably never getting on any train earlier than the 2:30 we’d reserved. Just then, an older Italian man suddenly appeared at my elbow. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Who was this stranger offering help? My first thought was that he was a con man hoping to take advantage of a pair of vulnerable American tourists. He seemed to focus especially on me, a woman of a certain age, rather than my attractive younger daughter. Hmmm…was he hoping to be Rossano Brazzi to my Katharine Hepburn?
I must have looked dubious, but I quickly explained our situation, and his English was good enough to grasp the problem. He instantly offered us real help, escorting us out of the enormous room to a Trenitalia office where a clerk immediately exchanged our tickets (for a fee I was happy to pay) and reserved seats for us on the 11:30 fast train to Florence.
But by this time it was nearly 11:25! We had to RUN. So moving even faster than we did to catch the shuttle from Fiumicino, we began running to the platform where the train was about to leave. The kind stranger grabbed one of my wheelies, and the three of us set off. Our wheelies spinning, our hearts racing, Leslie and I boarded the train just in time.
In return for his help, our kind Italian stranger asked only that I look for him at Termini when I returned from Florence and have a drink with him. I’d have gladly done that had I returned to Termini at a time when that might have worked. But I never did, and I departed Termini hoping he knew how very grateful we were for his help.
Our seats on the train were excellent, and our arrival in Florence went smoothly. A taxi took us to our hotel, where we settled in for four wonderful days and nights in that extraordinary city. On our last day, we were hoping to travel by bus to Siena. The weather forecast the night before predicted heavy rain, so we figured we’d stay in Florence instead and hit some museums we’d so far missed.
We left our hotel at nearly 11 a.m., prepared for rain, and were instead greeted by sunshine and wet pavements. The rain had come and gone. We instantly decided to head for Siena and set out on foot for the bus station. We knew it was very close to the train station, so, consulting our map, we aimed for the train station, assuming we could find the bus station from there.
We made tracks and quickly arrived at the train station. But where exactly was the bus station? Its location was NOT obvious, and we frantically searched the area till we found it. We then rushed to the ticket window and somehow managed to explain what we wanted. Cash was required. Did we have it? Rummaging through our wallets, we came up with enough cash to buy the tickets.
The next bus was scheduled to leave within a few minutes, so we tracked down the right bus and clambered on, finding seats just in time. If we’d missed this bus, we’d have been stuck at the bus station for over an hour, losing all that time in Siena. Once again, we barely made our connection. Once again, I felt like the parent in an Amazing Race parent-child team.
The hours we spent in Siena were joyful. Lunch outside, on the terrace of a restaurant facing Il Campo (where the famed horse race, the Palio, takes place every summer), was delightful, and our trek uphill to see Siena’s cathedral was worth every arduous step. But when we checked the bus schedule, hoping to get back to Florence before dark, we found we had to get to our bus stop within minutes. Quickly making our way downhill, relishing the Siena street-scene as we went, we arrived at the bus stop and discovered we had to buy tickets at an underground location beneath it. Down the stairs we went, and again cash was required. I’d used an ATM so cash was no longer a problem. But the adjoining restroom, which we both needed by this time, required not merely cash but correct change! More rummaging, more frantic glances at our watches, till we came up with the right coins and made our triumphal entrance into the restroom. Finally we emerged into the sunlight and climbed onto the bus just in time for our ride back to Florence.
The next morning we were off to the Amalfi Coast by way of Naples. We’d planned to take a fast train from Florence to Naples, then get to the port in Naples to catch a ferry to our destination, Sorrento. The fast train arrived late, but we weren’t worried about making our connection in Naples. Surely there would be more than one ferry going from the port of Naples to Sorrento. Or would there?
Arriving at the Naples train station, we tracked down a tourist office where we were assured that ferries would leave from the port to Sorrento that afternoon. So off we went in a taxi through the chaotic streets of Naples, arriving at the port and eventually finding a ticket window to purchase tickets for the ferry to Sorrento. This time we were actually early and found ourselves waiting outside on the dock. The weather was beautiful, so we didn’t mind a bit. When the ferry arrived, however, we were disappointed to find that we had to sit inside instead of outside on a deck. So we sat inside, defeating the real purpose of taking the ferry instead of the more convenient, and cheaper, train from Naples to Sorrento. Oh well….
The ferry arrived at the port of Sorrento, and we emerged to discover another setback. We had to drag our suitcases uphill to get to the taxi stand. But we made it, and our taxi deposited us at our hotel, a delightful place where we spent four wonderful nights before taking off for Rome.
We ran two fairly frantic “races” before leaving Sorrento. First, we left our hotel early one morning and walked downhill to the port to catch a ferry to Capri. The ferries didn’t leave very often, and we wanted to get an early start. Down by the water, a crowd had gathered, waiting in a long line to board the ferry. We got in line and patiently began to wait. But we soon noticed that everyone else in line was already clutching a ticket for the ferry. We queried others and learned that the ticket booth was a long distance behind us, near the stairs we’d descended a long time before. I stayed in line while Leslie ran back to buy our tickets. Nervously, I watched for her till just about everyone else had boarded the ferry and departure time was only a few minutes away. At last I saw Leslie running toward me, waving our tickets, and at the last possible moment, we boarded the ferry. It left the dock a minute later. An Amazing-Race minute? You bet!
We arrived at Capri and looked around the port for a short time, then purchased tickets (for cash) for a boat trip around the entire island. If weather conditions permitted, we would be able to visit “the blue grotto,” a remarkable spot where small rowboats take four people at a time into the grotto to see the astonishingly “blue” water, a natural phenomenon. So off we went on our tour around Capri. Luckily, conditions allowed us (lying perfectly flat in the rowboat) to enter the blue grotto, our rower singing “Volare” at the top of his lungs while we surveyed the very blue water surrounding us. One of the other passengers in our rowboat was quite hefty, weighing maybe 300 pounds, and I worried about capsizing, but nothing untoward happened, and we made it safely back to the larger boat for the rest of the trip around the island.
Back on the island, we spent the afternoon strolling around its sites, relishing beautiful vistas from various perches above the water. As evening approached, we decided to head back to Sorrento. That meant descending to the level of the port and taking a ferry that would return in time for dinner. As we made our way to where the ferries departed, we saw we had only a few minutes to make the next ferry. Missing it would leave us in Capri for another hour, and we’d seen all we wanted to see. So another race began, and we ran as fast as we could to catch the next ferry. No wheelies spinning behind us, but the race was frantic just the same. We made the ferry with no time to spare and got to Sorrento just as the sun was setting. We trekked back uphill to our hotel, changed for dinner, and selected a charming restaurant, followed by a stroll up and down the busy shopping streets nearby.
No other frenzied races happened during the rest of our time in Sorrento. Our boat trip to and from Amalfi went well, and we easily got to Pompeii and back on the circumvesuviana train (a local line that goes around Mt. Vesuvius on its way to Naples). We left Sorrento on the same train line, leaving lots of time to get good seats on the train (which originated in Sorrento) so we could stash all of our suitcases before anyone else could grab those seats. Arriving in Naples, we again had plenty of time to await our fast train to Rome. The train got to Termini as it was getting dark. We emerged from the train and immediately hopped into a taxi to get to our hotel.
I’ll skip the nightmarish arrival at our hotel in Rome (it’ll appear soon on TripAdvisor). Once we settled into our room, we wandered around the surrounding streets till we were hijacked into eating at a mediocre place for dinner, but we were too tired to find somewhere else. We soon felt energized enough to go elsewhere for gelato. The rest of our stay in Rome, including gelato at least once every single day, was wonderful.
We had only one “race” in Rome, but it was memorable. On our last morning, we had a reservation for the Galleria Borghese, the fabulous art museum in the Borghese Gardens. Patrons are warned that they must arrive on time and are allowed exactly two hours to see the museum before being compelled to leave. Relying on my memory (from a trip 12 years earlier), I optimistically thought we’d have enough time to walk to the museum…but we didn’t start early enough. We set out after breakfast for the Spanish Steps, a relatively short walk from our hotel, planning to make our way to the Galleria from there. But we didn’t walk as fast as we thought we would, and we kept checking the time on our watches as we approached the Spanish Steps. We climbed the seemingly endless stairs to get to the top, but by the time we arrived there, out of breath, the chances of getting to the museum on time seemed unlikely. Suspecting that we might need a taxi, we darted into the posh hotel at the very top, the Hassler, to ask for advice. A charming doorman who spoke English (of course– it was the Hassler) checked his watch and the time on our reservation, and he confirmed our suspicions. If we continued on foot, we’d never get to the museum on time. He led us, looking mighty shabby for patrons of the Hassler, to a waiting taxi, and off we went to the Borghese Gardens, arriving at the museum with only a few minutes to spare before our entry time.
The museum was worth the anguish it took to get there, and the rest of our day was filled with a multitude of wonderful sights and sounds in Rome, ending with dinner outside at a delightful restaurant in the Campo de’ Fiori. We staggered back to our hotel and headed for bed, knowing we had to be up early for our flight home. You can be sure we allowed plenty of time to get to Fiumicino without needing to race there! And we did.

 

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“All in the Family” Revisited

Posted on May 9, 2013 | 1 comment

Are you old enough to remember the TV sitcom “All in the Family”?  Or have you managed to catch an episode or two on late-night TV?

This sitcom was a number-one hit on TV in the 1970s (it debuted in ’71 and lasted till ’79), and it became an honest-to-goodness phenomenon.   Produced by Norman Lear, it featured movie and TV actor Carroll O’Connor as the irascible Archie Bunker.  Archie was a working-class bigot, openly racist and sexist.  Sitting in his favorite living-room chair (now enshrined in the Smithsonian), chomping on a cigar, he belittled gays and intellectuals and anyone else who lived outside his narrow world in Queens, New York.

Why did a sitcom revolving around this character become an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning hit?  Probably because audiences felt comfortable laughing at Archie’s appalling antics.  Audiences could watch Archie clumsily try to maneuver through a rapidly changing world, feeling smugly superior to him while we grappled with many of the same troubling issues in our own lives.

Archie was surrounded by a memorable family, notably his long-suffering wife Edith, whom Archie called “the dingbat.”  Edith was played by Jean Stapleton as a somewhat flaky but kind-hearted helpmeet who tolerated her husband’s offensive behavior because she truly loved him.  Archie’s daughter Gloria, portrayed by Sally Struthers at the outset as a miniskirted twenty-something with corkscrew blonde curls, and Gloria’s husband, college student Mike, played by Rob Reiner in much slimmer times, completed the family circle.  Without enough money to afford their own place, Gloria and Mike lived with Archie and Edith, creating a situation rife with conflict.

Archie and Mike (dubbed “Meathead” by Archie) constantly clashed, their different world-views colliding on a daily basis.  Gloria was caught in the middle, sometimes siding with Archie but usually backing up her husband Mike.  This dynamic provided considerable comic fodder for the audience.  When, later in the show’s run, Mike and Gloria left Archie’s house and moved to their own place, a lot of the comedy went with them.

A few years back, someone asked me which TV show I would choose to inhabit if I was suddenly transported into a TV sitcom.  My choice was easy:   “All in the Family.”

I knew precisely where I wanted to go: 704 Hauser Street, Queens, New York, plunked down in the Bunker household as a newly minted version of Archie’s daughter, Gloria.

In my version of the Bunker family, Gloria would no longer be Archie’s relentlessly cute but somewhat uncomplicated daughter, declaring “Oh, Daddy!” whenever Archie did something that baffled or annoyed her.  I’d be a smarter, savvier Gloria, bringing a dose of common sense and a measure of sensitivity to the Bunker household.

Instead of running off to Mike, as Gloria was wont to do, I’d give Archie a hug, then sit down with him and offer him my empathy.  I’d let him know I understood how hard it was to be a blue-collar white male in a world that was spinning around him, changing by the hour.  I’d try to reassure him that he still had his place in that world, and that nothing would ever change my daughterly love for him.

I’d empathize with Edith, too, trying to reassure her as well.  I’d let her know it was okay for her to be content–for the moment–in her current role, that of a housewife whose focus was cooking, cleaning, and helping her husband deal with his daily defeats at home and at work.  At the same time, I’d encourage her incipient efforts to become more assertive, no longer entirely dependent on Archie and therefore no longer the willing target of his insults and disparaging attitude.

As for the Meathead, I’d struggle to keep our marriage intact, constantly reminding myself how much he loved me, calming him down whenever Archie was on the warpath, serving as a buffer between the two of them more effectively than Gloria ever did.

In sum, I’d bring tranquility and order to the Bunker household, thereby transforming the Bunker family into the kind of family I always tried to create in my own home.

There’s just one problem: “All in the Family” wouldn’t be funny anymore.  The Archie that I loved to laugh at would be buried under a cloak of rationality, with only bits and pieces of funny stuff breaking through now and then.

My family shared a house much like the Bunkers’, but our dynamic was nothing like theirs.  We bounced ideas off of each other, not always in total agreement but open to what each of us had to say.  As my children grew and the world evolved, we evolved, too.  We shared a home full of love and a minimal amount of conflict.

So, although we had loads of fun together, we were pretty boring compared to the Bunkers—not at all the stuff of a successful TV sitcom.  I guess I would have liked to see the Bunkers become more like us, but let’s face it:  The result would have been much closer to “Little House on Hauser Street” or “The Waltons of Queens,” and nothing like the very funny “All in the Family.”

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