My dear old friend Dean Torges, whom I met when I was about twelve, is a master woodworker, a philosopher, one of the most intelligent and most thoughtful men I've ever met. He's a world-famous bowyer, and (this is a compliment from the era of Theodore Roosevelt) a woodsman and hunter of consummate skill. But presently he's building a chicken house. It's a mobile chicken house. A chicken's need for new vistas is something I simply never considered. Still, Dean knows chickens. He's raised them on his little Ohio farmlet for donkey's years and enjoys his own eggs, broilers, and smoked whole chickens. I suppose he knows chickens better than most and if a mobile chicken house will help his fowl, who am I to quibble? He's even built mobile outbuildings, mesh-covered bomb-shelter frames that roll on old lawnmower wheels to keep his chicks out of hawks' talons. Fowlopolis.
He's endured a large ration of kidding about the time he's spent with his elaborate, over-built, fanciful main chicken house. It's a wonder, the Colossus For Rhode Island Reds. I admit to being part of the ridicule: I designed an elaborate windvane for a mythical cupola, as a joke. The cupola is in place and he's cutting the windvane out of sheet-copper presently.
After all the jokes and fun, I find that Dean's chicken house approaches the sublime. I would enjoy sitting on his porch and simply watching his busy Fowlopolis. As an antidote to the ribbing he's getting, I sent him this post:
Dean:
There are burghers and builders who would criticize and even ridicule you for occupying weeks of work with this project. Your project would delight them as an opportunity to prove their superiority in the only game they know: appropriate response. Your response is impractical, disproportionate, questionable because it could be done so much simpler and with less expense. Buy a Home Depot shed, have it delivered, cut some holes, you're done. All this farting around with special shingles and overbuilt framing … who needs it? Get 'er done! Don't sweat the small stuff, and don't try for some high-falutin perfect solution because chickens is chickens and they just don't matter that much. And do the chickens care? Hell, no. This Torges guy is just showing off, making a mountain out of a molehill.
I, for one, admire any wizard who can make a mountain out of a molehill. It's not just a great trick, it's Art. Let's admit right up front that the Sistine Ceiling could have been done with rollers and a nice Benjamin Moore bone white in a sliver of the time it took that greaseball to tart up the place. Who looks at ceilings, anyway? They keep the rain off and there's an end to it.
Some folks would call your chicken house as a quixotic task, but that would be a misuse of the word's original sense. What our jolly wild-and-crazy-guy era doesn't recall is that Don Quixote was a psychopath. He was mad, delusionary, senile. The beauty of the Don was that, even in his madness, he saw goodness and beauty around him. The heroes of that story were Sancho Panza, for sticking with the old fellah and caring for him, about him, and the son-in-law, for going to such lengths to bring the old guy home. You're not mad, Dean. You don't hear the chickens talking to you. (Is there something you're not telling me?) You're not creating a portal in time or constructing an elaborate reliquary. You're building something just-so. My hero, Mr. Rogers, reassured his audience of children that it was fine to "take your time and do it the way you want to." You're expressing the essence of art, Dean: choices beyond practicality that address larger, subtler, sometimes indefinable issues. Your chicken house is not practical but, damn, it will be interesting and in its inimitable way, beautiful.
You know I don't have much truck with organized religions but recently I've been reviewing my peevish, self-obsessed elitism about the church. Like the burghers and builders criticizing your chicken house, I've using bits and bobs of religion to prove my own superiority: I pretend that I'm the logical thinker, the spiritually practical guy, and God loves me more because I don't bullshit Him. But the (broad, many-factioned) church has cherished our myths and stories, has maintained our spiritual culture, and for all its pedophiles and anti-intellectual Bible-thumpers and derelict Popes, it's kept our cultural heritage of love and forgiveness as ideals alive. These aren't practical values. They don't get 'er done when we're assailed by bad guys. They're dangerously impractical ideals. At a glance we might say they've been ignored more often than practiced. They've been subverted thousands of times, marginalized, and redefined to suit. Even so, they're still with us. Not even Dirty Harry could blow them away. The church has, probably unwittingly, been a culturally integrating force.
Now that I have Max and Luc to consider, I wonder how I can frame a set of ideals and values so they can carry them early and make them part of their character later. One oversimplified, gross solution is to say that God wants them to be good, and this is what we think is good. Why? Because God told us. Honestly, one can't sell love and forgiveness on practical grounds. They're like your chicken house: who would buy them? They're too costly and too quirky and they don't fit the observed data. The only way to sell them might be magic thinking, which I avoid. "Why?" Because God said so, that's why.
It's a beginning. And it's a continuum. "We hold these truths to be self-evident …" Do we? Is truth self-evident? Was independence self-evident as anything more than personal convenience for our Founding Fathers? It's an article of faith with us that truth is simple and understandable but this isn't always a workable assumption. I suppose that's the catch with ideals: they often confute practicality.
What good accrued to the Samaritan who comforted the waylaid traveler in the parable? Nothing practical. He lost money on the deal and went on his way. The Samaritan's ideals – impractical chicken houses of the heart – obliged him to act in an unexpected, illogical, impractical manner. Qui bono? The waylaid traveler. The Samaritan received, we hope, some thanks but not even bragging rights.
Bless your ridiculous chicken house, Dean. It's impractical and a massive waste of time. But it's just so. It's a work of art like one of those kinetic sculptures at Boston's Logan Airport: they endlessly lift tennis balls to a height and let them follow a rolling random course down a mechanically changeable path. What does it do? Nuthin'. It beguiles. Those sculptures have given me hours of pleasure and contemplation. Bless you and the kinetic sculpture guy and your chicken house and all who sail in her.
BRAXINOSO SPEAKS
I worry when Himself waxes poetic about impracticality. It's like an habitual gambler extolling the graphic and mathematical beauty of poker or craps. His connection to the practical world is already too tenuous. Would I recommend that he tilt at even more windmills with the mad Don? I think not.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
MY BOYO
Today is my grandson's birthday: Max is three years old, a remarkable human being.
Any grampa would say the same thing. Perhaps we'd all be right. But I hold that Maxwell Ulysses Burger is, on his third birthday, an astonishingly well-spoken and thoughtful person, the beginnings of a citizen and a raconteuer. He has phrase and grace in his speech and he plays with language. He displays an enjoyment with saying something just so, the way he wants it. He reminds me of the cautionary definition of my own profession from the Irish: "A writer is a failed conversationalist."
His early gifts were mechanical. Things in my daughter's household were retro-engineered by Max.
The kid was and is preternaturally diagnostic. He takes stuff apart. Most often, he puts them back together as well.
He sat on my lap when he was just turned two and plucked a ballpoint pen out of my pocket. He looked at it solemnly and set to work. He took it apart, disassembled it into its component parts – barrel, cap, spring, refill laid out on the counter in front of us – then reassembled it. Once he’d screwed it together, he tested it to make sure it worked, click, click, click, click, then put it back into my pocket.
One morning Sally noticed that while she was cooking something he pushed his little kitchen dining table to a cabinet, climbed onto his chair, thence to the table top, thence to the counter top beside the refrigerator. He stood on the toaster oven and retrieved the sack of coffee beans from the refrigerator top. He dumped some beans into the grinder, fumbled the top on, ground some beans (more or less), pulled the top and dumped the ground beans into the filter of the coffee machine, which he carefully fit into its place. He turned it on (no water) and climbed down to his table. Arriving at floor level, he announced brew’s up casually, “Coffee!”
I asked Sally, “You didn’t stop him?”
“No, I was too fascinated. He watches Patrick make coffee every morning and he remembered the steps. For Max it was no big deal, but it floored me.”
Something that floored me was his cognizance of batteries. Nothing in the remote control line works in Max's house. Batteries gone, You can only detect the absence by the weight, since he generally replaces the battery cover. If you want to use the remote, you get Maxwell’s attention: “Max. Can you find the batteries for this remote control for me, please?” Immediate locomotion toward a chair or couch, a disruption of cushions and/or pillows, Max returns with the correct batteries without comment as if to say, “Here, dufous, why didn’t you get them yourself?”
When I was young there was a kind of string-tension toy. It was a dog or cat or horse made of hollow wooden beads (they probably don’t allow them today; choking hazard) strung together and attached to a spring-loaded base. When the string was tensioned, the animal stood upright, if a little silly. If you pushed the big button under the base, the string went slack and the creature fell into a pile of bead-parts. It was a great little toy because the animal stood there one moment, then fell into a pile.
I mention this because it’s the only way I can describe Max’s Terrible Two tantrums: a space of loud whining, no, no, no, he wants it the OTHER way, he doesn’t want THAT, he won’t eat (wear, carry, wash, drink) THAT, mommy, no, no, give me the OTHER, I want the OTHER. The Other is refused. Time Out is threatened. The count to five begins. “Max, I’m counting. One, two, three, four, five . . . Okay then, Time Out.”
Someone in a neighboring yard has eviscerated a swine or a panther: one hears a siren-loud screech. Max is creating a noise louder than any creature smaller than a city bus is capable of producing. It’s an unsettling howl, the noise of a desert djinn or a hurtling bomb. At this instant the boy we know as Max ceases to exist as a cohesive unit and falls into a pile of trunk, head and limbs in a liquid rush to the floor. This sudden dissolution is entertainingly like that string-toy, a complete collapse. The awful noise continues. Tantrum. Off to the Time Out Place of Penitence and Reflection: the stair landing, a place more barren and uninteresting than Devil’s Island or even Bayonne, New Jersey, the very seat of horrors. The bone-bag that was Max is poured onto the Chair of Correction and a timer is set for two, three, or even (life sentence) five minutes depending on the gravity of the offense.
Mutters and two-year-old curses (“Poopie, bad, booger, poopie!”), a diminishing wail, sobbing, cries for forgiveness, vows of being a good boy, now. Accusations of mommy’s impaired judgment, her mean and even wicked nature (“Bad mommy!”). Then a silence. Occasionally this is accompanied by inexpert creeping away scuffs and creaks but largely the time runs out and the timer bell rings.
“I’m done, mommy!” Reconciliation. Obligatory apologies, “I’m sorry that I _________,” fill in the blank. Order restored, authority maintained, chaos and the encroaching jungle held back another day.
Except that Max’s Time Outs were sometimes suspiciously short. Of course. The boyo was mechanically subverting justice. He’d determined the nature of the timer, climbed up onto the Dread Chair of Detention, retrieved the timer, and reset it to something under a minute. Ding! “I’m done, mommy!”
As the parent of a little person, you must be firm but open to friendly compromise. But remember: they’re all sea-lawyers. They’ll argue until hell freezes over, doggedly and energetically. Anyone who thinks that kids have no attention span has never argued with a two-year-old. Avoid negotiation. You always lose, one way or another, today or down the road.
But time off for good behavior – for inventive re-engineering, is only fair, yes?
BRAXINOSO SPEAKS
Being close to Himself, I see how deeply and enthusiastically he loves Max and his little brother, Luc. He has a bushel of surrogate grandchildren in the Bay Area whom he loves – Hannah Rose, the Dread Pirate Davis, Julianna, Kent, Ainsley, Elizabeth, et als. But if he has learned anything from these surrogates and his joy at being close to them, it is that he needs family. He loves this place, this topography, this particular micro-climate. He loves his friends here. But it's become apparent to him that being a part of Max's and Luc's lives is essential to his heart. Being a part of his daughter's life is much more important than she acknowledges. The time has come for Himself to make a move away from Mt. Burdell and Indian Valley Road and the Pacific. How he'll relocate to Gainesville, Florida, is logistically nightmarish, especially for a man with a definite phobia about moving. It's a painful time, professionally and personally, for the Old Guy.
Any grampa would say the same thing. Perhaps we'd all be right. But I hold that Maxwell Ulysses Burger is, on his third birthday, an astonishingly well-spoken and thoughtful person, the beginnings of a citizen and a raconteuer. He has phrase and grace in his speech and he plays with language. He displays an enjoyment with saying something just so, the way he wants it. He reminds me of the cautionary definition of my own profession from the Irish: "A writer is a failed conversationalist."
His early gifts were mechanical. Things in my daughter's household were retro-engineered by Max.
The kid was and is preternaturally diagnostic. He takes stuff apart. Most often, he puts them back together as well.
He sat on my lap when he was just turned two and plucked a ballpoint pen out of my pocket. He looked at it solemnly and set to work. He took it apart, disassembled it into its component parts – barrel, cap, spring, refill laid out on the counter in front of us – then reassembled it. Once he’d screwed it together, he tested it to make sure it worked, click, click, click, click, then put it back into my pocket.
One morning Sally noticed that while she was cooking something he pushed his little kitchen dining table to a cabinet, climbed onto his chair, thence to the table top, thence to the counter top beside the refrigerator. He stood on the toaster oven and retrieved the sack of coffee beans from the refrigerator top. He dumped some beans into the grinder, fumbled the top on, ground some beans (more or less), pulled the top and dumped the ground beans into the filter of the coffee machine, which he carefully fit into its place. He turned it on (no water) and climbed down to his table. Arriving at floor level, he announced brew’s up casually, “Coffee!”
I asked Sally, “You didn’t stop him?”
“No, I was too fascinated. He watches Patrick make coffee every morning and he remembered the steps. For Max it was no big deal, but it floored me.”
Something that floored me was his cognizance of batteries. Nothing in the remote control line works in Max's house. Batteries gone, You can only detect the absence by the weight, since he generally replaces the battery cover. If you want to use the remote, you get Maxwell’s attention: “Max. Can you find the batteries for this remote control for me, please?” Immediate locomotion toward a chair or couch, a disruption of cushions and/or pillows, Max returns with the correct batteries without comment as if to say, “Here, dufous, why didn’t you get them yourself?”
When I was young there was a kind of string-tension toy. It was a dog or cat or horse made of hollow wooden beads (they probably don’t allow them today; choking hazard) strung together and attached to a spring-loaded base. When the string was tensioned, the animal stood upright, if a little silly. If you pushed the big button under the base, the string went slack and the creature fell into a pile of bead-parts. It was a great little toy because the animal stood there one moment, then fell into a pile.
I mention this because it’s the only way I can describe Max’s Terrible Two tantrums: a space of loud whining, no, no, no, he wants it the OTHER way, he doesn’t want THAT, he won’t eat (wear, carry, wash, drink) THAT, mommy, no, no, give me the OTHER, I want the OTHER. The Other is refused. Time Out is threatened. The count to five begins. “Max, I’m counting. One, two, three, four, five . . . Okay then, Time Out.”
Someone in a neighboring yard has eviscerated a swine or a panther: one hears a siren-loud screech. Max is creating a noise louder than any creature smaller than a city bus is capable of producing. It’s an unsettling howl, the noise of a desert djinn or a hurtling bomb. At this instant the boy we know as Max ceases to exist as a cohesive unit and falls into a pile of trunk, head and limbs in a liquid rush to the floor. This sudden dissolution is entertainingly like that string-toy, a complete collapse. The awful noise continues. Tantrum. Off to the Time Out Place of Penitence and Reflection: the stair landing, a place more barren and uninteresting than Devil’s Island or even Bayonne, New Jersey, the very seat of horrors. The bone-bag that was Max is poured onto the Chair of Correction and a timer is set for two, three, or even (life sentence) five minutes depending on the gravity of the offense.
Mutters and two-year-old curses (“Poopie, bad, booger, poopie!”), a diminishing wail, sobbing, cries for forgiveness, vows of being a good boy, now. Accusations of mommy’s impaired judgment, her mean and even wicked nature (“Bad mommy!”). Then a silence. Occasionally this is accompanied by inexpert creeping away scuffs and creaks but largely the time runs out and the timer bell rings.
“I’m done, mommy!” Reconciliation. Obligatory apologies, “I’m sorry that I _________,” fill in the blank. Order restored, authority maintained, chaos and the encroaching jungle held back another day.
Except that Max’s Time Outs were sometimes suspiciously short. Of course. The boyo was mechanically subverting justice. He’d determined the nature of the timer, climbed up onto the Dread Chair of Detention, retrieved the timer, and reset it to something under a minute. Ding! “I’m done, mommy!”
As the parent of a little person, you must be firm but open to friendly compromise. But remember: they’re all sea-lawyers. They’ll argue until hell freezes over, doggedly and energetically. Anyone who thinks that kids have no attention span has never argued with a two-year-old. Avoid negotiation. You always lose, one way or another, today or down the road.
But time off for good behavior – for inventive re-engineering, is only fair, yes?
BRAXINOSO SPEAKS
Being close to Himself, I see how deeply and enthusiastically he loves Max and his little brother, Luc. He has a bushel of surrogate grandchildren in the Bay Area whom he loves – Hannah Rose, the Dread Pirate Davis, Julianna, Kent, Ainsley, Elizabeth, et als. But if he has learned anything from these surrogates and his joy at being close to them, it is that he needs family. He loves this place, this topography, this particular micro-climate. He loves his friends here. But it's become apparent to him that being a part of Max's and Luc's lives is essential to his heart. Being a part of his daughter's life is much more important than she acknowledges. The time has come for Himself to make a move away from Mt. Burdell and Indian Valley Road and the Pacific. How he'll relocate to Gainesville, Florida, is logistically nightmarish, especially for a man with a definite phobia about moving. It's a painful time, professionally and personally, for the Old Guy.
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