Pippi and Harriet

Pippi and Harriet

(feminist icons)

Always read the publisher page of your favorite books. You will find many interesting things. Beezus and Ramona, by the great Beverly Cleary, was first published the year I was born, 1955. When I read that date so much of my early life made perfect sense. My elder sister is the good daughter, dutiful and hardworking. I am the chaotic slacker. I am Ramona. My sister loved all Ms. Cleary’s books and the first volume of the Ramona chronicle was her very favorite. The old librarian in me just loves a publisher page.

In 1953, the heart of the button-down, commie-fearing Fifties, a harbinger of freedom came to this country from Sweden’s Viking shore. She came not with a sword but a horse and a monkey. With diamond blue eyes and red pigtails, Pippi Longstocking skipped into the hearts of legions of American girls. Her influence cannot be overestimated. In a period of rigid social conformity in the US, Pippi was a beacon of chaos, joy and pancakes for dinner. Here we find a nine year old girl, with her own house, no one to tell her what to do, unlimited funds and good friends next door. If you threaten her friends she will mess you up. But if you are ready for fun and maybe a good story, she is the best time imaginable.

Now, add 18 to 20 years to 1953 and you come to the Second Wave of American Feminism, with its nonsensical and perhaps koanic talk of women, men, fish and bicycles. That streak of nonsense, that ribbon of crazy fun, breaking expectations and freeing the mind to all possibilities, can be traced to Pippi Longstocking. Money, a home of your own, loving but absent parents, a horse and a monkey, what else could a girl need? Well, if you aren’t a magical child with superhuman strength, you might need to be of your world and not just in it.

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh was first published in 1964 and is a real breakout. Before Harriet, middle reader books were about perfect families and very small problems. (Ramona doesn’t deal with a problem as hairy as her father losing his job until 1977. This is no criticism of the great Ms Cleary, bless her ears and whiskers.) But Harriet wants to watch unseen and uninvolved. Her home life is not perfect, her working, distant parents want her to take more care of herself. Her beloved babysitter is looking at a life of her own. This a very early modern children’s novel, if not the first. It addresses four themes that have informed middle-reader literature for the last 45 years: school politics, family dynamics, change and self-knowledge. Seeing your own real life on the page is every inch as liberating as your own horse or monkey.

Every day I’m called on to suggest books. There is very good new stuff: The Sisters Grim, The Penderwicks, and the deeply wonderful Ivy and Bean are just a few of the new books and series out there for middle-reading girls. Even as we stand among all these riches, we must never forget the revolutionaries of children’s literature, Harriet, who shows us our real lives and Pippi, who lives the life we want.

An altar in the house of a Protestant

This is an altar,

an altar in the home of a Protestant.

Go figure.

It started with a book about home altars in New Mexico and the wonderful pictures of personal manifestations of faith. I looked with envy at what my Roman brethren were allowed to have in their homes. They got images of saints and candles. But all I got was the knowledge that my iconoclastic Puritan forefathers were so smug in their empty walls. Well, I like candles, to my Baptist’s great chagrin, and I love the great souls who have shaped my faith. So, why can’t I have an altar? I don’t pray to these images. I don’t beg them for intercession with a Savior who is too far beyond my heart’s reach. No, Christ has made his home in my soul and I can make a Protestant altar if I want to. So what is it that I want?

Always looking backward, hoping to understand clearly, I want a history of my faith. The first image of my shrine is El Tepeyac, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

El Tepeyac is the nexus of the Roman Church and Mexico. The mother of God combined with a mountain goddess and became the Mother of the Americas. I fell in love with her early in my faith and searched for an image. I wanted a copy of the tilma of Juan Diego, which hangs in Her shrine in Mexico City and bears Her image with dusky skin, pink dress and standing on a crescent moon. In a church equipment shop in Los Angeles that had Methodist hymnals and thuribles and choir robes and all sorts of stuff, there were also images of saints and martyrs, from novena cards to big banners. There I found Her picture, mounted on wood. She has traveled with me for at least 30 years and Hers was the only religious image in my home for most of that time, Viva Mexico. Then, we came to Oakland and bought our house.

Down in the cellar of our new house, I found an unused shelf: a 3½-foot piece of heavy pine with plain, Puritan supports. With a thick coat of dark blue paint, gold stars and polyurethane, my altar was ready to put up. (The color and stars come from the ceiling of the Siena duomo, from whence came the great Catherine. But more about her later.) Now, I won’t have you think that my Baptist just accepted the idea of a shrine in the house. He most emphatically did not. And, if my grandmother Dorothy were still alive, besides being 111 years old, she would make some caustic comments about popery. But she is in the arms of her Savior and the Baptist has to love me anyway. With grumbles and grouses, the Baptist mounted the altar, perfectly balanced under the high windows in the kitchen. The Lady fills the space between the windows and for a little while she was the only one up there. My sister gave me a lovely wrought iron hanging candle holder and I keep it filled with tall, 5 day votives. (There is usually a Lady light burning, to guide you through the kitchen if you need the loo in the middle of the night.) But who else would be on the altar? A mess of hard-headed Protestants, that’s who.

So, who are these people? In the central places of honor are my two lodestones of the Protestant Reformation. That thick-necked, bull jawed person on the right is Martin Luther. Painted by his friend, Lucas Cranach the younger, this is the founder of the Protestant Church, warts and all. To his right is his greatest student and theological heartbreak, Philip Melanchthon. This talented lutenist broke with his great teacher over music in church. He also helped to write the Augsburg Confession. Next to Philip is Catherine of Siena. A Roman saint who showed me the road of mysticism and action, I do love her so. On final right is Ulrich Zwingli, primary author of the Augsburg Confession who died at war with other Christians. (Our history is not pretty.)

To Luther’s left, we find Thomas Cranmer, founder of the Anglican Confession, liturgist extraordinaire, true Protestant and martyr. Next to Cranmer is his great contemporary William Tyndale, translator of the Holy Bible and martyr, bless his memory. The sweet image next to him is Teresa of Avila. Like Catherine, she is a lamp to this girl’s feet; if you haven’t read The Interior Castle, you might give it a try. On the ultimate left is John Wesley, who brought the Gospel of Christ to the satanic mills. He was a missionary and true servant of his Lord.

At the lower elevation we find the earlier founders of the faith.

On the left is William Wycliffe, the first translator of the Bible into English. (There are no contemporary portraits of Wycliffe, so we have this Titianesque idealization.) In the center is a prayer of the Venerable Bede (673-735 ce). His direct, existential prayers keep me grounded. On the right is Johannes Hus, the great anabaptist reformer who was martyred at the Council of Constance.

You might notice various crosses scattered around. One came from my father’s last time in Florence, one I inherited from my deeply wonderful mother-in-law and others have come from thither and yon. My friends bring me crosses from their travels. D and K went to the fair Isle of Iona, in the Hebrides, and brought me back a token of that ancient holy place, a small white rock incised with a simple cross. Of such small things great altars are built.

Two altars taught me about the ephemeral nature of shrines. Shrines come out of nowhere, on roadsides or in front of palace gates. And they are in constant flux—a static altar is a dead altar. In the monastery church of S. Florian, in upper Austria, there is a big cork board on a easel, just inside the front door, on the right. This board is covered with photographs of all of the new babies in the congregation. In the sanctuary of Mission San Juan Bautista, just left of the altar rail, there is another cork board, this one filled with pictures of service members. Beautiful young faces in the uniforms of the US Army, Navy and lots of Marines. Both of those cork boards are shrines and always changing

With gifts and acquisitions, the altar in my house is fluid, in my kitchen, the center of the house. The Lady candle is usually lit and the other votives burn bright when friends grace our home. As with all other home shrines, this altar is a statement of faith. It celebrates the great souls who give me strength for the journey. Anyone who comes to our house sees this thing and, to date, it has not offended. In this house there is a whole lot of Mahler, the History of Western Philosophy by Copleston and the Blue Cliff Record. In the house my husband gives me, there is an altar, an altar in the home of an anabaptist Protestant. Go figure.

difficult relatives

Difficult Relatives

(Thomas and Rada)

Once upon a time I got on a bus and failed the test of family. It was the Colorado Blvd. bus taking me home from Pasadena City College and at one stop a short old man got on and paid his fare. I recognized him as my maternal grandfather, Rudolph Davidovitz. He did not return the favor and when the paprika termagant started to berate the poor bus driver for an unscheduled stop, I was a bad, happy girl. The driver finally relented and let my grandfather off, to the great relief of everyone on the bus, especially me. We all have difficult relatives.

There is an holy day in the Protestant liturgical calendar called Reformation Sunday. Celebrated on the Sunday closest to October 31st, it is the day set aside to acknowledge our history and founders. On this day Methodists revel in John Wesley, Baptists insist that they come from the Catacombs and Presbyterians will actually speak the name of John Calvin. Everyone celebrates the founders of their church, except the Anglicans, who are embarrassed. You are ashamed of your father.

I understand, Thomas Cranmer is a hard nut and difficult to love. Liturgist, scholar and reformer, he sinned so much—how can anyone celebrate. He came into Henry VIII’s court on Anne Bolyn’s skirts. Her father, Thomas, brought Cranmer with the family, as its chaplain. Though he came in with Anne, he trumped up the charges that were brought against her, adding reginacide to his résumé. (Don’t depend on Tommy, girls, he will do you dirty if you get in the King’s way.) He stayed to feed the King supporting theology during the Great Dissolution. Cranmer’s second wife had to be hidden away while Henry dithered about the married clergy.

Henry Tudor dithered because he was a Roman Catholic. He didn’t want a new church. He simply coveted the prerogatives that the French king had enjoyed since the 12th century. Henry wanted to appoint bishops and cardinals and keep most of the Church’s money in country. This Catholic king liked to fill his court with scholars and was a great supporter of higher education. Henry appreciated the scholar Cranmer and either didn’t care or didn’t notice that this priest was a real, live Protestant. For all of his faults, Thomas Cranmer was the greatest liturgist in the history of the Protestant church, perhaps in the history of the Church Temporal. He collected everything and, even as he watched great sanctuaries and their libraries burn, he kept what he needed to forge a liturgy for a new and reformed church. And, Thomas survived Henry.

Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, brought both of the princesses to court but only after they acknowledged their illigitimacy. (Henry was a pip of a father.) She died after giving Henry his legitmate son and poor little Edward VI came to the throne at his father’s death, age nine. (Without a mother, Edward clung to his older sisters. Truly, the one thing those two redheads had in common was love for their little brother.) Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury when Henry died and made sure the boy had a Protestant education. The little king authorized his confessor to write and disseminate the first Book of Common Prayer. Never in robust health, Edward died very young (17) but his legacy is huge. The Boy gave all of us the order of worship that we have carried into our many, new, dissenting churches, bless him.

The Boy went to his Savior and Mary came to the throne of Great Britain. I have sympathy for Mary Tudor. Her father branded her a bastard, not once, but twice, and her Spanish family did not save her. By the time Mary came to the throne, she was nuts. She truly believed that burning heretics would please the Prince of Peace. One of those heretics was Thomas Cranmer. Mary couldn’t murder her sister Elizabeth but she did burn her brother’s confessor. Cranmer was tortured to the point of recantation and signed a confession of error.

But Mary Tudor did not believe his submission to the Roman rule of the English church and Thomas Cranmer took up the martyr’s cross. On March 21, 1556, Thomas Cranmer followed his friends Latimer and Ridley through the fire to their Lord. The story of his martyrdom is as gruesome as it is uplifting. Elizabeth was still in the Tower when she got the news of Cranmer’s death, “they burnt that old man.”

“That old man” is the father of the Anglican Church, not Henry Tudor but Thomas Cranmer. Scholar, politician, liar and saint, he plumbed our bitter, self-serving depths and showed us one way to the Cross. Once upon a time I got on a bus and failed the test of family. The Episcopal Church is always on that bus. This year, just for once, do not ignore the bad old man. Look him in the eyes, and nod, and say, “Hello Papa.”

it's been a hard days night

“The guitar is all very well John, but you’ll never make a living out of it.”

—attributed to both his mother Julia and his aunt Mimi

You, 44 year old Nicholas, mourn John Lennon. You spoke to me, last week, surprised that he had been gone for 30 years. But, my dear, you were not there. It has been most of your lifetime since Lennon was murdered. I was there at the beginning of American Beatlemania and here is how it went. A Hard Days Night, was released in the US on August 11th, 1964. I was going into 4th grade, and we were living in Orange.

Orange California today is a sprawling mess, too big and way overdeveloped. When we lived on S. Orange St in ’63–’64, it was a very pretty old town. The streets were wide and very flat, a perfect place to learn how to ride a bike. Julie and I went to Palmyra Grammar School, where, in 6th grade, she first started to play the flute. We walked or rode everywhere, including to the old movie palace that was on the town square (which is actually a traffic circle with a tiny park at its center.) We saw all our movies there, including The Man with the X-ray Eyes, with dear old Ray Milland, that scared the bejeebies out of us. But what I can’t conjure is what the feature was when we saw the trailer for A Hard Days Night.

The trailer was in black and white. Nothing was black and white in 1964 in the US except t.v. It opened with the Lads running down an urban residential street, away from a pack of adoring fans. (What were all of those 15- and 16-year-old girls going to do with those four guys if they ever caught them?) And then there was that chord. It is dense and compelling, it wakes up the ears and says, “Listen, something good is coming.” (http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/beatles-hard-days-night-mystery-chord-solved/ And that good thing was running toward us, their gorgeous young selves in natty suits. There had never been anything like them. I was just out of third grade and fell, truly madly deeply in love with all four.

After that unremembered movie, I had enough left over ($1.35?) to buy an early ticket for A Hard Days Night that very afternoon; Julie went back a couple of days later and bought hers. This was good because when we went back, the next week, the lines were insane. Julie kept our place in the pre-sale line and I reconnoitered the just-trying-to-get-in line. Walking out from under the theatre porch, I turned left, walking down Glassell, and saw a line that turned the corner and wound down the long side of the theatre on Main. I was totally knocked out.

We settled down in orchestra section of the theatre to watch the movie. We expected to hear it also, but that was impossible. After that life changing chord, the screaming began. Most of the audience were screaming at the screen, at a movie that had been in the can for over two months. In the immortal words of Norm the road manager, “They’ve gone potty out there.” So my sister and I sat in pie-eyed wonder, watched the images on the screen and wondered what was being said. This all happened 37 years after Al Jolson brought sound to the silver screen.

With subsequent watchings, we finally heard A Hard Day’s Night. It was a treat: glib, hip and funny, shot in a dense black and white by a very young Richard Lester. In 1963 Britain was still in rebuild, with empty lots and strange open space. My younger self thought it was all true. That “clean old man” was Paul’s grandpa and they were just talking, naturally witty and fun. It took me years to appreciate the real work of the movie. But since I’ve seen it more than twenty times, I’ve figured some things out.

Let us start with the story arc. The lads arrive in an unnamed English city where they are to anchor a t.v. variety show being shot in an old music hall. Their handlers, Norm and Shake, try to keep them out of trouble and on time. Paul is shackled to a grandfather in need of a change of scenery and everything comes from that. Grandpa is “a real mixer … and he’ll cost you a fortune in breach of promise suits.” (See how easily the quotes fall out of me?) Paul is pretty and harried, John is sarcastic and in charge and Ringo is by the camera adored. And then there is George, always my favorite, with that low Scouse voice and dreamboat eyes.

This tale of unrecognized fame moves quickly because the movie has only an 87 minute running time. In a hallway, backstage at the theatre, John encounters the deeply delicious Anna Quale and, in less than a minute, the elusive nature of fame is examined. She almost recognizes him but doesn’t want to make of fool of herself. He counters like a nodding acquaintance who delivers the gossip that she knows Him (read: John Lennon), very well. This looking glass dance ends with her saying, “You know, I don’t think you look like him at all,” and flouncing off. John is left to remark to his own reflection, “She looks more like him than I do.”

Escape is an important sub-theme of the movie. They are always trying to get away. George opens a door and falls down his own rabbit hole. An oh-so-tightly-wound advertising exec, perfectly manifested by the uncredited Kenneth Haigh, is waiting for a type to be sent to him. Neither the secretary who ushers our lad into the office, nor the exec, see George Harrison. They only see the type. Not recognizing one of the four most famous men in world, this twit starts to map out a new advertising blitz for his hottest commodity, Susan (a very young Jean Shrimpton in photo only.) “Oh, that posh bird who always gets everything wrong …” The exec can’t handle any suggestion that he isn’t the hippest man on the planet and has George removed.

Goaded by Paul’s grandfather (brilliantly played by Wilfred Bramble), Ringo goes off parading. (Lester insists to this day that Bramble saved the whole production by keeping the non-actor Beatles in line and on mark.) In a cheap overcoat and cap, Ringo Starr walks the rain wet, working-class streets unseen. This vignette on unrecognized fame is both ironic and nostalgic. Ringo tries to find his own identity, separate from his group, but only looks in the places he’s already been. Even the police don’t know him.

Nick, this movie is in my DNA and I thank you for asking me to examine it. On that hot day in Orange, this movie was just a heady celebration of the men who made the music. As I run the film in my head I see what else is there. Early in their mad career, through the auspices of a great young director, John, Paul, George and Ringo held up the mirror to fame and saw some very interesting things. Take a look at A Hard Days Night, watch it carefully. It is great fun, great music and a great warning. Here is fame, here is glory, this is how it works.

RPH #16 “only two things that money can’t buy and that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes”

Some years ago, Colin and I were working the Cody’s 4th St. info desk together. He had been doing star charts for some of the other employees through a wonderful, fast free program on line. Now, the last time my chart had been read was when I was about 17 and it really made me angry. That chart claimed I was a Christian and described some other things I wasn’t, yet. But when Colin offered a fresh reading, I laughed and said “sure.” So the adept took my bona fides (place, time and date of birth) and put them into the program. What popped up was the same chart that I’d rejected so vehemently, so long ago. He warned me that the middle of my house (the kitchen) is a snare that can keep me from doing other, important things. Yes, dear man, I do understand, my kitchen can eat my life when all I do is ask for some unwanted tomatoes.

My darling friend Kathryn sits houses (she does a whole lot of other things that we won’t go into now), and at one of these, there is a gardener who can’t resist a tomato seed. According to my friend, this over-planting happens every year, and the provender is foisted on Kathryn. This year she passed some of this year’s bounty on to me. But what would you do with 40 pounds of fresh, homegrown Roma tomatoes? You can’t eat them all, no matter how hard you try (this includes you Mommy). What came kept me busy for a whole week. It was an avalanche and I got out my shovel. Tomatoes are food and wasting food is a sin. Homegrown tomatoes are a gift of this great state and her gardeners. So I had to preserve all those tomatoes. Not being a canner (it’s just too much work) I did what I can—I made sauce.

Marcella Hazan’s indispensable cookbook taught me just how easy it is to make marinara. But having a recipe does not make marinara. There are basic tools necessary and, primarily, you need a big pot, at least 2½ gallon. Yes, it can be aluminum, it doesn’t give you Alzheimer’s. It must have a heavy, thick bottom to heat the sauce evenly and avoid scorching. (If you don’t have a pot like this, go get one! It will be good for chowder, chili, stew, soup and any other single pot meals.) Once the tomatoes et al. are ready for pureeing, your best weapon is a hand blender, called by some a “boat motor.” This wonderful thing replaces food mills and sieves. The only thing it doesn’t do is remove the seeds, but, not being Martha Stewart, I don’t care. (Don’t get one with a plastic head, it will crack and you’ll just have to buy a new one. Put your money down, get a stainless-steel-headed blender and go to it.)

I was boiling my fourth pot of tomatoes, onions and garlic, when Kathryn suggested roasting these elements. She said this while bringing in four more bags of Romas and bag of cherry tomatoes. Here is what I’ve learned: roasting produces a darker, richer flavor and oregano can overpower the delicate fresh taste.

The other great lesson of this adventure is how fresh tomatoes cook down. I made one quart of paste, a gallon of just cooked tomatoes and a remoulade with a red bell pepper. When all the sauces went into gallon freezer bags, there was a total of eight gallons of tomatoes in the cold place, just waiting. We have already eaten and shared four of them and it’s only early November.

All of this cooking took about four days, four days in the middle of my house. Colin’s chart was right, the kitchen can eat my time. But, it’s only once a year, and in the words of Guy Clark, “Ain’t nothing in the world like homegrown tomatoes.”

Kittens

RPH #14

kittens

Long ago and about 400 miles away, I was standing in a tiny bathroom, putting on my face and listening to Morning Edition on KPCC. There was Bob Edwards, one of the great voices ever on radio, starting his weekly talk with Red (Walter Lanier) Barber. Now, you need to understand, cousins, I’d never heard of Red Barber, the original “voice of the Dodgers.” The voice of the Dodgers (LA that is) was and always will be Vin Scully. So who was this old guy?

That particular morning, with no baseball in sight, Mr. Barber did not want to talk about other sports. Bob kept on bringing the subject back to basketball or American Rules football and that old guy just wouldn’t bite. This Red Barber wanted to talk about the dogwood that was just starting to bloom in his garden and, especially, about his Abyssinian kittens. I was incensed, I mean, who was this old fart, to ignore Bob Edwards’ questions and go maundering on about kittens. That was BOB EDWARDS he was ignoring.

Well, my dears, I have learned some things since then. One is that the “old red head” taught Vin Scully everything he knows about baseball broadcasting. And, by the time I heard him, Red Barber had the right to talk about anything he wanted to, whenever he wanted. Kittens are a suitable subject; let me tell you about ours.

Big John and Percy Dovetonsils came to our household in a plastic milk crate, with their brothers and sisters, when they were about 9 weeks old. Their mother lived in the lovely little yellow house across Morada Place from us. She was a beautiful calico and their father was the neighborhood tough, a big, badass orange tom that we called Soldier of Orange. Percy was like a beautiful grey cloud, so pretty and so empty. Big John was a scrappy little short hair, white with grey spots, who was trying to dig his way out of the bottom of the crate. Philip was taken with this little miner and called him Big John, “… big, bad John.” The bond between man and cat was forged and it lasted for 17 years.

Last December they left us. First was Percy, the grey, the best party cat ever, the slightly dim. Percy got really sick very quickly and, when he was taken to the vet by my darling Philip, he was almost gone. Percy didn’t come home. John physically was fine but without his brother, he did not want to go on. John stopped eating and begged to be allowed out. We held off for 5 days and finally, with sorrow, gave in to the old cat’s desire. He loped off up the street and the last I saw of him was that high tail going into the bushes between the apartment house and house at the top of the street. John never came back, going to his chosen death like an old warrior and none knows his resting place. This is the deal we make when we take these small animal folk into our lives. We agree to feed and take care of them and they fill our lives with love. Thus our hearts break completely when they go to their final rests. We grieved, especially Himself, and we went for half a year with only Ramses in the house and Archie visiting now and then.

Finally, when we were ready for chaos, we headed back to the East Bay Humane Society’s place in Oakland. This facility is luxurious, a gift from PeopleSoft Inc. The rooms and cages are very clean and warm. Four years ago we went and found Ramses, who reached out of his cage to attract our attention. Fast-forward, now we were looking for siblings, another set of brothers. We came into one room and found a brown/tawny tabby kitten, in his beautiful air conditioned and padded cage. He was lively and perfect and adorable and slightly upset. In the interview room his brother being checked out by a father and five-year-old girl. It looked like the brothers were going to be separated. We asked our helper for other sibling teams and she brought us two perfect golden/orange kittens (all hail the workers at Oakland Humane). These kittens would be held and but would not purr. They didn’t like us and we were ok with that.

But, look, as the golden ones were being returned to their room, we saw that the daddy and little girl were leaving without the kitten. No promises were made and no money changed hands, no ups, no outs no errors. The black and white tabby, brother to the tawny, joined his sib for our interview.

The interview rooms are concrete, for cleanliness, with facing benches and a play area in between. Once reunited, the kittens put on their best show. They romped at each other, they romped at us (and untied one of Philip’s shoes), they got on laps and purrrrrrrred. SOLD!

And, since there is only you and me reading this, it’s time for a confession. The good folks at the Humane Society are very careful with their charges. We were questioned thoroughly about how we would care for our new kittens, and told to allow the youngsters lots of time to get used to their new home. Oh, we are such bad parents.

We got in the house, opened up the cat carrier, showed them the litter box and where the food lived, and just let them go. No confined room where they could acclimatize for a week or two; no separation from the older cat (that would be Ramses); just, here you go guys, this is your new home, let the wild rumpus begin. And so it did. If it can be knocked down, if it can be played with, if it can be addressed in any way, it is. Although they haven’t discovered the fun potential of kleenex boxes, they have knocked down the ten pound cast iron candelabrum. I came home from work one day and the front room looked like a scene from Poltergeist, with that big candelabrum upside down in the middle of the floor.

Yes, Red Barber was right, forgive me Bob Edwards, kitties are always a suitable subject. Small, manic and purry, Pink Nose and Tawny Toes have come to stay.

Take the kids to the museum

RPH #12

take your kids to see the pictures

“Oh, don’t take the baby (2 year old, 5 year old etc. etc.) to the big painting show. They will just cry and bother everyone else.” This, my dear cousins, is a lie. On Tuesday I walked by a dancing 2 1/2 year old standing in a line with her parents. She was letting off some of that endless steam and keeping the people around her entertained. When I saw her again, about an hour later, she had a tiny meltlet (that’s not a real meltdown, just a couple of little squeaks) because she was tired but her daddy held her and she fell asleep on his shoulder. She didn’t bother anyone, she didn’t stand in the way of any painting and she didn’t complain at the size of the crowd. She did manifest one of the important truths of my childhood: take your kid to the museum.

The De Young and the Legion of Honor were cheap days out in the late 1950’s. My father was a cub art teacher at Roosevelt Jr. High, and my mother was at home with two little girls starting elementary school. They had no money; thank God both of them loved to camp, or there wouldn’t have been any vacations. But they had two pretty fine museums and we went. First we went in strollers and then we toddled along with our parents, and we remembered. The first artist I remember liking is Henri Fantin-Latour, because he painted beautiful flowers. This is my point, take your children, grandchildren, cousins and young friends to the museum, they will remember.

This wild imperative is because of the current show at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and that little girl. The Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée D’Orsay is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and cousins, I’ve seen a lot. Tuesday at noon, our little party walked into the first room, with perfect examples of what the French Academy wanted in the middle of the 19th century. There was the luscious and perfectly composed “Birth of Venus.”— a large canvas (7’ x 3 1/2’?) on a classical (Greek or Roman) subject, perfectly rendered and very cool. (No matter how beautiful the nudes, male or female, they are removed from the observer.) These are the paintings that the Academy accepted. They honored, they celebrated but they did not move, not even the perfectly proportioned “Madonna of Solace” which shows a distraught mother draped over the lap of the Virgin and the baby, dead, at the feet of the Mother of God. The infant’s grayish, porcelain body is perfect in death and the mother’s aspect is genteel grief. This picture is what I don’t like about the French Academy of the middle 19th century.

The genius of this show is the time it takes to tell its story. We don’t leap from the cold perfection of the Academics to Cezane. The tale unfolds from Corot and Breton to James McNeill Whistler. You think you know “Arrangement #1 in Grey and Black: portrait of the artist’s mother” but it is a revelation. On the cusp between the formalism of the Academy and looking forward to what will come, Whistler’s “Mother” is totally involving and worth the whole price of admission.