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Archive for November, 2023

Authentically Yours

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on November 28, 2023| 3 Comments »

“This above all: to thine own self be true.”

This was the Hamlet quote I penned in the Rocker’s high school senior yearbook. It follows that if one is true to oneself, then telling the truth to others should come easy. Just like all those Republicans who have decided not to run for reelection are now spouting the truth. Of course Joe Biden won the election, although they may still follow that up with a conspiracy theory or two. Rep (R) Ken Buck of Colorado, who was evicted from his Capitol building office after voting against Jim Jordan for Speaker said:

“Our nation is on a collision course with reality and a steadfast commitment to truth, even uncomfortable truths, is the only way forward,” 

False news and disinformation have become ubiquitous for this generation. Maybe that explains why the word of the year is, “Authentic.” It was 2023’s most searched word in this country, “…driven by stories and conversations about AI [artificial intelligence], celebrity culture, identity, and social media”, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary. They define “authentic” as:

… not false or imitation; true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character; worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact; genuine, bona fide, being actually and exactly what is claimed. authentic implies being fully trustworthy.” 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authentic

Wouldn’t an “authentic politician” be an oxymoron? The Flapper certainly thought so; it was all downhill after FDR.

My son must have followed that yearbook admonition of over 20 years ago. because he and his wife Kiki are as authentically legit as it gets! We had the best quiet Thanksgiving week with them cooking, hiking, making music, playing board games and generally chillaxing. The Pumpkin is learning to shred a guitar like his Uncle, and the Bug wowed Kiki with her basketball prowess. The little emperor commonly known as Watson the Frenchie kept us all laughing while watching the National Dog Show. I was rooting for the Welsh Corgi of course!

When I was young, I’d hear girls say they could “be themselves” around some boy. A good sign I thought, to be able to trust someone else, to be vulnerable. But then, did that mean that most of the time this girl was not being herself? Being true to yourself is a high bar. Still, I wish todays’ young girls didn’t feel the need to conform, or compete with each other. Granted I was a knee sock, Weejun wearing preppy in high school. New penny loafers had to be blackened just so with polish before wearing; we all get to pick our own tribes. And for most of us, college and real life help soften the edges.

If we are all on a collision course with the truth, we better fasten our seat belts. There are still insurrectionists masquerading in Congress; in fact 147 Republicans (139 representatives and 8 senators) voted NOT to certify the election on the evening of January 6, 2021… after running for their lives during the insurrection. The ringleader of this kooky coup, Jordan, was nearly elected speaker! Plus, we have the many trials and tribulations of the Republican front-runner to suffer through.

So put your thinking beanies on everybody. Let’s check the facts, and vote like your life and liberty depend on it. Because they do.

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Techno Turkey

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on November 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Good Morning everyone. I wish you well if you’re traveling this week. We’ll be cooking up a storm here in Nashville with all the usual sides – my butternut squash casserole and the Bride’s baked sweet potato marshmallow confection. In fact I’ll have to make this short because it’s time to make the corn bread for my traditional corn bread stuffing; no jalapenos, or sausage, because I’m keeping it classic.

But before I head into the kitchen, I feel I’ve finally been vindicated! For a long time now I’ve been suspicious of my devices. Not to the point of roaming around Times Square with a poster, but I think that they are listening to us. Even when they’re not turned on… Why? Because almost every night I climb into bed and Bob starts getting ads on his iPad, like ads about cordless Dyson vacuums, or bras. And I understand, I really do.

But every now and then we’ll get targeted ads about stuff we’ve only discussed in the privacy of our home. It’s one thing to search the internet for a small bathroom vanity, followed by Wayfair vanity ads, and it’s quite another to have a conversation about “natural pools/ponds” and start seeing them show up everywhere. What I didn’t know is that Alexa was actually caught listening, recording and selling private conversations a few years ago, and they even archived the data. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-alexa-spying-scandal-creates-trust-problem-with-customers-2018-5

Oh and in this season of giving, guess how a reporter tracked the money trail from lawyers who had business before the SCOTUS to Clarence Thomas? For a Christmas party no less. They sent the cash via Venmo to one of his aides! “J’ACCUSE”, Mr Thomas.

“Just as surprising was the way the publication learned about it: from the aide’s public Venmo records. Brian X. Chen, the consumer technology writer for The Times, wrote that even he was surprised that such records of money transfers could be public.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/20/opinion/apple-google-privacy.html

I draw the line with technology and not cause I’m too old to understand it. I’ve never used Venmo. I refuse to talk to Alexa, I will only thumb-text. I’m off Twitter thank goodness, and I’m not going near Tiktok. Can’t quite quit the Gram, but using Facebook/Meta sparingly and only on my laptop. And anytime an App want’s me to sign in for some AI, I say, “No thank you!” That was way before today’s big news about the chaos at OpenAI since Sam Altman was sacked and promptly scooped up by Microsoft.

In a bit of good news, California and Colorado have enacted laws to allow for one single opt-out request to have ALL data brokers delete ALL your personal information. Guess every state will have to clunk along to catch up for us to expect any semblance of privacy. And I’ll just have keep the Flapper’s secret ingredients for her stellar banana cream pie to myself!

Here are the Grands baking (apple cider donut muffins) and making (a guitar) this past week.

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SLT and Me

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on November 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »

My Zoom call with siblings ended Sunday on a funny note. I was recalling the Bug’s latest basketball game, and a conversation with some parents afterwards – it seems a mom was arranging for a past Miss Tennessee beauty queen to give a two hour “etiquette and table manners” lesson. I was listening politely, the Groom whipped out his phone and was interested in the date, and all of a sudden the Bride said, “NO!” It was unequivocal, this was not happening. Her reaction surprised me, but the Groom just shot me one of those, ‘you raised her’ looks and that. was. that. Kay burst out laughing.

My brother Dr Jim, the psychologist, put his palm to his forehead and suggested I read about social modeling. Albert Bandura was a pioneering psychologist in the 60s. After Jim returned from Vietnam, it wouldn’t surprise me if he and Al met up at a conference in Big Sur. Bandura synthesized the swinging sixtie’s cognitive behavioral models of learning. In a nutshell, he developed Social Learning Theory (SLT). Imagine a Venn diagram with “Behavioral Factors” in one circle, “Environmental Factors” in another, and “Personal Factors” in another which would include ‘…cognition, affective and biological events’; SLT lies at its intersection.

So if we learn best from observation and modeling certain behaviors, was my brother telling me that the Bride was right? Would teaching young girls the rules of etiquette be a modern day equivalent of binding their feet? And what would Barbie say about all this… Well she would want me to be grateful like a pageant winner should be. I have a few people to thank for teaching me table manners:

The Flapper taught me how to set a table and to cut meat one piece at a time. She also demonstrated which fork goes with what dish. Of course, NJ in 1959, when I was the Bug’s age, wasn’t Victorian England – we didn’t have to grapple with oyster forks.

Mr B, my step-father the judge, would occasionally look across the table straight at me and bark, “Is your head tired?” So I learned not to slump or rest my elbows on the table, and therefore my head in my hand at dinner. Plus, I was never allowed to read at the table, that was considered just plain rude.

My big sister Kay always had a bit of wisdom to impart whenever we’d eat out in a swanky NYC restaurant. Most importantly she taught me to NEVER pick up a whole piece of bread and shove it in my mouth. “You break a small piece of bread off, butter it and voila.” These days I try not to inhale the bread bowl before a fancy meal; but at least when I can’t resist, like at Red Lobster, I’m breaking bread daintily.

In retrospect, I’m proud of my feminist Bride who said they don’t give boys etiquette lessons! Maybe if it was co-ed? When my daughter was a college student in Paris she did take some kind of wine and dine course, but it was for American students of both sexes. They learned which wine to serve with each course, and they learned about the history and art of haute cuisine. So very French, n’est ce pas?

Table manners are the least of most girls’ worries. Pre-teens must not only deal with the usual hormones and peer pressure of yesteryear, but also the voracious social media messages to chase perfection today, to filter their image and emotions; not to mention the potential for horrific online bullying. Makes me glad my foster mother Nell always said, “What would the neighbors think?” She taught me by modeling her insecurity, not to care what others thought of me. Some might argue, this wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Does one keep one’s hat on at an outdoor beach restaurant? Mais OUI!

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How to be a Star

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on November 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

“Funny Girl” opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1964. It closed the summer of 1967, after my Freshman year in college. Barbra Streisand was my ‘shero,’ playing Fanny Brice in a feminist Horatio Alger tale. I met Barbra one cold night, after her brilliant performance at the stage door; she graciously signed my Playbill.

I had just played Adelaide in my high school’s production of “Guys and Dolls.” The drama club was an all encompassing home for me; I could easily lose myself in a ditzy, loyal and yes, funny character. On opening night, the laughter and applause was addictive. My friend Bess, the editor of our senior yearbook, wrote something like, “…destined for Broadway” under my name.

After all, I grew up listening to show tunes and studying ballet. The Flapper loved Ethel Merman almost as much as I idolize Barbra. I would sing and dance in our front parlor like everyone was watching. But the sixties had other plans for Bess and me. We both went to Boston after graduating from Dover Senior High School, where our young dreams were derailed by a war, political assassinations, an illegal abortion and even a cult.

Although I never became a Broadway star, I followed Barbra’s meteoric rise to EGOT status. She had always dreamed of becoming famous, while my dreams were limited to summer camp. I remember feeling flummoxed to learn of her stage fright. How could she not love the limelight? Streisand’s iconic profile is currently on the cover of Vanity Fair, and she was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday because she wrote her autobiography – “My Name is Barbra,” which will be released tomorrow. I just pre-ordered it!

Barbra wanted to set the record straight, and I want to find out what made her so ever-loving badass.

When I opened my BBC news tab this morning with coffee, one headline jumped out at me – “I haven’t had much fun in my life.” That Egyptian Queen profile wore a sardonic smile. And so I found out that a ME TOO moment onstage in her breakout hit “Funny Girl,” at the age of 22, was responsible for more than two decades of stage fright. Charlie Chaplin’s son Sydney, her leading man and almost 20 years her senior, had his sexual advances assaults rebuffed. He publicly became emotionally abusive, and tried to sabotage her performance every single night.

But like many women of our generation, she softened the story:

It’s just a person who had a crush on me – which was unusual – and when I said to him, ‘I don’t want to be involved with you’, he turned on me in such a way that was very cruel. He started muttering under his breath while I was talking on stage. Terrible words. Curse words. And he wouldn’t look into my eyes anymore. And you know, when you’re acting, it’s really important to look at the other person, and react to them.“

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67283909

Maybe Chaplin did us a huge favor by propelling Streisand to Hollywood, where she now lives in Oprahland, among the lapsed Royalty of Harry and Meghan. Live theatre’s loss became the silver screen’s gain. She insisted on being in control of her life, on having creative control of her contracts. She gained a reputation as a difficult diva, but I never bought it. If she wanted to change a scene, she was probably right. Barbra became a director in order to maintain her control over a project. She wrote the script for 1983’s “Yentl” and wasn’t paid for it; she directed the movie and was paid minimum wage; and her acting fee was cut in half!

Mama can you hear me? I love Barbra even more now for not “fixing” her nose and rejecting Chaplin… for becoming one of my first feminist icons. But I’m not sure what to make of her Malibu basement stuffed with antiques and vintage dolls. Yes, dolls – Ibsen much? Still, she possessed a spark from a very young age, a need to become famous. And in her words, it was partially due to losing her father when she was a baby. “If you don’t have a source of unconditional love as a child, you will probably try to attain that for the rest of your life,” Barbra told the BBC.

I’d like to thank the Academy, and my foster parents for giving me the capacity to love unconditionally. Fame is fleeting, but stars can last for an eternity. Happy Birthday to the Pumpkin, our stellar 3rd grader!

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