Electric Affect

"Home is so sad. It stays the way it left,

Shaped to the comfort of the last to go

As if to win them back. Instead, bereft

Of anyone to please, it whithers so,

Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,

A joyous shot at how things ought to be,

Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:

Look at the pictures and the cutlery.

The music in the piano stool. That vase."

--Philip Larkin, Home Is So Sad

M.Snowe visited with relations living in the wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania over this past weekend. Of course, the wilds mean a country town on the edge of a valley, looking down at the vast green expanses of rolling plains and gently sloping hills, up until the hills hit the tree-burdened mountain ranges surrounding it all with their jagged finality. The mountains, in the early blue-gray of morning, faded into the sky by gradations, and looking at them you couldn't tell where the earth stopped and the sky began--there was no horizon. It seemed too easy an enterprise to get lost in this mess of nature.

Like other parts of other states, this had been home for a long part of life. Not just the outdoor architecture, but the indoor infrastructure as well, including those who made it tick. Things/people have aged or changed, but most, like the scenery, has remained the same. So why is it so different now? Why does this huge mess of nature, and slower living seem unrecognizable, or at the very least, alien? Or perhaps the more apt question is: what is so alien about the visitor?

Talking to a friend while sitting on a regularly-haunted rock in Central Park (which has a clearly-defined horizon and much less greenery than the mountains), it became clear that city life suits some people very well. It also became strikingly evident that sometimes when we find a habitat with which to adapt ourselves, we loose the ability to react to the ones we previously lived in--and that's the harsh reality of urban evolutionary theory. Perhaps, suddenly you find that you don't like the person you are when you go "home"--perhaps people back home just don't understand (or care to understand) the ferocity or intensity, or new found electric mundane-ness of your city life, or maybe it's something completely internal--or a combination of all things. But the cliche abruptly comes to fruition, and you find yourself unable to come home again.

Within a span of forty-eight hours in the PA mountains, M.Snowe was baring her fangs at what might've been viewed as polite requests, and steely grinning with strained efforts in hopes of warding off the perception by relatives that M.Snowe might be annoyed by the remark that walking home at 7:15PM in the city is a "highly dangerous pursuit," when the nighttime is much safer than the morning (a proven fact). The avoidance of snapping a clever yet sparklingly ill-intentioned retort when being asked for the fifth time if the tickets home were purchased took a valiant effort of self-control. All these things would normally not have bothered M.Snowe, at least not so long ago. They might vaguely vex, but never induce fangs.

Is it the city that puts us on edge? The city, with it's electricity, seems to up the voltage on our conceptions and emotions. Without realizing it, the bright lights, public transportation, and general way of life have charged the senses--and while in the city, things can seem electrified, things can run skyscraper-high or subway-tunnel low. What might have served as a passing idea in some other mode of life can latch on in the city and follow you around like a pushy street solicitor. So when we leave the electric environment, perhaps we are so charged that other places seem dulled, or they don't conduct the energy we have learned to feed upon; sparks fly as the differing voltages amalgamate. We might not be able to go back home again with the same outlooks and the same emotions, but at least we can prepare ourselves with the appropriate converter switches.

G & G's awesome literary analysis

Having read The Madwoman in the Attic multiple times, this article grabbed M.Snowe's attention for its originality and integration of Gilbert and Gubar's stunning, grandiose treatise on Victorian female writers, and their respective fictional characters into the Clinton candidacy aftershocks. Not sure if M.Snowe completely agrees with the exact tract of the author, but applauds her efforts nonetheless, and does agree that the female constituencies have been treated with the same freakish disregard as Bertha Mason.

Where have all the politics gone? (Limerick Recap)

Perhaps M.Snowe suffers from a perpetual summer fatigue. But more likely, the political news outlets are the ones suffering vernal weariness. And you can't entirely fault them--the primaries were more exhausting than listening to the overly laudable sputum currently ejaculating from the Olympics announcers' mouths. We have our two candidates, and they have been weighed and measured. The outlets seem to have decided that it's time now for some relaxation and an easy transition from the primary chaos to the official party nomination pomp and circumstance. Chances are, the real stories won't pick up again until we have some VPs to criticize and over analyze with flow charts, pie graphs, measuring tapes and fertility testing (got to be careful there, Mr. Edwards [not that you have a shot in hell]).

That's all well and good, but M.Snowe still wants the news--and stories about "whale calfs bonding with yachts" and "strange microwave death" cases just aren't up to snuff. (Mind you, these stories get top billing, over the protest situation in Kashmir.) But in the meanwhile downtime, let's settle for looking at some stilted world news instead of McCain/Obama.

Georgia and Pakistan: Five Second Limerick Recap

Georgia
It once was a Soviet satellite,
now independent--it was just alright.
But the Russians came in
--we won't enter the din.
apparently they're not worth the fight.

Pakistan
Musharraf used to be the man,
now his rule is summarily banned.
We wanted him in,
though he's been quite a sin--
most think we've got nary a plan.

On Silences

(M.Snowe wrote this silently, at least.)

Silence, as a term, is over-used, misapplied and under-defined. It's misapplied because many people think silence means the same as "quiet," or "the absence of sound." But this is not silence. Stopping your ears with plugs or corking yourself in a sound-proof room does not produce silence either.
As counter-intuitive as it might seem, silence is a part of social interaction. In fact, some (this blogger included) believe silence is more communicative than speech. Silence involves the deliberate absence of speech. Silence, in itself, carries neither negative or positive connotations--but it can be utilized to transmit either.

Back when M.Snowe dabbled in linguistic theory she learned all about the concept of the "signifier" and the "signified." Basically, words are signifiers, in that they point to something else; they are representatives of actual people, places, things, emotions, etc. The things words refer to are "signified" in language. Example: we use the word "dog" to represent the idea of a dog. But the word itself is not a dog (well, of course!).
Also, language must exist as a whole unit in order for individual words to have relevance. Explanation: every word is defined by its difference from every other word's meaning (kind of like colors). Without an extensive vocabulary, individual words would lose their meaning, just like without other colors to compare it to, one color would loose its meaning.

Silence is vital to communication--language just can't make the cut sometimes. Silence is quite possibly the best way to say what you mean, with no words to get in the way. Silence also leaves an incredibly blank slate upon what could turn into an overly wordy situation. Sometimes M.Snowe wishes that she could walk through NYC and not hear any speech while being silent herself--just amble up sidewalks and communicate with the streets in silence--and try to better understand it all. Sometimes trying to say what you mean gets you further away than where you started.

Silence (as a communicative tool) can be confused between people, to be sure. But M.Snowe would like to propose that speech is actually more tricky than silence to comprehend. There are outright liars, fibbers, and people who like to consider themselves as innocently "bending facts." Then there are people who want to say the right things, or communicate directly, but they just don't execute. It's a spectrum of all shades, a rainbow of spoken confusion with no gold at the end in sight. People spend incredible amounts of time puzzling out what people mean from the most mundane of statements. Chances are they will never know from studying the words. The fact of the matter is: the words you say (or can't say) will never fully do the job. The signifier will never be the signified. What "you mean" and what you say never quite meet. And we wonder why things are so disconnected, on a global or a personal scale.When all this becomes clear--that's when we should turn to silence. Not only because it transmits multitudes, but because it leaves an aspect of untarnished mystery--it respects the fact that we can't communicate perfectly--unlike language and it's futile attempts at lucidity.

Some people in the city find silence unnerving, or uncomfortable. Beware these people. It suggests that they are unnerved or uncomfortable with their thoughts (or with your thoughts) and impulses. But if you can find people who are secure and comfortable with silence now and then in this city of verbosity, and can read the silences...

Diagrams, Subways, and extro-introspection.

M. Snowe was riding the subway home last night, and got on a delayed train that waited five to ten minutes at every stop, "due to an earlier incident" of which there was no further information other than the cagey subway announcements. To make things hairier, while in transit, the trains slowly crept through the tunnels, as if the driver was being overly cautious. The conductor intermittently blew the loud, jarring horn as the train jostled down the dark tunnels of topographic, gray-black concrete etching past the windows.

After some attempts at focusing on a book, it became clear that observing the other passengers was the far superior alternative. Feeling slightly forlorn about how the world likes to play hooky with your hopes and dreams, and maybe attend to them another far-off day, M.Snowe was open to a distraction. The train wasn't overly crowded, so it was hard to focus on someone in a direct line of sight, for fear of being spotted as a voyeur. Resolutely glancing to both sides, one woman was absorbed at the ads above the windows, and the other, in the seat directly to the right, was reading from a rather heavy-looking textbook, with stark white edges. The book was open to somewhere in the middle of the roughly 800 pages, and though the actual text was a bit too far away to make out, the headings and the pictures and diagrams were clear.

The woman so engrossed in this book was studying psychology. The author and name of the book was indistinguishable, as the cover was firmly resting against her lap, but the headings on the open page referenced clinical signs of mood disorders, and the attributes and signals of their appearance in young adults and adolescents. Nothing too out of the ordinary, to be sure. But a diagram/picture on the page opposite M.Snowe was at once hilarious, saddening, and some form of divine kismet. It had to be kismet, because out of the 800-plus pages this woman could have turned to, here it was, staring M.Snowe in the face. There was the outline of a woman (decidedly a female form, due to the hair length, and slight outline of a bust). It was just a lavender shape--no actual face or features--kind of like a stick figure, or the sign on a bathroom door. This was the image slightly obscured, featured behind the actual diagram. The diagram consisted of three different-colored pastel circles. One was hovering by the woman-shaped left shoulder, the other on the right shoulder, and one below at the woman-shape's feet. Each circle was connected to the other with an arrow, pointing to the next circle, in a clockwise direction, forming a slightly drunken-looking triangle. Inside the first circle to the left shoulder of the woman, the word "shyness" appeared. Then, the arrow crossed over the woman's clavicle to the next circle, which simply said "loneliness." The arrow from that circle pointed to the bottom circle, at the shape's feet. One word was here: "depression."

Well, this diagram has a lot to say in three words, and M.Snowe thought it was making quite a few presumptions. Some people plot out the problems contained in this simplistic chart with more philosophical, metaphysical, or intellectual intricacy than a Joyce novel or Aristotelian text. M.Snowe's revelations upon glimpsing this chart induced more laughter than most would view as appropriate, and the woman looked over, momentarily quizzical, then turned her attention back to the book. M.Snowe thought to herself: "What a diagram! So, that's how it all works!...If only there was a chart that allowed us, the undefined, lavender, shadowy shapes riding on trains, to move counterclockwise, and achieve an opposite result." But perhaps M.Snowe just needs to be riding next to this woman on a different day, while reading a different page. And perhaps the editors of this book formulated this diagram for just this purpose (or momentary subway revelation): to make sure that we're not taking ourselves so seriously, and perhaps the grim ideas we entertain introspectively just need to be snappily simplified, preferably in pastel circles and drowsily looping arrows.

Hinges

The Missing All — prevented Me
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World's
Departure from a Hinge—
Or Sun's extinction, be observed —
'Twas not so large that I
Could lift my Forehead from my work
For Curiosity.
-E. Dickinson

"First you need a good job. You need to be ambitious. You need to find a good apartment. You need to look good. Then you need to find someone, and they must also have all these things. Then, you need to get a raise, so that you can save enough for ...." --Random street talk.

Overhearing random conversations, it has become apparent that these aspects of life in the city seem to be paramount, and one hinges upon the next like cardboard paper dolls attached at the hand. Then, M.Snowe started thinking about hinges.

Hinges, by definition, are not autonomous--they can exist by themselves, but for them to perform their function, fulfill their humble nature--they rely upon other completely different, yet intertwined parts. Hinges are vital for opening and closing doors. They often are multiple--at least two or three to an object, used in tandem. They have fixed axises, and connect two solid objects together in order for the whole contraption to operate smoothly.

That's the literal hinge at least. Figuratively, to have something "hinged" by something else denotes that for one thing to occur, something else must also happen in order for a desired result (Hence, the connection of two objects). Hinging can occur with solid objects of the human form as well. For someone to "hinge" their emotions or actions on some event or person is a dangerous, but ultimately unavoidable and frequent practice. Usually, hinging you life or even just aspects of your life on or around something or someone else is an unwise and fitful pursuit. The universally given advice is thus: "don't hinge your happiness upon some thing/person."

Making sure that you don't hinge your livelihood on someone/something else is compelling advice, to be sure. Unfortunately, like so many pieces of advice, the message provided is multitudes easier to convey than to actually put into practice. But how is it that the opposite of figurative hinging is also a negative? To be "unhinged" is perhaps even worse than to hinge--in that it implies you've lost touch, lost your sense of reality. Perhaps the truth is that when we hinge, we actually become unhinged.

How? Because, similar to door hinges, if someone/something does not perform the way we desire it to, (and we've hinged upon it), then we are stuck--stuck feeling low, stuck feeling unaccomplished, stuck feeling incomplete. Incompletion is perhaps the best description out of that bunch. There is a disturbance, and we can't go forward. For a world so obsessed with the Cult of the Individual, attached to ipods and blackberries and distracting devices that place us all inside digital bubbles--suddenly--we are only half of ourselves...and we're not sure how to cope. And so we get desperate. We try to patch things up.

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind —
As if my Brain had split —
I tried to match it — Seam by Seam —
But could not make it fit.

The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before —
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound
Like Balls — upon a Floor.

New York is full of hinges--the literal, and the figurative. Every door squeaks with a grim finality of overused determination, and every choice made seems to have more, larger hinges on it than the all doors to St. Patrick's cathedral combined--Some people are looking for money, others, success--and still others, a relationship or an apartment. And it seems that happiness and fulfillment hinge on an individually-defined amalgam of all these things. Our minds are cleaved in so many fractions of "needs," hinged one upon one another, pell-mell, with the hope of wholeness thrown in at some undetermined end, for good measure. As we hinge all the circumstances and conditional phrases together, we lose all sense of where to let the happiness reside in the partitioned, hinged mess of what we hope to be. It seems like Dickinson wasn't writing poems for the pastoral peoples of Massachusetts, but for the harried harpies of New York City, circa 2008. Do we have too many balls in the air, and (to rather ungraciously mix some metaphors), are all those balls hinged together into a hodge-podge of unnecessary and unattainable goals?

To be fair, we have been trained to see things linearly--cause and effect, actions and karma, one year after the next--all in sequence. There is always a precluding factor, and no one can really be sure whether it was the chicken or the egg. Everything is one giant matrix of "if, then" statements. No wonder we adhere to hinges, which normally only swing in one direction, and restrict the ability to take an alternate path. You can go one way, or another, and each has a different set of consequences.

But it's important to remember, as people with emotional and physical needs, some hinges are a good and necessary part of life--no one is asking you to disregard those who you love. In fact, it is the determination of which limited set of hinges you cannot live without that makes life worth living.

We met as Sparks — Diverging Flints
Sent various — scattered ways —
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze —
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark —
A Flint unto this Day — perhaps —
But for that single Spark.

Melancholy Moods and Wandering While Waiting

Despite how many people constantly try to define the City as one thing or another, it's obvious that to any one person, at any one time, the city can and will inspire differing emotions.

Once, a friend who was familiar with the packed streets of Hong Kong and other Asian cities made the offhand comment that New York was the best possible place to be "surrounded, packed wall to wall with people, and yet feel completely and utterly alone." Well, keeping all razor blades at a safe distance from your wrists--we regret to inform you that in some circumstances this can ring true. It is, however, a short-lived experience of loneliness, if that helps. Despite the best attempts to stay in a sorrowful or forlorn mood, the city is almost asking you to get out of yourself while you walk the street. The city is not like your life-long friend, offering condolences, but more like your pushy aunt or crazy neighbor--annoying you just enough so you're too pissed or distracted to remember just exactly what you were too pissed or distracted with five minutes ago. The subways stall, someone steps on the back of your shoe, a street advertiser for the comedy show around the corner heckles you. The question to be asked is whether life is lived when you're contemplating your life, or when you're telling off, under your breath, the guy who budged you in the coffee line. Once and a while, you'll meet a friendly stranger, or someone who actually gives to the poor, or helps out an elderly person. But those experiences are few and far between, and because they are so, they are often met with shock, contempt, or even a conniving sense that something must be "in it for them," when in fact the exact opposite is probably true. Amidst all this outer chaos, the coffee stains, and contemplation, you can never really be alone.

The city is also a great place to roam while trying to forget that you are, in fact, waiting for something. Now, not all the time--but in those instances when you have plans, or are walking from one place to the next. Some might say that the city is in fact a large, concrete distraction--but it's better and simultaneously worse than that. Waiting is, by definition the suspension of some hoped-for event. The hope might be the positive, anticipatory kind, or the egregious hope that comes with wanting something to be over quickly.

More waiting is done on a regular basis than the events themselves waited for, if they occur at all. Of course, the worst form of waiting is done when the hoped for event is sincerely wished yet completely and undeniably unlikely to ever occur. The funny part of such waiting is that we, as a species, still have the genetic predisposition towards a triumvirate of combined gumption, fortitude, and stupidity that makes us able to wait. Our tendency to accept the dilatory days, weeks, and years is an accomplishment, but one tinged with regret and futility. Once every now and then, we are given what could be described as the "Heideggerian Wake-Up Call"--We are smacked with the reality of the possibility that everything can and will be taken away. Perhaps someone dies, or nearly dies--and suddenly a new sense of purpose is added, like a sweetener to our life-drink, and everything we do is heightened, analyzed for it's purpose, disregarded for it's superficiality, etc. Heidegger judged death not as a single event, but an event of nearly unlimited moments. In other words, he believed that every passing moment was the equivalent of a "little" death, and that what lay in front of all people was not some unknown future of life, but nothing...a blank space that people hope contains future life, when in actuality, it contains a void. Heidegger's scholarship on "Being" is some of the more difficult out there, but it's well worth the trouble. Because once you realize that the blank space is blank, it instills a sense that what you are now, is all you can bank on, scarily enough. But people can't live their lives in a way that only acknowledges the present--at least most don't attempt to. But there has to be some less-precarious medium, where we are allowed to bank on a future while knowing that we must do our best to make the most of the present. It is the feeling that we are unable to steer the present or nearly-present that gets everybody in a twist, whether they are aware of it or not. So we've made Waiting a noble sport. And where better to play than New York?

Wild Bill

South Dakota. Land of Mount Rushmore, that famous granite sculpture of four of the most recognizable American presidents. They look down upon their dominion with austere ease--they're not going anywhere anytime soon. It's a national treasure (if you ignore the slight snag about stealing Native American lands originally granted to them in perpetuity). It is an immobile tribute to the American people's ability to actually carve the American landscape into submission. Well, South Dakota has been carving more than its granite strata--it's been chipping away at the constitution, and seeking a viable candidate test case to challenge Roe v. Wade. Apparently, the mentality of rock-solid men looking down upon their subjects with paternalistic/patronizing stares has seeped into the state legislature's guiding mentality.

If you don't think this is a fair judgment of that noble Midwestern state, then you probably haven't read the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals' latest decision on the matter of abortion procedure within South Dakota, which is detailed in the SD House Bill 1166. Here is the list of requirements for a physician performing an abortion and a patient that is contemplating or has scheduled a abortion procedure:

The provisions of § 7 relevant to the preliminary injunction are as
follows (emphases added by the court):

- No abortion may be performed unless the physician first obtains a
voluntary and informed written consent of the pregnant woman upon
whom the physician intends to perform the abortion, unless the physician
determines that obtaining an informed consent is impossible due to a
medical emergency and further determines that delaying in performing
the procedure until an informed consent can be obtained from the
pregnant woman or her next of kin in accordance with chapter 34-12C
is impossible due to the medical emergency, which determinations shall
then be documented in the medical records of the patient. A consent to
an abortion is not voluntary and informed, unless, in addition to any
other information that must be disclosed under the common law doctrine,
the physician provides that pregnant woman with the following
information:
(1) A statement in writing providing the following information:
(a) The name of the physician who will perform the abortion;
(b) That the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate,
unique, living human being;
(c) That the pregnant woman has an existing relationship with
that unborn human being and that the relationship enjoys
protection under the United States Constitution and under the
laws of South Dakota;
(d) That by having an abortion, her existing relationship and her
existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will
be terminated;
(e) A description of all known medical risks of the procedure and
statistically significant risk factors to which the pregnant woman
would be subjected, including:
(i) Depression and related psychological distress;
(ii) Increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide;
* * *
* * *
(2) A statement by telephone or in person, by the physician who is to
perform the abortion, or by the referring physician, or by an agent of
both, at least twenty-four hours before the abortion, providing the
following information:
(a) That medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal
care, childbirth, and neonatal care;
(b) That the father of the unborn child is legally responsible to
provide financial support for her child following birth, and that
this legal obligation of the father exists in all instances, even in
instances in which the father has offered to pay for the abortion;
(c) The name, address, and telephone number of a pregnancy help
center in reasonable proximity of the abortion facility where the
abortion will be performed; . . .
* * *
[¶ 2] Prior to the pregnant woman signing a consent to the abortion, she
shall sign a written statement that indicates that the requirements of this
section have been complied with. Prior to the performance of the
abortion, the physician who is to perform the abortion shall receive a
copy of the written disclosure documents required by this section, and
shall certify in writing that all of the information described in those
subdivisions has been provided to the pregnant woman, that the
physician is, to the best of his or her ability, satisfied that the pregnant
woman has read the materials which are required to be disclosed, and
that the physician believes she understands the information imparted.

M.Snowe will make the following concessions, in order to show that she is trying to look at this legislation from multiple sides:
1. It is important that anyone undergoing any medical procedure understand what they are getting into, and most medical procedures do require written consent. Fine.
2. Sadly, there are people out there who need to be informed of certain options available to them that they would otherwise not have known about. Okay.

But here's the problem: Abortion is a unique procedure, in that it is a female-only procedure performed for a plethora of reasons, with implications not only medical but social, ethical, religious, etc. That is not to say that other procedures don't combine these larger considerations (such as stem-cell research or cochlear implants), but we are truly rubbing up against some of the largest questions we all must address sooner or later: what is life, how do we define it, and given our knowledge of it, what form of dominion or control can we claim upon it? These are heavy questions worth the debate that is given to them, despite the ultimate futility of ever reaching a conclusion (M.Snowe would be weary of someone who claims they've got the right answers).

But here's the problems with this bill:
First:
It uses the idea of informed consent to legitimize overemphasis in hopes of "spooking" the women seeking an abortion. When someone goes in for, say a heart transplant surgery, they should be told by their surgeon about the method of the procedure, the possible risks, etc.--this is important. But the doctor is not required to explain what will happen to the patient's old heart, or to make a claim that you are violating nature by taking out what was given to you by your creator (or your parent's DNA). There is no informed consent clause about "your unique heart, and the possibility of forever losing a part of yourself oft connected with emotion in sonnets and romances." A woman knows that an abortion is the end of a pregnancy--that is why she is there. She does not need to be lectured with: "the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being."
Also, this statement is insanely inaccurate--like the example of the heart transplant, both a heart or a fetus separated in the early months from the body of the patient has no chance at being "whole" or living a "separate" life of it's own. You cannot count the life as a separate one at this point medically--you could conjecture that should the mother deliver the child, the intended life would be lived, but that is not the sense of this statement.
Second:
A sad attempt at scare tactics:
"That by having an abortion, her existing relationship and her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated;"
This is what M.Snowe calls the "eye for a fetus" punishment scheme. It basically says, rather snarkily, that: "you better not abort, or we're going to abort one of your constitutional rights...though this right really isn't relevant, and we're not even sure if we understand what we're saying." Basically, the phrase means that once you abort the fetus, that fetus is no longer protected by the Constitution, and therefore neither are any rights you might try to claim for it. Well, not to be simplistic about this, but: Duh. Once something is inanimate, or no longer living, or no longer has the possibility of being a living person, it cannot be protected constitutionally. This sentence of the bill spirals and is intentionally cryptic--trying to "fool" people into thinking that they are missing out on some much-needed protection, when really, it is moot.
Third:
Depression and Suicide Warnings.
Number one: is this verifiable...quantifiable? Does anyone do any studies on the number of women out there who possibility considered abortion, then had a child and ended up with post-pardum depression, or committed suicide? M.Snowe finds that unlikely. This is another scare tactic--and so thinly veiled that M.Snowe can see the hanging noose and lone chair behind the curtain.
Fourth:
The possibility of pre- and post-natal care, and the legal requirement of child support from the father.
This rather horribly assumes the monetary greed/concerns of those women choosing to abort. It basically screams: "You're going to destroy your fetus because you don't want to deal with the monetary burden, but we're going to try and stop you, because greed and avarice is your motive and life force--we're surprised your fetus isn't made entirely of greenbacks." Not only is this incredibly condescending and distressing, the so-called "assistance" being offered is not even comforting, or truthful. Even if, on the off chance you took monetary needs into the consideration of abortion, the state of South Dakota offers no assurance that they will indeed deliver either health care, or the child support. The bill says care "may be available," and it says that fathers are "legally responsible" but never says they would help you track down the father, or help to make him fulfill his legal responsibility. But at least you could rest on your laurels, I suppose.
Fifth:
"...that the physician believes she understands the information imparted."
What the legislators really wanted to say:
"Dear Physician: you best make sure these women-folk know what they're getting into, those ignorant louts."
- Obviously, this assumes that women are incapable of understanding the most simple of terms, although, come to think of it, the bill did just say that a woman was terminating the life of something completely whole and separate, yet it cannot sustain life outside her womb. Maybe it is confusing...

Perpendicular Parallels

Walking down 59th street today, M.Snowe found that the Plaza Hotel, overlooking the park, welcomes its guests with bellhops, concierges, and the unmistakable smell of equine fecal matter. The carriages waiting for over-eager tourists line up on the other side of the road, across from the hotel, and the smell whaffs all the way from the plaza to the Mickey Mantle's down the road. How does anyone eat at all at those ritzy outdoor cafes along the street?

But then, aren't the most times, events, and relationships kind of like that? Don't all our memories and even happy happenstances have, well, the twinge of something unpleasant? And usually, aren't the things we look for in life, that we hold in the highest regard, in fact brought down several notches once we experience them?

New York has lots of contradictions and perpendicularisms. The best restaurants in town leave their abandoned, rotting foie gras on the street corners that people step in with their $200 shoes, unawares, the next morning. But it's not just the businesses that operate in this way--the people too. The young girls with overlarge glasses ahead of you in the lunch line, complaining about their boyfriends and the lack of consideration they show---are the very same ones who snap at the server behind the counter for no reason. The crazy people are accepted as a fact of city life, whereas the perfectly sane and friendly tourists are the first victims to be considered in any new yorker's fantasy subway mutiny. Everyone is a hypocrite at some time, but it seems that NYC is the best place to find the most sharp examples--and they cut you through the skin, or at least make you laugh. The people that seem the most transparent, the easiest to read and understand--they can be the most elusive to get at when you really dig deep. NYC, unlike many other places, is an atmosphere that knows real estate and space is limited--people talk about the most private things, or make the most insane comments in front of a passing public without a second thought because privacy is at a minimum. And because we are thrown together in such tight quarters with such a variety of people, it is easy to assume a comfort level with people who you might not otherwise have established a repoire with in say, Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Bangor, Maine. The inter workings are closer spatially, but it feels like sometimes, the people standing next to you on the street and in the trains, are half a world away.

Hiatus Over -- Time for "a little more love"

M.Snowe ends what seems like a long hiatus of many summer weeks to get down to business with some literary reflections.

"She had been warned she would be unhappy; and she ended by asking him for a dose of medicine and a little more love." (15)

This is a quote in reference to the first Madame Bovary--not Emma, the protagonist of Flaubert's precise and beautifully articulated tome. But it could apply to almost all the characters, who needed more love, and sought it, but ended up ultimately unsatisfied.

Flaubert has a distinct flair for two things (among others, to be sure): catching the absolute necessity and simultaneous ridiculousness of human desire, and the ability to set a scene like no other writer M.Snowe has read in a long time. Being a Flaubert neophyte, with a slightly pronounced literary obsession with writers such as Henry James, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Bronte, it was both refreshing and unnerving to read about a woman who actually "gets some"--nineteenth-century style. But what all the tales of Emma's indiscretions show is that perhaps just maybe all those other sexually-frustrated/unfulfilled heroines from James and Bronte were lucky to stay out of the messiness of the carnal fray. But that's a bit unreasonable...

Some of Flaubert's images, the capsulizing of scenes was very similar to what others, like James, are known for executing. Flaubert apparently has a light/sun/fire fetish, and the effects of light on scenes and the people in them. The scene where Charles Bovary essentially "checks out" Emma, as she sits by the fire place in the kitchen, is , to pun, illuminating. But in direct juxtaposition to the light that shines and highlights certain features, the characters themselves are in a state of utter bewilderment by what they think they see, and how they interpret the scenes before them. We too as readers, observing the beauty of Flaubert's descriptions, are fooled into thinking that the beauty of the scene will reveal truths. But what we get is a messy, soap-opera-like saga of one not-so-nice woman's illicit trysts, and the men she bores of. One shouldn't be too hard on Emma Bovary, but if you come away pitying her too much, that isn't good either. Charles is perhaps the most tragic figure of the novel, in that at least his love, misguided as it was, never waned from it's subject. Emma's voracious need to feed her definition of love and desire controlls her entire being. She is a woman obsessed, forever "waiting for something to happen." She, "like shipwrecked sailors, turned despairing eyes on the solitude of her life, seeking a far off some white sail in the mists of the horizon." Well, Flaubert knew all too well that when someone strives for a far-off sail, they often come to meet an island of sirens, or other Homeric creatures of the deep leading them towards peril, when they would otherwise could have left well-enough alone. If M.Snowe was to summarize the novel in a sentence, it would be something about Emma's inability to leave well-enough alone. Interestingly, in a James or Wharton novel, the opposite might be true: the characters left well-enough alone, and suffered dearly for it. So is there a happy-medium author, in which some desires are fulfilled, and some foregone but not torturous to let go of? And if there was/is such a writer writing such books, would they really be that entertaining?

For the life of her, M.Snowe has decided that although it's nice to see a female protagonist of the 1800s actually engaging in some naughty behavior--because practically every novel of the time period has men doing the same--she'd rather read the books where the behavior is ardently striven for, but ultimately denied. Perhaps this allows the characters to have a more innocently tragic frame. But it's more than that. Emma soon discovers amidst her trysts that she "detests commonplace heroes and moderate sentiments, as there are in nature." Emma's desirous thirst for fulfillment leads her from one lover to the next, from one money loan to the next, and all to her and her family's destruction. Ambition is one thing, but blind pursuit of novelistically inspired happiness is quite another. The more you seek it, and the more you receive, the more you want. Your tolerance is expanded... and so you need more. The greatest "takeaway" of this story (if you're one of those people searching for morals) isn't that you shouldn't have extra-marital affairs--it's that you should understand the difference between what is possible in fiction and in reality--and be very weary when the lines are blurred. There's no mistaking that Flaubert does not want you to imitate Emma--she is self-consumed, an unloving mother, and a completely blinded pleasure-seeker. In that way, we must applaud her as at least a unique, stand-out personality in the long list of memorable 19th women characters. But that is where we part ways, Madame--unless we too want to be "eaten up with desires, with rage, with hate."

Latest Stats

The latest statistics have come out from the United States Alliance of Police Department Precincts. To sum up, the occurrence of sexual assaults perpetrated by women, on men, has risen--which can be of no surprise to anyone, whether living in a major city or rural town. The reports of male rape committed by females, and inappropriate grabbing and assault has caused a national crises, with some men going so far as to wear their sports-intended protective devices while walking down the streets. As many of you may know (or may have experienced), women will often target lone men, walking drunk from the bars or perhaps distracted after a late night at work. Often, the men will run screaming, and searching for their minuscule cans of maze attached to the key chain ring on their belt buckles. All in vain--it is too late. Sometimes, the women will slip a little something in men's drinks, and carefully wait until they pass out, and haul them home like clubbed baby seals. Obviously, this is more a practice of larger, stronger women. The Alliance suggests, as a precaution, that smaller men stay vigilant--especially if hit on by a taller or bigger woman, or if that chick at the gym with the biceps bats her eyes at you.
In terms of defensive maneuvers, here are some suggestions that the Alliance released in it's official statement on the "war on man-assault":

- Always consider clothing--if you dress like a man-whore, you are a man-whore.

- Women can and will jump you on the streets at any hour, despite the location--however, avoid lonely mall parking lots after a big sale, and around movie theaters after the late-night showing of the newest romantic-comedy.

- Always travel in groups--although this may increase the desire of women who are likely to assault, it will at least be advisable to adopt a "wildebeest mentality" and allow the weaker men to be picked off, while you stay safely in the middle of the pack

- If you do find yourself in an assault--make loud noises and aim to hit her in the spot where the sun don't....wait...you may just have to keep hitting, seeing as everything's internal.

- Always remember: it is not your fault. But you are the victim, and ultimately you will be held responsible for the greater part of reporting, reliving, and reciting the incident for the larger percentage of the time.

- People will feel sorry for you, and baby you, and tell you to move out of the neighborhood where the incident occurred. You might feel that the woman who assaulted you should leave, but you don't even know what she looks like, so our advice is to forget about it and suffer in silence.

What is the Alliance doing to combat this horrible epidemic of social chaos?
Here's their short list:
- anti-violence training workshops available for women (optional unless convicted of prior crimes)
- AA Programs (Assault Anonymous for females)
- regular and increased patrols around aforementioned congregation and incident areas
- male awareness campaigns, and self-defense classes
- workplace awareness programs ala sexual harassment model
- school-age workshops for young girls about respect for all bodies
and more...

This all seem a bit unrealistic? Good.
But, when can we live in a world where it also seems ludicrous for sexual assaults to be committed by males with female victims?
What gives one sex the rather dubious right to be expected to perpetrate such crimes? And for the other sex to just sit back and take it, or have little or no recourse when they don't?


post script on the "The United States Alliance of Police Department Precincts": M.Snowe made the organization up...

Trains

Everyone who rides the subway inevitably sees a lot of odd stuff go down. People who file into their cars at the end of day have no concept of what they are missing, whether for the best or the worst. After a long enough period of time on the train, if you travel without companions, public transportation is somehow transformed to a semi-private form of mobility--you no longer fully acknowledge the other people on the train--or if you do, they are more like the scenery you would train your eyes to look past as you speed down the highway. Sometimes in the mornings, you vaguely recognize the same people who get on your train daily, but often at night, if your schedule is at all varied, you never really see the same people, and this provides a comfort level of anonymity. You might, and probably never will, see these people again. And that's the beauty of it, isn't it? You could pass your trip under the radar, unobserved and at peace, or you could make a total ass of yourself by accident, and either way the incident passes into the vacuum of things that really don't matter. Even if other people on the train remember you, or you them, there is no outlet for significance (except perhaps a blog post). But that is not entirely true. Although the people may not be particularly significant in terms of personal relationship, the education you get from riding might just be worth the exorbitant monthly ticket price.

M.Snowe is always struck by the surprises that commonly arise in course of a subway ride. Here are a few of the enlightening summaries that one new to subway riding should be aware of:

1. Expect the unexpected.
This means that anything can and will occur. But usually, these feats of unbelievability take on a more mundane yet no less profound aspect. Example: A dirty, grungy guy schleps into the train and plops down next to you. He's wearing some fancy kicks and has a bandanna. Everything about him says hardcore thug. Then, he whips out a copy of Aeschylus' plays and digs in. Lesson: Never judge a person by their cover, the cover of their book is much more telling in terms of their theory of mind.

2. Be ready for some singing.
People with and without Ipods will sing, hum, scat, a cappella, and rap. Sometimes they are looking for money. Other times they are completely unaware that anyone else is listening, or cares. While some people find this burdensome, M.Snowe believes it to be the final breaths of our collective consciousness, which with the advent of ipods, mobile phones and other isolating devices, has been ailing so long it is in its final death throes. So please, listen to the swan song of these "crazy" and inconsiderate simple folk.

3. Your mood dictates the quality of your ride.
This is less subway info than a general commentary on the nature of travel. For instance, while in a good mood, even the most annoying fellow travelers can be passed with only mild irritation, or the disagreeability of others in response to annoyances seems to be drastically out of proportion. You wonder "why is everyone getting so bent out of shape by something as small as public urination?"

more to follow...

Aristophanes' Story (As told by Socrates), while reading Bellow

Back in political philosophy class, M.Snowe read Plato's Symposium. Thinking it was fairly good, we remembered most of the lessons taught along with it. This weekend, we were forced to begin reading Ravelstein (and when we say "forced" it's implied that it's required reading, not that M.Snowe would ever pass up an opportunity to at least start reading something new). Ravelstein, published in 2000, is a novel centered around a political philosophy professor of much renown who's best-selling book propels him to wealth and fame. So naturally, the Symposium must be cited somewhere in the book--it was only a matter of time. The narrator, a friend of Ravelstein, talks about perhaps the most hilarious, serious, and memorable part of Plato's discourse on the nature of the human condition in the Symposium. It is Aristophanes' myth on the nature of desire.
Note: This is not actually Aristophanes, but Plato writing about the character of Aristophanes within the Socratic story. Aristophanes' actual writings, such as his play, Clouds, are wonderfully funny, satiric, and worthy of a read--but this story is meant to be something that Aristophanes might say--not what he actually did.
So here's the brief synopsis:

Aristophanes, when it is his turn at the symposium to explain his beliefs on the nature of the human condition with special emphasis on desire, tells a story of the gods and the original state of humans. He claims that people once possessed two pairs of legs, arms, and two heads, etc. They were "rollie-pollie" people--they rolled around, and also possessed two sex organs--some with a male and female, some with a pair of the same organs. They were intelligent and happy, and completely whole. They required nothing, and therefore set their sights on the one thing they did not have: god-like status and power, unlike their rulers on Mount Olympus. Their ambition was fierce, and the people began to try and roll up and overthrow the gods. Seeing this, Zeus threw down his lightning bolts upon the people. It did not kill them, but it split them all into two--making them beings exactly as we are today, with two legs, two arms, walking upright, and with one sexual organ. It is because we as humans remember our previous state as "whole beings"--perfectly joined to one another--that we cannot be satisfied, and seek out our other "half." The gods then threatened all people that should they seek to overthrow again, we would be split again, and continue to be less whole and more desirous of completion than we even are now.

Of course, Aristophanes' story is flawed in that it does not explain the origins of desire--if the "whole" people weren't pushed by desire to overtake the gods, then we would still all (according to fictional Aristophanes) have four arms and legs each. But the story does try and explain the desire of us two-legged, single-sexed people. The most tragic part of Aristophanes' story, and Plato's Symposium is the irretrievable completion and simultaneous human striving for wholeness, for any scrap of it that we can grasp, knowing full-well that the possibility of fulfillment is a momentary hold at best. But that is the nature of desire--without the absence of something, there is no desire for it. And without an absence to strive for, our condition would be more tragic than our current reality. And that's why M.Snowe doesn't understand some people's hopes for a heaven (usually religious people).

Poetic Reflections (M.Snowe graffatis poems she's been pondering lately)

T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919) (It's best to start with a favorite) (--commentary in italics--)

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

--m.snowe wishes she could say/do some things, and then as soon as appropriate, wipe away the memory of her words/actions from the minds of all who saw/heard, just so she could feel the effect and weigh the choice of her full-disclosure--

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

--Lately, overwhelmed seems like an understatement. Something happens, and your world is changed. It could be anything, but most likely it is a mundane event, something that perhaps has happened to you many, many times before, just at a different location, or with different people. Suddenly, you've made a revelation. And it is sudden--sure, you may have seen it lurking, slouching towards Bethlehem if you will, but faint anticipation has nothing on the full-force of combined realization and emotional impact--it's like being pummeled from all angles in the brain, and physically being pummeled to the ground, with a slowed and achy after-effect. The funny part is you are hyper-functional: things get done. But you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't carry on an extended thought farther than the corner of the next avenue before you are pulled back into the fray of your overwhelming revelation.--

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michangelo.

--Time passes, but you don't want it to. You only relive all moments connected with your revelation-that is more real than reality, as far as you're concerned.--

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

--you've been transformed-you are no longer that participatory being, but the surveyor, the outer one who effects no change and wishes no change except the overwhelming revelation.--

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

--you try to fool yourself with waiting-but you know better-the waiting is a necessary evil, the delusitory front of action in your self-determined path of non-action--

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

--more time, nothing changes--

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

--these questions, all these questions--none are answered, and none have a home outside your head. Do people really know each other?--

For I have known them all already, known them all:--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

--Already knowing and simultaneously hating the end of the plot, how do you bring yourself to live out the story?--

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

--How are you yourself when what you say and what you think is diametrically opposed, or at least deceitful to your thoughts? It's one thing to lie on purpose, but it's quite another to lie for a noble or unshameful purpose.--

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic latern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

--How are experiences judged when you have no idea what the other is thinking? What really happens?--

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

--You can deny all you want, but we are all our own keepers.--

I grow old . . .I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

--Amazing how we stay afloat when overwhelming thoughts are bearing down, against our untold judgment--

Jane Austen Project

Anyone clever, witty, and imaginatively rich, with the comfort of being able to read for leisure and a happy disposition would do best to emphasize all these qualities by reading a little bit more Jane Austen. When reading her work, all that vexes you can easily slip away--for at least a few "delicious" moments. (either that, or your emotions are heightened and aggravated to the acutest sense, but we hope they aren't.)

People seem to think that writers like Austen have lost most of their relevance. This is simply not true. Yes, we play sudoku, not whist, and we dash off emails, not long involved letters in cursive. We're more impressed with sports cars and SUVs than with chaise and fours, and it's debatable whether anyone can have a good tete a tete anymore. But what Austen did, that many writers, if not most, can and could not, was to not only encapsulate the spirit of the age, but she also captured the spirit of the human condition. Underneath all the 18th Century finery lays a picture stripped bare of all the outer pretension. There are just people: sensible people, vain people, silly people, innocent people, conflicted people, horrible people...and the list goes on. The outer aspects/attributes of them all might change, but the inner drives and motivations are remarkably unchanged from age to age. Pick up any Austen story, and you'll find the emotions you felt when you were this age, or the exact sketch of your best friend or worst enemy at that age. And the absolute notion that we all exist in a world commonly shared, and yet individually experienced rings true--we all know the world, but we can only surmise how each and every one of us relates it to ourselves. The ability to have and understand human relationships is what Jane Austen writes best, and it would be best if we made ourselves amiable, and took up her lengthy volumes of advice.

On Jane Austen in the present.

Fin

After less than a few days of voracious reading, The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton was placed reluctantly onto my bookshelf, right near The House of Mirth, and a rather extensive collection of V. Woolf collections... Before starting to read the book, reviews were consulted, and many reviewers of the book, when comparing it to Mirth, decided that it was not, in fact, tragic. And yes, if your definition of tragedy is the rather barbaric definition that squarely says: "Everybody Dies", well then, you'd be spot on target. There is a place and a time for the argument that death is needed to make a tragedy both painful and painfully exquisite (search Shakespeare for those examples). But sometimes, the most exquisite tragedies are in the monotony of life lived in an unwanted attitude, beyond will, yet the alternatives are beyond the reaches of possibility. Henry James was perhaps the best practitioner of such stories, with characters who may not die, but live lives of self-inflicted and yet utterly unavoidable cerebral entrapment. For the characters to veer from their rather undesirable, long-lived fates would be a breach of their own personal human condition. Edith Wharton also understood this tragic set-up that made stories so powerful.

In The Age of Innocence, the protagonist, Newland Archer, is skirting the brink of social ruin with the Countess Olenska. Archer is married to the beautiful yet (as he considers) simple-minded and society-molded May. While the reader might detect a flicker of brilliance or self-possession in May, Archer is too blinded by Ellen Olenska to notice. Ellen, married to an abusive Polish Count, has traveled back to NYC where her family remained, hoping for solace and relief from a horrible marriage. Of course, in that time, the woman, despite the amount of abuse inflicted upon her, was just as scandalized by leaving her rotten husband than the Count himself. She remains married, and so it is doubly impossible for Archer--he is married, and could never leave his wife to marry an already married Ellen. Ellen and Archer barely touch hands throughout the book--and the reader is never given the satisfaction of a loving embrace--just as the characters never get one either. A few years of Archer's young life are spent in pursuit of a pittance of time that could be contained within the length of a longish movie, at most--and yet his entire being, his methods of thought, his actions and illusions--all surround this one object of affection. And truly, he fetishizes her with unbounded imagination, an imagination being the only real place where people of the early 1900s could freely contemplate their "heathen" natures or thoughts. The end is similar to what many misguided people consider the plot of a Jamesian novel: nothing happens. There is an epilogue of sorts, where we fast forward to show an older Newland Archer, one who stayed committed to May, and at the last refuses to see Ellen Olenska when he gets the chance 20 years after their last parting. Despite Archer's own refusal to find what he thought was happiness and his acceptance of the mundane reality of his marriage, he still holds on to the memory of a better age, an exciting time, despite its lack of a true climax (either ideologically or sexually). It is at once the best and most horrific tragedy--one held up to the closest point of a culmination, and yet it never quite gets there, it just dissipates, as if the action were quickly scaling a cliff, only to slowly, with regret, turn back from whence it came, without getting a view from the apex. It is the wish for that resolution, that final look, that keeps the book afresh, and keeps the readers coming back. It is the Keatsian image of the lovers in Ode to a Grecian Urn, forever bidding adieu.

Let's switch the gears a bit, from literary to the political...
To any of those who were holdouts for the Hillary campaign, you can look at her legacy (at least right now) in a similar way. It is an exquisite tragedy to her supporters, to come so close, and yet be so far away from what would have surely been the apex of her career. Women and the nation as a whole will remember her campaign as the first legitimate reach for the white house for a woman, and that's something to say. Clinton, like Ellen and Archer, tried her luck starting with the politics of New York, and was angled out by a world that was not ready for her just yet. Many were ready for Clinton, it just wasn't enough. So for those in mourning, at least take comfort in the fact that the tragedy was beautiful, and memorable in ways that many other campaigns in the past have not been (Howard Dean, for instance, does not conjure up any comparisons to good literature, although I'm sure some might have a suggestion--probably something post-modern, or existential).

Words of New York Wisdom

It's a firm belief that anyone new to new york city should read a little bit of Edith Wharton. And we're not talking about the much pushed-on-high-schoolers Edith Wharton of "Ethan Frome" fame--we mean the Edith Wharton who penned The Age of Innocence, or The House of Mirth. Take for example, if you will, this telling quote, written pre-1920:
(when talking to the countess, on her return to NYC after a long time in Italy)
" 'Yes, you have been away a very long time.'
'Oh, centuries and centuries; so long,' she said, 'that I'm sure I'm dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven;' which, for reasons he could not define, struck Newland Archer as an even more disrespectful way of describing New York society."

Or perhaps this one:
"Everyone (including Mr. Sillerton Jackson) was agreed that old Catherine had never had beauty--a gift which, in the eyes of New York, justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings."

And this one, regarding New Yorker snobbery in light of impending marriage:
"And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own kind."

all familiar sentiments, about one hundred years off, don't you agree?

The Financial Page-Page (M.Snowe comments lightly on Surowieki's Financial Page)

Page Title: "The Free Trade Paradox"

Brief Synopsis:
Surowieki waxes on the similarity of Clinton and Obama, especially in reference to their Free Trade policy, or lack of support thereof. As he summarizes, it's "like a contest over who hates free trade more."
Then he explains the pitfalls of free-trade and, alternatively, those of not-so-free trade.

Free Trade might be bad because:
1. It cuts US blue collar jobs and lowers wages (many believe but it's hard to quantify this)
2. It feeds more money into the swelled pockets of the American rich (probably true, w/ all those corporate profits)

Free Trade might be good because:
1. It lowers the prices of goods lower and middle income Americans spend their cash on
2. This in turn gives more Americans greater spending power

Surowieki's argument, while not exhaustive by any means, does extol on the short term problem of up toughening trade restrictions with other nations--it creates a world where the goods which were previously cheap, suddenly become more expensive--and those goods are usually the ones lower income households purchase. So the American wealthy will not feel the pinch, but the lower- and middle-incomers will, almost immediately. Of course, the jobs available to lower and mid income people will begin to increase as US manufacturers decide to relocate back to America, and the wages will probably spike to higher levels than when the same jobs were harder to come by and in competition with the middling wages of foreign workers (which will still be middling, only we'll have taxed them up to their eyeballs, making their wages go down by valuable pennies as their sales also plummet). But the benefits to US workers could take months, if not years--and would it translate into a richer America?
Surowieki ultimately comes out against tougher trade restrictions.

Assessment: Our undergraduate economics professors have always said that the freer the trade, or the better the advancements in globalization--the better for all (or at least most). Globalization, at least financially, is often seen as more of a threat than it really is--kind of like the gap between subway cars and the platform--you're often told to "mind it," yet even when you don't contemplate the danger, you usually navigate onto the train just fine. Of course, nobody's blaming the electorate for having strong opinions about foreign trade, because like it or not, it combines some of the touchiest subjects we as a species seem to perpetually have issues with: money, race, culture, nationalism, etc. The problem is, is there really anything we can do in this globalized marketplace that will in fact yield a higher quality of life for our poorer or lower middle class workers? Obviously, we'd all like to believe the answer is yes, but is the free trade, or not-so-free trade debate really the outlet? It seems that trade restrictions will only hurt lower earners, at least in the short to medium-length run.. And in a recession, any short-term losses for the lowest paid in our country, even if there's a promise of better wages on the unpredictable horizon, is not exactly a wise decision, or in their best interests. And what about lower income americans that don't work the kind of jobs that foreign workers do to create these goods? Their bills will go up without ever seeing a spike in their wages. We've become so reliant on foreign goods, we probably won't even know where to start. Another point to make is that Surowieki's argument forgets to mention that this issue is not one sided--we can tariff the crap out of foreign entities, but they also have the power to set prices, and if we drive taxes up, they might eat some operating costs to adjust the prices, and therefore stay competitive, while simultaneously lowering the already low quality of goods, and compromising lower American earner's quality of life in the meantime. But it's anybody's guess what could happen. The problem is that plans that restrict free trade, while they are possibly made by certain politicians with the best of intentions, they can also be fed or supported by those who have less concern for the working poor and lower classes, and foreign workers as well.