by Norman Allen, guest contributor
For my father’s memorial service, my sister suggested that I stand before the congregation and say, “We’d like to share with you exactly what it was like to live with our father. So let’s have a moment of silence.”
It’s not that Dad didn’t speak, it’s that he didn’t speak about the personal. He could rant against George McGovern and lift Richard Nixon up as a god, but remain entirely silent about my sister’s adolescent breakdown. A few years later, he declared my hero Jimmy Carter the “greatest embarrassment the White House has ever seen,” but didn’t say a word about my recent emergence from the closet.
Dad built his life on the foundations of a suburban existence: retirement plans, company loyalty, and a close-knit family that gathered to wave him down the street each morning and waited each night for his return. True to his class and time, he made himself a Manhattan before dinner and smoked incessantly. No one was going to change that.
But behind this rigid façade lay a man tragically eager to please. As kids we could always talk him into a double-scoop cone, if we could just get him away from Mom. As an adult, I learned that this tendency went much deeper.
Dad went to medical school because his parents told him to. Failing that, he accepted their second choice and became a mechanical engineer. In a rare moment of intimacy, on a father-son camping trip to the High Sierra, he confessed that his dream was to be a park ranger. I wonder what his life would have been if he’d had the courage to follow that ambition. Perhaps he would have found his voice leading nature hikes and campfire programs.
Dad never broke the habit of trying to please his parents, but he made sure that we didn’t suffer the same fate. He applauded my high school theatricals and provided financial support for a creative college major. On my weekly calls home, he always made sure that I was writing, though he never inquired about the specifics.
True to his nature, he remained silent and stoic through my mother’s seven-year battle with cancer, and continued so when he was diagnosed himself two years after her death. During Dad’s final months, I bathed him, mopped up his bodily fluids, and listened for changes in his breathing. The only concern he voiced was for the future of his dog, an oversized Sheltie who watches as I write.
It was Dad’s Lutheran pastor who put his silence into context. Older congregants, he said, had expressed a need for guidance as they considered death’s approach. My father provided the model they were seeking. Church members who visited in his final weeks all returned with the same tale: Dad was quiet, uncomplaining, unafraid.
In the end, we didn’t ask for a moment of silence at Dad’s memorial service. Instead I shared a story about Saint Francis sending his brothers out to spread the Gospel and telling them, “If necessary, use words.” When one of Dad’s elderly neighbors caught my eye and smiled her appreciation, I knew we’d made the right choice.
Dad was a quiet man, but he renounced his parents’ prejudices, encouraged his children’s ambitions, overcame his own homophobia to welcome new family members, and remained a steady presence through his wife’s long illness. If St. Francis is right, and our actions speak louder than our words, you might say the man never shut up.
Norman Allen is a playwright living in Washington, DC. His plays include In The Garden (Charles MacArthur Award), Nijinsky’s Last Dance (Helen Hayes Award), and The House Halfway, to be produced at this summer’s Source Theatre Festival in Washington, DC.
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June 2012
My dear,
I want to change the world with the right words. I want to confess my love to you with the right words.
I want to nurture a life with the right words. I have the right ideas, but my words are too… complicated. I need to simplify them, so that people won’t get lost in the dark when they see and hear them.
I want them to shine like beacons of light in a world of overly complicated darkness.
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
Falsely yours,
Jean-Louis “Jack” Kerouac
That’s japan for you. But you didn’t answer the question: was she cute?
Oh god, she is gorgeous, but still…
At the surprisingly tiny height of 5’2”, Gillian Anderson was a full 10 inches shorter than her X-Files co-star David Duchovny. So, how did the crew save Anderson from having to jump up and down so she wasn’t having some important, expository conversation with Duchovny’s nipples? The answer is an apple box, a common tool used for a lot of television and film actors whose height doesn’t really jibe with other actors in a scene. Generally, they are 8″x20″x12″, but since the height disparity between the X-Files stars was exceptionally great, Anderson’s slightly higher “Scully Box” was measured at about “an apple and a half.” The actress actually referred to it as the “Gilly Box,” and sometimes she would forget she was on it — and then fall off the box during a serious scene. You’re thinking about how much you miss The X-Files now, aren’t you? So are we. We are not alone. (via Mental Floss)
Man, I hugely miss the X-Files. That was damn fine television.
Man, what kind of country do I live in??
Asking me if I think your cousin is beautiful, and reminding me that she is single..
yeesh.
i think i might just have to attend George Mason to get a masters in economics entirely so I can study social choice theory and eventually write a dissertation on it
translating economics into algebra is like my wet dream come true
its a strange dream but its something i’ve always thought of and thats about the closest i will ever get to it
we’ve been translating economics into algebra for awhile man.
it’s called Keynesianism.
Not really though, it’s different
Keynes’ algebra is based heavily on statistics (you need statistics to calculate GDP) and fundamental underlying assumptions that fly in the face of common sense
Except for that part where Keynesian economics helped prop up the Korean economy during Park Jung Hwee’s term as president/dictator and Korea went from the second poorest country in Asia to one of the world’s strongest economies.
Oh wait, are we only talking about economics regarding the western world?I’ve never really studied Korean history and I don’t know much about the Korean economy, so it’d be stupid of me to try and somehow comment on this. However, I have studied a bit about Japan and Keynesian economics is pretty much the entire reason they’ve been stuck in a recession for the past 20 years. It’s the reason why they can’t seem to get back on track in terms of GDP growth and why their debt-to-GDP ratio has stayed around 150% (if my memory serves me correctly, I do know the number is abnormally high).
I’m not trying to imply Japan and Korea are the same. But to address your crossed-out thing about “are we only talking about economics in the West?”, Keynesianism has a pretty horrible track record both inside the Western world and outside it as well.
Another non-Western example of the failures of Keynesianism (in part) would be Zimbabwe and the hyperinflation brought about by attempts to implement Keynesian monetary policy.
Once again I’m not familiar with Korean history or the Korean economy so I can’t comment on that case, but those are some more examples to show this isn’t just a phenomena relegated to Western nations.
Part of the problem with the Japanese economy is the above and the declining birth rate. With regards to Korea, it did something that Japan is almost unwilling to do, barring massive external or internal crises: adapt. Korea might have adopted Keynesianism to restore its flagging economy, but it seems as though they did not cling as tightly to the structures as Japan did.
Part of the reason for that is cultural, in the case of Japan, and logicallypositive might know more about the economic realities, but most culturally, if a system has been proven to work, in some degree, to the Japanese people, only a dramatic change will convince them that the time has come to abandon that system and attempt something else. Historical examples of this can be seen in the Meiji Restoration and the massive undertaking to “westernize” in the face of external pressures.
With regards to cultural responses, and this is the position that I’m coming from, Japan’s economy would have to be going down faster than the Titanic for it consider adjusting its practices, or, the old guard in Japan would need to be refreshed all at once: the stratified structure of Japanese society slows change to a snail’s pace due, in no small part, to the deference of underlings to their superiors.
Put another way, if the Tohoku Earthquake hadn’t damaged the Fukushima reactor to the extent that it did, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) might not have take it upon itself to to a thorough going analysis of the safety of all of its nuclear power plants or to accelerate the transition away from them. I believe it’s the same way with the economic strategies and theories that Japan relies on.
logicallypositive or someone who knows more about the Japanese economy (I do culture and philosophy) can correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems to be the trend from my understanding of their history.
You’re actually a little off about the state of the Japanese economy regarding the Higashi Tohoku Earthquake. They didn’t really “accelerate a transition away from them,” they ran full throttle off the cliff trying to get away from the fire. They progressively shut down every reactor in Japan, including one of the largest reactors, which if located in Kashiwazaki, in Niigata-ken.
In doing so, they actually didn’t have enough energy to operate the country, so they have been importing fossil fuels like a boss, and have effectively out them so far into the red in doing so that they are in the process of bankrupting the country.
There is an aside to this, though. As the backlash against shutting down the plants increases (see Japanese summer about to start on limited power, just like last year!), and that already people are refusing to pay the new higher rates for the energy provided by fossil fuels, nuclear plants are going to be started back up. Also, as part of the fear after the tsunami last year, they are also building tsunami walls around all plants anywhere near the coast… which, if you are familiar with Japan, is just about 90% of all of them. So, go go boosted economy for construction workers!
I know a guy who works from 9am to 10pm, 6 days a week, as a foreman of one of the construction crews working on the plants. Good time and good money, for them.
Yes, I was waiting for this reply: I spend so much time working with Japan’s mythic past and the way that it translates to the future, that I lose track of current events.
In any case, I didn’t think it got that bad over there: I thought TEPCO was doing a gradual shut-down to re-assess rather than the full blown “running off the cliff to escape the fire.” Though, even this response isn’t surprising: if I was to make a historical comparison, this is par for the course if we’re to take the Meiji Restoration as a guide. They made a conscious decision to “out westernize the west,” in a sense. For a while, there, pictures from Japan looked indistinguishable from pictures from British occupied China.
Ideological points aside, t sounds like they’re having a serious problem over there finding a solution, and it doesn’t look to be getting any better. On the up shot though, at least some segment of the Japanese population is making good money, which might be a shot in the arm to the economy. What do you think?
It was a gradual shut down.. just that by gradual, they meant over the space of the year. They had a really big backlash from the big anti-nuclear folks after the disaster, and the public totally jumped on the band-wagon. Now they are realizing that the real price of the fear hits the hardest place, the wallet.
I think you have a very limited benefit there as far as the economy goes. You may see some turn around as they restart the plants, and people start to get lower energy bills (now there is a stimulus plan- jack the prices up, so when they go down, people see it as a bonus!), but I’m really not sure how much of an improvement you’ll see in the economy overall.
The big problem that Japan is facing, besides the economy, is the far larger issue of the dwindling birth rate. As a country which offers exceedingly high (and pretty damn nice) retirement and medical benefits, the reality is that in the next decade or two, they simply won’t be able to support the aging population. That is, unless they either figure out a way to keep their citizens from leaving the country, which many are doing, or that they need to figure out a way to attract foreign workers and convince them to stay long term. But for a country which is exceedingly xenophobic, the concept of an influx of foreign workers is anathema almost everywhere besides Tokyo, or maybe the larger of the countries “Designated Cities.”
I think the whole TEPCO deal is a small bump in the road for Japan, one that they should recover from in a couple years, if not sooner. The issues run deeper, and if they don’t address those issues soon, that will be the real crisis.
i think i might just have to attend George Mason to get a masters in economics entirely so I can study social choice theory and eventually write a dissertation on it
translating economics into algebra is like my wet dream come true
its a strange dream but its something i’ve always thought of and thats about the closest i will ever get to it
we’ve been translating economics into algebra for awhile man.
it’s called Keynesianism.
Not really though, it’s different
Keynes’ algebra is based heavily on statistics (you need statistics to calculate GDP) and fundamental underlying assumptions that fly in the face of common sense
Except for that part where Keynesian economics helped prop up the Korean economy during Park Jung Hwee’s term as president/dictator and Korea went from the second poorest country in Asia to one of the world’s strongest economies.
Oh wait, are we only talking about economics regarding the western world?I’ve never really studied Korean history and I don’t know much about the Korean economy, so it’d be stupid of me to try and somehow comment on this. However, I have studied a bit about Japan and Keynesian economics is pretty much the entire reason they’ve been stuck in a recession for the past 20 years. It’s the reason why they can’t seem to get back on track in terms of GDP growth and why their debt-to-GDP ratio has stayed around 150% (if my memory serves me correctly, I do know the number is abnormally high).
I’m not trying to imply Japan and Korea are the same. But to address your crossed-out thing about “are we only talking about economics in the West?”, Keynesianism has a pretty horrible track record both inside the Western world and outside it as well.
Another non-Western example of the failures of Keynesianism (in part) would be Zimbabwe and the hyperinflation brought about by attempts to implement Keynesian monetary policy.
Once again I’m not familiar with Korean history or the Korean economy so I can’t comment on that case, but those are some more examples to show this isn’t just a phenomena relegated to Western nations.
Part of the problem with the Japanese economy is the above and the declining birth rate. With regards to Korea, it did something that Japan is almost unwilling to do, barring massive external or internal crises: adapt. Korea might have adopted Keynesianism to restore its flagging economy, but it seems as though they did not cling as tightly to the structures as Japan did.
Part of the reason for that is cultural, in the case of Japan, and logicallypositive might know more about the economic realities, but most culturally, if a system has been proven to work, in some degree, to the Japanese people, only a dramatic change will convince them that the time has come to abandon that system and attempt something else. Historical examples of this can be seen in the Meiji Restoration and the massive undertaking to “westernize” in the face of external pressures.
With regards to cultural responses, and this is the position that I’m coming from, Japan’s economy would have to be going down faster than the Titanic for it consider adjusting its practices, or, the old guard in Japan would need to be refreshed all at once: the stratified structure of Japanese society slows change to a snail’s pace due, in no small part, to the deference of underlings to their superiors.
Put another way, if the Tohoku Earthquake hadn’t damaged the Fukushima reactor to the extent that it did, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) might not have take it upon itself to to a thorough going analysis of the safety of all of its nuclear power plants or to accelerate the transition away from them. I believe it’s the same way with the economic strategies and theories that Japan relies on.
logicallypositive or someone who knows more about the Japanese economy (I do culture and philosophy) can correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems to be the trend from my understanding of their history.
You’re actually a little off about the state of the Japanese economy regarding the Higashi Tohoku Earthquake. They didn’t really “accelerate a transition away from them,” they ran full throttle off the cliff trying to get away from the fire. They progressively shut down every reactor in Japan, including one of the largest reactors, which if located in Kashiwazaki, in Niigata-ken.
In doing so, they actually didn’t have enough energy to operate the country, so they have been importing fossil fuels like a boss, and have effectively out them so far into the red in doing so that they are in the process of bankrupting the country.
There is an aside to this, though. As the backlash against shutting down the plants increases (see Japanese summer about to start on limited power, just like last year!), and that already people are refusing to pay the new higher rates for the energy provided by fossil fuels, nuclear plants are going to be started back up. Also, as part of the fear after the tsunami last year, they are also building tsunami walls around all plants anywhere near the coast… which, if you are familiar with Japan, is just about 90% of all of them. So, go go boosted economy for construction workers!
I know a guy who works from 9am to 10pm, 6 days a week, as a foreman of one of the construction crews working on the plants. Good time and good money, for them.
Sometimes, you find that song that is just a little too accurate, a little too real…
Vertical Horizon - Japan
Well I saw a young man by a telephone
He was sitting alone in the rain
I said hey young man what you doing there
And he said sir I’m going insane
He said sir I’m going insane
You see I love an American beauty
But nobody here understands
Then he looked to the sky with resentment in his eyes
And said Lord why am I in Japan
Oh Lord why am I in Japan
Then he told me a story about yesterday
When he walked in the search of a friend
But nobody came to his rescue
And he came to his bitter end
He pulled me close and said they all stopped and stared
As I walked down the street all alone
Nobody knew my name
Nobody knew my name
I said young man I know where you’re going
And young man I know where you’ve been
For I’ve been in this land for a lifetime it seems
And I’m never to come back again
No I’m never to come back again
So I turned and I gave him my blessing
And I left him alone in the rain
But I had to just stop and laugh at myself
Still nobody knows my name
Nobody knows my name…
So, how does being blocked work?
Like, if I follow someone, but they block me, does that cause their posts not to pop up on my dash?
I am curious, someone give me the skinny!
Argh!
How am I supposed to share the utterly horrible thing I found with my equally horrible friends if I can’t send the link via tumblr, and FB won’t let me send the URL either!
Anger!
