Now you've got the chance
You might as well just dance
Go skies and thrones and wings
And poetry and things.
--Neil Halstead

Monday, March 27, 2017

Zumvolley: The Dance Sensation Sweeping the Gymansium

The best part about picture day?
No buzzers!
Betty, my third grader, likes to play basketball. She takes a laid back attitude towards sports in general, and early on in her basketball career at the YMCA, she discovered that you really don't have to move outside the circle in the middle of the court because, eventually, everybody just runs back and forth anyway. This was an excellent way of conserving energy; while everyone else was working up a sweat running, Betty spent the better part of a season strolling casually from one side of the circle to the other before her father finally threatened to take her out of the league if she didn't actually attempt to play basketball.

One area of her game she always focused on with laser intensity was the scoreboard. Not because she wanted to win (they didn't keep score that young), but so that, when the clock was in danger of running down to zero, she could immediately stop drifting around the circle and put both hands over her ears before the buzzer sounded. She really hates loud noises.

Anyway, once we convinced her to leave the Magic Circle and get within a few feet of the basket, she discovered that she had a natural advantage on both defense and offense, being about a foot taller than any other player and even scored some points.

This tragedy could have
been prevented by simply
running away from the ball.
Regrettably, basketball is not a spring sport in the youth leagues, so this spring Betty is trying volleyball at our local community center. Eleanor played volleyball, so I am an experienced Volleyball Mom, and I can tell you that, even in the best of circumstances, 3rd/4th Grade Volleyball is tragically entertaining. Balls fly EVERYWHERE. True, a simple serve can go across the net and land in-bounds, but this rarely happens. Sometimes the ball hits the rafters at the top of the ceiling. Sometimes it lands on the other court. Often it lands in the bleachers (Pro Tip: Never, ever, ever look at your cell phone while watching an elementary volleyball game. In this case, being a spectator is NOT a spectator sport.)  Frequently, it flies backwards over the server's head. Periodically it sails through the doorway and out the gym. On the rare occasions when it arrives at the opposite side of the net, the girls on the other side do the logical thing that any sane person would do when a ball comes flying at their face: they duck. Sometimes, they run away, usually plowing into the girls next to them. Sometimes the ball will land splat in the middle of the court because every single girl on the team has seen it coming and backed away. The winner of an elementary school volleyball game is usually whichever team lands the most serves in-bounds, because no sane girl returns a serve (on purpose). This can take as long as a regular game because somebody has to chase all the balls and also nobody ever knows when to rotate so the umpire is continually rotating and unrotating and rerotating the teams.

O.M.G.!!! Totes adorbs!
SQEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Betty's team is called The Pandas, because of course that's what is going to happen when you ask a bunch of nine- and ten-year-old girls to name their own sports team. They rehearse on Monday nights at the community center gymnasium. In the sort of brilliantly horrible scheduling only possible at a busy and diverse small community center, the Pandas have Court 1B, while Court 1A is used by a small but very energetic Zumba class. To be perfectly clear, a single gymnasium contains, at the same time, a combination of Latin dance performed by a small group of game but rhythm-deprived middle-aged women (fortunately, the buff male instructor has enough rhythm, shimmy, sashay, and even twerking for all of them) with a very robust sound system and ten 3rd and 4th grade girls with the attention span, energy level, and generally high pitched squealing of a group of overly caffeinated squirrels in a helium factory. The results take tragically entertaining to an almost mythical level, the level of Zumvolley.

The Zumba class gets to slide and spin around flying volleyballs, adding a new level to their workout, but not, alas, enhancing their coordination or ability to locate the beat. The Pandas get their very own dance track. There was spontaneous dancing breaking out all over that court. Even with three coaches, any time a coach got distracted by coaching (it happens, although it happens at their peril with nine-year-olds), two or three random Pandas would break out of volleyball formation and take on an entirely different kind of formation, eyes glued to the Zumba instructor, taken by the rhythm. Even when they managed to face the correct direction (the other side of the net; it is surprising how often this has to be said), at any given time, half the team was doing some sort of more or less random dance move. Volleyball has never seen so much twirling. As a spectator, it was frankly mesmerizing, sort of like being on the freeway and seeing the debris from a wreck between a live poultry truck and a Jello pudding truck, except that you don't have to pretend to not rubberneck because you're in the bleachers. The biggest danger to a spectator was getting distracted by the Zumba end of the wreck and getting pounded in the head by a stray volleyball. Even Eleanor (a teenager) put away her phone because nothing on Netflix was as exciting as Zumvolley.

Sadly, Zumba ended half an hour before volleyball, and the dancers dragged themselves out of the gym in exhaustion (except for the instructor, who had barely broken a sweat and appeared to be trying not to skip). The Pandas actually played worse without the music and spontaneous dancing. It was like the little disco lights in their souls had gone out. If they lose the first game, we may have to petition the community center to get out the speaker so the girls can get their Zumvolley on.

Friday, March 17, 2017

The Best Defense is an Ex-Con Named Jim

You know what it's like, 3 a.m., and you're lying there, dreaming the impossible dream of actually dreaming, trying to trick yourself into slumber, and your brain starts tossing random memories at you just for fun, and you figure you might as well relive a few because it's not like you're actually going to fall asleep anyway with the Needy Cat (who has magically sensed you're awake and unlikely to move) laying on your chest, pawing at you desperately for attention? Or maybe that's just me; it's probably best not to be presumptuous. I'm told that some people can go entire years without being sat on by desperate house cats at 3 a.m.

Probably a fair representation of
my mental card catalog at 3 a.m.
Anyway, while petting the Needy Cat, my brain went back into the Junior High section of the mental card catalog (filed between "Inner Circles of Hell" and "Just Kill Me Now") and pulled out this little treasure. For most of us, even those without Needy Cats, many of the Junior High cards are perfect for 3 a.m. review, because they're stained in embarrassment, smeared liberally with social failure, and tinted the pale greenish hue of cringe. In a random act of kindness, however, my brain selected the story of How I Learned Self-Defense.

The experts are all very, very clear on the art of self-defense. Don't make yourself a target. Be aware of your surroundings. Wear sensible shoes. Make a lot of noise. Run away. Fight if you have to, but concentrate on making yourself a challenging target. Buy some pepper spray. Trust your instincts. Get security to walk you to your car.

The experts never met my father. (If they had, they would have likely implemented all of their own advice. He was kind of a scary dude.)

Portraits in Extreme Awkwardness:
A Stone Cold Clarinetist,
Circa 1983
So, let's set the scene. I'm twelve years old, staying with my dad for the summer in South Texas. Tall for my age, frizzy spiral perm. I am not athletic. I am so not athletic that when my mother tried to corner Coach Bailey in 7th grade to see about getting me into basketball, the coach talked her out of it by saying that some people are just not meant to play competitive sports, probably the first and only time in recorded history that a coach has tried to talk someone out of physical activity. I am the nerdy kid who bikes into town to the library to check out stacks of murder mysteries every week and practices the clarinet for hours. My lifetime record in flex arm hang is .0009 seconds and on a good day, I can do at least ten push-ups, as long as you let me keep my knees on the ground. Sarah Connor I am not.

One day, I was reading another Agatha Christie novel in the office of my dad's welding company, Universal Fabricators. He called me outside and introduced me to Jim, who was either a client or a drinking buddy, or possibly both. I'm not entirely sure I want to know how they knew each other, frankly. It is perhaps a comfort that Craig's List didn't exist in the 80's.

Anyway, Dad pointed out that, as a young woman, I might at some point need to defend myself from overly fresh dates. So, logically, he found Jim, who had fortunately been recently released from prison for an unspecified violent offence, to teach me to defend myself from frisky suitors, rapists, or what have you.

Kind of like this book, except without
the unnecessary three letters
in front of the word"violence"
There we were, on the concrete parking lot of Universal Fabricators in July, ready for a one-hour, hands-on mini-class. Both of my instructors were clearly of the opinion that the best defense was a good offense. We started with a brief review of soft tissues and how to pull, twist, and pound them (Lesson 1: Inflicting Pain on Your Handsy Date). Next, we looked at joints and how to make them bend in ways they were never intended to (Lesson 2: No Means Do-It-Again-And-I-Maim-You). There was a lengthy digression into the face, and how difficult it is to continue aggressively groping your date after she has gouged out your eyeballs and smashed in your nose (Lesson 3: You Should Probably Stop Making Out and Call an Ambulance and Also Pick Up Your Eyeballs Before the Cat Gets Them). The final lesson was entirely theoretical, because both of my instructors acknowledged that, regrettably, as a preteen girl, I was unlikely to ever actually produce enough force to kill a man, but, being thorough, they instructed me in the technique (Lesson 4: Hello, Jail!), just in case I should ever bulk up and have a date who was undeterred by his aching groin, broken knees, and missing eyeballs, and I had enough adrenaline and/or murderous rage to go Uma Thurman on him. I would imagine these lessons would have also served me well in prison, had I ever actually used them.

What amazes me most about this particular memory is that at the time, it did not seem all that odd that my father had found a violent criminal to teach his preteen daughter how to kill a man. This is either a reflection on either my father's level of crazy or my own tolerance for "odd."

Needless to say, I've never had cause to use any of the valuable instructional content in that long-ago lesson. The only overly frisky date I had suffered a firm hand removal, followed by a swift and decisive telephone break-up, followed by a couple of really awkward months of being ignored in Calculus, and that was pretty much the end of it. I have teen and preteen daughters, and I don't plan to put an ad on Craig's List ("Wanted: Scary ex-con to teach the use of force to minors, must produce proof of violent criminal record"). I'm fairly sure most of that lesson has faded into oblivion (besides the part about the eyeballs, which was too disturbing to forget).

Nevertheless, at 3 a.m., my brain can still pull out that file from the card catalog and convince me that, should the need arise, I may somehow still have the knowledge to kill a man, despite being completely unable to deter a fifteen pound Needy Cat...which is at least a more empowering memory than most in the Junior High section.
Go ahead and try to move me, I dare you!


Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Art, Soul, Nazis and Unicorn Poop

The ex and his brother used to spend hours debating philosophical matters. I remember one debate in particular went on for months in the late 90's--do clones have souls? As it turns out, there's a novel for that, ironically, a novel set in the late 90's. Cloning was a hot topic in the late 90's, thanks to Dolly the Sheep, who was cloned in 1996 (and named after Dolly Parton, per Wikipedia, because...she was cloned from a mammary gland cell, which I did not remember hearing on the news at the time, hopefully because the scientists in question were embarrassed).

Last week, I (finally) read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, and it is one of those that you find yourself coming back to, over and over, in the shower, while driving, or in the middle of a particularly boring meeting. The tight first person narration locks you inside the mind a narrator, Kathy, whose voice is incredibly restrained, whether because she has been carefully conditioned to accept the terms of her life...or whether she is truly somehow different than we.

Kathy and her peers are part of an experimental program (the nature of the experiment would constitute a major spoiler), a key component of which involves art, because as even the most genetically engineered human in this novel can tell you, creating and appreciating cultural artifacts (art, literature, music, etc.) is what defines and distinguishes us, if not biologically, then spiritually. If clones can make and appreciate art, the logic goes, then they must have souls. And in pursuit of Proof of Soul, the guardians in the program create a culture where not being creative is a sign of deepest failure and shame.

If you think about it, "real" humans are almost the opposite. Creativity and artistic ability are seen as exceptional, something that only a few are gifted with. We get critical with our artistic efforts, compare them to masterpieces, and, when they fall short, put them away and tell people, "I'm just not that creative." I've read that pre-teens go through a phase where they find their own drawings not realistic enough and most will stop even trying. I remember reading a post-technology novel about a world where people, without iPods full of Adele and Beyonce, became less self-conscious and more willing to sing and make music. So, art being a sign of having a soul for a clone is a really interesting idea, given that so many "real" people are afraid to express that which acknowledges their souls.

For the world Ishiguro sets up, the premise that producing art signals a the presence of a soul, while necessary for the creators of said experimental program to secure funding, ultimately leads to the end of the program because if clones have souls, the casual inhumanity of raising them to be organ donors is out in the open and if there's one thing we humans can't tolerate, it's for our casual inhumanity to be on display. (The bit about them being organ donors is not much of a spoiler, as the narrator is pretty clear about it from the first page...it is a fact of her life, in fact it is the purpose of her life. Unlike the rest of us, who have to muddle on with love and doing our best and trying to make a difference, somehow the clones actually do have a very clear purpose, which, after reading this book, makes me much happier with trying to make a difference, somehow as an answer to the meaning of life. I'm also somewhat partial to 42.)

No, unicorn poop is not,
unfortunately, metaphorical.
Unfortunately, the casual inhumanity of humanity is all too real, and always has been. At lunch the other day, Betty was celebrating her recent acquisition of unicorn poop by singing "unicorn poop, unicorn poop, UNICORN POOP" in the restaurant, often loudly, and Eleanor eventually got tired of it and brought us down out of the magical rainbow tinted skies by informing us that the Nazis made pillows from the hair of the Jews they slaughtered.*** While we were all disturbed, Eleanor, who had been clearly pondering this for a while, was also confused: if Nazis were so revolted by Jews, why would they sleep with their remains?

The answer being, for the same reason the society of Ishiguro's "science fiction" novel can raise children in the most humane and cultured way and then slaughter them for their organs: the casual inhumanity that happens when we mark another person as "other" and equate "other" as "less than." It is the same casual inhumanity that leads to burning mosques, murder in bars, physical violence to queer youth and a thousand other similar acts throughout history.

One recurring motif in the book is the revulsion the "true" humans feel for the clones. They are "other" and they are "less than" and even, the book hints, they are so "other" that they could be a physical threat to the lives of "real" humans. In the March 2 edition of "On Being," Pádraig Ó Tuama describes the work he and others are doing in Northern Ireland to bring people together after centuries of conflict. The conflict is so ingrained that even the words a person uses to refer to the area (Northern Ireland or the North of Ireland) signal which side of the conflict that person is on. He describes the full range of conflict from "You're different. I'm different" to "In order for me to be right, it is important that I believe that you are wrong" all the way to "You're demonic." When a person's feelings move towards the other being demonic or evil, then all sorts of acts that would be absolutely unacceptable to do to one's own group now become possible, or even morally necessary, to do to the "other." Even if one never commits such an act, the cognitive dissonance in which we knowingly agree to not know the act has happened is only possible when at some level we see the victims of the act as other, as expressed beautifully by Anne McCrady in her poem "Dust on the Tongue." Like the society of Ishiguro's novel or McCrady's poem, it is easier and safer to count our differences (or to ignore troublesome facts altogether) than to think about them.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a book that lingers, nagging and tugging on the easy complacency we shield ourselves with. It is a beautifully written book, with restraint and compassion in every sentence. I highly recommend it.

Betty highly recommends Unicorn Poop.

***It should be noted that this was my mother's 81st birthday lunch, and she in no way deserves a birthday lunch full of Nazis and unicorn poop. We are very sorry; we do not know how to behave in public.