dual personalities

My mother kindly sent me her copy of Amor Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow, which I am reading a few pages at a time when I can. I am here to reiterate that reading Towles is a true pleasure, and that this novel feels particularly relevant at this moment:

Having acknowledged that a man must master his circumstances or otherwise be mastered by them, the Count thought it worth considering how one was most likely to achieve this aim when one had been sentenced to a life of confinement.

Well, we continue to search for ways to master our current circumstances. It is not easy, and in the case of my academic workplace, I don’t even know what the circumstances are going to be when I return to work. It is driving me quite nuts as my leave draws to a close.

But that’s enough of that — who can complain when they get to stare at their darling daughter day in and day out? Lately, she has been staring back, which obviously turns me into a puddle of love:

Katie is now 8 weeks old! She is much more engaged with the world, paying more attention to sights and sounds. We know she is a Compton lady because she loves, in particular, to study brown furniture. (The secretary is her number one object of fascination!) While she is a champion sleeper at night, now only needing one feeding between bedtime and morning (!!!), naps are getting harder because she just wants to hang out with her mom. (I don’t blame her.)

She is getting lots of exercise on the play mat and brief stints of tummy time when she can bear it. Next week she will have her 2-month pediatrician appointment, and we’ll be able to report back with her new “stats.” In my mind, she’s bigger just about every time I pick her up!

So if you had a hard week, just remember…

Baby smiles are a thing!!

*Amor Towles. Katie’s usual is: dining, burping, kicking, sleeping. A good life!

Well, it’s Tuesday. And I don’t really have anything to write about. Things continue to be depressing. Everything at work annoys me. My wine consumption continues to increase. I am pounding Skittles as I write this. Sweatpants are all that fit me right now.

I recently finished watching all 15 seasons (plus the two episode conclusion in Season 16) of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. And I have to say, if you have Hulu you should really watch it.

I remember when CSI premiered–the year was 2000 and it was on Friday nights. It was a show that was unlike anything else on TV. The extended, detailed montages, the science, the lab guys as heroes. It was good. The biggest flaw was not having enough episodes with Nick as the primary character.

Like most shows, it lost its way at points, as happens when you have to keep up with the ratings. Some plots were too gross. There were too many serial killers. The series also prompted several spin offs–it was the Law & Order of CBS.

I will also say it was a remarkably pro-police show. There were flawed and corrupt officers for sure, but there were also good police officers. And it always came down to the evidence and not how things appeared.

Anyway, it has kind of ruined procedurals for me now, because most are so implausible and have no substance compared to CSI. When the final episode ended for me last week (with guest appearances from fan favorites who left the show), I felt like I was saying goodbye to friends. After all, I’d spent my evenings with them for almost a year!

What should I watch now?

Recently, during one of our typically meandering conversations, the DH and I got to wondering whether The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was based on a novel. We looked it up on IMDB, which attributed the original story (not the script) to Dorothy M. Johnson. It turns out that she also wrote the stories behind A Man Called Horse (1970) and The Hanging Tree (1959).

Now, everyone knows that The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a great film and one of director John Ford’s best, but let’s face it A Man Called Horse is mediocre to say the least (let’s be charitable). [You’ll be relieved to know that the two sequels were merely ‘based on the character in Johnson’s short story’.]

And even if it did star Gary Cooper, who has heard of The Hanging Tree?

None of this movie information told us much about Dorothy Johnson, so we dug around and discovered that she is quite a legend among Western writers. There’s even a short documentary about her life, from which I borrowed the title of this post.

In case you’re not up for watching a documentary, I’ll summarize briefly here. Born in Iowa in 1905, Dorothy and her family soon moved to Whitefish, Montana. After high school, she worked for the paper in Missoula, went to college, and did a stint as a writer in New York City before returning to Montana, where she spent the rest of her life. An early marriage ended in divorce, after which she took pride in her self-sufficiency and stayed single.

Intrigued, we ordered a couple of her books.

I haven’t started The Bloody Bozeman yet, and I’ve only read a couple of chapters from The Bedside Book of Bastards, which strikes one as a purely money-making gambit, but I did enjoy reading her collected tales. My brief assessment: The film version of the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has much more to say than the short story, while (unsurprisingly) the story “A Man Called Horse” is better than the movie, as is the novella “The Hanging Tree”, though neither is great.

The best story in the collection is “Lost Sister” which has not been turned into a movie. It is loosely based on the case of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was stolen by the Comanches as a girl, assimilated into the tribe, and eventually married to a chief. Her eldest child was the famous Quanah Parker. As an adult of about 34 Cynthia Parker was returned to her white family, but could not adjust and died soon after. Johnson’s story is remarkably sympathetic to all the groups involved and does not take sides. Indeed, what makes Dorothy Johnson’s stories noteworthy is how authentic they seem. Her spare prose is suited to the subject matter. She seems to know how gold miners would behave, how difficult the return of a kidnapped girl (now a woman) would be for everyone involved, and what a feckless young man could learn from living among the Sioux.

Dorothy Johnson did not write great literature but she did capture something essential about life in the west. She was interested in people and did not let politics cloud her vision. Perhaps that’s why her stories have endured. By all accounts she was quite a character.

You can read her reminiscences about growing up in Montana here. This weekend, let’s raise a glass to Dorothy M. Johnson, Montana spitfire, honorary member of the Blackfoot tribe, and teller of tales.

*A guest post from DN

I was sifting through old papers recently and rediscovered a copy of the poem that I had once found in a classroom where I was teaching. Someone in a course prior to mine had left a copy of “A Question of Time” by Alicia Ostriker. The students were doing a group work exercise; I had moment to read the poem while I stood at the front of the room poised to field any questions. But suddenly every question that I had was about this poem. And as I reread it today, a poem about motherhood has even greater resonance.

I felt incredibly moved, and I couldn’t really say why. I couldn’t quite pin down the poem’s plot or situation. The language was plain, yet the jumble of speaker and subject—and the shades of grey in the different kinds of love represented—felt incredibly complex. And I didn’t have time to figure it out! Time was up. Time to lead a mind-blowing discussion about how classical rhetorical appeals can really give verve to one’s writing. To 18 year olds. Who only need this class to place into Introduction to Fluid Mechanics or whatever.

As school districts face the question of whether or not to hold in-person classes, I can’t help but lament the loss of chanciness in the classroom. You never know what will happen during an in-person discussion; you have to be open to it all. Of course we should keep our students and teachers (and their families) safe. But we should not overlook the importance of the classroom space. You never know what you’ll find.

Daughter #1 here. Thanks to The Boy for loaning us his Disney + login because we had a hankering for some classic episodes of The Simpsons. We watched:

A Star is Burns, Boy Scounts N’ the Hood, Two Bad Neighbors, Homer the Heretic, and A Streetcar Named Marge.

It is really amazing to have all of these episodes at the press of a button. We laughed, we marveled that these episodes aired, we laughed some more. Back in the day, we felt like the writers were watching our lives and putting them on TV. Now, it seems quaint that a primetime tv show could contain so many literary and film references, feature a family that goes to church, and push the envelope in so many ways, while still being immensely popular. How times change.

Anyway, while I’ve been home caring for my mother, I’ve also been getting things accomplished. I got my hair and eyebrows done for the first time in ages, I got my car tuned up, and I’ve gotten to visit with a friend who is moving to St. Louis, Today, we ventured to the Zoo which requires reservations. It was not very crowded, but it was quelle hot.

Nonetheless, we rode the train and got to see some animals up close which are usually obscured by children who always get priority on the front row [eyeroll].

I am pleased to report that my mother is well on the road to recovery and is possibly returning to regular blogging duties next week. In the meantime, enjoy this:

While our dear mom recovers, daughter #2 is back with some bonus baby content for your Tuesday morning. I thought about sharing a “What are you reading” post, but I didn’t have anything too interesting to say. DN and I are happy to sneak in a couple chapters of a novel here or there, but the bulk of my time is still (happily) focused on Katiebelle’s eating, sleeping, and playing.

The biggest news around here is that the darling young one is smiling now!

Also, she spent a whole 28 minutes on FaceTime on Monday morning, record-breaking endurance and a real show of strength in “awake time.” Mamu, daughter #1 and I have perfected our “narrating the baby’s thoughts and actions” voices and amuse ourselves immensely. How could we not, with a subject like Katiebelle?

Daughter #1 here, covering for my mother’s post. When I’m home, I like to peruse the bookshelves and see what interesting things I can find–I’m never disappointed. On Friday, I found this book:

You’ll recall that my mother wrote about Helen E. Hokinson here. I lol’d reading these cartoons and I just love these ladies. I’ve gathered a few below. Enjoy–and happy Monday!