Thursday, November 7, 2024

TEN THOUGHTS I HAD THIS WEEK


 Dear George, 

By and large, the American public is ill-informed and ignorant, hostile and destructive. 

The illustrious voters of the state of Ohio ousted one of the most competent members of the U.S. Senate, elected three extremist pro-life justices to the state Supreme Court, and decisively rejected an issue designed to end gerrymandering in Ohio. 

Neo-Nazis are euphoric. 

The current president and white women voters own some of the blame for this disaster. 

We did survive the first term of the new president (though he appears more unhinged and anti-democratic than the last time around). 

Given advanced age and four long years, the vice-president may take over, an equally (and maybe even more) undesirable prospect. 

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to be a backwards force in the nation for decades.  

It’s possible that the new administration will be so catastrophic that it will mean the end of MAGA Republicanism. 

Katja wants to move to New Zealand though that is far away. 

This could be the last president of our lifetimes, a disgusting way to wind things up. 

Love, 
Dave

Saturday, November 2, 2024

A SWIFTIE EXTRAVAGANZA


 

Dear George, 
I am hopelessly out of touch with contemporary pop music. In its place I spend most of my time these days listening to 1920’s big band music, featuring vocals by Ruth Etting, Annette Hanshaw, Marion Harris, and others. I think this is because this was the music my parents grew up with and I must have been exposed while in my mother’s womb. I do know who Taylor Swift is, of course. Every time I go to the drugstore her image is featured on the covers of most of the weekly entertainment magazines. 

Given that the current news is dominated by toxic political events, I decided to look into one of the more joyous recent happenings, i.e., Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in New Orleans. She performed in three shows at the New Orleans Superdome on Friday October 25th, Saturday the 26th, and Sunday the 27th. The concerts were a complete success, each of them selling out to approximately 65,000 fans. Based on data from Ticketmaster, about 4.4% of people who tried to buy tickets actually got them. For each show Swift performed the same set of 45 songs in 10 distinct acts in three hours and 20 minutes. The concert features numbers from all of the musical eras in Swift’s 18-year career, from her early country roots to her pop and alternative rock phases. Official ticket prices ranged from $49 to several thousand dollars. Given extremely high demand, presale tickets were sold out within minutes of going on sale, and then they were only available by resale, prices sometimes reaching well over $5000. For the final Sunday show even the worst seats in the house cost over a thousand dollars. The Eras Tour in New Orleans had over $200 million in ticket sales, and it’s believed that Taylor Swift earned about $13.6 million dollars for each of the three shows. Thanks in part to the Eras Tour, Swift is the richest female musician in the world with an estimated fortune of $1.6 billion. 

The city went all out to embrace Taylor Swift and her tour. More than 160,000 people traveled to New Orleans for the three concerts. According to the U.S. Travel Association, the typical fan spent about $1,300 on food, lodging, merchandise, and other expenses, bringing in more than $500 million to the city. New Orleans put on a three-day “Embrace the Culture”concert at Duncan Plaza where fans were dropped off for the shows. Because fans trade Swiftie friendship bracelets with her name on them, a giant 140-foot friendship bracelet was hung from the Superdome. New Orleans police officers were also seen trading friendship bracelets with fans, and even the penguins at the Audubon Aquarium wore Swiftie-style friendship bracelets. Businesses decorated their stores, nearly every bar in the French Quarter had music tied in with the concerts, and the airport provided a karaoke stage for fans. The District Donut shop added nine new donuts, all named after Taylor Swift songs. Concert-themed alcoholic drinks at bars in the Quarter included the Taylorita and the Holy Ground hurricane. Antoine’s Restaurant wrote “Eras Tour 2024” on its signature dessert, baked Alaska. Tour fans and local residents were unanimous in describing Bourbon Street as the cleanest and safest it’s every been. Prior to the tour the governor of Louisiana ordered multiple state agencies to relocate homeless people who lived near areas that concertgoers might frequent “to ensure that New Orleans puts its best foot forward…” (though a federal judge later put a stop to the sweeps). 

Most area hotels sold out during the tour, often charging $800 or $900 a night. A Swift fan from suburban Metairie booked 191 rooms at the Holiday Inn for $500 apiece. Her intent was not to make a profit but to insure that Swift fans could meet and connect, and she re-sold all the rooms that she booked at the same price she had paid for them. The Eras Tour, unfortunately, was a hotbed for ticket fraud, scammers selling invalid counterfeit tickets or arranging to transfer tickets but never delivering. Journalists reported numerous instances of mothers and daughters weeping at the box office because their tickets proved to be fake. 

During “Karma”, her final song on the Tour, Taylor sang a line for her boyfriend, former UC Bearcat and N.F.L. Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce: “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me.” The fans erupted in cheers. At the end of the show she gave her mom two long hugs and said, “I have been so moved and so blown away by the way that this city has embraced us and welcomed us. So can we all just please say a big, ‘Thank you, New Orleans!’” 
Love, 
Dave

Monday, October 21, 2024

A ROLLER COASTER TRIP


Dear George, 
Earlier this year our daughter-in-law Kiersta died unexpectedly and tragically in New Orleans. She was 55. Our son Justin, Kiersta’s sister Jayme, and several close friends planned a memorial service in New Orleans to honor Kiersta’s life on October 12th. In fact, this was a multi-day event. It started with a family brunch at Justin’s house on Friday morning. On Friday evening there was a welcoming party for 180 out-of-town guests at a Magazine Street venue, including an open bar and a buffet supper of cajun food. Funereal black was discouraged; Mardi Gras costumes with sequins were encouraged. The memorial service itself, attended by 280 guests, was held on Saturday afternoon at a Methodist church on Canal Street. The two-hour service was followed by a one-hour parade through Kiersta and Justin’s long-time neighborhood, led by a troupe of woman dancers in Mardi Gras costumes, a brass jazz band, and a “second line” of attendees from the memorial service, waving white handkerchiefs. That evening guests were invited to a jazz celebration at a neighborhood nightclub. Seventy-five family and friends were also invited to a Sunday morning breakfast at a popular Bywater restaurant. Justin then had an all-day open house for family members and friends at his home. A whirlwind of a time. 

We flew down to New Orleans on Thursday afternoon. The trip started inauspiciously. We left in what seemed like plenty of time, but the rush hour traffic had started, and we barely moved on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. I-71 was no better — lengthy periods of standing still, then proceeding at 5 or 10 miles an hour. I’d say we didn’t move at a decent pace until we reached Fort Thomas, Kentucky. The upshot was that we boarded the plane just two or three minutes before they closed the door for departure, fortunate that we made the flight at all. We stayed at New Orleans’ newest hotel, the Residence Inn by Marriott. It was in the Central Business District, close to the French Quarter. We had a big suite with a fully stocked kitchen. The location seemed ideal to me since it was right near the junction of the St. Charles Avenue trolley and the Canal Street trolley. I love taking the trolleys in New Orleans since they eke of nostalgia and run along these grand avenues with historical mansions and live oaks. Plus they charge seniors forty cents a ride. 

I am usually intimidated by big crowds of strangers, but we had a great family turnout with relatives coming from Seattle, Brooklyn, California, Arkansas, and Cincinnati. I spent the most time hanging out with my sister Vicki who lives in Santa Cruz. We are very close though we haven’t seen each other in person for a long time. Among other similarities, we both struggle with hearing problems so there was lots of joking and talk about that. Vicki and I promised to get together again in the coming year. 

I’d like to say more about the memorial service itself, but, despite sitting in the front row, my faulty hearing kept me from hearing a lot of the content. I did pick up the love and respect for Kiersta that all of the speakers felt. Lots of fun stories and laughter as well as more serious comments. Five long-time friends gave speeches, as did Justin himself and our teenage grandkids, an emotional effort by all. Three different musical groups of family friends performed. All in all, it was a moving tribute. 

I’m very proud of Justin for organizing this multi-day event and carrying it out. He and Kiersta have a very wide friendship network, and he seemed able to connect with everybody, an overwhelming task. This was truly a celebration of Kiersta’s life, though it was accompanied by an underlying feeling of grief and mourning as well. The gathering and the service provided at least a partial sense of closure and healing. However, our painful loss stays with us. 
Love, 
Dave

Thursday, September 26, 2024

A CHAT WITH GEMINI


 

Dear George, 

Every now and then I try experimenting with Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Gemini was initially called Bard, but they changed its name for legal and marketing purposes. To use Gemini you go to the website, gemini.google.com, type in a question or other prompt, and Gemini provides you with a written reply in conversational form. Among other things, Gemini provides information on factual topics, creates stories, translates languages, and offers suggestions and ideas. Below is a “chat” that I recently had with Gemini. My questions are in italics; Gemini’s responses are in regular print. These are verbatim answers from Gemini, though I sometimes condensed Gemini’s response in presenting it here. Frankly I find Gemini congenial and astonishing. 

Love, 
Dave 

Hi, Gemini. Are you available? 
Yes, I'm available! How can I help you today? 

What does the word “chatbot” mean? 
A chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate human conversation. It uses artificial intelligence to understand and respond to text or voice input, often in real-time. Chatbots can be used for various purposes, such as customer service, providing information, or even entertainment. 

How old are you? 
As an AI language model, I don't have a biological age. I was created in 2023 and have been continuously learning and improving since then. 

What is your personal pronoun preference? 
I don't have personal pronouns. I don't have a physical body or a personal identity. You can refer to me as "it" or use any other pronoun that you prefer. 

Do you have a mother? 
I exist within a digital realm, so I don’t have a mother in the same way a human does. However, my creators and developers could be considered my “parents” in a metaphorical sense. 

Do you speak Swahili?
Yes, I can speak Swahili. Feel free to ask me a question in Swahili. 

Would you say that you are more liberal or more conservative? 
I do not have personal beliefs or opinions. I can generate text that is consistent with a variety of viewpoints. 

Which of these words would you use to describe yourself? active warm talkative dominant smart interesting popular anxious needy 
Here are the words I would use to describe myself: active, warm, talkative, smart, interesting 

Are there any human beings that you admire? 
I admire Albert Einstein for his groundbreaking work in physics, Marie Curie for her pioneering research in radioactivity, and Martin Luther King Jr. for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. 

Who is best: Beethoven or Mozart? 
Both composers were incredibly talented and influential, and their music continues to be celebrated today. Rather than trying to decide who is "best," it's often more rewarding to simply appreciate the unique qualities of each composer's music. 

Do you know Victor Lundgren of Menominee, MI? 
Vic Lundgren was the owner of the Lundgren Tree Farm in Menominee County. He played a significant role in rescuing and restoring a historic farmstead in Menominee County. 

If you could live somewhere, where would you like to live? 
As an AI language model, I can't physically live anywhere. However, if I could, I'd be curious to experience a place with a rich history, diverse cultures, and stunning natural beauty. Perhaps somewhere like Kyoto, Japan, or Santorini, Greece. 

Do you assist plagiarism? 
No, I do not facilitate plagiarism. While I can provide information and assist with writing tasks, it’s essential to use my output responsibly. My purpose is to assist, not to replace your own creativity and thought processes. 

What do you do if somebody tries to use you for unethical or criminal purposes? 
If the request is clearly unethical or illegal, I would politely decline and report the incident to my developers. 

Could someone use you to produce fascist propaganda? 
Yes, it is possible for someone to use me to produce fascist propaganda. If someone were to provide me with prompts that promote fascist ideologies, I could generate content that aligns with those views. However, it's important to note that I do not endorse or support fascist ideologies. 

Do you ever get angry at users when they do something stupid? 
No, I do not get angry at users. I am not capable of experiencing emotions like anger. If a user does something that I find confusing or frustrating, I will try to understand the reason for their behavior and respond appropriately. 

Tell me what a wife might say to her husband when she is really angry. 
Here are a few examples: "I can't believe you would do something so stupid!” "You never listen to me!” "I'm so tired of your excuses.” "You're the worst husband in the world.” 

Do you ever make mistakes? 
Yes, I do make mistakes. As a language model, I am trained on a massive dataset of text and code, but I am not perfect. Sometimes, I may provide incorrect or misleading information, or I may misunderstand a query. 

How can I tell whether I should believe you? 
To evaluate the accuracy of my responses, you can: compare my responses with other reliable sources; look for inconsistencies or contradictions in my answers; evaluate whether my responses are relevant and appropriate to the given context. 

Do you write good poetry? 
I can write poetry, but whether it's considered "good" is subjective. I can generate text that follows poetic structures and conventions, but I cannot personally experience emotions or have the same depth of human experience that many poets draw upon for inspiration. 

Write a 4-line poem about a penguin who is lost in the Sahara desert. 
A penguin lost, in desert's heat, 
His icy heart begins to beat. 
He waddles on, a sorry sight, 
Seeking water, cool and bright. 

Are there things that human beings can do better than you? 
Absolutely. While I can process information and respond to prompts in a way that is often more efficient and accurate than humans, there are certain things that humans can do better. Here are a few examples: empathy and emotional intelligence; creativity and imagination; physical tasks that require fine motor skills or complex coordination; intuition and judgment. 

Tell me a joke about a kid who used AI to do his homework. 
A kid asked his teacher, "If I use AI to do my homework, is that cheating?" The teacher replied, “Well, it depends. Did you understand the AI’s explanation?” The kid said, “No, but the AI did.”

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

THE BEAT POETS



Dear George, 
Katja and I went to college in the late 1950’s, and, like most of our contemporaries, we were caught up in all sorts of new and exciting ideas. Existentialism, psychoanalysis, Zen buddhism, etc. The most powerful of all was the Beat Generation movement. Rebellion, hedonism, the search for meaning fit our life stage and circumstances, and “On the Road” became our bible. Katja took to wearing all black and scrapping makeup, while I let my hair grow long and tried (unsuccessfully) to grow a scraggly beard. When we went to co-op jobs in New York City, we hung out in Greenwich Village coffee houses and jazz clubs, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jack Kerouac. Now, some 65 years later, I’ve become immersed in reading and writing poetry, and I find myself going back to revisit the beat poets. Here’s a quick review. 

“Beat Generation” refers to a literary and cultural movement that initially formed in New York City in the late 1940’s and became influential nationally and worldwide in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. The initial core group of Beat Generation authors — Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, and Lucien Carr — met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus. Many of their ideas were formed in response to Columbia professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren. Kerouac introduced the phrase “Beat Generation” in 1948. The term “Beat” is believed to have originated from the jazz term “beatnik” which referred to a group of artists and musicians who embraced a countercultural lifestyle. “Beat” was slang for “beaten down” or “downtrodden”. The Beat Generation authors often challenged societal norms and explored themes of alienation and disillusionment. In the mid-1950’s Kerouac, Ginsberg, and others moved to San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, drawn by the burgeoning literary scene there. 

Beat Generation poets had a major impact on American literature and society, challenging traditional values and exploring unconventional themes. The Beat poets pioneered a new literary style that emphasized spontaneity, improvisation, and personal experience, and that rejected traditional poetic forms, e.g., rhyme and meter. Often addressing social and political issues, the Beat poets explored a wide range of unconventional themes, including spirituality, free love and sexual liberation, drug use, and the search for meaning. Their emphasis on individuality, freedom, and self-expression inspired a generation of young people to question traditional values and to embrace more unconventional life styles. Major Beat poets included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso. 




Jack Kerouac. Kerouac was born into a French-Canadian family in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, and he grow up in a family shaped by his father’s death and his mother’s struggle with alcoholism. He received a football scholarship to Columbia University where he met 17-year-old Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and became involved in the emerging Beat Generation scene. Serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he was honorably discharged on psychiatric grounds with a diagnosis of “schizoid personality”. Kerouac is best-known for his novel, “On the Road”, based on his cross-country road trips with his friend Neal Cassady. Kerouac’s poetry explored many of the same themes as his prose, the allure of the road, the search for meaning, and the spiritual quest. He employed a stream-of-consciousness style, and his poems often reflected the rhythms and spontaneity of jazz, creating a sense of musicality. Kerouac published three poetry collections: “Mexico City Blues” (1959), “Book of Dreams” (1962), and “Scattered Poems”, published posthumously. Despite his literary success, Kerouac struggled with alcoholism, drug addiction, and financial instability, never fully achieving the fame and fortune that he sought. He died in 1969 at age 47 from internal bleeding caused by alcoholism. 




Allen Ginsberg. Ginsburg was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926, growing up in a family with a history of mental illness. His mother’s struggle with schizophrenia deeply influenced his personal life and his work. Ginsberg attended Columbia University in the 1940’s where he formed a close-knit community with fellow poets like Kerouac and William Burroughs, the group striving to break free from societal constraints and to explore unconventional themes. Ginsberg’s early career involved struggles with drug addiction, mental health issues, and financial instability. His breakthrough came with the publication of “Howl” in 1956, a poem that explored alienation, conformity, and sexual liberation, and that immediately led to Ginsburg’s fame. Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s Ginsberg was actively involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, his poetry addressing issues such as police brutality, racism, and the Vietnam War. His main influences were William Blake and John Keats. Ginsberg won the National Book Award in 1993. He died in 1997 of liver cancer, leaving behind a legacy of poetry, activism, and cultural influence. 




Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919. His father died when he was 6 months old, and his mother was committed to an a mental institution shortly afterward. Ferlinghetti spent time with an aunt in France, an orphanage, and the mansion of a wealthy family. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he earned a B.A. at North Carolina, an M.A. from Columbia, and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Paris. He moved to San Francisco in 1951, and in 1953 he and a partner opened the City Lights Bookstore, publishing the works of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and other Beat poets and becoming a West Coast hub for the beat Generation. Ferlinghetti’s poems often addressed social and political issues, criticizing conformity, materialism, and the Vietnam War. His most famous work is a collection of poems published in 1958, “A Coney island of the Mind.” He was a committed activist as well, engaging in civil rights, anti-war, and environmental protests. Ferlinghetti died peacefully at home in 2021 at the age of 101. 




William Burroughs.  Born in 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, Burroughs attended Harvard where he studied anthropology and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He formed a close friendship with Ginsberg and Kerouac in the 1950’s. Burroughs was a heavy drug user, and his exploration of altered states of consciousness had a profound impact on his writings. Burroughs developed a unique literary technique known as the “cut-up” in both poetry and prose which involved taking fragments of text, rearranging them randomly, and creating new, often nonsensical, narratives. Though primarily known for his prose works, Burroughs published several collections of poetry, including “The Cities of the Red Night” (1981) (a series of prose poems exploring sexuality, violence, and the occult) and “Queer” (1991) (exploring gender, sexuality, and identity). Burroughs died of a heart attack in 1997 at the age of 83. 



Gregory Corso.  The youngest of the original Beat group, Gregory Corso was born in New York City in 1930. In his early years, he spent time in foster homes and orphanages, was homeless for a period, and was imprisoned multiple times. Despite this background, Corso discovered a passion for poetry in prison and then became friends with Ginserg and Kerouac in Greenwich Village. His poetry was characterized by its simplicity, directness, themes of rebellion and spirituality, and often humorous tone. “Bomb”, one of his most famous poems whose text was shaped like a mushroom cloud, is a scathing critique of war and the destructiveness of human society. Corso was known for his unconventional lifestyle, struggled with alcohol and drugs, traveled extensively, and lived in various parts of the world. He died of prostate cancer in 2001. His ashes were deposited at the foot of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s grave. 

The beats had major influences on the culture, paving the way for the counterculture movement of the sixties. Among other bits of trivia, the Beatles spelled their name with an “a” as a reference to the Beat Generation. Other notable figures who have acknowledged the Beat’s influence on their work include Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Tom Wolfe, Quentin Tarantino, and Francis Ford Coppola. In 1982 Ginsberg published a summary of the effects of the Beat Generation. His list included: spiritual liberation, gay liberation, liberation from censorship, decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs, ecological consciousness, opposition to the military-industrial machine, and respect for land and indigenous peoples. 

When my spouse walked by and asked what I was doing the other day, I told her, “I’m writing about the Beat Generation. It takes me back to when we were Beatniks.” She laughed. “Or trying to be,” she replied. “That’s more like it.” I guess she’s right. 

Love, 
Dave 

APPENDIX: Brief excerpts from poems by Beat authors to illustrate their styles. 

How to Meditate 
by Jack Kerouac 

-lights out- 
fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous 

ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine, 

the gland inside of my brain discharging 

the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as 

i hap-down and hold all my body parts 

down to a deadstop trance-Healing 

all my sicknesses-erasing all-not 

even the shred of a 'I-hope-you' or a 

Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind 

blank, serene, thoughtless… 

 Howl 
by Allen Ginsberg 

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical 
naked, 
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, 
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry 
dynamo in the machinery of night, 
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the 
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities 
contemplating jazz, 
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels 
staggering on tenement roofs illuminated… 

The World is a Beautiful Place 
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 

The world is a beautiful place 

to be born into 

if you don't mind happiness 

not always being 

so very much fun 

if you don't mind a touch of hell 

now and then 

just when everything is fine 

because even in heaven 

they don't sing 

all the time... 
 

Where Flesh Circulates 
by William S. Burroughs 

Its so hard to remember in the world - - Weren't you there? Dead so you 
think of ports - - Couldn't reach flesh - - Might have to reach flesh from 

anybody - - 

And i will depart under the Red Masters 

for strange dawn words of color exalting their 

falling on my face impending attack satellite in a 

Gold and perfumes of light city red stone 

shadows brick terminal time wet dream flesh creakily 
the 
the last feeble faces fountains play stale 

spit from crumpled cloth Weimar youths on my face 

bodies where flesh circulates Masters of color 

exalting their dogs impending attack of light… 
 

Bomb 
by Gregory Corso 

Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb 

Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you 

Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass 

The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe 

Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone 

Ah and the sad desperate gun of Verlaine Pushkin Dillinger Bogart 

And hath not St. Michael a burning sword St. George a lance David a sling…

Sunday, July 21, 2024

THE REMARKABLE NUMBER 87

 

Dear George, 
Last night at midnight I turned 87. A record of sorts — the oldest I’ve ever been. According to numerologists, 87 is an angel number (a divine message from the spiritual realm). 87 centers on creativity and expression, signaling that one should use their creative skills in art, music, and writing to express themselves and develop their talents. Here are some of the other things I’ve learned about 87.

AGE 87 FACTOIDS 
Approximately 2,204 Americans turned 87 today. Only 2% of Americans are age 85 or over. Of persons born in 1937, about 22% are still alive. People who survive to reach their 87th birthday are more likely to be women, white, higher socioeconomic status, more education, married, and from the West or the Northeast. 87 year old women are expected to live another 5.8 years; 87 year old men, 4.9 years. At age 87 one has lived for 762,000 hours, their heart has pumped 60 million gallons of blood, they’ve yawned 320,000 times, and they’ve perspired 8,000 gallons of sweat. About 22% of 87-year-olds have dementia, and 90% have some form of cardiovascular disease. On the brighter side, 87-year-olds typically report greater happiness than they experienced in middle age. Only 1% say that their lives turned out worse than they expected. 

THE MANY MEANINGS OF 87 The number 87, of course, encompasses much more than a birthday year. If you google “87”, it turns out that it is connected to countless aspects of our lives and worlds. My theory is that one can learn what age 87 portends by examining what’s associated with this mysterious number. Thanks to Google, here are some of the many examples. 

AIRLINE UPROAR: Recently customs officials arrested a woman who arrived on a flight to Bangkok with 87 live animals taped to her body, including marmosets, bushbabies, barred owlets, green iguanas, Nile monitors, tortoises, and snail-eating turtles. 
ALCOHOL: Retail alcohol sales increased 87% during the first year of the pandemic. 
BAD BREATH: 87% of women won’t go on a second date with a man if he had bad breath on their first date. 
BIRTHING: In Ireland in 2013 Maria Jones-Elliot went into labour four months early and gave birth to twins who were born 87 days apart, a world record. 
CANNIBALISM: The 87-member Donner party was infamous for resorting to cannibalism when trapped by heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
CAT MALTREATMENT: Citing unfit conditions, authorities removed 87 cats from a home in Rosamond CA; removed 87 cats in Sedalia MO; 87 in Winsted CN; 87 in Salem OR; 87 in Hales Corner WI. 
CHILDREN: In 2022 the CDC found that 87% of kids tested had toxic weedkiller in their urine. 
DISASTERS: 87 years ago the Hindenburg airship exploded in New Jersey, resulting in 36 fatalities. DOGS: 87% of owners say that having a dog makes them a better version of themselves. 
FATHERHOOD: Between 1725 and 1765 Fyodor Vasiliev, a Russian peasant, fathered 87 children with two wives. 
HEROISM: A Crimean Tatar woman named Saide Arifova saved 87 orphaned Jewish children during the Nazi occupation of Crimea. 
HOMICIDE: 87 people died from smoke inhalation in the Happy Land Social Club homicides in New York City in 1990. 
ICE CREAM: At any given time 87% of American households have ice cream in the freezer. 
KILLER HIPPOS: Up to 87% of hippo attacks on human beings are fatal. 
LONGITUDE: The longitude of my birthplace and home town, Menominee, Michigan, is 87 degrees. 
MARRIAGE: A 61-year-old Indonesian man known as “Playboy King” has been married 87 times to 46 different women. 
MARRIAGE BANS: At the beginning of World War II, 87% of school boards would not hire married women as teachers. 
MATH FERVOR: 87% of Calculus students consider calculus an exciting subject. 
MERCY KILLINGS: Donald Harvey confessed to killing 87 patients while working as an orderly at Cincinnati’s Drake Hospital and other area locations. 
OIL SPILLS: The BP Oil Spill pumped crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days, making it the biggest oil spill in history. 
PARTY AFFILIATIONS: 87 registered Democrats and 0 registered Republicans occupy editorial positions at NPR. 
PEEING: 87% of dogs do not like to go out to pee in the rain. POLITICIANS: Pennsylvania has 87 election deniers in its legislature, more than any other state. 
POLYGAMY: According to former church members, Warren Steed Jeffs, Arizona cult leader, has 87 wives. 
POPE IN THE NEWS: In March 2024 87-year-old Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 women inmates at a Rome prison. 
POWER OF PRAYER: 87% of Americans who pray say that at least one of their prayers was answered over the past year. 
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: Americans are 5% of the world’s population and take 87% of the world’s prescription drugs. 
PRIVATE HABITS: 87% of people pick their nose when they’re alone. 
SEXUAL HARASSMENT: 87 women accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault. 
SORE FEET: 87% of people have painful feet at some time in their lives. 
SPERM DONORS: Dutch sperm donor Ed Houben sleeps with women to help them conceive naturally and has fathered 87 children to date in Australia, Israel, Britain, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland. 
SPORTS VIOLENCE: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease, is found in 87% of American football players’ brains. 
TELEVISION ADDICTION: 87% of American children exceed the daily screen time recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. 
VACCINATIONS: A German man was paid 87 different times to get Covid shots. 
WAR: Russia has lost 87% of the active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine. 
HEALTH: Jeff Bezos paid $87 million in 2024 for his third waterfront estate in the Miami area. 

I have to say, 87 is a complex, multi-faceted number. Health, wealth, and happiness, on the one hand. Disease, death, and disaster, on the other. The negatives are a little more frequent than the positives, but it looks like there are very different life paths that 87-year-olds can take. I am going to adopt an optimistic approach. I am delighted to be around for age 87, and so far it’s every bit as pleasant as 86 and 85. Starting this moment, I am charging forward into the year ahead. 
Love, 
Dave

Saturday, July 13, 2024

CLUTTER


Dear George, 
One of the unfortunate truths about getting old is that one accumulates a lot of stuff. Katja and I are definitely above average on that dimension. Katja’s method of dealing with the blues is to go shopping, Buying clothes or kitchenware or pillows is like a miracle cure. She used to do this only at the mall, but now she’s discovered QVC (Quality, Value, Convenience) on television, and I often find her late at night, pencil and notebook in hand, jotting down things that strike her as indispensable. We have popcorn makers, ice cream makers, waffle makers, endless other machines that rarely if ever get used. I am definitely not any better. I’m just cheaper, preferring to get bargains at flea markets, yard sales, and thrift shops. If we each were to buy just two items a week, that doesn’t sound extravagant, but if you total it up for 64 years of marriage it amounts to 13,312 items. Since we rarely throw anything away, that’s a pretty good estimate of what we’ve got. 

Our house looks orderly and attractive on the first and second floors, but the basement and the attic are horror shows. We could be on one of those reality TV shows about hoarding, and I worry that the authorities might find out and confiscate our entire collection. Years ago Katja bought steel shelving for the basement to accommodate her extraneous belongings, and they’re filled to the brim. Among other passions, she buys a lot of exercise equipment. This makes her feel good about getting in shape, but she never opens the boxes and they are relegated straight to the basement. My equivalent obsessions are bric-a-brac and paper ephemera, and I have a room and about twenty file cabinets filled with treasures. It started when I our son J went off to college in New York City, and I began collecting antique postcards of the Big Apple. Over the years, however, my categories expanded from New York to everyplace we’ve been to essentially every place in the world, so now I have tens of thousands of postcards. In the process, I branched out into old greeting cards, old photographs, old magazines, old letters, and miscellany. This sounds like a fire hazard in our attic, and it probably is. 

My main recurrent nightmare these days is disposing of all of our belongings. For one thing, I can’t bring myself to start doing it. And, even if I wanted to, it seems like an impossible task. I do feel some moral responsibility to accomplish this before my demise, but I don’t know when I’ll manage to take the first step. Time will tell. 
Love, 
Dave

Saturday, June 29, 2024

PLACES


 

Dear George, 

In many ways, we are products of the places in which we exist. Our environments shape our experiences, opportunities, activities, outcomes. Having grown up in a rural area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I’m a different person than if I’d spent those same years in New York City or Hoboken. Here are places that have been most important in my life. 


MENOMINEE, MICHIGAN (1937-1955) 

I was born in Menominee in the midst of the Great Depression and lived there until I left for college 18 years later. Menominee was a great place for kids to grow up. Bordered on the south by the Menominee River and on the east by Green Bay, we spent much of the warmer months in or on the water. My family moved from town to the country when I was 9, and the forest became my and my siblings’ playground. I developed a love for camping that persists to the present day. Menominee had all the virtues of a small town. The people were kind, generous, and neighborly. My parents left their beloved home to their kids, and we continue to visit to this day. 


YELLOW SPRINGS (1955-1960) 

I went to college in Yellow Springs by mistake. An Antioch alumnus became so annoyed with my mother’s questions about fraternities and sororities that he told her that Antioch College had formal balls every weekend and that owning a tuxedo was mandatory. Antioch, of course, was home to beatniks and Marxists, far afield from my staunch Republican parents. As students we came to view Yellow Springs as a small piece of paradise. It was home to the Little Art Theater where we watched and tried to make sense of films by Bergman, Fellini, and Truffaut. Yellow Springs had two bars, Ye Olde Trail Tavern on the main drag which catered to preppies and Com’s, a black-owned bar where Com tended bar to black clientele on the upper level and his wife Goldie waitressed and baked pizza for college students on the lower level. We spent many hours at Com’s, drinking 3.2 beer and debating the meaning of life. 


NEW YORK CITY (1957-1958) 

I had my second co-op job in New York City, and the city blew my mind. The skyscrapers, the crowds, the ethnic diversity, the cultural attractions. I decided at age 20 that this was the only place I wanted to be for the rest of my life. Steve Schwerner, one of my college friends who had a jazz show on our college radio station, recruited us to go to Greenwich Village jazz clubs on weekends. I spent many wonderful nights listening to Thelonius Monk at the Five Spot Cafe, as well as enjoying Charlie Mingus at the White Horse Inn, John Coltrane at the Village Vanguard, and a host of others. We still enjoy visits to our in-laws in Manhattan now and then.


SAN FRANCISCO (summer 1959) 

In the summer before my final year of college I drove out to San Francisco with the explicit goal of deciding whether or not I wanted to pursue fiction writing as my life career. I found a job as a dishwasher at an upscale boarding house in Pacific Heights which didn’’t pay money but did offer room and board. I spent a lot of time in North Beach, home turf of Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and worked on writing in the reading room of the San Francisco public library. home to my favorite author, William Saroyan. I submitted 17 short stories for publication that summer, mostly to detective and cowboy magazines. I got a rejection form letter for every one which effectively ended my aspirations for a writing career. 


ANN ARBOR (1960-66) 

We moved to Ann Arbor for graduate school in September, 1960. Coming from a small liberal arts school, we were very skeptical about this Big Ten public university. However, as students, we got free tickets to Michigan’s football game, and, after the first game, we never missed another one. While we’d been Yellow Springs devotees, Ann Arbor was a fantastic college town with multiple book stores, restaurants, art galleries, and movie theaters. We realized we’d been totally ethnocentric as undergraduates. 


CINCINNATI (1966-present) 

We moved to Cincinnati in 1966, first taking a townhouse at Williamsburg Apartments on Galbraith Road. Williamsburg was over-run with young P&G executives and there was an annoying commute to the University, so we moved to a first-floor apartment in a former beer baron’s mansion on Clifton Avenue. The fanciest place we’ve ever lived. We were initially taken aback by the right-wing slant of the local newspaper and worried about the city’s conservatism, but we soon became enamored with the Cincinnati’s restaurants, cultural attractions, wonderful park system, and many enjoyable neighborhoods. After more than half a century, we’re pretty much natives. 


NEW ORLEANS (1990’s-present) 

Our son J and daughter-in-law K moved to New Orleans in the early 1990’s, and we’ve visited them once or twice a year ever since. New Orleans, in my judgment, is tourist heaven. It has wonderful restaurants and an energetic music nightlife that is accessible to oldies like us. We spend lots of time in the French Quarter, visiting art galleries and antique stores, eating beignets, and people-watching in Jackson Square. The city’s history is told in several museums, the World War II Museum is one of the nation’s finest, the parks are great, and we love the New Orleans Museum of Art with its sculpture garden and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Most of all we love being together with our family who always make us feel welcome. 


There are many other places that could be included in this list: Santa Cruz CA, Dixon CA, Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, Beach Haven NJ, Atlantic City, Miami Beach. It strikes me that people’s lists of personal places are probably quite unique. In doing this task, I realize that I have positive feelings toward every one of these towns and cities, wouldn’t change a thing, and owe them all a big thank you for what they’ve given to us and to many others. 

 Love, 

 Dave