Tell Us a Story

Just before I went on vacation, I read two books - Tales of King Arthur and I Thought My Father Was God.  Both are actually compilations.  Sir Thomas Mallory translated and edited many folk tales, songs and epic poems together to come up with the more consistent whole that we recognize as the Arthur legends today.  The National Story Project challenged ordinary Americans to commit their own stories to paper, and the resulting collection is the book I Thought My Father Was God.  Reading both books at the same time got me thinking about storytelling and its place in our world. 

 

Historians believe Mallory was a knight himself, who used his time in prison to write in place of action.   The writers of the Story Project are people from all walks of life.  In both cases, the stories are presumed to have sprung from the truth, although Mallory's Arthur is an embellishment of the historical king, to say the least. 

Although it can't be proven, I believe that stories have been around almost as long as spoken language.  I imagine our ancestors telling each other tales of the hunt, yarns of near misses with predators, legends born of natural disasters.  As they learned to tell each other stories, they somehow hard-wired the act of telling and listening to stories into our brains.  Recognition of  basic story structure seems almost instinctual.   We start out learning with cues of "Once upon a time" and a stated "The End".  It doesn't take long, though, before we learn to see a beginning, middle, and end even without the prompts.  We crave conflict, suspense, happy endings even in our own lives. 

In fact, I guarantee that you, dear reader, have at least one story in your own repertoire.   The one that got away, be it fish or lover.  The mystical coincidence.  The ghost stories and love stories.  Family histories and tall tales of Uncle Harry's antics at a wedding 20 years ago.  Even the jokes starting with someone walking into a bar. 

We see stories in sports.  We love the underdogs, the Cinderella stories, the triumph over injury and adversity, the comeback kids, the sports dynasty.  Would the last Super Bowl have been as exciting if the Patriots hadn't been near perfect all year?  Is Brett Favre really such an awesome quarterback if you take away all the stories from his personal life? 

Is it coincidence that we refer to "news stories", pay money to read books and watch people acting out a good story, that even video games are starting to look at story as a way to make their first person shooter or strategy game more interesting? 

The human race can't help but love stories.  The more we find out about communication among other species, in fact, the more I would argue that our stories are a unique part of what makes us human in the first place. 

The human race loves a great story.  

June Reading List

The books I read in June, with short reviews: 

Living Faith, by Jimmy Carter - You can argue whether Carter was a good president or not, but this book has very little to do with his presidency.  Jimmy Carter has written a unique style of memoir.  Instead of telling anecdotes and dropping names, he discusses how his faith in God has developed over his lifetime.  Worth a read if you want to understand who he is, or if you want to reflect on the role of faith in your own life. 

A Chocolate Moose for Dinner by Fred Gwynne - One of a handful of children's books written by Herman Munster himself.   All the books are quirky, fun illustrations of a child's way of hearing adult cliches and phrases.  This one and The King Who Rained are the best of the bunch, true classics on my shelf. 

The Princess Bride by William Goldman - You may have seen the movie.  William Goldman also wrote the screenplay, so it's pretty faithful to the book.  The real difference is that in book form Goldman has the space to make himself at home.  The world of Wesley, Buttercup and the gang is described in wondrous detail, of course.  The truly fun part, especially in the 30th Anniversary Edition, is Goldman's made up back story of his editing decisions in creating the "good parts" version legal disputes with the estate of S. Morganstern. 

Pollyanna in Hollywood by Elizabeth Horton - Pollyanna started as an impossibly cheerful little girl finding happiness in the face of hard times.  In this sequel, published in 1931, she's all grown up with kids of her own.  She's not so annoyingly cheerful in this one, as she has the same worries confronting all parents.  The best part of this book, though, isn't the plot so much as the details of her surroundings in a fresher, younger Hollywood before movies hit their Golden Age.  Also interesting is how accepting Pollyanna is of the SoCal melting pot, considering that the thirties were a less than enlightened period in history. 

Everthing's Eventual by Stephen King - I'm a sucker for short stories.  Stephen King is the Master of Horror, yada yada yada.  Forget the press releases, what he's really the master of is the short story.  True, some of these little guys are downright scary.  However, some are just creepy and others aren't really frightening at all.  What all of them share is a distillation of character and scenario into tales that are just as entertaining as their longer counterparts. 

To See You Again by Betty Schimmel with Joyce Gabriel - This is a true Holocaust story of young love separated by war and horrific circumstances.  Betty Schimmel, whether on her own or with Joyce Gabriel's help, tells her story directly and without self pity.  As with all survivor's stories, there are moments of strength and bravery, but she tells about them in a matter of fact manner.  The end is heartbreaking and maddening, but it's worth the journey to get there. 

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley - Another book that has a great movie attached to it.  Again, one of the things that makes the movie great is its faithfulness to the book.    Another classic children's book, it's appealing for horse lovers no matter what age they are. 

Sources of Strength by Jimmy Carter - This is very similar to Living Faith, sharing even some of the same Bible passages and anecdotes.  The main difference is in format.  If you are looking for a memoir to read from beginning to end,  read Living Faith.  What Sources of Strength brings to the table is a format which encourages study of Bible verses and their meanings.  Great for its intended use, not as readable from cover to cover. 

Best in Children's Books, #30 - This is part of a series published by Doubleday in the late 50's and early 60's.  I have four from the series that I got as hand-me-downs from my older cousins. They have decent illustrations, with a sort of Reader's Digest version of the stories.  This particular book had a chunk of the Jason and the Argonauts story, for example.  Some of the other books in the series have better stories, but it's always fun to look at what the baby boomers were reading when they were kids.   

Bulldogs: A Complete Pet Owner's Manual by Phil Maggitti - Ok, so it's not great literature.  It is, however, a very well written informational book to help you decide whether a bulldog is the right pet for you.  Turns out, in our case, not so much.  But thanks to Phil Maggitti's writing style and even wit, I enjoyed finding that out. 

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - Speaking of great literature, it's painfully obvious that this book is shooting for that label.   The symbolism floods the book, almost to the point of being unreadable.  The characters aren't particularly sympathetic for the first half of the book, a fact which almost kept me from reading all the way through.  I admit that the only thing that hooked me were references to places of my past.  Giving up would be a shame, because the end is lovely and poetic.  In short, The Corrections is worth reading, but only for those with a fair amount of patience. 

The Trumpet of the Swan by EB White - This book begins in a completely different place from where it ends up.  It starts out as a nature story.  I can see, in fact, where as a child I stopped reading after the first chapter.  But it picks up speed as it goes, a rollicking story of a young swan who plays an actual trumpet.  How does he play a trumpet without lips?  Beats me, but by the end I stopped caring and just went along for the ride. 

Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie - Chick lit at its finest.  Witty and fun, with lovable characters; if they don't make a movie of this one then someone should lose their green-lighting privileges.  Perhaps the best story element isn't the central betting theme, but our heroine Minerva's bizarre relationship with food.   The wacky families are realistic, the buddies are relatively fleshed out.  Highly recommended for the romantic comedy lover in your life. 

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - This is a nifty children's book.  It's often considered a classic of the genre.  Honestly, I think that label comes from the adult readers more than the child ones.  The themes are spoiled children and the merits of going out to play.  Of course parents are going to love it!  It is quite good, but I can't help but wonder if I would've liked it as much if I were still a kid. 

Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot - Another "chick lit" book, but with a twist.  The plot is fairly predictable, but the format is unusual enough to make up for it.  There's not a stitch of narration or prose in the entire novel.  Instead, the story unfolds as we peek at emails, instant messages, memos and other personal and professional documents the characters send back and forth.  Definitely an interesting method of storytelling. 

The Mystery of Seven Gables by EJ Craine - Quaint.  While it was plotted well enough, and the story rolled right along... If this is the kind of mystery you're in the mood for, look up Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys.  Same era, same idea, much better execution.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - This book has received a lot of hype, which always makes me wary.  In this case, though, the hype was warranted and then some.  The best new writer I've read in a very long time.  The story is about childhood lost, and about Afghanistan - neither are subjects for the faint of heart.   The richness of the story, the characters and their lives is more than enough to make up for the sadness that permeates the book.  

That's it for this month.  And yes, I do know that I read entirely too many books. 

Eddie Izzard - Tues, 6/17 @ the Tampa Theatre

Eddie Izzard knows his audience.  He actually made comments to that effect Tuesday night at the Tampa Theatre.  It's not every comedian that is comfortable going into a 30 minute comedic argument that God doesn't exist. 

Obviously, his humor is not for everyone.  His breakout performance in the US was the HBO special Dress to Kill, in which he wore women's clothes, makeup, and high heels, and a good deal of his act consisted of transvestite jokes. 

Now that he sports facial hair for his "Riches" character, the transvestite material has gone.  The makeup is down to a more subtle eye liner and mascara only look.  The clothes were downright manly, consisting of jeans, men's motorcycle boots, a dark shirt and a topcoat with tails.  Stylish and dramatic, yes, but still very masculine.   The humor, however, was as off the wall as ever. 

Warming up with the origins of the name "Tampa" and a riff on Air Conditioning as an illegal substance, Izzard lived up to his reputation for having his train of thought go careening off the tracks.  He went from Tampa and AC to Apple products and Wikipedia, to God, the Big Bang, Noah's Ark, the Space Program, Jesus' real name, and Evolution.  Even the derailments are interesting, such as the elaborate setup to get to the punchline "Badgers can be choosers."  Which was followed by a groan-inspired conversation between God and the badger about the merits of the joke.

It was a great evening for the sold out crowd of Eddie Izzard converts.  I would highly recommend catching him next time you have the chance, with a couple caveats: you have to be quick to keep up with the many jumps in his stream-of-consciousness brand of comedy.  Also, while you don't have to agree with him, you have to be able to keep an open mind for a couple hours and let him carry you along with him, or risk missing out on the fun. 

Memories Under Water

River towns are different from other towns.  As Mark Twain knew, there's a romance and a mystery to a place where boats and water fowl float through town, the surface rarely freezes even in winter, and spring thaws can mean danger as well as beauty.  When you grow up in a river town, it's a certainty that you know the phrase "100-year flood".

However, "100-year flood" isn't a as descriptive as it used to be.  Barry Drazkowski, quoted in the Chicago Tribune (see article here), says "If we look over the past 100 years, it is not normal to get so many large amounts of rain like those we've seen in such a short period of time."

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa this week, the phrase that keeps popping up is "500-year flood."   The water is rising in Iowa City as well.  Parts of downtown Rock Island, in Illinois are flooding.  In fact, there are floods all over Iowa and Wisconsin, and in portions of Illinois and Minnesota.  

Cedar Rapids is the hometown of the Cedar River, football player Kurt Warner, and my father.  We still have family there, although luckily they live on higher ground.  

I was born in Northern Virginia, along the Potomac River, which last flooded in  2001.  I grew up in Rock Island, which has not one but two rivers - the Mississippi and the Rock.  As I mentioned, downtown is already waterlogged, and as of this morning there are flash flood warnings in effect all up and down the Mississippi River in Iowa and Illinois.  I went to college in two places:  Iowa City, where the Iowa River is overflowing in a "100-year" flood.  Apparently someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that they just had a "100-year" one in 1993.  My second school was in Richmond, Virginia, where the James damaged my favorite pizza place (they rebuilt) and my favorite club the Flood Zone ( they didn't) in 2004.  All the rivers I love are testing their boundaries, it seems.  

There's something unsettling about a natural disaster occurring in a place you know by heart.  New Orleans was sad, tragic, and heartbreaking.  I'd walked the streets, I'd eaten beignets, I'd listened to jazz and sampled the crawfish.  You probably cried for those people, and I did too.  Floods, earthquakes, typhoons, tornados -- natural disasters are heartbreaking even in the most foreign of places.

Somehow, though, even with less lives lost, it's worse when the news photos are of places you love.  To see the Cedar

 Rapids Dairy Queen my dad used to take me to when we were visiting family almost half submerged is heartbreaking.  The Five Seasons hotel and arena where I saw so many rock concerts looks sunken and sad.   

This is what my old dorm in Iowa City looked like on Thurdsay.  I see this photo, and my brain fills in unseen images of other parts of campus - Hancher Auditorium, the art museum and buildings, the Library, the English-Philosophy Building, the Student Union - all slowly filling with water.   

My mental image of a waterlogged Rock Island is fuzzier, but they've been working so hard to rebuild the downtown...

More than ever, I feel homesick for the towns of my past.  How many landmarks will be changed by this?  How many will be gone altogether?  

And there's a sense of guilt.  If I were there, I could be sandbagging, I could be working in shelters, I could be doing... stuff.  Here, I can only watch, maybe send money.  It's not only that, though.  I got all the good parts of living in river towns.  Nights sitting on cars looking out over the water.  Hours on boats floating along, watching the barges haul their cargo.  Time spent splashing in the shallows of the James. Let's not forget the View.  I got off easy, I left before the floods.  I got the good stuff, but I didn't pay the toll.

And they say there's two more days of rain on the way...

Ode to Ice Cream

Some pilgrims go to Mecca, or the Wailing Wall.  Others go to Graceland or Carnegie Hall.  My most treasured place on the planet is Whitey's Ice Cream.

I grew up in an area on the border of Iowa and Illinois called the Quad Cities.  It's actually more than four, but the point is the cities are all clumped together.  Unless you're crossing the Mississippi River to jump states,  you almost have to live there to know when you've gone from one to the next.  When I was a kid, a lot of people didn't go into the other cities very often.  We were one of those families, at least while I was in grade school.  

There was an ice cream shop right across from my school, but it wasn't Whitey's.  The Ice Creamery it was called, and it was good and convenient - every day ice cream.   Special occasions required special ice cream, and then we'd make the looong trek over to Moline and go to Whitey's.  

Now I live in Florida.  My drive to work is farther than the trip from our house to Whitey's.

I am a lover of ice cream, a connoisseur if you will.  I've had ice cream all over the place, from Florida to Alaska, Maine to southern California.  I've had other ice creams that were pretty good, but none of them tops Whitey's.  

I tell these Floridians about Whitey's all the time.  They smile, they laugh - they humor me, in other words.  I can tell they don't believe that the best ice cream in the world can come from Moline. 

My husband, Aaron, was one of the non-believers, until we went to visit my parents when they lived in Iowa.  He told me it couldn't possibly live up to my hype.  Then he tasted it. 

"Now," I asked, "is this not the best ice cream you've ever had?"

Aaron has tasted the light.  

He thinks I'm addicted to ice cream, that I have a Problem.  In order to show him otherwise, we have a bet - I've given up ice cream for one whole year.  My reward?  On July 1, I will be getting a six-pack of Whitey's famous shakes (well, maybe one will be a malt), packed in dry ice and friendship, and sent halfway across the country to my waiting taste buds. 

The wait will be worth it. 

A possible future for hybrid cars

How many cars does your family have?  No, this isn't a question designed for environmental guilt.  In fact, let's forget about the environment, just for now. 

My family has two cars, two people.  Even so we don't have a good option for taking a road trip.  My car is eleven years old and has over 170,000 miles on it.  My husband's truck eats over $100 per tank.  You see our dilemma.  You may even have a similar one.

What if there were a better option, not only for you and me, but for everyone? 

Here's what I would like to see: hybrid rental cars.  What if the rental companies had an incentive to have all hybrid models in their inventories? 

It would make it easier for people to afford travel.  Business people and vacationers alike could afford more and longer trips if they didn't have to spend as much of their travel budget on gas.  No, it's probably not a cure for what's ailing our tourist based economies, but it could decrease the severity of the symptoms. 

Still not convinced?  Think about the last time you flew to a major airport and rented a car.  Each rental company has a parking lot full of cars.  A particularly large airport may have all eight nationally known rental companies represented.  That means hundreds of car serving a single airport. 

Next,  you drove that rental car.  Remember what you liked or disliked about it?  If you really liked it (or really hated it), you made a mental note of what car it was.  Rental companies get discounts on their vehicles not only because they buy in bulk, but also because of the chance to get people into a car who may not otherwise test drive it.  If renters are all driving hybrids, they are more likely to consider one the next time they need a car.

"But hybrids are really expensive," you're thinking.  The national rental companies replace their fleets every year.  Right now, relatively few families can comfortably afford a hybrid, even with incentives.  The people that do buy them may not be as likely to trade them in every two years, if their concern is environmental impact.

If the rental agencies were selling hundreds of one year old hybrids all over the country each year, they would be more available, and at prices more families could afford. 

Now it's time to go back to the environmental stuff.  

In the short term, this idea may only make a small dent in America's total emissions.  Think of the possibilities, though, if this creates a long term trend toward hybrid use in general.

Could we make our air easier to breathe again?  Could we lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern oil?  Would we be more accepting of future "green" technologies? 

Do we dare to imagine a city sky without smog?

For now, my argument is all hopes and questions.  But wouldn't it be great if we find these dreams to be the answers?