TRAVEL vs RACISM

A really good friend of mine sent me a poem this morning called Travel, written by a poet named Geo Evan, translated from Italian.  She sent me this because she knows I love travel (and have done quite a lot of it) and she was sure I would like what the poet was saying about travel, and she was right--I liked it, and it also got me to thinking.

One of the benefits of travel according to the poet was that if you did not travel, then you might become racist.  I especially liked how he wrote it, that you might become racist, instead of the current short-sightenedness in the United States that all white people are born racist and there is no way to change that.  I say it is obvious that everybody everywhere in the world undergoes various experiences, events, joys, fears, frustrations, obstacles, triumphs, and let-downs, and due to all matters of varying impacts will lead to making decisions of how they will feel about aspects of the world and its people.  The point is that the exposure to other kinds of people than one's own can generate an expanded appreciation of others without negative judgments that are self limiting. 

In my response to my friend, I decided to expand the concept to an area that interests both of us, not specifically included in the poet's meaning. There has been quite a LOT of discussions recently about visiting people coming here from other planets and I wondered if the concept of racism would make "aliens" very loath to show themselves to us in the immense likehood that they will look quite different from us and that on its face would likely wreck any chance of forming an alliance with them.  A possible human response could be to kill on sight.

I realize that I am guilty of potential racism of that myself, in that I have said "If some UFO people come down among us, I want them to look much like us, not some frightening monsters."  And believe me they certainly COULD be very frighting monsters in appearance.

In that brilliant book, Life In Darwin's Universe by Gene Bylinsky, a book I read long ago and want to read it again, said that in the Universe there are two ideal body types for advanced, intelligent, technological (tool making) people, and those are the two-legged, upright, eyes in front model (like us), OR a "rotary" model with many arms all around, like a squid or octobus.  Yeah, I could "get" that, but I really didn't want to be in the presence of a human sized squid stepping out of their space craft, I would risk having a heart attack.

 

Now I have a more "accepting" view due to having read another amazing book, about how wonderful octobuses are, The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Mongomery.  I have soften my view.  Of course, that is also an ocean going type of body, not terrestrial, so we're less apt to deal with that kind of people...although in the book The Time Machine, the hero in the book at the end of the book set the time machine to the farthest future where he observed the sun dim out and the end of the Earth, the last creature alive on the planet looked like a large octopus that was terrestrial. So even H.G. Wells allowed for that body type to be the most long-lasting one.

 

All of which is to say that it would behoove us to be kind and accepting of any physical appearances, and wouldn't we all want the same?

 

Here's a kind of a funny occurence that happened to me some time ago.  You know how sometime your brain just goes out on a journey to who knows where and you lose all connection to the here and now?  (Or am I the only one?)  Well, one day I was driving my car on a very empty rural road (driving "automatically") and suddenly I saw an utterly horrendous and frighten creature standing there in a field.  The sight of this thing chilled me to the bone, what was this horrible monster?  Well, fortuantaly I "came back to my normal consciousness" and saw, oh, it is just a Cow!   I don't know why I had that experience, but I never forgot it...I saw how from a slightly different perspective that a sweet and common of a creature as a cow can be very frightening in appearance if you have never seen one before.

 

Think of all the varities of animals just here on this one planet.  Probably any of them would near scare us to death if we had not encountered them before.  Rhinoceroses, Elephants, Giraffes, Hyenas, Vultures, Buffalo, Horses, Alligators.  The whole deal has to do with familiarity.  Once we have experience with them, we come to appreciate and even love them.  (Well, maybe not the alligators.)  And the same goes with people.

 

Speaking of people, my genes include Neandertal genes and another unusual one, Denisovan.  That is not very common.  Both of those are now extinct.  I am sure we don't really know exactly what those two types of people looked like, pretty similar to humans now, but still, different enough to wonder how and why those different types of human breed together, but they certainly did.  And regarding the Native Americans (from my point of view as a white person), I think the average person thinks that most of the American Indians (so many different tribes) are gone due to "whites people" killing them all.  No, according to some studies, they disappeared into "us" (and "we" into them) via marriage and giving birth to mixed children.  I am not arguing FOR or AGAINST "mixed" marriage, only saying that it definitely existed throughout history and currently, and this is a demonstration of how familiarity can prevent racism, as the poem says, since falling in love and getting married and having children is exactly demonstative of NOT being racist.

 

I felt so happy a couple of weeks ago shopping at a new gorcery store I discovered, "Q" Market that is a Pesian market...that there is a whole substantial culture of Persians here in Los Angeles.  I felt that it added to the over-all strength of our city if having communities like that were viewed as allies instead of enemies (our federal government views Persians living in Iran as our enemy).  I realize that things like that can easily go either way, but my current view is that if people from Iran chose to move HERE, they must have something very much in common with us, and that is wanting freedom and opportunity.  I know that many freedom seekers from other countries end up ruining freedom for us by voting the only way they knew back home, but still, we can hope that ultimately they will come to understand and appreciate what is really freedom.

 

I understand that there is something like 2,200 different languages being spoken in Los Angeles!  I couldn't list that many language names, let alone know where they all come from!  But it is fascianting to contemplate.  There could be a ton of growth and personal expansion combined within that many different cultures, or else it would lead to the worst example of the Tower of Babel and we all would end up killing each other instead of learning from each other.  It could go either way.  But at least from the point of view of this poet, there is a good chance of becomming enhanced.

 

There is a lot more that I can say based on that poem, but I will just add one more that is down to earth.  I had an uncle who had condos in three places, California, Sweden, and Finland, and business affairs in Denmark, Switzerland, and France.  I was the executor of his state, so when he died, I moved to Sweden to administer his affairs in Stockholm and Helsini. I was living in Sweden for severeal months (and several trips) without knowing a word of Swedish (HE never learned it!).  Almost every Swede past middle school can speak English fluently, which was a great advantage for me working there.

 

While not having to know Swedish made it easier for me to do the work there, this also made it so I had no pressure to learn some of the language.  This put me "outside" of understanding the Swedish language, and not having a positive view of it.  It looked ugly in print and of course, was meaningless noise when spoken.

However, one lucky day I was riding the tunnelba (the Swedish subway) from downtown Stockholm to the area where my uncle's condo building was, and I saw an advertisement posted on the wall in front of the carriage I was in.  I was an ad for a woman's bath product and showed a beautiful woman in a bathtub, holding up a lily flower.  I saw the world "lilje" on the advertisement and coubled that with the picture of the flower made me think that "lilje" meant "lily".  I pulled out my Swedish/English dictionary and saw that "lilje" meant "lily of the flower" ("lila" mean "lily"). Suddenly, the language wasn't so ugly, now!

 

I got off the subway at my stop and marveled that the name of that subway stop was "Liljeholmen". So there was that lily again, what must "holmen" mean?  The dictionary said "harbors", so the name of my subway stop was "Lily Harbors"...another beatiful name, and this stop was right along a series of harbors!

 

So now that I knew that "holmen" meant "harbors", so the whole name of the city, "Stockholm", must have something to do with harbors.  Well, "holmen" is hardors and "holm" is one harbor, and looking up "stock" revealed that stock is Swedish for "lumber".  Ah ha, the name of the city is Lumber Harbor, so clearly that was that city's first claim to fame, and, in fact, logging and boat making was a major industry and so trees would be cut down from the northern forests and floated down the waterways by the hundreds and gathering up in Stockholm for building things.

 

As I walked up the hill from the harbor to my Uncle's condo, I looked at the street name, yet another formerly ugly looking name:  "Grenljusbacken".  My handy dictionary helped me deciper that name.  "Gren" is a light, like a lit candle.  Grenljus is a partiucular lighted candle, the Christmas lights that the Swedes put in every window during the Christmas season.  And "backen" means "up a hill".  So my Uncle's street name was "Christmas lights in a window going up hill".  And only a few days later I had gone down to Stockholm for some errands, and by the time I was coming back home, I was walking up hill after dark, and I saw first hand all the Christmas lights glistening in the windows as I walked up hill:  Granljusbacken!

 

From then on, Swedish was one of the most beautiful languages ever.  I frequently had my nose in my Swedish/English translater book, what does this mean, what is this place really called, making the whole place a wonder.  I really recommend this exercise to anyone who is going to any non-English speaking place...the treat you will enjoy will be that much deeper.  And becaue of that, you will start to think and understand how they see things, and you will love them for the beautiful people they really are.

CUTE LITTLE DOG

There’s a watch shop that I go to.  They sell and repair watches, watch bands, and replacement batteries.  For your quick needs, such as getting a replacement battery (my usual reason to be in there), there are a couple of chairs where you can sit down and wait.  Usually they have playing on the wall a large video of a Rolex watch being completely taken apart piece by piece and then being put back together again.  Seeing all those intricate parts is astonishing. This seems to be a puzzle to beat all puzzles.

 

That watch whose innards I have now seen several times is at the opposite pole of the price realm of the watches I bring in for repair or new batteries, or to replace a worn band. Sometimes I have been embarrassed to bring in such cheap watches, but every time he or his other employees will treat it with as much respect as if they were the finest of time pieces, such as some that are in their display case or in beautiful catalogues on a table between the waiting room chairs.  

 

The owner of the shop has a tiny little light brown dog that stays with him in the inner sanctum where the owner does his work.  I have never seen in there, the waiting room is the realm for the customers.  But that little dog loves to come out from there whenever somebody comes in the shop.  He can hear when the door opens, and he immediately comes right out to see who has is there.  He is extremely cute and doesn’t say a word, no barking or panting or whining like some dogs, and he doesn’t jump up on anybody.  He will just come out, see who it is and maybe hang around their feet for a while, especially if the customer bends down to pet him, which almost everyone does, because he is so cute.  As for me, I will go sit down on one of the chairs and he will cover to where my feet are and I bend down to pet him for a long while.  He is so soft and smooth and loves the petting but never makes a noise; he just absorbs the pleasure of being pet.  In times will I have been sitting there for a while, I will stop petting the dog and will watch the Rolex video.  When that happens, the dog then lies down right on top of my shoes as if that setting was as confortable as a doggy bed and goes right to sleep!

 

I can tell you that having a very cute little dog curled up to sleep on your feet is extremely charming.  It is practically a therapy.  There have been a few times when I was disappointed that the repaired watch was fixed so soon and I had to undo the cozy situation of the dog sleeping on my feet. I would gently get up and the dog would wake up, and realizing that I am now going to be walking over to the cash register, he will go back to the repair sanctum, ready to come out again the next time he hears the sound of the door opening.

 

I went there today.  I needed a replacement watch band and while the store owner was looking through the large collection of replacement bands (I asked him for one that was the most similar to my broken one), I kept wondering when the dog would come out. The owner found the right band and I asked him if he would install it for me.  He said, “Sure” and took it back to the workplace to get it installed.  

 

He then came out with it all set and said, “Put it on to see if it fits.”  I put the watch on, everything was perfect.  I pulled out my wallet and I couldn’t help but say, “I miss having the pleasure of your dog come out and greeting me!”  He said, “Ah, yes, well he is sleeping peacefully, he is being Mr. Lazy this morning.”

 

As he was running my credit card, I said, “It is so comfortable to have an animal with you when you work.  There is a bookstore I know in another town where the owner has a cat that has the run of the store and her customers love petting the cat when they come to buy books.

 

He said, “Everybody loved coming in here and enjoyed seeing my dog…except the mailman.  He told me that he didn’t like dogs.  The next thing I knew, without any warning, he stopped delivering my mail.  I just wasn’t getting any for several days, so finally I called the post office and they told me that due to regulation bla bla bla, they don’t have to deliver mail if there is something dangerous there.”

 

I said, “Dangerous? Dogs and mailmen, classic enemies…but your dog was no trouble at all!  Very sweet and quiet!”

 

“I know it,” the owner said. “Everybody loved seeing my dog. But now I had to fill out an affidavit swearing that I would not allow the dog out where it would be a danger to the mail carrier, or else they would refuse to deliver my mail.”

 

I was flabbergasted at the unreasonableness of it…he didn’t have a Pit Bull or a Rottweiler or a pair of Dobermen Pincers, his dog was no more dangerous than a stuffed teddy bear.

 

I said, “These days it is the lowest people taking advantage of some miniscule power that they can grab to hurt other people.”

 

As I said this, he nodded and looked at me very pointedly.   He said, “Speak of the devil…”  At first I didn’t get what he was doing, but he nodded his head toward the door and once again said, “Speak of the devil.”  I looked and saw a mailman coming in with some mail for the owner. Apparently THE mailman.  As the mailman handed him some mail, the owner’s eyes were boring through me as if he wanted to pin shut anything that might come out of my mouth.  I wasn’t about to say anything to the mailman, I only smiled at him and said to the owner, “Thank you so much, this watch band fits perfectly!”  Then I turned and as I went out the door, I said, “You always have the things I need, I will see you next time.”  

 

I got in my car and the mailman got into his vehicle and he was out of the parking lot before I was.  No, I am not the type of person who would have put my two scents into the issue.  I do know some who would, though.  They would berate the mailman for his lack of sensitivity etc., making things worse. 

 

I am glad that the owner at least got to still have his dog back there where he worked.  But we all were harmed somewhat by this.   Yet another sweet pleasure was taken away from us due to the meanness of people who insist they are victims, but really are so weak that the drug they are on is taking away the pleasures of other people.   

DUMPSTER DIVER

One of my favorite places to be in my apartment is out on my balcony. Hot, cold, sunny, rainy (it has a roof so I don’t get wet), it is always a pleasure to relax out there, read out there, and even eat out there.  I have a three-seat iron café’ table for that purpose.  Also a chaise lounge and a swivel chair.  Mostly I am on the chaise lounge, but when the sun starts to go down through the tall thick trees that on the dividing line between this apartment complex and the condominiums next door, I sit in the swivel chair so the sun doesn’t shine in my eyes until sunset.  I had installed party lights around the ceiling overhead, enough that I can read out there after dark.

 

During the coved lockdowns (and still now), I spent a lot more time out there on the balcony than I had done ever before.  I am on the third floor of this building, which is the highest, but it is actually four floors above to the ground, because that is where the ramp goes down into the underground parking lot.  Next to the down-ramp is an up-ramp going to the upper parking lot.  This creates a somewhat steep slope down that ramp, and then a sharp left turn further down the down ramp into the underground parking lot.

 

This is a relentless magnet for the numerous children who live in this complex.  When three o’clock would arrive, every Zoom taught home-schooled child would burst out of their condo and grab their skateboard, scooter, bicycle, roller skates, or any other thing that rolled and take the thrill ride down from the upper parking lot and then maneuver a total reversal in direction into the lower parking lot, whooping and hollering the whole way down.  Each child demonstrated great skill.  I never saw any one fall off or have an accident; they were like circus performers.  All ages playing together and even little kids got in on the action, their bigger brothers or sisters would take them down with them if there was any way to have them stand on top of their sibling’s feet or share a space that could be held onto.  Laughing and screaming in delight all the way up to dinner time.

 

Of course doing all that on the parking garage ramps was strictly against the complex rules, and notices to that effect would be periodically taped onto our apartment doors.  But what was going to stop it?  These garage ramps were in a different area of the complex’s office, so rarely did anybody in authority come around to this area of the large grounds of the complex.

 

You don’t think I would tell on them, would you?  First of all, I saw that they were really in very little danger.  They certainly had the skills to do what they were doing. Also, they always sounded an alert when a car was coming in or going out.  Those who saw when a car was on the move would shout out “CAR!”, which would echo loudly in the underground garage, and every child would scoot over to whatever wall was nearest.

 

And something about what they were doing reminded me of when I was in second grade in school when we lived in Boston.  It was winter, which meant that we ice skated on a nearby frozen pond and sled down a deep snow packed hill right under the school Principal’s office window.   My parents had given we a flying saucer to sled on, which was more fun in that it flew faster and spun around wildly as I sped down the long hill.  As for the Principal there of the Baker School, near the end of the school day, he would announce over the classroom’s PA system, “Boys and girls, I looked out my window and saw on the hill there is a FRESH NEW DEEP LAYER OF SNOW all ready for you to come over and do some sledding!  If you don’t have a sled, you can check one out from the P.E. department.”

 

I would have thought he would forbid sliding down the hill below his window, but instead, he facilitated it!  Maybe something in that nice man’s appreciation of children having run had rubbed off onto me for when I grew up!

 

Also, I already know from having worked in an elementary school that you can tell kids to not do something all you want, but you will NEVER stop it.  It’s like “running”.  That’s one of the most heard sounds on a school ground…teachers yelling at some kid, “No running”!  Youknow what happens…the kid stops, and then a minute later the teacher turns her head away and the kid is running again.

 

I was amused one day (back in those days) when a little boy asked me why “I let kids run.”  I said, “Because running is your normal means of locomotion.  Kids run, that is a fact.  Why should we stop it?  It’s not hurting anybody.  And anyway, if I did stop you, you would only stop for a minute and then the moment I looked away, you would carry on running again.  Adults can’t really run any more, so I think we are jealous of you guys. If we would run like you do, we would…but we can’t, so some envious people what to block you from doing it, too.”

 

Ha ha!  He gave me that “you are the only adult here who will give an honest answer” look.  I love that.

 

But this piece isn’t about what a “bad” child monitor I am, but about some other doings on the parking drive that is right there at my balcony.

 

I had begun to notice a truck periodically up against the wall in the driveway. It is was not really meant to be a place to park, but there was room enough to do so without blocking anybody driving in or out.  It was a rather nice truck and the bed of it was packed solid with stuff, some of it tools and some of it junk.  To me it looked like a combination worker’s truck and Dust Bowl flivver, piled high by a conglomeration of various disconnected items. I assumed that the truck’s owner might be some kind of worker on the complex.  We always had those, putting in new air conditioners or painting a building or trimming trees or putting in a beautiful garden, or, most frequently, a plumber, (which meant that the water would be shut off for a period time.)

 

But all those trucks had company names painted on the cab doors. This truck had no identification like that.  And he was here rather often, even more than the plumbing company.  So he was a mystery to me.  And the stuff that was in the bed of his truck didn’t give me a clue, either.  One of the items was a bicycle along with a spare tire.  I never saw a workman carrying a bicycle in their track.  This made me think that that the owner actually LIVED in this truck, and indeed, it was one of those that had four doors with a seat behind the front seat.  It was a nice truck, not some piece of jumk, so despite the aura of him living in it, it didn’t seem that a person having a truck quite that nice would need to live in it.

 

Well, with me using the balcony so much more than before, I began to see his truck a lot more…although so far nothing had shed any light on what he was doing.  I would see him come in the front gate, always following somebody who could get in via their clicker that he obviously did not have.  He would wait patiently until somebody would come in or out so that he could come in.  

 

He would park, take a swig of water from a large container in the bed of the truck, and then take down a child’s wagon, a stool, and a hoe, and put the stool and the hoe on the wagon, and then go off the property back onto the sidewalk and talk on down the street pulling his wagon!  What?  He parks here on our driveway, and the walks on down the treet to somewhere else?  What on earth does is he doing?

 

Week after week, I would see his truck carefully parked in or driveway, and most of the time he would have already gone on down the sidewalk to somewhere else.  There were some times when I went out onto the balcony around lunch time and he would have come back and was eating his lunch, sitting in the passenger side of his truck.  Other times, I would catch him arrive and watch him drink his water and then load the stool and the hoe into the wagon and walk on down the sidewalk.

 

Finally, one day, I went out to our row of five garbage dumpsters at the far end of the upper parking lot to empty my kitchen garbage can.  I saw this tall man standing on a stool against one of the dumpsters, the upper half of his skinny body deep down inside the dumpster, his skinny body bending almost in two.  I didn’t want to startle this person, so I said “Hello, how are you doing today?”  The person stood back upright to look at me and he had a hoe in his hand.  I saw it was the man with the truck!

 

He answered my question, “Well I’ve been better, but yesterday I was late and forget to pack my stool.  I had to climb up so that I rested my belly on the edge of the dumpster and as I struggled to get a bottle that was low down, I slid face right down into the dumpster!”

 

“Oh wow, were you hurt?” I said.

 

“Ah yeah,” he said, “I badly scraped by stomach on the lip of the metal dumpster edge and it really dug into me, hurt a whole lot.”

 

I said, “That was terrible, is it still hurting?”

 

“Well, not so ’s I would stop working, but it does slow me down some. I won’t make that mistake again, forgetting my stool!”

 

I said, “Well, you are very smart to have that stool, and that hoe, as well! You’re really quite organized!”

 

“Gotta have that to reach the bottles on the bottom!” he said with a little laugh.  

 

“You’ve got it all down,” I said,

 

“Yea, when I don’t fall in,” he said.  And then we both laughed.

 

I went over to the far left dumpster, tossed in my garbage, and as I started to walk away, I said, “I hope you get well soon” and he said, “Hope, so, hope so.”

 

So now I knew what he was doing.  And he must be doing this in all of the other complexes down the street. He would park here, and then go out down the sidewalk with his wagon and tools to the other complexes.  I admired his organization.

 

A month ago, our complex got a new assistant manager and I was on my balcony and the Dumpster Diver was having his lunch in his truck, parked at his usual spot on our driveway.  She was telling him that he could NOT park here, he had to park out on the street only. She was adamant, “It is ok to scavenge things out of the dumpsters, but in no way do you have permission to park your truck in here.”

 

It was as if the was thinking that the homeless were making inroads into our complex, ready to sleep on the lawn and bathe in the swimming pool. Well, I wouldn’t like that to happen either, and I do see her point.  However, the truth was that he was really a problem.

 

Sometimes he actually does park his truck out on the street, but street parking here is very hard to find.  So you know where he parks when there is no available spot on the street. This is his livelihood, after all. He just parks here like he always has. He is like the children playing on that exact same strip of concrete.  You can’t really stop it, and there is no reason to.

 

Yesterday early in the morning, I went out on my balcony to drink a cup of coffee.  I heard in the distance the sound of glass bottles clinking.  I realized it was him, but he wasn’t down by our garbage containers. Listening carefully, I could hear that it was coming from way down the end of the driveway of the condos next door to us.  They must have their line of garbage containers lined up down there more or less like where we have ours.

 

Later in the day, I went grocery shopping and when I came back home, the Dumpster Diver’s truck was this time parked on the street and he himself was standing on his stool and pulling up glass bottles with his body half bent over the metal edge of the dumpster, this time out on the sidewalk.  The line of five dumpsters had already been taken out one by one to the street by the garbage collector who drives the little vehicle that is a “truck” in the front half and a “fork lift” in the back half. This driver backs his forklift into a section of the dumpster that catches ahold onto the fork.  The diver lifts the rear up a bit and is then able to take that dumpster out to the street, where it will have its contents dumped into the top of the huge dump truck when it comes.  It’s a pretty fascinating operation (and very, very noisy!).

 

I went out to the sidewalk and said “hi” to the Dumpster Diver and asked him if he was now totally healed from his previous mishap.  He said, “Oh, yeah, I’m fine, although sometimes at night I feel sick in my stomach and even have to go to the bathroom to vomit.  But I am good, thank for asking about me.”  I said, “You bet, I hope that vomiting goes away, that sounds miserable.”

 

I was thinking how I admired him choosing to buckle down and do something like this instead of begging or in some other way to obtain money.  What he does is an ecological service on top of taking care of himself the best he can.

 

Just then, the driver of the little forklift truck came back.  It must be time for the big dump truck to come.  I hoped that Dumpster Diver had gotten all he wanted from the five bins.

 

The driver of the forklift truck very matter of actually handed the Dumpster Diver two large plastic bags filled with glass bottles.  As if it were a normal routine, which I am thinking it was, the Dumpster Diver immediately took the bags and put them into the back seat area of his truck. Somebody at another complex must have been saving these for Dumpster Diver, and the forklift truck driver had been a courier between the one saving the glass and Dumpster Diver.  This demonstrated a legitimacy in the position of the Dumpster Diver.  The landfill did not want the glass, which either would not be recycled or someone had to separate it from everything else. Dumpster Diver did want it because he could sell it, and where he sold it would transfer it all to a recycler.

 

Dumpster Diver was not, let us say, some kind of outcast dealing in garbage, down on his luck, but a valid participant in the whole process.  So you rock, Dumpster Driver!

SONGS OF THE HEART: Call Me By Your Name

It started with a marvelous novel by Andre' Aciman, about the powerful romance between two brilliant artistic talents during a delicious and never to be forgotten summer in Italy.  One of the pair was the 24 year old American graduate student, Oliver, who had received the envious opportunity of coming to stay as a guest and summer assistant to a renouned antiquities scholar who lived in a gorgeous villa above the ocean in the Italian Riviera, and the just over the Italian age of consent son of the scholar, Ilio, who was a very talented musician.

For Ilio, the summer routine of graduate students chosen to come from foreign places to become part of the family for six weeks while increasing their scholarly bona fides was a bit of a bore.  Mostly it meant that Ilio had to give up his normal bedroom in a wing of the villa so that the summer student could have it, and he had to move to a much smaller room down the hall.  However, he had a lot of friends and a girlfriend from France and the ocean was great and he always had the piano and his guitar.  So, life was good and about to become even better...much better.

The beginning days with Oliver there seemed like with all the other summer scholars, except that Oliver was a bit too self-confident (he had right away opened a bank acount in town and quite quickly became welcomed by the older gambling men and he even found a woman or two who had been immediately  drawn to him.  Ilio felt that Oliver was rather arrogant and too "American" in his self-assuredness.  Being self-assured, Ilio certainly was not.

But oh boy despite that rocky beginning in Ilio's mind, things did begin to change and while Ilio was in emotional and sexual turmoil to the the extent that only a young man can have, Ilio's ever-inceasing attraction to Oliver was unmistakable and urgent.  

It was so easy for the reader to fall right in step with Ilio's quest for Oliver, and it was so powerful and wonderful when Oliver finally revealed his mutual feelings toward Ilio.  It was all so beautiful and so powerful that I read this book three times, and even then couldn't quite put it down.  I had to read certain sections over and over again (the Rome section), and even now, several years after my reading that book, I  would stop and read the final five pages over again.  It never stopped grabbing me and my heart.

And this just wasn't me.  It became a very much loved movie, (which I saw two nights in a row, and then bought the movie to have at home)  starring Timothee Chalamet as Ilio, and Armie Hammer as Oliver.  Michael Stuhlbarg played the father, whose loving talk with Ilio nobody will ever forget.

For this SONGS OF THE HEART series I wanted to give the powerful background to the music I selected from the soundtrack.  To help generate that mood, which I think is so precious, I have here the movie's trailer:

Movie Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9AYPxH5NTM

 

Putting these selections together, I was surprised to see how many people have posted their own compilation videos from this movie.  He is one made by indigo ibex:

Elio and Oliver:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JXCJIbSC_w

 

This song is so bright and beautitul, young and full of promise.  Having a piano at this point is so appropirate, since Ilio, who is so shy to express his feelings for Oliver  in words, he can express via the piano, instead:

Song Title:  Halleluja Junction--1^stMovement

Composed and Performed By: John Adams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEuVb-rNr0M

 

Ravel is one of my favorite composers and this was such a wonderful selection for this movie.  Luca Guadagnino, the film's director, said that whenever Elio would make progress in revealing his love for Oliver, echoes of this music would be played.  What I hear in this music is deep feelings, like the depth of the ocean, sunsets, falling stars, and the glistening of hope: 

Song Title:  Une barque sur l’oean (A boat on the oeon), from Mirrors

Composer:  Maurice Ravel

Performed By:  Andre Laplante  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkAnau-XU80

 

Thanks to the three creations used in this movie, Sufjan Stevens became a god to Call Me By Your Name fans.  I myself listened to his music every day driving my car to work for a month or more.  In this song, the love is in full swing and what I feel is a weight on the heart--not a burden, but a recognition of carrying that genuine love:  

Song Title:  Futile Devices (Doveman Remix)

Written and Performed By: Sufjan Stevens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49jqVRaxfuA

 

When two hearts merge, no matter what, they are forever:

Song Title:  Mystery of Love

Written and Performed By: Sufjan Stevens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0CP9zpbmAQ

Step lightly, delicately suffering the absence, hold gently your heart in your hand...this is real, you genuinely loved...that is a power!

 

Song Title:  Le Jardin Feerique (The Fairy Garden) from Ma mere l’Oye (Mother Goose)

Composed by Maurice Ravel

Performed By:  Valeria Svernvanszky & Ronald Cavaye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od8aFNaxJE8&list=PLM1rZjbS5GVrSxZSfqTabeInUWw0ePtry&index=16

 

"I have loved you for the last time"....and for all the times from now on....

Song Title:  Visions of Gideon

Written and Performed By: Sufjan Stevens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O65N5WuQfSU

Silent movie theater, no word, just tears.

SONGS OF THE HEART: Sights

 Song Title:  Sights

Artist:  London Grammar

Link to song (version with lyrics):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxIymtM-xVU

Yes, I take requests!  A close friend of mine sent me this song, asking me to post it here, saying that it is such a beautiful song and extremely expressive of "what everybody is going through right now".  She wanted to share it with my readers.  I had not heard of this song or this musical group until listening to it today.  I could powerfully feel that what my friend had said was certainly true!  But it will be up to each individual to feel what aspect or aspects of their life this song resonates with.  This could be personal to you in perhaps a unique way, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with what somebody else feels from the song.  I, myself, felt it was applicable to a very current context, so I was surprised to realize that this song came out in 2015! What this song was resonating in me didn't exist until 2020, and now 2021!  I realize that a really good song of the heart is timeless and reverberates in both directions, toward the future and also back into the past.  See where in your timeline these feelings apply.

SONGS OF THE HEART: The Movie Hotel: Complete Soundtrack

I decided to go ahead and present here the complete soundtrack of the movie, Hotel.  So many of the songs on here are representatives of songs of the heart anyway, so there would be no reason to leave them out.

All songs are composed by Johnny Keating. 

Arthur Hailey was an author that I liked a lot in my youth, because his books took readers into the doings of various industries and also memorable movies had been made of some of the books, often with very good music.  Probably the most well-know book and subsequent movie was Airport, but there were also Wheels, The Money Changers, Hotel, The Evening News, Detective, The Final Diagnosis, In High Places (government preparing for World War III), and Overload (about a terrorist takedown of a California power grid).  The movies that I saw were Airport, Hotel, and The Money Changers, with Hotel having the most impact on me.  Hotel was released in 1967.

Hotel was later made into a series for television, starring James Brolin, Connie Sellecca, Anne Baxter, and countless popular stars of that era.  The television series ran from 1983 to 1988, with 115 episodes.  I had bought a box set of the entire series and during the lockdown last year, every single evening I would watch an episode of the series until I had seen all 115 of them.  I really loved it!  The people of the St. Gregory Hotel were my steady companions for nearly four months! There was lots of nostalgia in all that.  In Hailey's novel and in the subsequent movie, the luxurious hotel was situated in New Orleans, but for the televisions series, the hotel was situated in San Francisco, and the hotel that was filmed to be St. Gregory was the Fairmont Hotel.

I grew up and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from the ages of 9 to 37, but now it has been quite a while since I have been there.  Watching Hotel night after I night, I remembered all the wonderful friends and loved ones and all the fun I had there and how beautiful it all was.  Now I feel that San Francisco is a mess.

Watching the television Hotel made me think back to the movie that I had seen in 1967.  I remembered that the St. Gregory hotel in New Orleans was outstandingly luxurious, where no guest request was too hard or bizarre to fulfill, where the rooms were elegant suites, and the food and drink top-notch...and if it is top notch food in New Orleans, you KNOW what in this hotel's dining room is going to be great!

After having seen 115 episodes of the television Hotel, I decided I wanted to buy a DVD of the original Hotel movie that I liked so much and see how it made me feel now.  I especially remembered a charcter in the movie, a thief, played by Karl Malden, and I remember really liking the theme music for him.  In real life, I hate thieves, I think they should be given the death penalty, in that I have been a serious victim of their burglaries three different times, but in movies I like the thieves.  Three of my favorite movies featured thieves that I LIKE, The Thomas Crown Affair (Steve McQueen and Faye Dunnaway version), The Thief Who Came To Dinner (Ryan O'Neal and Jaqueline Bisset), and The Italian Job (Mark Walberg, Charlize Theron).

But overall what I remembered was that there was something really good and much loved, that then had to come to an end and there was a sense of loss yet arrying somewhere in your heart the fond memories of that which had been so good.

This opening theme song already presents that kind of feeling--something good, but that maybe is on its way to a loss.  In other words, the nostalgia is baked in the cake.  But meanwhile, you will hear some elegance, sophistication, and happiness.

Song Title:  From Hotel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQdwLWffifo

But no reason to worry about the future now...there is some fun to had so let's go! 

Song title:  Airport:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzaEeksE8Dg&list=OLAK5uy_l_h8yYVgM73kddZtUZpxSXtRxMppfyASg&index=3

 

A beautiful woman arrives in the hotel, but somehow seems to not be satisfied in her being, there's a mixture of utter beauty and discontent, is there some potential there?

Song Title:  Love Theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tGatD9PCOg&list=OLAK5uy_l_h8yYVgM73kddZtUZpxSXtRxMppfyASg&index=4

Key Case, as in a case filled with hotel room keys for a thief to use to obtain priceless jewelry from people like a Duchess!  I definitely did remember this character, played by Karl Malden.  Somehow I continued to carry his theme song in my head for 54 years without have heard it more than once in the movie!  How cool it is to now have it as a recording.

 

Song Title:  Key Case:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUSDrDKEoSs

 

Carrying that theme of time moving toward the ending of something, even the entertainment in the lounge seems to issue some warnings.  But only the hotel owner and his top manager knows that the hospitality industry is changing and large chain hotels are taking over, swallowing up more older fashined hotels that despite their quality cannot compete against the cut rate houses.

Song Title:  This Year;

Singer:  Carmen MacRae:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsD8MmHxzbc&list=OLAK5uy_l_h8yYVgM73kddZtUZpxSXtRxMppfyASg&index=6

But hey, this is New Orleans, one can have fun even in the midst of potental or actual hard ships.

 

Song Title:  Bourbon Street:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LesPzQBg-6Q&list=OLAK5uy_l_h8yYVgM73kddZtUZpxSXtRxMppfyASg&index=7

 

Sort of a marry-go-round feeling as the powers of a major hotel chain plan what changes they would would to the St. Gregory that would pull in for them more profits, but at a sacrafice to much of the soul of the glorious hotel.

Song Title:  Hotel Lobby:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvEqIda2SfU

The Duke and The Duchess, welcome guests to the hotel, seem to have some kind of a struggle going on, and yet their love for each other remains intact.

 

Song Title:  Duke and Duchess  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fQIbFwMd0k&list=OLAK5uy_l_h8yYVgM73kddZtUZpxSXtRxMppfyASg&index=9

 

I love how so many of the songs carry the main theme but are different enought in presenting different moods or circumstances.

Song Title:  Hotel;

Singer:  Carmen MacRae

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwRNNJqgctE

 

Here's another happening in this movie that I have never forgotten, the semi-way crash of one of the  elevators and the painfully suspenseful rush to attempt to get the passengers out--yikes! 

Song Title:  Elevator:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuZuy8f8hTc

 

In the midst of tragedy and loss, a new door opens and a previous pottential for love opens and blossoms.

Song Title:  Jeanne and Pete:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byu6T9Cafqs&list=OLAK5uy_l_h8yYVgM73kddZtUZpxSXtRxMppfyASg&index=12

 

Frankly, I never really liked New Orleans Jazz, but what this movie and its music helped me realize was that it is a heritage borne from the creation of a people who suffered extremely greaty, slaves sent down the river, New Oreans was the furthest "down the river" there was, so they had to devise a way to cope.  So the sound of New Orleans Jazz would be a sound that reflects the misery, but also uplifts with a  celebration in the  triumphant survival.  Despite woe, find the time to dance and forget the troubles for a time.  Then the coping play roles away and the final music is emotionally laid bare, almost exactly the song of the beginning, but this time its loss is clear.  Whatever greatness this hotel and its people were and had, that would be a loss and one needed to grieve, which opens up the awareness of the love that was there and that soothes the soul.

I found myself wanting to listen to the first song and the last song again every day for several weeks.  My heart craved it, and it made me feel enhanced by love.  

Song Title:  End Title:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xfmC_KdEvc&list=OLAK5uy_l_h8yYVgM73kddZtUZpxSXtRxMppfyASg&index=13

SONGS OF THE HEARTS: The Cure

The movie, The Cure, starring Joseph Mozzelo playing Dexter, a young boy who received AIDS from a blood transfusion, and Brad Renfro, playing Dexter's friend, Erik, was truly a work of the heart.   Dexter, newly moved into a town in Minnesota, plays alone in his backyard, because parents in the neighborhood are afraid that their children could catch AIDS from the boy.  But Erik's back yard is on the other side of Dexter's fence, so Erik is intrigued and talks with Dexter on his side of the fence.  Finally, he decides to just climb over the fence and the two become fast friends.

Here is the movie's trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV5UZ565o7s

They boys had a blast getting into all sorts of mischief, but always hanging over them is that Dexter has a  fatal disease.  They decide that they had a mission--to find a cure for Dexter's AIDS.  They try various potentially healthy foods, but found them unpalatable, so try things they liked, different kinds of candy, but that just make them sick.  Then they found a news article about a doctor in New Orleans who claimed to be able to cure AIDS.  That gave them a lot of hope.  Erik's mother decided to send her son away to camp for the rest of the summer, so the boys hatch a plan--they both would away by taking a raft down the Mississippi River to find the curing doctor in New Orleans.

So this becomes a more serious adventure and the friendship deepens considerably.  One of the most powerful scenes in the movie was one night they were camping on the ground near the river when Dexter has a nightmare.  Erik wakes him up out of the frightening dream, and Dexter explains that in his nightmare he was lost a million miles out in space all alone, but Erik tenderly sooths him by giving Dexter his track shoe to hold as he slept, saying that if he got scared again in the night, he could grab onto Erick's smelly old track shoe and realize that he wasn't alone, that Erick would be by his side.

The adventure becomes more precarous and then Dexter gets very sick, so in desperation, Erik telephones Dexter's mother and she says to immediately take a Grayhound Bus back home.  From then on in the movie, it is a tear-jerker, but one of those that cause you to remember that the greater the love, the more powerful the grief, which means that the greater the grief, the greater the love, a love that is  your emotional reward.

Dexter is put into the hospital and again the boys have their high jinks, such as Dexter would pretend to have died and Erik would go crying to an orderly or nurse or doctor, saying that the boy had just died, and when they came in to check the boy's vitals, he would suddenly jump and scare the wits out of them.  They thought that was hilarious!

But then, another of the most powerful moments in the film, Erik is awaked by the rain and gets up out of bed and looks out his bedroom window over at Dexter's house and sees over the fence and their toys are scatterd all around in the yard, memories of the times they had had together.  It's at that moment that Erik realizes that Derick really could die, for real.

A day or two later, they pull their death trick again, Erik got his fake crying going and then went out into the hall to find a doctor.  A doctor came in, put his stethoscope on Dexter's chest, and then again in a different place, signed, and pulled the sheet over Dexter's face.

************

In the funeral home, Erik came in to pay his respects, had a long private time with Dexter's body, and then spoke very kindly to Dexter's mother.  The actress who played her in all of her sceens was outstanding.  Dexter's mother hugged Erik and thanked him for having been such a good friend to Dexter, and she said she hoped Erik would come visit her from time to time.  He said that he would.  He then walked down the stairs from the funeral home and the mother saw him walking with a limp.  She went into the room where her son was lying in the open casket, and she saw that Erik had taken off his track shoe and put it into Dexters crossed arms.

Songs:  Ending Songs of The Cure:  The Funeral Home, and Down The River Ending Credits (Erik is shown at the nearby river where the boys had requently fished; he had floated his other shoe on the water that would flow its way down the Mississippi River to New Orleans)

Composer:  Dave Grucin 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GuU7twFs38

Here's a real life sad note:  Brad Renfro died of a heroin overdose in 2008 when he was 25 years old, 15 years after he played the part of Erik in the beautiful movie, The Cure.  Dear Brad Renfro, may you ever rest in piece.