There Might Be Cupcakes and Books

Fascinating idea in this dialogue from The Exorcist, between Father Karras and Father Merrin: the idea of needing to love ourselves to accept that we could be loved by God. Self-esteem as a spiritual act. Daring to believe we could be lovable, loved, set apart. That's a dangerous, risky, frightening act of love. It brings the idea of fierceness and bravery to both love and spirituality.

Joyce Carol Oates retweeted me. Twice. I need a lie-down.

Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers * Michael G. Long

I received an ARC copy of this ebook from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have always loved and appreciated Fred Rogers as a gentle soul, who wanted us to love each other and treat each other with kindness and compassion. Everything I learned only made me appreciate him more--and this book, opening my eyes to his Christianity-based politics, was the icing on the cake.

Even as a child, I knew Rogers' inclusion of Francois Clemmons, the African-American police officer as a Mister Rogers' Neighborhood went against the social grain. From this book, I learned Clemmons was the first African-American with a regular role on a children's television series, joining before Northern Calloway (David), Matt Robinson (Gordon), and Loretta Long (Susan) on Sesame Street. I also learned Clemmons' hiring was a deliberate--loving, but deliberate--act, especially the wading pool scenes with him. Those shared soaking scenes were in direct protest to segregated swimming pools, and violent responses to integrated pools.

Mister Rogers resisted pressure from certain cast members to be more visibly and aggressively political, because they felt his responsibility was to his children and family audience; his neighborhood needed to be a quiet, safe place of learning, the one place in their lives where protests were not taking place, where no one was shouting, and where no one was making frightening ultimatums. Michael Long's book touched me, as a child of the '70's, in so many ways. This book would make a nice addendum to high school and college courses covering 1960's and 1970's cultural and social history. Highly recommended.

interview with Clemmons on NPR StoryCorps

my original post

 I am enjoying the arc of Kay's realizing first that Lucy is perhaps not just a sociopath, but also may be a dangerous sociopath; and Kay's exploration of how badly she spoiled Lucy and indulged Lucy's narcissism.

Kay has avoided fully acknowledging these glaring dangers with the belief that Lucy is, when it comes to her loved ones, a weapon pointing outwards from their wagon circle. But now, Kay is facing the fact that isn't true.

She has also avoided facing head-on the fact that Lucy's ravens have and will come to roost. Every selfish, dangerous thing she has done, every emotionally or physically violent act, every careless relationship...and every time Kay has fixed it all for her (special treatment in the Quantico dorms, for example)... consequences are and have been coming due all along.

coming this autumn: no. 24, Chaos

When I received the incredible opportunity to meet Stephen King, I pondered for days beforehand about what to tell him, what I wanted to share with this man who had shared so much with me through his words.

And then I knew.

But If I were to get the words out in the moment, it had to be a just-us.

My husband went first. Then I stepped forward and King's eyes smiled into mine and held them. I leaned forward, the distance balanced between no one can overhear/this is special and I'm a crazy stalker who is going to bite off your nose. His eyes told me he understood. And then I told him.

I told him that "The Body", the novella that became Stand by Me, helped me, with every reread, with my delayed and complicated grief from my little brother's death. In the obvious ways at first, but, finally, as I aged--

through Chris, as he cried about wanting to go somewhere where no one knew him and start over (unable to shoulder my identity as the Older Bereaved Sister, wanting to drop it)

and as Chris, in the quoted scene below, tells Gordie that he is stuck in his grief, stuck thinking the wrong brother died, stuck in his anger, and that he has some writing to do.

King had looked down while I was explaining, to carefully sign my first edition of The Shining. When I got to that last specific bit, he finished, dropped the pen, and met my eyes again. His eyes were damp.

"I am so very glad," he said, "and so, so very grateful you were able to tell me."

We looked silently at each other for another moment. He slid me my book, and said, "What was his name?"

"Eric."

He nodded as a man does when he mentally puts something in his pocket. "Eric."

--

The movie came out when I was in high school, still in the middle of it, still trying to figure out the answer to the question about how many siblings I had. The truth--one but he died? Way to bum everyone out, Morticia. None? Betrayal. Just being tasked with that (tasking myself with it) ramped up the grief-anger. Perfect timing. This movie owns a piece of my heart, and I don't want it back.

Gordie: Fuck writing, I don't want to be a writer. It's stupid. It's a stupid waste of time.
Chris: That's your dad talking.
Gordie: Bullshit.
Chris: Bull true. I know how your dad feels about you. He doesn't give a shit about you. Denny was the one he cared about and don't try to tell me different. You're just a kid, Gordie.
Gordie: Oh, gee! Thanks, Dad.
Chris: Wish the hell I was your dad. You wouldn't be goin' around talkin' about takin' these stupid shop courses if I was. It's like God gave you something, man, all those stories you can make up. And He said, "This is what we got for ya, kid. Try not to lose it." Kids lose everything unless there's someone there to look out for them. And if your parents are too fucked up to do it, then maybe I should.

--

Thank you, sweet, loving Naomi King, for sharing so much of your father with the rest of us weird motley fools and discontents. Please accept this story as a token of gratitude from one Constant Reader, who is a better and healthier person for it.

Impetus: http://wilwheaton.net/2011/03/though-i-hadnt-seen-him-in-over-twenty-years-i-knew-id-miss-him-forever/

 

If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an' maybe he's disappointed that nothin' he can do 'll make him feel rich.

― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Election years feel like dystopian novels come to life. This one is The Hunger Games, 1984, Lord of the Flies, and Delirium (love is seen as a dangerous contagion, life is regulated and monitored by the government) shaken and stirred, all mixed together and clamoring louder louder louder.

The low meanness it is encouraging between commonfolk tastes like warm pennies, shock of copper on the tongue, and sounds like the clamor of pots and pans tumbling to the floor in the middle of a silent night clanging into the silence again and again.

Election years feel like dystopian novels come to life. This one is The Hunger Games, 1984, Lord of the Flies, and Delirium (love is seen as a dangerous contagion, life is regulated and monitored by the government) shaken and stirred, all mixed together and clamoring louder louder louder.

The low meanness it is encouraging between commonfolk tastes like warm pennies, shock of copper on the tongue, and sounds like the clamor of pots and pans tumbling to the floor in the middle of a silent night clanging into the silence again and again.

Podcast Episode 156: The Marblehead Smallpox Riot: Smallpox Blankie, or Why Are My Neighbors Bumpy?

Podcast Episode 147: The Greenbrier Ghost: Meatless Mondays are Murder!, or Ghosts Make My Head Spin:

true story of the only known legal case where a ghost testified about her own murder

followup entry: Postmortem Photography: includes a premortem photography story about my great-grandfather

Podcast Episode 145: Squirrel Tooth Alice: No pithy Bullwinkle title because there are vintage nudes, yes sir you are welcome

Podcast Episode 126: RA Cunningham and Tambo: Nickels in the Dime Museum, or How to Buy Other People for Fun and Profit!

and, Resources: American Crime Story (and a personal fable, boogeyman and all): relates back to several episodes and ties them all together:

• Episode 39: LAPD: The Beginning
• Episode 40: LAPD 2: The James Davis Years
• Episode 42: LAPD 3: SWAT
• Episode 44: LAPD 4: Rampart

All of thedollop.net entries has the mp3 of the corresponding podcast episode embedded in the beginning of the blog entry, so you can easily listen as well as read. Also, all of the entries have many, many more suggested books to read than I have highlighted here. Because it's me.

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Currently halfway through the first novel in Blake Crouch's series. It's Twin Peaks (and Blue Velvet, a perfect white picket fence with a severed ear at its base) crashing into The Lottery overcome by another wave filled with your every agoraphobic fear fed by that small town out in the middle of nowhere.

Road trip. You are forced to stop in this...town? for gas, the only business for miles seems to be the gas station-combo-momandpop diner. The next exits with any recognizable franchises are either miles ahead or behind. The lady behind the counter seems nice enough, and the now-silent customer-companions are watching you with only curiosity...but it suddenly deeply bothers you that it is only you and them for miles and miles, only you, and them, and the humming fluorescent lamps over the slices of the pie of the day...the humming and the blinking...hum and blink and stare...

Series order:

1. Pines
2. Wayward
3. The Last Town

The end of Stephen King's trilogy will be published June 7, 2016, and can be preordered now.

series order:

1. Mr. Mercedes

2. Finders Keepers

3. End of Watch

Damn it, Anne Sexton, now look what you made me do. I should be resting, but I poemed all over myself instead. All your fault. (Thank you.)

I love this woman. Spending the afternoon with her. If I must choose between The Moiraie of American 20th century literature--Dorothy, Sylvia, and Anne--I cast my thread of fate with Anne, every time, though I love and need them all.

"Dinah the Christmas Whore", Holidays on Ice, Expanded Edition