Monthly Archives: December 2011

Books read in 2010 & 2011

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I’ve always been curious about the books people read. It fascinates me because, I suppose, what draws the undivided attention of the human mind fascinates me, and because I’ve carried on a love affair with books for as long as I have memory. What people read tends to draw my undivided attention. I even joined a delightful website called Goodreads where book lovers share their reading journeys. Some years ago I took to the habit of keep lists of the books I read, memorializing their completion by noting the day I finished them.

I enjoyed all these books. Long ago I learned from my father that if, after some pages, the book didn’t interest me, put it down and move on. 

Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch humanist and theologian, said, “When I have money, I buy books. If any money is left over, I buy food and clothes.” I’m with you all the way, sir.

Here are the books I read in 2010 and 2011.

2011

1) “Intruder in the Dust” by William Faulkner 1-5-11

2) “The Children” by Edith Wharton 1-11-11

3) “House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton 1-31-11

4) “The Ghost Writer” by Philip Roth 2-10-11

5) “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius” by Leo Damrosch 2-22-11

6) “The Alice Behind Wonderland” by Simon Winchester 3-13-11

7) “The Tenants” by Bernard Malamud 3-25-11

8) “The Assistant” by Bernard Malamud 4-10-11

9) “The Natural” by Bernard Malamud 4-19-11

10) “The Fixer” by Bernard Malamud 4-28-11

11) “Dubin’s Lives” by Bernard Malamud 5-14-11

12) “A New Life” by Bernard Malamud 5-28-11

13) “Angle of Repose” by Wallace Stegner 6-24-11

14) “The Spectator Bird” by Wallace Stegner 6-28-11

15) “All the Little Live Things” by Wallace Stegner 7-3-11

16) “Crossing to Safety” by Wallace Stegner 7-10-11

17) “Shroud” by John Banville 7-23-11

18) “Mark Twain: A Life” by Ron Powers 7-29-11

19) “Troubles” by J.G. Farrell 8-5-11

20) “God’s Grace” by Bernard Malamud 8-8-11

21) “The Siege of Krishnapur” by J.G. Farrell 8-19-11

22) “The Singapore Grip” by J.G. Farrell 8-31-11

23) “The Trees” by Conrad Richter 9-7-11

24) “Girl in the head” by J.G. Farrell 10-4-11

25) “The Rebel Angels” by Robertson Davies 10-17-11

26) “Robert Louis Stevenson” by Frank McLynn 11-12-11

27) “The Edge of Sadness” by Edwin O’Connor 11-13-11

28) “The River King” by Alice Hoffman 11-16-11

29) “Time Will Darken it” by William Maxwell 12-15-11

30) “So Long, See You Tomorrow” by William Maxwell 12-18-11

31) “The Invention of Solitude” by Paul Auster 12-21-11

32) “They Came Like Swallows” by William Maxwell 12-26-11

33) “Washington Square” by Henry James 12-30-11

2010

1)  "Arrowsmith" by Sinclair Lewis 1-4-10

2) "It Can’t Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis  1-18-10

3) "Dodsworth" by Sinclair Lewis 1-31-10

4) "Kingsblood Royal" by Sinclair Lewis 2-10-20

5) "Cass Timberlane" by Sinclair Lewis 2-19-10

6) "Elmer Gantry" by Sinclair Lewis  3-4-10

7) "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson 3-15-10

8) "True North" by Jim Harrison 3-27-10

9) "The English Major" by Jim Harrison 4-5-10

10) "Blood Brothers" by Richard Price 4-7-10

11) "Wild Pitch" by A.B. Guthrie Jr. 4-10-10

12) "Returning to Earth" by Jim Harrison 4-19-10

13) "The Johnstown Flood" by David McCullough 5-3-10

14) "Widows of Eastwick" by John Updike 5-18-10

15) "The Centaur" by John Updike 5-31-10

16) "Three Soldiers" by John Dos Passos 6-27-10

17) "The 42nd Parallel" by John Dos Passos 7-?-10

18) "Child of God" by Cormac McCarthy 8-23-10

19) "Crack In the Edge of the World," by Simon Winchester 8-29-10

20) "1919" by John Dos Passos 9-6-10

21) "An Irish Country Village" by Patrick Taylor 9-16-10

22) "Big Money" by John Dos Passos 10-4-10

23) "Manhattan Transfer" by John Dos Passos 10-22-10

24) "Death in the Andes" by Mario Vargas Llosa 10-29-10

25) "Nemesis" by Philip Roth 11-4-10

26) "Exit Ghost" by Philip Roth 12-5-10

27) "The Humbling" by Philip Roth 12-9-10

28) "Everyman" by Philip Roth 12-13-10

29) "Indignation" by Philip Roth 12-19-10

30) "Mistler’s Exit" by Louis Begley 12-25-10

31) "The Reserve" by Russell Banks 12-29-10

An advocate’s thoughts on accountability

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We are all, unless determined otherwise by a court or healthcare professionals, accountable for our choices, our actions; let’s call it, our behavior. None of us gets a pass, at least when it comes to our personal and professional lives, nor should we.  When we are public servants, i.e. elected officials or employees (contract or otherwise) of state, federal and local governments, we are also accountable for our behavior. If we are members of non-profit agencies pledged to help some segment of the population, we are accountable for our behavior.

As I see it, my responsibility as a human rights advocate, is to hold people and agencies and governments and government officials accountable for their behavior, and to do so openly; bring the behavior out into the light of day. When the behavior is good and healthy, it deserves the accolades, the gratitude, the recognition. When the behavior is not good, not healthy, it deserves the response it will get, and it deserves to be publically recognized; people have a right to know. President Obama once said, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.” True. Martin Luther King Jr once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” True.

The price I’ve paid for my advocacy -I’ve paid and still pay some “bills” to be sure – pales in comparison to what those being denied their rights go through. I know too that there have been and are people, some of whom I like very much, who have been and still are very upset with me; angry with me. I take no pleasure in this, but I have no control over where the facts lead. And, for me, silence is not an option. If I worked for or knew of a company or agency that discriminated against people who were Gay or Lesbian or Transgendered, I would not be silent. If I worked for or knew of a company or agency that discriminated against people who were disabled, black, Latino, Jewish, Muslim, etc., I would not be silent.

There are also instances when people or agencies take my actions are personally. They believe, honestly I am sure, that my actions are aimed at them on a personal level. Not so. My actions are not aimed at anyone on a personal level. But let’s be unflinchingly clear about something; it doesn’t get more personal than when someone’s rights are being denied. And when I watch and experience this happening to others, I do take it personally. Perhaps this is a character flaw, that’s for others to judge, and I’m sure they will, and have. But it buckles me into tears sometimes when I hear of how inhumanely people are treated.

When I hear people have taken my efforts personally, I always think of a scenario along the lines of the following: A husband and wife are home one evening.

The husband says, “Some sonuvabitch cop gave me a speeding ticket!”

His wife says, “What was the speed limit?”

“Thirty.”

“How fast were you going?”

“Sixty.”

I very much doubt the cop wrote out the ticket as part of some personal vendetta.

And so what’s the moral of this story? Don’t speed. And if you do, and you get caught, don’t blame the one who caught you. If you weren’t speeding, if weren’t discriminating, if you weren’t trying to beat the rules, the laws, you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in now, would you?

My advice? Don’t speed. If you do, you’re likely to be held accountable. And that is as it should be.

Remembering my mother, Leona

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Every life includes experiences we never want to give back. Reuniting with my birth-mother Leona on the evening of January 8, 1987 in Stamford, Connecticut is one of those moments for me. Getting to know her over the years until she died 10 years ago today, even more so.

For some very understandable reasons she surrendered me for adoption seven days after I was born in New York City’s French Hospital on October 2, 1953. She told me once that she held me every second she could during those seven days because she knew that time together would have to last both of us a lifetime. Fortunately, she was mistaken. She was 19 when she got pregnant. Being a pregnant, single Catholic girl of Irish, French Canadian and, I would later learn, Mexican stock, walked you into a world of merciless judgment. That, coupled with the fact my birth-father was, or so he claimed, an unhappily married 39-year-old who was not about to help with raising a child, made my adoption inevitable.

My mother had the rare ability to recognize opportunities to truly touch the hearts of  others that most people would miss. The sanctity of another’s humanity was never lost on her. Her compassion was limitless, her instinct for the wounded and the ignored, remarkable. I remember commenting once on the close relationship between Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. “That’s true,” my mother said. “They were very much in love. But does anyone ever think about what it must have been like for Tracy’s wife? My heart always broke for her.” Being old-school Catholic, Tracy never divorced his wife after he became involved with Hepburn.

On my first birthday after we’d been reunited my mother gave me a teddy bear, “to make up for the one I couldn’t give you when you were growing up.’

The day I married my second wife on September 12, 1991 was the only time my two mothers met. I did have two mothers. In my heart and soul their claim to motherhood was an equal one and I only use the terms adoptive-mother and birth-mother so the listener, or reader, can distinguish which is which. A quick aside: if you want to insult and probably anger someone who’s been adopted, ask them who their real parents are. All their parents are real, make no mistake about it. At any rate, this day was the one and only day they two of them met.

The wedding took place outside and was attended by perhaps 30 people. Everyone, save my adoptive-mother Virginia, was standing. She was in some pain and had a chair. We’d asked the minister, my first childhood friend in fact, William Damrow, to ask people to hold hands with the person next to them when the moment for the final vows arrived. People were video-taping the wedding and later, we watched the video that was taken from behind the minster. In the background my mother Virginia was on the far left of the group and my mother Leona was standing on the far right. When the holding-hands’ request was made, my mother Leona walked over to my mother Virginia and held her hand through our final vows.

Some say I’ve inherited the instinct for touching the hearts of others from my mother.  I don’t know about that, but I do know I touched hers on a day that held a deeply special moment for the both of us. The French Hospital had been located at 330 West 30th Street between 8th and 9th avenues in Manhattan. It was built in 1928 by the Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance. It is now the French Apartments, but the words, Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance, remain carved in stone above the main entrance. On one of her last visits to the east coast my mother visited family in New Jersey. I drove down to pick her up and drive her back to my home in  upstate New York. On the way back I drove into the city and pulled up in front of 330 West 30th Street. The two of us held hands as I said, “We’re back.”

“They always made me go through the back door,” she said. “I was from the home for unwed mothers.”

“Okay then,” I said, and promptly drove around the block to the back entrance. We both said, our voices a mix of defiance and pride, “We’re back.”

My mother Leona died in California of liver cancer 10 years ago today. On December 21, two days after she died, I received a package from her in the mail. In it was a gift-wrapped package about the size of a box a pen would come in. I called my daughter on the phone so we could share the moment together. I removed the gift-wrap to discover a narrow black box. I opened the box. In it was a Saint Christopher’s Medal.  Legend is a child asked Saint Christopher to carry him across a swollen fast-moving river. Christopher, said to be a large and powerful man, carried the child across the river to safety. It was then the child revealed himself to be Jesus. Then, according to legend, the child vanished. Saint Christopher is the saint of safe travel through life. I turned the medal over and read the engraved words on the back. “Peter, I will always be in your heart. Love, Mom.”

She is always in my heart and in every stride and breath I take.

Not long before she died I asked her if she had any advise for me. She said, “Yes. Be good to yourself, Peter.” I’m trying, Mom. I love you and miss you my whole wide world.

 

I Remember Homelessness

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We didn’t call it homeless when I was out there, we called it living on the street. Same thing. When night, rain, sleet or snow fell, you had no sure place to go, and when winter sunk its teeth into your bones, everything got worse.  And then there was the never ending struggle to keep your stomach full and body clean. I received medical treatment twice for hunger pains. Imagine the pain you’d be in if someone set fire to your stomach. That’s about the feel of it. My time out there was a couple of years in the 1970s. But, once homeless, the fear that it can happen again never leaves you, at least it’s never left me.

The world’s view of you changes too. When I was in my early teens I danced a lead role with the Joffrey Ballet and was viewed as a child prodigy in dance. But, in 1969, when my aunt, grandmother and father died, in that order, in a matter of months, my mother placed me in reform school on a PINS (Person in Need of Supervision) Petition, which, in those days, often meant a family saying to the court, I don’t want him, you take him. My world had changed, forever.

I was released to a half-way house a year later and then, when my mother wouldn’t take me back, I was given the choice, back to reform school or live on the streets. I chose the streets believing I was choosing freedom. I was wrong. Homelessness is its own from of brutal incarceration from society. It didn’t escape my notice that the very people who no doubt would applaud or did applaud me when I was on the stage at City Center now walked by me as if I was worthless, or, even worse, invisible.

Homelessness can strike at many who currently experience the possibility of homelessness as something that happens to others. It’s the it can’t happen to me syndrome which is, in my view, a normal and helpful syndrome that allows us to get up and take part in life. But the fact of the matter is this, homelessness, like violent crime and disease, doesn’t give a damn about syndromes, skin color, religion, ethnicity, belief-system, religious persuasion, gender, or age. I recently read a story about Queen Jackson, a 60-year-old Colorado woman who despite having worked for the state of Colorado, now finds herself homeless. To say that we live in a country that is too wealthy for homelessness and hunger to exist is both a statement of fact and spitting into the wind. Why this latter point? Because the cold hard truth is  a lot of people simply don’t care. Many willingly voice concern unless they’re actually called upon to act on it. Few will openly say they don’t give a damn, but, as they say, actions, and facts, speak louder than words: homelessness exists in a country where there is no humane reason for it. And a country in which some like to saunter about proclaiming their Christianity in chest-pounding terms when, more often than not, their proclamations of faith are rooted in deceit and greed.

Whatever one’s view of Jesus, he was kind and loving and compassionate and would be out there doing all he could to rid the entire bloody world of homelessness, of poverty.

Hunger is a harsh master

But the bottom line is, many don’t care. The National Alliance to End Homelessness has produced a well-researched report called the State of Homelessness in America 2011. If one has an iota of compassion in them a read of the report’s executive summary is a chilling  and heartbreaking experience. For me, it struck home in a deeply personal way when I read, “It is widely agreed upon that there is a vast undercount of the number of young people experiencing homelessness.” I was 17 when I was first in the street. And when you’re out there, you do what you have to do to survive; I lived for more than one week on several cans of dog food and a box of milk bones. Hunger is a harsh master.

The reality is, many don’t care and many in congress don’t care. You’ve got Republicans openly protecting the wealthiest 1% in the country from experiencing even a sliver of a tax increase while at the same time, food stamps and rental subsidies are being slashed across the country. And while the Democrats are more verbally supportive of the poor in this country, it’s an easy stance for them to take when they know there’s no chance of passing any real legislation would help the poor. It’s easy to voice support for something you know is not possible. I strongly suspect their support of the poor would change in tone if it looked like a bill helping the poor would require an increase in taxes on the 1%.

As Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig points out in his new book, Republic, Lost, money’s corrupting influence in Washington is a two way street.  The most commonly understood is the that big donors contribute to elected officials in both parties! in order to get their way, like keeping tax breaks and more. A form of blackmail, if you will. But, as Lessig points out, the blackmail (my word, not his) works both ways. Members of Congress will tell the big donors, if you don’t contribute handsomely to my campaign, I won’t protect your tax breaks.

And who gets crushed by all this, the American people, the disappearing middle class, and the poor, the homeless, the folks so many don’t give a damn about.

You could be next

I know that the more than 1,500 regular monthly readers of this are cut from the kind of cloth that does care, you wouldn’t be regular readers of this blog were this not so. And for those of you just stopping by, I hope you will care and help as well. Help at a food pantry and donate to a food bank, or reach out to the National Alliance to End Homelessness and find out how you can help.

Remember, when it comes to homelessness, you could be next.

When a dog dies

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My dog Milo died peacefully in my arms today a few minutes before 12 noon. He was in the neighborhood of 16 or 17 years old.

Milo and I had been together since 1998 when I adopted him from a shelter. I was surprised that unlike all the other dogs he wasn’t barking. “Wow, he’s doesn’t bark,” I said to the shelter staff who chuckled, smiled, and said, “Oh, don’t you worry, he barks.” He was right. Milo was a brindle-colored beagle mix and next to his steadfast commitment to eating all the food on planet earth, barking was his favorite pastime. Well, that’s not entirely true. His favorite pastime (next to eating) was, in truth, to be near me. Whichever room I was in, Milo would be curled up next to me. If I got up from my writing table and moved to another room to read or watch TV or listen to music, he’d follow me in in a matter of moments, circle over his landing spot, and land. Throughout all the years we were together this pattern never changed, though as he got older, he’d let out a groan of annoyance when I’d change locations and I swear once or twice I think I caught him shooting a glare in my direction.

Milo was my friend, a member of my family. In fact he was named after the French Canadian side of my birth-mother’s family. I can tell you now that I know quite a few people whose deaths would bother me far less. When the veterinarian, a remarkably compassionate woman named Joan Puritz of Crescent Pet Lodge in Oneonta injected Milo with a drug that would and did allow him to die peacefully, my insides collapsed and there was nothing to do but hold him close, and say thank you thank you thank you out loud through my sobbing. Thanks to the help of friends I was able to pay to have him individually cremated and when his remains are ready, he will come home, where he belongs.

I don’t know that I am mystical by nature, maybe, I’ve not really given it much thought. But I do know this, when I got home today, exhausted, spent, perhaps somewhat stunned, certainly heartbroken, I went for a walk with my remaining two dogs, Charley and McKenzie. When we came back inside I gave them fresh water, stoked the fire, and sat down to rest. Soon both of them were curled up by my feet, thank God. But there was noticeably less life in the house, less energy. Milo’s living breathing absence was real. Living beings really do have energy and when they die, the energy leaves, it is glaringly obvious.

Today talking to Dr. Puritz and her delightful and deeply compassionate assistant Lisa, I mentioned Milo’s quest to eat all the food on planet earth. “How close did he get?” asked Lisa, her question a gift to me, offering me a moment of kindness and connection that moved my heart and won a permanent place in my memory. “Pretty close,” I said. “In fact, if you call some area food pantries you’ll find they’re nearly out of food.”

I used to enjoy saying, Dogs are people too. I don’t think I’ll say that anymore because it dawned on me today that the phrase is rather insulting to dogs.

I love you my whole wide world Milo. My heart hurts. Thank you thank you thank you.