The Spiral Staircase

Rest in peace, Merce Cunningham

A giant has passed.

Photo: CHARLES E ROTKIN/CORBIS

Mahabharata du jour

From my fabulous Yahoo Mahabharata group comes this quote.  (Yama is the god of death.)

k.m.ganguly - shanti-parva- 322 -

Neither mother, nor son, nor relatives, nor dear friends even when
solicited with honours, accompany the man that dies. To the regions
of Yama one has to go oneself, unaccompanied by any one. Only those
deeds, good and bad, that one did before death accompany the man
that goes to the other world.

Daniel Pinkwater on Walter Cronkite

Like most Pinkwater protagonists, the eleven-year-old hero of the surreal and wonderful Lizard Music is a bit of a misfit.  Here is his description of his favorite television star:

Then I got ready to watch the Walter Cronkite show.  Walter Cronkite is my favorite television star.  That’s another reason I haven’t got many friends at school.  Most of the kids like these rock groups like “The Vermin” and “The Scum” and some of these dumb singers who smile all the time and have aluminum foil glued to their jeans.  The kids who like those guys think I’m some kind of freak because I’m a Walter Cronkite fan. 

Anyway, Walter Cronkite isn’t on very much in the summer because that’s when he takes his vacation and Roger Mudd fills in for him.  I watch the show anyway, because if something really big were to happen, Walter would come straight from his vacation to take over.  Another thing I like about when Roger Mudd does the show is the possibility that Walter will die (not that I wish him any harm) on his vacation, and a news flash will come in while Roger Mudd is on the air.  Or he wouldn’t have to die – he could be trapped underwater in a Volkswagen bus with only enough air for two hours, and Roger Mudd could describe the rescue attempts.  Then the Navy divers would get Walter out, and he would say, “That’s the way it is,” and sort of salute into the camera, and the news program would fade out into the coffee ads.  Or it might be good if he did die after all, just after the Navy divers got him out of the sunken bus.  Then he could say, “That’s the way it is,” as his last words.  There are a lot of possibilities to the Walter Cronkite show.  I used to try to get some of the other kids interested in it, and maybe even set up a Walter Cronkite fan club, but they didn’t even take it seriously, and I got a reputation as a crazy.

My Daily Schedule

11 AM: Wake up to the sound of mysterious scrabbling from squirrel that has taken residency in my air conditioner.  (At first I waged a war with said squirrel, but have come to accept it as a symbiotic partner of my air conditioner, eating harmful parasites off the filter.)

11:01 AM: Make and drink large quantity of coffee

11:30: Begin writing daily 2000 word minimum of crappy romance novel

Noon: Carve up and eat honeydew melon, mango, or similar.

12:30: Watch episode of Iron Chef Japan on youtube.  Contemplate whether Iron Chef Chen Kenichi and Saxophonist Bill McHenry were separated at birth.

1 PM: Back to crappy romance novel.  Surf internet to try to recapture feeling of being young, hip heroine a la Sex and the City.  Get distracted and spend an hour reading Wikipedia entries on Norse gods, chess openings, or similar irrelevant topic

2 PM: Try to figure out origin of weird smell in apartment.

2:30: More coffee, melon

2:45: Go to the park to jump rope before it gets too late and park is overrun by cute children asking if they can "see" my jumprope

3 PM: Do yoga, shower.

4 PM: Squeeze out a few last paragraphs of novel

5 PM: Make a martini.  Unveil "theme ingredient" for dinner (e.g.,  canned corn).  Cook and eat dinner.  Declare myself winner of Battle Canned Corn. 

8 PM: Text Ethan.

9 PM: Blog/ waste time/ watch more Iron Chef

2 AM: Drift off to sleep to the soothing sounds of squirrel in AC.