The Course of True Like

You know the old saying about the course of true love never being smooth? Well, sometimes getting around to like is no easy bargain, either.

To get to Boston or Hartford--most any point northeast of me--I must run the traffic gauntlet that is {cue dramatic pause followed by menacingly dramatic music} I-84 in Waterbury. The dreaded Mixmaster, where eastbound and westbound are equally fraught with peril. It's a double-decked spaghetti junction that is half traffic misery and all poor road manners at most any time of day or night. The Mixmaster at peak commute times is, and I'm certain Dante himself would concur, a special and singular circle of hell. As one friend says, regardless of when I'm traveling through, "There'll be traffic in Waterbury."

My most recent passage through Waterbury, however, was incredibly smooth. There were no speeding cars from Massachusetts in the slow lane, no insane trucks hell-bent on merging in awkward places, and no Jeep sized potholes. In other words, it was nearly pleasant.

It's terribly unfair to judge an entire city by the couple of minutes--or longer--I spend traversing it and I realize this. I also realize that with the little I know of Waterbury, there's probably something I might find to like about it. As an old city with industry, clocks, watches, and brass in its history, it's possible Waterbury and I could even be friendly-ish.

A few things had caught my eye on my previous drives through town: interesting cemeteries I spotted from the highway, the Timexpo (a museum devoted to the history of Timex watches) and Harpers Ferry Road. The cemeteries and Timex museum have been recorded on my Nutmeg State To-Do List and I quickly looked up a little info on Harpers Ferry Road.

Why Harpers Ferry Road? Why indeed. I'd made a mental note to check on any Harpers Ferry connections many times, but I'd never followed up. Waterbury is nowhere near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where John Brown's raid took place. But as the Internet would reveal, famous abolitionist John Brown was born in nearby Torrington, Connecticut (The Torrington Historical Society's site is  good for some background) and while Harpers Ferry Road doesn't seem to actually lead to Torrington, the John Brown revelation does make it both more interesting and more sensible.

Point: Waterbury. (For good historical interest.)

As I was hunting for more information on Harpers Ferry Road, I saw a mention of Rosalind Russell. Auntie Mame...Hildy in His Girl Friday. That Rosalind Russell? Connected to Waterbury? More digging.

It turns out that Rosalind Russell was born and raised in Waterbury, Connecticut. (I'm guessing this isn't so newsy to many others as it is to me, but I was intrigued.) Her pre-Hildy Johnson and Mame Dennis days were spent in the area--at Marymount College in Tarrytown, NY, in NYC itself, Hartford, and Boston. She was a local girl who made good, often playing women who had all the brassy wit and spirit of Waterbury itself.

Several points: Waterbury. (For Roz Russell.)

Full disclosure: I love Auntie Mame. The novel, by Patrick Dennis, is a go-to read for me if I'm having a blue day and I've seen the movie with Ms. Russell dozens of times and enjoy it more with each viewing. (I'm much less fond of the 1970s movie version of the musical, but the soundtrack of the 1966 original Broadway musical featuring Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur is a splendid listen.) That Waterbury--a town I'd written off from my (often not-so) quick breezes through on I-84--gave the world Auntie Mame incarnate? Magnificent. And if you add fast-talking hard-boiled Hildy Johnson from His Girl Friday to the equation, then I'm all in. Waterbury, you and I can be friends.

As with any new friendship, there's more to be discovered. But when you start with John Brown and Rosalind Russell it's bound to be an interesting trip. Perhaps the best friendships start off awkwardly and only when you start to really look and share your common interests do they begin to click. The Waterbury getting-to-know-you phase is in its infancy, but this might be the beginning of a lovely friendship. For a fun browse, the links below will send you to a great old map of the town and a charmingly old-school website devoted to Waterbury's history.

Waterbury 1917

Waterbury Time Machine II

And any Waterburians out there, if you know more about the story (if there is one) behind Harpers Ferry Road, I'd love to hear it. Know of a great place I'd love in Waterbury? Let me know that, too.

As a final thought, Waterbury was also home to Holy Land USA. And while the Holy Land aspect of it interests me not at all (loses points), I do so love an abandoned place (gains points back!) and this one looks like it might be wonderful to explore. (With permission, of course!)

The Wee Small Hours

The past month has been a blur: the drive west to Minnesota on Christmas Eve, navigating the rabbit's warren that is St Marys Hospital, the daily--sometimes hourly--ups (his white count is down!) and downs (his hemoglobin is low...) of hospital stays. And then there's the uncertainty. It's crippling. And the fear. It's palpable and sometimes it feels like it's piped into the room via the hvac vents. Grief, sadness, exhaustion, and occasional bemusement all joined us in my father's comfortably large room.*

To try and reach some small level of sanity (for lack of a better word) I started writing little snippets--on paper or on my laptop when I had it with me--moments I wanted to remember and feelings I had to document somewhere. Holding hands with my father while we watched the Minnesota Wild game. The odd peace of hearing the machines beeping and pinging to assure us that whatever they were monitoring was "normal." The bone-chilling sub-zero mornings when pulling my boots on to go out and start the Jeep seemed to require extra effort, as if the gravity of the days was pulling, pulling, pulling at me--dragging me underground, the familiar suffocation of being in a place where I simply am not at home despite being technically "home."

And then there's the guilt. The guilt felt over giving any voice to your own feelings, wants, and needs when you have an ill parent confined to a hospital bed. The focus--and the energy, especially the positive energy--needs to be on them. We, my mother and I, became cheerleaders. (If you knew my mother this would be far funnier, but trust me, it's a sight.) Keeping my father's spirits up and not focusing solely on the challenges became our daily regimen. When needed, I was bad cop (Really? Would you let your athletes quit because of a setback? NO. Now let's try it again!) and my mother the extra nurse. Quietly, yet firmly--she is, after all, fully German and a Scorpio--she encouraged, cajoled, managed, nudged and glared my father into eating, trying, and cooperating. Regardless of how exhausted she was--sleeping on a cot at the hospital many nights until she realized she was putting her own health at serious risk--she persevered. She was advocate, helper, nurse, questioner, and all-around watch dog. In short, she was The Spanish Inquisition, but in a good way.

St Marys (those of you with apostrophic queries...read here) is a teaching hospital and part of the Mayo Clinic system. It's the farthest afield of the Mayo Clinic properties in downtown Rochester, Minnesota, but it's a wonderful and grand old building. Another method of keeping my modicum of sanity (again, for lack of a better word) was wandering around taking photos. A few are on my flickr page (here) and some are up on my Instagram feed as well. The quiet of the St Marys Chapel and its luxury--really there's no other word for all the carvings and marble--made it a great spot for photos. Sometimes leaving the room was necessary for both patient and family. Returning with Lifesavers to soothe a scratchy throat can feel like returning the conquering hero, trust me. And don't underestimate the value of finding a can of ginger ale in a pinch, either. A bottle of sparkling Catawba Grape Juice is also a totally fabulous way to ring in a new year.

Reader, I am happy to report that my father left the hospital on January 10 and is doing well in a rehab center with the hope he eventually makes it home. I got to spend a few days with him and meet his physical and occupational therapists before I left to return to Connecticut and he's in good hands. And we've told him, the perpetual coach, that trying is the thing. All we ask is that you try. It's what you would've told all your track athletes, it's the best you can expect and hope for. And remember what you did when you did it right. Visualize the result you want. The nuggets--both trite and tried and true--that he used to motivate generations of track and field athletes have now been turned on him. Not sure he's always thrilled with that, but he's a trooper. Track season is ahead...and the coach needs to be around for it. He's fond of quoting a note left by a waitress on a lunch receipt from a Lake City, Minnesota drive-in many years back: "The 10 most important two letter words...If it is to be, it is up to me." Go get 'em, Pops.

Now that I'm home, ensconced in my beloved East Coast, I can look back and be grateful. Grateful for friends who let me vent without judgment, played Scrabble to keep me occupied, sent me funny quips to make things seem a little normal and those who simply asked how we were all doing. It meant more than any of them can ever know. They know who they are and I am in their collective debt. It's no fun being away from your support system, but when they can tweet, text, email, and iMessage you, it's much better. Never underestimate the power of quietly being there for another person.

OH. And about the * and room size. Fun factoid ahead. (Especially fun for my Republican parents!) In September of 1989 Ronald Reagan visited the Mayo Clinic for his routine physical. They found some fluid on his brain--likely due to a fall from a horse that same July--and he was sent to St Marys for a procedure to remove said fluid. While he was at St Marys he was visited by Boris Yeltsin. The Mayo Campus is no stranger to hordes of security and secret service, but I have to imagine this was a memorable day for all concerned, regardless of party affiliation. All this to say that my father's comfy, spacious room on the 3rd Floor, Joseph Wing, was once the lodging of Nancy Reagan. The President was across the hall (in a room occupied during my father's stay by a very nice family from Oelwein, Iowa who told me stories of horse-drawn school buses in North Dakota!) and Nancy was in my father's room. The Secret Service agents were in the lounge that was kitty-corner across the hall. One of the nurses shared this with us and I quickly verified the details. Not quite the "George Washington slept here" tales that I'm used to in Connecticut, but it'll do nicely.

So here's (belatedly) to a fresh, new year. One filled with possibilities. And here's to the attempt. To trying and to celebrating the small victories that warm our hearts in the wee small hours. And to my father--long may the Bear flourish and thrive. 

The Memory of the Living

When I was a small child, Memorial Day meant going to various small cemeteries around southeastern Minnesota and along the Mississippi River. There were geraniums to be planted, hosta and petunias. Sometimes marigolds or impatiens, depending on the whether the grave to be decorated was sunny or shady. My mother usually did all the choosing and planting, my paternal grandmother acted as tour guide, reminding us whom was at each of the cemeteries and where their markers were. I was usually the water girl, taking the oversized aluminum watering can (sloshing as much water as I delivered) back and forth from the faucet to the plot. A trip to Dairy Queen was my incentive to be a good helper.

As I grew up, Memorial Day morphed into a day spent in small parades, once again in southeastern Minnesota. My high school band never turned down an invitation to march in summer parades--most often fully decked out in dark purple woolen band uniforms--something that I'm very proud of to this day. Our band director, the indefatigable Gene Eiden--who still pays tribute to veterans in his role as Honor Guard Commander for American Legion Post 92 in Rochester, Minnesota--knew we needed the practice, and he instilled in us the importance of taking part, giving back, and paying tribute.

After September 11, days like Memorial Day and Veterans Day took on a different significance for me. Days when we not only pay tribute to those who have sacrificed so much for us, but when we remember their stories, their paths. We recall and are grateful to the people who run toward danger to save our lives. 

And most recently, I've been working slowly but surely on a WWI soldier's letters. Letters home to the boy's mother and sister (and one lone missive to his father, too) from various parts of France and an Army hospital in New York. As I delve more deeply into not only his story, but that of his unit and his comrades, I can't help but think what a miracle it is that he made home--that any of them made it home. He is remembered today not only by his daughter--who is of a ripe old vintage herself, these days--but by those who will read of his experiences. His story will be told, he will be remembered. 

So today I went looking through my postcard collection for a WWI return reception card--one of the favorites of my little assemblage. It's pictured below, and even though there are redacted lines, it still bears the handwritten name of the town of LeSueur. The image of the lone biplane above the Statue of Liberty as she watches over a moonlit harbor--a large ship receding into the distant horizon--is beautiful, but sobering. This soldier came home to his family when so many others did not. 

Well Done Men, America Greets YOU.

Soldiers Mail

A bit further back in my postcard album are a number of cards that were sent to my grandmother's sister, Mayme, in 1907-1908 when she was quite ill. Most have flowers or kittens on them and have some kind of "get well soon" message as well. In the midst of those, however, was this one. Mailed from Nelson, Wisconsin, to Mayme in Wabasha, Minnesota, in June of 1908. The writer apologizes to Mayme that this was the only postal they had.

"As a veteran in old age
He was loyal to the red, white and blue,
Which placed his name on the page
Of heroes the recording angel drew."

And finally, this old classic. A beautiful linen postcard--one that I couldn't recall purchasing. Removing it from the sleeve, I realized it was a note from an old friend, one now deceased. Someone I haven't thought of in a while, so it's appropriate to find it today. She wished me a nice 4th of July, said she was sending me her schedule for working at Mayowood, and commented on a quote I must have given the local paper about Kirby Puckett. She said to put the clipping in my "save" pile. I don't have the clipping from the paper, but I do have this most pleasant reminder of a much loved and much missed friend.

Happy Memorial Day, then. Parades will soon be over, flags will be carefully brought in from porches and picnics and BBQs will be getting into full swing. As the sun sets, though, it's a good time to remember and say thank you. Remember the stories of servicemen and women, their sacrifices and their families. Remember friends loved and lost, remember the people who keep us from harm's way. The simple act of memory--sharing a story, raising a glass--is an act kindness and an act of love. 

The life of the dead is placed in the memories of the living. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

In memory, Lottie and Ruthie Dattner.

Lottie and Ruthie Dattner

Greetings, FOPT (friends of ThePaperTyger)

Michele has graciously allowed me the usual 140+ characters to honor Lottie and Ruthie Dattner, my first cousins once removed.

Photo taken in Tarnow, Poland about 1939. Sadly, the SS thought the two little girls with bows threatened their reich, and they were murdered in 1942.

In honor of Yom Hashoah, I welcome them to the world of social media, 70 years after their passing.

Michael Kinstlinger

(Honored, MK...and honored to do this in their memory, but very sorry it is thus. --TPT)

"Ada Louise Huxtable already doesn't like it..."

Memory is a funny thing. Even the mental lock-boxes that we shove to the far recesses of our minds--for reasons of pain, or pride, perhaps--contain surprisingly sweet moments.

In very early 2008, I was among those made redundant in one of publishing’s great purges. Suffice to say that most of that year is buried in an expletive-laden, self-pitying (and self-loathing) file consigned to the dustiest shelf in my memory. The happy hours are all but forgotten amidst the fog of angst and disappointment. Yesterday, however, with the sad death of Ada Louise Huxtable, the opportunity arose to unearth some meaningful recollections of that otherwise annus horribilis.

I first had the pleasure of meeting the redoubtable Ada Louise Huxtable over tea at The Carlyle. Diminutive in stature, she was impeccably dressed and elegantly coiffed in a manner befitting the doyenne of architectural critique. We were sitting down with her publisher (my former employer) to discuss what kind of a book she might be interested in putting together. I’ll admit that I was a little in awe. I’d been reading her columns and articles in preparation for this meeting and I knew she took real pleasure in Modern Architecture, a feeling I had yet to cultivate for things built after, say, 1940. As tea progressed (following a rather alarming incident that involved the server spilling on Ms. Huxtable’s stylish Issye Miyaki jacket) and we discussed timing, options, and themes, I started to appreciate her thoughtful insights and forthright assessments of both architecture and book ideas.

Over the coming weeks we worked through several drafts of an outline/table of contents that would eventually become her book, On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change. I looked through some of our emails last night and was reminded how wonderfully articulate she was even in the most mundane of exchanges. In correspondence to another author with whom I was working at the time, I noted how Ms. Huxtable, then 87, was sharper and brighter than most people half of her age. Throughout the letters her willingness to be part of the process, which can be very tedious at times, was evident. There wasn’t much new writing for her to do, but we needed to organize her columns and other pieces in a way that really made sense. I still have high hopes that we mostly succeeded and I’m quite proud to have played the smallest of parts in what would be her final work.

For me, the most poignant section of the book is Part 5. Centered around New York City, it contains a collection of Ms. Huxtable’s pieces on not only the construction of the World Trade Center complex, but of the aftermath of 9/11 and implications for both the former WTC site and Lower Manhattan, as well. All of her columns are worth reading--if for nothing more than her vivid and straightforward voice--but for New Yorkers, I think these will have meaningful resonance.

As the book began to take shape, I was afforded the distinct pleasure of visiting Ms. Huxtable at her apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. While my memories of the building itself are frustratingly vague, I recall her space very well. Especially vivid is the memory of a simple, splendidly modern lighting fixture that had been designed by her late husband, industrial designer L. Garth Huxtable.

In the end, our book project quickly became an actual book. There was jacket copy to be sorted out, quotes/blurbs to be gathered, and photographs to be sourced. My final contribution to the book would be my photograph (on page 64, thank you very much) of Richard Meier’s Hartford Seminary. I chose a beautiful early spring day and made the short drive to Hartford. I was a little unprepared for how much I’d appreciate Meier’s unique edifice, of which Huxtable writes, “This glistening white structure makes its immaculate presence so inimitably clear that there is no question about which building one has come to see.” I shared my surprise with Ms. Huxtable during one of our penultimate conversations. I’m sure she’d heard it many times before, but I still felt the need to share with her how much she’d broadened and enriched my experience of architecture. I’ve always been enthralled with the grand (and often grandiose) buildings of history. Our built heritage is incredibly important to me. And yet, if you’d have discussed most post-war architecture with me, I’d likely have crinkled my nose dismissively. What a lot of the built world I would have missed out on.

And I guess this is what the best critics do, really. They don’t necessarily change our minds (give me McKim, Mead & White over Mies van der Rohe, as a personal preference) but they afford us the ability to enjoy and appreciate that which we may otherwise overlook. Ada Louise Huxtable, rightly famous for her specific taste, reminded us to pay attention. She wanted people to look at the environment they live in, to be aware of the structures that surround them on a daily basis.

It's safe to say that I didn't always agree with Ms. Huxtable's well-stated and fully-formed opinions, but I will always value the mindfulness that was at the heart of each of her critiques. 

There’s a blurb from Paul Goldberger on the back of the jacket that perhaps puts the life’s work of Ada Louise Huxtable in proper perspective:

“Ada Louise Huxtable has been more than just the most important pioneer of architectural criticism in newspapers in our time; she has been the most important figure in communicating the urgency of some kind of belief in the values of the man-made environment in our time, too. She has made people pay attention. She has made people care. She has made architecture matter in our culture in a way that it did not before her time...Before Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture was not part of the public dialogue. Today it is, and she is overwhelmingly responsible for this.”

All Are Welcome

Horse Christmas party, 12/29/23
LOC Prints and Photographs Division
LC-F8-28154 (P&P)

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. 

Just do what you do best. -- Red Auerbach

A wall of great quotations as you enter the VICTORY exhibit.

"Just do what you do best." Words of wisdom from the one and only Red Auerbach, the Celtics' legendary stogie smoking coach. My friends at The Sports Museum in Boston have done just that--what they do best--in their new exhibition at Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut.

Titled VICTORY, the exhibition showcases some of the greatest moments not only in Boston sports history, but American history. From Jim Craig's 1980 "Miracle on Ice" Olympic hockey jersey and goalie mask to the astonishing quantity of Johnny Kelly's loving cups, trophies, and commemorative medals, the spoils of VICTORY are beautifully displayed. It's hard not to be moved by the wall-sized graphic of father-son marathoning team Dick and Rick Hoyt as they cross the finish line of the 2006 Boston Marathon. Equally sobering is the small display honoring Tony Conigliaro (Tony C) and the horrific injury that cut short a promising career.

Galleries are devoted to all Boston's (and greater New England) beloved teams--the Boston Celtics, the Bruins, Red Sox, and New England Patriots. You can't help but feel like you're momentarily transported to an early autumn afternoon at Fenway Park or the old Boston Garden when you pass an old Red Sox bleacher seat or stand near the parquet floor that was the site of so many great Celtics victories. A theatre area with videos that recall our favorite sporting memories, aptly named for the early 2000s "Decade of Dominance," allows guests to re-live great victories from the various teams.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend a day helping out with the installation (read as: I put hook-and-loop on the backsides of several pieces of foamcore for mounting) and get some behind the scenes details. Sully, one of the superb team at Foxwoods, took me on a "lighting" tour of the various galleries.   If you do visit, pay attention to how beautifully lit the entire exhibit is. Sully and his team--more accustomed to lighting Craig Ferguson or a Celtic Woman performance--are true artists and went above and beyond in crafting the illumination and effects within the exhibit. There's the cute Blue Spruce trees behind a Celtics themed cow (yes, you read that right) and a fiery light that floods down on General Patton's bronze statue. (If you're wondering, "why Patton?" he was a very accomplished equestrian and competed in the 1912 Olympic Pentathlon for the USA.) Fireworks explode over the 2004 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox wall graphic and the 24 second clock lighting looks terribly official.

My stellar contribution...the hook-and-loop mountings for
the programs. Executed to perfection by Ethan from
Cambridge Seven Associates. 

Though I'm not an aficionado of The Sweet Science, Boston has a great boxing tradition and Rocky Marciano and many other boxing legends are well represented here. As are the Olympic Games. Though I prefer to claim the 1980 Olympic team as mostly Minnesotan (and lead by favorite Minnesota son, the late Herb Brooks) I will concede--for this exhibit only--their strong New England connection. I'd also wager most of you have never seen Ted Williams' Red Sox locker. It's on display, too.

And then there's the opportunity to see some great sculptures. If you've never stood up close and personal and studied the work of the incredible Armand La Montagne, do so. La Montagne's life-sized basswood sculptures of Ted Williams, Yaz, Larry Bird, Harry Agganis, Bobby Orr and General George S. Patton are all part of the installation. The detail--down to the ribbing in Bobby Orr's socks--is not to be believed. There are also several of the large painted studies that La Montagne does for each subject on display as well as a video about his process.

Armand La Montagne's life-sized sculpture of Bobby Orr. 

The Sports Museum plays a vital role in preserving and teaching the important lessons of sport. They are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and in addition to saving important artifacts of our sporting history, they promote and sponsor stay in school programs and anti-bullying campaigns in the Boston area. This exhibition is a chance to highlight some of their many treasures and to broaden their outreach across New England.

Re-live your most iconic sporting memories or introduce your children and grandchildren to the legends of New England sports--a trip to the VICTORY exhibit at Foxwoods Resort and Casino will do your heart good. And you're helping a great cause: passing on the value of sport to a new generation and assisting the preservation of irreplaceable sporting history that the Sports Museum is dedicated to. It's a winning proposition if there ever was one.

There are many more photos over on my flickr page at... http://www.flickr.com/photos/papertyger/sets/72157631698513333/

And here are the details for VICTORY --
Foxwoods Resort and Casino
Mashantucket, Connecticut
Great Cedar Exhibition Hall, Great Cedar Hotel Lobby
September 27, 2012 - January 27, 2013
Adults - 15$, Children 10$ and Seniors 12$
Sunday - Thursday: 11am - 8pm
Friday - Saturday: 11am - 10pm

Time Past and Time Future

It doesn't really matter if we awaken to a cool, grey mist that morning or to azure skies scattered with cottonball clouds. The day still hurts. And it haunts. I used to think that it was somehow more appropriate when the morning of September 11th arrived with rain and drear. It's not that the drizzle takes the edge off of the pain or shrouds the memories, but in being so completely opposite of the morning in question there is, perhaps, a small amount of comfort to be taken.

That Tuesday morning was so brilliantly sunny. Too sunny. I walked to the 72nd street subway with a spring in my step. Autumn's first crisp breezes were starting to make their way into Manhattan that day and it was beyond beautiful. And then it wasn't. It was chaos and smoke and sirens and fear. The fear slowly but surely turned to disbelief, horror, and then stunning, overwhelming sorrow.

The twin towers of the WTC, taken from the Brooklyn Bridge, Labor Day weekend, 2001.

And so it is once again Tuesday, September 11th. This year there will be copious sunshine and refreshing breezes escorting the summer heat away from the Northeast. There will be silences, bells, moments, observations, and ceremonies. We will each remember in our own way, marking the hours, noting the time, and allowing ourselves to feel the sadness. Each year I wonder if this will be the one, the year when the anniversary hurts a little less. It never is.

I was reminded of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets over the weekend, and this small fragment from Burnt Norton caught me:

Time past and time future

Allow but a little consciousness.

To be conscious is not to be in time

But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,

The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,

The moment in the draughty church at smokefall

Be remembered; involved with past and future.

Only through time time is conquered.

New(ish) to Who

When the London Olympics ended a couple of weeks ago I went into a bit of a funk. What would take the place of all the sport I'd been watching so keenly (and at such odd hours of the morning) for those weeks? For a week or so, as my August ennui reached its summer zenith, I looked at photos of the Olympics. Then, I re-watched a few of the Equestrian events. Finally, true to my Pisces nature, I was distracted by something shiny...the promise of 5 sparkling new episodes of Amy, Rory, River and The Doctor. Yes, boys and girls, it's a new series of Doctor Who. There will be Daleks and Cybermen and even the odd Ood, oh my! 


A little over two years ago I was a Whovian neophyte. (You can read my post, about my emotional reaction to Vincent and the Doctor, at the bottom of this piece.) And now I'd say I'm a bona fide fan(atic). While I still don't consider myself a sci-fi kind of girl, I am a Who kind of girl. And here's why...


Doctor Who is about so much more than space and time and aliens. Sure, we learn that time is "really more of a big ball of wibbley wobbley...time-y wime-y...stuff." But in episode after episode, as the villains and monsters come and go, what remains is constant: friendship, loyalty, love, and a sense of history. Rory, who waits for Amy; Amy who waits for both Rory and The Doctor; The Doctor who always returns for his friends--albeit a little late, sometimes--all reminders of how much better the journey is when you travel with people you love and trust. The entire program is also steeped in the value of memory--there are nods large and small to the previous Doctors and their companions. And in many ways, the mere act of remembering someone can--and does-- make all the difference in the universe. Being remembered matters. Traveling (in every sense of the word) with people who matter to you is important. 


I've cried--more than once--over an episode of Doctor Who. I've also laughed, often, and been made to think. These are good things. And as with Sherlock, another favorite program, it is essential that you are actually present while watching The Doctor. You might very well be surprised at what you see and what you feel. Oh, and don't be put off by the Fezzes and bow ties, any proper Whovian knows that both are cool, as are fish-fingers and custard. 


The new season, featuring the 11th Doctor, starts on Saturday, September 1st on BBC-America. If you've never watched, why not start now? I will warn you, though, be prepared to have your heart break, just a little, now and then. Spoilers? Not here, sweetie. 


And here's my original post from July of 2010...

"I'm not a real sci-fi kind of girl. I much prefer nearly any other genre of film or book to be perfectly honest, but now and then even I am drawn to aliens and time travel. I'd noticed on the BBC that Dr Who was featuring a plot wherein the good doctor and his ginger assistant, Amy, would be visiting Vincent van Gogh in France for an upcoming episode. While I may not be an aficionado of Dr Who, I am fanatical about van Gogh and so I had to watch.

I remember very clearly the first time I saw a real live (you know what I mean...) honest-to-goodness van Gogh at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I'd never seen anything like that before but I knew I loved it. His frantic, swirling brushstrokes, his love of color and the passion that absolutely flooded out of the painting--it was overwhelming. I then looked at pictures of his other works in the library (no internet back then, kiddies) and learned more about his life and grew to respect him even more. I do love a tortured genius (TE Lawrence is another of my favorite people ever) and van Gogh was certainly that. 

Anyway, back to The Doctor. The episode opened with an exhibit of van Gogh pieces at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris with an uncredited and (as always) brilliant Bill Nighy as an art historian leading some tourists through the show. The Doctor and Amy recognize an alien within the window of one of the paintings (The Church at Auvers) and the travel back in time in the TARDIS to rural France ca1889. 

You'd be correct to assume that while things didn't go exactly according to plan, The Doctor, aided by van Gogh did eventually neutralize the capon-ish looking alien thereby making countryside safe for the villagers once again. But the twist--and what got me all choked up--was the end. Van Gogh was famously unappreciated during his lifetime so during the episode his friends from the future resolve to take him back to 2010 and show him how much his work has meant to the world. It's a little Capra-esque device that might sound cloying, but it wasn't, it was quite poignant. Once in the Musee d'Orsay van Gogh sees the throngs of people gathered to view his work and The Doctor himself even engineers it so Bill Nighy's character speaks to the great humanity and passion he sees in Vincent's work. Upon returning van Gogh to his own time, now knowing how beloved he will be, Amy believes that the artist will now not take his own life at 37 and will accumulate a large, new body of work. The Doctor knows better but they rush back to the museum to find nothing changed...van Gogh having died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the young age of 37. When Amy lashes out that they didn't save him or help him after all, The Doctor replies to her with the comment that all of us have piles of good things and piles of bad things and that the trick is to not let the bad pile outweigh the good one. He reassures Amy that they definitely added to van Gogh's good pile.  A lovely sentiment, to be sure, as to how we impact others, and vice versa, in large and small ways.

So there I was, all choked up over Dr Who--of all things--and half thinking how brilliant it would be to be able to go back, meet and spend time with artists or writers that we admire; the other half of me thinking how wonderful it would have been for van Gogh--and so many other talented artists, writers, poets, dreamers--to have known while they lived that someday the world world would come to appreciate their talents. As with van Gogh, I'm not sure that knowledge would really change anything, but it is an intriguing thought."

Plus ça change . . .

I spend more time trolling the New Yorker archive than I spend reading the magazine that arrives in my mailbox each week. I like to think that I've read all of Audax Minor's (Minor was the pen name of George F. T. Ryall) columns at least once, and many of them multiple times. His assessment of the three-year-old crop will sound familiar to us all, and enjoy his mention of Seabiscuit v War Admiral, too.

I offer you, then, without further comment, Ryall's column (post Travers, at the time) from August 21, 1937.

"Occasionally you can have a pretty satisfactory race with unsatisfactory horses. Shandon Farm’s Burning Star, who isn’t one of the Class A three-year-olds, put up such a good show in winning the Travers Stakes at Saratoga last weekend that almost everyone, particularly everyone who bet on him, was enthusiastic enough to place him at the top of the list. It takes so little to lose a race, and Burning Star really overcame so much to win. He was crowded soon after the start, blocked during the run down the backstretch, and finally had to barge his way home on the rails on the turn for home. It was a gallant feat. I can’t imagine, even with my crystal ball and ouija board, what detained him when he was beaten so cleverly by Rex Flag in the Kenner Stakes four days before.

After the Travers was over, War Admiral was brought out, grown sleeker with easy living during his temporary retirement. He evidently believed he was going to the races again, for he wouldn’t stand still to be saddled, but lunged and plunged as though eager to join his old playmates, the assistant starters. Although he has recovered from his mishap in the Belmont Stakes, War Admiral is still in cotton wool so far as training goes. He won’t be ready to run for the Saratoga Cup, and his appearance even in the Lawrence Realization Stakes is doubtful, although he could win that race on crutches. 

These brittle thoroughbreds! Looking through the rats’ nest I call my past performance book, the other day I found a rating of the three-year-olds of 1937, compiled about January 1st by the official leading handicappers. Reading from left to right, War Admiral and Pompoon are resting; Brooklyn, Reaping Reward, Case Ace, Bottle Cap, and Maedic are out of training, and so are Fairy Hill, Clodion, No Sir, and Moonton. Of Matey and Airflame, the less said the better. Privileged may improve. At twenty-fifth on the list, I found Flying Scot, who did so well before he spread a foot. Clingendaal, who picked up so many purses here and there in New England, was thirtieth, and Burning Star wasn’t even considered important enough to have a rating at all. 

While we’re still on the subject of first-class horses, here’s a tip that race cource managements with meetings late in the autumn can take for what it’s worth: The Howards, who own Seabiscuit, wouldn’t mind running their horse in a match race against War Admiral. The only difficulty about that--outside the purse--is that they would peg the distance at one mile and a quarter, although they’d really prefer a match at one mile and a furlong. I don’t know what Sam Riddle thinks about such a race, but I’m sure that if he thinks about it at all, he’d insist on the distance being set at one mile and a half."


On the next page, toward the end of Minor/Ryall’s comments on harness racing, he concludes with a kind of Seen At column:

And at Saratoga: Mrs. Sam Riddle leaning over the rails to pat War Admiral. . . Bob Smith admiring the Man o’ War Gold Cup . . . The autograph hunters following the cinema stars . . . The Milky Way Farm’s grooms parading in new orange, white, and black jumpers . . . Jock Whitney trying to get through the crowd that blocked the clubhouse stairs . . . George Bull counting the biggest crowd at the Saratoga track . . . Colonel Martingale is getting tired of steeplechases for unsound and uncertain horses. He’s thinking of starting a Stop-Running-Steeplechases Week. --Audax Minor

If you're a New Yorker subscriber, you too can browse all of Ryall's work via their archive. This particular column runs pages 52-54 in August 21, 1937 issue.