The Vortex Cometh

Dr. Zhivago - The Ice Palace

    The news all over Chicagoland the past few days has been about the polar vortex that is bringing us the coldest day in recorded history. It is 6 pm Tuesday, January 29th, the temperature is 1oF. Overnight the temperature will drop to -21oF. Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 30th, the temperature will not rise above -11oF or -24oC. It is this last record that is the record setter as it will be the lowest high in recorded history.
    Of course, the low temperatures are serious, but it really gets interesting when we include the wind chill factor, in fact, it gets downright scary. The winds will gust from 19 – 24 mph. The wind chills will vary between 30 - 60oF. The news shows all have experts saying the effects of frostbite will manifest themselves on exposed skin in five minutes. You could walk outside to get the mail, if they actually deliver the mail tomorrow, and your ears could freeze and fall off. OK that is an exaggeration, but this is crazy serious stuff. This is not a good time to be homeless in Chicago.
     Most schools have already closed including North Park University where I teach. Many businesses have also decided to allow people to work from home including my wife’s. We will be bundled up, hibernating indoors, and Pasternaking. Pasternaking? The kind of extreme weather that is moving in, reminds me of Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. The scenes that impressed in both the book and the movie are when Yuri and Lara where hibernating during the brutal Russian winter and Yuri wrote poems for her. Of course, there are the brilliant scenes of the ice palace. It will be that kind of day tomorrow.
     I feel impelled to write a poem tomorrow. If I do it should be with a fountain pen by candlelight. But truth be told and assuming the internet connections all work, I will be grading and writing by the light of a computer monitor.
     I actually like a real winter like we are having. I love the big snows and cold blasts. I grew up with four seasons and enjoy them all. It is not a real winter without these Zhivago like snows and frigid blasts of cold. The weather this week, I will admit, is beyond the kind of frigid blast that I need to feel like we had a real winter.  Honestly, the cold extremes and big snows of winter are more fascinating to me that heat waves and torrential rains of summer.
     This is not the first time I have blogged about this love for and fascination with winter.

• An Old Fashioned Winter 2-11-18
• Snow Day! 1-8-18
• For the Love of a Good Winter Blast 1-11-15
• Brutalmente Frio! 1-30-14
• It Began with an Air Bath 1-27-09
• Winter Survival 1-05

     I have been joking for the past few days with my students that the one of the good things about the polar vortex is that it takes my mind off of global warming. It is humorous but a sign of a system being out of control can be the increases in the kinds of extreme weather we have experienced throughout the year e.g. longer hurricane and tornado seasons, more hurricanes and tornados than ever, hotter summers, and weirder winters. To me, this is just another example of such an extreme.      Just as I sat down to write this piece, almost on cue, President Trump tweeted:

     He does have a way with words…
     Stay warm and safe Chicago.

Chidem Inch: Armenians Invented Music Too?

PeopleOfAr and YouTube sited cited in this blog

     First it was reported in 2010 that Armenians Invented Clothes. Then a year later it was reported that Armenians Invented Wine. How amazing are we? And,it doesn’t stop there.
     On January 16, 2019, Tatul Sonentz-Papazian shared an article on Facebook that basically proves we invented music too. What? We invented music? This is crazy and very cool.  But, come on! Now we are starting to just make stuff up to irritate Recep Tayyip Erdogan (it should be noted that wholeheartedly I support such efforts in this regard).
     Actually, perhaps we did not actually create music but the we are credited with, or taking credit for, the oldest fragment of written music. Well, actually, it was our grandfather ancestors the Hurrians.  The article Sonentz-Papazian shared was from a website, The PeopleOfAr. It seems that a 3,400 year old cuneiform tablet of a hymn to the goddess of orchards was discovered in the 1950s. The tablet stated the music was written for an ancient lyre and even provided instructions for tuning. It was in a complete state where Amazingly, scholars were able to make enough sense out this to transcribe the tune to sheet music and then play it.
     There is a recording of one Michael Levy playing the tune. This YouTube post makes no mention of the Armenians except in one comment:   “Hurrians/Urartu/Hayasa-Azzi/Arme-Shupria = Armenians.” Speaking of comments here are a few I found amusing.

• This is not real music. What is it with all these "instruments" this new generation uses? In my day, we just used to sing and beat together two rocks to make music.
• Dis song is bring me back to my childhood memories
• Definitely my favourite brutal hurrian hymncore song
• If you grew up listening to this, your childhood was awesome.
• I saw these guys in concert back in the day

     So, who are the Hurrians and how do we know they are our national grandparents? I have never heard of them before. But, I am nowhere near being a historian specializing in such things. I looked them up on the internet and read two articles I found out about them in such places as the Encyclopedia Britannica and Archeology: a publication of the Archeological Institute of America. Neither of these mentioned anything about Armenians being descendants of the Hurrians. I did find a 1944 book, Hurrians and Subarians by Ignace Gelb of The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, in which Armenia and Armenians are referenced several times.
     It should be noted that on the YouTube site that one of the people that posted a serious comment, Messenger of Hor-pen-abu, in which the author basically alludes to the Assyrians being the descendants of the Hurrians. It seems that the Hurrians might have contributed to a few races. They seem to have lived at times in what is today Syria, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Armenia. Any peoples who came after the Hurrians could probably say they are descendants.
   Per Gelb:

The territory around Lake Van was occupied in the Late Assyrian period, between 900 and 600 B.C, by the state of Urartu, whose kings left many cuneiform inscriptions written in a language which is a close relative of Hurrian. This region may have formed the home of both Urartians and Hurrians with the qualification that, while the Urartians occupied predominantly the area north and east of Lake Van, the Hurrians may have held the area south and west of it. (Gelb pp 90 – 91)

     OK then, this tracks with what was written in the PeopleOfAr blog. The About PoA states:

This blog is dedicated to Armenian culture, history and everything else Armenia related. PeopleOfAr is set on a journey of self education, sharing of knowledge and pursuit of hidden Armenian cultural “treasures”, all in the spirit of academic integrity.

     So, did we invent music? Is this an Armenian song? The scholarly type in me says “I am not entirely sold on these claims. I will say that this very old song is from the regions where Armenians descended and lived for centuries.” The proud Armenian in me says, “Of course we invented music. Armenia is the cradle of civilization.”
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The State of the Dis-Union

foxiness.com

     Human behavior is human behavior. Age and education might refine it some, but it is still there. Be it benevolence or greed, having grace and style or being rude and boorish, considerate or inconsiderate, kind or mean, all these traits exist in all of us to varying degrees. From my experience, the percentages of people with extremes of these traits are the same across all strata of education and socio-economic classes. We like to think that doctors, lawyers, elected officials, clergy, professors, and others in influence and leadership positions ought to be above this but that is not the case.
     We are in a partial government shutdown. As of this writing, it has gone on a month. Furloughed government workers without enough savings are really being adversely impacted. Meanwhile, our leaders, namely our President and the Speaker of the House are exhibiting the kind of tit-for-tat pettiness I wish our government leaders were above.
     On January 16th, the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Trump stating that she wanted to postpone the State of the Union Address until after the partial government shutdown was ended. The State of the Union is an annual speech by the President of the United States given to both Houses of Congress to set the legislative agenda for the year. Until this happened, I was unaware that the President is formally invited by the Speaker of the House has to come and speak. So, Speaker Pelosi’s suggestion was, in fact, a disinvitation.
     A day later, per CNN, “President Donald Trump said Thursday he was denying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a military plane for a trip to Afghanistan that was set to begin in the afternoon, a tit-for-tat retaliation that deepened the divide between the leaders and brought the government no closer to reopening.” The trip was not publicized and used military aircraft for security reasons. The news report was the first the public knew about Pelosi going to Afghanistan. The NPR report I heard said that Speaker Pelosi was en route to the airbase for the trip when she got the news that President Trump had cancelled her flight.
     This is indeed  tit-for-tat retaliation and petty gamesmanship.
     Some will read this and venomously blame either the President or the Speaker. I am certain to get an earful either supporting the Speaker or the President while vilifying the other. To me, it shows how polarized we are both in government and as a people. We are at a record number of days for this kind of government shutdown and it is unclear when this will be resolved. Both sides are intransigent and blame the other.
     I understand that conflict can be good if there is room for negotiation and compromise. I adhere to the school that antithesis can lead to synthesis and provide better results than one extreme making all the decisions. That is not the way our government has worked for the past ten years. I also thought our leaders were above such pettiness when there are huge issues to be tackled. Color me naïve… I guess.

The New Yorker

      I love The New Yorker. I bought my first copy on a whim when I was 22. I was at the airport travelling maybe to Boston. Maybe the cover intrigued me, more likely I was curious about the magical mystical place that New York was. Upon settling on the plane, I thumbed through the magazine and, like most at first glance of the venerable magazine, I was taken with the clever cartoons. Then I noticed an article with the words Armenians in it. I went to the beginning of the article to find that it was Passage to Ararat by Michael Arlen. I was getting all set to read the article on when I noticed that it was part 3 of 3. Dang.
     Upon returning to Detroit, I contacted my friend Patty whose family ran a news and sundries shop in an office building in Dearborn. I asked if she might be able to get the past two issues so I could read all three parts. She said she would try. I suppose I could have gone to a library but that thought never occurred to me. A week or so later, Patty called me and said she had the magazines.
     On a Saturday in March 1975, a coldish dank sleety Saturday morning, I sat down to read the articles. I quickly realized how long articles in The New Yorker could be. It took me all day to read the three articles and I couldn’t put them down until I finished. I had no idea who Michael Arlen was. But, I realized immediately, what a gifted writer he was. I came to learn later that he was the TV critic for the magazine and The New Yorker published his entire book in their pages before it was published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
     Michael Arlen was a junior. His father Michael Arlen Sr. was Armenian, and his mother was English. His father became English. In fact, he became an English writer of some renown with his novel, The Green Hat, being his best-known work. The younger Michael was unaware of his Armenian heritage because his father turned away from it after 1915 Genocide. The book explores junior seeking out to learn about what it meant to be Armenian. The quest took him to Turkey and Soviet Armenia. It is a fascinating book any Armenian should read.
     Reading Passage to Ararat made me subscribe to The New Yorker. I was a devoted browser of the magazine until I moved to New York (duh!) and let the subscription lapse for a short period. I also took a hiatus during the dismal years of The Great Recession. My wife renewed it for me this past fall and I have enjoyed browsing it again.
      Browse? Yes, I should read it cover-to-cover as the writing is that good. But instead, I browse. I read a gem of an article here, a poem there, or a review of a film or play. I always look at every cartoon.
     I was looking for something to read during finals week this past December. I picked up

Frank McCourt

the December 8 issue of the magazine, sat down, and browsed. I settled on an article titled New in Town. I was impressed at how engaging the story of this young Irish lad who just immigrated to New York, getting a menial job, and started to come alive in a city where many go to do just that. Who wrote this I asked myself? I looked, it was on Frank McCourt and it was first published in the February and March 1, 1999 issues of the magazine. I was getting the magazine back then and apparently browsed right past this exquisitely written personal history. The issue I was reading was a best of issue of The New Yorker. I read a just as brilliant piece by James Baldwin in the same issue later that week.
     Frank McCourt? I had no idea who he was until I read this article. A google search quickly educated me that he was an Irish-American author and teacher who won a Pulitzer Prize for Angela’s Ashes.
     I was a bit amazed by my lack of knowledge. More so, I felt fortunate for having stumbled upon this lovely memoir having already missed it back in 1999. I may just have to read Angela’s Ashes.

More than Just a Pen

Dad's Cross Century

     Any reader of my e-letters that has now become this blog knows that I like nice writing instruments. I love pens and prefer to carry one that is both functional and stylish. When I first started my daily writing habit in June 2002, I handwrote every page. Now, I rarely do that but still enjoy taking notes and writing letters and cards with a fine pen. Even if I only need to sign something, say a drop/add form for a student, and am given a throwaway Bic or PaperMate, I will say no thanks if I have a Parker, Waterman, Cross, Caran D’Ache, Rotring, or Mont Blanc in my shirt pocket. I would just rather use a nice pen.
     While I have ballpoint, fountain, and roller ball pens, my weapon of choice by a longshot is a ballpoint with a fine point refill. I just like them. I like how I can write more meticulously in smaller script with them. I prefer the heft of a bigger diameter pens as well. I probably have around forty fine pens in my two offices and various briefcases. Yes, it is an indulgence and it is one that I enjoy.
     I just got a new pen in my collection. It is a humble old Cross Chrome Century ballpoint. There are a few nicks and scuffs but it still lusters. You can get these on ebay for $19 – 30. You can buy them new on Cross.com for $40. I have had few for these pens over the years. In the late 1960s and 70s, they were almost de rigueur where I grew up.
     But this one is special. It belonged to my father. In his primary career years, he worked for Detroit Bank and Trust, now known as Comerica. He sold financing for home modernization and then credit card services. I remember when he had Detroit Bank and Trust Parker Jotters that he would pass out to clients and customers. At that time, I thought they were the coolest pens and he would occasionally let me use his. Needless to say, I have a few of these as well. I remember when he upgraded. Someone gave him a Cross Chrome Century and the Jotters became an instant memory. He sported that Cross all the time as far as I could remember. Because of him, I too looked at that pen as a sign of being a bona fide businessman.
     Back then, I liked the Jotter better. I thought the Cross was too slender even though the styling was quite nice. I was given one early in my career, but still thought they were too slender for me. I did not like writing with them. I ignored but still revered the Cross brand. This lasted until I came across a Cross Townsend Lapis Lazuli pen on sale at my favorite pen shop in New York. It was love at first site and even more so at first write. Cross finally expanded their styling and the Townsend line was basically a fatter version of the Century. It was perfect. It is still one of my favorite pens.
     When last visiting my mother, she brought down two pens of dad’s and offered them to my sister and me. My sister took the gold Cross Century with the old Detroit Bank and Trust Indian logo on the clip. I took the chrome one because I knew this was his first Cross and was his go to pen for many years. I put a blue fine point refill in it and have used it exclusively for the past three weeks. I love it and will use it often because of its priceless sentimental value to me. I handwrote the draft of this page with it.

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

Alice Roosevelt Longworth from Pinterest

     Somehow in our dinner conversation this evening, we gravitated to the topic of the good and bad things, the complimentary and hurtful things, we say to others. Clearly, we evoked the old adage: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
     Immediately, I tried to recall a devilish variation on the quote which I thought was from Eleanor Roosevelt. I believe it was something like “If you can’t say something nice, come and sit here by me.” A Google search showed I was close on both counts. The quote is from Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the author, socialite, and eldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt. There was a site of her quotes. There were actually several versions of the quote that I found. Two were on that site, one was on another, and a fourth on Pinterest (thus making me wonder about the accuracy of quotes on the internet).

1. If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody come sit next to me.
2. If you can't think of anything nice to say, come sit here beside me.
3. If you can’t say something nice about someone, come and sit right here next to me.
4. The above photograph of Alice Roosevelt Longworth holding a pillow with a fourth version.

     As much as I like what Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, the root adage is more in line with this season of resolutions. Surely, we should all try to be nicer and apply the Golden Rule to not only our actions but what we say to and about people. In my internet a few other great on this general topic of watching what we say about others:

• Say what you mean, but don’t say it mean.
• If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. ~ Maya Angelou
• Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out.

     This theme covers things we say to others, the gossip behind their backs, and what we say online about people we know and perhaps only know of. We live in an era where people are bullied online. We live in an era where the President of our country sets the tone with the kinds of insults and zingers that can be tweeted. Of course, there is still gossip. Anyone that works or belongs to any kind of organization, team, club, musical group, or church knows that gossip is nothing new. It can define and underlie the culture. It can be an informal method of communication that makes an organization more cohesive. More often, however, it is a divisive force that breaks people into subgroups and cliques that serves some and ices out others.
     I am as guilty of the above as anybody, especially the gossip part. I think it is part of human nature. As stated above the gossip can be measured and civil, or it can be malicious and hurtful.
     Communication is so critical in everything we do. Be it verbal, social media, or via email. We should all certainly strive to be more tempered. We should indeed taste our words before we speak or type them. For this year, I will add a commitment to speaking and typing in a more polite and civil tone.

Fumbling Upon a Topic

www.bobleesays.com

     What a difference a year makes.

     Last year I was chomping at the bit to write, write-on, and then write some more. Last year I had topics galore. Everywhere I looked there was something to write about. 
     This year, and I know this will change, it is January 4th and I am struggling with what to blog about. Really? Yes, for sure. I find myself writing about not having a topic to write about. I suppose this could be considered a writer’s block. 
     There are plenty of topics. A Democratic controlled Congress is in place and they are squaring off with President Trump. Both sides are huffing and puffing about the government shutdown and the proposed wall for the US – Mexico border. When I worked at General Dynamics Land Systems, this is what we used to call a target rich environment. There is no limit to what one can rant and rave about. But then, I would be mimicking Fox News and MSNBC. Furthermore, if I were to go down that slippery political slope, it would consume me as it has others on Facebook. I have seen friends and relatives lash out, rant, rave, and more. They irritate everyone they know, burn-out, disappear for a while, and eventually return posting only kitten and baby goat videos. Nah, that’s not for me. 
     There is the upcoming College Football Championship on January 7th; as I seem to like writing about football and probably consider myself a sportswriter wannabee. This is the fourth year in a row that Alabama and Clemson have squared-off in the College Championship series. In 2016, 2017, and now 2019, they are playing for the National Championship. As evidenced by really lackluster ticket sales, the country is taking a big yawn about this game. Yeah, Alabama. Sure, Clemson. Again? Ho-hum. Maybe, something needs to be done to ensure parity in College Football. Short of limiting scholarships or paying the players and having a draft, I am at a loss here.

The average resale cost of a ticket has gone from $1,043 to $533 in a matter of days, according to secondary ticket site SeatGeek. And you can still get tickets for much cheaper. Upper-deck seats, which had a face value of $475 each, were going for as low as $114 on StubHub, and $139 on SeatGeek, on Thursday. ~ Market Watch 

     Tickets are actually going for less than face-value. That is unheard of in a championship game like this one. I teach Principles of Microeconomics. I always refer to the secondary ticket market for sporting events as pure supply and demand. In this game, there is not very much demand, in fact, the demand curve has probably shifted. 
     There are certainly plenty of games during the regular season where there are empty seats. This certainly happens when two lackluster teams play each other, but I have seen it at Michigan Stadium where we boast a record string of 100,000+ attendance. It happens everywhere. 
     Part of this has to be due to people simply wanting to watch a game in the comfort of their own homes. Everyone has amazing televisions these days. There is instant replay. It really is a great way to watch football either alone or in a watch party. The older I get the home option sounds and better to me. No travel. No lines. Snacks at reasonable prices. Apparently, I am not alone in this. 
     There is also the fact that our passion for football has peaked. If the TV viewership for this game dips as well, the powers that be will have to do some thinking and planning on the state of the game.

In the Time of your Life...

     It seemed like yesterday was the start of this millennium. Now, it is 2019 and we are in

the 20thyear of this century. Time indeed moves faster the older we get.
     The start of a new year is the turning of the page. We are starting fresh, full of aspirations of what we will do and what we will do better. We delineate the traits and habits we want to drop and other, more desirable traits and habits, we aspire to finally ensconce them into our lifestyles and personalities. We all want to self-actualize, be more authentic, and become mentally and physically healthy.
     In contemplating all I have and want to do; the list is no different than it was last year at this time. Heck, it is not much different than it was last year at this time. It is not that much different than it was any of the New Year’s Days for the past several years. I have made progress on some and I have backslid on others. Some resolutions have stuck, others were mere memories after a day or two.
     What is it I truly want? What is it that most of us really want? Health, happiness, general well-being, and some degree of prosperity is what most of the seasonal greetings hope for.
     Today, on Facebook, Margaret Dabakian Ehramjian posted a quote from William Saroyan. This is not the Saroyan quote most Armenians think of. This one is the prelude from his 1939 play, The Time of Your Life:

In the time of your life, live - so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed... In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.

     It is perfect for today, actually for any day. It is perfect for the time of anyone’s life.
     The play was a hit from the day it opened. It was the first play to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Saroyan was an instant success and a toast of the town. Armenians were proud of him. His success was the general success of our people who just twenty-four years earlier had suffered so in our ancestral homelands. This son of immigrants from Bitlis was born in Fresno in 1908 and passed away in 1981.
     Needless to say, I did an internet search on the play and found out that the quote on Facebook, the one I was familiar with, the one I posted above is a Hallmark Card reduction, a very well-written and elegant Hallmark Card, of what he actually wrote. His most famous Armenian quote can be found in various plaques and other ornamentations adorning Armenian homes around the world. But the version we all have in our homes is, again, a Hallmark Card excerpt of the original. Read the full quotation at the end of Çidem İnç - Thoughts and Dichotomies. Every version of this quote hanging on the walls of Armenian homes leave out the “sons of bitches” part. The parts that are left out, in my humble opinion, are what made Saroyan the brilliant writer. Here is the full version of Saroyans preface to The Time of Your Life.

In the time of your life, live -- so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches.

Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away.

Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world.

Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart.

Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand.

Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.

In the time of your life, live -- so that in that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."

     The full version is indeed more real. It is gritty. It is blunt in parts. “…but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.” Wow. It reflects what the Armenians went through in 1915 – 1920. It reflects the depths of the Great Depression in the US when the play was written. It is still hopeful and a guide to aspire to but there is an underlying tone that the vast majority of us will never achieve this. That is no reason, however, not to endeavor and strive towards that ideal. It is what the time of our lives is about – if we so choose.
      I find the full version much more motivating.
     A happy, healthy, and prosperous 2019 to one and all.

Note: I have nothing against Hallmark Cards. In fact, I buy them frequently. Lastly, no Hallmark Cards were killed or injured in the writing of this bloggy bit.