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Star Light, Star Bright

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Here’s a freshly written note from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, a lad still looking for his future.

Hey Mr. C.,

In Ms. Axiom’s science class yesterday we had this great discussion about a new idea from some astronomers at Princeton and Harvard who want to find out if there are other civilizations out there in the universe. They’re going to use telescopes to look for light from alien cities! Is that cool or what?

I used to think that my ideal job as an adult would be “Planet Finder”, but now that so many distant planets have already been found, I’m thinking “Alien City Spotter” would be an even better job for me. It’s still in my chosen field, which we took a test to figure out. My results said I would “thrive in any line of work that involved Looking Into the Sky and Wondering About Things.”

When we were talking about it in Ms. A’s class I said I wanted to be the first human to find an alien city because I’d get to name it after myself! “Bubbopolis” is what I’m thinking, because it’s so much fun to say. There’s enough of a beat there that people would probably write songs about it and then there’d be a huge push to build a spacecraft to go visit Bubbopolis as soon as possible. Maybe when we got there, the Bubbopipolitans would like my name so much they’d actually change over whatever they were calling the place to the much cooler name I gave them – which would mean instant immortality on two different planets for me! That pretty much lines up with my life’s goals!

But then people started to chip away at my great idea. Nathan Nathanson pointed out that the article said these scientists were only going to look for alien cities in our own solar system, where we’re pretty much 100% sure there are no other advanced life forms or civilizations anyway, and that to look farther than that we’ll have to build super telescopes that haven’t even been invented yet! So what, Nathan? You think you’re so smart just because you read all the way to the end? I’m against getting all the information on things because it leaves no room for your imagination!

And then that fun-killing egghead Samantha Quilts stood up and said that what would probably happen if we found an alien city with its lights on at night is very different from what I imagined. Rather than build a rocket to go there, we’d all probably get so scared we’d go into a worldwide panic about turning OUR lights off at night so the Bubbopolis creatures wouldn’t be able to see US.

She’s probably right.

But even then I could have a good career as a Nighttime Glow Warden.
I’m already pretty harsh with my parents when it comes to leaving lights on at night – they’re the worst! One time I came home from this football game at about 10:30 and all the lights were on in the living room and the TV was blaring away, but they had gone to bed! That’s crazy. What were they thinking? I gave them a good talking to the next morning, which felt really great, and they didn’t seem to mind it either.

By the way, “Scolding People” came in second on the list of job areas that I’d be good at.

Your pal,
Bubby

I congratulated Bubby on this small step forward in his continuing project of figuring out what his someday job could be, though it made me wonder if he’s looking a little too far into the future. Still, with our carbon production running well ahead of predictions, browbeating people for leaving the lights on at night could turn into a growing career field.

Are you an energy saver, or a waster?

The Baboon Congress

Two Ears, One Mouth

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Today’s guest post comes from Steve.

About a decade ago I was delighted to discover that I was a storyteller. Storytelling is amusing for others, and yet it can be so much more. I saw it as a rich activity that is essential to forming values and shaping the way we perceive the big issues in life. I was proud to identify myself as a teller of stories.

Maybe a year or two later, after some reflection, I began to see the dark side of storytelling. What could possibly be wrong with being a storyteller? In a word, storytellers are rotten listeners. There are exceptions, of course, but the statement is essentially true. Painfully true. And I began to see evidence that I was an especially inept listener.

It isn’t hard to see why. A storyteller is driven by a burning desire to tell a story that others will enjoy. But nobody can tell a story and listen at the same time, just as nobody can suck and blow simultaneously on a tube. The acts are incompatible. Telling stories well requires full concentration. When a storyteller isn’t actually talking it might look as if he or she is listening. The sad truth, however, is that a silent storyteller is (at best) listening with half an ear while preparing to trot out the next story. Most storytellers suffer impatiently while others talk, waiting until that other person shuts up and they can tell another story. Talking when they should be listening, storytellers fail to appreciate what others have to offer, and they typically fall into the trap of telling their favorite stories over and over.

While storytellers are a blessing to mankind, the greater need is for more folks who listen well. Listening well is the ultimate act of respect we can show for others. Because people talk inefficiently and repeat themselves, it is rarely necessary to listen closely. We can listen with half a mind without missing a thing. Listening well requires concentration and a bit of humility, and it is the rare person who concentrates with a full mind on what others have to say.

I was married to such a person. My former wife is the best listener I’ve met. I’ve often watched her relating to people she doesn’t know. She might ask a good question or two, but mostly she listens, and it is instructive to see how quickly people respond to that. They experience a glow of good feelings toward her without knowing that they are thrilling to the rare experience of being listened to. My former wife is a highly accomplished woman, and I’ve always felt that her business and personal success was based largely on her amazing ability to listen to others.

When I became aware of the terrible temptation that drives storytellers (including me) to talk too much, I resolved to listen better. I made a project of talking less and listening more. It was amusing to see how hard that was. After all, the normal mode for a storyteller is talking! Ironically enough, I suddenly found myself wanting to tell stories about the need for listening well.

Even so, I got better almost instantly. Because so few people bother to listen well, it is actually easy to become a superior listener. If you make an effort—even a small effort—you will do far better than most of us do in daily life. And if you want to do even better than that, there are a few well-known techniques that signal to others that we are listening attentively to them. (A typical “trick” of listening well is repeating what someone has just told you, which is a strong signal that you are interested and are paying attention.)

Just at the time I had launched my project to become a better listener I gave a ride to Carolyn, a young woman in my book club. I hardly knew her, although I liked Carolyn, for she is a passionate reader of books. Carolyn and I were making small talk as I drove her home from the club meeting. I think I had just asked her about her job. I was preparing to tell her a story about bad jobs . . . but I stopped myself. I thought, “Shut up, Steve! Be a listener, not a damned talker.” And then I noticed that Carolyn had just spoken the same sentence, word for word, two times in a row. That seemed odd. I ditched the amusing story I had queued up and instead asked Caroline a question about what she was trying to say.

Both of us were shocked when Carolyn burst into tears. Because she scarcely knew me, she was embarrassed, and yet she couldn’t stop sobbing for several minutes. I fought the impulse to start blathering advice. What Carolyn needed, obviously enough, was someone to listen.

Carolyn explained that she had doubts about everything in her life. Although she was fond of the young man she was living with, she knew he would be a terrible husband. He was pressuring her to buy a house with him, which would have made the relationship more complicated and difficult to leave. She had equal doubts about her job and the profession she was preparing to enter. When Carolyn looked at her life, “everything” about it seemed wrong, and she was being pushed toward commit to several decisions she dreaded making. She was terrified.

We talked. I don’t know if the things I said to her that night did any good. I’m sure it was a good thing that I had listened to her. I’m sure the way Carolyn opened her heart that night was ultimately good for her, for she dragged all her unacknowledged demons out of the closet and shoved them in the bright light of day. At the very least, I knew that the trust Carolyn had shown me was a thumping validation of the wisdom of listening well.

I knew a ranch hand in northern Montana, a man named Sonny Turner. His weathered face had a lot of character, particularly since his long nose slanted sharply to the right. I once asked, “Sonny? How in hell did your nose get so crooked?” Sonny said, “Oh, that happened in a bar in Williston. It was one of them times when I was talking when I shoulda been listening.” I knew just what he meant.

Are you a good listener?

Are you a good listener?

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Novelty Song Medley

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I’ve been sifting through some lists of Novelty Songs lately. I will state unequivocally that the Novelty Song is a worthy musical genre that has faded in popularity in recent years, much to our detriment.

That’s assuming that I know what a novelty song is, and that I have even the slightest clue as to what passes for popular in 2011. Two questionable assumptions.

To me, a novelty song is an intentionally comic number that may or may not be a parody. They sometimes have weird instruments, strange voices, silly noises, and even sound effects. A novelty song can become popular, but only a very short while.

Some novelty tunes have dated references but timeless appeal. They can be wordy and quite complicated, like this one.

Novelty numbers can also be weirdly polished and borderline inappropriate, like this one.

And then, of course, there’s everything Allan Sherman ever did.

But one thing all novelty songs seem to have in common – they’re not today’s music.

What’s a novelty song to you?

The Baboon Congress

The Power of Waffles

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Today’s guest post is from Anna.

I believe in the power of waffles. Not the big, fluffy kind you get at a restaurant loaded with fruit and whipped cream and heaven knows what all. Real waffles – the kind with little tiny squares that make your butter clump and not spread smoothly. The kind of waffles your mom can make with ingredients she always seems to have on hand – flour and baking power and eggs, not a mix. Waffles made on an iron that likely dates to the Eisenhower administration. The best waffles do not cook evenly or have a uniform shape. They are crisp, brown, warm, melt in your mouth – and if you’re really lucky, like I am, your mom serves ‘em up with peanut butter.

The Vintage Griddle

I believe in the power of waffles because one less than fabulous, perhaps even horrid, day my mom saved the world with waffles. Daughter, then 2-years-old, had been very two that day, my husband was struggling with something in his grad school class, and I was just tired and crabby – something had to be done to turn this around. “Come on over,” Mom said when I called, “bring the little one and we’ll all have some dinner.” I arrived, Daughter in tow, relieved that someone else would entertain my toddler for awhile and I could just sit. Mom made waffles.

Unadorned Perfection

The waffles arrived at the table piping hot, bumpy on the edges, straight from the iron. Butter, maple syrup, lingonberry preserves – I topped waffles with each – but the best were the ones with melty, oozy peanut butter that dripped down my chin. My daughter was calmed and contentedly ate her waffles. I ate mine. All was right with my world again. Those waffles had delivered a mother’s embrace directly to my taste buds – the sort of reassurance generations of moms have cooked up in the kitchen for their children when they need it most. Plain ordinary waffles.

With Lingonberry and Peanut Butter

We spend a lot of time worrying about the big things in our lives: Who won the election? I’m over 40 and I haven’t yet saved the world and I don’t have a book deal – does that mean I’m a failure? Paper or Plastic? We lose sight in all of that of the little things, remarkable and not, that make up our daily lives. Even with the huge motivational-industrial complex out there churning out mugs, magnets, posters, and books chock full of pithy sayings to remind us, we still pay most attention to the big, whiz-bang things and pay little or no attention to the goodness of ordinary things – like waffles.

I believe in the goodness of ordinary things. I believe in the power of waffles.

What is your favorite comfort food?

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R.I.P. Tom Keith

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Thanks for the kind thoughts shared so far, and bless you all for starting the tribute on your own. Like everyone who knew and loved Tom Keith, I’ve felt helpless and lost all day.

It is especially strange to sit here thinking about him on Halloween night.

Tom was a nimble radio sound effects artist who could, in an instant, summon the mad scientist from his lab and release the vampire from his coffin. He could do the werewolf howl and knew how to chortle like a maniac who has found a loose block in the wall of his dungeon. All the standard sounds of this cartoonish observance were in Tom’s wheelhouse, as they say, so you might expect him to embrace the day like Fezziwig loved Christmas. But Tom Keith was not a big fan of Halloween. A welcome and invited radio guest in thousands of homes, he frowned on the idea of strange people just showing up at the door. On Halloween night Tom became your crabby neighbor who would turn out the lights and go sit in the back room until the bell stopped ringing. This curmudgeonly attitude coming from someone known for his sense of fun was unexpected, and he knew it. In fact, if you asked him to portray a crabby neighbor who would turn out the lights and go sit in the back room until the bell stopped ringing, he could do it with nothing more than a raised eyebrow, a shift in weight, a suspicious grunt, and it would be so perfectly on target that your stomach would ache from laughing. Tom Keith saw many things with an unusual clarity. He did not take himself seriously, and he didn’t take you too seriously, either.

Like a lot of people, I first heard Tom as Garrison Keillor’s sidekick on MPR’s Prairie Home Morning Show. He was Ed Jim Poole, a trainer of attack chickens. The name was later re-shuffled to be Jim Ed Poole, though there was no real change in character. He gave us a sophisticated bumpkin and a dry wit comedian who appeared to say hilarious things by mistake. Or was it intentional? One could never be sure, and that mystery was an enduring part of the attraction. I worked side by side with Tom in a succession of small glass-walled rooms for five mornings a week over the course of more than 25 years, and I’m still wondering how funny he meant to be. Every broadcast was an expedition into unknown territories.

I wrote a pile of scripts for him. Many ideas were inspired by something I thought he could do, and he never let me down. Whatever I gave him got better with his contribution. The humor came in small moments – the timing of a single word or a slight change in inflection. It came in large helpings with the sudden inexplicable arrival of a fleet of one-bladed helicopters and the falsely brave yell of a man changing his mind as he is about to go over the falls in a barrel. Tom’s genius lay in the ability to render a complete realization of impossible illusions. Though he spent most of his adult life in radio, Tom Keith was, at heart, an illustrator.

He was also a softie, and a servant, always aware that his livelihood depended on an audience willing to pay the freight. Quite naturally he channeled his inner ex-Marine when he developed our Morning Show playlist guidelines, declaring that all listener requests must be turned in no later than 5 days before the date of broadcast. No exceptions. And with equal ease he tossed those regulations aside whenever anyone asked. If you were a grandmother needing to hear a specific song for your grandson’s birthday sometime in the next half hour before the kid’s bus comes, Tom Keith was your man. The harsh rules he had written could not stand up to anyone’s polite request.

Tom was not a prima donna or a show off, which was ironic given that he had such showy talents. His name was known to millions as one of the last surviving radio sound men, but he was not terribly interested in increasing his profile. He said no to television projects with Hollywood stars, and decided to stop touring with Prairie Home Companion when he got tired of the road. He would turn down commercial voice jobs because Schniederman’s was delivering a couch that afternoon, and he had to be at home to meet the truck. Above all, he was a man of his word and he always did his job, which was to make the work in front of him as good as it could be. He was frugal, sensible, practical, and oh so Minnesotan.

Respect outward.
Humor inward.
Integrity always.

Cheers, Buddy. And bon voyage.

Share a favorite Tom Keith / Jim Ed Poole memory.

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Something With Goo in the Middle

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Happy Halloween, Baboons!

As we prepare for the annual Trick-or-Treat kidstorm in our neighborhood (more than 500 tiny treats handed out at our door last year), I’m reminded of the blessing of infinite variety in our candy universe. We have hard, crunchy candies and soft chewy ones. Dark chocolate and milk chocolate for the older kids and fun, fruity chews for the tykes. Some candies are solid throughout. Others have gooey and even liquid interiors, which can strike some people as creepy and even dangerous.

And so it goes for asteroids, apparently.

There are millions of them in the asteroid belt, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Last year the European Space Agency accomplished a close-by flight on one such object, named Lutetia. Something about Lutetia is not quite right – she’s a lot denser than she appears (also true for some people – yours truly included). In the case of Lutetia, the theory making the rounds right now is that there’s molten metal in the center, which would be something new for asteroids and could suggest that Lutetia was on the way to becoming a full-fledged planet before succumbing to a case of arrested development.

It might also explain where magnetic meteorites come from.

Lutetia is odd shaped and nugget-like. It actually reminds me of a couple of things – one is a piece of the bag candy “Pop Rocks”, which fizzed in your mouth. Remember those? There was a pervasive bit of urban lore claiming kids who swallowed the candy or mixed it with a carbonated drink would suffer some kind of gastro-intestinal explosion – a thought that was just threatening enough to make Pop Rocks irresistible.

And of course as we’ve already discussed, Lutetia’s weird shape is reminiscent of a well-known image by Edvard Munch, now made even more alarming by the thought that there’s hot liquid metal sloshing around inside. How appropriate for Halloween. Don’t bite down too hard, unless you want to SCREAM!

What’s your favorite candy?

The Baboon Congress

The Sidetrack Trap

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Last night I had a strange dream that the leaves falling off the trees in my yard were actually words. When I gathered them up they seemed to make an indecipherable mound of text, but when I allowed myself to fall into the crunchy sentences, it all made a surprising amount of sense. In the spirit of autumnal thought collection and the pleasures of diving into a seemingly random word-pile, today’s guest post comes from that master raker of notions, the one-and-only tim.

Photo credit: HD Leader.

the trick to it is not to believe that you have any idea where you are going. the times i get into trouble is when i think I know something. i really do much better when i am aware that i am lost. my thinking brain goes to sleep on a regular basis and the difference between me in a new surroundings vs me at the kitchen table is night and day.it is not only perception, it is fact that the stuff that comes out of my brain in a comfortable setting is not nearly as creative as the stuff when i am looking at the surroundings and soaking in the environment at the same time as i am trying to function. i do love my rituals. the morning bath with the blog in front of me is much preferred start to my day vs the wake up grab a tea and hit the road for an early morning meeting on my way to stop 1 2 3 and 4 before the dust clears. but i am not convinced that comfort is the best mode to exist in. i am often times jealous when I see a person who takes no chances and knows how everything is going to come out in every situation they run into or put themselves in a position to deal with but I know for certain I can not be that person. I cant sit in a chair and enjoy the scenery or a thought for no more than a short stint before i start twitching and needing to find a different angle on my presence. computers are a blessing and a curse. i remember when i started on my computer side of life and i was reading about peter or paul of peter paul and mary and he was saying that he would get on the computer after dinner and get involved in a conversation with someone in a chat room and the evening go by unnoticed and by the time he looked up it was 4 am and he was cranked up and had a hard time getting to sleep. i am little bit that way although i don’t go to chat rooms. (yet) i do get on the computer and one step leads to the next and before you know it i am studying sleeping bags and the differences between down filled bags and the new space age materials. oh yeah space age… what was the date of the explosion that killed the school teacher and I wonder what henry bien is doing who I met that day and came back from lunch to discover the tragedy that had occurred as we walked back in to the land of cubicles….cubicles… oh yeah, dilbert cartoon receptacles. and before I know it i am so far away from the trip to the boundary waters I was contemplating i am looking up henry bien to see if he is still in texas where he was last time i saw him 10 years ago. not likely he moved around a lot. how do people who move around a lot do it? make friends, make a life, find the assets of the area and start over one more time. where would i like to visit for an extended stretch? iireland? new orleans? mexico? new zealand? wouldn’t it be cool to be able to just go? what would it take to make that happen today? and it goes on and on and on…. i used to have trouble reading a book because i would realize as i looked at the page in front of me that i had no idea when i tuned out but i had never seen or registered any of the words on this page before. i could go back 2 or 3 pages and still not recognize anything. i had been on a day trip while my trained eyes went from line to line and turned the page as we progress through the story in the book i am holding. i wonder sometimes if dementia is a ride that takes you away from the thoughts you are trying to get to or if it just is an out of control hodge podge that makes no sense to the victim as well as the helpless onlookers who get to deal with it.

is getting sidetracked a blessing or a curse?

The Baboon Congress

Sky Blue Pink With A Heavenly Border

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Sorry for the late posting today, baboons. Today’s guest blog is by Jacque.

The autumn skies are spectacular, especially at dawn and dusk. There is a point immediately after the sun sets on a clear day, when the light is dim, all silhouettes crisp. The exclamation point is the moonrise looming over the nearly night sky. Several weeks ago, driving home from work each evening at dusk, beautiful sunsets were strutting their stuff. Gorgeous shades of pink, yellow, orange, blue, and lavender spread across the western horizon. The car was headed westward, so each evening I saw the whole thing, start to finish. What a beautiful drive home.

It made me think of my late father and his favorite color. My sister, our friends, and I were obsessed with determining our favorite colors. We experimented with all the colors from the Crayola box. We also polled our parents and neighbors, persistently asking, “What is your favorite color?” Mom’s was orange. Dad’s was Sky Blue Pink with a Heavenly Border. Wow. Nobody could top that one. And he would show us this color at sunset.

“Look. There it is!” he would say, pointing west to the horizon.

So in September, when the sunsets were so lovely and I was making my way west towards home, I began to think of him. This prompted me to write a blog, with a picture of a sunset, of course. I had to carry my camera everywhere, so I could pull over and catch the color for the blog.

It took weeks. The sunsets were suddenly bland. The camera broke. I had to buy a new camera, learn to use it, and catch the just right sunset. I waited for days for the proper color and scene. It was tough. I took many pictures which were colorless, uninspiring, just not Dad’s color. Finally I found one that would do, even though it does not have quite enough Heavenly Border.

Then one morning, as I headed out to walk the dog I saw it again on the mailbox in the form of Morning Glories:

The beautiful sunset inspired memories, pleasant thoughts and a photographic binge. I learned new skills after the colors made me spend money on a new camera so I could share it with you. You just never know what a sunset will inspire.

What does color do for you? Do you have a favorite?

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Watch This Space

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I had a cup of coffee this afternoon with a friend of mine – a very nice man who just got back from Los Angeles and a visit with Jayne Meadows. He knows a lot of grateful, gracious, formerly famous people who are invariably thrilled to have someone a) remember them, b) pay attention and c) ask questions.

Why yes, I’d be delighted to tell you more about me. Pull up a chair.

Later today I’ll head down to St. Olaf with another good friend to talk to some of the students who work at the campus station, KSTO, about creating radio. Another walk around the block for a couple of old dogs. I’m looking forward to it, though I’m not sure my style of radio has much appeal to the online generation. So much of everything (music, humor, companionship) is available through the Internet, it’s hard to talk about a sound-only medium without seeming, well, quaint. In fact, our little presentation and Q & A will be streamed live on video here.

Go figure.

I plan to encourage the group to make full use of the possibilities of the medium by embracing its limitations. Take the absence of a visual as a challenge to activate the imaginations of listeners. How? I can only go over some of the things that worked for me, but who cares about that? The next generation will have to take a fresh approach if radio is to survive this latest assassination attempt by a brassier, flashier, but inferior technology.

Jayne Meadows was a star but not a legend. More “B” list than “A”. What does that mean? She once won the Susan B. Anthony Award for portraying women in positive roles. You can’t get to be a big star doing principled stuff like that. But it does leave you with a set of memories you can always enjoy talking about.

A local college invites you to be a visiting expert.

What are you going to talk about?

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Baboons in the News

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This story from South Africa was just so charming, I couldn’t resist. A baboon breaks into the car of a guy whose job it is to follow around the baboons to make sure they don’t mess with people and break into their cars.

I, too, have been this effective in some of the jobs I’ve held.

The Daily Mail’s story says the baboon monitor is “flinching out of the way” of the thief, although the caption could just have easily said “The baboon, tired of being watched, decked the nosy monitor with a brisk right hook as he made off with the prize.”

We know that the baboon took the man’s bag out of the back seat and made off with it. We have no clue what was in the bag, but obviously it was something irresistible. Only Blevins knows. Or is this Rhonda? Or some other member of baboon society we have not yet met? Clearly, there is an untold tale here. Perhaps through bits and pieces of imagined detail drawn from our vast reserves of baboon knowledge, we can divine the true story.

Tell it.