Irritation Illumination

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Mrs. Fitz

A kind person recently noticed I wrote a novel and asked me “Where do you get your inspiration?”

“Irritation,” says I.

“Huh?” says kind person.

Says I, “Think of irritation on a continuum, with petty grievances at the low end and soul-impaling outrage at the high end. Any level will do.

“I can’t speak for great writers like Harper Lee or John Steinbeck but I conjecture this: To Kill a Mockingbird is a right hook at behaviors that allowed an innocent man to be accused of rape and allowed an uneducated woman to believe that was okay. I imagine John Steinbeck was compelled to one-two punch injustice, which impaled those too poor to protest those with power. So he gave us Grapes of Wrath.”

Likely there are other sources, but I think irritation inspires many novelists, who must either make art, or smack somebody.

What inspires you?

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What’s So Funny?

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Mrs. Fitz

I think humor is anything that causes me amusement, generally incongruity, exaggeration, satire, irony or buffoonery.

I tend to overlook that “humor” was coined many moons ago to describe a person’s temperament that is out of balance. I’m reminded what amuses me may be way out of balance to others.

INCONGRUITY. A couple years ago, a social justice lobby, members of a religious order went on a bus tour as “Sisters driving for faith, family and fairness.” Their banner was NUNS ON THE BUS. I was amused by the incongruity of women religious doing what rock stars do, touring on a bus. However, The Catholic Register called it a publicity stunt that did harm.

EXAGGERATION. When an elementary particle known as Higgs Boson was discovered in 2012, it was BIG news. BIG. It was referred to as THE GOD PARTICLE, a phrase coined by Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman, Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Lederman is a smart scientist who used exaggeration to convey magnitude. It made me smile. However, some other smart scientists found the phrase misleading and harmful.

I think the following are humorous, but I could be mistaken.

SATIRE. It is satire if it makes fun of human foibles we share, such as men refusing to ask for driving directions and thus getting hopelessly lost. Okay, only half of us share this foible, but it’s amusing, isn’t it?

IRONY. It is irony if one thing is said but its opposite meaning is intended, such as “Men who refuse to ask directions are the smartest creatures on the face of the planet.” A chuckler, yes?

BUFFOONERY. It is buffoonery when one acts clumsy and boorish to be funny, as when a man who won’t ask directions jokes about being lost with his hopelessly lost and annoyed passengers. Funny yes or funny no?

Sometimes incongruity, exaggeration, satire, irony and buffoonery amuse, and sometimes they don’t; but I am certain about RIDICULE.

Ridicule is DERIDING SOMEONE SCORNFULLY to make others laugh. Not funny. Ever. Never ever.

Happy April Fools’ Day. What amuses you?

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Uniformity

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Mrs. Fitz

Anticipation functions best when it’s specific, such as awaiting a precise phone call offering the dream job or a text message from the hospital stating all tests were negative.

Anticipation is among the powerful emotions, ranking right up there with self esteem, which is much too elusive; and fury, which is not.

In the late 1960s, my anticipation of the college experience was specific: choosing what to wear instead of wearing a uniform.

School uniforms at Immaculate Conception grammar and high school were only soul-crushing in the sense they were chosen by somebody who was not me. In fact, they were nice. Classic. It was the choosing clothes I anticipated, a gift hitherto denied.

The suitcases that trailed me into Mundelein Women’s College in Chicago like a small cattle herd were plump with options, most out of Sears & Roebuck catalog. Turtleneck sweaters and plaid pants for times I would say something smart; flowered tops to convey femininity; mannish blazers to contradict all that; knee boots only a city woman knew how to wear; and footie jammies only a suburbanite knew existed.

The thing that gives anticipation its short shelf life is reality.

No living female within my radius wore anything other than jeans when we attended college. Four years of denim. Years after that, too. No choice.

Jeans are nice. Classic. I wonder who chose them?

 

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Ranch dressing

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Mrs. Fitz

Decades after Mom and Dad first moved our family of four into our Elmhurst ranch house, it occurs to me we didn’t live ON a ranch. We lived IN a ranch on land that might have BEEN a ranch before the 1950s happened.

During that decade, six million houses were built in the United States, 90% of them ranches. We couldn’t all have acreage to boot.

Our lot was wide enough to prevent us hearing our neighbors, if they whispered; and just deep enough for no such buffer behind or in front. When we needed to air our differences, we went to the basement.

Its highest elevation was a weather vane on the peak of the garage roof. It was a horse prancing atop an arrow that spun. We could gaze up like sun-wizened ranchers to see which way the wind was blowing, which we never did.

When I was old enough to imagine my future, about four, I received a doll house: A ranch made of thin metal with furniture painted on its walls. It came with a doll family of four also made of flat metal, like utensils. I imagined in two dimensions. Very 1950s.

 

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More is less

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Mrs. Fitz

The basement of our ’50s ranch house in Elmhurst mirrored our upstairs like the Taj Mahal’s reflecting pool mirrors that place. It doubled our living area. This allowed space for a clothesline to use in inclement weather, a workshop Dad used to convince my two brothers and me that he had stuff to do, and a concrete bunker room with no purpose whatsoever.

What remained was an echo-chamber area devoted to the notion we had lots of people to entertain. This misplaced optimism prompted Mom to purchase The Rattan Set. It was on summer clearance at Sears Roebuck for what, upon reflection, was good reason.

If a bamboo forest mated with plastic, their spawn would be this menagerie of loveseats, coffee tables, a bar with swiveling bar stools, dinette table with extra leaves and chairs, and some extra stuff Sears might have slipped onto the delivery truck.

The loveseat cushions, upholstered in a pattern something like dead lava flow, had a way of sliding out of reach if you attempted to sit on them…or bunching and toppling as if they’d been shot. The dining chairs had not foreseen grownups sitting on them; so they wobbled, forlorn, under the weight of anyone bigger than a six-year-old. The bar stools offered, but did not deliver on the promise of swiveling.The bar itself was cute, not wide enough for more than one reveler, but cute.

Fortunately our guests were reasonable in size and few in number.

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Weenie Hallows (archive)

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Mrs. Fitz

In our holiday-happy suburb in the holiday happy 1960s, Mom stitched Trick-or-Treat costumes with the caveat that one outfit did the work for three of us: Eric the Elder, Michele the MustFit, and Mark the Shark. Not all at once, of course; but sequentially.

As a result, none of our fantasies were realized, with the exception, perhaps, of Mom’s. She didn’t sew well. She sewed exquisitely. Museum-quality.

Take the harlequin clown suit. PLEASE take the harlequin clown suit. While other kids’ Moms shopped last minute at Ben Franklin for fright wig and striped bloomers, Mom created a classic clown suit one might wear while bowing to heads of state at a European Masquerade held in a castle on the river Rhine. Its yellow, no-size jammies had batwing sleeves and batwing legs. A black ruffled collar and black headhugger cap lent that Frenchie theatrical edge. Each of us, wearing this getup through the years, looked like a cross between an archangel and a bumble bee.

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Mousey

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Mrs. Fitz

Cartoon doofus Mickey Mouse originated in 1928. Musclebound Mighty Mouse debuted in 1942. Both showed up on our suburban living room TV during the 1960s.

Mickey’s television show, cleverly called The Mickey Mouse Club, showed those of us in grammar school that kids much luckier and cuter than us could be stars. They had to wear beanies with mouse ears but they got to dance and sing.

Mighty Mouse had a Saturday morning time slot featuring reruns of his 80-odd movies. He didn’t have mouse-keteers but apparently didn’t need them since he had super powers and huge biceps. Huge.

I wanted to be on Mickey’s show. I wanted to be in one of Mighty’s movies. Barriers such as having no talent or not being a mouse were considerations of course; but achievement wasn’t the goal, not really. Aspiring was the fun of it.

Still is.

 

 

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Debating debate

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Mrs. Fitz

Protagoras lived before debate was invented, so he invented it. In Greece. He did this while he was wondering whether virtue could be taught; but never figured that out. What he did figure out was that words are powerful and they function powerfully when used by people talking about two sides of an issue. He didn’t call it debate. He called it wrestling.

He saw intellects grappling through the metaphor of wrestling and wrote a book  The Technique of Eristics (“On wrestling”) to teach argument to other folks.

Upcoming election debates may not have the advantage of true wrestling, in which the winner is the person who makes the most convincing argument. Not what he looks like. Not how nervous he is. Not how much we like his manners, but which argument is the stronger.

One thing the debates likely will accomplish is spawn argument about WHO won, which suggests we still have a lot to learn about debate.

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Worth

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Mrs. Fitz

The Pullitzer prize, Academy Award and Best Seller list do a fine job of comparing what is produced to what is the BEST ever done.  As a journalist who likes to watch major motion pictures and read good books, I think that is very nice to be guided toward content that is compared to all others and found WORTHY of praise.

As a member of the blog-o-sphere who watches independent films and reads work self published or distributed by tiny press operations, I think that it is also very nice to guide myself toward content that may be WORTHY of attention.

I hope nobody invents a prize for that.

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The art of the cart

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Mrs. Fitz

Shopping for something needed is not shopping. This is restocking.

Shopping with a companion is not shopping. This is socializing in motion.

Shopping to buy something is not shopping. This is known as spending.

As those adroit at the art of the cart understand, to truly shop is to experience the fun of solving nothing.

No one will ask you questions, unless you patronize a shop keeper who believes customer service involves learning the names of your children and the color of your nail polish (“Seashell.”) Or, the color of your children and the name of your polish (“Seashell.”)

No one will judge you, unless you bring children with you, since children cannot shop. They want stuff. Or they want you. Usually both.

No one will influence your decisions, unless you try something on. This will attract random advice just as night sky attracts stars, without commensurate illumination.

No one will care if you wander aimlessly, unless you browse hardware stores. The gene pool has spawned an astounding over population of hardware experts who lurk there hoping you want to find something.

 

 

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