Nine miles away

Boston is a small town, much smaller than you probably think if you know it mostly from Cheers or eighth grade history. You can walk its length in a single afternoon, although you'll probably be sore the next day. There are 21 neighborhoods in Boston, but don't let that fool you. It's not so big.

As I'm typing this, Boston and several of its neighboring towns are under police lockdown while the search for Dzohkhar Tsarnaev continues. Perhaps the manhunt will end, one way or another, by the time I finish writing. The transit systems are not running; the schools are closed; citizens have been instructed to shelter in place—that is, stay home, stay off the streets. My wife and I have spent the morning bunkered in our basement watching the news and keeping watch over our respective laptops with our respective news sources. From time to time we point out some nugget of information to each other and hypothesize about its significance or lack thereof. Like everyone else, we have no particular insight into the brothers or what motivated their crimes. I personally doubt that they were affiliated with any larger group or had any agenda beyond their own sad ideology, but I have no basis for this beyond the feeling I get looking at the eyes of the photo of Tsarnaev that hangs on the left side of the news story. And now that photo is gone as the feed switched to men in fatigues—SWAT? Federal agents? I don't know—boarding armored personnel vehicles outside the Arsenal Mall, about nine miles away.

It's incredible to see the city so completely shut down and the thousands of police officers that have been mobilized. I've seen posts online questioning if the response is commensurate with the seriousness of the crimes committed. I can only speak for myself but it doesn't feel to me like the city is in the grip of hysteria or rage. The reaction feels somber, sad, and purposeful, just as the reaction to the Marathon bombing has been all week. There has been remarkable restraint and grace in the face of ugliness. People from around here often have a reputation for being scrappers, but they also have a reputation for being deliberate. That measured, careful quality that is one of the best traits of New Englanders has shone through. But probably it's the way anyone would react to events in their own back yard.

When the bombs went off on Monday, every Bostonian who heard the news knew that small stretch of Boylston street near the library, only too well. This morning when we first heard of the previous night's events we knew each and every one of the locations involved: MIT, Memorial Drive, Watertown, Cambridge. The Arsenal Mall is where we bought our daughter's dorm room supplies; now there's a Blackhawk helicopter in one of its parking lots. I may have mentioned—it's a small town.

Dot coms and dongles

I worked at a dot com for a few years during the heady days of the Web bubble. While I never got a tribal tattoo, I did dutifully line my desk with action figures and engage in office hijinks such as making an enormous mobile out of AOL free trial CDs and ordering single rolls of lifesavers from kosmo.com. In other words, I was trying to live the New Economy dream of the office as a living space. After the 80s and 90s had seen the Baby Boomers cede more and more of their private lives to their companies in the form of pagers, cell phones, and weekend hours, we of Generation X were going to turn the tables and make our offices into crazy playrooms and reclaim those lost Saturdays in the form of slack.

I began my adventures in the Web trade in '99 just as streaming media was becoming a thing. An ongoing fascination for some of the women in my office was a series of video feeds that originated in a strip club in New Jersey: the club's website showed a grid of four different camera views of the private (or apparently, not-so-private) rooms in which patrons got solo performances. When she caught a glimpse of action in an open browser window, one of my co-workers would shout: "Lap dance in quad three!" and a collective giggle would pass through the office as everyone commented on the stripper's nails or the patron's polo shirt.

While I'm sure this sort of thing will strike many as harassment, or at least terribly inappropriate for the workplace, for us it made a weird sort of sense. These sorts of transgressions served as passwords into the clubhouse and this wasn't no girls allowed. If anything, the women in my office were more given to rude jokes and time-wasting. This was a young industry and they were establishing from the beginning that there would be no double standards of behavior. The utopian vision was that women and men would work side by side, united by a common love of fart jokes. Well, at least until the bubble burst and everyone got laid off in 2002.

I thought about my old job when I heard about the controversy surrounding an off-color remark at Pycon, a tech conference, yesterday. Two men were joking to each other about big dongles while seated behind a woman who took offense—and then took a snapshot which she tweeted. In the ensuing fallout, one of the men has lost his job and the woman has received death threats. It's a sad case and one that I can see from all sides—well, not from the side of the company that fired the guy, that was pretty awful. I'm sure the two men were not intending to harass; I'm also sure that the woman felt harassed. But what she would have made of my old office, I can't say.

Sadly, I see no clear moral to any of this. I don't want to support harassment, but I also like living in a world where consenting co-workers can make anatomical jokes to each other, regardless of gender. I want a standard of professionalism; I also want people to be comfortable being silly. Perhaps the takeaway here is to always be careful what you say. But in the immortal words of Frances, "Being careful is not as much fun as being friends."

Update: It appears that the woman who tweeted the image has also been fired. Let me go down on record on the side of no one getting fired on either side. C'mon, companies, stop being so awful.    

Dongle image by Alphathon (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

MOAH SPOILERS don't yew know

We herewith present earlier drafts of Mr. Fellowes's first-draft ending for the fantastically-popular-and-in-no-way-phoned-in-by-a-cast-who-were-already-out-the-door Downton Abbey Christmas on Ice Special.

INT. DOWNTON HOSPITAL

MARY is in bed looking slightly disheveled but still in the bloom of English womanhood. (Ask Michelle to maybe tousle her hair? Something with the eyebrows. Oh, those eyebrows.)

MATTHEW

Oh dearest Mary now that you have issued forth a tiny new Earl we need never have sex again! Once again Britannia is safe from the Hun! Cheers Huzzah.

MARY

Indeed Matthew it is the happiest of outcomes. Now we shall be happy forever and ever and ever to the end of our painless and exceedingly long lives! 

MATTHEW 

I find myself so overcome with emotion that I must now leave this happy, happy tableau! Farewell, gentle Mary, I will see you anon and for the rest of our aforementioned freakishly extended lifespans!

EXT. DOWNTON HOSPITAL

MATTHEW exits looking very much a young Earl-to-be in the prime of English manhood. He dons his rakish cap and smiles to the heavens. Immediately a piano falls upon him ha take that Dan Stevens you ungrateful bastard film career my arse oh God what do I do now all I had was this show

Alternatives: falling safe? quicksand? dingoes

SPOILERS don't yew know

MARY I have heah a letter from Levina's deah dead Papa but I shawn't read it really I shawn't

but MATHYEW what if it is a message, don't you know, saying desh it all, Leviniah wanted you to take all her money and HAIRlooms and give them to my deah destitute fahthah to save us all

MARY as I hev said before, don't you know, that my DASTARDLY handling of pooah Leviniah is what done her in as I am such a ruggéd type that the females can't help themselves but up and die once I hev SCORNED them

oh Mathyew too trew too trew I myself hev so often born the chestnut-haired brunt of your ruggéd scorn but still think of DOWNtun think of the pooah servants all waiting in the cold with their trays to serve us but the bells they don't ring, they don't RING, Mathyew

MARY my mind has been made up in such a ruggédly handsome way and why don't I burn the deshéd thing already I swear I will really I will in the finest of cognacs I will

Next time: Matthew pulls out a match, Mary glares ever so earnestly

A Rankin-Bass retrospective, part II

The Little Drummer Boy (1968)

Plot: We open to the melodious but stern voice of Miss Greer Garson whose schoolmarmish reading of scripture lets us know it's time to sit up straight, as there will be a quiz following. It's the time of Caesar Augustus and there's a "cruel tax"—although what does she think, those roads just grow on trees?—that requires everyone to shuffle through the desert in bleak, single-file lines. Everyone, that is, except the n'er-do-well entertainer, Ben Haramed (Jose Ferrer), and his cross-eyed companion, Ali (Paul Frees), who seem to be strolling through the sand dunes without a destination or provisions. Perhaps the story that follows is merely a hallucination brought about by extreme dehydration.

Here comes the titular drummer boy, Aaron (Teddy Eccles)—who is drumming, because what else would he be doing? He's accompanied by his "old friends:" the donkey, Samson; the lamb, Ben Baabaa, and the camel, Joshua, all of whom are swaying about on their spindly hind legs as though they've stepped out of a particularly apocalyptic Bosch painting. The catty Aaron is unimpressed with the animals' footwork and spurs them on like a stage mother: "be lighter! Happier!" Ali notes that "it is said" that Aaron hates all people—at eight years of age, Aaron already has a rich body of folklore surrounding him.

Ben Haramed and Ali take Aaron and his friends captive as the title song plays, unhelpfully. Ben Haramed reveals his nefarious intent of putting on a variety show for the taxpayers through the song "When the Goose is Hanging High." The connection between poultry and show business is left unmade as Garson leads us a flashback explaining why Ali hates people: this involves the onscreen knifing of his father and the offscreen murder of his mother, as well as the destruction by fire of Aaron's home. Happy Holidays, everyone!

The horror continues within the bleak gray walls of Jerusalem where Aaron is compelled to perform for a leering crowd while wearing a painted smile that would make Heath Ledger cringe. "Why can't the Animals Smile?" he sings, as his furry companions stage a bacchanal in which they pretend to be other creatures, and we recall the words of Lovecraft, that the most merciful thing in the world really is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. All this proves too much for Aaron, who finally snaps and turns on the crowd before a passing of the keffiyeh can garner a single shekel.

As luck would have it, outside the city the troupe runs into a trio of wise kings (all Paul Frees), who are uninterested in percussive music but are happy to purchase Joshua, having killed their own camel by loading it with an industrial pallet of Frankincense and Myrrh from Sam's Club. Aaron is none to happy about this and runs after the kings' caravan to be reunited with Joshua. There hasn't been quite enough tragedy in this children's story, so Baabaa is abruptly run over by an irate Centurion in a chariot, late on his way to a filming of Ben Hur.  Aaron takes his dying lamb to the stable where the kings are, and finally notices this huge star in the sky thing that's been looming overhead the entire time. Fortunately, the Messiah is hip to Aaron's crazy beats and Baabaa is miraculously healed.

Notes: This show is based on the listless, monotonous,and inexplicably popular Christmas song, written by Davis, Onorati and Simonein 1958. It never ceases to amaze me that it took three people to write thething. The gritty sets and misshapen china-doll character designs are straight from your nightmares—or perhaps a Cold War era animation studiosomewhere in Czechoslovakia. Reflecting the emerging crafts movement that would dominate the early '70s, everything is gritty and dirty and the palette runs the gamut of browns from dirt to mud. While the actual hills surrounding Jerusalem are quite lush with vegetation, this story takes place in what looks like the Gobi Desert, because it's the Middle East, am I right? 

For a children's special, The Little Drummer Boy is pretty brutal: violent death, enslavement, and the Vienna Boys' Choir all feature prominently. But it's also earnest and honest in a way that, say, The Christmas Shoes isn't, like a big sloppy dog that just wants you to love it and to forgive it for what it did to your socks. The basic message, that we should give what we can as we are able, is both theologically and ethically sound. But did they really have to make the bad guys Arabs? 

A Rankin-Bass retrospective, part I

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

Plot: The story opens in the manner of Citizen Kane: with spinning newspapers whose headlines announce a terrible storm, because there were no bigger news stories in the early ’60s. But fear not, our narrator, Sam the Snowman, assures us that Santa will still be coughing up the presents. In fact, the next scene reveals that the greatest threat to Santa is in fact the monstrous Mrs. Claus, who is intent upon producing arterial sclerosis in the jolly old elf.

Sam introduces us to Rudolph, a reindeer who was born with a 5-watt penlight instead of a nose. Fascist parents Donner and Mrs. Donner are deeply disappointed with their minute-old offspring, as is a grumpy Santa, who nonetheless launches into the stirring “I am old Kris Kringle”.  Meanwhile, Hermey the elf tries in vain to defy his phallicly-nosed boss by becoming a dentist.  “Why am I such a Misfit?” he asks no one in particular. “Such is the life of an elf,” observes Sam, philosophically. In another part of Christmas Town, Rudolph provides a melancholy echo to Hermey’s haunting song. Somewhere in between comes the musical number “We are Santa’s Elves,” but nobody ever remembers that one anyway.

At the Reindeer Games (which are no fun at all), Rudolph’s hides his shame, allowing him to make friends with the spunky Fireball and to put some moves on the coquettish Clarice. He  blows his cover just as Santa arrives. Spurned by the beloved saint, Rudolph is nonetheless encouraged by Clarice’s observation “There’s Always Tomorrow.” Several woodland creatures seem to agree, but just as the two are about to mate, Clarice’s dad intervenes. Hermey appears and the reindeer and elf set out together to seek “Fame and Fortune,” nearly plunging off a cliff to early deaths.

Suddenly, the Abominable Snowmonster of the North appears, snarling, over the mountain tops, in a scene designed to forever scar the collective psyches of a nation’s children. For no apparent reason he allows Hermey and Rudolph to pass unmolested. The duo meet up with the prospector, Yukon Cornelius, the only competent individual in this holiday special. Sam chides Yukon’s avarice—or does he celebrate it?—with the ambivalent ditty “Silver and Gold.” Enter the Snowmonster again, attracted to little red light bulbs. Yukon saves the day with his pickaxe, leading the three to the “Island of Misfit Toys,” a bleak, pale pink land whose denizins spend all day hiding in giftwrap. The loudest of the toys is the whiny Charley-in-the-box, who sends the newcomers to the castle of King Moonraiser, this world’s secular version of Aslan. Moonraiser grudgingly allows the trio to spend the night, but in a fit of altruism, Rudolph sets off on his own to be eaten.

After growing some horns, Rudolph returns to Christmas Town only to find that his mom, dad, and girlfriend have been taken by the Snowmonster to his cave. There the cross-eyed brute drools over them for several weeks, apparently waiting for Rudolph to show up before administering the coup de grace. Rudolph fails miserably in his attempt to rescue them, but Hermey and Yukon save the day by yanking the monster’s teeth out, another scene designed to further terrify. “I’ll light the way,” Rudolph offers as they leave the cave, but no one pays his cry for attention any mind. Yukon torments the defenseless Snowmonster and ends up falling over a cliff, and by now, the shell-shocked viewer has run screaming from the room.

Of course there’s a happy reunion at the end to the tune of “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” and Yukon and the monster aren’t really dead and  Rudolph, by virtue of his nose, gets to lead Santa’s sleigh, although a pair of headlights seems the more obvious answer.  In the most heartbreaking scene of all, the Misfit Toys weep bitterly about their apparent abandonment. “I haven’t any dreams left to dream,” states the rag doll, who has absolutely nothing wrong with her. But down comes Santa and Rudolph, and off they fly to the tune of Sam’s rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Notes: This was the first Christmas special to be produced by Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass, and the animation has both the freshness and the funkiness of a maiden effort. The simple felt-covered characters have a tendency to sway wildly and stare blankly ahead, and the sparse, blank sets sometimes make you think you’re watching a frozen Meshes of the Afternoon.

As networks have demanded more commercial time, Rudolph has often been shortened for broadcast. I once saw an airing which cut “I am Old Chris Kringle,” yet confusingly left in Santa’s lead line “You see, Rudolph, every year I polish up my jingle bells...” before jumping to the shot of the jolly man exiting the cave. Donner’s line to the Mrs. when he sets out to find Rudolph—“This is Man’s work”—is also often cut in these more enlightened times.

Santa and Mrs. Claus are nothing like their later Rankin-Bass incarnations, and both seem to be quarrelsome and unpleasant—the Italian mother Mrs. Claus, especially. Santa calls her “Mama,” which leads to some disturbing questions about their sex life.

Someday soon we all will be together

One advantage of working at a Catholic university is they take their holidays seriously. Boston College closed down for its week-plus Christmas break yesterday, although to be honest, the campus has had the population of a war zone for days now, albeit a peculiarly friendly war zone. The few faculty and staff left shuffling off the last paperwork of 2012 have displayed an affectionate, almost maudlin mood, stopping in hallways for lingering chats, hugging each other or slapping shoulders. In the locker room of the university gym, balding middle-aged guys in towels proved to be the most effusive, talking long after their saunas should have ended, gripping hands, getting up to leave and remembering one last thing. And all the conversations I heard ended the same way: "see you next year."

Next year, when you and I are older. Next year, when things will be different. Next year, when we will start all over again.

It's odd, this taking leave of each other and the year. Really, it's only a few days, like any others. We know, of course, that calendars are made up and every day, every minute, starts a new year if you want it to. Perhaps the Mayans had it right, and we should reckon our years from the winter solstice, when days wax in length—that, at least, has some poetry to it, assuming you live north of the equator.

But however arbitrary our measures are, they carry a psychic punch. We feel it, this passing of the year, and what's more, we need it. This year, like all, was hard. Sometimes, the world has to end. The Mayans were right about that, too.