Reality

Posted on May 15, 2013 by

I still can’t wrap my head around the phrase “reality TV,” or the culture that came up with it, or the way it rolls trippingly off our tongues as if it makes sense. What will scholars from a different space-time continuum make of it?

So this blog post is titled “Reality” instead of “Reality TV,” even though TV plays a role in two of the big stories on Martha’s Vineyard this week. In one it’s obvious: the production crew has arrived to film the “docu-soap” I blogged about in February.

The docu-soapers will be gone by early July, I’m told, though the docu-soapsuds will doubtless linger longer. The newspaper photo I saw of some cast members on Main Street, Vineyard Haven, could have been taken on the same corner in July, though the actors, wearing 85-degree clothes in 60-degree weather, must have been chilly.

Which is to say that the docu-soapers looked pretty much like the real thing, whatever “the real thing” is. Summer on Martha’s Vineyard is reality TV without the cameras. Why would anyone want to make a reality TV show about reality TV?

Wait, wait, I know the answer: Because otherwise how do we know that it’s real?

signTourism, come to think of it, is reality TV’s first cousin. Reality TV’s interactive first cousin. True, it’ll be lots cheaper to watch The Vineyard in the comfort of your home entertainment center, but on the real (?) Martha’s Vineyard you can interact with locals who aren’t improvising from a script . . .

Cancel that. Most of us most of the time are improvising from a script, having learned that if we get too real, the tourists will look worried or angry and may even accuse us of being insufficiently grateful. If it weren’t for them, after all, how would we eat?

Martha’s Vineyard in the summer is like Old Sturbridge Village or Colonial Williamsburg, only it’s set in the present so we can’t call ourselves historians. We’re just the crew that keeps the show running smoothly. Bring your own cameras. You can take your own pictures.

***   ***   ***

TV’s role in the other story is less obvious. This past Saturday, a barn manager on Meetinghouse Way in Edgartown found Majik, one of the miniature horses in her charge, dead in its pasture and the other one, Chance, injured. Majik had been mauled, apparently by a dog. The dog turned out to be Mugsy, a three-year-old mixed-breed rescue who was adopted from a shelter at least a year and a half ago. The owners have agreed to have Mugsy put down when the state-mandated quarantine period ends next Monday.

The most recent Martha’s Vineyard Times story includes a photo of Mugsy. I leave it to you to puzzle out what breeds might have gone into the mix. To judge by the comments on the M.V. Times website, quite a few people were dead sure from the outset that the culprit had to have been a pitbull, even though no one saw it happen and Mugsy hadn’t been identified.

Anyone who’s been paying attention to dog-and-livestock dramas on Martha’s Vineyard over the last 10 years or so had to have at least considered the possibility that a Sibe or Akita or other northern-breed dog might have killed Majik. Put it this way: If it had happened in my neighborhood and Travvy had been AWOL at the time, I would have feared the worst. But no, many commenters immediately zeroed in on pitbulls. If you wade through the comments, the same “facts” come up over and over again: it must have been a pitbull, pitbulls are trained killers, only pitbulls are capable of such things, and — a pervasive assumption that is seldom true — a dog that kills livestock might go after a child next.

I’d bet good money that they’re getting their information from TV and other news sources, and whipping themselves into a righteous frenzy with the help of various social media. Such information is predigested so it can be swallowed whole. It’s generally not hard to tell when a commenter has brought firsthand experience and some thought to the table. If these people have any to bring, they’re keeping it under wraps.

Trudy the wise woman, she of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, opines that “reality is nothing but a collective hunch.” I’m inclined to agree. But what happens when our collective hunch turns out to have been packaged and served up on TV?

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Sign for Summer?

Posted on May 13, 2013 by

Maybe this sign could go right under the one in Woods Hole that says MARTHA’S VINEYARD NEXT LEFT?

Island Closed sm

Sign courtesy of Shirley W. Mayhew

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Drummer

Posted on May 11, 2013 by

More about the weirdness of writing:

In Squatters’ Speakeasy young Mark Churchill has a band, and of course the band has a drummer. Drummers usually sit back in the shadows with their drum sets so until a few months ago I didn’t pay much attention to this drummer. If he showed up on cue, that was enough.

Then Mark and his bandmates were talking about an upcoming jam at Bluesman Luke’s cottage — Luke is Mark’s father and musical mentor — and the drummer said no way was she going: Luke thought “female musician” was an oxymoron and the last time she’d sat in, he ragged on her incessantly for her unconventional appearance. “Hoo boy,” said Dennis the bass player. “Last time you were there I thought you were going to crack his head with your conga.”

The (borrowed) conga in residence

The (borrowed) conga in residence

Hoo boy indeed. I learned a few things from that exchange. Mark’s drummer was a she, Luke’s take on the blues was seriously sexist, and the drummer probably knew something about Afro-Cuban drumming if she played congas.

Now that she’s out of the shadows, she’s turning into a key character, one who makes things happen and says things no one else dares to. The others call her Suze, or maybe Sooz. Either way the similarity to Susanna is impossible to miss, and I’ve never had a character show up whose name was that much like mine. Beyond that, however, the resemblance stops: she’s got three rings in one ear, two in the other, and one in her right nostril; her hair is braided liberally with beads (which she uses to great effect when she’s talking); and she’s spent time in Cuba and (I’m pretty sure) Brazil.

Roberta teaches the mambo rhythm at a recent class.

Roberta teaches the mambo rhythm at a recent class.

On the other hand — I’ve been taking an all-women drumming class with Roberta Kirn. It’s a blast. I practice on a conga borrowed from a neighbor up the road. When I’ve got enough money, I’m going  to get a drum of my own.

Which came first, Suze or my interest in drumming? Aha, that’s where it gets complicated — and interesting. Not long after I moved to the Vineyard year-round, I started volunteering at Wintertide Coffeehouse, which at that point happened only on winter weekends, and generally learning my way around the island’s grassroots music scene. Die Kunst der Drum, an all-drum ensemble led by Sam Holmstock, was prominent in the scene at that time. They played inside, they played on the beach, and wherever they played, people got up and danced.

Being fresh out of the women’s community, I couldn’t help noticing that DKDD was almost entirely male. Roberta was one of the two exceptions. Co-leader of the ensemble was Rick Bausman, who went on to found the remarkable Drum Workshop. I took a class with Rick at Wintertide in its year-round Five Corners incarnation (20 years ago?), meant to go on with it, but didn’t. Both Roberta and Rick are huge believers in building community through music. (Roberta is a protegée of Sweet Honey in the Rock veteran Ysaye Barnwell, whose Building a Vocal Community workshops are devoted to exactly that.)

And community, you’ve probably noticed, is an obsession of mine. What fosters it? What diminishes it? What does it make possible that individuals in isolation can’t accomplish, or even imagine, on their own? What does it make impossible, or at least difficult? What does it squelch?

So Suze the drummer steps out of the shadows and I get to see what happens next.

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Ghost Trees

Posted on May 8, 2013 by

I thought I’d missed the ghost trees this year. Their white flowers flicker off in the woods before the oaks start leafing out. They catch the corner of my eye as I drive down State Road. Spring is coming, they say.

Spring was surely coming, in a riot of first yellow then purple, but I hadn’t seen the ghost trees. I’d missed them for sure.

But I hadn’t. They’re here.

shad 1

My ghost trees have many names, shadbush, serviceberry, and amelanchier among them. “Shadbush” because they bloom when the herring (shad) are running. Are the herring running?

shad 2

There’s nothing ghostly about the ghost tree at the foot of my outside stairs. Maybe it’s a shadbush? Whatever it is, spring is most definitely here. I’m wearing a T-shirt, and the front door is open.

shad bush

Posted in Martha's Vineyard, outdoors | Tagged | 3 Comments

12 over 12 Windows

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

I’m a fairly rational, left-brain person, but some things reason just can’t explain and one of them is writing. Where do ideas come from? Where do fictional characters come from? How do you find out where they live?

Most fiction writers I know will tell you how their characters direct and occasionally hijack their plots. I , the fairly rational, left-brain nonfiction writer, will tell you this. If non-writers talk like that, they risk being sedated or locked up or, if they’re Joan of Arc, burned at the stake.

What I write is limited by my experience. If I can’t imagine something, it doesn’t show up in my writing. But the stuff that I do know shows up in my writing in the weirdest ways. Sometimes I don’t know I know something till it appears in ink on the page before me.

Deena Churchill is a Squatters’ Speakeasy character. I didn’t know where she lived, but her son, Mark, and his band were about to show up at her house to practice so I had to figure it out PDQ. When Mark and his bandmates pulled into Deena’s driveway, what did they see?

A traditional cedar-shingled Cape with two 12-over-12 windows on either side of the front door. Cedar shingles and Cape Cod dwellings are ubiquitous on Martha’s Vineyard, so that was no surprise, but 12-over-12 windows?

At least one member of my writers’ group didn’t know what “12 over 12″ meant, and a couple more thought 12-over-12 windows were rare, or found only in very old houses. So I wondered: Why did Deena’s house have four 12-over-12 windows in front?

Well, a house that Travvy and I walk by several times a week has 12-over-12 windows in the front, and on the side too, along with a 6-over-6 on the second floor.

House on Pine Hill, West Tisbury

House on Pine Hill, West Tisbury

On my next trip to the post office, I noticed that the West Tisbury branch of the Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank — my bank — had 12-over-12s all around. It was built in the late 1990s and so doesn’t qualify as “old.”

M.V. Savings Bank, State Road, West Tisbury

M.V. Savings Bank, State Road, West Tisbury

So 12-over-12 windows had been scavenged by and composted in my writerly brain. What did my editorial, analytical left brain have to say about the windows on the front of Deena Churchill’s home? “Goddamn,” it said, “I’d hate to have to clean those buggers — but given Deena’s financial circumstances, it’s highly unlikely that she does her own cleaning. Let ’em stay.”

And stay they have. The interior of Deena’s house, it turned out, isn’t traditional at all. And every time I turn around, I see more 12-over-12 windows in my town.

Next door to Alley's

Next door to Alley’s

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Disaster Drill

Posted on May 4, 2013 by

Whenever a hurricane barrels up the East Coast or a blizzard bears down on New England, a few panicky friends halfway around the country are sure that Martha’s Vineyard is about to be flooded off the planet.

True, on a map the place looks vulnerable, surrounded as it is by ocean and with a maximum elevation of about 350 feet above sea level. In reality? Not so much. True, the roads close to the shoreline usually flood and beach erosion can be formidable, but I, like most Vineyard working stiffs, don’t live anywhere near a beach. Hurricanes and blizzards knock trees down and the power out, but so do the nor’easters — “three-day blows” — that don’t get reported in other parts of the country.

ARC disaster vanNevertheless, we do prepare for considerably worse. Late this morning, through the usual combination of connections and coincidences, I found myself at the island’s first-ever disaster shelter drill. The drill was a dry run for the Vineyard’s disaster-service organizations to practice coordinating their efforts. Participants included the American Red Cross, the Medical Reserve Corps, the Salvation Army, the Boy Scouts, and the newly formed Martha’s Vineyard Disaster Animal Rescue Team (MV DART).

front doorI cannot tell a lie: It was MV DART that piqued my interest. One of the many lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was that disaster planning had to take companion animals into account. Hundreds of thousands of pets died or were stranded, in part because they couldn’t be transported or sheltered with their humans. Today’s shelter drill included clients with pets.

When I approached the door to the Tisbury School gym, where the drill was being held, a sign directed incomers to “Register animals first.” An arrow pointed to the left. Travvy had stayed home, but leftward I went.

Canine disaster evacuees were played by stuffies. The guy on the left is Snoopy.

Canine disaster evacuees were played by stuffies. The guy on the left is Snoopy.

The several MV DART volunteers included a veterinarian, an animal control officer, and several other animal lovers who had put plenty of thought into what dogs, cats, and their owners might need in a disaster shelter. Not only dogs and cats either — I learned that when handling a pet rabbit it was important to keep the hind legs from kicking out. When afraid, a rabbit’s first impulse is to flee; a rabbit can also break its back by striking out too strongly with its hind legs.

The MV DART volunteers were prepared for sick pets, stressed pets, and stressed pet owners. Animals that live in the house are considered pets: dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and the like. The shelter cannot accommodate barn animals. What if your pet goat or lamb lives in the house? They’ll probably decide on a case-by-case basis.

registration

An intake interview

Registration for human clients was in the gym. Clients were played by Boy and Cub Scouts. Other Scouts stood (or sat) by waiting to render whatever assistance was needed.

The Medical Reserve Corps volunteers were ready to deal with the health emergencies and chronic conditions of shelter clients.

 

Drill coordinator Jim Thomas (left), the shelter manager, and a member of the Medical Reserve Corps hold a consultation.

Drill coordinator Jim Thomas (left), the shelter manager, and a member of the Medical Reserve Corps hold a consultation. My point-and-shoot’s flash made those reflective strips glow!

After the drill itself, which lasted from 11 a.m. to 12 noon, the volunteers adjourned for a delicious lunch — pasta, meatballs and sauce, salad, garlic bread, and brownies — prepared by the Salvation Army, who got a hearty and well-deserved cheer for their efforts.

MV DART, the new Martha’s Vineyard Disaster Animal Rescue Team, is eagerly looking for volunteers. For more information, the person to contact is Rita Brown.

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Squatters Hijack Blog

Posted on May 3, 2013 by

I don’t want to jinx anything here, but for the last several weeks I’ve been working on novel #2 — and it’s alive. It’s cooking. When I sit down to write, words come through my fingers. Characters show up unannounced. They open doors I didn’t see and tell me things I couldn’t imagine.

ink blotHere’s proof.

What, you ask, does a folded-up paper towel with ink blots all over it prove about anything?

Well!

I do my first-drafting in longhand, with fountain pens. At last count I had nine pens and almost as many bottles of ink, all different colors. After a pen is filled, it has to be blotted.

I use different colors for different scenes, so I can keep them straight in my ring binder. If a scene’s in “Tropical Blue,” I’ll use “Fireball” for scribbling comments in the margin. (Fireball, a bright orangey red, is good for note scribbling no matter what other colors are in play.)

When I’m  not writing, the folded-up paper towel is just a coaster for my morning tea mug and my evening beer stein. It collects tea stains. Tea stains are the pale brown blotches in the lower left. They don’t exactly catch a person’s eye.

candleAnother sign that writing is going on: spent matches collect around the blotter. This is because I light a candle or two when I’m writing. While the candle burns, I write. I don’t do dishes or download email or (candles and pens forbid) check out Facebook.

This is my favorite candle holder. I bought the grappa at the suggestion of the late Lisa A. Barnett (1958–2006), science fiction writer, theater editor, and all-round wry and brilliant person. After one swallow of grappa, I swore off it for life. I used the rest of the bottle to pour libation for Lisa on the first anniversary of her death, and it’s been a candle holder ever since.

What I’m working on is my second novel, tentatively titled The Squatters’ Speakeasy. Squatters popped into my head almost exactly 10 years ago, in April 2003, as an idea and a scene. The idea was that a bunch of musicians, artists, and free-floating misfits take over a Vineyard trophy house and turn it into a speakeasy. The scene was two archers on a deserted roadside not far from South Beach in Edgartown. While I watched, they came out of the woods, ducked back when a car passed, then one of them drew his bow, took aim, and shot an arrow into the terminal O of a Monticello Real Estate sign.

No, Monticello Real Estate does not exist on real-time Martha’s Vineyard. Yes, the scenario has wish-fulfillment all over it. Vineyarders appropriating a seasonal monster house for year-round creative use? A speakeasy inspired by the late, great Wintertide Coffeehouse? Two anonymous archers — it wasn’t till this spring that I learned who they were — talking back to a particularly snooty real estate company? And all this barely a year and a half after 9/11, when such talking back was bound to be called terrorism?

Over the years I played with the idea and the scene. I learned that Squatters takes place 10 or 12 years after The Mud of the Place and on the same alternate Martha’s Vineyard; it involves some of the same characters and has a lot to do with housing. But for a host of reasons, it never took off. Until spring 2010, I had a horse. Between horsekeeping and editing full-time, I had little energy for writing. The Mud of the Place was published in December 2008 and pretty much sank without a trace, so why even think about writing another novel? Etc., etc., etc.

You’ll notice, though, that the URL for From the Seasonally Occupied Territories, started in July 2011, is http://squattersspeakeasy.com. “Squatters’ speakeasy” was a vision, a state of mind, as well as a working title, and this blog was part of it from the get-go.

So can I keep both the blog and the novel going at the same time? At first I thought not: one of them was bound to suffer. Then it dawned on me that writing a(nother) novel about Martha’s Vineyard is part of my year-round Vineyard life. The Vineyard is this big hunk of sheep’s wool (or maybe malamute fur) that I’m trying to spin into a narrative thread or two or three. Maybe I could blog about the writing?

Many writers, including me, love to talk about writing. There are blogs galore devoted to all aspects of writing. Whether anyone besides writers, aspiring writers, and artists in other media pay any attention is an open question. In short, I don’t want to bore the pants off you regular and irregular readers who aren’t especially interested in writers talking about writing — so don’t worry: I’ll blog about spring and summer and Travvy and license plates and how the roundabout is working out, as well as about what the squatters are up to.

Stick around, guys. This could get interesting.

My tool table: candles, pens, ink bottles, blotter.

My tool table: candles, pens, ink bottles, blotter.

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April License Plate Report

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

Only two new sightings: Iowa and Kentucky. The YTD total is 32.

2013 april license mapHow is this license plate map different from all previous license plate maps? Sure, it looks like all its predecessors, but it was scanned on my new scanner. My venerable UMAX 3450 finally croaked. How venerable, you ask? Well, it was designed for Windows 98 if that gives you an idea. Each operating system upgrade required a driver patch to keep the scanner happy. The patch was fairly complicated for a non-techie like me, but the instructions were so clear that I (a) had no trouble, and (b) emailed UMAX tech support to commend them on the clarity of their instructions. A UMAX techie emailed me back to thank me and to commend me for being able to follow directions.

Clear instructions are worth commending. So are people able to follow them.

I decided to replace the scanner with a scanner-printer combo. My workhorse LaserJet, also venerable, is working fine, but it only communicates directly with Morgana V, my Windows XP desktop. WinXP’s days are numbered, and eventually I’ll have to spring for a laser printer that talks to Hekate the Win7 laptop and/or the future Morgana VI. Adding a scanner-inkjet now would ease the future financial pain of replacing everything at once.

Plus the inkjet prints in color, which the LaserJet doesn’t, and color is fun if not exactly work-related.

The new member of my little cyber-family is a Brother MFC J425W. Setting it up challenged my self-taught, seat-of-the-pants IT person — that would be me — in part because I was connecting it both to Morgana V (by cable) and Hekate (wireless) and in part because the instructions were nowhere near as clear as those UMAX provided to patch the driver for my old scanner. Brother is now playing nicely with both Hekate and Morgana V, and I am quite pleased with myself.

Brother faxes as well as prints and scans, but I’ve never had a home office fax so I’m putting off setting up the fax function till I desperately need it, which I hope will be never.

Posted in license plates, Martha's Vineyard, technology | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A Counterclockwise Orange

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

I went down to the crossroad again last night. It’s not a crossroad anymore. “A Crossroad Orange” is now a Counterclockwise Orange. An almost-full moon was rising in the east. Vehicles were feeling their way around the circle. Two bicyclists, one of whom I knew, rode around it twice. They claimed they were looking for a way out.

A Counterclockwise Orange

A Counterclockwise Orange

Approach from the west

Approach from the west

Approach from the east

Approach from the east

Design as of Sept. 1, 2011

Design as of Sept. 1, 2011

Bypass road?

Bypass road?

Left: Is the apparent bypass southwest of the circle supposed to be the bike path? It seems to correspond to the bypass in the design (above). How’s that going to work? Last I heard, there was supposed to be a request light somewhere. How’s that going to work?

Orange seen through orange

Orange seen through orange. Note moon watching from above.

Chunks of old road

Chunks of old road

Curbs in waiting

Curbs in waiting

Cat à l'orange

Cat à l’orange

moon

Moon rises.

Posted in Martha's Vineyard, outdoors | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Reactivity

Posted on April 22, 2013 by

I can’t say that everything I know I’ve learned from my dog, but Travvy has taught me a lot, and not just about dogs.

Travvy on deck, February 2013

Travvy on deck, February 2013

Travvy is reactive. I didn’t know what reactivity was before a dog trainer put a name to what Travvy was doing: going over the top in the presence of other dogs. His hackles came up, his breathing accelerated, he’d pull toward them, paying zero attention to anything I said, even if I offered him treats — it was as though his brain had disengaged and he couldn’t think straight.

A reactive dog overreacts to certain stimuli. The stimuli vary from dog to dog. They might include other dogs, or other dogs of a particular sex or size, or male humans with beards or female humans wearing hats, or horses or toddlers or lawn mowers. A fenced-in dog in my neighborhood starts barking when Travvy and I pass by and is still barking when we’re more than a quarter mile away. That’s reactive. Sometimes a car will pass us on the road with the dogs inside barking madly and trying to squeeze out the open window. That’s reactive.

Trav’s reactivity became apparent toward the end of his first year, around the time his prey drive kicked in. Like many Alaskan malamutes and northern-breed dogs, his prey drive is high. There are outdoor cats and free-range chickens in my neighborhood, so Trav’s free-roaming days were over. On leash, he couldn’t check out other dogs and he couldn’t get away from them. Trav is a friendly guy but not a totally confident one. Restraint made him less confident. So he reacted.

We play on the A-frame at Camp N Pack 2012. Photo by Threepairs Photography.

We play on the A-frame at Camp N Pack 2012. Photo by Threepairs Photography.

We’ve done a lot of work on this. I’ve learned to read Travvy’s reactions and to anticipate situations that might stress him out. The goal was always to keep him under his freak-out threshold, where his brain was still in gear and he could pay attention to me. And our work has paid off: Travvy has earned a bunch of Rally Obedience titles in high-stress trial environments. He’s reactive and probably always will be, but he’s also learned to override his instincts and impulses and stay focused on the task at hand, whatever it is.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, I’ve been thinking that much of what passes for political discussion in the U.S. these days is reactivity. Our brains are stressed, they’re not really engaged, but words keep pouring out of our mouths. If anyone interrupts with a mildly lucid thought, we may turn on them, snarling. Maybe they’ll then growl back. Pretty soon we’ve got a snarl-and-growl fest going on that, hey! now that you mention it, looks a lot like U.S. political discourse.

Some of it’s hateful. A lot of it’s just stupid and/or counterproductive. Most of it stems from over-the-top overload. The stressed-out human brain acts a lot like Travvy’s. The two options it recognizes are fight and flight. Those who can’t or won’t flee start snarling and growling, and pretty soon we’ve got a continuous feedback loop going.

When Trav goes over threshold, my job is to get him out of the situation that’s making him nuts. With most of us humans, it’s our job to get ourselves out of these predicaments, but unfortunately we’re not too good at it. We run toward the snarling and growling, not away from it. Social media, and instantaneous internet communication more generally, make it easier than ever to give in to the snarl-and-growl impulse.

What we really need to do is step back, shut up, and think things through, but how can we possibly do that when, as one Facebook page has it, “there is epic shit happening on the internet”?

Another lesson from dog training: Behavior that’s reinforced tends to continue, and behavior that isn’t reinforced tends to die out. Turn that around and it suggests that if behavior continues, it’s being reinforced — it’s paying off in some way — and if it dies out or doesn’t happen in the first place, it isn’t being reinforced enough. Travvy (on leash, need I say) will walk by a flock of hens for string cheese. If all I’m offering is bits of kibble, he’ll be pulling hard toward those hens.

You see where I’m going with this? Snarling and growling is easy. When the adrenaline’s flowing, stepping back is hard. (For those who get paid for snarling and growling, it’s probably impossible.) Thinking things through is even harder. Our defensive, self-protective, reactive brains have a strong incentive not to admit any information that might make us uncomfortable. Who the hell wants to turn his or her worldview inside out and upside down?

I’m pretty sure we’d all be better off if each of us had a conscientious handler equipped with a clicker, a leash, and an endless supply of string cheese. Unfortunately we aren’t dogs, so I guess we’ve got to learn to handle ourselves.

P.S. If you want to learn more about reactivity in dogs, there’s plenty of info out there. “Managing the Leash-Reactive Dog” is a good place to start.

 

Posted in dogs, musing, public life | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment