Let’s face it: I don’t get out of bed before 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. unless I have an obligation or appointment. In fact, I always tell my students when they complain about something they “don’t like,” that they will always encounter requirements in life they “don’t like.” For instance, although I love teaching, I don’t like getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning to get to my job. I’d much prefer the day to begin later and end later.

So it comes as no surprise to those who know me that I have absolutely no desire to wake up at 4:00 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving to venture to a retail store to tussle with Yahoos in order to obtain some gadget that has been marked down a dollar or two in order to lure unsuspecting customers into the store to buy regularly priced—or sometimes even overpriced—merchandise. My allusive reference causes me to wonder what Jonathan Swift, who coined the term “Yahoo,” might have thought of such a proposition.

First, I don’t like crowds because being in a crowd of people seems surreal to me. I sometimes feel faint. I can’t focus too well. Second, crowds of people can be a hotbed of veritable germs. Imagine all of those little bacterial cells potentially floating around in the air, waiting to land on a different subject and commence new life. Finally, some people’s standards of hygiene don’t exactly match mine. I don’t mean to sound obsessive compulsive on this one—although in earnest I am—but I don’t think daily hygiene is too much for which to ask. If one has ten bucks to spend on a toaster or seventy bucks on a blu-ray player, then he or she certainly must be able to afford the scant amount required to purchase a bar of soap and pay the paltry water bill required for regular ablution.

The history and phenomenon of post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping, however, do interest me as an observer. The tradition began in the 1960s, and the day came to be known as Black Friday because it signaled the kickoff of the Christmas season when retailers could expect to move from the color red, to indicate loss, to black, which symbolized a profit, in their accounting records.

Of course, the advent of the Internet and online shopping may have curtailed some of the Black Friday frenzy, but, if one believes the advertising hype, the tradition remains.

Although I avoided the event, as I usually do, I got a little taste of it the night before. My brother, who arrived at Mom’s Thursday afternoon preceding our Thanksgiving meal Friday, wanted to go to Wal-Mart for a sale slated to begin at one minute after midnight. The lure? A small crock pot he had seen in a circular priced to sell for $3.

I relented, agreeing to go mainly for camaraderie, but I was also the least bit curious to see what this shopping spectacle might look like.

Immediately after entering the store, I witnessed that shoppers clogging the aisle between the groceries and house wares had created an impasse. The main attraction I saw through the scads of people on that aisle was rows of DVDs priced at $5. But isn’t the sale of particular DVDs for such a price at Wal-Mart a normal practice? And who needs DVDs when there’s Netflix?

Finally, we made our way to the back of the store and located the $3 crock pots. Simply because the deal seemed too convenient to pass up, I snagged a crock pot, along with a food chopper, which likewise cost me $3. No, I’m not at all adept in the kitchen or even fond of working there, but who knows when such a gadget might come in handy?

I made it home and crawled in bed just before 2:00 a.m., which suited me much more than getting up at 4:00 a.m. Still, I hadn’t enjoyed battling frenetic shoppers pushing carts through masses of people like tanks ramming through enemy lines. Yes, they were polite and apologized after running into someone, but nevertheless.

The next morning I slept in. I put away my crock pot and food chopper. I prepared to go eat the Thanksgiving meal with my family, making a pact with myself never to go out into such a crowd of people again, more thankful than ever for the convenience of online shopping.

Television, like the women in the old Virginia Slims cigarette ads, has certainly “come a long way, baby.”

As someone who spent a childhood in rural west Tennessee, sans cable television, my early viewing pleasure was relegated to major network channel affiliates 3 (CBS), 5 (NBC), and 7 (ABC). Add in channels 10 (WKNO) and 12 (WMAE) for public television viewing, particularly on weekends when sports dominated the network airwaves.
 
Add to this the fact that reception was a mixed bag. Yes, the signal was free, granted one had a gargantuan stick of metal, otherwise known as an antenna, mounted somewhere to the house, but uninterrupted viewing was never a guarantee.

The reception process, which anyone over 30 who grew up in a rural area should recall, was a bit tricky. It required one person to stand at the back door with an unobstructed view of the television set. This intermediary then communicated with another family member, who stood poised at the base of the antenna to attempt to turn it in a direction enabling the best possible reception. The process involved steady collaboration and a meticulous ability to get the pole turned to exactly the right spot.

Add to this process the frustration of interference any time stormy weather plagued the west Tennessee area—which was often in the spring—or any time some picture tube or other internal component of the television ended up “going out.” In this case, one might be left in the lurch for days or weeks watching a small black and white television perched atop the defunct cabinet set until it could be taken to the shop for repair.

A great number of devices or machinery may land criticism these days about their cheap construction and disposability, but the television should not be categorized as such. I can’t recall the last time I had a modern television to “go out,” and the picture quality continues to improve, along with the variety of content available for viewing pleasure.

While I don’t watch much television these days, I do enjoy having it available at my leisure. As an adult, I have enjoyed both cable and satellite TV programming, neither of which impresses me much because of overreliance on sports programming as part of the packaging, something that doesn’t pique my interest. If I had my wishes, a sentiment shared by many to be sure, I’d prefer some sort of a la carte offering.

Why is it, for example, that the basic programming package affords me no less than, say, five different ESPN channels, none of which I watch, but if I want to see good, quality independent filmmaking, I must purchase the most expensive programming package?

A recent item may not have been visible in the major news, but this week marks a landmark in television programming. This week, Hulu Plus, a nominal subscription segment of Hulu.com, which offers free online programming (a catalog of current and classic television shows, along with a number of feature-length film) began streaming Internet content on a subscription basis ($7.99 a month) to viewers who own a Roku device.

All of this newfangled technology may confound some, but essentially a Roku is a small, extremely lightweight black plastic box that attaches to the television audio/video and with a bit of computer linking, delivers a number of “channels” for viewing pleasure. The most well-known is Netflix.com, which established its business shipping physical DVDs to customers who purchase a subscription and establish a queue of desired titles. Netflix also offers, however, a growing catalog of instant titles available via computer screen or Roku. According to a 2009 article, Netflix had catalogued 17,000 instant titles, and of course, the company adds more every day.

This week I purchased a Roku player and linked my Netflix account. Within minutes, I was able to enjoy more movies than I could watch in a lifetime, available at the push of a couple of buttons. The sheer availability is staggering, and in response, I thought about how, in contrast to where my television viewing commenced, I’ve come a miraculously long way. We all have collectively. 

Just as those women in the Virginia Slim cigarette ads no longer had to worry about getting caught smoking by their husbands, the television viewing public no longer has to be concerned about being shackled to overpriced cable and satellite companies in the advent of increased availability of content via the Internet. The day will eventually arrive when all programming can be streamed from an Internet source. The ultimate cost will be much less expensive, and we will finally have the liberty we all desire in terms of choice, flexibility, and pricing. I eagerly await that time.

 

 

She appeared on my mother’s carport one late spring day in May: a nomad, a transient, a copper-colored gypsy feline. Unbeknownst to Mom, initially, she had brought with her a tiny surprise, in the form of her own miniature-me: an orange kitten that resembled her, except his hue was a little brighter and his underside was stippled white.

We discovered him one afternoon. As we stood beside the storage room door talking, I heard the faintest whimper of a meow emanating from inside the room. The small female cat, which didn’t appear to be even a year old, stood underfoot looking up at us imploringly.

“There’s a kitten in there,” I told Mom, who hadn’t heard his high-pitched cries.

We went inside to try to locate it and discovered that his protective mother had placed him deep inside a tall, thin box that houses a card table and folding-chair set Mom uses only at Thanksgiving and Christmas for family gatherings. I reached deep inside the box and grabbed that soft, tender ball of downy fur and pulled him from the clutches of the narrow cardboard.

Instantly, I was in love. Since I couldn’t take him home with me due to my landlord’s prohibition of pets, I knew my only hope of keeping the pair was Mom, who lives on a cat-friendly acre of land in the country.

However, she has been widowed since my father’s death 18 years ago and has sworn over the last several years that she loves her independent, increasingly uncomplicated lifestyle. She has no one, save herself, or nothing for which she must provide daily care. Therefore, I had to convince her of my proposal. I promised to pay for all the upkeep if she would simply provide the daily sustenance for cute little pair of cats for me.

I’ve always loved cats. I like dogs, too, but cats intrigue me. Cats aren’t inherently loyalists; one must sometimes work for their affection. They tend to like their space, and they’re much quieter than dogs. They are typically cleaner as well, meticulously grooming after each meal. In other words, their character aligns more squarely with mine. I’m quiet, like solitude, am not easily swayed, and am somewhat obsessive compulsive about cleanliness—except I bathe each morning, not after meals.

I am also artistically bent, and I suppose it’s a common stereotype about artists and cats. The Egyptians created artistic renderings of cats in sculpture and drawings. The inscription on the Great Tomb at Thebes portrays their reverence: "Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed...the Great Cat."

Perhaps one of the most modern examples of a well-known artist enamored with cats was Ernest Hemingway, with his clowder of cats that populated his Key West home, the descendents of which can still be seen today. I hope one day to visit.

Until then, I now have my own pair of fuzzy companions. I named the female Blanche DuBois after one of my favorite literary characters, the faded Southern belle from Tennessee Williams’ play “A Streetcar Named Desire.” I named her kitten Winston Churchill—not for any particular reason, except he looked like a “Winston.”

Blanche’s demeanor is quite reserved, as she shies away from interaction with most people. Winston, on the other hand, is much more sociable. In fact, he’s attention-hungry, scurrying around my feet every time I go visit Mom.

His favorite activity is playing with a small stuffed gorilla attached to a string. The top end is attached to a stick. Still very much the playful kitten at almost half a year old, he will jump high in the air to retrieve the toy, and once he has it in his clutches, he commences growling and hissing as if the item were some offending menace to him.

I think Mom has grown somewhat attached to the pair as well, despite her initial reservations about keeping them. Sometimes when I visit, her hands are marked with cuts or scratches accidently inflicted by Winston during play.

But who couldn’t love them? As the Italian proverb says, “Happy is the home with at least one cat.” Likewise, various other cultures have their own maxims regarding cats. The Irish say, "Beware of people who dislike cats." And I am, although my favorite saying hails from the French: “The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry.” I tend to agree.

One of my favorite poems by writer Allen Ginsberg is not his most well-known. In “Walt Whitman in the Supermarket,” Ginsberg creates an absurdist, dreamlike world where the speaker encounters the gentle bearded Bard amidst the aisles of canned goods and packaged meats in a sensually-disconnected consumerist society. “Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.),” he writes.

 The controversy surrounding Ginsberg’s most famous poem, however, recently became the title and focal point of a well-wrought film. “Howl” chronicles the creative life of Ginsberg’s earlier years, from his San Francisco poetry readings to the obscenity trial focused on the poem, the verdict of which was not guilty for his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Born June 3, 1926, Ginsberg was one of the most recognizable figures often associated with the 1950s Beat Generation and did not compose “comforting” poetry. His verse is no “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” Wrought with disillusionment and desperation, Ginsberg established himself as the voice of a generation that questioned injustice, dogma, and the harsh demands of life in a burgeoning post-war military-industrial society.

The poem begins with some of the most memorable lines in modern American poetry: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz...”

The lines meander and flow like the sentiment they contain, and these aren’t short, compact, fixed form, rhyming lines. Instead, they resemble the long lines of Whitman, the poet Ginsberg’s speaker references in the aforementioned poem. Read aloud, the poems exact the improvisational rhythm of jazz.

The images of the corresponding film meander and flow in the same way. The filmmakers take risks, creating a montage of colorful, surreal imagery and letting that imagery overtake the screen while Ginsberg, played by actor James Franco, reads for a crowd of listeners. The imagery is juxtaposed against the black and white scenery of Ginsberg performing zealously at the helm of his audience, which included well-known fellow writers and friends.

 The acting and filmmaking certainly is a refreshing turn from some of the simplistic commercial fare so rampant at the movie theater these days. Unfortunately, the viewing public must prefer the former—if duration and venue are any indication, because the movie played only one week at a single theater in Memphis.

Another obstacle might be lack of familiarity with Ginsberg, and perhaps the disillusionment and boldness exhibited in his work do not suit all palates. When I taught his work last spring in a junior-level undergraduate modern poetry class, I felt as if I had to make an argument for Ginsberg’s defense. His merit as an artist and his importance in terms of historical context, however, are undeniable—and should not be judged merely on matter of taste.

 The like or dislike of poetry is not the issue. Ginsberg is one of those rare, energetic, insightful, incisive poets emblematic of a particular era, and one would do well to read at least a sampling of his work in order to be better culturally literate.

Although desperate and disillusioned, Ginsberg—and his poetic speakers—also exhibited optimism and positivity in other ways. He celebrated sensuality and enlightenment. Eventually, he used his writing as a voice for social change after becoming well known and reading in myriad venues.

Ginsberg’s last years were plagued by illness, and he died in his New York apartment of terminal liver cancer in 1997 at the age of 70 surrounded by loved ones. In a fitting tribute, the modern poet William Carlos Williams had written of Ginsberg in the introduction to his poem “Howl”: “This poet sees through and all around the horrors he partakes of in the very intimate details of his poem. He avoids nothing but experiences it to the hilt. He contains it. Claims it as his own—and, we believe, laughs at it and has the time and effrontery to love a fellow of his choice and record that love in a well-made poem."