tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-290218272024-03-07T10:49:52.516-05:00VenangolandLife, culture, arts and politics in the small city, posted from Franklin, PA, Venango County. I teach at FHS, live right by the river, play in an old traditional town band, and write a weekly column for The Derrick and News-Herald (every Thursday for over ten years). For all the friends, family and former students who complain that the newspaper doesn't put the columns on line, here they are, plus whatever else comes up and a collection of links to the people and places of Venango County.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comBlogger367125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-32264885027093077622021-08-06T10:04:00.003-04:002021-08-06T10:09:47.932-04:00The Binmore Scale<br /><br /> One of the great challenges of band leadership is concert programming. Many well-meaning directors suffer under the quaint notion that programming is somehow related to informed and intelligent choices based on an understanding of quality music. This sad misconception is the product of excessive education and has led to more than a few directors (actually, these poor guys are just as likely to call themselves “conductors”) to find themselves facing a silent audience, staring out like a young doe caught in the headlights of a van full of Metallica fans. Don’t blame these guys; no doubt they also watch PBS and have never even owned a lava lamp.<br /><br />Band concerts were never meant to be Major Cultural Events. Culture is for orchestra-goers, who neither expect nor desire to be entertained. The strength of the American band has always been a relentless mixture of kitsch and class and eclectic middle-brow culture-mulch. Nowhere else in the world of performance can you expect to find the works of Beethoven, Jerome Kern, Michael Jackson, and Kenny Rogers side by side. Bands cannot be programmed like anything else in the universe.<br /><br />Even Sousa spent a few years playing to indifferent response before he mastered this arcane and barely scrutable art. However, I offer you the following system to help, at least a bit. This scale is designed primarily for your basic hometown adult band, but can be applied to a school concert band as well. It may not be applicable to anything calling itself a wind symphony. I call this the Binmore scale, named for my grandparents, who didn’t know music, but they knew what they liked.<br /><br />First spot the potential program piece five points just for good luck. Then consider the following.<br /><br />PULSE: Add two points for a strong two or four beat pulse. You may also add two points for ¾ time if it is a nicely gliding one-beat. One point for 6/8 if beaten in two. No points for a pulse so slow that, in a human, it would require CPR. Minus one for exotic tempi such as 5/4. You cannot hold your audience’s attention if it is distracted by spasmodic foot tapping.<br /><br />FAKE ENDINGS: Subtract one half point for each false ending. Few things can discourage an audience more than a clear and convincing cadence followed by the whole damn thing starting up again.<br /><br />STYLE: Subtract two points for any work whose main appeal is that it’s “pretty.” Let’s be honest. There are only a few bands in the country that can pull off pretty, and yours probably isn’t one of them. Subtract three points if the program notes refer to instrumental color or use the term “tone poem.”<br /><br />FAMILIARITY: Add two points for recognizable themes or melodies. This is where knowing your audience is vital and educating them is a lifelong project. There are certain sure bets. Few audiences won’t to recognize the stirring strains of “The Lone Ranger Theme” or Wagner’s famous “Kill the Wabbit.” Other pieces can become familiar to an audience through sheer, dogged repetition.<br /><br />REAL DIFFICULTY: Be honest. If you have a grade two band playing grade six music, subtract one to three points depending on the degree of mutilation.<br /><br />PERCEIVED DIFFICULTY: This involves a principle well known to performers in the world of dance. Twenty dancers can perform intricate, extensively rehearsed maneuvers of great difficulty and skill, but the audience will only applaud wildly after eight girls stand side by side and kick. If your piece goes really fast with lots of notes or involves a trumpet player turning purple and popping a lung out of his bell, give it one point for each awe-inspiring passage.<br /><br />GENRE: Here you need to know your material and your players, because there are some outstanding exceptions to this rule. However, in general, when a concert band attempts works from the realm of rock, jazz or swing, it works about as well as when Cousin Mell’s barbershop quartet attempted Handel’s Messiah. If you have to explain swing to your clarinets, or your Dixie ensemble has to read the music, you’re in trouble. Subtract up to 3.<br /><br />MONOTONY : Subtract one point for every repeated section over twenty-four bars. Subtract two if the section is over sixty bars. You may give yourself a break if you do something substantially different the second time through. Anything longer than one page of player music with no noticeable variation in dynamics, tempo, or style must give up one point. This may be the fault of the composer, the players, or the director, but it will not matter to your audience who’s to blame for boring them.<br /><br />NOVELTY: Any extra special touch will help, however small or corny, as long as you don’t go completely berserk. A real fire engine beside the band stand blaring away on “The Midnight Fire Alarm” is good, but not if you start to hose down the audience. Add one point.<br /><br />VOCAL SOLOIST: This is a completely subjective, non-musical call (and yes, I hear you out there saying, “Of course, because vocalists have nothing to do with music”). The vocalist will not be judged on quality, but on community popularity. In the average small market, everyone’s beloved Aunt Minerva, who sings those lovely solos over to the Methodist church, will always be a bigger hit than the most gifted pro. Add two points if Minerva can really sing; one point if she’s merely beloved.<br /><br />ENTHUSIASM: The band’s, that is. If your band really loves to play a particular piece, their enthusiasm will transcend a large number of technical flaws. Live audiences love to watch performers having a good time. This is one prime reason that Regular Folks don’t flock to the symphony. Americans respond to people who love their work, and orchestras generally give the impression that they have all been rushed to the concert at gunpoint from an afternoon of root canal. Yes, it may be a distraction if the trumpets share a spontaneous high five after a series of difficult runs, but your audience will love you for it. Add two points.<br /><br />TONALITY: Or lack thereof. Maybe your audience will like a modern composition like “Fantasia on a Tone Cluster,” but I doubt it. Subtract one point.<br /><br />Score each individual piece and then check your score against the following scale.<br /><i><br />11 and up: Stars and Stripes Forever with fireworks and the piccolo section on a hydraulic lift; a definite winner.<br /><br />5-10: Workable, but unlikely to risk the health of any weakhearted audience members.<br /><br />0-4: This will make a good popcorn break during informal concerts; generally referred to by audiences as “that whaddyacallit you played last week I think.”</i><br /><br />Negative numbers: Now we’re in the realm of pieces such as John Cage’s arrangement of “Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun” and other works guaranteed to make your audiences beat a hasty retreat to the mall.<br /><br />Once you have the individual works scored, work out your total program score. In addition to the scores of the individual works, make the following computations.<br /><br />DURATION: Subtract one point for every ten minutes over an hour that your program runs. If it runs over two hours, subtract all your points.<br /><br /><i>70 and above: Now would be a good time to start that fund raising campaign.<br /><br />45-69: The audience won’t dislike it, but they may not remember having been there, either.<br /><br />25-44: Publicize this as “An Evening with the Chinese Water Torture.”<br /><br />0-24: Not even the players in the band want to be there.</i><br /><br />A final important note. Good announcing can cover a multitude of sins and enhance any number of strengths. Announcing can, for instance, raise the audience’s perception of a piece’s difficulty (“Folks, we’d just like to take a moment for silent prayer before we attempt this next piece”) or help them spot the interesting features in a work (“In the following piece, you’ll hear the oboe make a noise that can actually peel paint off walls”)<br /><br />Announcers can help clear the audience’s palate. They can personalize the members of the band so that the Aunt Minerva effect kicks in. And they can help educate the audience so that the familiarity of works can grow over the years.<br /><br />Announcing actually deserves its own separate article, but I do have to pass along one piece of critical advice: DO NOT LET THE DIRECTOR TALK TO THE AUDIENCE. There’s only one Leonard Bernstein, and he probably isn’t working for you. Okay, maybe you got lucky, but in general directors fall into the “interminable babble,” “incomprehensible babble,” “condescending babble,” or “babbling babble” categories. I have seen a real live band present a two hour concert containing 45 minutes of music and 75 minutes of director-speak. This is not a band concert; it is a lecture with musical interludes and that’s not what your audience signed up for.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-37274650841805987652014-07-19T09:24:00.000-04:002014-07-19T09:24:26.189-04:00How To Succeed SucceedsIt's unfortunate that my wife and I were out of town and didn't get to see FCOA's production of <i>How to Succeed in Business</i> until last night. Otherwise, I could have spent this whole week encouraging you to come see this production before it closes out Sunday afternoon.<br />
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Ben Geibel have mounted a fun production of the classic show that is perfectly cast. Cameron Ashbaugh pulls off the difficult task of playing anti-hero J. Pierpont Finch by exuding such sweet cheerfulness that you overlook how much he behaves like a self-serving jerk.<br />
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Ben Bodamer is a perfect Bud Frump, giving a lively performance that pops right off the stage without actually ever being sympathetic (that is harder than it sounds). Carissa McClintock is most often seen as a gifted character actress, but here she completely pulls off the leading ingenue role, giving it a bit more depth and edge than might otherwise be expected. And Katie Kirby brings a little something extra to what could be a simple cartoon bimbo role.<br />
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There are unexpected treats as well. I've seen Tracy Brown in several roles for FCOA, and she is always capable and competent, but the part of Smitty seems to land right in her zone; she really shines in this production. Recasting the voice of the book as a duo, played by Andrew and Aaron Ritsig turns out to be genius; after seeing it done this way, I can't imagine doing it any other way. And relative newcomer Ryan Ingram as J. B. Biggley owns the stage every time he's on it. This is a hilarious character performance of the highest order. <br />
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There is also great support work from Jeremy Moser, Kelsey Viertel, Kevin Fox, Janie Cassady, Davin Cutchall, and Bill Hennesy. From Moser's chipmunk cheer to Viertel's bowling moves, the supporting cast adds many touches that keep the evening light and funny.<br />
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It's rare to see a community theater productions that are so strong vocally, but each one of the songs (some of which you remember fondly and some of which you'll be happy to become reacquainted with) is strong and solid. Every lead presents a musical moment that is strong and assured, and the ensemble provides great vocal backup. There are some great dance moments as well.<br />
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The production design is awesome, from the floating leg panels in a perfect pallet of period colors to the beautifully constructed rotating stage and the spot-on costuming, this is a fun show just to look at. And Geibel's stage direction keeps things moving. If you've seen this show in the past, you may remember it as one of those shows that seems to drag on forever (particularly Act I), but that is not the case here. The show moves forward with a breezy (but unhurried) pace. It's over before you realize it. McConnell's steady direction and a solid pit even manage to set perfect tempos for each tune.<br />
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It's funny, it's tuneful, it's easy on the eyes, it's well-acted, and perfectly sung. I'm not sure what else you could want from an evening of musical comedy. Saturday night at 7:30 and Sunday at 2:00 are your last chance to catch this show. You should take advantage of the opportunity.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-41495663476434060322013-12-25T11:34:00.001-05:002013-12-25T11:34:16.844-05:00Christmas Play List<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLSB-IRiQoU_eU0QQFkovs7nhGz1DiaLYN" width="560"></iframe><br />
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For something a little bit differentPeter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-67165284546364051912013-09-07T11:17:00.000-04:002013-09-07T11:17:16.561-04:00150 HonorsThis is a batch of music recorded with the barbershop quartet I sort of sang with in college (we could easily have been called "Three Vocalists and a Trombone Guy") because I'm playing with bandcamp a little today.<br />
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<iframe seamless="" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1134589740/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/artwork=false/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 42px; width: 100%;"><a href="http://150honors.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-greenes-1979">Live at Greenes 1979 by 150 Honors</a></iframe><br />Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-54130711018992029322013-07-10T11:19:00.001-04:002013-07-10T11:19:14.127-04:00Go See Drowsy ChaperoneLocal audiences hate strange and unfamiliar things.<br />
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Well, they hate actually buying tickets and going to the theater. Once they're at the theater, watching the show, they are actually quite happy.<br />
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It can be frustrating if you're putting on the show. Two of my most favorite shows in ever were "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." The shows were great on the page, the casts were awesome, my direction didn't suck, and the people who went were absolutely delighted (I will always remember how delightedly the audience would gasp and laugh and applaud at the big reveal in Scoundrels because by then they were so completely into it). But getting them there was a chore.<br />
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People like going to see things they already know. And that's okay-- there are shows that are famous and beloved for good reasons. And that's okay from a community theater group's point of view. Doing Rogers and Hammerstein is like printing money.<br />
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There are other obstacles to going to see unknown shows as well. Theater folks who DO know these shows sometimes forget that there's a whole world of folks who have no idea what they are. Well-crafted publicity is critical. And can we talk about Barrow ticket prices-- they sometimes give me pause, and I know better. They have certainly kept me from attending a show twice.<br />
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But at the end of the day, FCOA has earned audience trust. FCOA puts on good shows, entertaining shows,more-than-merely-competent shows.<br />
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And Drowsy Chaperone is such a great show. I am out of town during all performances, and I'm bummed because this is a show I would have loved to direct (stage or music) or play in the pit or even just run the lights. I would even have dreamed of taking my completely inadequate performance skills on stage for this. And I have to miss the whole thing.<br />
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So, you should go. If you feel any sense of friendship or obligation toward me, you should go in my stead. You should take my place in the audience, clapping and laughing (you do not have to laugh obnoxiously in my place).<br />
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The show is such a great show. It is loaded with character roles, each one delightfully hilarious. The music is just great-- not a filler song in the whole score. When I listen to the "Scoundrel" score, each song is my favorite song until the next one starts, and then THAT is my favorite song. This score works the same way.<br />
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Man in Chair is genius. The whole framing sequence is genius and it allows the show to do what the best comedies do-- root the humor in something that is true and human. A good comedy always lifts my spirits a thousand feet higher than an "uplifting" show. No show has ever made me cry like "ILYYPNC" and no show has ever made me feel better about being alive than "Scoundrels." This show is one of those. Don't get me wrong-- it is relentlessly hilarious, but that hilarity is not based in Just Being Stupid.<br />
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The Rogers and Hammerstein crowd should also hear that the show-within-a-show is a great show of the they-don't-make-them-like-they-used-to variety. And for fans of old shows, there are plenty of nods to classic Broadway.<br />
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This is a great show and I really hope it gets the audience it deserves. If people can just get over their fear of unknown shows, they will get a great evening of entertainment for their money. Go see this show!Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-52035283869569210652013-03-06T22:20:00.000-05:002013-03-06T22:20:02.177-05:00The Sound of the TeensI've come to the conclusion that the twenty-teens (at least the early part of them) now have an actual sound, as distinctive as eighties synthiness or seventies punk or fifties doo-wop.<br />
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Today's sound is epic. I don't mean "epic" describes it. I mean that's what it is.<br />
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I'm going to give Florence and the Machine credit for being on the leading edge of the trend, though lots of folks have been playing around the edges. The ever-annoying (at least to me) Black Eyed Peas like to record songs that COULD be epic and produce videos suggest that things are epic inside their heads (cars smashing out of the sky into the pavement), but the band never seems willing to get up out of their comfy porch rocking chairs to finally push things over the top.<br />
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Other earlier misses in the genre would include bands like Creed, where the attempt is to funnel the epicness through one large mass of self-indulgent Fabio-haired ego.<br />
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But the epic pop sing has become refined, and it's totally here. Imagine Dragons do it. Mumford and Sons, for all their folkiness, do it. Even less-prolific groups like the Ting-Tings, the Mowgli's and River City Extension do it. Even Ke$ha and Lady Gaga have played with the form. The distinguishing characteristics are these:<br />
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Percussion that seems to capture the sound of a thousand drums echoing across a large valley, all being hammered so intensely that the drummers hands are bleeding.<br />
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Vocal support that sounds like a wall of sound, a hundred hundred voices raised in blistering song.<br />
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Chord structures that lift and drive forward on a heroic scale. It's the most anthemy anthem ever.<br />
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If you conjure up a picture in your head to go with the music, it involves a camera view that comes sweeping across a windswept plain, dark mountains lining the horizon, as we sail past crowds of people with their faces uplifted, eyes and hands raised to the sky.<br />
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Part of the epic sound is not necessarily to write about epic subjects. "I Will Wait," for instance is simply one more love song, but its sonic palette suggests that declaring love is akin to climbing a tall mountain to touch a storming sky. At some point someone is going to mock the form by recording an epic heroic anthem about baking chocolate chip cookies.<br />
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I don't read much music press these days, so I may be noting a trend that is already well-documented, in which case, let me just say, "me, too." If not, I'll be using this note to help apply for my pundit's license.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-39706221539423279302012-06-14T11:15:00.000-04:002012-06-14T11:18:56.281-04:00Flag Day and the Elks<i>from 2003</i><br />
Saturday, June 14, it will be time to celebrate one of the great overlooked patriotic holidays. I speak, of course, of Flag Day.<br />
According to my research, Flag Day goes back to 1885, when Wisconsin school teacher B. J. Cigrand organized a student celebration of the anniversary of the Flag Resolution of 1777 on June 14. He called it Flag Birthday, and within a few years it had spread to New York City and the New York State Board of Education.
In 1893 the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America resolved to get behind the Flag Day movement (and when the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames gets behind a cause, you know things are going to happen). Philadelphia City Schools, the governor of New York, and the PA and NY Sons of the Revolution also climbed on the bandwagon.<br />
But Flag Day got its major boost in 1907 when the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks Grand Lodge adopted a resolution to honor Flag Day, making that honoring mandatory for all Elk lodges in 1911.
You have to love the BPOE. First of all, how can you not love an organization that was originally called the “Jolly Corks.” Really. Englishman Charles Algernon Sidney Vivian and some buddies in 1867 New York City took their name from a drinking gag of the time.
Digression alert: I will now explain the old drinking gag. Each member would ante up fifty cents and place his cork in front of him on the table. The Imperial Cork would announce that the last man to raise his cork would buy the next round of drinks, then count to three. The new guys would quickly raise their corks, but the regulars would not raise their corks at all, ever, so the new guys were always the last ones to actually raise their corks. Get it? And this gag is at the root of the entire national Elk organization. Is this a great country or what?<br />
But late in 1867, one member died, leaving his wife penniless. The Corks stepped in to help and decided that maybe it was time to expand their horizons beyond playing drinking games. They didn’t wring their hands and say, “someone ought to do something about this.” They regrouped as the Benevolent and Protective Order (words not chosen idly or simply for effect) and chose the Elk as their symbol because it is “distinguished by its fleetness of foot and timorous of wrongdoing.”<br />
The Elks really are a true American story—folks who get together to enjoy themselves and end up standing up to be counted about things that matter. The Elks give out millions of dollars in scholarship money and maintain medical funding for a variety of institutions.<br />
Locally, our Elks give support to a wide and varied group of causes. I don’t think there’s a civic group that gives any more real help to the area than the Elks.<br />
And they keep Flag Day alive. The BPOE helped convince Woodrow Wilson to proclaim it a real anniversary in 1916, and it was BPOE member Harry Truman who signed an act of Congress designating June 14 as National Flag Day in 1949.<br />
The Elks have custody of Flag Day, and a whole written procedure to follow when the holiday runs around. It’s a good thing, too, because if the holiday were going to depend on the average everyday civilians who showed up to celebrate it, it would carry about as much clout as National Pickle Day or International Toaster Day.<br />
Sometimes patriotic holidays can be a bit depressing because they can underline the degree to which so many people have become armchair citizens. We’ve heard a lot of patriotic noise in the past couple of years. The flag has become a popular merchandising item, but people seem to prefer it in forms that allow them to just tack it up somewhere and forget about it.<br />
But a flag is a symbol, a way to say “If the idea of this country were a thing, I would respect it and take care of it this much.” There’s not much patriotism in the notion of, “I’m happy to honor this symbol as long as it doesn’t cut into any of my spare time.”<br />
The parade Saturday won’t be all that long, and the service is pretty simple. If you feel that patriotism matters enough to stand up and be counted, then by all means, take some time Saturday to join in. The Elks will be there to show how it’s done.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-60869910199102306252012-04-20T22:17:00.001-04:002012-04-20T22:17:17.579-04:00April and Peter 1959<style type="text/css">.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }</style><div class="flickr-frame"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottydotty/6811394992/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7063/6811394992_ebb3c7ddec.jpg" class="flickr-photo" alt="" /></a><br /> <span class="flickr-caption"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottydotty/6811394992/">April and Peter 1959</a>, originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottydotty/">Ryebaby0</a>.</span></div> <p class="flickr-yourcomment"> </p>Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-58945260984339283912012-04-20T21:51:00.001-04:002012-04-20T21:51:55.930-04:001971-1974 (3)<style type="text/css">.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }</style><div class="flickr-frame"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottydotty/6919971484/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7081/6919971484_d1224ac7db.jpg" class="flickr-photo" alt="" /></a><br /> <span class="flickr-caption"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottydotty/6919971484/">1971-1974 (3)</a>, originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottydotty/">Ryebaby0</a>.</span></div> <p class="flickr-yourcomment"> Play name that face with this one...</p>Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-82563415097540656032011-06-20T18:12:00.000-04:002011-06-20T18:12:12.747-04:00Musical Service now digitizedMusical Service: The Life and Times of the Franklin Silver Cornet Band is the book that I wrote about... well, it's self-explanatory, isn't it. The book is now available in digital (cheap) form for those of you so inclined. Here it is at amazon for the kindle:<br />
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<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/musical-service-peter-greene/1031383884">and here it is at Barnes and Noble for those of you of the nook persuasion.<br />
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It's a good book-- really! Not just the band, but many bands and other varieties of local performance are covered in the context of small town life. I worked hard on this puppy, and I'm proud of it, and if the digital format puts it in front of a few more eyeballs, I'd be pleased.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-90398372208796246052011-05-21T16:32:00.000-04:002011-05-21T16:32:40.894-04:00And alsoOkay, I'm going to leave this old blog up and open to the public as it has been. The new stuff will go to Venangoland 2.0, which will be a non-public blog, open to only a select few. Who knows -- maybe I'll put some of the stuff I can't use in the newspaper here. At any rate, I know many of you have been waiting on pins and needles to see how this all turns out. Now you know...Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-20807920188106282792011-04-15T18:38:00.000-04:002011-04-15T18:38:18.577-04:00Changes to This BlogLocal readers may be aware that the News-Derrick in its on-line version is now behind a pay wall. While I know not everyone has greeted this with shouts of joy and delight, it has become a fairly common practice in the world of newspaper publishing as newspaper folks search for new ways to not starve. We can argue the virtue of that decision some other time; the fact is that it's here.<br />
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In conjunction with that, my editor, who pays me very nicely for my work for the paper, has asked me to stop giving it away for free. I have to agree (did I mention that I'm paid very nicely) that this is a reasonable request.<br />
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So I am going to take Venangoland to private status. I know this will have an impact on the many handful of readers who follow me here on this blog. Those of you who are far away, related to me, and/or old college friends who will never be in the market for the newspaper in which I usually appear can get an invite to still catch what appears here.<br />
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For local folks, I'll point out that regular subscribers can add a cyber-subscription to the paper for a buck a month. <br />
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Admittedly, this requires me to let go of a small dream. I put this blog up so that my children could follow the column without my having to remember to attach and mail it to them every week, and later so that old friends could get the equivalent of a Christmas letter 52 weeks a year. But in the back of my mind was always the thought that by having these all on line and searchable, somehow traffic would be kicked up and I would make Venangoland (the place) a little more known and give the home territory that I love a bit more of a web presence. But I've seen my readership numbers and that dream belongs on the same shelf as the dream in which I wake up in the morning with a full head of hair.<br />
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It will be a few days yet before I finish sorting out the buttons etc, and then this will bump even further into the internet background. Thanks for all the fish!Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-83869343633431958402011-04-08T19:54:00.002-04:002011-04-08T19:54:58.831-04:00Finding Bad Teachers(News-Herald, April 7) Periodically folks get their High Dudgeon on (that’s fancy talk for Large Hissy Fit) about Bad Teachers and the need to Weed Them Out. Contrary to some reports, you can find plenty of classroom teachers who support that idea, at least in principle. <br />
With the exception of students, nobody suffers more from the work of a bad teacher than the competent teacher in the next room who has to live with the mess that Professor Numbskull creates day after day. We would be delighted to see him retire to Florida or take that job in Antarctica.<br />
Even if we aren’t going to fire some lemons of learning, parents still want to be able to spot these potholes of pedagogy before their children smack into them. Unfortunately, identifying these educational examples of classroom clutter is harder than it looks. Currently, our leading educational experts, loaded down with big ideas and unhampered by any actual experience in schools, have come up with two definitions of a bad teacher.<br />
1) A bad teacher is one whose students don’t bubble in the preferred answers on a government-designed test.<br />
2) A bad teacher is one who gets paid more than other teachers.<br />
These are not helpful; neither is focusing on age. I have known teachers who taught for decades and never stopped firing up their students. My Uncle Frank has taught high school history for over fifty years and his students still do things like dedicating entire sports seasons to him. But I have also known young teachers who were already burned out when they were straight out of the package. So here are some telltale signs that a teacher might not be as fresh as a didactic daisy.<br />
The Big Countdown. A teacher who is focused on how many days are left in the year, how long till the weekend, how many minutes left in the day, is a teacher whose head is not in the game. Granted, a teacher who is so lazily comfortable that he doesn’t need a break, ever, may not be putting his back into it. And everyone has the occasional day that they simply want to be done with.<br />
But a teacher who constantly observes how much he’d rather be somewhere else should do everybody a favor and go be somewhere else.<br />
It’s Not My Fault. My old co-operating teacher Joe McCormick told me two rules of education. Rule number one is that some students will refuse to be taught. Rule number two is that there is nothing teachers can to change rule number one.<br />
He may have been right. There are some students who aggressively resist learning, and others who are so distracted by the mess at home that they cannot focus on school. It is likely that some children would be better off being raised by wolves. Nevertheless, it’s a teacher’s job to try to find a way. We aren’t hired to teach the people they’re supposed to be. We’re hired to teach the people they actually are.<br />
If a teacher bemoans how every lesson is scuttled by those lousy kids, if class is a noisy uncontrolled mess because of those lousy kids, if the teacher complains that he can’t get his job done because of those lousy kids, here’s a news flash—it’s not the lousy kids.<br />
I’m Fine, Thanks. Teaching carries several sources of stress that they never tell you about in teacher school. One is realizing that no matter how hard and long you work, no matter how many years you refine your game, there are things you don’t do quite well enough.<br />
Any teacher worth his chalk (or keyboard) can tell you where he’s weak, what he needs to fix. He may very well be collecting pointers from co-workers, doing more reading, experimenting with new ideas in his classroom. A teacher who doesn’t think he needs help or advice is a classroom disaster waiting to happen.<br />
A teacher should be an expert in his field. If he isn’t a lifelong student of his subject, he’s little use to his students. If he couldn’t teach without teacher editions, he can’t do that much better with them.<br />
There are other signs. A good teacher takes his job very seriously, but not himself. Bad teachers get it the other way around. Bad teachers hide from their students and community in their off hours. And bad teachers think It’s Just A Job, not a particularly large part of life. For that last point, unfortunately, many reformers agree.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-26699024687172314312011-04-01T16:15:00.002-04:002011-04-01T16:15:42.867-04:00Venango Primaries 2011(News-Herald, March 31) It’s primary season in Venangoland-- time for the usual rounds of cantankerous caterwauling about county commissioners. As usual, about 147 people have thrown their hats into the ring, and as usual, fuss is being raised.<br />
For the casual political observer, or for the local who’s just not well-connected, it’s never entirely clear what political the fuss is about. What’s clear is that there is an awful lot going on that we regular civilians are unaware of.<br />
So far we’ve had election board spats and a narrowly targeted petition challenge based on a technicality. Everyone involved claims that it’s not personal, it’s totally on principle, etc but out here in the cheap seats it feels a little like watching that couple who get into a savage argument about how to fold the napkins—you’re not sure exactly what’s going on, but it’s pretty clear that what’s going on is not a simple disagreement about napkin folds.<br />
Most interestingly, there appear to be folks lining up against the local tea party—and not the expected liberal spendthrift godless Democrat types. If Venangoland is once again on the cutting edge (don’t laugh—we were all over bad defaulting mortgages before that crisis went national), this could foreshadow interesting times for the national tea partiers. At the very least, they may need to come up with a whole new set of names to call people.<br />
There’s the old argument about full time commissioners. It’s a dumb argument. The question is not “What should we get from the current holders of the job?” The question is, “Who would want the job if it required full time commitment?” What successful businessman could leave his business for a few years (and take a pay cut to do it)? What successful professional could afford a multi-year leave of absence? Full time commissioning would be most appealing to people who aren’t busy doing anything else important. I’m not sure that’s a good deal for the county.<br />
Put you ear to the Venangoland ground, and you’ll also hear the familiar charges of “old boys network” and cronyism. Time to get things done out in the open. Time to get out of the old smoke-filled back room.<br />
So for all the folks who are penning garbled letters and running anonymous websites and making random accusations in meetings, here’s an observation, not meant to criticize, but to let you know how your message is coming across. From out here in the cheap seats, it doesn’t look like noble warriors standing up to the boys in the back room. It looks like a whole bunch of people in the back room together, squabbling amongst themselves.<br />
If there’s a message you’re trying to get out, you’re doing a lousy job. Whether you’re in office, running for office, or imagining yourself a puppetmaster behind the scenes, you are communicating precious little that makes sense. Consequently what comes across is the message, “That guy over there really annoys the bejeezes out of me.”<br />
People end up in back rooms sometimes because they imagine if people can see what they’re up to, the public will “get the wrong idea” or “the correct message” won’t come across. That’s why the sunshine law is a good idea; more public officials should pay attention to it.<br />
A person can start to believe that because the people in the room with him are nodding their heads and cheering, EVERYBODY must be hearing him. This is not true, not even in a small town setting.<br />
There’s another reason people end up in the back room in an area like ours. It’s the voters’ fault, and it relates to out other election season problem. Say you have an issue, and you want to share it with the giant auditorium full of people. You try to talk to them, but they can’t be bothered. They’re busy. They’re talking to each other. They don’t even show up. Eventually you conclude that it’s easier to finish the conversation in a smaller room with people who are actually paying attention. <br />
Occasionally one of those uninvolved people beats on the door and demands to be included. Mostly they don’t.<br />
For a moment, don’t look at the commissioner candidates. Look instead at the many positions, from townships to school boards, for which there aren’t even enough candidates to fill the empty seats. Our politicians should communicate better with the cheap seats, but those of us in those seats could stand up and try to get a better look.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-81789975138111582622011-03-27T09:27:00.000-04:002011-03-27T09:27:03.105-04:00Friday and Other Bad Songs(News-Herald, March 24) Perhaps you don’t spend much time on the interwebs and so missed the latest contribution to American culture.<br />
A thirteen-year-old named Rebecca Black received a special present from her folks—a two thousand dollar session with a production company that helped her create and produce a hit-ready pop song with accompanying video. The video was, of course, posted on youtube, where it had at first a few hundred hits, then several thousand, then a gazillion as carbon based life forms all over the earth lined up to experience what has already been called one of the worst songs ever. (To be accurate, as of Tuesday, March 22, Black’s video had 33 million views after less than two weeks. For comparison, Lady Gaga’s most recent hit video was up to just under 26 million views.)<br />
Was the song that bad? Has it, as one iTunes reviewer claims, “ruined the meaning of music forever”? Hyperbole, perhaps, but, yes, the song is pretty bad. Black’s vocals are auto-tuned well beyond the range of robot singing, but there are far more famous singers doing the same. What sets the hit “Friday” apart is its special lyrical flair. <br />
First, our young heroine wakes up and goes downstairs to eat a bowl of cereal (“Gotta have my bowl, gotta have my cereal, seein’ everything, the time is goin’”). By the second verse, she is at the bus stop where the approach of her friends in a car raises a more stirring dilemma: “Kickin’ in the front seat, sittin’ in the back, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?” Eventually she arrives at the climactic section in which she observes that yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday and after that comes Sunday.<br />
All indications are that this is entirely serious, but you can be forgiven for suspecting it’s a giant goof, because Rebecca Black’s “Friday” belongs to a special category of bad song. People have been trying to parody this insta-hit, but it’s simply not possible because the song is already its own parody, a song so dumb that nobody could possibly make it more ridiculous.<br />
Not every bad song can achieve such invulnerability. “Achy Breaky Heart” may be an awful, awful song, but it is totally vulnerable to mockery (eg “Don’t play that song, that achy breaky song…”)<br />
To mock something one must take its most notable characteristics and exaggerate them until they become silly. An unmockable song has been pre-ridiculified. Take “MacArthur Park”—what can anyone do to worsen a lyric like “Someone left the cake out in the rain, and I don’t think that I can take it, ‘cause it took so long to make it, and I’ll never have the recipe again.” (Plus, for good measure, “Oh noooooooooooo!”) And “Stairway to Heaven”—“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now”?? <br />
The first time I heard “Wanna put my tender heart in a blender, watch it spin around to a beautiful oblivion,” I actually laughed aloud because I thought someone had written a hilarious parody of overwrought emo-boy angstiness. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that “Inside Out” was a real song and a real hit.<br />
Neil Diamond could be accused of having a parody-proof style, but that might not be fair. Still, I defy any Diamond fan to defend the lyrics of “I Am” in which our highly emotive singer declares his deepest feelings and moans that “no one heard at all, not even the chair.” Could anybody possibly make that any sillier? (Maybe, but “ottoman” wouldn’t fit in the line.)<br />
(We could argue that nearly the entire output of the disco era is too ridiculous to be mockable, and I might have trotted out examples except that I don’t really want to revisit disco. Living through it once was sufficient.)<br />
But before curmudgeonly elders start the old, “They don’t write songs like they used to,” I should point out that ridiculously bad songs have always been with us. Practically everything Mantovani recorded makes me suspect that he was giggling at the massive joke he was playing on the music biz. And for fans of the big band era, all I have to say is, “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamsy divies.”<br />
Even the classical music whiz Handel calls on a chorus to declare with great stentorian seriousness, “We like sheep.” So don’t feel bad for Miss Black. She has lots of company. Also, her song is making her about 24 thousand dollars a week.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-53751085524043372882011-03-19T12:56:00.000-04:002011-03-19T12:56:15.807-04:00Rex MitchellI first encountered Dr. Mitchell when I was in seventh grade at Junior High District Band. He was the guest conductor, and while our home directors regularly made their peace with the motley assortment of musical abilities they faced, he was not so interested in compromise. <br />
Most of us had never encountered someone who was so serious about music who wasn’t our regular teacher. It wasn’t that he treated making music as grim or joyless, but he treated it like it was something important. We played one of his newer compositions in that concert. It was “Song for the Young,” and like many of his pieces it became a popular standard of programming in the band world. For the next fifteen years I think I played “Song for the Young,” somewhere, every year.<br />
Rex was not afraid of a tough crowd. He did guest conducting gigs, which have to be the toughest in the band director world. You walk into a building and for a few days take over a group of teenagers, many of whom are fiercely loyal to their regular director and his way of doing things, and who spend much of their rehearsal time thinking about lunch, homework, and that cute member of the opposite gender sitting over there.<br />
Rex had to know all that—he had teenagers of his own—but he didn’t approach young musicians with the faintest hint of “Well, you’re only high school kids.” <br />
Instead it was the students who asked (quietly, indirectly), “What do you want from us? We’re just kids!” <br />
Rex’s reply (quietly, indirectly) was, “I want you to play as well as you possibly can, because it matters.” <br />
Dr. Mitchell’s musical fingerprints are all over this region. For many years you couldn’t swing a western Pennsylvanian cat without hitting a band or choir director that he had trained. They were not only strong and talented educators, but also a network, like a group of people who had belonged to a select fraternity, a kind of Mitchell mafia. For years many of the players who had first worked together in his seminal Lab Jazz Band at Clarion continued to work together as a grown up dance band.<br />
He was a talented performer in a small town setting, which meant that he could find himself working with other musicians well below his ability. He once hired three of us who were core members of a local Dixie band to work with him for a party at Rockmere. He told us to just use our usual arrangements and he would try to fit in, and then proceeded to play rings around us. He could have been a diva, and he could have shamed us by musically upstaging us, but he was gracious and classy. What could have been scary or intimidating for us ended up being a great deal of fun.<br />
He was a solid composer of works for band—not an easy field to make a mark in. In 1971 he composed “The Silver Cornets” march for the Franklin town band. We still play it at our concerts every summer, and so do many other bands across the country. <br />
And if none of that had been true, he still would have been the man who put together the Venango Chorus and the jazz band concerts in Justus Park. The chorus has given a great outlet to so many area singers. And very few people could put together a band of that caliber; very few performing groups could fill that park with so many appreciative audience members. <br />
Venangoland is not always a nurturing environment for the arts. Some folks would rather take a football to the gut than sit through a concert or walk through an art exhibit. And even some of the same people who will sit and applaud a concert will go home and call the arts an unnecessary frill.<br />
But men like Rex Mitchell (and Bruno Woloszyn and Ed Frye and Carl Brozeski and Bob English) single handedly improve the quality of life here for all of us. Rex gave us the beauty and energy and joy of his own music, and his energy and passion in energized others. His gift helped elevate the gifts of others, both musicians and listeners. We are poorer for his passing, but richer for his time here. He has left his community a legacy of music and musicians, and we will all reap the benefits for years to come.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-72544218248366714352011-03-11T16:48:00.001-05:002011-03-11T16:48:41.774-05:00Corbett's Budget Message to Teachers(News-Herald, March 10) My kids hate it when I write about politics. But Governor Corbett’s budget address this week hits too close to home for me to ignore.<br />
Much of his speech I applaud. The Commonwealth has been cobbling together odd patches of federal handouts and stimulus money tacked onto one of the worst business and corporate tax structures in the country. PA taxes have managed to be both oppressive and ineffective, squeezing the blood out of some enterprises while other major corporations manage to profit from the pockets of Pennsylvania consumers without returning a single cent to running the state.<br />
Pennsylvania needs to live within its means, and has needed to for a while. It also needs to stop nickel and diming its people into oblivion with new hair-brained schemes like turning I-80 into a toll road.<br />
Some of his speech reads like same old, same old politics. A lot of the money doled out to various local projects has been cut and compressed, the wide and varied plethora of granting bodies trimmed down. Corbett says under the new system, “Instead of individual favors we're trying a market approach. Economic development agencies and providers will compete for taxpayer dollars. If you have a winning idea -- you'll win our backing.”<br />
To which I say, “Um, yes, right, sure. ‘Winning idea’ is a completely objective measure, and I’m sure it will be judged on a completely level playing field. I’m sure places like Venango County will have just as good a shot as Philadelphia.” Corbett’s budget talk did not at all address the balance between rural Pennsylvania and the Big Two, the process by which Pittsburgh and Philadelphia regularly suck the blood from the rest of us. That was a little discouraging.<br />
But nothing was as discouraging as Corbett’s prolonged swipe at teachers. I’m not exactly sure when in the past few weeks that teacher-hatred became the flavor of month; I’m pretty sure that only Charlie Sheen has kept it from the very top of the news cycle.<br />
I absolutely agree that teachers should not be exempt from the sacrifices faced by most Americans (that is, those that are not filthy rich bankers and CEOs). But the sacrifices proposed for education are not on that order; they are proposals for gutting teaching as a profession and with it, public education.<br />
The bill currently making its way through Harrisburg (HB 855) proposes the end of tenure and seniority. Under this proposal, school districts may declare themselves financially strapped. They don’t have to prove it, and they don’t have to make any other efforts to trim their budgets—just have a public meeting at which they declare their financial distress. Then they may fire whichever teachers they wish to fire.<br />
Under these rules, people considering a teaching career face one of two possible trajectories. Either they will work for a few years and then be fired out of the profession, or they can work a full career at wage levels that won’t support a family. How many people qualified to do anything else will choose teaching as a career if it is, as budget mavens like to say, unsustainable? It is theoretically possible that school districts will say, “Damn the cost—we want to compete for the best teaching staff around,” but I wouldn’t bet my career on it.<br />
Yes, others are struggling. But making more people struggle doesn’t build prosperity.<br />
Corbett says the school system’s obligation is to child, parent and teacher—in that order. His answer is correct but incomplete. Once again, we’re discussing public education as if the public are not stakeholders. But even people without school age children have a need to live surrounded by, working with, and dealing with well-educated people. Public education is not a public-funded private school system run for parents; its benefits are as widespread and universal as roads. Corbett would like to see vouchers, further guaranteeing non-parents no educational voice.<br />
Why the selective application of sound economic principles? Corbett is right to believe that businessmen and corporations will not do what they do if the state makes it economically useless and difficult to do it. How is that different for teachers? Teaching remains one of the best jobs in the world. If I won the lottery this weekend, I would still be in my classroom on Monday, but you can’t feed and clothe a family with job satisfaction. I hope that one day I’ll be replaced by someone who would also like to make it his life. It will be sad if nobody with real passion or ability can afford to do that.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-87925392114461990792011-03-04T22:29:00.000-05:002011-03-04T22:29:01.432-05:00Venangoland Politics On Line(News-Herald, March 3) Like many fans of local politics, I’ve been surfing on over to the venangopolitics.com to see what the new political website has to offer to the local internet landscape.<br />
One of the most basic purposes of the internet is to provide people with an opportunity to say things anonymously that they would never say openly (because doing so would probably get them punched in the nose). This site manages that quite well, though the mastermind behind the site backed off the more obvious slander and libel once he (or she) was called on it. But it still showcases a nice big pile of axes and a thick stone to grind them on.<br />
There’s a type of poster that one finds all over the internet—let’s call him the Righteous Crusader. The not-brave-enough-to-state-his-name operator of VP fits the profile. Righteous Crusaders see themselves as being practically the only people wise enough to see the Truth, and they act a little paranoid about being hunted down by murky mysterious opponents. Mr. VP duly notes that there are people who probably won’t like what he has to say, and ominously reminds us that The Media isn’t telling us The Whole Truth. Mr. VP expects all submissions to come with a name and phone number attached. Mr/Mrs VP’s identity remains shrouded in mystery, though the drumbeat that is raised on the site is a familiar one that gives even the casual student of Venangoland politics a good idea of who is on the short list of authorial candidates.<br />
There’s a place for folks to chime in; the first few posts there are to point out inaccuracies in the municipal information listed, some comment on the value of the site itself, and a few make observations (featuring random spelling) about local politics. So far only one of the 146 people running for County Commissioner has posted his info, but others may yet emerge. And so far VP has delivered its promise of weekly articles. The current one about the county pension fund is reasonably well-researched, if not particularly well-reasoned.<br />
There are what supposed to be connections to local political groups on line, but these are exceptionally sketchy. In this, Ms VP is blameless, because Venango County political groups remain blissfully oblivious to the internet.<br />
Venango County Republicans have a multipage site (www.republicanvenango.com), including a calendar of useful information about the election season. For 2010. The site has no actual content to speak of; certainly nothing that would pass for a statement of what local Republicans see as issues or proposed responses to them. The site itself has a cobbled-together look, perhaps because it appears to have been assembled on wix.com, a set of free website-building tools popular with many teenagers. <br />
It could be worse. I was going to make a joke about Venangoland Democrats being so out-of-touch that their only web presence was an ugly old empty MySpace page. Then I went looking for them on line and found nothing but… an ugly old empty MySpace page. The Venango Young Democrats have a facebook page with no information and three “likes.”<br />
In other words, in an age that gives organizations an unparalleled opportunity to communicate their message to the people, an historic chance to let voters know what they stand for, the two major parties in the county have used that tool only just enough to embarrass themselves.<br />
The Libertarian and Green Parties—those great RC Colas of the American political grocery—provide nationally based web tools on which to hang local groups. And of course you know who is head and shoulders above the whole pack when it comes to making use of the web to get message out—the Tea Party Patriots of Venango County. If I were suddenly wanted to check out local politics, see whose views I sympathized with, and find a way to become involved, only the Tea Party Patriots provide any useful information at all, and what they provide is fairly thorough.<br />
So while venangopolitics.com remains the biased and fuzzy-headed product of someone who hasn’t the guts to sign his/her work, I give it a big round of applause for trying to start the kind of open(ish) conversation about local politics that the major parties are completely failing to engage in. <br />
If there’s something solid on line from the two majors that I’ve somehow missed, I welcome the opportunity to stand corrected. In the meantime, to Republicans and Democrats, shame on both of you.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-26180267465169459882011-02-25T07:24:00.000-05:002011-02-25T07:24:24.268-05:00Squeezing the Middle Class(News-Herald, February 24) Miles of words have described how the middle class is economically strapped, squeezed between the filthy rich and the ever-poorer wards of the state. But the middle class is increasingly squeezed in another, more subtle vise.<br />
Many Americans choose a middle class life with a middle class profession because it offers a chance to make a difference. Become a teacher, lawyer, doctor, manager, the dream goes, and you can use your education and training and smarts and character and professional judgment to make a difference for the people around you. But over the past few decades that dream has been grabbed by the neck and slowly strangled.<br />
A professional life was many peoples’ answer to the question, “how can I make a difference?” At the end of their working life, they could look back and think, “It mattered that I was there, that I was the person filling that job. Somebody else could have done it, but not exactly as I did.”<br />
We’ve celebrated doctors and nurses as heroes in countless movies and tv shows and the ways in which their character, personality and skills left a mark on the people they met. Dr. Manly would flex his stethoscope heroically and bark, “No, no, no—it’s not lupus! Get me an IV drip with Ringer’s lactate and call the ER stat—cancel my dinner date, because I’m gonna crack this guy’s chest. We’ll stay here all night if we have to—nobody dies on my watch!!”<br />
Today, heroic medical personnel are instead required to bark things like, “We’ve got a call in to the insurance company—they’ll get back to us with how much treatment they’ll allow” or “We’ll get you the very best treatment that law permits.”<br />
Teaching is another field where middle-class professionals are hemmed in. The state and federal governments are increasingly interested in telling teachers what they should teach, and how and when they should teach it. And of course the state will to give the final exam.<br />
Those are, of course, only two areas where the feds (with enthusiasm unchecked by either party) are stepping in to regulate us into a better world. With every new bit of oversight, a bunch of middle-class folks lose the right to exercise their professional judgment.<br />
The desire to make a difference has always driven some upward career mobility. Some people pursue that promotion because it means bigger bucks, but many believe that if they could rise a step higher, they could solve some of the problems that they see—a move up on the ladder would let them make more of a difference. But these days only ladders that lead to the highest levels of bureaucracy give that kind of view.<br />
Middle class folks used to choose professional careers so that they could make a difference, but the push from the Powers That Be has been in exactly the opposite direction. The new ideal is that the results should always be the same; the matter of which particular person is doing the job should make no difference at all.<br />
This is a hard issue to raise without seeming whiny. As with money, some people don’t want to hear a doctor complain about having less of what those people have never had at all. If you’re a chef who thought he’d be making gourmet steaks, and you discover you’ll only ever get to make fast food burgers, saying “This is not what I signed up for” isn’t very compelling to people who just want something to eat. Particularly in an era in which college-educated folks are called “our elitist overlords.”<br />
The fear of a personal touch is not unfounded—nobody wants his kid to get the Bad Teacher or the Bad Doctor. But a bureaucratic straightjacket that keeps everyone on exactly the same page does not breed excellence. Make everyone cook and eat the same, and you don’t get universal filet mignon—you get endless tv dinners. You get soul-crushing, stifling mediocrity. And you get people who could have been excellent, who could have made a difference, leaving professions where their new, improved role is to be button-pushing faceless implementers of some stuffed suit’s canned spam. <br />
It’s not just that the wallets of the middle-class are shrinking, but that their hands are increasingly tied. It’s one of the things people are trying to articulate when they call for smaller government. So many people are capable, caring and committed to making a difference for good. They want to live in a country where all that matters.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-39312560267394789992011-02-18T20:04:00.000-05:002011-02-18T20:04:09.288-05:00Grief(News-Herald, February 17) Sooner or later, everybody dies.<br />
Of all the universal truths, of all the inescapable pieces of cold, clear knowledge, this is the one we least like to admit. We might let it stand around in the lobby of our brain, but we rarely invite it to come in, sit down, and make itself at home in our hearts.<br />
It’s almost impossible to ignore death, but we get pretty good at letting it become a background noise, like the tv in the next room tuned to a show that we don’t really follow.<br />
And not all deaths are created equal; some are easier to cope with than others. William Cullen Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis,” once a staple of funeral services, suggests that after a well-lived life, death is an opportunity to “lie down to pleasant dreams,” and I suppose sometimes death is like that.<br />
But sometimes death jumps up and clubs us in the face. We are suddenly reminded of death’s finality, how completely it erases possibilities for the future both for those who pass and for those who love them. No more opportunities, no more shared joys, a future slate that will remain forever blank. It is gut-wrenchingly horrible to see someone swept up suddenly by that oblivion, even harder to see someone willingly embrace it with either a quick final choice or a slow steady spiral.<br />
It’s a grief that renders us stumbling and mute, because there is suddenly so much that we want to say to someone to whom we can no longer say anything at all. There is so much that we want to have explained to us by someone who will no longer explain anything. And it’s just plain unfair.<br />
The responses to such untimely death are such familiar clichés (be nice to others, don’t waste time, honor their memory with good work, blah blah blah) that is surprising how real and compelling they are when you really mean it. You can go through the motions of love or prayer for years, but when the day comes when you really do it, do it with your whole heart and intent and energy, the power of it knocks you off your feet and you whisper, amazed, “Oh, so that’s what it is.” <br />
This is like that. <br />
You grieve, sometimes a huge grief when the loss itself is huge. But there’s more. You carry forward the work of the departed, do for them the things that they no longer have the power to do for themselves and in so doing, you become a forward extension of their too-shortened lives. <br />
That means you give love to the people they would have loved if they had been here to do it. And you work for the causes that they would have worked for had they stayed longer. You become their heart and hands in a world that they can no longer touch for themselves. You do the best you can for all the Jamie’s and Mike’s and Molly’s and Leslie’s and Chris’s who can no longer carry on for themselves.<br />
And you remember that sooner or later, everybody dies. <br />
It is so easy to slip into denial. People talk about just zipping through a day, as if, on the other side, there is an infinite supply of days. People make choices—or DON’T make choices—as if they are simply rehearsing for some infinite supply of opportunities ahead. Some people slip into the ultimate version of the old lie “If I don’t really try, I can’t fail”—“If I don’t really live, I won’t actually die.”<br />
Our lives are powered by our passions and commitments; that flame which we carry forward has been fed by the people we have known and loved, and many of them are no longer in a position to carry their own flame. That’s our job now, and when we stop feeding our own fire, theirs dims as well.<br />
Life can break people in places that no doctor can reach, and death can be cruel. Sometimes people lose their way, or their strength fails. But mostly human beings still get a choice about how to care for each other, how to use our time, who and what to hold in our hearts. It is not always a bad thing for us to remember to conduct ourselves with love and care, because we have an unknowable expiration date, and so do the people around us. Sooner or later, we are all going to die. But in the meantime, we live.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-66405904057208276142011-02-17T22:31:00.000-05:002011-02-17T22:31:07.939-05:00Tenure(News-Herald, February 10) It’s time once again for politicians around the country to wind up the educational wind machine. And this time the big wind is trying to blow away teacher tenure.<br />
Tenure, the argument goes, is no longer necessary or desirable. With tenure swept away, classroom teachers will be subject to market forces that will justly reward the strong and punish the incompetent. That makes a certain amount of sense, though I do have one question—will these be the same market forces that have been kicking many of America’s best workers in the teeth for the past twenty years? Or maybe the same market forces that have insured that the crooks who ran the megabanks into the ground stay fat, happy, out of jail, and raking in massive bonuses after doing their best to trash the US economy? <br />
I cannot take people seriously when they start suggesting that teachers live on an insulated island, protected by a wall of fluffy bunnies and unicorns from the Real World Outside. This RWO, the story goes, is a survival-of-the-fittest meritocracy, where to thrive you must be excellent and the weak and incompetent are kicked to the curb. And yet, this is the world in which Snooki and Paris Hilton are famous celebrities and ER nurses are not. This is the world where the Herb Baum’s get to retire in rich comfort and the people whose jobs they trashed get to consider working as a Wal-Mart greeter. Surely we have higher aspirations for schools.<br />
I would still concede the point if tenure really were a magical insulator that protected the most incompetent teachers, but it isn’t. Teacher tenure is not a guarantee of a job for life.<br />
First, tenure is not automatic. Here in Venangoland, a teacher is not granted tenure until a few years in the classroom. Before the teacher receives tenure, the district can let him go for any reason. Districts have a window during which they can watch a teacher closely and determine if he is filled with promise or with something that doesn’t smell nearly as nice as promise.<br />
Second, tenure doesn’t guarantee the teacher a lifetime job. What it guarantees is due process in case the district attempts to fire him.<br />
Tenure is insurance that teachers don’t work in fear of being fired for reasons having nothing to do with competence. It is not hard to imagine a school board member asking a teacher out on a date or demanding more playing time for his child on a sports team. What happens if such complaints can be coupled with credible job threats? <br />
Some guarantees of due process have improved considerably since tenure first appeared. Back then female teachers were fired for getting married or wearing pants. Today, as Cranberry Schools learned years ago, you cannot fire a teacher for being gay—and it doesn’t take tenure to provide that protection.<br />
Like many legal processes, tenure has grown a variety of extraneous limbs and branches, particularly in big city districts with gargantuan teacher staffs. This can make getting rid of a teacher an expensive and frustrating proposition.<br />
There is no denying that tenure is one of the perks of teaching. Teachers don’t get promotions, and we aren’t getting rich any time soon, but we have some job security, and we would be smart to recognize how enviable that is to many Americans.<br />
Likewise, critics should recognize that good teachers have no interest in saving the jobs of their incompetent colleagues. A teacher who can’t or won’t do her job annoys to the teachers who must pick up her slack. But they don’t want to live in fear of an axe that may fall without warning at any time for any reason.<br />
This is not a problem with a simple solution. Some folks would like teachers’ jobs simply tied to student test results, which is a great idea if you think you should pick your surgeon based on how nice his manicure is. Finding incompetent teachers isn’t always that easy (but we’ll discuss that another day).<br />
Reform tenure, or pass new due process laws—either way, it’s still in a school district’s best interests to know that they can work to gather a top notch staff without a rogue board member or administrator becoming the capricious bull in the educational china shop. <br />
All of the tenure debate sidesteps another issue. Few of the best and the brightest are drawn into teaching, and many quickly run right back out. After you fire a teacher, then what?Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-43927866623329548212011-02-04T20:38:00.000-05:002011-02-04T20:38:40.503-05:00NW PA's Unloved Minority(News-Herald, February 3) They live among us. Some keep their difference hidden as a secret, afraid to shame their family and friends. Others live defiantly, proudly out in the open. Some are accepted by their friends and family for who they are, while others find themselves ostracized, cut off from those around them. Many are pressured to change their lifestyle to something more socially acceptable.<br />
I’m speaking, of course, about people who don’t care about the Super Bowl.<br />
Maybe places exist where it’s not so big a deal. But this is a sports-intensive corner of the world. You may hear people complain about welfare recipients who spend money on fancy food or cell phones, but I’ve never heard a person in Venangoland question someone on the dole buying tickets for a sporting event.<br />
Some non-fans will try valiantly to blend in this week. They’ve got a black and gold t-shirt somewhere, maybe a jersey that some well-meaning relative gave them for Christmas. They know how to nod enthusiastically at certain familiar names, and to glower menacingly at others. <br />
The advantage of living in such a sports-steeped environment as Western PA is that even the densest book-wormiest couch-potatoest non-fan of sports has picked up the basics simply by osmosis (though there are always exceptions— what in the name of all things Pittsburgh were UPMC brass thinking when they picked for their new corporate color purple? Purple?!?!).<br />
Any Western Pennsylvanian who knows a college student has heard first or second or third hand stories about Big Ben and his sorry record of off-the-field pass attempts, but they’ve also heard via every form of media up to and including smoke signals that we are all forgiving the New, Improved, Better Behaved Ben. We all know that Polamalu is more or less godlike, and that the team is gritty (just for fun, I googled “steelers” and “gritty” and got 824,000 results).<br />
Take this basic knowledge and throw in some comments like “Well, that secondary will just have to do their job” or “I look for the offensive line to make things happen” or even just grunting “Seven, baby, seven, oh yeah!” and even the most apathetic non-fan can avoid attracting attention in a crowd. (It’s also best not to critique others’ comments by saying things like, “You realize that it’s mathematically impossible to give 110 percent.”)<br />
Not all non-fans adopt protective coloration. In fact, some can be pretty aggressive in their non-interest. These anti-fans will be the ones at the party pointing out that one hard working nurse will not make as much in a lifetime of healing people as a star athlete will make chasing a bag of air up and down a field for half a year. They’ll try to inject fun facts into sports events, such as the number of people who have starved to death in third world countries in the time it took the Steelers to make one first down. Other hard core grumps may throw in little bon mots such as, “I wonder if the Chinese workers doing American jobs worry about spending a day watching football.”<br />
This is simply mean-spirited. People are entitled to their entertainment, and while most NFL players have little real personal connection with the cities they are paid to represent, the city fathers of the burgh have certainly made sure that every citizen within spitting difference of the stadium has had a chance to help pay up. But “Of course they’re our team—we paid for them,” lacks a little something as a cheer, and that grit does have a Western PA blue collar feel to it.<br />
Yes, some fans get a little carried away. St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon is wrapping all newborns in terrible towels this week, and I really don’t want to know more about celebratory tattoos. And despite the similar amount of coverage given each, the only thing that the Super Bowl and the fall of the Egyptian government have in common is that, sitting here in Venangoland, we can’t really do much about either one. <br />
Closeted non-fans will eat the food, watch the commercials, and try to grunt loudly in the right spots. More Americans will watch the Super Bowl than voted in the last election. More Americans will watch the game Sunday night than will attend church Sunday morning. Non-fans could do worse than join in one of the last American community events, and fans could do worse than display the American virtue of tolerance. Also, Polamalu, gritty secondary, and seven, baby!Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-55646817846983409532011-02-02T10:35:00.000-05:002011-02-02T10:35:44.031-05:00What Democracy Is Not<i>It's a snow day, so here's an old column from June of 2003 (because the purpose of technology is to make me less bored) in honor of the mess in Egypt.</i><br />
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(News-Herald, June 2003) Now that we’ve completed the conquest of Iraq, we move on to the trick of helping them pull a new form of government out of their turbans.<br />
This is no small feat, not just because our own form of government might not be well-suited to Iraq, but because we don’t generally understand, really, what kind of government we actually have.<br />
For instance, I am unceasingly amazed at how many people have no idea what the founding fathers considered the actual purpose of government.<br />
It is not “to keep people under control” or “force people to behave” or “to make life fair” or “to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t want.” The Declaration says we’re all born with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s the government’s job to see that these rights aren’t taken away.<br />
That’s important to understand, because although we call our government a democracy, it’s less notable for the way it insures democracy than for the ways it protects citizens from democracy.<br />
We cannot, for instance, change our constitution very easily. This is undoubtedly a good thing; otherwise we would be changing the laws every year to suit whatever current craze is making the rounds. We often come up with reasons to abridge various parts of the Bill of Rights; a month doesn’t go by that we don’t try to get rid of that pesky First Amendment freedom to say annoying, stupid things. If these rights were not set in a sort of institutional cement, we would have thrown them out ages ago.<br />
And who protects this document that says the majority can’t change the rules every time they’re in the mood? Why, that would be the Supreme Court, the nine wise judges who, in our very democratic system, are elected by absolutely nobody. Democratically elected officials can go through the democratic process of concocting laws that the majority of citizens clamor for, and then be told by the Robed Old People Who Can Never Be Voted Out of Office that such a law isn’t allowed.<br />
And that’s not always a bad thing.<br />
We like to think that Democracy is a system that is the very opposite of tyranny. It isn’t. Democracy can accommodate tyranny quite easily. Democracy would have made it entirely possible to perpetuate the abomination of slavery forever. The Jim Crow laws were democratically produced; we sometimes forget that Rosa Parks was not bucking prejudice—she was breaking the law. Democracy in Iraq could make it entirely possible to legally, legitimately, democratically outlaw the kurds or the shi’ites just as effectively as any pogrom by Saddam.<br />
Our legal system features similar protections. We could democratically decide to toss people into deep dark holes. We could democratically choose to strip people of every single right the moment they emit even a whiff of suspicious behavior. It is easy and human to decide that certain people do not deserve to have rights, and occasionally we do just that. It was perfectly democratic to lock up Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.<br />
The glory of our system of government is not just our representative democracy (which is a good thing, since so many of us would rather complain than vote), but the restraints placed on that democracy. It’s not just that every citizen can have a voice, but that no amount of democratic process can take away any single person’s right to life, liberty, or that all-too-elusive pursuit, no matter how many votes the majority rounds up.<br />
The problem in Iraq is not that citizens do not have a voice. Most citizens have both a voice and a semi-automatic amplifier to go with it. The problem (well, one of the problems, anyway) is that the Iraquis, like many folks in this world, are too willing to accept the notion that restrictions should only apply to people who are wrong (that would be you), but that people who are right (that would be me) should be free to do whatever the heck they want.<br />
Democracy is not really the foundation of our system. Democracy (or our republican form of it) is simply our recognition that it goes against the laws of nature to deprive any human being of his voice, no matter how obnoxious, offensive, or just plain stupid that voice may seem. Our form of government is supposed to recognize that people do not exist to preserve the system; instead, the system is only valid as long as it protects the people. And as a citizen, I have to believe that compromising with opposition to have a stable country that works is better than insisting on having it all my own way, but creating an unstable powderkeg doomed to explode. That’s not an easy lesson to export.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-38358732026564974402011-01-29T13:11:00.000-05:002011-01-29T13:11:38.587-05:00Complain Well(News-Herald, January 27) As much as human beings like to complain, you’d think we would be better at it. But there are many folks who remain remarkably ineffective as complainers.<br />
There’s a script that seems to play in people’s head: I will tell him how outraged I am and horribly wrong he is. I will verbally kick him in the keister, and he will suddenly cower and declare, “Heavens, but you are so clearly right and I am so clearly wrong. I bow before your verbal mastery, and I will crawl on my knees to fix my terrible wrongness.” And yet, it never happens.<br />
There are a few simple things that people can do to be better, more effective complainers (there are also things complainees should do, but we’ll tackle that list another week).<br />
First, figure out what effect you want. There are times in life when you have a choice between saying what you really want to say and getting the result you really want to get. You can have one or the other, but not both. Before you start complaining, decide which one you want. If you just want to rant and rave and vent your anger, that’s fine. But you’re unlikely to end up with the result you want, so you can safely ignore the rest of this list.<br />
This is why people are reluctant to enter local politics or school sports officiating—too many people who want to unload on officials like an angry drunken internet troll. These sorts of complainers never accomplish anything except making complainees very tired.<br />
Own your complaint. There’s nothing less effective than the anonymous complaint. It is hard to convince somebody that you are standing in the courage of your convictions when you don’t have courage enough to say who you are. <br />
Complaints are hard to dismiss when they come from real, live flesh and blood humans; they are easy to dismiss when they come from anonymous shadows.<br />
Stay focused. What, exactly, are you complaining about? Stick to your point so that your message doesn’t get muddled. This is a good rule of argument in general—if you want to complain about the serving size of the gelato, it doesn’t help to observe that the server always has been a cheap jerk. If you want a refund from a business, don’t wander off into a discussion of how stupid and ugly the owner is. <br />
Broadening your attack increases the collateral damage. In the midst of disagreement with me over a service being provided, a gentleman added the observation that I am a well-known Big Fat Jerk. The misunderstanding about the service was settled fairly quickly, but the observation about my disreputable character (accurate or not) was then impossible to retract. <br />
“There’s not enough mustard on this hot dog,” is easy to erase. “I always have hated your mother,” is not.<br />
Losing focus makes it easy to lose sight of your actual complaint. Once we’ve opened up the issue of how much you hate your mother-in-law, mustard serving size will quickly fade into the background.<br />
Why should they care? County commissioners and city councils are often subjected to constituents who believe these officials should care about a pet issue. You can’t really address whether or not to start a meeting with prayer until you get people to see why the question even matters.<br />
Know what you actually want. Many complaints are a burst of bluster followed by an awkward silence. The silence is because the complainee is too smart to say what he’s thinking, which is something along the lines of, “Yeah, so…?” or “What do you want me to do about it?” <br />
Sometimes the complainer wants the impossible. “Get in your time machine, go back to last week, and say different words,” is not possible. “Die and/or get off the planet,” is not likely.<br />
Knowing what you are complaining about matters, but simply sputtering, “That really bothers me!” invites the complainee to respond, “Bummer. Hope you feel better soon.”<br />
What you want doesn’t have to be concrete. “I want you to understand that this was a real problem for us,” is good enough, perhaps even more motivational than, “I want you to give me a pile of money to improve my mood.” But if the complainee is on his A game, at some point he should ask you, “What can we do to make this right?” If you don’t have a reasonable answer to that question, all of your well-crafted complaining will have been wasted.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29021827.post-77474313334109766162011-01-21T19:07:00.002-05:002011-01-21T19:07:26.186-05:00The World of Swim Meets(News-Herald, January 20) Sometimes love takes you into interesting new places. In my case, it has taken me to swim meets.<br />
Swimming is not one of the bigger spectator sports. If the world of sports were a high school cafeteria, swimming would not be sitting at the table with the popular kids. More likely it would be back in the corner, sitting with just one or two other friends (all of whom packed their own lunch), laughing and carrying on and making fun of what everybody else was wearing. <br />
Swimming as a sport is defiantly viewer-unfriendly. It makes no concessions to the uninitiated; if you want to watch, you really must bring an interpreter. I believe that swim teams could draw bigger crowds—they just don’t care to.<br />
There is an announcer, perhaps one of the most futile jobs in sports, because the average pool-area PA system works only slightly better than an set of empty coffee cans connected by 100 feet of heavy yarn. It is easier to find recognizable English words in the off-screen teacher voices in Peanuts cartoons. Once interpreted, these announcements turn out to contain only tiny nuggets of info on the order of “Some people are going to swim a bunch for a while.” I have no doubt announcements in clear English with some actual informational content would help newbies settle in.<br />
And settling in is the operative concept. I’m used to the habit of grabbing some food after a sporting event, but I have learned that it’s wise to eat before a swim meet. That’s because swim meets last anywhere between two and 147 hours.<br />
Part of this is just a general lack of urgency. During actual races swimmers move like lightning, but between events the arena could be mistaken for relaxed open pool time at any Y, where some folks are just hanging out. This is what football would be like if coaches could call time outs for as long as they felt like. <br />
And there’s diving, a sport that is unaccountably sandwiched into swim meets. There is nothing comparable in the sports world. It would be like pausing a football game between quarters for the golf teams to play eight holes. Because, after all, both sports are played on dirt and grass.<br />
I hate to ostracize divers further, but they need their own separate event, on their own separate day. <br />
Other issues are harder to address. For instance, telling the swimmers apart in the pool. Hard-core fans will tell you that they can identify Nathan swimming even though he is mostly under water wearing a scrap of cloth that you couldn’t write his zip code on. But these fans have been watching him swim since he was three years old and have memorized the pattern of freckles on his shoulder blade. The newbie fan’s best hope would be the swimmer’s name tattooed across his or her back. This may be too much to ask.<br />
There are lots of subtleties to study. Before the meet even starts, everyone knows who is actually fastest. Swimmers need extraordinary mental toughness both to face opponents who they know are better, while battling the water and their own bodies, alone. And swim coaches need the minds of chess masters to place the right people in the right event, because there are points to consider for the team win (though until the muffled announcement at meet’s end, you will have no idea how that is going).<br />
Much of this would be a concern for the casual swim fan, but making accommodations for the casual swim fan is like making accommodations at Leonardo’s for talking snow men or refitting the Venango Airport for landings by spacecraft from Mars.<br />
Swim fans are a hardy and deeply committed breed, usually with a personal connection to someone down in the pool. Someone may decide to go see one Venangoland football game just for something to do; people don’t just wander into swim meets. The fans and swimmers belong to an elite group, and they don’t appear to be in a hurry to let any shmoe off the street just wander in and join the club.<br />
Maybe they feel that they’ve never been invited to sit at the popular kid table, so they have realized they just don’t need it. Or maybe they like sitting in the corner where they can do things the way they like without apologizing to anyone. I’m just glad I have a native guide to help me enjoy it all.Peter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.com0