Sorry Darling... But You're No Freddie

The real Freddie Mercury (left) at Live Aid in 1985 stares down "Bo-Rhap" star Rami Malek

Well, I finally got round to watching last year's big biopic about Freddie Mercury, "Bohemian Rhapsody," and I have to say I found it only fair-to-middling.  There's something about all those wigs and Malek's prosthetic front teeth that automatically put the film in TV-Movie territory for me.  While I do think Rami Malek did a fine job of mimicry, especially with Freddie's speaking voice, I never would have called his performance "Oscar-worthy."  I kept picturing him watching Youtube videos of Freddie talking, Freddie singing, Freddie strutting on the stage, with a mirror next to the monitor, copying over and over and over what he saw and heard.

And there's merit in the work ethic.  The Academy does appreciate it. Look at Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, and Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles.

Sure the movie was hyped to an epic degree.  But I honestly don't believe that's where my problem with it lies.  There's just something so unique about Freddie Mercury that I think defies capture.  Maybe it's his physicality? When you look at Freddie, you see that he carries himself both regally and athletically.  When I watch videos of him I have no trouble picturing him in his previous incarnation -- as an amateur youth boxer.

Rami Malek? Not so much.  The one time he "puts up his dukes," so to speak, in a hackneyed spat with his drummer, it reads as comical.

As Freddie might have put it, "Sorry darling."

Book Review: There There by Tommy Orange

There There by Tommy Orange
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It takes a skilled writer to ferry his readers on a journey alongside not one but multiple narrators and protagonists. Tommy Orange performs the feat in a way that doesn't feel showy or take away from the importance of his subject matter. I went back and counted 11 separate chapter headings that had the names of the central character for each as their titles. There is also another, omniscient narrator who opens the book with a prologue, and provides an "interlude" halfway through.

The effect these multiple perspectives have is to remind the reader that we're looking not at a monolithic "Indian" prototype -- (the Indian Head that used to appear on the test pattern at the end of a television's programming day, back when there was an end) but of a diaspora. What's left in the wake of the genocide carried out on the native people of what's now called North America is a plurality of voices, experiences, and types.

All the characters in Tommy Orange's powerful debut are three-dimensional, and deeply scarred. We witness their struggles against addiction, poverty, and violence, and also toward family, belonging, and love.

If there's a "message" in this book, it's aimed at those who suggest that it's time to move on from the past and stop complaining about the crimes of those who no longer live among us. (Timely, in the face of recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell)

As Orange says in the interlude:

"When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone different. People want to say things like 'sore losers' and 'move on already,' 'quit playing the blame game.' But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they’re winning when they say 'Get over it.' This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff."

Tommy Orange's "There There" stayed with me in a similar way that the film "Once Were Warriors," about contemporary life among the Maoris in New Zealand did. Yes, it's a tragic tale of the survivors of a Holocaust we rarely discuss, despite its foundational place in our nation's history. But it's also a journey with numerous characters who feel like real people that you might meet along the long road of your own quest for family and for love; for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.


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Memorial to a Different Kind of War

My mother, Carol R. Fuchs, Washington Square Village, New York, ca. 1962

Happy Birthday, Carol Runyan Fuchs.  Today you would've turned 88 years old.  Had you made it past 57 when you gave in to cancer -- just one year older than I am now.

Appropriate, I suppose, that her birthday lands on Memorial Day this year.  She didn't die in battle the way one thinks of it when thinking of Memorial Day; however, anyone who has seen a loved one struggle against, and eventually succumb to cancer knows it's as painful, as traumatic as any war.  Less violent, maybe, but just as heart-wrenching to watch.

And the loss is no less real.

I miss you, Mom.  Thank you for your service to our family, to me personally as the man you helped me to become -- the artist, too.  And thank you for continuing to serve your lineage, in the ways I pass your unique influence on to my children.

After writing this post in my journal, I was inspired to sketch a self-portrait, something I haven't done in years.  I know it's not very good technically speaking.  But in my mind, it's one of the finest "quick sketches" I've ever done.  My mother drew in this style, and I can't help but believe I was "channeling" her somehow when I sketched it.

Internment by Samira Ahmed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I recall a story my father once told, of his older brother, Geoffrey standing up in the middle of a Hitler Youth "assembly" at their grammar school in Karlsruhe, Germany, some time in the mid 30's and shouting "Hitler ist ein Arschloch!" All my dad knew about the consequences of a young Jewish boy disparaging the Fuhrer so publicly was that the family was forced to find a new school for Geoffrey and his three young siblings. There were probably threats, maybe violence. But my uncle's bravery, as just a small boy, to stand up to an entire regime in this way astounds me to this day.

Samira Ahmed's novel Internment tells a similar story. Ahmed creates a protagonist who is young -- seventeen going on eighteen -- and, above all, brave. Her humanity shines through in every decision she makes; although she is certainly revolutionary, Layla Amin is her father's daughter. She has a poet's sensibility and is driven by a belief in what is good in our hearts as human beings. Ahmed calls on the oft-heard chant of anti-fascist rallies: "The people, united, will never be defeated."

As an educator, I am so pleased to know that this book is now on the shelves of my school's library. Ahmed speaks to young readers in a way that calls them to action without treating them as political pawns or symbols of some larger, dogmatic ideal. Through the eyes of an intelligent, strong narrator, Ms. Ahmed reminds her readers that what this country was founded on is what we must always continue to fight for.

This world needs Layla Amins and Geoffrey Fuchses. It also needs Samira Ahmeds. Thank goodness we have her. And thank goodness we have Internment.

Resist.


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Let Us Celebrate the Firstborn

May 16, 2019

It's my first-born's birthday today.  Diego Reyes-Fuchs came swimming out into a fancy jacuzzi at the Elizabeth Seton Birthing Center on West Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, New York exactly sixteen years ago.

Diego emerged only after a good ten hours plus of making us wait.  He took his time, and hasn't changed much since then.  He's reasonably punctual, like his dad.  (I don't think he's ever received a tardy in his school career.)  He's just . . . "deliberate."

And that's pretty much Diego, in a nutshell.  As I said, he hasn't really changed much in all these years.  If you look at his baby pictures, you'll see an expression of skepticism, as adults "ooh" and "ahh" around him.  Diego is our Watcher.  His eyes are always wide open, taking in the world that surrounds him.  People describe him as quiet, but he embodies the cliche about still waters.

Like them, Diego Reyes-Fuchs runs deep.

A Letter to Jackson H. Fuchs on His Fourteenth Birthday

A very young Jackson Fuchs, looking like a Baby Gap ad

Dear Jackson:

Having spent the last fourteen years in the role of your father, I can honestly say there's nothing in my life I've enjoyed doing more.  You have managed to illuminate my world with that "special light" your mother describes, since almost the beginning.  And for me that light shines in a full circle, because I can't see it without thinking about my father, Hanno, the man from whom you got your middle name.  You somehow give off a very similar light, which is what makes you my son, and one of my favorite human beings on the planet, as well.

Yes, we have our differences on occasion.  There are times when we yell at each other -- me the stern parent, you the obstinate teen.  But we always come back together, with a hug, or some other, less obvious expression of our undying love.

Some cultures believe the child chooses its parents.  I don't know if that's true, having seen so many BAD matches over the years.  But if it's true in your case, Jackson, I have just one thing to say:  Thank you.  Thank you for choosing me as your father.  And thank you for shining your beautiful light on my world.

Happy birthday, son.  I love you,

Dad

Danny at Thirty

As I washed my hands in the staff restroom of the large, suburban high school where I work as one of six assistant principals, I fixed on my graying mustache, and a memory came to me in a flash.  I was probably about eleven or twelve, and my mother asked if she could draw me.  My mother was an artist, so the request was not an unusual one; she seemed always to be sketching one of us -- my younger brother, our father, or myself.

She liked to do quick pencil sketches.  Her lines were rapid and many, which gave the pictures a kind of unique immediacy.  Of course, my language to describe her work back then was not quite so florid.  I probably thought her drawings were "cool" or "nice."

One night, as we sat in the living room of our dark-blue shingled split level, my mother sipping, I imagine, her ubiquitous gin and tonic, she came up with a new, peculiar idea.

"I'm going to draw you as I would imagine you'll look at age thirty," she proclaimed.

"Thirty?"  It seemed so distant to me.  That would make the year 1993.  Images of flying cars and robot butlers filled my head.

She had me sit in my father's big, mustard-colored easy chair, and she got to work.

"Get your giggles out," she commented, as I customarily got attacks of nervous laughter, set off by the way her eyes darted from my face to the paper, where her fingers became shockingly nimble, revealing a part of her life that fascinated me:  her artist's training.

I realize now that these modeling sessions were a primitive form of meditation for me, as it was necessary to level my breathing, and steady my gaze on a certain point.  Normally, I'd reach a kind of "no-mind" state, akin to being asleep with my eyes open.  On this occasion, however, I imagined what thirty would be like; would I be married?  To Debbie Francis, maybe?  She was my current fascination back then, with sandy blond hair and dimples that made me want to entertain her just to see them appear.  Did we have kids?  Were we rich?  Were we happy?

Ten minutes or so later, she stopped looking up from the paper, continuing to scribble.  "You can move," she said, her eyes still down.

When I started to make my way over to her, she held the sketchbook against her chest, hiding the picture.

"Oh no.  You'll need to wait till I'm done.  Go watch some T.V."

One of my mother's earliest sketches, "Daddy"
from her high school art class

I bounded down the short flight of stairs to the playroom, where my brother was watching something sports-related.  I'll place this memory on a Saturday afternoon, so let's say "Bowling for Dollars," or "ABC's Wide World of Sports."

"Okay," she called a few minutes later.  "Come on up here."

When I returned to her, she had on the self-critical scowl she always wore after completing a new piece of work.

"Well, here it is."

I took the sketchpad from her.  She'd titled it "Danny at 30."  It was my face, but she'd moved my hairline back a bit, given me some laugh lines at the temple-edges of my eyes, and a dark mustache.  I realized some years later that the picture looked a lot like a studio photo of my dad when he was around that age.

"Thirty," I repeated.

"What do you think?" she asked.

I didn't really know what to say, being as her reason for wanting to draw a picture of the Future Me was a mystery.

"It's nice."

She giggled at my response.

I wonder now, twenty-five years past the age she was trying to envision, and forty-five
years after the memory of her creation of "Danny at Thirty," if her motive had anything to do with the fact that a fierce bout with pancreatic cancer would prevent her from ever seeing me at that age.  She died in 1988, a few weeks shy of my 25th birthday, long before I started growing the mustache I now wear as a matter of course.

I wonder, too, making my way down the school hallway back to my office, where that picture is today.

Pre-Election Contemplation: Ruminating Over the U.S. Presidency

My earliest recollections of the world of politics and government are of the Watergate hearings.  They seemed to go on forever, day after day, right into my summer vacation.  My mother sat there, transfixed, smoking, folding laundry, staring at the drama as it unfolded on our Magnavox color TV in the wood paneled playroom.  I was ten years old at the time, just a little younger than my son Jackson is now.  I understood little of what I watched, but I do recall Senator Daniel Inouye, mostly because he had the same name as me, seemed authoritarian and in charge, with his deep voice and gavel, and because he had one arm, which fascinated me.  I also remember seeing Mr. Nixon and thinking he looked like a mean man trying to make faces that would make me think he was nice.  It makes me wonder what Jackson thinks of the candidates he's been seeing so much of during this crazed election summer.

I thought Jimmy Carter seemed like a nice, gentle man, and I could tell he made my parents happy; I knew they'd voted for him, and they were my parents so he must be good.

Ronald Reagan was president in what you could call my "formative years," from age 17 to 25.  Thesee were my most political years, as well, when I was very involved in what I saw as righteous/populist causes, such as divesting funds from South Africa as a way to combat apartheid and supporting the Sandinista regime, who were the champions of the poor in Nicaragua in my mind.

So in Reagan's face I saw the face of the enemy.  He was the actor brought in to play the role of the president by the corporate establishment.

I felt the same way about his Vice President and successor, who continued many of his policies and felt to me like a rich distant uncle who didn't share his wealth with anyone outside his immediate -- dare I say "nucular" -- family.  I could barely watch him speak.

As the son of liberal Democrats, I was happy when Bill Clinton got into the White House, despite the itchy suspicion that he was not far from being the same as some of the folks "across the aisle."

My visceral response to Bill back then in the 1990's was, quite honestly, "Slick."

Then came "W." who I found comical at first, then alarming.  He came to power along with Facebook and You Tube, and all of a sudden anyone could post video compilations of his myriad gaffes and "misspeeches" for all the world to see.  The word:  "Child" or maybe "Puppet," after I became aware of Dick Cheney and who was really running the country.

As I approached middle age in my late 30's and early 40's the world started changing rapidly.  9/11 happened and instilled terror like an injection into the American bloodstream where it flows to this day.  Then, at the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Obama happened.  Despite the world-weary cynicism that often grabs hold of people my age, I got caught up in what Obama claimed he was all about:  HOPE.  I recalled countless conversations with the young men and women of color I had the great honor to work with as a teacher throughout the 90's that ended with their always steadfast declarations of "There will never be a black president.  Not in my lifetime."

Their lack of hope broke my heart and the hope I felt, and still feel, by the way, is about the fact that young people of  color, my own children included, can look at Mr. Obama and see themselves as a great leader -- maybe not of an entire nation -- and, more importantly, as a kind, intelligent, funny, loving and consistent man of substance.  I'll always be thankful to Barack Obama for the hope he's given so many previously hopeless people.

And now we have Mr. Trump, whose presence on the political stage gives me a more complex response.  Like many, I started out laughing, but my reaction slowly began to change.  I kept expecting someone to jump out and tell me I'd been "Punk'd."

That person has not yet materialized, and my reaction has moved ever closer toward dread.  On the other side of the fight for the presidency, we have Hillary Clinton.  I am now, in my 50's and heading into the downward slope of my time here, and I will vote for Mrs. Clinton because she is a Democrat and because she is NOT Mr. Trump.

My visceral response to her:  Relieved when she's quiet and contemplative, annoyed when she's loud, and "tough."  She is a politician.  Plain and simple.  For good or ill.

I wonder what my boys will remember about these people, and those yet to come, whose ascendance to power changes the world in which we all live.

Someday I'll ask them.

Written, obviously, shortly before the unthinkable happened...