In Praise of the Local Market – Crosby’s

         When the terms at bookstores were impractical for me to place my book, I looked around for other options. I asked two local venues who gladly picked up my Indie novella, When Two Women Die, about legends and true crime in the historic seacoast town of Marblehead, Massachusetts – a fine art gallery, Arnould Gallery and the local market, Crosby’s. I want to thank them both for their generosity and ability to think outside the traditional box.

            Who wouldn’t love Arnould Gallery’s amazing collection of art? I was truly honored to be amongst those artists.

            However, there’s more to tell about why I love Crosby’s. I love Crosby’s because I can live organically, and without a car if I had to, simply by patronizing this elegant small market. Without Crosby’s, I and many other people who walk there, would be in a food and household item desert. I know there are other places in town to get food and household necessities; for me, the basics are all at Crosby’s.

            I’ve had a few struggles trying to get that bastion of whole foods, Whole Foods to actually live up to their name. I’ve been macrobiotic for nearly 40 years now, and brown rice with roasted unhulled sesame seeds is the basis of most of our meals. I worked for months to get unhulled sesame seeds, rich in Vitamin B1, calcium, manganese, magnesium, iron, copper and many other nutrients and minerals, back into our local Whole Foods. For some reason, Whole Foods had taken this valuable whole food out of the store in favor of refined, hulled sesame seeds, which are stripped of their nutrients and quite frankly, taste like candy. Refined, I reminded them, is NOT the title of your store, NOR your mission. I had to order a case of unhulled seeds in packages from Arrowhead Mills for a while, until miraculously, someone heard my prayers and returned this simple and marvelous food to the Whole Foods’ shelf.

            That struggle didn’t happen in Crosby’s. One day, I asked a young man if Crosby’s would possibly get organic broccoli. He said he’d ask. I expected him to forget he ever talked to me. The next time I went in, there was a stack of lovely, deep green organic broccoli! I gratefully put this precious food into my cart and kept a lookout for the young man.

            I found him and asked, incredulously, “Did you remember our conversation about organic broccoli?”

            “Yes, I did.”
            “Did the store get organic broccoli for me?”

            “Yes, they did.”

            Of course, I thanked him, but I was still rattled.

            I can’t tell you what a miracle this kind of immediate and responsible action is from a store.

            I started looking around.

            In Crosby’s you can find organic milk, organic yogurt, organic strawberries, organic blueberries, organic apples, organic cherry tomatoes, organic green peppers, organic carrots, organic oranges, organic lemons, organic coffee, organic eggs, and traveling down the aisles, organic mustard, organic pasta (more than one variety), organic brown rice, organic chicken, organic cooking oil, and I’m sure there’s much more and I’m not doing justice to the many kinds of organics in the store.

            In short, Crosby’s makes it possible for me to live simply and well, and organically. Obviously, I’m not the only customer who wants organics, and Crosby’s has responded. *

            I’m really proud to have had my book in this store. When Two Women Die sold out, and now, I’d like to move ahead. I’m working on the sequel. I felt such a strong sense of responsibility to several of my characters who were left in bad situations, that I wanted to continue their stories. Soon, the sequel will be released.

            Till then, I want to say thanks, Gene Arnould and thanks, Crosby’s.

           

           

*I highly recommend that anyone interested in eating more organic foods - or, as I like to call it - food - since everything else is some deviation from the original - ask, just ask, and keeping asking, your local market for them. Smaller local markets are freer to choose what goes on their shelves; they don’t have the kind of corporate restraints that large supermarket chains have. In fact, if more people ask for organics, more and more, even large chains will realize the potential for profit. And, if you think organics are expensive, think about medical procedures – how many medical procedures cost $4-$20? It’s possible organic foods could keep you out of the hospital.


©Patricia Goodwin, 2012

Compliance: Sir! Permission to Bully, Sir! The Last Minority

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, a novella about two women who died and became legends in the historic seacoast town of Marblehead, MA, available now on Amazon.

I haven’t seen the movie Compliance directed by Craig Zobel – yet. However, I am familiar with the real life story of 18 year-old Louise Ogborn’s terrifying ordeal at a Mount Washington, Kentucky McDonald’s as shown on ABC’s 20/20, a report unbelievably illustrated by the actual security film of the incident. In fact, if it were not for this security tape and police records, no one would believe this sordid incident happened. It reminds me of when General Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the death camps at the end of World War II: he ordered photos to be taken of every atrocity because, he explained, "The day will come when some 'son of 
a bitch' will say this never happened." There is a Nazi connection to this story, which comes later.

During the real life 2004 incident at the Kentucky McDonald’s, a male caller held Louise Ogborn hostage for several hours via her older female manager, Donna Summers, while communicating to Summers that he was a policeman, that the girl had stolen a purse from a customer and that she needed to be strip-searched. He ordered several other people around as well until the girl was sexually assaulted and humiliated. Incredibly, this is a true crime. Nearly 70 other incidents like it have occurred in 30 states, in rural areas such as Devil’s Lake, North Dakota; Fallon, Nebraska; Hinesville, Georgia; Fargo, North Dakota and Juneau, Alaska.

I have also seen the Law & Order SVU episode based on the 2004 crime, “Authority” starring Robin Williams as the caller, Professor Milgram, a character named after the Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram who conducted experiments on the willingness of subjects to follow orders, believed to be a study on whether people in general would comply with immoral acts or acts they knew were wrong, when - as the Nazis said they, in World War II, were  - just “following orders.” In the Milgram experiment, electric shocks were supposedly delivered to subjects who screamed, squirmed and begged the authority figure to stop. These subjects were never shocked. They were acting. Yet, in the experiment, subjects in “authority” were still willing to hurt their fellow human beings even though those suffering begged for mercy.

The implication of this movie, and the title Compliance, is that people will follow authority. Okay, sure, most people have cow genes in them. They follow the herd and the herd follows the shepherd, and I’m not talking about real authority here. Not God or His Son. Just “their manager.” Add to that herd mentality the fact that people in rural areas are taught obedience to all authority figures, however minor. Notice that the real life incidents of this horrendous crime did not occur in a major city where a more sophisticated young girl might have absolutely no shame in running down the street naked to escape this dilemma, nor would she have taken off her clothes in the first place. These incidents were always perpetrated in a rural town where there is only one job, one place to work, real embarrassment in losing a job, and - kids are taught obedience and respect. I always told my daughter that if any of her teachers or any authority figure, like a boss or a priest or a policeman asked her to do anything she felt was wrong or made her the least bit uncomfortable, I would tear down there and stand up for her, so she need never worry about saying, “No fuckin’ way!”

I digress. Ah, the soothing passion of rebellion.

I’m not going to talk about stupidity. That’s obvious. Or, is it?

You see, I think that this crime is not about following authority. I think it’s about taking part in violence against what I have always felt was The Last Minority – that is, beautiful, young women. No, scratch the young. Young only makes it more titillating. The woman does not need to be young. However, let’s say she is in order to discuss this movie, where the woman is young. In fact, she is a pretty, young girl.

Why are beautiful, young women The Last Minority? Simple. No one really cares about them, and no one will ever care whether they live or die except that “they look so good doing it.” (I’m quoting myself, a poem I wrote called “The Pretty Door” in my book Atlantis, poems about the United States being another Atlantis.)

Consider the news media. People who criticize the news media’s extensive coverage of the murders of beautiful women over the many other people who are killed are missing the real atrocity that’s going on. The criticism usually generated at the media is that only beautiful victims get coverage, but what’s really happening is that only beautiful victims look really good dead. Why? It’s about power.

Everyone, including the people watching this movie, wants power over the pretty young girl. The caller – Like most rapists, rape, even phone rape, is the only way he can have a “relationship” with a pretty girl. Her manager – This incident is her chance to have some real power over this pretty, young girl sparkling with promise and youthful energy just beginning her life, instead of coming to terms with sad, unfulfilled dreams, as her manager might be – in real life the female manager giggled when the perp asked if she were married, and though she was engaged at the time, her fiancé’s actions brought that dream to an abrupt halt. The creepy fiancé - like the rapist, would never have seen such a pretty young girl naked or touched such a girl ever in his life if it had not been for this perverse event. (At the very least, Walter Nix, the real life fiancé, was remorseful. He called a friend that very night and said he had done a bad thing.)

Each and every participant wanted power over the young girl, both in the movie and in real life. And, the movie viewers are also participating. We always do.

Power over each other is what we do every day.

We bully each other. There’s cyber-bullying, sibling rivalry, school bullying and bullying by managers on the job to both sexes for many different reasons that boil down to just one - we enjoy having power over someone, even for a minute.

In fact, the Nazis were the ultimate bullies. That’s such an understatement. I am reminded of another film, Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters in which Max Von Sydow’s artist character says about Nazis and The Holocaust, “The reason why they can never answer the question, ‘How could it possibly happen?’ is that it’s the wrong question. Given what people are, the question is ‘Why doesn’t it happen more often?’ Of course it does, in subtler forms.”
I think bullying is our way of life. The Director of Compliance said this, “The point of the movie is to be open to all interpretations, and the only reading that bumps with me is when certain people say, ‘Why didn’t they just not do it? Why didn’t they get another job?’” says Zobel. “I’ve had jobs like this. Some people have to eat shit for their jobs because they need the money.”  

           I submit that bullying is NOT exclusive to low paying jobs. I think the bullying goes on and on at every level to both sexes, some of it subtle, most of it direct and brutal. Brutal would be covert or overt sexual abuse and we all know that form of bullying happens mostly to beautiful women. An example on a subtle level, advice given to working moms: “Don’t ever say that you want to stay home because your child is sick. Say you are sick.” Of course, you can’t say that either after one day. No one can be sick for a week any more. That’s a luxury. Early on, I noticed a complete denial of the body and any of its needs in the business world. What do you mean you have to go to the bathroom? Comfort and convenience go out the window. Now, there are kitchens in most offices. Dare I believe things are changing? I doubt it. Every aspect of the office is a chance for bullying - from not being allowed to eat lunch or be sick to long hours and exhausting travel to good people being passed over for promotions and people being fired before their pensions are in effect  – no matter whether the pay is low or high – all of these are examples of bullying. As for “eating shit” – did you know that receptionists in some small businesses must also clean the bathrooms? That dirty little secret doesn’t show while she’s looking elegant at the entryway.

            I remember an incident that occurred while my husband and I were driving over the Mystic River Bridge, going south in Boston, MA. On the bridge, we passed about four police cars in a huddle around an Oldsmobile with its door left open. My husband asked the toll collector what had happened and she said, “Guy jumped,” without stopping for a moment her task of counting out our change, which she handed to my husband without another word or glance. Whose life was harder, that of the man who jumped or the toll collector’s? Who had been bullied worse in life?

We experience subtle bullying all day long in every day life. While waiting in line at the bank, at the DMV, the IRS, the whatever, every time even the smallest amount of power is given to a person they milk it for whatever it’s worth to torture someone else, usually in a petty way, whether holding up that person’s time, making him/her fill out another form, or just saying, “No, I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

Hurting each other becomes entertainment. Oh, yes, even in real life, those who have the power, however petty, stand there with a little satisfied smirk on their face.

Sometimes that power is actually used to help our fellow human beings. There are millions of nurses, doctors, lawyers, teachers, police, firefighters, bank tellers, even store clerks and fast food wait staff who help people all day long and make their lives easier. Those would be the few good men at that Kentucky McDonald's who refused to comply with the caller. But, those few didn’t do enough.

Beautiful girls are probably most famous for bullying because in school they and their boyfriends are the cool kids and the cool kids are often the ones who bully everyone else. Again, they look so good doing it, right?  Obviously, bullying has a sexual element that is impossible to ignore. Sex is powerful. In its positive sense, loving sex is about the wonderful power of loving someone and being loved back. In its negative sense, people actually get a sexual thrill out of power over beautiful women. You can’t blame Compliance for violence against women, because Compliance is just telling the truth. The real issue is what we take away from the movie.

Is it fair for intelligent, rebellious people sitting high up in their NYC co-ops now criticizing the characters in the movie Compliance to judge those who need their jobs and are too timid to disobey authority, even petty authority?

Ah, yeah. It is.

It’s time folks to think for yourself and not “ask your manager” whether what you think is wrong is actually wrong. Doing something wrong or hurting someone is a moral decision, like following the Nazis. You can say no. I know a Vietnam vet who refused to torture someone during the war. If he can say no, anyone can. It’s time to stop zapping jolts of electricity into our fellow suffering human beings. We’re all in this together.

Here’s an interesting story about a beautiful woman – ah! I have your attention. I was a nerd in high school. The cheerleaders, who were exquisitely beautiful, used to torment us. They liked to slide down the stair bannisters when we were on our way to Accelerated English and drop us like bowling pins. I can still see their perfect, shining white teeth laughing.

One of those lovely cheerleaders came up to me in the grocery store years after high school. She said, “Patricia, I want to apologize to you for being so mean to you in school. I’ve had so much trouble in my life that I found out what it was to be hurt and I want you to know how sorry I am.”

I told her I had always admired her for her beauty and athletic skill. I also told her I didn’t remember her ever being mean to me, in fact, I thought she had been one of the nicer girls. I was saddened that her life hadn’t turned out as promising as it had seemed in high school.

We’re all in this together. Crime is crime. Hurt is hurt. Beautiful women are not made to be our victims. Compliance is not about people blindly following authority; it’s about people taking the chance to hurt someone who never hurt them instead of taking charge of their own lives.

It’s about a perverse sense of power over The Last Minority. God bless you, Louise. God keep you well and safe.

*UPDATE: Pat Healy, the actor who plays the caller, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, "How to Survive Playing a Sadist" about what it was like to actually see, on the set, the torment he was causing, even though he was witnessing actors' reactions. He threw up. The film Compliance, and the real life incident, have many levels of psycho: another observer said that the caller, by being remote, was playing God. I wonder if he was cold and distant, or getting off. Healy also commented in his article that the remoteness of modern technology was in some way responsible, that if the caller could have seen what he was doing, he would have stopped. However, I think Healy is reacting like a good man. The caller was evil, in my estimation - a taker - a person who takes away for his own gain at the loss of another.

**UPDATE:  I was about to post this blog url on YouTube, where I am PoetryTube, until my eye caught a comment below the trailer for Compliance. This comment by spikesamurai was obscene; it had 4 likes, and it proved everything I said in this blog post. I couldn't post my url because I didn't want anyone like that coming here and reading what I hope is a heartfelt, intelligent reaction to this film.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2012

The Pretty Door

This only opens the pretty door

hair eyes nose mouth
this time
God didn’t play a joke

or did He?

Pretty opens

not the talent door

bend over, clean the bathroom, make the coffee,

here, take out the trash

not the smart door

bend over, clean the bathroom, make the coffee, here, take out the trash

Pretty opens the rich door

“You are the equal of Kings!”

when she passes

for white bread

in a white world

she’s self-educated

that’s the key

when learning to speak

She mimicked her favorite actresses:

Myrna Loy as Nora Charles

Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane

Meryl Streep as anyone

She practiced grammar and

took an etiquette book from the library

in order to pass

for a short while

angels sing

“She shall have Springtime

wherever she goes.”

“...and, as she passed,

she took the Spring.”

“Wear a veil to hide your looks - and

keep it down!”

“Women’s faces have too much power!”

Blondes are the last minority

no one will care

if they suffer

except that they look so good doing it

and, when they are murdered,

they make sexy victims on the evening news

every one of them

fears being stopped

by a cop

on a lonely highway

as much as a black man

they are about as safe as a black man

“He told me to step out of the car…

he threw me against the car

and frisked me.”

“I rested my hand on the seat next to me.

He took it as an invitation.”

“He was waiting for me…”

“you could sometimes see

her twelfth year in her cheeks or her ninth

sparkling from her eyes;

and even her fifth would flit

over the curves of her mouth

now and then”

Her face only opens the pretty door

since she was twelve, she couldn’t

walk down the street

in peace

lying in a pool of blood

she had a restraining order

don’t sit next to a man unless you want it

“They put us in a trailer, it was so hot in there,

I couldn’t breathe.

I pushed my nose into a crack in the side.

I thought, this is it.”

“She was sleeping soundly

and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears.”

this still happens in Atlantis

©Patricia Goodwin

Atlantis (Plum Press, 2006)

 

My Prayer is Organic

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, a novella about two women who died and became legends in the historic seacoast town of Marblehead, MA, available now on Amazon. She is also the author of Atlantis, political poems about the United States being another Atlantis.



This new blog post will be like coming out of the closet - most people would rather tell people they are gay than tell people they believe in the Virgin Birth and aliens. I'm not gay. I'm not a Catholic, more of a Magdalena, not a fallen woman, but a devotee of the ancient tradition that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, had a daughter, Sarah, and that Jesus's message to us, that we should live simply and well in small agrarian societies, was corrupted by the church, which also smashed the fresh water system as pagan. Hence, the Dark Ages. 

And, now, science and GMOs. Why bring religion into it? Can you really believe that changing the DNA of all plants, copyrighting each "new" seed as your own, not God's, then putting these deformed seeds out into nature, has nothing to do with God?

My Prayer is Organic

I believe in the Virgin Mary

She is fierce

Do not cross her!

She can burst the sun or twist the poles

And gentle

Love her!

My prayer is organic

I pray every day

I believe in the Virgin Birth

I see nothing around me that is less or more fantastic

Mother, Mary, La Mer, Mother to us all

She is on my windowsill above my kitchen sink

Where I pray every day

Every thought, every action is a prayer

Once, this same small statue of the Madonna stood in the arugula garden

At the foot of a telephone pole

Around which my great-grandmother and grandmother

Two generations of Italian Americans

Had carved a small vegetable garden

Out of the concrete of East Boston

I followed my great-grandmother down three stories of wooden stairs

Two flights for each story

While she carried the water in a large, heavy pan

Three or four or five trips

In her eighties

I can still see her blue velvet slippers shuffling

Ahead of my small feet

What do they know of such devotion?

Oh, yes, the farmers who go out before dawn every day

They are devoted

To their belief in Monsanto, a false god

There is only one organic.

The seed is sacred

As sacred as the Mother Corn and her son, The Corn God

Sacrificed, his blood poured into the earth

His prayer to heaven

The corn grows

I am as religious as the seed

As devoted as the grass

The aliens, who do not want us to destroy our earth

Write mad signals to us in circles in the grass

While they harvest her energy

These circles we cannot read: we are illiterate.

What do we know of earth’s energy?

Nothing

We are going the wrong way

God made the seed

The petals fall gently and mathematically aligned in the right place

And now, we are unmaking

The petals fall deformed and ugly

As all those who will eat the fruit

We are still in The Garden of Eden

Unmaking is the nuclear bomb

Unmaking is against God

The aliens watch us unmake! They cannot harvest unmaking! They are afraid for earth’s energy, for their harvest and ours.

Against the Mother

Against God

My prayer is organic

I cannot grasp the Mother’s energy!

How I wish like Her, I could bounce and burst the sun upon them!

To stop them

But you cannot pray for unmaking

I can only pray

write and cook and care

every day

My prayer is organic

small and organic

a seed

©Patricia Goodwin, 2012

Organic DNA, President Obama and My NO GMO Vote

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, a novella about two women who died and became legends in the historic seacoast town of Marblehead, MA, available now on Amazon. She is also the author of Atlantis, political poems about the United States being another Atlantis.

     My first vote was for Shirley Chisholm in 1972; I was 21 years old. You can see I was ready even then for a change.

     When President Obama won the election in 2008, I cried. Like many other people, I thought, “Now, there’s hope.”

     Today, I am disappointed.

     I have been macrobiotic for over 35 years. I have watched this country go from thinking diet had nothing to do with health to seeing an organic garden at the White House. I’m glad about that. Thank you, Michelle. Now, future generations will understand how good quality food affects the quality of their lives.

     However, while creating a lovely photo op of the organic garden, President Obama’s administration has, behind the scenes, ignored America’s requests for more organic farming methods, and, most importantly, no GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in our food and agriculture.

     I know that a President cannot do everything, that President Obama is a delegator, and that he trusts the man he appointed to be Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, a highly respected man in agri-business and friend of the bio-tech industry and the man he appointed to be Deputy Commissioner for Foods, Michael Taylor, former lawyer for Monsanto, the biggest manufacturer of GMOs. I know that the process of feeding billions of people is complicated and changes cannot be made overnight.

     However, I also know the dangers of genetically altering the DNA of our food. Perhaps modern science has not learned or proved yet how our DNA is made, but as a macrobiotic person, I believe our DNA comes primarily from the food we eat. Traditionally, most peoples stayed in one place, and therefore, grew food there and ate from that location. People of different areas, like families, took on distinctive traits from that area, as from family recipes.

     Now, with so many GMOs in our food system, 90% of all packaged foods on our shelves have some Genetically Modified ingredients, we are playing a dangerous game of roulette with the genes of our children.

     I cannot vote for President Obama unless he comes out against GMOs, or at least for more study into their dangers.

     I’m sure the Obama administration has heard of the initial studies that did find dangers, but these studies and the scientists who did them were silenced. Also, they have heard of the farmers’ suicides in India and Prince Charles’ statements against GMO seeds.
     Of course, not voting for Obama also means I will not be voting for his Republican opponent. After all, it was a Republican who “de-regged” GMOs in the first place. 

     Most organic food proponents are demanding GMO labeling right now, and they are disappointed in Obama because he has failed to keep his campaign promise to label GMOs.

     I am not disappointed about labeling.

     I think GMO labeling is a waste of time.

     Americans should not wait for labeling. They should stop buying all packaged foods immediately and go straight to organic bulk and fresh foods. What would happen if everyone, all at once, stopped buying their packaged breakfast cereals? Baked goods? Chips? Frozen dinners? Pizzas? Fast foods of all kinds.

     I know one thing that would happen: everyone’s health would improve.

     I am also very disappointed in Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” program, which promised to fill “food deserts” in our inner cities with markets of fresh produce and real food for healthy meals instead of the fast food convenience stores that exist now on virtually every corner. I don’t understand why the First Lady cannot get food stores into cities. What is taking so long? Or, why isn’t the success of this program, if I am wrong and it is a success, in the news? (NEWS!) I have not heard of even one market that has gone into an inner city “food desert” or one major food chain that has taken on this challenge of getting fresh food to the people. (Correction - Just heard of markets rising to the occasion from a friend, Green Consciousness on Facebook. Click on NEWS! Should have been on page 1 everywhere! Food deserts are so bad, even GMOs are better than nothing - for now.) Meanwhile, more talk about how bad food deserts are.
     I purchased an Obama/Biden button from his site in 2008. I lost it one day in Barnes & Noble. I actually crawled on the floor to find it because I valued it so much, still believing he would change this country. I found the button, but I had to put it away after learning about his continuing GMO policy, because I couldn’t bear to look at it.
     I want to be able to wear a new 2012 Obama button. But, I cannot. And, I cannot vote for Obama this year.
     Oh, I’m very happy that President Obama came out for gay marriage and for Planned Parenthood. These are, in a way, more important issues than GMOs because they are more immediate issues. Just hearing Mitt Romney say, “Yeah, Planned Parenthood, we’re gonna get rid of that.” Made me want to jump up and run out and vote for Obama. Especially since I was watching a Law & Order SVU marathon at the time.

     However, GMOs are not so obvious because GMOs will sneak up on us perhaps years from now and bite us on the behind. Do you really want to risk the snowballing effect one gene alteration could have on another and then, on another, on another, etc when that gene could be in your grandchild?
     My feelings are ones of sadness that the United States, the greatest country in the world, does not have 100% healthy food for its people. GMOs are dangerous and they are being consumed even as I write in everything from baby formula to cake mix.
     Currently, the GMO industry has been putting riders on our Farm Bills that would eliminate all restrictions against GMOs, even government, EPA or USDA restrictions. 
     The earth may or may not be able to rejuvenate from GMOs.  We simply don’t know how genetically modified organisms will effect the planet. Super Weeds that are resistant to the pesticides in GMO crops are being formed out in the fields. Even the sacred corn of Mexico, preserved for thousands of years, has been polluted by GMOs. (WARNING: The first half of this video contains GRAPHIC IMAGES of the results of Agent Orange, another bio-tech product. Mexico sacred corn, from 4:06 on.)
     Even as I write, plans are being made to release Genetically Modified mosquitos into Florida. President Obama, please do not allow this action! Americans do not want GM insects released!
     President Obama, please do something about GMOs in our food supply. Please come out against GMOs and I will vote for you.
     There is still a chance for hope.

*For more information about GMOs, please visit organicconsumers.org, fooddemocracynow.org or responsibletechnology.org.

   

**For more info about the author and to see more of Patricia Goodwin's work, please visit patriciagoodwin.com.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2012

Mad Men & Women

   Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, a novella about two women who died and became legends in the historic seacoast town of Marblehead, MA, available now on Amazon. She is also the author of Atlantis, political poems about the United States being another Atlantis.       


           Someone recently asked me, in a snide way, what my generation had contributed to society.
           Ok, in the course of conversation, I had just made fun of “The Hunger Games” fans’ enthusiasm for their heroes, as though their generation was going to solve everything by running a fictitious race.

            “I’m glad your generation never thought they’d solved everything.”

            Wait, I think my generation contributed a few positive things to society.

            Just to make it interesting, let’s eliminate Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Wozniak, all of them hippies, children of the revolution.

            Another gripe from the above conversation – “Mad Men” Premiere Parties - why would any woman want to dress up in the style of the 1950’s-60’s in 2012 and go to a cocktail party to drink sugared alcohol drinks and eat fake food?

            Let’s take the clothing first.

            I was there. If anything denoted the oppression of women it was the clothing and other apparatus women had to wear. This is not just a fashion statement. Any woman or girl who has spent a day (at work or school) and an evening in a girdle, stockings, high heels, bra, tight dress, (and if she had her period, belt and pad) can tell you it was no party. Girdles weren’t about holding up your stockings. Girdles were about keeping your flesh from jiggling. Now add the white gloves and foolish hat. White gloves get dirty almost instantly, even if you’re a debutante who doesn’t have to open her own doors. And, why, please tell me why would any self-respecting woman walk around with one of those stupid hats on her head? Ok, I know why. Because society made them. If a woman didn't wear a hat, or couldn't afford a hat, she was - you guessed it - a slut. If her hat was cheap, the church women were lined up and ready to call her cheap.

I thought we’d left all that behind and good riddance! But, no, women who never had to wear a girdle – I mean HAD to wear a girdle – are playing dress up and getting all nostalgic about the days when women had to wear dresses, hats and gloves.

            Again, I was there. I was a twelve year-old girl in a girdle. I know you’re getting that feeling in your gut right now, that “What? How absurd!” feeling. Oh, yeah. Twelve. My white gloves got dirty on my way to church. Sometimes, my slip showed. And, of course, since I was twelve, my stockings got runs when I climbed on the bridge and balanced on the pipes like a tightrope walker.
           You don’t have to be a kid to get runs, though. Once, when I was sixteen, on our way out for a date, my boyfriend’s cigarette ash burned a hole in my brand new stockings as he reached for the ashtray. “Oops, sorry.” He said. Oh, no problem! Instead of the elegant outfit I put together at great trouble and expense, I’ll just look like a slut all night.
           None of this nonsense matters you might say – and you’d be correct. None of this nonsense matters now. However, at the time, the church ladies were all lined up ready to announce what a slut I was to the congregation, the neighborhood and to my mother after they got home – not for public lewdness – no, for having a run in my stocking, for somehow “allowing” my slip to show, and for dipping my virginal white gloved fingertips obviously into some sort of filth.

            Any woman in the past who was reprimanded by her boss for coming to work with a run in her stocking can tell you it felt pretty bad. From that moment on, she either accepted her sluttery and the fact that she would never be promoted, or she carried an extra pair of stockings in her purse. (By the way, I absolutely loved the punks with their purposeful runs! Finally, someone got it!)

            You will never see Peggy Olson, copywriter extraordinaire of the TV show “Mad Men” going to work wearing moccasins, bare legs and no bra. (I did - needless to say, I never made it in the insurance business where I had a summer job before college.) I challenge Matthew Weiner to let her. Peggy will always dress as close to Don Draper’s attire as possible. She is after his job.

            My generation got rid of the dress code. Why would any woman want to go back to it – even for one party - unless she is indeed mad? When I saw the thick make-up and retro clothes of artists like the B-52s, Katie Perry and Adele, I really did not understand why any woman would go back to it. It is fun to play dress up. But, I’m with Meryl Streep when she cried, “I can’t wait to get out of these Jimmy Choos!” Wait no more, my sister. 

(UPDATE: By the way, Jon Hamm agrees with me - no girdle!)

            Now, the food. My generation brought back natural and organic foods.

You may not realize it, but cancer used to be rare. Before World War II, very few people died of cancer. It was still possible to get off balance and create a cancer before fake foods, but now, with most of our food being artificial, most people expect to get cancer and, in fact, with no real food in the mainstream diet, cancer and other degenerative diseases are almost impossible to avoid.

            On that note, why would anyone think it’s fun to create and admire artificial foods at a Mad Men premiere party such as a display of Cheez Whiz on celery with olive slices, and plastic dip on trans fat chips – let alone actually eat these au d'oeuvres of death? And wash them down with a sugary highball?

            So, my generation eliminated the dress code and brought back real food. What else?

            How about the small matter of contraception? I was lucky enough to go to a clinic where I was allowed to pretend I was married in order to get the pill. My daughter does not have to pretend. She can get a good exam from a reputable doctor of her choice and again, choose her method of contraception. No, we haven’t completely solved the problem of contraception. Every couple must work that out for themselves, but at least we made it possible to choose. That fight is not over, as Republicans are trying even now to take these hard won rights away from us (does the word “slut” come to mind?). And, too many women right here in the United States are still faced with Peggy Olson’s agonizing decision to give up her baby.

            Before I wind this up, let’s take a moment to remember our friend, Sal from “Mad Men”, the gay fellow who was fired for not sleeping with the client who came on to him. I recall a few gay pride parades where men and women practically danced naked in the streets to gain their freedom. My great aunt was butch/fem in the 40’s-70’s. She walked down the street with her short hair slicked back and her girl friend in high heels and a dress (for once, a political statement). Our family was the only one that would receive them, and I loved them. They were a blast! They had balls.  Let's not forget who fought so hard for gays  – the wild ones, the hippies, the trannies, the self-professed freaks - at a time when many gays couldn't even get hired, let alone adopt children or live openly as a couple. True, we are still struggling with issues like gay marriage and battling back the conservatives who want to take all our gains away. The fight continues, but much was won during the 60's revolution.

          I also have to take a moment to comment on the “real Peggy Olson” Jane Maas, who wrote the book about Madison Avenue, “Mad Women.” I browsed her book and caught the phrase about what fun it was to have first class clients like Monsanto. Monsanto has been poisoning us for decades, first with saccharin, aspartame, Agent Orange, then Round-Up, BST, PCBs, DDT, and now GMOs. Somebody drank the Kool Aid.

            My generation gave us – to name a few - women’s rights, gay rights, natural food. Until 9/11, we had almost stopped war. I’m sure there’s more.

            This blog post isn’t about a TV show or a movie or a book. It’s about a revolution we fought, a few battles we won, and some mad men and women who want to play pretend we didn’t. 

©Patricia Goodwin, 2012

The Art Of Living: Christmas Onions

This is a way to live
an idea of crimson and gold
forsaking all else for simplicity

you walk into a bustling market
and see them right away
onions to paint
a certain shape and color
beckons you
they are plump and pointed
pink and coppery
(you want gold and crimson; nature can be changed in art)
with curling long tendrils
white as an old woman's hair

you carry these home to the studio
a corner of the white bedroom
to arrange their round edges
upon a wooden cutting board, much aged,
darkened with use and the juices of vegetables
onions stink
with the sharp hiss of life
you must take pictures or the moment will not last
crisp skin falls away in your palm
coppery
turn off the flash
onions glow with their own light

make a ground of sunny yellow
yellow sun through all
from edge to edge
the line drawing of onions in between

dry for some days

draw now with paint
thin layers of gold upon gold
brilliant yellow shining through
transparent glow
parallel veins drawn precisely as nature with a fine brush
and a hole in the golden skin
through which moist white flesh peeks
blackened edges gold
laced with pale old shoots nesting round

resting on a crimson board
drawn easily with generous sienna turned in alizarin
the background clear and blue
green and slightly white yellow
like the sun

you must create two paintings
of two onions each
for Christmas
multiplying onions, boards, backgrounds

dry for some days

you hang one over the stove
next to the portrait of A Capriote
done in Italy by Sargent when he was free

the other you wrap in gold paper
and tie with a crimson ribbon
for your best friend

they glow
gold on crimson board

when the time comes
to eat the onions,
you cut the largest, roundest, pointiest one
into long half moons
slice the garlic thinly
fry in olive oil with long tapers of green peppers
till they are caramelized
almost golden
dripping with love

the smaller onion gets chopped into cubes
joining lentils, bay leaf and kombu in soup

onions change once again
into skin and blood
hair and eyes
mind and body

this is a way to live


©Patricia Goodwin, 2012