On Christmas Road: Four Christmas Pieces
1. Thomas Nast and Christmas in America
Christmas always seemed mysterious to me, a road winding back into the night over hills and forests and silver rivers sparkling snow. It arcs past the moon and back through time and events to the strange manger scene of Bible and folktale, where the basics of human existence are transformed, or illuminated. On the Christmas trail one encounters rowdies and Pelz-Nichol and Saint Nick and revelers and mummers and reindeer and wassailers and winter- the most remote winter scenes imaginable. Slightly tipsy, often dangerous, and musically sweet as a music box, what the Christmas traveler encounters is a folkworld both strange and familiar. The most reliable sources for which are the carols, and hymns that amplify or explain familiar bible verses- but these provide an insufficient map indeed, on a winter night in this solstice land. Here people of earth encounter angels and each other in a half-dream crisscrossed by night; Christmas beings come and go, guided by stars through time and over rooftops, or stand still in miniature tableaux on your mantlepiece, beneath a glass dome.
Suspended in this weird, half-real astral environment are framed scenes of an American original, Thomas Nast. They look to be illuminated by firelight no matter how bright the modern bulb. That is how the soldiers saw them in the winter of 1862 when the first two-page spread appeared as the cover of the Harper’s Weekly Christmas issue: the image of Santa Claus was lit by a Civil War campfire. Nast’s first Santa donned the Stars and Stripes, and brought gifts to the soldiers. Over the years Nast’s annual allegories featured this image, now so familiar to all. There is the twinkle, the smile, the saintly aspect, and the sack of toys. He peers into the world’s slumbers from the rampart of ice, sees far through his magic telescope, works in his warm workshop, warms his feet at the hearth. There are toys everywhere. One is a bit lost in the vision, for Nast’s picture frames overlap, providing a sense of wonderful disorder. Each seems illuminated from within by some magic source of light- Nothing captures the light of night like the engravings of Victorian times. These Christmas issues made Nast famous. It is thought today that in a large part he created the particular image of Santa Claus we think of today. Thomas Nast was one of the inventors of Christmas as we know it.
Modern times of computer graphics notwithstanding, the American Christmas is still largely a Victorian experience created less of modern merchandising than of the imagination of artists like Nast. He grasped the sentimental attitudes of nineteenth century Americans, and excelled at providing them readymade a seemingly traditional picture of a holiday that seems unhistorical but imbued with the magic of ancient times, winter nights and strange European customs that lay dormant in the modern unconscious- but were actual in the childhoods of nineteenth century immigrants.
Nast’s generation brought the gaunt Pelz Nicol- another saintly door to door type- from his childhood in Germany. From Germany, too, Prince Albert brought the first Christmas tree to Victoria. Soon thereafter the evergreen was placed on tables throughout the United States, and decorated, and that was that: instant tradition. America was ready for Santa too. But a measure of Santa’s success is attributable to the kind of journalistic art Nast perfected, and to the personality of the artist himself.
***
Thomas Nast got his start at fifteen, in New York. Precocious, he was hired right off by Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, and enthusiastically covered the three F’s: fires, floods and fights. Fires were especially popular and Nast loved those ( as did Dickens, who loved the intensity and complexity of a smoldering wreck.) Nast also covered the prizefights. The pugilists would take such a pounding, so many brutal rounds in the ring would ensue, that a writer who accompanied Nast to cover a famous fight, the Morrissey- Heman fight, nearly passed out when the victor attempted to smile at the crowd: cut lip, swollen face, black eye. It was described as a “sanguinary affair.” Nast got assignments. First, at Frank Leslie’s, and then at Harpers Weekly, where Santa made his visual debut in 1863. A hero of Nast’s early days was John Tenniel, whom Nast idolized for his powerful editorial cartoons.
In the era before photography daily papers were not illustrated. The weeklies contained illustrations, which were produced as drawings on wood, sometimes including almost photographic detail. These were then laboriously engraved. Incredible atmospheres were this produced. These were ideally suited to Nast’s Christmas world.
In 1862 Nast got the Christmas assignment and, not knowing what to do, conferred with a sister, reminisced about Germany and the Claus- like traditions they remembered from childhood. His sister suggested too Clement Clark Moore’s “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Nast stayed up all night producing his first Santa Claus, a work which appeared January 3, 1863.
Lincoln knew Nast’s Christmas drawings and the tremendous effect they had on the public. And Nast knew Lincoln, for he had been assigned to cover the 1861 inaugural journey on its leg from New York to Washington, with all the whistle stops and speeches. Imagine: Nast shoved past jostling, crushing crowds at Willard’s Hotel to shake the new president’s hand. Nast was twenty one years old. Details exist: Lincoln, exhausted, torn coat, even, from crowd contact, brightened for a gracious instant at the young man’s “the honor is all mine!”
Once Lincoln remarked that Nast was probably his greatest recruiting sergeant.
So at Christmas during the Civil War, while soldiers strung hardtack from a tree or stuck antlers made of sticks on a mule, Nast created specials for the cover of Harper’s Weekly with themes of patriotism and pathos. In a two-page spread that takes up half the dining room floor back home, Lincoln and Santa and reindeer appear together in hopeful, welcoming scenes. Bitter and controversial Nast editorial cartoons appeared as well, later, directed at those Nast saw as enemies of Union, and these received extra printings and ensured Nast’s fame. And to these Nast also added Christmas Eve scenes that relate the soldier in the field with folks back home in a sentimental way which made Lincoln’s men weep.
***
As a journalist, Nast was in the center of everything, and was diligent. He often rose at four in the morning to work on his drawings, and continued late into the night as well. It is likely he knew all aspects of life in New York, including the gangs of New York.
Thomas Nast not only knew well the gangs of New York, high and low, in his early days in the fifties drew “Police Scandal”, a paneled chronicle of the street crime perpetrated by the cops themselves. But the high art of Thomas Nast was reserved for the corrupt Tammany machine, the Tweed Ring, most intensely depicted as animal and apocalyptic, often dangling vertiginously over a political hell heap or ditch; or turned into symbolic beasts, clothed in Victorian suits and bowler hats; mustachioed polls hanging over the Abyss.
These furiously cross-hatched figures of sloth and greed are the creatures of Grant’s time, Twain’s Gilded Age, and their descendants are still with us, and would yet be but a pencilled panel from the cold inferno.
And so it came to pass that Nast’s passion for reform was vindicated. His enemies, powerful as they were, were astonished that the artist won battles, and survived. A banker, who had once tried to bribe Nast, ran into him on the street years later, congratulated him with the highest compliment a malefactor can offer, “I thought you were dead! Well, I guess you won after all!”
Nast’s contributions to our political iconography are many, including the Democratic donkey, Republican elephant, as well as the North Pole address of Santa, which Nast disclosed in 1888- in order to prevent any nation’s claim to Claus.
***
In the world of Thomas Nast kids wake up excited, good people awaken refreshed, politicians wake up- and worry. That’s the basic fairness of Nast. He sold his stock in the bad old world, even the old Christmas world, dangerous as it was in olden times of drunken revels, violent practical jokes, demands for wassail, and hell-raising, all subject to various bans, Christmas being illegal in some jurisdictions. Then, too, there were the old fashioned accounting standards for kid behavior (the switch!) to say nothing of costumed night creatures on stilts, trailing feathers and sacks of coal. Nast’s new ambassador is, thankfully, one so good and cheerful. No one questions it. There’s little enough good news. Let Santa be. But can we let Santa slide, drink a refreshing cola with the polar bears, keep Mrs Claus and the elves, but evict the other strangers on Christmas Road? I wonder.
Since the time of Thomas Nast, Americans are tempted to use the Christmas lens to look back- but how far back, exactly? We expect everything we love about Christmas to remain. Precious locket we open. Music box we wind. Complicated inner workings. Perhaps, we think, a Christmas destination is a place you get to on ice skates, by night, or through dreams or in contemplation. It’s so confusing. It’s so hard. Nast just reported what he saw and felt and wished to offer the American people about it.
Christmas time swings on an annual hinge, opens like a locket for those of Nast’s time- and our own. When photography was invented, people at first wondered if the camera had inadvertently left anything out: trees and people were counted. Reality was compared. A photograph was scrutinized. Was everything there? Was everything permanent?
So Nast’s Christmas pictures of Santa’s journeys are there for us and in the same curious spirit, children attempted to peel the page back, to look behind, to further explore Santa’s workshop. They gazed with wonder, pored over every detail. One poked about on the surface with a pin, pretending to move the objects about in the image, back in the 1860’s, more than a century before the mousepad. One would even turn the page of Nast’s depiction to see if perhaps a Christmas present was there, somewhere behind the obvious things- there somewhere, with your name on it.
December 24, 2002, for ann howe with love, merry christmas!
jk
***
2. -No Telephone in Heaven- The John Lennon Wishing Tree
Lennon’s manuscripts, handwritten lyrics, paintings, drawings, doodles, the stuff of his daily life. Lennon’s glasses- iconic, still bloodstained, as Yoko insisted they remain; Lennon’s rumpled clothes in a tragic rumpled paper bag- the evidence bag, exactly as they were returned to her the night of his death. His effects simply displayed, one winter, years ago, at the Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, my home town.
It was a December night when we drove downtown to see the Lennon exhibit. Great flakes of snow drifted past the illuminated glass pyramid of the new Rock Hall of Fame. We stood on an upper floor, looking out at the lakefront in the darkness of the winter evening. Anchored nearby on the lakefront was a long heavy carrier, one of those giant Great Lakes ships, at rest, now itself an exhibit. There was a slight family connection, my sister knew someone who was on the crew of the ship- memories, snowfall, out there on the lake.
The ship is a reminder of the industrial life of Cleveland- or Liverpool, for that matter, John’s hometown. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a silly place really, I thought, but this night was quite special. Standing in a glass pyramid on a winter night before a frozen lake is certainly a vision that Yoko would appreciate.
Yoko Ono- we hoped she would call.
In the exhibit of Lennon music and memorabilia was a white telephone next to a white chair, and we were told that if the phone rang to pick it up- it would be Yoko. We spent time near the phone, with some apprehension, but enjoying the possibility of her call.
As the old song goes, there is no telephone to heaven, but there was a way to send a message to John if we wished. Yoko had placed a traditional tree, upon which we could hang a little handwritten tag on string, write a message to John and hang it on a branch.
I can’t remember what I wrote.
The tree was white. And the chair. And the telephone, and the snow,and the paper. All in the exposed darkness by great windows of winter.
These anticipations of connections reminded me of music notation.
One night, when I was standing by my piano I had a vivid sense of Beethoven’s presence in the sheet music open there. (Beethoven, another December soul.) The fact of composition, the actuality of creativity and the intent to transmit it directly, person to person, something that was originally handwritten, something it took an individual to create, left me staring at the music above the piano keyboard. It was as if the ink were still wet on the page, or the sonata had just been composed, and there was no interval between the composer and us. Beethoven was there in his work. It had the intimacy and immediacy of a postcard, or a long letter you’d just received. Full of the living presence of the writer.
So a Beatle song lyric is a scrawl on a scrap of paper, and there it was. Lennon’s rough drafts were everywhere in display cases.
It’s meant to be simple. Don’t read anything in. Glass Onion.
Outside, visible from where one stood looking at Lennon art, big flakes of snow in the winter darkness. And Lake Erie, vast winter lake.
We were very moved by the peace there. It was as though the place was filled with it. It was partly Lennon, and Yoko, and December itself. Looking toward holidays which are always complicated by love and darkness and candles and colored lights and politics and war. The Lennons tried to disconnect Christmas and war and their appeal is heard annually. War is Over If You Want It.
Has it been 25 years since the edge of my afternoon paper caught fire?
That December 8th afternoon was dark early on account of winter, and the candles at the little cafe tables were lit. The flame caught the very edge of my paper as I read the headline that John Lennon was dead, murdered in New York. The front page actually burst into flames in my hands. Shocked and embarrassed, I had to put the fire out by beating it with the flat of my hand.
The art we do. It’s worth it. Peace is worth it. Democracy in the street and in our government is worth it.
Snow drifting down, working class understanding. Repression and expression. “She” loves “You.”
How personal this is. My piano teacher watched so intently, so interested in every note of Rachmaninov, Scriabin, or Gershwin or Satie, or Chopin- and most especially Liszt. There is an extreme amount of love and generosity in all this.
(John Lennon felt he had a limited vocabulary as a musician; those of us who had formal piano lessons carry on as best we can.)
A little light glowed by the black Steinway 9-foot studio grand piano were we sat together of an evening, looking at the piece before us, squinting forward at notes, like lights on a lake, with wonder and intention.
How much this matters, to sit at a piano. Especially in winter, or near Christmas, when carols and hymns come out of the past like a dream, cloying and earnest. And people get out their LP records, and yeah, for us, Beatles.
“Beatles ‘65” was a Christmas album for us -yeah, that long ago.
The Beatles sent their fans a recorded greeting each Christmas. They’re full of the usual upstart charm and mayhem and fun. Sort of an aural Christmas card with puns and plays and skits and Xmas-y goofing off.
We ought to send something back.
We miss you, John! Thanks for coming to America. Thanks for bringing peace to Cleveland. Thanks for reminding us of peace on earth, and peace wherever you are, if you want it.
http://imaginepeacetower.com/yoko-onos-wish-trees/
jk
San Francisco.
12/08/05
***
3. Not So Silent Night
The piano is in a corner near the window, outside of which one sees a row of Monterey pines standing in morning fog. It’s Winter. Out there is the constant, low engine sound of city, far away, not loud. Sometimes a distant jet, or even the commuter train rumbles by. Mostly it’s just a gray haze of distant sounds, which one easily ignores and forgets.
Inside I’m playing a little tune on the piano between sips of a coffee. It sets up just enough vibration to loosen a rose petal from the bouquet in the vase there before me and that one petal drops with a gentle sound like a thud but minus a consonant, a rustle, minus one syllable. Hardly a sound, but I heard it, between measures.
Then I take a breath, and I hear that too.
Our cat is snoring. I laugh when I think how unnerving that would be if he were a tiger, but he’s kind of an old guy now, and his snores are more like little wheezes. He’s over there on the bed. I forget that snoring sound is going on too, until I hear another little thud, when his paws hit the carpet after a carefully judged little jump from the bed. I listen. There it is! I can hear the cat’s very footsteps as he walks along the carpet. The paw-steps are barely audible, but you could count them if you wish, like little heartbeats. Bump bump bump, his little carpet paws.
A nice exercise is to place your ear right against your cat, if you have one (a cat, that is) and listen to what goes on inside. It’s fascinating, and also quite fuzzy, which is its own reward on a winter night.
If you have a Christmas tree, as we do, and a cat, you may sometimes hear a little Xmas jingle as the cat walks by the low green bough, festooned with lights, and hung with little jeweled ornaments on little metal hooks. And you think, uh-oh the cat is in the tree again. Jingle -jangle. It’s a very furtive, happy, slightly troubling sound. That is a rare and peculiar holiday sound worth taking note of. A perfect sound-combination of luster and innocence, with a touch of the unexpected, and the tiniest release of stress, as the bough rises and falls and stops and is still again and sparkling.
My sister’s cat makes a further sound, when he springs from the garden to the window screen, and grabs the screen like a Velcro commando, looking in at the warm kitchen. Then they open the door for him, and the cat runs in. He has a little bell on his cat collar, which is really superfluous. He makes rapid jingling sounds with every move he makes. Here is the sound inventory of my sister Ann Howe’s cat: he’s got the jumping thuds, and the bump bump bump, and the very holiday-oriented jingle-jangle wherever he goes. Then he toys with the tree, which jingles furiously for a moment, then he moves on.
Oh, and there’s dry cat food crunching.
****
Back at our house we light candles at night on these holiday evenings, and of course they transform the apartment completely. Occasionally the candles make a licking, guttering sound. They burn with a little “thssp” whisper, than they flicker, throwing off new shadows against the far corners, and new light-geometry, radiant on the table cloth.
“Silent Night” has me thinking the tune written 18 centuries after the original silent night of the scripture-poetry of winter.
What we usually have is that moment of silence when we change the channel on the TV. There is now a new quiet interval while the digital system finds the new station, a silent moment we never had before. Some silence, some holiness may jump in there.
That’s a moment in which to think, before the train of commercials comes on…Did you know that Congress once was drafting legislation against loud commercials? That went nowhere. I’m not sure that will pass constitutional muster, but what does, anyway? Some may protest that we already have the mute button, which we are free to employ at any time. Quiet commercials may be bad for the economy, after all. Think it over.
And speaking of commerce at Christmastime, I must note that the bookshop in which I work has a somewhat creaky old-fashioned sounding front door, and an array of little hollow sleighbells hanging from it, so it actually creaks and jingles when a customer comes in. This is a very festive sound indeed, during the Holiday shopping season, between the fleeting holy silences.
****
I don’t wish to dwell too much on this, but there are some holiday sounds we can do without. There is more stress on the roadway, and there are more honking horns, and more car alarms going off. All this beeping and woop-wooping when getting into and out of a car- is it really necessary? No, of course not. And expressive honking is a citable infraction. Please, we must just try and tone it down. Wake up and hear the snowplows, I beg of you.
The snowplow on a winter night out in the suburbs of the country is at the temporary center of a winter holiday soundscape. The plow rumbles by the house, grinds off into the distance on a late winter night, and then all one hears is… Nothing. Less than nothing, a much deeper silence, when the countryside is covered with a fresh blanket of snow. Then you hear the real deal: the real silent, holy night. Unless and until a big hunk of snow falls from roof or tree-branch, a thunk and a shimmering, showery sound of snow on cold branches and then, silent and holy again.
Back in Ohio on a silent night you could hear ice expanding with even slightly changing temperatures. The cold dark mirror of ice on the pond next door would groan and like a gunshot crack, the sound would echo out into the snowy winter night.
You can remove a pane of ice from the creek and listen to the turning river sound over rocks and tree roots. That’s the run-off from the miles of snowy hills, invisible in the darkness, not a sound at all out there, but here in the creek this little aria, this little allegro string quartet of winter sound, playing every surface at once, and silent under ice again.
Ice skates make a ringing scoring sound when they dig and slide to a sudden stop. They chuff chuff along in rhythm when in motion. Left, right, left; or two skaters together in three four time. ONE two three, one two three: an Ohio pond waltz on a winter night. Then later silence again.
***
In California in winter it is the high surf and the highway one hears, and the honking of the sea lions out on the wharf. Then, of course, the cable car bells, clang clang clang, and then the indoor sounds of the espresso machines all gurgling and steaming at once, and the tiny scrawling sounds of earbuds from the people standing near, listening to their headphones with the volume turned up too loud.
And then there are ringtones: pseudo-cha cha music, a blast of Salsa, the first lines of sappy love songs or hip-hop and even old- fashioned rotary phone impressions.These sounds are ubiquitous on our holiday sound-stroll.
Once I bought music boxes for Christmas stocking stuffers, little ones with tiny little cranks you turn to play the magical airs, but when one was played, with its well-tuned tinkling notes, everyone thought someone’s cell phone was ringing. “Someone should answer that.”
***
The cat is purring extremely loudly now. He’s really rumbling. There’s a jet plane away overhead.
…Is that it?
I guess it ends with the holiday travelers, seats upright, packages stowed and engines roaring homeward, and all quiet on the ground- even the ocean is a vast murmur, that would be peace on earth.
jk don’t know when
***
4. It’s Good to Burn the Trash at Christmas! A reminiscence
In the summer the path is easy to find; on a winter night one crunches thru the snow in vain, though the terrain gently slopes and levels as one nears the barrel at the wood’s edge. Tracks dash here and there, an amusing language of runes where the birds hopped and tipped along, a riot of rabbit tracks, and slightly deeper dog tracks in the snow where they snuffled along, marking the trees. These were the only trespassers on the property at night. One walks along the snowy path past the little sled hill, with the knob of roots at the bottom we all used to sled right into, or vault right over, sled and all, screaming- if we were lucky. It’s freezing in Ohio!-I’m pounding mittens together, exhaling steam. At dusk the distant trees fade into brush stokes and disappear on the canvas of the winter night.
Yes, it is 1964, it’s Ohio, and I’m off to burn the trash at Christmas!
All these creatures are right at home on a winter night, perfectly acclimated with fur and nests and the God-given knowledge of the woods. And here have I a goodly heap of trash afire, in the big rusty barrel at the path’s end: the week’s newspapers, sending up flaming little embers afloat. Poke ‘em with a stick and they cough forth a mighty cloud of glowing sparks. Lift the heap gently from below with a branch and they burst into fire again. It’s good to burn the trash at Christmas!
Captain Crunch warped and tragically defaced in his fiery pirate hell at Christmas, along with many other cereal box stars: It’s been nice, it really has. Woof!-the hound of fire explodes into momentary existence, then dies down awaiting more fuel.
What do I think about when burning the trash? Well at first nothing, except muttered complaints, for it is chore. I have to stand out there in the Ohio winter, in blue jeans encrusted with snow and ice, shoved in galoshes with buckles that jingle. Numb toes are a given, and a ratty old scarf, and a hat with flaps.
Out in the winter elements, those being fire and water, cold earth and air, and the combustible, inflammable mixture of same, you might think me a kind of a young pyromaniac, though lighter fluid was never used. And the trash fire was never abused. It burned freely within the tilted can. But this was all about heat and light.
What was the can? A rusty old iron barrel, with perforated sides- rudely hammered with biblical force, placed on bricks to allow the oxygen to ignite the weekly fire- the Christmas fire! Oh it takes such a tiny flame just on the supple innocent corner of a junk mail envelope and boom. The entertainment begins.
Now the smoke’s from Duraflames- well named, but hardly eternal. It swirls from chimneys in modern times, as from the old banked logs from an ancient winter fire. Perhaps the spicey smoke from the store-bought log is cleaner, but back in Ohio smoke swirled up from a thousand trash fires, some banked on the hearth, some in funky old basement incinerators, or outdoors, like mine in the old trash barrel. Christmas meant extra paper and that made an excellent trash fire experience, if such happened to be your delegated chore of yore.
I’m telling you, it’s good to burn the trash at Christmas!
* * *
Christmas and fire go ‘way back. Evergreen boughs exploded and torched if sparked by a Victorian taper. In modern times electricity’s the cunning little vixen, calling, calling- as my electrician friend says-through outdated, frayed wires in the walls, soothing, silent seductive- it calls the repairman to just touch a wire once…please. And at Christmastime when every thing is plugged into everything else? Well, just watch your local news on Dec. 25. You’ll see what I’m talking about. “The fire is not contained.” Those are the magic, tragic words of the lead story every year.
Oh yes, the Victorian Christmas of yesteryear did ignite; the nursemaids backed into the dangerous tree, the young ones bumped the tiny flame, sprang the bough, reaching for a dangling sweet. A sponge was kept nearby on the end of a mop-handle to prevent the tree’s ignition, but all the elements of an old fashioned Victorian disaster were always present. Especially since everything-but everything- was inflammable: clothes, tinderbox houses, curtains, decorations, pajamas… Add to this gas wicks, kerosene, the old technological advances. The holiday tree of tragedy itself sat drying out for days behind closed doors until the fateful morning arrived. Oh yes it was a dangerous Christmas, and so it is to this day-if the inward fire leaps out unexpectedly.
And Christmas is hardly safe everywhere. The rocket’s red glare smokes above distant battlefields- keeping Americans safe in their beds, presumably. There the incendiary fire is far different than the controlled magnificence of “Shock and Awe” we know from television. And yet the holiday isn’t even safe for the homeless here at home either, during this, our first cold snap of winter. So we see that there’s a little too much fire in some places and not enough in others, this Christmas.
But this isn’t about RPGs or IEDs, it’s about the little candles that adorn our trees.
Briefly and to the point, the insurance companies had something to do with the changing tradition of Christmas fire as applied to the indoor tree.
As a result one thinks more highly of the candles enclosed in little paned lanterns of stained glass, attached like tiny happy churches to each bough, these brought from Germany, in mid- nineteenth century, or of the candles in little cups of cut glass, which throw the candlelight around in a magical way. These are heavy ornaments, and require the tree’s strongest branches for support, but perhaps represent some improvement, an aesthetically pleasing precaution and a measure of control.
But then I must consider the fire that makes the glass, the monumental ornate stained glass of the midnight mass, of the glass-blown bulbs that appeared in the 1870s and the fragile Saint Nick ornaments from old Germany (or from Hixon’s roadside Flower Barn, in Ohio)- all these came into existence out of fire, and remain near fire in spirit, in aesthetic.
Stalwart candles on a horizontal wreath of evergreen are still lit each Sunday of advent in some churches, keeping the Christmas chemistry alive, real fire and evergreen, for each new generation over the centuries. Such symbols have entered our culture so completely that one can’t go to any public place without some authentic representation of ancient old Europe winter festivals right here in the USA. Right in the middle of the mall.
* * *
The English poet Shelley as a young man lugged about a chemistry set and, fascinated by alchemy, scorched the carpets, left burns on the furniture, was seen carrying a bucket of fire. He blew out fences with gunpowder, mad with alchemy and electricity. He dismissed Christianity, for it had become authoritarian and so, immoral. Without love it devolved into tyranny, though Shelley didn’t blame Jesus for that. Let’s say he was at odds with the Christmas season, as poets and pagans seem to be- but not completely at odds with the Spirit that reigns now.
Prometheus is the Romantic poet Shelley’s Christ-figure, Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from Mt. Olympus and delivered it to Man. Why drag these awkward archetypes in?
Perhaps Shelley thought to outdo the lullaby-baby Jesus myth, in favor of the Promethean gift of fire, which would be welcome under any tree, the gift that keeps on giving, the gift without which there would be no Easy Bake oven, no cookies, no roast, no flaming plum pudding. No candle, no yule, no nothing. And the grinchy gods chained Prometheus to a rock for it. It is a myth of sacrifice. There’s a connection in these things, given our dependence on fire in winter.
And that goes for the Star of Wonder as well. Some astronomers say the star that guided the Wise Men to Bethlehem was the kingly star Regulus. If so, it too is still burning, with the light of three of our suns, 80 light years above my barrel. Burning, consuming, illuminating.
The myth of Prometheus might be thought to be an inapt comparison to the humble birth of the Christ child, the christkinder so meek, and perhaps young Shelley was missing the point there- for His meekness only adds to the divine magnificence in the eyes of believers- but nevertheless the Promethean element of fire belongs in the strategy of the season. And, as humans, we pay some obeisance to the fire myth each winter whether we like it or not- by consuming.
And so I look into the fire in winter, to consider the mid-winter holidays lit by candles, or by the oil that never ran out, or by the yule log dragged in by Norsemen a thousand years ago and meant to burn for 12 days straight- as well as to ponder the starlight that takes a hundred light years to arrive. Inner fire and outer, consuming, the final spiritual pun on our consumer-ism. And while we’re consuming, let us consider what the astrologers say, that fire is an element that by its nature resists control.
For inner fire think of mulled wine, hot toddies, rum punches and wassail, egg nog, whiskeys, or crème de menthe… it is a commonplace of Christmas that the fumes of alcohol might ignite the fire of passion or even a bit of fear, or anger or adrenaline. Peace on earth not withstanding, stuff occurs.
If you don’t believe me just turn off the game and see what happens.
* * *
Man, that cardboard burns good in the trash barrel! Dad worked for Packaging Corporation of America, PCA, the box shop, he called it. Under his influence we would tend to save the clever boxes and useful, an early version of recycling, you could say. But most paper box and corrugated cardboard went to the barrel. The interesting boxes to burn had plastic windows, probably toxic, but burning vividly enough to add spice to the trash fire. Don’t you wish you had all those toys in their original boxes today? My sister’s Chatty Kathy, perhaps, or your old Barbie dolls or Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars all in the original boxes, or the bobble-head Beatles in the original box to show off at the Antiques Road Show, or to sell on ebay? You do. But in 1964 the empty boxes went right into the trash barrel. Who knew? But if you did have these collector’s items in their original boxes, you wouldn’t sell them, only to re-consume on a less sentimental level. You would march proudly out of the Road Show and pass them on for free to a relative or friend. Hey, it’s Christmas. And face it, I say to myself, your life belongs in a museum- you’re old. But I digress.
It all burned good, the Christmas boxes, all that paper. That’s my only insight, ca. 1964 by the barrel.
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I remember when they made burning the trash illegal by ordinance. I remember the shock I felt, that the old order had been overturned, and I recall the confusion within. The fires were polluting the sky- and that goes for burning the leaves as well, they said. How will we get rid of this stuff? I wondered. I remember the quiet anger at the hassle of recycling. What freakish power rules this realm? Crybaby hippies and science geeks who wish to kill the poetry and pleasure of throwing stuff out without heed for the future! Put it on my card. Let’s go.
Now even WalMart recycles: they use up the old building and sell it off when the tax break expires and move down the road and start again. Now that’s how it’s done!
On vacation this year, 2004, I went to Mendocino and they showed me Bottle Beach. In the old days they just threw all the trash right over the bluff into the Pacific Ocean. The guide was extremely embarrassed to tell me this. “That’s just what we did back then,” she said with a shrug. She showed me an old photo of the beach- a massive mountain of junk on a steep decline to the ocean. Since then the beach has been “reclaimed.” But beachcombers come specifically to this site, looking intently for the bright colored glass, red and blue and green, rounded smooth and polished by the sea- trash made beautiful, recycled into bottle glass handcrafts, Nature’s little ornaments. They’d look nice on the tree.
For some reason it takes years and years and years to learn the simple tasks of recycling. Mom called it “saving”. She said they saved tin, saved metal cans, aluminum. I thought they invented recycling on Earth Day in the 1970s, but recycling was a part of domestic life always, especially in the War Era of the 1940s when kids like my mom stepped on cans. She told us about saving stuff for the “war effort” and I know she got at least one blank look- for I was in the room. And I must have wandered off, since that’s all I remember on the subject.
Now I learn that in SF all the trash gets hurled down a chute, and sorted by weight and by hand. I learned that the landfills, when full, cease to bio-degrade, especially if overloaded. You won’t see this on the commercials this holiday season.
We do have a recycling pickup, which San Franciscans don’t take for granted. There are big blue barrels at the curb for glass. On pick-up day the beer and champagne bottles rain down in the truck with a manic empty cheerful sound that startles you out of sleep on January the Second and makes you wish for a better life, and, as in Mayhew’s book, London Labor, London Poor, written in the 1840s-Charles Dickens’ era- the scavengers and scouts will come by first with carts and haul most of it away for cash. It was ever thus, at least in the cities.
But back in 1964 it was the trash barrel and the snow, and the gray haze, and empty boxes from all those presents and products and devices and appliances…There was nothing electronic to speak of back then, nothing small. And as I’ve said, there was plenty of colored tissue and wrapping paper to make it all go up in a frenzy. Now it is all just burning boxes of winter smoke, drifting into the crisp night air.
Poof, I throw the wrapping paper into my barrel, wow! it burns hot in an instant! And ribbon, and string! The light dances in the little iron windows of the trash barrel, and swells in a party of consumption within, a happy little inferno on this snowy night! A Saturday night dance party of fire and trash to dance around. Sound familiar? A little out of control, perhaps?
But for winter-born souls who look out of darkened picture windows, seeing a crisp winter snow lining every branch with stillness and silence all the way out past the barrel into arctic outer space, a little dancing flame, a little candle light, a warm place by the hearth means everything- it means survival, as it always did. We’re such modern consumers, burning all the way to Target and back, igniting the gas fire- my twin Sagittarius sister “turns on” her fireplace with the push of a button, she doesn’t light it, exactly- but still, how ancient is that, in midwinter?
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When I was a boy I sat before the fireplace with my Grandpa K (a fellow Sagittarius: Dec.19th!). My grandfather, a great proponent of the Imagination, gently instructed me to look into the fire and imagine. It was an early form of entertainment, he told me. I’m not sure I was very imaginative. I found myself looking into the environments within the burning logs, just waiting for something to pop- sometimes a knot in the log would really snap with a loud report, and if it did not I’m sure that I threw in matches when nobody was looking, to watch them burst into flames, or perhaps I tried my “Greeny Stick-em” caps – the loading powder that went with my Daisy rifle- those popped good. I was hardly content to sit for long and dream, which is what my Grandpa Koehneke seemed to be getting at.
Now I think I could do it. Imagine, that is. And I certainly remember the beauty of that moment by the fire, the logs Dad made me split with a wedge in the backyard the previous fall, now burning red with embers, and bright yellow, glowing with heat and warmth and love, right in the middle of Winter releasing all the colors of the Summer and Fall into the middle of our living room in Brecksville, Ohio ca. 1964- 75.
Consuming fire, spirit of Christmas, candles of the holidays, log of yule, I thank thee. Inspiring the jewels of our arts and ornaments, illuminating our nights, our dreams our visions. Oh Fire, forgive me, for the day belongs to another. But from stars to kitchen matches and candle sticks with garlands of evergreen and holly entwined- O Fire, the winter nights are thine.
James Koehneke
San Francisco
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A Little Song of Thanksgiving: Maslow’s Pyramid
You know what I’m really kind of grateful for?:
Diners! Cafes!
Where would would I be without them?
That’s 1/3 of my life, right there.
Home away from home. The true living room. Your corner cafe!
Atmosphere! Comfort zone, plus quiet pandemonium.
In the old postwar boomer days we smoked, so the diners were a haze of cigarette smoke, with everyone packed in, elbow to elbow, gripping a solid, heavy restaurant-issue mug of black coffee, all sitting at a Formica counter, with fixed barstools screwed into the floor.
Coffee is still steaming hot, and windows frosted over with condensation of breath and the heat from the back kitchen and a little radio playing the first holiday tunes and they’re still fresh and the door opens with a tinkling little bell and slams shut with bang.
Already there are construction paper snowflakes taped to the big front windows and a stenciled garland, “Happy Holidays,” edged with frosted snow from a spray can, heaped up in the corners of the frame.
Workers in sweatshirts with white smudged aprons, running hither and thither, busboys banging bins of dishes – the place provided jobs for a lot of us while we figured out life. And back in the day you could pay a month’s rent from a week’s pay.
Ham and eggs! City Life!
And what is truly great is that’s everyday!
And everyday- for thirty years!- you get the exact same thing: ham and cheddar omelet, or maybe a side of pancakes. With little pats of butter in gold foil.
Herbs Fine Foods! Hopwell’s! Trieste!
Everyone had an SF Chron rolled up and everyone read Herb Caen, or Charles McCabe, so we had a shared understanding of The City, emanating from “the Washbag”- the Washington Square Bar and Grill, a hoity-toity piano bar on Washington Square, looking out at the statue of Benjamin Franklin made famous by Brautigan. That was the brain-trust. The hob-nobs.
But we never went there. We were in the neighborhoods. The local crossroads diners of Noe Valley. Everything was there in four blocks, including the dive you crawled out of the night before. The Cavern. Or Finigans Wake.
If you were a little hungover you’d find hope at a diner. Local smart alecs were holding forth, at high volume, but respectful, too, if you projected a do-not-disturb vibe.
At the Meat Market Cafe the geezers and aging hippies played chess for hours, huddled around a front table. Women met friends and sat in booths talking and laughing.
If you met friends at Herb’s you took over a plush beat-up old banquette, feet up,lounging back, beautiful.
So it’s noisy smoky dingy greasy loud and full of life, so therefore full of joy.
Yes!
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