Safari too Close to Home

The grey light of early morning barely illuminated the features of our yard: the sitting rock masquerading as a snowy mound, the standing juniper branches drooping like so many petals from their snowy burden, the gentle slope of lawn stretching into prairie grass obliterated by a snowy blanket. All this I took in as my husband stepped out the door to take our dog Wiley for a walk.

As I returned to my office, I heard a shout. I hurried to the back door to see what it was. My dog, in all his tawny cream glory, was shooting across the snow and down toward the creek, taking acres in seconds. Out in front of him, I glimpsed what I already knew was there: a coyote. Wiley was closing the gap between them fast, and all I could think was why the damned coyote wasn’t running faster. He seemed to want Wiley to catch him.

Just then, I caught sight of a second coyote running up the creek bed behind Wiley. Its dark grey against the snow was easy to spot, so this one tucked in close to the dried cattails and cottonwoods that share its color. I watched it moving in, as if the two wild dogs had set a trap for my domesticated one.

The three of them met down by the creek on the low part of the old ditch road that we walk each day. Wiley marks repeatedly all along our way, and I hadn’t thought much of it till that very moment. In those seconds, my mind flashed to the leopards I’d followed on game drives just days before in South Africa. They slink about sniffing and marking, reclaiming their territory from intruders and upstarts. All the while, they drool. The Ranger said they drool in anger; it’s their righteousness at being infiltrated, at being challenged.

I started praying aloud for Wiley. Two against one wasn’t good – especially when Wiley isn’t accustomed to hunting or defense. I tried not to imagine the worst as the dogs closed in, but then I heard a yelp. With the carnage I’d seen on safari still fresh, visions of my boy being slashed to ribbons and gnawed on by the wild pair invaded my mind.

We couldn’t see the thing taking place, so obscured by trees and terrain. Seconds dragged on, and we heard nothing more. But the next sight we had was Wiley trotting gingerly up the hill. He looked uninjured, only a bit cowed. I called to him to bring him home quicker.

As my husband met Wiley mid-yard and then started back to the porch, I spotted the two coyotes. One was just moving out of sight over the rise of the ditch; the other was sauntering after it in a lackadaisical sort of way. I still couldn’t figure why they moved so slowly, as though they had not a care. Wild animals are supposed to fear humans and the unexpected, aren’t they?

But then I realized that there’d been a conversation going on between these three dogs for quite some time. Through scent and markings, and even piles of scat left boldly in the middle of the path, much information is exchanged. Our Ranger on game drive had explained about middens, piles of dung used by animal groups to tell each other who’s been there, which females are in heat, and who’s in charge. Their communication is thorough and precise. It occurred to me then that Wiley knew these two dogs and they knew him. And perhaps, I thought, the coyotes had been waiting for just the occasion that presented itself today.

When Wiley reached the porch, I greeted him, running my hands over his cold fur, checking for injury. As it turned out, he got a gash in his right haunch, about an inch long and not too deep. It was the best possible place for him to get it. In his solid muscle build, this is the spot with the most flesh and little that’s vulnerable. I mused about that as well – certainly the coyotes knew which part of an animal to wound to debilitate and which to kill. Had they given Wiley this minor wound as a message – a warning to stay out of their way?

Later that morning, alone with Wiley, I noticed that he wasn’t lying in his usual spot behind me in my office. I got up to look for him and found him, sitting by the back door, gazing intently toward the creek…drool glistening from his chin.

Photos, except for the coyote, by Rebecca Reynolds.

Tales from the Bush

We’re story-tellers by nature. The truth of this came back to me while on safari in South Africa. Everyone I met as I traveled on the fringes of Kruger National Park – drivers, hosts, rangers, game drive passengers, waiters and masseuse – all had tales to tell. The ones that intrigued me most were those involving encounters between humans and the wild animals of the veld; the tales rife with near death, valiance, luck, foolhardiness, and even wry humor – often all in one story.

These tales brought to mind Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Like Kipling’s, they are more than entertainments. Lessons and morals, warnings and epithets are wrapped up like Christmas treats for the listener who cares to discover them. And like all good stories, they toy with the outline of truth.

These are a few of the tales I heard – you’ll be the judge of which ones are true.

Three boys went down to the banks of Olifants River. An uncle had warned them to be watchful. They dismissed him, saying to themselves he was old, crotchety, and certainly jealous of them. The boys scampered about for awhile, but in the heat, soon decided to rest and fish. They did notice the crocodile some ways out and set their poles back from the river’s edge.

One boy was telling a story, while another took off his shirt, hanging it on a nearby bush. The shirt’s bright red was a definite interloper in the muted palette of the bush. The boys chatted away, only barely aware of their poles’ gentle swaying with the water’s tug. Suddenly, one of them heard a swooshing sound. He turned his head to catch a glimpse of a mud-green flash just behind them. The crocodile had slipped out of the water, circled around them and now rocketed toward the shirtless boy. The one watching instinctively shut his eyes, awaiting the shriek. When he opened them again, he saw the crocodile submerging in the water, the red shirt sinking fast with him. Later, the three boys agreed their uncle need never know.

An experienced Ranger with a full load of passengers was following a leopard. She was busy sniffing and scent-marking, moving stealthily along her chosen course. Desiring a superior photo opportunity for his guests, the Ranger, contrary to better judgment, pulled the truck directly into the leopard’s path. The leopard approached the vehicle, but instead of easing past its flank, in a blink, was crouched in the passenger seat. The Ranger instantly looked away, covering his face with his arm, preparing for her to strike. After a moment, she jumped down and continued on her way. His passengers did indeed get the best view that day, but not one of them captured it.

Every day an old man visited the place where he’d buried his dogs many years before. One day, when younger, the man had gone fishing, his three dogs following along. He picked a spot within eyesight of some other folk who’d had the same idea. His dogs ran off, as dogs will do, sniffing and exploring as they raced about, leaving him with his thoughts. Sometime later, a python surprised the man, wrapping itself quickly about him. He felt himself being crushed, slowly and methodically, and screamed for help. Those on the bank nearby came running, but when they saw the python enveloping the stranger, they backed away. With little breath left, the man called once more. Just then, one of his dogs appeared, let out a high pitched bark and raced for the man. The other dogs, close behind, joined the attack on the python, biting, snarling and pulling at its tail. The man never forgot that he owed his life to those dogs.

A group of rangers went out to target shoot. They brought a cooler of refreshments to slake their thirst after their effort. They picked a spot near a large Sausage tree, which would afford them plenty of shade to enjoy their drinks. The rangers set up their targets and, one by one, took their aim. Hot and satisfied after the last one’s turn, they leaned their guns against the truck and made for shady respite. Bantering and bragging about who’d done the best, they didn’t notice the trespasser. A gunshot was what startled them. They looked up to find a baboon, bracing a rifle against the truck, taking careful aim for their target.

Thanks to Godfrey, Andrew and Ronny for these and so many other marvelous tales. Photographs by Rebecca Reynolds.

Saying Yes to South Africa

This time last year, I began my ruminations about turning 50 and what I’d do to mark it.

If I’d been thinking of celebration, I might’ve wished for a surprise party, or a fancy dinner somewhere, or a compendium of memories collected and bound in stamped leather. But my thoughts bent more toward commemoration…this birthday would be between me and Me.

Fifty for me marked a moment, not for trumpets and streamers, but for deep quietude, looking into the face of who I am and who I have yet to become. I have little idea how 50 feels – what it looks like or means. I only know that this time calls to me from far away and from deep inside. And the call is as primal as fire, as mysterious as the hermit, as inexorable as time.

When the question first entered my mind - how do I want to mark this milestone? - the answer came quietly: A trip. From this thought seed, from this slip of an idea, the whole thing was begun.

What kind of trip? A big trip. A journey.

What does that mean? To a place I’ve never been before.

Why? To challenge me. To open me to completely new experience.

Where?

A place to breathe fresh and deep the aroma of unknown earth, cradling roots of strange plants, ground into dusty spice and stirred into pots of surprising flavors to my virgin tongue.

A place to open my eyes for the first time to color hues seen only in dreams, to dance to rhythms unfamiliar to my feet but recognized deep down in the ear of my heart.

A place to discover and remember, out of which to begin the next phase of this life.

Of the places I imagined in that first musing, Africa didn’t cross my mind. In truth, I thought more about where I wouldn’t go than where I would. I thought of the places I’ve been before and off the list they went. I thought of places similar to them and they scuttled along too. That left a blank page – a vast whiteness out of which I hoped the place would soon enough draw itself.

I went about my business.

Then one day a month or so later, on a phone call, the outline first appeared. I was invited to go to South Africa. The tip of a continent, the corner early European explorers persevered in rounding, a place of ancient beauty and painful history.

As I considered South Africa, I struggled to recognize it as my choice. You see, I hadn’t thought much about it. I’d read a novel here and there. In college, I learned of apartheid and the knowledge lodged deep in my gut. Movies and nature shows on life on the savanna stirred the vague hope of safari one day. And most of all, Mandela’s 30-year incarceration ending in his presidency taught me that nothing in this world is permanent, and clinging to “the way things are” – in either complacency or dread – is simply folly. But other than these few markers, South Africa wasn’t much more to me than an outline on a map.

After the call and for the next few months, I went through the motions of considering the decision, which meant coming up with a lot of questions. Why would I go? What would I do? With whom would I go? When would I leave? I talked with people; I gathered data; I read books and looked at maps. But it really boiled down to if I would go or if I wouldn’t. And at one point, I just said yes.

If I’m really frank though, saying yes was simply the moment when “me” caught up to what “Me” had known all along. Of course I was going to South Africa.  - when, to do what, with whom and for how long were just details.

Back at home now, I reflect on what a superb lesson this is. It’s the one about saying YES. Choosing yes - without all the conditions, parameters, and details nailed to the wall. The kind of yes that is an act of faith in the goodness, the bounty, the sheer joyousness of life. The yes that sets magic in motion.

When I got to South Africa, a man explained to me that the word “safari” is Swahili for “journey.” It’s used in particular reference to the annual migration of millions of animals from one side of the Serengeti to the other. They make this arduous journey across the vast savanna in search of food, of sustenance, of life. It’s clear to me that my travels from the American continent to the African one was in the same way a safari, a journey from one side of the world to the other, in search of sustenance.

The taste of the new, from its pot mingling with things essential and some familiar, still lingers on my lips.

This is the first in a multi-part series on South Africa. Stay tuned.

Pizza Pan Outed

I pulled the old pan out of its spot and marveled, as I had before, at the amazing good fortune of having a perfect, round pan for heating frozen pizza. It’s my mother’s pan, of course.

She of the charmed life, the one who’s had very nearly the best of everything, from handsome, loving husband and four devoted children, to satisfying career of her choosing, to comfortable retirement and incredible good looks that don’t seem to fade.

As I slid the frozen slab onto the round metal, no longer flat from years of heating and re-heating, but still just right for the job, I noted the details of what makes it work. Although of the same material and thinness as a cookie sheet, its rim is flared and sits slightly above its middle, making just the right size bowl for the pizza. In this way, the pizza stays put, rather than flying off onto counter or floor like it would on a flat, edgeless sheet. And being round, no part of the pizza is compromised or in need of trimming to fit the domain of an edged, rectangular cookie sheet.

The pizza pan is also uncommonly attractive for something so pedestrian. Its rim is adorned with fine dots that go all the way round, and its formerly flat center is etched with a simple floral pattern. So much glory under all that rust and brown residue from years of baking pizza, I thought with some longing.

Needless to say, I’ve been making do without a perfect pizza pan since I moved from my parents’ home. This is partly due to the fact that I’m really not that big a fan of frozen pizza and so haven’t endeavored to find one of my mother’s equal. But mostly I don’t have one because I’ve never come across one in all my wanderings through kitchen shops and catalogues. Had I ever encountered one, pizza aficionado or not, I would’ve purchased it without a second thought.

I know this because of the day I happened upon one of those rolling pizza cutters. I grabbed it up quick. This was half the pizza-baking equation at my mother’s house, and now I, too, would be able to slice up pizza easy and neat. No matter that this is a notably infrequent need in my hardly-ever-eat-frozen-or-any-other-kind-of-pizza house. It was enough that my kitchen drawer would now be home to another of the tools I took for granted as a child. Somehow, it would make me more complete.

My mother’s kitchen is full of mysterious implements with completely specialized functions. These I discovered over the years of learning to cook under her watchful eye. “No Becky, that’s dicing; in salads the tomatoes are sliced.” The difficulty in distinguishing between words so similar confounded me as a child, but when I met my husband, one of the first corrections I made of his cooking was “No honey, tomatoes are sliced in a salad, not diced.” Upbringing, I find, no matter how ludicrous, gets imbedded deep.

My family kitchen drawers contained a menagerie of devices:

• the melon-baller to make gorgeous summer salads of soft wet spheres (I manage with a teaspoon from a measuring set)
• the apple-slicer that slices and cores all in one deft push (the knife I wield takes five times as long)
• the garlic press – ah, the prized kitchen tool in our home when few white Americans even knew what fresh garlic was, let alone that you could press it instead of chopping (I do have several of these since we’ve hunted them high and low, always searching for just the right one, as if for the grail)
• the combo ice pick and hammer made of ornately decorated bronze, obviously a show piece for cocktail hour (I smash mine up with a hammer from the garage or slam it hard on the counter)
• corn picks for the delicate handling of fresh summer ears (hands and lots of paper towels)
• a metal jar opener with two different sizes that I’ve never seen anywhere but my mother’s kitchen drawer (whacking it around the rim with the butt of a knife works fine – haven’t cut myself yet)
• the hardboiled egg slicer with wire strung like a tennis racquet, but only in one direction (my same old knife cannot hope to produce such thin slices with anything like its precision or speed)
• ice tongs (used my fingers for ages until cocktail time made a comeback and Crate and Barrel sold them again)
• fondue forks (irrelevant in my home since I don’t own the thick enamel pot)
• olive picks (what?)
• tiny two-pronged cornichon forks (what’s a cornichon?)
• sterling silver candle snuffer (just blow it out)

Not to mention the strange gadgets – stainless steel espresso pot long before Starbucks appeared, china – round-bottomed demitasse cups with silver holders kind of like egg coddlers, which, for the uninitiated are the mini cups used for espresso or “European” coffee, containers – ramekins of all sizes and pre-Tupperware made of glass with matching lids, cookware – the amazing double-sided pot that enabled my mother to make two kinds of soup simultaneously so her children wouldn’t fight, and other miscellaneous mysteries – tiny carved glass bowls and miniature silver spoons for serving salt, a gargantuan punchbowl with 20 matching cups, and even a parfait set of 12 – just in case. All these are hidden in my mother’s cupboards, side boards and pantry, which, if not regularly, eventually find their way to service.

The point is, people invented these things to handle particular jobs in a gracious and efficient manner. Many of these devices have been lost as vestiges of a kinder, more gentile way of living. The round pizza pan, I assumed, was one such ephemera. As I placed the cherished pan atop the oven rack, I realized that this was yet another example of how my life would simply never measure up to my mother’s.

I cannot say why, but in that moment, rather than silently entertain these musings like I always do when preparing pizza at my mother’s, I decided to face the sad truth of my deficiency and find out more about the object in question. Where did she get it? I asked.

What she told me shocked me to my core.

She started by stating enigmatically that it had, at one time, been silver-plate. Silver? I turned on my heel to look at her – was she pulling my leg? A silver pizza pan – whoever would have thought? These kinder, gentler folks may have taken things a bit far, I thought. She had a wry smile on her face as she began to explain.

“Actually it belonged to one of your father’s colleagues from the history department at Park College. (The year would have been 1960.) After one of his faculty parties, I was doing the dishes and there it was. Somebody had brought it covered with hors d’oeuvres of some sort and then left it.”

Wait a minute…what did she say? She must be confused. Did she mean that its owner had not brought a pizza on it?? That this pan was in a former life a silver tray used for party hors d’oeuvres?? The realization was making me woozy.

My mother continued, “I called around to everyone I could think of and no one claimed it, so there it was. Given that it was so ugly…I mean, with all the beautiful sterling silver I had I certainly would never use it to serve anything on, so I decided it would make a good pizza pan!”

In the few moments it took her to relay this story that took place before I was born and thus set the world in motion as I would know it, the meaning of this pan – this prized object of grace and utility, this staple of my childhood kitchen and the great void of my own – was forever and completely changed. In the era of beautiful entertaining, when women did all the work and kitchens were stocked with the proper equipment, my mother transformed a forsaken hors d’oeuvre tray into the best damn pizza pan this world has ever seen.

She continues to amaze.

All Hail, Ms. Kael

Am I mistaken, or did people used to know how to write a film review? A film review isn’t a recap of the film’s plot line, but judging from what gets labeled a film review these days, you’d think “review” and “recap” were synonyms. What’s up?

My favorite film critic of all time – and I’m far from alone here – is Pauline Kael. I discovered Ms. Kael in the pages of the New Yorker magazine in high school. My father had taken the NYer as long as I could remember, and when we moved to Boulder, CO in the late ’70s, our first floor powder room had real NYer covers as its wall paper - we took it as a sign. Kael’s film reviews were the first part of the NYer that I cottoned to.

As a junior, I struggled with writing, and my father suggested I start reading the NYer to learn from the greats. I can’t remember not taking my father’s advice, so I gave it a look. The movie reviews were fairly short (in comparison with other NYer articles of that vintage) and covered a subject I had interest in (my lifelong movie addiction was already in full bud). Thus began my race to the mail for the weekly issue. As I laid stretched out on our green faux velvet couch, nose buried in the back of the NYer where the film reviews are, I read each Kael-written word as if it were a finely made chocolate. Savoring one as it made way to the next, I prolonged my enjoyment of sentences that fascinated, entertained, illuminated and inspired.

The thing was, Kael rarely discussed plot. Instead she discussed character and actors’ choices in portraying them; she explored directors methods and compared them to other directors (as a young movie-goer I was barely aware of directors so this was hugely educational for me); she discussed film theme and message, making her points with literary, historical, and political allusions from her enormous range of knowledge. Her bold reviews made me want to see the films she wrote about and made me appreciate at a much deeper level those I already had.

Here is Kael on “Raiders of the Lost Arc” – the prescience of her “obsessive pace” insight is noteworthy:

“The effect of the obsessive pace is that the picture seems locked in. Our eyes never have a second just to linger on a face or on an image of planes coming out of the clouds. The frames fit into each other, dovetailing so tight that sometimes it seems as if the sheer technology had taken over. It’s all smart zap—a moviemaker’s self-reflexive feat.”

And here on Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” her clarity is razor-sharp, as is her indictment:

“Stanley Kubrick’s Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is not so much an expression of how this society has lost its soul as he is a force pitted against the society, and by making the victims of the thugs more repulsive and contemptible than the thugs, Kubrick has learned to love the punk sadist….The trick of making the attacked less human than their attackers, so you feel no sympathy for them, is, I think, symptomatic of a new attitude in movies. This attitude says there’s no moral difference. Stanley Kubrick has assumed the deformed, self-righteous perspective of a vicious young punk who says, ‘Everything’s rotten. Why shouldn’t I do what I want? They’re worse than I am.’ In the new mood (perhaps movies in their cumulative effect are partly responsible for it), people want to believe the hyperbolic worst, want to believe in the degradation of the victims — that they are dupes and phonies and weaklings. I can’t accept that Kubrick is merely reflecting this post-assassinations, post-Manson mood; I think he’s catering to it.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but Kael spoiled me for most every other film review I’ve ever read. And the reason is simple. Film reviewers these days seem hell-bent on telling you what the movie is about - and often, incredibly, how it ends. And if this was a tendency ten years ago, today it’s an epidemic. There’s even a standard phrase employed to give you the heads up that you’re about to have the movie ruined for you by narrative revelations: Spoiler Alert. This galls me. Isn’t one of the signs of a good review the ability of the writer to talk compellingly about the film without actually telling you it’s plot? I mean, if this isn’t true, then why don’t we all become film reviewers? I can relate the storyline of a film with the best of them.

The “spoiler alert” is, for me, like a film critic wearing a big sign round his neck that reads: “I’m not a film critic – I’m just a guy who likes to go to movies before anyone else and then ruin them by telling the plot.” I DON’T READ FILM REVIEWS FOR THIS. I read reviews to have my thinking about a film, its director, actors, screenwriters, its place in film canon and culture expanded by someone whose job it is to watch hundreds of films a year and think about them. Unfortunately, most reviews these days seem to be written on the back of a napkin while the reviewer is watching the film, shoving popcorn down his gullet, and jotting quick one-liners about his titillating feelings – all instead of pondering what the film might mean.

And what really gets me is that the more acclaimed the critic (who certainly know that reviews shouldn’t plot recount), the less they tend to use the spoiler alert phrase – even though they should. I guess they think they can sneak the plot summary in on you – like maybe you won’t notice since it’s THEM writing - Mr. Hot-Shot-Film-Critic. Are they kidding? Do they think we can’t tell when we’re being told the whole movie like a bad trailer? After several times of reading along and getting sucker punched by TMI, I’ve given up reading film reviews in advance of seeing a film. This is nothing short of a bloody shame since film reviews, after all, are supposed to help you decide if a film is worth seeing. Right?

So, what’s all this film synopsis masquerading as review about? I think it’s laziness. I’m not sure where the laziness began, but it definitely is laziness. It’s lazy of the reviewer: how hard is it to tell the story, make a snide comment or two about the actor’s hair, and then call it a review? Not very. It’s much more taxing to actually think about a film, to contemplate its meaning, resonances, influences, what it might say about our culture and how that is the same or different from before. And I don’t mean this can only be done with fancy art films. As the above excerpts prove, Kael was as adept at illuminating ”Raiders” or “An Officer and a Gentleman” as she was ”A Clockwork Orange” or “Nashville.”

And of course, movies themselves (or movie-makers, I should say) are lazy. Has there ever been a time more plagued my remakes and sequels? And how often are any of these actually better than their predecessors? (Ok, I grant you that MI3  was far better than 1 or 2, but that was strictly due to Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s villain.) And how many movies (should I say, in the U.S.) are made to make us think, with any remnant of that intention? These are fewer and farther between, many of which can only be seen at crowded film festivals.

And ultimately, it must be that movie-goers are lazy. If movie-makers pound out sequels and reviewers write plot summaries, this must be what movie-goers want. Is this then to be the nature of our movie-going experience? We simply go to escape, to relive the same narrow plot that we could’ve written ourselves, and no more? No thinking about it afterward? No desire to make meaning of it? No interest in revealing ourselves to ourselves through our experience?

And the reviewer who does attempt this kind of writing is considered boring and elitist, so why bother? Okay, but if that’s the case, then let’s call these pieces of writing what they are: Movie Cliff Notes. And let’s call these writers what they are: Plot Summarizers. And I will steer clear and not bother to read them, but instead, content myself with re-reading a true film reviewer and critic, Ms. Kael. Fortunately, her prolific legacy is in print.

In Memoriam: Pauline Kael left us bereft of brilliant film reviews 10 long years ago.

Eavesdropping on UA Channel 9

Image via Wikipedia

I love listening to United Airline’s inflight channel 9.

For those who suppose this might mean country music or the comedy channel, let me explain: channel 9 carries, at the pilot’s discretion, air traffic control (and ground) communications. It’s an open channel that gets you inside the cockpit, not only of your fight, but of all the pilots in the vicinity talking to the tower.

As far as I know, United is the only airline that does this, and I think it’s one of the coolest features, ever. Why do I like to listen so much? It seems odd, I grant you. I’ve never taken flying lessons and have zero interest in doing so. I also don’t play with HAM radios in my spare time. So what is it?

What first attracted me was the patter. The way the pilots talk to the air traffic controller (ATC) fascinates me. To a large extent, it is mechanical in its precision: one voice directing, the other responding. And there’s a very specific, although congenial, protocol to this call-and-response: all numbers are repeated back by both sides, every time. Flight number, air speed, elevation. None of this information can afford to be misunderstood since very large metal containers full of live cargo are at risk of colliding mid-air - definitely a situation to be avoided.

Another part of the protocol that entrances me is the use of the NATO phonetic alphabet. I’m intrigued by code, and I remember the first time I heard this one used, I worked out the whole sequence of alphabet names on a cocktail napkin: alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo…tango, uniform, victor, whiskey, xray, yankee, zulu. The names chosen for each letter fascinate me and there’s probably an entire blog post just on that (why are most of the words two syllable, but some three? And only two of them – “golf” and “mike” – one? Did the same person decide on both “indian” and “yankee?” And why do I love the sound of some of them – “tango,” but feel neutral or even antipathy for others – “uniform”). But that’s for another time.

The real attraction though was something else. Precisely because the patter is so mechanical, I became fascinated by any evidence of the particular humans behind it. For instance, I love to listen for the greeting the ATC uses. This small choice in an otherwise proscribed dialogue is like a hole in a cloud that allows a stream of light to shine through, the light being the ATC’s nature. “Good Day” is used more often then you’d think, since it is mostly an Australian convention. And it’s pronounced more like “gooday” – one run-on sound, just like the Aussies say it. I don’t know – maybe it does come from them? And once an ATC said “See ya” when our plane left his airspace, which I thought was sweet.

Over time, I became a more seasoned listener and began to understand most of what was being communicated by the decorous patter. It’s kind of like listening to Shakespeare: when I first start, my brain is confused by the mix of known words with unfamiliar ones and contractions, their unexpected order and the cadence they elicit, all making comprehension a bit laborious. But after about ten minutes or so, I get used to the speech, forget that it’s in verse and get totally engrossed in the action. When I reached this point in my listening on channel 9, that’s when the real fun began.

What I live for is the stand-out ATC or pilot. The rogue character who, for one reason or another, adds color to the efficient drone. One example of this was a pilot with a strong southern US accent. He just didn’t follow the protocols, or well, he did, but he had his own unique twist. He’d actually talk to the tower, instead of using the usual short-hand. Rather than ”Say again” or “Repeat,” he’d say, “Sorry there fellar, I missed that. Can you run that by me again?” It made me laugh out loud, much to the bemusement of my seatmate. I wondered how this pilot got away with his outlier communication?

Actually, I’m amazed United pilots are willing to let passengers eavesdrop on their communications. And some of them most certainly aren’t – but they are really the exception. This is particularly amazing considering some of the chatter I’ve heard over the years – especially the times when I couldn’t believe the pilot didn’t flip the off switch. Maybe they forgot it was on…

And then there are the moments I wonder if I should’ve been listening at all. Like the time I heard a female voice coming from the tower - this is unusual. Actually, any female voices at all are still a rarity, although there are increasing numbers of female co-pilots – co-pilots being the ones assigned to communications with the tower. Anyway, we were taking off from O’Hare and it was a really busy time – there were planes everywhere. Ours was inching along the tarmac trying to take off, and every runway appeared to be clogged. We’d been sitting for what seemed liked hours and the tension on the plane was palpable. But each time the co-pilot spoke to us from the cockpit, his tone was as even as a new haircut.

On channel 9, I listened as the ATC rapidly gave instruction, trying to get the planes lined up right and out of each others’ way. I thought I detected a hint of being harried in her tone, but I figured I must be projecting. See, the key to these communications is that they are, by necessity, perfunctory. Anything other than that means there could be a problem. And pushing tin is no place for problems. But then the ATC gave an instruction, which, evidently, was unclear or mistaken. One of the pilots definitely sounded annoyed when he asked for clarification. I couldn’t believe my ears. The pilot was giving attitude to the tower! The tower is God in their world, so I sat up in my seat, body tingling with adrenalin. What was going on?

The ATC volleyed back harshly. And then, another pilot asked if they were ever going to get out of there. I was stunned. Did he really say that? Then the unheard of happened. The ATC went ballistic, saying it was really crowded and she was doing her best, and … suddenly the mic went dead. I thought our pilot had flipped the off switch, but not even a second later, a new ATC was on the line. A man this time, who spit directions to one plane after another. The tone of the replacement ATC was calm, confident, and directive. It was clear who was in charge. Planes started to move.

I have reflected on this event many times. I remember feeling terrible for the woman, and my impression was that she’d cracked under pressure. The fact that a replacement ATC was put in confirmed it. We’ve all heard about the pressure in the tower – that ATCs are at a much higher risk of heart attacks and depression, etc., so I assumed this happens from time to time, especially if someone is at the end of a long shift or in training, or both. And I figured this kind of thing had happened to plenty of male ATCs, as well. But, the fact was it happened on a woman’s watch that day - and everyone overheard. My cheeks burned for her. And they burned for me too. Are we too emotional for jobs like this? Is it true?

As I searched for the answer, I realized that in all my years of eavesdropping on channel 9, I’ve never heard a pilot challenge the tower in the way he did that day. It was the pilot who vented his frustration, judgment, and ego, and not just the one who asked if we were ever going to get out of there, but the first pilot, too, who spoke with an edge in his voice. I saw then that it was the male pilots whose emotions had first gotten the better of them, and that the ATC had succumbed to that.

And I wondered if these male pilots had spoken the way they did because the ATC was a woman. Did that fact somehow give them the permission? Or would they have taken a tone with any ATC they judged as incompetent in the situation? I also wondered if either of them (pilots) were reprimanded or fined, or if the ATC was. And I wondered if the ATC had been at the end of a long stretch, if she was a rookie or if her father had recently passed away.

And that’s the thing about channel 9, no matter that it’s real and in the moment, it’s still eavesdropping. And there are things you hear that you’ll wonder about forever.

How People Search

One of the keenest things about WordPress is something called “search engine terms.” This is stupendously boring language for something voyeuristically fascinating: the words people type into their computers that bring them to me. Or rather, to this blog.

Now I must admit, I don’t use this feature as it’s intended - or most likely I don’t. This is because I really have no idea how to use it in any productive way - if there is one. But, the search engine terms feature does pique my interest. I am interested in a prurient sort of way to see what people search for that brings them here.

Mostly the searches are hilarious. “Red curtain” gets me a ton of “views” because I adorned a post on the Oscars with this pic of a luscious red curtain. Now notice, I didn’t say “gets me a ton of readers” because I am pretty sure the red curtain searchers are not really looking to read an article on last year’s Oscar nominations – especially by someone as opinionated and far off as me. But who knows?

One of my favorite readers (yes, I have favorites – her comments make me feel like an absolute genius and who doesn’t tend to favor that?) told me she found my other blog on a search for “chairs.” Imagine! How lucky was that for me? The key there is also a pic I used: this ring of chairs in a post on collaboration. Although she lives across the ocean, we are united because of a yearning for chairs. Ahhh, life is sweet.

Sometimes the search terms are curious. ”Grass blades high rez” boggled me since I don’t recall using any pictures of grass blades nor writing about them, high or any other “rez.” But surely the Universal Search Memory (USM) is far superior to mine, so I capitulate.

Sometimes the search terms are more perfunctory, as in ”aniversary” and “jury selction,” both of which I have indeed written about, although I know I used their more conventional spellings.

But what prompted me to admit this bit of self-obsession was one from today: “rebecca reynolds my breasts are too big.” That one raised my eyebrows, then made me laugh - that must have been one sorely disappointed searcher.

By the way, don’t cha just hate it when people using social media, write about social media? Isn’t it bad enough that everyone has their noses buried in it all day long? Sorry. I just couldn’t resist this one. And for a more serious post on the subject of search, click here.