Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

I started Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and read this description of Sir Isaac Newton:

“Newton was a decidedly odd figure—brilliant beyond measure, but solitary, joyless, prickly to the point of paranoia, famously distracted (upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head), and capable of the most riveting strangeness.”

Boy, can I relate to getting immobilized by the whirlpool of thoughts in my head. The difference is that my thoughts aren’t changing the world.

The more I read about Newton’s quirkiness, the more I want to invite him over for dinner. And quirkiness at the dinner table reminds me of a fellow I knew eons ago in Chicago.

I was paying him (I believed) to get a job for me; he took my money to…I don’t know, coach me into getting a job myself? (This was long before life and business coaches came into vogue. I was ahead of the trends and didn’t realize it.) Our mismatched goals made for a hopeless situation.

However, the fellow—who had connections with movers and shakers everywhere—held dinner parties at least monthly that focused not on the food but on the guests. The fellow delighted in seating diverse and visionary minds of all disciplines at his table and watching sparks fly. He never mentioned names, but sometimes shared the results of these mixers with me if there was a lesson in it for me.

You probably have a long list of people—living and dead, famous and otherwise—you’d like to have a conversation with. I know I do. Close your eyes now and randomly pick a name from your list. Who is it? I’m curious about the kind of party we could have if each Lull reader brought someone from his/her fantasy list.

I’ll start the game with someone else from my list: my great-great-grandmother whose physical shape (but apparently not her world view) I’ve inherited and who performed in a rodeo.

Now it’s your turn: Tell me who’s coming to dinner. I’ll get out the Fiestaware.


[The End of Dinner by Jules-Alexandre Grün.]

Connecting in an iSociety

Last week I had the good fortune of visiting an elementary school where one class spurred their third- and fourth-grade brethren to raise money for the local humane society. “Just $1” was all they asked from everyone.

They ended up taking in $1,000.

I joined a humane society employee in thanking the children and introducing them to two of the dogs awaiting adoption. Every child was allowed to approach and pet the setter-like pups we had.

The children were sweet and well-behaved; many wanted to regale us with stories—mostly tragic—of their families’ dogs. One youngster, though, really stood out to me.

She was part of the Special Education class and her teacher held her during her introduction. The sprite’s dark hair spiked out in fine braids and red bows, matching her striking red-and-white ensemble and nicely framing her inverted teardrop-shaped face. Her large, round eyes popped when she came within an arm’s length of the pooch. I thought at first that the situation was too much for her. As her teacher repeatedly (and somewhat exasperatedly) encouraged her to say something, an altogether different kind of communication was starting to occur: As the pooch stretched her tiny head toward the girl, the girl’s round eyes had changed from surprise and anxiety to…what? Some kind of understanding? The two youngsters, canine and human, seemed to be having a soundless conversation together. I told the teacher the girl was already saying something though we couldn’t hear her. Thankfully, the teacher relaxed and allowed the child a few more moments with the dog.

After all the children had met the dogs, and as the presentation of the $1,000 donation was about to begin, I scanned the audience of children and noticed the little “red-and-white” girl in the back row, just staring into space. What was she thinking or seeing? I watched her long enough for her to notice me and lock eyes. I smiled and waved; she beamed and waved back.

I wanted to scoop her up and take her home with me. I wanted her to become best friends with the little pooch at the end of my leash, having a lifetime of endless, wordless conversations together. I wanted, at least, to always remember the calm and wonder that came over her when she and the pooch looked into each other’s gaze.

I thought about this encounter when I first saw Marshall Soulful Jones perform his poem “Touchscreen” (watch the video below—I promise you it’s worth your time).

I think Jones would agree that in our iSociety, the invisible thread between a little girl and a pup trumps every kind of technological connection we idolize.

Becoming One with the World

You may remember that I read several books at a time in addition to magazines and journals. My choice of reading material is determined by several factors: my mood, the book's portability, the amount of time I have to read.

Last month I intended to finish all the books I'd started during my year of unemployment before adding any new ones to the mix. Thought I'd make a fresh start in February.

But then I read about the Gold Rushers using camels in California (from Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History), which reminded me of an ad in Bark magazine that mentioned camels used in the Civil War. Both sounded preposterous, so naturally I checked into the matter. And it's true! (The last of these camels was spotted in Texas in the 1940s.) It ticks me off that throughout every miserable history class I sat through covering the War between the States, this information was never presented. What a great way it would have been to capture a kid's attention.

Then I thought about the other ways my reading has overlapped—that three very different books each taught me something about Italy (Eat, Pray, Love - language; Mother Tongue - politics; Salt - commerce); that Lawrence Weschler's Everything that Rises converged with a poem about the Sava river by a Serbian poet I know; that when I randomly opened The Big Book of Favorite Dog Stories, I was faced with a John Muir tale, and I'd just watched a television program about him.

My multiple-book approach to reading reminds me that the universe is one magnificent web of interconnectedness. It reminds me that I'm not alone (comforting) and I have much to learn (humbling).

So I started a new book this week, and just as the characters drove into Petaluma, California, so did my sister. There's something calming and meaningful about such happenstance. And who doesn't want a little calm and meaning these days?


[Art courtesy of Madeleine and Picasso.]