The Accidental Purist

Every time I get into trouble, I go for a walk by the water. From time
to time I'll saunter along the Marina Green. That salty, ancient smell
of San Francisco Bay; the steady, gentle lapping of the waves foaming
against the black rocks -- it all gives me reassurance. There's a
language in the water. If I listen close enough, I can hear a sweet,
lyrical poem told by long dead poets in untranslatable verse. All I
have to do is ignore all the shouting that goes on in my head and tune
into its frequency. I fall into its rhythm and I feel a great sense of
calm relief. The primordial, swirling water is forever. My problems
have a short life.
And so do I.
There's not a hell of a lot I can do about any of it.
Speaking of long dead poets, I'm sure you recall Emily Dickinson's
famous line, "Because I would not stop for death, he kindly stopped for
me."
Emily was "the Belle of Amherst" but the not the belle of the ball. She
was not invited to a lot of cocktail parties. You might see why. It's
unusual to break the ice at a social gathering by talking about death.
By the way, I've noticed that medical examiners are some of the
funniest people in the world. But they usually have to keep their jokes
to themselves at their own exclusive cocktail parties.
I know a man who, while very young, used to be hired to cause
disruptions just to get the party going. Yes, there is really such a
job. In Yiddish, he's called a "tumler," and his job was to create a
little mayhem at parties at Jewish resorts such as those found in the
Catskill Mountains of New York State. This would break the tension
between strangers meeting for the first time. What a wonderful culture
that is -- to actually have such an occupation. Too bad the United
Nations doesn't have a few of these. The Security Council could use
them.
I'm sure Emily Dickinson was very funny. Or she could be funny. Who's
to say? Most of the time Ms. Emily was shuttered in her room, writing.
Or walking about, listening to the language of the trees.
"Death kindly stopped for me." Beautiful but not too funny. Lately I've
stopped to think about things, more than I used to. It's part of that
trouble I mentioned earlier. You see, I have developed a serious heart
ailment. I've mentioned it before. It's an unwelcome adventure. But I
have no intention of letting death stop for me just yet. Death has
plenty of other stops to make. All the same, it sure slows me down a
bit. Maybe that's why I like to hear the relentless, rock steady rhythm
of the tide. That solid, reliable meter is missing in me. Right now my
heart is off the beat. It flutters uncertainly. It gives my whole being
a sense of wobbling off its axis, a touch of vertigo.
So I have slowed down a little (the medications, that is, the
beta-blockers and the ACE inhibitors put everything in slow motion
anyway). Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Dickinson's
contemporaries and fellow New Englanders, were always talking about
slowing down. And that was in the early 19th century. Off to Walden
Woods Henry went. There he "wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow
out of life." That's in the language of his world, the world in the
woods. Can you imagine hearing that today? Someone on a cell phone, on
the packed 1-California bus? "What am I doing this weekend?" the person
shouts into the phone. "I'm going to live deep and suck all the marrow
out of life!" When there's poetry on the buses, the world will have
changed.
Marrow is now off my diet. So is all meat, fish, and dairy products.
Yes, I have taken to digging for roots and collecting berries in the
Presidio. Well, not quite but my cardiac crisis led me to be very
careful about what I'm eating. The doctors put me on a low-fat, no-salt
regimen. I didn't think it was tough enough and decided one day, not so
long ago, that chickens never have a good day. So I have become a
reluctant but now a zealous full-fledged vegan. I adhere to the Dr.
Dean Ornish "Reversing Heart Disease Diet." It's severe. It means no
oils or fats of any kind. Except fish oil. "Take three or four grams of
fish oil a day, Bruce," Dr. Dean told me. "It might help your heart get
back to a normal rhythm." He insists on a certain brand, Complete
Omega, by Nordic Naturals. Pricier stuff but the company filters out
all the metallic poisons. The other day a chap in the Marina told me
his wife, who consumed only fish for her health, contracted mercury
poisoning. Yes, we have gone that far in contaminating our oceans and
rivers. We have stopped listening to the language of water. It's very
scary. Who needs "War of the Worlds"? We've been waging war on our own
planet for a long time.
There is even a slow food movement, founded in Paris in 1989. I heard
about it through my friend, Lisa Carlson. I know what slow service is
but I'm not sure what slow food is. It seems to have much to do with
selecting foods from the region and caring for the environment that
produces it. It's a reaction to the mass-produced, hormone-injected,
chemical-drenched foods we see everywhere.
I like the notion of slow food. I'll pick a farmer's market around
town, fill the bags with veggies and all sorts of beans and make a
legume ragout in a good-sized pot. It might last a week. Or longer.
Like cassoulet, the French, exalted form of pork and beans, I'll keep
adding to the mixture from time to time. I get a serene sort of feeling
by soaking the beans in a large bowl overnight or for a few days, then
stirring them lovingly over a low flame as they simmer for hours. I'm
convinced this unhurried, simple form of cooking is clinically good for
me. At the very least, it gives me pleasure.
I don't feel any holier or more sanctified by becoming a vegetarian. I
just feel better. Oh, don't think I don't miss scarfing down a pastrami
sandwich. Or sucking the marrow out of the osso bucco bone. The workers
at Tommy's Joynt still have to chase me out of the hofbrau because I
tend to steam up the glass while hovering over the steam table, leering
at the brisket. If I did not have a near-death experience and this
terrifying ailment, I would not have selected this way to go. This is
not such a noble calling. As for nutrition, I am the accidental purist.
"You may have a serious form of chronic heart disease," my
wise-cracking internist, Dr. Debbie Brown, says. "But you look really
good." Isn't that all that matters in our culture? Let's face it: it
helps.
Here, walking along the Bay, confronting the waves, I may fend off the
inner terrors fighting to take over. "Listen to me," a soft but
distinct voice says, "I am the language of water. And this is all you
need to hear right now."

Bruce Bellingham is the author of "Bellingham by the Bay" (Council Oak
Books). When not meandering near the wind-swept coastline, he may be
reached at bellsf@mac.com

Tormented By Civilized Cartesian Phantoms

The British stage actor, Sir Antony Sher, came on Charlie Rose program to discuss his one-man show about Primo Levi, the Italian chemist who turned to writing after his survival at Auschwitz. Even the brief clips of Sher's performance are very intense.

What intrigued me was Sher's experience with stage fright late in his career. "It's quite common with serious actors who have been at their craft for a long time. Olivier had it so badly that the rest of the company (at The National) was instructed not to make eye contact with him. It would terrify him. He felt the actors were judging him"

Sher described his own terror: "I could hear my own voice delivering the lines to the audience but another voice in my ear would say, "You're going to screw this up. You're going to make a botch of it. You're going to blow it. Then a third voice would start shouting, contradicting the second voice. There was all this racket going on in my head. What causes it? It's an Inner Demon."

"And how did you make it stop?" Charlie asked.

"By doing a one-man show."

I wasn't familiar with Levi's writing. Now, I think I'll pursue his books. He committed suicide, by the way, pitching himself down a stairwell in Turin 40 years after his Auschwitz liberation.

"It wasn't the camp that caused his death," said Sher. "It was his lifetime bout with clinical depression -- something he had before he was caught by the Nazis." Curiously, his depression vanished while he was in the concentration camp. Survival became everything. But it returned after the war.

Despite the so-called racial laws, Primo Levi managed to complete his degree in chemistry at the University of Turin in 1941. But he had difficulty finding work. And two years later, when the Germans invaded northern Italy, Levi fled to the mountains with a pearl-handled pistol, joining
an ineffectual band of partisans.

"I was twenty-four," he would recall, "with little wisdom, no experience, and a decided tendency -- encouraged by the life of segregation forced on me for the previous four years by the racial
laws -- to live in an unrealistic world of my own, a world inhabited by civilized Cartesian phantoms ..."

Captured at once by a troop of Fascist militia, Levi soon found himself crossing the Brenner Pass in a cattle car, en route to a location whose name had not yet acquired its terrible, latter-day
resonance: Auschwitz.

I once had a memorable breakfast with Joe Bologna in a greasy spoon in -- of all places -- Northridge, California. He talked about acting and the nature of fear. Growing up in Brooklyn, he considered becoming a priest. His father shined shoes in Wall Street and saved enough money
to send Joe to Brown to become an architect.

I wrote this in my Examiner column, January 2004: Joe Bologna & Renée Taylor performed "It Had to Be You" at the Cal State Northridge Theater yesterday here in chilly Southern California. The house was packed.

"These are wonderful audiences in the San Fernando Valley," said Renée. "People come from all over." The couple wrote the show over 20 years ago. But its tenderness and insight into human vulnerabilities transcend the vagaries of fashion. In a characteristic Taylor/Bologna theme, two strangers find redemption through chaos and rediscovery. It’s a very funny and very touching show.

But “It Had to Be You” had to be funny.

“You don’t cut funny,” said Bologna’s character in “My Favorite Year.” But there’s always the poignancy. “I used to have trouble with sexuality when I was young,” Joe said before the matinee. “I just didn’t like how it made me feel vulnerable. I considered becoming a priest, but then I had too many questions about God."

He would have been a very funny priest. …

Which reminds me of the old joke: "How do you make God laugh? Just tell Him your plans."

And now a final word on parrots (from "My Favorite Year"):

Rookie, your Meatloaf Mindanao was superb!

Rookie Carroca: Thanks. That takes two days to prepare, you know.

Really! Tell me, what was that rather pungent taste?

Rookie Carroca: Parrot!

-someone spits up and Aunt Sadie swoons-

Rookie Carroca: And they're not easy to work with. They put up some squawk.