Lame Brain

Dear You,

Okay, the hype got to me. Instead of turning off the TV and opening my novel, I watched the whole two hours of CSI/Without A Trace. After all, I thought, there might not be new shows for awhile, since the Hollywood writers have gone on strike.

So I watched the bodies pile up: a closeup of the pretty girl, whose brains were bashed in as she was taking a bath (candles burned while she sipped the last of her wine before hearing the door creak open) -- a closeup of the pretty wife, brains bashed in and stuffed into the trunk of her old, dust-covered car (she worked hard for a living and didn't deserve to die) -- closeup photos of three other pretty victims, showing the jewelry the killer had retained as gifts to his (pretty) sister, who Didn't Have a Clue . . . don't serial killers ever bash in the brains of ugly women?

Meanwhile, the head of the crime lab and the head of the FBI pop in and out of each other's shows, jetting between Las Vegas and New York City and exchanging Meaningful Looks; at the same time, their minions do a lot of talking, and to cover the banality of what they say, they peer closely at The Evidence with little flashlights and take close-up photos of candy wrappers with big cameras and long lenses.

And why all this carnage? (a) the killer was misunderstood by his father, and (b) the killer loves and yearns for his cute, blond son. Oh . . . I don't want to drag out the suspense any longer: at the end he apologizes to his sister (whom he did NOT kill), and blows his brains out with a gun that everyone knew he had hidden under his arm.

As I thought about the show later, the question which lingered was this: what difference does it make if writers such as the one(s) for this show are . . . or are not . . . on strike? Well, not the only question -- I wondered why I had not put in another two hours with my novel.

An oral tradition

Dear You,

I like to hold babies. There's something quite peaceful in their faces, and something very comfortable about sitting in a rocking chair cradling a baby in my arm. For whatever reason, I soothe them -- perhaps it's the timbre of my voice. The baby I held yesterday is a girl and only a month old. She slept most of the time, even through periodically being passed from one family member to another.

Now and then through the afternoon she whimpered, and -- you know this already! -- she cried. What I saw was how rapidly someone stuffed a pacifier into her tiny mouth. Anyone can tell genuine distress from "fussiness," but both were treated the same. Not I. During my tenure when her crying didn't stop after a few seconds, I stood up and walked a few paces. Really, that's all it took.

Certainly it is painful to hear an infant cry -- one's impulse is to Do Something. But I don't think the Something should be to further encourage the fact that we take pleasure from (and avoid unhappiness with) our mouths. Here we are with a national epidemic of childhood obesity . . . and I can't help thinking of all the adults stuffing kids' faces with things to make them happier. Is this for the sake of the children, or is it just too much trouble for the grownups to exert themselves in other ways?

While I'm on the subject, what about the distressing tendency to keep the bored older children occupied in front of a television screen? Must we ruin their minds as well as their bodies?