#rumination;

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quiet as the moon, sweet scorpion he sits between their two and cleans his knife.

GRENDEL (John Gardner)

[lady-adagio]

Newspapers ...

Although never a regular subscriber to a newspaper, newspapers have defined different periods of my life.

 When first living on my own in New England, I indulged myself as so many single people do with a fat Sunday newspaper.  In my case, it was the Boston Globe, and I had my own ritual for reading it.  First I would get up early on a bitter cold Sunday morning, dress, and walk down to the corner store to buy a copy before they sold out.  Then I returned, shivering and red-faced from the cold, and change back into my flannel nightgown and wool knee socks.  In my cozy little kitchen I would bake apple-walnut or blueberry muffins and make a little pot of tea and put it all on a tray.  Then I climbed back into bed with my muffins and tea and the Sunday paper, and begin to read. 

 The first section of interest was “Arts” so I could see if I wanted to order a ticket to a concert, play, ballet, etc.  I read all of the film reviews, making mental notes about what I wanted to see in the coming weeks.  Once the “Arts” section had been completely covered, I would glance at the headlines on the front page, check through the sale circulars to see if any essentials were on sale, possibly read the “Living” section, and then pile it all up neatly and go back to sleep.  It was a heavenly indulgence.

 Later I moved into the city (Boston) and worked for a huge, international law firm.  Each day each floor of the firm had all of the major papers – Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, and the Boston Globe in the reception area.  I made it a point to read the center column of the Wall Street Journal believing that was really all the news I needed to know.

 After several years of urban living, I moved as far into the suburbs as I could go and still take the commuter rail to work.  (There was a stalking ex-boyfriend that instigated this decision).  The attorney I worked for gave me a beautiful Coach leather briefcase when I began working as a paralegal, so I began buying The Wall Street Journal or the New York Times to read on the train on the way to work.  I was particularly interested in international news, so I never bothered with the Boston Globe.

 There was an unspoken understanding in Boston – which is actually a very provincial city and I say that with the greatest affection – that people who read the Boston Herald worked for the state and were not terribly well-educated or sophisticated, but those of us who worked in the private sector (meaning “worked ourselves to death”) read the Boston Globe.   I think this dividing line was hard on sports fans because the Herald covers much more sports news than the Globe, but the sports section in the Globe has superior writers.

 I’ve always enjoyed papers from other places – especially small towns or foreign countries. Whenever anyone was traveling and asked what they could bring me, I would ask for a newspaper.  In this way I collected newspapers from places I had never heard of and often in languages I could not read.  However, these papers entertained me for hours.  I was interested in the layout; the typeface; the photographs; the stories covered on the front page; the advertisers and their products and prices; and, most of all, the obituaries. 

 Recent I spent part of the past two years staying in a fairly rural area of upstate Georgia.  I had lived in metropolitan areas for most of my adult life so it was a bit of a shock to me to discover that there was only one newspaper available in the area:  The Northeast Georgian.   I learned that it was truly not possible to find The Atlanta Journal & Constitution, much less the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.  When I would ask for them, people looked at me a little suspiciously.

 Fortunately for me, though, my Dad maintains a subscription to Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin and, like newspapers from foreign ports, it entertained me for hours.  Although there are five or six articles and a “Featured Recipe”, it is truly a “bulletin” with ads for every sort of farming implement and livestock you could imagine – and many I couldn’t.  There is equipment:  “12-foot Vrisimo Mighty Max flail mower, $2,100.”  A flail mower??

 The livestock ads are the most fascinating, though.  Under “Goats and Sheep” one finds “100 percent Boer yearling bucks.”  So for the uninformed (like me), is this a goat or a sheep?  Or “ADGA weaned Oberhasli doelings, $350, buckling $300; Sir Echo, Ayrsmoss (Dee Dee Shaw) high milk, disbudded.”  I can read these fascinating descriptions for hours, pondering over what they are, asking my Dad, perusing the Internet.  This one tugged at my heart – “Mute Swans, two, pinioned, must sell both, $450 for two gentle swans.”  Are they really mute?  What is pinioned?  Of course they must be sold together! And then one for “Peacock pair; India Blue, 1.5 years old, $175.”  Who has $175 to spend on peacocks?  Aren’t they kind of nasty, like camels, or is that just geese?  And under “Rabbits” we have “Netherland Dwarves” “mini-Red” “Lionheads” “Dutch rabbits” “New Zealand bunnies” and “Silver Fox rabbits.”  Who knew??

 Now I’m living on an island off the coast of Massachusetts and the off-season population is only about 15,000, there are two weekly newspapers.  There is the illustrious The Vineyard Gazette (published since 1868) and The Martha’s Vineyard Times.  The Gazette is a full-size newspaper – larger than The Wall Street Journal  - and the writing is superb.  Although both have an on-line edition, I prefer to read the newsprint editions.

 By reading the local papers and my subscription to The Economist I felt like I had the news well covered, but a recent gubernatorial election caught me by surprise and I neglected to vote.  However, I am fully informed on the news near and far – just very, very near, and very, very far.

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            ⎡                                                                                                          ⎤                                                            am I                                                                                                        ｈｕｒｔｉｎｇ?                                                            am I                                                          ｓａｄ?                                                         should I                                                         ｓｔａｙ                                                       or should I                                                           ｇｏ?                                               I've forgotten how to tell                                                did I ever even know?                                          ⎣                                                                                  ⎦