Tv REVIEWS - Books and BLONDE

AMY'S BOOK HUNT, PBS

Amy Brent, daughter of a well known book store owner visits flea markets, estate sales, and thrift shops to show viewers how books destined for discard can be worth a lot of money. This was a fascinating tv show to someone like me because my house is literally filled with books. I have floor to ceiling book shelves in every room. AND I have taken boxes of books to book depository recepticles like Better World Books and other places trying to cut down. I took cartons of books on Women's History to Alice Paul Institute Library, but as it turned out they were downsizing their library and going more for on-line research. I have also taken cartons of books to those libraries and book stores still willing to take them, but increaingly, it seems to me, outside of urban, literate communities, people don't read much anymore. Despite he proliferatiion of Book Clubs, I think the average people are getting all their informaiton from television, not even from newspapers so much anymore. I find that sad because I LOVED books and they have been my friends all my life and my lifesavers. The connection with BLONDE is the bridge of two kinds of lives, the scholarly and the entertainment. I exclude mentioning sports because the real connection here is a story about my daughter and a prom dress. Adding sports would be too much.

It has been said by many people over my lifetime that I have a negative view of men. It is true, I do. One of the many many things I like about being old, is that I am no longer the object of male desire. Now I have fallen into the category of Granny or Old Timey retired teacher, stout, white haired, sensible shoes and, as of this year, very short hair.

In my youth, because I developed early and was tall and pretty and blonde, I was the unwilling recipient of the kind of male attention that the Women's Movement has pretty much put a stop to - street harrassment, lewd comments from strangers, surreptitious touching on public transportation and all manner of invasive attention. I hated it and it gave me bad posture because I was inadvertently tryng to shrink myself and become less visible. I developed sloped shoudlers to camoflage my developing breasts, for example. Everyone always commented on my posture and tried to make me stand up straight, but standing up straight made you look proud and drew attention. I was shy and didn't want attention. My bad posture, however, made me more a victime because it made me look vulnerable.

BLONDE, the movie, was a lurid and disrespectful exploitation of a pathetic dead woman who was, her entire life, the victim of constant exploitation because she was beautiful and weak. She encouraged the attention because of her traumatic childhood and because she had learned it was the easiest and most reliable way to get attention which she confused with love. Unfortunately, the attention always turned negative and exploitive because it was based on her beauty and sexual allure and as Vanessa Redgrave once so eloquently said; "When you are beautiful, you learn everything that is evil at an early age."

Marilyn Monroe's mother was a paranoid schizophrenic and was so abusive towards her little child that she tried to murder her by drowning her in the bathtub. It reminded me of the case of Andrea Yates, who in 2001 drowned all five of her children in the bathtub and then called the police. She was convinced she had to save them from going to Hell and that she had to die by execution. She is in a mental institution at this present time, 2022. She had schizophrenia and had suffered a psychotic break fueled by her fundamentalist religion and the exhortations of a bible spouting family friend. Her husband, appaently, was oblivious to her mental decline.

Marilyn Monroe died in 1962 at the age of 36, and yet she remains the object of such fascination from the press and the public. Before I permanently deleted my facebook account, I frequently recieved 'sexy images' of Marilyn Monroe from people - odd and surprising! They sent them the way some peope send kitten and puppy pictures with butterflies circling overhead. It always made me think how Marilyn Monroe was DEAD and how sad and unkind her life had been.

When my daughter was a senior in high school, she wanted me to make her prom gown but I hadn't sewn in years and a prom gown wa far above my skill level at any point, anyhow. I didn't really know what she wanted, so she made it herself, a home-made version of what she perceived to be Marilyn Monroe's SOME LIKE IT HOT dress. I was sad and embarrassed by her outfit and it seemed a bit delusional to me. But, I tried to stoicly smile through it. What that dress represented to me was a girl used, abused and discarded by a cruel and wolfish world. What it meant to my daughter I cannot say, maybe glamour? I had spent a lot of money on beautiful prom gowns in previous years, more like Disney princess tulle and rhinestone frocks than the polka dotted knit dress she sewed. That was the second year of our drawing further and further apart in my daughter's teens. The truth is, my daugher was more her father's child and I don't think I ever really understood her. Furthermore, she really wanted to be out of my sphere of influence beginning in her teens. I saw books and the scholarly life as the way out, the way to a dignified, safe, and rich life. Like her father, Lavinia was more of a performer and she craved attention which I shunned. We were very different.

Well, it is all in the past now. My daughter is close to 40 and long gone from my life in most ways and she is safe and married and successful in her chosen world of theater and film, and Marilyn Monroe is dead 60 years now and the world has changed for the better in a lot of ways, at least in America and Europe. In the Middle East, however, blatant gender discrimination and abuse prevails. An Iranian young wonan, 22 years old, was arrested by the "Morality Police" for having her bangs showing in the top of her head covering. She was beaten and killed in jail and the women and many male supporters have been protesting and rioting for the whole week in Iran, to, I fear, no real use. The Fundamentalist leaders will simply arrest a few hundred of them, terrorize and intimidate the rest, and all will fall back into the groove that has been carved out in the culture. They had a free country once, under the American supported Shah, and women dressed as they wished, but the fundamentalist fervor swept over the country and all the liberal reforms were erased.

My recommendation - don't bother watching BLONDE (on Netflix) it will just depress you but do watch AMY BRENT's Book documentary and you might find treasure in a box in your attic! Although she didn't really explain how to get the book to the custormer willing to pay the prices allegedly listed on the internet. Maybe a later episode? Oh, I almost forgot BLONDE the film was based on a BOOK written by Joyce Carol Oates.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

Fun places to visit in fall

Barclay Farmstead is having a Living History day October 2nd from noon to 4:00 p.m. There will be candle making, quill writing, and Quaker History among other events.

One of my favorite places has always been the New Egypt Flea Market which is open again. I just received this information via e-mail: The New Egypt Flea Market Village is a charming historic village filled with 40 climate-controlled buildings in New Egypt. This Ocean County staple is known for its wide selection of vendors selling collectibles, furniture, books, antiques, gifts, toys, tools, and a locally made goodsA stroll through these unpaved streets will take you back in time as you peruse through antiques, used items, and charming country stores filled with candles, crochet items, and clothing. The market also features an outdoor section in the warmer months of the year that's home to a giant yard sale. The merchandise at New Egypt Flea is constantly changing so no matter how many times you visit, you're bound to find something new and exciting.

The New Egypt Flea Market Village is open every Wednesday and Sunday from 7 am until 2 pm. To learn more about the vendors here and the annual events they host, be sure to check their official site out here. Address: 933 Monmouth Rd, Cream Ridge, NJ 08514.

There is also a Colestown Cemetery walking tour coming up. You may have to look this one up yourself because when I clicked on More Information - nothing came on on the e-mail notification I received.

Nother place I love to visit EVERY SEASON is Platt's Farm on Cohawkin Rd. in Clarksboro. It is a great place to find exotic pumpkins and many other autumn decorative items as well as corn stalks and an enormous selection of trees, shrubs and flowering plants. You can visit the many rescue farm animals while you are there from hckens to donkeys, and a couple of cattle.

Happy Trails,

Jo ann

Day of the Dead and Multiculturalism

It is often said that when you teach, you learn. In my experience it is entirely true. When I was first out of college, doing my student teaching at Willingboro High School, I was assigned to teach a class called Minority Literature. The woman who was supposed to be my mentor teacher, disappeared - no books, no instructions - nothing. She simply melted away to the teacher's lounge or somewhere else. I am grateful to her for that. Since I knew NOTHING about minority literature, I was forced to educate myself. And when you are going to face a group of high school teenagers, especially in the rebellious 1970's, you want to be prepared, so I prepared.

First, because I am an artist and a writer, I tend to think out of the box, so I had a broader idea of what constituted a minority. Also because it was the 70's, the era of Civil Rights struggles and farm workers struggles, the idea of who is a minority was open for discussion. I was an ardent feminist (and I am still a feminist, though I have gotten old and my ardor is faded away). So, naturally, I thought of Gender. And because I was teaching in a predominaently African American high school, Race was number 1 on the list of Minority groups. So I broke it down into broad categories: Race, Gender, Religion, Disability (the movement for access had just gotten underway) and Ethnic Minorities. I began to read everything I could find in each of these categories. My education in American Literature and World Literature had left ALL of these categories OUT - not because they didn't exist but because many of the middle-aged and older professors weren't aware of them and they had stopped learning or keeping up with the currents of our times. They taught what they already knew, the same curriculum year after year.

I can't list every kind of book I read to catch up, but I can give a few samples: for Race, among many others, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Native Son, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I had a whole host of books already gathered for Gender, such as The Second Sex, and the Feminine Mystique, and for Religion, I read Isaac Bashevi Singer's works and other Jewish writers such as Night, by Elie Wiesel, on the Holocaust. I read books about Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker's Movement, and books about the struggles of disabled people, and about discrimination against people due to age (the Gray Panthers). I also began to read authors on the Native American experience.

When I, a young white woman of 28, addressed my almost entirely African American class, , I asked I asked anyone who was part of a minority to raise their hands . All of them raised their hands and I raised mine and they looked at me incredulously but they were polite, thankfully. Some said, "What Minority Group are you?" and I began to talk about Gender bias and the long long struggle for women to win the Right to Vote (more than 50 years after African American Men won it. They were open minded and ready to begin. So, I listed the groups I counted as minority groups and why, and told them we would begin with Race. We started with Slavery and the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and segregation. I had essays and short stories xerox-copied for them to read. Also, I told them I was reading Malcolm X and if anyone wanted to get the book from the library, they could read it with me.

The moral of the story is that MY eyes were opened, and my mind was opened to the vast seething layers of humanity flowing across our country and the under-represented citizens and their stories.

For that reason, I am decorating and celebrating for National Hispanic Heritage Month. I like the Day of the Dead celebration because we honor those of the past whom we have loved and lost, and so I am honoring Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

Approximaely 18 percent of our population is Hispanic, our closest geographical neighbors and we know so little about them. So I begin with the literature (as with Isabel Allende) and then move on to the culture (Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera) and celebration of our diversity in this country.

Happy National Hispanic Heritage Month!

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Saddler's Woods

FALL STEWARDSHIP EVENT Saturday October 15th from 9am - 12pm (rain or shine). Volunteers are needed to help pick up litter, mulch trails for the pumpkin walk, weed invasive plants, and reestablish native vegetation in restoration zones. Limit 70. Please bring your own snacks and water. Wear long pants, long sleeved shirts and sturdy water proof boots. Gloves and tools provided. Preregistration is required by October 12th. Email janet@saddlerswoods.org or call 856 869 7372. Please provide your full name, age, any physical limitations or allergies - especially to bug bites or poison ivy.

ENCHANTED PUMPKIN WALK Saturday 10/22 from 4pm - 6:30pm. Visitors will be able to walk a path in the woods lined with artistic Jack o Lanterns! We aim to have over 160 creatively carved pumpkins. To make this event a success, we need help from carvers who can create amazing Jack o Lanterns! So for anyone who can work some magic with a carving knife - we need you! In appreciation, carvers will receive one complimentary ticket.

Want to help but hate carving? We will need help transporting pumpkins to and from our artistic carvers as well as event day volunteers. To sign up for Team Pumpkin, email Steve Balogh at steve@saddlerswoods.org

PUMPKIN WALK TICKET INFO For those interested getting their hands on the hottest ticket in town - take note! Dues paying members of SWCA get first crack via a pre-sale on 10/5. Members will receive an email inviting them to purchase tickets.

On 10/8 tickets will go on sale to the general public on a first come first serve basis. All ticket sales will be done via www.saddlerswoods.org and the tickets will be will-call at the event.

SPONSORSHIP Interested in becoming a Pumpkin Walk sponsor? Donations are needed to offset the cost of pumpkins, decorations, mulch, and other supplies. Your business will be featured on social media announcements, website,and signage at the event. Contact Steve at steve@saddlerswoods.org for more info.

Thank you to this year's first sponsors: Heather M. Tran Attorney at Law, Abraham Tran, Esq., Franco's Place, Mark Weller Realtor, Dorothy Weller and Camden County Therapy Hens for their generous donations!

Happy fall,

Janet Goehner-Jacobs, Executive Director Saddler's Woods Conservation Association

Observations on the TV Series THE CROWN

THE CROWN

SEASON ONE - Coming to terms with adulthood and responsibility

SEASON TWO - Marriage and Gender roles

SEASON THREE - Sibling Rivalry and family competition

SEASON FOUR - False notions about BREEDING & notions of Parental Control

To me, one of the most interesting aspects of THE CROWN, aside from the admittedly fictional aspect to the glimpse of life in a Royal family, is the universal themes played out not only in the tv series, but in the real world of the Royals as well as the real world of the rest of us.

As we all watch our younger family members struggle with the responsibility of adult life, and for some the added responsibility of new parenthood, we can empathize with Princess Margaret, newly married and trying to navigate that perilous patch of sea, and then suddenly being thrust into one of the most mysterious and difficult jobs a person could be forced into - governing a realm! What woman among us hasn't struggled with the demands of male/husband entitlement at the same time time as she struggles to learn how to run a household. Husbands newly removed from the total care of mothers (by which I mean mothers do their laundry, buy and cook their food, clean up the dishes and the kitchen, clean their rooms, and provide emotional support) and then a man gets married and expects all of that from a new wife who herself has just left a household where HER mother mostly provided those services. Now, she not only has to do all that but for most, if not all young American women, she has to hold down a full time job and maintain an attractive appearance to compete with television and advertising models of what women should look like. It is too much. It takes all we have in emotional intelligence and resilience to sort through these expectations and find a viable way forward. Then comes pregnancy and childbearing - WHEW!

Prince Phillip expected to be the Lord and Master and had such struggles with his wife's superior status within their world. His sense of male entitlement bubbled up continually, at least in the portrayal of Phillip in the tv series. Some of what I have read about the real Prince Phillip has denied that he, for example, refused to kneel before the Queen. They said that having been raised in a Royal household, he was used to deference to those of superior rank. Who knows? Society, however, has continually, supported the notion of male superiority in general. Male physical strength has been used continuously to uphold male domination over women, and the pervasiveness of it has become so much a part of the ordinary world that most people don't even notice it. Strip clubs and prostitution are just some of the continually evident forms of economic domination and female subservience and degradation that are taken for granted. Sexism, like Racisim is so prevalent that a lot of people don't even notice.

Sibling rivalry and jealousy has been a theme in a variety of TV Series lately, too such as in SUCCESSION allegedly based on the Murdoch family struggles over inherited control of the family business and wealth. Along with the struggle Queen Elizabeth had with her envious and reckless sister, there was the constant battle to keep the reckless and ego driven impulsiveness from sinking the whole family ship. Plenty of us in the real world have this constant battle with our impulsive and reckless siblings, as well as coping with mental illness and emotional disability. What family hasn't had tragedy related to depression, suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism and promiscuity? Frankly I don't know a single family that hasn't had to cope with at least one of these issues.

BREEDING - People have such foolish notions about breeding. Anyone who knows anything about the health of species knows that breeding-out produces the best defense against genetic abnormalities and diseases. Pure-bred means a recipe for disaster. The King Charles Spaniel is a perfect example of a poor dog bred to brain dysfunction through too much in-breeding. Breeding too close causes great damage to offspring. The Royal families should have learned that lesson by now, look at the damage inflicted on the children of the assassinated Russian Royal family - the hemophila for example. Even today in the everyday world, I meet people who have just spent thousands of dollars they probably shouldn't have buying a 'pure breed' dog of some kind. The old saying used to go that the healthiest dogs were the street dogs of Dehli because they cross breed and have survived every manner of deadly affliction. In the fourth season of THE CROWN, we are introduced to five poor cousins who were placed for life in mental facilities because they were congenitally disabled. The family marked them in the book of Peerage as dead, then hid them away and shunned them. And when poor Prince Charles was mated off with the appropriately young, healthy and single Princess Diana, all manner of catastophe unfolded, although I suppose it must be saud that the goal was fulfilled because she provided the Royal family with two healthy male heirs.

This is the second time I have watched THE CROWN, and as is so often the case, I have seen more and noticed more the second time around than I did the first. This time I watched THE CROWN in honor of Queen Elizabeth who had just died. And I honor her because although I am not pro-monarchy and most definitely opposed to hereditary monarchy and primogeniture in any form, she was an example of dignity under pressure and self-restraint, courtesy and forebearance in a world where such traits are increasingly rare. They used all the 'D' words for her: duty, diligence, dignity, devotion, discipline. And these are all admirable traits. Look at some of the other world leaders and compare.

Sadly, however it appears she was missing some of the 'C' words - in particular, Compassion. You cannot watch anything about the Royal family without being sad for the tragedy of Princess Diana, married too young, too unprepared for what was expected of her and unaware of the swirling deadly undercurrents stirred up before she was on the scene. Charles's resentment towards the control imposed on him by his role in the family spilled out like acid on the heart of poor romantic Diana. Nothing she could do could please him or win her the warmth and acceptance she craved from his family because they didn't have it to give. She was tormented, twisted, used up and discarded. And so much for wealth and privilege.

I can't help but wonder whether the monarchy will continue to toddle along in the leftover aura of the irreplaceable Queen, or if it will wither in the dry desert of the damaged and untalnented new King, a pompous and blundering man detached from the modern world and lacking the grace and perception of his mother. Like a pure bred dog in some rural breeding farm, he was taken too soon from the nurture he should have received from his maother, and denied the loving attention of a family pack and a father, and forced to bumble and battle his way to adulthood and finally his inheritance which may turn out to be a crown of thorns.

In November, we will see SEASON FIVE of THE CROWN. It is indeed an epic tale.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

(as always, if you wish to contact me, use e-mail not the comments section of the blog because 'comments' is pertpetually poisoned by robo spam. Thank you)

Ways to Think about Cemeteries

A Lot of Ways to Think About Cemeteries The first week of September, I have been thinking about cemeteries, and I have been watching a pbs program called The World’s Greatest Cemeteries. One of the reasons I have been thinking about cemeteries is that I visited the grave and memorial of Peter J. Maguire at Arlington Cemetery in Pennsauken, NJ. It is a striking monument with a colonnade behind a life size statue on a grand plinth. One of the many things Arlington is famous for is a rare tree called the purple ash. It is a lovely park setting, very peaceful and beautifully maintained. Something I learned from the pbs program about these large public park types of cemeteries is that they evolved from the courtyard burial grounds because the churchyards were becoming overcrowded and the graves were vulnerable to exploitation. Grave robbers would dig up graves to sell fresh bodies to medical schools and sometimes grave robbers were interested in the wood and metal in the coffins, the clothing and jewelry on the bodies. Also, burying was not carefully overseen and some graves were so shallow that a good storm would open the graves. Many philanthropists took an interest due to thoughts of their own eventual demise or because they wanted a grand memorial to the family name, or because they wanted a safe and beautiful place for a loved one’s final rest. These park-like cemeteries were designed by landscape architects to maximize the views, and the geography of the location. Naturally each well known cemetery became the final resting place of many notables. One of my favorite cemeteries is Harleigh, just on the border between Camden and Collingswood on the Cooper River. Walt Whitman is buried there and I often visit his tomb. It goes without saying that I have visited the cemeteries of all of my known ancestors during my years of family history research. My maternal grandparents are buried at Bethel Cemetery, also in Pennsauken, because there is a section for World War I veterans. One of my favorite nearby cemeteries is the Newton Burial Ground established in 1683 by a group of Irish Quakers beside Newton Creek in Collingswood. The original Newton Meeting House is in Camden near the Ben Franklin Bridge approach. There is a section of Revolutionary War veterans from the Gloucester County Militia buried there, and a section established by a man named Sloan, for non-Quaker burials, as his wife was not a member of the Society of Friends and at the time, she was denied burial in the Friends section. There is a plaque devoted to that story at the site on Lynne Avenue. The cemetery is beside the old train Depot.

The thing that first drew me to the Woodbury Friends Meeting burial ground was that James and Ann Whitall are buried there. I had felt as though I had gotten to know Ann Whitall when I digitized a typed version of her diary at Gloucester County Historical Society. Often at Meeting, I feel something like her presence.

I don’t think of cemeteries as ‘spooky’ places, but more as peaceful places to contemplate our mortality and to remember those who have come before us. I grew up walking in the cemetery at Gloria Dei ‘Old Swede’s’ Church in Philadelphia after Sunday School.

A year before the pandemic, a friend and I were on a historic tour sponsored by a Burlington County Historical Society and one of the sites was a cemetery where research had been done and volunteers dressed in period appropriate costumes told visitors about the lives of the people in the graves where they stood and whom they represented. I thought that was a wonderful idea. It brought to mind a poetry book I read as a freshman at Glassboro State College called Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters, a very touching collection of poems that serve as the epitaphs of deceased citizens of the fictional town.

The saddest cemetery I have visited was Mount Moriah in Pennsylvania which was simply abandoned. My paternal grandfather was buried there but it is now an overgrown jungle and a place where people have dumped construction waste debris. Groups of citizens have periodically made attempts at cleaning up and maintaining but it is simply too big a job for volunteers.

I once met a cemetery volunteer in Gloucester City who went from volunteer to owner when the cemetery grounds came up for sale. His family were buried there and he took on the responsibility of maintaining the grounds. It makes you think there should be some legal requirement for cemetery owners to put a part of the profits into a trust for future maintenance. However, so many are cremated these days, that many public cemeteries may be at risk due to falling numbers of new graves being purchased to keep the flow of financial support.

Finally, I like the idea of the Mexican Day of the Dead, when families go to the graves of their loved ones to sit and visit, tidy up, and share a beverage, have a family picnic. Perhaps this year, at the end of October or on All Soul’s Day, November 2nd, you might visit a cemetery and put a flower on a grave and honor a memory.

Jo Ann

Labor Day 2022

Labor Day 2022 After his Merchant Marine father was killed at Brooklyn Harbor, my father’s family was so poor that he and his two brothers picked coal from the railroad tracks along the Delaware River waterfront, near their S. Phila. home, to heat the house. The neighbors pooled food that my Grandmother made into a stew and each family sent a child with a pail to pick up their share. She was forced to rent a bed in the kitchen. My Grandmother and her mother sewed uniforms for the Schulkill Arsenal to make enough money to pay rent and support the children. When my father returned from four years in the Navy at the end of World War II, the post war boom and the strength of the Unions made it possible for him to support his wife and five children and buy a house. The Structural Steel and Ironworkers’ Union made it possible for my father to have a safe and comfortable retirement after his lifetime of hard and dangerous work.

Every Labor Day, I do something to honor the men and women who struggled, suffered, and often died to raise the working class from abject poverty to a decent living through livable wages, safety standards, and an end to child labor. Among my Labor Heroes are Peter J. Maguire, (whose grave I visit in Pennsauken) the father of Labor Day, Mother Jones the child-labor activist, and Joe Hill the heroic labor organizer. Add to the list the farm labor activists like Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. Not many ask about the health and welfare of the hands that pick their produce or build their bridges, but those who do, know the dangers they have faced and still face, and show gratitude to them and acknowledge their contribution. Right here in South Jersey, farm workers children often grow up without education, moving from harvest to harvest, often spending their whole lives without literacy or such things as bank accounts and drivers’ licenses.

On Labor Day, each year, let’s all stop and give a thought to the workers who make the world and the food we eat. Jo Ann