Carol Bergman

I taught a writing workshop in the Ellenville Library yesterday about an hour west of New Paltz into the mountains and then south on Route 209 towards Sullivan County. It was a cool-to-cold day and the air was fresh. Strobic light bouncing through the nearly leaf-bare trees disturbed my vision. I have to drive everywhere here, keep our old car in good shape, and brave all weathers, which I find both annoying and challenging. But I eventually relaxed into the mellow day. Past the turning in Kerhonkson, past Shop Rite and Walmart, "The Sound of Life," sermon on the radio, I flicked the search button and found a country music station. The evangelical stations play good music, too, and the bible readings are sometimes literary, but I am struck by the amount of repetition and the pounding—almost abusive—exhortations. How close is belief to obedience, I wonder? At election time, for example.

Just past Walmart the cars were rubber- necked, two tall guys in neon vests with empty plastic paint pails in the middle of the road. Cops? Volunteer firemen? Accident? Escaped prisoners from the state prison? The clunky castle-like structure loomed over us, casting its shadow.

My turn to roll down a window. How about a few dollars for the Ellenville Little League? Was this a question or a demand? These guys, who may well be volunteer firemen, were in the middle of the road stopping traffic, a bit coercive, I'd say. I popped a $5 bill into the pail and asked for $2 back. There's a limit to my generosity on a Saturday when I am trying to get somewhere, I thought. Isn't it enough that we have to endure lockdown drills nearly every week around here? Felled trees? Ice storms? Tail-gating? Gun shops?

Welcome to the Other America, not the urban, ghetto Other America that Michael Harrington wrote about in his iconic book, but the current, rural other America.

One thing that 45—or his oligarch handlers—got right: there is more than one America and that Other America is right outside the borders of our cities. Unexpectedly, I am living in it. Thankfully there are good schools, the roads are kept well, and everyone cares about the environment. Equally important for this writer is the interconnected library system; I can get any book I want quickly.

The new librarian at the Ellenville Library, Kristin Fowler, is wry, warm and energetic. When I first went out to meet her a few months ago, she booked me for two workshops and a reading of "Say Nothing," which is set in these mountains. Miraculously, the library has a budget beyond book purchase, and Kristin, a woman who cares about her job and her constituency, has made sure she uses it to develop free programs, services, workshops, and more. People are smiling when they walk into the library, and smiling when they walk out.

Six aspiring writers signed up for my workshop, four turned up. Three are avid readers, two have fascinating life stories they are eager to write, the fourth was there to listen and explore, a mom with three kids who still works night-shift to support her family and never made it to college, or at least not yet. I could not help but encourage her. "Your turn," I said. She is a John Grisham fan for the same reasons I am: He writes page turners and he has a social conscience. Who would have thought we have so much in common?

I still expect huge crowds at my workshops and readings and am surprised, even disappointed, when only a handful of people turn up. Entitlement syndrome: Am I not a well-known professor with a sterling reputation, reams of publications, and a CV five pages long? But Ellenville, like other hamlets and towns in Ulster County, is just a small village—population 4,000 and change—with a long, rich history and complex culture all its own and I am an outsider, a stranger, a traveler, passing through, not yet of the community. I am often met with skeptical expressions, even hostility, until I've got the room in my grip. It's a good thing I am experienced because it's not always easy. As I have written here in a recent post entitled, "Lockdown," I've even encountered anti-Semitism and shunning in Ulster County. I try not to take any reactions to my gentrified, educated persona personally, if that makes sense, and to meet everyone I encounter with curiosity and an open heart. After all, I'm still a free-thinking city girl. 

I went to the Frick Museum before my NYU class last week to see the Edmund de Waal site-specific installation, "Elective Affinities." De Waal is best known in the United States as the author of "The Hare With Amber Eyes," a memoir about his maternal Viennese (Jewish) family, the Ephrussis, whose mansion on The Ring was ransacked when the Germans invaded Vienna in March of 1938. De Waal was born in England and still lives there.

I was working on "Searching for Fritzi," the story of my Viennese family, at about the same time as de Waal was researching "The Hare With Amber Eyes," and we had some email correspondence. He was already a world-renowned ceramicist; the book enhanced his reputation. I didn't know him when I lived in London as a journalist, a missed opportunity.

That's the backstory of our six degrees of connection. I've kept track of de Waal over the years, his career, as well as his family's decision to take the Austrians up on their offer of citizenship, which I refused. The Ephrussi mansion has also been restored to them and they recently celebrated a family reunion there. So when I heard about the exhibition at the Frick, I knew I had to get there before it closed at the end of November.

I don't know what my expectations were exactly. Perhaps to feel de Waal's presence, his heightened sensitivity as an artist with Austrian ancestry, his narrative about art and its purpose. De Waal considers himself a European which, as an American, I do not, so what would his commentary consist of?

The Frick's rooms and collection mimic European hauteur. They are monumental in size with carpeted floors, damask curtains and skylights. De Waal's work is small, and mostly white. He rarely strays from white, he has often said. And though the vitrines containing his delicate porcelain pots gave me pause, "the pause of space," as one label suggested, I began to question this somewhat trendy curatorial commission—contemporary artists in dialogue with old master works. What does "in dialogue" mean exactly? Does it mean departure, inspiration, something more, or less? What did Charlotte Vignon, the Frick's curator of decorative arts, have in mind? She and de Waal are friends; they worked on a book together. What she has said, in interviews, is that she hopes visitors will reconsider the collection through de Waal's modern prism.

It wouldn't be the first time that a curator or editor had a different vision than the artist (or writer) they have commissioned. That might have happened here. Certainly the result is perplexing, even unsatisfying. Rather than reconsider the Frick's collection in the light of current events and new ideas about Western art, I found de Waal's vitrines intrusive, even humorous at times. Wee vitrines with wee porcelain pots, beautifully glazed, set at different angles. End of story, or absence of story. Alternatively, the scale of the vitrines may simply be swallowed up by the grandeur of the once lived-in mansion that is now a museum.

Even a docent I talked to was unsure what to say when I asked her what she thought of de Waal's work. We could both see that the dark gray glaze might have been a commentary on Frick himself—a steel magnate—or on the El Greco soldier in armor in the West Gallery, that was more or less obvious. But there didn't seem to be much else to explain, and we both went silent.

"There's no there there," I said, quoting Gertrude Stein.

"The Emperor's New Clothes," the docent said sotto voce.

"How much did you say Frick paid for that Rembrandt?" asked a visitor from China, not exactly a non sequitur.

At a moment of "total crisis in Europe," as de Waal has expounded to many reporters—referring to the migrant crisis and the retreat to insularity and Fascism—he has sold off 79 of his family's precious Japanese netsuke figures, hidden in a mattress by the family's maid during the war. The sale raised £79,590 for the Refugee Council. The rest of the collection has now gone on long-term loan to the Jewish Museum in Vienna.

There is not a whisper of de Waal's philanthropic preoccupations anywhere in the exhibition, nor was he able to convey them even tangentially to an eager American audience in this installation.

I don't agree with much of what my free-thinking, free-wheeling, writer friend, Mykel Board, says, politically speaking, nor can I stomach the scatalogical and anti-feminist riffs and humor in his blog, but there is something about this guy—a former Yippie, a musician, a punkster, a jokester—I find both endearing and inspiring. Underneath the costume—and sometimes outrageous assertions—is a big-hearted man who loves talking to people all over the world, a true internationalist.

He has a unique lifestyle. A linguist by training, he teaches English at a Japanese language school in mid-town Manhattan, which is where I met him many years ago. In between his teaching gigs, he'd travel somewhere he'd never been before for a month at least, couch surf, build his FB coterie of friends, take voluminous notes, and write. Only someone single and child-free can do this, I said to myself. I used to feel amused, annoyed and ever-so-slightly envious as he put the language school job on hiatus for a month and disappear. Or sometimes he'd go off for a year. He has taught English in Mongolia and written a book about that experience. He has taught in Japan. To this day, my first question when we meet for lunch or a coffee is, "So where to next, Mykel?" And he'll usually tell me with the excitement of a little kid. He's already found new friends online, often people who read his blog, has places to stay, is reading books by local writers, and can't wait to set out.

Last time, however, was different. His destination was under wraps; he refused to tell me. I asked if he thought that was a good idea. Shouldn't someone know where he was headed? But he said, no, not this time. Then he was back.

We met for a coffee before my NYU class last week. "So where have you been, Mykel?"

"In Pennsylvania," he said, deadpan.

"You stayed Stateside? What gives?"

"A whole month in a Punxsutawney, the groundhog town," he explained. "I put an ad in the local paper asking for a rental and had the top floor of a house. The landlady didn't want my budgeted $1000; she'd only take $600. I couldn't believe the generosity. I've had an idea for a novel for a long time and needed to research it in situ. I wrote 40,000 words while I was there."

I tried to imagine city punk Mykel in Fedora, trench coat, and big black boots nearly up to his knees, in this little town, population 5,788. On the other hand, I thought, what an admirable thing to do. It was typical of him to follow his curiosity into a writing project. Total immersion, he hung out, got to know people, the local library, the bars. He even was invited to a writer's group and read a few of his pages.

"I had to catch myself," he said. I assumed that because I was in a rural area, the writing wouldn't be any good. What a prejudice. It was sophisticated, terrific. The group liked my pages, too, except for the vulgarity."

"No suprise," I said. "I don't either."

He's going for 90,000 words, he told me, a huge book, because he's read that's what publishers are looking for these days.

"Have you made progress beyond that initial 40,000 word spurt since your return?" I wanted to know.

"Not much," he said.

The writer/teacher's lament. I can relate. If I am not already in the midst of a project, I try to get one started before term begins. Otherwise I begin to feel resentful of my productive students.

Mykel is still single, has no obligations other than to his authentic self and the words he puts in his books or in his columns. But even that statement requires explanation. He's been a devoted, constant friend to many, including Josephine, also a former teacher at the language school, who is now in a nursing home. He visits her at least once a month when he's in town. Who else that I know would do that?

A hundred biographies are possible for every human being.

Olivier Todd, "Albert Camus; A Life"

It was a good day for law enforcement.

John Grisham, "The Chamber"

Wahrheit, wie immer, die erste verteidignung de freiheit.

Truth, as always, is the first defense.

Cliff Hopkinson in a Facebook reply to my post about Austrian citizenship.

Happy while writing, I thought, as I wrote the post about Austrian citizenship, and then on its heels, just days later, "Lockdown," a continuing story. Much as I would like to alternate light-hearted posts with more serious entries, there are weeks when this is not possible. As a witness, and a writer who considers herself a witness, I seize every opportunity to explore and comment upon the conundrums of contemporary life. I know that I may be exceptional in this regard, out of the mainstream, and often unmarketable, at least in the United States, but it's the way I've evolved as a writer. Here I am, as Jonathan Safran Foer would say. Here I am.

I often tell my students that they are well positioned to write about certain subjects, once they discover their subjects. Our backstories, occupations and experiences are windows—portals  in current parlance—into  these subjects. And many of these experiences, whether in childhood, or further along on our trajectories, shape our obsessions and point of view. There is never any way to escape these imperatives, so why try? Just get on with it. Write your heart out, I say. Move freely between subjects, move freely within your writer self. Read everything about your subject. Read voraciously. Write all the time.

This week I am reading Jonathan Lethem's "The Feral Detective," a refreshing encounter with a female protagonist written by an imaginative male writer. Even more intriguing is the language, a ricochet into a newly-fashioned dialect. It takes place in a dystopian world where truth is the only defense, if we can find it. Thank you, Cliff Hopkinson, dear Gotham Writers Workshop friend, for the self-made quotation about such truths. Your struggle to find apt words in German was entirely apt; I thought you were quoting Goethe. Well, it could have been Goethe.

I quote John Grisham here also as I return to him late at night as an anchor of reason and political common sense. "The Chamber," written some years ago, is an anti death-penalty book. I defy anyone to sustain a "belief," in the death penalty--for that is all it is-- after reading this 600-odd page genre novel. Grisham tells the story from every point of view, including the prisoner on death row. No spoilers—read the book. And then take a walk into the mountains, a park, the street where you live, and revel in what's left of the turning leaves.

I was sitting in the Writing Center at a two-year community college where I had been hired as a professional tutor to help students with their essays and other assignments. The college has a wide catchment area, urban and rural. I am new to the area having just moved from New York City about a year ago, and am still trying to figure out the culture. There is a lot of poverty, a lot of struggle, big houses alongside shacks and trailers, the gentry coming up from the city to buy up cheap property and ride their bikes on weekends on the narrow country roads. In other words, the community, and this particular college, and the writing center within the college, is a microcosm of our divided country with its huge income gap between rich and poor. I've had affluent overseas students, and students whose families have been in the county for generations leading hardscrabble lives. I've had veterans suffering from PTSD and a young mother who is going back to school for the first time since she dropped out of high school. So when a young man walked into the center wearing a fancy head set, which he did not remove, I was hopeful that either I, or one of my colleagues that day, would be able to help. But he was not in the center to get help with an assignment, apparently, though he obviously needed help, of a different kind. His movements were erratic, impulsive; he seemed unstable and troubled. He said hello to my two colleagues and then he swiveled, stopped in front of me, pointed his finger and said, "Jew." Immediately I questioned whether I'd heard him correctly.

"What did you say?" I asked him.

But he didn't answer my question.

How did he know I was a Jew? I look Semitic, but I could be Iranian, I could be a Cree from Saskatchewan, I could be Greek. Where did he pick up his racist ideas? His racist impulse? What radio programs or internet sites had he been ingesting without understanding their meaning and import?

I had just finished reading Eli Saslow's book, "Rising Out of Hatred," about the infiltration of mainstream political culture by the white supremacist movement. But the student who had called me a Jew was African American, so I was puzzled. Had he experienced so much racism and brutality himself that his scrambled mind now turned it on others? Maybe it wasn't music playing on his headset but a racist screed urging him on? Maybe he imagined himself to be white, or didn't know who he was, or where he was. What might he have hidden in his backpack?

The proliferation of weapons, the proliferation of foul ideas, one feeding the other as they take root in a mentally ill man, albeit an African American man. As a part-timer I'd missed the most recent lockdown drill, but had reviewed the various protocols before the term began; there have already been 22 school shootings in the USA in 2019. I am used to tight security at NYU where I have been an adjunct since 1997, and puzzled by the lax security at this public college which has an "open door, open campus" policy. Even members of the community can wander onto the campus, walk their dogs, or use the library. But this utopian ideal can be ruined by one terrible incident. The non-discriminatory policies enshrined in the Americans with Disabilities Act that protects students' rights and applauds access for all, education for all, is non-negotiable, as it should be. But what about the rights of the faculty, the other students, and the ancilliary staff?

My mind flashed to the "safe" closet just steps away, but we were all sitting, and this big, strong young man was standing, blocking the aisle. He rushed away and then turned back. Now he was standing in front of me again, jabbering nonsensically, and staring at me intently. I should have done a lot of things in that moment, but I was paralyzed. I'm a Jew, I thought, how does he know I am a Jew? Has he heard about synagogue shootings this year, seen the images on television? Does it make a difference that I am a secular Jew? That some of my European family are, in fact, Catholic? Is he going to hurt me?

My colleagues were watching, but didn't seem as alarmed as I was. Neither of them is Jewish, so how could they understand the iconic terror that had been unleashed in me? How could they understand that I still feel my parents' and grandparents' terror the day that Hitler marched into Vienna and my grandmother, Nanette, was forced onto her knees to scrub stones? She had been at work that day and was on her way home. How did the German soldiers know she was Jewish? She wasn't religious, did not wear a wig. How did they know?

Finally, the man left and I reported the incident to my supervisor who sent an email I wrote to document the incident to campus security. The Director of Safety and Security Services and the Dean of Students arrived to talk to me immediately and discussed what could be done. They were kind, professional, reassuring. The student has been suspended for now, they said, and there will be a hearing in a few days time. They didn't think he was dangerous, but one never knows. "I've been profiled based on my appearance," I told them. "Something triggered him. I feel shaken."

My father often said that we mustn't bring more Jewish children into the world only to be killed. He argued for assimilation, for secularism in the American diaspora. I was relieved to marry a man from Polish/Russian/Jewish ancestry who does not "look" Jewish, who would not be singled out and could—and this was probably an unconscious thought—protect me. And I was relieved when my daughter did not inherit my Semitic nose and then married a British man, an Anglo Saxon, and changed her name, all of these also unspoken thoughts. In fact, I am the only one in my immediate family to carry Middle-Eastern and/or North African genes on my face. Although I experienced anti-Semitism in England for the first time in my life, I had always felt safe in America, until I wasn't.

I am not sure if this is a tragedy or a comedy, but I think it is a comedy. I have just been informed that I am entitled to Austrian citizenship. In legal lingo it's called "the right of return." This will be another chapter to write, a treasure trove of story.

My family was originally Austrian, most of them slaughtered in the Nazi genocide, and now, as a descendant, I, too, can receive an Austrian passport. All I have to do is apply and prove that my parents and/or grandparents and/or great grandparents were native Austrians. How lucky am I. Bless them. Not only am I entitled to an Austrian passport, I am, by extension, entitled to an EU passport. And I don't have to relinquish my very precious Amerian passport, or reside in Austria, a country I scratched off my list as a vacation destination after my second tumultuous visit there. I've written about my experience of both visits in my memoir, "Searching for Fritzi." (Please read the e-book version as it has a very interesting addendum.)

Why is my tongue in my cheek as I write today? Why am I amused? Or bitterly amused? Well, as all things Austrian, this offer has arrived ein bissel späte. That's German for "a little late." The Germans have done better; they made great efforts immediately after WW II. Not so the Austrians. No great effort for a long time; they considered themselves "victims" of the Nazi war machine. We all know this, definitively, to be untrue; they were happy collaborators, happy perpetrators.

My mother, father and stepfather collected restitution checks until they died, but the checks were from the German government, not the Austrian government. Interesting, nicht?

I wonder what my murdered and displaced relatives might say if they were alive to accept this benevolent offer from their once-loved nation. I try to imagine a return to their favorite haunts—the alps where they skied, the coffee houses where they read the daily newspaper and met their friends, the opera, the university. I can't imagine any of this without feeling a very big sadness and a very big anger. (The definition of sarcasm is tearing flesh. I am tearing flesh.) And so, during this Yom Kippur week, I will say this to Austria: there is no atonement, none at all, for a genocide. Thanks for the gesture but I am not interested.

Listen to us and the great good spirit will reward your goodness. If you should finally shut your ears may that great spirit forgive you.

Hendrik Aupaumut in a letter to the New York State Legislature, 1790

We were sitting under a big white tent on Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, NY on land that many still believe belongs to the descendants of the indigenous people who settled here more than 7,000 years before the Europeans arrived. It was an historic occasion, and an emotional one. Henrick Aupaumut's letter had been presented to the historic site as a gift, and it tells a complicated story within and between it's formal, diplomatic words. Written after the American Revolution, it argues for the restoration of land stolen by the Dutch, British, and French Huguenot colonists from the indigenous inhabitants of upstate New York and beyond. Hendrik Aupaumut  had fought on the American side during the war; he expected to be heard.
 
So vast and diverse was the land on which the indigenous population once roamed, that historians can define swaths of settlements, but no clear borders. Nomadic, intermarried, culturally and linguistically connected, the suvivors of war, disease and even enslavement, migrations and diplomatic councils were constant, more so after the Europeans arrived. Once eracinated and dispossesed, there was little hope of return to sacred land, a concept the tribes still hold dear. Their rich history is still not properly taught in our schools. 
 
Mary Etta Schneider, President and Board Chair of Historic Huguenot Street, and a French Huguenot descendant herself, got up to speak. I have heard her speak before, but never with so much feeling. "We are on a journey," she said. "We are learning. And we want to get the story right."  The audience went silent. Perhaps they were expecting a sterile academic lecture and nothing more. Indeed, there was a lecture, eventually—and a fascinating one—by  scholar Lisa Brooks, but first there was a ceremony. Two councilmen from the Stockbridge-Munsee band of the Mohican Nation were in attendance—they had traveled from Wisconsin—as well as the tribe's Preservation Officer, Bonney Hartley, who sits on the HHS Board.
 
As in times of old, Algonquin was spoken and translated by the speakers themselves, which in itself was startling, that this language is still extant and used.

Mary Etta Schneider's hand went over her heart as she returned to her seat after the gifts were exchanged. This is a continuing and permanent partnership, she had promised. The flag of the Munsee-Stockbridge Band will now fly on a pole on Huguenot Street.
 
It was an important gathering—truth and reconciliation—and one I will remember for a long time. I congratulate Historic Huguenot Street for their continuing efforts at re-interpretation of the fault lines in our history that haunt our historic sites, and this particular site in the town I now call home.

A deer crossed my path as I began my walk down Huguenot Street yesterday. I was not startled as I am used to them by now. We also have coyotes, bears and ground hogs in abundance in these mountains. Very few are hit on the road, which is gratifying. People are careful, respectful, even reverent. These creatures live among us, we live among them; we share the environment. And we are, presumably, stewards of this shared environment.

It was early morning and parishioners were arriving for a Sunday service at the Dutch Reformed Church. The sky was overcast and it was still a bit foggy. Then a squirrel joined me, and a white moth, and a couple of hawks, though one of them might have been an eagle.

Afterwards, I went to see an exhibition called "Tonalism: Pathway from the Hudson River School to Modern Art" at the Dorsky Museum on the SUNY campus. Though I am familiar with the Hudson River School and Whistler's work, I had never heard of Tonalism and I did not recognize the other painters. The canvases were luminous and as calming as my walk. All of them were landscapes without a human presence. Interestingly, Tonalism emerged after the chaos of the Civil War; it was contemporaneous with Impressionism in Europe.

I wondered what the analogy to a Tonalist's vision might be in writing. Perhaps lyrical landscape poetry. And then I wondered if a "school" of writers or painters will emerge as an antidote to the chaos and worry we are experiencing—the extreme storms, the droughts, the wars, the inhumane politicians at the helm of too many nations, including our own.

How can we restore our weary spirits? Is it possible to retain a contemplative, creative persona in the midst of chaos? If we stop to observe a deer crossing our path, metaphorically speaking, will our creative life flourish?

I was the only one in the gallery, and I could have stayed there all day, though the guards—all young women, all students, all dressed in black—followed me around. I surrendered to their human presence and asked them questions: Do you have a favorite painting here? What are you studying? And so on. It was my choice to connect—my journalist persona, or educator self, I suppose.

The beginning of the term is difficult for working writers who are also teachers as there is a lot to prepare. I have started two book projects—one fiction, one nonfiction—but did not make enough headway during the summer with either of them. Because I am the co-owner of a publishing business, and also have private students, there are manuscripts to read all year long. Therefore, I must intentionally carve out time and space to proceed with my own work. My students have the same struggle as most of them have demanding jobs. We discuss the challenge often, though I offer no remedy; everyone has to find their own rhythmn, their own antidote to chaos and the obligations of daily life if they/we are to remain committed to the writing life.

Loss doesn't matter unless you care.

Andy Goldsworthy talking about his "Walking Wall"  at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO in an interview with Jeffrey Brown on the NEWSHOUR 8/30/2019

Our ideas about climate change are evolving rapidly; we are more knowledgeable. Or perhaps we've hit the tipping point and cascaded like a waterfall. In larger numbers, we've moved from acceptance to panic to action in just a few short months. Maybe it was the photos of Katrina, or Puerto Rico, or Haiti, or the Bahamas, that finally pierced the scrim of  complacency. Or the deepening sensation of constant threat, a clock ticking, or a loved one, or acquaintance, or a friend of a friend flooded and homeless. We join a rescue team, fill sandbags, cook soup, donate money, take in a family member, canvass for politicians who care about the future.

Because all writers  live in heightened awareness—whether  there is a crisis or not—we need only review the oeuvre of our favorite authors to find a roadmap from past to present, even to the future. Jonathan Franzen is a novelist but he is also a birder. Read his nonfiction pieces from three, four, five years ago, and weep. Read Dickens' descriptions of London blighted by coal, a fossil fuel. His stories were more than entertainments; they were warnings about industrialization and callous government.

All art is protest, all of it. We create because we care, we feel the losses, celebrate the accomplishments and joys. We may have agendas of one sort or another, or unconsciously tap into the political discourse, but our stories are documents, collectibles of a certain time and place. We know that polemical screeds are less affective and effective than stories even if they are angry or demanding, so we write in the active voice and always remember that we are telling fiction—or nonfiction—stories.

Art and writing about climate change and environmental conservation and degradation are all around us now,  everywhere and ever present. We need only step into it to remain in balance with ourselves and with nature as we decide what one small action we can do to help. At the "Composed to Decompose" site-specific installations at the Unison Arts Center in New Paltz, NY, I felt both elated and repulsed by the artists' visions, as I am sure they intended. I went late in the summer when the weather had cooled and was taken round by Helene and Stuart Bigley, co-founders of the center. Much had already shifted in the landscape, the leaves beginning to turn, the water drying in the stream. The sculptures were also transforming in their embedded locations, ruffled by wind, pelted by rain.

My favorite was a "living quilt" by Maria Lupo. Created from discarded tea bags and seeds, and being a tea drinker myself, I was drawn to this piece. It was just there, hanging from the branches of a tree, in the same way as we were just there standing on the wood chip path. I could walk up to the quilt and touch it, or turn to Helene and Stuart and ask a question or  two, or not. There was no barrier or guard rail, no instruction, just a contemplative space to think about our connection to the natural world and one another.

Once I believed that the any expression of civility was only possible face to face, eyeball to eyeball, and voice to voice. And though I have not stopped believing that civility and kindness is best articulated in this way, like everyone else in our fast-moving, post-industrial, digital world, I've had to adapt to cold media—text, email—if I want to stay humanly and humanely interfaced with others of our species.

But I am not a robot, nor do I want to behave like a robot, or to continually answer insincere questions about my anti-robotic nature on security-enhanced medical portals, for example. Am I entering websites and portals, dear reader, or are they entering me, forever changing my neural pathways to resemble... robots? Are the decisions we are making amplified or diminished by the erosion of three-dimensional connections? A rhetorical question.

The other day I arrived at the small, human-scale gym where I work out only to discover that it/they/the franchise owner had decided to "go 24-7." The emergency pull cords were being tested while I was on the bike listening to Annie Lennox—deep, throaty Scottish voice—and I had to dis-mount the bike and hold my ears for the duration of the test. Having been interrupted, I decided to interview the owner. His explanation makes complete (financial) sense—to him. "I wouldn't be able to retire unless I did this," he said, meaning a gym run nearly remotely and robotically with only minimal managerial hours. "It's the "new business model for gyms," he said.

"No more SUNY students at the front desk?"

"They weren't that reliable. The gym can almost run itself."

"Robotically?"

"I wouldn't go so far."

"I found the students congenial and helpful," I said. "They smile, they speak. When this desk is empty, it feels strange. Strange and cold."

"You'll get used to it," he said.

I doubt it.

And there's more, all of it connected to the state of our economy, our education system, and our exploited labor force, a labor force that has little security, works more than one job, has no paid vacation, and is in debt. Every one of the half dozen or so student workers I have met at the gym are struggling to maintain their financial equilibrium while they are studying. Any job is important to them. Most are on scholarship or have loans. Their parents are often struggling. In a small town where opportunities are scarce, the gym once provided a few hours of employment for a handful of students, a contribution to their future, and ours.

Fake news. Fabricated stories. Fantasies. It is well documented by now that it is not immigrants who are threatening our jobs, it is robots. By definition, they have no social conscience.