Why Do You Clap?

Why do you clap?

I spent yesterday in a mild traveler’s disturbia that seems to be our legacy for the future. First the flight was delayed, then after boarding we sat while warning light inconsistencies were investigated, then we were made to get off the plane, then back on, out to the runway, where the warning light issues recrudesced, then back to the gate, and finally put on a new plane are back to the regularly scheduled inconveniences of air travel. All told, the three-and-a-half hour flight was delayed some four or five hours.

I was not surprised at the spontaneous groan when the pilot originally announced we were returning to the gate during our second bout with indicator light issues. I was surprised, however, when the rear of the cabin broke out in seemingly spontaneous applause when our plane finally touched down at our much-delayed destination. Why did those people clap? Why would anyone applaud the eventual delivery of service bought and paid for twice over: once in currency and again in ignorant frustration and helpless delay? If I have to send my order back to the kitchen twice, three times, because my food is both not what I ordered and also so distant from what I ordered that I don’t subside into a muttered “It’s okay, I guess”, I would never dream of telling the waiter “My compliments to the chef!” More likely I would stiff on the tip, and grouse internally that they should have offered to cover the cost of my dinner gratis.

Yes, I know: I’m a misanthropic curmudgeon who has no business sharing space in a winged air-tube with families and happy vacationers and all the other wonderful afflatus of middle-class culture. I won’t argue the point. But I still am flummoxed as to why people think that applauding for so-so service has any merit, purpose, or other than ill effect.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been plane-bound with clap-happy travelers. Flying frequently for work as I do, I have experienced at least a half-dozen such “spontaneous demonstrations” over the past year. Generally these occur when a pilot has made a particularly bumpy landing, which reinforces my original point. Why would we applaud an obviously bad effort, when a flawless if typical delivery passes unnoticed?

Perhaps it is merely an expression of relief. In yesterday’s case, relief that a long journey was finally over (or at least that particular leg of it was complete). The applause for the shoddy landings, likewise, may have been simply the expression of joy that our body parts, assorted luggage, and “service items” (as the plastic cups of soda, napkins, and peanuts are now called) were not spread out across the runway in a fiery scar, that we had instead all made it home (or wherever) once again. Fair enough. But I still might wish that my fellow passengers could keep their enthusiasm for their continued existence to themselves, and express their gratitude with silent prayer. Heck, I’ll even allow a fervently murmured “Amen!” to escape from the lips of those most poleaxed by the fear of the cessation of their existence, since silent prayer is demonstrably out of fashion; every awards show honoree must publicly thank God, in case He’s only checking His TiVo.

And since I’m just being completely hateful, I’ll add that I am also not a fan of applauding — again on planes — those travelling with me, “in or out of uniform”, who are serving, have served, might serve (?) in the U.S. military. First off, I don’t like being put on the spot by the stewardesses like that (I know, I know: “flight attendants” — But when they’re asking me to applaud, I don’t believe they’re ‘attending’ my needs. Seems more like stewardship to me…); it reminds me of going to the movies and then being forced to watch an infomercial about childhood disease-of-the-month, and then they bring the lights up and send the staff to beg for your contributions. I’ll give at the intersection, thank you, waiting for the left turn arrow. Second, why are we not as habitually thanking the teachers, librarians, etc., etc. Well, except for the fact that their unions and pensions are what single-handedly caused the financial collapse back in 2008. So you got me there. Lastly, a friend of mine in the military tells me that, “if they want to clap, that’s okay” but that he doesn’t feel they need to. It’s his job, he says, and he volunteered, he points out. I believe that the truth is, we are not applauding our military today: we are trying to propitiate ghosts haunting us from Vietnam. If we truly want to show respect to our current servicemen and servicewomen, we would more fully fund the rehabilitation and re-entry for our returning soldiers, we wouldn’t have waiting lists for prostheses, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.

I fear that all this applauding dates back to 1976, and the original Star Wars movie. A great movie was given its ham-fisted ending with Princess Leia presenting medals to the boys, and Chewie says clap and they clap in the movie, and we all clapped in the theaters, and so we started seeing movies ending with the applause they hoped to receive. Perhaps in another time and place works of art would focus on generating applause, but today we are much more interested in receiving it. (Oh, and fanboy, yeah, I know, Chewie didn’t order them to clap, he gave the order for the assembled troops to turn face front to watch the ceremony, and they only clapped after the presentation, blah, blah — you (and me) make me sick.)

However, our opportunities for giving applause are pretty limited. Most of us do not attend classical music performances, political conventions, or Kiwanis Club meetings, and at most public events — concerts and the like — that we do attend, we only have one hand free as the other is holding aloft our cell phone so that we’ll have a shitty video of the event to remember that we were there, so we can’t applaud. The remainder of the usual applause opportunities consists of enforced applause situations, either in school awards or large company meetings. So perhaps the spontaneous applause on airplanes is simply a way of relieving tension, of letting loose those tamped down urges to applaud which I’m sure we all have. Maybe.

So maybe we can just resolve to clap in the privacy of our own homes. That way you’ll be sure what you’re applauding for, won’t be buckling to peer pressure, and anyone who disagrees with you won’t be bothered. But as far as planes… If I’m on a plane and the pilot makes an emergency landing on the Hudson River, I might consider applauding — though I suspect I’d be too busy pushing forward to make sure no one cuts ahead of me in the queue to the emergency exits.

The Journey To The East

Full flight imperils
Carry-on. Checked in at gate.
Aboard, empty bins.

Barry Goldwater
Terminal, flatly bright sun.
Inside, mild delay

Beastly hot gangway
Metal tube flies onward to
Georgia thunderstorms

Indicators show
Lavatories are half-full.
Dumped? Not dumped? We sit

That crap is fixed but
Now weather in Atlanta
Kicks us all off plane

In the alternate
On-time universe, we left
Two hours ago

Deplaned. Terminal
Flight information status
Now shows, “Departed”

Meanwhile, once again
I am asked to provide more
For expense report

On the plane once more
My wishes do not matter
Nor that I am tired

Someone left a bag
Security has been called for
And we wait and wait

Cell phones off, doors shut.
Dinner plans with Bill now lost.
On our way at last?

Return to the gate
Warning lights and new worry
Keep our flight aground

Water and snacks for
Four hour delay; raisins,
Cracker, spread, nut bar

This plane? A new plane?
No one has any idea
What is going on

New plane, new waiting
Clock says we should have landed
Ten minutes ago

Boarding the new plane
Too worn to be frustrated
No hope, yet hoping

Sunset poetry
Wasted on my cranky eyes
Yet beauty abides

Finally arrived
Circumstance is what it is
I’ve had longer days

Confession

The most introverted girl in the world,
Anorexic, not socialized enough to even aspire to shyness,
A thin, frightened teen with a thin, frightened voice,
Timidly knocked at our door.
In fear she confessed to my roommate
That she was trying to study next door,
And that the music was just a bit too loud,
And could we turn it down? she timorously asked.
My roommate turned down the knob and said
Yeah, sure.
After the mousy girl left and the door was shut
My roommate turned up the knob, louder than before.

I said nothing.

The Approach

The approach to the mystery
Is not made by paths of ritual.
Though four hundred thousand
Have trod this trail before,
Their footsteps leave no trace
To guide the wary traveler.
Instead,
Consider the sensation of that small eyelash
Or mite of dust, beneath the eyelids
As you rub them wearily, even doubting
That any disturbance lies close at hand
At all.
The imaginary itch may be sign or an illusion,
Distraction, obsession, or rent in the veil.
Possibly some secret hides itself to be extracted,
Perhaps an old ache has merely left its ghostly pang.
Even if removed, no surety that the irritant is gone.
From too roughly desiring clarity, an irritation remains.
And only a gradual waning of the presence or shadow
Gives negative proof to any change at all.
Will you see any more clearly?
Depends on what you look at,
And how you look at it.

Friday Vocabulary

1. velleity — the merest wish, without any attempt to gain it

For some, reading self-help books becomes an end in itself, substituting a velleity for a program.

 

2. hamartia — tragic flaw

Bill Clinton’s sexual misadventures seem matched by the hubris of many politicians today, but they pale beside Nixon’s hamartia — a fundamental mistrust of other people.

 

3. construe — to infer; to deduce the meaning of

He construed her rolling eyes to mean that once again he had had one too many.

 

4. contemporaneous — happening or living at the same time

Sitting Bull was contemporaneous with Richard Wagner, though one would hardly call them contemporaries.

 

5. recension — revision, usually critical, of a literary work

The 1984 Gabler recension of James Joyce’s Ulysses was highly controversial, but it is unlikely that any edition of the masterwork will ever be considered authoritative.

 

6. reputed — supposed, alleged, widely believed

Iraq was reputed to have weapons of mass destruction.

 

7. Phoebus — the sun; Apollo the sun god

Bedecked in his self-designed Reichsmarschall uniform glorified with gold badges and ribbons, Göring stood like a fat Phoebus in white before the assembled Reichstag.

 

8. paean — song of praise, joy, or tribute

Some sentences of prose are pedestrian, but some transcend their own words to become paeans to language.

 

9. synovitis — inflammation of the membrane around a joint

Though the original diagnosis was synovitis, Rimbaud’s post mortem diagnosis was cancer.

 

10. genesis — beginning, origin

I touched her tattoo; that was the genesis of everything that followed.

Sonnet

The honeyed carrots introduced with voice
Of patient nutriment distract the frown,
Enthrone the smile anew, as if no choice
Devolves, returning up without a down.
The servants wheel about the little king,
Their happy labor to perform each boon,
And though their tireless melody makes sing
The pampered prince, his courtiers call the tune.
As they are now, so shall he be, who feeds
On love, that gaining health attains his prime,
So he, in turn, may dote another’s needs,
From hub become a spoke of wheel sublime.
The purpos’d clutter yields unto the living;
The givers’ gifts are given to the giving.

Reverting The Code

The tired despair I feel on rolling back the latest code
Should really not compare to heartsick feelings for the wronged,
The pained, the lost, the dying, lonely unwashed left alone.
And yet….
                 The hordes of homeless, each intersection’s beggars,
The staring children of hopeless hunger and mothers with matted hair,
Compel me only to turn away, distract from distrait worries
And fulminate against the state of things today,
While the abandoned code, the project furled, product of months
Of labor, months of work – and fear for the inescapable post mortem,
These and these alone strike the strings of despair and angst,
Pull me into funk and woe.
                                           No, no, that’s untrue.
The feeling wrapped around my spineless heart is more belike
A shallow, petty, sighing stound of hopeless black fatigue.
Unused test cases lie in readiness for needless tests
Of phases next; evaluations lacking portent sit
Within the drive unread. A sad and lingering pall, a dearth
Of meaning strikes its atonal chord against my mind,
Impaired by scores of doubts and Monday-morning quarterbacks.
But for the truly hapless, haunted by a thousand plagues
Of man’s devising, scalded by the boiling furies, damned
By broken gods bereft of power save ability
To more entirely make still lower the lowest of the low,
Why, then, no pang of anger, love, regret, or fear?
How have the humans ceased inhabiting soul and memory,
Replaced by ill-defined concern for projects not to be?
Perhaps the hungry only can provoke anxiety,
Their millions meaningless before salvation’s hopelessness.
While futile plans betrayed by harsh light may yet
Inspire redoubts of hope that make to dream what might have been.
So projects failed may be inspected, viewed, dissected, while
The plights of many – nay! a single human only can
Provoke a fatal, fearful contemplation leading straight
To resignation final ‘gainst the horrid failure seen
Within my all-too-awful worthless human soul and heart.

[coda]
But with this gentle screaming comes a hope revealing near
To human pathos and an empathetic wish for more
Than this too fragile longing towards a reconnection sure
Of sinew, synapse, temper, merit, worthy spirit most
Of all. Perhaps a mad redeeming may arise from such
A dreaming: each to each, one heart availing hope to souls
Now helpless, seeming lost but then rekindled by one
Most tiny ember, thoughts of deadlines, costs and benefits
Then ended and replaced by hungry yearning for true hearts’
Returning, facing one another eye to eye to view
With weakness open, strength refocused and unbroken breath,
Resolved to take always the things that are just as they are.
So may unworthy worry and repugnance be at ease,
And not subside as other mazy lost velleities.

Friday Vocabulary

1. stound — a throbbing pain; ache

Her unkind words left a stound in my heart.

 

2. calced — wearing shoes

According to past popular misconception, the calced natives of the South consisted solely of the upper class.

 

3. feckless — irresponsible, unreliable

The feckless attempts of politicians to fulfill their campaign promises were overmatched by their insistent need for more and more cash.

 

4. catalectic — missing the last metrical foot in a line of verse

He died singing “Mary Had A Little Lamb”, his sudden attack leaving only the catalectic “Her fleece was white….”

 

5. asseverate — assert, aver

We must asseverate that our children’s happiness depends upon happy parents.

 

6. quondam — former, at one time

The quondam Alaska governor now contemplates her presidential aspirations.

 

7. lustrum — a five year period

Soviet Russia’s several lustrums of so-called economic “planning” led instead to unintended chaos and famine.

 

8. turgid — pompous, overblown

He made some good points in his essay, but they were difficult to discern beneath his turgid prose.

 

9. ineluctable — inescapable

Comes the day when the ineluctable pressure of rising interest rates and late fees for missed payments plunges the borrower into debt he can never repay.

 

10. dote — to be foolish, especially due to old age

As my maudlin thoughts turn to imagined ideas of ‘how it used to be’, I dote and panic before each new technology.

Doggerel

Their tails beat a metronome of desire
As the last candle concedes its fire.
They trail my wife with eager feet
Hovering, quavering, awaiting their treat.
As she closes the door and from the pantry repairs,
Already the twain have dashed up the stairs,
Attentive and breathless, with focus complete,
As idle footfalls sound retreat.
So patient now they impatiently wait,
Bonny in her bed, and Blaze in his crate.

Then Anne doles the biscuits and pats each head,
Blaze in his crate and Bonny abed.
But gone in an instant is each dog’s prize,
So curl they now with falling sighs,
Await their sleep and happy dreams of chase
While Anne brushes teeth and washes face.
She stops at the doorway to contemplate
Bonny in her bed, and Blaze in his crate.

Finally still since the first of the day
Are the dogs that did frolic and play
And dote on their mistress and lie at her feet
And cavil all foreign dogs in the street.
Every step in the kitchen Blaze did investigate,
While Bonny kept guard nose beneath the gate.

Now the proud warriors of hearth and home
Into fields of dream will roam.
The bedroom by the moon palely lit,
While hiccup-like barks in their slumber emit,
As twitching paws race with imagined tread:
Blaze in his crate, and Bonny in our bed.