Stand Still, Bright Eyes

The docent met my daughter, my friend, and me at the back door where a sign instructed visitors to ring the bell. She showed us through the old home and told us of the family who had lived there when it was new. 

A Victorian couple pose on either side of
their deceased daughter. Notice the 
parents' images are slightly blurred.This 
happened due to long exposure times 
required by cameras of that era and was 
caused when a subject moved even slightly. 
Notice also that the image of the deceased 
is much clearer. Boo.

Now the house, a beautiful orange brick Victorian, serves as a museum and wedding venue. It was decorated for Halloween with orange lights winding up the banister in the main hall and mannequins clad in vintage-style masks and gauzy or satin-y period costumes.

The docent pointed out a photograph of what we took to be two parents and their daughter (see photo at right). The daughter, seated between her parents, appeared to be in her early twenties, and her posture and facial expression struck me as a little apathetic. Then the docent explained. The girl was dead, sitting up, eyes wide open.

There were similar photos planted around the room, and I failed to grasp why photographing dead family members like this made sense, which, it turns out, it does. 

So the first thing out of my mouth was, "Why would people do this?"

Shockingly, it was my daughter who piped up:

"It's called Victorian era postmortem photography," she explained. "Back then, photography was new, and people couldn't always afford to have pictures taken unless there was a good reason. And because the exposure time needed to take a photograph was so long, people looked blurry if someone tried to take their picture goofing around in the yard or something. Even if they moved just a little, they'd look blurry. That's why so many of the photos from that time period were portraits. And if someone died, a postmortem photo might be a family's only picture of them."

I stared at her. She's 19 for Heaven's sake. "How do you know all that?" 

She shrugged. "I read."  

I knew that deceased family members are often photographed. We have such photos in my own family. But what I didn't understand was why Victorians propped them up with their eyes open. Then again, as Syd explained, Victorians held a unique position in time, when photography was there, but not really there. If they wanted a photo of their dead loved one in something resembling a living state, this was often the only way to go. 

Later, I did some Googling and found more photos, purportedly of dead Victoreans, and these upset me for days because these subjects were standing with the aid of a special device, the base of which was visible near their feet. Then I did some more research and learned that it's unlikely these subjects were dead. According to Wikipedia, thank God,  ". . . it is untrue that metal stands and other devices were used to pose the dead as though they were living. The use by photographers of a stand or arm rest (sometimes referred to as a Brady stand) which aided living persons to remain still long enough for the camera's lengthy exposure time, has given rise to this myth. While 19th-century people may have wished their loved ones to look their best in a memorial photograph, evidence of a metal stand should be understood as proof that the subject was a living person."

All of the photos below were said to be postmortem photos. That's why I was so glad I'd read that Wikipedia entry when I found this: 

and this,

and especially this:

It's likely that the only grief associated with this photo was that the parents had to pay for it.

If you happen to do your own research on Victorian era postmortem photography, be warned, it can be unsettling, and to this day I get cheery little teasers from Instagram saying they've found more postmortem photography I might like. And there's a lot of hoo-hah out there about living people being corpses and a lot of photos of perfectly healthy kids that someone will try to convince you are tragically dead. 


Even this photo (immediate right) which an eagle-eyed reader pointed out is not of the Victorian era (noting the woman's dress and visible knee), I'll leave here to prove some points. First, as with the claim that Victorians sometimes had their dead photographed "standing," you can't believe everything you read on the Internet - like me falling for someone's claim that this photo was of Victorians.

Second, whoever posted the photo wrote that the baby was dead and his eyes had been painted onto the photograph. Let's say the photo was Victorian, doesn't it make more sense that the baby is alive but with no clue what that contraption is that some stranger is pointing at him? And if you'd never seen a camera flash before, wouldn't your face look like that too? And in those days, as with the photo above of the girl with the closed eyes and lolling head, sometimes people had to settle for less than the ideal photo. 

So anyway, the next time you find yourself on a paintball field, cursing that paintball that really, really stung, be grateful that some Victorian photographer wasn't aiming at you. 

The Hovering Ghost

There are enough seemingly sensible people in the world claiming to have seen a ghost, that I won't worry what will happen to my reputation should I publicly join their ranks. "Oh," you might say, "that's silly. There are no such things as ghosts!" But if I proclaim their existence, you likely won't think less of me, or at least not enough to darken whatever relationship we have.

Image copyright Teece Aronin

So, I once saw a ghost, roughly 50 years ago. There - I've said it. And the way it happened was this:

My brother was engaged to a girl named Mary, and the two sometimes came home from college to spend the weekend at the house where I still lived with my parents and my other brother. I was 10 years younger than one brother and seven years younger than the other, and it was the older of the brothers who had found himself in these happy - or tragic, depending on your view - prenuptial circumstances.

Mary and I shared a room during these visits. The house was built in the 1920's and had, shall we say, quirks, the layout of this room being one of many. As you can see from my poor excuse for a diagram, the beds were placed foot to foot against opposite walls. 

There was an alcove through which one passed upon entering the room. In the far corner, almost diagonal from the door, was a small closet. As one faced the closet, the left side made for a wall against which there was a desk and chair. The desk and chair stood back-to-back with an identical desk set on the opposite wall, and it was in this space that my brothers did homework before the older of them left for college.

It was early morning and I lay awake in bed feeling restless, but guessing it was too early to get up. Something caught my attention at the far end of the room where there was a window between the desks.

Standing there, if you could call it standing, was a ghost. He wasn't a stereotypical-looking ghost as I've represented him in the diagram; instead, he was a small, but full-size man. His feet, clad in work boots, were level with the window sill inches from where he hovered. He was dressed in overalls and a work shirt, looking for all the world as if he'd just swung down from the engine of a ghost train. Hanging there, suspended, he was perfectly still. 

He appeared to be quite old, wore round, wire-rim spectacles, and including his glasses and clothes, was a glowing, snowy white. His eyes, never wavering, were trained on me. Most interesting is that he was smiling at me, a gentle smile, lips closed. Like his gaze, the smile never faltered. I was too perplexed to smile back.

I don't know why, but I wasn't frightened. I suppose it was due to his harmless affect. I also don't know why I didn't wake Mary with an excited shout. Something in my gut said it was alright to speak, but only softly. So I quietly said, "Mary. Mary, wake up." Mary spoke but never opened her eyes.

"What, honey?" she murmured.

"There's a ghost in the window behind your bed."

"Oh, honey, you're dreaming. Now go back to sleep."

"Mary, honest, I'm not dreaming. I'm wide awake."

"Sweetie, you just think you're awake, but I'm sure you're dreaming."

As I tried to convince Mary to open her eyes and look, the ghost never moved, his smile never so much as twitched, and his eyes stayed right on mine. Still though, I wasn't frightened.  

"Mary, please."

"Honey, if I open my eyes, I'll never get back to sleep. Rest now. We'll talk about the ghost later."

So that was it. I watched him, and he watched me. I don't remember how it ended - if he vanished or if I dropped off to sleep. No matter really. 

I never saw him again.

To their credit, my family never mocked my claims of having seen the ghost, in fact it was quite the opposite. Mary said she wished she'd taken me more seriously, and everyone seemed interested in what I had to say. 

The only theory I remember anyone advancing as to the ghost's origins, was that my aunt's neighbor, a Mr. Hill, now deceased, fit my description of the ghost. Mr. Hill had built the garage in our back yard years earlier. It was suggested that he might have returned to spend time near the old structure. My aunt showed me his photo and while the man and the ghost closely resembled one another, I couldn't be sure they were one and the same. 

I feel a bit sad these days thinking how the ghost never reappeared. If he had, and he'd smiled, I would have smiled back.   

Rabbit Ears

When I grew up in the sixties and seventies, we had about seven television channels, and switching around within them was a breeze. Today, TVs are "smart." My TV said right on the box that it was smart, but I attribute this to the fact that smart TVs are often arrogant and boastful. Being complicated, difficult, and frustrating doesn't make you smart. 

Bunny Ears, copyright 
Teece Aronin.

Since our purchase of a smart TV, I have witnessed my kids hopscotching between Hulu, Netflicks, and YouTube and using a "streaming stick" to stream shows from other places. Sometimes they needed our game-pad to get to what they wanted to watch. When I was young, the most technically advanced procedure we might have to perform in order to watch TV was adjusting the rabbit ears or switching from UHF to VHF. 

When remotes first hit the scene, my aunt had a neighbor who would get up from her chair, cross the room to where the remote was kept on top of the TV, change the channel, then return the remote to the TV top and sit back down. In that case, the TV wasn't smart and neither was its owner.

I need at least one kid handy when I want to watch TV because I'm dumbfounded by all the equipment needed to watch one simple television show. In my defense, even my son referred to one of our recent TV tech add-ons as "that cable thing we just got." 

Last night both kids were going to be away so my daughter, Syd got me all set up to watch HGTV. She was going out the door when I asked how to change channels. Syd said, "I'm sorry, Mom, but I think we'll have to wait until I have more time." 

Then she left me all alone with nothing to keep the TV running but its smarts and mine.

The first thing I noticed is that the audio was out of sync with the video and that the video was ahead. My son tells me this is because we have a cheap internet service provider. Eventually the show I was watching shut down altogether and a message appeared on the screen saying: "Due to inactivity, playback was stopped to save bandwidth."

I sat bolt upright, with my bag of chips and yelled, "Whadda ya mean inactive?" Was I supposed to be talking to the TV? My father used to yell at ours when watching Hockey Night in Canada, but it didn't seem to improve his viewing experience and anyway, I would have thought those days were gone. If the TV was so smart, why did it need help from me?

After Syd got home, we wanted to switch to Hulu for Parks and Recreation, and it was another big process just to do that. I watched wistfully as her little fingers danced around all the stuff and like a miracle, Parks and Recreation came on.

"Syd, do you think you can teach me how to watch TV without help?"

"Oh, sure, Mom," she said. But she said it like I'd just asked if I could ever learn to build my own spaceship, and she didn't have the heart to tell me it was hopeless. 

How the Trump White House is Like a Children's Song

This was an interesting week for anyone tracking developments out of the White House. 

Ten in the Bed copyright, Teece Aronin

In one of the wildest upsets since Dorothy's house flattened the Wicked Witch of the East, the White House flattened Anthony Scaramucci, its communications director. And he was still as shiny and new as his aviator sunglasses. 

His hiring, just 10 days prior, sparked then Press Secretary Sean Spicer to resign, mumbling something about too many cooks in the kitchen. Spicer didn't get that quite right: It was too many kooks in the White House - or as Trump calls it, the "dump." Spicer is either kicking himself now or rolling over in bed at the luxury resort he has probably dreamed about since last January.  

Scaramucci, aka the Mooch, aka the Scar, aka Scary Mucci - but that's just in my house - proceeded to threaten people's jobs, tweet and swoon over the view from Air Force One and grant an interview to The New Yorker so vulgar that making sense of the edited quotes was nearly impossible without male, anatomically correct poseable figures. 

When Scaramucci's fed-up wife, who had just filed for divorce, gave birth to their baby, Scaramucci wasn't there. He had scuttled her and his child to the back burner so he could be with his other soon to-be-estranged love, Donald Trump. The two were in Glen Jean, West Virginia for Trump's disastrous speech before the Boy Scouts. Hindsight is 20-20. 

Reince Preibus, busy hanging on to his job by his fingernails, was sacked by Trump as White House chief-of-staff thanks to Scaramucci. Priebus was replaced by General John Kelly. Kelly, no idiot, advised Trump to fire Scaramucci, which Trump did. Sadly, for Scaramucci, Trump actually listened to someone for once. 

As an example of art imitating life, my puppeteer friend, Rob pointed out that a character named Scaramouche sometimes appears in Punch and Judy shows. Usually a thief, Scaramouche is often beheaded by Punch by means of a slapstick. That observation sparked my prediction that we will soon see a Netflix 10-part docudrama starring Rob Lowe. 

I can also picture Scaramucci turning up as a talking head on MSNBC, Fox, or CNN. He wouldn't care which way the network leans since he disliked Trump before he liked him before he presumably started disliking him again. Or maybe he'll pitch a show of his own to Sirius.

Remember Mark Fuhrman, the detective suspected of planting evidence that implicated O.J. Simpson? Fuhrman, the known racist who perjured himself on the stand? He ended up with his own talk show and has been a frequent contributor to shows on Fox News. Fuhrman gets paid for this while people with journalism degrees can't find jobs.

Of course, social media had a field day over Scaramucci. Someone on Facebook wrote a meme comparing him to a fruit fly for getting hired, becoming a father, getting divorced, then getting fired within ten days. 

All this hiring, firing and resigning reminds me of a children's song I loved when I was little:

There were 10 in the bed and the little one said, "Roll over, roll over!" So, they all rolled over, and one fell out. After nine verses, the little one sighs, "Alone at last."

This time life imitated art when John Kelly told everybody to roll over, and Scaramucci fell out. 

I'm Menopausal, and This is My Friend, Obese

I like WebMD - usually. I write a health and wellness newsletter, and its upbeat, prevention-focused newsletters perk me up when I hit my morning email, even though they arrive by the bedpan-full. 

Menopausal and Obese, copyright, Teece Aronin. 

The articles are informative and life-affirming, like how to get fit playing with your dog; how to compare Paleo, Mediterranean, and DASH; how to cook with spices; how eating your main course off a salad plate makes you feel full faster. 

WebMD also addresses mental health topics with a balance of optimism and realism, and its photographs are vivid, colorful and otherwise eye-catching. 

But WebMD lost its Wellness Motivator of the Year Award when I came across this recent headline in its newsletter:

Exercises that Address Menopausal Weight Gain: About 30% of Women Ages 50-59 Are Obese. Learn How to Keep from Joining Them . . .

Really now. 

I've already established that I'm an avid WebMD reader. What I haven't mentioned is that I fit the demographic of "women ages 50-59," am menopausal, and, while I strive for a sort of va-va-voom quality, I am obese - at least temporarily. 

And true to the demographics, at least 30% of my gal-pals are too. Shouldn't WebMD presume that women like me are readers of its newsletter? I'm thinking it would have been better, dare I say nicer, to say something like this:

Exercises that Control Menopausal Weight Gain

And then just shut up. 

The WebMD  newsletter could have dropped a few pounds just by cutting that subtitle and that would have set a good example for what it seems to consider the 50-plus fatties. 

While its prevention-oriented articles are great in a lot of cases, WebMD is not Prevention magazine; Prevention magazine is Prevention magazine and can get away with that kind of article with a lot more justification, based on the name of the publication. Still, the subtitle is atrocious, and I would hope Prevention would have come up with something else, just as I think WebMD would have - ordinarily. 

Maybe if I write a letter to WebMD, they'll be impressed enough by my keen editorial eye to hire me. Then their articles would kick off more like this:

About 30% of Women Ages 50-59 Meet the American Medical Association's Criteria for Obesity. If this Sounds Like You, and You'd Like to Drop Some Weight, Here Are Exercises that Can Help . . .

WebMD . . . shape up!

Everything You Need to Know about OCD, Scrabble, and Life

One evening, years ago, my friend Lucy's phone rang, and the name showing in the phone's little window was "Ma."     

Image: Teece Aronin

"Hello?" 

When Lucy answered the phone, she heard distant conversation and could tell that people were playing cards - gin, to be exact. Lucy knew the voices well; they belonged to her mother, Darlene, her Aunt Zelda, and her sister, Jo-Jo. Darlene and Zelda were sisters. 

Her mother's phone was likely at the bottom of her bag, and something in the bag had likely butt-dialed Lucy. Assuming that were true, the women were probably at Jo-Jo's or Aunt Zelda's. If they were at Jo-Jo's, they were gathered around Jo-Jo's glass-top wrought iron dining table, always splattered with wet rings because Jo-Jo didn't know what a coaster was. 

If they were at Aunt Zelda's, they were sitting at the 1940's-era enamel kitchen table that had been Lucy's grandmother's. The table had caused a huge fight between Darlene and Zelda when Darlene accused Zelda of practically snatching it out from under the bowl of oatmeal their mother had nosedived into when she stroked out during breakfast one day. Darlene had complained that the oatmeal, like the body, wasn't even cold yet.     

"Hello?"

More ghostly chatter.  

"Hel-lo!"

Lucy yelled at least five more times before the conversation sucked her into its weird spell. 

Darlene: Her therapist told her it was free-floating anx-XI-ety. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Imagine having your anxiety hovering around over your head all the time - like a big, black cloud.

Aunt Zelda: For God's sake, Darlene; that's not what it means. It just means that you're anxious for no real reason. Your adrenaline cells have stomped their foot down on the gas pedal and now the pedal's jammed. Don't you ever watch Dr. Phil?

Darlene: No, Zelda, I don't. I didn't have the good fortune of marrying a barber, and therefore I have to work during the day.

Aunt Zelda: Jackie is a much-in-demand hair stylist, and besides, there's always TiVo. 

Aunt Zelda had a way of sounding sage, droning, and boastful at the same time. 

Jo-Jo (referring to her husband): I think Billy has anxiety. I don't know if it's free-floating or on the ground, but he definitely seems anxious. Sometimes it drives me up the wall because I literally have to scream at him to snap him out of it. He has issues up the win-wang."

Darlene: That's yin-yang.

Jo-Jo: Win-wang, yin-yang, wherever they are, they're there.

Darlene: You know, there's all kinds of anxiety. There's the free-floating kind, and there's panic attacks, and there's ODC . . .

Aunt Zelda: Good God, Darlene; it's not ODC, it's O-C-D - obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can make you do things and think things you don't want to. The obsessive part is thoughts you can't stop thinking, and the compulsive part is things you can't stop doing. Some people have one or the other, and some have both. I read about it on the internet. 

Jo-Jo: I think I have OCD. I can't stop thinking I want to divorce Billy, and I can't stop myself from screaming at him.

Aunt Zelda: I knew a girl in high school who, when she got her driver's license, she found she had a compulsion for driving into potholes. I mean no one knew she had OCD - she just happened to share the whole pothole thing with me one day and asked me if I thought it was weird. Of course, I tried to be reassuring and said it seemed perfectly normal to me. She just couldn't stop herself whenever there was a pothole coming. She'd even purposely veer right into them. I always emptied my bladder first if she was going to be driving.

Darlene: I might've known her. Who was she?

Aunt Zelda: I'm not telling, but she's a therapist now, which just goes to show you can conquer your demons. 

Darlene: Come on, Zelda; what's her name?

Aunt Zelda: I said I'm not telling.

Darlene: Oh, screw you, Zelda.

Jo-Jo: You know, I hate it when the two of you talk to each other this way.

Aunt Zelda: Shut the fuck up, Jo-Jo.

Jo-Jo: Dammit, Aunt Zelda. I hate it when you swear.

Aunt Zelda: Oh, I'm sorry. Jo-Jo, shut the frig up. How's that?

Jo-Jo: Better.

Aunt Zelda: Gin!

Darlene: Zelda, you asshole!

Jo-Jo: Ma! What did I just say?

Darlene: "You said that to your aunt."

Jo-Jo: I think next time we should play Scrabble.

Aunt Zelda: I once played Scrabble with a man who was a master at the game. When he played the word BEARS for 72 points, I said that's amazing! And you know what he said? He said: "It's not the bears, it's where you put the bears."

Darlene: I'd like to tell you where to put the bears.

Jo-Jo: You know, what that man said - about the bears - that applies to a lot of things in life. 

Aunt Zelda: That it does, my dear niece, that it does.

After more helpless shouting to her mother, Lucy hung up and went to bed. The next day, when she told her mother what happened, her mother yelled at her for eavesdropping.

Whine, Wine, Paint, and Tulips

I'm going to one of those wine and paint parties with my friend, Penny. Penny's the one I told you about who was on hold waiting to straighten out an overage on a bill and decided to make breakfast while she waited. Then she got sidetracked by her dog who, like a lot of us, she talks to as if it were a person. When she realized she'd just left the billing people a voice mail saying, in a sultry voice, "Does Mama smell like bacon? Y  E  S, MAma smells like BAcon," she hung up and paid the bigger bill.

Graphic by Teece Aronin

More recently, Penny fell asleep with her phone open to Amazon.com. Three days later, a corn hole game arrived, a large, expensive corn hole game. Penny's two boys were thrilled that their mother had bought them such a cool gift when it wasn't either of their birthdays, so Penny didn't have the heart to return it. 

The latest on Penny and her amazing shopping phone is that she fell asleep cruising Groupon and rolled over on her phone enough times to buy "multiple" (she won't specify the exact number) "multiple" Groupon packages for a "wine and paint night with friends." 

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, these are evenings spent making your own painting based on an existing work by a "real" artist. You do this with other people, usually in bars or sometimes, shockingly, at art studios. And you do it while drinking.  

Penny called me yesterday after we'd just seen each other at our neighbor, LouAnn's salad-in-a-jar event, and we tried to figure out which of the paint nights she bought worked for both our schedules. But here's the thing: It's not just finding a night that works, it's finding a night where you like the painting you'll be copying. None of the dates that almost, sort of, kind of worked for both of us would leave us with paintings either of us would want to hang once we got home. Then Penny said they did have a really cute painting of tulips.

"Oh, I love tulips," I sighed.

"Yeah, me too, but it's scheduled for a night after all my Groupons expire. I'll find out who to call, and maybe they'll let us switch."

So Penny and I are hoping they'll let us come in, drink, and paint but only if it's tulips. This has me wondering what kind of paintings people come up with when they've been drinking. Never have I seen a posting on Facebook from someone raving, "Check out the painting I did at last night's wine and paint night! And get this: A gallery wants to show more of my work! Heather Witherspeer, we are definitely doing this again!"

I'm thinking I'll order a white wine so that if I'm tipsy and accidentally rinse my paintbrush in it, I'll know right away. 

Click here if you'd like to read about Penny and her bacon debacle.