Pamela Gwyn Kripke and the Fire Bellied Toad

Readers of this blog will know how the Phantom regards Texas, but today's NY Times demonstrates that even in the darkest of places there may beat a true and admirable heart. Just read Dallas-based Pamela Gwyn Kripke's piece about her relationship with a fire bellied toad, and the crisis of conscience, the existential angst wrought upon a sentient being by another sentient being--one who eats live crickets.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/the-value-of-a-life-though-toxic-and-tiny/

Hopefully, this link will work, but if not, google Ms. Gwyn Kripke. Be resourceful. You will be rewarded.

This article had resonance in a personal way for the Phantom.  Some years ago his older son allowed the Phantom and his wife to meet his girlfriend, a young lady he had been dating for unspecified duration, but since this was the first time we had ever been allowed to meet a girl, we were interested in what the night might bring.

She was late getting to the restaurant in Manhattan and the Phantom was sent outside to scout the street and fetch her in. "But I don't know what she looks like," the Phantom protested.  "You'll know her. Just look for Tinkerbell."

The Phantom walked outside, pondering what that might mean, but soon enough, it became clear: Floating down the street street a ninety pound waif,  pixie cut hair, black skirt and leggings, tailored black leather jacket, headed right for the restaurant. 

During the dinner, as parents, we exercised that time honored prerogative of all parents, i.e., we tried to maximally embarrass our offspring. When he was a teenager, we could embarrass him by simply being present, by breathing the same air in the same room as his friends. Now, we had to work harder.

So, I told the story of the time we had gone for a hike in some national forest and our son had captured a frog, which he held between his hands, intending to get it back to our car and transport it home. His younger brother grumbled about imprisoning animals, the wickedness of zoos, but the older son had his prize and meant to keep it. 

Just as we reached the dirt road to the parking lot, the frog managed to leap out of his hands and into the path of an oncoming Jeep, driven by a park ranger and all that was left of that frog was the flat outline in the tire track. The timing had to be exquisite, but the frog was dead, or as Maud would say, that frog was undeniably and reliably, not just merely, but most sincerely dead.

The son's eight year old shoulders slumped, head hung down, "I was responsible," the kid said. "If it hadn't been for me, that frog would be alive right now."

The girlfriend, now 16 years later laughed at that. 

Conversation danced along for another hour or two, and we finally got out into the dark New York night, after ten. It was starting rain and sleet a little.

Standing outside the restaurant, the Phantom gave his son a $20 bill, telling him to take a cab back to Brooklyn. It was late and why should he and Tinkerbell wind their ways through subways and wet streets?

"Well, but Manhattan taxicab drivers hate driving to Brooklyn. And I live in a dicey part"--He lived in Bushwick then--"Why should some poor cabbie have to take the risk? And he'd never get a return ride."

"Oh!" Tinkerbell laughed.  "We never did get over that frog! Did we?"

Walking back to our hotel, my wife said simply, "She's a keeper."  

She did not have to explain.

Joys of a Liberal Arts Education

Dr. Freud 

Professor Carlin

 The Phantom's older son graduated from New York University.  The Phantom never did learn what his major was--he was in a hippy college within NYU, called Gallatin, where the students created their own majors, like "Chemistry and Dance."  At graduation weekend,  the Phantom asked a Gallatin professor if he knew what the son had majored in and the professor said he had no idea, but he did remember the son's thesis defense:  "His thesis was called, 'The Harmony of Opposites.' I remember that one."

This son did not have much good to say about NYU, other than it was in New York City, which is the coolest city in the world.  But, in terms of education, he thought it might not have been worth the expense. 

The Phantom reached a different conclusion while walking down a  Greenwich Village street with his son.  He was telling the son about a George Carlin riff. Carlin was talking about Catholicism, and  when he was an adolescent having to go to confession and having to admit to carnal sins, like masturbation,  and the priests would assign various penances  and Carlin said, "They were always pushing for pain, and we were always pulling for pleasure." 

The Phantom thought that was very funny and clever. 

"Oh," his son shrugged, "That's just Freud."
"What?"
"You know, 'Civilization and It's Discontents':  The individual seeks pleasure and dominance and civilization restrains him. So there's always a conflict between what civilizing institutions demand and what the individual wants."

From this, the Phantom concluded his son's 4 years at NYU were not ill spent. The son was dismissive, but he had learned something.  Later, the Phantom asked what he had learned in a course called, simply, "Anger." What had they read? The Iliad. "What did the Iliad have to do with anger?" the Phantom asked innocently. His son laughed, "There isn't much in the Iliad other than anger."  A new perspective for the Phantom. His son may not have got much out of NYU, but the Phantom was learning more every day.

During the last episode of Doc Martin, "The Tameness of the Wolf" there was a quick exchange which was worth having suffered through the previous two episodes, just to get to this.  Doc Martin's aunt--an erudite woman, who does not suffer fools gladly, and who finds herself beset by simple village folk, most especially a radio talk show host who sees only the most banal possibilities in a complex world--the aunt is confronted by a former patient, a psychopath, who, in the midst of his rantings declaims, 
"A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet or relief,
In word or sigh or tear."

It went by quickly, and the Phantom may be misquoting, but the wonderful thing was:  It meant nothing to Doc Martin, and most certainly not to the village constable, but aunt Ruth recognized it, "It's Coleridge," she said, dredging that up from some dim recess. "I'm pretty sure, yes, Coleridge."

And in that, you realize this lunatic has some greater depth to him and he sees meanings we may miss. But the best thing is the aunt's erudition allows her to recognize all this.

Of course, the educated Brit might know Coleridge, and certainly Shakespeare, while the educated American may not, may know only Freud, "The Wire," Hemingway. 
But a good, liberal arts education does put you in touch with some "canon," some touchstone of shared experience, and that creates a bond between you and prior generations; it allows you to stand on the shoulders of giants. 

Going to Jazz Fest with his son, the Phantom listened to Joshua Redman playing the saxophone and noted his son was smiling at various passages. 
"What was so funny?" the Phantom asked afterwards.
"Not, funny, just fun. He was quoting Coltrane," the son said.
"He was what?"
"Quoting, playing little snatches from Coltrane. He wove them in nicely." Apparently, musicians do this a lot. It enriches their riffs, and it connects them.

Connections were made, but how many in that audience caught them, the Phantom has no idea.

You find "quotes"  or borrowed phrases or riffs  in unexpected places.  An obscure novel from the early 1980's begins:

"Mrs. Tilly died Monday. Or perhaps, Tuesday. Ryan wasn't sure. His watch had stopped at 11:00 P.M., when the nurse called. It might have been past midnight when Mrs. Tilly belched up a liter of blood over Ryan's shoes. Not that the time mattered to Ryan. It mattered for the death certificate."

For anyone who ever read the unforgettable opening of "The Stranger" a smile comes.  It's just another way one generation reassures another we have been listening. We are still connected. 

Albert Camus

For the Phantom, that is worth the every penny. 

Rape in the New Age Military, Date Rape and The New Woman

New Hampshire Lake, Obadiah Youngblood

"Every ethical analysis begins with an attempt to establish the facts."

--Professor, Rev. Donald Colenback

Two cases reported together in the New York Times (3/21/14) have been resolved: In one case with the dismissal from the United States Naval Academy of a midshipman, who faced 30 years in prison for rape,and, in the second case, with the reprimand of a general, who also faced a lengthy prison sentence, but will not serve prison time, although he will be drummed out of the service at a reduced rank.

Nobody was pleased with the disposition of either case. All parties felt aggrieved, ostensibly. 

Senator Kristen Gillibrand said, "How we got here was yet another example of a completely broken military justice system." 
The defense lawyer for the midshipman commented after the verdict, "The system is broken. It's broken in many different directions."
Jamie Barnett, a lawyer for the general's accuser described the general's sentence as "a travesty" and compared it to "getting sent to the principal's office for a stern talking to." She added, "Now the Army has to face the reality that this is likely to happen again and the victims will be less likely to come forward."

A Yale Law School professor said, "This will ratchet up concern that there is a first-class justice for some and steerage for the rest."

What we have here, the Phantom would hope we can all agree is:
1. Circumstances which are new over the past half century, in that women and men are now mixed physically in ways which would have scandalized and flabbergasted Americans of the 1950's and 1960's. Women now live in dorm rooms next door to those of men in college. Women now serve in the Army side by side with men, in combat and  behind the lines. 

2. A relatively new attitude held by women, and  a new attitude is now widely held  about women with respect to their sexuality. Women are no long expected to be virgin on their wedding night. Women are expected to have sex in their teen age years. It is not a slander to suggest a woman likes to have casual sex, for a "romp" to relieve tension, for pleasure, to understand herself, to understand the world, to get to know a particular man better, to experience life in its richest dimensions. The prevailing assumption, if one can judge from testimony like "I Love My Rifle More Than You" by Kayla Williams, is that every woman has had sex, will have more, but it is her right to decide who with and when, and no pressure ought to be applied, and certainly sex should not be ordered by a superior officer as a perk of rank.

To cope with this new world in which women regularly put themselves in "compromising" positions which would have horrified their grandmothers and which might elicit from their mothers the reaction: Well, what did you expect would happen, when you go to a boy's room with a bottle of gin?"

Against this backdrop, institutions have tried to dream up ways to cope with the new freedom they have provided women:  At Brown University every freshman signs a pledge, among the hundreds of papers he signs during freshman week, which says he will not "take advantage" of a girl who is in no position to make a decision about whether or not she wants to have sex, which is to say, too drunk to know what she is doing. In a famous case,  a third year student, on his way to a promising career in engineering, was expelled because he found a naked girl in his bed in his fraternity house and had sex with her. The facts of that case were murky. Apparently, the next morning she exchanged phone numbers with him and it was only when she got back to her dorm room and faced a withering reaction from her friends, she decided she had been raped.

In the case of the female Naval Academy student, which had been in trial for two years, the accuser admitted she had gone to an off campus "toga and yoga" party, where Navy football players wore only a sheets (togas) and she arrived drunk, and in fact, could not recall whether or not she had had sex with the midshipman she eventually accused, but after word got out about her sexual participation that night, she could not walk past a table in the cafeteria without hearing snickers. She accused first one midshipman, then another, saying she had blacked out and could not recall exactly who or what happened. At least, that's what the Times tells us.

So where does that leave us?  Apparently, the new code is that if a woman arrives in a bar, at a fraternity party, where the participants are semi nude, and the setting is one of a ritual of fore play, it is the responsibility of the males present to protect women from themselves, to become their stewards and to escort them home to safety.  Now, that would be an officer and a gentleman. 

Where could we expect to find one?

The basic problem with accusation of sexual violation is the male will always claim, "She wanted it," and the female accuser will deny that was her state of mind at the time,  and she refused but was over-powered and violated.

How do we solve this contradiction?  One attempt, at Brown, was to organize "teach ins" where actors showed how the road to sexual intercourse should proceed in campus rooms, with the boy asking the girl at each stage, "I am now going to remove your bra. Is that okay with you? Do you feel alright about that." And so the road to intercourse becomes a sequence of requests and permissions granted, rather like passing security stations at a military installation. The whole exercise of educating the masses sounds like something out of Kafka, or the early days of the Soviet state, where "re-education" was supposed to create a new, morally superior person.

But what do you do when alcohol is mixed into the brew?  Then you have the accuser saying, "I don't care what he says I said; I was too drunk to know what I am saying."

What do you do with an accuser who says she cannot recall the events she is accusing her attacker of having wrought--but she heard about them later?

And what do we do when a specific case, involving two individuals is judged not just on their differing views, their own conflicting memories, but as an example of a policy failure, condemned by politicians, who may feel strongly about the issue, but, who are not looking at the case as a set of specific circumstances with individuals, but as a flag to wave?

As the subplot in the "House of Cards" explores, this is a deep, dark swamp. One thing fiction can do is to present in great detail a welter of conflicting "facts."  In the case of Underwood's wife, she was date raped at Harvard her freshman year, but did not report it, although it was a devastating experience. She simply did not want to be known thenceforth as "that girl who was raped." She exacts her revenge, years later, by accusing her abuser on national TV, which provokes a move to end his career in the Marines, and which brings forth other women, who say he raped them, too. 

But Mrs. Underwood, it is clear, is no Anna ("Downton Abbey") whose rape was a clear a case of overwhelming assault and horror, and who feels "ruined"  despoiled, and unworthy of sleeping with her own husband, or, perhaps, disgusted by the whole prospect of sex, now that it has been corrupted. Ms. Underwood, is a woman who has sexual appetites she doesn't conceal, for her photographer boyfriend, for her Secret Service agent. Does that mean she was not violated, as a college student. On the contrary, it suggests the credibility of her story: She does not deny her own desires, but she claims absolute dominion over with whom she exercises them.

But what of the woman who drinks herself past resistance, then walks into an orgy? Can she claim rape?

It is curious that through all his years of training, the Phantom never heard a complaint  or a case of any nurse accusing a doctor of rape. In those days, there was a sort of rank discrepancy--nurses were female and doctors male and nurses took orders from doctors about patient care, so, in many ways, the doctors were the superior officers.  There was lots of pressure, life and death struggles, and long hours, fatigue and some parties and some after hours (not on call) drinking. So, in a sense, all that was like what we now see in the military--men working side by side with women, with men in positions of authority.  There were sexual escapades in on call rooms, in various places throughout the hospital, where beds were easily available. But, for some reason, little in the way of aggrieved parties.

If the military could figure out what made the hospitals work that way, maybe they could find a path which would work for them.

Christian Petzold's "Barbara" and the Great American Sport of Strip Searching

If you have Netflix or Amazon Prime or some other source of streaming or downloading movies, try "Barbara," directed by Christian Petzold, from 2012.

It has that same gritty feel of "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" with the chipped walls, paint peeling, women walking about in frayed dresses without stockings; even the white lab coats are mangy and worn. 

The story is simple enough:  An East German woman physician applies to leave East Germany for the West, is arrested, and exiled to a boondocks clinic on the Baltic, where, with the aide of her lover, a West German, she plots her escape. In the clinic, however, she finds meaning in her work with several patients, and she comes to admire the work done by a colleague, another exile from the prestigious urban hospital system, who is making something out of his small town practice. He is the authentic doctor, with virtues of actually sympathizing with his patients, caring about their suffering.

But, even as the woman is drawn to her new colleague, she has a powerful push to consummate her escape: The Stasi keep dropping by her squalid apartment and strip searching her, with a woman agent who probes her vagina every time. This is the ultimate in Orwellian oppression: the state authorities strip you naked and stick fingers up your vagina, with the excuse they are searching for dangerous or incriminating contraband, but everyone knows this is simple intimidation flavored with a little kinky titillation on the part of the sociopaths who populate police forces from small town America to East German villages. 

Which brings the Phantom back to America, our Supreme Court which has endorsed vaginal probing as a reasonable self defense technique in the service of the safety of prison jailers and prisoners alike. "It's for everyone's own good," the Justices say, as they contemplate vaginal probing dressed up in police uniforms.

So, here we have a bleak portrait of the ultimate in a menacing, soul crushing police state, a film made in German, about Germany's dark underbelly--that sordid history of a nasty police state, and what is the vehicle of that oppression: Why, that good, All American sport of strip searching.

And why, the Phantom must inquire, are we living our doggy lives, every day, not outraged at what is happening daily across this great land of ours--the state sponsored finger raping in our jails?  Because the Supreme Court has spoken and we are all good little girls and boys.

Qui tacit, constentit. 

Ukraine, European Intrigue Deja View

In the early 1980's a British Masterpiece Theatre Series," Reilly, Ace of Spies," aired.

Set in the early 1900's when London still had horse drawn cabs, but navies were modern enough to have steel ships and oil driven motors, the series begins with Sidney Rosentblum on his way to Odessa by train with a report on Russian oil drilling in Ukraine and the Persian crescent.  For anyone reading today's headlines about Ukraine, and the Black Sea fleet, the Russian response and European involvement, this is fascinating beyond mere description.

Having just entered acute withdrawal from "Foyle's War" the Phantom was eager to acquire a new agent to staunch the bleeding, feed the hunger for a new series and Reilly is it.

At one point, a British spymaster, who has been grievously offended by Rosenblum's escapades, which included having an affair with a British clergyman's wife, sputters that Rosenblum is simply not the sort of agent the Foreign Office ought to have in its employ, because he is "Not a gentleman, likely a socialist and most certainly a Jew."

Rosenblum, who later acquires the identity of Reilly (the Irish being perhaps the only people less socially acceptable to the upper crust than the Jews) shrugs off the offended Brit. He has no time for or interest in the effete sensibilities of the British upper classes. The game is afoot and he is in the game.

It must be admitted, in the end, "Foyle's War" for all its virtues, cannot match Reilly. Foyle himself is a wonderful, counter intuitive hero--he is not handsome, dashing or young, like Reilly, but he is subversive and has qualities we all wish for. He listens quietly, respectfully, never offending, always humble,(very Columbo like, in this respect) and by his very non threatening nature, he gets people to talk, to say more than they had intended. Toward the end of each episode, he has an Agatha Christie like drawing room moment where he strings together his formulation of exactly how the crime happened, by whom, and for what reason. 

The problem with Foyle is that the response in every case is the murderer, faced with the accusation, immediately breaks down, admits all, tries to explain that what he did in murdering whomever was reasonable and is then hauled off by the Bobbies to prison. But in most cases, the case Foyle outlined, though true, is by no means incontestable, especially in the last episode of Season 7, where an upper crust scion, admits to having murdered his wife 20 years earlier, an act witnessed by his son whose testimony about what he saw as an eight year old is presumably unassailable in a court of law. So, why bother protesting? I'll simply go sheep like to prison and the gallows.

"Foyle" is also populated by suffering people who have been burned and scarred by war and whose stiff upper lips prevents them from saying anything at all, even in the general or evasive terms most Americans would use to describe what's eating them. Anthony Horowitz may be depicting a characteristic of Brits, but it does get tiresome, all these mute, suffering people who just simply cannot express themselves, because it would be, well you know, not proper.

Reilly suffers from none of this. And the plots are far less predictable. In "Foyle" you can always count on the most innocent, couldn't-be-involved-person presented being guilty as hell. Once you get the beat, you can predict "Foyle." The formula becomes too pat. It's still wonderful to watch, the way Sherlock Holmes is wonderful to read, because you know Foyle will figure it out, then put it all together in a wonderfully neat summary, often picking up on some subtle clue--the woman knew the man took sugar in his coffee without asking, ergo, she must be his wife. 

Reilly romps through the Europe and he's a joy to watch, flaunting convention, capable of showmanship and brashness, but also at home in the verbal jousting purveyed by the upper classes.  And the history, which was "Foyle's" strong point, is not abandoned in Reilly.
So "Foyle" is done. Reilly is on. The game is afoot.

What It Means to be Catholic and Irish American Now

First a disclaimer, the Phantom is neither Irish American,  nor Catholic. 

But that never stopped him from wishing he was.

George Carlin remarked that Irish kids in his neighborhood (Morningside Heights) always wanted to be Black, tried to talk like the Blacks,  just uptown from them in Harlem, called their own territory "White Harlem." 

So maybe there is always the attraction of opposites. 

Harmonium ex oppositis. 

Throughout his school boy days, through college and medical school, his best friends were always Catholic and often Irish Catholic. 

"I used to be Catholic," Carlin said, "Now, I'm American. You know: You grow."

The Phantom devoured "Real Lace," and Grace Kelly was his ideal woman. His friend, Kelleher, told him, "Irish real lace? Let me tell you something: There is no real lace. All Irish are shanty Irish."

Which is why the Phantom was so attracted. 

In college,  he finally acquired his first genuine Irish Catholic girlfriend. Her mother was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Actually, the mother insisted the real name was "Derry," not Londonderry, which is what the Orangemen called the town.

Both mother and daughter had the same cobalt blue eyes and dark, lusterous hair and dimpled smiles and the confidence of knowing what's right.

But the girlfriend frustrated the Phantom on issues of intellect. She was fine with having sex, but not with contraception. Condoms were not tolerated by doctrine. But, the Phantom argued, neither was premarital sex. Well, she could have that, just not the condom part. But, you have to accept the whole package, not pick and choose, the Phantom said. If you are okay with having sex, you are not acting Catholic. So why not make that rebellion at least safe. That's what being Catholic is, the whole package.

Who are you to tell me what Catholic is? I believe the parts I think are right, and those I disagree with, I don't agree with.

Having sex was okay, if you got drunk and didn't really know what you were doing, and acted out of passion, sex was okay, but using condoms meant you were planning on it.

As Carlin said, "It's four sins in one: Wanting to have sex, planning on having sex, taking her to a place to  have sex, having sex."

It did not work out for the Phantom and his Irish American sweetheart. 

She later became a very interesting woman, when she grew up. The priest/child porn thing was just too much. She left the church for good. She is now a "recovering Catholic."

She went on to have Black lovers, divorced, married again, had affairs, traveled the world, put herself through law school, became a judge. 

She had something to rebel against, something to prove.

Now there is Pope Francis, and the Phantom asked her whether or not she considers returning to the Church.

Not a chance, she says. He's still Catholic. He still does not want my daughters to use contraception, condemns abortion under any circumstances, will not allow priests to marry or women to become priests and he still considers homosexuality an abomination and gay love a sin. He's better than some other popes, but he's still Catholic. He's the good cop to someone's bad cop, but he's still a cop. Don't forget whose side he is on. And it's not God's.

For years, the Phantom admitted his patients to Georgetown University Hospital. Georgetown was Jesuit and the Jesuits are so open minded, so intellectual it is possible, even common,  to forget they are Catholic at all. They are charming, entirely seductive.

One day the Phantom sent a patient to Georgetown University Hospital to drop off a semen sample. The patient had been having trouble getting his wife pregnant and we needed to be sure he was making healthy sperm. The director of the lab phoned. 

"Uh, doctor, you sent the patient for a semen sample."

"Yes?"

"Well, the thing is, in order to provide a semen sample, you have to masturbate."

"Yes?"

"Well, masturbation is a sin."

"But we are trying to help him get his wife pregnant, to make more Catholics."

"I'm sorry, doctor."

So, there it is. Ultimately, when you deal with the Church, you run up against that hard wall of authority, of sin and God's will, as seen by someone,  not you. Even if that someone is Pope Francis, he is not you.

The Golden Age of Television: Blowing the Bound Novel Out of the Water?

My wife is going to Cambridge this weekend for her book club with her Mount Holyoke friends.  They read books together in college and talked about them and still love doing this. She also reads two newspapers every morning--more out of loyalty to the idea of a paper newspaper, I suspect, than out of true affection--she was a newspaper reporter back in the day.

But, apart from those members of her generation, who read on paper as well as on Kindle, are paper books really still where the best in the world of literature appears?

There is a difference in the experience in reading a book and seeing the Huck Finn or the Brett Ashley of your own creation, in your own mind and seeing actors on television. Reading demands more of us, and some argue, it returns a deeper, more visceral, (or should I say ?),a  more cerebral reward.

My son has read Game of Thrones and tells me I should not be content to simply watch the series, but can I commit the time and effort to each of the 5 fifteen hundred page novels?

And where among all the 80,000 books published in a given year in this country, can I find anything as rewarding as The Wire? Of, for that matter, House of Cards, or Doc Martin or Foyle's War or The Killing or even, I blush to admit, Downton Abbey? Well, scratch Downton, but you get the idea. 

There were two pieces, side by side in last Sunday's New York Times Review of Books, arguing the case for the continued centrality of the printed novel, but I was unmoved.  

Thinking of favorite books--A Farewell to Arms, The Bell Jar, Final Payments, Play It As it Lays, The New York Ride, Gone With the Wind, Peyton Place, The Stranger, Huckleberry Finn, The Big Sleep, West With the Night, Catch-22, Great Expectations, each of them enthralled me for a time, at a certain point in life, but only one, (West With the Night) still enthralls me. All the rest have not weathered well, as I've moved from one point in life to the next. Likely, this is because the single author of each was writing from a particular point in his or her life. 

But TV is made as a joint venture by many people and it will, I suspect, wear better. The Wire will be seen and enjoyed and inform for generations to come, and through generations--people will see it in their 20's through 60's and thrill to a new aspect of it in each decade.

Sorry, but that single author effort just cannot compete.

Pamela Druckerman: From the Mouths of Babes

Pamela Druckerman is a 40 something American living in Paris, who has written some successful books about motherhood, parenting and living abroad. She performed in New York's Upright Citizen's Brigade, a sort of modest cousin of the Second City Review and Saturday Night Live. 

She also wrote a list of things she has learned, which for some reason the Phantom cannot put his finger on, resonated, this past Sunday.

To Wit:

1. "There are no grown ups. Everyone is winging it; some do it more confidently."  Well, that's not exactly true. Cardiovascular surgeons are not winging it. They know exactly each step of the procedure they are doing, but they do have to improvise sometimes. Even the blues or jazz player, who must improvise to do what he does, still knows exactly how to improvise, but the idea that, in some ways, we do not grow up, carries a kernel of truth. We may become unconsciously competent in many ways, and we can be confident of some of the things we do in life, if we are engineers, mechanics, surgeons, but on some level, we all suffer from arrested development.

2. There are no soul mates.  This is something young women learn earlier than men, who tend to continue to look for that "one made in Heaven" or some such stuff, until well into their thirties, until they realize: Fat chance.  I love her summary: "There will be unforgettable people with whom you have shared an excellent evening or a few days. Now they live in Hong Kong, and you will never see them again. That's just how life is."

3. "People's youthful quirks can harden into adult pathologies. What's adorable at 20 can be worrisome at 30 and dangerous at 40."  This is likely true. But, in the Phantom's case, he did not find the quirks adorable at 20. He thought the quirks were lame at 20 and went downhill from there. But he could see how that worked for women, who found certain types of men irresistible at 20 who the Phantom thought were simply puerile slackers. 

4. "You don't have to decide whether God exists. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. But when you're already worrying that the National Security Agency is reading your emails...it's better not to know whether yet another entity is watching you."  

5. "When you're wondering whether she's his daughter or his girlfriend, she's his girlfriend."

6. "Eight hours of continuous, unmedicated sleep is one of life's great pleasures. Actually, scratch the 'unmedicated.'"  The Phantom learned this during internship, when sleep occupied a much higher place on his list of pleasures than sex, conversation, good movies, good food, good drink  or good friends.  Now, in his degenerating years, sleep is again rising in importance. That one day a week, Saturday morning, when the Phantom has time to actually sleep as long as he wants, has become something of a sacred rite.

Where all this wisdom comes from in one so young, is hard to fathom. But it is there and that is that. Must be Paris. The French may actually have something to offer the world. Having suffered through five years of schoolboy French, the Phantom thought he had paid for all his sins in advance. But maybe the French, as opposed who teach the language, have something to offer.

For some reason the Phantom has never understood, it tends to be women, who can distill wisdom about the important things in life, much more often than men. There have been one or two men who seemed to have figured things out, but for the Phantom,  when he comes across some real insight, it often pops out of a woman. Like the woman at the New York Hospital, who explained the behavior of various nurses in whom the Phantom was interested, women who had boyfriends or husbands but seemed to be flirting seriously, tugging on the Phantom's chain. 

"Nobody's satisfied," she said. And that explained everything about everyone who had confused the Phantom. She was just so right.  She came from Kansas, from the heartland, where the Bible ruled and people were unsophisticated. But she was sophisticated, and harbored few illusions.  She wasn't happy about what she saw among the hormone driven young doctors and nurses who inhabited her world, but she could look around with merciless clarity.

"Nobody's satisfied," she said. 

Explained a lot.