No Offense, but Merry Christmas.

It’s that time of year again: sleigh bells ringing in the snow, chestnuts roasting on an open fire and TV talking heads who stand to defend Christmas from those who, they say, would seek to sanitize the season of any religious connotation.

The spirit of the season is jarred by a loud few lobbing grenades over how we celebrate and how political friends and foes celebrate it as well.

Some, when greeted with “Happy Holidays”, might use “Merry Christmas” as a bludgeon to show their rejection of “political correctness.” Others, when affronted by the offensive “MC” greeting may fire back with “Happy Winter Solstice” to strike a blow for their belief system. Some just wear bad sweaters so people will leave them alone entirely.

Trees at the White House seem to be particular lightning rods for Christmas controversy. Maybe because they are so conspicuous and the ceremonies surrounding them give all sides a read on a President's stand on Christmas.

Around the turn of the 20^th century, President McKinley was urged to forego the “Christmas tree habit” since it was “arboreal infanticide.” Another group opposed having a tree in the Executive Mansion since it was a “German” tradition.

In 1972, the Nixon Administration drew criticism for using a peace sign as a tree-topper. In 1973, conservation groups wanted to address environmental issues. They persuaded the White House to use a live tree instead of a cut one.

During the Clinton years, a couple of stockings decorating the tree were marked “Bill” and “Newt”. One had candy, the other had coal…respectively.

Lincoln Chafee (Governor of Rhode Island) decided to call his tree a "holiday" tree, much to the dismay of those who prefer "Christmas."

This is an unwinnable war. If it’s a “Christmas” tree, then one group is bent out of shape. If it’s a “Holiday” tree, then you’ve run afoul of someone else’s sensibilities. Others are upset at the use of a tree at all, maybe for environmental reasons or because a decorated tree amounts to pagan idol in their view.

Despite all the noise from high-visibility (and audibility) ideologues, I believe most people still feel good will toward each other around the official start of winter. It’s a wonderful time of the year, for whatever reason you may choose.

I’d like to say Merry Christmas to all. I mean those words in kindness and with all good wishes. Greet me as you wish (or not) and I’ll accept that in the same spirit.

And I may even compliment your sweater.

Going Viral: Old School Edition

My son is so adorable. He’s every cute YouTube video your friends send you. You see him and you just want to hug him. I won’t publish his name here, but for purposes of this post we’ll just refer to him as Ragin’ Contagion.

You might know someone like him.

RC goes to preschool where they collect and trade plagues as part of the curriculum. It’s like a scavenger hunt. Prizes are hidden on doorknobs, on faucets and atomized into green clouds. I’m sure the clouds are green, not a pretty pine-smelling or minty green, but a drab yellowish-green like overcooked Brussels Sprouts. Mmm! Did you get yours? Well, that’s part of the fun; you won’t know you won for 2 days to 2 weeks.

You might wake with a painful swallow and a voice that sounds like you singlehandedly keep big tobacco profitable. Maybe one of your eyes is bonded shut with yellowish super-glue.

You get up and the world feels different. The brush of your flannel pajamas is more like an Army Surplus wool blanket. You run some water for a warm washcloth to un-stick your afflicted eye and hot tea to irrigate your dustbowl throat.

I’m certain that another of the survival strategies of microbes is to make the infected act so pitiful that others draw near to comfort them.

You groan. Why? Because the agents of pestilence are pulling levers in your brain that make you groan. Your loved one looks at you and says, “Aw.”

At just the right moment, the virus says, “Fire!” A cannon shot of microscopic balls of snot bursts into the air. They land like seeds. A scant 10 million or so packets of DNA seek fertile pastures in an upper respiratory tract or maybe an eye.

Wash your hands. Cover when you cough. Get plenty of rest. Drink lots of fluids. And stay the heck away from me.

Oh, I’m sorry. That was harsh. You poor thing. Let me hold you.

Gesundheit.

Lunar Eclipse, December 2011

I awoke at 1:15 a.m., an hour before the alarm was set to go off. I tried to go back to sleep, but I kept going over the checklist: Camera, batteries, lenses, tripod, wallet, phone. I looked at the clock again, 1:55. So I got up to get ready.

This morning would be the last lunar eclipse here until 2014.

A keystone patch of full moonlight fell on the carpet through the window. I looked out on the yard. The icy white light hid the colors. Shadows were sharp and deep.

Full moon nights always reminded me of cheap western films where they’d shoot “day for night” by putting a blue filter over the lens. It made midday sun look something like moonlight. It also made things easier for the actors and horses who wouldn’t have to bump around and trip over things in real darkness.

But this was real night tonight. Thanks to some obliging proteins found in the light-sensitive photoganglion cells in my retina, I could see by a living form of night-vision goggles. The night was painted up in shades of indigo, marble white and carbon black.

I had to be in San Diego to meet my daughter at 3:30 a.m. We’d head for Torrey Pines State Reserve, park at the golf course and hike to a viewing spot by the 4:45 start of the moon falling into the shadow of the Earth.

The I-15 was mostly deserted at 2:45 a.m. I hoped that most of the drunks had found conveyance home or to jail by now without hurting anyone. Long-haul trucks rolled on under the orange sodium vapor lights to loading docks somewhere. The public radio station broadcasting British World Service sank into the hiss of background radiation as I drove into valleys. I caught a few words of a real-time report about protesters taking to a sunlit Red Square at the same moment that I drove through my moonlit time zone.

Stephanie was sleeping over at her best friend Courtney’s house. We’d arranged to meet at our favorite coffee house, Peet’s, at 3:30 a.m. I was still marveling that I had a teenage daughter who was willing to rise at this hour to have an adventure with Dad. She's always been like that.

I pulled into the empty lot. A few minutes later, Stephanie parked next to me. I saw Courtney in the passenger seat. I was impressed that she had decided to join us. Now that’s a friend. Apparently, there is at least one more stalwart teen in the world.

As we pulled away, Peet’s was dark. It would be open when we returned. We looked forward to bringing hash brown burritos from Cotija to have with coffee, tea or hot chocolate.

The parking lot at the Torrey Pines Golf Course is an ideal place to park, if you want to avoid the ten dollars to park in the reserve and have no aversion to walking half a mile to get to the trails.

As expected, there were no other cars there when we arrived. We high-stepped over the low rail fence to get out onto the sidewalk. Spots of moonlight flicked like silver dollars on the sidewalk under the eucalyptus trees lining North Torrey Pines Road.

We entered the park and walked along the 15-foot wide, two lane park road that, until the 1930s, was part of the 101 between San Diego and Los Angeles. Model Ts had once rattled and trundled over these slabs of concrete paving. At the north end of the park, a 3/4-mile descent was so steep that the gravity-fed fuel systems of the day couldn’t keep the engines running. The solution? Back down the hill.

We cut left onto the trail marked “Broken Hill.” We wound through the stand of head-high Chamise, Black Sage and Manzanita. The aromatic oils of the sage were carried on listless warm and cold air currents in these early morning hours. The moonlight was enough that we didn’t need flashlights.

We stopped to take a couple photos with a lone Torrey Pine in the foreground. Courtney and Stephanie experimented with long exposures. They moved their camera around to make the moon streak across the frame at random. The results were fun, but, not content with that, they decided to move the camera so the moon would trace a white heart in a black sky. I was amazed at how well they made it work.

While we were making “art”, two bundled and backpacked people passed us with tripods slung over their shoulders.

“Out here for the eclipse?” one said.

We all said yes.

“Ah, more outlaw photographers,” he said, marching on.

It was true. We were here in flagrant violation of something about the place being closed between sunset and 8 a.m.

It was nearing 4:45 when we reached our spot.

Stephanie said, “It’s starting.”

I looked up and saw the upper edge of the moon darkening like the edge of a paper disc being tortured with a lighter.  Before long the darkness had grown to look like a bite out of a cookie.

Courtney asked if we could look right at the eclipsed moon. I told her that was a good question and that you could look directly at it since the light was the tiniest fraction of what a solar eclipse puts off.

We shared our viewing point at Broken Hill with the two other outlaw photographers who had passed us. From there, we could see across the swales and ravines to the north. Now and then, the blue glow of an LED headlamp or an LCD display would give away the position of other photographers dotting far hillsides.

In the hours as the moon phased out, I took a number of shots with different lenses and exposures. I was treated to the meandering conversations of teenage best friends. Subjects ranged from prospective college choices, to last words and deaths of famous people, and what might happen if the moon was destroyed. I’m not sure what our new neighbors made of the topics, but I felt privileged to eavesdrop on a world that had changed surprisingly little in the decades that separated our teen years.

The light grew fainter. The moon was now a bruised smoke and blood orange ball. The landscape that had been so apparent a couple hours before was now black-veiled. Stars started to peek out in greater numbers from their hiding places to see if the big bad moon was dead.

I turned the camera on the southern view. I took a number of long exposures out of curiosity. The lights of La Jolla, six miles distant, burned into the CCD over 10, 30 and 60 second exposures. The red bluffs and Torrey Pines were in silhouette against the glare.

The red moon fell closer to the horizon. It seemed to blend into the blue-gray haze, a faint rusty feather as the sky lightened around it. Then it disappeared entirely.

Time has a way of sneaking up on you when you’re busy through the night. The predawn light brightened like someone had opened a curtain in the east. We realized what time it was. The moon had not reemerged from the shadow before it set into the sea. The light was hardening and the colorful bands of the furrowed sandstone bluffs would soon lose their magic.

It was time to go home.

As promised, we picked up burritos and settled in at Peet’s. We warmed ourselves hunching over steaming cups held with both hands. The chill retreated in the glow of good company and a shared experience.

We’ll do it all again in 2014.

Fooling People Who Agree to Be Fooled

I was listening to John Lithgow promoting his memoir, Drama: An Actor’s Education, on NPR today. The program and the theme of the book highlight the actor’s life of serial rejection and the murderously hard meandering road to success (Sounds like writing sometimes). Callers were invited to join a conversation about themselves or a loved one who had chosen acting.

Lithgow took calls from young hopeful actors and parents who had varying degrees of concern that their children were pursuing a career on the stage. Even though the parents had themselves been actors, they didn’t want their children to have to endure what they did. While they wanted to be supportive, they also wanted to encourage the next generation to have a backup plan, like Medical School.

I was struck when the host, Neal Conan, described acting as a pact between actor and audience. “We’re going to fool you and you agree to be fooled.”

That’s exactly what we do as writers of fiction. We, too, have a relationship with our readers that’s based on deception. I know. It doesn’t sound healthy. We tell the reader, “I’m going to lie to you and you agree to believe it.”

The reader opens your book trusting that the lie you’re going to tell is a lie that they’ll enjoy believing.

Lithgow also gave advice that translates directly to any artistic endeavor, especially writing. He said to stay creative and to develop the things that you could control.

Don’t write your one picture book or novel that’s sure to be a beloved classic and then wait around for it to be discovered. Keep working to grow your body of work and grow yourself as a liar...I mean "writer."