Not exactly viral but....

Near the top right hand side of this blog, a little beneath our family picture, there is a counter that tracks the total number of times people have looked at this blog. There are usually 60-80 page views on the first day following each time I post, which is consistent with the number of folks to whom I send e-mails directly. As the blog owner, when I open Blogger I see some additional information that includes a report of recent activity.

This morning, Blogger showed the following tally:

Pageviews today

100

Pageviews yesterday

169

Pageviews last month

999

Pageviews all time history

39,966

This is more than a three-fold increase in the usual number of views for a new post. How and why did this happen? I wonder if it has something to do with my having included that pharmaceutical advertisement, but I tried googling that and it did not lead to my blog. Otherwise I cannot imagine what I might have done that has suddenly made me so much more popular.

I have no fear (and no ambition) that I am about to “go viral.” Meanwhile, 40K here we come!

Love,

Rebecca

Life without color

Daytime television is full of commercials geared to the predominantly older audience who have the time to watch television during the day. The commercials are primarily for Medicare supplement insurance plans, pre-paid funeral arrangements, and prescription and over the counter medicinal products. One of these has me scratching my head every time I see it: an ad for a prescription drug called Toujeo (insulin glargine injection) indicated for the treatment of Type II diabetes. Here is the commercial.

Can someone explain to me the significance of the coloring (or lack thereof) in this commercial? Other than the main character, a middle-aged woman, everyone and everything is white and almost appears two-dimensional. The (actual) woman sits at a café with a 2D friend, goes on a walk on a 2D street, stops and buys 2D flowers (also white, although no “green” seems to change hands), and comes home to a little white dog. She is greeted at home by her two-dimensional husband. And then, suddenly, color appears and everything becomes real. Is the idea supposed to be that living with diabetes can be a frighteningly empty experience unless it can be controlled by Toujeo? I am really scratching my head over this one.

As I am writing this it occurs to me that it provides perhaps a very good segue into the movie we saw a couple of days ago, “I Am Not Your Negro,” a documentary about the playwright/essayist/novelist James Baldwin that received a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. I have to admit that I was not at all familiar with Mr. Baldwin’s work, but the script of this documentary was all from his writings, either captured in tapes of television shows or read by Samuel L. Jackson. It was clear that he was an amazingly talented man. Despite a rather miserable life as a young child with an abusive father and coming of age during an especially difficult time for young black men, he managed to maintain a sense of decency, saying “I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive; I’m forced to be an optimist.” It was a thoughtful documentary worth seeing.

I am busy today pulling together everything we will need for the next ten days that we plan to spend in Sharon. We have even put together a schedule for activities with our grandchildren, who are off school next week. This “President’s Week” vacation seems to be part of the school calendar only in the northeast. My first winter in this part of the country was when we moved from St. Louis to West Hartford, CT the summer before my senior year of high school, and it seemed somewhat odd that there was yet another vacation so soon after returning from winter break. My impression was and is that it was primarily instituted as an opportunity for New England ski resorts. No one in our family skis, but we have a long list of fun things to do, including Disney on Ice for Julia, a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts with Maya, and a new indoor go-kart place for the older children. Then there are movies, bowling, indoor rock climbing, and trampolines. And in between we will spend time with Noah, who is growing up very quickly and waiting for his turn to participate in all this fun. I just hope we old folks will have the energy to enjoy it with him!

Meanwhile, have fun and stay warm.

Love,

Rebecca

An Annie Hall Moment

Sitting in a small restaurant in Manhattan yesterday, we were reminded of a terrific scene from the 1977 Woody Allen movie, “Annie Hall.” Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and Annie Hall (Diana Keaton) are standing in line in front of a Manhattan movie theater. A fellow standing behind them is pontificating rather loudly to his date. Alvy becomes increasingly annoyed until he can no longer control himself and begins arguing with the fellow. What happens next is a great moment of fantasy.

Sitting at a table quite near ours yesterday were two young fellows, one of whom was regaling the other with what was mostly nonsense science and medicine, some of which was well within Barry’s area of expertise. Barry is not the type of person who would start up such a conversation with a stranger, but he could have used Mr. McLuhan’s “you know nothing of my work” line quite effectively. Nonetheless, the scene did provide some much-needed comic relief!

In my post a couple of days ago I mentioned that we had gone to a performance at Lincoln Center that included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. When we got to the final movement I realized that this was quite a familiar piece, one about which I had written back in 2013:

http://nanamomrebecca.blogspot.com/2013/08/ludwig.html

Speaking of Beethoven, last evening was the second class of a 12 week course at the 92^nd Street Y entitled “Mozart and Beethoven: The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.”

Mozart’s Piano Concertos are the peak of his instrumental achievement for orchestra, a perfect synthesis of both concerto and symphonic elements, and perhaps his most personal, characteristic creations. Beethoven builds directly on Mozart’s achievement, and yet the unique characteristics of his musical personality and approach to large-scale form transform the piano concerto into something both monumental and intimate. We explore more than a dozen piano concertos by these two composers in depth, masterworks all, ranging from early to late in each composer’s output.

Barry and I are attending this course together. As far as I can recall, it is the first time we both registered for the same course since “Differential Equations” at the University of Rochester in the fall of 1970. Barry dropped that course while I went on to major in mathematics. Fortunately, there are no grades being given here, so I think we will both stay in this one!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about “Yertle the Turtle.” It may have been the only time I had written about anything political; I shy away from this topic because I recognize my relative lack of knowledge. A few dear friends who read this blog expressed serious concerns about my viewpoint. I am glad they felt the need to do so, because it would be a sad world indeed if no one cared at all. To quote another Seuss book (“The Lorax”)

UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

nothing is going to get better. It's not.

It is most heartwarming that, to a person, those same friends responded enthusiastically when I shared the results of my MRI just a few days later. There have been moments of watching the news and listening to the pundits over these past few months that cannot help but make me wonder whether we have completely lost our way as a nation and are no longer able to engage in political discourse. But at least in the small world I inhabit I can see that this is not the case. We can agree to disagree and still care deeply for each other. I am grateful to those who reached out and showed this to me.

Love,

Rebecca

Better picture!

Here are our own boys ready for the game - even better picture!

Just super

Today is the big game. Or so they say. Personally, I have never been into football. But Joshua’s excitement is almost infectious. Turns out we are in New York and he plans to watch the game with friends, but I imagine he and his grandfather will be texting each other throughout.

Football is a very big deal up in the Boston area. The new, young rabbi of the Young Israel of Sharon is a native Bostonian who posted this last evening.

Here are our own boys ready for the game!

And meanwhile, Barry and I are heading to Lincoln Center for the following program, conveniently scheduled to end before the game begins:

ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM

Symphony No. 1

Piano Concerto No. 4

Symphony No. 5

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Iván Fischer, conductor

Richard Goode, piano

Have a great day. Go Pats!

Love,

Rebecca

Disease-Free Survival

I keep my schedule on Google Calendar, which has some cute little “event flairs” that you can put on appointments. This is the birthday flair , this is the flair for meals  and this is the flair for medical appointments . The day back in December that I went to the emergency room with what turned out to be pneumonia was already filled with medical appointment flairs on my calendar because I was supposed to be at MSKCC having a follow-up MRI and seeing Dr. DeAngelis that day. I finally went for that MRI this morning, and am happy to report that it still looks good, and Dr. DeAngelis does not feel a need to see me for a year! My MSKCC page now has appointments for February 2018!!!

In cancer, the length of time after primary treatment ends that a patient survives without any signs or symptoms of that cancer is known as disease-free survival (DFS). In a clinical trial, DFS is one way to assess how well a new treatment works relative to previously available treatments. Patients and physicians are interested in knowing how likely they are to be alive and without disease at various times after treatment. The DFS rate at five years is commonly used for assessing the effectiveness of a new treatment. I am mindful of this as I head towards the fifth anniversary of my diagnosis and treatment. Here’s a generic example of a survival curve; I will spare you the details of how this is constructed but I know that some of my regular readers are quite familiar with it.

On to lighter, but not entirely frivolous, fare than cancer survival curves, we saw the movie “Toni Erdmann.” This movie is in German with subtitles, and I have to admit my reading is still a bit slow so I struggled to keep up. The movie tells about the relationship between a rather eccentric music teacher and his extremely straight-laced daughter. Having grown up with quirky, free-spirit parents (her mother has since died), Anca, who works for a consulting firm, is a serious and driven young woman who rarely cracks a smile. Her father, on the other hand, seems to have a hard time taking anything very seriously at all, and the idea of social niceties is completely foreign to him. It makes for an interesting, although not especially happy, story.

It is now the end of January and we actually had a little snow today. Drive carefully!

Love,

Rebecca

Haven't we heard this story before?

This morning I awoke to find this message from my daughter, who teaches at Hertz Nursery School in Sharon, Massachusetts.

Every week at Hertz Nursery school, we focus on a different letter of the week to teach letter writing and sound-letter correspondence skills.  This past week was Y week and as part of that I read the story of Yertle the Turtle to my class.  My co-teacher (a strong Hillary supporter) was laughing her head off as I read Dr. Seuss' words.  The story of a character who wants to rule over all at any cost, and believes his way is the best way, with little room for compromise or concern for others, brought the current political climate to mind.  I should have read it last Friday. 

I'm Yertle the Turtle, oh marvelous me

For I am the ruler of all that I see!

Yup, that just about says it.

The scary part is that there is  a theory that Dr. Seuss wrote this story in response to Hitler's rise to power.  But let's not go there right now.

This book and Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans were my favorites as a child.

I do not recall being aware of that backstory on Yertle but here’s what I quickly found this morning:

A stack of turtles drawn similarly to those featured in "Yertle the Turtle" first appeared on March 20, 1942, in a cartoon for the New York City newspaper PM, where Seuss worked as an editorial cartoonist. The illustration shows two stacks of turtles forming the letter "V" on top of a large turtle labelled "Dawdling Producers", with a caption reading "You Can't Build A Substantial V Out of Turtles!"^[2]

Seuss has stated that the titular character Yertle represented Adolf Hitler, with Yertle's despotic rule of the pond and takeover of the surrounding area parallel to Hitler's regime in Germany and invasion of various parts of Europe.^[3][4] Though Seuss made a point of not beginning the writing of his stories with a moral in mind, stating that "kids can see a moral coming a mile off", he was not against writing about issues; he said "there's an inherent moral in any story" and remarked that he was "subversive as hell".^[5][6] "Yertle the Turtle" has variously been described as "autocratic rule overturned",^[7] "a reaction against the fascism of World War II",^[8] and "subversive of authoritarian rule".^[9]

For those who have never read the book, or do not recall the story, I reproduce the text here.

Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss

On the far-away island of Sala-ma-Sond,

Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.

A nice little pond.  It was clean.  It was neat.

The water was warm.  There was plenty to eat.

The turtles had everything turtles might need.

And they were all happy.  Quite happy indeed.

They were... until Yertle, the king of them all,

Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.

"I'm ruler", said Yertle, "of all that I see.

But I don't see enough.  That's the trouble with me.

With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond

But I cannot look down on the places beyond.

This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.

It ought to be higher!" he said with a frown.

"If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be!

What a king! I'd be ruler of all that I see!"

So Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand

And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.

He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone

And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.

He made each turtle stand on another one's back

And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.

And then Yertle climbed up.  He sat down on the pile.

What a wonderful view! He could see 'most a mile!

"All mine!" Yertle cried.  "Oh, the things I now rule!

I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!

I'm the king of a house! And, what's more, beyond that

I'm the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!

I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!

For I am the ruler of all that I see!"

And all through the morning, he sat up there high

Saying over and over, "A great king am I!"

Until 'long about noon.  Then he heard a faint sigh.

"What's that?" snapped the king

And he looked down the stack.

And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.

Just a part of his throne.  And this plain little turtle

Looked up and he said, "Beg your pardon, King Yertle.

I've pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.

How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?"

"SILENCE!" the King of the Turtles barked back.

"I'm king, and you're only a turtle named Mack."

"You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.

I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!

I'm the king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!

But that isn't all.  I'll do better than that!

My throne shall be higher!" his royal voice thundered,

"So pile up more turtles! I want 'bout two hundred!"

"Turtles! More turtles!" he bellowed and brayed.

And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid.

They trembled.  They shook.  But they came.  They obeyed.

From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.

Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.

And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.

One after another, they climbed up the stack.

Then Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,

He could see forty miles from his throne in the sky!

"Hooray!" shouted Yertle.  "I'm the king of the trees!

I'm king of the birds! And I'm king of the bees!

I'm king of the butterflies! King of the air!

Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!

I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!

For I am the ruler of all that I see!"

Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,

Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.

"Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain,

But down here below, we are feeling great pain.

I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,

But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.

We turtles can't stand it.  Our shells will all crack!

Besides, we need food.  We are starving!" groaned Mack.

"You hush up your mouth!" howled the mighty King Yertle.

"You've no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.

I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!

There's nothing, no, NOTHING, that's higher than me!"

But, while he was shouting, he saw with suprise

That the moon of the evening was starting to rise

Up over his head in the darkening skies.

"What's THAT?" snorted Yertle.  "Say, what IS that thing

That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?

I shall not allow it! I'll go higher still!

I'll build my throne higher! I can and I will!

I'll call some more turtles.  I'll stack 'em to heaven!

I need 'bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!"

But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand

And started to order and give the command,

That plain little turtle below in the stack,

That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,

Decided he'd taken enough.  And he had.

And that plain little lad got a bit mad.

And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.

He burped!

And his burp shook the throne of the king!

And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,

The king of the air and the birds and the bees,

The king of a house and a cow and a mule...

Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!

For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,

Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!

And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,

Is King of the Mud.  That is all he can see.

And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free

As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

If only it could all be addressed with a burp!

Love and peace,

Rebecca