Psychology Practice in Florida
It was Larry
McMurtry who wrote the novel The Last Picture Show, about his youth in small-town Texas.
Yes.
On Friday, April 10,
2020, 11:34:56 AM CDT, John Auerbach
<000009eba1592f75-dmarc-request@listserv.icors.org> wrote:
~Psychology Practice in Florida
Damon,
No problem on the
Nassau-Suffolk thing. I get fearful of all the false knowledge I think I
have, so I now search the web a lot before saying things. I recently
learned that the famous line in a book review, “This is not a novel to be
tossed aside lightly; it should be thrown with great force,” was penned not by
Dorothy Parker but by Sidney Ziff. But Dorothy Parker meant to
write it.
Perhaps that you are
right that all of us hate the places we are from, that all of us have an inner
Herman Hesse (Beneath the Wheel) or Bruce Springsteen ("Baby
this town rips the bones from back/It’s a death trap/It’s a suicide rap/We got
to get out while we’re young”), but somehow I think that this statement is true
largely of people who go into mental health fields, rather than of the public
at large. I have no research evidence for either of these contentions,
nor for my contention that psychologists value separation and autonomy far more
than do the population at large because of our need to get away from our
backgrounds, but my understanding is that most people try to stay close to
their families and places of origins. And there is a perverse truth to
this, even in me. If I could afford to live in the New York area, I would
consider moving back. But I spent my college and graduate school years
doing everything I could to stay as far away from home as I could, and I see
some humor in the fact that first my parents and then the taxpayers of the
State of New York paid for a very long and expensive education so that I could
in fact run away from home. And because I live in an university
town—indeed, have done so ever since I was 18 (Providence, RI; Buffalo, NY,
although it is too big to be just a university town; New Haven, CT; Johnson
City, TN, home of East Tennessee State University; and now Gainesville, FL)—and
have an academic career on the side, I am as close to perpetual studenthood as
one can possibly be and still make a living.
But most important,
and with one crucial exception, to which I will get in a moment, I agree with
you on the evaluation of Billy Joel. A Gislander himself, Billy Joel
always loomed large in the musical culture of the Gisland, especially after he
became a star. The line about going out and cruising the Miracle Mile in
“It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me,” is, I believe, about the Miracle Mile
shopping plaza on Northern Boulevard, between Roslyn and Manhasset. At
least, I have yet to find anyone to prove me wrong. But I think it sign
of divine justice that even Billy Joel hates his signature tune, “I Want You
Just The Way Your Are.” Now, OTOH, there is no better description of the
ennui and decadence of a Long Island adolescence than his early song, “Captain
Jack.” It helped me get through, until “Born to Run” and Born to
Run came along.
On your Peter
Bogdanovich comments, however, I did what I always do—which is to check
Wikipedia first. He is not from Texas but from Kingston, NY, the widest
spot in the road between Poughkeepsie and Albany, but definitely a strange
place for the son of a Jewish mother and a Serbian father to grow up since it
is not large enough to be an ethnic enclave and appears to be Anglo-Dutch in its
origins, with inroads from Irish and Italian immigrants over time. It was
Larry McMurtry who wrote the novel The Last Picture Show, about his
youth in small-town Texas.
John
~Psychology Practice in Florida
Notes from Underground
John,
Thanks for correcting me on the Nassau/Suffolk
etymology mistake. I would have been sure I was correct if anyone but you had
corrected me. Well, a shimmer of errors, can be expected in many a good post.
As Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin....etc.
etc, you know the rest of the quote.
I am not sure what other pseudo knowledge my
brain contains. For years, I told people that Jonathan Kozol had written an
essay called "First Draft", in which he argued that the first draft
of a paper, sometimes with unadulterated mistakes, was often the best copy. The
essay does not exist, apparently.
RVC is of note for several reasons. It had
more losses than nearly any other town in NY during 911 since many in
Canter-Fitzgerald lived here. A child of one of the victims suicided in the
last year. Also, both Howard Stern and Amy Schumer attended the local high
school. RVC is the center of the Catholic diocese in this area, so ethnic mix
is unusual. Back in the seventies the public high school and parochial high
school were top hoopsters in the state, with the rival DeMatha in Maryland. One
of Dematha starting five, considered the greatest high school team ever, is CFO
of a panhandle town, after having graduated from Rollins College with all time
record assists. I heard about it sitting next to him on a plane.
Do we dislike Long Island just because we were
born here? Grade school can be horrible. So many coming of age
stories involve escape from home (e.g. Beneath the Wheel). Cinematically,
consider Last Picture Show. Bogdanovich said (this may be
apocrophyl as well) of his depiction of his small Texan birthplace, "Revenge
is sweet." Possibly with a last name of Bogdanovich, life in a
small Texan town was even harder. On the positive side, growing up in Long
Island does develop a nose for ferreting out the pompous, or discerning
patterns of status seeking.
A puzzling aspect of Long Island is the
fondness for Billy Joel. Very possibly he is a great artists. I don't
get it though, and somehow see the same pudgy mediocrity as a Leroy Nieman. The
article from McSweeney's outlines the narcissism.
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Billy Joel Plays
“Piano Man” for the First Time At the Bar He Based the ...
Billy Joel sits
at the piano in a smoke-filled bar in 1973. It’s 9 o’clock on a Saturday
and he’s just finished ...
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~Psychology Practice in Florida
Damon,
Thanks for your post.
Indeed I do know where Rockville Centre is, since it is due south of
Roslyn, and I am sorry you are holed up in a basement there.
When I was growing up,
Long Island was one of the epicenters of the culture of narcissism. Your
post would suggest that little has changed in the intervening 45 years, every
person for himself or herself. My dissertation, and my early
publications, were on narcissism. That choice of topic would not be an
accident. I still love Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of
Narcissism for giving voice to everything I felt growing up
there.
I also got a laugh out
of your comments on the etymologies of the words Nassau and Suffolk, the names
of the two counties that make up the part of Long Island that is not inside New
York City. For those who do not know, Nassau was originally a town and
then a province in Medieval Germany; its rulers eventually became founders of
the Netherlands as an independent nation and, after the Glorious Revolution of
1688, rulers of England. Suffolk was a county in the southern part of
East Anglia, where the southern folk lived, back before the time of William the
Conqueror. The East Anglian county where the northern folk lived was,
wait for it, Norfolk.
Anyway, I am wishing
you the best on your sojourn in the basement. It’s a bit crazy everywhere
in our great land these days, I figure.
John
~Psychology Practice in Florida
Hi,
I am in Rockville
Centre. RVC is the south shore of Long Island. Really though, I am less in
Rockville Centre than in the mothy basement described.
Jennifer, Suffolk is a
beautiful place and has, as Gene noted, Islip airport, a friendly convivial
place that is good counterpoint to LaGuardia airport's constant disruption. The
Greenpoint retirement home was nice and pastoral—I had relatives there. It
overlooked Long Island sound. Some of the first deaths here were there.
Suffolk has had many cases—hopefully they are plateauing. The residents
of Suffolk (like “Nassau” an Indian name) have protested the New Yorker city
folk fleeing to relative safety there. New Yorker against fellow New Yorker, it
is a disturbing thought, like seeing lizards fighting in a terrarium.
Seth, the word
Nunley’s gives a frisson. Whoever owned it provided much entertainment for a
generation of children. There were hand roller scooters on the track, bumper
boats and the Merry Go Round with rings to pull on as you swung by, held in place
by leather lap belts stretched thin by time. And what about that eerie
fortune telling gypsy manikin with a massive nose in a glass booth. It had a
Chucky movie weirdness to it. If you inserted, what, a quarter, the gypsy would
creak into action. Also, recall the wooden alleys where you throw the wooden
balls up the ramp, and the assortment of distracted delinquents hired to
operate the rides.
John, for Long Island
in the seventies, a photojournalist is Mary Meisler. Somehow, the island
seems to connotate the most tawdry in American culture--social climbing,
mindless ambition, and energetic pursuit of the pointless. Goodbye
Columbus might as well occurred here. It always shocked me when looking at
Exner’s work to see he was from Long Island University. What good might come
out of Long Island University! Over time, though, it looks more benign—maybe
because I am in a cellar. Plus, we now we live in a place known for “Florida
Man.” I won’t say more for fear of the kettle calling the fire black, or whatever
the phrase is. And in reality, many great minds were spawned here.
Gene, you lived in
Freeport. Ever go to the Calderone Theatre? On Sunrise Highway. By the
time I came along, it was a rock venue. But in its day, it was high toned.
Frank Calderone was interesting. My guess is second generation Italian. He not
only helped run that theatre, but was later, of all things, the director
of what is now WHO (World Health Organization). His wife was the first head of
planned parenthood--she became a physician somewhat later, from University of
Rochester possibly? She sued the AMA regarding discussion of birth control by
physicians and won. The couple frequented the Calderone Theatre along with
cronies such as Steichen and Carl Sandburg. The archives are online with
Hofstra Long Island Studies. Photos of the theatre construction are in
those archives. The prize named after Calderone for public health was
recently won by the president of University of Miami. Maybe Calderone made
enough money to subsidize his own prize. There are Calderone’s about and
sometimes I ask them if they are related, but none so far.
I think you are
exactly right, Bruce, on the state of the market. Some traders or programs are
enjoying a ride up, but there is much volatility. In 2009 there were two legs
down, which is my default assumption. I occasionally worry though, that
some Morgan or Hunt-like robber baron has manipulated the press to drive the
market down and then snap up the shares. Serves us right for saving!
Damon L
~Psychology Practice in Florida
Damon, I was born in
Oceanside and raised in Freeport, graduated from Freeport High. During WWII
when cars were not allowed to drive to Jones Beach because of the gas
rationing, we rode our bikes there. Fond memories of my high school days.
But now the NY times is predicting that Nassau and Suffolk counties will be the
next hotbeds of Coronavirus. Here in Manatee county things are not too bad so
far. I used to drive a Taxi in Baldwin and knew every street there.
If you want to escape
back to Florida, don't forget there's the Islip MacArthur airport. I
could see it from the air when I was flown in and out of the New Haven CT
airport.
