HinesSight

Enlightened Theatrics made "The Wizard of Oz" new for me

Thank you, talented cast members of Enlightened Theatrics' current cultural gift to Salem, a marvelous stage production of "The Wizard of Oz." 

You've restored the pleasure I felt as a child when I'd watch, and re-watch, the classic movie version of The Wizard of Oz. It was shown annually on television from 1959 to 1991. 

So, since I was born in 1948, I must have seen it close to half a dozen times before I went off to college in 1966. What pushed me over the Oz edge, though, was raising a daughter born in 1972. I remember watching the same movie many times with her. More accurately, too many times. 

Delight in Dorothy's far-out adventures in Oz wore thin with those repeated viewings. My young daughter got thrills from the annual showings of The Wizard of Oz. Increasingly, I got irritated thoughts of "Oh, no, it isn't already time to see this damn movie again, is it?!"

Thus sitting in my second-row seat last night in the beautifully revamped Grand Theatre in downtown Salem was a healing moment for me. I'd never seen a theatrical production of The Wizard of Oz. As soon as actors appeared on stage, L. Frank Baum's story seemed fresh to me.

For one thing, there's nothing like live theatre. It's unpredictable, never repeated, as vibrantly three-dimensional as life itself (unsurprisingly).

When Toto, caninely played by Mickey Tate, ran across the stage at some climactic moment, I realized there was a non-zero chance that he'd run in an unintended direction. At least, that's what our dog often does in response to commands of mine, which Zu Zu views as requests to be considered, but not necessarily obeyed. 

I found myself much more emotionally involved when Toto was in danger during the stage production, than in the movie. From my seat I could see this so-cute dog close up and personal. I cared about him. I was confident that he'd turn out OK, but with live theatre, like I said, there was a possibility of the unforeseen happening. 

(Our dog, though equally cute in her own way, would be quickly cut from the show as soon as she failed to run across the stage, but rather raced to smell, and wishfully be given a bite of, what a person in the audience was eating.)

Dorothy, played by soon-to-be West Salem junior Phoebe Jacobs, was so talented as an actress, singer, and dancer, I now have vowed to never, ever bring up the fact of me having a lead role in the Woodlake Union High School junior class play -- except in the context of "Young people these days are so much more talented than me and my classmates were back in the '60s."

Everybody else in the cast of The Wizard of Oz, without exception, also was hugely enjoyable to watch.

The dancers were a favorite of mine every time they came on stage. Plus, close-up even the rhythmic zig-zag dance movements of Dorothy and her Scarecrow/ Tin Man/ Lion companions to "We're Off to See the Wizard" music looked more impressive to me than it did on a television screen. And I loved the sinuous sensuality of the female Apple Tree Dancers. The music is also live, by the way.

Bottom line: if somehow you've never seen The Wizard of Oz, go see this Enlightened Theatrics production. You've got until August 28. But if you have seen another version of The Wizard of Oz, the same advice applies, because with live theatre every show is different and unique.

Further, this production uses an updated script:

Employing the R.S.C. 1987 adaptation of the musical production, Enlightened Theatrics offers a more technically complex performance featuring as much of the aura of the classic 1939 film as possible on stage.

I didn't completely follow the plot point involving the Wicked Witch's plan to wear out Dorothy and her companions by getting them to dance a lot of jitterbug with the witch's minions, but I sure don't remember anything like this in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz. 

This new scene to me was marvelously performed. So again, even if you think you're familiar with The Wizard of Oz, think again. The Enlightened Theatrics production is appealingly unique.

Rural south Salem wildlife caught on our trail camera

OK, let's get this clear right off the bat: these photos from the trail camera my wife, Laurel, tends to -- moving it around our property in rural south Salem in attempts to capture what our non-human neighbors are doing -- aren't exactly National Geographic quality.

But, hey, they show wild creatures living their animal lives on what sure seems to be a popular spot. (The dates on the photos appear to be off; so is the time, probably.)


Coyote! Wily canines who we occasionally see in the daytime, but not often.

We have some irrational coyote-hating neighbors who tried to shoot them, not recognizing that coyotes are a valuable part of nature's ecosystem. For example, I assume (and hope) that they kill non-native California ground squirrels, who are a major pain in the butt for us given their propensity for digging under the foundation of our house.


Laurel thought she heard some coyote howls last night. That's a good sign.

They used to "sing" frequently near our house, excited over this or that, or just howling for the fun of it. When our neighbors started shooting at them, the coyotes became a lot more silent. They didn't leave the area; they just adapted to the need to be stealthier. Which shows how smart they are, like other canines.

A bunny in mid-hop, it appears. 

A doe, with one of her two fawns peeking out from between her legs. The fawns are super-cute, naturally. All mottled/spotted.

A fawn in front and back of the headless mother. 

Good photo of one of the fawns. My, what big ears you have! 

Another fawn-shot.

Raccoon coming toward the motion-activated camera.

Raccoon moving away from the camera. Hopefully you took your heart medicine before viewing these photos, because they are damn exciting, right? 

A non-elusive gray squirrel. Still, it's wildlife!

We were surprised to see that bunnies are out and about at night. Haven't they gotten the news about coyotes frequenting this trail?

Another raccoon. 

Possum? Can't think what else would have a tail like that.

A final shot of fawn and mom. 

Tell City officials you want a bigger and better Salem Sunday Streets

Bicyclists, walkers, skateboarders, and other fans of non-motorized getting-around here in overly autocentric Salem, I've got some bad news and good news for you.

Bad news. There won't be a Salem Sunday Streets event in 2016. One happened in 2013, 2014, and 2015, but it has been cancelled this year. 

Salem Sunday Streets is part of the burgeoning "open streets" movement. 

Open streets initiatives temporarily close streets to automobile traffic, so that people may use them for walking, bicycling, dancing, playing, and socializing.

With more than 100 documented initiatives in North America, open streets are increasingly common in cities seeking innovative ways to achieve environmental, social, economic, and public health goals.

Good news. Salem Bike Boulevard Advocates -- a great group -- is urging people to email the Mayor, city councilors, and other officials at the City of Salem and tell them that you want Salem to be actively involved in next month's International Open Streets Summit in Portland. 

Do it!

Email City officials at [email protected]  Tell them representatives of the City of Salem need to participate in the International Open Streets Summit so they can learn how to bring back Salem Sunday Streets bigger and better.

I don't know why the City of Salem's support for Salem Sunday Streets has slipped so much.

Being a citizen activist on various local issues, I'm concerned that the folks currently running City Hall are letting their lust for a billion dollar Third Bridge across the Willamette take precedence over much-needed improvements to Salem's cycling and pedestrian infrastructure.

The more people experience the joy of getting around town without a car, the less need there will be for an already unnecessary Third Bridge and other costly expansions of Salem's roads. Fred Kent, founder of the Project for Public Spaces, is quoted in a book I'm reading, "This Is Where You Belong." 

If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.

If you aren't familiar with Salem Sunday Streets and Portland's highly successful and much larger version, Sunday Parkways, check out the blog posts I've written about them. I've been to all three Salem Sunday Streets events and two Sunday Parkways.

A video of me doing my longboard land-paddling thing at the 2013 Salem Sunday Streets follows the links. I loved how great it felt to ride down the middle of State Street, going the "wrong" way. The street had a whole different feel without vehicles. However, in 2014 and 2015 the street closures that are the hallmark of open streets events were much reduced in Salem to just a few blocks.

In Portland, you can ride a bicycle for seven to nine miles on streets completely closed to traffic during the five Sunday Parkways events held each year. Now, in 2016, Salem has no Salem Sunday Street event of any length. That's why it's important to tell City officials, "bring back Salem Sunday Streets, bigger and better."

Again: email them at [email protected]

Here's the blog post links.

Video: senior citizen skateboarder rolls at Salem Sunday Streets
Living in Salem, I have Portland envy
2014 Salem Sunday Streets: different, yet probably better
What Salem Sunday Streets can learn from Portland Sunday Parkways
What I like most about cycling at a Portland Sunday Parkways event
Cycling in Salem got some good news, but we're a long ways from being pedal-friendly
Photos of 2015 Salem Sunday Streets event

 

I'm attached to Salem, Oregon. Check out this "place attachment" scale.

How much are you attached to the place where you live? A book I've just started reading, Melody Warnick's "This is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live," lets you find out by answering 24 simple questions -- which I've shared below.

I answered 21 of the 24 questions "true." So I'm attached to Salem, Oregon (my wife and I have a Salem address, though we live in a rural neighborhood about six miles from the city limits).

Warnick says:

The more times you answer "true," the more likely you are to be attached to your town. Marking nineteen or more "true" answers, which puts you in the top quartile, indicates that you probably feel strongly connected to where you live. Six or fewer, on the other hand, suggests that you live somewhere unfamiliar or in a town you're not particularly over the moon about. 

And if you're not very place attached you may be saying to yourself, Clearly place attachment feels nice. But why should I care? Will it actually make my life better?

According to place attachment research, the answer is a resounding yes. Studies show that when you pit Stayers -- long-term residents of a place -- against chronic Movers, the Stayers are generally far more social. They're more likely to volunteer or, say, help the environment by buying a habitat preservation license plate.

...Researchers who measure place attachment don't try to examine the objective magnificence of one's city -- the soaring beauty of its skyscrapers and statues, the leafy beauty of its parks. This would be like measuring a couple's love for each other by posting their photos on Hot or Not.

Instead, scientists study residents' emotions by asking whether or not their town feels like home. When it comes to place attachment, our towns are what we think they are. That means your city doesn't need to be the Platonic ideal of a city, in the same way you (thankfully) don't have to be particularly gorgeous, clever, or wealthy to love and be loved.

Here are the 24 questions. Answer each "true" or "false." Then count up the "true's." Remember: 20 or more shows that you are attached to where you live.

1. I feel like I belong in this community.
2. I've lived here a long time.
3. I know a lot of people here.
4. I know my way around.
5. I feel comfortable here.
6. The friendships and associations I have with other people in this town mean a lot to me.
7. I feel rooted here.
8. I like to tell people about where I live.
9. I grew up here.
10. I rely on where I live to do the stuff I care about most.
11. If I could live anywhere in the world, I would live here.
12. If something exciting were happening in this community, I'd want to be involved.
13. I'm really interested in knowing what is going on here.
14. My town isn't perfect, but there are a lot of things that make me love it.
15. The people who live here are my kind of people.
16. I hope that my kids live here even after I'm gone.
17. I feel loyal to this community.
18. I like to attend events that are happening in my town.
19. Where I live tells you a lot about who I am as a person.
20. I care about the future success of this town.
21. I don't want to move anytime soon.
22. I can rely on people in this town to help me.
23. There is no other place I'd rather live.
24. It feels like home.

I moved to Salem in 1977. So it was easy for me to answer "true" to I've lived here a long time. Most of the other questions were equally easy to answer. These were the three that I gave a "false" to:

I grew up here. No, I didn't. I came to Salem when I was 28 years old.

If I could live anywhere in the world, I would live here. Not sure about this hypothetical, so couldn't answer "true."

I hope that my kids live here even after I'm gone. My only child is happily living in southern California, though she grew up in Salem. I hope she'll continue to live where she wants to live.

Anyway, the basic idea behind Warnick's "This is Where You Belong" book is that we can be happier with where we are if we actively engage ourselves in attaching ourselves to this place. Which is called placemaking. She writes:

Ethan Kent, a senior vice president with the nonprofit Projects for Public Spaces, told me that Americans are emerging from an era of thinking of towns and cities as products for residents to consume.

"Now," he says, "the energy is more around the idea that the cities that succeed are the ones that allow people to help create them. That's how they become better places, but also how people are going to become more attached to them. When people help create their place, they see themselves reflected in it. It reflects their values and personalities and becomes more an extension of themselves."

Melania Trump's plagiarism shows why Donald would be a horrible president

If anyone needed a reason to oppose Donald Trump's presidential ambitions, the debacle of his wife's plagiarized speech at the Republican Convention last night sure offers up a good one.

It's obvious to anyone with half a brain -- which apparently doesn't include Donald Trump -- that Melania Trump borrowed from Michele Obama's 2008 speech at the Democratic Convention where her husband won his first presidential nomination. 

The New York Times has a clear comparison of the Trump and Obama speeches in "Questions Over Melania Trump's Speech Set Off Finger-Pointing." Here's the more extensive example of plagiarism. (click to enlarge)

The chance that Melania Trump independently came up with the same ideas, the same words, and the same order of expressing them as Michelle Obama did is so close to zero, let's just round things off and say... zero. 

Supporting the near-certainty that significant portions of Trump's speech were copied almost verbatim from Obama's speech is a follow-up New York Times story: "How Melania Trump's Speech Veered Off Course and Caused an Uproar." The story is based on interviews "with more than a dozen people involved in and close to the Trump campaign." 

The Trump campaign turned to two high-powered speechwriters, who had helped write signature political oratory like George W. Bush’s speech to the nation on Sept. 11, 2001, to introduce Ms. Trump, a Slovenian-born former model, to the nation on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.

It did not go as planned, and it has eclipsed much of the action at the party gathering in Cleveland, where delegates on Tuesday night formally nominated Mr. Trump for president.

The speechwriters, Matthew Scully and John McConnell, sent Ms. Trump a draft last month, eager for her approval.

Weeks went by. They heard nothing.

Inside Trump Tower, it turned out, Ms. Trump had decided she was uncomfortable with the text, and began tearing it apart, leaving a small fraction of the original.

...The two original speechwriters were not aware of how significantly the speech had been changed until they saw Ms. Trump deliver it on television Monday night, along with the rest of the country.

In the prime-time address, Ms. Trump unfurled a sequence of life lessons — about how “your word is your bond,” about “your dreams and your willingness to work for them,” and the “integrity, passion and intelligence” of her parents — in the same sequence and using much of the same language that Mrs. Obama employed in 2008.

So Melania Trump, likely with the aid of her staff, used Michelle Obama's words without attribution. That's plagiarism, a cardinal sin in speechwriting.

In interviews, alarmed Republican speechwriters outlined the layers of formal scrutiny, apparently disregarded by the Trump campaign, traditionally applied to almost every draft of a major convention address. They described word-by-word fact-checking by a dedicated team of experts and computer software designed to catch plagiarism. Several online programs, like DupliChecker, are available at no cost.

“It’s pretty standard,” Mr. Stevens said of the software, which detects overlap in word choice and sentence structure. “We used it.”

An urgent priority: avoiding the slightest hint of oratorical theft.

“The most cardinal rule of any speech-writing operation is that you cannot plagiarize,” said Mr. Latimer, the Bush speechwriter, who is now a partner at Javelin, a communications firm. If you do, he said, “you lose your job.”

Now, the smart and honest thing for the Trump campaign to do would have been to acknowledge the plagiarism, explaining how and why it happened. 

For example, perhaps Melania Trump wasn't aware that using part of someone else's speech in your own speech is a major no-no in this country. As a youth she was focused on modeling, not English literature.

I would have found it charming if Ms. Trump had told the public, "I loved what Michelle Obama said. I'm sorry that I copied her words, rather than expressing her view in my own language. I'm new to speechwriting. I won't make this mistake again.

Instead, though, the Trump campaign has dismissed the uproar over Melania Trump's plagiarism, denying it even happened.

The Trump campaign on Tuesday dismissed criticism that Melania Trump directly lifted two passages nearly word-for-word from the speech that first lady Michelle Obama delivered in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention, calling the complaints "just absurd."

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort insisted no mistakes had been made with the speech and said the issue was "totally blown out of proportion."

Wow. 

Unfortunately, there have been so many wow's coming from the Trump campaign, the American public is getting used to them. This doesn't make them acceptable.

A presidential candidate needs to demonstrate that he or she is in touch with reality. Sure, they will have their own unique viewpoint on things, but it is vitally important that their understanding of the basic nature of those "things" be factually correct.

It's really bothersome that Trump plays so fast and loose with facts. This shows that he would be a terrible president, since the leader of the United States has to be in command of what is actually happening in the world -- not what he or she wants to have happen, or hopes to have happen. 

Here's the PolitiFact summary of their Donald Trump fact-checks. A freaking 75% are mostly false, false, and Pants On Fire false. Yes, 75% are false. 

By contrast, here's Hillary Clinton's fact-checks. Only 27% are mostly false, false, and Pants of Fire false. That's still too many, but it is almost a mirror image of Trump's truth-telling. I'd much rather have a president who is speaking truthfully 3/4 of the time, than a president who is speaking falsely 3/4 of the time.

Melania Trump's plagiarism, and how the Trump campaign has handled it, is just another indication that Donald Trump is totally unqualified to be president of the United States. 

Odysseo by Cavalia in Portland is a thrilling horse production

Last night, Laurel and I saw the newest version of Cavalia's marvelous "horse show." (I put that in quotes to indicate that it is like no horse show you've ever seen before.)

Which, like the show we saw five years ago, also in Portland, basically is an equine Cirque du Soleil.  In 2011, I blogged, Cavalia is a magical horse show -- Portlanders, go see it!   

I don't know why I omitted my fellow residents of Salem in the title, so now I'll add -- Salemians, go see it!

As noted in my first post about Cavalia, my wife and I have both ridden quite a bit, and taken lots of riding lessons, Laurel more than me. Judging from the many people in cowboy boots at the Odysseo show, I'm sure a good number of the people in the audience were way more horse-savvy than I am.

Yet we all were gasping and clapping at the amazing displays of horsemanship, both from the human and equine performers. Like I said back in 2011:

The intimate communication between horse and rider/trainer was obvious, yet often difficult to discern explicitly, it seemed so natural.

Case in point: the woman in the second act who engages in a spectacular display of equine choreography with six horses, standing on the sandstrewn Cavalia stage with just her soft voice and a flexible "stick" to control the horses.

A dog trainer would be hard pressed to get six border collies to do what the stallions (or geldings) were accomplishing with seeming ease. Three would circle in one direction, while the other three would circle the other way. Then one horse would break out of the pattern and do something different. 

ln the new show, I was blown away by how groups of four horses led by a trainer on foot would follow the person through intricate maneuvers involving quite a few other horse/human groups. 

Being someone who feels fortunate if I can get a horse to do the basics -- go, stop, turn, back up, refrain from eating grass on a trail ride -- the obvious intimate connection between the riders/trainers and the beautiful horses (18 stallions, 47 geldings) amazed me.

Some of the moments were breathtakingly powerful. I loved the riders galloping on white horses who carried long red banners around the Odysseo stage.

We splurged on second row seats, so had a great view of the action. After intermission, somehow the flat part of the riding area was filled with several inches of water in under a minute, while the curtain was closed briefly. (Towels had been handed out to first row people, for reasons that soon became obvious.)

The video below shows a beautiful display of dressage during the water portion of the show. The set design is breathtaking -- a mixture of high-tech video and special effects, with old-fashioned sand/dirt. I believe this woman is the same rider who performed in Portland last night.

 

A Cavalia trailer offers an overview of the entire show. Naturally being there in person is way different than seeing it on a small screen. 

 

I've seen several Cirque du Soleil shows, in addition to the two Cavalia productions. All were memorable, but I think this Odysseo show will stick with me the most strongly.

There's just something about the combination of horses and humans that's powerful, gripping, and elemental in an emotionally hard-to-describe way. 

We Homo sapiens are animals, just as horses are. We're just animals with different qualities, different capabilities. To see people and horses performing together so harmoniously made me think, "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if people and people always could cooperate in the same fashion?"

Yes, I realize that the horses in the show go through years of training -- two to six, according to a pre-show Q &A projected on the stage screen.

But the bonds between the human performers and their horses were obvious. It might be too much to call this "love," yet it often looked like that word fit -- given the non-verbal messages that passed continuously between the two-and four-legged animals in the show.

BrianHines.com gets a much-needed makeover, thanks to Adobe Spark

Being an early Internet adopter, I was fortunate to snap up the domain name www.BrianHines.com way back when. After all, there are a lot of Brian Hines' in the world.

(However, I was a bit behind the times with Gmail; some other Brian Hines got his Gmail email address first, so I'm stuck with BrianHines1 -- which is better than BrianHines999, admittedly.)

I've ignored my BrianHines.com web site for many years. My blogs, Facebook pages, and such have occupied my cyberspace attention. Plus, even with an easy to use website builder, maintaining a site isn't my idea of a fun thing to do.

But yesterday I made a whole new BrianHines.com web page -- which has all the functionality of a web "site" that I need -- using Adobe Spark. Check it out. 

In fact, Adobe Spark lets me embed the web page right in this blog post. Way cool. (click on your browser's "back" button to return to this blog post)

I've come to love Adobe Spark. I'd cyber-marry it, if I could. (Heck, maybe I can.)

I've used Adobe Spark to make another web page, Salem Can Do Better, which is part of a citizen activism campaign in favor of a wiser approach to building a new police facility here in Salem, Oregon.

What I like the most about Adobe Spark is how little choice, design-wise, it gives the user. Basically the creators of Adobe Spark must have (correctly) thought: Most people are clueless about good web page, post, or video design, so we'll give them a good layout and force them to create within it.

It works. 

Yesterday I had a sudden urge to dump my old BrianHines.com web site and start fresh with Adobe Spark. It only took me a couple of hours to do the deed. Then, I fiddled with it periodically as I thought of additional blog posts that deserved sharing as examples of my writing oeuvre. 

Adobe Spark provides a cryptic URL once a page is published which, unsurprisingly, starts with spark.adobe.com

But it's a simple matter, if you already have a domain name (like www.BrianHines.com), to set a pointer from the domain name to the Adobe Spark URL. I made the pointer "stealth," so people only see "www.brianhines.com" in their browser, not the Adobe Spark URL. 

Thus for free, Adobe Spark offers hosting for a cool-looking one page web site. Give it a try, whether or not you have a domain name to use with it. I'm sure some people don't like Adobe Spark, perhaps because it doesn't offer many design/formatting options. 

Like I said, though, to me that's a desirable thing, not a drawback. 

Photos of 2016 Oregon Country Fair (a fair like no other)

Ah, bliss. Today Laurel and I made our annual Oregon Country Fair journey in space (south to Veneta, outside Eugene) and time (back to the spirit of the 60's). 

Even though the day was cloudy, cool, and occasionally a bit rainy, the fair was as weirdly enjoyable as it always is. Here's photos of our experience. (click to enlarge)

Even before we got to the ticket-taking area, there was a dragonish' indication that this fair is like no other in the country. Indeed, the freaking cosmos. 

Arriving at a bit after 1 pm, we got a delicious Indian-food lunch from a booth right inside the gate. Sitting down to enjoy it, we were entertained by some athletic performers.


Then, ooh!, good timing. A mini-parade came by.


There's something for everybody at the fair. We came across classical music early on in our stroll through the fair's pathways. 


The setting of the Oregon Country Fair is marvelous. Nature is a constant backdrop.


Booths are filled with quirky wares. These elicited "never seen anything like that before" utterances from us. 


Sometimes the belly-dancing venue is overflowing with people. Today, it was easy to get a good seat. With a beautiful view. 


The next performer had a different dancing style. And lots of tattoos. 


Laurel has good taste. She thought I'd like this creatively tie-dyed shirt. She was right! Naturally I had to wear it right away after buying it.


Nice sentiment for these sometimes-hateful times. Well, for all times, really. 


Even the trash/recycling bins at the fair are artistic.


This path performer caught my eye, not surprisingly. As did her "Tip for photos" sign.


Must obey. A dollar bill in the tip jar elicited a graceful slow-motion statuesque thank-you gesture.


The booths selling artistic stuff are decorated equally artistically. 


We encountered a maxi-parade!


I loved the varying color schemes of the paraders.


My favorite photo. There's so much joy in the air at the Oregon Country Fair. 


This folk singer had a rapt audience. Some of them were more alive and human than others. 


Here's the hula hoop area, which is near the juggling area, which is close to the dancing area, which is a little ways away from the children's art area. The fair isn't just for watching. It is for doing also. 


When we got home, naturally Laurel had to try on some matching tu-tu's that she'd bought at the fair for herself and ZuZu, the family canine who didn't get to go, because only service dogs are allowed at the fair. 


ZuZu seems happy with her gift. Though I have to admit, she seemed even happier with the dog food I put in her bowl a few minutes later. 

Fireflies, Mt. Hood, and other strange delights

I love watching fireflies do their bioluminescence thing. I've just spent several days in Indiana and Kentucky. Fireflies are common there.

They don't exist in Oregon, so far as I know. At least, I've never seen a firefly in my home state.

So when the sun began to set on the day my wife and I arrived at a family get-together in a small town near Bloomington, Indiana, I couldn't take my eyes off of the seemingly randomly blinking yellow flashes of light on a large grassy lawn. 

Blink here. Then there. No way to predict where the next flash would be. 

My head kept swiveling like the amazed visitor from Oregon that I was. Meanwhile, all of the people who lived in the mid-West -- which was everybody except Laurel and me -- kept on with whatever was occupying them at the moment. Talking. Cooking. Playing.

I wondered, "Why aren't they marveling at the fireflies? They're so magical." 

Then the obvious answer came to me: they see them all the time.

Fireflies are nothing special to someone who lives in Indiana. They are to someone who lives in Oregon.  My eyes and mind are pretty much the same as my relatives'. Still, the sight that struck me as so marvelous appears to them as mundane, hardly worth noticing.

In 1971 I moved to Portland, Oregon from San Jose, California. I'd just graduated with a B.A. in psychology from San Jose State. Having been admitted to Portland State's M.S.W. (Master's in Social Work) program, my wife and I had found an apartment in the suburb of Raleigh Hills. 

Every morning school was in session I'd take a Tri-Met bus to downtown Portland, where Portland State University is located. I'd be blown away by the sight of snow-capped Mt. Hood towering in the distance, with the Willamette River flowing by at the base of the West Hills.

I'd try to get a window seat on the right side of the bus for better viewing.  Man, I'm not in San Jose anymore, and I'm so glad! would echo in my newly Oregonized psyche.

Meanwhile, most of my fellow bus passengers would have their heads buried in the Oregonian newspaper or some other reading material. I couldn't understand why they weren't gazing at Mt. Hood with the same awe I was feeling. 

Well, a few weeks or months later I was doing the exact same thing. I'd read the paper on my trip downtown. Mt. Hood had become for me what fireflies are to our Indiana relatives: a barely-noticed aspect of daily existence. 

Which reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend about street life in India.

I've been to India twice, on fairly brief visits. My friend had spent quite a bit more time there. I was talking with him about the astounding parade of flower-bedecked trucks, cows, elephants, beggars, monkeys, vendors selling all kinds of exotic stuff, and what-not that I'd seen.

"How do people in India manage to carry on with their everyday life?" I asked him. "There's so much to see, such bewildering richness on every street corner."

He looked at me as if I'd posed an incredibly stupid question. Of course, I had. 

My friend said, "Because that's what they experience every day. If an Indian came to our country and saw empty sidewalks bordering strip malls along streets filled with single occupant cars, that would look exotic to them."

So true. 

Strangeness grabs our attention. When it becomes familiar, the very same sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations lose much of their attractiveness.

Yet everything remains the same. It is we who have changed, our mental outlook. This leads us to seek out new sights, fresh vistas, novel experiences to replace the now-ho-hum old ones. 

I don't have an answer for this dilemma. (Assuming it is a fixable problem to be solved, rather than an inescapable part of life.)

Mindfulness holds promise for seeing the old as new again. So do mind-altering drugs, like marijuana. With Oregon having legalized the recreational consumption of cannabis, I've found that pot helps revive the Wow! sensation of everyday existence that children have. Along with visitors to unfamiliar lands.

Like Indiana, if you're from Oregon and haven't seen fireflies. Or Oregon, if you're from Indiana and haven't seen Mt. Hood.

Probably it isn't desirable for us to see everything always as if for the first time. That way likely leads to mental incapacity, if not psychosis. I need to be able to remember that I've driven my car before, in order to drive it competently again. 

But still... I aspire to experiencing the delight of the unfamiliar without having to leave my familiar surroundings.  

There are several versions of a Marcel Proust quotation. I like all three of these, though only the last apparently is what Proust actually said.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.