Harand Camp of the Theater Arts is now in its third home in Wisconsin, but when I attended, it was in Elkhart Lake, Wis. Cabins were named, in the most part, for musicals: South Pacific (older boys); Plain & Fancy; Camelot; Brigadoon; Carousel; LaMancha. Our athletic field was Green Pastures; the main building was Wonderful Town. We swam On the Waterfront. (Okay, not a musical.) As for theaters, we had two — Carnegie Hall, inside Wonderful Town, and the Forrest Tucker Theater in the town of Elkhart Lake.
Put Forrest Tucker aside for now, difficult as that might be. Carnegie Hall was a bit odd, as stages go – bilevel, with a pole at the center that had to be incorporated into every number. And because parents paying to send their kids to summer camp want to see their darlings perform, there was one immutable law of choreography at Harand: In every number, there was a moment when FRONT LINE GOES BACK AND BACK LINE GOES FRONT.
And then there was Nancy Goldman, the most gifted dancer in our age group and my best friend. Nancy was such a natural stage presence that she was known as Front-and-Center Goldman. When they called the wind Maria, she embodied the dancing breeze. When Sky Masterson petitioned luck to be a lady, she was dancing in the center of all those gamblers down in the sewer. She also danced Louise in Carousel, Dream Laurey in Oklahoma. And if Sulie and Pearl, the Harand sisters, had ever given our age group West Side Story, Nancy would have danced the Somewhere ballet.
Front-and-Center had a birthday this week. Two days later, I found myself front and center, on a stage, a place I hadn’t been for a long, long time. It was the inaugural session of Baltimore’s Stories from the Stoop, a pretty cool storytelling event. Our theme was failure, with seven Baltimoreans telling seven-minute stories about their own failures. But I chose to define true failure as mediocrity, not being good enough. Max Weiss, a Baltimore writer (and a woman, by the way) who told a killer story about being tortured by Jamaica Kincaid while in her writing class, asked me if I knew “Amadeus,” and if I had ever found any other works about people who know themselves to be mediocre. I brought up Jon Colapinto’s ABOUT THE AUTHOR, although I’m not sure it’s exactly in that vein.
Today, I remember, that I had also long ago recognized my own mediocrity as a performer. In part, because I was surrounded by people who were so good. Not only Front-and-Center Goldman, but also Caryn Lindinksi and Cheri Butcher and Betsy True and Jim Traber, an outstanding singer who was also a pretty good athlete; he played for the Orioles for a couple of seasons.
So, tales of mediocrity. Is there something you love to do, but concluded you’ll never be good at? Do you still do it? Does anyone ever realize they’re mediocre? Or is it the flip side of good taste and a sense of humor, the two qualities that we all insist we have?
Stories of woe from the children of Lake Woebegon, after the jump. But also Cornelia’s starred Kirkus review. Because some of us really are above average.
An interesting question. As with many things, it depends upon your standards. I’ve received many compliments for my ballroom dancing, but I started in my 40′s and will never be truly “good” at it, as I define that term.
I’ve read enough great books to know that I’ll never be a good writer, so I’ve settled for being a semi-discerning reader. Writers need ‘em, right?
As Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind” so sometimes a good or great outcome is really just luck or timing.
How many people are just good at something? To be really good requires talent, discipline, diligence, craft, practice and a multitude of other things. Which explains why most of us are mediocre.
Some things I _know_ people to be good at. This is just off the top-of-my-head, natural, as we say around here. Don’t be bummed if you’re not in the roll call. And remember, I’m limiting myself to first-hand knowledge.
Keith is a good dad. Also writer and filmmaker.
Cornelia is a good writer and a good conventioneer. (The latter requires stamina and a tolerance for alcohol that only WASPs have.)
Zelda is a good guide to Denver and a good person with whom to discuss all things Beany Malone.
Mary is a good photographer.
And everyone here is a good sport.
I love to fish. I suck at it. Not mediocre, suck.
I love to play the guitar. I suck at it. Not mediocre, suck.
Something that I can truly say that I’m not even mediocre at is surfing. I have lived in Ocean City for 11 years now, all of which I have been attempting to surf. Many who come to O.C. for vactions here and there will argue that there are no waves to be had to begin with, but this is not true. Being here everyday, all year long, and just being on the opposite side of Coastal Hwy. allows me to see the ocean in all her glory.
Back to my mediocrity, or lack thereof. Seeing my husband and the majority of our friends out in the water, being able to catch waves, stand up and ride the waves in, aggravates me to no end. I am able to accomplish one or two of these steps at a time, but never all together and never in the correct order it seems. If I catch the wave, I will fall off my board before I even stand up. If I do stand up, it’s only long enough to give me such a quick rush and surge of adrenaline that I sometimes wonder if it ever really happened at all.
But no matter what, whether I ride that wave or not, the feeling is unbelievable. To lie on your board, past the breakers, away from swimmers and other surfers and to just listen is, in itself amazing. The sound the water makes as it laps against your board, the briny smell of the sea, the roll of the waves underneath you, the serenity of it all!
And that is why I don’t care that I’m good, bad, or anything else. When I’m out there, I know that I just am.
I think I finally gave up my idea of rowing, either competitively or recreationally, last summer. I realized it was a) incredibly grueling; and b) would require me to rise at 5 a.m. for months on end to train with others. However, I still love the *idea* of rowing, love the motion of it, love the equipment and the venues. I like the boats, the scenery and the fact rowers tend to be big tall fun people who party hard.
I’m just a lousy oarsman. And that’s … OK. Doggone it, people like me!
I play guitar and sing. I’ve been told I do it well. But I’ve never felt any better than mediocre, especially in comparison to so many of my friends who play so much bteer than I do, people who play out on weekends and such.
All the women on my mom’s side of the family are great dancers and superb athletes, except me. My grandmother’s parents were approached by a local diving coach when she was around eight years old, who asked them whether they’d consider letting him train her, since he felt she had the potential to make the Olympic team. My mom broad-jumped seventeen feet in eighth grade, etc. My sister could do back handsprings when she was seven. By comparison, I pretty much suck at all things requiring rhythm or coordination, though I played JV everything throughout high school. Somehow, the fact that none of them can spell is no consolation. I get HUGELY self-conscious whenever I’m meant to dance, especially, unless I call upon that old WASP alcohol consumption gene to its fullest capacity, in which case I will inevitably draft the dozen people standing closest to join me in a full-blown Fosse/Rockettes kickline atop the bar. So, if ever I’m hammered enough to start speaking in Thurston-Howell lockjaw AND begin twitching in the vague vicinity of the downbeat–with a chip on my shoulder and a bar-ward gleam in my eye–RUN. This goes double at Bcon. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
And thank you, Keith! Valley awesome is the very best kind there is.
Wow this mediocre thing has really braought a lot of people out of the woodwork. First congratulations to Cornelia!
In this life I got very good at two things and all the rest is mediocre. I’m guessing it’s okay to be good at ones job. I was actually the very best at my job for miles around for many years. I learned all about how to do my job at my mothers knee. I was trained from the earliest age possible to do the job well when the time came for me to do it without her. My mother owned restaurants and I was her slave. A slave who was busy getting all I could out of being a captive class of one.
When I set out on my own at 16 I was well prepared.
It did mean giving up the other thing I was really good at after a while because I couldn’t stay in school. I played the bass viol from the time I could reach the fret board. I am and always have been tall. I had two teachers, one for modern/jazz music and the other for orchestra. The jazz teacher used 3 of us as his combo off school grounds. So as a teenager I played jazz bass in an after hours club in San Francisco called the 181 Club. You had to go upstairs and say the password to get in. It was all very cool for this teenager and then to play the loved music and be appreciated by the crowd who came for that as well as the after hours drinking. People had to bring their own booze and the set ups were served in those green glass cups that were used for coffee or tea elswhere.
The two instruments that were provided were the bass and the piano so I used the bass of the guy who was there first. Everyone who jammed also used his bass.
There were a lot of cool cats who gave me the happiest times of my life for a couple of years.
Early in life when I learned to play bass, I had to practice mostly in the hallways of the school because in order to get the thing home I needed a ride and my mother was always late or forgot about me altogether unless it was a day for me to work at her restaurant de jour. I could tell anyone where the best acoustics were outside of the clasrooms, not that that was something anyone besides me ever needed to know lol.
But I had to work if I were to live out on my own so I got a job doing the only thing I knew well, yup, the restaurant biz. I got very good at it I think because I had a superb work ethic. I worked my way up from the bottom of a fairly new business in San Francisco. What was turning into a chain of restaurants, I started as a cook on the graveyard shift. I was good at it and would do things that on one else would do like tear apart walk-in refrigerators and clean and reorganize them all while cooking for the customers. The owner and his chosen minions to be supervisors noticed me and I was on my way to the very top of the mountain. On the way they sent all new people to me to train and put me in charge of opening new units. I was eventually promoted to a supervisorial position which took me out of the units and out into the car driving to the other units and making sure all was going as planned. I didn’t like this much as it was out of the real action and I missed that. I did make more money though. Then I went to New York on the first vacation I’d had in a couple of years and had a stroke and brain surgery. End of work, essentially end of life what with the limited ability I had/have left. Then regards stress and stamina, I can’t be around much of that as it instantly triggers unpleasant reactions from me. So maybe being disabled for the last couple of decades or so is the most mediocre or perfect thing I’ve ever had to be, depending on how you see this limbo.
Congratulations to Cornelia! Getting a starred Kirkus review is a wonderful accomplishment.
I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty decent swimmer, but once on a swim team in high school, it was clear that I was definitely not in the same league as those I was swimming against. I think once I came in second, in 100 meter freestyle, but in two years, that was the best I could do. I still love to swim but am already seeing my daughter will far outshine me in that area.
I also love to play tennis, but basically, I suck at it. I’m lucky if I can serve the ball and have it fall in the right little box. I’ve taken lessons for two summers now and even though I fell flat on my face last summer, scarring myself for life, I have not let my mediocrity get in the way. It’s fantastic exercise, even if you suck at it.
Singing? I don’t even attempt it. I know my limits.
I wanted to be a snowboarder. Whenever I went skiing, the people on snowboards just seemed so much cooler. The gear they use was less dorky, the whole culture was just alluring to me. I took a lesson. It went ok. I did my best on the hills of the Poconos. In Vermont I was feeling like I was getting the hang of it but not quite, so when I went to Colorado, I took another lesson. Yeah, finally mid-hill I took off the snowboard and walked the rest of the way down to the ski shop and got skis. I had to admit that I am just not good at that.
(c) Kirkus Reviews
(starred) Snobbery, bigotry and cultural clashes are brought to
a boil by malicious talk of an old murder.
Madeline Dare, the poor relation of an old North
Shore Long Island WASP family, is a child of
oft-divorced parents brought up in a world of
privilege even as the money trickles away. Married to
Dean Bauer, an inventive farm son who’s often away
working in Canada, Madeline hates her job on a small
Syracuse paper–and hates everything else about
Syracuse. On a visit to the family farm, her
father-in-law shows her dog tags he uncovered in a
field where two unidentified young girls were found 19
years before, their throats cut, posed in a bizarre
tableau. The tags bear the name of her favorite
cousin, Lapthorne Townsend. In an attempt to prove his
innocence, Madeline starts investigating the murders
without involving the police. The girls had been seen
at the State Fair with two soldiers from Camp Drum,
but the silhouettes they posed for have disappeared.
When Madeline finds the artist murdered, clues at the
crime scene lead her to realize that a serial killer
is at work. She and her friend Ellis shuttle between
her relatives’ crumbling estates and lowlife bars
before more murders bring to light the shattering
truth.
Read’s sensational debut features spot-on
descriptions of upstate-downstate conflicts, strong
characterizations and a fascinating plot.
I read a quote somewhere, long ago that said “anything worth doing is worth doing badly” I love it but have to explain to far to many people that it means they should do it badly, rather than not do it at all. I suffer from an absymal lack of talent but I still strum my guitar occasionally, I keep trying to do wonderful scrapbooks and this weekend I’m actually going to get the sewing machine out of the closet!
Oh, Laura. You made me cry. Thank you!
I want to say something about my athletic mediocrity, but have one more kid to drive to school first….
Thank you so much!!
As a wanna-be published writer, some days I feel like my writing is mediocre. From past grades, comments, and kudos, I know it’s not (totally mediocre), but my perserverance needs some help so I can actually finish a book. So, I guess I haven’t concluded I’ll never be good at writing a book but have many days when I think I’ll never finish one. HELP!
First, yay, Cornelia! It is such an awesome book.
Regarding mediocrity – I love singing, just love it. If I could make a deal with the devil, it would be for Judy Garland’s voice. But, although I can carry a tune, I have this thin little voice that doesn’t go anywhere. I actually took a classical voice class once upon a time, and learned technique, but I still can’t achieve any sort of depth or volume. I have a heckuva good time singing along with Judy’s “Live at Carnegie Hall” record when I’m cleaning the house, though
Wow, Cornelia! That’s AWESOME!
And I’m from, like, The Valley, so I know from awesome.
Laura you do realize that you’ve put the theme from F Troop in my head.
My singing may, in fact, be the definition of of mediocre.
During my performance last night, I did my version of Rex Harrison talk-singing “When I Look in Your Eyes.” But I wanted people to laugh, so that doesn’t count.
Okay, Forrest Tucker was Harand’s “patron.” I wasn’t there when he visited, but camp legend has it that there was a kid whose job was to replace the beer in “Uncle Forrest’s” hand every time he finished one.
The camp also sang a welcome song to Tucker, to the tune of “Swanee.”
As for mediocrity, I’ve never really had hobbies–just obsessions. (My author bio used to end with “He has no hobbies.”)
But now I have one, and I’m really mediocre at it.
Bicycling.
I’m 6’1″, 15 pounds overweight and don’t push myself. I just like riding a bike, especially when it’s snowing. And I like buying bike stuff. I like my little winter cap. I like my little winter boots. I like my pogies. I like my clipless pedals.
I average maybe 12 MPH.
I am mediocre at bowling, which did on various leagues for on and off for 10-12 years. I’m done now, as it’s no longer fun. For a long time it was, and it was a sport I could do–I really liked the fact that the ball was going away from you, as opposed to volleyball or softball, where quite often, it comes right at you. Anyway, I had a brief, shining moment above my mediocrity (sp?) when I bowled a 216 (!!!). It is seriously among the highlights of my life. I was on a sanctioned league at the time, and I got a pin or a patch (or both) for bowling 100 over my average at the time. Plus, I won money at the end of the season for having the highest women’s game over all the other women. Until Laura wrote about it, I didn’t really think about whether I was/am mediocre at something or not–I really only think about whether I enjoy doing it or not.
Have fun, whatever you do
!
Patti
For me it’s ice skating…something I hadn’t done since the 1960s. My kids and (Canadian-born) wife go flying around the rink, so after watching disconsolately from the sidelines for a while, I strapped on skates and re-learned how. Now I’m mediocre at best, and mediocre on a public stage, earning kindly smiles from figure-skating adults and five-year-olds who seem to have been born on the ice. “Do you want us to skate slower so you can keep up?” asked one of my daughter’s friends, just when I was impressing myself with my blinding speed.
(Would that I had the tubby grace of Marlon Brando in The Freshman!)
P.S.
What an amazing review, Cornelia. Like many here who haven’t been lucky enough to read it yet…can’t wait!
I’m late to the party-but HUGE congrats (again) to Cornelia. This fantastic review is only the beginning. But we all know that.
I can’t sing opera. And I so want to sing Nessum Dorma with Aretha.
But Laura – WASP’S aren’t the only folks with hollow legs. I’ve been known to bend quite a few.
Singing. Dancing. Guitar. Humility.
First, congratulations to Cornelia. I don’t know if you remember talking in Chicago, but you told me your book was coming out soon, and were wondering how it would be received. Sounds like you’re doing well. I’m happy for you.
I cannot sing. I did country-western line dancing and two-step for a while, and actually got pretty good at it, but quit when I got married. It was ultimately a way to meet ladies, but I did really like dancing.
I used to bowl. Never broke 200, but did bowl 197, 198, and 199. Someone stole my bowling ball before I could break that psychological barrier.
I write and I play guitar. I’ve been writing all my life. I just started playing guitar. I don’t think there’s such a thing as “sucking” at something. I do believe we can always get better at something.
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