QUIDDITY, 84

It Became More than That, Meanderings, and Hypatia's Bookroom

It Became More than That

From the time she was 15 until her passing in 2018, writing was an ever-present influencer in Leah Napolin’s life. Writing provided her with the platform to observe and comment on the events and people that were consequential in her world, - from the minute to the universal, from YENTL to THE DOGS OF PRYPIAT. Future issues of QUIDDITY will provide you with the opportunity to become familiar with some of her insights. **********

AND A COLD WIND WAS BLOWING or DAY OF THE LIVING DEAD

By Leah Napolin

PART 2…

(At the end of Part 1, we left our lost movie-goers wandering the halls of the North Shore Towers.)

On we marched until we spotted a movie poster for Casablanca, then another, leading to stairs that led us to the next level down. Was it possible that there, at the bottom, our movie was playing? It was. Still, there was no signage anywhere as a guide for the perplexed, just classic movie posters to follow, like a trail of breadcrumbs. I thought of my friend’s visit here, and for the first time felt empathy for her plight.

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The movie was showing in a screening room that could easily seat hundreds, but that afternoon there were only fifteen or so scattered throughout, people swallowed up in their plush movie seats. Some even appeared to be sleeping. I took a quick breath. No dusty carpet celluloid smell, no movie popcorn smell. Another elderly woman accompanied by an attendant was trying to find a place to park her wheelchair. In a virtually empty movie theater with all the space in the world from which to choose, she chose to be in the same three square feet I was. I stepped aside to let her pass.

Despite its critical acclaim, the movie we’d come to see, in both French and Italian with subtitles, was so boring that after little more than an hour we left. It had been a long time since I’d protested anything by walking out on it, so long in fact that this felt like some kind of transgressive act I’d never dared do before. I felt guilty for not staying to the bitter end. What’s happened to my intellectual curiosity? I asked myself. Didn’t I want to know the ending? Wasn’t I eager to hear the message the filmmaker was sending? Didn’t I have at least one more boo left in me?

But, leave we did. And, when we walked out of the movie and tried to leave the Towers, our real trouble began. Again, we got lost, wandering up and down corridors that twisted and turned but went nowhere, with not an exit sign or elevator in sight. Up, down, right, left. Trapped with us inside this endless Arcade were scores of elderly people with their ambulatory devices and their helpers. No one made eye contact. If I tried, they looked away or shot me sidelong glances. If anyone spoke, it was in whispers. So much for the Glitterati.

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We passed a man sitting on a bench staring at nothing, another one shuffling along with his quad cane who glanced fearfully over his shoulder as he heard our footsteps approaching. We came upon the exact same dining room we’d seen earlier, but now the tables were filled with solemn patrons being catered to by white-aproned servers. I checked my watch again. Hi-ho, dinner time! Instead of the buzz of conversation from inside, however, murmurs only. And, the tinkle of cutlery.

We turned a corner and found ourselves in what looked like a Human Resources ghetto where professional shingles hung over each door: Doctor, Dentist, Hearing Clinic, Orthopedics, Beauty Parlor, Stockbroker, Attorney, Shrink. We’d been told there was a boutique and even a bank on the premises. Also, a gourmet food market, but why bother to go? They deliver. Ahead of us, framed in the oval of an actual window, was an actual scene: an exterior courtyard with neatly-trimmed foliage and inviting umbrella tables. If only we could get to it, we might be able to find the parking lot.

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And here, to no one’s surprise, was a wood-paneled Library. I ducked inside to note the few old people on banquettes, none of them reading, and a shelf of books lined up like leather-clad soldiers standing at attention. I wondered if the books were real or merely gold-stamped fake bindings made to look real? Before I had a chance to test my theory, I realized that my dear friend had continued on without me, so I hurried to catch up. It wouldn’t do to get separated; we might never see each other again.

At last, down the hall, we spied someone bent over a floor-polishing machine. We begged him to help us find an elevator, and he did. He led us to a nondescript double-door that opened on a whole bank of them, with up and down buttons, with lights! If he hadn’t done that, we’d still be going in circles.

In the elevator was a woman in a wheelchair, with her aide. As the elevator doors closed, I said to the aide, “Excuse me, but is this an Independent Living facility now, or perhaps an Assisted Living facility?”

The woman gave me a look as cold as the Towers’ wind, and said, “Neither. Oh no, everyone here was young once.”

Finally, nearly three hours after arriving, we half-stumbled, half-ran out of the neo-fascist style lobby, where the discreet flashing LEDs of an electronic message board were displaying the apartment numbers of residents who had mail waiting for them in the mail room. In the circular drive outside, cars were lined up, their drivers standing ready to help people into or out of them in the event someone might want to go somewhere.

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Whoom! The wind hit us again, as if the whole complex generated its own weather.

In the days since, I’ve had time to reflect on what we saw: a gated community where there is no need to ever venture outside into that dangerous, unpredictable, messy world. Someday I’d like to revisit the place but only to ascertain if it has among its many amenities a funeral parlor. All the residents are old, as I am now. And, when they die, which is probably often, their apartments and co-ops must surely become available. In a tight housing market, that’s a good thing to know. I was never one of the Beautiful People, but I’m sure I could put my name on the list. Seriously, would I really want to do that?

Not… just… yet.

END

(an aside) And, by the way – After the zombie-like expedition with Leah, I couldn’t rid myself of the memory of a famous, 1973 dystopian, sci-fi thriller. Is The North Shore Tower complex a potential bread-box for a SOYLENT GREEN future? (Thank you, Charlton Heston.)

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MEANDERINGS: “Not the Usual 3-Rs”

The final meeting of the National Women’s History Alliance “consciousness circle” ended a few nights ago with my newly found sisters waving goodbyes from each of their screen windows. I didn’t want the zoom meeting to end just yet. There was so much more I wanted to hear from and share with these women. Before the final click, Jill, the “circle’s” moderator posed a last question: “What is one word that you will use to portray the insight you’ll take away from our eight sessions?” The words most frequently used were grateful, confidence, collegiality, support, determination. My word was renewal. But, after the screen went black, I couldn’t forget a situation referenced by one of the women about the tortuous circumstances in which many pregnant women find themselves. I had first used medieval to describe that situation, but even a cursory investigation of pregnancies during the middle ages indicates that women who miscarried were given more understanding and humane treatment than today’s pregnant women. This is the opposite of renewal; it is reversal.

According to the NIH, miscarriage is the most common complication of pregnancy in the United States, occurring in 15–20% of clinically-recognized pregnancies, or 750,000–1,000,000 cases annually. Today, many states treat miscarriages and abortions under some of the same laws, regulations, and strictures.

For example, in December of 2024, Texas arrested and charged Mallori Patrice Strait, a 34-year-old woman, for “abuse of a corpse” after she miscarried in a public restroom. Sensationalist headlines claimed that she tried to flush her “baby girl” down the toilet, and news websites published her mugshot. Mallori was imprisoned for over five months with bail set at $100,000. Lacking any evidence, she was recently released in May. This case is similar to that of Brittany Watts, an Ohio woman who gained national attention after she had a miscarriage and faced criminal charges. 22 weeks pregnant, Brittany miscarried in the bathroom of her own home days after being told by her obstetrician that her fetus was nonviable. Two weeks later, she was arrested on charges of felony abuse of a corpse for how she handled the remains, a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. After being subjected to criminal investigation, arrest, and reputational damage, Ms. Watts was cleared of all charges by an Ohio grand jury .

Two specific stories, but with national impact and foreshadowing. Today, anti-reproductive rights laws are promoting surveillance, criminalization, and control, driven by a desire to retreat from gains made for women and to revert to fear, superstition, control, and enmity.

Another gut-wrenching reversal and revocation occurred on May 20, 2025. That day, Trump rescinded the law passed during the Biden administration requiring hospitals to test pregnant women experiencing pregnancy complications and to perform emergency abortions if necessary. Aware of current federal orders and state laws, many OB/GYN doctors are leaving this practice in fear of prosecution and violent threats. This is not just about abortion. It is about women in general, and it hurts ALL women.

However, we can use the original 3-Rs to confront this “new order.” We can read honest and reliable news sources and the Bill of Rights. We can write letters to the editor, to our local, state and national representatives, and sign petitions; we can add our contributions to causes that support basic human rights.

That’s my resolve: We will NOT go back. (The personal IS political.) Perhaps, you can resolve to make it yours. &

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HYPATIA’S BOOKROOM

A boy sits amid the ruins of a London bookshop following an air raid on October 8, 1940, AP macrolit.tumblr.com

A New Kind of Library

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of a Library.” –Jorge Luis Borges

QUIDDITY, is building its own library of books that are of importance to us--intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, ethically, etc.-- books that we would definitely rescue from a trash pile. We’re calling it Hypatia's Bookroom after the chief librarian of the ancient library of Alexandria. Tell us the title, author, category, and why this book is important to you. Questions you might consider include: Would you read this book again? Would you gift it to someone (who, why)? What note would you write on the cover page?

On the shelves so far: The rescued books selected by readers has grown and takes up too much space to list them all here. You can peruse the entire listing by going to the blog section of my website at blmurphy.com.

"There are so very many books, and we have forgotten almost all of them." (Lit.Hub) May we save all we can.

Kafka’s ideal of what a book should be: “An ax for the frozen sea within us.” (Sigrid Nuez interview in “By the Book,” NYT Book Review, 12/10/23)

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(Erik R.) I’m not entirely alone when, in solitude, I trudge through the woods because I often bring a companion in the form of a book by Edward Abbey, a kindred spirit and one of my favorite writers. “Cactus Ed” is what they called him, and he was a writer who saw through many of the manufactured illusions of modern life and how it caused people to forget what was truly important. In Desert Solitaire (1968), Edward Abbey, as an Arches National Park ranger, recounts through stories and philosophical musings his reflections on the condition of our remaining wilderness, the future of a civilization, and his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book first appeared those many years ago.

He saw, more than most, how the bureaucratic hands in the so-called “age of progress” sought to tame the wild within us. To him, the retreat into nature was no mere indulgence, no simple pleasure, but an act of quiet defiance, a return to the self. We need his insights more than ever in today’s topsy-turvy world. This is a book that is both timeless and timely. &

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