“All the months are crude experiments,
out of which the perfect September is made.” — Virginia Woolf
We began September in Memphis with our annual holiday. No, not Labor Day. Sure, we celebrate that, but so does the rest of the country. I’m talking about the fact that here in the Bluff City we have in recent years begun celebrating “901 Day” on September 1st, a riff on our 901 area code. It’s grown to include a great many celebrations around town, from Beale Street to breweries to parks and music venues. One presumes a good time was had by all this year, even if there was a bit of intermittent rain to dodge.
September also marks the end of summer here in the 901. Even though we’re still a few weeks away from the true end of the heat, the signs of autumn are there if you look. On my morning walk in the Old Forest of Overton Park on Monday, leaves were beginning to fill the wooded trails, wet and soft underfoot — the gold palms of the tulip poplars, the brown-fingered oak fall — their presence no doubt triggered by the recent dry spell, but unmistakable harbingers of the change to come, nonetheless.
Summer’s end always brings mixed feelings. And the seasons change faster now, or so it seems as I blossom into codger-hood. But everything is faster for everybody these days. According to folks who study such things, we’re wiring ourselves that way. I listened to a podcast last week about the decline of the human attention span. The average person checks the internet more than 100 times a day — scanning emails, various websites, news sources, and social media feeds. I’ve never counted, but I suspect I’m in that neighborhood, at least.
I’m trying to be conscious about my internet addiction, but it’s so difficult, especially when the source of our distraction — our phone — is always close at hand. Looking around the optometrist’s office the other day, I noted there were 19 people, 18 of whom were looking at their phone. The other guy was probably blind.
The problem is that we’ve learned that there is always a reward of sorts waiting for us when we swipe open our dinging little pocket pals: “likes” on our social media posts, a fresh email from a friend, a nudge from our favorite news app, a game to finish, and, of course, the sweet, cocaine-like buzz of confirmation bias and righteous indignation.
We progressives savor the latest absurdities from MAGA-land like gooey chocolate-chip cookies, fresh from the oven: Did you read that Donald Trump changed his stance on abortion four times in 48 hours? Did you see that he reposted vile, misogynistic, sexual tweets about Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton?! Did you read that he had the nerve to announce that his administration will be the “greatest ever” for women?! OMG!
And then there’s Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance. What a piece of anti-feminine work this guy is. Seldom does a day pass when he is not saying something more Neanderthal-ish about women than he did the day before. The creepy would-be veep has made it clear, over and over again, that he thinks women are put here on Earth only to have children until they can’t anymore. And when they reach menopause, their role is to help raise their grandchildren. It’s their biological destiny, don’t you know? Childless career women are frustrated and angry because “they passed the biological period when it was possible to have children.” They are “miserable people who have no real value system,” and “struggle to find meaning in their lives.” Also, they have cats. Also, childless people shouldn’t be allowed to be teachers.
And on it goes, day after day. Thirty days hath September, and 31 hath October, and five hath November until the Day of Reckoning. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” wrote English playwright William Congreve in 1697. There’s a reason that saying has stayed in the English language lexicon for 327 years, and methinks Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and the rest of their clueless GOP enablers are about to find out why.
