VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Quick takes
Pendleton considers
professional communicator
Where’s the money going to come from
to hire the person? Why can’t the city clerk
do it or have one of the council persons or
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— Levi Raber
No don’t waste the money. Fix the
streets, they are bad. I have never seen them
this bad in the 65 years that I have been in
Pendleton.
— Millie-Colin White
EOCI crews outside prison?
The prisoners already do a lot for the
community, why not allow this too? They
have all committed crimes, but there are
also some that are legitimately trying to
change their lives.
— Hannah Rogers
It is interesting to see how many like the
idea of slave labor. Prisoners should stay in
prison until released.
— Christopher Noyes
Umatilla County overweight
Duh. This town keeps opening cigarette
shops and convenience stores like mad.
How many fast food joints, cigarette shops
and alcohol-related shops does this small
town need?
— Anita Crawford
One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is
that much can be summed up in just a few words.
Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours
@Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.
com, and keep them to 140 characters.
East Oregonian
Page 5A
Age-restricted living in the desert
By ELLIOTT SILBERBERG
Writers on the Range
L
ast summer, my wife and I visited
our friends, Randy and Abby, at
their desert home outside Tucson.
They live in a retirement community with
age-restriction covenants. Eighty percent of
homeowners have to be over 55 years old
and the remaining 20 percent at least 40.
Anyone under 19 is out of luck.
I found the rules unsettling, though
Randy, 72, and Abby, 65, didn’t seem to
mind. I realize youth can be annoying, that
life is noisier and riskier with youngsters
present, and that the elderly may prefer
the company of their peers. Still, it seemed
extreme that seniors would entirely exclude
the occasional child.
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morning. I stepped outside into a
neighborhood that felt ghostly. Many
residents travel during summer, but even
homes with open garage doors looked clam-
tight with the blinds drawn. In an hour, only
a man walking and one slow-going jogger
passed by. Conspicuous by their absence,
there were no mothers pushing strollers,
tweens on skateboards or high schoolers.
The covenants didn’t trouble our hosts.
Randy had pals at a bicycle club. Abby
loved to watch birds. City lights and a
generational mix were close in Tucson. I
respected their choice, but it wasn’t for me.
I took early morning walks in the
desert, where more was going on. August
monsoons spiffed the Sonora up. Yellow and
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FDFWXV4XDLOÀXWWHUHGDERXWWKHLUFKLFNVLQ
tow. I spotted cactus wren, hummingbirds,
woodpeckers and a baby hawk on a branch.
Javelina tracks marked a dry wash and a
school of tadpoles squiggled down a rivulet.
The not-so-barren desert was my balm for
the absence of what I think makes a vital
community.
Randy and Abby love living in the desert,
too. They were protective of a tarantula
we tiptoed around in the driveway. Abby
excitedly checked daily for bobcat tracks
on top of the patio wall. The desert keeps
them company as much
as their friends do. It was
exhilarating to turn in
at night imagining our
nocturnal neighbors, the
diamondback rattlers,
jackrabbits, gray foxes,
packrats and great horned
owls swooping, slithering and prowling
around. I considered how thrilled kids
would be to enjoy that sensation, too.
I started mulling over the immensity of
time, because the Arizona desert — eons
ago a shallow sea — has that effect on me.
The vast landscape invites perspective,
in every sense. It was consoling. It’s easy
to see how seniors love living in that
meditative dimension. Yet I couldn’t help
IHHOWKDWLWZDVVHO¿VKWROHDYH\RXQJHU
generations out.
These adults-only communities are
multiplying. Water permitting, they are
extending from Tucson to Phoenix, a
residential corridor that offers a short drive
from shopping malls and urgent-care clinics.
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quiet in their air-conditioned cocoons.
Tucson-born author Edward Abbey,
who supposedly was interred not far from
us in the Cabeza Prieta Desert, came to
mind. Abbey called the wilderness “the
only thing left worth saving” and despised
the mass incursion of humans into the
wild. Perversely, I bet the cantankerous
writer would approve of these villages,
arguing that places that don’t allow human
reproduction quicken what may be the best
outcome for the rest of life on Earth: the
extinction of man.
It’s Nature that offers a saner alternative.
Consider the giant saguaro we paused under
one scorching afternoon. The holes in its
arms were pecked by birds
nesting there. Nature had
arranged that a plant could
serve as a cactus-condo
for an entirely different
species to raise its young.
Meanwhile, back at the
housing development with
the strict Homeowners Association rules,
humankind was forbidding its own to share
living quarters unless you were of a certain
age.
The days zipped by. Soon we had to go.
Boarding our plane, my wife helped a young
mother with her baby. We ended up in the
same row. My wife held the baby as the
mother settled in. I goofed around with him
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Then the mother put him on her lap and out
popped her breast. I took a discreet peek.
The baby was in seventh heaven, sucking
and falling asleep at the same time.
The mother smiled as the plane gained
altitude, and my wife looked serene. I
relaxed into my seat. I meant our gracious
friends and their neighbors no ill will. Thank
goodness, though, life was starting to feel
whole again.
Ŷ
Elliot Silberberg is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, an opinion service
of High Country News. He is an American
writer currently living in Italy.
Adults-only
communities are
multiplying.
Dinklage and Dragons: Will Tyrion win the Game of Thrones?
Does he ever think
I had many questions for
about the show in terms of
Peter Dinklage.
modern politics?
I wanted to know how
“You think Trump
he feels about being the
will start using trial by
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combat?” he asks slyly.
curious why his 4-year-old
I point out that Tyrion
daughter is named Zelig. I
and Trump both felt
wondered what it was like
to elope to Vegas.
Maureen compelled to dispel doubts
about their manhood.
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Dowd
“Yeah, that was a classy
about the dragons.
Comment
debate, huh?” the actor
The “Game of Thrones”
laughs. “Wow. Life and TV
star is such a big animal
are becoming like the big crossover
lover that he’s a vegetarian who
episode.”
eats tofu masquerading as meat in
(Dan Weiss, one of the “Game
the carnivorous, libidinous show.
of Thrones” creators and writers,
So now that the global
says Trump reminds him of Hodor,
hit — Season 6 starts in two
weeks — has brought his character, a gigantic dimwit who answers
every question with one word: his
the wil and louche “halfman”
name.)
and “perverse little imp” Tyrion
I’m sitting with Dinklage, who’s
Lannister, into the sun-baked realm
sporting a vest over a black hoodie,
of Daenerys Targaryen, was it fun
black jeans, Blundstones and a
to act with the dragons? Or were
mop of uncombed hair, in the Blue
they temperamental divas who
Room atop the chic Wythe Hotel
chewed — or incinerated — the
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He has
scenery?
Patti Smith’s latest memoir with
“They’re not real,” he says,
him. His idols are the cool people
looking at me solemnly with his
big, droopy blue eyes.
who don’t strive to be cool —
Whaaaaa? I am shocked, given
Smith, Lou Reed, Tobias Wolff and
the CIA-level secrecy around
Sam Shepard.
the HBO show — which has
The 46-year-old remarks that
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cellphones and this year declined
the ‘90s, after Bennington College,
to provide the press with episodes
when he was trying to make it as
in advance — that Dinklage would an actor and supporting himself
let such a huge spoiler slip out. (On ZLWKDGD\WLPHRI¿FHMRE
a less top-secret note, HBO plans
Dink, as his friends call him,
to make a comedy pilot inspired by was a frontman and cornet player
my book “Are Men Necessary?”)
for a band called Whizzy and he
“The dragons are just a
even boasts a scar from a wild
projection,” Dinklage says in
night at CBGB’s. Band members
his melodious baritone. “Ah,
wrapped themselves up in Bubble
working with something that
Wrap, handed out candy and
is not there. Sometimes I work
played a song called “Dwarven
with some actors who aren’t
Funk Rap,” where Dinklage ran
fully there. The guys in the visual
around the stage yelling “I’m no
effects department show you
dwarf!”
pre-visualizations, pre-vis. It
“I was pretty angry back then,”
used to be just storyboards, but
he says.
now they’re really well done on
He comments on all the hipsters
computers, and you see the whole
with beards, even though he has
scene with you and the animated
one, and all the tall buildings.
dragons before you do it, so you
“It looks like Miami,” he says,
get that in your head. It’s neat. It’s
staring out the panoramic window.
cool. I like it.”
“Even though I’ve never been to
This season of “Game of
Miami. That’s not the life I live.”
7KURQHV´ZLOOEHWKH¿UVWWRYHQWXUH (Well, he has explored the Night’s
beyond George R.R. Martin’s
Watch Wall and Meereen, and
books, like the medieval globe
that’s more impressive.)
with unexplored territories labeled,
“It was very toxic out here
“Here be dragons.”
then,” he says. “The conspiracy
Season 5 ended with Tyrion
theory was that they had all these
offering to be Dick Cheney to
spice factories to cover up the
Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys and
smell of the toxic chemicals.
to help her conquer and rule the
Everything smelled of nutmeg. It
Seven Kingdoms.
was rough going.”
“You can’t compare her to
The 4-foot-5 Dinklage has said
Eleanor Roosevelt, I suppose,”
his condition, short limbs caused
Dinklage says. “She’s so much
by a genetic mutation, made for
cooler.”
a “tricky” adolescence, growing
I ask him about his comment
up in Brookside, New Jersey,
to Entertainment Weekly that,
the son of an insurance salesman
given the propensity for very
and music teacher, and going to
sudden deaths on the show, the
a Catholic prep school full of jocks.
pair could “go out in a blaze of
When I called his close friend
glory — boom, boom, Bonnie and
Lena Headey, who plays his
Clyde.” Would he prefer that to the conniving, incestuous sister,
Iron Throne?
Cersei, in “Game of Thrones,” she
“I think they should dismantle
said that his adolescence “must
the Iron Throne,” he replies saucily. have been hideous.” But Dinklage
“Smelt it down and give it to the
downplays it now.
poor. It’s very uncomfortable.
“It’s called hormones,” he says.
They would have let the queen of
“That’s why in certain cultures,
England sit down on it, but she
they send teenagers out into the
didn’t. But, you know, she’s an
woods for periods of time.”
elderly lady, and having sat on it
He married the theater director
myself, I could understand why.
Erica Schmidt in 2005 in Vegas.
It’s made of swords. Sometimes
“I was going there for a charity
your bum gets stuck for a second.” event,” he recalls. “And then while
Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Peter Dinklage attends the season six premiere of “Game Of
Thrones” at TCL Chinese Theatre on Sunday in Los Angeles.
we were there, we just decided to
do it. It was a bit lonely. We got a
VHS videocassette of the wedding
that no one will ever see, that
we’ve buried in a box deep beneath
the earth’s core.”
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grandmother that he was going to
play Tyrion Lannister, she thought
he said “interior banister.” (His
other grandmother was “sort of a
Follies girl” who acted in silent
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has since made him internationally
recognizable.
And unlike others on the show,
Dinklage can’t simply change
his hair and clothes and blend in.
So he’s a target for every crazy
“Game of Thrones” superfan (like
me) in addition to those who stare,
taunt or touch him for luck — a
superstition about dwarves.
The very private and low-key
actor doesn’t have a personal
publicist, and he’s not on social
media. The Internet falsely spread
the word that his daughter’s name
is Zelig. “I love that Woody Allen
movie,” he says, “but why would
you name your child after that
character?”
When he’s out in New York
walking with his hound dog and
his daughter — whose name he
prefers to keep out of the press
— he’s bombarded with people
snapping his picture, sometimes
surreptitiously, which irritates
him, and sometimes nonchalantly,
which surprises him.
“The other day this teenage
girl walked right up to me and
put her arm around me and took
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kept walking,” he says. “It was
almost forgivable because she
saw nothing wrong with it. But
if you’re sneaking pictures, you
know you’re not doing something
great. Oftentimes, they don’t want
to meet you; they just want proof
that they met you. I was watching
that Steve Jobs movie on a plane
the other day and I was like, ‘You
started a monster, man.’”
A team of mathematicians
recently did a network analysis
of 107 characters in Martin’s
sprawling epic and declared Tyrion
the true protagonist.
“Tyrion is the character that
everyone loves,” says Nikolaj
Coster-Waldau, who plays his
brother, Jaime Lannister. “I think
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Even when he kills his father, you
instantly understand.”
David Benioff, the other
creator and writer, thinks Tyrion
has the most modern voice and
relatable perspective. “We all love
Jon Snow, but most of us aren’t
heroes,” Benioff said. “Tyrion is a
bit cynical and capable of breaking
out of that cynicism.”
He added that there is now “a
lot of Peter in Tyrion,” and said
they have drawn on his teasing
friendships with Headey and
Conleth Hill, the Irish actor who
plays the eunuch, Lord Varys.
When I noted that Tyrion and
Varys have a Humphrey Bogart-
Claude Rains thing going, Benioff
replied, “That is not accidental.”
I asked him if Tyrion, the
favorite character of Martin,
President Barack Obama, me and
most fans, was unkillable.
“No one is immortal,” he
replied.
Dinklage laughs at that and says
of Benioff and Weiss: “Oh, I try
to keep them in my good graces,
those two. Believe me, I keep them
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I mention that the Internet
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how sexy he is, to which Dinklage
drolly replies, “Hey, where were
they when I was in high school?
Too late, ladies.”
+HEHFDPHWKH¿UVWGZDUIWR
play a romantic lead in a movie
when he starred in the 2003 indie
hit “The Station Agent.” Even with
Coster-Waldau and Kit Harington
(Jon Snow) as competition,
Dinklage’s debonair reputation
continues to grow.
“I don’t think he’s adjusting
very well to being a sex symbol,”
Coster-Waldau said. “He doesn’t
like any fuss about him.”
(PLOLD&ODUNHWHVWL¿HG³+LV
charm is absolutely irresistible. My
mom came to the set once. She’s
very English. I have never seen that
woman blush until I turned around
and she was talking to Peter. His
wit is quicker than Tyrion’s.”
Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa
Stark, seconded that: “I’m lucky
to be married to Peter Dinklage
onscreen. I wish I was married to
Peter Dinklage. He oozes natural
sex appeal. Just watching him, I
learned how to act with my eyes.”
Dinklage is a prankster who
likes to goose up the mood by
shouting out ridiculous things or
making cracks right before they
call “Action.”
He admits he was surprised by
the “huge uproar about Sansa’s
character being raped” by her next
husband, the loathsome Ramsay
Bolton.
“You just love these characters
and you don’t want to see anything
bad happen to them,” he says. “But
the same people are OK with all
these prostitutes on the show being
killed and raped.”
Asked about the anger the series
has provoked among some for its
treatment of women, Dinklage
replies: “I love strong reactions to
things in what we do for a living. If
it doesn’t boil the blood, especially
in this genre, then we’re not doing
our jobs.”
Dinklage has long said he did
not want to be a role model or
spokesman for dwarves. (Dwarf
is the term he uses, or dwarvy,
as an adjective.) He made an
exception when he talked about
Martin Henderson, a British dwarf
who was tossed in a bar, when
he accepted his Golden Globe in
2012.
Though he refused leprechaun
parts early in his career, he now
hopes to make a movie about a
leprechaun called “O’Lucky Day.”
“It’s a very different take on it,” he
says.
$VZHOHDYH,UHÀH[LYHO\
repeat my standard goodbye line
for women and men who are very
charming in interviews.
“Thanks,” I say. “You’re a doll.”
He shoots me a look and I
freeze.
But then he smiles. “I know,”
he says, as he saunters off with his
backpack.
Ŷ
Maureen Dowd, winner
of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for
distinguished commentary, became
a columnist on The New York
Times Op-Ed page in 1995.