KLOUT?

I am locked into Klout. I tried to get out.
I changed my passwords on linked accounts.
I tried to find appropriate drop down menus for deleting my account.
It all failed when I received a message about my account one week after I thought that I had left Klout.
I took a moment to reflect and decided to read my profile.
Something caught my attention.
Here is their first description of my activity on-line:
 Observer: You don't share very much, but you follow the social web more than you let on.
This had me laughing, because it's true!

I had read an article on Mashable, that LinkedIn had suggested I read, based on my professional profile. I found the article interesting, so I wanted to find out if Klout would be useful for some of my clients.
When I logged in using my Facebook account, I was stuck, suddenly being assessed by a program that is possibly against everything I believe in, except for one thing - I think it is funny - really funny, laugh out loud, or sit on the couch using my laptop, privately smiling funny, but yes, fun - or funny - it's like playing a game with a good playmate/ opponent. The only catch - my privacy, and maybe yours, but the truth is that I don't believe that these algorithms can know me or you. There is no depth, just surface and that is what this blog has become about.  Klout can't know Bob, though I am quite sure somehow a version of it will try (maybe not now, but certainly it is coming) and even though Uncle Herbie is alive, they cannot know his influence on hundreds, if not thousands of LGBTQ people, nor one very adoring niece (me). It can never measure moments in time where one person changes your life forever by doing or saying something and in that moment you know a deep change has happened and from then on everyone you engage with will be touched by that connection. You can't Klout that.

xo,

Bob's Daughter

Living or Dead

I received an email from Blogger, "What to do to keep Bob's Daughter alive..." - I could not stop laughing.
Apparently I have not posted in a VERY long time and now Bob's Daughter may DIE. But I don't believe it,  because I am not sure that one can actually die on the internet. It has however inspired me to post.

An acquaintance of mine, John, has actually died since I last posted, but he is still on my DROID phone. Not because I haven't tried to delete his contact information, but because he still has a facebook profile. I would have to delete all facebook contacts to remove him from my phone. Instead I must apparently "unfriend" him on facebook and then update my contacts from my phone. This is the new death ritual in the age of smart phones and facebook. No mistakes, this is a ritual, how many thousands of us must make the choice to look at our deceased friend's picture or "unfriend" him or her. You know me, I'm headed to facebook, the real world is challenging enough - the living or dead conundrum on- line needs attention and I will do my part.

Lots of love,
Bob's Daughter

Google

I decide to google "Robert Caigan". It is a surprise to find that Bob has entered the web again with new information.

There is a new article, with a brief interview asking him about his (then) recently patented furniture.
I have to wonder why it was never mass produced?
It sounds as if that was his desire and it predates IKEA.
Perhaps because he was too ill?
A new piece for the puzzle.
ADULT FURNITURE
from The Telegraph - Sep 22, 1971

It's an interesting label, "Adult Furniture". It sounds... you know what it sounds like...

What will the world be like when Google has finished documenting and indexing what it can find? Will we actually know more?  Can a search engine provide a narrative? Not a list, but a thoughtful, analyzed, reflective narrative?

Safe travels,
Bob's Daughter

Dora

I am exploring memory and consequence, time and relationships, but the reason for writing continues to be a need to document and share how data mining is creating false speculation into personal lives
which create algorithms in computer memories that will outlive most humans.
They are often incorrect, or shall I say - still incorrect - because one day, they might have enough of a data sample to map the people they are tracking.

Tonight I googled Linda Caigan, because I miss my mother.
I wanted to revisit sites that list her as a speaker for their community groups
or sites that list her as the Publicity Director for Performers of Westchester,
an organization where she volunteered for many years.

Then I see names... names I recognize from this blog,
but names that otherwise have nothing to do with each other,
such as "Gideon Loewenstein" and "Uncle Herbie".
I pause, look at the header for this search listing and see:

Dora Cohen - Email, Address, Phone numbers, everything! 123people ... 

www.123people.co.uk/s/dora+cohen

Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz.
Labels: Dora Cohen, Gideon Loewenstein, 
Linda Caigan, Uncle Herbie ... robertcaigan.blogspot.com ...

Dora is my grandmother, who died in the late 1980's at the age of 97 years. 
They do not have her email or phone number. 
At least not the Dora Cohen who is in any way related to her son,
Herbert Irving Cohen or Gideon Loewenstein,
former partner of her deceased son Robert, 
aka Bob, for whom this blog is named.

It is "just business", but it isn't.
I think of the saying, "Never speak ill of the dead."
I wonder what the dead think of this?


With respect,


Bob's Daughter

Purple

"I smell something purple."
I froze in the back seat of the blue, Oldsmobile, station wagon.
I was 8.
I loved Bubble-Yum chewing gum.
"Spit it out."

I knew better than to fuss,
but I really wanted my grape- flavored gum
and he really wanted it gone.

I suspect his skill in design extended to all of his senses and this smell was  unacceptable and I, his daughter had caused it, which made it even more unacceptable, as I, Bob's Daughter should have known better.

I did know better for his version of the world, but my version of the world, which he had encouraged me to examine, included a multitude of purple foods - and a Barbie Townhouse.

I loved Barbie. Bob generally accepted this, and he and Linda found me a brunette Barbie, as I am brunette and they were socially conscious about identity and dolls.

Then I requested a Barbie Townhouse and Bob could not put it together.
I remember all the pieces lined up in the living room, while I sat on the stairs waiting in anticipation.
The instructions folded out into a map.
I remember thinking that Bob would have preferred a booklet that didn't make him crawl around on the ground to read it.

"This thing is a piece of SHIT!"
"Bob, the children." Linda looked up at me...
"No, this is JUNK. It's going back!"
I begged him to try again.
"If a Harvard architect can't put it together -  it's junk."

My logic, which I held to myself,
was that since he was a Harvard architect - 
he should be able to put it together.

I was angry about that returned townhouse for...years.
I still glare at them in toy stores. Embarrassing, but true.

Order and functionality were important elements for Bob.
Perhaps this is why Intelius upsets me so much.
I expect better.
I was taught to value logical design
and Mylife.com's  poor design affects my life.

Perhaps this blog is my way of redesigning the information
provided by the Internet.
Maybe if I find it all, supplement it and put it together
in a manner that is consistent with my world view,
and perhaps Bob's world view, then it will stop bothering me so much.
It has to do with identity,
and I do not want the Internet making these decisions.
The search engines will always choose the Barbie Townhouse.
Bob deserves better.
And now, I know, as an adult,
that if the pieces don't fit and the directions are not clear, it's JUNK.
Bob taught me that.

Respectfully,
Bob's Daughter

Peeking

I peeked once
a year ago
into Linda's Red Bag.
I quickly closed it.

Inside the red bag
is a black briefcase.

Inside the black briefcase
are papers and I know not what.

"My whole life is in that bag."


My brother and sister-in-law visited with us over Memorial Day weekend.
They took the the girls to the park and for a walk in Woodstock.
It was comforting to see our little ones play happily with their aunt and uncle.
I even had the sense of what other mothers are talking about when they describe "dropping the kids off with their grandparents."

We sat and talked when they came back from their "big adventure."
Tuli (one of the twins) took out "her" passport.
Pete thought it was odd that a child was playing with a passport.
I  wasn't in the room.
My husband told me later.
I replied, "It isn't my passport - it's my mom's."
This made sense to me...
Linda can't use it.
It has a picture of their grandmother before the chemo took her hair.
It has pretty pictures of eagles - which they love... and... suddenly I am my grandmother Kate
with a balloon of Santa floating around the house in March because it reminds her of Grandpa Joe who died the previous summer.
Floating objects.

We need to decide what to put on mom's gravestone.
The bag needs to be opened and stored or heaven forbid
some contents thrown out.
That is what I am afraid of... that this carefully packaged mausoleum
that my mother constructed of her "whole life,"
in the end will not be understandable to me.

I don't know if it will be good or bad if there are post-it-notes on everything.
The only way I knew who Linda's lawyer was when she got sick was  deciding that the post-it-note with a heart on it must indicate importance. When I called the number, the man on the other end of the phone said, "Linda must be very ill. I knew this day would come. I hoped it wouldn't be for a long time. How is she?" Not bread crumbs, post-it -notes.

I used to say that Linda should have invented post-it-notes.
When Bob and Linda had big buffet dinner parties, which was a couple times a year, Linda would rip up little pieces of yellow legal pads and write notes on them and put them in the silver serving bowls so that "the help" would know where to put the peas. Little floating pieces of paper in big silver bowls - directions. I hope there are directions in that bag. For the first time in my life, I am hoping for post-it-notes.

With regards,
Bob's Daughter

What to say...

It's ringing in my pocketbook. The enormous mommy sized one.
I am driving with one hand and reaching...
Got it.
It's my brother.
Chit chat hi/ hi
Tunnel sound from speaker phone buzz.

I pass Mobile.
Gas is down to $3.95 a gallon .

Then, "We have to decide what to write on mom's gravestone.
If you can't talk about this now I understand."

It's not cell phones that cause accidents - It's the conversations.

Hess gas is $3.97 a gallon.

"I can talk about it."
pause
"How about, 'She was loved by all.'"

Huge laughter on the other end of the phone.
Finally he says, "That's what Dad's stone says, 'He was loved by all who knew him.'"

Tuxedo rentals in a previously empty store...

"That's not funny!"
"I'm serious, that's what it says. Did you know that?"
"No, I didn't know that, or I wouldn't have suggested it. I mean, maybe I remember it from some subconscious place, but no, I didn't know that!!"

Red Lobster is renovating...

"Are you going to write about this? It is sooo Bob's Daughter."
"I don't know. This is twisted."
"What do you think it means?" says a voice that is suddenly my younger brother, rather that the man I joke around with.

pause

"That she probably spent as much time thinking about it as I just did."

"We'll think of something," responds the man whom I recently began relying on for comfort.

Marshalls is long past. The exit for 209 south is upon me.



~ Bob's Daughter

Marketing and the Business of Death

I don't find it caring or kind to receive a one year condolence card from the funeral parlor that buried my mother. These are the folks who called me every 20 minutes on the day of Linda's funeral to tell me that if I didn't get there faster they were not going to bury my mother. There was nothing that I could do about the flooding and that the NY State Thruway was limited to one lane in both directions.

I have to get off their mailing list or for the rest of my life I may receive condolence cards.

It doesn't feel good. It is a manipulative marketing plan. I keep thinking about the letter they sent six months ago asking if I would like them to "set doves free" in my mother's name. Kathy's response was perfect, "What will they do otherwise, hold them hostage?"

This is fake caring. If this kind of card is meaningful for some people, then I truly believe that we, as a society, are failing to mourn for our dead in a meaningful way. Enough.


With regards,
Bob's Daughter

My Father's Tie

Bob wore this tie.

I found it on Etsy.com and memories started coming back.
The yellow table is a jarring background for me, but this is the sort of internet connection that interests me. Someone who states that she is from "Emerald City, United States" likes the same tie my father liked.  I am therefore able to remember a part of Bob and visualize, with great accuracy, events that have no names, only senses.

My father dressed in a suit and tie every morning for breakfast. We sat at the formal dining table. The one he designed and had built. I don't need to tell the woman who lives in the Emerald City about my desire to touch the tie. I remember it's soft feel. I remember his smell and learning that gender wasn't defined by who wore flowers.

For all this I am grateful.

~ Bob's Daughter

Red Bag and Santa

Linda's red bag is on the move. 
Our daughters wanted something from the closet and the bag - escaped. 

I never mean to move the bag. 

I don't really want to look at it, but it fascinates me. 

She specifically told me, "My whole life is in that bag." 

Now, I can't open it because I don't yet want to know what she considered her "whole life" and yes,

she spoke with an emphasis, 

as if music played in the background. 

I am reminded of Grand-Katie, Linda's mother,

(my Grandmother - along with Jay, Lee, and Peter's Grandmother, in case you are trying to keep track).

At Christmas, after Grandpa- Joe died, one of Kate's gifts was a helium balloon with Santa's face on it.

(We always celebrated Christmas with Kate and Joe and my mom grew up with a big Christmas tree. I was told that Reformed - German - Jews celebrated Christmas, but since my father grew up Orthodox and then Conservative, and his family was from Russia, now called Latvia, we could not have a tree and there was no Christmas in our family house. Christmas at Kate and Joe's tasted like Thanksgiving, but there was ham and jello with marshmallows in it.)

Kate loved the Santa balloon. 

When we returned to visit in March, Santa was still floating around the house, bumping off the furniture and up and down the stairs. I was shocked to see it. I asked, "How come the balloon is still full???"

I thought that this must be the most incredible, long lasting helium balloon EVER.

Grand- Katie casually said, "I have it refilled. It reminds me of Joe. It's like he's still here."

Then she went into the kitchen. 

Mom didn't say anything.

I had the distinct feeling that I was living in a Beckett play and Godot really was never going to show up.

I hope one day that I will have the courage to open Mom's red bag...and that I don't wait too long.

Until then, I will keep moving it around. 

I think I will document these actions.

For now, the bag is between the laundry basket and the diaper genie. I am sure it deserves better.

With regards,

Bob's Daughter

Sorting

For .95 cents PeopleFinders.com will give me Robert A. Caigan's phone number. It is sooooo tempting, but there is a sanity line that I do not want to cross. My logic may be creative, but paying for a phone number that I know is not possible? It can't be healthy.

I received a letter in the mail from my cousin Jay.

There was a note on it in my mother's handwriting.

"Please take care of this yearly...Thanks Dear"

and the date 6/15/91.

It is a flower bill for our great-grandparents burial plot in Montreal.

While my mother's post-it-note is a bit curt, I did not receive instructions and it came with a forwarded condolence letter about Linda's death.

I called Jay.

E: Hi, I'm just wondering about the letter I received?

J: Well, your mom sent it to me and I thought I'd send it to you. 

 
(I am silent)

J: I wouldn't worry about it. I haven't paid it in a few years, but if you want to, you can. I don't think it mattered that much to your mother.

(I can hear him smiling - he knows that this is somewhere between mean, teasing, and funny.)

E: Oh, okay, thanks, I just needed an explanation.

(We are both eldest children and I know how to play this game - no response is the only way to win.)

J: The letter's from someone who knew your mom.

E: Thanks, yes, I read it. It was very nice.

blah, blah, blah...good to speak with you - best to the family...

I hate him, love him, have wanted his approval for way too long, it shouldn't matter and he's the only person Linda wanted by her side before she died - maybe my brother as well. I know, I'm bitter, she was always "protecting" me. The problem is, that never worked. The silences have always been quite full - Linda taught me that.

Flowers for Rae Wilansky and Max Wilansky.

Unimportant flowers...

I google, that is how I find out about my dead relatives.

I laugh out loud.

Kehal Israel Memorial Park (click)

There is another site that provides a phone number and states:

"Emily Caigan Be the first of your friends to recommend this". Then provided me with a Facebook link.

Seriously, I could not make this stuff up.

What the sites do not say is that Max and Rae came from somewhere in Russia and changed their names to Wilansky because that is the set of passports they could get and he was called "Count Wilansky", because that is what the passport said. This may of course all be false and might have been made up, but that depends how much you trust a man on the run who ends up starting and managing a "card club" in Montreal and importing illegal furs. But he did it - he got himself and his wife out of Russia and his grand-daughter Linda went to Cornell University and then Columbia University for graduate school.

I was told that his real name was Schumacher.

I think about such things. I will find them. I need to make sure that this really is where they are buried. I'll decide about the flowers later.

 

I told Beth, Jay's sister-in law, married to Lee, Jay's brother, that I now know where Rea and Max are most likely buried. She said, "Oh, that would make a nice trip. We should go visit."

xoxoxo,

Bob's Daughter

 

knock

(enter mid conversation)

 What?

The email I sent to her bounced back.

You email mom?

Sometimes, but this time it came back.

How often do you do this??

Only a few times, but it’s never come back before.

What do you say?

You know, “Hi Mom, I miss you. love, Pete”

Only a few times? You’re not doing this all the time are you?

No!  (he laughs) Just sometimes. 

There should be a heaven.com where people can email their dead relatives.

Do you read Bob’s Daughter?

Sometimes, I read the most recent one. You wrote about me.

Is it ok that I write about you?

Yeah, it’s cool.

-----------------------------------------

Bob’s Son would like Heaven.com and Bob’s Daughter wants Intelius to burn in hell, not the people, just the company, which according to US Law has the same rights as a living person. What rights does a dead person have? Not the right to be left in peace. It’s a sick form of Avatar that companies can prop up my dead father and ask me to email him.

I suspect that Peter sleeps better than I do and right now I miss the little boy who would knock on the wall between our childhood bedrooms to see if I was awake. Of course once he knocked, I woke up. 

Until next time,

Bob's Daughter

Julia

Uncle Herbie's partner, Dan, to whom he is married, was diagnosed with throat cancer. Uncle Herbie is very calm and emailed his family and friends to tell us that Danny will need surgery and chemo, but that his prognosis is good. When I spoke with Uncle Herbie he did not want to discuss it, instead he said, "I've thought of another name for a child, if I had one." I must not have responded quickly enough while I was processing this statement. "I do that", he added. "Now I think the best name is Julia." I jumped in, "Didn't you have an aunt Julia?" "Yes! I loved her, oh everyone loved her. That's one of the reasons I like the name Julia." Again, I must not have spoken quickly enough because he changed the topic. I don't remember what the next part of the conversation entailed. I'm still thinking about a woman named Julia.

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter

Again

I meet other parents with young children and they often talk about their own parents, "taking care" of their kids. I have no social experience with what they are describing. It is a design for living that is purely conceptual for me. I have a brother who is a wonderful, "Uncle Pete" and a sister-in-law who is kind with our girls and plays with them when we all get together. I listen when women talk about, "dropping the kids of with their grand-parents". I imagine the scenario and then there is the scratched record sound, the repeat vibration, the body memory for having to walk over to the record player and gently lift the needle and place it down in a groove slightly ahead of the spot where it scratched, watching the turntable spin, catching the rhythm, like skipping in on a moving jump rope, sometimes not catching it and having to try a second and third time. By this point, I am no longer upset about the momentary feeling of loss of a  projected, and impossible present.

And if that doesn't work. Well, Bob's still alive on My Life. I just checked.



Forever,
Bob's Daughter

Social Security

There is finally a full listing of Bob's death record on-line.
Social Security Death Record for Robert Caigan (click here).

Social Security is an interesting phrase. It means an organization/ a government program, but the words themselves mean much more. What does it mean to be socially secure?
This is worth thinking about. Can a government promise this to its citizens?

The news consistently reports the demise of the Social Security Program.
I am tired of hearing about the "end" of "social security".
I am tired by the constant noise of a fear driven media.
Social security... the concept and practice is important.
According to Intelius, Robert Caigan is 79 years old. I just saw it on Intelius.com.

Try again Intelius.

With regards,
Bob's Daughter

Bob collected art.

Recently we had a birthday party for our friend Carolee Schneemann.
We invited her friends, may of whom we did not know well. It was a "lovely evening", as Linda would call such an affair. After dinner, while guests were relaxing in the living room I hear, "Why do you have a Will Barnet??" Susan Quasha, an artist and writer pulled my attention away from the kitchen. She really wanted to know the answer. I must have looked puzzled because she added, "I was just at a party in his honor at the Art Students League!" The room turned towards me, "I don't don't know why. It was my father's and my mother gave it to me." "Ohhh, how interesting. Who was your father?" Silence...I had no idea how to answer that question. Finally I said, "He was an architect and interior designer." This did not answer the question in terms of the lithograph on my wall - Dawn, a unique piece by Barnet. I proceeded to say, "My father died when I was 11 years old and I am learning about him through his art collection. I'm writing about it on a blog called Bob's Daughter". People were interested to find out more and internally I thought, "I haven't answered this question."

Was Bob at the Art Students League? I know that in 1957 Linda took a painting class there with her friend Judy Lowry. A fact I learned from Judy after Linda's death. She also told me that Linda was dating a divorced man at the time and that it was a secret because it was shameful to be divorced in those days. I did not remark that Linda married a divorced man, my father, Bob.

I do not know how Bob came to purchase this artwork. It is much darker than most of Barnet's other work. It is beautiful and quiet. I love it and look at it everyday.

Maybe I could email Barnet at the League and ask if he remembers a man named Robert Caigan?

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter

Over the mountains and through the woods...

Loudenville, must visit Loudenville...

I made another phone call in my search for dead relatives. This time to my mother's best friend form early childhood. Ann knows many things about Linda, including where Linda's grandparents (on the Mandelbaum side) are buried. "They are with my grandparents and your Aunt Joan." That means that my great- grandfather, Meyer Mandelbaum set aside these graves. I don't quite understand how the burial system works because Ann said that the cemetery is owned by "the temple". How many plots can a person set aside? Meyer must have purchased plots a very long time ago. What was going through his mind? How many generations into the future was he imagining? Did he lay awake at night thinking about this? Did he simply purchase as many as was allowed and if that is the case, who decides such numbers?

Khem asked if I want to be buried in Loudenville. I told him that I will think about it.

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter

Important information

This is an idiom that I have been pondering:

The person who"knows where all the bodies are buried".

This is the definition from McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, 

"Fig. to know all the secrets and intrigue from the past; to know all the relevant and perhaps hidden details."

© 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

I am becoming the person in my family who knows where the bodies are buried.
My mom's cousin and I frequently talk and I decided to ask her an important question. She is 82 years old and I don't call unless I have read the NY Times - or at least the Sunday edition.

Do you know where my Grandparents and Aunt Joan are buried?

They're across from my parents.

Where is that?

Loudenville, the Jewish cemetery in Loudenville.

(Fortunately, I know where Loudenville is located.)

Thank you Cousin Susan.

A little more chit chat and we hang up.
I think I am going to Loudenville.
I am guessing we own at least one more plot.
Joe, Linda's father, would have bought enough for everyone.

This may sound truly bizarre, but I wonder how many unclaimed cemetery plots exist in this country?
I wonder if there is a national register for burial plots? 
Where is everyone buried?? Maybe, I will find more relatives buried in Loudenville?
Twisted, I know...but I am on a hunt to find the past.

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter

A stitch in time saves nine. I love this phrase.
It took me a long while to realize that it is literal and metaphoric.
I have always loved to stitch by hand.
Bob designed and stitched bargello patterns into seat tapestries and pillows.
I remember this very distinctly. He was calm when he stitched.
Today I googled the word "bargello" and learned more about Bob.
It is architectural stitching. Here is the Wiki/ click here for bargello embroidery.
I will photograph some of his work. I'm sure I am biased, by I like his designs better than the patterns that I have found online.

I think that this blog is similar to stitching. It is a piecing together of life and online information.

I continue to examine these issues while I wait for MyLife.com to DO something, change its policies or for internet customs or laws to come into existence that affect the listing.

With regards,
Bob's Daughter

Harvard Club and Pop Culture

Well, now lots of folks will know where the Harvard Club is located. The Wall Street Journal reports that the party for David Fincher's new film, "The Social Network," was held at the Harvard Club. This is not a typical location for movie parties and I wonder how many of the guests needed to find out the address from someone else? No way everyone under 50 is as skilled as Jeff.
Party Details/ Click here for article
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter