christmas in prison

I was thinking of prison, John Prine and Fyodor Dostoevsky today, and Martha Stewart. I also was thinking of Christmas, figuring since it is New Year’s Eve and New Year’s sort of unofficially marks the end to the Christmas holidays; it was my last chance to blog about Christmas for the next eleven months.

You may recall that John Prine made a famous quote about prison and Dostoevsky picked up his six-string and wrote a song called Christmas in Prison. Oh, wait a minute. I have that ass-backwards. It was John Prine that wrote the song. Two lines of the song stick in my mind.

The searchlight in the big yard swings ‘round with the gun,
And spotlights the snowflakes like dust in the sun.

Dostoevsky said “We can measure the degree of civilization in a society by entering its prisons.”

I’ve never done time in the big house, but I’m sure if President Bush starts reading my weblog on a regular basis, he’ll try to find a way to put me there, if he isn’t trying to send me up river already. The reason I am thinking of prison this fine New Year’s Eve is that I read a story this morning about Martha Stewart’s doings in the pen. You’re probably wondering what kind of shenanigans Ms. Stewart has been up to this time. You’re probably asking yourself when that lady will ever straighten up and fly right. “What sort of havoc is she causing this time?” you are undoubtedly asking yourself right now.

No, no. It is nothing like that. It seems, according to the story, Martha was a contestant in a decorating contest in the slam and her team lost. Martha’s team made paper birds that hung from the ceiling and were beaten by a team that made a nativity scene. I understand that both teams were to make decorations based on the theme “Peace on Earth.”

Perhaps you recall that the week before Christmas I discussed religious dogma and said that I preferred the scripture of Luke, chapter 2, verse 14, “…on earth peace, good will toward men.” I’m sure the nativity scene made symbolic reference to the heavenly host and angel appearing to the shepherds that was the subject of this verse. It appears Ms. Stewart’s team went more for the scripture of Luke, chapter 2, verse 24, which concerns sacrificing two turtledoves or young pigeons. To be honest, however, there was no reference in the story I read that would indicate any violence, symbolic or otherwise, imparted on the birds Ms. Stewart’s team constructed. I would venture to say that if the contest had been judged by some of our more famous art and style critics, the result of the contest might have been different. I am wondering whether the aesthetics of the rendering of Ms. Stewart’s team may have may have been too sophisticated for the tastes of the judges. I am wondering, however, if Martha Stewart will come out of prison a changed woman and the tastes she picks up in the slam will become the mainstream tastes of our society. Will Martha popularize, and therefore all fashionable society begin wearing, prison blue and prison gray, or, God forbid, that ugly jailhouse orange?

One of the criticisms of our penal system is that many minor offenders go behind bars only to learn the tricks of the trade from more serious offenders and come out of prison more dangerous than they went in. I’m not implying that Martha Stewart is going to be a danger to society when she comes out of prison, but I understand she will become a talk show host after her release and she will be able to impart upon an unsuspecting public the ways of a hardened insider. However, we will all have a few months of innocent bliss before we are exposed to the ways of the incarcerated.

Until then, I will continue to read Dostoevsky, listen to John Prine and wish you all a Happy New Year.