Son of the Morning Star (Custer)

This book by Even S. Connell came out in 1984. It concerns General Custer and the events at Little Bighorn. I have read it numerous times. Periodically, I pick it up and read it again.

Why I’ve repeatedly read it owes not so much to scholarly study. The book and the story it tells simply catches my interest and reverberates within it. Perhaps in the book resides the reason why I like history and narrative.

The first time I read it, the detail that Connell dug up astonished me. Tho written little more than a century after the events, the story itself seems more like ancient history. The Wild West, to use that phrase, has become so iconic as to seem back in the mists of time.

Furthermore, one realizes that the Indians were more connected to and even integrated with the settling wave from Europe than you might have expected. They were not off by themselves. Despite the antagonisms and cultural differences, considerable exchange went on. A common human denominator appears, even as people try to eradicate it.

Trying to recall my earliest inkling of these events, I guess they were presented as Forlorn Hope. There was a battle and the outnumbered side didn’t fare so well. Contemporary representations of the events at Little Bighorn portray brave men fighting for some glory to the very end. As portrayed here with cool precision, that picture holds little water.

Columbus discovering America bears a similar if more potent motive in history as taught. Presented as a benign example of human enterprise, we see a hero animated by the urge of discovery. We know how it turns out. Samuel Eliot Morison wrote a pretty good biography of Columbus. He doesn’t hide Columbus’ effort at annihilating the native population, but he balances it against Columbus’ abilities as a seaman. That sounds ridiculous now.

Custer was brave in a headlong way; he proved that in the Civil War. And he was a charismatic leader. But this last action displayed disobedience, malfeasance, and, frankly, hubris out the wazoo. When you realize that some 200 soldiers attacked a village of thousands, you start to see a different picture from the Errol Flynn sort that followed the man. Something was way wrong in the planning,

Connell has managed to deliver biographical sketches of an astonishing number of people involved in the fight including most of the troops and many of the Indians. Custer gets the hubris award for making sure that shit hit the fan. Dynamic loose cannon par excellence, he charged.

And the 7^th cavalry’s intention smacks not a little of something similar to what happened at My Lai. There was a crazy hope for a deadly end all. Ending the Indian problem, to put it in delicate terms, was the Army’s goal. Two hundred troopers gaining a Final Solution in a single action was not. Not reasonably, at least.

That’s the historical terms of the story, currently at least. We also see implacable Greek theatre forces at work. So many had onlys steered events, leading Major Reno into Shit Creek, in the form of an entire village of hostiles fired up to defend themselves.

Reading the various accounts of soldiers up that creek with no paddle is a keen and terrifying thought experiment. Here’s death, just or not, waiting with clamour. It’s no use anymore to put demons and heroes to work here. Horrors happen because we make them.

Eleven years ago, the World Trade Centre was destroyed. Without defending the act, one must at least understand that it answered iniquities. We live small in our world, aghast at the forces that propel events. Some mule driver suddenly represents hundreds of years of mishandled human endeavour, and so suffers mutilation and death. And so on, and on, every person on that field. Some fought bravely, if that means anything, and some saved the last bullet for themselves.

And Wounded Knee answers Little Bighorn, but not really. The times change, pushing people along. Death, says Reverend Gary, don’t have no mercy. We keep getting stuck on that one.

The Avengers

Erin and I have now become au courant with The Avengers, having partaken yesterday afternoon. We arrived a trifle late, which makes me anxious. I want to see the previews. The room was full, which hasn’t been the case the last few times I’ve gone to the movies.

As to the up and coming, it is the sort of stuff I want to see, large-scale cheesy summer flicks, but I am beginning to think technology has run away with the genre. I shall expatiate.

The new Batman looks almost wonderful, full of wonder. I hedge because it seems way too grim and serious for something that is basically ridiculous. And disaster and horror are just not that prettily designed. I know from nothing regarding the plot, but the central villain appears to be particularly sadistic, I mean enough to make me consider giving the movie a miss. And the sense of angst amidst all the pyrotechnic gewgaws gets sillier and sillier. One shouldn’t be taken seriously while wearing prosthetics pecs: that’s one of my main rules.

Spiderman looks like redux. Am I right? Is Sam Raimi still involved? It looked like more of the same, with a new everybody. Now that Spidey has hit Broadway—and I think the verb most apt—it looks like it is time to walk away. Anyway, franchise movies work against themselves. Superhero movie plots tend toward apocalyptic, so the films require ever-increasing literal bang for buck. The franchise wears out fast. Back in the day, Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes would chug along for years, more and more, but these dazzlers flash and flare out. By the second Spiderman, I’d seen all the sweeping web swinging that I needed. Why are we starting over?

There’s an animated feature coming about a headstrong princess, probably from Disney, that seems to be zesty. I bet it would be better as live action, with good actors working the comedy, rather than broad cartoon strokes. Tim Burton has an unpleasant looking animation about a boy who reanimates his dog. I imagine he took the plot from Re-animator, a movie by Wes Craven, I think. Burton might want to stop channeling the awkward boy in grade school or whatever explains his self-pitying sense of the outsider.

Finally, there’s the Alien prequel. Mon Dieu! it looks lavish. Truth to say, I’ve never watched any of the Alien movies, not counting about 2 millions clips. This one seems over-invested in visual splash. And it is not in a position to surprise us much at this point.

So I did, in fact, see The Avengers. With reviews and the Joss Whedon mystique, I expected more. It moved along well enough but I can’t even remember how it started. Erin said the plot was like Where’s Waldo. Hard to believe screenwriting is a profession when you can get away with such muddle.

Like with every new franchise, the first half of the movie has to introduce characters, suggest back-story and otherwise dither about until the narratives can be twined into a big explosion. The Avengers has a lot of important characters needing face time so the introductory process drags out, even with the head start of the Ironman, Captain America, The Hulk, and Thor movies.

We start off with Nick Fury, some super military commando or whatever. It’s just Samuel Jackson doggedly brusque and serious. The character doesn’t seem worth placing in a central role. Jackson chews on it but he’s effectively MC Fury shouting orders to the heroes.

Loki is the main evil, and a bit tiresome. Both he and Thor are stuck with dialogue that sounds like Elizabethan drama. I don’t recall that in Thor’s flick, but at any rate, the screenwriters seem to labour with it.

I expected more wit in the proceedings, but it didn’t really show up until Black Widow did. I hadn’t seen Scarlett Johansson before. There was a dry humour to her lines. She often looks pouty, more of a tic than anything sexy, but doesn’t get stuck in that sort of act. We meet her when she is bound and being interrogated. It looks grim for her but then a phone call comes thru to the bad guys. It is for Black Widow. Given the phone, she replies exasperatedly that she’s right in the middle of an interrogation, but learning the nature of the emergency, sighs, and proceeds to clean up the bad guys. What ho!

The Ironman superhero is more of the same but Robert Downey is just so strong with his lines, tossing them off carelessly, that he gives the movie a great deal of energy. The whole cast in fact is quite strong but no one can top Downey in a scene.

Hawkeye was given short shrift. Early on, Loki makes him a minion, a rather simple trick and why didn’t Loki just use that wand thing to command more heroes, thence the world? Hawkeye gets few lines but comes across as weirdly obsessed with archery when everyone else has nice explody things. Well, his arrows explode and do all sorts of unlikely hi-tech stuff but, you know, arrows versus airplanes seems a bit naff.

I should mention the aircraft carrier/flying fortress. It seemed large by aircraft standards. Then, in a strong vote for unlikelihood—thank god gravity doesn’t exist—it rises in the air and flies. I think it also trims weeds. By the way, nobody in the movie suffers acrophobia, just me in the audience.

Against expectation, I liked Captain America. His action sequences are less covered by technological dazzle, and the old-fashioned soldier in him gives him a touch of humanity that the others lack. Wasn’t he Johnny Storm as well?

In the comics, Hulk could talk, albeit simple sentences. In this movie he just bellows and roars. Computer generated graphics can work as a character—witness Gollum—but often look out of place with the live characters. Mr Hulk was a bit blobby in the green side of things, but could be antic when he got momentum. At least there are a couple of funny moments with the Hulk. He and Thor have just finished defeating some bad guys and for no reason Hulk slugs Thor, exit stage right. And when Loki starts to speechify his superiourity, Hulk grabs him and slaps him against the floor repeatedly like a dish towel. Bruce Banner comes across okay but the Hulk is highly limited.

Comics movies, and comics themselves, lose scale because they allow characters to shake off anything. I mean, characters get mashed but get up and go full tilt again. Takes away the possibility of anyone losing.

The alien attack allowed a lot more crashing and exploding. We saw this in Independence Day, etc. I really don’t know why the movie is a big hit. A smattering of applause greeted the ending, which is unusual. A lot of youngsters in the crowd but I didn’t hear much reaction from them. The little scene in the après credits with the heroes sitting in a diner eating is priceless.

I feel a bit grim about the movies, with noise replacing action. A strong cast and characters puts The Avengers over, say, that X-Men movie of last year, but otherwise it offers little to distinguish it from a raft of other superhero flicks. Popcorn was about average.

The Tangled Web

Clever Shakespeare reference, yes? Well I just presume to scribble about the Internet, and specifically Facebook. Facebook’s initial public offering—the drama!—brought on this urge to opine.

The build up to that IPO caught me. I don’t like Facebook, which made any misstep by the company, and with luck any train wreck, entertaining. When Ford cancelled advertising on Facebook, my wish was fulfilled. Not that Facebook could not weather the blow, just that something had occurred to diminish the surge of excitement for the stock.

The small family of Internet bullies—Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple—leaves us all weary, I’m sure. We want their services, but their intent directive to extract from us becomes more burdensome as times goes by. We have to put up with some of this crap, but everyone, and every thing, are within limits, as Charles Olson noted.

I used to think of Microsoft as a sort of evil. I do not want to overextend the idea, but its presence has been heavy. I have a more relaxed view now, because of the company’s ability to stumble and barely get out of its own way. Amazon smells like Walmart, something I would like to avoid. Google seems earnest but somehow autistic. I mean, Google has grand ideas and the ability to innovate but comes across like a guy in a zoot suit wondering why people don’t think he’s cool. Apple, its dappled face oif his innovation, combines cheap labour with gadgety foofaraw to extricate oodles of cash from consumerism. Facebook just never feels good; all sneaky and peremptory.

Design-wise, Facebook is surprisingly messy. It’s clearer than Myspace, but so’s my closet. I have to hunt the page if I want to do anything beyond posting. I am amazed that Facebook  makes billions with their advertising. Ads on it seem like those tv commercials that, when over, leave you wondering what kind of tree that was in the background. I almost never notice Facebook’s ads, let alone interact with them in some critically prosperous way. Somebody is, apparently, but  I do not know why.

I make it hard, perhaps, for Facebook to bleed me, because I don’t use the Like button much. When I do, it is for something someone wrote or uploaded. Leaves Facebook to make broad guesses about what sort of commodity exerts my eagerness. The button should be called Monetize This. The thing is, Facebook’s advertising model seems pretty old skool, or, more formally, the See If Anyone Salutes School of Advertising. Who am I to say, tho: they seem to be making a buck.

The IPO did not seem to have a point beyond making a handful of people rich. We keep hearing that Facebook has all this raw data, but until Facebook finds a way to cook it, the data collection just becomes an obsession. And for Facebook to succeed, that obsession can’t be irritating users. Facebook and all the other extremities of the social combine must balance that obsession with the necessity to remain within bounds. There are legal lines, however vague, that the company should not exceed. They must also respect—that’s an entirely wrong term to use in these circs, considering the disrespectful land grab these companies participate in—what their users think is too much. Users will push back when things get uncomfortable. That’s their job.

If I’m right that Facebook earned a billion dollars in advertising last quarter, and if I’m to believe that it has close to a billion active users, then the company earns about a buck per user per quarter. You can jiggle the numbers, everybody else does, but that billion sounds less lucrative. Still, a billion is a billion.

No use pretending that I can see the future. The mechanization of the social graph has its limits, which is to say, the social network seems less social. Facebook is trying to read a whole lot more into its Like button, for instance, than seems reasonable. Facebook seems to believe that people log in to get themselves some advertising. Of course we just put up with that. Even if we are interested in what ads offer, we invest our time in Facebook for the service, the chit chat, the pictures, the games, the excitement. And I was thinking about photos, which I admit I occasionally upload. Will I be uploading photos to Facebook the rest of my life? Facebook, Youtube, and so on, picture a future of that sort of desperation. Oh yes, things change.

Dear Friends,

I have a project on Kickstarter that I hope you will help with. It is a book about family, love and loss. It deals with Alzheimer's, Asperger's, and inherent confusion. It's also funny. Details are at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theforgetting/the-stories-we-tell-documented-in-time?ref=home_location

Kickstarter projects are supported by PEOPLE LIKE YOU. People donate to the project, in exchange for gifts and the experience of crowd-sourcing. If funding reaches my goal within the set time, the project is a success and I get the funds (less Amazon's fee), and the book gets published. If not, then no money is taken. It's a nifty, supportive, collaborative concept. Please consider contributing, and please tell people about my project and share the url.

yours,

Allen

Mother’s Day Roundabout

Sunday Beth and I did a number of things, nothing large but all satisfying. It was a beautiful spring day.

First, we did our volunteer work for OARS. I think that stands for Organization for the Assabet River System. The organization works towards improving the Assabet, Sudbury and Concord Rivers. The sources of the Assabet and the Sudbury are about a mile apart, 20 some miles away. They hook away from each other but end up in the Concord, which then ends up in the Merrimac, which is tributary to the Atlantic. Got the picture?

I was surprised by the industrial usage of the rivers, from earliest colonial times. Mills and tanneries, but even iron foundries, sat by the banks of these rivers. All of which, as you might imagine, had deleterious effect.

We met our squire at the Concord boathouse at 6am. He’s been doing this monitoring for several years. Our job was to take water samples and other data. We scooped water from the river, dunked a meter in the water, stuff like that. It was cool and quiet. Beth and I found that the water seemed to make our skin tingle, from that one dunking (the other two sites we visited, we used an extender to reach into the water from the precarious banks).

For some reason, we only had three spots to take readings from. Usually it’s more like six. Our next stop was Lowell, ignoring publicly accessible points in Bedford and Billerica. The first spot we hit was in this nook in the city. It was a cramped little village of houses. Provincetown offers a similar quality of houses close together in quaint congestion. Lowell alas is dumpish in nature. Still, the beauty of the land survives.

The site was a small park next to a bridge over the river. The Concord’s a pretty mopey river, especially in the area of Concord, but at this spot, it had some momentum. It looks sylvan but to the left is the bridge, well covered with graffiti, and let’s don’t forget to leave trash around.

Sadly my camera’s battery died so no more pictures. A little park above the river had a large arbour covered with wisteria, with species roses around it. Wowzer! Our guide warned us about poison ivy so Beth kept me back to just write down the data. Years ago, I had a bad reaction to poison ivy, which inspired a memorable response from Beth. One night in bed I was unconsciously scratching my affected arm and Beth in her sleep said, in succession, Don’t Scratch. I love you. What’s for dinner?

The next site was even more poison ivyish, down an embankment next to a building and near another bridge.  There was a dam upstream, and the water was suspiciously foamy. Readings there showed greater conductivity, which, I believe, means the presence of metals. Grape vines growing into the trees had bunches the size of my thumbnail. Here we bid adieu to our guide and headed home. We got coffee at Starbuck’s then went to the Concord Bridge. It is actually called North Bridge, tho Emerson called it rude. I don’t think Emerson ever saw a bridge at that location, in sooth. Several bridges there have been destroyed by flood, and I think in his lifetime folks settled for the bridge down the road.

The area around the bridge looked spectacular. Trees leafed out last week, and the sun shone. The National Parks Service in their wisdom have attempted to make the area look at it did during the Revolution, which is to say, divested of trees. A lot of trees were removed a few years ago, which I find disturbing.

An earlier visit to the visitor’s centre was equally dispiriting. It’s a former mansion sitting on a hill. Brick patios, if that’s what you want to call them, and walkways, go down the embankment. Vines and bushes made these walkways mysterious and wonderful, but they’ve been removed. The formal garden looks like it is cared for by the DPW. Sigh.

Anyway, it was lovely by the bridge.  A Canada goose barked and barked. I watched it drift across the river, barking rhythmically. Another goose, probably his mate, hung back. Sounded like he was taking command of the whole river area.

We had pancakes that Erin prepared then Beth and I went out again. Beth wanted pictures of the Bridge. We then headed to Lowes in Lowell, again, and got a couple of ferns and a bird feeder for our porch. Oh, I guess I should mench that we stopped at a car wash, and cleaned the car thoroughly inside and out. That’s a gift and a thrill for Beth.

Not quite satisfied, plantwise, we stopped at a nursery. We got a basket of impatiens and some other plants. One was a green and yellow variegated planted with leaves that resemble a maple in shape. The flower is a round sort of tulip shape (abutilon: new to me)     bbbb. Unusual. Beth hung the feeder and basket, and arranged the other plants. ten hours later, a redpoll sat on the feeder bracket and announced his territory. A little later a female nestled into the pothos. That afternoon, a hummingbird partook of the impatiens.

New Book by Eileen Tabios and j/j hastain

I received The Relational Elations of Orphaned Algebra (Marsh Hawk 2012) by the two mentioned in the post title. Every new book incites the excitement of exploration. I mean even the most clunkaroony book invites investigation, even if it only results in the comment clunkaroony. Eileen is safe from that term, I know. j/j hastain I do not know (prior this, I mean), but as I scanned merely scanned their collaboration, I got involved. That's a good thing.

I will formally review this book for Galatea Resurrects but I post here now because of the very real excitement I felt when I began to "take in" the book. That started when I pulled it from the envelope it was mailed in.

The cover photo, a photo collage, had the right kind of here it is, even tho I didn't/don't know where here is. Visceral reaction.

To boil it down ruthlessly, Eileen brings an interest in orphans and adoption, and j/j an interest in transgender issues. When I say interest, I mean a compelling force. Between them, they create an algebraic equation that embraces human inconsistency. I detect in my scan neither screed nor mere chiding, which maybe you were fearing as was I, given such topics.

My conviction stands that poetry doesn't last long in the frame of About. So those issues of orphans and transgender, serious and compelling, are only places where the poetry can happen. Poetry is the exertion of possible words within the magnitude of our confusion. In the rational world, neither orphans or transgender makes sense, but where is this rational world anyway? We're a confused animal.

So I write here to say that this looks like something interesting.

Artist Open House, Concord, MA

I should read Tristram Shandy again, or A Sentimental Journey, because Laurence Sterne’s ability to ramble seems noteworthy and praiseworthy. With poems, movies, and novels, the more easily that you can say what the work is about, the less interesting. I like when trails are broken, rambling on. So this peregrination…

Two weeks ago, then, Beth and I went to an open house at The Emerson Umbrella. The Emerson Umbrella is an art organization in Concord, and it offers studio space. The building is a former school, a three story brick edifice, suitably drear for a school but completely inviting as an artist hive.

One notices quickly that the artists are older. It makes sense, since Concord is a swish town with a paucity of starving young artists in its population. Or starving young anything, even the dogs are fat (fat labradors should be oxymoronic). Whatever studio space costs, it is probably more than most of the artists make in their art; they are well-heeled by other means. That’s my guess.

The quality was pretty good. I stiffened a couple of times at rank amateur work, I mean work that didn’t seem at the level to be shown to anyone outside of family and close friends. but largely I saw work that one could look at with pleasure.

Some of the studios did not look like work areas. Sure, cleaned up, but no materials around. Maybe they hauled that stuff out for the open house, but that seems against the whole concept. I dunno. The studios lack the convenience of sinks, so you would have to head down the hall  for water.

A man had a real workshop set up, for making model boats. Historically accurate ones. He was engaging until his wife and daughter showed up, then he ignored us. Some of the artists were weird that way. One woman was talking with her friends and didn’t even acknowledge us. There’s an ostensible sales opportunity, hello? Not that we were there to buy, and not that I wore my Rolex pants to alert artists that I might be looking for something to hang above my Dior toilet. But you never can tell. We left that woman’s little world pronto.

Most of the artists offered nibbles, which was the first thing I looked for as I entered. Crackers and cheese, cookies, jelly beans, chocolates. Some of those jelly beans were the gourmet kind, mango and espresso flavoured. I found myself putting the pieces together. I mean, one served hummus and blue corn chips, what does that say? Or how about standard quality jelly beans, flavoured red, green, whitish and black? Obviously there’s a different mindset there compared to the mango/Alka Seltzer flavoured treats.

And the music. Mushy soft jazz stylings a la Starbucks, or Indian music, or Baroque, or hyper Dixieland. Enter my little world.

One artist used Tyvek, which proved an interesting material to work with. She cut out bird shapes, painted them, and hung them on a branch for a lovely mobile. She painted a large sheet they she said she displayed outside, and it survived a torrential downpour during which it got blown down and sat in a puddle all night. Cool.

A potter made mostly uninteresting things, tho a couple of oddly skewed house shapes were very interesting. She was remarkably concerned about not losing anything, and took pictures of all her work. One needn’t go all self-ultimate about one’s work, but one can let some of it go. You’re learning as you go. She had, by the way, the best light of any of the studios.

One dullard actually seemed to be making a financial go of it. I rather liked his work, which tended toward houses and street scenes in Provence, with some influence of a guy named Cezanne. He was an Artist Type with the given spark of having been a lawyer. He did talk. Not to us, but a woman who seemed like someone who would buy had his attention. I mean, her interest seemed to have a possibility of acquisition. The studio was more like an office, with muted lighting. His walls were completely covered with his work.

A couple of artists ignored us out of shyness. Might as well not bother with the open house. In fact, one studio had a Poet. I did not want to enter, because a mousy woman just sat there with no sense of invitation. Turns out she was just sitting in for her friend. I suppose it would be interesting to have an office like this, especially amongst all these artists, but it’s a pure luxury. Seemed like a setting, with her standard issue poetry books (some guy named Frost), and her typewriter.

One studio held an older woman and her friend. They were friendly. The artist’s paintings were mostly copies of pictures of galaxies, say 5’x7’. The conversation quickly directed itself to the political rocks towards which our ship sails. Beth has a way of finding the firebrands, being one herself. The general political sway amongst the artists was presumably liberal in a conservative way, so it was nice to see some elevated feistiness.

I enjoyed the studio of an illustrator. He does art for children’s books. He did several Math is Fun books for a Korean publisher. He said that he mostly made up the illustrations that he did. That is, the scenes he depicts barely conform with anything in the book. Which is what I have suspected. He had several large originals displayed. All of them were on spec. There were no stories behind them, he just made these tableaux as samples. That struck me because they were loaded with adventure. One showed a ghostly figure in a cavern looking down at a pirate looking bunch, The Goonies plus ghosts. Zowie!

I noted that artist work could be expensive. You got your computer and Photoshop and the deluxe scanner, as well as the old-fashioned material, and you got serious commitment. I also note once again that there’s a shitload of art out there. What will be do with it all???

Pygmy (Chuck Palahniuk Redux)

There is something to be said about reading thru a chunk of an author’s works. I engaged a second Palahniuk novel, Pygmy. I also got three novels by Mary Renault at the library, but have only read one so far. CP’s Damned interested me even as it disappointed or irritated me. Pygmy satisfies me more. Maybe I will continue with this author.

I guess what I like about CP is his tendency towards tour de force. He sets up somewhat impossible situations—somewhat because this is, after all, fiction—then tries to hang on. This is an especially definitive plus in Woolf, whose experiments seem part of her lifeforce. Okay, CP does hang on. Damned featured a cheerfully detestable Hell, as seen thru the eyes of a sassy 13 year old. Pygmy posits terrorists from an unnamed totalitarian state infiltrating high school, as part of a scheme to overthrow the country.

It is written as a report from one operative, who is inexplicably named Pygmy. He is brought to this country as a foreign exchange student, along with a number of other operatives. The parents are fundamentalists—they give him a PROPERTY OF JESUS t-shirt—the children denatured teen revolt.

Pygmy writes in a broken English that cannot be explained. Full of literalisms and semantic confusions, it doesn’t add up. If he’s writing to his own people, he would use his own language (helpfully translated by CP into English). This manner of expression is the book’s style, and one of its pluses, but its use makes no sense.

But so it goes.

Choice state bromides course thru Pygmy’s mind, as well as ruminations on how it would be to perform various martial arts moves—Lashing Lynx, Barracuda Deadly Eye Gouge—in situations he is in. The cover consists of some figures illustrating the moves that Pygmy thinks about and uses. He’s supposed to be 13, but he and his host siblings don’t add up agewise. We assume that he’s just daydreaming. but after his pigdog brother gets bullied, Pygmy doesn’t just efficiently beat up the bully, Pygmy anally rapes him. And it would have been graphically described had Pygmy not described it in his screwy patois.

Such a scene seems in accord with a certain style of outrageousness. It is almost lurid, but resists, finally. Outrageousness is a pale form of currency, after all.

Pygmy fears retaliation by the bully, but in fact the bully becomes infatuated in Pygmy. Unrequited, he sets off murderous events at an Academic United Nations, so that Pygmy will kill him. Ugh, I’m getting lost in the plot. There’s some satire in there, under heavy hand.

You can relax. It all comes to an orderly climax in which Pygmy thwarts Operation Havoc, his host family survives, and he removes the hollow molar containing cyanide from his mouth. Boo hoo, no spoiler alert. Thru out the book, he develops feelings for his host sister. I guess we’re supposed to think his humanity causes him to turn from the robotic state.

Like with Damned, we have pat resolution. The hyped outrageousness of both books receives a shock tempering in the final chapter. Palahniuk does not know how to keep his hands off the product of his imagination at the crucial point. Neither book offers a clear way to end, so CP opts for platitudinous relief. I wonder if he ever solves this problem.

Thru out, quotes from heroes such as Hitler, Mao, Idi Amin, part of Pygmy’s inculcation, celebrate the mad social effort to keep in line, as lived by Pygmy. These revolutionary statements sound good. I mean, you could sweep them together with Jefferson, Rousseau, or whoever. They represent the cannier side of CP. His writing sets framed in the social context, which is quite compelling. I wish he wasn’t so convinced by a satisfying ending, however.

Damned by Chuck Palahniuk

I picked up Damned at the library simply because I saw a review in the Times recently. I only glanced at the review. The author’s name rang no bell, but I see that he wrote Fight Club, which I have heard of, even if I haven’t read it or seen the movie. I think I have clearly demonstrated that I had no particular reason to read this book. And yet I did.

It’s not a bad book, which is to say, I’m equivocal. It’s fast-paced and somewhat funny, but over extends itself. Or do I mean under extends?

It concerns a 13 year old girl, Madison, who dies, as she says, of a marijuana overdose. Well, it later turns out, and she learns, that it was something else that killed her. Okay, her adopted brother killed her accidentally, and forget you, spoiler alert. Which puts her in Hell, verily a place wrought of Dante’s imagination. Now, I’m not much for dead narrators. Sunset Boulevard sticks in my craw because a guy lying face down in a pool narrates. But here, the setting is antic enough, and Hell seems less hellish for Madison than life did.

Her parents are super rich, and her mother’s an actress, all of which victimizes the girl. Madison is, as she tells us, fat with bad complexion. Palahniuk makes no attempt to portray her as a 13 year old, except for a certain sass. She’s way world weary and sardonic, despite being a virgin and largely friendless.

Palahniuk portrays Hell as an antic place for sure, gross but not terrifying. He takes an Over the Top license to flesh out Hell with yucky details. I find this sort of satire tiresome and unsustainable. After citing The Breakfast Club as the greatest movie ever, Madison meets up with kids who replicate the cast, with Madison in the Ally Sheedy role.Their hijinks are just testy set pieces between Madison’s many chatty soliloquy’s. Eventually, those characters peter out. The soliloquies, tho, allow Palahniuk to rap forth, and they show the warm blood in Madison’s veins. Madison evolves most warmly when speaking such lines as: “Yes I do want to go to Heaven—who doesn’t?—but not if I have to be a total asshole.” In the best sense, she reminds me of Huckleberry Finn, astute yet innocent, with a large moral geist.

Palahniuk must’ve given Wikipedia a thorough work out looking up ancient gods and devils and such. It just seems like an exercise. And he places all this smart stuff into the mouth of The Breakfast Club nerd, the Expositionator.

Thru out the book, we’re whipped back to events in Madison’s life. Flashbacks should be used roughly once a century, if you ask me, and if you’re reading this, you did. The Hell stuff makes the book exotic, but it’s basically Catcher in the Rye with a girl in the lead. Every chapter begins with a harangue by Madison, aimed at Satan, each beginning “Are you there, Satan?” It works as structure, except that it wears on me.

Near the end she beats up Hitler and steals his mustache. This gives her power, or perhaps I should use the verb empower  (everyone else does). She gains an army of  followers. From there she proceeds to do likewise to other likely Hell denizens, and she even sort of faces down Satan. This sort of approach to fiction seems to be aimed at 10 year olds, the flush, upbeat ending. It really leaves me dissatisfied. I mean, I like the Madison character, and Palahniuk’s sensitivity to her plight in life (but not in Hell), but it’s all done up in an underwhelming package of excess. And it all ends with the words To be continued…, italicized and with suspension points. Like he ran out of steam at 240 quick read pages, but could squeeze out more after he rested. No, say I, the structure will not hold.

But you see, I’m interested in fiction trying stuff. I think the worst novel I ever finished was The Dean’s December by Saul  Bellow. It was built exactly on the lines of soap operas (remember them?). Bellow would shift his characters to scenes, and then they would talk. I know, that’s what James does, and him I like. James went to the trouble of filling his sentences with interesting turns, however, and he was avid about context. Maybe Bellow was hunting for veritas but he dug up ennui.

So I’m okay with an author attempting energetically. I see the old college try in effect with Palahniuk. But when I note a resemblance to Catcher in the Rye, that’s an ouchie. If you want Hell, try Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. O’Brien’s one of the few.

Boy Bands are the Antennae of the Race

The Arts section of yesterday’s New York Times has an article on the latest trend in boy bands. I have not yet delved into this no doubt scintillating look at pop culture, I was simply caught by the photo. It shows the group One Direction onstage at the Radio City Music Hall. The same place where I saw the Dalai Lama.

The Times offers full, blurry colour for this photo, the subject is just that important. It is worth a description.

We see all 5 group members; the photographer got pretty close.

The singer on the left, as seen by the audience, stands closest to the camera. He holds the mike to his mouth, with just thumb and index finger. The other fingers are straight (I’ll avoid saying erect). He holds his left arm across his abdomen, hand open, palm down. He tilts his head up, eyes closed, and looks pained. Manipulative sincerity, do you think? Oh girl!

Next in the picture, tho he seems to be somewhat behind the others, is singer 2. He wears beige chinos (or whatever you call ‘em), like the 1st guy, and a plaid shirt. And red sneakers, you go guy! Mike’s in right hand, and he’s pointing up at the balcony, to Tiff, Heather, or Jen. Oh girl!

The 3rd singer is possibly the farthest right, if I read the camera angle correctly. Red pants and a t-shirt. Left hand on left thigh, leaning forward. Sincerity plus. Oh girl!

Up front, as it appears, tho I would not think a hierarchy would exist (something for everyone approach), are the final 2 singers. The one nearest the camera holds the mike angled up towards the cheap seats. His partner aims lower. Both wear beige chinos.

Reading the article, I learn that the five tried out individually for British X Factor, but Simon Cowell convinced them they would become greater commodity as a group. Which is pretty much the story you’d expect.

Long ago, I saw a picture of the New Kids, and felt overwhelmed (well, that’s a bit exaggerated) by all the signs. The footwear each wore, their stances, even the rattail of the homely guy, seemed like bits of essential communication. Not in the sense that we all have a style, etc, but that some arcane messaging were in effect. Like we should get experts to read us these messages. And I do not mean anything to do with words like subconscious or libido, but more like crop circles. Why red pants???

Malcolm Gladwell

I’m reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, having sped thru Outliers. A little disappointed with him. While his subject matter interests me, and he’s capable enough as a writer, something seems to be missing.

First off, he lacks cred. He’s ‘just’ a writer. He writes for The New Yorker and was a reporter for The Washington Post. Those stand as decent publications, sure. I assumed when I first heard about him, that he was some science-y sort, “noted sociologist Malcolm Gladwell” sort of thing. With his Bob Dylan pile of curls, he looks the part of focused science guy. No, he’s more like John McPhee, checking out cool stuff, except that he writes in a more theoretical vein. McPhee takes a subject that he is not expert in and studies it from the outside. Gladwell attempts to do so from the inside. It’s a bit counterfeit.

Outliers I picked up at the library and skimmed, albeit with attention. The thesis that the Beatles succeeded because they played a lot in their early years makes some sense. I don’t think that answer covers enough of the question, however, Gladwell and his 10,000 hours. Gladwell patches sensible sounding answers onto the questions he explores, but I’m not sure he does due diligence.

He has a trick that could be patented (tho not by him) of couching his ideas in capitalized words: Outliers, The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor. Doing so boosts the resonance of his ideas, but again, it seems like he only has a surface understanding. In The Tipping Point  he quotes a number of studies. I do not get the idea that he has read all the relevant literature, just uses what he has read as salients for his theorizing.

In The Turning Point  he wins his points by making assumptions then pressing on. He pits Paul Revere versus William Dawes in terms of charisma, that Revere succeeded in rousing the countryside while Dawes did not. Is that accurate? Well, there was a 3rd rider on April 19th, a man coming home from a dalliance (I forget his name just now), who brought the warning to Concord after Revere and Dawes got captured. Gladwell makes no mention of him, so I wonder if he trumps things up.

Gladwell offers the studies he mentions as confirming proof without weighing the validity of them. Makes me leery. He’s a fun read, just not trustworthy.

Blog Writer Extraordinaire: Allen Bramhall

You know what the thing is? I love reading my blog. This one here. It surprises me. I laugh at the clever bits. I admired the deep, thoughtful bits. I write the writing that I like to read: imagine that! This only means that I do not invest in some image of correctness but accept the immediate shining thing before me for what it is. This took decades to learn, and lots of clunky attempts.

Mallory, Everest, and WWI

Just finished reading Into the Silence by Wade Davis (Knopf 2011). It concerns the early efforts to climb Mount Everest. Its scope goes way beyond the three expeditions that George Mallory participated in. I guess you could say it gives a harrowing look at British culture in the years leading to and just following WWI.

George Mallory stands centerstage in the book, but he really doesn’t appear till more than 100 pages in. Davis first describes how Everest was discovered as the highest point on Earth, mid 19th century. Data had been taken in the Himalaya but not till some years later were they put together and triangulated to determine that that peak was the world’s top. I’d read some of that before but Davis supplies detail. It’s engrossing to read. Plenty of Empire stuff enters even then.

Davis then introduces the players in the expeditions. Most of the people involved in the expeditions were war veterans. In pounding fashion, Davis recounts horrors of the Great War, as experienced by these men. Somme, Paschedaele, haroo, haroo. You have to keep hearing the numbers to even believe, the carnage, the carnage. It amazes that anyone within the reach of the war retained sanity. It also amazes that any of the European countries involved survived.

Along with the war experience, most of these men were college educated, Britain’s highly structured and hierarchical school system. Mallory was regarded as an Adonis. Davis offers many florid testimonials by men who knew Mallory concerning Mallory’s physical beauty. Sounds like he’s on a par with Rupert Brooke, whom Mallory knew. Historian Lytton Strachey was crazy smitten, but Mallory was crazy smitten with Strachey’s brother James (who said the Treaty of Versailles: “The peace to end all peace.”). All the pictures of Mallory in the book show him under wide brim hats or in fuzzy group shots, and I can detect no nimbus surrounding him. But he must have had something going.

One sees it in his letters, he had character. Indeed, most of the players in the book had been thru hell. It’s a thoughtful, literate bunch making this effort up the mountain. Tibet was largely unknown then, a new political football, and so was mountaineering at such altitude. They were just learning about the effects of thin air, and how to deal with that, as well as dealing a theocracy.

The oxygen tanks that they ended up using were burdens, however necessary. The clothing they wore wasn’t bad, wool and such, and someone had made goose down clothing for himself, but all the pictures in the book look like the men are ready for a jaunt on the moors on some misty morn. I mean, scarves and puttees, and the lot.

Mallory was a hero in England after the first attempt (mostly a reconnaissance) but even after the second attempt on the mountain, a lecture tour in North America failed miserably. During this second attempt, an avalanche caught four climbers and nine Sherpas. Five of the Sherpas died, which left Mallory wondering, why did he survive? Which most survivours of those horrendous battles must have thought. those At least at the time, the taking of Everest was a sort of war effort in the name of British Empire. That sort of meaning had no resonance outside the Empire.

The matter of altitude’s effects still retain mysteries. Some people with experience and fitness excel on the mountain and others fail. Mallory excelled. Despite himself, even. During the fatal expedition he left his compass behind at one stop, and his flashlight at another. His body was found 75 years after his death. He had a broken rope tied to him, and he had fallen. No evidence of Sandy Irvine his partner has been discovered.

The three expeditions could be taken as similar to the Space Race. Getting to the moon was seen as a positive jolt for the US Much practical good came of the Space Race too, technological development. Same too with the Everest expeditions.

I like the breadth of Davis’ subject. He could have stuck with the adventure story—that’s juicy enough—but the context is too important to ignore. That’s the thing that interests me in history, and perhaps interests me in the novels I most cherish. Melville for instance doggedly pulled together the evolving contexts of his whale story into an illuminating intersection. Davis works similarly. Definitely a book worth reading, despite the doleful horror of the war accounts.

Biographies

At the store a customer asked me a question. After answering it, I was inspired to compliment his tie, which had lovely colours in a trippy, expressionist, Gauguin-like way. The compliment pleased the guy, who showed me that it was a Jerry Garcia tie. He said he had 12 of them. I have one myself.

I don’t know why I enter this vignette here, except that Garcia is someone of interest to me. That I share his birthday is an innocuous and not legitimately weight-carrying fact that I carry with me. I did not mention this to the man, not wanting this invention of mine to spoil our mutual high sign. But I want to listen to “Scarlet Begonias”.

So anyway, I have recently read two interesting bios. The second volume of Richard Holmes’ superb one on Coleridge, which I wrote upon earlier this month, on Babe Ruth's birthday. The other one, which I just finished, Van Gogh, by Steven Haifeh and Gregory White Pollock.

Both books are exhaustive, and in the case of the Van Gogh, exhausting.  The authors quote a lot of Vincent’s voluminous correspondence, in which he rails, enthuses and just plain pours forth. Both books describe tortured artists, without inflating that term beyond human levels. Coleridge suffered most acutely from opium, which ruled more than 30 years of his life. Had Van Gogh lived today, he might’ve been served medication that would have eased his tremendous emotional ups and downs. Maybe not—damn it, Jim, I’m not a doctor!—but that avenue of relief has widen greatly since his day.

Van Gogh is far less likeable than I expected. There was beauty in his soul—I do not mind using such a phrase—but his boat rocked so feverishly that he never seems in calm waters. I mean never. And his crazed enthusiasms and nearly complete inability to get along with others smashed up against a wall of middle class normality and propriety. His relationship with Theo is much more contentious than I expected. I figured him a naif who Theo helped along. The two were bonded for life, but never easily.

Wordsworth and Coleridge were somewhat similar. Whereas the Van Goghs competed within the family situation, Coleridge and Wordsworth competed as artists. They shared a youthful vision, but Wordsworth settled as a Grey Eminence, making good career moves, while Coleridge floundered in his own dissoloution and inconsolable yearning. He suffered unrequited love for Wordsworth’s wife’s sister. All of Van Gogh’s enthusiasms for people were unrequited, with the difficult exception of Theo. Gauguin was a dick, no surprise, but that does not ruin his paintings for me. Van Gogh was emotionally defenseless, and Gauguin was teh perfectly wrong person with whom he could broach a friendship.

I would love to be in Coleridge’s avuncular company. Vincent, would be a challenge but if I could keep my third eye observant while dealing with the lost lamb, maybe he would be someone one could learn from in his moments on Earth. His feet rarely touched the Earth, in this world of gravity. But Haifeh and Pollock advance with considerable backing evidence albeit without perfect proof that Vincent was killed, either accidentally or on purpose by some rich young a-holes who enjoyed tormenting the crazy man. Clearly this is one example of God not exactly tempering the wind to the shorn sheep.

That’s all biography right there, I mean, that’s the essence. We meet these human conspiracies of tension and release that make the subject worth our reading while. Internally, we take the facts and invent some vision. The man at the store and I, it felt like we shared a brief vision, some glint or spark that held Jerry’s music.

And I am writing my own story now, more than 100 pages in. It’s a matter of the brightly coloured thing shared.

Losing Barnes & Noble

Barnes and Noble struggles against the Internet’s Wall-Mart, Amazon. I will miss you, B&N.

Many little bookstore’s fell to Barnes & Noble’s size and power. The little bookstores I saw locally offered little reason to support them. In many instances, I could predict what I’d see in each section. The same handful of certified “classics” plus celebrity-driven books: Nancy Reagan’s Tax Advice, Paul Prudhomme’s Exercise Book, Cooking with Callista Flockart… Of course these stores boiled away.

B&N figured out that a bookstore visit could be pleasurable. You enter to the smell of Starbuck’s coffee (at least where we go). You see bargains, you see books from The Today Show segments, you see classics. There’s stuff to consider. And plus also it’s a place to sit with your computer and study. Not for me, maybe, but a lot of people do it. I own at least two books from B&N that I discovered had marginalia and underlinings, thanks to those erudite students.

We went Sunday afternoon, a quiet time out. The area near the door has been cleared out so that their desperate move with the Nook can be shown in best light. I’m not getting an e-reader anytime soon but e-readers are popular. Beth immediately saw a bargain-priced watercolouring book. I almost bought a book called Weird New England.

This book described places around here (maybe it was only Massachusetts) where occult activities have been noted. Woo Hoo! One, I was surprised to learn, is 1/2 mile from where I sit here. Dudley Rd off of busy North Rd loops two miles into an isolated area near the Concord River then comes back to North Road. It’s a weird journey. Near one end is a small country graveyard. Further on there’s what I thought was a convent (dedicated to Saint Thecla) but according to this weird book it’s a retreat. A chain link fence with barbed wire surrounds the building, which is odd enough. Keeping folk out or in? Just down the road from there Beth and I once saw a categorically monstrous turkey, easily chest high. Then there’s a very old farm that sells cut-your-own Xmas trees and I don’t know what else. The fields are rolling and beautiful. There’s a stretch of mansions on the hillside, unlikely old beautiful mansions, overlooking the farmland. You would never suspect their existence here. Each one could be the setting for Turn of the Screw or Fall of the House of Usher. The road dwindles down to a barely passable country lane, with a couple of old houses. The river is near but out of sight.

Definitely a strange feeling persists here, cue the spooky music. The book says a woman’s scream can be heard at night, and people have claimed that short bald men have sprung out of nowhere to clamber over cars and bang on them. Accent on claimed but it’s a good tale heightened by the cinematically spooky atmosphere. Think Lovecraft. The road passes thru an area of newer homes and condos in sylvan setting, and where the road reaches North Rd, there’s a horse farm. It’s the sort of book I might buy in weak moments.

I sort of wanted to get a scifi or fantasy but I’m just sick of seeing Book 17 in the Slogorian Saga as well as children of successful authors attenuating the ‘rent’s oeuvre, I Robot, You Jane.

I have never successfully finished an Edgar Rice Burroughs book but Beth saw a new edition of the John Carter novels that were tempting. Apparently there was a movie adaptation? If so, about time. Cue the accountants: Poetry has been moved to least prime territory possible. Literary/Criticism offered Emerson and Dick Cavett, of course. I do not understand why there are 5 different editions of Walden, incrementally priced.

B&N has had the good sense to make use of public domain. They publish cheap editions of classics. I own or have read most of what they offer, as do a lot of libraries, but still. I ended up getting The Red and the Black just because I wanted to carry something home.

Eastern religion seems threatened to be overwhelmed by New Age and Christian. There are a lot of Bibles. History, biography and tech all have depth of selection. The music was not as draggy as what Starbuck’s usually offers—that feeble “blues” or “jazz” that apparently coffee drinkers favour—but it was really poor Beatles covers by singers who insisted on slowing down the originals. And by the way, “The Long and Winding Road” was no great shakes the first time.

Seems like the extensive audio/video area is obsolescent and could be put to better use. Considerable parking exists on all four sides of the store but it’s often a search or a wait to park. People enjoy the place.

Amazon does not satisfy immediately, and the browsing tastes differently. The diligent shopper comments and suggestions are just extraneous to me. I’ve only used Amazon for specific used books. Cheap prices (with good quality in the ones that I’ve bought) and a furthering of hard copy’s obsolescence. So it goes, as Kurt would say.

Coleridge / Olson

I happened upon the second volume of Richard Holmes’ biography of Coleridge at the library, Darker Reflections. I read the first volume, Early Visions, years ago, and loved it.

Holmes continues the approach that he took in the first volume, using footnotes to ruminate and extend upon the facts and observations delivered in the text. These two books are as good as biography gets.

Of the Romantics, Coleridge is the most difficult for me to read. He is wilder of imagination than Wordsworth, or any of them, and less plain spoken. I’ve read his journals, which are fascinating. You see the use of opium crowding into his life, at first medicinally, but then with fierce grip. Biographia Literiaria is thick reading, but a valiant effort in something new and engaging. And this brings me to Charles Olson.

These two writers bear some interesting similarities. Both are brilliant, with wide-ranging minds. The idea that poetry could embrace science, history, philosophy, and more, which I got from Olson, made writing possible for me. Coleridge had a similar embrace.

For all their brilliance, they were hard to understand. Guy Davenport has a wonderful essay about how so many people who profess to love Olson’s work don’t exactly know what he’s talking about. I number among them. There is a wonderful intensity, and a glimmer of something exactly intelligent, that causes one to persevere. So also with Coleridge. I just call it crazy, this sort of emanating efflorescence, but it is exciting too. John Keats will tell you that you don’t need to have everything explained. I know, he aimed that at Coleridge, but it has to be faced: Coleridge could talk.

Both Coleridge and Olson were eminently sloppy in their lives. This seems their natural condition, not helped by drugs and alcohol. They remained curious in their work.

Wordsworth is a great poet but he freezed up as he aged, becoming a state poet. He just couldn’t be crazy wonderful. It is interesting how he relied on Coleridge and Dorothy not just as sounding boards but as native brilliance that he could transform. He wanted to write well-formed poems. Coleridge, like Olson, reached for something more comprehending and stranger.

The Beatles

Read a bio of John Lennon by Tim Riley. Lively enough, and even with some stylistic verve in the writing. I also read (more like scanned) Keith Richard’s autobiography. I skipped a lot of his drugged hijinx stories but enjoyed how he looked at making rock music. These two books got me thinking about the era, and more specifically the dynamism of The Beatles’ effect.

I liked them from the start. “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” still gives me chills when I hear the first chords. Not because it’s such a great song—it is not on my list of particular favourites—but it nonetheless possesses the visceral thrill that I got seeing The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Wowie zowie for that experience!

Early on, I liked the spare skiffle of “Love Me Do” (still do), with that simple harmonica bit. I dunno why, I like all of the Beatles songs with harmonica.

Of course I understood that Paul was the cute one, John the intellectual, George the shy one, and Ringo was Ringo. It’s like we must be taught patterns of comprehension, which just turns into an override of what you might have actually perceived, were you to listen.  Thus Dems vs Reps, as the US dwindles.

Beatlemania was ridiculous, no question. It gave The Beatles a frame of celebrity that few have had (that is, suffered). It’s just so hard to judge The Beatles (and its component members) thru the lens of that madness. I mean it’s like believing Newt Gingrich carries a sword for you.

I didn’t realize at the time just how good they were as musicians. Owe at least some of that aesthetic evaluation to listening to much of the music in monaural, or crappy stereos, the which I did much of the time. Plus such a thingness surrounded The Beatles and their songs that I seem rarely to have noted how the pieces fit. I mean, Ringo’s quite inventive with his drums, and always zesty. And Paul’s bass is always effective, and often amazingly perfect. And with Lennon and McCartney, you have two singers who could sing just about anything a rock singer might sing. And so on. Well wait,  let me enumerate some further so ons. Smarmy Paul could still vigourously press the lead guitar (as I understand) on “Good Morning Good Morning”. John makes the tasty leads on “Get Back”. They never seemed to strain with the instruments. That rather superficial Malcolm Gladwell asserts the 10,000 preparation hours that made Beatles out of Beatles. They should have been a live touring band rather than a scream at me one. I get why they stopped touring, such a mess of expectation and what.

Something that I’ve noticed: I know the lyrics of good lord most of their songs, and that without trying. Ezra Pound notes that when song lyrics are memorable, it means that synergy of tune and lyric is strong, which I believe. John’s a better lyricist (by far), but don’t give me “We’re all mates with Attica State”.

I backed away from their positioning as cultural icons pretty early in the experience. THAT stuff got overblown. But I certainly wanted to hear what they were up to, at least until the group broke up. I mean, they thinned out. And when they did break up, it felt like long time fait accompli.

I thought Sgt Pepper was fearsomely wonderful at the time. I have since tired of most of it. Production as enterprise. Also, that mode of production, layers and layers, tended to remove the human pulse. They were making aural collages with bits of tape spliced together with the 8 or whatever track recording. The primitive energy started getting lost in all that.

The White Album kinda wore me out, too. It is fascinating to witness the way the individual pieces of The Beatles’ puzzle began fighting each other but I wasn’t quite getting the excitement. They were obviously in non-together mode. Post-Beatles has been a mishmash. I give Riley props for not lavishing praise on “Imagine”. It has been subsumed into the mythology of the saintly John. To me, it verges on the smarmy sort of audience awareness that McCartney overdid.

I like some of George’s post-Beatles work, cannot fathom what anyone liked about Wings but McCartney’s 1st solo recording was pretty neat, and so on. They were talented individually, and both Ringo and George were able to do their best work outside of the genius nexus of the group. But the tangled nature of their collaboration proved the most interesting aspect of their efforts. As Beatles, they seemed Olympian, even Ringo. Outside of The Beatles, they were just good musicians.

And I don’t want any of this back. “I Feel Fine” begins with accidental feedback (supposedly the first time feedback appeared on a pop record), buoyed with jangly guitar arpeggios, and Ringo’s sparking re-entry: It’s not an oldie. The song speaks the immediate enterprise of being right here. It happens right now, just like music. The experience need not inflate beyond that.

So I don’t need to argue cultural hemoglobin or defend the Olde Countree of my youth. Something happened, for god’s sake. It was pretty good.

Super—A Not so Super Movie

Scoping the selection of dvds at the library, I saw Super. The cover showed a masked superhero with the legend Shut Up Crime! I was hooked.

Alas.

It had its moments but I ended up despising too much of it.

It started somewhat patently and cute, with this schlub happy about two things, marrying his wife, and helping a cop in a minor way catch a felon. He’s played by Rainn Wilson and she by Liv Tyler.

Then Kevin Bacon comes by looking for Tyler. She’s not around but Bacon cadges breakfast from Wilson. Bacon’s one of the highlights. He’s a jittery, sleazy felon. He’s fun to watch, even tho a creep, and eventually quite brutal.

Soon after this meeting Tyler leaves, taking all her stuff. Wilson tailspins. Finally he decides to do something. He has a ridiculous vision that inspires him to become a superhero. He goes to the library to find out where crime is, then goes there (a drug haven) and tries to stop it. Doesn’t work. He really does say “Shut up, crime.”

He goes to a comic book store to research superheroes. Here he meets Ellen Page, a clerk there. Page is another highpoint, at least for a while. It seems at first like a meet cute moment. She shows interest in him but he is obliviously singleminded. She doesn’t know what he’s about exactly but gives him lots of help.

He creates a red outfit, calls himself the Crimson Bolt. He realized that he lacked weaponry in his earlier attempt to stop crime, so he chooses to wield a red pipe wrench. Then he goes out. It is an inspired sight to see him sitting on the ground by a dumpster waiting for crime. Eventually he sees a drug deal. He rushes over and clobbers the felon with the wrench. The blow is rendered realistically, with an awful sound and blood. It made me cringe to see. Boy, you want this to be funny and that just flails the idea.

Later, in civvies, he rebukes a guy who cut into line at the movie theatre. Wilson seethes with anger but the guy stands his ground. Wilson goes to his car and dresses in his outfit. We see his underpanted butt thru the back window, as does a child standing there. Wilson returns with the wrench, and clobbers the guy.

CB continues fighting crime in this way until the city, you know, is up in arms. In civvies again, he sees Bacon leading a drugged out Tyler, accompanied by several thugs. Wilson accosts, and gets beaten up. He follows Bacon to his digs, puts on his suit, jumps the fence and creeps up to the house. Seeing Tyler in drugged extremis, he smashes a window and invokes the Crimson Bolt. Bacon’s thugs shoot at him and he runs away. He manages to escape but receives a bullet wound in the leg.

He finds his way to Page’s apartment. She realizes who, or what, he is and not only helps him, she wants to join him. She makes her own suit, and calls herself Boltie as his sidekick. It’s a cute outfit, green and yellow, what you’d expect from a cosplayer. She poses, mock heroic and mock fashion model.

We then see them sitting next to the same dumpster. She’s bored, wants to be pro-active. She remembers someone who keyed her friend’s car. home so they go to teach him his lesson. As the door opens, CB tackles him. They wrestle then Boltie takes a small statue and brains the guy. Again, crunch and gore.

Back to her apartment. He remonstrates against such violence, and she admits to excessive enthusiasm. During the attack she’s exclaiming and swearing. It’s really funny until she clobbers the guy. CB scolds her language and some of her actions as inappropriate. Well, later, she comes into his bedroom and wants to have sex. He wants to remain true to Liv Tyler. She wriggles and gyrates and climbs on him, which he suffers. Yet another unpleasant and questionable moment in the movie.

They realize that they need more firepower, so he develops some incendiaries. At night, they attack Bacon’s complex. Bacon’s in the midst of a drug deal. His customer takes a shine to Tyler and Bacon hands her over to him. It gets worse.

CB’s incendiaries are violently destructive, ripping bodies apart. Boltie’s in a rapture of angry excitement. And then she gets hit in the face with a bullet. That shocked me. So did Tyler’s screaming as she’s raped, hearing which, Bacon shrugs. The rapist returns, concerned about the explosions. He’s pissed that Bacon’s defense is so bad, and Bacon, pissed himself, shoots the guy.

CB is crazed. He slams one thug’s head on the floor until brains spew out. And I’m trying to remember how he manages killing Bacon but perhaps I stopped reception. Everyone’s dead except Liv and Rainn.

They get together again for a couple of weeks, then she leaves, to marry wholesomely. Rainn gets a cat. The End.

The writer/director was completely tone deaf with the juxtaposition of humour and horror. It is fair for me to expect a winning, quirky, humourous movie, from the slogan “Shut up, crime” to the goofy visions, to Page’s animation, and so on.  Now, you could look at the film as a response to the vigilantism of superheroes, but there aren’t no superheroes. It does not relate to anything in Real World Inc. In the final fight, the movie resorts to cartoonish Bang! and Pow! plastered over moments of violence, like in comics and the Batman television series. It’s just disharmony to let the violence roar so.

In the end, we can say Wilson’s character is autistic, and Page’s is crazy. Wilson looked like he’d be charming, a big teddy bear, but he wore thin with crazy righteous rage. Bacon and Page seemed to have fun. Tyler hardly had lines.

The trailers before Super were all indy cred movies, that maybe should have warned me of what was to come. One had Natalie Portman as, I think, the stepmother who must overcome all the prior hurt to reach her stepson. I mean, jeez. Movies where name actors take a pay cut to look like they can act.

A Further Review

Here is my review of Antiphonies for Galatea Ressurects, specifically an anthology of Canadian, women’s and experimental poetry edited by Nate Dorward.

Wham!

I flutter at the cluttered atrocities of popular music and entertainers. I mean, omigod, they preach the strange and enticing. An unexamined meaning persists, thrilling yet unqualified.

Years ago, I saw a picture of the New Kids on the Block, back when they were both new and kids. Everything seemed to be arranged, pregnant with meaning. The clothing, the rat  tail, the postures, the gestures, the everything. They were selling something, they were selling everything.

Wham! constitutes just more more example. Two videos offer plenty to pursue.

First that ridiculously peppy “Wake Me Up Before You go Go Go.” It might drive your crazy, but you cannot take away how infectious this song is. I find it hard to imagine anyone wanting to sing that first line but it all works out. There’s no weightbearing structure but it is lighter than air.

One might be blinded by the cleanness and brightness of everyone involved in this video. Everyone shines. White is the choice for apparel colour. George and Andrew look happy and marvelous. They skitter about the stage in what we eventually realize is a rehearsal. The band and singers all look cheerful backing up the wonderful boys.

George dances an energetic but silly looking club sort of expression. Andrew wields his guitar like a prop. And everyone’s so happy. The lyric suggests the dark possibility of abandonment, but qualifies that with perkiness.

At one point, George at his gleamingest gets some face time. He sits with arms across his chest in a pose that recalls Marilyn Monroe. The lyric is something like “It’s cold outside but it’s warm in here”. He uses his eyes to point outside, and sort of rolls them to indicate in here. It’s all eye candy contrivance.

Midway thru the vid, the white pants of George and Andrew transform into shorts. You can see that George chooses slightly shorter shorts. I’m reminded of Officer Dangle on Reno 911. Tho an eager audience is intimated, we don’t really get that patented fake fun audience excitement that many vids have expressed. The camera’s too intent on the performers, especially and of course George.

There are some out takes, real or not. I mean, a couple of back up singers get their hand gestures wrong: that looks real. George and Andrew are supposed to meet center stage and bend forward toward the camera. In one instance, George overshoots the mark and winds up in front of Andrew. Andrew shoves him hilariously aside and laughs. Well, that hits close to home, we now know. Andrew now tells people he was that dark haired guy in Wham! Really!

I have no idea what Andrew contributes. It astonished me to hear years ago that George was voted Songwriter of the Year in Britain. On the strength of this??? I’ll grant he hits the high notes nicely, not falsetto but real singin’. This confection seems like the only song by him/them that isn’t mush, not to reveal my tastes too much.

The second vid is “Last Christmas”. I never heard the song until literally last Christmas. I remember that Michael had that sex song featuring his butt. I cannot recall the tune but it wasn’t upbeat was it? Seems like he eschewed upbeat after Go Go.

Anyway, “Last Christmas” is a dreadful, obnoxiously whiny song. George Michael, unlucky in love. It is as puerile as Go Go, but without the ameliorating energy. Having suffered a broken heart last year, this year he will give it to someone special. He pronounces special with embarrassing breathiness. Contrived and cheesy. That’s the song. You can sensibly hate it.

The vid goes classic with a gestured story. A gang of clean, attractive people gather at a chalet for a ski vacation. I presume that after finishing the vid they made a tooth whitener commercial to pay for it. Andrew is just one of the gang, smooching and hugging his girlfriend.

George arrives with a blonde. He sees a brunette who clearly is Last Christmas. The rest of the vid shows George with frownie face. His blonde friend melts into the crowd and George rests lingering eye on the brunette. Don’t worry, the entirely new and original tableau of the two having a snowball fight that ends up with them rolling together in the snow has been activated. And I guess things turn out well for George.

Now, I have suggested what became of Andrew but I do not know what happened to George. Did assignations in men’s toilets kill his career, or perhaps drugs. I’m thinking neither has to. Maybe his career is fine and I just don’t know it. He’s old now, tho.

Galatea Resurrects, Some Reviews

Get thee here for numero seventeen of Eileen Tabios’ review blog. Your Love Boat captain has several reviews, to wit:

1. What If by Skip Fox (or vice versa)
2. Citizen Can by Ben Friedlander
3. Fragile Replacements by William Allegrezza
4. Antiphonies: Essays on Women’s Experimental Poetries in Canada edited by Nate Dorward (link currently broken but trust me)

Antic View 152

After a hiatus, Antic View returns. Installment number 152 is here.

Mall Narrative

Nobody woke with boundless energy yesterday, day after our party. At the crack of mid-afternoon, however, Beth and I saw that we needed to visit the mall. Not for Christmas shopping, we don’t do much of that, just to tour around. We are intelligent observers. Beth sees the economy almost as a living body by visiting the mall.

Excuse me if I revert to narrative here. My interest in narrative hangs less in the actions but how the actions transform in the writing. Think of Henry James. His novels and stories hardly overflow with action. He writes within the structure of these vague narrative points, embracing details. I intend in writing these tangential trails to embrace the details, cogently. And so…

The mall looked a-bubble as we approached, tho we saw parking availability. The Patriots versus God was about to begin on TV, so that could have diminished the mob some. The temperature was in the 20s. We haven’t been scraping that low so that may have kept some home.

A long line at Sears’ registers as we entered. I have to admit that I might rethink purchasing an item if the line looks daunting. I know, man up. Some people totally freak out about the lines and hubbub. I don’t, but the lines do make me review how great an item I am, or perhaps am not, purchasing.

One storefront featured a village scene, with small figures and buildings, some trains and such like. It reminded me of The Enchanted Village, which was for years a staple of the Christmas Season in Boston. Located at Jordan Marsh, a department store swallowed mercilessly by Macy’s, it was a room full of mechanically animated figures in a village scene. I saw it as a child, majestically impressed. This was a smaller version. One house had figures dancing inside.

The specific store that offered this pleasantry turned out to be a Christmas junk store. It was one of those transient stores that pop up for an intense couple of months to serve a specific need. In this case, Christmas decorations. One could buy all the pieces displayed in the window, which is tempting tho logistically impossible for this child.Maybe it is the God’s eye view that draws me. The carpet  of this store was furiously dirty, like I’m even the guy to notice such a thing. No time to clean, gotta manifest a singularly quick profit.

Marilyn Monroe ornaments in iconic subway surprise. It is just not Christmas till you’ve seen Marilyn’s underwear. To be honest, I never really got Homer Simpson as giant Santa Claus in the yard. Or Santa Claus on a motorcycle giant inflatable. Etc.

The Apple Store had a surprisingly junky window display. A bunch of junky looking cartoonish pictures. Not classy, not involving. I officially tire of slick. Apple offers disposable elegance, as if the thin and spare design of their toys improves what it delivers. Didn’t even go in. Oh, by the way, we’re mining your iPhone for data.

We did not enter Betsey Johnson either, but watched the TV there. On previous visits, I thunk the person in the vids was Suzanne Somers, which made no sense. Now I understand that that oldish comedic blonde there is Betsey herself. We see her cavorting both alone and with models. A little unconvincing with her elevated gayety. The models stand literally a head taller than Betsey, and take a guess how much lighter they weigh. The necessity to select in that way, and the dear things are as expressive as that Robert Palmer video, it seems creepy. It’s not like you see a lot of 6’ tall generic models in the store. The point, then?

Nordstrom glistened. Notably, for me, a guy slipped on the floor, almost banana split before he recovered. He even left rubber. He gawked at the spot, legitimately puzzled by how slippery. Nothing looked wowzer at this time.

Inevitably we entered Eddie Bauer. Plus ca change. Jeans, which I call dungarees unless I fear to sound like a yokel, seem diminished now. Thin material, not outdoor ready. Beth has noted that the cut of clothes looks slimmer. Less emphasis on the outdoor stuff. Bodes not well. Picked up a little flashlight that can be recharged by cranking the crank or with light. I prefer walking home from work down the path into the woods than the longer road route with headlights in my eyes. And 40% off!!!

Dog Bite and Christmas Party

I walk to work down a former railroad cut (down what had been one of the oldest rail lines in the nation). Basically, a walk in the woods. It comes out near the centre.

As I came to the crosswalk on South Rd, you know, across from that red house, I heard dogs barking and a woman yelling. I looked to see a dog in the neighbouring yard racing toward me. Interesting, thinks I. I assumed that an invisible fence existed to keep such steadfast energy at bay. The dog passed out of the yard and came to greet me with teeth flashing. Two other dogs joined the first in harassing me. The first dog leaped toward my face, which in my estimation is not a good thing. The other dogs came at me in good canine fashion, from all sides.

I had a pack to sort of fend the first dog with, then I felt a dog biting me from, and on the, behind. By this time a frantic woman arrived yelling at the dogs. I noticed that the first dog wore a leash, which the woman tried to grab. When she did she pulled that dog away and was able to voice command the others off. She asked me if I was okay and I said yes. I went on my way.

That sort of quick event leaves you in a daze, and I think my processing speed aint lightning quick anyway. I found it odd that I never felt an adrenalin rush. As someone who has run 50,000 miles, I’ve met a few dogs that have found various ways to remonstrate with me. This attack, however, beats any of that. I’ve always treated such as consciously calmly as possible, otherwise dogs become more aggressive. But the attack was so quick and vicious, I would expect to have felt a rush.

As I proceeded—somewhat dazedly—I thought, what if a child…? I determined to call the police when I got to work. I also discovered that both shirts that I wore, and the back pocket of my dungarees were torn. I hadn’t noticed.

So, at work I called the police and an officer came and interviewed me. I detailed the attack, told the officer I was unhurt. When Beth picked me up at ten, she inquired if I had looked for wounds. Well, I had not. When I did, I found that I had been punctured on the butt and the upper thigh. That meant a visit to the Emergency Room.

Emergency Room always = 3 hours. And so it proved. Watched that animated movie with the square headed guy and the chubby boy in the flying house, weirdly vicious but cutely hilarious in portraying dogs endearingly. After that, with a thumb thru of People, was (inexplicably) The 700 Club, which featured a commercial of Pat Boone sleazily hocking gold. Did you know Tim Tebow loves Jesus? Praise the Lord.

The dr spent about 5 minutes with me, with a perfunctory glance at the wound and an explanation of rabies. A nurse gave me a tetanus shot, and we left after 1:00.

I got 6 hours sleep then rose to decorate the Christmas tree and otherwise prepare for our party. We had to shop, and I made a visit to the police station to see what next, and also to say that I had indeed been injured. I still await determination whether the dogs had had their shots. Turns out an invisible fence was in place, but dogs in their excitement can get thru them. And once thru, I know, they are reluctant to go back.

I made three loaves of bread and two types of apple pie, one traditional American, the other a so called Swedish, tho it was definitely more than sweetish. Beth did all the heavy lifting with roast beef, roasted Brussel sprouts and salad and cheese and stuff. Wine poured, and all was well.

Simple Theories

53 poem/posts this year, not grandly amazing, but I like each individual. Coax you, Readers fair, to visit Simple Theories.

“Santa Baby”, the Song that Really Sucks

The song “Santa Baby” enjoys the world’s record for the creepiest Christmas song extant. I shan’t argue the point. One can hardly imagine an ickier song coming along to disturb posterity.

I have not researched who exactly claims responsibility for this song. The less said about the perps the better. Somebody, clearly, consciously or not, had thoughts to the tune of “I have some weird, creepy feelings about Christmas. I think I will write a song.” Nothing along the way came to the point of examination.

“Santa Baby”, both in its words and its performance, oozes from a cultural cue of utter unrefinement. It packs a sexuality that completely lacks circumspection. The damn song advances a gross demand with the purest disregard for the social embrace.

Do you say “What?” Listen to the song. The characters in it nestle in an infantile release that resembles, really, the easy action of wetting diapers. Do I overblow the situation? I don’t think so.

For most people, Christmas presents a spiritual opportunity. I don’t mean in the religious sense severely, but certainly a cultural connection exists for many. I’m not ignoring the advancing downside of the holiday, just marking the general positive push it wants to establish, however bludgeonly. The holiday’s primitive (so called) antecedents attempted to satisfy an important, dire even, need, facing death and disintegration. And it did so in a way recognizable and acceptable to the many.

“Santa Baby” suggests something verging on psychotic. It can express nothing but need of the narrowest focus, unencumbered by regard. It pictures a hell just as devastating as Dante could imagine. There, I said it.

The song excises all moral tendering for the excitement of greed. And the song’s perps expect auditors to laugh at the empty cause. Most people, I imagine, just want to say: don’t be silly. It is a silliness that cannot meet your eyes.

Bowling for Columbine

We’ve owned this fdvd or several years but could never bring ourselves to watch it. We held the reasonable theory that a movie about the Columbine shootings would be crushing. In sooth, tho serious in intent, it’s not as thuddingly depressing as feared. That is, Michael Moore maintains a stance of entertainment in this work. I know that sounds cheezy on my part, but crushing recitations of gravid societal ills compel hopelessness, not the opposite. We don’t need more hopelessness. I’ve checked. We really don’t.

After 9/11 (Day of Infamy Inc.), people on the Poetics list were citing Michael Moore’s take on those stark events. That’s an entire misread of what Moore is. Moore is not Socratic wisdom, he’s Trickster. What he thinks in some broad sense pales against what he will say in the small but bountiful moment. To look toward him for guidance suggests a power that he cannot give.

Moore is an easy Everyman, or I should say in minuscule, ordinary person. His schlubbiness makes his pleasantly pertinent questions powerful and teetering. People relax in the face of this unkempt looking average guy. Moore’s innocent questions hit pay dirt because his victims feel superiour.

The movie begins with him opening an account at a bank that will gift him a new rifle for his business. File under You Can’t Make This Up. The bank, in Michigan, a hunter’s haven, might naturally play to their clientele thus, strange as it may seem to us in a less hunter strong environment. Moore himself is a gun owner and NRA member, which allows the movie to carry more weight than if he were a dedicated gun hater.

The movie’s best moments occur when Moore as innocent accosts significant people. The superiour sorts chatter away, until they realize that Moore wields a knife. Or someone like Terry Nichol’s brother, who looks crazed much of the time.

Moore interviews Marilyn Manson, who was an easy to identify influence on the shooters at Columbine. Manson was well spoken and thoughtful, and Moore just agreed. Let Manson supple the movie’s theme.

Moore sometimes eschews his schlub persona and becomes heroic. I regard this as an off note. Two victims of the shooting, with bullets in their bodies still, were taken to Kmart. Kmart sold the bullets in their bodies. The victims wanted to encourage the company to stop selling firearms. To me, there was a whiff of using these kids. One was confined to a wheelchair and the other looked like he could be. Moore, as instigator, with camera rolling, made a demonstration with which these kids could participate. Given that Moore established that Canada and other countries have plenty of guns without a 100th of the murder rate that the US enjoys, it looks more like a cure of the symptom than the disease itself.

A weird, under-emphasized moment occurs somewhat early in which we see a few real life shootings. Moore offers no explanations. One is, apparently, a random shooting, one looks like a Kent State victim, and one is someone putting a gun in his mouth and firing. These images startle, for sure, but Moore pops them in almost thoughtlessly. As shocking as these incidents are, they zip by almost pleasantly. I just find that weird.

The movie culminates in Moore gaining interview access with Charlton Hesston, then president of the NRA. I actually understand the NRA’s persistent defense of 2nd Amendment. It’s like defending a trademark. If you let down your guard on little things, suddenly the big things slip by. Still, Hesston arrives in Columbine while the shootings still are mourned. And an incident in which a 1st grader brings a gun to school and accidentally kills a classmate again brings him to town. That’s just tone deaf.

In the interview, which Heston allowed in his Hollywood glamour pot, Moore tries to upend the knucklehead. Heston cannot let go the feisty ego aplomb, which plays into Moore’s hands. Moore steps across the No Thanks point, and Hesston walks out. Heston has different hair than he did in the public proclamationing, id est, he aint got his toup. He walks away with his stiff old man back angled forward, loser loser loser. Moore kinda kills the flush by wielding a picture of the little dead girl. Leaving the picture for Heston to chance upon left a bad smack. The girl did not die for your use, did she Michael?

So I argue a bit with technique, and philosophic stance, but as a somewhat thoughtful entertainment, it worked. Militia folk and others declaring they need to protect themselves, but gosh darn, against what? And why with automatic weapons and war armaments?

Thanksgiving Twenty Eleven

A brisk but sunny Thanksgiving here on the outer edge of the Hub of the Universe. On Wednesday, I made bread, pecan pie and, once again, the Apple-Blackberry Pie. The recipe for Apple-Blackberry pie comes from the eternal doyen of the kitchen, ex-con Martha Stewart. But wait, it’s quite tasty! That’s not crust, Friends, that’s pate brise!This year, I noticed that I am supposed to cook down the juices of the fruit before sticking the pie in the oven. How very grand!

Beth is in her element preparing the turkey. Smells good, sausage and chestnut dressing. We’re listening to NPR. David McCullough spoke about his latest book, which concerns the lure of Paris on 19th century Americans. Well should McCullough be a historian, he tells a good story. I read his John Adams, who I really like, and Abigail too. The shine of Jefferson has become a bit tarnished, whereas Adams’ integrity and vision resonates more.

I am, moi-meme, writing my own story. Auto plus biography, that is. Sixty four pages in. Perhaps I bury the lead, because this feels really important to me. I’ve found the need to (re)read certain works, as backbone for this effort. Jung, certainly. And I am (finally) deep into Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God. I have poked thru the four volumes but never made a concerted effort. I’m nearly thru Primitive Mythology. I’ve read Hero with 1000 Faces, and other works by Campbell. This one is his masterwork. The development of mythology, and the psychic importance of them, underlies my writing here, I mean in the book I am writing. Started Clan of the Cave Bear again, as well. Just one of those books that I enjoy but never seem to finish. Storywise, it’s decent enough. Jean Auel’s well-researched evocation of primitive human life is very fine. I recall Darryl Hannah’s swing at the book. In terms of capturing the plot or anything else about the book, it’s a miss. Okay, Hannah was blonde just like Ayla.

Since we have eschewed cable this past year and more, no Macy’s parade and no football. I miss football a little bit, but I always tended to think I wasted my time watching football. And the fiasco at Penn State just reminds me of the fearsome great stupidities required to foment such autocracies as football teams. Greed and pride, the program, the program,the program.

It has been something like 5 years since we’ve had Thanksgiving at home. Just our nuclear embrace of three, but that’s fine. The cat performs his quiet vortex of attention in the middle of the room, which surely ought to inspire us to give him more food. The betta flickers in excitement whenever I come near his bowl. I guess he’d accept me as provender if I did not drop the food pellets into his home.

I should mench that I saw a Christmas tree, decorated and lit, in a window more than 2 weeks ago. In my childhood, the tree went up around the 23rd (December!), and came down on New Year’s Day. The tree that I saw is probably an imitation. I don’t know where you could buy a live (chopped down) one at that time. And if it were live, it would be kindling by the time the holiday arrived.

The meal now past. One downer: The cream bought for the mashed potatoes turned out to be hazelnut flavoured, a fact not noticed till pouring had begun. The hazelnut factor wasn’t so bad tho it competed with the gravy. The sweetness factor skewed things. Three wines, two unfinished: Pinot Gris, Villa Maria (New Zealand), Pinot Noir MacMurray (Cal), and Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberb Spatlese by Molitor (rolls off the tongue).