Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, rebate

Ron Silliman’s last minute electioneering for Sine Queyras as PL of the B was my 1st notice of this election/gameshow. Yes, I knew votes were gathered in previous years for such contest, but I thought you were supposed to regard it as a trivial internet meme and pass on to the next shiny object to come along. What this thing contains, this vote and contest, seems not just lacking in content, the notion of such playground play seems antagonistic to the value one might find in poetry. SO SAY I.

The winners of this untelevised event are Sine Queyras and Robert Lee Brewer. RLB is a Facebook friend who I know little about—this condition is probably mutual, but that is an assumption—and Sine Queyras is not a Facebook friend, who I know little about. My inability to keep up explains my ignorance of these writers. I have no prob with them and what I write here should not reflect critically on them.

But isn’t this election perfectly silly?

I mean, I feel stupid knocking it, it seems so lame to speak of. The concept of the blogosphere, by which I infer an interconnected and communicating machine of practicing poets and/or writers of such, strikes me as archaic. That dash of connectivity has dissipated.  2003 turned into 2010. I guess that memo has been delayed.

Poet Laureates were always established as part of a drinking game, so in that sense this contest works fine. Unfortunately, the mechanics of interest do not engage the depths of possibility. I know a dumbhead rule exists, that previous winners cannot win again. Which only means dilution: those winners are removed from the mix. Again, I have not read these blogs or much by way of these writers, I am just looking at the sitch.

Rae Armantrout, Sine Queyras, and Robert Lee Brewer are each single writing entities. So am I. So are everyone on Silliman’s thorough list. The evocation of hierarchy within this realm of Parnassian cloud is abject muck.

I believe Poetry has importance in itself, as the mode of transit in language. Blogosphereian Poet Laureateship is STONES IN THE PASSWAY. Come back when you have worked that out.

Sixth Sense

Watched Sixth Sense today. I like M Night Shyamalan’s Signs and am willing to pursue other of his films. I do not know how I managed to miss this one, tho I do flinch when Bruce Willis is mentioned. Smart ass Hollywood Republicans give me dyspepsia. I should get over it but his insouciant smirk irritates me. Also: he mumbles.

The movie featured a lot of atmosphere, the music signaling ominously. It took me a while to get into it. Starting in media res, the movie leaves one puzzling. The bit with the failed client of Willis (Donny Wahlberg overacting, if you ask me) startles in a quizzical way. Whoa! Then Willis gets shot! Fade to months ahead.

The very first scene, when Willis’ wife seems to react to something in the basement, is a mystery that remains explained till the end. Negative Capability calling. The movie does not really begin till after the shooting, when Willis meets Haley Joel Osment.

I am amazed by films in which the child actor carries the burden. HJO did the heavy lifting while Willis floated around him. Scenes end with soft fades. Not to say that Willis wasn’t good. That floating was appropriate, as we learn.

The pacing seemed oddly laconic, despite the suspensefulness. We are aware that ghosts are about before anyone except HJO. When we actually see the ghosts, they are ordinary, tho wounded (literally). The spooks are underplayed.

The movie resonates with the hypersensitive boy who does not fit in with other children. Willis shuffles thru the story, feeling distant from his wife. The story reaches a seeming crescendo when Willis discovers what the ghosts want. He listens to tapes of the patient who shot him, and realizes that he suffered what HJO suffers: visitations of the dead. Well, I swan to John!

Willis urges HJO to fight his fear and listen to the ghosts. This brings HJO to the funeral of a girl. The girl as ghost gives the boy a VCR tape. VCRs used to be the only way people could entertain themselves. HJO delivers the tape to the girl’s father. The tape reveals that the girl’s stepmother was poisoning her.

And there is the crux. The ghosts seek help. Movie over. Except…

I was unprepared for the real ending. Willis goes home to his wife. He talks to her. During this, she drops his wedding ring. He hasn’t been wearing it! He realizes that he did not survive the shooting. He remained here to help the boy and make amends for the patient that he lost.

This sent the mind back to earlier scenes where Willis appeared but never interacted with anyone but HJO. I want to see the movie again with that in mind. It brings to mind the movie Ghosts, but much less smarmy. More compelling, it also reminds me of Turn of the Screw. Sixth Sense is less mysterious but the hypersensitive child is consistent.

The gotcha at the end, when Willis realizes that he is a ghost, really hangs with me. The movie’s sadness is unrelenting but Shyamalan handles it well, with sensitivity. I mean, Ghost ends with a malarkey note while SS seems to comprehend something human. Haley Jo Osment was terrific and Willis was not a complete dick.

Tributary Communications

I have started (yet another) blog to ruminate and possibly divagate upon the ideas of marketing and communication. The blog is called Tributary Communications, and I wish you were there.

Rae Armantrout & Bestsellers

I am not all that psyched that Rae Armantrout won the Pulitzer Prize, not to impugn her work. I think all that this event proves is how random the prize is. It signals no freeing of sensibilities or whatnot. It simply shows that the gatekeepers on Parnassus can be whimsical.

The list of previous winners is pretty ad hoc, like any such prize. You figure that Wallace Stevens winning in 1955 is being given a lifetime achievement award, as are the many Collected Poems winners. And maybe just maybe Natasha Trethewey won because she was standing nearby when the prize was doled out. This is a contest, I am saying, where no contest belongs.

I also think, crank that I am, that Rae’s prize is more to her publisher Wesleyan than to her. Wesleyan is one of a handful of ‘okay’ poetry publishers, that sell their books and get them into libraries. It is not Rae of the small press that wins the prize. If a LANGUAGEy poet were to win the Pulitzer, I would think Ron Silliman, Charles Bernstein, or Lyn Hejinian were more suitable choices, my terms being popularity and influence. I do not begrudge Armantrout, just do not believe that her selection is somehow good news.

But who knows?

The other day, 3 books fell into my hands, 3 romances. They interested me because all three were, apparently, bestsellers.

I had heard of one of the writers, Nora Roberts, and have seen her books around, probably in drugstore book racks. A boy I used to tutor was obsessed by Roberts because his mother would not let him read Roberts’ books. His mother feared that the books were too mature for him. My friend was a voracious reader and immensely curious, and this denial just fired his interest. Not that a book by Nora Roberts fit his taste, he was more like a budding Lovecraft.

Anyway, these 3 romance books. Years ago, while running, I came upon a box of free books that someone left to the world and/or trash pick up. Naturally, I took as many as I could handle, 4, and saluted my benefactor’s house. All 4 books, I found, had covers featuring tall, dark, and handsome in a pirate shirt, and spirited, wild-haired, and bodice-rippable in a flouncy gown: hottie meets hottie circa 18th century England. I read at least one of the books and it was not bad. It was a substantial story, not mere paint by numbers.

All these books declare being bestsellers of different sorts. It is a fuzzy declaration, because a Dan Brown or J K Rowling must have a different sense of bestseller than even does Nora Roberts. Such do I assume.

From what I can tell (stopping at actually reading these books, tho I will not say I won’t), the book that stretches the genre the most is by Debbie Macomber, “#1 New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author”, as declared on the cover. I have never studied such lists but you might surmise these lists to be very long to accommodate all the bestsellers roaming the empyrean. I do not know if Macomber is #1 on a romance list, or a general list. To me, that second option stretches plausibility, because she would be up against, say, Stephen King, Dan Brown, and whatever Oprah has signed aboard to.

Macomber’s book bears the title Angels at Christmas. It is in fact two stories, which are “destined to become Christmas classics.” That is not exactly shortlisting the book. The back cover reveals the crux: “Every Christmas, three lovable angels visit Earth.” Uh oh.

The presentation of angels in pop fiction and movies creeps me out. It seems so unexamined and tawdry. ”Once a year,” reads the back cover, “Shirley, Goodness and Mercy are allowed to intervene (or, more accurately, interfere!) in human affairs.” Well, that sounds cute enough, harvested, doubtlessly, from It’s a Wonderful Life. That’s a movie, to be honest, that I have never managed to see, tho of course sublime cultural osmosis has refused to leave me free of its effects.

The two stories in Macomber’s book tally just over 400 pages. A page lists myriad other books, segregated by series, of which there are eight, plus a cook book. Does Rae Armantrout boast a recipe book, hm? Macomber won the 2005 Quill Award for Best Romance, and has “appeared on every major bestseller list, including those of the New York Times, US TODAY,  Publisher’s Weekly and Entertainment Weekly.” Uh HUH!

The front cover of Windfall by Nora Roberts proclaims that it contains “the timeless classics Impulse and Temptation.” Ah yes, due novella, and oh so timeless. And quick reads,too. “The last decade has seen over 100 of Nora’s books become New York Times bestsellers—many of them reaching #1.” That’s impressive in a faux dizzying way. So what kind of sales does Rae Armantrout see? Well, you know that hers, Silliman’s Bernstein’s, Hejinian’s (etc etc) combined is the square root of forget about it. What sort of snigger can one hear when the Pulitzer importantos select a poet to honour? I am sure it was wonderful when the ghost of Ed McMahon knocked on Rae’s door to present her the Pulitzer, but Our team is still losing.

Oh, I forgot to mench that Debbie Macomber “has become a leading voice in women’s fiction worldwide.” In case you did not know, or feel the overwhelming effect.

Summer by the Sea by Susan Wiggs seems like the most substantial book, it being 410 pages for one story. It also boasts blurbs, including three from Publisher’s Weekly and one by New York Times #1 Bestselling author Debbie Macomber, as member of the Moliére Memorial Symbiotic Back Scratching Association. No big Quill Award win noted here, alas.

Our team is still losing.

Poems That Are Written for Beth

 

A night with frogs

Clanking their fang

Insistence promulgates

An endlessness situated

In the pastoral vocation

Of Boston

Massachusetts. You

Quiz the whistling

Of airplanes intent

On crashing into

Forsythia and

You scurry across the

Vengeful traffic

Including doctored

Street signs and

The credit union called

Beacon St. Marlborough St

Is a hayfield. There are

Ropes in the air

Include the

Westin Hotel at

Copley Square, prime retail

Dump that van Gogh would call

A dump. Copley Square

Is named for

A bottle of quick

Paint, loosely stampede

For the cheers of Robert

Lowell fans. Diamonds

Are in special

Store windows, like

Cro-Magnon in the

Dilettante section. Ducks

Gather where

They should. People

In the street are

Targeted for promotion,

Aspic for dinner.

Spring is better

Because of frogs.

Easter is a process

With fronds that include

Your Neighbor,

You are too busy.

William Blake

Was a trundle bed,

And that’s okay.

Freemason

I joined the Freemasons in January. I was looking for a social place, and Beth said that her stepfather, who died last summer, really enjoyed being a Mason (and a Shriner, which is affiliated). I know, cloudily, that my grandfather was also a Mason. He died, blind from diabetes, when I was 7, so I did not know him well.

Those 2 connections were strong in my deciding to check out Freemasonry. I have lost most of my family, and feel that loss.

Freemasonry, of course, is a lightning rod for controversy. In going thru the Masonic process, I have kept my eyes open. I have not joined a group since I was a Boy Scout. Well, coterminously, I also joined Toastmasters International, to improve my speaking ability. Did you know that Toastmasters perform human sacrifices? Oh yes,  and I can write an Internet article to prove it.

Well, the point of this post is to advert yet another Bramhall blog. I have detailed all my Masonic adventures so far. The Masonic rites are surprisingly compelling.

Robert Lowell in the Icon Position

Paul Mariani’s bio of Robert Lowell is workmanlike at best. His bio of William Carlos Williams somehow made WCW seem dull, which is outrageous. Lowell was crazier, giving Mariani more to work with. Even retailing Lowell’s many juicy indiscretions, as well as the glittery crowd to which Lowell belonged, Mariani manages to keep things on the dull side.

And really, that’s okay. I do not want to fuss over how creepy Lowell was. He was manic depressive, and a thorough drinker in a thorough drinking crowd, so one looks at that, the chemical humanity of the man. Behaviour-wise, he’s a patch on Scott and Zelda.

Getting into the biography of artists is a step into murky water. OBVIOUSLY, it is the artist’s work that counts, finally. With Lowell, that biography is a tool for the writer. The term Confessional Poet is yet another attempt to concentrate critical matter to a couple of words. It is apposite to a degree, but it is imperative to keep that degree in mind. Lowell confessed, I would say, but in a self-serving way. I would like to say that Lowell’s work is anathema to me, because it is built on many shaky assumptions. Assumptions, I daresay, I have carried and may carry still, but anathemas still.

I am not really deriding the confessional aspect of his work. There is trickery therein, however, as in (according to Mariani) not just using his ex-wife’s letters in his own work but both editing her words and attributing some to himself. He works within a framework in which everything is material. Okay, except that he must put his stamp on it all.

He was well read, and thoughtful about that reading. But that reading is more material. It forms the basis of allusion and reference. As such it becomes, in my view, claptrap. Milton was a thing to use, as was Shakespeare, etc. It all passes thru Lowell, and you know where that metaphor leads.

Jeff Harrison, in an installment I have not yet now put up now on Antic View, has written “… I try to follow the poem's unfolding as a poet while contributing little to nothing as a writer. The less writer and the more poet in a poem, the more that poem gestures toward purity.” Purity, I know, is a difficult word (I put the word to him), but the idea for me is to follow the poem’s imperative and not force it to match one’s writerly position. Lowell, and that whole crowd, were too damn busy being writers to succeed as poets. Berryman and Bishop seem to be the only ones I hold interest in from that crew.

Reading about Lowell, or reading Plath’s journal, and how the poet rewrites the bejesus out of poems, is dispiriting. It is not that rewriting is bad, it is that the skulking intellect has so many plans beyond the poem’s blossom. I mean poems to answer critics, to make careers, to settle emotional situations. These uses are straying actions. to allow the poem rather than the poet to succeed is what I mean by purity, not to channel Mallarmé too much.

Mariani describes Lowell in between the dual (or duel) mentors of Eliot and Williams. It is almost funny how WCW reacts to Eliot, regarding Eliot as retrograde motion. There is something to that sense, a feeling that Eliot is offering the peace of the past rather than the excitement of the present. Lowell seems to be beguiled by both directions. As far as I can see, tho, for Lowell, Eliot won.

To me, Lowell’s work creates a static patronage of official culture, which is just the oblivious serenity of Eliot’s acceptable hierarchy. Lowell’s prose work is less enforced, and he is allowed to simply enter the thinking a poem might have, without the distraction of rendered form, culture, and official allusion. There, in the calm of prose, did he do his best work.

Robert Grenier was mentioned in the book—how many books currently speak of him at all? Grenier is listed as one of Lowell’s many famous, or sort of famous, students, and does not rate a place in the index. I remember saying to Grenier that I liked a Plath poem a bit and he said—gently, really—that I should probably look elsewhere. That is, for what he understood of me as a writer, her work would not be of use (O’Hara, on the other hand, he recommended to me). This was said without proscription, more like prescription. Lowell simply never suited me, and I have said the reasons why.

Cat Moment

The resident cat had a face to face with our betta. Beth saw it all. Mowgli climbed onto the counter where the betta’s bowl sits. Bettas, for the uninformed, are aka Japanese Fighting Fish. Males cannot share a bowl, and as I understand, males and females aren’t too good together either.

The cat has shown interest in the fish but never intruded before. Today, he stuck his nose right into the bowl. The fish reacted by leaping completely out of the water and slapping the cat on the face with his tail. The cat lurched back. He pondered a reinvestigation of the fish situation then chose to beat a retreat.

The fish is a leaper. When I feed him, I hold the pellets over the water so that he knows they are there and the fish leaps at my fingers. He moves about excitedly whenever I near him.

Mowgli and I had a mouse moment years ago. He had cornered a mouse in the house. I got a glass with which to capture the mouse. I held Mowgli with one hand and reach with the glass with the other. The mouse reacted by lunging at us, which caused me and the cat both to flinch back, and the mouse escaped.

A similar anecdote occurred with a previous cat. Huck was a fighting guy, and an outdoors cat. I saw that he had captured a chipmunk. I grasped the cat to get him to let the chipmunk go. Huck released the chipmunk. Before the critter escaped, it swatted the immobilized cat on the nose then ran away. Huck was pissed.

The Thorn Rosary by Eileen R. Tabios

Eileen Tabios has produced a selected prose collection (with new poems), published by Marsh Hawk Press. It leads me to some divagations.

Eileen’s published oeuvre is prodigious, so selection seems like a devilish task. I see it more as a recontextualizing of previous work. Eileen’s work owes much to series. The serial urge is an urge to complete, at least in some sense. Complete and yet to invite furtherance. I mean, when a series ends, invisible threads continue to stretch, the process does not stop. That is how I see poems in series.

I have already read much of the work here, because I have a number of the representative books. I said her work owes to series, but I mean more like concatenation, linkage of poems to each other, series to each other. The familiar here from the books I have reads differently in this new context.

The stresses have changed, words echo in new ways.

Eileen’s work is planted in a critical context. Thomas Fink, who selected the work, provides an introduction, and Joi Barrios adds an afterword. This situation of her work within context is essential in Eileen’s practice. Her writing rises from relational situations, historical, cultural, familial, and critical. These contexts are fluid and overlapping.

This selection, as noted, is of her prose writing. One might clarify by saying her prose poetry, but then we sink into a morass of terminology that may be more confusing than useful to explore. Or I should say, it is interesting to explore, but such an exploration is not a necessity to the enjoyment of these works, and may be a distraction.

I mean, what is poetry and what is prose?

Some 11 years ago, I shook off my accrued sense of poetry. I studied under Robert Grenier who, despite his obvious preference towards a poetry that would be identified as LANGUAGE poetry (not that that lump sum term can really define any territory properly), was very supportive of the discovering writer. I performed a slow discovery, over years and years, of where my writing came from and burgeoned towards, until I finally realized that the sentence worked for me. That the metre of the sentence could preside over the words that I knew.

I began making poetry, then, in prose. It is poetry because it is not just guided by the mentor called Good English (or good whatever language, but English is what I use). I allow disjunction, and fragmentation, and linear discontinuity to make their reports. Poetry, I see, insists on timely subversions. I learned that from Emily Dickinson.

Eileen uses different insistencies to provoke the heart of language. Her sentences are largely straightforward in their report, yet she maintains a relentless twining. Themes are immediate and conjunctive. And adjunctive. That is how this book, that is sifted from other books, is a NEW book. The returns are instructive and spiral to new vantage.

Eileen’s subversions are headturning. The curious embrace of Ferdinand Marcos’ daughter, in the office of writing towards her late father, is a feat of telling surprise. Eileen is a cork bobbing in the meeting of streams.

The Thorn Rosary is a handsomely turned out affair. It’s a hefty handful sized something like 8”x10”. I like the design, especially (and surprisingly) the use of a calligraphic font for headers. The book looks fresh and inviting.

As always with Eileen’s books, there are notes and bibliography and that sort of Olsonian process brought directly into the work itself. I love that! The experiment that is Eileen Tabios is fascinating to witness.

Picture of Robert Lowell

The book Lost Puritan by Paul Mariani features a picture of Robert Lowell on the cover. It is a loaded picture, or I am willing to see it so.

I am only in progress with the book (the bibliography of my previous post lists books that I am reading as well as have read), but it seems better than Mariani’s bio of WC Williams. That thing was a stodgy, dry affair. It seemed to leech my interest away from Williams (like Williams was to blame!). But I am on about something else here, the image of Lowell.

It is a black and white photo. Lowell sits on the ground with his back against the trunk of a large tree, presumably oak. It looks like leaves are on the ground, so let us say that it is fall. Some houses are visible in the background. The scene could be some New England suburb, or Lowell could be situated in a more rural area. You know, somewhere where artists gather.

Lowell cuts a lanky figure with long legs. He is dressed darkly, maybe even in black. He faces stage right, not quite a full profile. He has a cigarette in upraised hand, either pre or post inhalation. Well, say pre, since no smoke cloud is evident. He stares super pensively.

The image is plausibly powerful, but really it is just silly. Roving photographer did not just happen upon genus poet, poet was posed. Robert, look over there and look serious. Is he really thinking of a way to translate the experience of this moment (whatever he is looking at) into pentametric iambs? Jeez, I hope so.

The picture is in the class Author Photo. It is not at the level of Truman Capote’s portraits. Capote’s author photos have all the spontaneity of Norma Desmond. There’s one (Music for Chameleons, maybe?) where he places his fingers with precision about his face. It looks like the 80s precursor of gang signs, yo.

The malarkey level of Lowell’s picture is about average. He is playing the game. Anyway, author photo will always be a contrivance, whether the photo is posed or an image caught off, but presented on, guard. Selected for a reason.

Maybe not always. This book by B. F. Skinner that I have offers an image of him on the back cover. It is a smudgy black and white shot of him seated paging thru a book. The pages were in motion at the shutter click. Some people can be blurrily seen in the background. It is not a posed picture, it does not even look chosen. It looks like the first picture to come to hand. Even so, it says something.

Lowell’s picture seems especially pregnant. I am not what you call interested in Lowell. His poems are way to intrigued for me. The craft of such poetry is craftiness. There is a sense of production to his work that probably could take a Marxist reading. Lowell translates experience into poems. In The Dolphin, and elsewhere, he famously quotes letters from his ex-wife Elizabeth Hardwick. Those italicized passages of Hardwick overwhelm Lowell’s ratty poetics because Hardwick’s words are free of the elabouration that Lowell extrudes.

Lowell is youngish in the picture, tho I will not be so bold as to guess what I mean by youngish. Early 30s, maybe, or younger. Elsewhere in the book there’s a shot of him and his hair verges on a Trotsky pompadour. In the cover picture, his hair is fairly tamed. Lowell himself looks untamed.

Lowell’s eyes are dark in the picture, and the seriousness of his pose really feels weighty. I will not overwork my impression except to say that there is intention in the pose and posture.

Lowell’s work never made much impression on me. I have recounted before that in Robert Grenier’s class, we read Lowell’s “Skunk Island” as if Zukofsky had written it. Grenier led us to hear the syllables homophonically. I did not think this was within Lowell’s sense of mission, nor do I. Grenier could know better, not that it even matters what Lowell intended, because Grenier (amazingly) studied under Lowell. This is not something that I knew at the time.

The idea of confessional poet is obnoxious to me. Of course the term confessional poet is one of those shorthand labels that pretend to greater accuracy than they can bear. There is more to Lowell (and Plath, Sexton, Snodgrass) than confession, but an imperative to divulge certainly exists.

This sense of confession arises from a need to make a subject. Lowell et al. overload that subject. They create spasms of intent out of their nerve storms. They try to make poetry out of that, but the psychological impetus outweighs the poetic. Just as in the cover photo, too much focus plays on the poet’s image.

And yet I am reading this bio, of a poet that I am not much interested in (tho Elizabeth Bishop, guest star, has begun to intrigue me).  Got to shake off the imagery of image, if the words of the writer are to be read.

Bibliography

I recently started keeping a list of what I have been reading. this list has no theme, I suppose, except what has come to me to read. The history books and one or two others are books that Erin has to read this semester. The biographies are all from the library. I could grab just about anything in the biography section. I mean, there were bios of every member of ‘N SYNC. I will either screw up my courage and take the books out, or read them there. Anyway, this list represents something or other.

Biographies

Lenin, Ronald Clark
One Fine Stooge, Larry Fine's Frizzy Life in Pictures, Steve Cox & Jim Terry
Little Man (Meyer Lansky), Robert Lacey
Dr Goebbels, His Life and Death, Roger Manvell
Lost Puritan (Robert Lowell), Paul Mariani
Many Tears from Now, Paul McCartney
Scott Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Meyer
One Matchless Time (William Faulkner), Jay Parini
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
History
History—A Very Short Introduction, John H. Arnold
A Brief History of the Human Race, Michael Cook
A Brief History of Islam* Tamara Sonn
Learning
The Artist's Way at Work, Mark Bryan with Julia Cameron & Catherine Allen
Moral Principles in Education, John Dewey
Experience and Education, John Dewey
Reading Magic, Mem Fox
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire
Thinking in Pictures,Temple Grandin
A Pedagogy for Liberation, Ira Shor & Paulo Freire
Beyond Freedom and Dignity, B.F. Skinner
The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, John Wood
Novels
Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel
Sphere, Michael Crichton
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
Philosophy
Understanding the Mind, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
The Phenomenology of Mind, G. W. F Hegel
Kant, Robert Scruton
Hegel, Peter Singer
Why Religion Matters, Huston Smith
Technical
HTML, XHTML & CSS, Elizabeth Castro
Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications

Bruce Stater

Alan Sondheim posted this link to Bruce Stater's work on the Wryting-L list. I have just poked at it so far, but it is worth poking at.

Salinger & Zinn *** Updated ***

I do not need to consult Ron Silliman’s Death's Head Conservatory—and wouldn’t you know it, he has yet to mark the occasion of these two writer’s flight from this mortal coil—the news is widely abroad. Selah.

Yes, I read whatever was available by JD Salinger when I was in high school. I thought Catcher in the Rye was fantabulous for a while there. It resonates for teenagers, I think. It also performs self-pity at an alarming pace. I know by the time I was in college, the zest of C in the R was entirely used up. His other stories were too precious for my taste, archly unctuous with a fiddled with stance. One man’s opinion, and all.

One notices in the notices the constant refrain of recluse applied to Salinger. Why the emphasis on that? Maybe it surprises people that he did not go all Truman Capote when he got some success. His reclusivity is a tired meta feature. Like Capote, he does not seem to have had a lot of writing in him. I am being crass, of course. He wrote a distinguishable oeuvre, that should suffice. Douglas Adams wrote his 7 novels then moved on to other things including, alas, the big vacation. Salinger as recluse is a minor talking point, one would think.

I have only read one book by Howard Zinn, and some articles, but I think he was a vital contemporary historian. If you look at the publication dates of his books, and what they are about, you will see that he was perceptive about the present day. He identified the congealing menace of American policy in Vietnam early on, for instance. I would liken him to Noam Chomsky (whom Ali G (Sacha Baron Cohen) referred to as Norman). His son went to Franconia College, which I guess makes me impressive somehow.

It seems we need these writers as heroes working for us.

N.B. Ron Silliman finally got pictures of Death’s latest collectibles up on his blog, and I must say, that is a hellacious picture of Salinger.

Avatar—Best Blurry Movie Ever!!!

But it is more than just a blurry movie! It’s a blurry blockbuster!!!

This is my first 3-D movie, not including a couple of 3 Stooges shorts from the 50s (Joe Besser) that featured a lot of poking towards the camera. Imagine! Poked in the eye by Moe! The technology has pressed forward since then. The glasses were quite incred, sturdier than I expected. Allow me to speak further about this wonder of a flick.

First of all, I seem to have missed what I assume was considerable anticipation for the movie. Only recently had I heard of it. Ads made me think it was Dragonriders of Pern. Seems like Pern should be hitting the screen sometime. Anyway, Cameron fished around in numerous ponds for inspiration. Why make up stuff when someone’s already done it?

Well wait, I did not even mench the trailers. Coming up in our collective entertainment future are a few good bets, speaking hopefully. I have no interest in, say, a tearjerking festival starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, as advertised on tv, tho neither of whom inhabit my Tom Cruise Memorial Dislike File. At least in the theatre, I prefer movies of vast expanse, no matter how dumb, to movies of import. Enter Avatar, but before that:

• Robin Hood by Ridley Scott, with Russell Crowe: yes, Gladiator 2: Maximus in England. It looks nothing Robin Hoodish that I have seen or read, but it looks satisfying in its swords and vengeance way, and I think some thumpa thumpa score. Which allows me to quote one of the Robin Hood ballads from Child’s collection, to wit: “And a mickle of his might was he, was he, hey ho”. Don’t know what it means but it has a nice ring.
• Some Harry Potterish hijinx involving the children of the gods, starring Boromir (Sean Bean) as Zeus.
• A Tom Cruise movie in which Tom seems especially incredible. It is fiction, you know. He seems to be in antic boyish mode here, like on Oprah’s couch. On the other hand, he’s Tom Cruise.
• Clash of the Titans, which I do not suppose can top Ray Harryhausen’s work, even with (I think) Liam Neeson as Zeus. Two Zeus’ in one night! There is a lengthy trail of movies in which Neeson played a minor lug, then he stepped up in echelon to play kings and such all over the place. Good job, Liam!
• Alice in Wonderland by the mechanically gothic Tim Burton, with Johnny Depp asserting weirdness as the Mad Hatter. The wheel’s off Burton’s trike, you ask me.
• A Shrek movie, in 3-D. You can have it. The look of the Shrek movies bothers me, and 3-D will not help. It seems that in Shrek World some diminishment has occurred in the characters by this installment, what with Thomas Mann apparently doing the screenplay. Include me out.
• Some nameless feature about bags of popcorn and cups of soft drinks running thru a cinema. Not much plot evident in this trailer, but obviously some surrealist genius behind this flick.

So anyway, Cameron’s extravagance.

Well, it was an experience. And it is blurry, even with the specs. The edges of the screen tend to lose focus, and many of the fluttery things intended to give depth look blobby, merely. Overall I’m with it, but a real deflation occurs when I notice holes in the process. I have no doubt that Harryhausen’s claymation beats the evident mondo class narcosis of the remake, that’s where I stand with fx.

Avatar begins as if it were a scifi, but one of grand scale. I would like to see that movie, but once our erstwhile hero lands on Pandora the scifi ratchets down to more like Starship Trooper, and the movie becomes more fantasy. But not really. It still has grand scale but moviemaking weaknesses flex too much slurpiness into the story. I think Cameron did a movie about some boat sinking, with similar weakness.

Pandora, the planet, is a lush, vividly rendered place. It is not unlike, um, the North American continent back when that squirrel ran thru the trees from the Atlantic coast to the Mississipp. The military materiel looked vivid in its extreme onslaught, huge and mighty. This is where the 3D really erupts.

Plotwise the movie is sort of interesting, if you don’t mind having heard it all before. The cast is plain, nothing bad but no one stands out. The natives, I dunno what they are called, are thankless roles for the actors, because they are all squeezed into whatever cgi movie magic that Industrial Light and Magic can motivate. Let us thank ILM for making all movies look alike.

Wes Studi, Magua in Last of the Mohicans, was in there somewhere, probably our hero’s rival, but I did not recognize him. James Horner starred as the guy who stuck all the drumming in the score (as he has done before), which I like.

So this guy had a twin brother who was working on a project on Pandora but he dies so the guy is sent as his replacement because of their shared genetics. The twin is not otherwise viable, i.e. not a scientist. The project is one in which the aliens are genetically replicated, and earthlings are transferred into them (mind swap), so that these replicants can be used to infiltrate the natives. Got that? There will be a quiz on Facebook, so bone up.

Our hero, I neglected to mention, is wheelchair bound (tho not so in space). Transferred into the other body, he has use of his legs. That’s a nice touch tho Cameron made little of that aspect.

The natives—I keep wanting to write aliens—are very tall, long-limbed, and slender. Pandora is a low-gravity planet. Kim Stanley Robinson in his Mars series, presents human inhabitants of Mars as evolving similar physical features.

Our hero—I don’t remember his name, I do not even recall what the guy looked like—in alien bod, joins the scientists in a field study. He bumbles off into the magnificent jungle. Here he sees ferlies a-plenty, as well as fauna of the large and ferocious sort. His escape from the creatures leaves him alone in the jungle. By nightfall he’s up against the Pandoran analogue for wolves and coyotes. He is nearly overwhelmed. Just prior to that he is about to get an arrow in him from a Pandoran, but she pulls up because a jellyfishlike seed pod gives her a sign. When the beasties attack our hero, she comes dashing in to rescue. Not sure how she recognizes our hero as not a Pandoran, but she does. Anyway, this is how you meet cute on Pandora.

And then he is brought back to—shall we call it a tribe?—who all hate our hero except our heroine’s mother, who is visionary and sees that our hero should be allowed into the tribe. This is called putting the plot into 2nd gear.

But they knock it back to 1st gear as there is more plot to set up, namely the tension of the evil greengrab antagonist and the meanie military. It turns out that the natives live right on top of a plentiful lode of, no kidding, unobtainium. Our hero is part of the time learning Pandoran ways and flirting with our heroine, and part of the time betraying the Pandorans.

Cameron spends a lot of time letting our hero and heroine run thru the treetops, leaping from tree to tree, showing off the lushness of the planet while letting vertigo mess with us. The visual style comes directly from the covers of scifi and fantasy, say Boris Vallejo. This is really wonderful, and we are not burdened with that pesky question: what happens next? Plot, however, must be playedout in diligent form. There is a mild tension between the guy our heroine was sort of betrothed to and our hero, wholly cursory. Some nice scenes as our hero gets himself a flying mount. Pandorans have long queues that they can insert into the usb ports of these ‘dragons’, thereby creating instant communication, an inter-special buddy system. Which does not explain how one can remain mounted on such creatures whilst plummeting and barrel rolling at several g’s.

Eventually the bad military guy, who I thought for a while might be the terminator in T2 (bulked up), gets to step forward, plotwise, and instigate terrible destruction on the Pandorans, including blasting the bejesus out of the mega huge tree that is central to the tribe. Our hero, of course, is conflicted but finally opts for the Pandorans. He must save the day because, well, you know. Dare I say white man’s burden? This is shades of The Last Samurai.

Military might meets plucky bows and arrows, and, of course, loses. Oddly, the successful Pandoran cavalry charge versus the mere 22nd century human armament did not seem convincing, but the Pandorans won. Thanks to our hero, who had the right stuff. The denouement is the standard lengthy tête-à-tête between our hero and the hard to kill bad guy, the military man. Finally, the military guy dies and the lovers can unite. The End.

I neglected to speak of the communal ritual dancing, which is supposed to be ceremonial but looks like the bad dream of a Hollywood choreographer. It made me laugh.

Cameron’s inspiration had very little to do with the story he had. He had pictures to share, and technique. Why not use the trite and true for the plot, says he. The ecological theme could have been more sincere, instead it was stuck in the Noble Savage universe. Think of Titanic, which had a desperately intriguing plot built in, yet Cameron trotted off with the 2-bit love story. Of course, he’s right and I am wrong, since he manufactured a money pool of assent to his work, and I merely got bored with his Leonardo-centric world.

I enjoyed the nearly three hours of Avatar, tho I was in frequent contact with the debit column as I watched. Visually, it is ripe to over ripe. I have seen the future, and it look like the past.

Library Haul

I raided the library for another (see December 17) bunch of books, just to keep a range on hand. The past week or so, I finished the Larry Fine bio, and the Faulkner one, as well as read a Tony Hillerman that I had. I have nearly finished the Pohl, nibbled at Pater, find Toffler a bit boring, and I read the Calamus section of Leaves of Grass straight thru. Here is what I got this evening:

• Absalom, Absalom!, I read it years ago. It is experimental, like Faulkner’s best books, but shows more effort than Fury or Dying. It is a more difficult read. I will start in on it tonight, methinks.
• The Mansion, another one that I have read before. His presentation is less disjunctive than his masterpieces, but he is still pressing the language. A sort of drippy adjective-rich writing exists that is mongered as quintessential, such that you will hear passages of it quoted reverently, like on public radio. It is mushy writing but if you have Dylan Thomas’ pipes it can sound nearly wonderful. Faulkner’s prose is crazier than that sort of writing. He certainly knows he’s pushing the canopy, but he’s also just throwing it into the moat and seeing if anyone will salute. When he bounds away on one of his endless sentences, it’s an aerial stunt that you are compelled to watch. In contradistinction to, say, Amy Clampitt, who, looks at the turf of her sentences as subdivisions, each plot grimly separated by commas, periods and—heaven help us!—semi-colons. It’s a bumpy ride with Faulkner, but worth the experience.
• A bio of F Scott Fitzgerald by Jeffrey Meyers. Pretty sure I have read something by Meyer…
• A bio of Josef Goebbels. Perhaps there’s an afterword by Dick Cheney…
• Sphere, by Michael Crichton. I have read a number of his books and seen quite a few of his movies (but never saw ER). He gets the elements together nicely. This one caught my attention because the title does not appear on front cover or spine. In fact, I managed to see the cover illustration as being the Antikythera machine. It is instead a spiral of numbers that I am just guessing has something to do with the plot.
• The Man Who Would Be King, about the man, a Quaker, who was the 1st American in Afghanistan.
• Philosophical Writings of Peirce, I would like to read more by him.

Faulkner

Reading a bio of William Faulkner by Jay Parini, One Matchless Time. I did not know much about him, tho I have read 5 or 6 of his novels and a few stories. I have always responded positively to his work, even tho I’ve wondered about it.

What makes me hesitate is perhaps his self-assured flamboyancy. It is the same distrust I have for actors. According to Parini, Faulkner was an actor, making up tales about his past and such like. For instance, exaggerations about getting injured during WWI. He trained for the RAF in Canada but never made it to the action, yet he somehow ended up with a limp. Which reminds me of a story that Robert Creamer tells of Babe Ruth. Ruth cut his hand on the fence while trying to field a ball. The trainer came out and removed Babe from the game. Ruth limped from the field.

It is always interesting to see where a writer or any artist breaks from the tyro stage and starts asserting the mature style and vision. Faulkner’s breakthru was I think his 4th novel, The Sound and the Fury. That is likely the first book by him that I read. Its entwined narratives and viewpoints is really effective, his mythology is fully figured, and the whole thing drips with inspection. Some of the obliquity is high falutin’, which is part of my distrust of Faulkner. You can see him being a bad influence on certain writers as a high sign for excess, just as Kerouac or Whitman could be for some. Still, he let narrative buckle under its weight, and that fragmentation is exhilaration. Yul Brynner (with hair) played Jason Compson in the movie version. I like Brynner, and it is possible that he could fit the role, but the idea was too bumptious for me and I switched the channel. I am older now and may be able to handle it.

As I Lay Dying followed. I read the familiar paperback edition with both S&F and Dying together. They are satisfying, vivid novels that can be held next to Woolf’s great works and with Ulysses. The other Faulkner novels that I have read kinda blur in my mind. And didn’t he tramp off to Hollywood?

Racism and sexism are empty enough words; they implicate more about the human animal than they can express. Both are elements in Faulkner’s work, and are tricky to navigate. The trick, I mean, is where Faulkner stands. In the muck, finally. He is an actor, as I said. I admit that I like how he wields his style, with happy yet resilient vigour. In contradistinction, perhaps, to Thomas Wolfe. There is a command in Faulkner that Wolfe maybe lacked.

As I said, I responded immediately to Faulkner. Hemingway resides in the other hand. Hemingway’s bullfighting book is fascinating but his fiction does nothing for me. Old Man and the Sea is pure malarkey so far as I can tell. Funny, tho, you can see how he and Stein have some commonalities.

I know nothing of Parini but he seems to be decent enough as a bio writer. There’s a vivid sea change when he gets to where he can speak of Sound & Fury. Prior to that he is almost perfunctory in speaking of the amorphous muggins that is his subject. Faulkner finally grows up with that novel and Parini can say Ecce homo.

That growing up as a writer (Faulkner the regular person offers filigrees of juicily well-etched particulars) is a useful consideration  (shall we dance?). There is no straight road in creative endeavours. Thomas the Rhymer:

O see ye not yon narrow road,

So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?

That is the Path of Righteousness,

Though after it but few inquires.

 

And see ye not yon braid, braid road,

That lies across the lily leven?

That is the Path of Wickedness,

Though some call it the Road to Heaven.

Faulkner found a place, Yoknaphatawpha county, where the world can be included. The stories blur together some, and I am sure that Sound and Dying represent Faulkner’s MVP seasons, but he had created a creative life in developing that place. A creative person is a creative lesson.

It’s A Mall, Whirled

Today’s visit could be our final mall trip of the season. The impetus was some Eddie Bauer coupons that might expire today or soon.PLUS a possible storm coming, which may lay havoc, etc. The Weather Channel forecast certain doom for most of the Atlantic coast, and Santa Claus is reading the papers and thinking he will have to cancel Christmas. On with the mukluks, said we, a finger snap in the face of Boreas, and see what the mall offers.

Before I go further, I must ramble a bit about Christmas music. You hear so many of the familiar songs tarted up by musical factotums in a desperate effort to sound original. You know, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with a Phil Spector wall of sound production. Or any number of your favourite recording artists attempting to sound sincere while singing about silver bells and winter wonderlands. And of course Elvis singing weela hava huh huh blue Christmas without you… Ick! Chrissie Hynde singing “2000 Miles” is an exception. Playing it now.

Anyway, we arrived at the mall with anticipation. I mean, we were caught in an obvious mallward flow but awaited the telling visual that things were all right, and that Obama’s sensitive bailout of the banks would piss relief on us all. Beth and I really take this seriously, how the turnings of the economic turbine are revealed at the mall. As the economic edifice came in sight we were satisfied that business was at least churning. Not, however, like the time a few years ago when we arrived, entered a hopeless flow around the mall where no parking was evident. It was an hour journey around the place with no parking space for reward. That was then, before Goldman Sachs decided a change was necessary. Today, there were some, few, spaces for our phaeton. Actually stared down an interloper who eyed the selfsame space that we, by the grace of all the gods, had seen first.

We went directly to Eddie Bauer, which is located by an entrance, because we actually had a reason to be there. O Fortuna! There was a 25% sale on EVERYTHING!!! Using a coupon and some Bauer rebate for being avid shoppers (economy savers, really, adding our trickle to the trickle down), we ended up paying 45% off. Lengthy line to the cashiers, stalwart clothes for all.

After Bauer we entered the maw of the beast. Climbing the topsail, I lost my leg!

In the centre of the mall there was this fenced off area and there was like a line of people, both grownups and children, and they were like waiting there to see this guy with this like white beard. The parents weren’t allowed to get close to him but the children were brought like right up to him and even sat on his lap. He’d talk to them and stuff, and scare some of them, and laugh and all. Someone was there to take pictures of the children, who were generally dressed up in Sunday best. He did not seem impressed by the selection of children but the parents looked pleased when their children were returned to them. I guess it is good that he gave all the children back. He seemed to have a lot of power, somehow. I swan to John.

We did not effort to enter many stores, actually. A goodly, but not greatly, mob was in evidence. A denizen of the kiosks said to Beth, I wish I could put this on your neck. The this in question was one of those neck relaxers (Reed Richards swears by them!), whatever the hell those things are. I think this entrepreneur’s approach could use some work.

We tucked ourselves into Nordstrom’s for a bit. It occurs to me that they removed the red carpet that was there at the entrance in earlier visits. Some boys ahead of us actually hopped onto a couch as they hustled thru the women’s shoes district near the entrance. Had I just entered a John Hughes movie? Not much stopped me in the store. I saw an astonishingly loud shirt, a canny mixture of paisley and peyote would be my guess. Visited again the coat that would never be. It’s okay, it’s okay.

We stopped at Au Bon Pain. Scones for each of us: chocolat pour moi et orange pour mon amour. We consumed our scones in a rest area of couches and comfy chairs near a Cadillac that was either for sale or a contest prize. A family sat down just after us. Not exactly sat. The mother deposited her husband and 4 children so that she could invest some solo expedition. The man sunk swiftly into the comfort of a couch while the children swarmed. Three boys close in age and a girl, who was youngest. The girl wore a pair of pink wings, had a pacifier in her mouth, and one in each hand. Dad wanted to chill but that did not fit in with the directive of the children. At one point the boys ran excitedly towards the Cadillac with the girl in their wake. For about 20 seconds they showed considerable interest in and excitement towards the car, unlike the American public, then they returned as if there was naught to remark about the car. The boys then rushed off somewhere. Dad decided that the girl, eager tho she was, should not tag along. This was a blow to her, and she cried, thunderstuck. She was still in sulk as we left.

We made tracks to Whole Foods, in search of a ham. Beth wants to do a ham for Christmas Eve. We have friends coming. We are talking an uncured ham, which Beth will brine and glaze and whatever the recipe says. This is something she saw in Cook’s magazine. Neither of us, over the years, have been that much into recipes, but we have decided to follow recipes lately, and Cook’s Magazine supplies not only good recipes but helpful gastronomic science.

IA recent visit to Whole Foods afforded me a Yeti ornament, which I have not stuck on the tree, preferring to stick it over there. I seem to be collecting evidence of Yeti, that is, images of the fell creature. At this selfsame Whole Foods I got a picture of a Yeti produce box (I fortuitously had had my camera in my pocket).

Note the encouraging thumbs up! It’s all right if Yeti says it’s so. I also found a beer, a stoutly stout, with Yeti appeal.

Close to 10% alcohol, a subtle wallop. Call it headache in a bottle, but I digress. Yeti has appeared in some of my writings, a book I mean to publish, so there’s the interest. The ornament is too white for me to get a decent picture of, at least so far, but trust me, I am on the prowl for more pix. Anyway, I guess there were no adventures at Whole Foods today. We ordered the ham and managed to return home unflaked upon. Four hours after the snow warning began here, still no snow. We shall see what Boreas delivers anon.

New Poems at Simple Theories

More poems at my poetry blog, Simple Theories.

Some Reading

I went to the library yesterday to collect a bunch of books. I just wanted some variety. This is what I came home with:

• 2 scifi, by Frederik  Pohl and Vernor Vinge. I’ve read books by both. I did not want to get any of that overextended stuff in 3, or 14, volumes. I like the commitment that goes into such series, but they tend to become extenuated. These 2 books seem to be discrete stories and built for speed.
• Plato and Platonism by Walter Pater. I have only read a little by Pater, plus a pretty good bio. I can imagine him at Oxford in a hashish haze (I mean figuratively, I don’t mean that he toked), with ideas of art and purity and what all.
• A bio of Larry Fine. Bios always interest me, and why not the middle Stooge?
• Powershift by Alvin Toffler. I’ve never read this sort of thing. Futurist? It was published in 1990. Let us see if he wasn’t a pastist.
• A bio of William Faulkner. I’ve read a lot of his novels and enjoy them, and still am not sure if I should like them.
• A collection of Whitman’s poetry. I wanted to read work by the guy who wrote the Levi commercials. Actually, my Whitman books are packed away, and I had a hankering. The commercials are the sort of predictable cool malarkey that some fast-paced New Yorker whupped up. Let’s be impressed together! Speaking of which, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention but Dolce e Gabbana has a commercial featuring a human featurette, male division, strutting handsomely to the conclusion of the commercial, at which point we realize that it is Matthew McConaughey. Really? The image I get of him is the lovable knucklehead, which does not seem to be quite the image for marketing Italian smelly stuff. I could be wrong.

Bed Bath & Beyond, and Beyond

We went to Bed Bath and Beyond Saturday for specific minor home goods needs. Actually, I went to discover what could be comprised in the term beyond. It sounds post-modern, with implications of a vast new possibility. The 4th dimension of home, hmm…

We used to go to Linens ‘n Things but that store, locally at least, has gone to that great thing in the sky. You will notice that Bed Bath & Beyond employs an ampersand whilst Linen ‘n Things goes with elision to express its commercial nature koan style. This must mean something. It must! I am still working on what a bed bath is.

I did not think I had ever been in BB&B but on entering, I had to wonder. It was set up just like Linen ‘n Things, which was located in the next strip mall over. Both strip malls are within hailing distance of our great, legendary shopping mall yclept Burlington Mall. Yes, that is the commercial turbine within which we spin.

So BB&B looks just like Linen did. Once thru the door you enter a counter-clockwise flow that lets you peruse every single piece of available merchandise. Ikea does this on a much broader scale. A circumnavigational aisle offers inlets of interest as well as stuff right there in the aisle. Need a radio in the shower? No prob! Pots and pans? No sweat. Bedding? Of course. I recognized most everything that I saw, so I do not know what was beyond. I do know that hearing Golden Earring play “Twilight Zone” was a surprise and a wonder.

Beth found what she needed. I saw a men’s grooming tool. I guess tool is the wrong word. A grooming aid for men. It is for trimming hair under the arm and in the area of naughty bits. Nice! The package showed an illustration of a man. This was necessary because no words indicated on what sections of a men’s body this item might be applied. Instead, there were red circles around the armpits and groin. No naughty bit was suggested in the illustration, so one might wonder just how efficient this grooming aid might be. One just might.

I neglected to mench that the store was extremely busy, with quite a crowd trying to pass by the cashiers. I ended up waiting in line while Beth made a second run thru for an item that she needed. This gave me the opportunity to look at a Wonder of Wonders, Grater Division. It is a re-envisioning of the common kitchen grater. Instead of being a metal item with a rough surface, it was a ceramic item with a rough surface. It also comes with a small ceramic dish, which I have to admit is something my present graters lack, at least in the sense of being a set. Here, then, is some real beyond thinking.

This grater’s brand was called The Pitchmen. Pictured on the package were our late friend Billy Mays, and Anthony Sullivan. Sullivan is another familiar sayer of No Wait There’s More!!! Why their being pitchmen implies product quality is something one could ponder. Without wishing ill of the man or being a dick, I also wonder why Mays’ death touched people as it did. I mean, I never felt much relationship with him. I am puzzled why he chose to yell at me as he did, but other than that, I did not feel that we grokked.

The next day we entered Whole Foods to the distinctive sound of—can you guess?—“Radar Love” by Golden Earring. Two Golden Earring moments in two days. The stars have aligned! Fun Fact: Golden Earring has been around since 1961. Holy Crap!

Today I did the mall solo. Beth was meeting a friend at Barnes & Noble across the way. Erin had his own mall mission, so I decided I would just wander thru the mall without Beth’s insight and perspective. We arrived at the mall at 10:00, which, we discovered, is one hour before most stores open on Sunday. Well!

I think the mall itself opened at 9:30, but the only stores exploiting this opportunity were Dunkin Donuts and Au Bon Pain. DD had an extensive line, which I had no intention of joining (I like my coffee to taste like coffee). Erin and I walked thru the mall together for a while. All the kiosks and carts were covered, stores were dark or, if not, then doors were snugly closed. The Apple Store had a red rope across the door, and a red shirt to pleasantly (I assume) bar you from entering.

Despite these discouraging tidings there were quite a few people wandering the halls of commerce. The escalators were not moving, the ubiquitous televisions were dark and quiet, and the string quartet was just tuning up. Eventually Erin split off for his mission. I made maybe 4 circuits of the place, upstairs and down. Few insights to report but I did get nail clippers at CVS. No prob with CVS but what’s a common store like that doing at the mall? Tone, people, tone!

Before stores opened, I saw Santa Claus in mufti. He carried a valise. Once the mall got into gear, the Santa Trap filled quickly with parents and their primped up children. Santa also regularly appears on the tvs, with essential news about his website. I have noticed that Santa tends to speak with a drawl. I do not know how to account for that.

So, does Santa ever visit Superman at the Fortress of Solitude, or Superman come visit Santa at the Workshop? I suppose Santa is busy churning out toys and Superman’s busy being alone, so alone.

We finished this excursion by gathering at the food court. There is quickie Thai, Chinese, and Japanese cuisine available. By my experience, if these are indicative, the 3 regions produce exactly the same stuff, with a highlight on starchy sweet and sour. Right now (because purveyors come and go quite a bit), these are the Food Court Choices:

• Some new place combining cupcakes and ice cream. Is the ice cream inside, or just on top? I dunno.
• A place offering toasted subs and philly cheese steaks.
• A place offering crepes, panini, and movies of bread making on their tv (cool)
• A Chinese place with someone generally out front offering samples. Samples are typically offered at the crepe place, as well.
• An Indian choice, and pretty darn good. We got rice pudding once that clearly had sour milk, but our complaints were passed aside, so our enthusiasm has considerably waned.
• Pizzaria Regina, once of the North End (Boston’s Italian neighbourhood), now serving the world, and Fenway Park. I would rather pay 2 here than 7 there at Fenway.
• Thai food, very eager to serve you.
• Quiznos. just Quiznos.
• Chick-Fil-A. See, the A is long, you eventually discover, as in Chick Filet, but it just does not work for me.
• Japanese food

After our repast, we got a Christmas tree at the farm where we have gotten them every year we have been together.