My Friend Fu Manchu

I first read Saxe Rohmer’s books about Fu Manchu when I was a teenager. I don’t know how I came to them. I found them entertaining. I gave little thought to the comprehensive view except that it was a lively read.

Years later I read one, just to see if it held up. I found it compelling, and gave thought about the nature of the series. I’m still thinking.

I don’t know what kind of audience the novels have. I suspect that the name Fu Manchu rings a bell for many, perhaps only for the mustache. I don’t believe there’s been any revival like with Conan. There have been Fu Manchu movies—Christopher Lee has played him, I think—but nothing like Sherlock Holmes. The character type, diabolical genius from the mysterious East, has been used to a fare-thee-well, Fu Manchu unnamed. It somehow touches something.

Racism is part of that something. We define evil as what we don’t know or understand. We imagine conspiracies and plots by an inscrutable enemy. Kind of lazy, kind of ugly. Fu Manchu represents a consummate political bogie man.

The books are a sort of relentless imitation of Sherlock Holmes. Whereas Holmes is a genius, apt nemesis to the masterminds he tangles with, Sir Denis Nayland Smith is a bit of a dud versus Fu Manchu. Nayland Smith is a bulldog but always seems to be outfoxed by Fu Manchu. And yet, every round ends up won by Nayland Smith, or at least not won by Fu Manchu.

Like Holmes, Nayland Smith has a sidekick, Dr. Petrie. Petrie sometimes carries a pistol and an electric torch. That is his job, plus narrate events in hyper gasp. He ends up marrying Fu Manchu’s daughter, whaddya know. I don’t know wherefore but Petrie later gets replaced by a young journalist, Bart Kerrigan.

Nayland Smith is a government investigator, expert in foreign affairs. Nothing more foreign than the Asian menace. Rohmer describes Nayland Smith’s manner of speech with verbs like rap and snap, which I take are synonymous. Resume writers take note, Rohmer is a caution with the action words. Sir Denis also frequently raps his inevitable pipe, and he snaps his fingers irritably.

Sir Denis always seems on the brink of desperation in his battles with the evil genius. He and Petrie rush about trying to find leads, chase minions, and lay traps for The Doctor. The minions are sadly disgraceful. In one book, a  short, powerful Burman, which I think means Burmese, is referred to as subhuman. Immensely strong but Asian zombie in his blood. Yellow Race/Yellow Peril. A very minor character is described in ugly Jewish caricature. I suppose this is all normal for the time and place. Fu Manchu himself is rendered as diabolical, sinister, and the Devil incarnate. He’s a wee bit crazy, too.

Fu Manchu has moments of elegant sanity. I imagine Ian Fleming learned from Rohmer some things about monomaniacal masterminds intent on controlling the world. Fu Manchu always manages to set up a fully-equipped hide out in a dank riverside warehouse or an abandoned house in a bog. Nayland Smith and Petrie come very close to succumbing to The Doctor when some lucky mischance by Fu Manchu causes his plans to fail and he must flee. The Doctor’s return remains a perpetual threat. A grudging admiration exists between Nayland Smith and Fu Manchu. The Doctor also admires Petrie, mostly for being a fairly ordinary bloke.

The stories are all the same, but that doesn’t matter. We have this Manichean battle to witness. And it is all done with action verbs. These books are comprehensive in the focal demands of their racist congeries. And yet, Nayland Smith is so overmatched that you have to admire his doggedness versus this ultimate mastermind and his mindless minions. It’s like some do-gooder trying to bring the Koch brothers into a rationale of compassion.

The book cover of The Drums of Fu Manchu offers a collage of events in the book. The top of this emblem is the face of Fu Manchu. He looks crazed and provoked. Rohmer describes him as being tall and having green eyes, or maybe it is just his daughter with the verdant eyes. He wears a mandarin hat. Below him to the left is Scotland Yard, I guess, or Big Ben. The stakes. To the right, a guy in a striped shirt smooches a red haired hottie. The James Bond School of Relationship. They are Bart Kerrigan, journalist, and Ardatha, daughter or grand daughter of FM. I guess this is a scene from the book. Below to the left is someone aiming a rifle, presumably Nayland Smith. Finally NS with a knife to his throat—grey at the temple gives him away—tho it was Kerrigan who suffered the threat, which Ardatha saved him from.

The back cover features a small b&w of Rohmer sitting uncompromisingly on a desk in his library. He has a pipe in his mouth and wears a silk long robe. Nice!

If I can come to a bottom line, I like the energy of the narrative. Conan Doyle certainly knew how to raise the heart rate, in stories that often featured a 2-bit thievery, and Rohmer may top him. The racist figurines and the confident English rectitude conflate into a passion play of redemption, not that anything can possibly be redeemed in this murk. The noble intent of saving one’s class from the influence of Other allows mindlessness to flourish with a graceful radical. No, we are not beans in warm soil, we are the heroes of our small disposition.

Antic View Returns

Almost nine years ago, Jeff Harrison and I began a blog called Antic View. We intended to have a public dialogue about writing, about his approach, my approach, the approach of others. We had a hiatus two years ago when my focus slid elsewhere. Not my interest, however, and certainly not Jeff’s. There was no formal closure, I just was looking in a different direction (several, I guess).

Jeff’s work has changed considerably over the years (I won’t comment on my own). In the fancy dance of the Internet, neither Jeff or I wiggle with proper gusto. I think Jeff has produced a fascinating and unique oueuvre unconditioned by the Internet’s official poetry world. I believe I have as well. Antic View, in my view, gives evidence that there are things outside Harriet the blog, and the academic rules committee. I don’t mean this in some sparkling defense of genius, I simply acknowledge the haves and haven’ts of promotion. I am happy to promote Jeff’s work, and even my own, but the point of Antic View is to see the work at work. The link, then: Antic View.

The Beer Works, Lowell

We dropped Erin off at UMass Lowell, specifically East Campus. East Campus is about a block from The Beer Works. We had a nice dinner last summer at the Beer Works, which itself is across the street from where the Lowell Spinners play. We parked where we did last summer, only now Lowell had installed a revenue source. At least one dollar for an hour isn’t the worst I’ve seen. Better this than a random eager ticket.

Monday, around 3:30, the place was empty. A waitress came to seat us but we chose to sit at the bar. There were two bartenders along with the waitress, waiting thru the lull before dinner. “Blister in the Sun” played on the sound system. It carried into the bathroom, which is nice. The bathroom was clean but both sinks had severely wobbly faucets.

After some thought Beth selected the nut brown ale. I went with an ipa, of which there were several. I think it was called Dye Street. We also ordered the deep-fried pickles. The nut brown ale was rich and smooth with a touch of sweetness. The ipa was spicy and satisfying. I’m okay with overdone but balance is good too. Beer Works offers three glass sizes, 12, 16, and 24 ounces. Beth liked the design of one glass but the bartender wasn’t allowed to use that glass for nut brown ale. Each beer had its specific glass.

I had a second beer. The same ipa I’d already had was listed twice. The second one was cask-conditioned and unfiltered (the first was bottle-conditioned). It was served slightly warmer. It was cloudy, rounder with more yeast and fruit in the nose. Very pleasant.

Above the bar were three televisions with the sound off. Should mench that a small group entered and sat at the bar talking. One tv had a sports show with three hosts who were apparently being funny. They showed clips of athletes failing: falling down, losing fights, etc. They were full of what looked like tired guffaw. The middle tv had three talking heads on CNN discussing the Malaysian crash. I have not kept up with the controversy, but I could see they were tearing all life from yet another subject. Two serious looking experts flanked the attractive blonde CNN host who wore pink. None were in the same studio. At least it wasn’t Fox but you know it would all be insipid if the sound were turned up. The third tv showed a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the SF 49ers, from the 1980s. Tony Dorsett, Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott. Golden oldies. What should beer drinkers watch if no sporting events are available?

Crown Royal Maple

For some reason, Beth got curious when she saw a small bottle of Crown Royal Maple Whisky. She wanted to try it, and wanted me too, as well. I’m not much of a whisky drinker, nor am I enamoured of maple as a flavour. But years in the wine business has left me curious about tasting wine, beer, and even liquor. So I got the bottle and Beth, of course, declined to sample. My opinion stands thus:

Flavoured whiskeys have become rather hot. I like to read industry gobbledygook that features demographics and statistics that declare that every product is on the rise. I do see a certain eagerness about new flavoured spirits. Jack Daniels came up with Tennessee Honey, which seems to have hit a good stride. Our store was tipped off by a customer about a maple whiskey called Cabin Fever. It was made pretty much entirely by one man, who used syrup from his own sugar bush to flavour the whiskey that he made. He has since sold Cabin Fever to Jim Beam, which ensuingly got bought by the Japanese conglomerate Sun Tory. Tra la.

Flavoured vodka of course is a natural since vodka has little flavour on its own. Vodka flavours have devolved, if you ask me, from fruit and vanilla, to whipped cream, bacon and, omg, cigarette. True story, regular cigarettes and menthol.

Flavouring whiskey is a different matter because of whiskey’s already strong character.  The flavouring has to merge with the whiskey flavour. I was a little surprised that Crown entered the flavoured whiskey space. Like it is above such tactics. The market cries out, however.

Anyway, I poured a dollop over ice. I usually don’t like iced drinks but it seemed like the way to try it. When I tried Cabin Fever, the guy—I don’t remember his name—used ice. Cabin Fever is somewhat sweet and the ice mutes that some.

Crown smelled like maple whiskey. I’ve never had straight Crown, but it clearly was a decent whisky aroma. I got interesting fruit aromas, along with the maple. Orange came thru particularly. I do not suspect the addition of orange, that’s just what happens when Crown Royal and maple converge.

There’s some sweetness to the Crown, possibly less than Cabin Fever. It is quite smooth and lingering. It was a pleasant sip. I would drink it again, but probably not buy it again. I express why above, in the third sentence. You might try adding some to maple syrup, for pancakes or whatever. Not me, I put Frank’s Red Hot on my pancakes. I’ll bet other good cooking uses can be made.

Blogs and Change

Tributary, this very blog, is almost 10 years old. That must be a century in Internet time. The blog has changed considerably. I began nervously, with flighty random thoughts. I then recounted things Beth, Erin, and I did, things I read or seen. That’s what I want from my writing, ride the wave.

A few years ago I chose to formalize the writing a bit. I used titles, which focused the subject matter a bit. I went to a little more effort with rewriting and the typo hunt. Not perfectly so, I am bound by a necessity with the blog to dash it off. I will usually let errors go if discovered later on, unless it is really ridiculous. And I almost never remove posts.

Anyway, I thought that I would post more often, and on a wider range of subjects, or even if I don’t know it’s a subject. Blogs of 10 years ago were much more conversational in the sense of readers functioning in and as a network. That job has been taken over by Facebook and Twitter, in a more fleeting and superficial way. I like writing and I like following the mysterious trails, so I will continue in my evolving niche. And there we are.

Dance Performance, “Calling to You”

I recently saw a dance performance by the Deborah Abel Dance Company last Sunday. I wrote about it directly. There's a degree to which I haven't really witnessed a performance or event unless I write about it. At least in part, I write to process the experience. Anyway, my blog awaits anything that interests me, and this performance certainly did.

Alas, I swung and missed. I tried to capture the narrative flow of the event, of everything that went into the concert. That can't be done in one sitting, maybe not in several sittings. Furthermore, I found my ignorance about modern dance hindered my writing. I cannot speak in the dance idiom, which essentially is what I tried to do. I can, however, speak in the art idiom. I am myself an artist and have been moved, confused, challenged, and inspired by the arts for all of my life. It is from this standpoint that I should write about the performance.

I have banished my first attempt from public view. With Take 2 here, I shall go light on technical matters. Plenty moved and excited me, music and dance.

The performance, or concert, is called “Calling to You”. Deborah Abel choreographed it. Lee Perlman wrote the music. Lee also played guitar and sang; Deborah also danced. They are married, which fact is apt because “Calling to You” touches on matters of collaboration, of engagement together.

The concert took place in a cozy theatre at Boston University. The musicians gathered in the pit at the left side of the stage. I could not see them well. Of course attention should be placed on the dancers but I was curious about what the musicians were doing. I think this is quite proper. They are part of the collaboration. It's not just the dancers who make the performance, it is the musicians, the person at the sound board, the person working the lights, the people changing the set. In theatre, we see the process and collaboration of creation that we do not see in movies or television.

After an opening invocation sung in Sanskrit, the curtain rose. A dark and sparely set stage greeted us. Two white rectangles hung on either side of the stage to suggest windows, ones that Nijinsky could never jump through. To the left a simple table and chair. Stage right a bed, more like a pallet. Two dancers set themselves at the table. The notes referred to them as Contemporary Male and Contemporary Female. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt and khakis, she a short red dress. He sat on the chair and she on the table. They were turned back to back. The tableau looked grim. Cue the music.

The music was essentially a set of songs, albeit richly arranged. Some were in English, some in Sanskrit, but either way I didn't really attend to the words. Taking in the spectacle of dance and music proves challenging enough on first viewing.

I found Perlman's music bore similarities to that of Dead Can Dance. Dead Can Dance is a musical group with a unique and eclectic sound. I don't mean to suggest similarities in any linear way. I mean more in the sense of passion, evocation, and mesmeric invitation. Percussion plays an important role in both examples, adding mood as well as beat.

The music of Dead Can Dance seems to have a strong Middle Eastern influence whereas Perlman's music seems tempered by that of India, at least here. I haven't mentioned yet that India provides the setting for much of this piece.

The instrumentation consisted of electric bass, tabla, flute, assorted other percussion, acoustic guitar, and violin. I mention the instrumentation because a rich and varied sound arose from the ensemble. I'm not quite sure how this collection of instruments produced those sounds.

The dancing in this first scene became an almost frenzied miscommunication between the two characters. They gallop towards each other, they swing away. They crawl on the floor, they roll over each other. The characters reveal anger and sadness, and even hope, but mostly look lost. All this in the difficult service of love. I think this scene ends with Contemporary Female curled face to the wall on the bed. Contemporary Male sits glumly at the table. Sadly opposed.

Between scenes the curtain remained raised but the stage was dark. A drone of some sort played. That made an effective maintenance of mood and connection to the next scene while the set changed. The audience clapped after each scene, which disturbed me. I guess it is what's done but it jolted me to return to “normal” after having been drawn into the meditative circumstance of the dance and music. The drone helped soften that jolt for me.

Narration accompanied the next scene. The story briefly, a boy and girl in ancient India become friends. Though they are young, their love reveals a knowing depth. Unfortunately, their families must move away and the children must part.

The contemporary set remains at the front of the stage, with Contemporary Male still seated at the table. He has his head on the table, dozing or just despairing. Ancient India is suggested in back by a few colourful elements plus the costumes of the dancers. Time is fluid; past and future are present now. The music here was upbeat and generative. The dancing was fluid, young, and happy.

The narrator speaks words in Sanskrit as the children part. The words are by Jnaneshwar Maharaj and are translated in the notes thus:

“Out of love for each other they merge and part for the joy of being two.” Read these words a few times, they are more of a riddle than you might at first think.

A quick web search discovers that Jnaneshwar Maharj was a revered poet who lived but 22 years at the end of the 13^th Century. A little further on in the piece whence came the above quote, one finds these lines:

Two lutes, one note

Two lamps, one light

Two eyes, one sight

Two lips, one word

Two hearts, one love

This human intersection in which boundaries fall proves a central theme to the piece. The contentious pas de deux that began the concert showed the difficulties of separation, of boundaries.

Anyway, the girl Prema becomes a priestess and the boy Viveka wanders the world. Time and space separate them.

If memory serves, and it may not, the next scene featured Sadhus and priestesses. We see them on cushions, meditating perhaps. They are covered by veils. As the scene develops, they slowly flower by uncovering from their veils to dance. We see an interplay among them. The sadhus and priestesses then return to their cushions and one of them gracefully covers each, and then himself. The characters here seem timeless, unbound in that way. Perhaps here we begin to see them as tutelary spirits or guardians. As the concert goes on, the Ancient Ones show more interest in the Contemporary Ones, and the Contemporary Ones feel more the presence of the Ancient Ones.

Adult Viveka wanders into the woods, where he meets Tiger Spirits. The Tiger Spirits attack him. He puts up a good fight but they beat him down. I believe at this point Contemporary Male is gone and Contemporary Female lies curled on the bed.

Prema discovers Viveka, brings him to the temple and helps heal him. They reunite. Finally, the space-time intersection becomes complete: the Ancient Ones join the Contemporary Pair. At first male to male and female to female, the Ancient Ones lead and encourage the Contemporary Pair. Then male to female, female to male. Finally the Contemporary Pair feel free to dance together. Their contentions have broken down and their dance thrives with reborn energy and insight. Yin and Yang completion.

I found it easy to enter the “space” of this concert. The music made a rich landscape and the expression of the dance had a recognizable emotional touch. The dancing looked energetic and effortless.

It should be noted that Lee Perlman teaches philosophy at MIT, specifically a course on The Philosophy of Love. Obviously there's a grounding in ancient texts in this work. That grounding is organic and expressed gracefully in the dance, the music, and the words.

All in all, “Calling to You” displayed an organic collaborative quality and a skill to deliver its wisdom with poetic grace.

Santa Claus the Weird

Richard Lopez recently wrote a blog post about a movie he and his son watched called Santa Claus. His reaction is here. He includes a link to the trailer. I remembered the movie! That is, I remember seeing the ad for the movie on television when I was a child. I never saw the movie itself till I watched it with Erin on Christmas Day. It can be found in the Youtube repository, where our entire culture currently resides.

As happens so often with diversions meant for children, Santa Claus is a good piece of craziness. It was made in Mexico in 1959, then turned into an American product. I cannot say what was lost and found during the translation process. The movie’s a bit jumbly but nonetheless full of spectacle of a surreal sort.

Eastman Colorscope gets credit for the visual attack of the film. Who knows what that entails? Is Eastman Colorscope better than Technicolor? Well, the color is both faded and heightened, some of which may owe to old film or I don’t know what.

A voiceover narrator explains bits thru out the film. It comes across like a documentary. The first scene shows Santa’s workshop floating out in space above the North Pole. You may wonder why the displacement of Santa’s workshop from its usual terrestrial situation but later on we are informed that Santa can only stay on Earth on Christmas Eve. That suggests some penance that the jolly elf must serve. That’s a curious, undeveloped touch.

Inside the workshop we meet the jolly fellow. His jolliness verges on insanity, at least in his most heightened moments. He laughs hysterically for no discernible reason. Santa, as we receive him in the panoply of legends, is never really mischievous, but still he seems to have an air of Coyote. You know, sneaking around from house to house, eating cookies and milk at each one, busy at his endeavour. He’s up to something.

In the movie, Santa looks at his Christmas shrine, which is a manger scene, with Mary the honoured one. That confluence of sacred and profane makes me uneasy. He quickly leaves his shrine and toddles to his organ, which he starts to play with gesticulating zest. Surprisingly, because the actor obviously isn’t actually playing the organ, Santa puts a lot of energy into playing the pedals. He does this, seemingly, to entertain the elves.

In a separate workshop area are gathered the elves. At least I believe they are elves. They appear to be children from around the world. Here we get a rather tedious scene in which children/elves dressed in traditional gear of their land sing songs in their native tongue. The children (the actors) appear drugged, perhaps overwhelmed by the movie-making process. Just the fact that it is snowing inside the workshop might be enough to explain their discomfiture. Maybe 10 countries are represented in this scene including Russia and the nation of Africa.

We shift from this scene to Hades, Satan’s domain. The workshop was trippy enough. Hades is where the bad acid takes over. Hades is dark and red and flaming. A handful of red demons with big ears and bovine horns perform a cheesy Broadway dance routine that I guess means to assure young viewers that Satan and his crew are a bit wan and not to be worried about. Maybe it’s just me but when I see demons doing high kicks, I know I’m looking at shoddy merchandise.

After the dance recital, Satan’s booming voice explains that something has to be done about this fellow Santa. Satan directs a demon named Pitch to head up to the surface and mess with Santa. This isn’t the childish crank depicted in the Book of Job, this is Snidely Whiplash inventing nefarious plots that thin to nothingness.

Pitch transports instantly to an earthly rooftop, where he laughs with unreasonable vigour. The game is on.

Well, all he does is irritate. A crowd of children and parents gathers outside a toy store to ogle the delights. Included are a rich man and his son, who is confident to receive a great gift. We also meet a wispy little poor girl, who doesn’t look to get much. Pitch tempts three boys to lean toward the coal side of Santa’s list. They proceed to throw stones at the store window.

At Santa HQ, an elf alerts Santa that something’s afoot. Santa commands that his viewing device be used. It’s a sort of telescope with an eye at the end. I remember this image from the ad of long ago. Santa also has a listening device, a big ear, an a speaking device, a big, weird mouth. All this serves Santa’s good/bad surveillance.

Santa approaches anger at the thought of these boys performing bad deeds. He understands that Pitch is involved but still lays a burden on the boys. When I was in first grade, some second graders convinced me to yell something at the policewoman who got kids across Bedford St safely. They did not bully me, just explained how doing so would be a good idea. Well I did, I yelled “You rot.” I ended up having to stay after school there at the crosswalk. High crime. The point of this reverie is that I knew no better, and neither did the three boys. But Santa no like the rules broken.

Pitch also convinces the little girl to go to the dark side in some minor way. Her good soul and that of her mother make this only a brief dalliance. And Santa’s there to help her. There’s also a boy whose parents are a little neglectful of him, which Santa needs to right.

Time to deliver the presents. Santa has his sack and the elves stick presents into its internal endlessness. The narrator informs us that Santa’s reindeer, all four, are mechanical. Another random adjustment of the familiar legend. Aint anybody heard of Clement Moore here?

Santa carries with him something to make people sleep, allowing him to make his sneak attacks, and something to allow him to float, so that he can make use of chimneys. He rights Pitch’s wrongs. Ah but Pitch manages to make Santa’s magical items go missing. And just then an angry dog chases Santa up a tree. This is desperate because Santa’s time on earth is almost up and Santa especially doesn’t want to disappoint the little girl.

Santa calls to the elves, who can hear him thru the listening device. A magician named Merlin is called for. He’s a fragile, doddering old man in wizard suit. I’m not sure Merlin actually does anything. It seems like some of Santa’s magic stuff just appears, and all is well. I mean the dog stops barking and Santa can climb down from the tree. When I put it that way, the crescendo of dramatic tension doesn’t sound like much.

Santa seems like a good soul, if not that bright. The movie evokes a sense of the downtrodden even amidst its concern for middle class virtues. The Santa myth lacks comprehensiveness, which is obvious here and elsewhere. Why does Santa even bother to give presents to the son of the rich man (identified as such): that kid’s going to get the toy he covets.

In the old days, Santa was seen doling out dolls for girls and tin soldiers for boys. You could see Santa and his elf crew making those. Who ever thought Santa made Rocket ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, let alone PS4? So that conception of Santa is a fizzle. The image of the laughing, red cheeked Santa pleases but you cannot really hold it all together, the myth. This movie has its visual strength and basically good soul. It differs from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which just wants to be antic and fails. I feel that Santa Claus the legend will soon be outmoded. Too simple, and not generative enough in terms of product merchandizing.

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

Barbara Pym is a writer who I suspect isn't well known in this country. I think I stumbled on a book by her in a used bookstore, years ago. I don't know what led me to get it. The book surprised me for being so intriquing without having much of a plot. Pym has been in play for the Booker Prize (for this very book) so Great Britain must know her better.

Beguiled by that first book, I read a couple others, with satisfaction. Been a while since I have read her, but finding this at the library proved invitation enough.

This is a wonder-full novel, tho its uninflected nature makes that something perhaps easy to miss. As I was reading, I thought of A Nest of Ninnies by John Ashbery and James Schuyler. A better comparison is Arthur and Guinevere, by Schuyler seul. It shares with those works a de-emphasis of plot. Characters move about and “do” things, but they don't seem really at the authour's bidding.

I think Quartet also belongs in a Jane Austen lineage. V S Pritchett described the way Austen's character's intereact as like naval manuevres. You can see that in the way she lets Miss X and Mr Y grandly move toward and away from each other in the course of the story. Pym doesn't pace that way but there's an almost coded system among the four main characters as they politely and tentatively engage with each other. This is major league stuff.

The previous novels that I read centered on unmarried women “of a certain age”, and how they get along. These women are settled with their unmarried status tho somewhat dissatisfied. The books end without romantic clinch. The reader may root for these characters to end up happy, but Pym refuses to obstruct the veritable human processses of the characters.

In one novel, the protagonist referred to herself as a spinster. The word struck me as shocking, because the setting was contemporary, and the word seems so anachronistic and dated. It even has a cruel savour, coming from a time when the unmarried older woman was a degraded thing. I suppose that cultural command still exists, but maybe eased some.

Quartet concerns two women and two men who work together in some dreary office. All near retirement age and indeed the two women retire in the course of the book.

All four are unmarried. Only Edwin, a widower, had been married. He has a house. He spends his time at church. Churches, that is: he daily roams about to whatever church that is celebrating a Saint's day. He's not motivated by religion so much as by an eagerness to immerse in church community.

Norman lives in a bedsetter, a one room apartment. Where Edwin is somewhat pompous, Norman is more querilous, perhaps a bit fussy. He's move given of the four to make snarky remarks.

Marcia lives alone in a house that she inherited. She recently had a double masectomy. She's the most eccentric character.

Letty (Leticia) is the central character, tho all four characters are given roughly equal weight. Pym seems to be most inside Letty. None of the characters are entirely likeable, but we find all finally sympathetic.

You can't really draw the plot of this novel. The four, at work, interact in a familiar, bickering sort of way. They regard each other almost as friends, but they do not socialize outside the office. Except for Edwin and his churches, they have no friends or even interests.

This may sound grim but Pym is amazing in her ability to create a lively, realistic dislogue with these people. The characters all have these inchoate ideas about the world, intimations of understanding, that they always drop before “getting too far”. They tease each other, almost touching nerves, yet they remain in their grey disengagement.

Tho their conversation remains eminently polite, they frequently make thoughtless remarks about each other. Remarks, for instance, about the hopelessness of the women's existence (as aging spinsters), or Norman as a pathetic little man. These comments are blurted without guile or even interntion. Letty especially reacts to these remarks, yet no one seems to take them deeply to heart.

When the women retire, the company does not replace them. The men won't be replaced either when their time comes. The men vaguely worry about how the women will get along. They all do this, actually, but the change in situation for the women intensifies the men's dull concern. They all have a lasting, unexamined concern for each other. Letty is at least competent within her bounds. Marcia spins into dazed eccentricity.

A comic prop thru out the book is Marcia's hording of milk bottles. During the late war (the book's set in the 70s), you didn't get milk if you didn't have a bottle. Somehow a bottle that Letty had came into Marcia's possession. Marcia's dairyman won't take back that bottle. She developes an animosity towards Letty because of this intrusion into her life. When Letty's apartment situation is up in the air, everyone thinks she and Marcia should live together. Marcia even considers it, but the ghastly affront of Letty's milk bottle puts the kibosh on that arrangement. Marcia also hordes tinned food, which she hardly eats.

Tinned meals, or an egg and toast, plus of course tea, are what all of them go home to. They all note tiny kindnesses, like Marcia willing to share an economy-sized tin of coffee with Norman at the office.

I liken this to Alfred and Guenivere because so much is intimated, so much ripples under the surface. And Pym, like Schuyler, is so delicate and humoured with her characters.

There are some resolutions by the end of the novel. Marcia, who spent her retirement fading away, dies quietly. She surprisingly wills her house to Norman, who realizes he may not want the responsibility. Letty had planned to move in with a longtime friend in the country until this friend became engaged to be married. In the end, that engagement falls apart, and Letty has that possibility again. Letty, however, is unsure whether she wants to live in such dependencies.

The plot doesn't seem to embrace any fabrication. Pym peers straightforwrdly at lives of quiet agitation, and manages a lively wit and a kindly sympathy. And the book is surprisingly funny. I'll keep looking for Barbara Pym's work.

Hey! An Operation!

Sunday I had my first operation since I was a teenager. As a child I had the tip of my finger lopped off. That required an overnight stay to sew it up. As a teenager, I had a deviated septum. I had my nose reamed (not the medical term). My nose was packed so I had to sleep breathing thru my mouth. Which I didn’t really do. The night nurse supplied an empathy that I still remember. I was told that my father sat by my bed for a couple hours after I returned from the operation. I never woke while he was there but I cherish that. I’ve had some emergency room stays. I have had several immersive stays when my parents and Erin variously had lengthy stays. I’ve seen the wringer but this was the first I really felt it.

Friday at work I suddenly felt sick to the stomach and shivery chills. I assumed food poisoning. It felt bad enough that I left work a little early. I had a really uncomfortable night with aches and chills and a pain in my gut. I also had a supreme and unlikely hunger. When I got up, I tried to make soothing oatmeal. It tired me just standing at the stove. I crawled under a blanket. I managed to eat what I made before I left for work.

I would have skipped work Saturday but I knew two people were unavailable. I thought I could muscle my way thru. I did eventually rally, and I ate a sandwich for lunch. I meant to work the full day but Beth encouraged me to leave when the next person in arrived. Beth made magic matzo balls and chicken broth and I went to bed.

I passed off the pain in my gut as gas but Beth suspected my appendix. I don’t think she ever trusted my appendix, when it comes to that. She consulted our doctor and he said go to the hospital. So there it was.

Completing the initial paperwork, we sat and watched the final inning of the Red Sox against Tampa. As Koji Uehara was about to throw his last pitch I got called to confirm my entrance. I wanted to see Koji’s celebration. Soon after, barely hearing any of David Ortiz’s bland interview with somebody, I got called to the emergency suite. Appendicitis offers more risks than the cuts, breaks, and muscle tears that I’ve otherwise brought for show. Short wait before a nurse came for vitals. Watched the Bruins finalize a win in souped up e-room convenience. Watching this was more to please the attending nurse. A doctor explained that the likeliest diagnosis was appendicitis, which a cat scan would confirm.

Cat scan = modern fun! Over the course of more than an hour, I had to drink apple juice laced with contrast liquid. This liquid would help the scan image’s clarity. This was not onerous labour but it took time. Beth went home because she was exhausted and the scan wouldn’t occur for another several hours.

On the other side of the curtain there was a teenage boy who fainted during an sat test. He suffered a mild concussion in his fall. I half dozed until a nursed collected me and took me by gurney to another emergency room. This was inscrutable because it seemed like the same room. It was already occupied by an older woman who had taken a fall. She broke ribs. Doctors and nurses kept remarking on the injury to her face but I never saw it. Hospital staff several times asked her about kin, and her answers always included addenda: Joe is my nephew and he’s married to Julie. She wanted answers about what was happening next. The doctor who answered one time was quite petulant in telling her that she had already been told. He tried to lead her on to answer her own questions but that tack didn’t work. I finally got gurneyed off to the scan.

This radiology wing, not unexpectedly, was scarcely populated. The scan operator was probably glad to have someone to talk to. A glitch right off: I’d had blood taken earlier, and the site was kept open so that… I hope I’m getting this right… more scan liquid could react with the scan. I’d notice that the site was a little painful but in fact the needle had come out. The operator had to do a new one. The initial site was a vein on my right hand. She tried the left hand. Turns out she was not that good at using needles. The operation hurt and she never made a proper site. I purposely kept my cool and brushed aside her apologies, not wanting to rattle her, or myself. She tried a vein at the crook of my left elbow. This was equally a painful failure, and left a bruise. She said I had very hard veins.

After that she called a nurse, who quickly and painlessly applied the needle. I was then stuck in the scan tube. The liquid was sent thru my veins. I was told that I would feel a warm sensation that might make me think I was pissing my pants. Also, I was supposed to listen to the instructions of the automated voice. This voice, when it spoke, was at first inaudible. That worried me. Ructions in my intestines also worried me. I should have asked how long the procedure took.

Finally the voice cleared and I felt the warm feeling. I had to take a deep breath and hold it a couple of times. It took a few minutes to finish. As I was exiting the tube, an intense and increasing sense of hunger fell over me. This turned immediately to nausea. I announced how I felt and the operator gave me a bucket. I dry heaved four or five times then felt fine. After a quick torso x-ray, I got admitted to a room. I think it was close to 3:00.

I had a saline drip. Where the needle was set, it was easy as pie for me to occlude the tube. This activated an obnoxious alarm, one that required a pro to quell. This happened probably ten times. The nurses et al were fine with this but I know my roomies were not. At 6:00, I readied for the operation. I had to remove my jewelry. For this peacock, that means an earring, two wedding rings, another ring, and a silver necklace. I had never taken any of them off before except the earring. All were given to me by Beth.

A footnote applies to the wedding rings. Not long after the wedding, the ring fell off. That was upsetting. We got another, larger one. They were cheap. Lo, the first one was found, so I wore that two. I didn’t even know how to remove the necklace. I felt a strong emotion in removing the rings. Just to add to that, twenty two years earlier to the day, in this hospital, my mother died. I don’t know why humans think like this but we do.

The doctor had earlier explained his diagnosis and intended procedure. The scan confirmed a sketchy appendix. Not perforated but increasingly ready to blow. He was mostly calming in the information he gave. He described an area on the intestine that could be inflamed. Alternatively, it could be something else, however unlikely. I wasn’t nervous. I would have been had this been a planned operation, but as it was, it was just a long, weird day. The surgeon stood before me holding a box in front of him to support a piece of paper. He drew a stick figure and explained how things were and would go. Because of the placement of my appendix, he would incise over it and make the snatch. Okay.

I was wheeled down to surgery. There I met the attending anesthesiologists. In sooth, it was one anesthesiologist, one nurse-anesthesiologist, and a nurse. The a introduced himself and spoke calmingly about what he would do. He’s actually the guardian angel who lets the n-a do the work and him get the money. Inequity, I’m sure. He was an entertainingly scruffy guy. He was also a physicist and apparently wants to start some sort of physics business, the nature of which I never got to hear. The others introduced themselves. It seemed like an affable group. The nurse injected me with something that she said would help me to relax and forget. It was the last thing I remember till after the operation.

I remember waking up brightly, as I typically do. I did not feel drowsey or out of it. I spoke to the attending nurse. Beth says that she was able to catch me as they were wheeling me to recovery (my next book Wheeling to Recovery, the hardhitting story of…). She reports that I said “you… you… you…” Then I declared that they didn’t do the operation, just pretended to. That’s something I would say, no doubt. On the other hand, perhaps a man on business from Porlock interrupted my dream. I dunno. Years ago, I contracted a doozy case of poison ivy. Beth was on constant watch that I didn’t scratch the rash. In bed I think I moved and Beth, still asleep, grasped my shoulder and said “Don’t scratch. I love you. What’s for dinner.” So we’ve got this crazy love.

What time did I reach my room? Eight, maybe? No, later, football games were impending. Beth stayed a while, then I watched football, dozed, read David McCullough’s book about some bridge in Brooklyn, and dozed. Beth and Erin returned, then football, doze, book, doze, and repeat. I mostly slept on my back, not my best choice. Left side hurt the wound, right side caused the alarm to ring. I slept in one hour portions, normal hospital routine.

During the night, I got a new roomie, the first leaving early in the day. I should have taken notes how to act sociable and pleasant. He had, I learned, diverticulitis. Med he was given apparently made him nauseous. I heard him throw up undramatically. When a nurse arrived he brushed it off as an inconvenience. I do that, brush things off. I don’t want the bad stuff to grow too big. I’m just not tuned to charming anyone.

I don’t know how we’ll pay for this extravaganza—thank you, Neanderthalis republicanis—but there was a large dose of experience. This is the first time in my large life that I was the old guy that needed help. It is not an easy position to sustain. Gracefully, at least. This is the time we start to learn things. Erin just served me some chicken soup he made.

Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse

There the book was, so I decided to read it. I've seen two or three Clancy movies, Red October, Clear and Present Danger, for sure. They're the sort of thrillers that leave me convinced that I’ve missed ¾ of what's going on, but the ¼ I get offers some satisfaction.

You never know if a movie translates a novel fairly, or if “movie magic” keeps the eye transfixed, like jiggled string for a cat. I trudged thru the novel The Firm, somehow, not quite feeling the same excitement for billing as Grisham feels. Not to overpraise the movie but, despite starring Tom Cruise, it at least kept moving. So I assumed nothing as I entered Clancy's world.

Pop writers like Clancy, they tend to use random titles. The words just need to be punchy, not relevant to anything in the book. Altho Our Hero shows no remorse in one plotline here, he and everyone else in the book show plenty of remorse. Wear it on your sleeve remorse. A perfect storm of remorse. Let's go!!! Not to worry about it. We're here for action, and Clancy hands it out.

Clancy twines several plots that could have functioned nicely by themselves. There's an I'll show 'em quality to the shifting forth and back but he manages in near tour-de-force fashion to hold it all together. We won't fret the unlikeliness of the mayhem.

John Kelly, later Clark, is a young undersea demolition expert. He's a Vietnam vet, former Navy SEAL. His young, pregnant wife dies in a car crash, which sends the first glop of remorse into lugubrious motion. Cut to a few months later. Kelly seemingly has quit working but, since demolition is so lucrative (just guessing), he can live grimly on his island in the Chesapeake Bay. So okay, for some reason, he picks up a hitchhiker, a young woman who clearly has been thru a lot. That's the sullen version of meet cute. We learn slowly that she's an addict, forced into that condition by a ruthless pimp.

Am I going too fast here?

Well they fall in love. Then Kelly helps a couple who have boat trouble. One's a surgeon, the other's a psychologist. This is sort of meet cute, as well. The three help restore the young woman. The woman explains that other young women are held like she was. Kelly wants to help them. He and the woman go to the nasty neighbourhood just to scope it out. As I think on it, this seems both pointless and dangerous. The plot needed this action, however, because Kelly gets shot and the woman is killed. Tortured then killed.

Once Kelly recovers, he's out for revenge. There's the lack of remorse. Is that enough plot for you? Well there's also a fighter pilot who gets shot down over Vietnam. Held as a POW he gets interrogated by a Russian. There's a certain simpatico between the two, both being fighter pilots.

Meanwhile, some elder generals and admirals want to get him and the other prisoners out from the secret prison in Vietnam, in an off the books way. The son of one of these grandees was rescued from similar circs by a Navy SEAL named You Can Guess, back when Kelly was about 7. Yes, and Kelly found the lad at the same place as here we go. So there’s that plot, and it wants to help make everything sound plausible.

We're also watching closely how a black drug dealer and ruthless pimp sets up a biz with the mob selling pure Asian heroin. He has a mysteriously wonderful supply. By happenstance, they set up their lab right near Kelly's island. Okay, I'll tell you: the heroin enters the country in the corpses of dead American soldiers. The recompense for such horror ought to be pretty righteous.

All this action gets plenty of attention from Clancy.

Kelly starts methodically killing drug dealers in search of the main perps who killed his love. Did you guess that the black drug dealer is the one who killed her? The military men interrupt Kelly's spree. Remembering Kelly's earlier heroics, they invite him into the rescue mission. He trains with a select group of Marines then goes with them to Vietnam.

I'm getting caught up in all the plots. Clancy handles the story telling well enough. He writes with a sense of expertise. Wikipedia merely informs me that Clancy ran an insurance agency before becoming a bestselling author. Maybe he was also a SEAL or some such, but I suspect his expertise is painted. When actors come on talk shows to hype their latest, they are often interviewed as subject matter experts. If the movie's about the Civil War, they're regarded as experts on the Civil War. Here, the book crackles with military terms and slang. We get in depth insight into how Kelly machines his guns for ultimate performance. It sounds right out of Clancy's life, when he murdered a bunch of people in revenge for... Well, whatever. Possibly Clancy is just a writer, and he's making it all up.

When Clancy lets his characters start in on emotional issues, momentum stops. Wearisome dialogues ensue. The book tops 600 pages; 100-200 represent sleepytime. That would be a dreadful percentage except that the rest is well carried and nifty. Plus Clancy demarcates sections so you can easily skip over the trite emotional shit.

Clancy goes to the trouble of describing Kelly several times as a big man. Specifically he's 6' and 190. Sorry, that aint remarkable. Kelly's a machine, tho, James Bond without the martini. He just is.

The admirals and generals pretty much let Kelly run things in the Vietnam mission, which presses unlikeliness a bit much. Kelly seems to be in his early-mid twenties, and he's not even in the military anymore. The mission goes awry because the enemy has been tipped off. Even so, Kelly manages to capture the Russian interrogator. This allows the play of an East-West espionage plot line.

Back home, Kelly goes back to killing off those who helped torture and kill his lover. Even when things go wrong for him, they go right. This is where Clancy overcommits to his hero. He doesn't want, cannot accept, any blots in Kelly's 'scutcheon. Franchise writers have that prob. The writer's protagonist becomes the writer's good self-image. No room for the Not Okay child here.

Kelly has befriended a nurse who has worked with the surgeon and who helped Kelly's lover recover. She may get to dance with him in later novels. Currently, she mostly offers moral questions that Kelly doesn't need because he's right. He doesn't believe in killing unless people deserve it. As the I think 17 drug dealers did. It's a Republican simplicity that I guess one can expect from Clancy. By the end, Kelly's murders convince the nurse of his mission. Now okay, maybe, but Kelly savours the thrill of the hunt and loses no opportunity to take pleasure in his victim's demise. His fanciest and most extensive effort in this regard is using a pressure chamber to extract information from one of the perps. Trusting Clancy's science here, Kelly gives the guy a day's worth of the bends before putting a period on the sentence.

The ending is just the happy bloodlust that satisfies us so. The prisoners are saved—thru diplomacy. Too bad about the no guns part, but it allows related righteous killing. The kindly brutal Russian interrogator, who's not a stinking Vietnamese, is allowed to go home because he was sort of nice to the fighter pilot. The Ivy League twerp who dealt info to our foes was exterminated. Guess what, after learning that Kelly was the one killing all the drug dealers, those military guys send him to kill the twerp, which Kelly does righteously. Then they invite him to join the CIA. Because he's just crazy enough.

I could read another Clancy novel but don't expect to. I don't feel the commitment. One summer I read 11-12 Stephen King novels. Just to see. They were entertaining enough but I see no need for more. I get a twitch of interest when I see one of his recent 9000 page epics, because I wonder what he can do with so many pages to fill. Tho he's a competent writer you realize he's just blowing it out his ass.

The same goes with Clancy. They both produce comfortable franchises. Their competencies are straightforward and undeniable, but then you realize that triteness is one of the competencies. They have to give the reader something comfortable and familiar. We all accept this, that's why we have movies and television. Committing to this just doesn't seem in my best interest, however. But I like looking around.

Conceptualism, or, The Prime Minister Has Been Kidnapped!

Facebook and its Internet has seen some discussion lately about conceptualism vis-a-vis poetry. Why argue? I get the rancour of the competing sides, rancour is how we assert. But why this particular battleground? Poetry that we read needs this?

After all these years, I'm still not good at thinking of the stuff that surrounds poetry, the criticism, the theory. It all seems so private. Yes, we share poetry, but poetry works like dreams: the mechanisms and interpretations are personal. Theory ingratiates the poem to a stricture of delay. We await the confirmation or denial of the critical boundary overlaid upon the poem. The poem itself, it passes by, bored with argumentative readership.

A word like conceptualism is a backwards word. You have to look at all the roots and stems, all the integrated bits to understand it. Then you have to add in all the interpretations that people have accrued on the term. It's pretty confusing. Okay, the world's confusing. But gee, do I need this portmanteau conceptualism. How does it help my day?

A forward word would be one like tree. In reading the word tree, we have a picture based on our experience. That picture can lead anywhere, but it goes forward into the world. If you say tree and I say tree, between us we can develop a wider view. I mean exactly of oak, apple, or whatever, but also figurative possibilities. We're all nuts for figurative possibilities.

With conceptualism, we start with the big part, concept, whatever that might be. Then we have to work out all the other syllables, Greek and Latin tracks back to some primordial group of meaning. Then we sorta hafta agree on what we mean with the word, today if everyone's agreeable. Which they are not. And how does one experience conceptualism, anyway?

What I am saying is, conceptualism doesn't write poems. It's just an adjunct blur to keep poetry away. It's a debate word, a word with sides. Even in my stupid young youth, I never thought poetry had sides. I'll bet you felt likewise, in your poetic youth. As an instructional league teenager who just wanted to write, and with poetry's wide or even non-existent boundaries giving hope, I saw no sides to poetry. I saw clouds resolving into pictures, words into meaning. Or stranger still, words resolving into mystery. That is, the secure meaning that I understood with the words didn't seem to work. This was agitating, quite, but after all: interesting. Words are round and inclusive.

Conceptualism, as a concept, as a shared debate, is an exclusion. I say this, and I don't even know what people are “getting at” with the word. Exclusion is built in, tho. The descriptor conceptualism serves to limit if not mislead. The thing, poetry, is a thing: poetry. Poetry shakes us, round and round. The gabble of critical consequence is a loss of that.

Pacific Rim, Movie

Erin and I absorbed a matinee yesterday. In his particular Internet stream, this was something of interest. I had not otherwise heard of it.

We arrived to an empty theatre: would we be alone thru out? Nay, a good 13 others joined us for this Wednesday entertainment.

In the offing is just about nuthin’. There’s a not quite buddy pic with Mark Walberg and Morgan Freeman except that it turns out Denzel Washington is Morgan Freeman now. Or vice versa? A dystopian future flick has Matt Damon as part of the vast prole underfoot separated from the primo non-polluted satellite where bleachy prune Jodie Foster rules the best part of society. Doesn’t look like one of her best roles. Plot-wise, well, you know, but it looked good, with wide futuristic vistas and stuff. Finally, I would hope, George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts skywalking when I guess a collision with space trash requires 2 hours of cinematic saving of each other way way way above the earth. No thank you, times 10,000. Creeped out just thinking on it. Other crap on the way, can’t think whosis whatsis. Don’t miss it if you can, as I think Louis B Mayer said.

I had the vaguest expectation for Pacific Rim, monsters versus robots. The extended set up explained that destructive giant monsters have appeared, Godzilla plus a lot. Seems a rift in an undersea plate has a portal to another dimension, thru which pass these mega-monsters. The movie explained it more briefly than that so people wouldn’t hurt themselves thinking about it too much. Anyway, you mention other dimensions, everyone nods knowingly.

The monsters seem intent on coming ashore and devastating. Godzilla wants its plot back. It’s later explained, if explained is really the apt term, that dinosaurs were precursors of these beasties, in an earlier alien attempt to take over the planet. The monsters (I think) are tools of this alien race that takes over planets, uses them up, then moves on.

So, still in the set up, us earthlings discover that normal war machines were insufficient. The human world, as one, developed gigantor robots. To run these majestic destroyers required two people. The strain of commanding such mongo machines was more than one person could handle. Thus pairs were used. There was a three-armed bot run by triplets, but it didn’t last long. As Erin pointed out, the triplets must feel special to have a bot built just for them.

Pilots connect psychically thru some process called the drift. No need to explain how. Basically, one person would be right brain, the other left. The two pilots would move arms and legs and the robot would perform those moves. There were hints of Transformers, GoBots, and Pokemon in all of this. Also War of the Worlds. Almost plausible too, if you accept that physics and biology don’t exist. I mean, getting into a bot had all these NASA-like procedures, which created a sort of reality.

Continuing, still, with the set up, we meet two brothers, one of whom clearly has pectoral muscles. They are pilots and we see them give battle. The scale of the monsters and the robots is kept loose, at a guess between 10 and 100 stories tall. The word ridiculous comes to mind. The younger of the brothers gets ripped from the robot, and the older barely survives. Okay. Now we can get going in the present tense.

Some five years later, surviving brother has quit the bot biz. The whole bot program is in disarray.  The monster are evolving, and the bots are getting beat. The whizbang world leaders have decided to place funding in building a wall to keep the monsters out. Oh, that oughta work. I’ve neglected to describe how these shark-like dinosaurs destroy cities: they run amok. Nothing has stood up to them, so why expect the wall? Okay, stop asking questions.

Our hero at this time is helping to build the wall, an exaggerated Texas border. The wrenching death of his brother has left him in doldrums. The head of the bot program seeks him out. Funding will last just a few months more, until the stupid wall is finished. He wants to make one last all out effort against the monsters. Oh, the monsters are called kaiju, which is Japanese for something. The bots are called jaegers, German for hunter.

Luckily, I never saw Top Gun but I know that it echoes here. Raleigh, brother of dead Yancey, must prove himself to the elites who didn’t quit the service. Raleigh, surprise, is not exactly by the book. Marshall, the bot program boss, brings in a woman as an expert to decide who shall be R’s partner. Turns out she’s highly qualified but Marshall won’t let her be part of the fighting. Raleigh does martial arts with various candidates for partnership. It’s a chance to show that he has pecs too, like his brother. And abs. The woman scores him harshly, tho he succeeds against all. This pisses off R, who challenges the woman. They spar, with sticks, and she wins and he magnaminously accepts her, but Marshall still says nay.

Meanwhile, there’s a cocky Australian who is teamed with his father. He snarls at R, and finally they fight. Dramatic tension, or something kinda like. Expect the two to develop a grudging respect for each other.

The world seems to be going dingo, with the onslaught. The monsters have mouths within mouths, which is an inexplicable trope that I’ve seen in other movies. Anyway, comic relief with two scientists. One is flippant American nerd biologist, the other is German math major with a cane. They have competing theories about the monsters. Rather outre, especially the German, but lively.

R and the woman finally are teamed, against Marshall’s instinct. In battle, she gets lost in the drift. The drift is Vulcan mind meld, but in that zone she could not forget her own past, in which as a child, she flees the devastators that killed her family. She freaks out and nearly kills a bunch of people. Discredited.

The monsters are arriving in grander configuration. Time for the last best. The idea is to blow up the fissure where the inter-dimensional gate is. I missed plenty as the movie proceeded. The nerd biologist drifted with part of a monster brain. Learned stuff, I’m not sure what.

The bots seem pretty unlikely. They are huge + huge, but really. They are carried to the battle via helicopters, which seems primo lame. Dropped into the sea, they walk thru the waves. Let’s just forget about physics for a while. They move with the grace of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Completely and completely out of their element, no matter the element. A lot of crashing about. When battling on land, you get all the collateral damage you could need and more.

The bots mostly punch and slam the monsters. Occasionally they use highly effective rockets, and you wonder why not always go that route. Well, the monsters can spit up a furious sort of acid that completely ruins a bot, but they choose to do so rarely.

Nerd biologist needs a complete alien brain to perform drift on. He seeks out Ron Perlman, only actor in the flick that I’ve seen before. Perlman enjoys the chance to act out with his sleazy flesh monger role (alien flesh and stuff is used for all sorts of sketchy stuff).

Well, no need to serve up the plot further. Nerd biologist discovers, with the bickering help of math guy, that the fissure cannot be breached (with atomic pow) without alien monster. That is, the portal closes to aliens (id est humans).

Dramatic expected deaths, and all, and it is down to Raleigh and the woman. We learn that she was a child who Marshall saved and then upbrang. He dies, of course. This last bot is just about done working, arm missing and stuff. Situation normal for bits to fall off and electrical stuff flashing and burning. They’re going to grab a monster and drop the bot down into the fissure where its nuclear core will be set to explode. Raleigh sends his injured partner to the surface in a pod since only one can perform blow up sequences. The bot explodes as per, closing the portal. Raleigh manages to escape in a pod. Blimey!

I wonder if I got half the plot here. I’m sure all 15 of us in the audience frequently said “Oh, I saw that coming” during our 2 hours in this other world.

And yet.

Despite the cliches running wild, the characters seemed to stand stalwart. Marshall had to give a rousing speech before the final battle. It’s the same speech as given in Independence Day. Marshall gets to put a period to the final paragraph with this great line: “We have canceled the apocalypse.” As Erin asserted, no finer line.

I found all the actors strangely likeable. Guillermo del Toro directed. I’ve heard the name but have nothing to attach it to.

Movie Totaly Sux: Gods and Generals

Saw this made for tv effort last night. I should have been less hopeful but it's about the Civil War, so it had that going for it. And little else, it turns out.

The movie derives from the sequel to the novel by Michael Shaara, Killer Angels. That one was about Gettysburg. Shaara interweaved several character plots into a reasonable whole. Of course the battle itself is intriguing.

Shaara also wrote a prequel, which concerned many of the same characters, but back in the days of the Mexican War. Michael Shaara didn't write Gods and Generals, his son Jeff did. And that brings up the unfortunate problem of franchise.

Years ago, Arthur C. Clarke took on a protege, perhaps several. Gentry Lee was one. And they started collaborations on sequels to Clarke's famous books. I don't want to hear about it. If the gold mine is played out, salting it won't actually make it better. Frank Herbert apparently went crazy writing Dune sequels. They got weirder and weirder, and then we find that his son has taken the reins. Anne McCaffery's another who took on some leech for a pilot. I see it only as attenuation. I hate it. Look, Jeff, just because your dad could do it, doesn't mean you can.

But okay, I never read Jeff Shaara's book. And the movie is, after all, about Stonewall Jackson. How can you screw it up? With a concerted effort, that's how. Team effort, headed by the noxious fume called Ted Turner.

Ted Turner made Killer Angels into a small screen spectacular. It wasn't that great but it was filmed on location. Turner lurks behind this shambles, as well, again filmed on location.

First of all, the makeup artists never came to terms with the Age of Extreme Facial Hair. We're not looking at characters but rather bearers of beards. Several actors get to wear dapper mustaches. Most, however, look dispirited behind the shrubbery. You try to tell James Longstreet from George Pickett. I guess the shooting schedule didn't allow the time for actors to supply their own beards to the movie magic. Stephen Lang, who plays Jackson, wore Brillo on his face. Brillo!

The movie starts slow, then eases up on the accelerator. Robert Duval as Robert E Lee receives invitation to lead the Union against the insurrection. With compelling blah blah blah about his home blah blah blah Virginia he declines the offer and instead opts to lead the South.

This scene should have been a warning because while Duval, I think, gets the accent right, the acting seems too openly actorly. I believe the director causes this. Most of the screenplay consists of florid speeches. Thus the actors are set up to make each word count. That means tics, pauses, and slowed pace. Acting!

So then for a miserably long time, various characters come to grips with the coming storm, enlisting or seeing loved ones go. Everyone's got a speech. Stonewall foremost has the Good Book to fall back on, in case his speechifying needs a little gloss. In times of darkness, quote the Bible.

Historically it's probably true that many leaned on the Bible for encouragement. In this movie, it only comes across as the pitter patter of received wisdom. It all sounds like rote. Stephen Lang, who plays Jackson, doesn't make him crazy enough. I take the historical Jackson to have been a fire eater of sorts. Perhaps not to the John Brown level, but tightly wound. Lang has Jackson take the Bible as more like an instruction manual. The scenes where he and his wife share a few verses have the ring of Kraft cheese.

Don't worry, Northerners can bloviate too. Jeff Daniels plays Joshua Chamberlain. Chamberlain was the moral core of Killer Angels. Here he's just another blowhard, as is his wife, Mira Sorvino. They have a scene in which she confronts him about going off to war. She manages to recite an entire Richard Lovelace poem before Daniels could open his mouth. The scene gave the aura of Shakespeare refined to pure fakery.

Daniels tops her later on by quoting a quite lengthy stretch from the writings of Julius Caesar. He and his soldiers are in formation at the time. At first Bull Run. Awaiting to enter the fray. Not a single Maine boy in the ranks rolls his eye.

The focus of the movie is the South and their just cause. You can argue state versus federal rights, it continues in argument now. Slavery was an ancillary issue, but you wouldn't know it in this movie. Jackson takes on a black cook—I don't know if he was free or a slave—who feels as strongly about his Virginia homeland as Lee. It's just a little too nice.

After a while, some battles actually occur. Bull Run is the first. I'm being picky but when soldiers charge they do so without hint of berserker. Seems like with cannons crashing and bullets catching soldiers in mid stride, a bit of adrenalin might be apparent. Nope.

Early on we meet a family of Southerners. Two of the boys are off to the war. The professionally distraught mother must fret their fate with her daughters. Later, the Yanks invade the town. An ambulance is found to cart them all to safety. A slave and her children offer to stay behind to take care of the house. The ambulance rattles off, for some reason towards the incoming Yanks. I thought some sort of drama might occur but the ambulance bangs a u-turn and heads away.

The Yanks come to the house. The slave lady and her children come to the door. They are dressed in finery. The Yanks ask suspiciously if this is their house or their master's. The woman says it is hers. Great! Saved the effing house for Southern Mistress.

On Christmas Day, pickets from both sides, Johnny Reb calls to Billy Yank. They decide to make a trade. Johnny brings a pipe and Billy a cup of coffee. Johnny sips and Billy smokes. They barely acknowledge each other. Wordlessly they return cup and pipe, and saunter away. Surprisingly underplayed scene.

Eventually Jackson gets hit by friendly fire, mutters about crossing the river, and dies. It took hours to get to his point. The black cook is there at Jackson's funeral, faithful to the end. Beth gave the movie her highly regarded Worst Movie Ever award. I felt like I accomplished something getting thru it without sleeping too much.

War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise, and Kim K

I think it has been established that language no longer exists. Not the imprecise language of words, that resists definition and professes roots in gardens. Instead we have a hardcore gallimaufry of manufacture. Can poets match that test?

We saw War of the Worlds the other night. It was an entertainment and worth reseeing, but a word to Steven Spielberg: you might want to pull up your socks. As far as atmosphere, it isn’t a patch on the Gene Barry starring thriller. Okay, I saw that one when I was believable (able to believe): a young and willing auditor of marvels, and the words that tell them. Marvels like Tom Cruise (synecdoche for Hollywoodia) have made me wary, wary. Spruced up marvels of any ilk, I mean.

Spielberg’s movies usually look good; this one looks hasty, compiled, and a bit sloppy. It held up as entertainment, a worthy purchase from the supermarket cheap rack, but embarrassing, perhaps, in terms of Spielberg’s oeuvre. It aint no Close Encounters.

Tom Cruise irritates me, which means I should investigate. I don’t mean Scientology or that stuff, that’s just the human side of murk seeping thru. As a Star of Acting, he makes me flinch. I grant him actual acting skill. He’s not just a one tempo puppy (Arnold, Bruce, Sylvester). Unfortunately, you always see the gears turning, the calculation. If he could just let go of that occasionally, I might release some of my irritation. Anyway, he’s competent as actor, even so.

Fred Allen said something to the effect, Hollywood is where you brush away the glitter to get at the real glitter inside. Tom’s inner glitter is hard to express in words. Is he goodlooking in the certifiable, documented, Hollywood way? I guess so. The young Cruise seemed like a stupid high school jock. He looked malleable, with a mushy, wet clay smile. Perhaps the clay has hardened, he looks more chosen now. I mean, he fulfills the checklist, except that he’s unacceptably short. And yet he lets that be no barrier.

He resembles the veritable Kim Kardashian in some ways. In Hollywood terms, she’s no spring chicken. The rage of age has brought her unforgivably into her 30s. Yet she’s buffed and bound and looks perfectly identifiable. She is thus allowed to become pregnant. Who knew that women got heavy when pregnant? According to my read of magazine covers at the supermarket, Kourtney and Khloe have also become pregnant. And fulfilled (and yet).

You do wonder about these Kardashians. When journalists must explain the Kardashian quantity, the women are called stars of reality shows, i.e. stars of their lives. It’s an odd complex, but then, Tom Cruise has been doing that right along, tho not in so many words. Not in any words, let’s be honest.

Kim is the star Kardashian. Khloe is the baby. Besides getting married, divorced and pregnant, Khloe doesn’t seem to Star in much. Kourtney was a something or other on one of those shows, but has since been fired. It might even have been her job to get fired, so that the larger theme of being something within nothing could supremely squirt into the atmosphere of attention. Kim, meanwhile, has been the spokesfemale for Midori watermelon liquor, at any rate, tags on bottles have forensically flaunted the Kim K image. Which has led to the enviable position of attachment to the Kanye West whatever, with further episodes beckoning.

Kourtney may be some sort of avatar. Rumour has it that she’s really O J Simpson’s daughter, which puts scale to the property (Kardashian Inc.). She’s notably taller than her sisters, and… and… Oh, I dunno…

I guess they are all avatars. The conservative wrecking ball demands a secret insensitivity to human iniquity. That’s why healthcare is such a great topic of contetion. Within the meta-range, Cruise and the Kardashians make unmitigated flarf out of life terms. I say flarf because it is context recontexted. The Kardashian flarf is immobile, however, lacking words. It’s not really flarf, or anything, at all.

I sweated bullets when the aliens almost finished off Gene Barry et al., in that black and white movie. Almost, but the human-saving virus did its deed. Spielberg thoroughly brushed that tension aside as afterthought. Instead, it’s the majesty of monster that he,and we, indulged. Independence Day, an exhilarating romp, as they say, showed how wonderful monster can be.

Cruise and the Kardashians are monsters, in the old school way. It says in Merriam Webster that monster derives from monere, to warn. I guess that’s all I’m saying, in my personal science fiction here.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Yes, I saw Star Trek today. We intended to do a matinee, but Beth had an appointment in town (Boston town), that ate into the afternoon. I went along so that I could say, I think you should have turned back there.  Tho seriously we got in and out meetly. And Boston Common is just so lovely, a city being sensible. So we had pizza then went to the cinnyMAH.

Re upcoming films, I got nothing to look forward to. I don’t even remember what’s coming. Superman doesn’t excite me. I don’t even want to illustrate the demise of western, eastern, northern, and southern society as these summer mishaps flatten the intellectual step of our many nations. Snarky boom, the end.

Much anticipated movie, this ole Star Trek. None of the tv shows excited me. They were entertaining but I cannot see them in the Beloved category. The first movie clicked on all cylinders. This one probably did too, but I guess I wanted to see redefinition of the genre. The crackle of this ensemble clearly delivers a strength. There is rapport amongst the actors and a written ease given to them. If the tv shows had this sort of energy, they’d still be on the air.

I had an odd feeling of the plot being both rushed and stalled. It’s an action film problem, where the ACTION takes basically meaningless time while the plot waits. The action is expressive if not vivid. Fight scenes are essentially vivid blurs augmented with crunching sounds. The equation drips policy, as if no real action occurs, just elevated plot advances. What I mean is, if we have to have fights, let the ballet play. Jolting remarkable agitation is another way of saying confusing.

Which reminds me that one of the movies in the foredoom is a modern martial arts mess. Martial arts movie times the square root of video game, plus 3. The trailer had the despicable catch line that winners remain standing. Losers equal pogrom, holocaust, tornado victims. I mean really, is that the math?

Another math was in Star Trek, when the admiral’s daughter wants to help Kirk with his bomb problem, or something. Anyway, she says, turn away, and she proceeds to strip down to underwear. Which is a calcified James Bond moment that has no reasonable position in a grown up movie. She had to change into bomb defusing clothes, oh yeah. Peter Weller played her father the admiral. He had an old school army accent. His daughter had a swish British one. Adding that up right now.

Christopher Pine has brash down pat. To me he perfectly performs the idea of Kirk, which Shatner never really approached. I read one or two Star Trek novels. The whole idea of the franchise as franchise made me glum because it seemed to regulate how people made and how people enjoyed scifi. Anyway, I kept thinking, Shatner’s doing this, saying that??? The esteemed Priceline guy has that kind if imprint. We get it as well with Pine: he’s going to grow up to be Shatner? You just don’t see Shatner in bed with two alien females with tails. That’s another James Bondian off note, btw.

Benedict Cumberbatch is the god of autistic embrace with his Sherlock Holmes. He was good here, grisly evil with a nice accent. I suppose we need one more hyper-powered wundermann. What made me flinch, tho, was that he was Khan. Ricardo Montalban’s expert hamminess needn’t be challenged. The idea that JJ Abrams has to stick to the clunky timeline of the original is dispirirting.

A scene in which the Star Fleet command endures a helicopter attack recalled a similar scene in Godfather 3. Good Lord, copping to Godfather 3!!!!!! The action gets a bit blurry and the slaughter is wholesale but it’s pretty dynamic. A space ship crashing into a city later on recalled 911. I kinda think they ought to leave that alone.

Abrams repeats a few scenes from the first endeavour. Kirk and Khan diving out of a spaceship in freefall, tho this time it looked like they had control of their fall. The fight on the drill from Number 1 turns into a fight on some sort of moving platform in Number 2. In both instances, my vertigo made up for the lack of vertigo of the contestants.

Bones, Sulu, and Chekov have to wait for Number 3 to get more lines. Not that they were that busy in the tv show, but Scotty was featured some in this flick. The door’s open for Khan to return, but I would rather that the Enterprise move on.

Oh jeez, I just remembered that one of the upcoming movies features Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert DeNiro, and Kevin Kostner or was it Kline in a puerile Vegas hijinks movie. The Hangover at 70, with Academy Award cred: ugh!!! Anyway, Star Trek was a fun movie, perhaps more muddled than the first. The first had the advantage of surprise: we didn’t know if Abrams would get it right. Knowing he can, we might get a bit picky.

As we were leaving, an usher told us her son was in the movie. He played one of the aliens in the opening homage to Indiana Jones sequence. It was fun to hear the proud mother. Her son’s been in some 12 movies, so he’s got something going.

Concord Estates and Woods

Since last summer, Beth and I have gone to the same place in Concord to walk and take pictures. The wish would be daily, the actuality more like 2-3 times a week. The place offers extensive and varied acreage but we usually take the same route, a mile loop around an old millpond. Despite such a limited area, we have found something new and engaging every time. The flow of seasons and weather present continual change.
Neither Beth or I consider ourselves photographers, at least in the sense of trying to make “art”. We just take pictures of things that catch our eye. We don’t fuss with the pictures either. Especially we don’t amplify the colours, which is a sort of common romanticism focused on idealism. There is no “truth” in these pictures, just interest.
We share the camera. I take the most pictures because I like to click away. Beth puts more thought into her camera work. We point and talk and ask questions.
Yesterday, we entered the woods by a different route. Years ago, I skied in from this path, but I remembered nothing of it. One drives down a country road with grand estates on both sides. This was all farm land, in Concord’s working heyday. The estates show it, with barns and horses, fences and rock walls. Some owners sly the taxes by growing hay and calling the place a working farm. It all was probably very good farm land, the land of Concord seems blest, but it all now just represents American extent. Food comes from someplace else now (tho some farms remain in town). In fact life comes from someplace else, because even Concord isn’t good enough to satisfy the wants. What’s here in this town is muchly all documentation of what is “Mine.” I don’t really begrudge it, don’t envy the owners,  not in a come the revolution sense. I am, however, wary of hedge fund success and the a-holes who hire it.
The grandest estate has numerous buildings. The main house is old, with several chimneys (chimneys in the middle of the house rather than the side, as this house showed, indicates older houses). The barn is large and trig. There’s a ridiculously lovely old beech tree, a cluster of apple trees (in bloom!). A small house on the estate has a pretty kitchen garden of herbs. The lawn close to the main house has been mowed to golf course trim, but much of the open area has been allowed to engage its natural grassy habit. When I say natural, I mean the grass grows tall and other plants are allowed to grow. The cycle burgeoning toward reforestation of course will be stymied in the fall.
We left all this comfortably unnatural wonder and followed the path into the woods. The paths are somewhat tortuous. I got lost once on my bike, with my attention tuned to avoiding rocks and roots. I ended up eating my bike but got out alive.
We met a family on the path who, oddly, walked in single file, dad first, the kids, and mom. It didn’t look like they were there to engage but of course I don’t know that. I could imagine the allure of television and vid games hanging heavy with the crew.
Sunlight glimmering on leaves. A few tiny violets still in bloom. Lily of the valley. I thought I saw the flick of a deer’s white tail but it was a sidelong sight, perhaps a bird instead. There were deer tracks at the place. Deer stay scarce during the day because many who walk these woods bring dogs. I consider dogs part of the habitat. Love to see the happy wet coming up to greet us.
We wound down hill till we came to a small, rather dismal pond and a fenced in field. Sitting above it was the house at the top of the hill near the other entrance to the woods. We actually drove up the long driveway once. The house itself is no big deal, no mansion, but it’s a glorious chunk of land. Our view from the shady path revealed the hillside as just about a cliff. Clouds at the moment showed a cumulous heft but didn’t block the sun. Spring in this world of poor mutts.
We found trillium next to the path, and geranium. I’ve seen lady’s slippers in the woods here, and we were hopeful. Honeysuckle and lily of the valley were everywhere and in bloom, gorgeous scents. There was an exotic tree that I’ve never seen before, very large leaves and beefy flowers somewhat like roses or peonies. We got the idea that this was a formerly tended area left to make its own way.
The path led to a sign on a tree indicating private property. We turned around. A cyclist soon came bounding down the path from the verboten area, unmindful of such restrictions. We took another direction. The whole hillside was covered with lily of the valley. Like with honeysuckle, the flower is small and undramatic, but the scent is intoxicating.
We looped back to our entry path. We greeted a family marching in, alerting them to the hillside of lily of the valley. There were 15-20 cars parked along the road in, but we saw the contents of perhaps 4.
Much of this is town land. I know a little school called Harvard owns some of the land. I don’t know if our steps ever landed on Harvard land, whether Harvard allows access. On our way home, we stopped at the organic farm near where we usually enter the woods. It’s a beautiful looking farm, nestled at the bottom of the hill with the Concord River on its far side. Happily, this land is held in trust, a farm “forever”.
Beth’s uncle built a place on the Jersey shore just after WWII. Nothing was there at the time but things changed dramatically over the years. It was a small place, even after it was enlarged, about 50 yards from the water. It sat on a street that ran perpendicular to the water. The houses along the shore road kept getting bigger, so that when I first visited, ocean view was blocked. One entered the beach thru an alley between two McMansions.
The depredations of Hurricane Sandy destroyed or greatly irked most of the houses in the area (Beth’s aunt had moved some years before). One shouldn’t and cannot make that some kind of justice against these magnates of exclusivity. One can, surely, see—if blinders are removed—that this “land” is a spit of shifting sand, however. The monuments were not bound to last, even by the measly standards of human lifetime.
As beautiful as the estates in Concord are, someone’s going to realize it’s just a tax bill. And the throng grows of those who want a piece. Of course it is all Maya. Daniel Boone lighting out for further expanse simply has little chance nowadays. Expanse is now dictated to us in little notes and messages. Might as well see what these messages say.

American Idle

We do not have cable, which is close to admitting that we have no electricity. We realized the ROI was getting pretty slim. Even before that, I found myself not really interested in what television offered. I watched but didn't invest.

I am now in a state where I don't now recognize many of the people on the cover of People, let alone the the supermarket tabloids. This leave me uneasy. All this culture in which I swim, passing me by. Okay, I know who the Kardashians are but am pressed to say what their hold on us is.

So anyway. I saw a bit of American Idol last week. The last (perhaps only other) time I saw the show, Simon Scowl was still a judge, and the talent was at a much more amateur level. My recent viewing, I guess the competition was well along; the singers were competent and they had accompaniment. But the fabrication was just as taut as before.

The orchestration endemic to the show is a political nuisance, and always has been. Simon of course played it the best. His commentary was mean and republican: you're all equally bad. His pleasures were concessions to the idea of winning, and winning big. The other two judges, Paula and Dawg, were there to pretend hope existed. Hope has always been a nice story line in this country.

The latest set of judges showed less centre. Whereas Simon anchored the centripetal force, no one really holds the chain with this latest bunch. Nicki Minaj comes the closest. Her comments seemed unrepentently sour. She's balanced by the cheerful Mariah Carey. Supposedly there's tension between the two, which is just the respected theatre we feel that we need. Folksy hip Keith Urban adds a thoughtful note, and R-Dawg is R-Dawg. I checked Wikipedia, by the bye, and Randy Jackson has serious cred as session bassist and producer. Cred on American Idol is simpler, he just has to say Yo Dawg.

The three singers competing were all women. I don't know if categories exist in the show: male, female, group. The singers all sang heartfelt ballady tripe. Excuse me, I sound a little impatient. I guess they're effective songs, just not on my turntable.

Each singer had a taped session with Harry Connick Jr before performing live. He'd joke with them in a friendly, folksy way then tell them how great they were. Shrug.

After an enthusiastically received song by one of the singers, Nicki Minaj directly said that something was missing. Well first she said she liked the singer's pants. Minaj noted that the singer didn't commit to the song enough. Plausible, tho not perceptible to me. Surprisingly, Mariah agreed, tho she said so in a nicer way. Keith agreed too, but allowed that nerves and pressure effect performances. And so on.

That's the keynote to the show: it goes on. Ryan Seacrest hosts the show, taking the media mogul crown from the now completely dead Dick Clark. Seacrest has no rough edges, is just politically there as a process of containment. Basically, he runs the republic. His blandness, like Clark's, lets him into our homes as the Mayor of Distraction.

And since we have once again had terrorist attacks here in the U.S., thank heavens for the distractions. The patent says that America gets together to worry about American Idol. Well, the country worries about Bachelors and Bachelorettes too, which to me is an amazing insight into our country's soul. We're watching people pretend to date!

I'm sure this goes on in other countries, I'm just not up on the latest data.

I know Idol is losing ratings and, flashpoint, Randy Jackson, as well. People are right now discussing how irreplaceable Dawg is. Honestly, why do I know this?

That Idol exists doesn't bother me. It's the professional wrestling of entertainment. Maybe Nicki Minaj (from parts unknown)has a foreign object in her hand as she points out a performer's failing. It's a zestless subject of conversation, the probity of catastrophic political muteness. That's the less good side of this crap.

Of course that Benghazi tv show has become popular, and we're still watching reruns of Boston Marathon Mayhem. I think the perpetrator did it. They usually do. And we need to know that perps are responsible. Makes things nice and clear.

Ironman 3

Saturday, 5/4, was Erin’s birthday. Twelve years ago on the same date, he had four stainless steel pins removed from his femur. The pins held the bone together so the breaks could heal. He was in study mode this past Saturday, so he and I went to the movies Sunday. Pretty full house, e’en tho a beauty day. New England is good for fine days but doesn’t often string them together like this past week. Anyway, the trailers:

Well jeez, everything explodes! I know there‘s no reason to get thoughtful, but why are we so excited about explosions and crashes? I don’t know from Fast and Furious, but I get the faked up dynamics of crash, vengeance, and super-powered nothingness. The franchise is up to six, and I have no doubt you could not tell the episodes apart. Oh this is the one where the car crashes and spewing guns represent justice. Justice, sir, is what I hand to you.

Marvel has Thor comin’ at us. The comic that I remember, Thor flickered between the mighty god and the limping mortal. The first Thor movie strained too much at the soap opera sentiment, Marvel’s gift to comix. Went nowhere near the limping mortal. The best parts of that movie were the interactions of god world with this one. It looks like this next one dishes up the next Armageddon, again.

Marvel also exudes The Wolverine this summer. I don’t find the character, or Jackman, interesting. Wolverine seems like the type who would engage you at a party with how his liposuction operation didn’t work out, I mean it’s all on his sleeve. Okay, he’s a hunk, maybe the human growth hormones he takes gives him a rash. Let’s just say his gravitas seems a bit phony.

A Hunger Games sequel seems prodded. I stand posted as having little knowledge of Hunger Games, but this seems like tripe. I care for none of these flicks, waiting on Star Trek. At least no animated blockbusters in the offing.

Oh yeah, the Lone Ranger. Of some interest to me, but it looks too explodo. Seems like nowadays, scale = explosion. Putting the explosion into a less explosive era just rocks too hard.  I never saw Downey’s Sherlock Holmes but I glean from the trailers that they’re not a matter of grey matter but instead action hero. Which is an off note (and more) for me.

Ironman has one resounding resource: Robert Downey Jr. I cannot think of an actor with a more ready, flip delivery. I know nothing of acting but I think there is effort and craft in his flip delivery. He commands the rhythm, so that you don’t know what to expect, tho the set up is obvious. His effort and understanding carry the film.

I missed the 2nd I-man. There seems some effort at continuity. I know there’s reference to The Avengers.  Comic continuity has always been a bete noire, like anyone could make sense of all the plotlines.

The plot of I-man 3 is simply a petrie dish in which things happen. Add zingers and and explosions and you’re done.

I only vaguely remember The Mandarin from the comics. Sort of a Fu Manchu arch-enemy type. Today’s worst nightmare. In 3, he is firstly served as an Osama Bin Laden cubed. He takes credit for mysterious bombings that don’t offer any evidence of bombs.

I started to flinch when the Mandarin appeared, because it gave off the odour of let’s get the Muslims. Moreso, bombings as entertainment shows an odd panache. I mean, after the heart-rending and hand-wringing of the past month. Ben Kingsley does a lively job with the character, tho. Ominous and crazy, with an interesting rhythm. We feel better, it seems, when that one crazy person is identified. That guy is our problem.

In a flashback, Tony meets with an attractive lady scientist and a wild-looking crackpot science type. Both are just bumps in the night for pre-enlightened Tony Stark. More later, of course.

Tony suffers post traumatic stress disorder, apparently from the Avengers movie. It’s good that the writers have heard of such a thing. Gywneth Paltrow is tiresome, I’m afraid. I think People named her the most important something. In the first I-man, she appeared so that it could be said that she appeared. I think she shall continue to look 25 for a few more years. Can’t last forever, and what are we going to do then? Not really to blame her for that, it’s just a cultural rule that a 40 year old Paltrow would be unacceptable. Same with Jennifer Aniston. Same too with Tom Cruise, as I think of it. Even tho it’s okay for men to age.

Tony Stark, finally ready for action, challenges the Mandarin to bring it on, going so far as to give his Malibu address. Attractive lady scientist comes to warn Tony about crackpot science type, now somehow a hunk. Then Mandarin’s choppers attack the Stark compound and everyone almost gets hurt.

I think I-man flies away. Pepper takes ALS to safety only… Perfidy! ASL and hunky crackpot are in cahoots.

Tony ends up in snowy Tennessee on a snowy Christmas Eve. His Ironman costume is broken. He meets a young boy who is fresh from some Frank Capra movie. There’s a cheesy back story there. Luckily, Stark snarks, and the malevolent attacks on our heartstrings are neatly averted. Some great lines between Stark and the kid. Downey gets next to the people when he acts. Even with the big apparent ego, he’s there with the other actor.

Thru out the movie, bits of I-man armour fly about, often to satisfying slapstick effect, but sometimes gimmicky distraction. Kinda wonder why that bit stuck.

There’s an I-man prototype that works for the government, with Tony’s friend Colonel Somebody inside.This must have shown up in I-2.  A bad guy gets into that suit and attacks Airforce One. El Presidente is snatched, and a hole in the plane causes many to be pulled from it. Rather than freeze to death immediately, all 18 decide to plummet until I-man manages to collect them all and place them safely in the ocean. From there they wave to the hero. Nice!

I guess I should mench that ALS developed a something that allows regeneration. Prob: unstable: causes people to explode. Which is the answer to the bombings.

Anyway, it looks bad for the Prez, bad for Colonel Somebody, bad for the world. Tony finds the Mandarin’s compound and, well, it turns out that the Mandarin is a fake. He’s an actor. Kingsley plays him as a small time actor. Kingsley has fun with the role. This guy is supposed to be an innocent figurehead but in one scene, he kills a man. He has captured a businessman then, by invading everyone’s television, including the President’s, he kills the guy on tv.

The movie is pretty violent, in the careless way we like it. Bad people die and sad people die, everyone else can worry about justice.

So the guy behind the Mandarin is hunky crackpot. He shoots ASL when she evinces a moral streak, and so, well, gotta bring it to the mat. Colonel Somebody joins Stark fighting the bad guys with the most explosions possible. An army of Ironman suits aid the good guys. Pepper appears to be dead after a fall into an inferno.

The final battle, I-man vs whack job, is the usual unmeasured mess. They trade vast blows with no effect. Still, it looks like Stark will be toast until… Pepper Potts blasts fire thru her mouth. She’d been infected by the same thing as the whack job. Dunno why this particular attack worked. But it cooked him.

After that, a check in on everyone. Oh by the way, the vice president was somehow involved in the evil plot. The end suggests that Tony Stark may be quitting the superhero biz. We’ll see about that.

It’s fun to watch tho there is a lot of relevant stupid going on, in all these possible flicks. It’s not much different from the stupid in real world, like, okay, for instance, the actions and reactions, the explanations and panic, surrounding the Boston bombing. Magic fire will come out of our mouths and solve all problems. Count on it.

Henry Adams on Snooki Polizi

Reading The Education of Henry Adams, a quirky autobiography, if ever. It takes some getting used to his grimly acerbic third person account, but there's a guarded hilarity in there, and real intent.

A phrase struck me—he speaks of his education in Germany—to wit: “...when by-products turn out to be more valuable than staples.” It reminded me of Williams' laser beam: “the pure products of America go crazy.” Both phrases gained traction for me because, at the gym, I saw part of a bio of Snooki from Jersey Shores. I haven't seen that show but the capillary action of American culture assures that I somehow “know” about it.

And I won't run Nicole “Snooki” Polizi down, but I think it is fair to wonder why she's whatever she is. The bio paints her as a someone trying to be someone, wit the deft arithmetic that “someone” = “no one”. Or more accurately, no one = something, accent on thing. We, audience that we are, seek not works but thingness. Snooki is a quantifiable thing, no doubt. Her pure product, which isn't her or hers, is crazy, let's be honest. We, audience, seek quantity. She (by which I mean this formidable televised thingness, not the “person”), is a quantity, one that we can measure. I have sort of lost gumption to investigate further.

There exists a sense in this trembling country that by-product is product, just as Adams intimates. Poisoned water table is a product somehow (miraculously, you ask me), because we need fracked oil so much. Somehow we need Snookis, id est: heroes: as in: broken leg college b-ball players, swimmers in Olympics, champion gymnasts moving on in career: nobodies elected to somebodies. The democracy of fame.