The Mahabharata

 Halfway into The Mahabharata we come to the part that often stands alone, The Bhagavad Gita. This represents a sea change for the epic. Up till now, the work has been mostly narrative with moral and spiritual matters occasionally interpolated. Now we have Krishna explaining duty to the unexpectedly quailing Arjuna. Krishna has always been understood as a god, but in human aspect. In this section he reveals himself in his terrifying god aspect. The imagery seems fit for Revelation—i. e. crazy ass—and the vision of Krishna in full godhead doesn’t exactly calm Arjuna. Eventually Arjuna comes around.

Earlier the Pandava brothers finished out their exile by hiring themselves incognito to one of the million kings in the area. Arjuna, greatest warrior in the world, chooses to be a eunuch dancing master in the ladies quarters. Bhima huge and Hulk-like becomes the king’s cook. He also teaches wrestling. At one point the brothers come upon their enemies the Kauravas. Bhima immediately wants to find a tree he can tear from the ground to wield as a weapon. “Bhima smash,” you can imagine him saying. Wise Yudhisthira convinces him of more diplomatic measures.

The account of the battle itself lacks the precision of the Iliad. Millions seem gathered on the field of Kurukshetra. In the Iliad Homer tallies the number of ships each Greek brought to Troy, supplying thereby a plausible guess at the size of the battle. The Pandavas and Kauravas each gathered allies to help supply requisite cannon fodder. It was quite the gathering.

When I first read the Gita, I was taken aback that Krishna scolded Arjuna for not wanting to kill these his cousins. Being of the warrior class, he has a duty to fight. That duty tangled with such pointless devastation doesn’t reconcile easily for me. The terms within the epic keep death fluid. The five Pandava brothers were earlier killed by Vishnu, I think. It was just a lesson, they were returned to life. All is foretold anyway.

Broken Theory by Alan Sondheim

  

Alan Sondheim has just published a new book, *Broken Theory*. Internet denizens with literary interests may know Sondheim’s name. He posts to numerous lists daily, I mean daily. This work comes in all shapes and sizes. It represents an unbelievably vast effort to mine the maelstrom of experience. *Broken Theory* seems like both a culmination of that effort, tho without a sense of finishing it, and perhaps a re-envisioning.

I have only just begun reading this book but twenty plus years of familiarity with Sondheim’s work gives me traces to follow. His is a work in which philosophy, psychology, literature, science, history, politics, and more collide and intercept within his experiencing mind. Does that even sound like anything? I declare that it idles.

What caught me as I began to read is that Sondheim has tempered the boundlessness of his writing so that the book can be a book. Think of how a tiny portion of The Mahabharata, The Bhagavad Gita, spun out with centripetal force as a singular work. In the same way *Broken Theory* has its own separated identity. I feel, as I read, a sense of the book as a whole while recognizing that it is but a portion of Sondheim’s enormous task.

Now, I admit that I have not read much of the book. I may not *finish* it. I think linearity doesn’t parse here, just as time seems far less linear than a calendar might suggest. Treat the book like an oracle—I doubt Sondheim has such an intention—and see what wildness, what mystery, what glint appears.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

 Finished Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I have mixed feelings about it. He presents a wonderfully troubling vision of the future, with humanity clearly having screwed the pooch. The intertwined narratives move a-pace but I’m pretty sure a good portion of Simmons’ intention dashed precipitously past my register. Rereading would be worthwhile if I had the energy.

Six main characters tell, in their own narratives, why they joined this pilgrimage to the so-called God of Pain. We only see this figure, known as The Shrike, in glints. It seems like The Shrike represents the natural endgame to humanity’s hubris. The Earth, centuries prior, has been destroyed. A hegira from the planet of origin spread restlessly across the universe in a seeming de-evolutionary scramble. War is constant, and massive.

Each narrative explains how the character joined this pilgrimage, which only one of their number is expected to survive. The narratives run to goodly length. Supposedly the pilgrims are telling their stories to the others. Okay, Canterbury Tales, The Decameron. These narratives, however compelling, resemble (not so) short stories rather than après dinerperformances intended to show each pilgrim’s motivations. Simmons did not try to replicate how the characters might regale the others. Perhaps that would have been unwieldy. I found it jarring to expect characters to be so narratively skilled in a literary way.

Although the narratives supply plenty back story, they also overwhelm with superfluities. I tended to lose track of the greater narrative amidst the details of the personal stories.

The book seemed overlong tho not in a dragging sort of way. It ended quietly, and for me without satisfaction. For all the apocalypso of humanity’s seeming last gasp, the books end with the characters singing “We’re off to see the Wizard”. I discerned no denouement, just coasting to a stop. The story seems unfinished but admittedly I raced to finish.

Not to worry, I guess. Three more books fulfill the series. I am on record about franchises. I don’t expect to press on. 

Simmons refers and alludes to a number of literary figures and works. Most notably John Keats. The poet even appears in AI form. One character, a hard boiled detective, carries the name Brawne Lamia. She and the Keats AI splice romantically. I don’t actually get what Simmons is up to but I appreciate Keats’ presence.

“The Call of Cthuhlu”

 I just read The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft. I’ve read a number of his stories, and find them compelling. This is my first meeting with Cthulhu. I’m a bit dissatisfied.

Of course I have absorbed some understanding of Cthulhu because the, er, character has cultural currency. The name resonates. Lovecraft’s mythos seems rather mushy when you look but carries weight for some. I mean people ‘take it seriously’, beyond the parameters of storytelling. I guess one could.

The story shows Lovecraft’s ability to create mood. The narration edges towards breathless. It runs on a similar hurried foreboding as some of the Sherlock Holmes tales display. Both writers were writing for lucre. This story, however, disappoints. It did not satisfy my anticipation.

The story suffers because of POV. The narrator isn’t really involved in the action, he merely pieces the story together from the narratives of other characters. This drives immediacy from the story. Poe’s story Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym has the benefit of the narrator being involved in the action. In the almost apocalyptic ending, the narrator essentially disappears in the frantic rush of the (unfinished?) conclusion. It is as if the writer could not sustain his distance from the narrative.

Here, the narrator recites the stories of other people. He even loses interest in Cthulhu after a chapter ends. That was weird.

For all the mythos of the Ancient Ones, their arrival on Earth from space reminded me no more than of cheesy 50s horror and sci-fi movies. I mean cheap costumes and poor special effects. And it’s not like that must kill the story. The Thing (50s version) was a vegetable from space—a murdering carrot—and convincingly scary.

Cthulhu may look like a kraken, which struck me as unimaginative, but the threat offered seems more about strangeness and foreignness. I glean no point to the malevolence beyond the usual Monster versus Us. And monster is just Other. The Ancient Ones are illegal immigrants on a cosmic scale, screwing with our paradise. Cthulhu personifies that terrible One that ain’t us. Lovecraft’s sense of the world’s decay sets on that foundation. Which may sound familiar because the GOP has been feverishly pressing that button. You have probably noticed.

So I do admire Lovecraft’s narrative gift and the relentlessness of his vision. In the end, tho, he seems more fussy than visionary in this story. He was a racist Bozo, you know. That’s inevitably part of the judgment.

The Fu Manchu of Our Lives

 I am reading The Insidious Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer. I have read several Fu Manchu stories over the years. I think. Rohmer wrote many books about this nefarious Oriental’s clash against Sir Denis Nayland Smith and all that is good. It doesn’t matter what title you select, tho, the books are all the same.

Racism shows thick in these stories. They express a solid, nay impenetrable, demarcation between races, and a surety that races exist in so clear cut and confining fashion, that I find obnoxious in their bland acceptance. And it is all wholly instituted by a lack of inwit. The contractual racism of good British life somehow fulfills the otherwise squalid meanness of colonial empire.

Fu Manchu’s aim never comes clear to me. Sure, world domination, like any good master criminal desires, but specifically what that entails never fully forms for me. Years ago while misspending my youth, a wrestling body featured a narrative concerning The Fourth Reich. The beat of this was that a goose stepping German wrestler and his cronies would conquer the wrestling entity (not one belonging to Vince McMahon). Having accomplished that, the free world would be a piece of cake. Against this dismal prospect stood some All American boy, I don’t remember who. Hooray for our side. Professional wrestling has played that key to a fare thee well, stoking the unexamined fears. Rohmer, I expect, merely saw readership nodding at the implicit horror of Other.

I read past the racism because in the end the stories propel themselves with nervy excitement. If any prose bristles, Rohmer’s does, mystery and foreboding on every page. His language sizzles.

Rohmer takes the tales of Sherlock Holmes exactingly as model. The relentlessly focused hero and his down to earth sidekick meet mystery and danger at every turn. Nayland Smith is far more bumbling than Holmes, however. In the end he never seems to defeat the insidious Doctor. Instead some Deus ex happenstance thwarts the evil one this time. 

Tho more upright and ascetic, Sir Denis Nayland Smith resembles James Bond, a dedicated functionary of the colonial machine. He evokes a Britain of caretakers thoughtlessly fulfilling the white man’s burden. The instinct to lift the primitive toward that creamy excellence called Civilization constitutes the soothing narrative implicit in all actions in these stories. 

The stories routinely begin with Nayland Smith breathlessly arriving at his friend Dr Petrie’s place fresh from some barely explained trouble in Burma. The name Burma itself oozes with danger and mystery. Always Smith is pursued by the lascars and dacoits that serve as minions of the Evil One. Lascars are sailors from Southeast Asia, and dacoits are bandits from the same region. Rohmer—real name Arthur Ward—makes them seem like mongrel races, certainly not the stuff of Eton. They are red shirts in the service of evil.

As this novel begins, Smith anxiously attempts to protect Sir Hyphen-Hyphen, Assistant Minister of Something About the Orient, from the fell plans of the acknowledged Master of the Yellow Menace. Alas, Smith is too late. The fiend has managed to kill this august personage, right under Smith’s nose.

Despite acknowledgement as a genius, DrFu Manchu’s methods always seem convoluted. The initial murder in this tale provides illustration. While the victim works in his study, a dacoit climbs onto the roof and lowers a deadly centipede down the chimney into the study. I may have the details skewed because the rush of prose causes my reading eyes to race ahead. But how to get this centipede to attack? Why, first send the soon to be victim a missive with a special scent infused in the paper. This inexorably draws the deadly centipede to Sir Hyphen-Hyphen, and Sir Hyphen-Hyphen to Death’s fell clutches. Conan Doyle has worked similar magic but perhaps never so outré.

In the Holmes stories, Dr Watson mostly serves as narrator. He may pull out his pistol but Holmes is the show. Dr Petrie does that but more. He is dazzled, and I mean dazzled, by Fu Manchu’s daughter. She shows up early on as branded Woman of Mystery. Petrie is smitten. Rohmer tempers not his adjectives in warmly describing her effect on Petrie. And the feeling is mutual. This provides narrative tension because her dad, you know, a confirmed murdering maniac. Also, he is Oriental. 

The two meet cute in this story but I am pretty sure they’ve met cute in other stories. They eventually marry in one of the books but I don’t think dad walked her down the aisle.

The Thames oddly plays a vivid role in these stories. Fu Manchu chooses riverside opium dens for his hangouts. Which makes sense what with all the shipping bringing new shipments of lascars and dacoits to do his bidding. In this story, the boys confront the evil genius in the comforting dampness of his den. Petrie leads the rush but the Doctor releases a trap door and Petrie like to drown. Sir Denis could not quite reach him. Is it up for Petrie? A chinamen that had been in the den removes pigtail and mask. It is Fu Manchu’s daughter. She gives the queue to Sir Denis, who pulls Petrie to safety, then disappears into the sinister night. Whew! More narrative will surely follow.

Rohmer expends some prime prose describing the river’s beauty and threat. In the end, tho, the lurking presence of the evil green-eyed doctor remains. It is the fear of fear, a fear that we all know.

Some Flann O’Brien

 I’ve read three novels by Flann O’Brien, each multiple times. At Swim Two Birds shows an extravagant imagination, as well as the influence of James Joyce. I shall read it once again. It is a power of writing but almost too much so.

The Dalkey Archives nearly seems ordinary compared to its mates. It is fun and silly and surely shows O’Brien’s gift. Maybe he has tempered his wildness for readership’s sake. 

The Third Policeman never met publication in his lifetime. Possibly Dalkey tried to answer that. I find The Third Policeman brims with wonders. It is dark, extravagant, humourous, eerie, strange, folksy, and furtherly described by adjectives, including unsettling, and more. O’Brien presents some wild ideas. One such is the Atomic Theory, which explains how people can become bicycles by the trading of molecules during bumptious rides. I don’t read with scholarly might but I enjoy the breadth and wonder of singular works. Those are the sort that O’Brien wrote. He should be read breathlessly.

The Idiot by F. Dostoevsky

 

I am reading *The Idiot* by Dostoevsky. Doing so on a tablet, I didn’t grasp how long it is. That I remain vague about the book’s length disconcerts me. That the pagination changes according to the orientation of the tablet leaves me a trifle wobbly. That the novel is part of a collection of D’s work leaves me unsure where I am. However, read I do.

I have read and appreciated *Crime and Punishment *. *The Brother Karamazov * is another matter, having thwarted me twice so far. I never caught a sense of its trail so the collection of irritated characters just kind of stand there for me. I feel similarly about the characters in *The Idiot* but at least I perceive plot machination or manifestations. The prince and Natasha will dance somehow, and maybe Aglaya.

I am less than keen about characters as directed forces. I see a molecular way the characters bounce against each that creates the plot. The random acts create intention. Acts and consequences will happen in the next—good lord!—several (I think) thousand of pages left. I wouldn’t bother reading on but that Dostoevsky makes the effort worthy. At least to the degree that he has a keen eye and an unexpected sly humour. You can wish me luck in this endeavor, I may not be equal to the effort needed. I still have a bio of Rasputin to return to.

Clash of the Titans, the Movie and the reproach

 This past summer I watched both versions of the movie Clash of the Titans. The movies follow the adventures of Perseus, famous Greek hero. Unsurprisingly, the plot is the same with both movies, save the city, save the girl. A considerable difference in storytelling stands between the two efforts. One notes the dramatic technological change in movie making between the one made in 1981 and the one made in 2010. Movies don’t seem to age well. Not just technologically, either. One becomes aware of attitudes and mores of the older era. Still, a common thread runs thru the two movies, heroic quest.

As a title, “Clash of the Titans” sounds good. Really, tho, it should be Clash of the Gods. The Olympians were the generation following the Titans, tho sometimes gathered under the Titan name. The battles of Cronus, Saturn, and the rest, that was the real Clash of Titans. It would be a good movie if someone tried. Avengers End Game almost does that job, but the life of the franchises powered that too much. Even the Apocalypse needs a sequel. But anyway.

The older version of Clash should have been a doozy with hero and quest. The trials of Perseus offer cinema-ready action, and special effects were by Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen created the skeleton warriors, animate bronze statue, harpies, and the other monstrous threats that Jason battled in Jason and the Argonauts. That all mesmerized a certain adolescent, the perfect adventure movie. Clash 81 proved a tepid affair, however.

Harry Hamlin plays the lead role, Perseus, the hero. I know he starred in that popular lawyer show sometime after, but I have no more than that. I suspect that the director or producer chose him mostly for his yum factor. Unfortunately, dreamy eyes and hairless chest don’t provide enough zing for playing the Number Two Hero of Greek myths behind Hercules. Thru out the movie his quest seems merely like something to do till he can get to a club. I vaguely recall that he and the older but by no means creaky Ursula Andress became a Hollywood item. Forty years, I could be wrong about this exciting tidbit, but it does provide a meta look at Hollywood’s own Olympian playground.

The director had no interest in delivering what the Jason movie had in abundance: eye-popping action. Instead, it seems more like a drab philosophical inquiry about the world. I mean, he’s got Sir Laurence Effing Olivier as Zeus but the whole Olympus thing looks half-hearted and merely cheesy. The hero should be energized by his quest but instead strolls about his business. In the meantime, Olivier, Claire Bloom, and the aforementioned Ursula Andress all pick up checks for a few hours in a smoky studio. As gods, they just stand there. Now there is some strong commentary. No hint of the exaggerated egos of the immortals we know from the tales. They merely look uncomfortable waiting for the director to tell them what to do. The director, the real god here, doesn’t know. The pleading rashness of the gods has been set aside. They function as deus ex machina in drapes. Timeless mannikins. 

Meanwhile Perseus listlessly wanders into a few temperate battles against monsters and whatnot. His legion of red shirts, unnoticed by the gods, pass forgetably into oblivion, just like the middle class. At least Perseus scores the big payday as hero. He’ll be good-looking forever.

In contrast to the low-intensity aerobics of Clash 81, Clash 2010 embraces a vigorous sense of pesty gods, loud as rock stars. First we get some back story. Baby Perseus has been set adrift on the sea with his mother because the king her husband did not father the child. The child survives but mom does not. A kindly fisherman finds and adopts the child. The child becomes the short-haired and rugged star of the show. This Perseus is oddly muted. He has spirit but internalizes it. When he is grown to manhood the gods war against a city of uppity people. As collateral damage, the fisherman and his family, except Perseus, get killed. The smell of vengeance rises.

Visually, this movie is already way ahead of Clash 81. A god, a freakin’ god, bursts directly out of the sky. If that don’t make you jump... Well that’s Hades, pissed. Ray Fiennes plays him as if he was never satisfied with any of Shakespeare’s villains. Angry and mighty, yet with a touch of snivvel, Hades got some character attributes, as he wars against Zeus.

Perseus commits to being his own man. He learns that Zeus is his father but Perseus turns away from the god side of his nature. It’s like Jesus saying he’ll just remain a carpenter. Perseus ends up getting cajoled into his hero quest. As played by Sam Worthington, Perseus is grim and humourless. He gathers a much more lively crew than Harry Hamlin did. The crew that joined Perseus in the earlier Clash seem like those who gathered around cocaine lines at Studio 54. I mean, whatever!

2010 bobs along as a quest. Perseus reconciles with dad, played with vocal reverberation by Liam Neeson. The Hero loses most of his mates along the way, but the two funny, blundering guys survive. This is religion, right there.

Weirdly, we just don’t think about the things we think about. In 81, Perseus receives the various aids in his quest as needed. It resembles a scavenger hunt for him. The helmet of invisibility, the flying horse, the shiny shield all come serendipitously to him expressly to be useful. In 2010, I do not think he gets a helmet, and the shiny shield is just laying around and he sees a use. Zeus does give him something or other, I forget what, which helps bring victory. This gift is more a token of their reconciliation than help of the gods.

In myths, the heroes seem less self-motivated than just following the only path before them. You’ll need a helmet of invisibility, Perseus, someone says, and so he has the useful tool for moving on. Presently, heroes everywhere challenge the world with their belief or denial of the pandemic. In each case, the hero becomes firm to the point of combative to follow their belief. Yesterday at the store a man agreed with someone that the pandemic is nothing to worry about. “It’s bullshit,” he said. His 97 year old mother will be fine when the family gathers for Thanksgiving. Yes, and Perseus knows Medusa can be defeated, the sea monster can be defeated, the gods can be defeated. Confidence wins the day. The proof is in the movie. Even listless Harry Hamlin can beat the gods just by doing what someone tells him.

One feels satisfaction when the hero wins. The path has been followed, the quest finished. What follows the adventure may be diminishment. Jason and the Argonauts ends with Jason and Medea smooching, but the gods know there’s some hot material for the Greek playwrights as the love match progresses.

Clash 81 proved hard to follow because nothing in the quest seemed to matter, and Harry Hamlin is too good looking to die. Clash 2010 provides the tension and the zesty visuals to soothe the need for hearty heroics but ends with something akin to Field of Dreams dad hugs. Hollywood the God of Gods exerts control.

When Donald Trump became an actual candidate, let alone President of the United States, I despaired. He rode into all this on a flying horse called Bullshit. The rumble of his self-aggrandizing swagger sounded heroic to way too many people. The fat gaudiness of his image resonated in a populous way. He became a monstrance of hope for certain disenchanted people. Their disenchantment is real but his mission was never. A hero is the deed itself, not the bragging puffery. Trump exploited the urge and need that kept the tales of such as Perseus alive even now. Both movies are cheesy because Hollywood cannot do otherwise, but they still bespeak a human need for heroic endeavor. Trump just twisted that, and the gods just laugh.

Beyond the Pandemic a Bit

 A customer wished to redeem a handful of cans. I told him we cannot accept those of his that we don’t sell. He asked with dismay, “When will things be normal again?” I replied perhaps too vigouroudly: “Normal doesn’t exist anymore.” Seven months into the pandemic and we are still working on that.

The customer assumed this change in our procedure owed to the pandemic, as so much has these past months. In fact, beverage distributors have simply become more rigorous about what they’ll receive from us. Blaming the pandemic for the change proves easy enough, tho. A persistent narrative concerns how much we all have lost because of the virus.

I need not catalog that loss. Everyone has felt it. The narrative need not solely focus on the losses we have endured. We are learning along the way.

The lament about lost normalcy will remain a commonplace. Normal has changed yet we all still have things to do. A sales rep remarked recently that nearly 800 restaurants appear on the alcohol commission’s list of accounts in arrears for more than ninety days. I think twenty or less would be the typical number. A hotel association a while ago stated that ALL of Boston’s hotels face the risk of closure. One can add a touch of salt to the statement, the association wants to make a case, but obviously the pandemic offers no boon to the industry. Dominos tip in multiple directions at this time. Perhaps we can reset.

The forces unleashed by the pandemic, and I am okay with the drama of the verb, have revealed drastic weaknesses in our normal. world. We see many people and many businesses in straitened circumstances after just weeks of disruption. The economy is NOT GOOD, whatever the Wall Street soothsayers claim. Few back ups exist when things go pear-shaped. Public education, i.e. school as daycare, seems in mid-flub right now. Healthcare for this interconnected population clearly, clearly ignores the poor. The poor, according to any abacus, represent the vast majority of the population. Like such a majority could be ignored. Maybe the luxury of ignoring the problem has disappeared. 

I just today read that the University of Michigan issued a stay at home order to combat the spread of the virus. Student athletes, the money earners for the esteemed institute, stand exempt from the order. You have to believe the bottom line defines the mission to make that acception. I know some believe that we must keep the economy’s rockets firing. I get the thinking but not how such action meshes with the reality of doing so during a pandemic. The pandemic wants to win so badly.

While I believe some people really don’t accept the pandemic as serious, most do. Boredom and resistance to change seem like strong motivating factors for treating the situation as normal. We think the enemy is the virus but it is not. We have been treed by a culture of disintegration. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. Humans are not isolatoes, however. We are all creatures of the same light. As such, we are empowered by our connections, not our divisions. Tear down the walls!

Masque of the Red Death Lately

 I just read “Masque of the Red Death”. I haven’t bothered to read Pandemic-themed classics (The Plague, which I read in high school anyway, or The Decameron) during our travail. I’ve read “Masque” before but a Facebook friend posted a link to it yesterday so I partook. 

The story offers little plot. Poe just paints a formidable atmosphere. Like Hawthorne, Poe sets scenes as a state of mind. And that state is of a nervous intensity. Perhaps Hawthorne shows more Puritan restraint while Poe works out of night sweats. Both have a sort of stoned fascination with morbid consequences.

As I mentioned, “Masque” presents little by way of plot. Prince Prospero has opened his castle to his thousand most intimate hangers-on as they ride out a plague. My mind’s eye uses the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston to picture the scene. Once the residence of Gardener, the museum is a castle-like testament to the virtue of money transformed into courtyards, balconies, tapestries, and shadows. Poe describes the scene and the actors within it with an avid wildness of colour and detail. Think the shining nothingness of Studio 54. Poe’s story “Hop Frog” comes to mind too for its similar setting. That story has a plot, however, and the soothing delight of revenge. “Masque” simply brings Death personified into the tacky horror of Prince Prospero’s upper class playground, and Death don’t have no mercy. It is simply a consequence.

Poe’s language is lush yet lightly handled. The pulse of his heart pounds in each word. Words are not distant things to him. He knows each one he uses possesses ample charge. He was a learned but not schooled person. Last in his class at West Point, yet he often writes as if out to prove how brilliant he is. He writing is brilliant in its unsealed vigour. The vision he sees of the decrepit celebrants leaves him with eyes wide. Now slide partying college students into the picture, or avid participants at rallies, or any avoidable crush of people at the end of the world. See the child Trump enjoying his Halloween fun.

A Rushed and Indelicate Statement

The gaseous contents of the Republican soul sees no value but in ‘values’. These values carry nothing but a plutonic weight. They pretend toward a fixity that does not exist. They feature no moral compass beyond the cunning of Old Testament restriction. No doctrinal Prince of Peace provides comfort to this mindset beyond the great and welcoming Hell they envision for others.

The present administration shares no warmth or goal for the people, any people. The Heaven they intend for themselves bases it’s golden number in opposition. They enjoy the right side of the binary.

I use the word Republican but these feasters exceed the idea of party. The adepts just know that the world is a thing, a thing to corner, to collect, to devour. These words feel terrible to invoke. I mean, to consider such a ghastly register as the only view of the world and thus yourself. At some point we turn away, because we are alive. Alive just to autumn’s changes, wind in trees, abundance and sustenance in the mycorrizhal Earth, the mutual compact. None of your bullshit, then, this election year and in the world beyond.

The Pluck of Raspberries as Autumn Returns

 Today we made yet another trip to Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton. Google sends us North on Rt 3 till we reach the Dunstable exit. From there the trail is southeast thru still viable New England farmland. It is a pleasant ride. Beth wants more raspberries to freeze. Again, it’s just an excuse to feel the early autumn sunshine on our faces. 

Fluffy clouds and steely sunshine filled the eye, with a constantly blowing and gravely refreshing breeze. On such a Sunday afternoon we were by no means alone along the lengths of raspberry plants. Apples too, Honey Crisps and Macs, were available for picking. The day’s largesse of ripe berries was nearly done by the time we arrived after one. We got two quarts but it took close perusal among the bent stalks to accomplish that.

I haven’t recounted yet how I picked raspberries one summer while a teenager, thus prepping me for these labors years later. My friend’s neighbor had a raspberry patch. My friend, his younger brother, and I got to pick the berries then take them to the local farm stand. I don’t know what profit the neighbour took but I got enough money for some records and books. Because the brothers routinely would end up throwing things at each other and chasing each other, I picked the most pints. It was a sweet deal. Now Beth and I pay for the privilege. The warm sun, the cool wind, the blue sky, the imposing white clouds, and the apple trees full of fruit indeed made it a privilege. I should now read The Shepherd’s Calendar by John Clare, and maybe I will,

The Calming Pandemic Response of Almond Butter

 Made a cup or two of almond butter. Roasting, blanching, and peeling the almonds took upwards of two hours. Nothing onerous in the task, it feels peaceful. Once blanched the almond skins mostly squirt off. They need reblanching when they cool. Sitting in boiled water for a minute constitutes blanching. I watched MST3K while I removed the skins.

Processing in the Cuisinart took 12 minutes. I added two teaspoons of sugar, painting the lily, and two or three teaspoons of coconut oil. Roasting supposedly brings out oil that the raw almond doesn’t release. The addition of oil makes the butter smoother, and imparts a sweet fragrance. I could have made more had I not chomped on quite a few of the roasted beauties that I had prepared.

The time/labour aint straightforwardly worth it if you wish to be a capitalist prod about it. The butter tastes like my effort, tho. It is as good as any commercial brand that I’ve had. I am not kidding anyone. I could buy better bread than I make. A good portion of France’s economy seems based on that thought. Store bought bread provides no feeling of accomplishment, however, nor yeast aroma in our abode. I like having almond butter on my to do list. My almond butter on my bread: It gives a rhythm to my life. That is to say, tho the results please, it is the making that matters. Despite the constrictions amidst the pandemic, happy chores make a widening.

Cooking Up A Pandemic Response

 I have been writing considerably about our Covid-19 Shit-Hits-The-Fan Food Gathering And Prep Initiative, ongoing. The intent is not to show that I remember hippies, Age of Aquarious, and all that righteous. I doremember all that, and feel a curious warmth towards it, tho I hardly breathed that air. More importantly, however, I just want to see the result of a little extra effort.

Beth and I went to the organic farm today to purchase 15 pounds of tomatoes. The property is sweet-looking, trailing down to the Concord River. The land is in trust, can never be subdivided. This is a big deal, what with all the monied estates nearby. The farm land can remain so as long as someone wants to dig.

A sign outside the stand said no more than three customers at a time inside. Two people entered just ahead of us. An employee at the door invited Beth in, and I joined her. There were at least six customers scanning the provender, plus a handful of employees: so much for the sign. Room enough to maintain social distance, at least. The rules are kinda random these days, err on the side of safety.

Because of a drouthy summer, lettuce and corn were unavailable. Beth picked up some cilantro and I immediately smelled it six feet away. Basil looked wilted. Some cooking greens came home with us, as well.

The above exploit occurred while bread rose. Couldn’t take the slightly more scenic route home (I’m talking a couple extra miles), the bread comes first. I readied the dough for a second rise, then looked to our new vacuum bagging system. This gizmo will help us freeze more goods, tomatoes for instance.

I have never used such a thing but it seems practical. The tomatoes can be processed tomorrow. We sourced cheap locally-grown peaches that we will pick up tomorrow. They are utility peaches, seconds. Not pretty, but they can be used in baking or more peach butter. Cost will be some 50% cheaper than farm stand pretty peaches

I just saw this article about quarantine envy. I cannot say that I suffer it, tho I don’t doubt people do. I have worked 40+ hours a week right along. While there’s a part of me that would like to have stayed home huddling, I had the stabilizing effect of my normal routine. Beth lost two temporary job opportunities to the pandemic, but her main job during this time was to study for her real estate appraisal test (which she passed yesterday). The job that Erin was to start in April was delayed till May. At least we were together, remained healthy, and held our own.

I didn’t have to adjust my work life to the use of Zoom. Outside of Beth’s mother, we have no family nearby, so there is little in that way that the pandemic curtailed. Beth has been cautious about visiting her mother because I didn’t isolate but the phone eased that.

The pandemic has reminded us that we must make do. Thus, we have looked to gather food and find ways to maintain an abundance as hedge against whatever the hell comes next. Beth and I have put our heads together deciding how to maintain our own food supply, and do so affordably. The act of preparing the food and freezing it has been both creative and cooperative. In that, then, we have established a dynamic act. We are engaged in a positive pandemic response.

Maintaining our distance and wearing masks won’t soon end. Our key focus is figuring what we can do for ourselves, because our government no longer sees social welfare as a goal. This is a betrayal, and it will be remembered, but for now, we do what we need to do for ourselves.

Don’t Let the River Beast Get You, the filmic experience

 This is an oddly satisfying, low-budget monster movie. Not to give anything away but this film offers the least scary monster ever. It also has a charming, goofy vibe. It is intentionally funny tho it looks like your average cheesy b-flick sloppy mess.

Look at the title. Instead of Beware the River Beast or Revenge of the River Beast we have the scary words in the middle of the title, trailing off to the diminuendo of ‘Get You’. This movie clearly isn’t trying to make you jump out of your seat.

To make that clear, the movie begins with a warning. We see an uncomfortable looking man seated in a chair. At the advice of counsel, he tells us, the producers have added red flashes to the screen just prior to appearances of the dreaded Beast. When they occur, he says, you should put your hand over your eyes. He demonstrates, leaving a gap so that he can see. He reads his lines as if he had not seen them before, which seems quite likely.

The credits reveal a lot of shared family names. An abundance of family and friends made this movie possible, on both sides of the camera. It was filmed in Manchester, NH, and environs, with the Merrimack River as the home of the River Beast.

The story concerns the return of Neil Stuart to River Town. He left town in disgrace several years ago. He had seen a monster, the River Beast, in some unexplained circumstance. He tried to warn the town but no one believed him. Instead they ridiculed him, called him RB.

He returned to River Town at the behest of his godmother. She wants him to represent the godfamily at the wedding of Neil’s godcousin. Sic. His. godmother refuses to go because she doesn’t like the fiancé. Neil rents her basement as he tries to start over.

As he gets to town he meets his ex-fiancée Emmaline. She had broken off their engagement because of the River Beast kerfuffle. She too is now engaged to a jerk. Neil carries a flame. 

Other townies show him disdain, call him RB. He retained a couple of friends, Troy and Millhouse aka Milly. Troy calls Neil the greatest tutor this town has ever seen, obviously awed by the vast but true nature of his statement. He offers to get Neil some jobs. Milly is the town’s greatest poetry tutor. The three of them had a band, which might get back together now that Neil is back.

Living with Neil in the godmother’s basement is Teddy. He plays guitar and has been in the dumps since Neil left and the band broke up. Neil encourages him to get back to playing guitar. While busking for bucks in the park, a young woman starts dancing to the music. She explains that she is popping. That’s a kind of dance, you see. From what I can tell, she’s just moving a bit but okay, they meet cute. Her name is Pamela, and she’s a free spirit. She moves in with the boys, getting the bed while they get mattresses on the floor.

The movie actually begins with Allie Stone, a student at a finishing school. She concocts a way to get a pervy professor at the school fired. In doing so, she gets kicked out of school. Her father Frank hires Neil to straighten her out. Frank is always referred to as ex-professional athlete Frank Stone. Thru out the movie he practices various sports with his son but which professional sport he played professionally is never expressed. “I don’t pay people to lose to me in horseshoes,” he told Neil by way of telling Neil to get tutoring.

The actress who plays Allie, Sharon Scalzo, deserves notice. She is the only actually lively person in the movie. She resembles Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. She is perky, mischievous, and energetic. Her face constantly moves with rolled eyes, lifted eyebrows, widened eyes, wrinkled nose. She’s a great counter-balance to the stodgy discomfort of the rest of the cast. I am not denigrating those others. The amateur level of the acting is a central dynamic of the movie.

The movie now pretends to develop plot tension. Neil doesn’t get along with Emmaline’s fiancé, nor with his godcousin’s fiancé. He is hounded by the editor of the River Town Daily Standard, who spearheaded the mockery of Neil. The editor’s name is Sparky Watts, just so you know. The actor playing the editor drags on his cigarette like no smoker ever does.

Things are almost getting exciting at this point. In an effort to win back Emmaline, Neil hired noted big game hunter Ito Hootkins to find the River Beast and clear Neil’s name. Ito is also a noted lady’s man, tho on what basis this could be true is not clear. Ito tells Neil “It’s easy for a woman to fall in love with me, I have je ne sais quoi.” Like the professor that Allie took down, Ito is much interested in the so-called picnic babes, young ladies who picnic in the woods. His method of finding the Beast is wandering in the woods playing his harmonica.

I neglected to mention that Milly is obsessed with food. He, along with Ito, express interest in eating the River Beast. ”Must be some good eating,” Milly speculates. In an early scene, Milly reprimands Troy for not offering Milly some peanuts. Troy counters that Milly never shared his squash that time. The greatest poetry tutor this town has seen replies that squash is not a food you can share.

The wedding of godcousin Cynthia to that jerk gets tense when Emmaline’s jerk fiancé takes seconds from the buffet before Milly gets firsts. Fisticuffs almost ensue but Neil saves the day by getting the River Mud Wranglers or whatever the name to play a tune. All the producer’s friends and relatives start dancing, and Pamela pops. 

There is indeed a River Beast and it appeared early on with proper warning. A take on the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but with expense spared. Various antagonists of Neil get killed by the Beast, implicating Neil. Pamela gets wanderlust—she’s a free spirit—seeing a lady hobo, sic, skipping with bindle and staff, double sic. She tells no one she’s leaving so suspicion falls on Neil. Neil is jailed. 

Allie works to free him. She visits him in the jail. Continuity fans will enjoy that when she entered the building she wore jeans. Talking to Neil she wore a dress. Neil has her take Troy and Ito with her to get pictures of the Beast. At this point, Allie is wearing shorts. They find the River Beast. Ito gets the pic but the Beast kills him. ito drops the camera as he dies. Troy volunteers to grab the camera. Before doing so, he requests that Allie call him Soldier Moons. Where’d that come from?

Soldier Moons grabs the camera and tosses it to Allie. The River Beast kills him. Allie gets away because she has professional athlete genes. Neil is allowed to be freed as further deaths occurred while he was in the pokey. He, Teddy, and Milly go after the Beast. Neil honors the death of a hero, Solder Moons, then they find the Beast. The Beast quickly knocks out Milly and Teddy Three Stooges-style. Neil does what he can but the Beast looms for the kill. Ex-professional athlete Frank Stone appears, ready for a scrap. He gestures to the Beast to bring it, then starts slugging. With unexpected canniness, the Beast grabs some leaves and throws them in the ex-professional athlete’s face. Of course that disorients the ex-professional athlete. Frank Stone dies, almost sadly.

When Teddy met Pamela, she told him about the wonders of kitty litter. It can do many things, she declared: melt ice, be used as confetti, absorb moisture. The couple gave Neil a bag. In the dire moment Neil pulled out the bag and threw some on the Beast. The desiccating power of the litter kills the Beast. 

The final scene reveals Neil as a hero, Allie as the new reporter for the River Town Daily Standard, and Emmaline and Neil as engaged. They intend to adopt the ex-fiancé’s son from a previous marriage. Cue the credits.

The consistently flaky meta quality of the movie intrigues me. Plot-. wise, there is no tension whatever. Every blockbuster you’ve ever seen relies on that tension but here it is eschewed. Instead, you have Neil meaningfully drinking chocolate milk at odd moments of the film.

Something gung-ho pervades the movie. It’s like those Let’s put on a show! movies, and they really did. The dialogue is quirky. Teddy refers to his basement digs as domicile and abode. Who does that? 

Charles Roxburgh co-wrote and directed. Matt Farley co-wrote, produced, and played Neil. There’s at least one other film by them, with largely the same cast. I will take this sort of movie over any number of well-funded spectacles. The energy comes from the creative spark rather than the giddy vigor of profit. I am telling you, Don’t Let the River Beast Get You is a hunk of fun

Shopping the Pandemic

 I have a week off, which means a little less attention to Covid-19. Routines have developed over the past five months. Wash hands, wear mask. Work is just work now, albeit with the experience heightened.

I continue messing around with sort of pandemic-related production of foodstuffs. Making food that I might otherwise buy. The supply chain has been rattled and will continue so. Get used to making do.

Nut butters have been my latest interest. Almond butter made from blanched, toasted almonds proved righteous. Butter made from toasted walnuts less so. You may or may not like the toasted taste. Honey helped, salt did not. I can confirm that raw walnut butter with honey is a smooth, dessert-level confection.

We headed North today for canning supplies. First stop Walmart. I haven’t stepped into the belly of that beast in years. I didn’t see the sign that says Give Up Now And We’ll See What Happens but I’m sure it’s there. Beth thought they could fulfill our need for canning jars. The parking lot exhibited an enclosing sort of heat, with humidity cheerfully present. Tape blocked off the entrance in such a way that people had to enter single file. There was a greeter at the door, tho he didn’t really greet us. Beth greeted him, as is her wont. He probably had to watch for the maskless and those who would scoot under the tape to crowd ahead.

The store is vast and grubby. We sought quart-sized canning jars. We were directed to the appropriate aisle but only found pints. We got some kitchen utensils and left. Beth gave the man out front a bottle of water.

After a quick stop to see Beth’s mother we passed from Taxachusetts to Live Free Or Die. Which doesn’t sound like freedom, after all. The or else vibe comes across as threatening. And what, really, does freedom mean?

Walmart isn’t exactly grim, at least the one in Lowell isn’t, but I get the feeling that second rate is first rate there. I got a similar sense Saturday when I had to pop into Ocean State Job Lots in search of rubber gloves. OSJL sells remaindered items and, I think, anything at all from China. They stayed open during the lockdown because they could source toilet paper and masks from somewhere. Even Walmart cannot match the grimness of Ocean State. It’s okay, you don’t need to know why the stuff is so cheap. In the end, I couldn’t find gloves in the squalor of the store. The hardware store did me better.

After those stores, Costco seems pristine. It is an efficient machine. A vacuum-packing food storage system provided our target. We mean to fill that freezer of ours. Of course we got other stuff, too. We began the pandemic with a galore of toilet paper and olive oil by virtue of not remembering what we had at home when faced with Costco’s largesse. I saw no one without a mask despite New Hampshire‘s license plate exhortation. Walmart likewise.

Beth always engages cashiers and other store employees she may speak to. The cashier yesterday unburdened herself a little about working during the pandemic. This boat we share makes us conscious of others, like it or not. I don’t have the outgoing gene but I try to see that person before me. We’re all dazzled by the calamity.

Charles Olson, Thoreau, and the Distance to Mt. Wachusett

 The author Robert Sullivan, in The Thoreau You Didn’t Know, several times notes that Mt Wachusett is on the edge of Concord or vice versa. It’s probably more than an hour by car between the two. I think I am even under-estimating. In his research, Sullivan maybe didn’t haul out to Wachusett, it is not a significant place in the Thoreau annals. He probably looked at a map and judged the distance as small. I am not blaming him. It just reminds me how local local is. Many years ago, my father flew somewhere for work. He had boarded but there was a delay as a late passenger arrived (I noted that this was long ago). The passenger turned out to be Tip O’Neil, Senate Majority Leader at the time. He sat next to my father. O’Neil, whose nickname derived from an old time baseball player, famously said all politics is local. Their conversation during the flight centered on their both having grown up in North Cambridge. Charles Olson’s historical musings placed seemingly excessive weight on bits of information that hardly seem worthy of general regard. That is exactly where my interest sharpened for The Maximus Poems. Travelers to Walden Pond are no doubt surprised to find that busy Rt 2 is so close to the pond that Roberto Clemente could probably have heaved a baseball into the water from the highway’s edge, assuming the trees were gone. There is value in what we know, but also, it seems, in what we don’t know. I once read a book by a local writer, set locally in the Boston area. I stumbled on what I detected as minor errors. One that I remember is referring to a fancy Boston restaurant at the time as Biba’s. The correct name was Biba. The possessive makes it sound like the restaurant was named for a person, when I believe the word is Latin for imbibe. Whether I am right about that or not doesn’t matter. The cognoscenti would never have said Biba’s. What this all comes down is that it is Sunday morning, I don’t have to work for a week, and writing is my pleasure. Just to complete the wobbling circle, I grew up in a house on Wachusett Drive.

Peach Butter in the Age of Trump

Enterprise! Two loaves of peach bread in dough chrysalis are baking. An excess of bread dough that I refrigerated is now rising to the occasion (sic). Several pounds of peaches have been processed and remain chill in the freezer. I mention this for the usual Facebark reason: look at me!

The exercise holds something more, however. In the recent and much-bruited interview that the president gave, he answered a question with five grey words: It is what it is. In reference to the pandemic. Translation: I got nothing. We are in trouble.

My spidey sense tells me that we all will need a higher level of self-sufficiency. The supply chain is rattled. You may (and anyway should) become more active in the education of your children. The things you depend on, whether it is NFL games, vaccines, or Heineken 12-packs, may not be readily forthcoming. Not to say peach bread will save us but an attitude of make rather than take might be beneficial.

I don’t mean to sound gloomy. Both Beth and I felt invigorated by the process of dealing with our largesse of peaches. It was not just making peach bread and peach butter but getting a freezer and where to put it and how to freeze peaches and when to do this. Peach butter is the happy by product of our endeavor. Well-placed endeavor and kindliness will be key as we process the mess that we face.

The Thoreau You Don’t Know by Robert Sullivan

I am reading The Thoreau You Don’t Know by Robert Sullivan. It is a bio and assessment. I think Sullivan gives a clear view of the man and his work.

I say that because the idea that Thoreau was a hermit lingers, tho his writing gives full evidence that he was no such thing. Thoreau’s writing is filled with encounters with farmers, itinerants, most anybody.

I first read Walden years ago, probably before I was twenty. Read other work by him. His journals really opened his work to me. I found his journals, 12 or 13 volumes, remaindered for cheap, a glorious find. The informality and inclusiveness of a journal fit his nature.

It always surprises me when people demean Thoreau. Seems like he angers some few readers. I get that he sometimes espouses in a haughty way, with a kind of Puritan strictness. He is such a charming writer, tho, with sparks of humor. And he relentlessly makes sense, even, perhaps, when he doesn’t. I mean he posits in Walden that a coffin-like railroad box would suffice for a home. He’s joking, but there’s an extremity to that joking that he almost means.

Sullivan imparts much warmth to his vision of Thoreau. Taking care of Emerson’s children, for instance. Children were charmed by Thoreau. Concord’s children all attended his funeral.

Sullivan’s book could be a good intro for those who haven’t read Thoreau. Sullivan likesThoreau but doesn’t idolize him. Sullivan captures the iconoclasm of his subject but also the stern sensibility.

I have lived within Thoreau’s map for much of my life. For a few years I made it a point to run to his gravesite on Christmas Day. Sleepy Hollow cemetery was only a couple miles away but I would be exhausted from working retail during the holidays. So it was a trudge to get there but worth it. There would always be gifts for Henry on the simple gravestone: sticks, rocks, flowers, even letters. The letters were kind of obnoxious idolatry but the ceremony of my visit seemed right. Sullivan’s book gives a fresh but not slavish view of a keen-eyed writer.

Let Volleyball Guide You

I have played a lot of volleyball in my day. It is a great social sport because it accommodates various levels of ability. Also, you can gather quite a crowd on each side and make it work. I speak not of those gym class free-for-alls that routinely devolved to controlled anarchy and waste of time. No, I mean the sport where you get to jump and yell in united purpose.

Keeping a game from going pear-shaped requires players to have a sense of how the games is played. Teams are allowed to hit the ball three times before sending it over the net. You can, that is, set up that third shot for maximum effectiveness. Receiving the first shot might be simply to keep the ball aloft. The second tap would be a set up at the net for the leaper who sends it where the opponents ain’t.

That’s the theory. Teams needn’t use all three touches but the game plays better when people work for the best shot. Trying for the kill shot from the back row in receipt of service is not, just to illustrate, the best shot. Beyond that, the more people involved in ball movement, the more fun.

Naturally I have to turn playing volleyball into a metaphor. Wearing a mask and maintaining social distance is good volleyball. It means we’re scrappin’ together. Those who can’t/won’t do so are slamming the ball against the gym wall haha and the game goes flop. States are now talking a goddamn reset of the Coronavirus response because libertarian hubris was allowed to gain momentum. Measures that should have been taken in March and even much earlier must now be taken. Yes, we know who screwed the pooch for us. We can remember that when the time comes. For now, wear a mask, step back from others, and leave the store quickly.