2010_1_30 Herb an Dorothy
Every once and a while I score with a sleeper film on NETFLIX. I had ordered a film for Saturday that I knew nothing about, a documentary called “Herb and Dorothy,” about a Jewish couple from New York City who collected art. The noteworthy thing about their collecting was they did it on the basis of a modest income, which enabled them to become world-class collectors of contemporary art, with an emphasis on minimal art, although that by no means defined their collecting.
God, what a life-affirming thing it was to see this film. Herb and Dorothy Vogel were far from typical collectors, profit-minded and greedy. They were an angelic unique pair, greedy only in the sense of collecting all that they could in one lifetime. In the end they bought over 4750 pieces, all of which somehow fitted into their rent-controlled one bedroom apartment. She was a reference Librarian in a Brooklyn Library, while Herb, who never finished high school (because he hated it), worked in a local Post Office. He schooled himself about the history of art and after they got married brought Dorothy along in her understanding of art. They dabbled with painting for as short while before they turned their full attention to collecting. One artist they collected said Herb was born with an “aesthetic eye.” Their apartment was clogged with art they collected; there were stacks from floor to ceiling; the walls were so jammed with pictures that the wall was not visible anywhere. They seemed to live around a card table and a TV, with their cat Archie, a huge white long-haired male. We never saw a bedroom but it was made clear they had very little furniture outside that card table and a bed somewhere. When the National Gallery of Art took the collection to catalog it (and perhaps to buy it) it took several truck loads to remove it all. They couldn’t believe how much was stored in that tiny apartment. But unlike most collectors who made killings during the eighties and nineties, the Vogels were not interested in selling their collection, even though it was worth millions. That wasn’t in their DNA. They collected for the love of the work and they decided to give the collection to the National Gallery who eventually felt they had to give them something in return so they could survive and buy some furniture. So what did they do with the money? They bought more art, not a couch and a dining room table.
Most of the artists who became good friends—Richard Tuttle, Sol de Witt, Chuck Close, Christo and his wife, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, and many others—were also artists whose work they collected. Sol de Witt and Herb talked on the phone every Saturday for years. The Vogels, both of whom were very short, were perceived by the artists as a cute nebbish couple whose heart was in the right place. They admired then as they knew what they were doing and had bought things when some of the artists really needed the cash. They had started collecting in the early sixties. In time the couple became, if you will, mini-celebrities on the New York Art Scene, as they went to almost every show in town. They did little else, maybe a Broadway show once in a great while. They were all about working and collecting. Some extra money did come their way when they eventually sold a couple of properties they owned in New York.
There was one restriction on what they bought: it had to be small. It was the only way they got so many in their apartment. Nor could they afford larger paintings or high-priced items. Many artists gave them good deals too; they were that charmed by their eagerness and passion for art. Since there were so many pieces in the collection the Museum decided to take 2500 of the pieces and distribute 50 of them to 50 states and presumably that process has been completed after two years.
“Herb and Dorothy” was made in 2008. Herb’s health is not so good today and he and his beloved wife have stopped collecting. All I can say is it was an inspiring film and God bless the two of them.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Call from Don Z.
2010_1_28 Call from Don Z.
I got a call from Don this afternoon, shortly after I had written him an email. We talked for an hour, which is my limit on the phone. It was only the second time he has called so I had to give him an hour. I hadn’t heard from him for 8 days so I wrote to find out if he was okay. He was.
We talked a lot about success and failure, something I know something about. It was tied in with how good or bad was our judgment about people. I started out telling him about Dan Christensen, a young man I had worked with at Bookman’s in the late 1990s; his ambition was to be a cartoonist and writer of graphic novels. I was skeptical he could make it in that field, as he had showed me some of his work and I thought it was okay but not great. He upped and moved to Paris in 1998. We exchanged letters for a couple of years, than I had no contact with him for a decade. Then two weeks ago he found me through Facebook.com and we have exchanged a couple of emails since then. And guess what? Not only is he now married with two boys, age six and four, he is making his living as a graphic novelist, having so far published six books, with three of them being color hardbacks. He said he wasn’t wealthy but he was able to sustain himself and his family on what he made as a cartoonist/writer. The important fact is he is doing what he likes to do. He is currently working on 140 page graphic novel about a fencing master who commits a murder but is arrested for a murder he did not commit. So far he hasn’t found a publisher but he remains hopeful.
Don in turn told me a story about one of Holt Murray’s sculpture students at Cabrillo College. He was great admirer of Holt and Modernism’s “cut-open-an acorn-and-see-the-beauty” aesthetic; but when he arrived at the University of Washington Grad School, when Don knew him, his work did not impress him. He thought it was pretty common within the framework of abstract sculpture. The guy told Don he wanted to be an artist/professor just like he and Holt. Don scoffed at that idea; he thought it would never happen. Several years then went by. Recently he found out the guy was teaching at some Eastern University and that he had just signed a contract with the City of New York to do a Public Art thing for a quarter million dollars. Don said he didn’t mind being wrong; indeed, it was more fun that way.
Neither Don nor I have ended up a great success in the eyes of our peers and the world’s judgment, although Don stuck it out as a University Professor. Part of me says, well, it takes a long time to tally the score. Is that wishful thinking? Who knows? But at the moment I can see myself as a failure, at least according to the conventional measurement. I had a successful entry into the world of professional art and university teaching, but in a few years I blew it, with political activism and disillusionment with college life and teaching. I felt very confined and angered by modern institutionalism. “You went to the top of the mountain, and then jumped off,” was how my situation was encapsulated by an academic friend of mine. I would add, “Into the unknown.” Yeah, something like that. Following that leap into the abyss I went off into a very private direction creating a very personal art, achieving what I set out to do, spending no less than 40 years in the effort, so within my own frame of reference I consider my art and writing a great success, a fulfillment of intentions in a worthy manner, even if the larger, public world doesn’t know it. I amuse myself by saying it is recorded in The Great Book of Life. But I am not so naïve as to ignore the fact that at this moment most people do regard me as an abject failure, one of those individuals who showed a lot of promise but fizzled in his mid-thirties and failed to reach his potential. Ah yes, I fell off the map and disappeared into a black hole of my own making. I have been treated that way by certain individuals, like, for example, my mother. She never forgave me for lacking the ambition to be a conventional success so she could brag on me like her woman friends could on their sons; and taking a job as a janitor as an alternative way to make a living was the absolute low point for her. Well, no doubt it was an unorthodox thing to do. But it fit with my background and who I was.
Looking back to San Jose, I remember a conversation I had with another grad student, Doug Vogel, who was utterly involved with the idea of “making it,” as the expression went in the early sixties, when I told him I thought I’d be a “beautiful failure” rather than a “worldly success.” That is a goal I have managed to attain, or perhaps it’s just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why I said that in 1960 is a mystery to me, but I now look at it as a deeply intuitive thing to say.
The person in the Arts who I measure myself against in regards the issues of success and failure is Herman Melville. After his initial success of his popular sea tales and being characterized as “the man who lived with cannibals,” he went on to write MOBY DICK and PIERRE OR THE AMBIGUITIES, both failing miserably with his genteel readership, so when he died in 1891 no one remembered who he was or what he had written. After publishing a few short stories in magazines in the 1850s he went into hibernation, earning his living as a custom official on the docks on New York. He held that job for 22 years.
This is not to say I regard myself in the same category with Melville, no indeed, but I do see a dynamic between us that is similar: some initial success followed by years of obscurity and a dead-end job not equal to my talents. When Melville saw Hawthorne when they met in England after Herman’s dire days of public defeat back in America he told his friend and fellow writer, “I have decided to be annihilated.” I understand what he means and it can be an appealing choice after such a grim defeat of great purpose, but I have fought that feeling, pursuing my goals against all odds with as much passion as I could sustain over the long haul.
I got a call from Don this afternoon, shortly after I had written him an email. We talked for an hour, which is my limit on the phone. It was only the second time he has called so I had to give him an hour. I hadn’t heard from him for 8 days so I wrote to find out if he was okay. He was.
We talked a lot about success and failure, something I know something about. It was tied in with how good or bad was our judgment about people. I started out telling him about Dan Christensen, a young man I had worked with at Bookman’s in the late 1990s; his ambition was to be a cartoonist and writer of graphic novels. I was skeptical he could make it in that field, as he had showed me some of his work and I thought it was okay but not great. He upped and moved to Paris in 1998. We exchanged letters for a couple of years, than I had no contact with him for a decade. Then two weeks ago he found me through Facebook.com and we have exchanged a couple of emails since then. And guess what? Not only is he now married with two boys, age six and four, he is making his living as a graphic novelist, having so far published six books, with three of them being color hardbacks. He said he wasn’t wealthy but he was able to sustain himself and his family on what he made as a cartoonist/writer. The important fact is he is doing what he likes to do. He is currently working on 140 page graphic novel about a fencing master who commits a murder but is arrested for a murder he did not commit. So far he hasn’t found a publisher but he remains hopeful.
Don in turn told me a story about one of Holt Murray’s sculpture students at Cabrillo College. He was great admirer of Holt and Modernism’s “cut-open-an acorn-and-see-the-beauty” aesthetic; but when he arrived at the University of Washington Grad School, when Don knew him, his work did not impress him. He thought it was pretty common within the framework of abstract sculpture. The guy told Don he wanted to be an artist/professor just like he and Holt. Don scoffed at that idea; he thought it would never happen. Several years then went by. Recently he found out the guy was teaching at some Eastern University and that he had just signed a contract with the City of New York to do a Public Art thing for a quarter million dollars. Don said he didn’t mind being wrong; indeed, it was more fun that way.
Neither Don nor I have ended up a great success in the eyes of our peers and the world’s judgment, although Don stuck it out as a University Professor. Part of me says, well, it takes a long time to tally the score. Is that wishful thinking? Who knows? But at the moment I can see myself as a failure, at least according to the conventional measurement. I had a successful entry into the world of professional art and university teaching, but in a few years I blew it, with political activism and disillusionment with college life and teaching. I felt very confined and angered by modern institutionalism. “You went to the top of the mountain, and then jumped off,” was how my situation was encapsulated by an academic friend of mine. I would add, “Into the unknown.” Yeah, something like that. Following that leap into the abyss I went off into a very private direction creating a very personal art, achieving what I set out to do, spending no less than 40 years in the effort, so within my own frame of reference I consider my art and writing a great success, a fulfillment of intentions in a worthy manner, even if the larger, public world doesn’t know it. I amuse myself by saying it is recorded in The Great Book of Life. But I am not so naïve as to ignore the fact that at this moment most people do regard me as an abject failure, one of those individuals who showed a lot of promise but fizzled in his mid-thirties and failed to reach his potential. Ah yes, I fell off the map and disappeared into a black hole of my own making. I have been treated that way by certain individuals, like, for example, my mother. She never forgave me for lacking the ambition to be a conventional success so she could brag on me like her woman friends could on their sons; and taking a job as a janitor as an alternative way to make a living was the absolute low point for her. Well, no doubt it was an unorthodox thing to do. But it fit with my background and who I was.
Looking back to San Jose, I remember a conversation I had with another grad student, Doug Vogel, who was utterly involved with the idea of “making it,” as the expression went in the early sixties, when I told him I thought I’d be a “beautiful failure” rather than a “worldly success.” That is a goal I have managed to attain, or perhaps it’s just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why I said that in 1960 is a mystery to me, but I now look at it as a deeply intuitive thing to say.
The person in the Arts who I measure myself against in regards the issues of success and failure is Herman Melville. After his initial success of his popular sea tales and being characterized as “the man who lived with cannibals,” he went on to write MOBY DICK and PIERRE OR THE AMBIGUITIES, both failing miserably with his genteel readership, so when he died in 1891 no one remembered who he was or what he had written. After publishing a few short stories in magazines in the 1850s he went into hibernation, earning his living as a custom official on the docks on New York. He held that job for 22 years.
This is not to say I regard myself in the same category with Melville, no indeed, but I do see a dynamic between us that is similar: some initial success followed by years of obscurity and a dead-end job not equal to my talents. When Melville saw Hawthorne when they met in England after Herman’s dire days of public defeat back in America he told his friend and fellow writer, “I have decided to be annihilated.” I understand what he means and it can be an appealing choice after such a grim defeat of great purpose, but I have fought that feeling, pursuing my goals against all odds with as much passion as I could sustain over the long haul.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Obama among the Cannibals
Nasima,
No doubt the Republicans when they invited the president to participate in their Friday retreat viewed it as one of those old fashion “Roasts” that Sinatra’s Rat Pack used to put on for big laughs. The “Loyal Opposition” was like 140 cannibals sitting in wait of a feast. But Obama turned the tables on them because they acceded to his request that the TV cameras should record and broadcast the event, a big mistake, which many of them admitted afterwards.
Now, that was unusual for such events; they usually take place in private behind closed doors, so no one would be embarrassed later. In this case it turned out to be a shrewd move by the president and something the Republicans were cringing about later—and with good reason as they looked like a bunch of nay-saying self-important schmucks. David not only stood up well to Goliath, he cut them off at the knees, outtalking them, running circles around their talking points disguised as questions, showed great command of the facts and his own mental prowess, was witty and self-deprecating when that was called for, and in general outshone the eager but vulnerable questioners. Your mother and I stuck with all two hours of the re-broadcast on MSNBC last night, which included observations made by the trio of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Matthews. They talked in-between numerous confrontations at the retreat. It was gratifying to see and without a doubt the president’s best performance in a long while and particularly effective due to the fact it happened in the lion’s den.
If you didn’t see it, try to; it would be worth your while.
Dad
No doubt the Republicans when they invited the president to participate in their Friday retreat viewed it as one of those old fashion “Roasts” that Sinatra’s Rat Pack used to put on for big laughs. The “Loyal Opposition” was like 140 cannibals sitting in wait of a feast. But Obama turned the tables on them because they acceded to his request that the TV cameras should record and broadcast the event, a big mistake, which many of them admitted afterwards.
Now, that was unusual for such events; they usually take place in private behind closed doors, so no one would be embarrassed later. In this case it turned out to be a shrewd move by the president and something the Republicans were cringing about later—and with good reason as they looked like a bunch of nay-saying self-important schmucks. David not only stood up well to Goliath, he cut them off at the knees, outtalking them, running circles around their talking points disguised as questions, showed great command of the facts and his own mental prowess, was witty and self-deprecating when that was called for, and in general outshone the eager but vulnerable questioners. Your mother and I stuck with all two hours of the re-broadcast on MSNBC last night, which included observations made by the trio of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Matthews. They talked in-between numerous confrontations at the retreat. It was gratifying to see and without a doubt the president’s best performance in a long while and particularly effective due to the fact it happened in the lion’s den.
If you didn’t see it, try to; it would be worth your while.
Dad
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Weeds
2010_1_27 “Weeds.”
Sue and I finished “Weeds,” the 5th Season last night. It was not quite what it used to be and a million miles from where it was in the beginning, that is to say, a lighthearted satire with the ticky-tack song leading the way. The ending of Season 5 perfectly illustrates what I am talking about. The tone was angrier and there was more violence, and what humor there was was spottier, falling in the cracks between dramatic events and sequences. Some of the humor seemed out of place because of the change of tone. There will be a 6th Season and I won’t be surprised to see the series end in a tragedy.
Nancy Botwin’s (Mary-Louise Parker) attempt to have Pilar Suazo eliminated comes to naught because Guillermo Diaz was in Pilar’s employ and told her what Nancy wanted him to do. Pilar throws this in Nancy’s face at the party she was throwing for Estaban Reyes (Damian Bichir) who has just return to being her political protégé. This encounter occurred at poolside while the party was happening inside the mansion. Pilar got Estaban to re-up with her by blackmailing him; by showing him all the documents and photos she had on file that illustrated his illegal activities. He told Nancy he had no choice. And worst of all Pilar, who Nancy called “Mexicunt,” then threatened to kill Nancy’s two boys, Silas (Hunter Parish) and Shane (Alex Gould.) She reacts with horror and with loathing for this evil bitch she has to deal with as her chief tormentor. Then, suddenly, someone off camera whacked Pilar hard on the side of the head with a croquet mallet, sending her flying into the pool. After her splash down we saw her body floating spread-eagle in the water, blood oozing out of her head.
In the short interval before we see who wielded the mallet I considered who the assailant might be. My first choice was Cesar (Enrique Castillo) who was, after all, the professional killer in the current cast of characters. We had earlier seen him dispassionately dispatch three guys without blinking an eye. Or it could have been Ignacio (Hemky Madera) one crazy Mexican who had recently beaten the hell out of a golfer who had the nerve to give him the finger. He had picked up a 5 iron and clubbed the poor bastard into unconsciousness. Shane had witnessed this abuse and was repulsed by it, calling Ignacio an “animal.” He could have enjoyed killing a woman just for the pleasure of it. But no, I wasn’t even close: it was Shane who did it, Nancy’s 14 year son. And the first thing he said to his shocked mother who was standing there with her mouth open was, “I couldn’t find a golf club.” The camera returns to Pilar’s body floating in the blue water, a bird’s eye view.
So at the conclusion of the 5th Season we see Shane, the youngster in the crowd, go from being horrified by Ignacio violence with a stranger with a 5 iron, which had made him so critical of the men who worked for Estaban, his mother’s drug lord husband, to the trauma he felt after he got shot and began to see life from a darker perspective during his recovery period, to the violent 14 year old who threatened some would-be rapists with a knife at their throat and by copying the behavior and technique of Ignacio, who earlier had repulsed him. He had come full circle in his attitude about violence. Nancy, already disturbed and ill at ease with her parenting, felt like a failure after Shane’s attack on Pilar, which did of course remove her tormentor from the scene and prevented her from harming Silas and Shane, so maybe it could be read as a good thing, or at least self-defense. But the rationalization didn’t bear up that well against the weight and gravity of the karma, the moral consequence of the killing and her life style. She had run afoul of the choice she had made shortly after the death of her husband, Judah. She had had no idea of what the consequences could be. One son had nothing going except his skill at growing and selling pot, while her baby had just crushed the skull of a woman and he did not feel bad over what he did. She realized she could never win any prizes for parenting, and neither would Estaban. It turned out that his visiting teenage daughter who lived in Paris and went to school there, who he had felt was a higher caliber person than Nancy’s two boys, was crushed when he was told she was a heroin addict. That stopped his bragging and cut him down to her size.
Many other things happened during the 5th Season to the secondary characters. The clownish personalities, Celia (Elizabeth Perkins) and Dean Hodes and Doug Wilson, were a bit boring and over the top, too absurd next to the drama going on the with the primary characters. Andy Botwin (Justin Kirk) fell in love with the female doctor, Audra Kitson (Alanis Monisette) but deserts her when the anti-abortionist captures her. Earlier he had an affair with Nancy’s sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh.) But, in the final analysis, Season 5 was focused on the momentum toward a darker space for the Botwin family.
Sue and I finished “Weeds,” the 5th Season last night. It was not quite what it used to be and a million miles from where it was in the beginning, that is to say, a lighthearted satire with the ticky-tack song leading the way. The ending of Season 5 perfectly illustrates what I am talking about. The tone was angrier and there was more violence, and what humor there was was spottier, falling in the cracks between dramatic events and sequences. Some of the humor seemed out of place because of the change of tone. There will be a 6th Season and I won’t be surprised to see the series end in a tragedy.
Nancy Botwin’s (Mary-Louise Parker) attempt to have Pilar Suazo eliminated comes to naught because Guillermo Diaz was in Pilar’s employ and told her what Nancy wanted him to do. Pilar throws this in Nancy’s face at the party she was throwing for Estaban Reyes (Damian Bichir) who has just return to being her political protégé. This encounter occurred at poolside while the party was happening inside the mansion. Pilar got Estaban to re-up with her by blackmailing him; by showing him all the documents and photos she had on file that illustrated his illegal activities. He told Nancy he had no choice. And worst of all Pilar, who Nancy called “Mexicunt,” then threatened to kill Nancy’s two boys, Silas (Hunter Parish) and Shane (Alex Gould.) She reacts with horror and with loathing for this evil bitch she has to deal with as her chief tormentor. Then, suddenly, someone off camera whacked Pilar hard on the side of the head with a croquet mallet, sending her flying into the pool. After her splash down we saw her body floating spread-eagle in the water, blood oozing out of her head.
In the short interval before we see who wielded the mallet I considered who the assailant might be. My first choice was Cesar (Enrique Castillo) who was, after all, the professional killer in the current cast of characters. We had earlier seen him dispassionately dispatch three guys without blinking an eye. Or it could have been Ignacio (Hemky Madera) one crazy Mexican who had recently beaten the hell out of a golfer who had the nerve to give him the finger. He had picked up a 5 iron and clubbed the poor bastard into unconsciousness. Shane had witnessed this abuse and was repulsed by it, calling Ignacio an “animal.” He could have enjoyed killing a woman just for the pleasure of it. But no, I wasn’t even close: it was Shane who did it, Nancy’s 14 year son. And the first thing he said to his shocked mother who was standing there with her mouth open was, “I couldn’t find a golf club.” The camera returns to Pilar’s body floating in the blue water, a bird’s eye view.
So at the conclusion of the 5th Season we see Shane, the youngster in the crowd, go from being horrified by Ignacio violence with a stranger with a 5 iron, which had made him so critical of the men who worked for Estaban, his mother’s drug lord husband, to the trauma he felt after he got shot and began to see life from a darker perspective during his recovery period, to the violent 14 year old who threatened some would-be rapists with a knife at their throat and by copying the behavior and technique of Ignacio, who earlier had repulsed him. He had come full circle in his attitude about violence. Nancy, already disturbed and ill at ease with her parenting, felt like a failure after Shane’s attack on Pilar, which did of course remove her tormentor from the scene and prevented her from harming Silas and Shane, so maybe it could be read as a good thing, or at least self-defense. But the rationalization didn’t bear up that well against the weight and gravity of the karma, the moral consequence of the killing and her life style. She had run afoul of the choice she had made shortly after the death of her husband, Judah. She had had no idea of what the consequences could be. One son had nothing going except his skill at growing and selling pot, while her baby had just crushed the skull of a woman and he did not feel bad over what he did. She realized she could never win any prizes for parenting, and neither would Estaban. It turned out that his visiting teenage daughter who lived in Paris and went to school there, who he had felt was a higher caliber person than Nancy’s two boys, was crushed when he was told she was a heroin addict. That stopped his bragging and cut him down to her size.
Many other things happened during the 5th Season to the secondary characters. The clownish personalities, Celia (Elizabeth Perkins) and Dean Hodes and Doug Wilson, were a bit boring and over the top, too absurd next to the drama going on the with the primary characters. Andy Botwin (Justin Kirk) fell in love with the female doctor, Audra Kitson (Alanis Monisette) but deserts her when the anti-abortionist captures her. Earlier he had an affair with Nancy’s sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh.) But, in the final analysis, Season 5 was focused on the momentum toward a darker space for the Botwin family.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Snow accident at Bookman's
2010_1_23 Snow accident at Bookman’s
First, the latest news: Doni called us this afternoon to tell us that the roof of the Bookman’s store in Flagstaff caved in Thursday night due to a heavy load of snow. We saw on the local news tonight a picture of the store with a lot of metal beams on the floor. KVOA reported that were plans to repair the roof and to reopen. Nothing was said about all the books and other things in the store. I suppose the inventory is a lesser concern. They could borrow a lot of books from the warehouse and the other stores.
David Silger also sent us 8 pictures of the snow on their property, which is snowed in; they had to dig a path through 4 feet high snow to get to the outer buildings. More snow is expected tonight.
Robert Parker, 77, died this week. He was one of the better mystery writers in the field, consistently good and reliable to deliver a smart and witty story. I read a few of the Spencer novels but I listened to many more on tape while I was working at the church. Most of them had Bert Reynolds doing the reading and he was a perfect fit for Parker’s voice and style. But actually I preferred the stories about Jesse Stone, the ex-cop from L.A. who was transplanted to a small town in Massachusetts called Paradise where he became sheriff, one with a drinking problem. I only read two of the books but I have seen most of the movies with Tom Selleck, who makes a great Jesse Stone. It is Stone’s vulnerability and sardonic attitude which appeals to me.
“That Hamilton Woman” was made in 1941. If I am not mistaken it is the film in which Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh first met; they later married and but the marriage didn’t last. Leigh has never looked prettier than she does in this movie. She plays Emma Hart Hamilton who is married to the English Ambassador to Naples; she is basically regarded by the Ambassador as an “ornament” in his life. But she is a social creature who is quite charming and she becomes well thought of by the King and Queen of Naples. As far as I could tell the marriage was never consummated but was friendly and affectionate. When Lord Nelson comes round she helps him out with some details that need the king and queen’s signature. They eventually fall in love, which was accepted and tolerated by the ambassador. However, in England it is another matter. Things are not the same; the English are much more puritanical and morality-driven. Lady Hamilton was scorned by polite society. Lord Nelson’s wife hates Lady Hamilton and she is gossiped about in public as “that Hamilton woman.” Meanwhile Nelson is beefing up his reputation as an exceptional seaman and battle tactician, especially at the Trafalgar where 22 English ships defeated 33 Franco-Spanish ships that by the end of fighting only 11 were left. But Nelson is mortally wounded by gunfire from a close-by French vessel. He manages to stay alert and alive until he is told the French have surrendered; at that point he feels free to die. Emma is crushed by his death. Afterwards she falls into drunken obscurity. The movie uses the device of telling the story in retrospect, as Lady Hamilton pours it out as a tragic love story to a cellmate in jail after being arrested for stealing some liquor.
(Sunday) I picked up the 5th Season of “Weeds” too, last Friday after the CT Scan, and we have seen 7 episodes already, mostly because they are much shorter this time, some barely a half hour long. They call Nancy the “Hemptress” which is clever and in the 7th episode she had the baby. I noticed that the brother-in-law has most of the best lines and Sue thinks there is more anger in this season than before.
Late Friday night, after Sue had gone to bed, I watched a violent farce called “Give ‘em Hell Malone.” It stared Thomas Jane, he of “Punisher” fame, and Ving Rhames. I suspect it was once a comic book, and if it wasn’t it copied the style of one. Malone is close to invincible and unkillable, and if he is shot (three times) he runs to his alcoholic mother who magically heals him. The opening sequence is an outrageous gun battle between Malone and the chief bad guy’s gang, about a dozen hoods. He kills them all with one pistol, a la Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti Westerns. Ving beats the hell out of him and tosses him around, he gets clubbed with baseball bat but it barely fazes him, and he survives assaults from the two other bizarre characters in the movie, Matchstick, played by Doug Hutchison who was one of the prison cops in “The Green Mile,” and a tiny tot Chinese killer, a petite woman who is theatrical and quite vicious. If she had a name I didn’t catch it. Matchstick is called that because he was severely burned in a fire and as a consequence he is fond of immolating his victims. Malone has a lethal duel with both of them and—surprise, surprise—comes out on top. Naturally, there is a gorgeous doll/whore involved with Malone, who is sent by the slick, handsome boss to track what he is up to. The actress who plays her is Elsa Pataky who I have never seen before. Her reward from the Boss is a bullet in the forehead. Malone dispatches the Boss after his clubbing by the bat, helped out by Ving who decides he no longer wants to work for the Boss. The movie ends with a mysterious phone call and “To be continued.” I can’t wait. The Director’s name was Russell Mulcahy.
As one of my old friends, a retired High School English teacher, would say “Malone” has no redeeming social value, none at all. And yet, I got a kick out of some of the characters and their comic book exaggeration. Plus I like Jane for some reason. He’s sort of a poor man’s Bruce Willis.
There was an article in our local paper about the “stealth operation” behind Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts. It was engineered by Texas Senator John Cornyn who is Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee whose participation was quiet and flew under the radar of the Democrats. When they discovered what was going on it was too late; Brown was safely ahead by then. At two points during Brown’s campaign Cornyn pumped in big bucks, a million dollars the first time and $500,000 the second. But that wasn’t all he sent. He sent political operatives from D.C. to help out in any way they could. After the debate between the two candidates, during which Brown scored some points, the Republican started to surge ahead but the team did not ballyhoo their success. Meanwhile in the New York Times three op-ed writers lamented the poor performance of the Democratic Party, in Massachusetts and generally in the past year. They all wondered, and so do I, what went wrong with the Democrats? Why can’t they grasp the desperation of millions of Americans and why did they take good care of the Banks and Wall Street rather than the struggling masses on Main Street? And now the Bankers are handing out outrageous bonuses to their people while unemployment is still above 10% and really more than that. The Republicans, aware of the void created by Democratic inaction among their base and independents, jumped in with both feet in the elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts and are already targeting Illinois, North Dakota, Colorado and other states where they see a crack in a Democratic stronghold. George Will wrote the other day that the Democrats are headed toward “their Kamikaze flight to incineration” and that” conservatism is rising on the stepping stones of liberal excesses.” Obama, trying to correct that wayward flight, has called back his campaign manager and plans to go back to that mode of action.
First, the latest news: Doni called us this afternoon to tell us that the roof of the Bookman’s store in Flagstaff caved in Thursday night due to a heavy load of snow. We saw on the local news tonight a picture of the store with a lot of metal beams on the floor. KVOA reported that were plans to repair the roof and to reopen. Nothing was said about all the books and other things in the store. I suppose the inventory is a lesser concern. They could borrow a lot of books from the warehouse and the other stores.
David Silger also sent us 8 pictures of the snow on their property, which is snowed in; they had to dig a path through 4 feet high snow to get to the outer buildings. More snow is expected tonight.
Robert Parker, 77, died this week. He was one of the better mystery writers in the field, consistently good and reliable to deliver a smart and witty story. I read a few of the Spencer novels but I listened to many more on tape while I was working at the church. Most of them had Bert Reynolds doing the reading and he was a perfect fit for Parker’s voice and style. But actually I preferred the stories about Jesse Stone, the ex-cop from L.A. who was transplanted to a small town in Massachusetts called Paradise where he became sheriff, one with a drinking problem. I only read two of the books but I have seen most of the movies with Tom Selleck, who makes a great Jesse Stone. It is Stone’s vulnerability and sardonic attitude which appeals to me.
“That Hamilton Woman” was made in 1941. If I am not mistaken it is the film in which Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh first met; they later married and but the marriage didn’t last. Leigh has never looked prettier than she does in this movie. She plays Emma Hart Hamilton who is married to the English Ambassador to Naples; she is basically regarded by the Ambassador as an “ornament” in his life. But she is a social creature who is quite charming and she becomes well thought of by the King and Queen of Naples. As far as I could tell the marriage was never consummated but was friendly and affectionate. When Lord Nelson comes round she helps him out with some details that need the king and queen’s signature. They eventually fall in love, which was accepted and tolerated by the ambassador. However, in England it is another matter. Things are not the same; the English are much more puritanical and morality-driven. Lady Hamilton was scorned by polite society. Lord Nelson’s wife hates Lady Hamilton and she is gossiped about in public as “that Hamilton woman.” Meanwhile Nelson is beefing up his reputation as an exceptional seaman and battle tactician, especially at the Trafalgar where 22 English ships defeated 33 Franco-Spanish ships that by the end of fighting only 11 were left. But Nelson is mortally wounded by gunfire from a close-by French vessel. He manages to stay alert and alive until he is told the French have surrendered; at that point he feels free to die. Emma is crushed by his death. Afterwards she falls into drunken obscurity. The movie uses the device of telling the story in retrospect, as Lady Hamilton pours it out as a tragic love story to a cellmate in jail after being arrested for stealing some liquor.
(Sunday) I picked up the 5th Season of “Weeds” too, last Friday after the CT Scan, and we have seen 7 episodes already, mostly because they are much shorter this time, some barely a half hour long. They call Nancy the “Hemptress” which is clever and in the 7th episode she had the baby. I noticed that the brother-in-law has most of the best lines and Sue thinks there is more anger in this season than before.
Late Friday night, after Sue had gone to bed, I watched a violent farce called “Give ‘em Hell Malone.” It stared Thomas Jane, he of “Punisher” fame, and Ving Rhames. I suspect it was once a comic book, and if it wasn’t it copied the style of one. Malone is close to invincible and unkillable, and if he is shot (three times) he runs to his alcoholic mother who magically heals him. The opening sequence is an outrageous gun battle between Malone and the chief bad guy’s gang, about a dozen hoods. He kills them all with one pistol, a la Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti Westerns. Ving beats the hell out of him and tosses him around, he gets clubbed with baseball bat but it barely fazes him, and he survives assaults from the two other bizarre characters in the movie, Matchstick, played by Doug Hutchison who was one of the prison cops in “The Green Mile,” and a tiny tot Chinese killer, a petite woman who is theatrical and quite vicious. If she had a name I didn’t catch it. Matchstick is called that because he was severely burned in a fire and as a consequence he is fond of immolating his victims. Malone has a lethal duel with both of them and—surprise, surprise—comes out on top. Naturally, there is a gorgeous doll/whore involved with Malone, who is sent by the slick, handsome boss to track what he is up to. The actress who plays her is Elsa Pataky who I have never seen before. Her reward from the Boss is a bullet in the forehead. Malone dispatches the Boss after his clubbing by the bat, helped out by Ving who decides he no longer wants to work for the Boss. The movie ends with a mysterious phone call and “To be continued.” I can’t wait. The Director’s name was Russell Mulcahy.
As one of my old friends, a retired High School English teacher, would say “Malone” has no redeeming social value, none at all. And yet, I got a kick out of some of the characters and their comic book exaggeration. Plus I like Jane for some reason. He’s sort of a poor man’s Bruce Willis.
There was an article in our local paper about the “stealth operation” behind Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts. It was engineered by Texas Senator John Cornyn who is Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee whose participation was quiet and flew under the radar of the Democrats. When they discovered what was going on it was too late; Brown was safely ahead by then. At two points during Brown’s campaign Cornyn pumped in big bucks, a million dollars the first time and $500,000 the second. But that wasn’t all he sent. He sent political operatives from D.C. to help out in any way they could. After the debate between the two candidates, during which Brown scored some points, the Republican started to surge ahead but the team did not ballyhoo their success. Meanwhile in the New York Times three op-ed writers lamented the poor performance of the Democratic Party, in Massachusetts and generally in the past year. They all wondered, and so do I, what went wrong with the Democrats? Why can’t they grasp the desperation of millions of Americans and why did they take good care of the Banks and Wall Street rather than the struggling masses on Main Street? And now the Bankers are handing out outrageous bonuses to their people while unemployment is still above 10% and really more than that. The Republicans, aware of the void created by Democratic inaction among their base and independents, jumped in with both feet in the elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts and are already targeting Illinois, North Dakota, Colorado and other states where they see a crack in a Democratic stronghold. George Will wrote the other day that the Democrats are headed toward “their Kamikaze flight to incineration” and that” conservatism is rising on the stepping stones of liberal excesses.” Obama, trying to correct that wayward flight, has called back his campaign manager and plans to go back to that mode of action.
The Hurt Locker
2010_1_24 The Hurt Locker
I continue to work on BRIDGE, off and on, whenever I can put in an hour or two. I am up to page 119. But I thought I’d write in the journal for a while, just for relief. The section I was reworking while reading it was that 1971 visit with Fred Spratt at his new abode in the Saratoga hills in the Bay Area. We met his new wife; Sharon was her name I think. I call her something else in BRIDGE. He married her after Pat Spratt had divorced him to marry the PE Coach who had become her paramour while she was still married to Fred. I believe it was Geoff Bowman who first told me the story about her affair with the high school coach; that would have been a crushing blow to Fred, to lose out to a jock. Boy, now when I reread that section of the book, the ridicule is pretty heavy. The satire really reflects my deep annoyance with Fred over his comments toward Sue and our relationship, and what I felt was his ‘Good Lifer’ stance toward teaching and Art. The bottom line is I felt duped by his slick words; because when all was said and done he was an Art Salesman and Big Ego and not much of an artist himself, not all what he was cracked up to be. I really attacked his class pretensions, the big house in the rich suburbs, the wine cellar, the fancy lunch, the pose of refinement; and he in turn thought my moving to Tucson was on a par with moving to the far edge of the world, as far away from the Art Scene as possible. It was not a career move and indeed it wasn’t and it wasn’t intended to be. At the time I could not have cared less. I was being carried by a wave of disgust about Academics that most of my middle class friends have never understood, just how deeply swindled I felt by the whole professional Art gambit. In 1971 saw it as equivalent to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Fred supported the Vietnam War—“we have to draw the line somewhere”—and his promotion of significant art as “Technological Icons for an Affluent Age” was to me counterrevolutionary in the extreme and not what was called for considering the Ruling Class and its greedy objectives. In my eyes Fred was the phony Boy Scout in Charge. The man I had held in high esteem had feet of clay.
Finally saw “The Hurt Locker,” a title I still don’t understand but which must have some reference to the bomb dismantling trade. It is a solidly made and impressive film made, somewhat surprisingly, by a woman director, Kathryn Bigelow. She showed such a good grasp of the male psyche in a war context, she must have a male component of some stature in her inner make up, just as I have a strong Anima in mine. She’s been more of less a B-Director up till “The Hurt Locker,” which definitely will elevate her status in Hollywood, especially since the film is collecting quite a few awards, and an Oscar nomination is almost a certainty. Her best known film before this was the cult classic “Near Dark,” an off-beat horror film, which I have never seen. (I abhor horror films.) The lead actor in “The Hurt Locker” is Jeremy Renner who plays Staff Sgt. William James, the bomb expert who has dismantled over 875 IEDs in Iraq, operating in 2004 and probably later. The character must be based on a real person, or perhaps he is a composite picture of a type. In any case, James is built for the job. He has no fear; he even seems carefree as he goes about his potentially dangerous job. The movie opens with his predecessor on the bomb squad being killed by a blast set off by a passer-by using his cell phone at the wrong moment. But his death doesn’t put James of at all. He has a job to do and he does it and tries not to think too much about it in between the tasks he is given. This attitude of not worrying or thinking too much is the key to his success at his job. This is not to say he is calloused, because he is not. A young boy he knew was killed and abused—a bomb was hidden in the stomach of his corpse—and it upset him greatly and he made a point of removing the bomb. And Bigelow had the good sense to have him survive his tour of duty, go home and spend some time with his wife and baby, being as far as we can tell a normal dad and husband. But the film does end with him going back for another tour of duty. He accepts going too.
There are three scenes with cameo appearances by better known actors. Guy Pierce plays the predecessor who gets killed by the premature setting off a powerful IED. Even with protective gear on the blast killed him. He was equally expert at his trade but lot less lucky.
David Morse shows up as a Colonel who rushes up to James after watching his derring-do; he calls him a “wild man,” and it’s meant as a compliment. He congratulates the soldier who takes it all in stride.
The scene with Ralph Fiennes is interesting. The bomb squad, which is composed of three guys, encounters 5 guys dressed as Iraqi civilians. At first they squad is suspicious, but then it becomes clear they are Americans, contract mercenaries, probably with Blackwater. They are all suddenly thrown into a fire fight with some insurgents at a good distance from them but who are as good a shot from long distance as they are. I liked how Bigelow handled the scene, realistically and not in way that evoke the heroism of John Wayne. Once again James proves a cool customer under fire. He is nothing, if not a survivor.
Sue and I finished watching the last two episodes of the Third Season of “The Tudors” this weekend; it was 8 episodes in all, ending with the execution of Thomas Cromwell in July 1540.
The earlier episodes dealt with the “Pilgrimage of Grace,” which was the reaction—revolt—of the Catholic people of Northern England to the imposition of Protestant religion and rule by the autocratic Henry VIII. They banded together to the tune of 30,000 souls ready to die for their faith and fair treatment. They took over a few cities and were demanding they be listened to by the king. Henry was outraged at their impertinence; to him they were scoundrels, heretics, and traitors who had the temerity to challenge their sovereign. This was easy for Henry to say from his snug apartments in London; he had no hands on knowledge of the lives of the agrarian peoples of the North. Typically, he worked through his agents and ministers, Thomas Cromwell in particular. In the end he took the most violent way out hanging all the leaders as traitors and slaughtering many hundreds as deterrence for any more rebellion. There are numerous tough scenes of cruelty and barbaric treatment of human beings; they are not pleasant to watch. Even The Earl of Suffolk, his good friend Charles, who has always done whatever the king has asked, had to cringe at the orders he is given.
Henry is typically self-absorbed, touchy, blind to how self-serving some of his cronies are, and preoccupied with sex. Cromwell persuades the King to marry Anne of Cleves for political reasons; it would align the Protestant League with Henry who may need help against his enemies on the continent. But Anne is not attractive to him—they both complain the other smells bad—and Henry never consummates the marriage, eventually having it annulled. Very horny his cronies set him up with a hot little number, Katherine Howard, only 17 but with plenty of sexual experience already. I checked on this by reading some Tudor history and it is apparently true. Where Anne of Cleves was a virgin and uptight, Katherine was bold, experienced, and alluring, desirous to romp with the king.
But Cromwell’s mismanagement of the Anne of Cleves affair allows his enemies at court to undermine the King’s confidence in Cromwell and he is brought down by a conspiracy led by the Earl of Sufflok and the brother of Mary, Henry’s older daughter. He is seized and thrown in the Tower and executed in a particularly brutal fashion. A couple of Cromwell’s worst enemies got the executioner drunk the night before he had to wield the ax and the next day he could not hit the target with any accuracy and one of the honor guards had to step in and complete the job. As one witness wrote of the execution,” (He) so patiently suffered the stroke of the ax, by a ragged and butcherly miser, which very ungoodly performed the office.” I like the use of “ungoodly.” What a strange way to put it. A recent novel by the English novelist, Hillary Mantel, called WOLF HALL, attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of Thomas Cromwell who she claims was not the bad egg that many historians have made him out to be. She feels that Cromwell, who was the son of a blacksmith, had served the King well for almost ten years. He certainly was very intelligent and took care of policy and politics better than the King who was merely, as George Bush called himself, “the Decider.” He was also a better Protestant than his sovereign who, according to the Articles of the Church of England, had not separated himself from Catholic Dogma to the degree he thought he had. Proof of that is the current effort of Pope Benedict to persuade Anglicans to come back in the fold of the Roman Church where they belong.
I continue to work on BRIDGE, off and on, whenever I can put in an hour or two. I am up to page 119. But I thought I’d write in the journal for a while, just for relief. The section I was reworking while reading it was that 1971 visit with Fred Spratt at his new abode in the Saratoga hills in the Bay Area. We met his new wife; Sharon was her name I think. I call her something else in BRIDGE. He married her after Pat Spratt had divorced him to marry the PE Coach who had become her paramour while she was still married to Fred. I believe it was Geoff Bowman who first told me the story about her affair with the high school coach; that would have been a crushing blow to Fred, to lose out to a jock. Boy, now when I reread that section of the book, the ridicule is pretty heavy. The satire really reflects my deep annoyance with Fred over his comments toward Sue and our relationship, and what I felt was his ‘Good Lifer’ stance toward teaching and Art. The bottom line is I felt duped by his slick words; because when all was said and done he was an Art Salesman and Big Ego and not much of an artist himself, not all what he was cracked up to be. I really attacked his class pretensions, the big house in the rich suburbs, the wine cellar, the fancy lunch, the pose of refinement; and he in turn thought my moving to Tucson was on a par with moving to the far edge of the world, as far away from the Art Scene as possible. It was not a career move and indeed it wasn’t and it wasn’t intended to be. At the time I could not have cared less. I was being carried by a wave of disgust about Academics that most of my middle class friends have never understood, just how deeply swindled I felt by the whole professional Art gambit. In 1971 saw it as equivalent to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Fred supported the Vietnam War—“we have to draw the line somewhere”—and his promotion of significant art as “Technological Icons for an Affluent Age” was to me counterrevolutionary in the extreme and not what was called for considering the Ruling Class and its greedy objectives. In my eyes Fred was the phony Boy Scout in Charge. The man I had held in high esteem had feet of clay.
Finally saw “The Hurt Locker,” a title I still don’t understand but which must have some reference to the bomb dismantling trade. It is a solidly made and impressive film made, somewhat surprisingly, by a woman director, Kathryn Bigelow. She showed such a good grasp of the male psyche in a war context, she must have a male component of some stature in her inner make up, just as I have a strong Anima in mine. She’s been more of less a B-Director up till “The Hurt Locker,” which definitely will elevate her status in Hollywood, especially since the film is collecting quite a few awards, and an Oscar nomination is almost a certainty. Her best known film before this was the cult classic “Near Dark,” an off-beat horror film, which I have never seen. (I abhor horror films.) The lead actor in “The Hurt Locker” is Jeremy Renner who plays Staff Sgt. William James, the bomb expert who has dismantled over 875 IEDs in Iraq, operating in 2004 and probably later. The character must be based on a real person, or perhaps he is a composite picture of a type. In any case, James is built for the job. He has no fear; he even seems carefree as he goes about his potentially dangerous job. The movie opens with his predecessor on the bomb squad being killed by a blast set off by a passer-by using his cell phone at the wrong moment. But his death doesn’t put James of at all. He has a job to do and he does it and tries not to think too much about it in between the tasks he is given. This attitude of not worrying or thinking too much is the key to his success at his job. This is not to say he is calloused, because he is not. A young boy he knew was killed and abused—a bomb was hidden in the stomach of his corpse—and it upset him greatly and he made a point of removing the bomb. And Bigelow had the good sense to have him survive his tour of duty, go home and spend some time with his wife and baby, being as far as we can tell a normal dad and husband. But the film does end with him going back for another tour of duty. He accepts going too.
There are three scenes with cameo appearances by better known actors. Guy Pierce plays the predecessor who gets killed by the premature setting off a powerful IED. Even with protective gear on the blast killed him. He was equally expert at his trade but lot less lucky.
David Morse shows up as a Colonel who rushes up to James after watching his derring-do; he calls him a “wild man,” and it’s meant as a compliment. He congratulates the soldier who takes it all in stride.
The scene with Ralph Fiennes is interesting. The bomb squad, which is composed of three guys, encounters 5 guys dressed as Iraqi civilians. At first they squad is suspicious, but then it becomes clear they are Americans, contract mercenaries, probably with Blackwater. They are all suddenly thrown into a fire fight with some insurgents at a good distance from them but who are as good a shot from long distance as they are. I liked how Bigelow handled the scene, realistically and not in way that evoke the heroism of John Wayne. Once again James proves a cool customer under fire. He is nothing, if not a survivor.
Sue and I finished watching the last two episodes of the Third Season of “The Tudors” this weekend; it was 8 episodes in all, ending with the execution of Thomas Cromwell in July 1540.
The earlier episodes dealt with the “Pilgrimage of Grace,” which was the reaction—revolt—of the Catholic people of Northern England to the imposition of Protestant religion and rule by the autocratic Henry VIII. They banded together to the tune of 30,000 souls ready to die for their faith and fair treatment. They took over a few cities and were demanding they be listened to by the king. Henry was outraged at their impertinence; to him they were scoundrels, heretics, and traitors who had the temerity to challenge their sovereign. This was easy for Henry to say from his snug apartments in London; he had no hands on knowledge of the lives of the agrarian peoples of the North. Typically, he worked through his agents and ministers, Thomas Cromwell in particular. In the end he took the most violent way out hanging all the leaders as traitors and slaughtering many hundreds as deterrence for any more rebellion. There are numerous tough scenes of cruelty and barbaric treatment of human beings; they are not pleasant to watch. Even The Earl of Suffolk, his good friend Charles, who has always done whatever the king has asked, had to cringe at the orders he is given.
Henry is typically self-absorbed, touchy, blind to how self-serving some of his cronies are, and preoccupied with sex. Cromwell persuades the King to marry Anne of Cleves for political reasons; it would align the Protestant League with Henry who may need help against his enemies on the continent. But Anne is not attractive to him—they both complain the other smells bad—and Henry never consummates the marriage, eventually having it annulled. Very horny his cronies set him up with a hot little number, Katherine Howard, only 17 but with plenty of sexual experience already. I checked on this by reading some Tudor history and it is apparently true. Where Anne of Cleves was a virgin and uptight, Katherine was bold, experienced, and alluring, desirous to romp with the king.
But Cromwell’s mismanagement of the Anne of Cleves affair allows his enemies at court to undermine the King’s confidence in Cromwell and he is brought down by a conspiracy led by the Earl of Sufflok and the brother of Mary, Henry’s older daughter. He is seized and thrown in the Tower and executed in a particularly brutal fashion. A couple of Cromwell’s worst enemies got the executioner drunk the night before he had to wield the ax and the next day he could not hit the target with any accuracy and one of the honor guards had to step in and complete the job. As one witness wrote of the execution,” (He) so patiently suffered the stroke of the ax, by a ragged and butcherly miser, which very ungoodly performed the office.” I like the use of “ungoodly.” What a strange way to put it. A recent novel by the English novelist, Hillary Mantel, called WOLF HALL, attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of Thomas Cromwell who she claims was not the bad egg that many historians have made him out to be. She feels that Cromwell, who was the son of a blacksmith, had served the King well for almost ten years. He certainly was very intelligent and took care of policy and politics better than the King who was merely, as George Bush called himself, “the Decider.” He was also a better Protestant than his sovereign who, according to the Articles of the Church of England, had not separated himself from Catholic Dogma to the degree he thought he had. Proof of that is the current effort of Pope Benedict to persuade Anglicans to come back in the fold of the Roman Church where they belong.
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