Raine on Hitler’s Parade
The misspelling of the word bastard in the title of “Inglorious Basterds” was strictly a mistake or whim of director Quentin Taratino, for which he has not offered a rational explanation.
The story had several chapters; each with a heading, very much like in a novel. It also had three main characters. They were: Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the name a tribute to actor Aldo Ray who was in several war movies in the 1950s; Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a canny SS officer nicknamed “the Jew Hunter”; and Shosanna Dryfus (Melanie Laurent), the lone survivor of a family exterminated by Col. Landa—she is bent on revenge at all costs. The ‘Basterds’ were a Jewish death squad that, like the members of “The Dirty Dozen,” were a collection of quasi-crazed killers led by Lt. Raine that had been dropped behind enemy lines to terrorize the soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Two of the disconcerting things they do were to scalp dead Germans and kill the uncooperative officers with a baseball bat. Taratino, in a daring move, mixes fable with revisionist history, which I found engaging and a fantasy that didn’t come true but oh, if only it had…
The opening scene in the film involves Colonel Landa’s unannounced visit to a French farmer to question him about a Jewish family from the region who are unaccounted for, a mystery the SS spokesman wished to clear up. Landa was a slick fellow, full of guile and compliments, but he was a good detective with a nose for the truth. He’s not called “the Jew Hunter” for nothing. He figures out the missing family was under the farmer’s floor boards. He brings in three soldiers with machine guns who fire into the floor, killing four of the five members. Only Shosanna survived and ran like the blazes to some woods a couple of hundred yards away. Landa saw her running but decides to let her escape. Nor does Taratino inform us of the consequences for the French farmer and his three daughters. One wonders about that. It’s one crack in the solidity of the film.
Then we are introduced to the Jewish Death Squad. We witness them scalping some dead soldiers—Lt. Raine was part Indian—and a Jewish soldier called “Jew Bear” take a Louisville Slugger to the head of uncooperative German officer. The one soldier left alive was spared to be sent back to camp branded by Raine’s Bowie knife (another reminder that the story resembled an American Western), as he carved a swastika in the man’s forehead, which the soldier later showed to Hitler. The Basterds not only resembled “The Dirty Dozen,” but they act like the “The Wild Bunch.”
When Shosanna showed up again four years later she is the owner of a cinema in Paris, a business she inherited from a deceased Aunt and Uncle. She was on a ladder removing a name from the marquee, which coincidently was featuring one of Leni Riefenstahl’s earlier popular mountain climbing epics from the 1920s. She was of course the German filmmaker who became famous as “Hitler Filmmaker,” the Director of “Olympiad” and “Triumph of the Will,” two films that were both propaganda and filmmaking of high quality. While on the ladder she was approached by a young German soldier who obviously likes her but she brushes him off. Then she discovered he is a national hero for killing scores of American soldiers from a church Bell Tower, which repulses her. His name was Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) and he persudes Joseph Goebbels to make a movie about his heroic experience, with Zoller in the movie playing himself, like Audie Murphy playing himself in “To Hell and Back.” Moreover, when the film is completed they agreed to hold its grand premier at Ms. Mimieux (Shosanna’s new name) theater with not only members of the Nazi elite in attendance. Later on, Hitler decided he should be there too..
The British horned in on the proceedings by sending Lt. Hicox (Michael Fassbender) to France to meet with a German actress named Brigit von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) who was a double agent. Hicox was selected because he was a scholar of pre-war German film but proves to be an inept spy. The rendezvous takes place in a basement bar full of drunken German soldiers Raine doesn’t like the idea at all but sends a couple of Basterds to the meeting. When Hicox blows his cover a ferocious gun battle explodes and all are killed but the actress who is shot in the leg. Raine rescued her, but Cinderella forgot her fancy high heels shoes and Col. Landa finds them when he examines the scene. He saves them as evidence.
Now the plot was clear: Both Ms. Mimieux and Lt. Raine, without knowledge of what the other was planning, will try to kill Hitler and as many Nazis as possible inside the theater while they watched the movie at its premier. Ms. Mimieux plan was to ignite some very flammable film while her partner, a black man who was her lover as well as projectionist, would have locked all the doors so no one would escape the flames. They would die too, but they didn’t care. Raine’s plan was to get inside by accompanying the German actress with the four remaining Basterds carrying dynamite strapped to their legs. They pose as Italian diplomats, which was silly but no matter. Col. Landa grabs Hammmersmark. Forces her to try on the shoes she had left behind, when they fit, he strangles her on the spot. Then he has Raine and one of his associates grabbed and hauled away, but he takes one of the bundles of dynamite and shoves it under Goebbels chair. At that point I wondered what the hell was going on.
Well, I found out soon enough. He had his two captives removed to another location for interrogation, and while they have a dialog all hell breaks loose in the theater; there are explosions, a hysterical crowd that can’t get away from the flames or the machine gun fire of the two last Basterds up in the balcony, and finally the building blows to smithereens, killing Hitler and all his henchmen, effectively ending the war with a flourish. Who could not wish but that was so? Knowing that would be the likely scenario Landa tries to make a deal with the astonished Raine and his military superiors who he contacted by phone. Not only will he save their lives, he wants to go to America, be given a house on Cape Cod, and be forgiven of past crimes against humanity and start life over a free man. Raine is told to accept the deal and he does, with one exception: he carves a swastika in the forehead of Landa so everyone will know what he was during the war.
At Cannes, where the film premiered, Christoph Waltz walked off with the award as Best Actor for his performance as Colonel Landa. As far as I am concerned he stole the show with his outstanding, even flashy, performance. Brad Pitt’s characterization of Lt. Raine was good but seemed more artificial next to Waltz’s. Melanie Laurent was radiant as Shosanna/Ms. Mimieux. Taratino makes her and Ms. Hammersmark rather like two femme fatales. Laurent fakes a sexual invitation to Zoller up in the projection booth in order to distract him while she gets her gun out of her purse to shoot him; Kruger shoots the remaining German soldier in the basement shoot-out after he had surrendered his machine gun to Lt. Raine. When Raine inquired what happened to the actress Landa said,” Let’s just say she got what she deserved.”
‘Inglorious Basterds” was ten years in the making; it went through many permutations until it found its final form. Taratino changed his mind a number of times about who would play what part, and there were the inevitable conflicts of schedules. But the core group he ended up with was solid and preformed well. The Golden Globes came out last week and the film was nominated for four awards, including Best Drama, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor, to Christoph Waltz.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Fako and some Movies
12/12/2009 Journal notes on Fako and movies.
Fako continued to harass me this morning, and then in the afternoon he said he all along was just trying to get my dander up. So my feelings were just his playthings for a week. I should shoot the bastard.
To an extent he reminded me of my problems with Dick Wist who had a similar hostility toward me and my work. Wist, who was the Art Historian at UNLV when I was there, said to me “You draw witches and lack universality,” and then he’d stab me with “You have to have legs to run.” In other words I don’t have what it takes to make a mark on the world of “serious” Art. I am poor cripple who doesn’t have the stuff that it takes to soar. Christ, its tough enough to wrestle with aesthetic solutions to an inner complex that is compelling you to search for a form to reveal what you know in your heart of hearts, let alone having to listen to the critical ravings of outsiders who have no appreciation of the dynamic you have been swept up by. Fako’s contention is without endurance & public acknowledgement an artist is just a nowhere man. He has no understanding of the compulsion to create and the intrinsic value of creativity. My relationship with Wist died on the vine 40 years ago and if Fako keeps it up ours will too.
I saw “Julia and Julie” two nights ago, a comfort movie built around food and two women goony about cooking. Meryl Streep has done it again—what a performance! She was spot on in terms of sounding just like Ms. Child, and she also moved like she did. Nora Ephron, the writer and director also had her wearing elevator shoes because the real Julia was 6’2” (and her sister was 6’5”.) Amy Adams, who is a cute as can be, is adequate in her role but her skills can’t be compared to the fluid authority of Streep as an actress who can inhabit a character so completely. Julie’s story is interesting, but like her cooking, it lives in the shadow of the master cook. One aspect of her story that I paid some interest to was how she did with her blog. At first no one seemed to be reading it; then a few people, so on and so forth until a mass of people were reading it and reacting to it. I am in that first stage and it looks doubtful I’ll ever go beyond it.
The biggest surprise in the Julia Childs section was how sexual her relationship to her husband Paul was. Once more Streep was teamed with Stanley Tucci, like in “The Devil Loves Prada.” He’s perfect as Paul, loving, encouraging, and apparently the perfect sex partner. The chemistry between them could not be better. He was some kind of low level diplomat in Paris, which enabled her to go to cooking school in Paris and to eventually begin working on her book THE MASTERING OF FRENCH COOKING, which made her reputation, along with the popular PBS program on which she spread the word. Prior to catching on at the cooking school, she was at a loss what to do with herself. It took a while for things to come together for her, but getting there was half the fun. Julie was about 30 when she found herself as both cook and writer. Incidentally, the two women never met. Paul Child died at 91 about ten years before his wife who was 90 when she passed away. I’m sure that when she got to heaven she went in the door marked “French Eatery,” and Paul was there waiting for her.
“The Other Man” I had never heard of it but it had a good cast so I thought I’d give it a look. It was a downbeat movie about the ravages of male jealousy. A businessman, played by Liam Neeson, discovers that his wife had a passionate love affair before she died of cancer. One night he decides to check her laptop and he comes across a file named LOVE, but he doesn’t know the password. He tries many things and finally remembers her trips to Lake Como on business (she was a shoe designer.) Lake Como was it. He is shocked to see his beloved wife naked in bed and cavorting with her lover, played by Antonio Banderas. Laura Linney played the wife, but was actually seen little in the movie. You can see the rage well up inside Neeson’s emotional body. By the next morning he is totally in the grip of a madness he can’t get beyond. Due to love notes from the man he knows his name is Ralph; he asks his security person at his firm to find who he is and she does. His address is in Milan, so off he goes to confront the guy with murder in his heart.
When he gets there he follows the guy around for a few days, discovering that he likes to go to a particular bar and restaurant with a room for people who want to play chess. He strkes up a conversation with Ralph (pronounced Raf) and the two men start to play chess together, and while they play Raf starts to talk about his love for the other man’s wife. At one point he has a hammer in hand and considers killing Raf. But he refrains. He also discovers the guy is a sham, heavily in debt, only posing as a man with money and style, actually living on the cheap. He was not what he seemed to be, a bon vivant and high roller. But Neeson can’t resist setting a trap for the poor bastard. Since he doesn’t know the wife has died so Neeson pretends to write him for a get-together, just like old times, something Rav has been dreaming about. But it is him waiting in the restaurant and he lays the truth on Raf, that he is the husband and that is wife is dead, which first crushes him, then infuriates him that the husband could be so cruel, as he knew how much he had loved the woman too. That last fact finally sinks in to the husband; it softens his attitude and by the time of the memorial for the wife he even feels some compassion for the man he once wanted to kill, and both toast what a wonderful woman she was. He goes home with his daughter, his heart calmed and perhaps, even healed.
I liked the dynamic of going from complete rage and jealousy to sympathy and understanding. If only it would happen like that more often.
The new interpretation of the “The Taking of Pelham 123,” is an updated version, with technological add-ons and with villains that look more like the ex-cons and tough guys of today. The hard core of the film remains the same as in the 1974 film: It’s a hostage crisis that’s designed to extort big bucks for 4 criminals and the basic tension in the story is supplied by the lead gangster and the subway dispatcher. In the original story Robert Shaw played the villain and in the new version John Travolta is the brains and chief spokesman for the four hoods. Walter Matthau was a police detective who was the other half of the duet and duel between the two main adversaries. Travolta, besides looking the part, is loudmouthed, vulgar, a serial curser, a psychotic killer, but he also likes the dispatcher, Walter Garber, an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. Ryder (Travolta) will deal only with Garber. He wants $10 million in one hour or else he will start shooting one hostage every hour thereafter We don’t find out what Ryder’s true motivation is until near the end of the film. He was a high stakes player on Wall Street who stole some money and as a consequence had gone to prison for 9 years and had only recently got out of jail, as did his technical helper Pedro Ramos (Luis Guzman) who used to work for the subway system. They want revenge on the system that sent them up the river. Garber and Ryder engage in a dialog that links them in tension and respect—and in irony, as the ending of the film will show. The four get away with the money, but they don’t get far.
The director of the film was Tony Scott, Ridley’s brother who specializes in urban crime dramas. The last film Scott made with Denzel Washington was “Man on Fire.” In the special features he discusses all the difficulties and handicaps of making a film in New York City. It was a riveting story from start to finish, and the relationship between the two main characters had the right admixture of respect, fondness, and fear.
Fako continued to harass me this morning, and then in the afternoon he said he all along was just trying to get my dander up. So my feelings were just his playthings for a week. I should shoot the bastard.
To an extent he reminded me of my problems with Dick Wist who had a similar hostility toward me and my work. Wist, who was the Art Historian at UNLV when I was there, said to me “You draw witches and lack universality,” and then he’d stab me with “You have to have legs to run.” In other words I don’t have what it takes to make a mark on the world of “serious” Art. I am poor cripple who doesn’t have the stuff that it takes to soar. Christ, its tough enough to wrestle with aesthetic solutions to an inner complex that is compelling you to search for a form to reveal what you know in your heart of hearts, let alone having to listen to the critical ravings of outsiders who have no appreciation of the dynamic you have been swept up by. Fako’s contention is without endurance & public acknowledgement an artist is just a nowhere man. He has no understanding of the compulsion to create and the intrinsic value of creativity. My relationship with Wist died on the vine 40 years ago and if Fako keeps it up ours will too.
I saw “Julia and Julie” two nights ago, a comfort movie built around food and two women goony about cooking. Meryl Streep has done it again—what a performance! She was spot on in terms of sounding just like Ms. Child, and she also moved like she did. Nora Ephron, the writer and director also had her wearing elevator shoes because the real Julia was 6’2” (and her sister was 6’5”.) Amy Adams, who is a cute as can be, is adequate in her role but her skills can’t be compared to the fluid authority of Streep as an actress who can inhabit a character so completely. Julie’s story is interesting, but like her cooking, it lives in the shadow of the master cook. One aspect of her story that I paid some interest to was how she did with her blog. At first no one seemed to be reading it; then a few people, so on and so forth until a mass of people were reading it and reacting to it. I am in that first stage and it looks doubtful I’ll ever go beyond it.
The biggest surprise in the Julia Childs section was how sexual her relationship to her husband Paul was. Once more Streep was teamed with Stanley Tucci, like in “The Devil Loves Prada.” He’s perfect as Paul, loving, encouraging, and apparently the perfect sex partner. The chemistry between them could not be better. He was some kind of low level diplomat in Paris, which enabled her to go to cooking school in Paris and to eventually begin working on her book THE MASTERING OF FRENCH COOKING, which made her reputation, along with the popular PBS program on which she spread the word. Prior to catching on at the cooking school, she was at a loss what to do with herself. It took a while for things to come together for her, but getting there was half the fun. Julie was about 30 when she found herself as both cook and writer. Incidentally, the two women never met. Paul Child died at 91 about ten years before his wife who was 90 when she passed away. I’m sure that when she got to heaven she went in the door marked “French Eatery,” and Paul was there waiting for her.
“The Other Man” I had never heard of it but it had a good cast so I thought I’d give it a look. It was a downbeat movie about the ravages of male jealousy. A businessman, played by Liam Neeson, discovers that his wife had a passionate love affair before she died of cancer. One night he decides to check her laptop and he comes across a file named LOVE, but he doesn’t know the password. He tries many things and finally remembers her trips to Lake Como on business (she was a shoe designer.) Lake Como was it. He is shocked to see his beloved wife naked in bed and cavorting with her lover, played by Antonio Banderas. Laura Linney played the wife, but was actually seen little in the movie. You can see the rage well up inside Neeson’s emotional body. By the next morning he is totally in the grip of a madness he can’t get beyond. Due to love notes from the man he knows his name is Ralph; he asks his security person at his firm to find who he is and she does. His address is in Milan, so off he goes to confront the guy with murder in his heart.
When he gets there he follows the guy around for a few days, discovering that he likes to go to a particular bar and restaurant with a room for people who want to play chess. He strkes up a conversation with Ralph (pronounced Raf) and the two men start to play chess together, and while they play Raf starts to talk about his love for the other man’s wife. At one point he has a hammer in hand and considers killing Raf. But he refrains. He also discovers the guy is a sham, heavily in debt, only posing as a man with money and style, actually living on the cheap. He was not what he seemed to be, a bon vivant and high roller. But Neeson can’t resist setting a trap for the poor bastard. Since he doesn’t know the wife has died so Neeson pretends to write him for a get-together, just like old times, something Rav has been dreaming about. But it is him waiting in the restaurant and he lays the truth on Raf, that he is the husband and that is wife is dead, which first crushes him, then infuriates him that the husband could be so cruel, as he knew how much he had loved the woman too. That last fact finally sinks in to the husband; it softens his attitude and by the time of the memorial for the wife he even feels some compassion for the man he once wanted to kill, and both toast what a wonderful woman she was. He goes home with his daughter, his heart calmed and perhaps, even healed.
I liked the dynamic of going from complete rage and jealousy to sympathy and understanding. If only it would happen like that more often.
The new interpretation of the “The Taking of Pelham 123,” is an updated version, with technological add-ons and with villains that look more like the ex-cons and tough guys of today. The hard core of the film remains the same as in the 1974 film: It’s a hostage crisis that’s designed to extort big bucks for 4 criminals and the basic tension in the story is supplied by the lead gangster and the subway dispatcher. In the original story Robert Shaw played the villain and in the new version John Travolta is the brains and chief spokesman for the four hoods. Walter Matthau was a police detective who was the other half of the duet and duel between the two main adversaries. Travolta, besides looking the part, is loudmouthed, vulgar, a serial curser, a psychotic killer, but he also likes the dispatcher, Walter Garber, an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. Ryder (Travolta) will deal only with Garber. He wants $10 million in one hour or else he will start shooting one hostage every hour thereafter We don’t find out what Ryder’s true motivation is until near the end of the film. He was a high stakes player on Wall Street who stole some money and as a consequence had gone to prison for 9 years and had only recently got out of jail, as did his technical helper Pedro Ramos (Luis Guzman) who used to work for the subway system. They want revenge on the system that sent them up the river. Garber and Ryder engage in a dialog that links them in tension and respect—and in irony, as the ending of the film will show. The four get away with the money, but they don’t get far.
The director of the film was Tony Scott, Ridley’s brother who specializes in urban crime dramas. The last film Scott made with Denzel Washington was “Man on Fire.” In the special features he discusses all the difficulties and handicaps of making a film in New York City. It was a riveting story from start to finish, and the relationship between the two main characters had the right admixture of respect, fondness, and fear.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Too Much Happiness
Before last week I had never read any of the short stories of Canadian writer Alice Munro. With the publication of TOO MUCH HAPPINESS last month that makes 14 books she has written over a long career of writing short stories. I bought TOO MUCH HAPPINESS on the recommendation of a friend. Generally speaking, I am not much of a reader of short stories. I don’t know why; it’s just not my preference as far as fiction is concerned. The last writer of short stories that I got involved with was Raymond Carver. To a certain extent TOO MUCH HAPPINESS made me think of Carver’s work. The kind of people written about by both writers tend to be uneducated, have limited vision and understanding, can be mentally disturbed, very insecure, can be thrice-married, and even homicidal. Some are in dead-end jobs.
“Dimensions” is a good example of what I mean. Doree is twenty three and a cleaning woman, a job she happy with and has no plans to leave for something better. She is an innocent, very naïve, so much so she got swept off her feet while a teenager by a maniac named Lloyd who seduced her into marriage and got her pregnant to tune of three kids before she was twenty. Then one night, when she felt very uncomfortable with Lloyd, she slept at a friend’s house. When she went home the next morning she found all three children murdered by their father, who blamed her for what he did because she had left him last night. After he had been institutionalized for a while he tries to play her like he did when she was a teenager. He does it by telling her the children are appearing to him and they are doing well on the other side and not at all unhappy or mad at their father. Wanting her to come back to him, at least as a regular visitor, he tells her he will keep her apprised of their progress in this other dimension. She was intrigued by his fantasies about the kids, so soon afterwards she is on a bus heading to the hospital for another visit. But on the way there the driver has an accident; the bus hits a young man. When they stop the lad appears to be dead but she starts giving him CPR and lo, he revives and starts breathing on his own. Help is on the way. Her reaction to the emergency revealed something about her she wasn’t aware of before. Her quick reaction made her feel good about herself. When the bus driver said to get back on the bus as he has to get people to their destinations, she tells him to go ahead, she has decided to not go to the hospital and see her ex-husband. She doesn’t have to go anymore. She now knows she is more grounded in reality than Lloyd will ever be. Helping a lad who was in real crisis was more meaningful than traipsing around after the sorry tales of a madman. The kids were gone forever and that was that.
The second story I read was called “Fiction.” In it Munro dealt with a class of people who marry often and never seemed to find the right mate and therefore never find any real depth or comfort in a love relationship. They are like wounded butterflies fluttering from one bed and partner to the next, never quite finding what they think they want or need which is never all that clear to them. Munro cleverly interweaves all these games of musical marital chairs that take place over a matter of time, as they all grow older chasing their own tails. She ends the story with the main character, a woman named Joyce, who encounters the grown daughter of the tattooed woman who stole her first husband from her. The daughter was from a previous relationship but Joyce became her teacher for a short while, teaching her how to play the violin. The daughter is now a writer and she has just published her first work of fiction, a novel, which she buys and finds out is based on her first marriage and its collapse. The daughter has turned what was a heartbreaking experience for Joyce into a piece of fiction that left out a lot of the story. She decides to go to the book store where the girl is autographing copies of her novel; she goes expecting some kind of encounter with the author. However, since so many years have passed the daughter doesn’t recognize Joyce; she signs her book, smiles, and says next please. Joyce leaves feeling let down and crushed that the girl treated her as a complete stranger. As she walks away she thinks that someday she’ll tell somebody about this quasi-encounter, this experience of non-recognition, it’ll make a good story. It’ll be her counter-vision of the fictional truth.
“Some Women” was a story about a contest among a few women acting as caregivers to a dying man. It is a clever gathering together of the crosscurrents of who will control the last phase of a man’s life. The thirteen year old girl in the story, who is never named, is very clear-headed about what is going on in the house. She calls the man “the prize,” even though he is hardly an example wondrous manhood, but instead a balding middle aged man dying of Leukemia.
His name is Bruce Crozier. His stepmother is in the house, Dorothy Crozier, and his wife, Sylvia, who that summer was teaching summer school at a college forty miles away. She hired the thirteen year old girl to help keep an eye on her husband’s needs while she wasn’t available. The stepmother is a cranky old woman who gets outflanked in regard her step-son, so instead she spends her time giving the young girl a lot of lip. The fourth woman in the house is a masseuse named Roxanne Hoy, a local woman with an extraverted personality married to a mechanic. She was hired to relieve poor Bruce of his sore muscles as he never gets out of bed any more. Since she is a take-charge kind of person it is she who gets locked in combat with the wife. Roxanne tries to insinuate her way into the good graces of Bruce who starts playing board games with her to pass the time. But, strangely, her motivation in regard controlling Bruce has little to do with him, having more to do with her sibling rivalry with her older sister who always had the first pick of the boys, while she got the rejects and nerds. Nor does it have anything to do with her husband. This time she felt she had the inside track with the wife gone so much, but where it was all heading, and why, she never stopped to think about. She was just carried on a stream of possible victory. The situation in the Crozier household seemed to develop on its own momentum.
The main event between the wife and Ms. Hoy, the interloper, finally came to a head. It was Mr. Crozier who stepped in to bring closure to the contest. He calls for the teenage girl and tells her to lock his bedroom door and to give the key only to his wife. He had grown tired of Roxanne and her obvious manipulations. That ends it for her; she is ostracized and knows it and so finally leaves for good. The teenager reveals an uncanny understanding of the situation just resolved. This is how she summed it up: “I understood pretty well the winning and losing that had taken place, between Sylvia and Roxanne, but it was strange to think of the almost obliterated prize, Mr. Crozier—and to think that he could have the will to make a decision, even to deprive himself, so late in life. The carnality at death’s door—or true love, for that matter—were things I had to shake off with shivers down my spine.”
Not long after Roxanne left the employ of the Croziers, she and her husband left town. Sylvia rented a cottage by the lake and Mr. Crozier died in peace there before autumn leaves changed color.
“Dimensions” is a good example of what I mean. Doree is twenty three and a cleaning woman, a job she happy with and has no plans to leave for something better. She is an innocent, very naïve, so much so she got swept off her feet while a teenager by a maniac named Lloyd who seduced her into marriage and got her pregnant to tune of three kids before she was twenty. Then one night, when she felt very uncomfortable with Lloyd, she slept at a friend’s house. When she went home the next morning she found all three children murdered by their father, who blamed her for what he did because she had left him last night. After he had been institutionalized for a while he tries to play her like he did when she was a teenager. He does it by telling her the children are appearing to him and they are doing well on the other side and not at all unhappy or mad at their father. Wanting her to come back to him, at least as a regular visitor, he tells her he will keep her apprised of their progress in this other dimension. She was intrigued by his fantasies about the kids, so soon afterwards she is on a bus heading to the hospital for another visit. But on the way there the driver has an accident; the bus hits a young man. When they stop the lad appears to be dead but she starts giving him CPR and lo, he revives and starts breathing on his own. Help is on the way. Her reaction to the emergency revealed something about her she wasn’t aware of before. Her quick reaction made her feel good about herself. When the bus driver said to get back on the bus as he has to get people to their destinations, she tells him to go ahead, she has decided to not go to the hospital and see her ex-husband. She doesn’t have to go anymore. She now knows she is more grounded in reality than Lloyd will ever be. Helping a lad who was in real crisis was more meaningful than traipsing around after the sorry tales of a madman. The kids were gone forever and that was that.
The second story I read was called “Fiction.” In it Munro dealt with a class of people who marry often and never seemed to find the right mate and therefore never find any real depth or comfort in a love relationship. They are like wounded butterflies fluttering from one bed and partner to the next, never quite finding what they think they want or need which is never all that clear to them. Munro cleverly interweaves all these games of musical marital chairs that take place over a matter of time, as they all grow older chasing their own tails. She ends the story with the main character, a woman named Joyce, who encounters the grown daughter of the tattooed woman who stole her first husband from her. The daughter was from a previous relationship but Joyce became her teacher for a short while, teaching her how to play the violin. The daughter is now a writer and she has just published her first work of fiction, a novel, which she buys and finds out is based on her first marriage and its collapse. The daughter has turned what was a heartbreaking experience for Joyce into a piece of fiction that left out a lot of the story. She decides to go to the book store where the girl is autographing copies of her novel; she goes expecting some kind of encounter with the author. However, since so many years have passed the daughter doesn’t recognize Joyce; she signs her book, smiles, and says next please. Joyce leaves feeling let down and crushed that the girl treated her as a complete stranger. As she walks away she thinks that someday she’ll tell somebody about this quasi-encounter, this experience of non-recognition, it’ll make a good story. It’ll be her counter-vision of the fictional truth.
“Some Women” was a story about a contest among a few women acting as caregivers to a dying man. It is a clever gathering together of the crosscurrents of who will control the last phase of a man’s life. The thirteen year old girl in the story, who is never named, is very clear-headed about what is going on in the house. She calls the man “the prize,” even though he is hardly an example wondrous manhood, but instead a balding middle aged man dying of Leukemia.
His name is Bruce Crozier. His stepmother is in the house, Dorothy Crozier, and his wife, Sylvia, who that summer was teaching summer school at a college forty miles away. She hired the thirteen year old girl to help keep an eye on her husband’s needs while she wasn’t available. The stepmother is a cranky old woman who gets outflanked in regard her step-son, so instead she spends her time giving the young girl a lot of lip. The fourth woman in the house is a masseuse named Roxanne Hoy, a local woman with an extraverted personality married to a mechanic. She was hired to relieve poor Bruce of his sore muscles as he never gets out of bed any more. Since she is a take-charge kind of person it is she who gets locked in combat with the wife. Roxanne tries to insinuate her way into the good graces of Bruce who starts playing board games with her to pass the time. But, strangely, her motivation in regard controlling Bruce has little to do with him, having more to do with her sibling rivalry with her older sister who always had the first pick of the boys, while she got the rejects and nerds. Nor does it have anything to do with her husband. This time she felt she had the inside track with the wife gone so much, but where it was all heading, and why, she never stopped to think about. She was just carried on a stream of possible victory. The situation in the Crozier household seemed to develop on its own momentum.
The main event between the wife and Ms. Hoy, the interloper, finally came to a head. It was Mr. Crozier who stepped in to bring closure to the contest. He calls for the teenage girl and tells her to lock his bedroom door and to give the key only to his wife. He had grown tired of Roxanne and her obvious manipulations. That ends it for her; she is ostracized and knows it and so finally leaves for good. The teenager reveals an uncanny understanding of the situation just resolved. This is how she summed it up: “I understood pretty well the winning and losing that had taken place, between Sylvia and Roxanne, but it was strange to think of the almost obliterated prize, Mr. Crozier—and to think that he could have the will to make a decision, even to deprive himself, so late in life. The carnality at death’s door—or true love, for that matter—were things I had to shake off with shivers down my spine.”
Not long after Roxanne left the employ of the Croziers, she and her husband left town. Sylvia rented a cottage by the lake and Mr. Crozier died in peace there before autumn leaves changed color.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Journal Notes: On Tiger's Mess
3 Dec. 2009: Journal notes
The chickens have come home to roost. All the stories about Tiger and other women have forced him to fess up, at least within certain parameters. One magazine published a story about some gal who said she had an 18 month relationship with Tiger and some voicemail has surfaced that had Tiger asking a gal to lie for him to cover his ass with his wife. The Huffington Post had a photo of the ‘mistress,’ as well as pictures of two other gals, one current, the other someone he knew before marriage to Elin. Pushed into a corner by what he termed “tabloid scrutiny,” he put out a 350 word statement yesterday, his longest and most revealing so far, that said, yes, he was guilty of some marital “transgressions,” (more than one?) and he had betrayed his values and he was sorry with all his heart. But he gave no names and no details and followed the admissions with another passionate appeal for his right of privacy. He said there should not be a need for “public confessions”; that the parties should be able to solve their problems behind closed doors.
However, once the Media gets a foot in the door it is very difficult to shut it again. They can be relentless when they smell blood, especially with such a high profile sex scandal—a story made in Heaven (or is it hell?) There is an overwhelming momentum to stories like this one, when a billionaire golfer becomes the hottest news item of the week. It is a major figure/celebrity taking a tumble. Given half a chance, the Media can eat him alive and toss the bones in the trash. For example, SPORTS CENTER open last evening with Tiger admits transgressions BUT IS IT ENOUGH? Yes, it should be and some groups have agreed to lie low and give him the time and the privacy he and his family need. But the Media is a hungry beast that is never satisfied until another equally big sucker comes along (like Obama caught with his pants down with Alicia Keys.) Sometimes I think the PGA is in cahoots with the Media to take Tiger down so Jack Nicklaus can remain the all-time king of professional golf, a white man, which is the way it ought to be in America.
A couple of days ago I saw a comment by John Daly. He said Tiger’s was “The Man” in professional golf and it was essential that he be out there playing and winning, and if he wasn’t participating like he used to the PGA Tour would be in trouble. All one has to do is look at what has happened to the LPGA without Annika Sorenstam out there doing her thing. The women pros are down to 23 tournaments next year. Two years ago it was something like 32 events. Of course the economy isn’t helping one bit.
In the latest addition of the Buddhist magazine TRICYCLE there is an article by Joan Duncan Oliver about a show of mandalas at the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC. Oliver calls them “maps of enlightenment” and defines them differently than Jung did. She said the word mandala comes from two Sanskirt words, manda, which means “essence” and la which means “container.” I like that just as well as Jung’s translation of “magic circle.” (The name of the show in NY is “The Perfect Circle.”)
The catalog of the show is 264 pages; in hardcover it cost $80. But it sounds like a gold mine of Manadals The reproductions in the magazine show they can be quite different that we normally see.
The chickens have come home to roost. All the stories about Tiger and other women have forced him to fess up, at least within certain parameters. One magazine published a story about some gal who said she had an 18 month relationship with Tiger and some voicemail has surfaced that had Tiger asking a gal to lie for him to cover his ass with his wife. The Huffington Post had a photo of the ‘mistress,’ as well as pictures of two other gals, one current, the other someone he knew before marriage to Elin. Pushed into a corner by what he termed “tabloid scrutiny,” he put out a 350 word statement yesterday, his longest and most revealing so far, that said, yes, he was guilty of some marital “transgressions,” (more than one?) and he had betrayed his values and he was sorry with all his heart. But he gave no names and no details and followed the admissions with another passionate appeal for his right of privacy. He said there should not be a need for “public confessions”; that the parties should be able to solve their problems behind closed doors.
However, once the Media gets a foot in the door it is very difficult to shut it again. They can be relentless when they smell blood, especially with such a high profile sex scandal—a story made in Heaven (or is it hell?) There is an overwhelming momentum to stories like this one, when a billionaire golfer becomes the hottest news item of the week. It is a major figure/celebrity taking a tumble. Given half a chance, the Media can eat him alive and toss the bones in the trash. For example, SPORTS CENTER open last evening with Tiger admits transgressions BUT IS IT ENOUGH? Yes, it should be and some groups have agreed to lie low and give him the time and the privacy he and his family need. But the Media is a hungry beast that is never satisfied until another equally big sucker comes along (like Obama caught with his pants down with Alicia Keys.) Sometimes I think the PGA is in cahoots with the Media to take Tiger down so Jack Nicklaus can remain the all-time king of professional golf, a white man, which is the way it ought to be in America.
A couple of days ago I saw a comment by John Daly. He said Tiger’s was “The Man” in professional golf and it was essential that he be out there playing and winning, and if he wasn’t participating like he used to the PGA Tour would be in trouble. All one has to do is look at what has happened to the LPGA without Annika Sorenstam out there doing her thing. The women pros are down to 23 tournaments next year. Two years ago it was something like 32 events. Of course the economy isn’t helping one bit.
In the latest addition of the Buddhist magazine TRICYCLE there is an article by Joan Duncan Oliver about a show of mandalas at the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC. Oliver calls them “maps of enlightenment” and defines them differently than Jung did. She said the word mandala comes from two Sanskirt words, manda, which means “essence” and la which means “container.” I like that just as well as Jung’s translation of “magic circle.” (The name of the show in NY is “The Perfect Circle.”)
The catalog of the show is 264 pages; in hardcover it cost $80. But it sounds like a gold mine of Manadals The reproductions in the magazine show they can be quite different that we normally see.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Florida Daze and Bacon in Between
Letter to a friend dated 11/2/09
Subject: Florida Daze and Bacon in Between.
Dear Stan,
If the subject sounds a little bewildering let me explain. “Florida Daze” refers generally to our two week vacation along the Eastern Coast of Florida, ranging in the North to St. Augustine, in the South to Sebastian’s Inlet, with the city of Melbourne in the middle. The reference to Bacon is not the kind you eat, but to Francis Bacon, the most well known British painter of the 20th century, whose biography I finished while in Florida.
First, about Florida. The first week was taken up with visiting with Nasima and her family in Melbourne. We spent a lot in time in conversation and even more playing 4 or 5 board games—she and her husband are near fanatical game players—in fact, they own 60 different board games—and eating out frequently, with a Thai restaurant and Galleria Pizzeria serving the most delicious food. I was given an assignment the day after we arrived in town: paint some heraldic figures on a shield of Liam’s for a Halloween Party on the weekend. He had the design for me to follow, but first I had to put two coats of primer on the shield, using acrylic paint. Since I put it on thick I waited till morning to paint the signs and symbols on it, which took me about three hours. I finished just in time for him to go off with it. It came out well and he was quite happy with it. Mission accomplished.
On our first Sunday there Nasima cooked a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. She did it because in the 12 years they have lived in Melbourne we have never had Thanksgiving dinner together. We were a little early on the holiday but no one fussed about that. I’ll take a turkey dinner ant time I can get it.
During our second week there Sue, Nasima, and I went to St. Augustine for two days, our third visit to the oldest settlement in America, a city I have grown quite fond of which exists in an especially beautiful environment, on a Bay where the Indian River meets up with the Atlantic Ocean. The atmosphere of the place is soft and endearing, with lovely blue water and white sand beaches. We visited some Art Galleries, shops, and ate at seafood restaurants; but the most interesting thing we did was the “Eco Tour.” We traveled the Bay from north to south for 90 minutes in a small but fast craft that could carry 5 passengers and the pilot, in this case a young man with an ecological background. We went out at 9 o’clock in the morning when a heavy fog laid over the Bay. The first thing we saw was “Bird Island,” a sand bar where scores of seagulls and pelicans gathered in a dark group in the fog and many of the birds flew off as we approached. I got a good picture of their flight. As we proceeded we saw a sea turtle poke its head out of the water and a small shark swam by. Twice we came across dolphins that were bigger than I imagined they would be. The boat had a mic down in the water so we could hear their dolphin-speak, squeaks and trills of various sort. We saw three Ospreys, a beautiful Hawk that hangs out around water and lives of fish; it is a bird that has made a big comeback after DDT was banned. We saw an eagle’s nest high up in a tree, a nest that has been there for 16 years. Egrets were everywhere but less visible were pink spoonbills, and we saw two on the shore at the south end of the Bay. At times the pilot would run fast through the water, which I found exhilarating. Both Sue and Nasima were so pleased with the trip that they gave the pilot a $40 tip. By the time we got back the fog was gone. It reminded me of my days in the Bay Area, especially around Monterey, California, where likewise the sun would burn off the morning fog.
On our second Sunday in Town, we drove 40 miles south to Sebastian Inlet, where Sue and Liam were able to get within a few feet of a manatee, as two of them had entered the wading area. We walked along the ocean where the Indian River once again meets the Atlantic Ocean at its south end. We checked out the fishing on the jetty and I took about ten pictures while we were there. However, what we will all remember is the attack of sand fleas that took place as we ate our picnic lunch at a table in a grassy area. That night I realized I had hundreds of bites all over my legs and buttocks. Everyone was in the same shape. I am still putting Hydrocortisone on the bites so I can sleep at night.
Now to Bacon. The Biography by Michael Peppiatt has had me in thrall since I started the book a couple of days before we flew to Florida. The author was a member of Bacon’s entourage for 30 years and he was in the habit of writing down much of what the painter said over the years—Bacon’s Boswell, if you will. The book has as a result a very personal quality. It is as modern biographies go very well done and full of cogent insights about a Painter who was surrounded with by cloak of mystery. The book was like a separate world I had one foot in while the other was enjoying the delights of family and Florida.
I knew very little about Bacon, although I knew his work and valued its power to disturb people. I admired his grit and skills as a painter. He had invented a niche that only he could fit in. How he had come by it, I did not know. I knew he was a homosexual but what kind and with what nuances, I did not have a clue. It turns out he was a bit of a wild man, a theatrical, rather swishy gay man who had sado-masochistic tendencies. He was bad luck to his three long-time lovers, men who all died tragically. It all started with his father, a military man, very straight and conventional, who threw Francis out of the house when he found him dressed in his mother’s undies at age 16. They never reconciled after that and Bacon carried that rejection as a terrible burden the rest of his life. He stayed a cross-dresser the rest of his life, indeed, some of his close friends would refer to him as “she’ when they talked about him. As he grew older he could drink any man under the table and he could revel all night and get very little sleep but always seemed fresh as a daisy the next day. He was a well know habitué of sleazy night clubs in London and all its gambling establishments. He liked to visit the shadier spots too, where he could be a male prostitute, someone to be picked up by tough sailors who would beat him up after some sex. But he would always bounce back and be ready for another go at it a few days later. By some miracle of Alchemy he stayed slim his entire life and healthy till he was an old man, although he did suffer from asthma, which kept him out of WW II. When he showed up at a bar or restaurant his personality was instantly the dominate one, like it was a rule of nature. He was charming, a sparkling conversationalist, very clever and witty, the life of the party. He was also very loyal to his friends and doled out big bucks to many of them when he had the cash. For example, when his first gallery owner became seriously ill, he paid for all her medical expenses.
Meanwhile, he kept developing as an artist, drip by drip, step by step, and brush stroke by brush stroke, until about age 35 when he started to show his paintings. His first motif was ‘the scream,’ as that was a major part of his portraits of popes and baboons. One example he liked was Eisenstein’s nurse in the Odessa steps scene in The Battleship Potemkin. I found it curious that Eduard Munch’s painting “The Scream” was not mentioned in the book. He had to have seen it. Perhaps it wasn’t violent or angry enough for Bacon. He wanted the scream to howl a pain new to Modern Man and his tidy vision of what’s real and what’s not. Bacon came of age between the two most destructive wars that mankind had ever seen, and atom bombs were on the ready to go farther into the possibility of total annihilation. While being a through-going pessimist and hard-core atheist, he was a cheerful man and always laughing, full of positive energy, which seemed contradictory but cohabited inside him with no problem or conflict. One of his favorite sayings was this: “We come from nothing and go to nothing, with a brief interval in between, with a chance to learn a few things about ourselves.”
After the scream came those pulverized, oddly shaped and distorted flesh bags with blood spots and loose membranes, puddles of body parts, horrific remnants of humanity after some ultimate melting disaster. They were ghoulish creatures who existed in surreal spaces that seemed like confinement, even cages. Often it was lush life, say, a vivid orange, combined with neutral smudges of organic disintegration and putrefaction. It was one long sustained nightmare by a painter steeped in his own brand of savagery. Yet, he lived with the enthusiasm of a kid, had an endless curiosity within a narrow orbit, and attracted friends from all walks of life because he had such a lively and interesting personality. And there is nothing as unique as an image produced by Francis Bacon. His originality was never questioned.
Subject: Florida Daze and Bacon in Between.
Dear Stan,
If the subject sounds a little bewildering let me explain. “Florida Daze” refers generally to our two week vacation along the Eastern Coast of Florida, ranging in the North to St. Augustine, in the South to Sebastian’s Inlet, with the city of Melbourne in the middle. The reference to Bacon is not the kind you eat, but to Francis Bacon, the most well known British painter of the 20th century, whose biography I finished while in Florida.
First, about Florida. The first week was taken up with visiting with Nasima and her family in Melbourne. We spent a lot in time in conversation and even more playing 4 or 5 board games—she and her husband are near fanatical game players—in fact, they own 60 different board games—and eating out frequently, with a Thai restaurant and Galleria Pizzeria serving the most delicious food. I was given an assignment the day after we arrived in town: paint some heraldic figures on a shield of Liam’s for a Halloween Party on the weekend. He had the design for me to follow, but first I had to put two coats of primer on the shield, using acrylic paint. Since I put it on thick I waited till morning to paint the signs and symbols on it, which took me about three hours. I finished just in time for him to go off with it. It came out well and he was quite happy with it. Mission accomplished.
On our first Sunday there Nasima cooked a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. She did it because in the 12 years they have lived in Melbourne we have never had Thanksgiving dinner together. We were a little early on the holiday but no one fussed about that. I’ll take a turkey dinner ant time I can get it.
During our second week there Sue, Nasima, and I went to St. Augustine for two days, our third visit to the oldest settlement in America, a city I have grown quite fond of which exists in an especially beautiful environment, on a Bay where the Indian River meets up with the Atlantic Ocean. The atmosphere of the place is soft and endearing, with lovely blue water and white sand beaches. We visited some Art Galleries, shops, and ate at seafood restaurants; but the most interesting thing we did was the “Eco Tour.” We traveled the Bay from north to south for 90 minutes in a small but fast craft that could carry 5 passengers and the pilot, in this case a young man with an ecological background. We went out at 9 o’clock in the morning when a heavy fog laid over the Bay. The first thing we saw was “Bird Island,” a sand bar where scores of seagulls and pelicans gathered in a dark group in the fog and many of the birds flew off as we approached. I got a good picture of their flight. As we proceeded we saw a sea turtle poke its head out of the water and a small shark swam by. Twice we came across dolphins that were bigger than I imagined they would be. The boat had a mic down in the water so we could hear their dolphin-speak, squeaks and trills of various sort. We saw three Ospreys, a beautiful Hawk that hangs out around water and lives of fish; it is a bird that has made a big comeback after DDT was banned. We saw an eagle’s nest high up in a tree, a nest that has been there for 16 years. Egrets were everywhere but less visible were pink spoonbills, and we saw two on the shore at the south end of the Bay. At times the pilot would run fast through the water, which I found exhilarating. Both Sue and Nasima were so pleased with the trip that they gave the pilot a $40 tip. By the time we got back the fog was gone. It reminded me of my days in the Bay Area, especially around Monterey, California, where likewise the sun would burn off the morning fog.
On our second Sunday in Town, we drove 40 miles south to Sebastian Inlet, where Sue and Liam were able to get within a few feet of a manatee, as two of them had entered the wading area. We walked along the ocean where the Indian River once again meets the Atlantic Ocean at its south end. We checked out the fishing on the jetty and I took about ten pictures while we were there. However, what we will all remember is the attack of sand fleas that took place as we ate our picnic lunch at a table in a grassy area. That night I realized I had hundreds of bites all over my legs and buttocks. Everyone was in the same shape. I am still putting Hydrocortisone on the bites so I can sleep at night.
Now to Bacon. The Biography by Michael Peppiatt has had me in thrall since I started the book a couple of days before we flew to Florida. The author was a member of Bacon’s entourage for 30 years and he was in the habit of writing down much of what the painter said over the years—Bacon’s Boswell, if you will. The book has as a result a very personal quality. It is as modern biographies go very well done and full of cogent insights about a Painter who was surrounded with by cloak of mystery. The book was like a separate world I had one foot in while the other was enjoying the delights of family and Florida.
I knew very little about Bacon, although I knew his work and valued its power to disturb people. I admired his grit and skills as a painter. He had invented a niche that only he could fit in. How he had come by it, I did not know. I knew he was a homosexual but what kind and with what nuances, I did not have a clue. It turns out he was a bit of a wild man, a theatrical, rather swishy gay man who had sado-masochistic tendencies. He was bad luck to his three long-time lovers, men who all died tragically. It all started with his father, a military man, very straight and conventional, who threw Francis out of the house when he found him dressed in his mother’s undies at age 16. They never reconciled after that and Bacon carried that rejection as a terrible burden the rest of his life. He stayed a cross-dresser the rest of his life, indeed, some of his close friends would refer to him as “she’ when they talked about him. As he grew older he could drink any man under the table and he could revel all night and get very little sleep but always seemed fresh as a daisy the next day. He was a well know habitué of sleazy night clubs in London and all its gambling establishments. He liked to visit the shadier spots too, where he could be a male prostitute, someone to be picked up by tough sailors who would beat him up after some sex. But he would always bounce back and be ready for another go at it a few days later. By some miracle of Alchemy he stayed slim his entire life and healthy till he was an old man, although he did suffer from asthma, which kept him out of WW II. When he showed up at a bar or restaurant his personality was instantly the dominate one, like it was a rule of nature. He was charming, a sparkling conversationalist, very clever and witty, the life of the party. He was also very loyal to his friends and doled out big bucks to many of them when he had the cash. For example, when his first gallery owner became seriously ill, he paid for all her medical expenses.
Meanwhile, he kept developing as an artist, drip by drip, step by step, and brush stroke by brush stroke, until about age 35 when he started to show his paintings. His first motif was ‘the scream,’ as that was a major part of his portraits of popes and baboons. One example he liked was Eisenstein’s nurse in the Odessa steps scene in The Battleship Potemkin. I found it curious that Eduard Munch’s painting “The Scream” was not mentioned in the book. He had to have seen it. Perhaps it wasn’t violent or angry enough for Bacon. He wanted the scream to howl a pain new to Modern Man and his tidy vision of what’s real and what’s not. Bacon came of age between the two most destructive wars that mankind had ever seen, and atom bombs were on the ready to go farther into the possibility of total annihilation. While being a through-going pessimist and hard-core atheist, he was a cheerful man and always laughing, full of positive energy, which seemed contradictory but cohabited inside him with no problem or conflict. One of his favorite sayings was this: “We come from nothing and go to nothing, with a brief interval in between, with a chance to learn a few things about ourselves.”
After the scream came those pulverized, oddly shaped and distorted flesh bags with blood spots and loose membranes, puddles of body parts, horrific remnants of humanity after some ultimate melting disaster. They were ghoulish creatures who existed in surreal spaces that seemed like confinement, even cages. Often it was lush life, say, a vivid orange, combined with neutral smudges of organic disintegration and putrefaction. It was one long sustained nightmare by a painter steeped in his own brand of savagery. Yet, he lived with the enthusiasm of a kid, had an endless curiosity within a narrow orbit, and attracted friends from all walks of life because he had such a lively and interesting personality. And there is nothing as unique as an image produced by Francis Bacon. His originality was never questioned.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Lost Symbol
The Lost Symbol, like its predecessor, The DaVinci Code, has the same technique of hinged chapters that lead you one chapter to the next with irresistible speed, making the book a compulsive page turner. The reader swings through these series of 133 chapters like Tarzan swinging across the jungle one vine to the next to another in a quick and harmonic order. Robert Langdon is there again, playing the lead role at the center of action and the main resource of knowledge about symbols, puzzles, and “Ancient Mysteries,” as well as being an action figure and a victim. Playing against him is a villain named Mal’akh, a figure of superhero stature and strength, a man covered in tattoos that symbolize his past and future that he covers up with makeup when he has to deal with the normal world. He also wears a blond wig with a tiny camera hidden inside, which gives us the only real peek at a Freemasonry ceremony, which are assiduously kept secret by Masons. The twist at the end of the book is Mal’akh’s real identity, which surprised the hell out of me.
If somebody reading this doesn’t want to know what revelations are made at the end of the day, stop reading now. Earlier in the story we had learned that Zack Solomon had lost his life in a Turkish prison, being killed by Mal’akh who was also prison there. It was an unnecessary death because his father, Peter Solomon, a major figure among Washington DC Masons and long time friend of Robert Langdon, had decided to leave Zach in prison “to teach him a lesson” rather than buy his way out, which he could have done. Mal’akh turns out to be Zach, demented and remade along lines dictated by black magic, so the motive that drives the story is at bottom revenge, which begins with the discovery of his father’s cut off right hand. We aren’t sure what Zach’s plan is aiming at but he does keep saying we must learn how to die wisely. In a bizarre twist we learn he doesn’t want to kill his father, instead he wants Peter to kill him, ritually with an ancient knife used for such killings in the distant past, imagining it as some kind of daemonic apotheosis, an afterlife coronation. What he hoped for, this crazy ascension to daemonic glory, is a token how demented he had become in that Turkish prison and by his hunger for revenge. Not surprisingly, Peter could not sacrifice his son a second time, so he brought the knife down on the altar not into the body like he was suppose to and instead Mal’akh/Zack dies a horrible death as shards of glass from a skylight rain down on him, providing him with an agonizing death, depriving him of his carefully designed elevation to black arts sainthood. I had a curious reaction to finding out the villain was really Zach; It changed the thriller aspect of the story, that is, rather than a determined attack by a Darth Vader type anti-hero trying to bring down the central belief of western civilization, the whole thing was based on an interfamily feud and an exotic revenge plot. He wanted to destroy his father’s moral and ethical center, which in his mind was better—more satisfying-- than killing him outright.
The 12 hours of the story involve, of course, a long chase and several other characters; and reading of all the interactions and twists and turns of the plot make for an entertaining read. This book is more into outright fantasy than his previous two books which were spun around the Vatican and religious notions that have some credence, like Mary Magdalene and Jesus being a married couple and having an heir. Mal’akh is a more far-fetched villain, almost comic book-like in character and appearance. But Langdon remains the same, more or less solidly in the real world. At times you need to have some willing suspension of disbelief, as certain incidents, like our hero’s drowning, are far out and quite a stretch. The explanation Brown offers is Oxygenated perfluorocarbons or breathable liquid. In another section, Katherine Solomon, Peter’s sister, a specialist in the Noetic Sciences, contents you can measure the weight of the soul.
The last several chapters of the book and the epilogue pretty much an add-on, not really necessary to complete the tale. They serve as a patriotic lecture by the author, a tipping of his hat to the history of the Republic and the considerable influence of Freemasonry on the design of the Nation’s capital and on our money. The 18th century was the heyday of Freemasonry and many of our Founding Fathers were Masons. They were also Deists, a spiritual perspective that blended with the Freemasonry with no conflict. They saw to it that the Governmental structures and overall plan of the political precinct had the underpinnings of sound symbolic roots, ideas generated over time starting with the Renaissance. When all was said and done the Big Secret of the Masons was, to put it in a nutshell, Praise God. I have no quarrel with that sentiment, although I might prefer Praise the Universe. Brown’s uses the phrase like he is waving a flag, chiding us all to get our act together. It’s a plea by Brown that we to find unity as a Nation where once there was discord.
If somebody reading this doesn’t want to know what revelations are made at the end of the day, stop reading now. Earlier in the story we had learned that Zack Solomon had lost his life in a Turkish prison, being killed by Mal’akh who was also prison there. It was an unnecessary death because his father, Peter Solomon, a major figure among Washington DC Masons and long time friend of Robert Langdon, had decided to leave Zach in prison “to teach him a lesson” rather than buy his way out, which he could have done. Mal’akh turns out to be Zach, demented and remade along lines dictated by black magic, so the motive that drives the story is at bottom revenge, which begins with the discovery of his father’s cut off right hand. We aren’t sure what Zach’s plan is aiming at but he does keep saying we must learn how to die wisely. In a bizarre twist we learn he doesn’t want to kill his father, instead he wants Peter to kill him, ritually with an ancient knife used for such killings in the distant past, imagining it as some kind of daemonic apotheosis, an afterlife coronation. What he hoped for, this crazy ascension to daemonic glory, is a token how demented he had become in that Turkish prison and by his hunger for revenge. Not surprisingly, Peter could not sacrifice his son a second time, so he brought the knife down on the altar not into the body like he was suppose to and instead Mal’akh/Zack dies a horrible death as shards of glass from a skylight rain down on him, providing him with an agonizing death, depriving him of his carefully designed elevation to black arts sainthood. I had a curious reaction to finding out the villain was really Zach; It changed the thriller aspect of the story, that is, rather than a determined attack by a Darth Vader type anti-hero trying to bring down the central belief of western civilization, the whole thing was based on an interfamily feud and an exotic revenge plot. He wanted to destroy his father’s moral and ethical center, which in his mind was better—more satisfying-- than killing him outright.
The 12 hours of the story involve, of course, a long chase and several other characters; and reading of all the interactions and twists and turns of the plot make for an entertaining read. This book is more into outright fantasy than his previous two books which were spun around the Vatican and religious notions that have some credence, like Mary Magdalene and Jesus being a married couple and having an heir. Mal’akh is a more far-fetched villain, almost comic book-like in character and appearance. But Langdon remains the same, more or less solidly in the real world. At times you need to have some willing suspension of disbelief, as certain incidents, like our hero’s drowning, are far out and quite a stretch. The explanation Brown offers is Oxygenated perfluorocarbons or breathable liquid. In another section, Katherine Solomon, Peter’s sister, a specialist in the Noetic Sciences, contents you can measure the weight of the soul.
The last several chapters of the book and the epilogue pretty much an add-on, not really necessary to complete the tale. They serve as a patriotic lecture by the author, a tipping of his hat to the history of the Republic and the considerable influence of Freemasonry on the design of the Nation’s capital and on our money. The 18th century was the heyday of Freemasonry and many of our Founding Fathers were Masons. They were also Deists, a spiritual perspective that blended with the Freemasonry with no conflict. They saw to it that the Governmental structures and overall plan of the political precinct had the underpinnings of sound symbolic roots, ideas generated over time starting with the Renaissance. When all was said and done the Big Secret of the Masons was, to put it in a nutshell, Praise God. I have no quarrel with that sentiment, although I might prefer Praise the Universe. Brown’s uses the phrase like he is waving a flag, chiding us all to get our act together. It’s a plea by Brown that we to find unity as a Nation where once there was discord.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Obama the Target
Two noteworthy voices spoke up this week about the character of the animosity toward Barack Obama. First, last Sunday, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote an op-ed column that addressed itself to that animosity, what lies behind all the sound and fury. Today it was former president Jimmy Carter who spoke out about the presence of racism in the current hysteria in town meetings and even congress.
Dowd called her column “Boy, Oh, Boy,” and she deserves credit for calling a spade a spade (pun intended.) I was so impressed with the hard look she took at the implication of Joe Wilson’s shout of “You Lie,” that I sent the piece to several friends to read. I felt it was about time thinking people face the fact that raw racism is once more bubbling up to the surface and we need to examine it and where it might lead. She called her column what she did because she contends that what Wilson was really saying was “You lie, boy!” She then goes on to point out that South Carolina has long been the hotbed of Confederate zeal and pride; the Old South still exist in the minds of many South Carolinians. It has been a state always on the front lines of backward thinking, just look at Strom Thurmond, Senator DeMint, and Joe Wilson, not to mention their misbehaving Governor. DeMint was one of the featured speakers at the rally in Washington last Saturday. Retrograde vision seems endemic in South Carolina. But Joe Wilson has little to worry about in his district which is solidly Republican and white. T-shirts and car tags are selling like hotcakes with “You Lie! “ boldly set forth for all to see. Wilson was very upset when the story broke about Strom Thurmond, the veritable archetype of the Old Segregationist South, confirmed he had a daughter with a black woman in his employ. Wilson thought it brought shame to the state and white people.
The rally last Saturday was billed as a protest over the Administration Health care Bill; but one look at the signs and posters people showed up with indicated the real purpose of the rally was a hate-fest aimed at our first black president. One sign that seemed very popular was “PUT OBAMA IN THE GRAVE WITH KENNEDY.”Other signs linked him with Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Castro. Another favorite was the image of Obama as the comic book image of the Joker, especially in the Heath Ledger interpretation—with the slashed mouth. It was all frothing-at-the-mouth expressionism, the trash thoughts of very angry and unhappy people. It was full of nasty comments and threats of violence. The organizers of the rally—corporate operatives using corporate money, like Freedomworks, which is headed by ex-congressman Dick Armey—tried to sell the gathering as positive, but you’d have to be an idiot to see it that way.
Dowd thinks, and Jimmy Carter agreed with her, that a sizable segment of the South has never accepted the Civil Rights Law and Integration and have been laying in the weeds waiting for an opportunity redress the “wrongs” that have been imposed on the South. They are folks who just can’t accept the idea of a black man in the Oval Office. It just ain’t right, and the fact he is a well-spoken, educated, and uppity black man makes all the worse. There seems to be no reasoning with these folks. Accompanying this racial discontent is silly talk about succession from the Union, first mentioned by the Governor of Texas several months ago.
The important thing about Carter speaking up, is the fact it was Carter, an ex-president from the South, someone who is deeply Southern and knows what he is talking about. He said outright that the animosity toward Obama is clearly based on the fact he is a black man. He said there are some people in the South and elsewhere who believe that a black man can’t have the right stuff to be president of this nation. The right stuff is white stuff—period! Black people, it is said, aren’t equipped to do the job. Since the comments come from Mr. Carter, who is respected around the world, they should carry some weight.
I got an email from my brother yesterday who lives in the Midwest. He’s retired now but part of his job was to go down to Nashville where his company had another factory. While he was there he saw a reenactment of the Battle of Lookout Mountain, a battle of the Civil War that the South lost. However, in the reenactment the outcome was different: this time the South won. This is how they work to redress past wrongs—replace reality with fantasy.
Dowd called her column “Boy, Oh, Boy,” and she deserves credit for calling a spade a spade (pun intended.) I was so impressed with the hard look she took at the implication of Joe Wilson’s shout of “You Lie,” that I sent the piece to several friends to read. I felt it was about time thinking people face the fact that raw racism is once more bubbling up to the surface and we need to examine it and where it might lead. She called her column what she did because she contends that what Wilson was really saying was “You lie, boy!” She then goes on to point out that South Carolina has long been the hotbed of Confederate zeal and pride; the Old South still exist in the minds of many South Carolinians. It has been a state always on the front lines of backward thinking, just look at Strom Thurmond, Senator DeMint, and Joe Wilson, not to mention their misbehaving Governor. DeMint was one of the featured speakers at the rally in Washington last Saturday. Retrograde vision seems endemic in South Carolina. But Joe Wilson has little to worry about in his district which is solidly Republican and white. T-shirts and car tags are selling like hotcakes with “You Lie! “ boldly set forth for all to see. Wilson was very upset when the story broke about Strom Thurmond, the veritable archetype of the Old Segregationist South, confirmed he had a daughter with a black woman in his employ. Wilson thought it brought shame to the state and white people.
The rally last Saturday was billed as a protest over the Administration Health care Bill; but one look at the signs and posters people showed up with indicated the real purpose of the rally was a hate-fest aimed at our first black president. One sign that seemed very popular was “PUT OBAMA IN THE GRAVE WITH KENNEDY.”Other signs linked him with Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Castro. Another favorite was the image of Obama as the comic book image of the Joker, especially in the Heath Ledger interpretation—with the slashed mouth. It was all frothing-at-the-mouth expressionism, the trash thoughts of very angry and unhappy people. It was full of nasty comments and threats of violence. The organizers of the rally—corporate operatives using corporate money, like Freedomworks, which is headed by ex-congressman Dick Armey—tried to sell the gathering as positive, but you’d have to be an idiot to see it that way.
Dowd thinks, and Jimmy Carter agreed with her, that a sizable segment of the South has never accepted the Civil Rights Law and Integration and have been laying in the weeds waiting for an opportunity redress the “wrongs” that have been imposed on the South. They are folks who just can’t accept the idea of a black man in the Oval Office. It just ain’t right, and the fact he is a well-spoken, educated, and uppity black man makes all the worse. There seems to be no reasoning with these folks. Accompanying this racial discontent is silly talk about succession from the Union, first mentioned by the Governor of Texas several months ago.
The important thing about Carter speaking up, is the fact it was Carter, an ex-president from the South, someone who is deeply Southern and knows what he is talking about. He said outright that the animosity toward Obama is clearly based on the fact he is a black man. He said there are some people in the South and elsewhere who believe that a black man can’t have the right stuff to be president of this nation. The right stuff is white stuff—period! Black people, it is said, aren’t equipped to do the job. Since the comments come from Mr. Carter, who is respected around the world, they should carry some weight.
I got an email from my brother yesterday who lives in the Midwest. He’s retired now but part of his job was to go down to Nashville where his company had another factory. While he was there he saw a reenactment of the Battle of Lookout Mountain, a battle of the Civil War that the South lost. However, in the reenactment the outcome was different: this time the South won. This is how they work to redress past wrongs—replace reality with fantasy.
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