Maturity Revisited

One of the only signs I've had that somebody's reading any of this (not counting page views, which don't really mean anything--when was the last time you read a page you viewed, really?) was an item Rosemary wrote that did a much better job than I could have of getting at some of that stuff. Bump, set, spike! (Is that how it goes? I let people talk me into going to a college volleyball game once, but I don't remember much about it aside from a feeling that I was enjoying it more than I should have been.)

Anyhow, I've been thinking about the stuff I've outgrown and the stuff I haven't. I think I've given up on what passes for music, at least as I hear it on the radio. I could tell myself that today's music ain't got the same soul, but hell, that's what humorless old f---s like me have always said about what the kids are listening to ... back as far as Benny Goodman I suppose. Would I be happier if I liked this stuff? I don't think so, but I could drive around without scowling so much maybe. You'll laugh, but I honestly never thought it would happen to me. I used to brag to my students, "I know more about your shit than you do," but now I'm not so sure, and I'm not so sure I care.

I've largely outgrown my interest in my dissertation topic, I'm sorry to say ... I like reading the novels again and again, but I'm not too interested the acrid cloud of analysis that hovers around it.

Of course there's lots of stuff I thought I would have outgrown, such as the utterly visceral way I engage with Joyce's "Araby." Not to spoil the story for you, but here's the end of it. I know you've probably read it before, but why not read it again? It's worth it.

I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

The guy I know who knows more about Joyce than anybody else I know (and I know a lot of people who know a lot about Joyce, if you follow me), told me in confidence that he preferred Dubliners to the rest of the Joyce oeuvre. I think he might have been right ... he usually was.

Remember Wonder?

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The Windhover: Gerard Manley Hopkins

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

This poem has been on my mind for the last couple of days, initially because I received an email from a former student who signed herself "former student, forever minion!" As you may know, "minion" is one of my favorite words, and I used to pretend to joke with my students that I wanted "minions" ... it's nice to see that someone was paying attention!

Anyhow, I think this is a fantastic poem because it's so challenging. If you're not a poem person, I challenge you to read this poem aloud now rather than just punting or skimming to the end of this entry to see if I sneak in something funny. Go ahead and read it; we'll wait. When you read it, really read it out, and try to find the syntax of the sentences--it will help a lot. Read it more than once if you want.

I love the alliteration, obviously, and I like the way the diction and rhythm of the poem force you out of any possible complacency with the content. The first line of the last stanza has what, six stressed syllables in a row? Did you catch that? Wild stuff.

The speaker seems to be taken with the beauty of the bird in flight to the point of some kind of religious ecstasy that strikes me as more pagan than Christian in spite of the footnotes that usually come with this poem. I don't much like "Stirred for a bird," but I can forgive it based on "the achieve of; the mastery of the thing." I'm not a big fan of nouning verbs that way, but in this case it seems to me that the speaker is almost pushed beyond words by what he's seeing.

That takes us into the poem's last bit, which I confess I don't see even though I like the sound of it ... I feel like I'll just have to take his word for it. But that's okay--it still works somehow.

Horse Latitudes

Given the name of the horse that won the Kentucky Derby, I feel it behooves me to comment on the event. Pause for laughter ... and ... go!

It's just this: in general, I'm not comfortable around animals whose eyes are bigger than human eyes. Horses have big bulging alien eyes. BIG BROWN eyes, if you will. Don't like 'em.

I like people with big brown eyes just fine ... as long as they're people eyes and not huge bulging horse eyes.

To be fair, I'm referring mainly to cartoon horses.

And be honest ... are you surprised I didn't go blue with "Big Brown"?

Just a quick "heads up"

If anybody tells you Lantana is Australian for "laff riot," don't you believe it. It's pretty intense and thought-provoking, though. Usually, I don't go for the ensemble thing too much, but this one works and works well.

I'm not the biggest Anthony LaPaglia fan in the world by any means, and whatever that show is that he's on, I don't watch it (note the rhetorical move I'm making here, pretending that I didn't look it up on imdb ... because naming it would undercut the impression that I'm trying to make that I'm much too cool to watch that show, which let's face it one of the endless Matlock for boomers shows that are so popular these days). But A LaP rocked as Barry the Blade in The Client, which was okay. He really shows some range in this one I have to say ... from rage, to sorrow, to remorse, to indignation, and back again.

And lest you think somebody else who's not me is writing this, I have to point out that there is a veritable surfeit of hot grownup women in this film. Maybe not a surfeit, but certainly a plethora. I think a surfeit is more than a plethora.

Anyhow, if you missed it at the cineplex, rent Lantana sometime. It's a great date movie in the tradition of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ... and that's saying something.

Luck of the Irish

I'm working on inventing a new genre(!) of film review: the in-progress movie review. As I write, I'm watching the film I'm writing about. I don't know how it ends yet.

I have the tendency to take light movies more seriously than I should, and The Luck of the Irish certainly fits the bill as a light movie. Of course, you'll expect me to rail against the blarney, which is arguably as racist as a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon.

But there are some fairly serious issues at work in this film: the protagonist, Fitzgerald, has to figure out whether he can sell out his journalistic ideals for a good position with the portentously named Augur, a politician he's criticized publicly and a hot, wealthy fiancee Frances, daughter or niece or something to said politician. The fact that Fitzgerald is played by Tyrone Power contributes substantially to the seriousness of the situation; if he were Cary Grant, it would be somewhat lighter and wackier. Power reminds me a lot of George Clooney, though I suppose it ought to be the opposite.

The film is pretty predictable, but I like the way Fitzgerald effectively forgets Ireland and the Irish lass Nora as soon as he leaves ... and even after he runs into her in New York, he's not so haunted by her as to refuse to make out with Frances in old Augur's library.

And of course you have the requisite Irish tenor singing "The Rose of Tralee" and the ensuing donnybrook. Nothing like The Quiet Man, mind you, but good enough. The highlight of the film is of course the interaction between Fitzgerald and Horace, his leprechaun manservant (played by Cecil Kellaway, the cuckold in The Postman Always Rings Twice, one of my favorite films incidentally).

Fitz: "Aren't you a little large for a leprechaun?"

Horace: "That's a page of my family history we won't go into if you don't mind."

I'll take a couple of lines like that over special effects any time. Of course, there are some rudimentary special effects, none as good as the bridge that collapses under Fitzgerald's car early in the film.

The film's coda is particularly charming, and it emphasizes the friendship between Fitzgerald and the leprechaun while giving short shrift to the newlyweds. Overall a charming film; it's almost possible to forgive the racial profiling.

20th Anniversary Limited Edition

Or 18th or 19th ... I don't really remember. Been a while anyhow. Enjoy, if you dare.

Limited, incidentally, refers to public interest in this, which frankly I find hard to believe.

Smokin' High St.

Open Letter to my Cousins

Death is a tragedy, and death by bear attack probably even more so. We can't blame the bear, it seems to me. It's a bear, and it's made for killing people. In no way am I making light of the tragedy of a bear attack.

Let it be said, though, that if I have to go before my time, and I really don't want to, I hope it's something like a wild animal attack. Or a piece of a satellite whose orbit has decayed. Spontaneous combustion ... something like that. Something people will kind of laugh about in an embarrassed way.

I mention the bear attack because of this tragic event.

Please follow the link and watch the clip.

So why am I addressing my cousins, one of whom might actually read this? Because, moy cousins, I hereby grant you the opportunity to work a few product/website endorsements into any interview you give about the event (which again, I'm hoping is a piece of space junk hitting me at the speed of light). I like how the victim's cousin handled this.

(If you didn't sit through that whole video, check out the piece from about 4:30 onward.) The way he worked the name of the website into the conversation twice, shoehorned it in, seemed a little awkward to me. He should have just hollered it out as a non sequitur: "blahdeblah DOT.COM, BABYBEE! WHOOOOOOO!"

Cousins, if you're going to tout a business in a Today show interview, please do it as tastefully. Just wear a logoed t shirt or something, or do it like the subliminal guy on SNL. That's how I'd want to be remembered.

Also, if it's not too much trouble, I'd like to be cremated and have my ashes stored in my thermos. It seems poetically just somehow. Then maybe it can be passed around to whoever wins it through some contest each year, like the Stanley Cup.