Yes, yes I know what day it is, I know tis the season of green beer & drunken debauchery in the name of an Italian driving the snakes out of Ireland. Not that he was definitely Italian. Because that is the important point. But here at Useless Ranch we like to offer alternatives. Preferably alternatives with something quirky going for them.
& so I offer you Joseph of Arimathea. First of all, you're welcome.
Secondly, no really, it was no trouble at all.
Thirdly, yes, I guess everything & everywhere & everyone has some quirk if you look hard enough. Considering how wildly popular Monty Python remain, I guess you could argue that being named in a Monty Python movie barely rises to the level. But Joseph of Arimethea is all I've got right now.
Let's get to the man. He is the one who asked Pilate if they could take Jesus's body away (Pilate said go for it, just so you know). It seems like a big middle management step for a guy who was a secret disciple of Jesus (apparently he kept a low profile because he was afraid of Jews...? Maybe I read that wrong, but that's what the saint-blurb seems to say). I like to imagine how mundane task are done (this is not a joke actually) so last night, after I found this guy, I imagined his pitches. Did he offer to take away ALL the crucified as maybe a beautification program? Or just the jewish ones because they might lower property values? Or just that one there because no one wants his followers hanging around under his cross? Let me assure you, these were the least offensive persuasions I thought of.
So Joseph of Arimathea takes the body & puts it in his own already prepared tomb. He also bought the linen etc. & generally did all that funeral grunt work & picked up the tab, which is not nothing. If you were already looking for him, you could say he fulfilled part of Isaiah's prophecy in the Songs of the Suffering Servant, specifically & literally about the servant lying in the tomb of a rich man (& people do say that). What happens next is better covered elsewhere, so lets stick with Joseph.
After the main event, Joseph went walkabout, bringing the word as far away as the British Isles. & apparently brought a famous cup with him which brings us to Monty Python. Because that cup was (or was not) the Holy Grail. Once he had done that, he was apparently finished.
Lastly, Old Joe here is the patron saint of funeral directors & what's not fun about that? So drink your green beer & toast the man: Joseph of Arimathea. & you can toast him again later this year because he was actually moved off of March 17th & on to several different days, depending on which calendar you went with way back when.
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2014
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
52 Photos Project: Comfort & Joy
Have you ever seen the movie Gregory's Girl? Was it ever even in the theatres in the US? I know Local Hero was. Maybe you saw Housekeeping which actually took place in the US (unlike the others)? Apparently you are more likely than I would have thought to see Gregory's Girl as it went out to a whole new audience during the London Olympics; I missed it entirely (the resurgence & the Olympics).
Whatever. There is another Bill Forsyth movie you probably never saw...did I mention Bill Forsyth directed these & wrote most of them (not Housekeeping, which was a book by Marilynne Robinson, although I think he probably wrote the screenplay. Let me check. Yep, he did). That would be his Christmas movie Comfort & Joy. No, no not that Nancy McKeon Lifetime movie of the week thing, which may be quite charming, I wouldn't know as I have never seen it. I mean Bill Forsyth's Comfort & Joy & good luck finding it as it sells on Amazon for $130+. In a nutshell, a man with a public persona out of synch with his private self has some extra time on his hands in the few days before Christmas & ... stuff happens. No, this is not the synopsis any movie database will give you, but there it is.
So if you find yourself with time on YOUR hands this holiday season & you feel like breaking your heart into tiny little pieces, let me recommend the movies of Bill Forsyth. Any of those above or any of the others, but most especially Comfort & Joy which you are never going to find, so good luck with that.
Oh oh I almost forgot: this week at 52 Photos Project the theme is Comfort & Joy so I though about recreating of one of the scenes from the above mentioned movie. A little unorthodox holiday decorating maybe, or mugging an ice cream vendor. Instead I give you this:
This is Sadie. She came to us as a foster dog after going to a small, poorly funded county shelter. She was picked up by a rescue & placed with a family who gave her back after a few weeks. Then she went into a many-dog foster situation while they figured out what went wrong & then she came here. She is happy here. This morning she went to the vet for her first ever dental cleaning. I had to leave her; there is no other way to do a dental. I handed her over to a very nice, gentle tech & Sadie wailed the whole time. I picked her up this afternoon & she forgave me immediately.
We are home now.
Whatever. There is another Bill Forsyth movie you probably never saw...did I mention Bill Forsyth directed these & wrote most of them (not Housekeeping, which was a book by Marilynne Robinson, although I think he probably wrote the screenplay. Let me check. Yep, he did). That would be his Christmas movie Comfort & Joy. No, no not that Nancy McKeon Lifetime movie of the week thing, which may be quite charming, I wouldn't know as I have never seen it. I mean Bill Forsyth's Comfort & Joy & good luck finding it as it sells on Amazon for $130+. In a nutshell, a man with a public persona out of synch with his private self has some extra time on his hands in the few days before Christmas & ... stuff happens. No, this is not the synopsis any movie database will give you, but there it is.
So if you find yourself with time on YOUR hands this holiday season & you feel like breaking your heart into tiny little pieces, let me recommend the movies of Bill Forsyth. Any of those above or any of the others, but most especially Comfort & Joy which you are never going to find, so good luck with that.
Oh oh I almost forgot: this week at 52 Photos Project the theme is Comfort & Joy so I though about recreating of one of the scenes from the above mentioned movie. A little unorthodox holiday decorating maybe, or mugging an ice cream vendor. Instead I give you this:
This is Sadie. She came to us as a foster dog after going to a small, poorly funded county shelter. She was picked up by a rescue & placed with a family who gave her back after a few weeks. Then she went into a many-dog foster situation while they figured out what went wrong & then she came here. She is happy here. This morning she went to the vet for her first ever dental cleaning. I had to leave her; there is no other way to do a dental. I handed her over to a very nice, gentle tech & Sadie wailed the whole time. I picked her up this afternoon & she forgave me immediately.
We are home now. Thursday, May 2, 2013
"I'm rewriting the necktie scene without the necktie"
I love movies, just not always the movies people love. I love to find a movie I can consume, learn the lines, spot the foley errors, memorize props & just generally work my way into the quirks. One of those movies is not Tootsie. Oh I like Tootsie, but the only part of it I ever internalized was Bill Murray's line: I'm gonna rewrite the necktie scene without the necktie. This has become one of my mantras (you can have more than one, right). Also it works right into my firmly held belief that the most important thing about, well, anything, should be eliminated, even temporarily, so we can all get a good look at the infrastructure.
Does this sound too.....esoteric? It doesn't have to be, the thing not there is the basis of lot of humor. I give you Wile E. Coyote running off the edge of a cliff, still running, the realization there is no infrastructure & then the fall. See how that works?
My favorite absence is having a birthday today (yes, voids have birthdays - why not). Let me set the scene. We have a bestseller beach read, summer slasher fare being made into a movie & a young director who has shown so much promise there is almost no way he can live up to the hype.
It is an ensemble cast; let's meet them: the main character was played by an actor who was not the director's choice but wanted the part & at least he wasn't Charlton Heston who also wanted the role & was being forwarded by the producers from Universal Pictures, the other two "leads" were not cast less than two weeks before shooting was scheduled & then finally young actor who turned the role down over & over & over again until his last movie looked like it would crash & burn & now he is just grateful for the job & lastly a Bond villain, who had turned in one of the most impressive roles of any career as a different kind of villain & was now supposed to be the good guy. Most of the other roles were filled by locals as the whole thing was on location in a not exactly remote but not exactly accessible location, with two infamous exceptions. Except for the primary female roles which were being played by a stuntwoman who was willing to work in the nude & the wife of the president of Universal Pictures, the studio producing the movie.
So here we are May 2, 1974, in the middle of not-nowhere but not-easy-to-get-to either. & they put the clockwork shark in the water & he sank like a stone. & then a fin got bent & it only swam in circles. Not one of the three models ever worked as planned. No one knew they would never work of course, so everyday everyone implied a shark thinking it would be added later. Making the absence of a shark one of the highlights in a movie about a shark. Happy Birthday, Jaws.
& lastly lets make that the word for the day: esoteric. Use it in a sentence & BE esoteric.
Does this sound too.....esoteric? It doesn't have to be, the thing not there is the basis of lot of humor. I give you Wile E. Coyote running off the edge of a cliff, still running, the realization there is no infrastructure & then the fall. See how that works?
My favorite absence is having a birthday today (yes, voids have birthdays - why not). Let me set the scene. We have a bestseller beach read, summer slasher fare being made into a movie & a young director who has shown so much promise there is almost no way he can live up to the hype.
It is an ensemble cast; let's meet them: the main character was played by an actor who was not the director's choice but wanted the part & at least he wasn't Charlton Heston who also wanted the role & was being forwarded by the producers from Universal Pictures, the other two "leads" were not cast less than two weeks before shooting was scheduled & then finally young actor who turned the role down over & over & over again until his last movie looked like it would crash & burn & now he is just grateful for the job & lastly a Bond villain, who had turned in one of the most impressive roles of any career as a different kind of villain & was now supposed to be the good guy. Most of the other roles were filled by locals as the whole thing was on location in a not exactly remote but not exactly accessible location, with two infamous exceptions. Except for the primary female roles which were being played by a stuntwoman who was willing to work in the nude & the wife of the president of Universal Pictures, the studio producing the movie.
So here we are May 2, 1974, in the middle of not-nowhere but not-easy-to-get-to either. & they put the clockwork shark in the water & he sank like a stone. & then a fin got bent & it only swam in circles. Not one of the three models ever worked as planned. No one knew they would never work of course, so everyday everyone implied a shark thinking it would be added later. Making the absence of a shark one of the highlights in a movie about a shark. Happy Birthday, Jaws.
& lastly lets make that the word for the day: esoteric. Use it in a sentence & BE esoteric.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Yes, it has been miserable
The past week or so we have been coping with one of our dogs: Jane (the little canine girl in previous post, actually). After a period of time when she seemed "quiet" which progressed to "something is not right" & then "something is definitely wrong", we learned she had inflammation between her 2nd & 3rd vertebrae. Unfortunately, in order to learn this she had to be sedated & then manipulated and x-rayed which has certainly increased her pain (& no, I don't regret doing it as she was without a doubt getting worse & she may as well have pain meds sooner rather than later).
As a result, since last Wednesday we (I) have been on little dog watch, 24/7. I am making sure she eats enough to keep her pills down, drinks enough to keep her kidneys functioning, goes outside at regular intervals, does some walking around every few hours & (& this is harder than you think) making sure she does not feel so good she does more damage because she is as high as a kite.
Little dogs in general & this little dog in particular are not known for their long term risk assessment. They can be a lot like red necks that way, actually. If she feels good enough to jump on a chair & then up onto the counter & then back down to the floor when she gets caught, why shouldn't she do it? This means I would rather give her little slices of pills (we are down to a 1/4 pill every 3+ hours with one of them), than give her the whole pill & let her feel too good for a little while.
The result is that first thing in the morning here can look a little like that scene in Terms of Endearment. Janie wakes up feeling stiff, she has to be carried outside without jostling, set down to pee & walk a bit to warm up. Then she goes back in for breakfast & a pepto (1/2 pill). The timer goes off in 15 minutes & she gets her anti-inflammatory (1/2 pill) & a pain killer (1/4 pill). After 50 minutes (yes, we are that precise these days), she gets carried back out so she can have something the close to diarrhea but not quite (caused by the anti-inflammatory & the reason for the pepto). We will do a few variations on this throughout the day, mostly giving her pain medication in the smallest dose I can manage. Near bedtime, she will get that second 1/2 of the anti-inflammatory & a nighttime walk around the yard.
This morning we were joined by Lise & Faraday. Faraday is the tiger kitten in that same picture posted yesterday. The cats bump noses with her & roll around on the grass with each other & provide a nice distraction, just the reason so many people keep cats. I am very careful that Jane doesn't feel so good she is able to join them. After her business was done, we did a few slow orbits & then came back in the house. She turned her nose up at water & has settled back into the dog bed she spends most of her time in. Our hope is that once the inflammation comes down-down we can make some better quality of life decisions for her, find a low dosage that will allow her to move more freely, but there is always the possibility we won't be able to & then we will need to make a decision about that.
Yes, it has been miserable.
As a result, since last Wednesday we (I) have been on little dog watch, 24/7. I am making sure she eats enough to keep her pills down, drinks enough to keep her kidneys functioning, goes outside at regular intervals, does some walking around every few hours & (& this is harder than you think) making sure she does not feel so good she does more damage because she is as high as a kite.
Little dogs in general & this little dog in particular are not known for their long term risk assessment. They can be a lot like red necks that way, actually. If she feels good enough to jump on a chair & then up onto the counter & then back down to the floor when she gets caught, why shouldn't she do it? This means I would rather give her little slices of pills (we are down to a 1/4 pill every 3+ hours with one of them), than give her the whole pill & let her feel too good for a little while.
The result is that first thing in the morning here can look a little like that scene in Terms of Endearment. Janie wakes up feeling stiff, she has to be carried outside without jostling, set down to pee & walk a bit to warm up. Then she goes back in for breakfast & a pepto (1/2 pill). The timer goes off in 15 minutes & she gets her anti-inflammatory (1/2 pill) & a pain killer (1/4 pill). After 50 minutes (yes, we are that precise these days), she gets carried back out so she can have something the close to diarrhea but not quite (caused by the anti-inflammatory & the reason for the pepto). We will do a few variations on this throughout the day, mostly giving her pain medication in the smallest dose I can manage. Near bedtime, she will get that second 1/2 of the anti-inflammatory & a nighttime walk around the yard.
This morning we were joined by Lise & Faraday. Faraday is the tiger kitten in that same picture posted yesterday. The cats bump noses with her & roll around on the grass with each other & provide a nice distraction, just the reason so many people keep cats. I am very careful that Jane doesn't feel so good she is able to join them. After her business was done, we did a few slow orbits & then came back in the house. She turned her nose up at water & has settled back into the dog bed she spends most of her time in. Our hope is that once the inflammation comes down-down we can make some better quality of life decisions for her, find a low dosage that will allow her to move more freely, but there is always the possibility we won't be able to & then we will need to make a decision about that.
Yes, it has been miserable.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
A day for dentists
One of the first things I loved about Saint Apollonia was her name. I cannot help it, I am delighted when saints have completely not christian names. I know, I know your name is one thing over which you have almost no control, what with your parent generally choosing it, often before you hit the ground. Unsurprising, the parents who choose a feminization of the greek god of the sun (& healing & prophecy & poerty & so on) to name their daughter were themselves not christian.
So, Apollonia. Martyred because she refused to renounce her (new) religion, which is a popular one among the saints; a sizeable sub-group are the volunteers. Generally they are women who, when faced with that fate-worse-than-death option opt for death. In Apollonia's case, it came after what had to be a pretty rough time. Among other things, her persecutors removed all her teeth, a method of torture that has given me the creeps since Marathon Man. Finally, when told she was about to be burned to death, she jumped into the flames. Bringing us to a very large set of saints martyred by fire.
& given that, it should be completely unsurprising that fire is not one of her symbols. She is not shown in front of a wall of fire or with flames curling around her feet or any other fire themed pose (OKay, OKay she is sometimes standing with a burning pyre off in the background, but I am really talking about what is in the clos-up). Instead, she is often portrayed holding a tooth in dental pliers. In an unusual twist, her relics often are teeth which I find, well, odd.
For those who don't know, saintly relics are what was left of the body (the one that had to remain inviolate for a long long long time after death for you to start down that road to sainthood). These relics are kept in reliquaries (def: a container for relics). Usually they are bones, sometimes some hair, sometimes some cloth but Apollonia's are often teeth. Which would mean that after her teeth were removed someone collected & saved them expecting them to be valuable. Which I find odd. Even if you were going to save them à la the opening of Cloud Atlas, how would you know which ones were hers?
Whatever. If you start getting curious along those lines, the whole business just falls apart. Back to the woman herself. Kinda. Apollonia is the patroness of lots of places. Towns, churches, & at least one train station. & of course dentists.
So, Apollonia. Martyred because she refused to renounce her (new) religion, which is a popular one among the saints; a sizeable sub-group are the volunteers. Generally they are women who, when faced with that fate-worse-than-death option opt for death. In Apollonia's case, it came after what had to be a pretty rough time. Among other things, her persecutors removed all her teeth, a method of torture that has given me the creeps since Marathon Man. Finally, when told she was about to be burned to death, she jumped into the flames. Bringing us to a very large set of saints martyred by fire.
& given that, it should be completely unsurprising that fire is not one of her symbols. She is not shown in front of a wall of fire or with flames curling around her feet or any other fire themed pose (OKay, OKay she is sometimes standing with a burning pyre off in the background, but I am really talking about what is in the clos-up). Instead, she is often portrayed holding a tooth in dental pliers. In an unusual twist, her relics often are teeth which I find, well, odd.
For those who don't know, saintly relics are what was left of the body (the one that had to remain inviolate for a long long long time after death for you to start down that road to sainthood). These relics are kept in reliquaries (def: a container for relics). Usually they are bones, sometimes some hair, sometimes some cloth but Apollonia's are often teeth. Which would mean that after her teeth were removed someone collected & saved them expecting them to be valuable. Which I find odd. Even if you were going to save them à la the opening of Cloud Atlas, how would you know which ones were hers?
Whatever. If you start getting curious along those lines, the whole business just falls apart. Back to the woman herself. Kinda. Apollonia is the patroness of lots of places. Towns, churches, & at least one train station. & of course dentists.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
A name by any other nom de guerre
So last weekend while I was not watching the superbowl I came across yet another name generator. I remember the old days when you had to plug in the info yourself. Yes, I know these things are sometimes more than a little insensitive but humor is pain so suck it up.
For example my drag queen name is my own first pet's name & my mothers maiden name. Which would technically make it Andrew McVey which is awkward for reasons only people who really know me know (Andrew was a big black tomcat who used to sleep in my crib, yes it only gets worse). So I usually say it is Gus McVey; Gus was a smaller gray cat that I actually remember. I have relatives, (by marriage, okay I might be married to one of them) a brother & sister who could claim Penny & Petey Hauptmann. Can't you just see that up in lights over some vaudeville theatre? Appropriate as it happens, the whole vaudeville vibe, I mean. I also have a friend who would be Princess Gail (& no, she has never met my sister, although this is one of the few that actually works). & another that trumps mine: Magoo Doyle. I even like to think about what my friends are doing to their kids & yes, I mean you mother of the future drag queen Doxy Brennan. Maybe she could perform with her brother Junie Brennan. Oh wait, I forgot about the guinea pigs. & the cat. It's an à la carte process.
My niece (Osiris O'Brien- winning drag queen names run in my family), recently uncovered the formula for your zombie survival team: the last band/musician you listened to, the hero of the last video game you played & the hero of the last movie you watched. Mine were X (same as one of my brothers, I know right?) which segued to the Pogues so it can go either way. The Sims as it has been a very long time since I played a video game. Because I am a grown-up. Also Sudoku doesn't really have characters. & Sherlock Holmes. My only hope is outrunning these punks, drunks & cannon fodder. & Sherlock Holmes. Osiris gathered together Cher Lloyd, Greg from Hay Day & Elle Woods. Yup, she's toast.
But you don't have to do all the work any more, now you can use an on-line name generator. I would wrestle under the name Flighty Callgirl, which seems heavy handed no-pun-intended. Practice witchcraft as Brigid Toadcackler.
& last but not least, if I were an animal abusing, pro-football quarterback trying to cover up my treatment for genital herpes so I cold go on to infect groupies with impunity I might call myself
Brigitte Vanuatu.
For example my drag queen name is my own first pet's name & my mothers maiden name. Which would technically make it Andrew McVey which is awkward for reasons only people who really know me know (Andrew was a big black tomcat who used to sleep in my crib, yes it only gets worse). So I usually say it is Gus McVey; Gus was a smaller gray cat that I actually remember. I have relatives, (by marriage, okay I might be married to one of them) a brother & sister who could claim Penny & Petey Hauptmann. Can't you just see that up in lights over some vaudeville theatre? Appropriate as it happens, the whole vaudeville vibe, I mean. I also have a friend who would be Princess Gail (& no, she has never met my sister, although this is one of the few that actually works). & another that trumps mine: Magoo Doyle. I even like to think about what my friends are doing to their kids & yes, I mean you mother of the future drag queen Doxy Brennan. Maybe she could perform with her brother Junie Brennan. Oh wait, I forgot about the guinea pigs. & the cat. It's an à la carte process.
My niece (Osiris O'Brien- winning drag queen names run in my family), recently uncovered the formula for your zombie survival team: the last band/musician you listened to, the hero of the last video game you played & the hero of the last movie you watched. Mine were X (same as one of my brothers, I know right?) which segued to the Pogues so it can go either way. The Sims as it has been a very long time since I played a video game. Because I am a grown-up. Also Sudoku doesn't really have characters. & Sherlock Holmes. My only hope is outrunning these punks, drunks & cannon fodder. & Sherlock Holmes. Osiris gathered together Cher Lloyd, Greg from Hay Day & Elle Woods. Yup, she's toast.
But you don't have to do all the work any more, now you can use an on-line name generator. I would wrestle under the name Flighty Callgirl, which seems heavy handed no-pun-intended. Practice witchcraft as Brigid Toadcackler.
& last but not least, if I were an animal abusing, pro-football quarterback trying to cover up my treatment for genital herpes so I cold go on to infect groupies with impunity I might call myself
Brigitte Vanuatu.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Crispin not Crispian or even Crispinian
I once said (or I vaguely remember typing) some crap about the Patron Saint of Shoes. Well, I have finally found him. Kinda. I found a slew of saints (a slew of saints, like a murder of crows, I like it!) who oversee cobblers. Also I like thinking of chichi shoemakers like Manolo Blahnik as "cobblers". Feel free to delve the list yourself, but I am settling for Crispin not to be confused with Crispian, also a patron of shoemakers & his twin brother.
Sooooo, let's dig in:
Crispin (not Crispian AKA Crispinian, not that we care overmuch) or Crispinus but not Crispianus (because those spellings have fallen out of favor) was born to a noble Roman family sometime in the 3rd century. Just to give you some perspective, Hadrian's Wall would have been well underway (as in a century & a half underway) by the time this kid (these kids) was (were) born. That doesn't help? Let's just say the world was Roman as far as the eye could see & depending on which direction you were facing, probably much much farther. In short, it was not the best time to start walking around talking about the one son of the one god. There was many many words for that & one of them was treason.
Anyhow. Our saint (& his brother) went out into Gaul & started preaching this heresy & eventually lost their lives over it (details to follow). But that is not where the shoes come in. Apparently, for his (their) pay-the-bills job, not to be confused with their vocation, he (they) made & repaired shoes. He (they) got into trouble with the local constabulary over their contempt for all things material & were martyred in a variety of ways. No really, a variety: the rack, a few other tortures to get them to recant, thrown in a river with a millstone secured at the neck, & then burned. All of this had no sway & the torturer was reputed to seek refuge in the flames himself. I don't know about you, but I have had jobs like that; I kinda feel for this guy.
Anyhow, after the torturer left the building, the emperor's man, the one who had assigned the torturer, took over the job & made short work of it: beheadings all around. & let me say I have had jobs where I wished my boss would step in & kill people so I would be able to stop trying to punish them into seeing the error of their ways.
So that's the story of our saint. & his twin brother, the other guy. Also a saint. Now for the shoes.
Shoes get A LOT of press. They used to be just one of many fashion accessories, but now that no one wears hats or gloves & I cannot remember the last time I saw an evening bag on the red carpet, accessories more or less boil down to shoes. That they might be the day job of a guy going on about the evils of excess & & his twin brother, that's just funny to me. In fact, it seems appropriate that the Patron Saint of Shoes be one of a matched pair.
So how to celebrate the Patron saints of shoes. Well, may I suggest cocktails at the Designer Shoe Warehouse (they really should apply for a liquor license, don't you think?), where we could maybe listen to the late & truly lamented Kirsty MacColl. Then we could all settle down to watch one of my very favorite movies based ever so loosely on a true story (almost certainly more than you can say about the life of our saint. & his brother.) of a struggling family business in a world of changing values: Kinky Boots.
Sooooo, let's dig in:
Crispin (not Crispian AKA Crispinian, not that we care overmuch) or Crispinus but not Crispianus (because those spellings have fallen out of favor) was born to a noble Roman family sometime in the 3rd century. Just to give you some perspective, Hadrian's Wall would have been well underway (as in a century & a half underway) by the time this kid (these kids) was (were) born. That doesn't help? Let's just say the world was Roman as far as the eye could see & depending on which direction you were facing, probably much much farther. In short, it was not the best time to start walking around talking about the one son of the one god. There was many many words for that & one of them was treason.
Anyhow. Our saint (& his brother) went out into Gaul & started preaching this heresy & eventually lost their lives over it (details to follow). But that is not where the shoes come in. Apparently, for his (their) pay-the-bills job, not to be confused with their vocation, he (they) made & repaired shoes. He (they) got into trouble with the local constabulary over their contempt for all things material & were martyred in a variety of ways. No really, a variety: the rack, a few other tortures to get them to recant, thrown in a river with a millstone secured at the neck, & then burned. All of this had no sway & the torturer was reputed to seek refuge in the flames himself. I don't know about you, but I have had jobs like that; I kinda feel for this guy.
Anyhow, after the torturer left the building, the emperor's man, the one who had assigned the torturer, took over the job & made short work of it: beheadings all around. & let me say I have had jobs where I wished my boss would step in & kill people so I would be able to stop trying to punish them into seeing the error of their ways.
So that's the story of our saint. & his twin brother, the other guy. Also a saint. Now for the shoes.
Shoes get A LOT of press. They used to be just one of many fashion accessories, but now that no one wears hats or gloves & I cannot remember the last time I saw an evening bag on the red carpet, accessories more or less boil down to shoes. That they might be the day job of a guy going on about the evils of excess & & his twin brother, that's just funny to me. In fact, it seems appropriate that the Patron Saint of Shoes be one of a matched pair.
So how to celebrate the Patron saints of shoes. Well, may I suggest cocktails at the Designer Shoe Warehouse (they really should apply for a liquor license, don't you think?), where we could maybe listen to the late & truly lamented Kirsty MacColl. Then we could all settle down to watch one of my very favorite movies based ever so loosely on a true story (almost certainly more than you can say about the life of our saint. & his brother.) of a struggling family business in a world of changing values: Kinky Boots.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
What would Arthur do?
Every few years I am forcibly reminded they no longer teach The Crucible in high school english class.This rather astonishes me on so many levels: Arthur Miller was an american playwright, writing about an event in american history that had strong tie-ins to what was at the time of writing american current events. Also, even though there was already a french film version, they made it into a movie with Winona Ryder & Daniel Day-Lewis & it has been my sad experience that some english teachers like to set up a movie JUST IN CASE someone in class could not be bothered to find the crib notes. Also, in the case of one friend's english teacher it meant she (the teacher) could nap peacefully in the dark while the kids are more or less occupied; I LOVE teachers but there are a few bad apples in there. Or maybe they are just tired. It has been a long, ugly haul for teachers here in Fladidah.
The american movie is not bad, actually. It takes a few side roads from the play, mostly because it can (a change of scenery does a body good after all & just imagine a movie that remained set in what a stage could manage in scene changes). If you are someone who does not much care for reading plays (it is a learned skill & even then you may not develop a taste for it), go ahead & watch the movie. Netflix even has it on Instant View in time for the Hallowe'en season, & really what is scarier than Salem witches at Hallowe'en? Turns out the day-to-day Salem townsfolk are pretty damn frightening themselves.
The gist of The Crucible in a paragraph is this: for a variety of motives, the best of them being religious zealotry, the people of a village start accusing each other of witchcraft. Once accused, you are more or less condemned....unless.....you can give the people accusing you another name. Doesn't even have to be all that plausible; just say "yes, but I was lured & so-&-so lured me". You will get a slap on the wrist, lose your property (maybe) & be shamed & ostracized (becoming a member of a group almost as large as said village, so that's not so bad, really). Then of course you have to live with yourself, forever after, knowing that you are responsible for whatever happens to the next person. & the next. & the next.
If it all sounds a bit familiar, it was meant to. When The Crucible was written, the Salem Witch Trials were common knowledge. So was McCarthyism, whereby people were called up before a senate committee, accused of Communism & sentenced to jail, blacklisted, whatever. Pretty much the only way to ease your situation was to say "yes, but I was lured; so-&-so lured me". Some people resisted & their lives were ruined, Pete Seeger famously resisted & his life sure looked like ruined for a few years, but he who laughs last & all that. I suspect few people on this earth will ever laugh so completely as Pete Seeger, in a completely not-malicious, laugh-along-with-me kind of way.
Late in their cycle, when the popularity wheel was rolling away from them, the McCarthy-ites turned their attention to Arthur Miller. He was, at the time, married to Marilyn Monroe & most historians agree the accusation was almost certainly a ploy to grab some headlines rather than a sincere attempt to isolate the most dangerous communist in the country. Unfortunately (depending on your perspective), Miller's response to the McCarthy spotlight was to write the most damning criticism of the work of the committee. Double unlucky, it is one of the most famous pieces of writing in our american history (it lives right up there with a few others some people spend a lot of time misquoting). The Crucible has long held the distinction of being the most widely read & performed american play outside of this country. It is all so interesting (truly) & you can find whole volumes on the subject; you can take classes on the struggle between Arthur Miller & Joseph McCarthy, on the widely predicted & very very wrong death of Death of a Salesman as a result of McCarthy et al. But enough about Arthur Miller, lets talk for a bit about Lance Armstrong.
Earlier this month, Lance Armstrong said (I paraphrase) "I am sick of fighting it, I have a life to live. You want my Tour de France wins back? Take 'em". For those who don't know, Armstrong has been denying allegations of doping for years. It's interesting they keep coming back, in light of the complete lack of medical evidence etc. I am not saying he wasn't doping, although as a reader of The Crucible I cannot help but wonder. Particularly as his most ardent accusers have been other athletes who have actually been caught & then parlayed an easing of their punishment if only they can bring in the big fish. I think Brit Hammond said it best: "To me it says if you cheat and lie about it for several years, and then drop somebody else in it, you'll be alright".
Which brings us back around to what Arthur has done. He has told us more about our system of justice than maybe we want to know, not because it is so awful but because it is so universally human.
The american movie is not bad, actually. It takes a few side roads from the play, mostly because it can (a change of scenery does a body good after all & just imagine a movie that remained set in what a stage could manage in scene changes). If you are someone who does not much care for reading plays (it is a learned skill & even then you may not develop a taste for it), go ahead & watch the movie. Netflix even has it on Instant View in time for the Hallowe'en season, & really what is scarier than Salem witches at Hallowe'en? Turns out the day-to-day Salem townsfolk are pretty damn frightening themselves.
The gist of The Crucible in a paragraph is this: for a variety of motives, the best of them being religious zealotry, the people of a village start accusing each other of witchcraft. Once accused, you are more or less condemned....unless.....you can give the people accusing you another name. Doesn't even have to be all that plausible; just say "yes, but I was lured & so-&-so lured me". You will get a slap on the wrist, lose your property (maybe) & be shamed & ostracized (becoming a member of a group almost as large as said village, so that's not so bad, really). Then of course you have to live with yourself, forever after, knowing that you are responsible for whatever happens to the next person. & the next. & the next.
If it all sounds a bit familiar, it was meant to. When The Crucible was written, the Salem Witch Trials were common knowledge. So was McCarthyism, whereby people were called up before a senate committee, accused of Communism & sentenced to jail, blacklisted, whatever. Pretty much the only way to ease your situation was to say "yes, but I was lured; so-&-so lured me". Some people resisted & their lives were ruined, Pete Seeger famously resisted & his life sure looked like ruined for a few years, but he who laughs last & all that. I suspect few people on this earth will ever laugh so completely as Pete Seeger, in a completely not-malicious, laugh-along-with-me kind of way.
Late in their cycle, when the popularity wheel was rolling away from them, the McCarthy-ites turned their attention to Arthur Miller. He was, at the time, married to Marilyn Monroe & most historians agree the accusation was almost certainly a ploy to grab some headlines rather than a sincere attempt to isolate the most dangerous communist in the country. Unfortunately (depending on your perspective), Miller's response to the McCarthy spotlight was to write the most damning criticism of the work of the committee. Double unlucky, it is one of the most famous pieces of writing in our american history (it lives right up there with a few others some people spend a lot of time misquoting). The Crucible has long held the distinction of being the most widely read & performed american play outside of this country. It is all so interesting (truly) & you can find whole volumes on the subject; you can take classes on the struggle between Arthur Miller & Joseph McCarthy, on the widely predicted & very very wrong death of Death of a Salesman as a result of McCarthy et al. But enough about Arthur Miller, lets talk for a bit about Lance Armstrong.
Earlier this month, Lance Armstrong said (I paraphrase) "I am sick of fighting it, I have a life to live. You want my Tour de France wins back? Take 'em". For those who don't know, Armstrong has been denying allegations of doping for years. It's interesting they keep coming back, in light of the complete lack of medical evidence etc. I am not saying he wasn't doping, although as a reader of The Crucible I cannot help but wonder. Particularly as his most ardent accusers have been other athletes who have actually been caught & then parlayed an easing of their punishment if only they can bring in the big fish. I think Brit Hammond said it best: "To me it says if you cheat and lie about it for several years, and then drop somebody else in it, you'll be alright".
Which brings us back around to what Arthur has done. He has told us more about our system of justice than maybe we want to know, not because it is so awful but because it is so universally human.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Star Wars Day, deal with it
Many people already know about May the Force/Fourth Be With You Day or International Star Wars Day. I am surprised by how many people learn about it & respond that it is "only a made up holiday". I have news for you: so are all the others.
Some holidays happened because of convenience (how about we celebrate the harvest on a day after we get the crops in?), others to remember an event good or bad, fiction or non-fiction (Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 9/11, Martin Luther King Day, Juneteenth, Passover, Chanukah, Groundhog Day), others to perform some function (Town Meeting Day, Election Day, Arbor Day). Whether or not you believe they commemorate a real event, an important cultural myth or whatever, they are all made up days. I just cannot believe even the most avid follower of the most literal interpretation of any holy book in the history of human civilization believes the finger of their creator came down to earth, flipped the pages of the calendar currently in use (adopted less than 600 years ago) & pointed to a particular date & said "Yes indeedy, that's the day it happened". The idea that we are observing an event that took place at some time previous on any given day because this is exactly where the earth was in relation to all other heavenly bodies when it happened is, to me anyhow, laughable. Especially in when you factor in that +1 every four years.
Let me give you a for instance: if you were a member of George Washington's inner circle & you said "let's take the old man out & toast him on his birthday", you would go out on what day? Let me make this easy for you: even Wikipedia cannot say for sure. The date cannot even be specified to a particular year NOT because no one wrote down when young George arrived, but because the Gregorian Calendar has undergone some remodeling since 173X. What we can say for-sure, to the degree that any of this is for-sure, is he was born in February, but day (the 11th or the 21st) & year (1731 or 1732) are up for grabs. The US observes the day on the 3rd Monday in February (a day that will NEVER have the date of either the 11th or the 21st), except in Indiana where they observed it after Thanksgiving but before the end of December. This means if somehow through some strange confluence of whatever, the calendar of Indiana becomes the calendar of the US, we will be celebrating the birth of the father of our country right around the Winter Solstice. Why does this sounds so familiar?
It isn't much better for Jefferson Davis, the father of the Confederacy. Last year, his birthday was observed three days apart in adjacent states. One state always observes on the day itself, another chooses the Monday or Friday before or after to make a long week-end. Still another pushes it back to the previous month to lump it on with another nationally observed holiday.
Well, that's all well & good , you might say, but George Washington was a person. We made this holiday out of respect, it isn't a religious holiday. & they are right. Where this argument falls apart is that International Star Wars Day IS associated with a religion. According to the 2001 census, more than a quarter million citizens of the UK identified their religion as Jedi. Yes, this is only .75% of the population, but when you consider how many Pilgrims it took to land on Plymouth Rock (or not, because you don't actually believe the rock called Plymouth Rock...maybe you do, whatever) & take over the world, 390K does not seem like too few. More recently Jedi have successfully lobbied that their adopted costume (specifically the cloak worn with the hood up) not be a reason for them to be banned from public spaces; I had no idea that Jedi did not go about with their heads uncovered & I could be wrong but I don't think George Lucas knew it either.
If this is all sounds like a great big joke to you, these people are pranksters, misfits & they just want attention let me ask you to take a good long hard look at....Scientology. Given a choice, I would rather share the planet with Jedi. Happy Star Wars Day everyone. May you not be the driods they were looking for.
Some holidays happened because of convenience (how about we celebrate the harvest on a day after we get the crops in?), others to remember an event good or bad, fiction or non-fiction (Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 9/11, Martin Luther King Day, Juneteenth, Passover, Chanukah, Groundhog Day), others to perform some function (Town Meeting Day, Election Day, Arbor Day). Whether or not you believe they commemorate a real event, an important cultural myth or whatever, they are all made up days. I just cannot believe even the most avid follower of the most literal interpretation of any holy book in the history of human civilization believes the finger of their creator came down to earth, flipped the pages of the calendar currently in use (adopted less than 600 years ago) & pointed to a particular date & said "Yes indeedy, that's the day it happened". The idea that we are observing an event that took place at some time previous on any given day because this is exactly where the earth was in relation to all other heavenly bodies when it happened is, to me anyhow, laughable. Especially in when you factor in that +1 every four years.
Let me give you a for instance: if you were a member of George Washington's inner circle & you said "let's take the old man out & toast him on his birthday", you would go out on what day? Let me make this easy for you: even Wikipedia cannot say for sure. The date cannot even be specified to a particular year NOT because no one wrote down when young George arrived, but because the Gregorian Calendar has undergone some remodeling since 173X. What we can say for-sure, to the degree that any of this is for-sure, is he was born in February, but day (the 11th or the 21st) & year (1731 or 1732) are up for grabs. The US observes the day on the 3rd Monday in February (a day that will NEVER have the date of either the 11th or the 21st), except in Indiana where they observed it after Thanksgiving but before the end of December. This means if somehow through some strange confluence of whatever, the calendar of Indiana becomes the calendar of the US, we will be celebrating the birth of the father of our country right around the Winter Solstice. Why does this sounds so familiar?
It isn't much better for Jefferson Davis, the father of the Confederacy. Last year, his birthday was observed three days apart in adjacent states. One state always observes on the day itself, another chooses the Monday or Friday before or after to make a long week-end. Still another pushes it back to the previous month to lump it on with another nationally observed holiday.
Well, that's all well & good , you might say, but George Washington was a person. We made this holiday out of respect, it isn't a religious holiday. & they are right. Where this argument falls apart is that International Star Wars Day IS associated with a religion. According to the 2001 census, more than a quarter million citizens of the UK identified their religion as Jedi. Yes, this is only .75% of the population, but when you consider how many Pilgrims it took to land on Plymouth Rock (or not, because you don't actually believe the rock called Plymouth Rock...maybe you do, whatever) & take over the world, 390K does not seem like too few. More recently Jedi have successfully lobbied that their adopted costume (specifically the cloak worn with the hood up) not be a reason for them to be banned from public spaces; I had no idea that Jedi did not go about with their heads uncovered & I could be wrong but I don't think George Lucas knew it either.
If this is all sounds like a great big joke to you, these people are pranksters, misfits & they just want attention let me ask you to take a good long hard look at....Scientology. Given a choice, I would rather share the planet with Jedi. Happy Star Wars Day everyone. May you not be the driods they were looking for.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Dear Abby & the Academy
I don't get much into the Academy Awards. If we are invited to a party, we watch them. If we are home, I might flip through but mostly I don't care. & I don't care because I don't understand. & I don't understand because I cannot be bothered to understand.
This is not unique to the Oscars, I don't really understand awards shows in general. I don't even understand most athletic awards. Take the Stanley Cup: doesn't EVERY TEAM make the playoffs? As for the Super Bowl, isn't it unusual for the game itself to be worth watching? How are either of these things meaningful? What do they measure?
So. I think we can all agree I just don't get it. This is not to say I don't like movies, I DO like movies. I am sorry to see most movie theaters in the state they are in (then again, I don't much want to pay to sit in a darkened room with people who don't know how to turn their cell phones off, either). Which brings me to another thing I don't understand & I don't know what it means: Dear Abby.
I agree with Abby maybe 1/2 the time. & 1/2 the time I agree with her, I don't agree with how she got there. Abby recommends therapy A LOT. I don't think most people need therapy, I think most people need to grow the f*ck up & get off their lazy slacker asses. This applies to me too, by the way: when my in-laws make me crazy I need to grow the f*ck-up & not take it so personally, after all they treat everyone like crap, & get off my lazy slacker ass & make other plans when I spot a potential last-minute invitation on the horizon. See how that works?
//little side bar here: in the past 18 months or so I have adopted a policy of showing the same interest in their interests as they show in mine. I especially enjoy how much they don't care for it. Last time they were here we had to sit through a slideshow of the resort they went to in December, pictures of the hotel's pools from every angle, the restaurant staff whose names they could not remember (if they ever knew them), etc. For next time, I am planning a catalog of my quilt fabric & how I like to sort it first by theme (floral, stripe) or subject (I have a lot of novelty fabrics) & then by color scale, ignoring actual color all together. Even if this does not get my message across it will occupy 30+ minutes of our time together which is 30 fewer minutes wondering how to fake a sudden injury.
All this is fine you say, but what does Dear Abby have to do with the Academy Awards? Well, here is the connection & I admit it is tenuous. For months I have been whiling away the minutes between my getting up in the night to pee & actually falling back to sleep pondering one particular letter to Dear Abby. The gist of the letter is how a mother cannot afford to take her children to the movies & pay those out-of-control rates for snacks & so she smuggles food in. Naturally Abby had a reply & then there was some follow-up & so on & so forth. Being Abby, she published responses that agree with her & that don't. She is so even handed, giving equal space to every point of view; personally I think that's how crackpots get to thinking they are in the majority, or at least not a small small minority but whatever.
One letter in particular sticks with me. One sentence from one letter actually:
At night, for a moment, I get quite hung up on this. Is this the problem with our country, our culture, our species? We forget that paying the bill IS part of the total picture? Or am I wrong here & the parameters of any experience are what you say they are? Am I paying more for popcorn because she doesn't pay at all? Will I ever voluntarily go to the theater with a family with multiple children who all bring extra food? What if they bring sauerkraut?
As for the Academy Awards, I have a vague idea who was nominated. I did see The Girl Who Whatever Whatever at an actual theater (A wanted to see it & then S**** called & so we all three went & I sat in the middle, sheltered from the rabble) & I thought was actually better than the book; in fairness, I would think having my teeth cleaned was better than the book, but that is because after my teeth are cleaned I do have nice clean teeth, whereas after reading those books all I had was a much reduced opinion of virtually everyone who said they were good. I have The Invention of Hugo Cabret on hold at the library. I will certainly read the red-carpet follow-up with the Fug Girls, if only because last year Amanda Palmer was the only thing worth watching & no one else showed it...that I know of...because I didn't watch it. & because I don't really keep track of these things, it turns out APalmer pulled her stunt at the Golden Globes.
I guess that sums it up nicely. Now I think I just might pop some popcorn & go watch Oasis, it's been a while since I have done that. Happy Academy Awards Show Day for anyone who cares. May your theaters be full of people who do not bring their own sauerkraut.
This is not unique to the Oscars, I don't really understand awards shows in general. I don't even understand most athletic awards. Take the Stanley Cup: doesn't EVERY TEAM make the playoffs? As for the Super Bowl, isn't it unusual for the game itself to be worth watching? How are either of these things meaningful? What do they measure?
So. I think we can all agree I just don't get it. This is not to say I don't like movies, I DO like movies. I am sorry to see most movie theaters in the state they are in (then again, I don't much want to pay to sit in a darkened room with people who don't know how to turn their cell phones off, either). Which brings me to another thing I don't understand & I don't know what it means: Dear Abby.
I agree with Abby maybe 1/2 the time. & 1/2 the time I agree with her, I don't agree with how she got there. Abby recommends therapy A LOT. I don't think most people need therapy, I think most people need to grow the f*ck up & get off their lazy slacker asses. This applies to me too, by the way: when my in-laws make me crazy I need to grow the f*ck-up & not take it so personally, after all they treat everyone like crap, & get off my lazy slacker ass & make other plans when I spot a potential last-minute invitation on the horizon. See how that works?
//little side bar here: in the past 18 months or so I have adopted a policy of showing the same interest in their interests as they show in mine. I especially enjoy how much they don't care for it. Last time they were here we had to sit through a slideshow of the resort they went to in December, pictures of the hotel's pools from every angle, the restaurant staff whose names they could not remember (if they ever knew them), etc. For next time, I am planning a catalog of my quilt fabric & how I like to sort it first by theme (floral, stripe) or subject (I have a lot of novelty fabrics) & then by color scale, ignoring actual color all together. Even if this does not get my message across it will occupy 30+ minutes of our time together which is 30 fewer minutes wondering how to fake a sudden injury.
All this is fine you say, but what does Dear Abby have to do with the Academy Awards? Well, here is the connection & I admit it is tenuous. For months I have been whiling away the minutes between my getting up in the night to pee & actually falling back to sleep pondering one particular letter to Dear Abby. The gist of the letter is how a mother cannot afford to take her children to the movies & pay those out-of-control rates for snacks & so she smuggles food in. Naturally Abby had a reply & then there was some follow-up & so on & so forth. Being Abby, she published responses that agree with her & that don't. She is so even handed, giving equal space to every point of view; personally I think that's how crackpots get to thinking they are in the majority, or at least not a small small minority but whatever.
One letter in particular sticks with me. One sentence from one letter actually:
My children want the whole theater experience, which includes a snack.Kim in California goes on to say that the snacks are overpriced, etc. & the whole tone is she is just not going to foot the bill for those high-living theater-owner lifestyles. Well, that is her opinion & Abby would say she is entitled to it. But I am stuck at the "whole theater experience" line. Apparently, in her world paying the bill is not part of the experience.
At night, for a moment, I get quite hung up on this. Is this the problem with our country, our culture, our species? We forget that paying the bill IS part of the total picture? Or am I wrong here & the parameters of any experience are what you say they are? Am I paying more for popcorn because she doesn't pay at all? Will I ever voluntarily go to the theater with a family with multiple children who all bring extra food? What if they bring sauerkraut?
As for the Academy Awards, I have a vague idea who was nominated. I did see The Girl Who Whatever Whatever at an actual theater (A wanted to see it & then S**** called & so we all three went & I sat in the middle, sheltered from the rabble) & I thought was actually better than the book; in fairness, I would think having my teeth cleaned was better than the book, but that is because after my teeth are cleaned I do have nice clean teeth, whereas after reading those books all I had was a much reduced opinion of virtually everyone who said they were good. I have The Invention of Hugo Cabret on hold at the library. I will certainly read the red-carpet follow-up with the Fug Girls, if only because last year Amanda Palmer was the only thing worth watching & no one else showed it...that I know of...because I didn't watch it. & because I don't really keep track of these things, it turns out APalmer pulled her stunt at the Golden Globes.
I guess that sums it up nicely. Now I think I just might pop some popcorn & go watch Oasis, it's been a while since I have done that. Happy Academy Awards Show Day for anyone who cares. May your theaters be full of people who do not bring their own sauerkraut.
Monday, October 31, 2011
In which the devil builds a church...or not
You might have noticed there were more saints than usual this month. That was, in part because I can write the saint posts when I have time & then queue them up. It was also because October, being that month of spooky-ookiness just lends itself to saints. I don't care who you are, most of those people are downright not-quite-right in the head. I mean no disrespect, crazy people are pretty much the only people who get big things done (big goods things & big bad things).
For Hallowe'en, it seemed only right to end the month with a guy I had never heard of (although his miracle runs on a very popular theme), Wolfgang of Regensburg. C'mon, how can you resist a Hallowe'en saint named Wolfgang? The only thing that could be better would be Saint Vlad.
Wolfgang was a person, a child & then a man in the usual way. He was a scholar, an educator & the ultimately a bishop in his own part of the world (my guess would be greater Regensburg). Eventually he retired from his bishophood & went to live as a hermit (shocker!) & so on in so forth in that bishop to hermit to canonical candidate way. Despite being a hermit (seriously, I am beginning to think that word does not mean what I think it means), he had an active political life, did a bit of traveling & some light construction work (he built his solitary cell where G*d directed his axe to fall; seems an impractical method to me, but the axe remains a relic in the town of Ste. Wolfgang). He was known locally as a man of great goodness & after his death many churches adopted his name. All very standard stuff. But you know there had to be something to catch my eye (or more accurately my typing fingers) & that was the story of how Wolfgang of Regensburg beat the devil.
I think we are all fond of stories of beating the devil, even if you don't believe in the devil, even if you believe the devil is in all of us. We all like to beat him, in Moscow or even Georgia. When I was in school I remember loving the Stephen Vincent Benet story "The Devil & Daniel Webster", maybe in part because I spent a lot of my youth up in Daniel Webster country & have visited his birthplace on more than one occasion. I have just learned there is a movie that I somehow missed completely, but scenes still look familiar. I cannot tell if I saw it once & forgot or of all movies from that period look a little bit alike.
Either way, there is no movie about Wolfgang of Regensburg beating the devil (actually there probably is...in the tourist kiosk of the Town of Ste. Wolfgang, but whatever) which is a damn shame because Wolfgang beat the devil & got him (the devil) to build a church. The story itself, without further ado:
I could not find it. I looked & looked & looked & all I found was this painting which some sources say is actually Ste. Augustine being presented with a book of vices (how handy!). How Wolfgang came to meet the devil, no idea. What the devil offered him, not a clue. How Wolfgang roped the devil into doing good works, great big mystery.
& so I leave you with this, a man who pulled a Tom Sawyer on Satan himself. Then somehow got assigned October 31st as his feast day.
For Hallowe'en, it seemed only right to end the month with a guy I had never heard of (although his miracle runs on a very popular theme), Wolfgang of Regensburg. C'mon, how can you resist a Hallowe'en saint named Wolfgang? The only thing that could be better would be Saint Vlad.
Wolfgang was a person, a child & then a man in the usual way. He was a scholar, an educator & the ultimately a bishop in his own part of the world (my guess would be greater Regensburg). Eventually he retired from his bishophood & went to live as a hermit (shocker!) & so on in so forth in that bishop to hermit to canonical candidate way. Despite being a hermit (seriously, I am beginning to think that word does not mean what I think it means), he had an active political life, did a bit of traveling & some light construction work (he built his solitary cell where G*d directed his axe to fall; seems an impractical method to me, but the axe remains a relic in the town of Ste. Wolfgang). He was known locally as a man of great goodness & after his death many churches adopted his name. All very standard stuff. But you know there had to be something to catch my eye (or more accurately my typing fingers) & that was the story of how Wolfgang of Regensburg beat the devil.
I think we are all fond of stories of beating the devil, even if you don't believe in the devil, even if you believe the devil is in all of us. We all like to beat him, in Moscow or even Georgia. When I was in school I remember loving the Stephen Vincent Benet story "The Devil & Daniel Webster", maybe in part because I spent a lot of my youth up in Daniel Webster country & have visited his birthplace on more than one occasion. I have just learned there is a movie that I somehow missed completely, but scenes still look familiar. I cannot tell if I saw it once & forgot or of all movies from that period look a little bit alike.
Either way, there is no movie about Wolfgang of Regensburg beating the devil (actually there probably is...in the tourist kiosk of the Town of Ste. Wolfgang, but whatever) which is a damn shame because Wolfgang beat the devil & got him (the devil) to build a church. The story itself, without further ado:
& so I leave you with this, a man who pulled a Tom Sawyer on Satan himself. Then somehow got assigned October 31st as his feast day.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Today, a dwarf
I freely & unequivocally admit I choose today's saint because of his name. No, not the Juan part, the other part: Juan the Dwarf. I know if you follow the link you will find JOHN the dwarf, but you will also find painting after painting of white Jesus & you all just need to get over that.
Okay, is everyone forming a picture of a Latin Lord of the Rings thing? Yes? Good.
Juan was born to a poor family (surprise, surprise) in Egypt (Juan?). He had a famously short fuse (waka waka) & while his temper never really went away, with spirituality came humility (so not 21st century, right?) & he stopped getting quite so worked up about offenses, imagined & otherwise.
So we have a dwarf, who has left his parents hovel to live in an underground cave he dug himself. It just gets better & better doesn't it? Lived for a while as a hermit, offering himself as a disciple. For reasons known only to ancient villagers with ancient pitchforks (in this instance Berbers with swords), he was driven away, wandered a bit & then settled on Mount Qolzum, over in Anthony's neighborhood, to hang with the other hermits.
In the end, the most interesting story about Juan, in my view, is he was directed (by Saint Pambo, a most excellent name) to plant a piece of dry wood & then traveled uphill in both directions twice a day to water it for thirteen years until it sprouted. The reason I like this is that one of my favorite movies: Enchanted April. It has nothing to do with dwarves or saints or mountains or anything really, but a dead bit of wood that sprouts does come into it. & I guess there are some sort-of hermits living together.
Back to our man of the day; he is the patron of nothing, nada, zip. Not even dwarves.
Okay, is everyone forming a picture of a Latin Lord of the Rings thing? Yes? Good.
Juan was born to a poor family (surprise, surprise) in Egypt (Juan?). He had a famously short fuse (waka waka) & while his temper never really went away, with spirituality came humility (so not 21st century, right?) & he stopped getting quite so worked up about offenses, imagined & otherwise.
So we have a dwarf, who has left his parents hovel to live in an underground cave he dug himself. It just gets better & better doesn't it? Lived for a while as a hermit, offering himself as a disciple. For reasons known only to ancient villagers with ancient pitchforks (in this instance Berbers with swords), he was driven away, wandered a bit & then settled on Mount Qolzum, over in Anthony's neighborhood, to hang with the other hermits.
In the end, the most interesting story about Juan, in my view, is he was directed (by Saint Pambo, a most excellent name) to plant a piece of dry wood & then traveled uphill in both directions twice a day to water it for thirteen years until it sprouted. The reason I like this is that one of my favorite movies: Enchanted April. It has nothing to do with dwarves or saints or mountains or anything really, but a dead bit of wood that sprouts does come into it. & I guess there are some sort-of hermits living together.
Back to our man of the day; he is the patron of nothing, nada, zip. Not even dwarves.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Curried eggs
It has been a while since I had a recipe & I don't know about you, but when it gets hot I have trouble eating anything meaty. Alright, I am not a big meat eater at the best of times (I had a cheeseburger a year ago October & by a year ago October I mean 2009), but the simple truth is I need protein just like everyone else. In the summertime, the best way to get it is with eggs. & yes, by the way, it is summertime here again in Fladidah. This week, it is hard-boiled curried eggs over leafy greens (because it turns out I realllly need more iron & spinach is my new best friend).
First hard-boil some eggs. However many you want. Six eggs would last me a week; A could eat that in one sitting. Lets say six: hard-boil six eggs. Then drain them & take make them easier to peel, drop them gently into cold, cold water. Set aside for a minute...or an hour.
When you are ready, return to the eggs & peel them. I roll them around for a bit until the shell cracks & then try to peel it in one piece like an apple. No, I have never been successful, but it is good to give yourself these little challenges, don't you think? Cut them & remove the yolks. Set aside the whites, keeping them as intact as you can, but don't make yourself crazy, this is not deviled eggs after all. Mash the yolks with a fork.
In a small bowl -a really small bowl, I use a teacup- combine 1tsp cardamon, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp red pepper. 1/2 tsp turmeric. Generally these are already ground but if not, grind them now. Grind them together, even.
Finely mince one or two or three cloves of garlic. Three is probably too many, so if you really like garlic, use two. If you buy minced garlic in a jar, try to scoop as much liquid as actual garlic & go for a teaspoon or so total.
Take your smallest pan, ideally a pan with some sides to it (i.e. a crepe pan would not cut it) & put in as little of a light oil as you need to coat the bottom. Any light oil will do. The idea is not to cook anything in oil but to make the temperature more or less even throughout the pan. If you have a gas stove & snazzy cookware, you might be able to get away without the oil. If you are feeling adventurous, or it is the morning after bookclub, you could try a bit of red wine, just covering the bottom of your pan.
Heat the oil, add the spices. Stir. & stir. Do not stop stirring. Add the garlic & stir some more. The spices may smoke a bit, just keep stirring & use your nose. When they "release" add the mashed egg yolks & stir, stir stir for as long again as you stirred before adding the eggs. It is almost impossible to under-cook them, but the longer they heat up together, the more flavor the eggs will take.
Never stop stirring, never ever ever.
When they are done remove from heat, remove from pan (or they will keep cooking, even if the pan is not on the stove) & set aside. Slice the whites into smaller-than-bite sized pieces. I like to put them in a bowl, whites on one side, yolks on the other & spoon it over my salad instead of dressing. Other people scoop them up on pieces of bread or mix it in with rice.
& for those of you who like a media tie-in, I give you Cool Hand Luke. I bet he couldn't have eaten those eggs curried...maybe he could.
First hard-boil some eggs. However many you want. Six eggs would last me a week; A could eat that in one sitting. Lets say six: hard-boil six eggs. Then drain them & take make them easier to peel, drop them gently into cold, cold water. Set aside for a minute...or an hour.
When you are ready, return to the eggs & peel them. I roll them around for a bit until the shell cracks & then try to peel it in one piece like an apple. No, I have never been successful, but it is good to give yourself these little challenges, don't you think? Cut them & remove the yolks. Set aside the whites, keeping them as intact as you can, but don't make yourself crazy, this is not deviled eggs after all. Mash the yolks with a fork.
In a small bowl -a really small bowl, I use a teacup- combine 1tsp cardamon, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp red pepper. 1/2 tsp turmeric. Generally these are already ground but if not, grind them now. Grind them together, even.
Finely mince one or two or three cloves of garlic. Three is probably too many, so if you really like garlic, use two. If you buy minced garlic in a jar, try to scoop as much liquid as actual garlic & go for a teaspoon or so total.
Take your smallest pan, ideally a pan with some sides to it (i.e. a crepe pan would not cut it) & put in as little of a light oil as you need to coat the bottom. Any light oil will do. The idea is not to cook anything in oil but to make the temperature more or less even throughout the pan. If you have a gas stove & snazzy cookware, you might be able to get away without the oil. If you are feeling adventurous, or it is the morning after bookclub, you could try a bit of red wine, just covering the bottom of your pan.
Heat the oil, add the spices. Stir. & stir. Do not stop stirring. Add the garlic & stir some more. The spices may smoke a bit, just keep stirring & use your nose. When they "release" add the mashed egg yolks & stir, stir stir for as long again as you stirred before adding the eggs. It is almost impossible to under-cook them, but the longer they heat up together, the more flavor the eggs will take.
Never stop stirring, never ever ever.
When they are done remove from heat, remove from pan (or they will keep cooking, even if the pan is not on the stove) & set aside. Slice the whites into smaller-than-bite sized pieces. I like to put them in a bowl, whites on one side, yolks on the other & spoon it over my salad instead of dressing. Other people scoop them up on pieces of bread or mix it in with rice.
& for those of you who like a media tie-in, I give you Cool Hand Luke. I bet he couldn't have eaten those eggs curried...maybe he could.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The price of milk
We have a new cow. I know I have hardly talked/blogged/whatever about anything else since she arrived. I have milkmaid's wrist, milkmaid's forearm & milkmaid's grip. What tennis is to the elbow, running is to shins, etc. you do the rest.
& mostly it is good. You cannot imagine how good that milk smells when it hits the pail. I want to drink it, warm on a warm day, it is so sweet-(& I only ever drink milk, cold milk when I have a stomach ache or cookies...or both). I have gotten to the point in the process where I am not so exhausted when it is over that I can reflect on how not-exhausted I am, which is its own kind of high. No really. Apparently I have not yet gotten to the point where complete sentences out number the other kind, though. Oh well.
What I do have is just enough energy to kick back & watch one of my favorite movies. Since I am having trouble with continuity, it helps to watch a movie I have both seen before & is not quite continuous itself. Which brings me to The Price of Milk. I love this weird little film. That it happens to be about a dairyman (& yet not about a dairyman) just helps. Also, it is on Instant on Netflix, so go for it.
As a side bar, the next time I hear someone complain about how food prices are outlandish & can you believe what they want for a gallon of milk, I plan to show them my milking bruises & cuts, all for not more than a gallon a day.
& mostly it is good. You cannot imagine how good that milk smells when it hits the pail. I want to drink it, warm on a warm day, it is so sweet-(& I only ever drink milk, cold milk when I have a stomach ache or cookies...or both). I have gotten to the point in the process where I am not so exhausted when it is over that I can reflect on how not-exhausted I am, which is its own kind of high. No really. Apparently I have not yet gotten to the point where complete sentences out number the other kind, though. Oh well.
What I do have is just enough energy to kick back & watch one of my favorite movies. Since I am having trouble with continuity, it helps to watch a movie I have both seen before & is not quite continuous itself. Which brings me to The Price of Milk. I love this weird little film. That it happens to be about a dairyman (& yet not about a dairyman) just helps. Also, it is on Instant on Netflix, so go for it.
As a side bar, the next time I hear someone complain about how food prices are outlandish & can you believe what they want for a gallon of milk, I plan to show them my milking bruises & cuts, all for not more than a gallon a day.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Eliza Doolittle Day
It is just a little thing, but today is kind of a silly-big deal in my world. It is Eliza Dolittle Day. For those of you who have never heard of Henry Higgins or maybe think Pygmalion might be the patron saint of swineherds, let me ease yOu in.
Have you ever suspected your boss might be conducting experiments to change your speech pattern (i.e. have you ever been a telemarketer asked to pass for an american)?
Have you been sexually harassed & kind of liked it...until you didn't?
Do you fantasize about a world in which you hold the power of life & death over people who barely acknowledge you as human?
Well, any of these things might mean you need an Eliza Dolittle Day. We will celebrate by watch My Fair Lady start to finish & jumping up & down on the furniture shouting The Rain In Spain et cetera.
Have you ever suspected your boss might be conducting experiments to change your speech pattern (i.e. have you ever been a telemarketer asked to pass for an american)?
Have you been sexually harassed & kind of liked it...until you didn't?
Do you fantasize about a world in which you hold the power of life & death over people who barely acknowledge you as human?
Well, any of these things might mean you need an Eliza Dolittle Day. We will celebrate by watch My Fair Lady start to finish & jumping up & down on the furniture shouting The Rain In Spain et cetera.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
What would Adolf do?
Yea, I mean the Nazi icon himself, Der Führer. & there is absolutely no reason to ask what he would do because, well, we know. A better question is what would we do without him. That's right, let's imagine a 24-hour period in which no one called anyone else a Nazi/Fascist/the New Hitler. I am thinking we could roll-back all those cable channels to just the evening news.
Early last year I got so fed up I crossed all Nazi references off my radar. If a book had Nazis or Hitler references of any kind, I didn't read it, movie-I didn't see it, song I didn't sing it... Sorry about that last one, I've been listening to a lot of Petula Clark lately & apparently it is rubbing off. Which brings us to why I have not yet read The Girl With/Who Whatever books (or seen the movie Inglourious Basterds); I was trying to have a Nazi-free year.
It is harder than it sounds. Okay, parts were easier. Not that I was ever likely to watch much Glenn Beck, but now I had a reason because the Nazis come up a lot. Also, I no longer had to even pretend to read the books my in-laws try to foist on me because well, they are all about Nazis. But there are some perfectly other-wise unobjectionable books with Nazis: Pink Slip for example (where the Nazis are oh-so-incidental but still quite vivid for all that), & The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (which I had just read, so I was Okay with that).
Which bring me back to What Would Adolf Do? & I guess I should be embarrassed to say he just might do exactly what I am doing, throwing perfectly good literature, art & science (Okay, I tossed no science, but you get my point) out because it contains a reference I don't like.
Early last year I got so fed up I crossed all Nazi references off my radar. If a book had Nazis or Hitler references of any kind, I didn't read it, movie-I didn't see it, song I didn't sing it... Sorry about that last one, I've been listening to a lot of Petula Clark lately & apparently it is rubbing off. Which brings us to why I have not yet read The Girl With/Who Whatever books (or seen the movie Inglourious Basterds); I was trying to have a Nazi-free year.
It is harder than it sounds. Okay, parts were easier. Not that I was ever likely to watch much Glenn Beck, but now I had a reason because the Nazis come up a lot. Also, I no longer had to even pretend to read the books my in-laws try to foist on me because well, they are all about Nazis. But there are some perfectly other-wise unobjectionable books with Nazis: Pink Slip for example (where the Nazis are oh-so-incidental but still quite vivid for all that), & The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (which I had just read, so I was Okay with that).
Which bring me back to What Would Adolf Do? & I guess I should be embarrassed to say he just might do exactly what I am doing, throwing perfectly good literature, art & science (Okay, I tossed no science, but you get my point) out because it contains a reference I don't like.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
A better class of ghost story
Yup, it's that time of year again. I will buy buckets of candy & we will get nary a trick-or-treater. Because we live on an unpaved(1), unlit(2) country road with no neighborhood children (3) except M*** & those little boys across the street from the Rock family (4). So besides our house being spooky-ooky, most of the local kids (the very few local kids) are unlikely to observe All Hallows Eve in any form & most especially not on a Sunday. Even if I have to give half the candy to M***, that still means more for me. I hope he likes Butterfingers!
This year, I will be spending my day wrapping up a regularly scheduled quilt block swap, cleaning up the tail end of a swap gone-too-long, while A scrambles to complete his monthly reports, etc. before the new month ends & he has to get started on those. That's right, in this scenario October is the "new" month. That's how things have been around here for a while now. Still, I would not want the day to go unobserved (except for the bit about my getting to keep all the Hallowe'en candy) & so I am thinking of revisiting one of my favorite ghost-movies: Blithe Spirit.
First let me say that as a girl I had a huge crush on Rex Harrison. Are you scared yet? I think it started with Henry Higgins & all that Gregory House drama but about grammar instead of medical diagnostics. C'mon, a little chill just ran up your spine, right?
From My Fair Lady, I graduated to The Honey Pot, (how often do you hear a straight man say"piffle", outside of Bertie Wooster, that is), then took a giant step backwards to Doctor Dolittle. My brother K & I recently had a nostalgic moment about how as children we loved this very bad film. I still get chills when the doctor throws Sophie the Seal off the cliff. By the time I got the The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (another excellent choice for the day) it was all over for me & american boys.
Still not scary enough? Hmmm, well, lets push on. The play Blithe Spirit on which the movie Blithe Spirit is based (& by based I mean they used more-or-less the same script) is about a marriage. Actually, it's about three people & two marriages. In one of them, one of the spouses is dead. & then... but I wouldn't want to give it all away. Keep in mind, the playwright was a technically in-the-closet homosexual who still managed to flesh out female characters, even the dead one. The man that wrote Blithe Spirit also wrote so much other stuff, including but not limited to propaganda. No really, he wrote propaganda for the british government during WWII. Some where in there he wrote several "fight" songs, including one of my favorites: Don't Lets be Beastly to the Germans. For the record, the Nazis hated Coward; he was high up on the list of people to be shot once they invaded (along with Virginia Wolf. Imagine al-Qeada targeting the editors of the New Yorker, see even the villains were classier). What else..oh there always Mad Dogs & Englishmen. & who could forget We All Wear a Green Carnation.
Where was I? Oh right, trick-or-treaters. So, do yourself a favor, turn the outside lights off, get on your Netflix -Watch Instantly page & find Blithe Spirit. If you would rather spend the evening a decade or so closer to this century, you could try Bell, Book & Candle but it isn't as good (although I concede the music might be better).
This year, I will be spending my day wrapping up a regularly scheduled quilt block swap, cleaning up the tail end of a swap gone-too-long, while A scrambles to complete his monthly reports, etc. before the new month ends & he has to get started on those. That's right, in this scenario October is the "new" month. That's how things have been around here for a while now. Still, I would not want the day to go unobserved (except for the bit about my getting to keep all the Hallowe'en candy) & so I am thinking of revisiting one of my favorite ghost-movies: Blithe Spirit.
First let me say that as a girl I had a huge crush on Rex Harrison. Are you scared yet? I think it started with Henry Higgins & all that Gregory House drama but about grammar instead of medical diagnostics. C'mon, a little chill just ran up your spine, right?
From My Fair Lady, I graduated to The Honey Pot, (how often do you hear a straight man say"piffle", outside of Bertie Wooster, that is), then took a giant step backwards to Doctor Dolittle. My brother K & I recently had a nostalgic moment about how as children we loved this very bad film. I still get chills when the doctor throws Sophie the Seal off the cliff. By the time I got the The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (another excellent choice for the day) it was all over for me & american boys.
Still not scary enough? Hmmm, well, lets push on. The play Blithe Spirit on which the movie Blithe Spirit is based (& by based I mean they used more-or-less the same script) is about a marriage. Actually, it's about three people & two marriages. In one of them, one of the spouses is dead. & then... but I wouldn't want to give it all away. Keep in mind, the playwright was a technically in-the-closet homosexual who still managed to flesh out female characters, even the dead one. The man that wrote Blithe Spirit also wrote so much other stuff, including but not limited to propaganda. No really, he wrote propaganda for the british government during WWII. Some where in there he wrote several "fight" songs, including one of my favorites: Don't Lets be Beastly to the Germans. For the record, the Nazis hated Coward; he was high up on the list of people to be shot once they invaded (along with Virginia Wolf. Imagine al-Qeada targeting the editors of the New Yorker, see even the villains were classier). What else..oh there always Mad Dogs & Englishmen. & who could forget We All Wear a Green Carnation.
Where was I? Oh right, trick-or-treaters. So, do yourself a favor, turn the outside lights off, get on your Netflix -Watch Instantly page & find Blithe Spirit. If you would rather spend the evening a decade or so closer to this century, you could try Bell, Book & Candle but it isn't as good (although I concede the music might be better).
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
National Hot Dog Month
It is National Hot Dog Month; has been since the first, but hey, I have been busy. In honor of the occasion I have adopted another dog. Ha-ha, just kidding Mom. I will say though, after firecrackers, actual hot dogs - intestines stuffed with meat or more likely leftover not-meat animal parts are one of my least favorite things about summer. I don't mind the humidity & I like the heat (which is lucky, considering where I live). I am perfectly happy to work/sit outside during all but the most downpour of downpours. M****** & A***** both saw me after I picked up the last CSA shares at the farmers market on the day it was thundering & lightening only at the farmers market (which was kind of cool). Me & the farmer himself were the only ones wading out to the truck to unload. Easily a dozen other people huddled under the canopy waiting for it to clear up.
I am not saying this was a good idea. I was so dripping wet when M****** called while I was making the return trip I was afraid to talk on my cell, so much water was running from my hair I thought I might electrocute myself. A week later, C****** sat on the passenger side of the truck (where the bags of produce had been) & there was still a wet spot. This past weekend I treated the upholstery with AGAIN because that faintly moldy smell just will not go away. In Fladidah, it is unlikely to go completely away until things freeze sometime around Thanksgiving.
All of these trials are preferable to being in the presence of even one hot dog. Which brings us back to: July is National Hot Dog Month. On a completely unrelated note, July is also Bioterrorism /Disaster Education Month. I googled this, hoping to find the official site but found something oh so much better.
What else can I say about hot dogs? Not much, as it happens as I do not eat them, I do not serve them, I live a life generally not-hot dog adjacent. I did read Confederacy of Dunces though. I kind of didn't get it. I mean I could follow the story I just was not clear why anyone would bother. I really only have one memory of anything in particular from the book & that was the last movie watched when he should have been working. It is never named, but it is one of my favorites; I am sure CoD fans everywhere know this bit of trivia, but it's all I've got. I have a vague recollection of my mother recommending this book to me. She also highly recommended Cold Mountain which I could not read. Ditto Wicked. I DID read Managing Ignatius about Lucky Dogs itself. That was interesting.
That's all I've got.
I am not saying this was a good idea. I was so dripping wet when M****** called while I was making the return trip I was afraid to talk on my cell, so much water was running from my hair I thought I might electrocute myself. A week later, C****** sat on the passenger side of the truck (where the bags of produce had been) & there was still a wet spot. This past weekend I treated the upholstery with AGAIN because that faintly moldy smell just will not go away. In Fladidah, it is unlikely to go completely away until things freeze sometime around Thanksgiving.
All of these trials are preferable to being in the presence of even one hot dog. Which brings us back to: July is National Hot Dog Month. On a completely unrelated note, July is also Bioterrorism /Disaster Education Month. I googled this, hoping to find the official site but found something oh so much better.
What else can I say about hot dogs? Not much, as it happens as I do not eat them, I do not serve them, I live a life generally not-hot dog adjacent. I did read Confederacy of Dunces though. I kind of didn't get it. I mean I could follow the story I just was not clear why anyone would bother. I really only have one memory of anything in particular from the book & that was the last movie watched when he should have been working. It is never named, but it is one of my favorites; I am sure CoD fans everywhere know this bit of trivia, but it's all I've got. I have a vague recollection of my mother recommending this book to me. She also highly recommended Cold Mountain which I could not read. Ditto Wicked. I DID read Managing Ignatius about Lucky Dogs itself. That was interesting.
That's all I've got.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
To kill a blood OR In cold mockingbird
I am one of those that reads To Kill a Mockingbird two or three times a decade. There are legion of us.
This year is, of course, the 50th anniversary of its publication. I say "of course" because I really truly do not know what you do with your time if you managed to miss this. Either that or you live on an atoll (either virtually or actually) with no NPR & no public libraries, in which case I am very sorry for you. Please accept my humblest apologies & consider getting out more.
Every Mockingbird landmark (anniversaries, movies based on the book, plays about the book, the decision by British librarians to list it as more vital reading than the Bible -go librarians!), someone always wanders back to Monroeville, Alabama to ask that slacker Harper Lee when she is going to get around to writing her second book. There are only so many ways a southern woman can say "bite me" or "listen asshole, call me once your first book reaches half that acclaim & ask that question & then I will tell you to BITE ME" so she more or less stopped talking about it in 1964. Can you blame her, really?
I once heard Harper Lee described as a recluse & a modern Emily Dickinson & asked a friend of mine (who teaches Mockingbird year in, year out & still loves it) about that. She said if Emily Dickinson managed to stay in college through that first semester, then went on to law school, lived & worked in NYC for a period, actively sought publication, I think you can see where this is going, only then could Harper Lee be said to be anything like Emily Dickinson. I shared with her one of my favorite quotes (James Thurber, of course) in which Thurber compared himself to Salvador Dali. He said his artwork had as much in common with Dali as on old ukulele in an attic has with a piano in a tree, & even then the piano would have to have breasts. We laughed, we are pretentious literary types & that is the kind of thing we laugh at.
Back to the book: ten or so years ago I thought I should maybe expand a bit & when I felt like reading Mockingbird (& sometimes I just DO) I should try try try to read something else first. The natural choice was Truman Capote who, of course, appears in Mockingbird kinda-sorta (again, if you did not know this I am begging you please rethink your day, maybe even just run your errands in a different order). It took a while but I finally worked my way to In Cold Blood.
I know there was recently a movie made about the writing of In Cold Blood (also called In Cold Blood, not to be confused with the 1967 movie called In Cold Blood based on the book In Cold Blood) which I did not see. I planned to see it, at the theater even but a letter from the Shawn brothers in the New Yorker regarding the characterization of their father, who was Truman Capote's editor at the New Yorker made me decide to read the book first. & I did. & maybe you should, too. Because Harper Lee went from writing To Kill a Mockingbird & expecting it to be quite small, to researching this book with her childhood friend & being quite overwhelmed by the impact of her not-so-small book.
This year is, of course, the 50th anniversary of its publication. I say "of course" because I really truly do not know what you do with your time if you managed to miss this. Either that or you live on an atoll (either virtually or actually) with no NPR & no public libraries, in which case I am very sorry for you. Please accept my humblest apologies & consider getting out more.
Every Mockingbird landmark (anniversaries, movies based on the book, plays about the book, the decision by British librarians to list it as more vital reading than the Bible -go librarians!), someone always wanders back to Monroeville, Alabama to ask that slacker Harper Lee when she is going to get around to writing her second book. There are only so many ways a southern woman can say "bite me" or "listen asshole, call me once your first book reaches half that acclaim & ask that question & then I will tell you to BITE ME" so she more or less stopped talking about it in 1964. Can you blame her, really?
I once heard Harper Lee described as a recluse & a modern Emily Dickinson & asked a friend of mine (who teaches Mockingbird year in, year out & still loves it) about that. She said if Emily Dickinson managed to stay in college through that first semester, then went on to law school, lived & worked in NYC for a period, actively sought publication, I think you can see where this is going, only then could Harper Lee be said to be anything like Emily Dickinson. I shared with her one of my favorite quotes (James Thurber, of course) in which Thurber compared himself to Salvador Dali. He said his artwork had as much in common with Dali as on old ukulele in an attic has with a piano in a tree, & even then the piano would have to have breasts. We laughed, we are pretentious literary types & that is the kind of thing we laugh at.
Back to the book: ten or so years ago I thought I should maybe expand a bit & when I felt like reading Mockingbird (& sometimes I just DO) I should try try try to read something else first. The natural choice was Truman Capote who, of course, appears in Mockingbird kinda-sorta (again, if you did not know this I am begging you please rethink your day, maybe even just run your errands in a different order). It took a while but I finally worked my way to In Cold Blood.
I know there was recently a movie made about the writing of In Cold Blood (also called In Cold Blood, not to be confused with the 1967 movie called In Cold Blood based on the book In Cold Blood) which I did not see. I planned to see it, at the theater even but a letter from the Shawn brothers in the New Yorker regarding the characterization of their father, who was Truman Capote's editor at the New Yorker made me decide to read the book first. & I did. & maybe you should, too. Because Harper Lee went from writing To Kill a Mockingbird & expecting it to be quite small, to researching this book with her childhood friend & being quite overwhelmed by the impact of her not-so-small book.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
If I can't get a man then I'll have to get a parrot
I avoid the commercial saints generally but Saint Valentine is so mangled, mauled & maligned, I cannot resist him. Let's take a look:
There are two Saint Valentines documented for this day, but lots of people believe he was actually just the one person. This is an interesting twist right there as many individual saints are often more than one person, blended together. Man One was imprisoned for giving aid to imprisoned martyrs (that is a hard one to picture; did he break into the jail?). Man Two is less well documented, but mostly had the same name, was also beheaded (on the order of a guy named Placid Furius, no less) & was big with healing prisoners. There is not a whiff of earthly love around either of them. Okay, maybe a whiff. There is an intriguing reference to the jailer's daughter, but it really is just the faintest whiff. As for why just Man One & Man Two, I could not say, there are a dozen or more Valentines in the index.
But lets just settle for these two beheaded priests who ministered to prisoners (not in a prison movie way). The whole romance thing seems to have more to do with pre-christian rituals about the day. That's right, apparently neither Valentine himself is not the reason for the season.
Before christianity was a twinkle in a rabbi's eye, the day recognized now as February 15th was the Festival of Lupercalia, the She-Wolf that nursed Romulus & Remus. Before it was Lupercalia, it was well, something else. Everyone forgot & that is how the She-Wolf got into it. & interestingly, gender-bending type events were part of the festivities even before it was Lupercalia. Now, of course Sadie Hawkins Dances are often held on a near weekend to Saint Valentines Day, although Sadie Hawkins Day is actually in November. Confused yet? It gets better.
It is not just ancient history that muddies the waters, there is also our history. After cards, chocolate, etc. the most famous thing about Saint Valentine's Day is the massacre, which has nothing to do with Saint Valentine's Day. Every american film buff knows at least part of the confusing 1929 story. Or thinks they do. At a minimum it was the driving force for so many famous films, not the least of which was Some Like It Hot, still a high water mark for gender confusion in film.
Another Saint Valentine's Day massacre was the bloody match between Sugar Ray Robinson & Jake La Motta. It was not all that pretty either.
More recently, Saint Valentine's Day has been adopted by feminists (THEM!) as a rallying point for the whole "woman needs man like fish needs bicycle" aesthetic. Which has triggered a "take back the day" movement from...people who want to buy cards...?
Poor Saint Valentine. Look what they've done to his day. Or their day. Or his days. Or, yea I'm done.
//it was only as I was testing the links that I realized the Steeleye Span version does not have the verse that is the title of this post. So here it is.
There are two Saint Valentines documented for this day, but lots of people believe he was actually just the one person. This is an interesting twist right there as many individual saints are often more than one person, blended together. Man One was imprisoned for giving aid to imprisoned martyrs (that is a hard one to picture; did he break into the jail?). Man Two is less well documented, but mostly had the same name, was also beheaded (on the order of a guy named Placid Furius, no less) & was big with healing prisoners. There is not a whiff of earthly love around either of them. Okay, maybe a whiff. There is an intriguing reference to the jailer's daughter, but it really is just the faintest whiff. As for why just Man One & Man Two, I could not say, there are a dozen or more Valentines in the index.
But lets just settle for these two beheaded priests who ministered to prisoners (not in a prison movie way). The whole romance thing seems to have more to do with pre-christian rituals about the day. That's right, apparently neither Valentine himself is not the reason for the season.
Before christianity was a twinkle in a rabbi's eye, the day recognized now as February 15th was the Festival of Lupercalia, the She-Wolf that nursed Romulus & Remus. Before it was Lupercalia, it was well, something else. Everyone forgot & that is how the She-Wolf got into it. & interestingly, gender-bending type events were part of the festivities even before it was Lupercalia. Now, of course Sadie Hawkins Dances are often held on a near weekend to Saint Valentines Day, although Sadie Hawkins Day is actually in November. Confused yet? It gets better.It is not just ancient history that muddies the waters, there is also our history. After cards, chocolate, etc. the most famous thing about Saint Valentine's Day is the massacre, which has nothing to do with Saint Valentine's Day. Every american film buff knows at least part of the confusing 1929 story. Or thinks they do. At a minimum it was the driving force for so many famous films, not the least of which was Some Like It Hot, still a high water mark for gender confusion in film.
Another Saint Valentine's Day massacre was the bloody match between Sugar Ray Robinson & Jake La Motta. It was not all that pretty either.
More recently, Saint Valentine's Day has been adopted by feminists (THEM!) as a rallying point for the whole "woman needs man like fish needs bicycle" aesthetic. Which has triggered a "take back the day" movement from...people who want to buy cards...?
Poor Saint Valentine. Look what they've done to his day. Or their day. Or his days. Or, yea I'm done.
//it was only as I was testing the links that I realized the Steeleye Span version does not have the verse that is the title of this post. So here it is.
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