St. Therese of the Roses

I said some things about the Catholic church in the last post. But I don't want to leave the impression that I'm anti-Catholic, because I'm not by any stretch of the imagination.

I have numerous Catholic books, books by Catholic authors, a stack of holy cards, etc. Some of this stuff I got at garage sales and thrift stores with the idea of selling it on eBay, but being lazy I never got around to it. And some of it I just like.

Like, I like things on Catholic mystics, books, whatever. Or really impressive people, the names of whom are escaping me. People like St. Therese of the Roses, Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. I'm a fan of her.

I have a few different translations of her autobiography, and some other books that I've found around. Plus, a really funky statue that I also got at a garage sale. I say funky because its paint is flaked, it's nicked, her skin is as white as white can be, etc. But it's in my room, setting on a narrow little CD case, and for some mystical reason never seems to get knocked off and broken! Just lucky.

There are lots of things about the Catholic Church that could raise eyebrows and come in for criticism. It's the things that make the headlines and are probably quite removed from the daily spirituality of millions of devoted people. Once you realize the headline stuff isn't the essence, you can actually appreciate the spirituality, the average good person doing his or her best in actual devotion, and the saints, the heritage, for me, especially of the mystical, more individualistic sort.

Really Big Catholic Blog

If you want the inside scoop on the Catholic Church, here's a blog with tons of posts. 634 posts in May, and I think that's quite a few.

The person in charge, Sotto Voce, describes himself as, "Irish RC Priest...Giving The Uncomfortable Truth And News From The Inside..."

As for me -- not being Catholic -- I can go six months without ever giving the Catholic Church the first thought. But once in a while it comes up, like when they denied communion to John Kerry for whatever, but allowed it for Rudy Gulliani. I better stop before I say something nasty about them. But, true, there's all stripes, all mindsets represented, like in any organization.

Saying in that description, "The Uncomfortable Truth," makes it sound like this blog might have some fearlessness and aversion to sugar coating. I haven't read anything. I'm just impressed by the looks and the prolific posting. But I guess we've all heard that Catholics are Pro-Lific.

Skull-A-Day Blog

Wanna see some cool skulls? Check out Skull-A-Day.

Right now there's some bread arranged as a skull, some lettuce cut like one, some cabbage (same concept), rocks in a yard, a skull pretzel, and hands arranged in a design resembling one.

Iconic Books Blog

From Iconic Books Blog intro: "Iconic books are texts revered as objects of power rather than just as words of instruction, information, or insight. In religious and secular rituals around the globe, people carry, show, wave, touch and kiss books and other texts, as well as read them. This blog chronicles such events and activities."

Some of the labels there: amulets, Bible, canon, grimoire, libraries, new books, politics, Quran, relics, scribes, Sikhs, sutras, Torah.

Tommy's Little Box Of Mayhem

I've been looking at some of the "updated blogs" at blogger. It's amazing the number of obvious spam blogs and crap.

But in there also are some good ones, at least that's what I call the more individual ones. Like where there's someone actually at the other end writing something, whether it's earth-shattering or not. It's at least an effort.

Here's one that just got its start today, first post, with a great title, in my opinion, "Tommy's Little Box Of Mayhem." Where exactly Tommy will take it from here, anyone's guess. 17-years-old, lives in Nova Scotia, not a huge fan of high school, and says in his opening, "Let me start off and say that I hate talking about myself... which I guess makes me a bit of a lie since I'm making a blog." It's the introducing of himself that he doesn't like doing. And he ends his first post with this promise: "Whatevs, you'll get to know me eventually."

A Bowl of Noodles

There's a post of a bowl of noodles that made a guy sick. They look so innocent, like a moment of Zen. But the post notes how "ironic" it was that he took time to take a picture of this exact bowl of noodles. To which I would say -- depending on how often he takes pictures of food before eating it -- that is weird. The "bug in the soup" made him sick for the next four days.

I would probably never have a bowl of noodles like that again. Not as a superstition, but because of a lack of appetite. But if you ever have a hangover and want to do something about it, they suggest the "hair of the dog that bit you." So the cure might to eat more noodles. At least, you're showing who's the boss when it comes to food -- you or the bug.

But who am I to talk? I haven't had Pizza Hut taco pizza for 25-30 years because our whole family got sick on it one time. Came home, as I recall, and got totally sick. So ever since, no more. We were at Pizza Hut the other day, for the buffet, and we thought it was a taco pizza just put out -- which would be no go -- but it was something else, so that was OK.

Memorial Day

One of the days for the dead is here. Let's see, the others are Halloween, Veteran's Day (to a certain extent), and what else? I guess that's it. Aren't there like two Veteran's Days, one in November and one some other time?

I always have to remind myself about Memorial Day. It's for all the dead, even though sometimes you see things associated with it having to do with veterans, military dead. I think it started out that, and then the other more generalized dead started begging attention. Now they all get one big service. The veterans over at the courthouse, the other dead tagging along, saying, "Me too."

It's OK being dead, I guess. We who are able to read at the present moment aren't dead, of course. But there was a time when we weren't here. So that probably qualifies as something. Billions of years passed just-like-that, and it was all the same to you. Now you celebrate one year anniversaries, five year anniversaries, and like that. Fortieth anniversary, Fiftieth anniversary, that's where you're in the paper, the man perhaps three feet taller than the woman, or vice versa, and your kids have a big party for you. Then it's over with, a few more years of dribbling and you're dead.

Can you picture your own death? That's an interesting exercise. Going along - huff huff, breathe, cough, spit, rattle, rattle, swab out his mouth, wet his lips, punch the morphine button, oops, need to wait two minutes, how's he doing?, keep your voice down, - no change. Somewhere in there it's psychedelic. "Go to Jesus!" a nurse counsels, not exactly her business.

Dear dad is surrounded by preachers, four preachers at his bedside, and another coming in like a football player. An apostle stops by for a visit, the request is written on a paper, the prayer is offered, the paper is torn and thrown away. The job is done -- no more need to pray -- and dad dies. Just like he should, being so sick.

It's not like you're going to survive anyway, so as you leave this mortal plane, remember, you'll always have Memorial Day!

The Murderous Opposition

There's a phrase you don't hear much in politics anymore, "The loyal opposition." It looks like things got really bad in the Clinton years, with the right wing attributing every evil to President Clinton. There wasn't much "loyal" about this opposition, instead it was about that time that the phrase "the politics of personal destruction" came into common use.

With George W. Bush's administration -- the Anti-Clinton -- we've had eight years of in-your-face opposition. The Democrats have been painted with every broad brush charge, weak on defense, the favorite of the terrorists, and, just in the last couple weeks, as appeasers. Bush, who was to be a uniter not a divider, never had any ability to reach across the aisle, except maybe for a jab or slap. For him bipartisanship always meant "my way or the highway -- with us or against us." Of course it's not true, what they say about the Democrats, because we're all Americans, and at heart we want good things for our country. We all live here, after all. But the advantage that's to be had by this other nonsense, it's too tempting...

Then of course add to this a compliant media, always eager for every fight in a society raised on cowboy shows and half-hour good vs. evil dramas. Whatever it is, there has to be winners and losers, white hats and black hats. With Bush in power, certainly, the media bought into this narrative. So much so, that now it is more common to hear reporting on the "narrative" the opposition creates for the other side than it is the actual issues, what is promised, and what needs to be done. The horse race and the opposition's defining of the other side are what we get. Is there any way that can have a humane outcome, any kind of common good at the heart of it? In practical terms, the answer seems to be no.

So now we have another election year. And decent people on both sides are coincidentally being transformed into cartoon images of themselves, evil caricatures by those on the other side. What happens when we buy into this is that it takes us lower yet. What is happening with Barack Obama's image? He's tagged as a Muslim, as a terrorist sympathizer, as someone with a suspicious middle name(!), as someone who did whatever it was he supposedly did as an eight-year-old together with American dissidents. Anyone with any sense at all knows all this is a crock, but still it's pushed because of the short-term advantages seen in lying.

And now, on top of that, we have these assassination fears (maybe hopes on the part of some.) It's all coinciding with the anniversary of RFK's death in 1968. Hillary makes some comment about why she can't drop out of the race. Whether she had different motives in saying these things than what has been attributed to her, all that is lost in the hysteria, phony or real. The thing is she shouldn't have said it, because of what actually could happen as a result. Before that, Mike Huckabee made an Obama assassination joke at the NRA convention. It was a spur of the moment (meant to be humorous) aside that would've never happened except for the coincidence of a loud noise backstage. But once said, it's said. And what it revealed was that gun violence and Obama are not far from his mind. Then today, Liz Trotta on Fox News, mixing up the names Osama and Obama, then goes on to 'joke' that it would be a positive thing if both could be 'knocked off.' So what's that do for you? Is that the America we want? Everyone who we disagree with killed off so it leaves us standing there alone?

We're reaping what we've sown. One of my criticisms of George W. Bush over the years is that he either doesn't have the mental capacity for it, or he made a conscious choice, not to be the president of all the people. He divided us up into his supporters and everyone else. We saw this in the way he had private rallies and people had to sign loyalty oaths to get in. And anytime there was a time when he could have helped bridge the divide -- with the possible exception of 9/11, which he quickly moved to exploit for political and every other advantage -- he would not do it. National emergencies, foreign policy, the military, maybe even the White House Easter egg hunt, all of had to be exploited for partisan gain, to diminish the other side.

My opinion is that any talk of assassinations ought to be done in a sensible way, as something that is not positive. (It's a measure of how far we've fallen that that even needs to be said.) Maybe something to talk about would be the historic contexts of assassinations and how to prevent them, like if you know someone who is 'off-the-wall,' deranged, and making threats, get them help. But certainly there should be no joking about assassinations, or expressing a desire for them. And anyone on TV -- Fox News, CNN, any network -- who does joke or encourage this kind of terrible thing on our country, should be out of a job immediately and never invited back.

I would like to see Fox News make a public example of Liz Trotta, and have her out immediately. If they would do something positive like that, maybe they could actually lead the way to putting the political life in this country on a higher plane.

It'd be good, I think, to have a "loyal opposition" back.

Why is John McCain So Angry?

This is a fantastic picture. You know, there are people you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Then there are those you wouldn't want to meet at all. John McCain probably fits in the latter category.

You can't say he doesn't have a friendly side. I've heard him in speeches, addressing us as "My friends, friends, friends, friends..." But it would appear those friendly references -- the use of the vocative that is likely more of a tic or ingrained habit than an assurance of true friendship -- might hide a seething, enraged man just waiting to explode. We believe this is the case.

Mount St. Helens, you will recall, is about the same age as John McCain. And it sat there peaceful as could be until one disastrous day it erupted. I believe it's true that there are parts of the state of Washington still today that have not been rediscovered. That is precisely what John McCain's anger would do for America. Look at that picture again. This is a man who either needs anger management or a good stool softener.

There are many things you can say about anger in general. And then as we narrow the focus down to this one man, there are also many things we could say. And all of it would be interesting, perhaps being topics for a good five-star, blue-ribbon psychiatric panel to explore. John McCain is exploring it himself, as this quote from the New York Times today attests: "Last Sunday, [John McCain] invited Mike Murphy, his longtime friend and political adviser, who is not involved in this campaign, to his home in Virginia. There, Mr. Murphy reportedly gave him a detailed and, at times, tough assessment of what Mr. McCain had done wrong. Mr. Murphy urged him to tone down his attacks on Mr. Obama and stop coming across as so angry." [My italics]. But we cannot get into all that today. We shall leave that to Mr. McCain and his team of psychiatrists, allowing him an appropriate degree of privacy, giving him that kindness.

What we want to ask today is "Why?" Why is John McCain so darned angry? Why is he seething with rage? Why, with all the good things of life -- springtime, lullabies, and the continuing respect for America around with world -- is John McCain about to bust a gut with this terrible ire? Why does John McCain have such a short fuse? Why has he been passed from psychiatrist to psychiatrist -- many of whom ended up with black eyes -- and is no longer wanted as a patient? Why do flowers wilt when he is near? These are all good questions.

In answering those questions, we need to plead some ignorance. John McCain has covered up many of the compelling reasons for his fury. These are issues that he knows, and issues that all those who have suffered from his outbursts can only wonder about. We are left to guess, and some of the common reasons for anger come to mind: poor self-esteem, feelings not expressed over time, lack of nurture as a child, toilet training issues, being a prisoner of war, being a pilot shot down every single mission, etc. Does any of this disqualify him from being president? No! If the answer really is something as simple as toilet training issues, they have plenty of restrooms at the White House, and the staff there can point them out to him and what their general use is meant to be.

Aides, rivals, allies, and yes, friends, have tagged John McCain as one of the angriest men on the planet. He literally has been compared to Mt. St. Helens (see above). And we have even speculated that he has a team of psychiatrists (also above)! Could it be that we would be better off looking for someone else to be president? It is worth considering, no matter which party you favor, the Democratic party or the more-angry Republican party.

Just a Slight Resemblance

Not exactly separated at birth. But something in the eyes.

Harmless Vertigo

John McCain gave press access to his medical records, to prove he is healthy enough to be president. There were some worrisome things, but his dermatologist, Dr. Suzanne Connolly said, "We don't have a crystal ball, but we have no way to say anything at the present time would preclude him from running for office." (AP). "At the present time." Parsing that, not at this minute, but get back to me in five minutes and we'll have something.

There's some things in the article about his chances of cancer recurring. And also he's had earwax removed. I want to highlight this interesting sentence: "Though he's known as temperamental, the doctors made a point of repeatedly writing in the documents that McCain was 'pleasant.'" That sounds suspicious. Why would his doctors "[make] a point of repeatedly writing" that their patient was "pleasant"? Does my doctor do that? Or is that a service only for those who are "known as temperamental" and who also have political aspirations? It reminds me of Elaine Benes being "difficult." We'll put that note in your records...repeatedly.

And just one other interesting nugget: "He has occasional momentary episodes of dizziness, when he gets up suddenly. McCain first told a doctor about them in 2000—a visit that also uncovered the melanoma—and intense testing concluded they were harmless vertigo. He didn't report any episodes at his most recent exam." Harmless vertigo. That's a cool phrase. I think of vertigo, and either James Stewart or Mel Brooks spinning around in a swirling vortex thing, like going down the old drain. It's not a reassuring image. Because what if McCain takes us down the vortex drain with him?

It raises the question, How much vertigo should presidents be allowed? He's sitting in the White House with his finger playfully brushing the nuclear button, then a dizzy spell, wham, and the next thing we know we have a mushroom cloud the size of Texas over one of our cities. Condi Rice, for some reason -- nostalgia, perhaps -- comes on TV and says, "No one could have ever imagined this happening." Then President McCain snaps out of it and wonders what did happen. His aides move the button from his desk to its own protective bunker, and we all hold our breath till we're able to declare him incapacitated and swear in his vice president, Joe Lieberman.

So, you tell me, have we really got to the point where the best this country can put forward to be president is an old ailing codger? You're seriously telling me this is all the "greatest country on earth" is capable of? A total moron for eight years, and a dizzy vertigo sufferer for the next four?

A Great Look

I suppose I'm not the first guy who's taken a look at these gals and said, "Wow! That's a great look!" I know I shouldn't have a roving eye, what, with the little lady I'm married to, and our anniversary coming up and all. But you know how it is, you get "the itch." You're on the computer, checking out some of the more unmentionable sites, and you think, "I really could do better."

But how much better could a guy do? I'm probably speaking for a million guys right now, I know it. Because when I look at a photo like this, I say, "That's it!" It's this complete feeling, the realization that I've come to the end of my long journey. Knowing that beauty, endless beauty is in view, overwhelming me. It washes over me in big waves, it's like sensory overload. Stand back, please, give me room...

What a look! The look of grim self-sufficiency on the faces tells you these gals are independent, and know how to take care of business. The buttoned-up plain shirts let you know you're not going to be visiting very many expensive boutiques, just a fabric store once every couple years. Maybe bid on a gunny sack on eBay every six months, nothing major. That hair riding high shows a real strength of character; no one's going to mess around with these chicks! You know, you're in the mood, you go to run your fingers through it, all sexy like, ummm, and you immediately hit a dead end imposed through years of hairspray.

If anyone ever sees their profiles at match.com, please let me know! Until then, I'll just have to dream!

Window Shopping

I went walking. Normally I walk at the fitness center, which is not very interesting. You see the same thing every time, the TV on the machine, or just the window.

But walking downtown is a little more interesting. I did it tonight, and while there did some window shopping. These are stores I don't normally go to. One, I'm not really in the market for whatever they're selling. Two, I hate to get merchants' hopes up by going in, looking around, and leaving without buying something. It's the compassionate side of consumerism, and I'm susceptible to it. Plus, I sometimes suspect they have a little subliminal tape going, which is, "We, the owners of this store, are behind on our rent. We have put all our life savings into this. We've been here five years and haven't made a profit yet. Our children are the butt of jokes because they have holes in their shoes, and because we can't afford to buy them trendy pants that have holes in the knees. You, you alone, are our only hope. Buy something, please. Look around at least. There must be something here you could like, something you could come to need. Plus, we're having a sale. The red tags are on things that are 50% off. We were only making a dime on each one anyway, and now it's a nickel. But it'd be a nickel we don't have now, if only you could find it in your heart to be merciful, please, and buy one, or several."

So, I've got all that running through my mind, and I'd rather stay outside and not endure it. Or do what I did tonight, which is window shop when there's no one there. But even then I'm half thinking they have a video camera, and that they're home watching, wondering why that guy never comes by when we're open. "Is that really too much to ask? We're there 14 hours a day, and this guy chooses to come by at night when obviously we're closed!"

One of the stores I would never go into, yet it was kind of fun looking at their window merchandise was one of the jewelry stores. I'm looking, and, hey, the prices aren't that high. A nice watch with about six dials doing I-don't-know-what-all, but I think one of them must be to tell the time. Some nice necklaces, a string of beads, maybe pearls, some graduation gifts, including one of those nice gold clocks that goes on a desk. I wouldn't want one of those. My desk is never clean enough for that kind of thing.

Another store was the bakery. They had cakes with various designs right in the window. Right where they'd melt. Or maybe they're fake cakes, with real frosting.

All in all, it was a good walk.

Robins

We've got some robins just outside the bedroom window. Somehow without anyone noticing they were able to build a nest just outside the window. We noticed them after there were already four eggs.

I just saw the eggs maybe three days ago, or even two days ago. And yesterday there were two eggs hatched out and today a third. The little baby robins are moving around, almost featherless except for a few little tufts. When the mother and father robins are away they occasionally stretch up and open their mouths very wide. (We don't know which one is the mother and which is the father, but we assume the one spending the most time sitting on them is the mother. But yesterday, in the little bit of time I've been watching them, two adult robins were there tending to things.)

The mother is away for a short while, then comes back and gives them something to eat. She sits on them and gets comfortable for a while. I looked out today and she had her eyes closed, like she was in meditation. I think she noticed me, even though I'm trying to be very slow and deliberate in my movements.

And one other thing, the day before yesterday was a very windy day. Fortunately the nest didn't blow away. There's really no room for error on that little ledge, so we hope they've got it snugged down good and tight.

Mac vs. PC

I want to state this on the record as a true and accurate statement. I have never seen one of those Mac vs. PC commercials in its entirety. In fact I have never seen more than 10 seconds of one.

The very first one there was, of course at that time I had no idea that it was coming on. But as soon as I saw it -- instantly -- I recognized it for what it was going to be. The white, minimal background. The plaintive announcement of who they were. The supposedly trendy looking guy and the more slobular fellow. I immediately flipped the channel 10 seconds or less into it.

And ever since, as soon as I see the first second and can get to the remote that sucker goes off, or if there's no remote, I get my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes, and go "wahahahhahaaahaaaaa!," that, or whatever it takes to avoid seeing one of these commercials. Wow! I hate the concept. I hate everything about it.

So, I'm wondering. Are there any others out there who can say you have never seen one of these ads? Anyone who's only seen one or two? Anyone out there who is actually a fan of the Mac vs. PC commercials?

The Teflon of Rationality

I saw a great phrase, maybe coined by Red Star at DailyKos, maybe not: The Teflon of Rationality, in regard to Obama. Red Star didn't flesh it out in any real way, but posted the video of Obama responding to Bush and McCain's foolish argument that talking with our enemies constitutes appeasement.

Obama was calm, cool, reasoned, and point by point destroyed Bush and McCain's ludicrous charge -- their premise is no good in the first place (as usual), and it is obvious they are simply engaged in partisanship and, in McCain's case at least, it's not what they actually think. In short, Bush and McCain are the same old liars we've come to know and despise at the top of our government, lo, these last seven or eight years.

So Obama gives his response, very rational, very forthcoming, seeming like a guy who is speaking the truth as common sense, what the language of international diplomacy calls for. (McCain's people called this "hysterical diatribe." To which anyone with any rationality would have to stand back and say, "Whaaaaaat?")

So here is this phrase, "The Teflon of Rationality." We're not used to people having Teflon for the right reasons! Someone, jedley, in that DailyKos thread pointed out that Reagan had the Teflon of obliviousness: "you can't ruffle a guy who has no idea what you're talking about but smiles affably just the same." But imagine government that tries to govern by rationality, reason, sense, decent principles, truth. It'd be so different than what the neocons gave us!

To me Teflon means their crap won't stick to you because you are speaking the truth as the rational alternative. And what they're throwing at you are lies, the irrational alternative. Does truth win out? Not on its own. The nation needs to be ready for it. By a bare majority we weren't ready for it in 2004. We hope we are now!

Jedley there seems to think the Teflon has to do with you yourself, the candidate, not being ruffled. I think it's this other quality of the opposition's irrational charges and arguments not sticking to you.

What Is Common Sense?

I saw this at a blog, and thought it was a good question. The most interesting thing about the question is not that someone would ask it, but how you would go about explaining what we take as obvious. It's complicated!

"Common" means something, as in community, communism, comity, complicated, etc., like being-with, being-together, sharing, oneness. So in a way, just like words mean something because of common agreement, so the concepts that are formed and shared mean something, by agreement, but agreement that comes from experience. Even words aren't a matter of "agreement" in the strictest sense but have that element of experience, then we are agreeing. It's what I think of when we consult the dictionary like it's some kind of authority on words: "Who put them in charge?" But it is an authority because we, somewhere along the way, did put them in charge! That's the way it is with experience of facts, concepts, things observed, imagined, predicted, and on and on. It's all gathered together, strictly or loosely.

So just the words "common sense" I think are pretty clear: "sense" is understanding based on teaching and/or experience, and "common" is what is generally observable and seen as more or less true by people in general.

Capote -- Everyone's Friend

I just got done watch this film, DVD, last night. My watching of movies is not done at one sitting (or standing), but happens in 10-minute snippets, or more. When I get near the end I let it go. I'm doing some exercises, though, and so I'm watching during that time, then off till night or morning. I mention all this to make the point that moods, interests, and points of view fluctuate over days. So if you're watching a film, and you're depressed one day, happy the next, so-so the next, in pain for some reason, giddy for some reason, it's like you've watched five or six films instead of one. Meaning that the viewer makes some investment/projection in the film depending on what's going on. So with all that in mind, my review one day was five stars, another four, another three, another one. And not in that order.

I liked the movie for the way it was presented and also for the extra little insights -- hopefully true -- into the writer's life, his interactions in the whole Kansas murder case.

The lead, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, gives a beautiful performance of portraying Truman Capote. Going through my Rolodex, I guess I never knew Truman Capote, but I remember seeing him on TV quite a bit. My own thoughts about him at the time, he was a celebrity on TV whose basic character was one of humor; I remember everyone laughing at him and with him; his higher nasally voice was a characteristic that leaped out. I wasn't a reader so hadn't read anything by him. Truman Capote to me was a generic celebrity who showed up on all these shows, and people laughed at him and with him, and he seemed delightful but weird. That was then, this is now!

In the film, Capote is laboring over his book, In Cold Blood. It requires a lot of research, a lot of visits out to Kansas, a lot of visits with the murderers, mainly Perry Smith. The other guy, Richard Hickock, is more hardened, more detached from caring about it, a lot less introspective or mentally ambitious. But Perry has a whole artistic side, feels like he could be a famous public speaker, artist, writer, whatever. So Capote and Perry get this bond, and Capote tells Harper Lee that it is like they're two people from the same home, except Perry went out the back door and Truman went out the front.

Capote is duplicitous (to use a big word like Perry is always doing) in the story, helping the convicted men essentially to further his own cause, making sure it's a great book. So he's torn between his attraction for the men, mostly Perry, and his own interests, i.e., getting the whole story, then hoping they will be executed posthaste so he can get it finished. But because Perry won't tell the whole story -- holding back for whatever reason, because he has an appeal in the works, etc. -- Truman is wasting a lot of time with him, and they come to a disagreement over that. Truman lies to him several times, doesn't want Perry to know the book's title, doesn't want him to know what progress he's making on the writing, etc. I'm not too sure that's such a great tact to take, but, at least in the portrayal if not in real life (who knows?), Truman is a fine liar.

Anyway, he gets more distraught over the whole thing. He has a downward spiral sequence. Some of this is necessary for the movie, no doubt, man against himself or something. He's out of touch, out of sorts, plodding along, they're holding the phone up to his ear, and I'm dozing off, too. But he rallies -- get me to the gallows on time! -- rallies just in time to get to the prison -- huff huff -- to chat with Perry and Dick. This is interesting. The warden gives him five minutes, and they use up the whole five minutes in chronological time, real-time. But they don't say much, just human emotion. Then we get to it, the actual hanging, the hood, the steps, the last words -- different than what are reported in the book -- and Perry is dead. (Sorry about giving away the ending.)

OK. Is this a good movie? Yes. It definitely takes its time, zeros in, has a very quiet, understated way of presenting the situation, and has lot of good human, soulful interaction sorts of scenes. Truman lives in a couple different worlds, and certainly a different world than Perry except when they're one on one with all that deep eye contact. Truman knows Elizabeth Taylor, publishers, celebrities, has fancy places to go to and fancy things to do. Bon vivant! Man about town! And then he knows this Perry person, as sketched out above.

The movie makes Truman seem tragic at the end. Like he got what he wanted, but it ruined him in some sense. I don't know about that. That might've been necessary for the portrayal. It doesn't seem like it would've been too hard to put Perry in the past and press on to greater victories! But my own sympathy really wasn't for these guys. I can see them at the human level easy enough and sympathize that they had some hard knocks. But the brutal killing of that family would never be far from my mind. And as far as I'm concerned they got what they deserved, just a few years too late.

Good movie. Some memorable violence scenes, the shootings, cutting the throat. A memorable scene of the cotton-shrouded body in the casket. But a lot of this nastier stuff is interjected in quick, less than one second snaps. The essential flow of the movie is slow, deliberate, and insightful, very human.

The Unknown Kurt Weill

I got this CD today and just listened to it, dividing my attention between listening to it and goofing around with the computer. Blogger was having some troubles, so I was back and forth between the help group (not much help in this case), retrying, doing other things, and listening.

It consists of vocals by Teresa Stratas, with a boisterous piano accompaniment. (Usually when I write about CDs, music, movies, books, in short, everything except my own daily activities, I show my ignorance. I admire people who seem to know what they're talking about on these things. But my admiration is tempered by the constant suspicion that they're faking it....) It sounds very theatrical, for which there probably is a verrrrry good reason. That's a heck of a picture on the cover, eh? The way it works with all this stuff, though, is they go for the edgiest picture they can find of whoever, Elvis or Beethoven. This one has that great post-modern appeal.

The compositions on this CD range in date from 1925 to 1944. Most of them are in German. A couple appear to be in French, just going by the titles (I have a hard time distinguishing the words as they're sung.) And thankfully a couple are in English, so let's concentrate on them: Buddy On The Nightshift from 1942 with a co-writer's credit for Oscar Hammerstein II, and Schickelgruber also from 1942 with a co-writer's credit for Howard Dietz.

"Buddy" - Playful tune, pleasant, a buddy working on the assembly line. They work on the opposite shifts, one takes the place of the other and the other goes home to sleep. "Schickelgruber" - A Hitler song, humorous lyrics. Hitler was born a child of sin and has "always been a bastard," even though he changed his name. Great song.

These are the "unknown" songs -- which... hmm, do you know his more well-known songs? Yes, you probably do, so congratulations!

This is a pleasant cultural excursion, the CD. It's not likely going to be one of my all-time favorites. But I can see this kind of music in those times when you just want to escape the everyday grind. Put on something in some language you have no idea what they're saying and let it distract you. But for a time like that it would help if it were a little more mournful. Over and out!

How Great

How great does a first blog post have to be? You think, uhhrrrhrhhhrrr (clearing my throat), it has to be profound. But of course there's no one looking at it. Nobody's coming around. It's Father McKenzie at the grave. A silent scream.

What is that "Scream" picture that's so famous? It was stolen a year ago or so and found again. I was at Goodwill today. Edvard Munch is who it's by. And they had a poster, a mix of the guy from American Gothic and the Scream guy. I don't know that those go together that well or say anything, especially, but it's a way for someone out there to make a buck. It was titled American Scream.

OK, there it is at allposters.com.

P.S. - There seems to be something wrong with Blogger tonight. It took me maybe an hour or so to get this posted. So that's pretty profound!