The Sheila Variations

I'm not naive about dictators

and how nuts and paranoid and out of touch they are, and how crazy it must be living in a closed system. I am not naive about what happens in totalitarian dictatorships while a regime struggles to survive, to crush its enemies, to generate enormous personality cults around its wack-job leader who usually wears Ray-Banz, to justify its existence to a judgmental watching world. I know that such situations have an extremely high (read: 100%) tendency to descend into LOONY TUNES-ville.

And so I am definitely not naive about Zimbabwe's "leader" Robert Mugabe.

But this piece even gave ME pause. I had to read it a couple of times over to make sure I was understanding correctly.

It is delusional and so out of touch that ... it has the quality of light hitting the earth from a star that has been dead for millennia. It's THAT out of touch. It is one of the insanest things I have ever heard.

I picked this up from Mean Mr. Mustard ... who pretty much sums up my response, too:

The one redeeming quality that seems to reliably cut across the entire class of incompetent, genocidal, megalomaniacal African dictators is that, every once in a while, they are almost amusingly insane.

Star Wars - American History: The Metaphor

In this post I wrote long long ago (in blog years, I mean) - called "Random Facts About Me" - I mention reincarnation at one point in connection to a guy I was in love with. You do not have to read the post itself, but I would like you to scroll all the way down (I left comments open) and check out LIBERATOR'S two comments. LIBERATOR showed up randomly and left ... uhm ... 2 very interesting comments.

It has to do with LIBERATOR'S theory that Star Wars is actually an extended metaphor for the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution.

Ahem.

An email game has sprung up at the moment between Emily, Peteb from Slugger, and I (waiting for McCabe to show up) ... and so I thought I would include all of you in the fun.

But go read LIBERATOR'S theory first.

Here are the ideas Emily, Peteb and I are batting about:

King George = Darth Vader? or Benedict Arnold?

Ewoks = where the hell do THEY fit into the metaphor? Emily suggested "the French", and I suggested that then they should be called "L'ewoks." UPDATE: Emily has corrected my spelling. She said that in their native tongue, it would be spelled "l'euoiques".

Other Ideas:

William Pitt as Darth Vader
King George as the Emperor
Arthur Wellesley = Boba Fett

And my personal favorite, from Miss Emily:

Jabba the Hutt = Napoleon

I want to say that, perhaps:

Han Solo = Alexander Hamilton maybe?

Everyone now - go wild. What are your ideas?

Happiness is ...

... hearing my nephew Cashel sing "Happy Birthday" to me over the phone - singing at the TOP of his lungs. Now, he is a little boy, so his voice is a wee little mouse voice - so if you can imagine a wee mouse singing at the top of its lungs, then you will know what I heard on the other end of the line.

"Happy BIRTHDAY Aunteeeeee Sheeeeeeila
HAPPY BIRTHDAY .... TOOOOOO .... YOOOOOU!"

A not-to-miss post from Tim Blair

about the "safety at all costs" current trend of parenting. You don't want to miss the comments. Everyone weighs in. CW - you, especially, need to check it out (what with this post of yours).

The post is about: the risks we took as children in different generations, scraped knees, riding bikes dangerously without helmets, climbing insanely high into trees about to snap ... all of this I did as a child. I'm sure this is a huge generalization that NO children live like that anymore, but judging from what I see around me, kids are much much much more monitored now. Is that a good thing?

I do not regret my wild-haired childhood ... even though I wish the enormous scar on my knee would disappear. I leapt out of a tree, on the playground, in full view of all the teacher's aids ... I was convinced I would fly, and bloody havoc was a result. Sure, the scar is ugly and I'm embarrassed about my left knee ... but do I wish I didn't have that experience? The dangerous experience of being a child who pretty much lived outdoors?

GREAT discussion going on over at Tim's. Go check it out.

Aviation experts? (ahem - CW) ... Help

I read the report on the terrible airplane crash NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and his sons were just in. My heart just aches for the guy. To survive a crash and have your son die in it? WHAT? No, thanks. I can't even imagine what he must be going through, what the older son must be going through - The older son helped his father out of the flaming wreckage, and ... now they can't find the other son, the 14 year old. It's just freakin' AWFUL to contemplate, and I am truly sorry for that family.

I found this paragraph of the article confusing:

Steve McLaughlin of MTJ Air Services, which de-ices private planes at the airport 185 miles southwest of Denver, said the company did not de-ice Ebersol's plane before it took off. Airport Manager Scott Brownlee said de-icing would have been the pilot's decision; he said at least one commercial jet had de-iced before taking off Sunday.

I know nothing about any of this or how this world works, so forgive the ignorance.

It's up to the pilot to decide whether or not to de-ice? Is that only because it was a privately owned chartered jet and they have different rules or something, or more freedom and less regulation? If it were United Airlines or something, then a memo would come down: "EVERYBODY DE-ICE YOUR WINGS TODAY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH"? Is that how it goes?

So this MTJ Air Services is a company that de-ices planes, and their representative is saying that commercial planes HAD de-iced that day ... so obviously it was cold enough or dangerous enough for a commercial airline to call on the services of MTJ?

I suppose they don't even know yet what caused this horrible crash. If the wings were covered with ice then obviously you would have some problems taking off. There was also, apparently, a light snow and fog - but that wouldn't be a highly unusual situation in Colorado, of all places.

Anyway, I just really feel for the agony of that family right now. To have everyone survive but the youngest boy ... a 14 year old ... It just makes me shiver to contemplate.

In addition to all of my other adventures in Ireland ...

... I also had the "obligatory Colin Farrell sighting" in Dublin. (That is literally what it is called here. "So have you had the obligatory Colin Farrell sighting yet?" There is also "the obligatory Bono sighting", etc. But it's great - because the energy around celeb-sightings is very much Irish, and very much New York-ish. Both groups of people see celebs all the time, and so we are singularly unimpressed. "Oh, look, there's Uma!!" "Oh yeah, whatever, I see her at this juice bar all the time." No big deal. There are a couple of stars I might lose my cool for. Cough - Ewan McGregor - cough - Eminem - cough ... Ahem. But normally, it's just not that big a deal to see them wandering about. In Ireland it is the same way - especially with the local Irish celebs)

So I had the obligatory sighting. Down near Grafton Street. He walked right past me. It was a rainy day, he had on a raincoat with the hood up, he was smoking, he looked completely anonymous, like any other passerby, and he was much shorter than I imagined him.

So now I can write home:

-- Saw the Book of Kells
-- Saw the Cliffs of Moher
-- Saw Belfast
-- Saw Colin Farrell

Mission accomplished.

Dear CNN:

I wanted to let you know that I sincerely appreciate the "Breaking News" email I received about Julia Roberts' safe and healthy delivery of twins. Thank you so much.

It was nice to NOT get a Breaking News email about outgoing Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma okaying a new election in order to stave off the crisis in the Ukraine.

It was nice to NOT get a Breaking News email about the nomination of Carlos Gutierrez as the new Secretary of Commerce.

I am very very glad to see that you have your priorities in place.

The Ukrainian presidential crisis? Bah, humbug, whatEVer.

But I have been barely able to sleep or wash myself since Julia Roberts was confined to bed rest.

Sentimentalizing Ireland

Talking with Eamon last night about all kinds of things ... but at one point, we discussed the breed of Irish-Americans who are extraordinarily sentimental about Ireland ... and most of them have never been here. I know the type, and he, as an Irishman, certainly knows the type.

I said, "It's like they wouldn't want to see Ireland as it is now, flourishing and booming ... Their idea of Ireland is old, and sentimental. They would want to visit Ireland only during 1847. They love the famine. They think the famine's GREAT. They would come back now and be seriously disappointed to see Ireland doing so well. Well, the famine and the Troubles. I suppose those are the two things they really care about."

Eamon interjected, "Yes, you are quite right. Although you are missing one other thing in your list. One very important thing. In between the famine and the Troubles, there was one small event ... one small thing ... and that is called The Quiet Man."

I burst into laughter.

Eamon went on, laughing himself, "For those people, it is all about 1847, the Troubles, and The Quiet Man. That movie has done more to stereotype this country than all the other things put together!"

I admitted, shamefacedly, that I did adore that movie. Especially the fight scene that goes on for what feels like HOURS.

Eamon said, "Oh, it's a great movie! Just great! But people come to Ireland expecting that all the Irish women will be ... you know ... Maureen O'Hara throwing pots and pans at them ..."

heh heh heh

Directions in Belfast

So I called Carrie from Dublin to set up when we would arrive in Belfast, and all that. We were going to take a taxi from the station in Belfast to her house, and she gave me a couple of landmarks to give to the driver ... so that we could find our way there. Here is how it went:

Carrie said, "So you go up that main road, and then when you see the mural of the chick with all the guns, you take a right ... and then at your next mural, which is of a bunch of guys with guns, you take a left ..."

"I been away a long time"

(Quick - someone guess which book that "last line" is from!!)

I been away a long time, indeed. I am still away. Too many stories to tell. I am CLOGGED with stories. It is inSANE how many stories I have. (Carrie, that one was for you.)

I have finally met Carrie (of Broom of Anger fame) ... and her husband and scrumptiously cute little girl. They were all generous enough to put us up in Belfast. I still haven't quite processed all of it ... but I first must say: thank you thank you to Carrie et al for your generosity, your kindness, your awesome sight-seeing skills, your tremendous Bloody Marys (which, obviously, I had heard much about), and for - in general - having us into your home. It meant a great deal.

I'll write a bit more about all of that when I have time. We went to Bobby Sands' grave. In the Milltown Cemetery, a place I feel like I know, a place I have heard so much about it, seen pictures of ... it's a place that lives in my imagination, my psyche ... and I finally got to go. It's something else, I'll tell you.

Carrie's daughter, in her adorable little fleece kitten hat, and her fleece mittens, chattered up a storm as we walked up and down the aisle of hunger-strikers' graves ... her wee laugh chiming into the air. One of the famous Bobby Sands quotes is (and forgive me if I get it a bit wrong): "Our revenge will be the laughter of our children." Carrie mentioned to her husband and to us later (and it was quite a moving moment) that the laughter of the wee girl in the cemetery was Sands' dream come true. His revenge. A small girl, in a fleece hat, standing by his grave, laughing. A happy girl.

Oh, and obviously - anyone who follows Irish politics will know that a hell of a lot is going on up in Belfast right now ... everyone waiting for a deal. We went to Sinn Fein headquarters, just to take a look, and there was a BBC truck parked outside, just waiting. Hanging around waiting for a decision. Our taxi driver pointed out Gerry Adams' car. "That's his car - he must be in there right now." Haven't heard anything yet ... I think a decision is still pending ... but it's very much on everyone's minds here.

Not to mention the chaos in the Ukraine right now. That news is on everyone's lips as well.

More to tell, obviously. Just wanted to get a quick note out there.

It's a grey and chilly morning in Dublin ... it's my birthday ... I've got a hot cup of coffee beside me ... Last night I met up with a friend I made in Glendalough ... and we were out until all hours of the night in a hilarious night club with an amazing light show, pounding music which has rendered me half-deaf, and NO ONE DANCING. heh heh heh It was hysterical. Kind of lame, actually. But many great people-watching opportunities. A lot of fun. And the street I'm living on at the moment is lined with gorgeous old Georgian-type houses and black wrought-iron gates ... very very much The Dead kind of atmosphere, if you get my drift. I love it.

I don't want to leave.

I hope everyone in the States had a very happy Thanksgiving. What has been very sweet, and very nice, is the amount of people here who have wished Allison and I a happy Thanksgiving. The second they hear our accents, they know we are from America, and they say, "Oh, and a very happy Thanksgiving to you ..." Why that touches me so much I can't really say, but it does.

At midnight last night, when it became my birthday, I was in a wacko nightclub, sipping whiskey, with my friends, in Ranelagh. Shouts of "Happy Birthday!!" It couldn't have been a better birthday, really. In an unfamiliar setting, but ... feeling quite at home. Happy. That's the word for how I felt. Takes me a while to identify it.

And I walked back to my The Dead look-alike street, and the moon was so full, so white, so over-blown, that it took my breath away.

Glendalough

Now I've been to Glendolough a couple times in my life - maybe 4 times or something like that, and I always say it is one of my favorite places on earth ... and there have been times, stressful times, when I've been slogging my way down 7th Avenue in New York - that I'll take a second and remember Glendolough, and think to myself: "It's out there now. It's out there right now. It exists."

We ended up staying over in the area because it was dark and the prospect of driving out of there through the Wicklow Mountains was rather daunting (although my sisters and I did do just that!). We hung out at the local pub. And of course, made lifelong friends. I have acquired more email addresses on strips of paper than I know what to do with.

But the best part ... the best part of this particular trip to Glendolough ... was that I got to live out a fantasy I have always had. Every time I have gone there before, it's to visit the ruins, like a good tourist does ... see the sights ... and then leave. The place is always packed, filled with people wandering around ... which is not a bad thing, not at all ... but my fantasy has always been to walk through those ruins at night, by myself. To hang out with the gravestones, the old cathedral, the "kitchen", etc. To be alone with the place.

And once the pub closed, I did just that. There was a wind storm going on, it was a wet and windy night, the air filled with the roar of wind, and the clattering of the full stream nearby. There were spectacular stars. Glendalough is in a valley, with brown wooded mountains rising steeply on either side. You are in a gap, a deep trough in the hills. The wind races between the mountains like a ravening ghost. It was indeed a bit creepy ... to stroll amongst the graveyard alone, at 1 a.m. - and I need to take some time with myself to be able to describe it.

I feel that, in Glendalough, I am confronted with a mystery of some kind. The place doesn't give up all its secrets. Ever. Not in the daylight, certainly not, but even less so in the middle of the night.

There were moments when I could not tell what century I was in. It certainly was not a modern century ... it was in the late 5th century, when Christianity was close to its pagan roots. The place has a fierceness to it - which I had sensed in my other visits there, you can't get away from it, but the fierceness came out full throttle in the middle of the night, when I was there on myh lonesome. The high Celtic crosses shadowed in the black, the silhouette of the tower off to my right rising up into the sky. And it gave me a very weird feeling - I'm telling you, I haven't quite found the words yet. The best way I can describe it is that I was in the presence of Mystery itself. It also felt like this had to be holy ground ... it is a holy place. Not just because of St. Kevin and all that ... It feels like it was a holy place before St. Kevin even arrived. He just recognized what was already there.

I probably sound goofy and all that ... but it was one of the most primal powerful experiences of my life, walking in the pitch black - the PITCH BLACK - amongst the enormous tilting gravestones, gravestones which are covered with white lichen - so they glimmer oddly in the pale moonlight ... the shadowed silhouettes of these ancient stone buildings all around me ... the graves, the stream, the crumbling stones ...

I was almost in tears when I went back to my room. I didn't know what it was that I sensed. Something very powerful, something fierce, something ... almost UN-holy. It's a ferocious place - and I've only seen it surrounded by other tourists and visitors. Regardless, even if you see it then, in the daylight, during visiting hours, it is a very very special place.

But at one in the morning, by yourself, surrounded by the stone ruins, the gravestones, the moonlight and the roaring sounds of rushing water ... it is like a different place altogether.

I will never forget it in all my life.

The snow is general

Walking home last night ... it began to snow. Big wet sticky flakes filling the air, a heavy soft snowfall. I know I'm a geek, but I thought of Jimmy Joyce. "The snow is general all over Ireland." An odd thing ... nobody expected it ... it had been a bit of a chilly grey day, but not snow-chilly. And then there it was - a heavy snow falling through the night.

It was just beautiful.

And this is a message for my sisters:

This afternoon I am going to watch some rugby on television at Kielys in Donnybrook. You'll know the place of which I speak - it will live on in memory forever:

-- "Well, to be perfectly honest with you ... it's more like the trapezoid of Kerry."

-- "Fat man in a little coat ... fat man in a little co-oat..."

-- "So you guys lost the match, huh." "Oh no, we won." A stunned pause. Then - "It was a moral victory."

-- "My name's Sean ... and this is my friend Sean, and over here is a good friend of mine - Sean ..."

It'll be hilarious to be in that joint again.

Ireland

... where you fly into Dublin Airport over the greenest of green fields (quite a difference from the industrial wasteland surrounding JFK)

... where Grafton Street is, at the moment, a mania of commerce and white lights and pricey clothes and street performers

... where the security guard at the door of the Trinity College library is a humorist along the likes of Mark Twain - you could have talked and laughed with that guy for hours

... where you sit in the toasty warm clatter of Bewley's, having the best cup of coffee you have ever had ... thinking of James Joyce. You always think of James Joyce when you go to Bewley's

... where the skies are grey, the air chill and soft

... where you realize just how much Ugg boots have completely taken over the world

... where you can bond with other Robbie Williams fans in a way you cannot in the States ... where you go to a pub with a live singer (who reminds you of Ewan McGregor in the most alarming way) doing Oasis, and the Beatles ... and Robbie Williams. The entire place erupted into song and you were a part of it. You sang at the top of your lungs. "And through it ALL ... she offers me proTECtion ... a lot of love and affection ..."

... where the Book of Kells lurks ... in all its mysterious unearthly beauty ... suggestive of a long history, of religious faith hidden under stone ... of deep dark blues, swirls of gold ... There it is, on display, but there is only so much you can know about it.

... where every child looks good enough to eat. Freckled, pudgy, bright red cheeks .... encased in snow suits, so fat that they literally cannot move their arms

... where every corner is filled with chattering smoking teenage schoolgirls in plaid skirts, all of them on their cell phones (probably to each other!)

... where you stay in a B&B in Ranelagh - in a garret room. Enormous, sprawling, a wardrobe that reminds you of Narnia ... a skylight ... rain on the skylight ...

... where you go out for a pint, end up making friends with 3 guys from Yorkshire, who you then end up spending 5 hours with ... pub-crawling ... and then you take a drunken cab ride home at 3 in the morning ... wondering: "Who the hell were those guys we just hung out with?"

... where you have a brief conversation with a guy, and during that conversation, he says to you, "You bastards have brought political correctness to the rest of the world" ... and where you reply: "Jesus, man, I know. And I humbly apologize."

... where it's all about having pints and listening to live music

... where you hear from one of the Yorkshiremen that you, yourself, are a perfect "Lad-ette". Meaning: "one of the boys ... a chick that can hang out with the boys." Where you are then referred to as "Lad-ette" for the rest of the evening. Where you know that this is the ultimate compliment.

... where you wake up really early, despite the fact that you cavorted with Yorkshiremen until 3 in the morning, and you curl up in a chair by the window in your garret room, and read Underworld

... where the high heels of women clack on the cobblestones of Temple Bar

... where I see the face of my future husband in the face of every guy I meet

Overheard

On the street. A couple of people standing and talking. Vehemently. Having a great time - obviously great friends.

As I walked by, I overheard one of the women say in an indignant tone: "Are you crazy??? It was like the best 70's trucker movie EVER!"

And now I am tormented.

Which movie do you think she was talking about? So much to choose from.

A thank you is in order

... to the anonymous person (at least anonymous - in that I cannot send him a private "thank you" email - and his name is unfamiliar to me) who sent me Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon - which I have never read (ducking from whatever Emily is throwing at my head right now).

I am THRILLED - to have a copy now. THRILLED and I will dig in right away (well, after I finish Underworld).

To you out there ... whoever you are ... thank you so much for reading my blog, and taking the time to send me a little something. It does mean the world to me ... and I hope you read this.

One clue as to who he is ... It was because of this post I wrote a while back (one I am quite proud of) about Laurette Taylor - an almost-forgotten stage actress who created the role of Amanda in the first production of Glass Menagerie. Anyone who saw that landmark production went away from it forever changed. Her acting is STILL talked about by those who saw her perform.

And yet ... Laurette Taylor ... the name has vanished a bit into the mists of history ...

However - this gentleman had read that post, and was touched by the fact that someone else out there was "carrying the torch" for Laurette.

It's always hurt me a bit that she is not more remembered (even though I never saw the woman act in my life - she died in the 1940s) ... and so I wrote that post. Beautifully, I continue to get emails from people about it, people thanking me for writing about this woman, thanking me for sharing their passion for her .... "Laurette Taylor" shows up on my Google search logs on a weekly basis.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I feel like singing with joy about all of that. Her reputation as an artist is important to me ... She was one of those people who propelled the art to a new level, much as Brando did, or Eleanora Duse.

Regardless, I'm rambling. I've been up since 5 am. I'm leaving tonight. ARRRRGH. I'm losing it!!!

Just wanted to say to my fellow Laurette-Taylor-admirer, who was kind of enough to send me Darkness at Noon: Thank you! It's been on my "must-read-this-book-one-day" list for about 6 years ... and it's coming across the Atlantic with me tonight. I'll read it on the plane.

Thank you so much.

(If you're interested, I've written a couple other posts about this great American actress. Here they are:

Tennessee Williams - that "nice little guy" (This post is a book excerpt describing the first night Glass Menagerie was ever done - an ice-encrusted night in Chicago)

Glass Menagerie, continued (This post describes when the play returned to Broadway ... Laurette Taylor's triumphant return to Broadway after years of obscurity. She died the following year.)

And lastly - the one I most treasure - an essay about acting, written by Laurette Taylor, called "The Quality Most Needed"

Long live the memory of Laurette.

More information on Iris Chang

An in-depth look at Iris Chang, author of "The Rape of Nanking" who killed herself last week. Weird - I don't know Iris Chang, never met the woman, but I felt a strange pain in my heart when I heard she took her own life, and I feel that pain right now. Here's my original post about her - a ton of people left comments.

The article I link to in this post describes how she uncovered the tale of horror which ended up being The Rape of Nanking.

She was relentless. She was unforgiving (because why should one forgive if the perpetrators of the crime won't even admit that it happened?)

I just feel a pain in my heart, imagining her own despair, and realizing that she killed herself.

It sucks, is basically what I'm trying to say.

Somehow ...

I find this to be hopeful news. Polar Express was supposed to kick some serious box-office butt, and it hasn't yet. The Incredibles has completely dominated the scene.

But the article itself is very interesting - especially in light of the fact that, except for the Lord of the Rings movies ... (and maybe I'm missing some other examples) - big honking "blockbuster" movies have pretty much tanked over the past year.

Troy? Please. So much money poured into that thing ... Yuck. The spectacles might have been cool ... but ...

It didn't seem to matter. They built it. People did not come. At least not to the degree that was expected.

What did people flock to? Lost in Translation. Napoleon Dynamite. Eternal Sunshine. I mean - these were movies made for probably very little money (or at least way less than the huge epic blockbusters) ... and they were able to make some pretty enormous profits, score some Oscar nominations, yadda yadda.

The article I linked to above is filled with studio-wonks worrying about Polar Express. The risks inherent in making such an expensive movie is that it MUST be a hit. When it is not, there is a lot of "soul"-searching. (Had to put that word in scare-quotes there!!)

I think this is hopeful.

Lord of the Rings kicked some major arse - not because katrillions of dollars were spent on it - although that sure helped. It kicked arse because of the story, the dedication of the actors, the general good quality of the acting ... and also, in my opinion, those movies came out at the right time. Post-Sept. 11 anxiety ... found its perfect expression in that extended metaphor. At least that's how I saw it. People found comfort in those movies, solace. They found ways to articulate themselves. It illuminated certain truths.

This is NOT because the budgets of those films were so gargantuan.

I was psyched when Troy was a flop.

I'll probably go see Alexander - only because I'm an Alexander the Great freak, and also a Colin Farrell freak.

But I am always thrilled when some tiny movie with a tiny budget is suddenly a giant player in that competitive box-office world. I like that. It seems just.

The audiences are smarter than those "soul"-searching studio-wonks might think.

Bullet points

-- Underworld by Don DeLillio isn't just good. It's scary-good. I can't even describe my response to this guy's prose. It's beyond good. It's not pretentious, or lofty - On the contrary. It is weighty with emotion, with heart. His writing is beyond good.

-- This is one of the most amusing photos I've seen in a long while. She just looks ... completely insane. Like .. what? Uhm ... you are a LUNATIC.

-- An entire article devoted to why the murder trial of Robert Blake is NOT the trial of the century. How boring - to have it be your job to analyze this. It seems self-evident. It also seems disgusting. A woman is dead, for God's sake.

-- Slowly making my way through Eminem's latest. Haven't listened to the whole thing yet - but I just want to give him a huge kiss for sampling my favorite Heart song: "Crazy On You". Brilliant.

-- I am very excited to see the movie Kinsey, for multiple reasons. One is that I have always been a big Liam Neeson fan. The guy's a great actor - and advance word about his role in this is that it is some of his best work yet. I am also excited to see it because I hope the film is a hit, and I would like to contribute to its being a hit. Why do I feel invested in its success? Because - it is my hope that every ticket bought for this film will make some "moral-values" type lose sleep. They're all up in arms about this movie, predictably, informing all of us how bad Kinsey was, lecturing all of us about how he contributed to the downfall of our society. Or whatever it is they're saying. I love it when those "moral values" idiots get their panties in a wad. But I mostly love it when I get to contribute to their discomfort. The movie is probably GREAT if they're whining so loudly about it. And even if it SUCKS, I'm going to rave about how awesome it is. Just to piss them off.

-- The writing for this book review is laugh-out-loud funny. I can't excerpt it, because of my blushing-flower persona, but I'm tellin' ya. I guffawed over here reading the line about Karl Marx. Heh heh heh

-- Back to Eminem now. "Mockingbird" is a really touching song. "Just Lose It" is hilarious. One of those call-to-dance songs - like "Without Me" was. A bar could be DEAD, and someone would put on "Without Me", and suddenly everyone's bopping around in their seats. I'm remembering a certain dead evening at The Ocean Mist, in particular. A freezing wintry night on the beach. People drinking quietly, talking, etc. We put on "Without Me", and all hell broke loose. As I recall, a disco ball even began to spin about randomly. In a dingy fisherman's bar of all places. But it seemed appropriate. Old fuddy-duddies would dance to "Without Me" - they would not be able to help themselves - and "Just Lose It" is the "Without Me" of this new album.

Update: I just realized that this entire post would probably seem like one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the "moral values" crowd. A harbinger of doom and universal destruction. Didn't realize it until I saw it all put together.

It was quite unconscious, I assure you. Seems rather amusing, actually. Eminem? Kinsey? A review of a book teaching orgasm-technique? That Sheila is such a HUSSY! What is this world coming to????? I can hear the galloping hooves now ...

Stalag 17

So yes. I rented Ball of Fire last night. An addict must have her fix.

But I also rented another old-time favorite of mine: Stalag 17, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Bill Holden.

What a strange movie. A comedy set in a German prison camp? Well, yes. That's what it is. But, like with all of Wilder's movies, he doesn't sacrifice HEART in order to get the comedy.

All those guys in the barracks are real people, distinct, troublesome, funny, sad ... There are moments of sentiment, moments of joy, of reflection, of violence ... How on EARTH did Billy Wilder achieve the correct tone throughout the movie? I don't know how he did it, but he did.

Holden won an Oscar for his portrayal of Sgt. Sefton - the loner of the POW camp, the cynic, the black marketeer. Everyone in the barracks thinks he must be the "stoolie", must be telling the "Krauts" their escape plans, etc ... He does little to dispel their doubts. He thinks they're idiots to suspect him, and he thinks it would be beneath him to protest his innocence to such a bunch of boneheads. He's in this war to the end, and he's in it for himself. He uses the system, he barters for privileges, he doesn't care.

And yet ... as the movie goes on, as the stakes get higher, and suspicion about Sefton's spying grows, and he is more and more ostracized ... something changes. It's very subtle - and this is a tribute to the great script, and also to Holden's wonderful acting. Sefton doesn't suddenly alter his spots. He doesn't suddenly do some good and altruistic deed that redeems him. No. At the end of the movie, he is just as much of an opportunist as he is at the beginning. I mean, think of his last line, peeking his head back up through the hole in the floor of his barracks: "If we ever see each other again on the street ... let's just pretend we don't know each other." It's kind of cold, and gruff - not one drop of sentiment ... he disappears, but then - he re-appears, to throw everyone a crazy devil-may-care grin. Which makes the hardness of the other line disappear in a flash ... and then he is gone.

If you've seen the movie, you'll know how strangely moving that last moment is.

Holden is fantastic. Look at his face here.

(Sorry about the sucky quality of the photos)

William Holden has a moment (anyone remember it?) where he suddenly, and spontaneously, slaps someone across the face three times in a row. Whap, whap, whap. Because the character of Sefton is so seemingly careless, he sits back, he smokes his cigars, he remains above it all, he doesn't get involved in the barracks' constant escape-plans, he waits it out ... But then, when push comes to shove, when the suspicion against him comes to a head, when he is attacked in the night by his barracks-mates, and they beat him to a pulp - he has had it. The one-two-three slap is terrifying, because it comes out of nowhere, and it looks REAL. Those are no stage slaps. They are real. The violence in the slaps is still a bit held-back - Sefton doesn't punch the guy in the nose. No, he has more contempt for his enemy than that. He won't punch the guy in the stomach. He will slap his enemy across the face, treating him like the sissy-girl that he is. It's contemptuous.

Sefton is who he is. He's a black marketeer. But at the end of the movie, you realize: damn, this guy is actually a freakin' hero.

As probably everyone who has seen this movie knows, it was the inspiration for Hogan's Heroes.

This was Billy Wilder's favorite of all his movies. He said once that Sgt. Sefton was the closest "alter ego" of himself that he ever put on screen. He said years later, before his death, that Sgt. Sefton, of all the characters he ever created, was the one he "loved" the most. Part of it had to do with his deep love for William Holden. He thought Holden was the best actor he had ever worked with (well, maybe not - I think maybe Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution was Wilder's favorite performance ... He thought that guy was a genius) ... but of all of the actors Wilder worked with, he was closest to Bill Holden. He loved him. They were dear friends.

And Sgt. Sefton, with his standpoint of: This war is about the survival-of-the-fittest-and-the-wiliest was Billy Wilder's "alter ego". After all, Wilder lost most of his family in Auschwitz. Wilder knew that survival was not about being altruistic. The one with the most virtue would never win.

It was about being clever. Smarter than everyone else. Having contempt for your enemies. Not fear. No. If your enemies are stupid, have contempt for them. Use the system. Shamelessly. Have no shame. Sit back. Let people say what they want. It doesn't matter, because in the end, you know you are smarter.

William Holden, as Sgt. Sefton, is the perfect embodiment of that attitude.

And yet - let's not forget - the heart. Sgt. Sefton, it turns out, has a bigger heart than all of the others. It's just that he keeps it hidden. Because you can't have a big open heart in the middle of a war. Look at what happens to people who stay open like that ... "Joey" - the guy in the barracks who has obviously lost his mind, and can no longer speak, and can only play his piccolo. You can't keep your damn heart on your sleeve.

HAVE your heart. But PROTECT it. Protect it as though your life depends on it. HOVER over your own heart as though it is the most precious diamond in the world. Don't let just ANYBODY in there!!

Because the world will not protect your heart. The world is set up to kill you. To destroy you. To shatter your heart. It is YOUR job to protect that precious rare thing inside of you - your soul, your warmth, compassion, your "self" ... whatever you want to call it. You have GOT to protect yourself. Have your walls up, have your guard up, at all times ... but do not let your heart calcify inside.

To me, this is the Billy Wilder persona.

And according to Wilder, William Holden was the only actor who really "got" all of that, who could "do" it, like nobody's business, who could do it without thinking. Because that was kind of who Holden was.

If you haven't seen it - I highly recommend it.

I love it that of all the movies Wilder directed, all the classics, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Some Like it Hot ... and on and on and on ... this one was his favorite.

It's obvious why.

(More of my thoughts on Bill Holden here, if you're interested.)

Another book award brou-haha

A very enjoyable rant in The New York Times about the 5 latest nominees for the National Book Award.

I love literary brou-hahas, even if I haven't read the books being argued about.

Caryn James is getting a lot of crap for writing that piece. (More on this over at Book Slut). She's being called a "misogynist". Yawn. Gimme a break. She is trying to say something about the award itself, the nomination process, etc. It's a very interesting article. I haven't read any of these 5 books, and I don't think I will - not really my cup of tea ... but I think James is brave, to call to attention the short-story fetish in today's novels ... the lack of scope, the lack of words on the page (I love her line: "There's such a tyranny of white space in these already-short books that a chapter running a few pages feels like "War and Peace."")

And the last line of the piece is great. To my taste, you could insert "John Irving" in place of "Philip Roth" (and probably a couple of other names too) and get the same idea.

I know such awards are essentially meaningless, to some extent, and who cares about a literary dust-up anyway ... But what is interesting to me is the analysis of what is going on right now in the world of fiction, what James sees as disturbing trends, her analysis of what is wrong about today's hit books, and also what is wrong with the entire Award process.

Good stuff. (Good times, good times.)

"Success is my only motherf***in' option - Failure's not"

Huge article about Eminem in the latest Vanity Fair (which I was unaware is now online ... since when did Vanity Fair put their stuff online?)

His CD release date was moved up to November 12 (and I still haven't gotten the damn thing) to stem piracy.

It's a very revealing article.

"I had made an [independent] album called Infinite, and on that you can hear the pain and the woes of just growing up and being poor and having a baby on the way. Obviously, I was young and influenced by other artists, and I got feedback that I was influenced by Nas and AZ, another rapper who was down with Nas at the time, and I got the feedback that I sounded like them. And to me, this is my life, everything that I stand for, and it was crushing. It was the same as losing a battle. If people don't like your music and this is what you plan-or want to do with your life-you gotta make a change. So, I started taking all the feedback and started throwing it back in my music: "Yeah, I am white trash, I am whatever you're gonna say about me." Somehow, started taking the disadvantages and used them to my advantage. I reached a point where I stopped caring what people thought about me. And the second I stopped caring, people started caring about me. So, I figured out how to flip it. As soon as I did that, it became ... "He's selling so many records because he's white." And I remember there was a time when I couldn't get a record deal, or get looked at, because I was white."

And the second I stopped caring, people started caring about me.

Damn. That's such a true thing - you can see it in pretty much any star that hits it huge. There's a part of them that just doesn't care. They do their thing, they express themselves the way they see fit ... because it is THAT that made them a star.

I like this, too - something he says over and over again, in his music and in interviews:

This is adult music, and, yeah, it has that appeal where kids are going to like it, but that's where parents should step in and be a parent. Watch what your kids are listening to, because I do the same thing with my kids.

The lyrics in one of his songs, dedicated to his daughter Hailie: "I wouldn't let Hailie listen to me neither..."

I also think it's very interesting that no matter what happens, no matter how much success he has, he still will always be "the underdog". There are many who want him to fail, but there are many many more who stand back, in awe, waiting to see what this dude will do next. But because of his skin color, he will always be the underdog.

What also sets him apart from his other hip-hop compatriots is his absolute disinterest in what ya might call "the bling-bling lifestyle". He could not care less. He's richer than God, but he doesn't live his life that way. He lives in Detroit, a couple blocks from where he grew up, in a house he bought just as he started making a bit of money. It's not lavish. It's a basic house. He "volunteers" in his neighborhood, he's on committees to keep the streets safe and clean, he helps out in his daughter's class, he's known as "Mr. Mathers". I think that's hilarious. But it seems that - what this guy is addicted to is WORK. And maybe working OUT. (See the photo below. Ahem.)

But that's it. You never see pictures of him out and about town, you never see him out in public, he never goes anywhere. He hangs out at his house, raises his daughter, makes his music.

Must run out now and buy "Encore". What the hell am I waiting for...

"The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it"

Sylvia Plath killed herself in February, 1963. In the months previous, her writer's block had vanished with a ferocity that frightened her friends - Was this manic episode the precursor to some huge crash? In those last months before she died, she wrote sometimes 3 poems a day. And these weren't crappy poems, these were arresting terrifying works - works that made her name, works that are now taught in English classes across the land. Some are sheer genius. If you read them in order (the way Ted Hughes placed them in the original version of the book Ariel - published after her death) - you feel her marching towards that oven. You feel her, in poem after poem, dig deeper and deeper into her psychic despair. Plath, recently separated from Hughes, her husband, had their two children in her flat with her, and because of her maternal duties, the only time she had to write was at night, or in the hours before dawn. She would sit up, at 3 am, 4 am, and churn out such poems as "Daddy", "Lady Lazarus", "Ariel", "Contusion", "The Munich Mannequins" ... and many many more. These are great poems. Each poem went through multiple drafts, too - so the pace at which she worked must have been extraordinary.

Before she died, she collected all of these frightening poems into a binder, and left express instructions of the ORDER in which they were to appear when published. (This was explained in the Introduction to her Collected Poems, compiled by Ted Hughes). Ted Hughes, however, felt that it would be better to put them in chronological order. And so they were.

And that is the version of Ariel that was published, that was read feverishly and picked apart, that was held up as a pure work of suicidal art, etc.

Hughes has suffered enough. His decision to re-order the poems has been criticized by shrill ninnies who can't stand the man, and who hold him responsible for everything that went wrong in Sylvia's life. They would hold him responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. Ted Hughes is evil incarnate to these cultish Plath wackos.

Anyway, all of this is just a preface.

Thank you, peteb, for sending me the following news - Ariel is now being re-issued, in the order Sylvia Plath suggested. Plath liked HER order because the first word of the volume would be "love" and the last volume would be "spring". To HER, the volume of poems was a redemptive story, a story of hope (which is hard to believe, when you read these poems all in one sitting - it's one of the bleakest most upsetting books I have ever read) - But that's neither here nor there. To Plath, she was hopeful that she was starting up a new and good life without Hughes, that she would be entering "spring" again.

Frieda Hughes, Sylvia and Ted's daughter, now a grown woman, has written an incredible article about this re-issuing of her mother's book - and she beautifully defends her father from the Sylvia Suicide-Cult crowd who thought he was Satan Incarnate. Beautiful. I felt like cheering.

Criticism of my father was even levelled at his ownership of my mother's copyright, which fell to him on her death and which he used to directly benefit my brother and me. Through the legacy of her poetry my mother still cared for us, and it was strange to me that anyone would wish it otherwise.

After my mother's suicide and the publication of Ariel, many cruel things were written about my father that bore no resemblance to the man who quietly and lovingly (if a little strictly and being sometimes fallible) brought me up - later with the help of my stepmother. All the time, he kept alive the memory of the mother who had left me, so I felt as if she were watching over me, a constant presence in my life.

It appeared to me that my father's editing of Ariel was seen to "interfere" with the sanctity of my mother's suicide, as if, like some deity, everything associated with her must be enshrined and preserved as miraculous. For me, as her daughter, everything associated with her was miraculous, but that was because my father made it appear so, even playing me a record of my mother reading her poetry so I could hear her voice again. It was many years before I discovered my mother had a ferocious temper and a jealous streak, in contrast to my father's more temperate and optimistic nature, and that she had on two occasions destroyed my father's work, once by ripping it up and once by burning it. I'd been aghast that my perfect image of her, attached to my last memories, was so unbalanced. But my mother, inasmuch as she was an exceptional poet, was also a human being and I found comfort in restoring the balance; it made sense of her for me. The outbursts were the exception, not the rule. Life at home was generally quiet, and my parents' relationship was hardworking and companionable. However, as her daughter, I needed to know the truth of my mother 's nature - as I did my father's - since it was to help me understand my own.

Wow. I read Ted Hughes' book of poems The Birthday Letters - published just before his death. In that book he broke his long long silence about Sylvia - and addresses her in all but two of those poems. It is an extraordinary book. To anyone who thought he was the bogey-man of poetry, and the eeeeeeevil misogynist who ruined Sylvia Plath's life, that book should have been a harsh reminder that we can never know the truth about what goes on between two people behind closed doors.

I love Sylvia Plath's poetry. I find it disappointing that her suicide has overshadowed her art. Her work is so deep, so exciting, that I keep going back to it - at different points through my life, and I always see new things. Sometimes I read her stuff and feel filled with rage, other times I go back and I see her humor, or I am just awed at her sheer verbal skill. Her early poems are stiff, self-conscious, and pretentious. I can feel her checking her Thesaurus every other word. She's showing off, she's stiff, she's coy, she's a prodigy. They're boring. If you only read them, you would have no idea the POWER that this woman had. And when she let her hair down, woah did she let her hair down.

Nobody expected it of her. The "Ariel" poems were a terrifying revelation to all.

I love Ted Hughes' poetry too. I have always thought he got a raw deal.

I have my Hughes-version of Ariel. Of course I do. I've had it since high school. I can recite most of the poems therein by heart.

"The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it ..."

"Stasis in darkness"

and my personal favorite line:

"the blue pour of tor and distances".

I mean, you just MUST say that out loud. It's stunning language! "The blue pour of tor and distances ..."

But I will definitely be getting this new edition of Ariel. It seems only right.

And so the books can sit side by side on my shelf - his version, and hers.

Because what really matters is the words. Her language. The poems themselves. THEY are what compel me.

It's nice to hear from Frieda Hughes. I often think about those two children, and what became of them.

Why I love my friend David

... or one of the reasons:

He lets me drunkenly explain to him the intricacies of the Second Constitutional Congress and doesn't appear to get bored or annoyed. On the contrary, he appears to egg me on. He appears to appreciate it, and appreciate me. I blab on, I have hand gestures, I get excited, I leap around in chronology ...

"And so then ... James Madison ... who had been kind of Jefferson's protege and stuff ... so anyway, THEN ... Madison hooks up with Hamilton and Jay ... to kind of put forth the arguments of the Constitution to the public ... But then later..."

I mean, that's pretty much what goes on.

So yes. I babbled at my friend David last night about the Second Constitutional Congress, at a bar in Hoboken. The Second Constitutional Congress babble then morphed into a discussion about the Federalist Papers. # 10 in particular. Which then morphed into a discussion about John Adams' notorious "sedition act". Which then somehow morphed into a discussion about Foulke's underhanded throw to first base - the throw that changed ALL OF OUR LIVES. Which then morphed into a discussion about the forgotten genius of William Holden. Somehow ... all of this came directly from the Second Constitutional Congress. All good things do, I suppose.

Thank you, David. For being a good friend, a good listener, great company.

And for David and I?

All conversations lead to Foulke's underhand toss to first base. No matter where we start out ... that is still where we always end up.

Confession

I could watch Ball of Fire, starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck every day and not get tired of it. I think I might rent it tonight. I am embarrassed. I am afraid the video-clerk will judge me. Again? Didn't she just rent this one??

This is similar to the Notorious frenzy I went through a while back. I finally just bought a damn copy of Notorious because it was getting too shameful to rent it every other day.

I must succumb, shame or no shame.

I have to see Ball of Fire again.

It ALWAYS is funny to me, no matter how many times I have seen it.

-- "14 watercolors ..." (said by one of the old professors in a tone of slow bewilderment)

-- A knock comes at the door. The professors flutter about. "It's 2 in the morning! Who could that be!" And Henry Travers (better known as "Clarence" in It's a Wonderful Life) - who plays one of the professors - interjects: "Oh, that might be the statistics on San Salvadoran saltpeter."

It is such a RIDICULOUS line, and he says it SO SERIOUSLY - I guffaw every time I see it. I can feel the intelligent wit of Billy Wilder (who wrote the screenplay) sparkling through that. "Okay, so what will this professor be studying ... that will make this moment funny ..." Ah yes, of course, he is waiting for the statistics on Sal Salvadoran saltpeter.

-- Barbara Stanwyck is deliciously good.

-- And a bumbling cerebral Gary Cooper is BEYOND sexy. Like ... he's so sexy that it is almost not fair. The cliche of the big hunky guy playing a repressed geek (Cary Grant trademarked this - but Cooper ain't no slouch at it) When he asks her, almost inaudibly, if she could "yum" him one more time... He's too shy to even say "kiss". I mean, I find him disturbingly sexy.

It's ridiculous.

And so enjoyable.

-- Help.

New book

Today I started Underworld by Don DeLillo. I've read some of his earlier stuff - White Noise, etc. But this book seems to far surpass his others, in terms of its scope.

The opening scene is riveting. A Giants game. 1951. A little black kid leaps over the turnstiles. Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, and J. Edgar Hoover are in the stands. They appear to be characters in the book. We go through the game, play by play. But there are other events afoot ... the little black kid hides in the stands, he really wanted to see the game, he is afraid of being busted ... Because of his "crime", and because the only other black person around appears to be a peanut-vendor, he feels that his blackness radiates out from him.

But it's really how Don DeLillo paints the scene that gives it its scope ... It's odd - he just tells about night baseball games or people getting off subways - and he makes it seem like he is describing some universal truth.

For example, this is the third paragraph of the book:

Longing on a large scale is what makes history. This is just a kid with a local yearning but he is part of an assembling crowd, anonymous thousands off the buses and trains, people in narrow columns tramping over the swing bridge above the river, and even if they are not a migration or a revolution, some vast shaking of the soul, they bring with them the body heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the unseen something that haunts the day -- men in fedoras and sailors on shore leave, the stray tumble of their thoughts, going to a game.

And here is his description of a night-game:

The arc lights come on, catching Cotter by surprise, causing a shift in the way he feels, in the freshness of his escapade, the airy flash of doing it and not getting caught. The day is different now, grave and threatened, rain-hurried, and he watches Mays standing in center field looking banty in all that space, completely kid-size, and he wonders how the guy can make those throws he makes, whirl and sling, with power. He likes looking at the field under lights even if he has to worry about rain and even if it's only afternoon and the full effect is not the same as in a night game when the field and the players seem completely separate from the night around them. He has been to one night game in his life, coming down from the bluff with his oldest brother and walking into a bowl of painted light. He thought there was an unknown energy flaring down out of the light towers, some intenser working of the earth, and it isolated the players and the grass and the chalk-rolled lines from anything he'd ever seen or imagined. They had the glow of first-time things.

Now, excuse me, but that is some damn fine writing.

"The glow of first-time things" ... to describe a baseball field under the lights.

I'm excited to delve in. I love books with SCOPE.

Here is how the sickness works

-- I could not care less about Scott Peterson. I think it was decided at a Court TV company meeting: "We need a huge case ... our ratings are sinking ..." and that one came along, and boom. Now we have to hear about it every single day. I don't care about it. I am sorry for Laci, I'm sorry for the unborn child, I'm sorry for her parents, but I don't care about the trial.

-- If and when I DO think about the trial, I am sure that Scott Peterson killed her. Er ... I don't know, when a guy dyes his hair and tries to flee to Mexico carrying $10,000 in cash in his pocket ... it's a bit of a clue that he might not be on the level.

-- HOWEVER - here is the sickness:

I mean it when I say I do not care about that man. I do not care about the juror dismissed because of such and such and so and so. I do not care about the talking-legal-heads on the television, yammering on and on and on, so PSYCHED that this poor woman was murdered, because it means their jobs are secure. I do not care about Amber Frey. I do not care, Sam I am.

-- But: the media bombardment has been so out of control, so IN MY F***ING FACE (for example: I did not receive a "CNN Breaking News" email about the death of Arafat, but I DID receive a CNN Breaking News email about the juror being dismissed from the Peterson case - I think I need to discontinue that service, what do you think??) Anyway - I have been unable (despite all of my efforts) to tune out Scott Peterson's sorry life. It doesn't matter that I have apathy towards him, it doesn't matter that I have interest in SO MANY OTHER THINGS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW ... Against my will, I have been informed about Scott Peterson.

-- And so when I just saw the news that the jury had reached a verdict, and it would be announced at 4 pm today, I felt an involuntary jolt of excitement and anticipation.

-- This is a sickness.

-- I did not ask to be involved in Scott Peterson's life. I have RESISTED the pull of the case. I do not follow it. And yet - all along - information has still somehow filtered through. This is what is extraordinary to me. Even more extraordinary because I don't have a television. And STILL - I am aware of the bare bones of what is going on in that case.

-- I resent it.

-- And yet still. I am excited to hear the verdict at 4 p.m.

-- I wish I wasn't excited. By being excited, I feel like the media has won.

-- Only 40 more minutes ...

I don't know what the hell to do

I finished Brothers Karamazov last night.

I stretched it out as long as I could. Normally, I read apocalyptically fast. And so it was unnatural, to only read a couple pages a day, but I forced myself.

The book unfolds like a grand mystery.

When you get right down to it, it is a court-room drama. You've got the witnesses for the prosecution, you watch them build their case, you hear the conversations of the spectators ... then the defense puts up ITS case ...

You hear the speech of the prosecutor - the speech of the defense lawyer.

And because it's Dostoevsky - both of these speeches are panoramas of polar opposites. Dostoevsky was all about opposites. We hear about "parricide" - what on earth is Russia coming to when children murder their own fathers? Where is the soul of Russia? Where is their moral compass?? But then we hear the other side of the argument: Just because someone beget someone else in a moment of passion, doesn't mean that he deserves the name "father". The moment of having sex with someone is long past ... how about the "father" who shuns his responsibilities, who doesn't feed his kids, clothe them, give them guidance ... Does that person also deserve to be called "father"? And what kind of society is Russia that it keeps creating these monster-fathers?

Dostoevsky gives BOTH sides equal time. Brilliant man, that one.

I became convinced by both sides. I read the speech of the prosecutor and was completely on his side. It made me think, it made me reflect ... It was all so well-put, so argued. Then I read the speech of the defense lawyer and had to re-think my position. Because that, too, was so well-put, so passionately argued.

Dostoevsky does not let you be comfortable, in a nice neat little black and white world.

Obviously, he believes that there is something purifying in suffering. Without suffering, a man cannot really join the human race. You can only have compassion if you, too, have suffered. This is the fire Dmitri MUST go through. Come hell or high water - Dmitri MUST suffer - because it is only through suffering and sacrifice and pain will he be able to give up his former selfishness and violence - and join the ranks of good and honest men.

That's where Dostoevsky's genius lies, in my opinion. And why, too, he was so controversial (and probably still is).

The universe he creates in his books is indeed a moral universe. There is a God. There is a right and there is a wrong. Yes. HOWEVER - all of that is meaningless if you do not dip into your own wrong-ness, if you do not experience your own capacity for sin, if you do not indulge the dark side.

Ivan. The brother Ivan. The torment he experiences is because of this. He is the one, the only brother, who pretty much straddles both sides. Alyosha is a good person. He sees the darkness, he knows darkness exists, but he always chooses the lit path. Dmitri is the opposite. He is appetite run riot. He lives in a world where all the dark stuff and vices are given complete freedom. He sees the light, he knows that light exists, but he always chooses the darkened path.

But Ivan? The brother who represents the intellect, the thinking man?

He is the one who truly suffers.

He is the one who ends up being unable to tell what is real and what is not. He wants so badly to believe in God, he is terrified by the darkness, by night, by the devil ... It drives him mad. He almost dies from it.

This is the price you must pay for being a thinking man, a rational logical man.

It is a tremendous book. There are a couple of digressive chapters which I fully resented while I read them. Ie: Jesus, why do I care about Father Zossima's 30 page long death-bed advice? Also: What the heck do I care about the little consumptive boy?

But at the end ... it becomes clear. It becomes clear why those chapters were there in the first place.

And so there is a huge payoff.

The last chapter is so FULL of emotion, so JOYOUS, so ... redemptive.

That's what I mostly remember about the ending of Crime and Punishment, too. I was moved to tears by the fact that Dostoevsky, of course, had to have Raskolnikov punished ... Raskolnikov had to pay for what he did ... BUT ... at the end ... you get the sense that through paying for his crime, through suffering so deeply, through intense guilt, etc. ... Raskolnikov is going to get better. Raskolnikov will no longer live a life of cynical isolation and distance from his fellow human beings. He has joined their ranks.

For some people (like Alyosha Karamazov) - joining the ranks of humanity, and having compassion for others, is easy. It is the only logical thing to do.

But to others ... like Raskolnikov, like Dmitri Karamazov ... it is NOT so easy. It takes tremendous suffering to come out on the other side.

I'm very sad I finished the book. I knew as I was reading it that it was one of those "epochal" reading-experiences.

More upheaval in Holland

-- in the wake of the murder of Theo Van Gogh.

Things are spiralling out of control. Violence, attacks, counterattacks - Holland, famously the most tolerant and open of European countries, now (according to a recent poll) hope that Muslims "no longer feel at home" in Holland. Holland is saying this. Radical Muslims, massing in Holland, have no interest in partaking of that open tolerant society - except to use its very openness to punish and kill the infidels who DARE to criticize them.

This is exactly what Theo Van Gogh was warning against (in his 11-minute film Submission.)

Being murdered so brutally in broad daylight proves his own point.

If these Islamic fundamentalists refuse to assimilate, if they want to impose sharia on Holland, for God's sake, if they are so freakin' sensitive that they can't possibly bear an 11-minute criticism about their violent treatment of women from an infidel, and need to MURDER the man who made the film - then it's time to deport them.

Holland is in big trouble right now. Or - the trouble has been growing, silently, exponentially, over the last couple of years ... and now it's in the open. Now they're realizing: Shit, we have let this go too far ... These people are killing us ... killing our free and open society ... killing an ARTIST (very important in Holland - they cherish free speech) ...

And now it's here. The cat's out of the bag, the monster's out of the closet.

RIP, Iris Chang "The Woman Who Wouldn't Forget"

I read this news this morning and felt very sad about it. Iris Chang, basically a wunderkind journalist and author, who wrote the international bestseller The Rape of Nanking (a horrific and very important book - if you haven't read it) was found dead on Tuesday morning of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Damn.

She was younger than I am. She has a 2 year old son. She had recently been hospitalized for depression, but the hospitalization did nothing to help her. The depression continued. It must have gotten too much to bear.

A very important voice, she had. Read The Rape of Nanking. It's a hard book to get through. There's one photo included which I found almost too painful to contemplate. I have tears in my eyes right now. But still - it's a must-read. Iris Chang was called "The Woman Who Wouldn't Forget".

Here is her website if you would like to read more about this extraordinary young woman.

Thank you for your books, Miss Chang. You will be missed.

Well, ya learn something new every day

Or, at least hopefully you do, otherwise what is the point of life?

Read CW's latest. It's about ancient crystal skulls. I have never heard of them, I know nothing about them, I am an idiot, I did not see the BBC documentary ... No idea about any of this.

It's fascinating.

A fantasy came true last night

And best of all - nobody got hurt!

It was 2 a.m. and I was just drifting off to sleep when I was jolted awake by the shrill beeping of a smoke alarm. It was so loud that I was sure it was in my own apartment (which is pretty small) - so I got out of bed, staggered around in the darkness, blind for a moment ... got the glasses on ... turned on lights ... and realized that it WASN'T in my apartment, it was out in the hall.

The thing was LOUD, man.

I normally sleep so deeply that you have to shout directly into my ear to get me up.

But this alarm pierced through.

So I go out into the hallway. It is 2 am. The smoke alarm is BLARING. But there is no smell of smoke, or anything burning.

Others throughout the building were also woken up by the smoke alarm (everyone except the super who basically HID IN HIS APARTMENT). We had all been woken up. We all stood around, wondering what to do. We were all in our pajamas.

I went down into the cellar to see if anything was burning ... nothing. I knocked on the door of the super's apartment. No answer. I knew he was in there!

The noise was deafening. People were milling about, talking, laughing. I met people I had never met before.

We decided, after having a pajama-clad conference, that we should call 911.

So I went back into my apartment and called 911. Gave the address, told them it wasn't an emergency, but there was a smoke alarm going off, and it should be checked out.

2 cops showed up in, no lie, 5 minutes. They had called the fire department.

The super still had not shown his face.

I stood in the lobby, chatting with the cops. I was in my pajamas, with my crazy sleepy hair, and my chunky glasses, and my slippers. Somehow, we started talking about Eminem's new album, and how psyched we were for it. We became dear friends in about 25 seconds.

But here comes the fantasy part.

Within 10 minutes, 2 fire trucks pulled up, and we were then OVERRUN WITH FIREMEN. Firemen were IN MY APARTMENT, firemen were tramping up and down the stairwells, firemen were going down into the basement, firemen were checking the fuse boxes, firemen were calling up and down the stairs to each other ... They were in their black firemen gear with the neon stripes, they had the hats, the axes ... there were probably 15 of them.

I have never had so much fun in my entire life.

I was in my pajamas.

But I was in my glory.

I showed the firemen around. I showed them the problematic smoke alarm. I openly bitched about the super. I let them into my apartment. Since this obviously wasn't a burning building or any kind of life-threatening moment, the firemen were pretty chilled out.

One of them, as we stood in my apartment, and they checked out my smoke alarm, suddenly looked up from his work and said, "Who here is wearing 'Sierra'?"

Heh heh heh I'm still laughing about that. I was standing there, the only girl, standing there with five firemen and he has to ask who is wearing Sierra?

I said, "God, I'm sorry. It's obviously me. Is it too strong?"

"Oh, no, no. Are you kiddin' me? I love 'Sierra'! It brings back great memories ..." It felt like he could have launched into some nostalgic monologue about 'Sierra' and what it meant to him.

And yet he was a guy IN FULL FIREMAN GEAR, STANDING ON A CHAIR IN MY HALLWAY.

I felt like I suddenly had 15 boyfriends.

There were so many firemen that many of them didn't have much to do. So a couple of the tenants stood outside in the freezing night, shooting the breeze with them.

It wasn't until later that I realized the humor of the whole thing. The pajama part of the escapade. I mean, it's not every day that someone sees me in my pajamas. And there I was, out on my street, talking and laughing with three firemen, and NEVER EVEN THINKING: "Hm. I am in my pajamas."

The "battalion chief" was there - a big beefy guy - and he took care of things. They located the issue (a faulty smoke alarm ... this took about 20 minutes of fiddling to figure out what the problem was) - they took down the name of the super - they told us everything would be fine, but to let the landlord know such and such ...

And then ... just as quickly as they had arrived ... they all tromped away.

I miss them already.

A TOTAL firemen fantasy came true. And nobody got hurt.

I couldn't go to sleep after they left, because I kept remembering them stomping through my tiny rooms, seeming HUGE in their hats and jackets and boots and Oxygen tanks ... I couldn't believe 5 of those guys could even fit in my teeny kitchen. But there they had all been. Staring up at my smoke alarm, taking it apart.

And the "Sierra" bonding moment is still such a crack-up.

"Who here is wearing Sierra?"

I'll be living on that whole adventure for a good couple of days, I'll tell you that.

Un-guessed quote # 6 - This has now been guessed

Update: This is from James Agee's amazing collaboration with Walker Evans "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

Here is this one.

The clue I gave for this one is BRILLIANT, I have to say. I am QUITE proud of it. And if you don't get it from the clue, I don't know how to help you.

Un-guessed quote # 5 - This has now been guessed

Update: It's been guessed. It is "The Sportswriter" by Richard Ford. I highly recommend his work. The sequel to "THe Sportswriter" was "Independence Day", another great book.

Here is this one. Not one guess yet.

Like I said: this author writes beautifully, sensitively, about being a man, what it means to be a man in this day and age. He's a contemporary writer, very successful.

The book this quote is from is first of a two-book series about this one character. If I say to you: "Bill Simmons" - that will give you a clue as to the title of this book.

The SECOND book, with a great title, describes how the character becomes a real estate agent. It's all about this guy's life, his divorce, his love affairs, what it means to be a man ...

The author can WRITE, man. There are certain sentences that just stick in your mind.

Un-guessed quote # 4

Here is this one.
Basically, what we have come to is that this is a short story by Truman Capote - which is (or was) in the junior high school literature curriculum.

It involves a group of kids in a little Southern town (of course) - and there's a girl who comes to town who (if I recall correctly) is very different, and bossy - and I believe she wears tap shoes, and thinks she is going to be a film star. The narrator of the story is a small boy with fairy tendencies (naturally).

And it ends with this weird little girl getting run over by the 6 o'clock bus.

Un-guessed quote # 3 - This has been guessed

Update: This has now been guessed. "War and Peace", by Tolstoy.

Here it is.

My clue is bad for this one. All I could say was : WHAT A BOOK.

The title of this book describes its all-encompassing nature. The title describes polar opposites.

Un-guessed quote # 2 - This has now been guessed

Update: This is from "The Butcher Boy" by Patrick McCabe

Here's another one - No one has even made a guess yet.

Un-guessed quote # 1 - This has been guessed!

Update: Emily has saved the day like I knew she would - although all the guesses were terrific. It is "The Thief's Journal" by Jean Genet.

Emily: Really, you must come in and put everyone out of their guessing misery.

They are SO close to the correct title ... but they still haven't gotten it.

Here's the un-guessed quote.

Left-over quotes

First off: every single person who showed up yesterday and participated - with guesses (correct, incorrect, way off the mark, whatever) - has my deepest thanks. You all are fantastic. It made me feel so good, so wonderful - to have so many people come visit my insane obsessive autistic blog - and also to feel surrounded, for an entire day, by people who read, who love books, and who were racking their brains for answers.

It was a beautiful day for me, and I thank you ALL!!

There are still some un-guessed ones, but I will isolate them all into their own posts, so you can have another crack at them.

Unbelievably, there aren't that many left!! We got most of them!

The Last Line Guessing Game

Unfurling below you are the last lines of five trillion books.

Now before you dash off like lunatics:

-- Some of these are very famous short stories, or novellas.

-- Some are memoirs.

-- But most are novels.

Go.

Last line

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Last line

He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.

Last line

And out again, upon the unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

Last line

I am haunted by waters.

Last line

Believe me, I'd like to listen, but it doesn't work, because if I'm quiet and serious, everyone thinks I'm putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I'm not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can't keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I'd like to be and what I could be if ... if only there were no other people in the world.

Last line

Send me word that he has come back.

Last line

'Tis.

Last line

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

Last line

None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.

Last line

Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it.

Last line

No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.

Last line

But I know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was seen; and that they can very well do without much beauty in me -- even supposing --

Last line

It was among the ruins of the Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twenty years of my life, and which, however inadequate to my own wishes, I finally deliver to the curiosity and candour of the public.

Last line

Even the mature historian's privilege of setting forth conversations of which he knows only the gist is one that I have availed myself of hardly at all.

Last line

The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

Last line

He bowed low, right down to the ground, in front of the man sitting there motionless, whose smile reminded him of everything that he had ever loved in his life, of everything that had ever been of value and holy in his life.

Last line

Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.

Last line

"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinston screamed, and then they were upon her.

Last line

"John Thomas says good night to Lady Jane, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart."

Last line

The broken flower drooped over Ben's fist and his eyes were empty and blue and serene again as cornice and facade flowed smoothly once more from left to right, post and tree, window and doorway and signboard each in its ordered place.

Last line

P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.

Last line

"After all, tomorrow is another day."

Last line

The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.

Last line

In the second volume of this Journal, which will be called Morals Charge, I intend to report, describe and comment upon the festivals of an inner prison that I discover within me after going through the region of myself which I have called Spain.

Last line

They build their own cages, we could almost hear the Pigman whisper, as he took his children with him.

Last line

I swell the longer upon this subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable, and therefore I here entreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to appear in my sight.

Last line

He loved Big Brother.

Last line

Charlotte was both.

Last line

Which do you think it was?

Last line

And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.

Last line

Ha! ha! ha!

Last line

Out of this universal feast of death, out of this extremity of fever, kindling the rain-washed evening sky to a fiery glow, may it be that Love one day shall mount?

Last line

The cannons of his adversary were thundering in the tattered morning when the Majesty of England drew himself up to meet the future with a peaceful heart.

Last line

He told me what he was going to do when he won his money then I said it was time to go tracking in the mountains, so off we went, counting our footprints in the snow, him with his bony arse clicking and me with the tears streaming down my face.

Last line

African hut or whatever, I hope Holly has, too.

Last line

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

Last line

" 'God's in His heaven, all's right with the world,' " whispered Anne softly.

Last line

"Daily he announces more distinctly, -- 'Surely I come quickly;' and hourly I more eagerly respond, -- 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!' "

Last line

In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an unreal mobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel; in the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not conscious.

Last line

Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt. Amen

Last line

Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of Howard Roark.

Last line

But the horses didn't want it -- they swerved apart; the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices, "No, not yet," and the sky said, "No, not there."

Last line

It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.

Last line

It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.

Last line

When those who found this skeleton attempted to disengage it from that which it held in its grasp it crumbled to dust.

Last line

For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

Last line

"Like a dog!" he said: it was if the shame of it must outlive him.

Last line

Kirpal's left hand swoops down and catches the dropped fork an inch from the floor and gently passes it into the fingers of his daughter, a wrinkle at the edge of his eyes behind his spectacles.

Last line

He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.

Last line

When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.

Last line

And all that cal.

Last line

Now everybody ---

Last line

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

Last line

-- But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.

Last line

Then, starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.

Last line

But everywhere he was kindly received, for the story of his life had become generally known.

Last line

Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate; -- and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that the sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.

Last line

Quickly and slowly.

Last line

A way a lone a last a loved a long the

Last line

I feel that they do watch and guide, and I also feel that they join me in the hope that this story of our people can help alleviate the legacies of the fact that preponderantly the histories have been written by the winners.

Last line

But all these things, with an account how 300 Caribees came and invaded them, and ruin'd their plantations, and how they fought with that whole number twice, and were at first defeated, and three of them kill'd; but at last a storm destroying their enemies' canoes, they famish'd or destroy'd almost all the rest, and renew'd and recover'd the possession of their plantation, and still liv'd upon the island; all these things, with some very surprizing incidents in some new adventures of my own, for ten years more, I may perhaps give a farther account of hereafter.

I just think that is so hilarious, how it keeps going on and on and on ...

Last line

That is when the six o'clock bus ran over her.

Last line

The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.

Last line

And in truth, of course, this may be the last time that you will ever feel this way again.

Last line

Some day it may seem worth while to take up the story of the younger ones again and see what sort of men and women they turned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not to reveal any of that part of their lives at present.

Last line

Taking the pigtail in one of his paws, he pressed it warmly to his wet moustache.

Last line

May His grace and peace, sweet ladies, remain with you always, and if perchance these stories should bring you any profit, remember me.

Last line

To Nurse Edna, who was in love, and to Nurse Angela, who wasn't (but who had in her wisdom named both Homer Wells and Fuzzy Stone), there was no fault to be found in the hearts of either Dr. Stone or Dr. Larch, who were -- if there ever were -- Princes of Maine, Kings of New England.

God, that gives me chills.

Last line

"Oh my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!"

Last line

The eyes and the faces all turned themselves toward me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room.

Last line

South-south-west, south, south-east, east ...

Last line

I shall keep asking you.

Last line

"-- Will you tell us about the other worlds out among the stars -- the other kinds of men, the other lives?"

Last line

Are there any questions?

Last line

And Harry K. Thaw, having obtained his release from the insane asylum, marched annually at Newport in the Armistice Day Parade.

Last line

And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers -- shriveled now, and brown and flat and brittle -- to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man.

Last line

"For mumblety-peg, if that's where your heart lies."

Last line

Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the perseons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.

Last line

"They say he missed that whore."

Last line

At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel.

Last line

But I keep pedaling, I keep pedaling ...

Last line

Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood where the first prim roses were beginning to bloom.

Last line

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Last line

When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.

Last line

"There's no point in us standing here like bookends, my dear," Aurora said, and they turned and went to attend to the children and the men.

Last line

"My darling," said Valentine, "the count just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words: Wait and hope."

Last line

"Thank goodness!" said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco jar.

Last line

The old man was dreaming about the lions.

Last line

Our talk drained rather quickly off into silence and we lay thinking, analyzing, remembering, in the human artist's sense praying, chiefly over matters of the present and of that immediate past which was a part of the present; and each of these matters had in that time the extreme clearness, and edge, and honor, which I shall now try to give you; until at length we too fell asleep.

Last line

For some minutes, before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, she just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling.

Last line

"I shall still get angry with my coachman Ivan, I shall still argue and express my thoughts inopportunely; there will still be a wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife, and I shall still blame her for my own fears and shall regret it; I shall still be unable to understand with my reason why I am praying, and I shall continue to pray -- but my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, every moment of it, is no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an incontestable meaning of goodness, with which I have the power to invest it."

Last line

But they never learned what it was that Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which had to do, for there was a gust of wind, and they were gone.

Last line

Fortunate country, that is one day to receive hearts like Alexandra's into its bosom, to give them out again in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the shining eyes of youth!

Last line

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

Last line

I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

Last line

The hills gently girdle it about; its course is fixed.

Last line

Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the food-providers and fire-providers.

Last line

Bolt us to the hood of your traveling machine and take us on the road again -

With love
Olympia Binewski
(Known as McGurk)

One of only three books where I literally burst into tears when it ended. The others were Prayer For Owen Meany, and Atonement - by Ian McEwan

Last line

April 27 Old father, old artificier, stand me now and ever in good stead.

Last line

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.

Last line

I can't tell you why I do it or what it means, but each night when I drive toward my southern home and my southern life, I whisper these words: "Lowenstein, Lowenstein."

Last line

His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

The greatest last line ever written. Don't argue. At least not on THIS blog.

Last line

And strangest of all is it to hold my wife's hand again, and to think that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.

Last line (so obvious, but it's too good not to post)

It bore a device, a herald's wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:

"ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES."

Last line

And Carlson said, "Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin' those two guys?"

Last line

"CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!"

Last line

That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

Last line

And I finally began like this: When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home ...

Last line

And it was as though he had said: Everything has begun.

Last line

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Chills, I tell ya, CHILLS

Last line

At last I get to say down towards our world, "The war is over."

Mitchell, dear, I posted this one for you.

Last line

But over the old man's head they looked at each other and smiled.

Last line

She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.

(One of the most memorable and heart-rending last scenes I have ever read in a novel, EVER)

Last line

He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

Last line

I been there before.

Last line

I been away a long time.

My obsession with WHY THE HELL RENEE ZELLWEGER IS A SUCCESS

I find Renee Zellwegger ikky. There is something about her that makes me nuts. Like, she makes my scalp itch. I have moments where I think: If I ever see her puckered-up apple-doll smile again, I feel like my head is going to explode.

I am truly baffled by her success. Her success seems to be an industry-creation, rather than something organic.

By that I mean: The industry anointed her as "she will be the big star for the next couple of years and will get nominated for Oscards left and right" ... as opposed to the PUBLIC deciding: "I love that girl - who is SHE? Let's see more of her!"

To me, it's almost like a scent - the difference in those two kinds of success. The "industry" hopes that we will be fooled. Like: Let's put Gretchen Mol on the cover of "Vanity Fair" ... and see if it takes off! (Does anyone remember Gretchen Mol being on the cover of "Vanity Fair"? It was years ago, 10 years ago or something? The title was: "GRETCHEN MOL. HOLLYWOOD'S NEW 'IT' GIRL". She had done 2 semi-successful indie movies, or something ... and yet - there was the title - she's the new thing!! Gretchen Mol is still working - but in that case, the spin didn't work. Nobody bought the lie.)

This is obviously a matter of personal taste, but I can list a bunch of people that I think have that artificial kind of success. The studios decide to push them to the foreground, or they have excellent publicists, or whatever. Renee Zellweger has always struck me as that kind of success. Not that she is completely talent-less, but ... to get the kinds of roles she's getting? To be pretty much above criticism over the last couple of years? I don't get it. Is there anyone who is an actual Renee Zellweger FAN, who can explain it to me? I've never met one. I've never met someone who said, "My favorite actress is Renee Zellweger" - so I have no idea.

Now somebody like Julia Roberts - whether or not you like her acting - undeniably had the kind of organic success I described originally. Nobody was planning on "Pretty Woman" being a huge hit. She didn't even do publicity for it. She had already moved on to her next job. She wasn't being pampered for stardom, or primed, or pushed into the limelight (the way Gwyneth was with the Miramax boys. Again, I'm not saying that Gwyneth is without talent. But with the power of Miramax behind her, her burst of stardom felt more like an industry coronation rather than a spontaneous brush-fire.)

Julia Roberts' success was a spontaneous brush-fire. People went NUTS over this girl. THEY decided she was a star, and then the studios had to play catch-up. ("Oh yeah, oh yeah, isn't she great? Yeah ... we always knew she'd be a big star ... yeah, we meant to do this ... we knew it all along.") But in the end - the studios had nothing to do with what happened there. She was just a young working actress, and the public went APESHIT, and demanded: MORE OF HER, MORE OF HER.

(Very very rare, that kind of success. Marilyn Monroe had it, a couple others.)

Julia Roberts, busy filming Sleeping with the Enemy, down in North Carolina or somewhere like that, was unaware of how much money Pretty Woman made in its opening weekend, and also was unaware of the kind of manic insanely positive press she was getting. She was just trying to do her next movie, trying to do a good job - unaware that her fortunes had just changed, and the one in a million event had just happened to her: she had become a massive movie star pretty much overnight.

I don't care if you put Renee Zellweger on 20 Vanity Fair covers - I don't care how much the industry tells me how great she is - I don't care how many reviewers seem to unquestioningly believe that she is a great actress - I don't see it. I DON'T GET IT.

I feel like they've just read her press packet and bought the spin.

It's not like I thrash about in bed at night, wondering at this phenomenon ... but it does occur to me sometimes when I walk by a magazine stand and see her smirking apple-doll face on the cover of 5 magazines.

I'm sick of her, frankly.

I have liked her performances before. I love "Jerry Maguire" - but it's really the performances AROUND her that I love (especially the sublime Bonnie Hunt, who plays her sister). I liked "Chicago" (sort of) - but I have to be honest: I truly do not know what the fucking big deal was about that movie. The response to it was as though Rob Marshall had ... made another "Citizen Kane" or something - I thought the "OH MY GOD, HAVE YOU SEEN CHICAGO" response was baffling. "Yeah, man, I saw it ... and ... so?" I thought Catherine Zeta-Jones alone deserved the hoop-la. I didn't think Renee, or Queen Latifah, or Richard Gere did.

I don't talk much about my own experiences with acting here - It's hard to write about my own acting and not feel self-conscious about it - but I'll just say this:

Renee Zellweger reminds me of the chick in EVERY class - who has a bunch of bad acting habits - but who plays the game so well that she fools even the teacher. And so the bad habits become applauded, engrained, and solidified. And you just keep hoping that someday, someday, someone will tell the TRUTH to this person.

There was a chick like that in my graduate program (I'm telling you - there's a chick like that in every acting class. She skates by on some facile ability - but it's all on the surface. She is deeply dishonest on some level, and she can't bear criticism because it will crash the house of cards she has erected for herself) ... it wasn't until the third year when someone FINALLY had the guts to try to crack the edifice with this girl in my class, and try to actually say, "Listen, sweetheart, your acting isn't perfect, okay? You have a lot of work to do ..."

By this point, though, this girl I refer to had been coddled and lied to so much about her talent that she was literally unable to hear criticism. She literally did not understand what was being said to her. The ego had calcified. Nothing could get in there. (And of course, when something hardens like that, it becomes 100 times more fragile. This is what I saw on this girl's face: a hardness and also a fragility. The truth was terrifying to her.) She had been breathing rarified air of no-criticism for 2 years. Meanwhile, the rest of us - in the trenches - having to deal with tough truths about ourselves, willing to do the damn work - had hardened up so much through the graduate program that I feel like someone could say, right to my face, "You completely suck", and I flat out would not believe them. It's a subtle difference, and maybe I'm not describing it well.

You MUST believe in yourself. You MUST believe in yourself in the face of 1000 "No, thank you"s. You MUST believe harder than anyone else that YOU CAN DO THIS.

But that's not what I'm talking about here.

To be blunt: I think reviewers have been blowing smoke up Renee Zellweger's ass for the past 5 years, and over-praising work that is merely adequate.

And I also think that Renee KNOWS THIS HERSELF. She never seems to be really smiling, she never seems to really inhabit her own body, she never seems to be having all that much fun ... I think she's hoping that nobody will eventually guess what she already knows: that her acting is kind of shallow, and that she's scared to death. That's what her smile says to me, the same smile she gives in every photograph. You know the one. No teeth showing, chin lowered, a kind of knowing close-lipped smirk. It's not the smile of a woman who really gets a bang out of what she's doing, or who knows who she is.

I admit, I'm a bit obsessed with her. She comes up for me a lot, but only because ... I have watched her rise to the top and have been utterly baffled by it. Is it the Bridget Jones thing?

I can see the appeal of that movie, but again I would say that for me the real appeal of that movie is the performances of the MEN in it.

Same with Down with Love. I was baffled at the free pass she was given with that film. Her acting was bad, her understanding of the style of the movie was bad and shallow (unlike McGregor, who totally got it) - and yet - the reviewers gave her a free pass. Didn't call her on her shit.

I watched her sashaying around in that movie, basically just a clothes-horse, doing some weird thing with her walk (I think she was imitating Audrey Hepburn - but she was doing so very badly) and I thought: Damn, if I were teaching a class, I would stop her immediately, 2 lines into the scene, and say, "Okay. Breathe. Take a couple minutes. Get your act together. Ask yourself: What do I want in this scene? What is my objective? And THEN start the scene."

I mean, it was basic acting 101 shit in that movie. She sucked.

Oh, and lastly: I don't think gaining and losing weight for a role is indicative of anything. I was so sick of hearing about "Renee eating donuts" and "Renee eating pizza" that I wanted to fly across the Atlantic and punch her in her puckered-up mouth. That whole thing was vanity. Not dedication to the craft, or to her part. "Oooh, look at me, I'm so dedicated that I am going to gain 25 pounds ..."

The second Bridget Jones just came out - and I actually felt a thrill of excitement when I read the great James Berardinelli's review:

The Bridget of Bridget Jones' Diary seemed like a real person; this one is a caricature. The performance is lazy; this may be the least appealing work Zellweger has exhibited in a major role. And, although she gained back the pounds, she lost the knack of the accent. This time around, it would be charitable to call Zellweger's accent "uneven."

I thought when I read this: Jeez, thank God. At last. And not only is it a bad review, but it zeroes in on her acting. "The performance is lazy." I have thought all along that Zellweger was lazy - she doesn't seem to come across the screen at me - she plays it safe, and coy.

Good for Berardinelli. More truthful observations:

The only time the movie gains a pulse is when Hugh Grant is on screen. Grant reprises the part of Daniel with the perfect mix of charm and oiliness. It's a delightful mix, and Grant plays the role to the hilt. Unfortunately, his screen time is no more than 25 minutes, and the running length of the movie is quadruple that. Character actors like Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones (as Bridget's dad and mum) are short-changed - they have glorified cameos.

I know I probably sound petty and jealous. I suppose I am. But I have also always disliked this actress, and do not understand the appeal. At all.

"This performance is lazy".

I'm allowing myself a moment of schaudenfraude. It's been a long time coming.

I love this list

I'm going to send it to all my girlfriends. It's called How to Be a Happy Woman. I found myself nodding vigorously at some of them - and then there were others that I thought: Wow. I don't do that. But it sounds like a good idea. (For example: # 12. My sister Jean has that one down-PAT. I think I need to get on the stick in regards to that one - it's a wonderful concept.) I also like # 37 (because I have never done 37, and I am a little bit afraid and intimidated of doing # 37 ... but I think I need to take on that challenge. Yes, I definitely think it would be good for me to take on that challenge.)

Other favorites on this list (and I'm thinking of writing a list of my own - it might be illuminating):

# 10 I have found to be VERY true

# 2 Uh - been there, done that. The understatement of the century.

# 14 ... Yes, yes, yes.

# 18 (Oh, GOD, yes. There are a couple letters floating out there in the world right now that I WISH I could take back.)

I need to do more of # 22. Definitely.

I love # 34, too.

# 39 is so true that I can't even STAND it.

# 40 is true for everybody. I've learned that lesson the hard way. But I won't have to learn it again - it's in me, now. It's instinctive.

# 48 I find very comforting.

A couple other things on the list which I also highly recommend, having done them and discovered the truth of how important they are:

# 3

# 8

# 15

# 29 (naturally)

# 41

# 45 (this one made me smile - God, I so believe this - and have to remind myself of it on many many occasions.)

# 46

Anyway, you must go over there and read them all, women. I'm going to add to this list on my own.

Mr. Theo Van Gogh

As I'm sure most of you know, Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch film-maker, was murdered last week for making a film (called "Submission") that criticized Islam. The Netherlands has become a hot-spot of the crash of civilizations - they have a big problem on their hands - as the murders of Pim Fortyn and now Van Gogh prove. What the hell is to be done? It's a scary situation.

Here's a very interesting column about Van Gogh by someone who knew him.

Here's another very good column on Van Gogh, written by Irshad Manji, a self-described Muslim dissident.

In lieu of anything original:

I got this from Dan.

Ten movies you'd watch over and over: What's Up, Doc?, Bringing Up Baby, Apollo 13, Office Space, The Big Sleep, Annie (the new version, with Kathy Bates, Alan Cumming, Victor Garber - I just could watch that thing every single freakin' day and never get tired of it), Notorious, This is Spinal Tap, Postcards From the Edge, and Running on Empty.

Nine people you enjoy the company of: Beth, Mere, Betsy, Jean, Siobhan, Bren, Jen, David, Mitchell

Eight things you're wearing: Sweatshirt, jeans, a barrette in my hair, Chapstick, socks, hi-top sneakers, a ring ... and that's it. Only 7 things. The Chapstick is stretching it.

Seven things on your mind: Upcoming trip to Ireland, missing Cashel, 40 pages left of Brothers Karamazov - want to stretch it out, missing Mitchell and Alex and Chrisanne - want to be with them now, what should I read next, I need to buy a new broom, what the hell am I doing with my life.

Six objects you touch every day: Cell phone, keys, coffee mug, face lotion, a pen, my terricloth bathrobe

Five things you do every day: Write. Drink coffee. Brush teeth. (This is boring me.) Blog (pretty much every day). Look at Manhattan skyline when I leave my apartment.

Four bands (etc) that you couldn't live without: The Beatles. Nirvana. Eminem (he's not really a band, but whatever). Divine Comedy.

Three of your favorite songs at this moment: Rock Me (Liz Phair). Bye Bye Love (Everly Brothers). Personal Jesus. (Johnny Cash)

Two people who have influenced your life the most: Parents. I want to put Mitchell on there too, though.

One person who you love more than anyone in the world: I agree with Dan. Silly question.

Geek cred: Pan Am

A while back I did a very popular post entitled "Things That Make Me A Geek". If you missed it - I highly recommend you read it, and read allll of the comments. If you have ever felt weird or alone because you were insanely obsessed with some small obscure thing - this post should let you know that, rest assured, you are not alone!

Anyway, in the comments to that post, CW, who is one of my favorite bloggers ever (his blog is No Such Blog), wrote: ""I am THE geek of Pan Am!"

About CW: He's not just one of my favorite "bloggers" - It's bigger than that. I love this guy's mind. I love what he has to say, and I love that I never know what he's going to post about.

So CW has informed us that he is "THE geek of Pan Am!"

I love that. The geek of Pan Am? Like: WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN????

In this post, CW explains what Pan Am means to him.

GREAT post.

Check this guy's blog every day, if you don't already. You won't be sorry.

Ulugh Beg Tutorial

I'm no expert, but Ulugh Beg came up here yesterday. Please dont' ask how. Ulugh Beg was an astronomer and mathematician, grandson of warrior Tamerlane. Ulugh Beg lived in what is now Uzbekistan in the 15th century.

Here's what I know:

Apparently, when Tamerlane died, his empire was fought over by his sons. Ulugh Beg had been very close to his grandfather, and Beg (only 16 years old at the time) was put in charge of Samarqand following the death of Tamerlane (I believe Ulugh Beg was at his side when he died. I could be making that up, though). Ulugh Beg was only 16 years old when he became the leader of the great medieval oasis town - but instead of focusing on world conquest, or tribal slaughter, or trying to fill the shoes of his despotic grandfather, Ulugh Beg set out to transform Samarqand into a scientific and cultural center. He sounds like an extraordinary man. He believed in sharing information - and so he built observatories - one major one in paritcular (the ruins of which still stand today).

The Ulugh Beg Observatory was enormous - and cylindrical in shape. There was a massive marble sextant (discovered centuries later during an archaeological dig, I think) - that somehow was too large to fit and had to be dug into the ground or something. Sorry - not sure about that. The observatory was tall enough to be seen from miles away, and the sight of it would let the camel-trains on the Silk Road know that they were close to Samarqand. The "observatory" was as famous, in its day, as the Eiffel Tower is now. Like, even if you have never seen the Eiffel Tower in actuality, you know the shape of it - you would recognize it if you saw it. The Ulugh Beg Observatory was like that.

Scientists from all over the world would travel to Samarqand to meet with Ulugh Beg, to use the observatory, etc. Ulugh Beg was ahead of his time. He is one of the cultural heroes of Uzbekistan - and there are many madrassahs named after him today (the largest one in Bukhara is named after him).

Ulugh Beg was assassinated by a group of revolutionaries (led by his own son).

If you're interested in what Ulugh Beg contributed to the scientific world (he was way ahead of his time, again), here is a great article about him. It talks about all of the instruments he had in the Ulugh Beg Observatory (quadrants, sextants). It also talks about his mathematics.

Ulugh Beg catalogued over a thousand stars (this was in the 15th century, by the way) - He was the first person to put together such a comprehensive map of the heavens since Ptolemy.

So while Ulugh Beg was an enlightened man, an educated and curious man - he might have been rather naive about being a leader of such a turbulent area. Whatever it was - he was killed by a group led by his own son.

Here's a picture of the remains of the famous observatory (archaeologists believe that it was built in the 1420s):

I have been waiting all morning ...

... knowing that it was just a matter of time ... a matter of being patient ...

And now my patience has been rewarded.

The main headline on my Yahoo News Page is:

Maker of 'Dessert' Sues Jessica Simpson

I don't even know what "dessert" is. But whatever, I don't care. It's an item on the necessary daily news-feed that goes directly into my arteries, which then feeds my aching lonely heart.

Wow. Thank God.

Along the lines of the relief expressed in this post - I must add:

The headline on my Yahoo Home Page right now is:

Jessica Simpson Tries On Clothes

I haven't even opened it up to see WHY THE HELL THIS IS NEWS - but I am glad to get daily updates on her status as a human being on this planet.

Today she tried on some clothes.

Tomorrow, at 10:16 am, she will fart. I expect a Breaking News email about it, please.

The next day, she will take a swim in her pool.

If I don't hear some news, ANY news, about Jessica Simpson every single day I get very very very concerned.

Question

I am nearly done with Brothers Karamazov. Once you get into the trial section, the book reads like a bullet out of a gun. SO good.

But here's my question, and it's kind of a history/science-knowledge kind of question:

In the chapter where it is revealed that Ivan receives this nightly visitor, and it is revealed who this visitor is (I just can't bring myself to tell you, if you haven't read it ... because it was an enormous shock to me when I got to that chapter) -
But anyway, in this chapter, the visitor makes reference to an axe falling through space (he's talking about the cold, and little kids putting their tongues against freezing things and having the skin ripped off, etc.) - well, I can't explain it, here's the excerpt I have the question about:

"You know the game the village girls play -- they invite the unwary to lick an ax in zero weather, the tongue instantly freezes to it and the fool tears the skin off, so it bleeds. But that's only at zero, at 150 below I imagine it would be enough to put your finger on the ax and it would be the end of it ... If only there could be an ax there."

"And can there be an ax there?" Ivan interrupted carelessly...

"An ax?" the guest interrupted in surprise.

"Yes, what would become of an ax there?" Ivan cried suddenly, with a sort of savage and insistent obstinacy.

"What would become of an ax in space? What an idea! If it were to fall any distance, it would begin, I think, flying around the earth without knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomers would calculate the rising and setting of the ax ..."

Brothers K was published in 1880, I think, or 1881.

Obviously, at that point, orbits of planets were understood and known of.

I've never really thought of this before, because - well, it never occurred to me until I read that sentence - but "satellite" isn't solely a word from our technological age? How would Dostoevsky know that things would be launched into our orbit and then circle the planet?

Where does the word "satellite" come from, is basically my question. Also ... how early was it in time that orbits were understood, and it was understood that if you put something IN the orbit, it would circle the earth automatically "without knowing why"...

Un-guessed quotes - Updated

These have all been identified now. Game over. Thanks for playing. I wish I could buy you all gifts. But I can't and I won't.

1. This one has been guessed - it's Gunga Din
- "You're mad!"
- "Mad? Mad. Hannibal was mad, Caesar was mad, and Napoleon surely was the maddest of the lot. Ever since time began, they've called mad all the great soldiers in this world. Mad? We shall see what wisdom lies within my madness. For this is but the spring that precedes the flood. From here we roll on. From village to town. From town to mighty city. Ever mounting, ever widening, until at last my wave engulfs all India!"

Clue: An epic film, and one of the last shots of the film was chosen by the AFI as one of the greatest shots in a movie ever. And, um, India is also a clue. (No, it's not Gandhi).

Additional clue: This movie is referenced in Sleepless in Seattle, in a very funny scene between Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner. It's a very GUY movie.

Additional clue: This movie is based on a famous epic poem. This is sure to give it away.

2. This one has been guessed (at the expense of Peteb's sanity) - it's White Christmas, with Bing Crosby

"Everybody's got a little larceny operating in them, surely you know that?"

Clue: Another one sent to me by ... I think Kaptin Marko?

Additional clue: It is a classic, an absolute favorite of a major upcoming holiday.

3. This one has been guessed - it's Suspicion, directed by Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine

"Your ucipital mapilary is quite beautiful."

Clue: This is not from Bringing Up Baby. The "bone" in Bringing Up Baby is the "intercostal clavicle. So here are a couple other clues: There's another quote from this movie on the original list (it's already been guessed). The "ucipital mapilary" line is said to an actress who ended up winning the Oscar for her role in this film, and she was married to one of the greatest actors of the 20th century.

However: There IS indeed a connection between Bringing Up Baby and this movie.

4. This one has been guessed - it's Waiting for Guffman

"It's a Zen thing, like how many babies fit in a tire."

Clue: Emily?? You've guessed all of the other quotes in the list from this particular movie ...

Clue: This may be the only movie ever made that contains references to a "vagina enlargement". (Of course, now some geek is going to come out of the woodwork and give me 8 movies that also reference "vagina enlargements". I can feel it coming ...)

5. This one has been guessed - it's 8 Mile - Eminem's rap in the last scene of the movie

"But I know some-thing about YOU! You went to Cranbrooke – that's a PRIVATE school!"

Clue: So I already gave a clue to this one yesterday. Notice that these two sentences RHYME. I'll add one more thing: If you know where Cranbrooke is (a famous private school), you might be halfway there.

Another Clue: I saw this movie 4 times in the movie theatre. I own it. I love it. Many people on this blog would probably judge me for that. But I will say this: it was a huge hit, making millions and millions of dollars in its opening weekend. And ... it got an Oscar. Not as "best picture" or anything like that ... but ... er ... it got an Oscar. A very good movie, whether or not you "approve" of ... well. It.

Jean? Sister Jean? You would get this one in a heartbeat.

Clue: The man who directed # 5 also directed LA Confidential. (If you IMDB or Google this, don't put the answer down. I just KNOW someone will guess this.)

Un-guessed quotes

Update: As clues come out in the comments, I will add them to the post. It seems simpler.

Unguessed quotes

1. This one has now been guessed: Ball of Fire, starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck

- "Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind; unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body. I, too, have been acutely aware of your presence. Twice, to be exact. Once, when you leaned over my shoulder to correct my spelling of the word "Boogie-Woogie", and I felt your breath on my neck. Second, when you stood by the window and the light was on your hair …"
- "And what did you do about it?"
- "I left the room, of course. I wet a towel and put it on the back of my neck, right where the nerve center is."

Clue: We have established that the monologue at the beginning was said to Barbara Stanwyck. My additional clue would be: Many of you out there had told me to see this movie, after writing a certain essay about a certain director whose specialty was the battle-between-the-sexes.

2. This one has now been guessed: The Big Sleep, starring Bogey and Bacall

- "So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust. "
- "Who's he? "
- "You wouldn't know him, a French writer. "
- "Come into my boudoir. "

Clue: This film was based on a book by a famous detective-noir author. During shooting, the director realized he didn't know who murdered one of the key characters, couldn't figure it out. So he called up the author and asked him. The author said, "I have no idea."

3. This one has now been guessed: The Big Sleep, starring Bogey and Bacall

-"Hmm."
-"What does that mean?"
-"It means, hmm."

Clue: If you guessed #2, then you will also guess this one. Same movie.

4.
- "You're mad!"
- "Mad? Mad. Hannibal was mad, Caesar was mad, and Napoleon surely was the maddest of the lot. Ever since time began, they've called mad all the great soldiers in this world. Mad? We shall see what wisdom lies within my madness. For this is but the spring that precedes the flood. From here we roll on. From village to town. From town to mighty city. Ever mounting, ever widening, until at last my wave engulfs all India!"

Clue: An epic film, and one of the last shots of the film was chosen by the AFI as one of the greatest shots in a movie ever. And, um, India is also a clue. (No, it's not Gandhi).

5. This one has now been guessed: The Great Race, starring Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk

"Woman starves to death handcuffed to the men's room of the New York Sentinel!"

Clue: This was sent to me by someone. Kaptin Marko, I think?? The guesses we have had so far have been: His Girl Friday, The Paper, Network, Front Page ... Whoever sent this to me, could you provide a clue?

Additional clue: The actress who says this line died tragically young, by drowning. She was in a ton of movies considered to be classics.

Additional clue: At the end of this particular film, the Eiffel Tower collapses to the ground.

Additional clue: 2 of the stars of this movie (there were 4 big names in the film) were also 2 of the stars in Some Like it Hot.

6. This one has now been guessed: Nashville, directed by Robert Altman

"Fellow taxpayers and stockholders of America. On the first Tuesday of November, we have to make some vital decisions about our management. Let me go directly to the point. I'm for doing some replacing."

Clue: Mitchell? Are you out there? This is from one of your favorite movies. A sprawling brilliant messy picture, seen as a masterpiece by many, the best film by this particular director (who is still alive).

7.
"Everybody's got a little larceny operating in them, surely you know that?"

Clue: Another one sent to me by ... I think Kaptin Marko?

Additional clue: It is a classic, an absolute favorite of a major upcoming holiday. Irving would get it right off, if he were with us.

8.
"Your ucipital mapilary is quite beautiful."

Clue: This is not from Bringing Up Baby. The "bone" in Bringing Up Baby is the "intercostal clavicle. So here are a couple other clues: There's another quote from this movie on the list (already guessed). The "ucipital mapilary" line is said to an actress who ended up winning the Oscar for her role in this film, and she was married to one of the greatest actors of the 20th century.

9. This one has now been guessed: High Noon, starring Gary Cooper

"People gotta talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it. Maybe because down deep they don't care. They just don't care."

Clue: This movie, while now acknowledged to be a classic, was very very controversial when it first came out. Apparently, John Wayne called it "un-American." (Uh, John? Take a nap. Chill out.) John Wayne teamed up with another director (one of my favorites) and made ANOTHER movie in the same genre as the one of this quote - as a sort of counter-argument.

10.
"It's a Zen thing, like how many babies fit in a tire."

Clue: Emily?? You've guessed all of the other quotes in the list from this particular movie ...

11.
"But I know some-thing about YOU! You went to Cranbrooke – that's a PRIVATE school!"

Clue: So I already gave a clue to this one yesterday. Notice that these two sentences RHYME. I'll add one more thing: If you know where Cranbrooke is (a famous private school), you might be halfway there.

Another Clue: I saw this movie 4 times in the movie theatre. I own it. I love it. Many people on this blog would probably judge me for that. But I will say this: it was a huge hit, making millions and millions of dollars in its opening weekend. And ... it got an Oscar. Not as "best picture" or anything like that ... but ... er ... it got an Oscar. A very good movie, whether or not you "approve" of ... well. It.

Jean? Sister Jean? You would get this one in a heartbeat.

12. This one has now been guessed: The Dirty Dozen

"Sure they're pretty, but can they fight?"

Clue: Hard to believe no one has gotten this yet, with all of the GUYS I have guessing. It's a guy movie. Macho macho macho. Man, man, man. The opposite of a chick flick. Famous. Beloved by men everywhere. Dad??

4 pm ...

A couple things:

I've included multiple quotes from certain movies - because they're just so well-written. I've spread those quotes out, though, so they won't be all clumped together.

Also, there are a lot of "exchanges" here - snippets of conversation.

GO!

Movie quote

- "Sometimes I ask myself how I'd stand up under torture."
- "You? You kiddin'? If the Gestapo would take away your Bloomingdale's charge card, you'd tell 'em everything."

Movie quote

"Shut up, you American. You Americans, all you do is talk, and talk, and say "let me tell you something" and "I just wanna say." Well, you're dead now, so shut up. "

Movie quote

""My nose precedes me by 15 minutes."

Movie quote

"We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here and we want them now!"

Movie quote

- "Are you frightened?"
- "Yes. "
- "Not nearly frightened enough. I know what hunts you. "

Movie quote

"Oh Luke, you wild, beautiful thing. You crazy handful of nothin'. "

Movie quote

- "Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind; unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body. I, too, have been acutely aware of your presence. Twice, to be exact. Once, when you leaned over my shoulder to correct my spelling of the word "Boogie-Woogie", and I felt your breath on my neck. Second, when you stood by the window and the light was on your hair …"
- "And what did you do about it?"
- "I left the room, of course. I wet a towel and put it on the back of my neck, right where the nerve center is."

Movie quote

- "Hi. I'm Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles. "
- "I'm Laureen Hobbs, a badass commie nigger. "
- "Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship. "

Movie quote

- "Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple. "
- "That's 105 percent. "

Movie quote

"The grill makes me ill, Bill."

Movie quote

- "I think they sent me to the wrong place. "
- "Uh-huh. "
- "See, I did join the army, but I joined a *different* army. I joined the one with the condos and the private rooms."

Movie quote

"Not many people know it, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer."

Movie quote

"Well, well. You're the first woman I've ever met who said yes when she meant yes. "

Movie quote

"I... had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe, that tells us undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how... rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are *not*, that none of us are alone. I wish that I could share that. I wish that everyone, if only just for a moment, could know that awe and humility and hope … But …. That continues to be my wish."

Movie quote

- "You not gonna stick around for your share? "
- "Nah. I'd only blow it. "

Movie quote

in a singing voice: "Zippedy Doo-Dah! Zippedy Yay! My, oh my, I got a wonderful slave."

(Emily, this one's for you.)

Movie quote

"Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments."

Movie quote

- "You give him credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he's just another blundering American."
- "We musn't underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918. "

Movie quote

"Wanna dance or would you rather just suck face?"

Movie quote

"Jimmy, I've been a scout for a long time, and the number one rule is, arms slow down when they get old. Now, if I call the office and tell 'em I got a guy here almost twice these kids' age, I'm gonna get laughed at. But, if I don't call in a 98-mile-an-hour fastball, I'm gonna get fired! I'm just saying there's a chance you might get a call on this." [turns to leave, then turns around] "You figure out what I saw out there today, you let me know. "

Movie quote

"If you were mine, I wouldn't share you with anybody or anything. It'd be just you and me. We'd be the center of it all. I know it would feel a lot more like love than being left alone with your work."

(In my wee editorial opinion, it's the best work this person has ever done. I'll shut up now)

Movie quote

"I don't know any lepers, but I'm not going to run out and join one of their fucking clubs."

Movie quote

"Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?"

Movie quote

- "Did you approach my client with a cocked and loaded pistol?"
- "Well, a cocked and unloaded pistol ain't goin' to do you any good."

Movie quote

"You know, a few minutes ago a reporter asked me what I thought and how I would describe the marriage between the soft drink King and the Queen of Hollywood. I told him I thought it was a hell of a match! "

Movie quote

- "It's true love, my friend. "
- "Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers. "

Movie quote

"He might strike that Truett boy."

Movie quote

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

Movie quote

- "I know that Richard will always be faithful to me."
- "That's nice. Trust. "
- "Fear of herpes."

Movie quote

"You have everything it takes to make a lovely woman except the one essential: an understanding heart. And without that you might just as well be made of bronze."

Movie quote

"I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one. "

Movie quote

"He's teaching me to change my instincts... or at least ignore them."

Movie quote

- "Would you like something to read?"
- "Do you have anything light? "
- "How about this leaflet, 'Famous Jewish Sports Legends?'"

Movie quote

"You've made one the cardinal blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'..."

Movie quote

- "How's your leg? "
- "Hurts a little. "
- "Your stomach? "
- "Empty as a football. "
- "And your love life? "
- "Not very active. "
- "Anything else bothering you? "
- "Yes, who are you? "

Movie quote

"Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars. "

Movie quote

- "How did you do that? How did you do that?"
- "Don't know. First time. "

Movie quote

- "You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake, well, this could be it, sweetheart."
- "I take it back."

Movie quote

- "So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust. "
- "Who's he? "
- "You wouldn't know him, a French writer. "
- "Come into my boudoir. "

Movie quote

"In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible."

Movie quote

"I don't believe what I'm seeing! Where you been all your lives, at an orgy? Listening to Mick Jagger music and bad-mouthing your country, I'll bet..."

Movie quote

"Look at that! Look how she moves! That's just like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it's a whole different sex!"

Movie quote

"No. No. Be of good cheer. If science teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept our failures, as well as our successes, with quiet dignity and grace."

Movie quote

- "I will not risk open war. "
- "Open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not. "

Movie quote

"My grammy never gave gifts. She was too busy getting raped by Cossacks."

Movie quote

- "It's not our way."
- "It's my way."

Movie quote

-"Hmm."
-"What does that mean?"
-"It means, hmm."

Movie quote

- "I didn't know what I was doing. I, I didn't know anything except how much I hated him. But I didn't take anything. I didn't, Jeff. Don't you believe me?"
- "Baby, I don't care."

Movie quote

"You've got no faith in Johnny, have you, Julia. His little dream may fall flat, you think. Well, so it may, what if it should? there'll be another. Oh, I've got all the faith in the world in Johnny. Whatever he does is alright with me. If he wants to dream for a while, he can dream for a while, and if he wants to come back and sell peanuts, oh! How I'll believe in those peanuts!"

Movie quote

- "Look at them, bloody Catholics, filling the bloody world up with bloody people they can't afford to bloody feed. "
- "What are we, dear?"
- "Protestant, and fiercely proud of it. "
- "Hmm. Well, why do they have so many children? "
- "Because... every time they have sexual intercourse, they have to have a baby."
- "But it's the same with us. "
- "What do you mean? "
- "Well, I mean, we've got two children, and we've had sexual intercourse twice. "
- "That's not the point. We could have it any time we wanted. "
- "Really?"

Movie quote

"I can hear you whisperin' children, so I know you're down there. I can feel myself gettin' awful mad. I'm out of patience children. I'm coming to find you now."

Movie quote

- "Why would a guy wanna marry a guy?"
- "Security! "

Movie quote

"Tell mamma, tell mamma everything."

Movie quote

- "Did you like the opera, dear?"
- "It was so good, I almost peed my pants!"

Movie quote

- "I wish to check the position of the Nile. My sister tells me it is in South America."
- "No. She's quite wrong, for I believe it is in Belgium."
- "You must be thinking of the Volga."
- "The Volga?"
- "Of course, the Volga. Which, as you know, starts in..."
- "Vladivostock, and ends in... "
- "Wimbledon."
- "Precisely."

Movie quote

- "What's that?"
- "Another Venus."
- "Twenty-five thousand bucks. That's a lot of money to pay for a dame without a head."

Movie quote

"Look son, being a good shot, being quick with a pistol, that don't do no harm, but it don't mean much next to being cool-headed. A man who will keep his head and not get rattled under fire, like as not, he'll kill ya. It ain't so easy to shoot a man anyhow, especially if the son-of-a-bitch is shootin' back at you."

Movie quote

- "Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes."
- "These aren't my clothes."
- " Well, where are your clothes?"
- "I've lost my clothes!"
- "But why are you wearing *these* clothes?"
- "Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!"

Movie quote

"People say, You must have been the class clown. And I say, No, I wasn't. But I sat next to the class clown, and I studied him."

Movie quote

- "Why didn't you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars."
- "Well, ooo, I'll remember that when we need forty cars."

Movie quote

- "You're mad!"
- "Mad? Mad. Hannibal was mad, Caesar was mad, and Napoleon surely was the maddest of the lot. Ever since time began, they've called mad all the great soldiers in this world. Mad? We shall see what wisdom lies within my madness. For this is but the spring that precedes the flood. From here we roll on. From village to town. From town to mighty city. Ever mounting, ever widening, until at last my wave engulfs all India!"

Movie quote

"I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!"

Movie quote

"There was abuse in my family, but it was mostly musical in nature."

Movie quote

"I never knew that murder could smell like honeysuckle. "

Movie quote

"Some people call it Hell, but I call it Hades."

Movie quote

"It's a Toronto skunk. It's my jurisdiction."

Movie quote

"You're making my dog very nervous - he detests the smell of stupidity."

Movie quote

"Woman starves to death handcuffed to the men's room of the New York
Sentinel!"

Movie quote

- "Speak for yourself."
- "Do you think I'd speak for you? I don't even know your language."

Movie quote

"I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then, I'm comin' back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I'm gonna build things. I'm gonna build airfields, I'm gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I'm gonna build bridges a mile long... "

Movie quote

"Fellow taxpayers and stockholders of America. On the first Tuesday of November, we have to make some vital decisions about our management. Let me go directly to the point. I'm for doing some replacing."

Movie quote

"I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using?"

Movie quote

"It's just like the first time I came here, isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet."

Movie quote

"I always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable. So, what are you doing here in Nepal?"

Movie quote

"I've worn dresses with higher IQ's!"

Movie quote

"Shoot the Germans, round up the French."

Movie quote

"Well you know what they say, 'smile and the world smiles with you'!" (Pause. Then - directly to the camera) "This man should be in a straight-jacket."

Movie quote

- "Would you like to kiss me on the veranda?"
- "On the lips would be fine."

Movie quote

- "Larry, no! Don't look at the light!"
- "I can't help it. It's so beautiful ..."

Movie quote

"Forget it, mister high-and-mighty Master Control! You're not going to make me talk!"

Movie quote

"I do not know how to kiss, or I would kiss you. Where do the noses go? I always wondered that – where do the noses go?"

Movie quote

- "Well, you know what they say, it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
- "Try it."

Movie quote

"You gonna bring me that Martini, or do I have to suck it out of the glass from here?"

Movie quote

"Turbulence. Solar radiation heats the earth's crust. Warm air rises, cool air descends. Turbulence."

Movie quote

"I suffer from short term memory loss. It runs in my family. At least, I think it does. I wonder where they are anyway..."

Movie quote

"You don't like it, do you Rocco, the storm? Show it your gun, why don't you? If it doesn't stop, shoot it."

Movie quote

- "Why, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder."
- "Who's scruffy-looking?"

Movie quote

"...and there it was, electric sex, gleaming in the window."

Movie quote

"If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before."

(fabulous. Just a fabulous moment.)

Movie quote

"I am the Pater Familias!"

Movie quote

"Everybody's got a little larceny operating in them, surely you know that?"

Movie quote

"20 Million Miles from home, and a gung-ho Iguana tells me to relax."

Movie quote

"Your ucipital mapilary is quite beautiful."

Movie quote

"People gotta talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it. Maybe because down deep they don't care. They just don't care."

Movie quote

"Let's talk about your big butt, Simone."

Movie quote

"We'll catch those thieves red-handed. What color are their hands now?"

Movie quote

- "I assume there's an accident indemnity clause."
- "Never between friends."

Movie quote

"Bob, it's OK. I'm a member."

Movie quote

"Oh. You're right, Professor. It is a loon."

Movie quote

"Mike, is it? Oh, Mike! Try Mr. Wallace."

Movie quote

- "This is not going to work."
- "Why didn't you say so before?"
- "I did say so before."

Movie quote

"ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!"

Movie quote

- "What would you have me do? Give out? Give up? Give in?"
- "Give me a little peace."
- "A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace? Now there's a thought."

An easy one, but a good one

"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Movie quote

"There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?"

Movie quote

- "Give me your cup. "
- "I don't drink coffee, thank you. "
- "Well, now, what do you drink? "
- "I'm partial to cold buttermilk. "
- "Well, we ain't got none of that. We ain't got no lemonade either!"

Movie quote

"Calling Barranca. Calling Barranca."

Movie quote

"It's a Zen thing, like how many babies fit in a tire."

Movie quote

- "Only I couldn't, could I?"
- "Why not?"
- "Jeanie … who wants to see this ... dance?"
Pause.
- "Me, Dave. I do."

(I've seen this movie probably 15 times, and I still get choked up at this moment.)

Movie quote

- "Nice girls don't let men kiss them until after they're engaged. Men don't want the bloom rubbed off."
- "Personally, I think I have too much bloom. Maybe that's the trouble with me."

Movie quote

"I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light."

Movie quote

- "It's about time you got married, before you turn into a lonesome and bitter old man."
- "Yeah, can't you just see me, rushing home to a hot apartment to listen to the laundry and the electric dishwasher and the garbage disposal and the nagging wife..."
- "Jeff, wives don't nag anymore. They discuss."
- "Oh, is that so, is that so? Well, maybe in the high-rent district they discuss. In my neighborhood they still nag."

Movie quote

- "What does he have to go back to?"
- "He's going back to his world, where he belongs. He knows it, and you know it, too."

Movie quote

"GodDAMMIT, I don't want another ESTimate. I want the PROCEDURE. NOW."

Movie quote

"I like to think you killed a man. It's the sentimentalist in me."

Movie quote

"You wanna know how good he is? I'll tell you how good he is. He is better at this than I have ever been at anything in my life. He is better at this than you will ever be at anything."

(gives me chills. Great moment.)

Movie quote

"The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges."

Movie quote

"Do you believe in God, Henry?"

Movie quote

"But I know some-thing about YOU! You went to Cranbrooke – that's a PRIVATE school!"

Movie quote

- "What's the play about?"
- "Oh, it's about this nurse…"

Movie quote

- "Water polo, isn't that dangerous?"
- "It sure is. I had two ponies drowned under me."

Movie quote

"You may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Hmm, nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy. You're looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life, crippled, paralyzed in both legs, barely I eat and my sleep is so near waking it's hardly worth a name. I seem to exist largely on heat like a new born spider."

(God, I just love that writing. LOVE IT.)

Movie quote

"Sure they're pretty, but can they fight?"

Movie quote

"Don't call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease."

Movie quote

- "I always thought you had hidden depths."
- "Oh, no. No. See, you've always had that wrong. I really am quite shallow."

Team America

Random thoughts (and yes, there are many spoilers. Don't read this if you don't want to.)

What was great was the audience was full of obvious South Park fans ... so the warped sense of humor of those two guys was shared by everyone there. Everyone "got" the jokes.

For example:

-- the little French kid (er - puppet) skipping along singing, of course, "Frere Jacques". Such a STUPID joke, and so damn FUNNY.

-- I thought I might have to leave the theatre during Kim Jong-Il's melancholy ballad "I'm So Lonely". I was cackling, snorting, and making a scene. Thankfully, I was not alone. I am still laughing about it. The sort of echo put on his voice, those insane googly glasses, the sight of the PUPPET wandering around his empty palace ... It was insanely funny.

-- I kept just thinking: "The whole IDEA of this film is genius. I mean ... marionettes? What??" Those guys are incredible. And the puppets were extraordinary.

-- I loved that "Intelligence" was an actual computer. "There's intelligence." And that "intelligence" had a kind of "hey, there, dude, wassup" voice was even funnier.

-- Matt Damon only being able to say his own name. hahahahahahahaha And the Matt Damon puppet was so freakin' funny ... the kind of squished face ... heh heh And any time he had to speak, all he could get out was a kind of garbled: "Matt Damon."

-- Oh my God, and the take-off of "Rent"?? The musical called "Lease"? I still can't get past it. It was almost too funny to even laugh at. The bogus pseudo-pop singing voices, the chick in blue shiny pants hanging on the balcony (if anyone has seen "Rent", you'll know of what I speak) ... SICK TWISTED HUMOR AND I LOVED IT.

-- I found the entire movie very cathartic, actually. Not just because it was funny, but because of everything it made fun of ... The criticisms and ridicule were spot-on, I thought. Across the board. Alec Baldwin's ponderous self-importance, and Sean Penn saying over and over again in a squeaky voice, "I went to Eye-raq, I went to Eye-raq!" It was so SATISFYING. Cathartic. Like the Greeks used to talk about. (I'm quite serious.) The laughter I heard around me was coming out of a sense of release, relief, almost - like: OH my God, YES, I've been feeling just this way!! Also, that this ridicule would come from "the inside" (as in: fellow actors, performers, whatever) is even better. Come on - take these people down a peg. Everyone here knows how I feel about most of these people as ACTORS (I love Susan Sarandon, I love Sean Penn, I have thought Tim Robbins was great) ... but as elder statesmen? What? I didn't "elect" those people to represent me in politics. Sean Penn whining about his treatment in this movie shows how much of a bubble this guy lives in. You can dish it out, but you can't take it. You live in a pampered world where no one says "no" to you. Like: come on, man, you set yourself up as a HUGE target ... so take the shit that you get. Take it like a man. Stop yer whining.

-- The puppet-sex-scene was positively disturbing and outrageously funny.

-- The soundtrack is hysterical.

-- The melancholy love song that had "'Pearl Harbor' sucked" as its chorus was howlingly funny. Like ... the entire song degenerated into this diatribe against Ben Affleck's bad acting and how the movie "missed the point", and how Cuba Gooding is a much better actor ... but all with this sort of pop-ballad melody. It was RIDICULOUS. And so funny.

-- Also, I can't help but go back to this: the puppets themselves. They were so COOL, so biZARRE ... the strings going up into nowhere-land ... During the sex-scene montage ("we need a montage ... if you fade out during a montage, it shows you time has passed ... we need a montage ...") - one of the things that flashed into my mind was that the puppeteers must have been howling with laughter, out of sight, as they put these naked puppets through the Kama Sutra. It was so RIDICULOUS.

-- The South Park guys are pretty much agnostic when it comes to their vicious sense of humor. Everybody gets whacked. They make fun of things that a lot of people hold dear, however they don't pick and choose. Anything that anyone might hold "sacred" is up for grabs. I love that attitude. They attack those who wish to live in a black-and-white world. Also - because it's done with humor, I appreciate it. It's such a RELIEF, to make fun of EVERYTHING, and not take everything so damn seriously.

-- I still can't get over Kim Jong-Il's lonely ballad. That alone was worth the price of admission. His sad face, his googly eyes behind the glasses, his small fat belly, the echoey palace ... sitting longingly at the piano ... I mean, it was genius. Sheer comedic genius.

Federalist # 10

I woke up at around 5:30 this morning. There's a huge wind here in Manhattan today, and the sound of it battering against my window woke me up. I got up, I listened to the election on the radio for a bit, made some coffee, wrote in my journal my thoughts, reflections, feelings on this day.

Then ... I was passing by the bookcase in my kitchen (or, let me be clear, one of the bookcases in my kitchen - each "room" in my tiny apartment has more than one bookcase in it) - I caught a glimpse of The Federalist Papers, and pulled it out. I thought: Yeah, man. Let's take a look at this today. It seems appropriate.

(I have mentioned before my kick-ass library and how much I love to have those books around. It's for moments like that. "Damn, I feel like peeking into the Federalist Papers right now ... and lookee here, by golly, I can!!")

This morning, I read Federalist # 10, perhaps the most famous of all of the essays. Penned by James Madison, it is a brilliant essay on party-politics, and the dangers of factions. Now granted - Madison very famously changed his tune later in life, when he hooked up with Jefferson, and they began planning an opposition party.

From Mr. We-Must-Try-To-Prevent-the-Forming-of-Parties to Mr. Let's-Set-Up-a-Party-In-Opposition ...

That was Madison's journey.

Ironically, Madison and Jefferson ended up heading the party that would be known as the "Republicans" - They set themselves up against the "Federalists" - led by Alexander Hamilton. (Hamilton, of course, was Madison's former friend and co-writer of the Federalist Papers. Madison, indeed, may have written the most famous one of the papers - but Hamilton's contribution is beyond compare. Did that man ever sleep???) Madison and Hamilton, once so in agreement, diverged strongly ... Madison feared Hamilton's version of Federalism (which seemed to Madison just another version of aristocracy) - and Hamilton couldn't stand Madison's proposals for a more wide-spread distribution of power.

Anyway. James Madison discusses in Federalist # 10 (you can read the text of it here) the inevitability of factions (you cannot make a nation of millions of people with diverse backgrounds agree - nor should you try - look at Communist Russia - any kind of thought-control or toe-the-correct-party-line is totalitarianism. Also, more practically, it is nearly impossible to find two individual men who agree on EVERYTHING, let alone an entire nation) - so there will always be different opinions, etc. - but in # 10 Madison describes how important all those little pesky checks and balances in the Constitution are, and he describes this in a way unparalleled in its clarity. The dude had a brilliant legal mind.

I'll excerpt a couple of my favorite parts of it - but I was really glad I read it this morning, at the tailend of one of the ugliest elections I can remember.

It reminded me (as well as the brief and positive conversation I had with both my parents last night about America, this democratic process, the "civic duty", the high voter turnout, etc.) that what I REALLY love (more than any candidate for President, more than any politician ever) is this country, and our form of government.

THAT is what I revere. THAT is what I am proud of. I participated yesterday. We all did. This is why this country is great. Our form of government is bigger than any candidate - the Office is larger than the Man.

James Madison understood this to his core. So did all those Founding Father blokes. Actually, perhaps this is the wrong way to say it. It wasn't so much that they "understood" this, because, after all, the entire thing was an improvisation, an experiment at that point. But they knew what it was that they feared. They were some of the deepest cynics to have ever walked this earth. Perfection is impossible. There is no utopia. There is ALWAYS a serpent in the garden. Man is corruptible. So - taking all of this as a given - they set out to create a government of LAWS, not MEN. They feared man's corruptibility so much that there literally could not be enough checks and balances in our constitution. They knew that there was a possibility of a government becoming deadlocked with so many checks and balances. So be it. Better a deadlock than a tyranny.

Madison writes:

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.

The following is one of my favorite excerpts (it comes from the beginning of the essay) - but I highly recommend you go read the rest.

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

God bless America.

Phew!

Just so you know - the main headline on my Yahoo Home Page right now is:

"Simpson, Lachey report their marriage is happy."

Thank God. Thank GOD. I have been so worried.

Must be a slow news day. Yeah, that's it. Nothin' else going on today.

Book Notes: The Brothers K

I'm almost done. This book is blowing my mind. The final third of it is entirely made up of a criminal trial - it almost reads like a true crime novel. I cannot put it down. It's a total page-turner, I can't wait to get back to it.

His comments on tabloid journalism, and the spectacle of high-profile criminal cases, and the propensity of females to fall in love with murderers (I bet there are some chicks out there right now swooning over Scott Peterson) - It's all so familiar, it feels like he is critiquing Court TV, etc. Like one of the witnesses starts weeping about how some Russian magazine called "Gossip" printed untrue things about her ... and one of the other witnesses makes the observation that while, yes, as a moral society, people do abhor crime and punish it - blah blah - but on a deeper level, people LOVE crime. They LOVE disorder, and they LOVE to watch the spectacle.

Fascinating.

Poor Ivan. Poor Ivan. I knew there was a reason I liked him the best. Because, in a way, (with his night-time visitor - anyone remember?) he is the most tormented.

Great damn book. It's not ponderous at all. I am flying through it. Now we are into the witnesses for the prosecution and defense chapters ... Brilliant.

I still have no idea how it will all turn out.

I read the chapter about Ivan's night-time visitor 3 times. Terrifying.