It’s that time of year! And what better way to mark the passage of your heirs and offspring into the wider world, than with a gift of these classic tales of detection: I Don’t Do Divorce Cases and Murphy on the Mount. And now, for the Kindle-literate (which your scions certainly are, even if you yourselves are not), there’s this as well. It’s a choice that spells T-H-O-U-G-H-T-F-U-L. (Note: the “gh” is silent.) These are mysteries that respect the Mystery. And they are guaranteed Nominalism-free! No other work of detective fiction can make that claim.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
One Tooth Scully
I am currently reading, with great enjoyment, Christine Stansell’s insightful and gracefully written American Moderns (2000), where we read (p. 136) about Ben Reitman’s championing of such American legends as “Gin Ricky Jack, Hot Tamale Kelly, One Tooth Scully.” Wishing to learn more about the last-named (too little known among the schoolchildren of today), I resorted to Google -- short circuit, dead end. Nothing. This giant of hobostan seems lost to history.
By great good fortune, my rascally friend Mike Murphy was long an intimate of this monodental marvel; and in the interest of preserving our cherished heritage for succeeding generations, I intend to ply Mr. Murphy with numerous beers, in tandem and in parallel, to loosen his tongue anent this oft-forgotten behemoth of this young nation’s early years.
Stay tuned.
[Update IV 2014] This just in:
Turns out One-Tooth Scully was Best-Buddies with One-Eyed Reilley.
[Update IV 2014] This just in:
Turns out One-Tooth Scully was Best-Buddies with One-Eyed Reilley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysMvI5i5Bgg
“In the country of the blind,
the one-eyed man is king.”
.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Simplify (Art)
Arthur Koestler, The Heel of Achilles: Essays 1968-1973 (1974), p. 134:
The German word for composing poetry is dichten -- to compress. … In the peak periods of Chinese painting, the picture consisted of what was left out.
Too much news!
We interrupt this broadcast to bring you concentrated cuteness:
[Warning: Head may explode.]
[Update]: Upon further reflection, the poor thing resembles nothing so much as a distressed amelus. Disturbing. There is a dark side to -- so many things.
~
[Update]: Upon further reflection, the poor thing resembles nothing so much as a distressed amelus. Disturbing. There is a dark side to -- so many things.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Fantasia
Well towards the top of any “Top 1 Movie of All Time” list, must figure Fantasia (1940). I saw it wide-eyed as a child; saw it stoned as a teen; and watched it, with ache and apprehension, with my own child by my side. You don’t outgrow it. It does not fade.
It was, in retrospect, the first outstanding music video, though they didn’t call it that back then.
Sort of by accident (my mind on other things -- politics, mostly), I recently rewatched it. And reflected: Probably too racy to be made that way today. As, the undraped nymphets that open the Nutcracker section, complete with breasts and delta. The dancing mushrooms that follow would be denounced as racial stereotyping.
The Stravinsky section first alludes to evolution, then shows dinosaurs in a landscape without humans, and later depicts Global Warning; might want to steer clear of that.
The centaur maidens in the Pastoral Symphony have no deltas, being horses down below; but their human halves would make the heart of any lad beat faster. The pile of naked butt-up babies might also raise eyebrows in our day. And then we see a grape-guzzling Baucus.
*
Most historical what-ifs are unresolvable. What if Napoleon hadn’t been so Corsican and short? What if young Hitler had managed to make a living selling his paintings -- thanks to the patronage of a kindly Jewish art-dealer, perhaps… ? But it suddenly struck me: here we can actually address the question, because Fantasia did have a sequal -- “Fantasia 2000”.
I stayed away from it when it came out, possibly fearing a disappointment like “Godfather Part III”. After all, the new offering has an absolutely impossible act to follow, even after over half a century. And the audience now is jaded by all sorts of special effects. What to do? Go over-the-top? 3-D? Self-satire? What?
Yet what they did this time is what they did the first time: Invoke the Muse, and let her shower forth her bounty.
Most of it is frigging brilliant. And brilliant, not by mere dazzling, or digital derring-do. Brilliant by depth of human vision and artistic execution. I actually cared what happened to the schematic little butterfly-triangles; to the humpback whales; to the Ark; and to everybody trying to get by during hard times in the big city. Never have I appreciated -- understood -- “Rhapsody in Blue”, so well as by the light of this splendidly inventive visual and narrative re-imagination.
Oh, and, that PC angle? Not an issue. That buttocks-fetishism in early Disney, while tolerable, was not after all what was best about it, and is not missed here. In this new creation, you never have the sense that the censor is looming and shriveling the imagination. It is just splendid, and fully itself. Kudos all round.
[Footnote: For an uplifting fantasy in the spirit of "Fantasia", check this out:
Murphy Makes a Mitzvah
Solly's sister is dying. But he can't just close up his pawn shop. Too many people depend on him. For one, there's Murphy, who
has put his toaster in and out of hock a dozen times this year alone.
Who could possibly handle the business in his absence?
Murphy takes on the job in a surprising and quirky story of love and redemption.
Murphy Makes a Mitzvah
Solly's sister is dying. But he can't just close up his pawn shop. Too many people depend on him. For one, there's Murphy, who
has put his toaster in and out of hock a dozen times this year alone.
Who could possibly handle the business in his absence?
Murphy takes on the job in a surprising and quirky story of love and redemption.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Well done, gentlemen
'Nuff said.
. . . . .
. . . . . ..
Update, 4 May 2011:
He has decided. God bless you, Mr. President.
(And, comic relief...)
[Update, 8 May 2011:]
Patience paid off, as did restraint. Had we gone in half-cocked (Trump-style: "grab the oil!") or just leveled the place, we would not have got this trove of info.
Incidentally -- the fact that the elderly individual dyed his beard for videos, by no means points to any personal vanity as some are saying. Rather, there was an injunction from the Prophet, dating back to the early days of battle when Muslims were heavily outnumbered, that old men should dye their beards, to put up a good front against the enemy.
Classically, however, you did not dye it black: you dyed it with henna. You can see what this looks like here.
. . . . .
. . . . . ..
[Update: A large percentage of the Arabic-language comments on the al-Jazeerah site reflect disbelief that the gentleman was actually actioned. And, even more extremely:]
Ma-ais… a-t-il donc vraiment jamais existé ?
Commentaires des plus drôles, du génial maghrebo-franco-néerlandais Fouad Laroui:
Prosit !
Next topic: Release a photo?
Of course not.
(1) The US objects strenuously when AQ or Taliban publicize gruesome photos of slaughtered Americans.
(2) Since the simple-minded are captivated by images, and impervious to exposition, such a horror-photo would be all that they would retain of the whole operation -- an operation which was calm and patient and brilliant from beginning, and which expertly minimized the violence. It was a risky op; a lesser man, a more impatient man, than our President, would have just taken out the whole compound with a missile, on spec.
(3) The US wisely denied the jihadis a shrine -- but the photo would become emblematic, and would in all likelihood lead to the loss of further American lives.
So why is anyone even tempted?
Because the same sort of imbeciles who think the moon-landing was a hoax… it’s not even worth finishing the sentence. The birthers, Swift-Boaters, teabaggers and their thrawn ilk live in an alternate, evidence-free universe, and it is high time to stop catering to them. You bend over backwards, till your nose hits the ground, and this is the result:
Ignore them. If they think he's still alive -- or that he never actually existed -- fine. It really doesn’t matter what resides in their tiny minds, beneath their tin-foil hats. Move on -- leaving those sad-sacks behind.
Update, 4 May 2011:
He has decided. God bless you, Mr. President.
(And, comic relief...)
[Update, 8 May 2011:]
Patience paid off, as did restraint. Had we gone in half-cocked (Trump-style: "grab the oil!") or just leveled the place, we would not have got this trove of info.
Incidentally -- the fact that the elderly individual dyed his beard for videos, by no means points to any personal vanity as some are saying. Rather, there was an injunction from the Prophet, dating back to the early days of battle when Muslims were heavily outnumbered, that old men should dye their beards, to put up a good front against the enemy.
Classically, however, you did not dye it black: you dyed it with henna. You can see what this looks like here.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Which Side Are You On? (Part II)
[A follow-up to this.]
Another context in which this question might reasonably be posed, concerns binationality, in which (if you work it right) you can enjoy the benefits of both countries, and the obligations of neither. (Work in low-tax America, retire in high-benefit Germany; get training in France, then play against France.) Where, in a crunch, do your loyalties lie? Recent articles raise the question in a new context:
As for comment, once again we defer to that crackerbarrel philosopher, Mike Murphy.
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