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Monthly Archives: January 2013

Fighting for Their Rats

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Are We Still Fighting the Civil War?

Are We Still Fighting the Civil War?

I cannot help but think that, in a way, the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox Court House never really happened. The South has decided, instead of surrendering, to fight to the death for a set of beliefs that are irreconcilable to those of most Americans. And they are becoming increasingly more irreconcilable. Now, although “irreconcilable differences” is frequently used as grounds for divorce, in this case I think something else will happen in this course of time.

The biggest enemy that Republican Conservatives from the South will face in the decades to come is demographic change. The Bible-thumping old white people will gradually die out, to be replaced by some fewer young people with the same values, but still more African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. This is a trend that is happening in most parts of the country, but I expect that its results will be most strongly felt in the South.

I think Faux News pundit Bill O’Reilly had it right when he said: “Obama wins because it’s not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is the minority.” He concluded by adding that “people want things.” Of course they do. We all do. And what Tea Party Southerners (“the white establishment”) want is very different from what the new emerging demographic majorities want.

There is something pathetic about these old Confederates still acting as if they were the only game in town, when in fact they are not. And they will grow even fewer, but not before fighting to the last man for their principles.

In Ted Turner’s film Gettysburg, there is a scene in which a Union officer interrogates three Southern prisoners captured during the early fighting skirmishes. The Yankee asks the prisoners why they are fighting. The answer comes back, “for their rights.” Except, the young officer mishears them because of their drawl and thinks they said, “for their rats.” Even when this misunderstanding is cleared up, it is clear that that was not the answer their captors expected. The North thought that the South was fighting for slavery, whereas the South was fighting for the right to do what they believed in, irrespective of what those beliefs were. If those beliefs included slavery, then so be it!

It is somewhat unnerving to think that issues we thought had been decided back in 1865 are still affecting the American political scene. They are, and will continue to do so until a whole lot more water has flown under the bridge.

 

 

Les Mis(sables)

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The Good, the bad, and the Ugly

The Good, the bad, and the Ugly

To begin with, I never saw the Broadway musical upon which this movie is based, so my discussion of it is based solely on the movie, with some surviving memories of Victor Hugo’s novel.

The movie had some problems which detracted from my enjoyment. Most particularly, it is startling to have a film shot almost entirely in close-up. I know the scene is, for the most part, fairly gritty; but I am more familiar with the dermatological issues of some rather well-known cast members as Hugh Jackman (Jean Valjean), Russell Crowe (Javert), Anne Hathaway (Fantine), and Amanda Seyfried (the grown-up Cosette) than I ever wanted to be. Gad, I would hate to see my face plastered across eighty feet of screen at a cinema.

A second issue I had with Les Misérables was that it was 100% sung. Now I don’t mind that with a great opera, but with a musical—especially one that runs almost three hours—I would appreciate some plain spoken lines. Especially when most of the people in the cast would scarcely last more than thirty seconds in a grand opera audition.

Finally, most of the film consists of night scenes. There is something about a color film that demands more light: Otherwise everything begins to look brown after a while.

Some of the supporting roles were excellent, especially Sacha Baron Cohen (?!) and Helena Bonham Carter as the thieving Thénardiers. In the Revolution of 1832 scenes, there was a superb child actor, Daniel Huttlestone, playing the part of the urchin Gavroche. And the ending actually brought some tears to my eyes, as sentimental and overblown as it was.

All in all, Les Misérables is a mixed bag. You may enjoy it, or you can just as easily mis [sic] it.

“Life Is a Pure Flame”

Sir Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne

There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may be confident of no end;—all others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction;—which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself;—and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death, makes a folly of posthumous memory. God who can only destroy our souls, and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance, that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustration; and to hold long subsistence, seems but a scape in oblivion. But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us. A small fire sufficeth for life, great flames seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus; but the wisdom of funeral laws found the folly of prodigal blazes and reduced undoing fires unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, and an urn.

Five languages secured not the epitaph of Gordianus. The man of God lives longer without a tomb than any by one, invisibly interred by angels, and adjudged to obscurity, though not without some marks directing human discovery. Enoch and Elias, without either tomb or burial, in an anomalous state of being, are the great examples of perpetuity, in their long and living memory, in strict account being still on this side death, and having a late part yet to act upon this stage of earth. If in the decretory term of the world we shall not all die but be changed, according to received translation, the last day will make but few graves; at least quick resurrections will anticipate lasting sepultures. Some graves will be opened before they be quite closed, and Lazarus be no wonder. When many that feared to die, shall groan that they can die but once, the dismal state is the second and living death, when life puts despair on the damned; when men shall wish the coverings of mountains, not of monuments, and annihilations shall be courted.

While some have studied monuments, others have studiously declined them, and some have been so vainly boisterous, that they durst not acknowledge their graves; wherein Alaricus seems most subtle, who had a river turned to hide his bones at the bottom. Even Sylla, that thought himself safe in his urn, could not prevent revenging tongues, and stones thrown at his monument. Happy are they whom privacy makes innocent, who deal so with men in this world, that they are not afraid to meet them in the next; who, when they die, make no commotion among the dead, and are not touched with that poetical taunt of Isaiah.

Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of vain-glory, and wild enormities of ancient magnanimity. But the most magnanimous resolution rests in the Christian religion, which trampleth upon pride and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible perpetuity, unto which all others must diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen in angles of contingency.

Pious spirits who passed their days in raptures of futurity, made little more of this world, than the world that was before it, while they lay obscure in the chaos of pre-ordination, and night of their fore-beings. And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, ecstasies, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kiss of the spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them.

To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in their productions, to exist in their names and predicament of chimeras, was large satisfaction unto old expectations, and made one part of their Elysiums. But all this is nothing in the metaphysicks of true belief. To live indeed, is to be again ourselves, which being not only an hope, but an evidence in noble believers, ’tis all one to lie in St Innocent’s church-yard as in the sands of Egypt.—Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia

Travel Ain’t What It Used To Be

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Cool & Luxurious—No More!

Cool & Luxurious—No More!

I was just looking at photographs of some old travel posters and thought how cool and luxurious all the posters seemed. Now one is more likely to see backpackers wearing camouflage shorts with cargo pockets and staying in hostels. What you don’t see is the pilferage that takes place in their youth hostel and the lost sleep resulting from drunken young partiers who stay up to the wee hours of the morning. Nor do you see the TSA groping your private parts to make sure you’re not carrying a Thompson submachine gun there.

Travel has become at one and the same time more proletarian (no problem with that) and more security-conscious (using procedures that are more annoying than efficacious).

Also, since the heyday of those old posters, the United States has become a whole lot less popular than it used to be. Border crossings are fraught with arcane rules and odd fees such as reciprocal entry, departure and airport taxes. When Martine and I went to Argentina in 2011, for instance, we each had to pay a reciprocal entry tax of U.S. $160.00 to match what we were charging Argentinians entering the U.S.

Of course, it is nowhere as bad as my visit to Czechoslovakia in 1977, when my parents were held at a police station in Presov-Solivar because their papers weren’t in order. (Mine were, but that’s only because I used a visa service that was up on all the regs.)

Still, there is nothing in the world like travel. Whether you plunk yourself down on some sandy beach or—like me—go all over the place taking in the sights, it is at the evry least a balm for the tired soul. At best, it is life at its most exciting, with every minute being a new opportunity for learning.

 

It’s a Wexler

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Back Yard of Wexler House at 499 Farrell Street

Back Yard of Wexler House at 499 Farrell Street

Until I spent a few days with my brother in Palm Springs over the Christmas Holiday, I had no idea of the work of architect Donald Wexler. Apparently, he has had an outsized influence on the architecture of Palm Springs and the more posh Coachella Valley cities adjoining it. My brother rented a Wexler house at 499 Farrell Street at the corner of Alejo in Palm Springs’s “Movie Colony” neighborhood.

I tend to take a dim view of much modern domestic architecture, but I must admit that Wexler’s work looked good in its lower desert setting, with Mount San Jacinto looming in the background. Not that his houses are particularly comfortable: The house that my brother Dan rented had no windows per se, only massive sliding glass doors that tended to superheat in the afternoon sun, plus a few glass ceiling panels.

If I had to rate the Wexlers I saw, I would give them an A for looks, but only a C for comfort. The lower desert can be fiercely hot, especially in the summer months with temperatures soaring to 115-120 degrees in the afternoons. Many of these houses were built in the 1950s and 1960s, when energy costs were low. During the summer, I would expect that one’s electric bill would likewise soar. Perhaps that’s where the pool and patio (see above) come into play. December can be pretty cold in Palm Springs, so Martine and I didn’t bother to bring our swimsuits.

Apparently, Donald Wexler is still alive, though, in his eighties, I am sure his architectural career is a thing of the past. Still, it is interesting to view his work, which you can do by clicking here, here, and here.

 

Foodies

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Thirty-Something Foodies Grazing

Thirty-Something Foodies Grazing

Foodies are to dining what indie films are to movies. They represent a dilettantism gone ape. It’s very like those guys who hog the self-serving soda dispenser mixing Dr. Pepper with Mountain Dew and Raspberry Ice Tea in hopes of coming up with the magical beverage that tastes just right—as if they were some kind of gonzo new-age alchemists.

I work in Westwood, which adjoins the southern boundary of the UCLA campus. In the last year, a number of decent restaurants have shuttered their doors forever and been replaced by restaurants appealing to Foodies.

What are Foodies? They are essentially amateurs who concentrate on consuming, preparing, analyzing, and (endlessly) chatting about food. You can find them on the boards of Chowhound.Com making fine distinctions about tacos, hot dogs, Asian noodles, pastrami, and any number of other esoteric food-based subjects. In Los Angeles, many are aficionados of various catering trucks that tweet their next parked locations to their customers. Now, there is even one restaurant in Westwood (TLT Food) that started out as a catering truck operation.

Characterizing Foodie-oriented restaurants is a certain cluelessness regarding what most people who are not 30-Somethings like. For instance, as a diabetic, I scrupulously avoid sugared drinks. One nearby Foodie restaurant called Fundamental is typical of the genre, with unusual concoctions that you have to be of a certain age to like. If, like me, you are a diabetic, fuggeddaboutit!

I used to rely on Foodie chatter to find new restaurants: Now I can only assume that the websites will send me to some 30-Something dive where the hamburgers are loaded with mango chutney, the hot dogs topped with aioli, and the French fries laden with celeriac root and vindaloo paste. Almost always, sugar is added to make the incongruous mix more palatable to the young.

It’s not that I’m against any kind of food experimentation: It’s just that experimentation for its own sake rarely produces a tasty meal. It gets more complicated when I go out with Martine, who refuses to eat at restaurants that have incongruous foods on their menu, even when they are among other plainer and more traditional foods. For this reason, she refuses to eat at California Pizza Kitchen, even though she would probably like their thin-crust Sicilian pizza.

 

Bighorn Sheep

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Bighorn Sheep at Palm Desert’s Living Desert

Bighorn Sheep at Palm Desert’s Living Desert

Christmas weekend was our third or fourth visit to the Living Desert in Palm Desert, California, but it was the first time I actually saw any bighorn sheep close enough to photograph. Bighorn sheep are famously shy with regards to human contact—for good reason. Every once in a while, one could see them at a great distance wending their way across some remote crags.

Once, at Capital Reef National Park in Utah, we saw a group of them close up. But this is the first time we saw any of them in California, though I’ve looked at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley, and other places over the last thirty years.