The Double Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945 is a report on an anti-espionage program run by the British intelligence and security service MI5 during World War II; MI5 recruited and employed Nazi agents in Britain to disseminate disinformation back to the German Government. (Bits of legitimate intelligence were mixed in to lend the double agents credibility with the regime.) This nonfiction work relates methods, the anonymous people who used them, and various operations, successes, and failures.
The author of this report, John Cecil Masterman, was integral to the program. Masterman, an academic who was drafted into clandestine government service, reports that the program was mostly a success. Masterman's writing is also a success, albeit a modest one. Dry in its telling, the narrative does not require a lot of chewing; it's mercifully brief.
In the 2014 film Top Five, Chris Rock is Andre, an actor attempting to transition from hammy comedies to drama. Andre played a smart-alec live-action bear in a comedy franchise; now, in a maudlin historical film, he attempts to play a Haitian slave revolting against European colonialists. In this casting, we get the message that black characters in media are often minstrel-like entertainers or suffering caricatures.
In the 1975 masterpiece One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a similar point is made (albeit indirectly) about women in media. In this film, Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher, is contemptible because she appears to be neither of the things women typically are expected to be: sexual or nurturing. Notes: Admittedly not a perfect theory, and not a perfect pairing. Rock also wrote and directed the film.
Sunlight churns this day through, generating a good breeze in the doing. We stalled on the durable iron chairs--my elbows on the mesh tabletop, and you, adjacent, cycle through phases in umbrella shade. Do you feel this tension? Do you feel the reason why I can't think of anything to say? Or, for you, maybe this fine slice of day is enough. The umbrella blooming over the nearby table stutters; ours holds. I imagine a wild iris flower: grows so heavy it tips over.
Watchin' a stretch of road, miles of light explode Driftin' off a thing I'd never done before
Watchin' a crowd roll in, out go the lights it begins A feelin' in my bones I never felt before People always told me that bars are dark and lonely And talk is often cheap and filled with air
Sure sometimes they thrill me but nothin' could ever chill me Like the way they make the time just disappear Feelin' you are here again, hot on my skin again Feelin good, a thing I'd never known before
What does it mean to feel millions of dreams come real A feelin' in my soul I'd never felt before
And you always told me no matter how long it holds me If it falls apart or makes us millionaires
You'll be right here forever we'll go through this thing together And on Heaven's golden shore we'll lay our heads Note: from the "Late Show With David Letterman"
Penguin Classics' The Complete Essays gathers presumably all essays by Renaissance-era writer Michel de Montaigne. Born in France in 1533 and writing mostly after 1570, Montaigne is credited with having made the essay into a literary form. An army of classic famous essay writers have emerged in the years since: Bacon, Rousseau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to name a few. The essay, as fashioned by Montaigne, can stretch from the personal to the universal, and relate history, autobiography, and theory. Montaigne was equal parts lawyer, counselor, philosopher, and statesman; but in these essays, its Montaigne the scholar that impresses me most. He appears to have had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of historical facts and trivia at the ready. However, Montaigne's occasional flair for the seemingly mundane* was slightly more entertaining. My favorite example of this is his essay "On smells":
... I am myself very fond of living amongst good smells and I immeasurably loathe bad ones, which I sense at a greater distance than anyone else... A concern for smells is chiefly a matter for the ladies.
These volumes--the essays are organized into three parts within this one paperback--are dutifully translated by M.A. Screech.
*I have to remind myself that what seems mundane now was possibly part of a larger discussion or issue of the time.
Donald Trump presents himself as not only a success, but a winner. And by all appearances, Trump is a winner--a winner whose toughness earns victory, a champion boardroom arm wrestler who leaves only fractured elbows on the negotiating table. Indeed, to win, someone must lose. The Trump campaign has left behind a trail of losers. As a candidate, he has been vicious: willing to say anything to keep or grow his support base while taking down his competitors.
Trump supporters like what he says about building the border wall, about Muslims, about renegotiating trade deals to bring back jobs and keep companies in America. They support Trump because of his positions; but they vote for him because they believe he really is the winner who can achieve these policy goals.
There is tension within the concept of a winner running for public office. A winner's success comes at the expense of others, not in service to them. But we are to choose Trump because he wants to serve, not because he wants to win.
In Heaven, Some little blades of grass Stood before God. “What did you do?” Then all save one of the little blades Began eagerly to relate The merits of their lives. This one stayed a small way behind Ashamed. Presently God said: “And what did you do?” The little blade answered: “Oh, my lord, “Memory is bitter to me “For if I did good deeds “I know not of them.” Then God in all His splendor Arose from His throne. “Oh, best little blade of grass,” He said.
The film's narrator and main character is Lester Burnham. Lester begins the film feeling like there is no place for him: he is unnecessary at work and irrelevant and home. But Lester, a reliable narrator, breaks free. He quits his job, blackmails his boss, and secures a cushy severance package. Then he takes a minimum-wage job with little responsibility and buys his dream car. He devotes his recreational time to smoking pot and working out. Lester asks, What do I have to lose?
Lester's
compliment in the film is a neighborhood high schooler, Ricky Fitts. Ricky is a
successful dealer of expensive high-end pot (Lester becomes a customer). Through interactions with peers and the adults who
supposedly run the world, we learn that Ricky transcends common
insecurities. Ricky taps into a life force and finds spirituality in his appreciation of "real" beauty.
Lester's foil is his wife, Carolyn--an ambitious but frustrated real estate agent. She values possessions. She crafts and frets over her image. She covets professional success. She is not happy about Lester's reckless disregard for the "normal" path. She has grown too much concerned with projecting the image of wellbeing, and she forgot how to be well.
Ricky's foil is his father, Col. Frank Fitts, USMC (retired). Colonel Fitts is
a hardline and hard-nosed disciplinarian. He is also a bigot and closeted homosexual. He cannot accept being gay because that is not what he thinks a man is supposed to be. His wife is trapped in a world of interiority. She is
scared of falling short of her husband's expectations, thereby making him angry. In one scene, she reflexively apologizes
to a house guest for the home's appearance even though the place is immaculate.
Subtext Analysis
The Colonel represents structure, rules, and discipline.Disdain for rules and for being normal arethemes in American Beauty. However, this disregard is the driving force behind the commercial market. Are Lester and Ricky heroes? Each of their ego indulgences causes destruction. What are they rebelling against? Being normal.
The film ends up promoting traditional values. Lester first rebels from the trappings of suburban American normalcy and lives to indulge his own ego. But then he chooses traditional values, seeking the warm, blissful familiarity of his family in his final moments.
The first 20 seconds of "Crazy Train" play at major sporting events in stadiums nationwide. That song is a single from Ozzy Osbourne's post-Black Sabbath debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, released in 1980. That seminal album also featured a curious metal masterpiece titled "Mr Crowley". The song was inspired by a book Ozzy read about Aleister Crowley, a controversial figure who can be described as a turn-of-the-century occultist and ceremonial magician from England.
Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynskiis the complete Crowley biography. (It is not the book that Ozzy read.) Kaczynski is a Crowley fan, and treats this dynamic man seriously. It is to the author's credit that he has written about Crowley without sounding sensational. However, as a reader, I expected to be a little provoked, given Crowley's controversial reputation. Kaczynski's prose fails to tempt the reader into suspending disbelief. The accounts of Crowley's ceremonies and astral projections are unimpressive. This is a shame, as Kaczynskiseems like a true believer. I was surprised to learn that Crowley was an advanced rock and mountain climber, and I enjoyed reading about hisearly life right through his college graduation. But after that, Crowley quickly morphed into a ne'er-do-well whogenerated suspicion and conflictthrough his exclusive club memberships and private rituals, all of which seem engineered to purposefullygenerateinterest. The mystery around Crowley was just smoke and mirrors. Sometimes literally. My lasting impression of Crowley is that he was a petty huckster who took himself too seriously. Note: This book is only appropriate if you are into the mythology and magick. This is not a work to be approached with idle curiosity and skepticism.
"The End of an Era" -Hopesfall My searching eyes have never been so intrigued to see you. I guess you found a way to make ten minutes last forever. With each passing moment we drift further away, Closer to our chosen paths
But I can't help remembering what was, what might have been. But I have been warned by those who have passed this way before. And to them I am grateful; and as for you, I am hateful. And I pray that you find the peace you have been longing for.
John Gunther was a successful journalist and author. Death Be Not Proud is called a memoir, but Gunther himself acknowledges in the foreword that this is really a relatively brief journal that documents his 18-year-old son's fast and fatal struggle with cancer--a brain tumor.
Johnny, Gunther's son, was a bright young man who had every opportunity in front of him. This precocious young man was attending a private academy and was destined for Harvard when he lost a summer feeling tired and with a pain in his neck. Quickly diagnosed with a brain tumor, the prognosis was grim from day one. Hopeful moments erased points in this timeline of struggle. Johnny, with what sounds like a mix of naivete and courage, stayed motivated, eager to keep up with the academic, promising life he had been living.
Johnny sounds like a brilliant blue-blooded young man. His precociousness, as represented in his father's biographizing, is a bit rich. Nevertheless, how can your heart not ache a little when reading lines like this, describing the difference between a son's relationship with his mother versus what he has with his father:
She read him poetry on meditative and religious themes, and he made his own anthology of poems he liked by reciting them into a transcribing apparatus, and then playing them back when the mood was on him. Here, too, the sharp demarcation he made between Frances and me, based on his solicitude for us, became manifest. With Frances he talked of Death often; with me, almost never.
Here is a great article about the backroom dealings that sent the Rams, a long-time NFL franchise, from St. Louis back to Los Angeles. Los Angeles had not had a team since the Rams left for St. Louis more than 20 years ago. In the ESPN story "The Wow Factor," Rams owner Stan Kronkie is the lead villain, but Jerry Jones, the $4.20-billion owner of the Dallas Cowboys, steals the show. At one point in the negotiations, there were two proposals: the San Diego Chargers (maybe with the Oakland Raiders) could build a new stadium in Carson, California, or the St. Louis Rams could build one in Inglewood.
The dueling proposals did not only represent the NFL's most recent, best opportunity to return to Los Angeles. They had also become the centerpiece of a chaotic power struggle among the league's 32 owners, between the so-called new-money group, with members who all supported Inglewood, and the old guard, most of whom favored Carson. Going into the meeting, most believed Carson had more votes. But one moment, many would later recall, seemed to halt its momentum. Michael Bidwill, president of the Cardinals and a Carson supporter, argued that the NFL doesn't exist just to make rich owners richer. Owners needed to consider what would be best for the league, and ... Jones cut him off: "When you guys moved the team from St. Louis to Phoenix--it wasn't about the money?"
Jones rightly called bullshit and eventually "new money" got its way.
Before the meeting ended, Jones, as would be his habit, took control. He delivered a rollicking, profanity-laced eight-minute endorsement of Kroenke's monumental vision, saying in his Arkansas drawl that whichever owner returned to Los Angeles, he needed to have "big balls." It was awkward and hilarious. Everyone, including Kroenke, tried not to laugh. But it was also a welcomed sentiment for the new-money owners such as Dan Snyder of the Redskins and Jeffrey Lurie of the Eagles, who backed Inglewood. "If you want to do it right," Jones continued, "you have to step up."
Note: Before moving to St. Louis, the Rams spent 1946 through 1994 in Los Angeles.
Dealing out the agony within Charging hard and no one's gonna give in Living on your knees, conformity Or dying on your feet for honesty Inbred, our bodies work as one Bloody, but never cry submission Following our instinct not a trend Go against the grain until the end
Blood will follow blood Dying time is here Damage Incorporated
Slamming through, don't fuck with razorback Stepping out? You'll feel our hell on your back Blood follows blood and we make sure Life ain't for you and we're the cure Honesty is my only excuse Try to rob us of it, but it's no use Steamroller action crushing all Victim is your name and you shall fall
We chew and spit you out We laugh, you scream and shout All flee, with fear you run You'll know just where we come from Damage Incorporated Damage jackals ripping right through you Sight and smell of this, it gets me goin' Know just how to get just what we want Tear it from your soul in nightly hunt Fuck it all and fucking no regrets Never happy ending on these dark sets All's fair for Damage Inc. you see Step a little closer if you please
Notes: Song credits - James Hetfield, Clifford Burton, Kirk Hammett, and Lars Ulrich. Copyright Creeping Death Music.
What It Takes is a fascinating look into an American presidential campaign season.
Author Richard Ben Cramer was a journalist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, Esquire, and Rolling Stone. But What It Takes: The Way to the White House, the document of the 1988 presidential election, is his nadir. Here, we learn how George Bush collects contacts; how Dukakis masters state politics but flies too close to the sun; how Bob Dole tirelessly meets and greets everyone; how Joe Biden morphs into a salesman; how Gary Hart studies, and how his studiousness lifts his political career. Cramer also covers the decline of these political animals--most dramatically, the psychology and the mind-spinning that leads to Biden's plagiarism and Hart's infidelity.
Cramer delivers breathless, compelling coverage as he follows the action and tries to get inside the head of each candidate.
My favorite part comes early, when Cramer peers a little deeper into the Bush family operation. When Barbara Bush learns Oliver North, stained by the Iran-Contra scandal, will attend the Christmas party, she cringes. But, to George Bush's mind,
Ollie was a guy he knew, he'd worked with...The point was, that was all politics. Bush couldn't let it change the way he was. They were friends. Shouldn't be shunned...
The funny thing was, everybody heard Bush use that word, "friend," a hundred times a day, but they never could see what it meant to him.
By what extravagance of need and will did a man try to make thirty thousand friends?
By what steely discipline did he strive to keep them--with notes, cards, letters, gifts, invitations, visits, calls, and silent kindnesses, hundreds every week, every one demanding some measure of his energy and attention?
And by what catholicity (or absence) of taste could he think well of every one of them?
He could not.
But they would never know that.
The funny thing was, the friendship depended not on what Bush thought of them, but what they thought of him, or what he wanted them to think. If they thought well of him, then, they were friends.
So what does it take? Whatever it takes.
Note:
I could only read a bite at a time, and since the book exceeds 1,000 pages, this read took a while.
Ah, the human spirit. Interstellar is cinematic and features a brilliant score composed by Hans Zimmer (video of him below). The film juxtaposes space with Earth, engineers with farmers, and the metaphysical with the physical. Christopher Nolan's film, screenwritten by his brother Jonathan, is a science-fiction journey to the limits of knowledge wherein we see the spiritual world married with the scientific one.
Note: Budgets reflect priorities. A budget is a moral document.
Our Dangling Man keeps a journal in which he agonizes over the gaps between his past and present selves. His encounters with people sound largelyantagonistic.
The voice of the journal belongs to Joseph, a young man living in Chicago. At this moment in his life, Joseph is unemployed, and 1942 America is at war. Joseph's voice captures truths that are universal (or, at least national), temporal, and personal. Frustration over his compulsion to drill and drill himself for value taint Joseph's reflections. Although determined to unleash these thoughts, Joseph is an unwilling participant in a culture that increasingly casts every self in the lead role.
At the time of his writings, Joseph, Canadian by birth, has been waiting for word on his acceptance into the American army during World War II. He surrenders his personal freedom to end this suffering. He closes his journal with the words,
Hurray for regular hours! And for the supervision of the spirit! Long live regimentation!
Notes: Dangling Man, written in 1944, is Saul Bellow's first published work. I thought Dangling Manhad interesting moments, but I did not enjoy reading it.
In the 2014 film Top Five, Chris Rock is Andre, an actor attempting to transition from hammy comedies to drama. Andre played a smart-alec live-action bear in a comedy franchise; now, in a maudlin historical film, he attempts to play a Haitian slave revolting against European colonialists. In this casting, we get the message that black characters in media are often minstrel-like entertainers or suffering caricatures.
Penguin Classics' The Complete Essays gathers presumably all essays by Renaissance-era writer Michel de Montaigne. Born in France in 1533 and writing mostly after 1570, Montaigne is credited with having made the essay into a literary form. An army of classic famous essay writers have emerged in the years since: Bacon, Rousseau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to name a few. The essay, as fashioned by Montaigne, can stretch from the personal to the universal, and relate history, autobiography, and theory. Montaigne was equal parts lawyer, counselor, philosopher, and statesman; but in these essays, its Montaigne the scholar that impresses me most. He appears to have had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of historical facts and trivia at the ready. However, Montaigne's occasional flair for the seemingly mundane* was slightly more entertaining. My favorite example of this is his essay "On smells":
Donald Trump presents himself as not only a success, but a winner. And by all appearances, Trump is a winner--a winner whose toughness earns victory, a champion boardroom arm wrestler who leaves only fractured elbows on the negotiating table. Indeed, to win, someone must lose. The Trump campaign has left behind a trail of losers. As a candidate, he has been vicious: willing to say anything to keep or grow his support base while taking down his competitors.
John Gunther was a successful journalist and author. Death Be Not Proud is called a memoir, but Gunther himself acknowledges in the foreword that this is really a relatively brief journal that documents his 18-year-old son's fast and fatal struggle with cancer--a brain tumor.
Author Richard Ben Cramer was a journalist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, Esquire, and Rolling Stone. But What It Takes: The Way to the White House, the document of the 1988 presidential election, is his nadir. Here, we learn how George Bush collects contacts; how Dukakis masters state politics but flies too close to the sun; how Bob Dole tirelessly meets and greets everyone; how Joe Biden morphs into a salesman; how Gary Hart studies, and how his studiousness lifts his political career. Cramer also covers the decline of these political animals--most dramatically, the psychology and the mind-spinning that leads to Biden's plagiarism and Hart's infidelity.
