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.
We skipped the light fandango Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor I was feeling kinda seasick But the crowd called out for more The room was humming harder As the ceiling flew away When we called out for another drink The waiter brought a tray
And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiter shade of pale
She said, 'There is no reason And the truth is plain to see.' But I wandered through my playing cards And would not let her be One of sixteen vestal virgins Who were leaving for the coast And although my eyes were open They might have just as well have been closed
And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiter shade of pale
Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darknesssinks deep into Africa. This joyless ride, published in 1899, is narrated by an enterprising merchant named Marlow, who tells his story of being swallowed by the Congo River during his venture in the export business. When Marlow finds himself in the continent's pit, he comes face to face with a storied ivory trader named Kurtz.
In America, this text is usually read for a high school or college class. Inevitably, the teacher asks, Is Conrad aracist? The answer?: Probably not, but it is complicated.
True, the African natives are inseparable from the foreign and incomprehensible jungle around them. Marlow refers to these blacks as savages; all of them are cannibals. Yet, we know Heart of Darkness attacks imperialism and, in turn, racism. (Both together--not one and the other separately.) We must question the reliability of the narrator.
Between the lines of Marlow's story we gather that Europeans are pillaging Africa and they intend to civilize the Africans in turn. But the supposedly civilized Europeans treat the subjugated black locals with cruelty--behavior that exposes the tribal brute in the heart of every civilized Westerner. Even Kurtz, who has nearly become a deity in this strange land, wants to exterminate his foreign worshipers. The line between the civilized and savage is erased.
Still, as to whether racism persists in the text itself, there is room for argument. For instance, one could reasonably conclude that Conrad thinks the de-civilizing of the European only happens when immersed in the African continent.
Heart of Darkness, published in 1899, provides a superior reading experience and rightfully belongs in the cannon of much-studied literature.
Notes:
What do we make of Marlow's marveling over Kurtz' eloquence?
How much of this work is a comment on bureaucratic and corporate systems?
In any event, just read these passages:
... there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there. They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him--some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core...
My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not ask me to sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy--a smile--not a smile--I remember it, but I can't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these parts--nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That Was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust--just uneasiness--nothing more. You have no idea how effective such a . . . a. . . . faculty can be. He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill ...
-The Animals There is a house in New Orleans They call the Rising Sun And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy And God I know I'm one My mother was a tailor Sewed my new blue jeans My father was a gamblin' man Down in New Orleans Now the only thing a gambler needs Is a suitcase and trunk And the only time he's satisfied Is when he's on a drunk Oh mother, tell your children Not to do what I have done Spend your lives in sin and misery In the House of the Rising Sun Well, I got one foot on the platform The other foot on the train I'm goin' back to New Orleans To wear that ball and chain Well, there is a house in New Orleans They call the Rising Sun And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy And God I know I'm one
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":
