Two very good short stories (not by me) about regret and remorse -- Garbo

 Some fiction stays with you. I've been thinking about why certain pieces of fiction cling to my thoughts, while others, even very good ones, fly away as through lost through an open window. I am pretty sure that the themes in some writers' work strike close to home, and that's certainly true with these two. The first is by Truman Capote and the second is by Shirley Jackson. 

 

Back in 1947, Capote's story "Shut a Final Door" looked at the self-destructive decisions the young author was already making, the kind that would leave him, in late mid-life, lost in an alcoholic haze of willful forgetting.  During the whole of his life, Capote knew what he should not do, and he did it anyway.

You can read both a magazine article which includes "Shut a Final Door" along with some relevant background about Capote's life choices HERE.

 

Now for the Shirley Jackson story.

 

I can't prove that Shirley Jackson was writing about herself when she created a selfish woman who abuses a friendship in "Just Like Mother Used to Make," but if you know anything about her at all you can see why I think she did. I feel sorrier for Jackson than I do for Capote as I think Jackson suffered from remorse.  Like most of us, I don't think she realized fully until she was older and wiser the pain one person could cause. 

Audio version of "Like Mother Used To Make"

 

 

Next week: A funny post, for a nice change

‘Hide Behind The Oak Tree . . .’

 by whiteray

I’ve got a bunch of music stored on my phone, stuff that I put there three years ago so the phone could be my mp3 player while I was in the hospital for back surgery, and every once in a while, as I take a rest, I lay the phone near the pillow and let the music lull me to sleep. 

Except not all of the tunes on the phone are lulling. Not so long ago, as I lay on the bed, with my cat Oscar keeping me company, I was roused when Long John Baldry began graveling his way through “Let’s Burn Down The Cornfield,” the Randy Newman tune Baldry covered on his 1971 album It Ain’t Easy. 

Here’s what the folks at All-Music Guide thought about Newman’s original recording of the song, found on 12 Songs from 1970: 

A sinewy ballad built around a fine bottleneck guitar riff, “Let's Burn Down the Cornfield” is a love song, basically, but the slightly demented lyric content is what gives it the edge. 

Slightly demented? Well, yeah. Take a read: 

Let’s burn down the cornfield,
Let’s burn down the cornfield,
And we can listen to it burn. 

You hide behind the oak tree,
You hide behind the oak tree,
Stay out of danger ’till I return.

Oh, it’s so good on a cold night
To have a fire burnin’ warm and bright. 

You hide behind the oak tree,
You hide behind the oak tree,
Stay out of danger ’till I return.

Let’s burn down the cornfield,
Let’s burn down the cornfield,
And I’ll make love to you while it’s burning. 

Newman’s original is in the digital stacks here, as is Baldry’s cover. There are others, too, from folks as disparate as Alex Taylor (the late brother to James, Livingston and Kate), Lou Rawls, Sam Samudio and the Walkabouts. I could certainly find more, as Second Hand Songs lists a total of eighteen versions of the song, which was originally recorded by the eccentric country singer Lee Hazlewood in 1969. 

I think my favorite cover, though, is Etta James’ version of the tune from her 1974 album Come A Little Closer:

Florida, Oddly Enough

 Naples Jacarsnda trees are very old, and twisty. Their flame like blooms are very striking against their dark gray trunks and bright green foliage, the blue sky. It’s a small thrill to walk under their gorgeous heavy boughs this time of year. 

It’s the end of a school year. I finished grading a little early this year, a relief.  And even before the horrible mass shooting in Texas, I have been thinking about whether or not I want to stay in education.  I don’t have conscious fears of being in a school shooter incident, it’s not that. It’s a feeling that the work is so tangled up in federal and state regulations and corporate models that it is very far removed from what I would like to do each day with students. It’s frustrating. 

I have been wondering how I would make a living if I weren’t teaching. And you might wonder why even bother. I’m technically at retirement age, 64. But I’d planned to work until age 67. Three more years. But lately I’ve been feeling like my job is an uphill climb, constantly. I felt my heart simultaneously breaking and hardening this year.  It feels weird and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m tired of it. Spinning around in my brain, I’ve begun to think about other sources of income if I get to a breaking point. If I were younger, I’d like to do interior design. I would enjoy putting rooms togther, finding things people want to live around. Eh, but I wouldn’t want to go back to school. More appropriately, I’d like teaching ESOL at a community college. Maybe. Maybe I could somehow finagle a tugboat operating job. Or even work with some other fed up teachers to start a charter school, but lord that would be extremely tiring. It doesn’t sound appealing, all that dealing with government entities.  Ugh.  

Art by Victor P - 2nd grade

So I started a list. What am I good at? Well, sometimes when I’m enthusiastic about something people listen to me and also become enthusiastic, so maybe I could find something at least profitable and worthwhile to sell. I like checking things over, looking for patterns, quality control. I should research other types of jobs people with my degrees might have. But in reality, to top off all that daydreaming, what I’d really like to do is be retired, so I could plant a garden, read, write, and ramble all day. Watch the world turn. With all that’s happening in the world, who knows?  We are in dire straits. Anything and everything might change right before our eyes. 

The Ten Plagues of Egypt, Part One - Esther

I read somewhere that the subject of the Ten Plagues is underrepresented in the world of art. Whoever wrote it was quite correct, but I know the reason why. & the reason I know, is because I’m one of the fools who have tackled it. The reason is very simple: THERE ARE TEN OF THEM. 

Doing a nice wee triptych is nothing, NOTHING, compared with a series of ten. It’s a mammoth task. I assure you, it’s not that you don’t have ideas; I somewhat had too many (as did God) But you do want to unify them in some way, make them seem like a set. This means that although each image has to have its own theme, it ought to have something in common with the other nine. Perhaps this is achieved through a colour scheme, style, a composition or pattern. 

Anyway, the Ten Plagues in art might be rare, but as we’ve seen in previous blogs, many artists have depicted the various ravages of other plagues throughout history – take a bow, Middle Ages! One wonders, come time, what great art will exist to record the plague of our own times, covid. 

It has been tricky to avoid repeating the artist for this one, because as I say they tend to do the whole lot. I take my hat off to each & every one of them; even if the art isn’t great, they deserve credit for perseverance alone.

Next week’s blog will be all about my own Ten Plagues & the utter slog that it was, no matter how ultimately satisfying. I do wish I’d had Avner Moriah’s idea (above) & done the whole lot in one though…

1: Water is Changed Into Blood, James Tissot (1902?)

The trajectory of the plague types always seems to me to be a little test God gives himself, as if he’s learning more about the nature of his human creations. Here, I think God may have peaked too early. I’m tempted to investigate the role of smell in the bible, because this must have reeked. Admittedly, not as badly as the death of the livestock, but it would have been mightily unpleasant. Of all the plagues, more artists seem to achieve an image of horror with the plague of blood. It seems to speak to our knowledge that you’re not supposed to see blood. It’s not supposed to be on the outside. Whereas for the Egyptians, the situation would be dire - having nothing clean to drink – for us, images of blood (even this insipid red) inspire horror & dread. 

2: The Plague of Frogs Begins in Egypt, Artist unknown, (c. 1475)

If ever there was an inaccurate picture of a scene real or imaginary, it’s this. Two beardy old white blokes in robes gesture oddly & prod blousily at some hapless amphibians who are just minding their own business in the not-very-deep river. It’s never Ancient Egypt & that is never a plague. The whole point was to teach the Egyptians (who aren’t these guys) a lesson in obedience & a puddle-full of inert frogs is hardly going to inconvenience anyone. It’s no wonder God had to resort to eight more.

3: Lice, William de Brailes (active c. 1230- c. 1260)

God ups his game. A smidge more unpleasant than frogs, plague number three is variously described as gnats, fleas or lice. None of these would be great. As for de Brailes, it is believed he had some ministries & as well as illustrating the bible & may also have been a scribe. Here we see what are referred to as gnats rising up from the dry dirt. Moses is the one with the horns – as mentioned in another blog, in earlier times, this was a sign of the divine.

4: The Plague of Flies, Jan Luyken (1700) 

Okay, it's not great but is God even trying here? Has he run out of ideas?

5: Pestilence of Livestock, Elisheva Nesis (2020)

No he has not! & how dare you even consider this a possibility! God is back & this time it’s diseasey. 

6: Plague of Boils, Golden Haggadah (1300s)

Anyone who’s had skin problems knows what an utter trial this would be. Extreme & persistent discomfort is what God’s aiming for here. The Haggadah is a special prayer book used during Passover & the Golden Haddagh was made in Spain for a rich family in Barcelona. 

7: Hail, David Sokoloff (2014?)

Children’s or illustrated bibles are always good for paintings of the big hitting storylines: Joseph & his coat, David batters Goliath, Jesus takes a huff with the merchants in the temple & chucks the furniture about & so on. The trouble is they’re often a bit samey in atmosphere & style, as if you’re only allowed to paint Jesus for children in soft focus. This however, has a fun, almost New Yorker cartoon vibe & quite honestly gets the point across: don’t annoy God.

8: A Swarm of Locusts, Emil Schmidt (before 1910)

I wasn’t able to find out whether this related directly to the Ten Plagues but it looks to me as if God is literally throwing the locusts at the Egyptians.

9: The Ninth Plague: Darkness, Gustave Doré (1866)

The master. Doré’s Darkness may be situated on a questionable continent, but it conveys the despair &  misery that perpetual lack of light can bring. We see various states of depression, discomfort & apathy brought about by the fantastically portrayed louring sky. Here we see God practically inventing mental illness.

10: Lamentations Over the Death of the First-Born of Egypt, Charles Sprague Pearce (1877)

By now, God knows the true nature of humanity. He understands the devastation caused by the loss of a child. He has lost patience with the irresponsible Egyptians. This is the ultimate punishment & he asserts it. Finally the pharaoh relents & sets the people free. In this image, the desolation of the aftermath is all too real. The sacrifice has been too much.

We all know only too well the toll the death of a child can take on a family. Sadly, this week there are several families experiencing this. If only in these times, we had the courage to stand up to those who would sacrifice the children of others for a flimsy, out-dated & frankly pitiful set of “rights.”

Litigators, Aliens, and Other Fearsome Things - May 27 - What's To Watch?

      Work's ramped up to see us potentially roaring out of May and into June, so it's been a long week at the lab, and I've much less time for watching and commenting -- or sleeping. Something has to give, right? Ideally most of us will be able to enjoy an extended holiday weekend once we've finished Friday obligations.

    Better Call Saul (AMC) is now better than halfway through its sixth and final season, and had its mid-season finale this past Monday -- it'll be back July 11th to start working through the final six episodes. This focused, mostly prequel series to Breaking Bad, has been excellent out of the gate, and with this being the final season everything is coming to a head in what is centrally the origin story for Saul Goodman, who started out as Jimmy McGill.
    After bringing a caper to a head, a dangerous parallel story came in to stun the characters and the audience in the final moments of this most recent episode.
   I really should (carefully) seek out some others who have been watching the show all along so I have someone to talk with about it before we hit that final stretch. No one in my immediate circle's been watching, many of them not even having gotten through Breaking Bad. Anyway, top-notch television, and I'm here at the point where I simultaneously want to see the final episodes, yet don't want it to be over. It's still funny to me to think back to when I first read the pitch for the series, and wondered why anyone would be interested in providing an origin story - and post-script - to a supporting player from Breaking Bad. Fortunately, they knew better.

    Today sees the final two episodes of the first season of Bosch: Legacy (over so soon?!) arrive on the free streamer Freevee. Continuing the story of detective Harry Bosch following the seven seasons of Bosch that ran over on Amazon Prime.  They managed to wrap most of the storylines up, but I'll warn you that they left us with a major cliffhanger. At least we know it's coming, as the series was given a season two go-ahead four days before this season launched. No word at this early date when we would expect season two, though.
     As noted in some earlier pieces, this new series' first season is in many ways Bosch season eight -- it just took advantage of a career milestone/change for the title character as an opportunity for a slightly different look and feel -- and theme song. We even had some nice bits of involvement from several members of the extended cast from the old show. Reportedly they're very interested in working with Connelly on other (spinoff?) series.
     All based on a series of novels by Michael Connelly, this leads me to a seque for something that arrived on Netflix back on May 13th -- though I took a week or so to get around to it. Connelly created at least one other character who went on to star in a series of novels: Mickey Haller, an attorney popularly known as "The Lincoln Lawyer" for his habit of conducting so much business from the back seat of a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car. Harry was created back in the 1992 novel The Black Echo, and is the more storied creation of Connelly, while Mickey Haller was created in 2005 with, suitably enough, The Lincoln Lawyer.
     While it's less likely to be something they'll handle in one of these live action series - which tend to be strewn with legal landmines - in the novels it was established that Harry and Marty are half-brothers via their father.
     Anyway, I enjoyed the ten-episode first season of The Lincoln Lawyer over on Netflix, and am hoping it's successful enough to be picked up for additional seasons. Here's the trailer:

    It manages to form satisfyingly complete arcs for at least a couple of stories, while leaving us in the final scene with a reminder that important, threatening mysteries remain.

     Speaking of Netflix, the first "half" of the long-awaited season four of Stranger Things arrives today. Seven episodes. (The final two, the second of which will be 2.5 hours, will arrive July 1st.) While it's not been quite three years since season three arrived on the Fourth of July, 2019, it somehow seems longer. Advance reviews have been encouraging.
    Here's the season four trailer

     If you're feeling a little at sea, here's a shot at a recap of season three that Netflix posted. It helped revive multiple details for me. I've yet to feel a strong urge for a series rewatch, so this is the right speed for me.

    
     I've now watched through the seven episodes of this portion ("half") of season four. We'll be getting the remaining two (one of which is supposed to be 2.5 hours long) come July 1st. The overall season will run nearly twice the length of any of the previous ones, with the episodes running longer. I didn't focus on that much while watching it, because I didn't feel it was being padded. It gave them more time to spread out over the cast. As ever, your mileage may vary.
     They have managed to recapture much of the early feel of the show, and this season has a distinct Nightmare On Elm Street theme running through it. Period pop cultural references throughout, of course, but for the most part it all worked for me, feeling no more forced than those actual things did when we went through them back in the '80s. 

    Meanwhile, the latest Star Wars series begins on Disney+. While they've been sticking to a Wednesday release schedule for new series - and the remainder of the series will be released on following Wednesdays - the premiere for this one is on Friday. Speculation is that there will be some event tie-in with the Star Wars event in Anaheim on the 27th. Or, it could be that they just wanted the direct, head-to-head holiday weekend competition with Stranger Things.
     Set mainly in the time between Episode Three and Four (Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope), we'll see Ewan McGregor reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader. As with all things Star Wars, I'm going to let them tell me the story, and not race to research all of the advance name-drops of other characters. It's the 6-episode miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi

    I'm somewhat on the fence with this mainly because it's trying to fill in a time period between the end of the prequel movies' Episode Three and 1977's A New Hope, and to do so regarding not just the lead character but some other prominent ones for that original movie. It's already stretching my credulity considerably, both in allowing what became Episode Four to remain intact, and in doubling down on the simple problem of where Ben chose to "hide"young Luke. If you can manage that bit of advanced mental yoga, then you may be able to enjoy the adventure being offered.
     With just two episodes down, though, it's already extremely difficult to even imagine the 1977 film that started it all managing to remain intact sans some selective memory wipes. It's likely a good time to remember that Star Wars has always been a fantasy series with a sci-fi setting and trappings, not science fiction. repeating "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." as a mind-clearing mantra may be a good recourse in the absence of some really good meds.

     I've just started watching an 8-episode series on Amazon Prime, a drama that hinges on a sci-fi premise. Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons star as an elderly couple, weighed down by the years but much more so by a profound loss many years earlier, who have a secret portal on their property that leads to a sort of observation deck on another planet. It's Night Sky

    Comedian Norm Macdonald was diagnosed with cancer back in 2012, but managed to keep it private. Jump ahead eight years to the summer of 2020, with his secret still kept, Norm was working on new material for a Netflix special when he needed to schedule a hospital procedure.

     Lori Jo Hoekstra, Macdonald's longtime producing partner laid it out as so:
“His test results were not good, so during the heart of COVID-19 pandemic and literally the night before going in for a procedure, he wanted to get this on tape just in case — as he put it — things went South. It was his intention to have a special to share if something happened.” He recorded an hour, in his living room, in a single take.
     The procedure went well, and the tape was tossed in a closet. A year later, though, Norm became very ill -- too ill to be able to film the material in front of an audience, as planned. Remembering the tape, he asked Hoeskstra to dig it out so he could watch it, which he did before he passed away last year. After watching he even suggested a self-deprecating title.
      Norm MacDonald: Nothing Special (1h 26 min) - which will include clips of various comedic contemporaries of Norm, recorded during the recent Netflix Is a Joke Fest - will be arriving on Netflix May 30th -- Memorial Day. Given the nature of the special, it's understandable that they didn't put together an elaborate promo piece, and didn't even post this teaser & clip before the day the special went live.

     That's going to be my next viewing stop here on Memorial Day -- after I take care of a few chores/obligations.
    
     Two days later, on June 2nd, Hulu will finally see the arrival of The Orville: New Horizons. It's been over three years since the final episode of season two of the show aired on Fox.

     It's been a long wait, and on more than one level I'm interested to see how this goes down. During those two seasons on Fox, the show was generally panned by critics (especially the first season), while scoring strongly with the audience. For one subset of the fans the "throwback" theme and feel of it struck a chord, and it became the Trek they wanted, as opposed to Star Trek: Discovery, which many of them at the time were rejecting. I've become a strong fan of Discovery, but even among those who haven't gone that way the recent debut of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - a series set aboard the Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike, set ten years before it became James T. Kirk's ship - seems to be enjoying almost universal praise. (Now four episodes in, I've certainly been enjoying it.) "Fans" being what they are, who knows how long that'll last, but for now at least official Trek has a series with a very human, accessible captain and relatively old school sensibilities. We'll see if the pandemic-delayed series' return, here in a new place, works well enough for them, or if the moment's passed.

     Finally, I noticed that today would have been the 100th birthday for Christopher Lee - gone nearly seven years. Wanting to end as many of these Friday pieces as I can with free-to-all items, if you go to Tubi you can search for things not only by title but by actor or director's names. It's best to put the name in quotes to help cut down on the false hits. Anyway, among their current offerings (and I'm not going to pretend in the least that these are the best choices among his esteemed career) there's the always entertaining Horror Express (1972  R  1h 30m), with friend and frequent co-star Peter Cushing, some wonderful scene-chewing by Telly Savalas, and an ancient, unique menace, Night of the Big Heat (1967, aka Island of the Burning Doomed), and a 2018 Rifftrax re-framing of 1977's Starship Invasions, an entertainingly bad sci-fi film that deserves the active ridicule. Free to watch, with modest commercial interruptions.

     As for sleep-starved me, I have to bury myself in calcs and reports today before I can get back to watching anything else! Wishing you (and, frankly, myself) luck in finding the quickest, safest exit to the weekend! See you next Friday, when, among other things, some twisted hyper-violence will be returning over on Amazon Prime. (No, I'm not referring to Bezos' union-busting.) -- Mike

Trawling Through Thrift Stores with Joseph Finn

 Happy Thursday, everyone!   It's raining here in Richmond and I do need to get the grass cut but let's talk thrift store first stuff.  And this week, let's talk about how we arrange things.

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Here we have a selection of DVDs I own, put in random order.  Absolutely no arranging of any kind, just tossed on the shelf.  Obviously, to me, this is awful.

_________________________________________

OK, now they're at least alphabetized by title.  It's not perfect to me, but I can see the appeal of the simplicity here.  It's getting better!

_________________________________________

OK, now TV shows are in their own section.  We're getting there!  Now if I want to see a fun children's show like Hannibal I already know what section to look in.

_________________________________________

OK, why not put in certain films that are parts of series under the name of the series?  Here we have the Bond films under B for Bond, and arranged by year of release.  We're getting there.

_________________________________________

However, we do need to add one more section.  Now all of the Criterion releases are in their own section, still arranged by title.  Those who collect Arrow or Shout Factory or Scream titles would certainly have their own sections.  We're almost done!

_________________________________________

Since I'm me, now I've arranged the Criterion releases by spine number.  And that's a good summary of my preference for how to arrange my DVD collection.  (As soon as I've finished shelving everything, since we just moved, I'll put up some images of the completed shelves.)

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This week's recommendation is the decidedly weird, surprisingly funny Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.  Made by people with obvious affection for '90s kids TV but also with a weird sense of humor about cop show, bootleg DVDs and characters and even about self-entitled fan culture (there's a bit about the human--teeth Sonic the Hedgehog nonsense that is really funny).  I have absolutely no history with Chip & Dale as Disney Channel characters, but I enjoyed this quite a lot.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (Book 1 of Dread Nation series) -- a review by Elleanore Vance

Jane McKean is the black daughter of a white plantation owner's wife, and a student at  Miss  Preston's , where she is being trained to be a personal attendant for some rich young white lady. She is joined in class by Katherine Deveraux, who is fair enough in complexion to "pass" (remember that, its important for later). Note that I said she was a classmate, not a friend. 

Rounding out the main cast is Red Jack, Jane's former  beau; local get it guy, and supplier of the McGuffin. 

Our era is Reconstruction with the spice of zombies to keep things interesting. 

Jane is smart, opinionated, and confident in her deadly skill with her sickles. Her personal sense of humor is shockingly funny. Katherine is haughty, fashion obsessed, and a crack shot with a rifle. They make an extremely unlikely pair. 

This was a book I got dragged along to, but by the end I was invested and curious about book 2. I am a fan of zombie stories, and this one was very well done. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐5/5

Tuesday Thing: The End of Little Rituals, Part 3 of 3 -- Garbo

 

Continuing my series of three posts on upcoming changes to how I access the catalog for the Talking Books program, and other necessary life adjustments. 

The image above is from the website for Montana's talking books program. Below is the type of super-slow record player I used as a teenager to listen to Talking Books. 

Here's the slideshow and audio blog for this week's version of "Tuesday Thing."  

There’s A House . . .

 by whiteray

There’s a house. If it’s real, it’s in an older neighborhood, one that was home to factory workers about a hundred years ago. When I stand on the wooden back steps and look at the sidewalk at the end of the plain dirt driveway, I sense the footprints of tired men walking home. 

The house is tan, the window frames dark brown, and the paint is flaking badly. I turn to the back door and climb the steps to a small back porch, then turn left and enter the kitchen. The old linoleum crackles under my tread. I know this place, can sense the faint aromas of hundreds of meals: chicken, maybe chops, and almost certainly some favorites from an old country left behind. 

A plain table with two chairs is ahead of me on the left as I enter, next to the window that overlooks the driveway. The kitchen appliances are somewhere to my right. They’re indistinct, but I know that like the paint outside and the linoleum underfoot, they are old. 

There is a doorway beyond the table, and there is light in the room beyond the doorway. I hear the murmur of voices, perhaps conversation or maybe a radio. Through the doorway, I see the shape of a chair, perhaps a sofa, and just beyond, there is a flicker of movement and maybe the sound of footsteps. 

And I see no more. The dream, one I’ve had dozens of times over the years, ends there as I stand by the table in the kitchen, looking into the next room with its yellowish light and its murmurs and its shadows. If that house exists, I do not know where it is, and yet, I’ve been there time and again. 

Here’s “Theme From A Dream” by the Larry Page Orchestra. It’s a tune written and first recorded by Chet Atkins. Page’s version was first released on his orchestra’s 1970 album, Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Florida, Oddly Enough

        

A Pike is a predator. They are lone hunters and ambush their prey. They will even lunge out of the water to catch mice or lizards along the edge of a river or creek. This big pike sat motionless for as long as I stood watching him the other day. Completely still. In the creek near our house, there are also tilapia and snook, crabs, turtles, frogs. Numerous waterfowl. It is dramatic watching these pike lie so still and motionless, peering down at the scene from the footbridge. Nearby, mother tilapias and their young with their big eyes, innocently swimming by. I haven’t seen one catch another fish, but have seen a sudden struggle in the water, over nearly as quickly as it began. 

Mangala, by Yandrey Yaroshevich

Mars in Leo, artist unknown

Predators are ruled by Mars, also called Mangala in Hindu astrology.  His vehicle is a ram and he is a very skilled killer.  Not to pass judgement on the predator, we need them in their various forms to maintain our earthly ecosystem. Human predators are an interesting topic, but not for every mind to explore. I had a most gentle friend, an artist and animal lover, a vegetarian since our teen years, who absolutely loved stories about criminals and psychopaths. I don’t enjoy wandering around in those emotional/mental territories, and I judge myself to be much less kind and gentle than she was. I really couldn’t grasp why that interested her so much. It’s not that I lack curiosity but I have an internal alarm that goes off even about information. That’s not for you, it says. I’ve learned to listen to it. Yet, we need people who can detect and solve crime; who can study and know others minds and behaviors. Mars is also brave, spicy, and adventurous, and we all have Mars somewhere in our psyche. Click the link to learn more about the Hindu understanding of Mars. 

Mangala

Anyway, contemplating predators and predatory things this weekend while Fish watching and wandering… Hoping you’ll all be safe. 

~Dorothy Dolores

The Joy of the Still Life: 2 - Esther

Do you ever wonder how some things came about? Who first thought cheese looked like a good idea? How did they find out fire worked? & who on earth decided, “By gum, that seaweed looks delicious”…?

So it is with my musings on still life art this week. What made anyone want to do drawings of furniture or food or flowers? In truth, some of it was undoubtedly early advertising; check out my wealth, my good taste, my wares. But why does anyone still do it when you could take a photo? 

It’s the same old story, I suppose: because it’s there. When the human form was allegedly the most difficult subject to paint correctly, there were those who toiled with the angles, proportions & foreshortening of just about anything else. Provided it didn’t move. There were still other challenges to take on in composition, narrative (possibly), tone & colour. In addition to all that, would it be something anyone wanted a painting of? How could you make it more interesting or saleable? Frankly, a lot of the time, by being good at it. 

Still life, like anatomy drawing, requires a huge amount of work & discipline even at the level of just depicting what you see. I went through a spell of doing line drawings of everything my face was pointed at (sometimes even the floor with my boots on it) & it was incredibly intense & incredibly satisfying. Perhaps that’s partly why artists still do it. Portraying the world around us can come in so many different forms.

Sadly, there’s no Mound of Butter by Vollon this time (even more sadly there will be nothing like it again), but hopefully you’ll see something you like amongst the following. Whether you’d hang it on your wall in the name of aesthetics is another matter.

Aelbert Jansz. van der Schoor (1603-1672), Vanitas stilleven (bet. 1640 & 1672)

It’s hard to beat a big pile of skulls. One of my favourite things about still life art is the tendency towards a skull. Teaching you a lesson about being a horrible sinner & looking cool at the same time. I never tire of looking at them & I never tire of drawing them. Love a skull.

Alison Watt (b. 1965), Cartellino, 2017

As Alison Watt showed in her beautiful exhibition last summer, the simplest of items can make wonderful subjects for still life in the right hands. There is no doubt that hers are the right hands. Everything she does is thought-provoking & incredible. What is always so interesting about artists that paint as Alison Watt does is that from distance it looks super-real but close up, you can see the brushstrokes. Absolutely masterful stuff & I’m proud to be living at the same time & from the same place as this total phenomenon.

George Grosz (1893-1959), Still Life With Hat, 1940

Taking time out from poking fun at the Nazis, Grosz was nevertheless a highly individual artist, as we see from this beautiful work. He’s not necessarily inviting narrative here, but one has to wonder at the presence of the rope. I can’t help that I’m always looking for meaning & it puts me in mind of a harbour scene. 

David Johannesburg Botha (1921 - 1995), Still Life with Bottle

There was just such a similarity between this & the Grosz image, I just had to put them together. This is partly the problem with still life though – how do I make mine different? Changing the subject is one way; changing the medium is another.

Janet Rickus (b. 1949), Being Green

If not for the odd bird ornament, this might have passed for a photograph. The quirkiness of the bird is what made me look twice & forced me to take more of an interest. She does what a still life artist will do sometimes – put in a little detail to scratch away at the viewer’s consciousness. In my case, once I get past the bird, it’s that folded back edge of the cloth. But then once I see that irritation & look yet again, I can see just how finely & beautifully painted it is.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), Brown Spots (Portrait of Andy Warhol as a Banana), 1984

That Basquiat & Warhol were brothers in paint is a constant source of wonder to me. Had they not been in the same place at the same time, would their collaborations ever have happened? In any case, this work is all Jean-Michel & quite honestly, the better for it. I’m not sure how well it fits into the definition of still life really, but hey. My blog, my rules.

Lachlan Goudie (b. 1976), Stolen Moment, 2020?

As I’ve said before, Lachlan has truly taken on the mantel of the Scottish Colourists. His sharp, neat compositions are always an absolute joy. Work like his makes me glad that artists have continued to paint what they see for the sake of it.

Paul Nash (1889-1946), The Window, Iver Heath, 1926

In his short life, Paul Nash produced some of the most distinctive works of art you’ll ever see in English painting. Not just that, but this is an enjoyably peculiar still life. Rather than drape cloth hither & thither as a background, Nash has opted to paint what is there, including the snowy outdoors.

Stuart Park (1862-1933), Roses, 1889

Seeing this in Kelvingrove a few months ago, I realised I’d probably walked past it a thousand times & not really taken it in. I happened to be in a still life zone at the time & it’s just so fresh, painterly & unusual, once I saw it I loved it. The roses really look as if they’re made of velvet or sherbet. I’ll never pass it by again.

Willem Kalf (1619-1693), Still Life - Silver-Gilt Goblet & Bowl of Fruit, c. 1656-60

Again, a Kelvingrove classic. That lemon peel is just the most incredible thing seeing it in person. Its texture looks as if something has reacted with the varnish, but no, it’s what Kalf painted. Amazing effect.

Antoine Vollon (1833-1900), Mound of Butter, 1875/1885

I lied. Here it is again.

I’m not sorry either. I just love it.

I’ll stop now.

What's To Watch? - May 20 - Turn of the Wheel

 

     A nearly single-topic piece this week (with some alternates mentioned near the end), and one that's open for anyone to see. It'll just be a question of whether or not it's something to your tastes.
 

    In the winter of 1950, Arthur C. Clarke landed a spot for a short story in the periodical New Worlds #8. Titled "Guardian Angel". It became a seed he expanded in 1952 into a novel, incorporating it as the book's opening. Finalized and released in 1953 as Childhood's End, a fairly sleek novel (just 214 pages, so arguably flirting with novella status), Clarke's first widely successful, and possibly best, novel. It plays on themes of mankind's contact with aliens, a caretakers' invasion, the concepts of telepathy and ESP, and a transcendent next stage for human beings themselves.
     It was his third novel, and one that sparked much development interest over the years. The ESP and paranormal themes were ones that Clarke became estranged from, as scientific validation of them - which he'd expected to happen - disappointedly failed to manifest. His earnest early interest in psychic phenomena led him through years of following investigations only to see each evaporate or be revealed as scams while under scrutiny. Consequently, his later works didn't deal with those subjects, and he counted himself a hard skeptic by the early 1990s.

    The core of the story involves an extremely advanced alien race arriving at Earth, ushering in what will be offered as a Golden Age for humanity. Aside from the shocking appearance of huge ships over key locations, and momentarily interrupted media, all aircraft were gently stopped in their paths, and just as delicately lowered to open areas on the ground. Everyone - or at least presumably every adult - was then visited by what appeared to be a deceased loved one, each delivering the same

message from a being named Karellan, who is the designated "Supervisor for Earth." A human intermediary is chosen by the aliens, initially taken away in a deliberately showy manner such that word gets around, and media is poised and waiting upon his being returned, so a global audience is poised to receive the first of the messages.
     New, non-polluting technologies for power generation are provided, no warfare is permitted, and while in general mankind is left to self-govern, they are directed to realign existing industries to broadly benevolent applications, with alien tech doing the heavy lifting. This includes repurposing Saudi oil extraction and processing pipelines, as such polluting technologies are no longer needed, into irrigation channels for desalinated water as part of a process of turning desert regions into farmland and idyllic settings. Diseases are cured in global waves, all basic human needs provided, it soon becomes unnecessary to have a job, and be forced to toil at work that one would otherwise only do to pay the bills.

     That this upsets the apple carts of those who had previously been at the pinnacles of wealth and power, makes huge military apparatus unnecessary, leaving them to be abandoned or repurposed, and largely removes the want and suffering that have ever been key elements of indoctrinating people into religious belief and worship, combined with so much unaccustomed idleness, means that there's a loud group of suspicious, somewhat angry grumblers. That the aliens, dubbed "Overlords" by a suspicious media, refuse to reveal their true appearance, and purely altruistic actions are seldom taken at face value, there is a counterculture that organizes to cast suspicion on the agenda of these caretakers.
     Multiple attempts - along with several statements of interest - to adapt it to other media came up over the years. Stanley Kubrick was among those interested, but the novel had already been optioned by director Abraham Polonsky, and as Polonsky was blacklisted at the time it was doomed to go nowhere. Screenplays by Polonsky and playwright Adam Koch (unfortunately also blacklisted) were written, but had no support to be produced. Kubrick's attention shifted instead to an earlier short story, "The Sentinel", which became the seed for 2001: A Space Odyssey. The themes of alien intervention and human ascendance were there, too, which is likely what made it a convenient side-step project.
     A mid-seventies radio production was proposed but went nowhere.
     Via Universal studios, an adaptation as a miniseries for CBS or a lengthy tv movie for ABC began

with a script by tv writer and producer Philip DeGuere, but contracts Universal had with Clarke reached back to the late fifties, and were out of date. The contracts were ironed out by 1979, and DeGuere's script had been accented by preproduction drawings and additional material by comics and graphic design legend Neal Adams (who we just recently lost), the combination resulting in plans that met with Clarke's approval. Unfortunately, it would have required a budget around $40 million, and Universal wasn't prepared to exceed $10 million. No go. (A few paragraphs down I have a link related to Neil's development work, btw,)
     A two-part radio adaptation was produced by the BBC in 1996, airing in '97, so it finally managed one type of adaptation.
     By 2013 the project finally came around to becoming a Syfy Channel project, with a contemporized script, and became a three-part, U.S.-Australian miniseries that ran on three consecutive nights in mid-December 2015.  I was oblivious to all that at the time. Work issues, with the challenges of a newly rebuilt lab, the expense of which was bringing interference, heightened fiscal expectations from above, and, along with my being in a diminished state from what would be diagnosed two months later as heart problems, has me realizing in hindsight why I wasn't noticing things like Syfy programs.
     This finally brings me around to why I brought it up here. I just recently stumbled across it among Tubi's offerings.  After refreshing myself on the source novel (which I'd read decades earlier) I gave it a watch. On the whole, I was happy with it, and generally understood the reasons for the changes made in the screenplay. The world's changed considerably in a bit over sixty years.

     Clarke's novel was all forward-looking, but from his early 1950's perspective. It was certainly prescient, inasmuch that it anticipated a U.S./Soviet space race, albeit set ten to fifteen years later than what ended up happening in our reality, where the ominous beep -- beep -- beep of Sputnik in 1957 pulled the trigger on an especially loud starter's pistol. As much as I might wish otherwise, that's not a backdrop that's going to resonate with a 2015 audience. There's one thing this adaptation fails at, though, and that's in conveying why one of the odd casualties of the unburdening of mankind is the seeming death of (popular) culture, including the arts.
     Science fiction often best attempts to address contemporary issues, directly or by proxy. The 2015 adaptation leans on pollution and the climate crisis, along with perennial human condition problems of political divides, poverty, nationalism and armed conflict, all of which are bound to be more relatable to a modern audience than framing it against a space race between superpowers. Similarly, the main human character in the story, Rikki Stormgren, United Nations General Secretary, was replaced by an everyman, midwestern, farmer and local peacemaker, Ricky Stormgren, selected by Karellan from among the entirety of mankind, via an unspecified process. (Karellan even reveals that it came down to a choice between Ricky and an 82 year-old, blind Korean woman.)
     Here's the 2015 trailer for the start of the series: Childhood's End (2015 - combined running time of 4h 7m, plus some commercials).

     As mentioned, all three parts - and with low levels of commercial interruption - are available on Tubi. As I've mentioned in some earlier pieces, if you can see this blog post, you can stream Tubi. It's a free site, easy to access, nicely curated, and remains in my view the exemplar for any such free streamers that are depending on ad revenue.

     I'll also direct any interested - though this is best done after watching the miniseries if one's not familiar with the story, because it casually gives away a significant/key revelation from the end of the first part - to Neal Adams' blog, and the first of three, serial entries he ran each of the three nights of the broadcast, where he brought out the production materials he'd developed for the project in the late '70s.

     Shifting to a retrospective, tonight and Saturday night HBO (and also over on HBO Max) there's a two-part documentary covering the career of comedy icon George Carlin. Gone nearly fourteen years, his comments on U.S. society in particular are often more timely than ever. It's George Carlin's American Dream.

     The general themes of times passing, changes, dawns and dusks - the ephemeral aspects of existence - have been speaking to me loudly. A lot of light and life left chez Norton last weekend, and the resulting dimness threatens to drag my mood down farther. Instead, I need to shift my attention between my feet - the day-to-day steps to be taken - and the horizon of approximately next March, when the living arrangements are planned to change again, and I'll be adapting to new circumstances.
    I have flickers of wisdom, but they're apparently riding on really cheap candles, repeatedly

guttering and going out. Still, I'll give myself a little credit that I keep coming back to them - however slowly and feebly - trying to at long last take vital lessons to heart, and so into action. Reality is unconcerned with my discontent, and my failure to try to make the best of things only compounds matters by wasting more time -- which only adds to the mound of regret.
     Rather than take a calming breath and try to take a page of acceptance from, say, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, I think I need to take a stand, dig deeper into my discontent and try to rewire my brain to be more like the protagonist in Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine.  To become "good at being uncomfortable" and adapt to make the best of adversity. For now I need the kick of discontent, not the peace of the compost heap.

     Next week we'll be back in another of those floodgates opening stretches, with new and returning items arriving or imminent. In the meantime, I'm still enjoying the weekly hits of new episodes of Barry (Sundays on HBO), The Baby (also Sundays and HBO), Better Call Saul (Mondays on AMC - though that'll be on a "mid-season" break after next Monday), Star Trek: Brave New Worlds (Thursdays on Paramount +), Hacks (HBO Max Thursdays; 2 episodes per week), Bosch: Legacy (Fridays on Freevee; 2 episodes per week), and likely one or two others that have slipped my mind. I'm still also really enjoying the new Kids In the Hall episodes over on Amazon Prime, which I'd talked about last week.
     Enjoy the weekend - locally we're suddenly expected to pull mid- to even upper-90s temps Saturday and Sunday! - and generally take care. See you back here next Friday. - Mike