Reprint Heaven Forever (1934 - 2016)

Closing Time

Over at The Soul Of America, a reminder that today is Cohen's birthday. Originally posted last Armistice Veteran's Day in 2016, when he went off to the Bardo, or wherever the hell we go, if anywhere (and in that spirit, I'll add a link to this).

November 11 is one Day I use to consciously remember specific people, from a specific time, whom I miss. It was right after the election, and everyone still numb; the fat, raving Parasite-Elect had barely begun to push his tiny manhood into America's collective face, and everyone I knew were looking around for anyone wearing the same uniform. Cohen's bowing out just then (to take the metaphor a little further), seemed like one more Loss in the Unit. We were going single file; I turned around, and he wasn't back there there any more: Ah, fuck; aber natürlich, it would have to be now.

____________________________ 

Goddamn it. Knew the news was coming, but wasn't ready for it just now.

Ah we're lonely, we're romantic
And the cider's laced with acid
And the holy spirit's crying, where's the beef?
And the moon is swimming naked
And the summer night is fragrant
With a mighty expectation of relief

So we struggle and we stagger
Down the snakes and up the ladder
To the tower where the blessed hours chime
And I swear it happened just like this
A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
The gates of love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
But closing time
Closing time
Closing time
Closing time 

 Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius. Even the counterpoint lines—they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs. As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music. Even the simplest song, like ‘The Law,’ which is structured on two fundamental chords, has counterpoint lines that are essential, and anybody who even thinks about doing this song and loves the lyrics would have to build around the counterpoint lines.

His gift or genius is in his connection to the music of the spheres. In the song ‘Sisters of Mercy,’ for instance, the verses are four elemental lines which change and move at predictable intervals . . . The song just comes in and states a fact. And after that anything can happen and it does, and Leonard allows it to happen...

‘Sisters of Mercy’ is verse after verse of four distinctive lines, in perfect meter, with no chorus, quivering with drama. ... This is a deceptively unusual musical theme, with or without lyrics. But it’s so subtle a listener doesn’t realize he’s been taken on a musical journey and dropped off somewhere, with or without lyrics.

I see no disenchantment in Leonard’s lyrics at all. There’s always a direct sentiment, as if he’s holding a conversation and telling you something, him doing all the talking, but the listener keeps listening. He’s very much a descendant of Irving Berlin... [whose] songs did the same thing. Berlin was also connected to some kind of celestial sphere.

And, like Leonard, he probably had no classical music training, either. Both of them just hear melodies that most of us can only strive for. Berlin’s lyrics also fell into place and consisted of half lines, full lines at surprising intervals, using simple elongated words. Both Leonard and Berlin are incredibly crafty. Leonard particularly uses chord progressions that seem classical in shape. He is a much more savvy musician than you’d think.

-- Bob Dylan 

I loved you for your beauty
But that doesn't make a fool of me
You were in it for your beauty too
And I loved you for your body
There's a voice that sounds like god to me
Declaring, (declaring) declaring, declaring that your body's really you
And I loved you when our love was blessed
And I love you now there's nothing left
But sorrow and a sense of overtime

I know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life, whether they want to cop to it or not. It’s there, you can feel it in people—there’s some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which influences their mood and activity. So that’s operating. That activity at certain points of your day or night insists on a certain kind of response. Sometimes it’s just like: ‘You are losing too much weight, Leonard. You’re dying, but you don’t have to cooperate enthusiastically with the process.’ Force yourself to have a sandwich.

What I mean to say is that you hear the Bat Kol (divine voice). You hear this other deep reality singing to you all the time, and much of the time you can’t decipher it... At this stage of the game, I hear it saying, ‘Leonard, just get on with the things you have to do.’ It’s very compassionate at this stage. More than at any time of my life, I no longer have that voice that says, ‘You’re fucking up.’ That’s a tremendous blessing, really.

-- Leonard Cohen / September, 2016

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

And I missed you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
Looks like freedom but it feels like death
It's something in between, I guess
It's closing time
closing time
closing time
closing time

___________________________

MEHR, Several Hours Later:  The last thing I wanted to do was write a post about this man that had even a hint of self-reference, but remembered a thirty-year-old conversation. 

A long time ago: someone said in a discussion of Sufis and 'The Work' that "There are a lot of people around who say they're looking for answers, want self-enlightenment, and they present a posture -- removed, serious, aesthetic. Like a parody of the Holy Man. Another is the smartass, the 'Mister Natural' who just enjoys fucking with people. And my feeling is, neither of them are 'authentic'. 

"The Sufis I've met have been raw and real, man; There's grit in their voices -- they're like Blues singers. Tom Waits, minus the alcohol. They've been around the fucking block, they've done some things, and they know what really matters. They're not saints -- 'rogue sage'; you know? -- but about the Big Things, you can trust them."

Cohen loved the Blues. He sang them, no matter what style his songs were.  He spoke simply, straight from the heart, about The Big Questions.  His music, the way he lived his life, was grappling with those questions and his human condition, and ours, unashamedly. He was no saint, but an honest and sincere seeker of Truth -- and his music was a commentary on that stumbling around in the dark. His work was illuminated by a long Rabbinical tradition; he was born with a Heart On Fire.

His songs were in the language of missed chances, relationships spoiled by ego or greed or a simple misunderstanding; ecstatic revelry and bone-crushing disappointment. When he sang politics, it was about choice and betrayal from the level of someone in the street. He told you: This is what happened to me. I don't know what all this is. I don't know what I'm doing, either; you're not alone out here. It was like the end of Moby Dick: A thing happened; buoyed up by a coffin, I came back to tell thee.

And what he sang about was a reminder that everything in this world was part of something else  -- The Big Questions, maybe. And he sang about that all the way to the end -- "You Want It Darker", his album released in October.

People sense how much truth they're being told by others, moment to moment, moving through the world. The number of people who speak in an authentic voice that we recognize, instinctively, as being true are very few. Poets can do this; Cohen was a poet, first, which is how I met him (only discovered later that the guy had albums of music, too, which made sense). From his work, he was recognizable as being as egotistical, confused, scheming, greedy; fucked up; kind, generous; lonely and longing -- as human, as I am. He had the energy and talent to share his particular vision, and it resonated with a wide audience.

When someone like that leaves the room, I grieve, because they're so few. And I'm pretty damned sad (The Best Friend texted back "Goddamned shit storm November" when I told them Cohen had died). I understand: never knew the man personally; it's the connections on so many levels to memory and hope and experience that add to the emotions. And there was Fucking Tuesday; and, today.  We're all going to have to leave the room -- if I can bow out in the same frame of mind, with the same intent as he was reported to have, that would be an act of grace.

Another Mensch leaves us. Now he knows what we do not -- but he was frankly curious, without much fear, as to whatever that is.

___________________________

Also, remembering the day, and Absent Friends. "We Have Done So Much With So Little For So Long That We Could Do Everything With Nothing Forever" (1969 - 1971)

Funny

Dick Gregory (1932 - 2017)
Jerry Lewis (1929 - 2017)

Dick Gregory and Jerry Lewis, 1960's

A long time ago, I found myself at a screening of a 16mm film, "Dog Of Nazareth", which portrayed the life of The Jesus and his faithful canine companion. The trailer to the film was actually more interesting -- because whichever moment in His life was being portrayed, the camera was always focused on the Dog. It was hilarious (in that long-ago time before Life Of Brian), and there was much sacrilegious laughter withal.

A notable alternative comics artist was in attendance. We ended up smoking out on the street, talking about the film we'd just watched, and mused about what was humor, anyway? And the fellow said: Humor was a juxtaposition, a collision of opposites which for a split second forced an observer to temporarily abandon their routine assumptions about reality. "Some find that threatening," he went on, "and they respond by getting angry -- but for the other ninety-nine out of a hundred people, they're going to laugh."

___________________________

This is late in getting posted, but, still: Dick Gregory passed away last week; Jerry Lewis died Sunday. Both were fixtures in my 1950's, Sixties, and early Seventies, for different reasons, and both were Funny Men from completely different perspectives.

Gregory was funny because his juxtaposition of opposites was in his very presence on a New York stage -- a black man, reminding white audiences about race and class, who was allowed to do what, and where; on what basis, and why.

Wearing a white shirt and three-button Brooks Brothers suit, he balanced himself on a stool and talked in rolling sentences, punctuating his routine with long pauses as he slowly dragged on his cigarette.

“He would find a white waiter and say, ‘Bring me a Scotch and water,’ and there would be this palpable gasp from the crowd,” said Robert Lipsyte, a former New York Times reporter who helped write Mr. Gregory’s 1964 autobiography...

“They’d watch as the waiter brought him the drink. He’d take a sip and then say, ‘Governor Faubus should see me now’ ” — a reference to the Arkansas governor who in 1957 opposed the integration of the Little Rock schools. “He won over the whole audience. They were suddenly liberal again."

It can be argued that Gregory was acting as a band-aid, something to soothe the guilt of his audiences so that they could convince themselves that they weren't really racist, weren't really supporting and perpetuating a class structure that (also) excluded people of color. But Gregory did something revolutionary, in a soft way. At a time when it really was stepping over the color line to do so, he delivered -- a measured voice, slow, even in tone -- reminders of how things actually were.

His voice was like taking your chin, not unkindly, and turning your head to see something that was bound to make you uncomfortable. What you did with it after that was your business -- but for some people it would be one more step up, out of ignorance.

He juxtaposed sardonic observations of life against the privileged assumptions of middle-class, white America ("... a restaurant waitress in the segregated South who told him, 'We don’t serve colored people here,' to which Mr. Gregory replied, 'That’s all right, I don’t eat colored people. Just bring me a whole fried chicken.' ”), and made humor. His audiences laughed, but on some level understood the joke came at a cost. And, he made it possible for other black comics and entertainers to make their way to the stage.

I recall (as old Dogs do) his running for President on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in 1968 -- the same year that saw Martin Luther King, Jr. and RFK gunned down; that saw Hubert Humphrey the Democratic Party's candidate against Richard Nixon, The One. And a little more than a year later, in Southeast Asia, I found a good number of my black room- and team-mates knew exactly who Dick Gregory was.

A monologist, a comic, a teacher; Gregory didn't quit. He saw comedy as a vehicle for instruction, for consciousness-raising, and even as he passed away was still involved doing what he did best. Losing his voice, now, seems one more cruelty of fate, time, and tides.

___________________________

By comparison, Jerry Lewis was someone who didn't ruffle many feathers.  He was as mainstream a comedian as any in postwar America, and while his humor wasn't as socially-focused as Gregory's, his family had been among the waves of Jewish immigrants coming to America -- each of whom could be part of a community, but who had to navigate a world run by Gentiles and the anti-Semitism which, like racism and sexism and homophobia, persists.

Jerome Levitch had parents who were small-time entertainers, "his father [Danny] a song-and-dance man, his mother [Rae,] a pianist — who used the name Lewis when they appeared in ... vaudeville and at Catskills resort hotels. The Levitches were frequently on the road and often left Joey, as he was called, in the care of Rae’s mother and her sisters. The experience of being passed from home to home left Mr. Lewis with an enduring sense of insecurity and, as he observed, a desperate need for attention and affection."

Lewis followed his parents into performing as a comedy 'sketch artist'. His idea of humor was personal, idiosyncratic, a nebbish with slapstick. The story of his paring with the lounge-singer-smooth Dean Martin was one of those near-magic, serendipitous connections: In mid-1946, Lewis was doing a routine at the Havana-Madrid club in Manhattan, lip-syncing popular songs while performing some of what would become his signature slapstick; Martin was singing.

One night, they started riffing off each other in impromptu comedy sessions after the last show. Their antics were noticed by a Billboard magazine, reviewer, who wrote, “Martin and Lewis [have] all the makings of a sock act,” meaning a successful show.  And they were -- very successful, personally and financially.

When they parted, it wasn't pretty. Dean went on as part of the Rat Pack. Jerry learned filmmaking and began directing his own movies, which showed him as a talented comedian -- and became an almost perennial fixture with his annual telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy foundation.

I remember bits and pieces of them as schmaltzy, almost embarrassing (my parents would let the show run as teevee background noise) -- but I also remember having the sense that 'Jerry's Kids', in wheelchairs, or with braces and crutches, were not objects of pity. I didn't learn compassion from a Jerry Lewis telethon, but prosaic as it sounds, it wouldn't be far wrong to say it helped move me towards an understanding.

The comedian Jerry Lewis stayed out of politics, but Lewis the man was a conservative (per Wikipedia, he remarked that Donald Trump "would make a good president because he was a good 'showman' ") -- his obituary in Variety effectively claimed him to be racist, homophobic, a hack who had long outlived any usefulness as a cultural reference.

It's undeniable: his movies didn't question the established order; his characters were full of inventive slapstick and terrific comic timing -- but they weren't like Chaplin's Tramp. They were inoffensive, wacky, fumbling, based around shtick that began seventy years earlier in Vaudeville; they didn't reference the world of Selma and Saigon, JFK and Johnson, Goldwater and the Cold War. They were mainstream, part of American entertainment's cultural noise. Even so, it's also undeniable: Lewis did raise a great deal of money, ostensibly to benefit young humans just starting life, having been dealt a different hand than the rest of us.  

Lewis was a 'showman' -- for him, comedy was a craft, an art form, more than a method of showing some deeper truth about ourselves or the present. It was part skill, part competition, and he was a success -- not only by the yardstick of the entertainment industry. And, he did make people laugh. That's worth something, just on it's own.

___________________________

Now they know what we do not. Two more Mensches leave us. I'm sure they had their moments of egoism and assholery, of weakness and excess, like the rest of us. But, they made us laugh -- reminded us to laugh, for different reasons, even if our laughter was in spite of.  And for that alone, I'll miss their being fixtures in the cultural landscape.  And, we live in a world with a limited supply of Mensches.

Gregory, 2009;  Lewis In 2016

___________________________

Ich Bin Noch Immer Verrückt, Nach Alle Diesen Jahren

Still Crazy After All These Years: A Before Nine Birthday

To use someone else's turn of phrase, This Shitty Blog is nine years old.

Over at The Soul Of America, there was this reference to another blog -- this one is produced by an intelligent person about economics, rather than by a Dog with a bizarre sense of humor who barks repeatedly about whatever comes into his tiny head.

And (as any good numbers wonk would -- that's not a criticism; it's a compliment) the other blogger performed a full traffic analysis of the previous five years, including observations such as, "I now have 11,271 followers",  and, "3,227,472 hits over the last five years ... I’ve written somewhere between 737,000 and 1,474,000 words on the blog. For comparison, the entire Harry Potter series is 1,084,000 words long."

Dude: My congratulations -- all proofs that the content has value and speaks to a need people have in getting factual information about the world we live in. BeforeNine's content tries to be fact-based -- really, it does -- but frequently takes a dive for cheap humor that's one step above the "arm and leg routine" that the Hologram mentions in THX1138 (whatever that routine is).

My running joke about writing for three (now, two) people and a Superintelligent Parakeet is very close to the truth. On a really good day, perhaps 50 people will stop in, look around, and then are off to god alone knows where -- and that, only when another blogger does a Kind and adds a link.

I don't complain. It's actually a wonder (и маскарад, как собака!*) I haven't been sued into poverty by now. 11,000 followers? Wouldn't know what to do with that, even if were so. But, plainly, I don't Bark here to be popular, or even lay claim to being right.

For better or worse, this is the place in life where I come to Do My Dog Thing. Hopefully -- occasionally -- it makes someone laugh, right out loud, hard enough to wet themselves.

Please continue to enjoy.  Be nice to your neighbors.  Don't piss off Ed209. Thank You. You're welcome.

____________________________

*  And masquerading as a Dog!

Kleiner Mann, Was Nun?

Die Dreiziger Jahre


Ja aber, kleiner Mann, was nun?
Wenn's morgen anders ist, was tun?
Bedenke, dass die Welt sich dreht
Seit sie besteht!
Ja, kleiner Mann, was nun?
Wenn dich das Glück vergisst, was tun?
Oft wie ein Traume schnell vergeht
Im Winde verweht

Yes; but Little Man, what now?
When it's tomorrow, what do you do?
Remember that the world has been turning
since it was born
Yes, Little Man, what now?
When luck's forgotten you, what next?
It's often how a dream quickly passes
Of course, on the wind

Und musst du heut' vielleicht auch beiseite steh'n
Kann es doch morgen schon wieder aufwärts geh'n
Nur Kopf hoch! Kleiner Mann, was nun?
Wenn's morgen anders ist, was tun?
Vielleicht wird's auch, sei dir selber treu
Dann geht das Glück nicht vorbei!

And today perhaps you'll have to stand aside
Tomorrow you can continue on your way
Just keep your head up! Little Man, what now?
When it's tomorrow, what do you do?
Perhaps [tomorrow] will be true to you,
and luck won't pass you by!

-- "Little Man, What Now?" (1932)
    Music: Harald Böhmelt; Lyrics: Richard Busch

________________________________________

(MEHR, MIT EIN TIEFES U. BLEIBENDES GEFUL DER ANGST: Whoa Whoa Whoa with the emails about the quality of this translation, already. It's why I have a deep respect for everyone who ever translated a novel or poem from one language to another. My ability with German is a few degrees past utilitarian; I like to imagine I have an apprehension of the Geist in Der Sprache -- and can approximate it in a way that's true to the author[s]. But, you know.)

 ________________________________________

Random Barking: Tears In The Rain

Still Crazy After All These Years

So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it; but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell, we are suddenly intoxicated, and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them -- but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.
-- Marcel Proust

In My Head, The Theme To (The Original) 'Magnificent Seven' Plays, but The Dog grows old. Physically, mentally and spiritually (at least one of these three categories are very subjective) I am doing better than most of my chronological peers, but I am now officially, by government standards, old.  I was already that in the eyes of the Kiddies of Kiddietown (bless their tiny white cotton socks), where The Olds are treated by degrees as Replicant life forms; hideous, useless eaters, grown in vats.

Some days ago, The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs Mongo (the heroine of yet another unpublished Steig Larrson novel by that name) took me to a seaside restaurant in an All-White enclave by way of celebrating. There was a view of The Bay, and the venue was architecturally pleasant -- but the food was oddly muted, not quite tasteless, reminding me of the old Woody Allen joke about his mother, "running the chicken through the deflavorizing machine."  I enjoyed the wine, though, as Dogs do, and The Girl and I discussed politics.

GIRL: Well, I voted. For Hillary -- and don't tell me about how much of a tool she is.
DOG: This election puts everything that's horrifying about America's political structure and our culture on display. Forget Trump; but I can't vote for her.
GIRL: But it's simple: you vote for Clinton, or you get something even worse.
DOG: So, choose between the lesser of two weevils?
GIRL: This is going to make me crazy. If Trump gets elected --
DOG: He's can't. It's simply not possible. Clinton is already elected. That should make you feel better.
GIRL: Okay; let's just drop it. What did you mean about ' two weevils'?
DOG: A bad Captain and Commander joke, but it applies to this election.

Over the weekend, I re-read an article by Laurie Penny about the DNC's Convention this year which made me want to puke, endlessly, like Ron sicking up Banana Slugs at Hogwarts after a spell gone bad.  Then, I read:  

... Al Franken... chants “Hillary, Hillary.” Fuck that guy. He’s not helping. The only way this could get more embarrassing is if they wheeled out Paul Simon to sing Bridge Over Troubled Water. Which is exactly what happens next. 

Now, before I say what I’m about to say, I want you to understand that I have been a fan of Paul Simon and his work since my father first played me the Greatest Hits when I was six years old.

... Outside, an epic summer storm is breaking over the Democratic Demilitarized Zone like the world’s laziest metaphor. ... I spend an hour sheltering ineffectively outside the Wells Fargo building [where] an independent internet journalist wearing a giant crystal pendant and no shirt starts explaining how he’s hoping for a Trump presidency to usher in the coming collapse of civilization.

Paul Simon's Greatest Hits, Etc., was released in 1977 (meaning Penny was born at roughly the same time that I was participating in America's geopolitical containment strategy in Southeast Asia), and I remember the cuts "American Tune", and Kodachrome, and Still Crazy After All These Years well.

But I could walk it back farther than that. It was here that I had a Proustian moment, stumbled across a forgotten glove: I knew Simon and Garfunkle when they were brand, spanking, never-before-heard new -- Sounds Of Silence; Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; 59th Street Bridge Song, Feelin' Groovy; Bridge Over Troubled Water, El Condor Pasa; Bookends and Mrs. Robinson brand-new.

I listened to them with my now long-gone High School friend, JJ, while stoned on pot in the basement rec room of his house, the doors locked and the blinds drawn because, you know, pot was illegal. JJ's tastes in music were more reflective than most of the stoners in our small town, which leaned heavily towards Cream, Butterfield Blues Band, Spirit, Creedence Clearwater.

(JJ also introduced me to Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention -- and to Leonard Cohen. Wherever you are, buddy; for that, I am grateful.)

I listened to them outside the U.S. on a PX-purchased TEAC reel-to-reel, and in a string of apartments afterwards -- until the day I stood in an elevator and heard a version of "Feelin' Groovy" by Montovani or 1001 Strings oozing out of the Muzak -- and thereafter found myself listening to Bowie, the Stones, and later (Gott; Hilfts Du Mich) the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and the BeeGees' Odessa album.

The TEAC R-to-R is still around, in need of repair; but the SNF and BeeGees albums are long gone. Some day, we'll say the same about Trump and Hill-o, and about America; and it will also be said of us.

________________________________

MEHR, MIT HUNDE:

STONE: Aningaaq. Is that -- is that your, is that your name? Aningaaq is your name?
ANINGAAQ: ["May Day? Aningaaq. Aningaaq, May Day?"] (Laughs)
STONE: No, no, no. My name is not Mayday. I’m Stone. Dr. Ryan Stone, I need help. [Dogs barking]  Those -- are dogs. They’re calling from Earth.... Woof, woof; yeah...
ANINGAAQ: (Laughs) ["Woof, woof ! May Day? Woof Woof Woof!"]
STONE: Yeah... Aningaaq, make your dogs bark again for me, would you please? Your dogs. Dogs, you know. Woof, woof. Dogs.
ANINGAAQ: ["Dogs don't sound like that -- they go, Aooooo!"]
STONE: Aoooooo. Woof Woof. Aooooo!
ANINGAAQ: [Aooooooooo!]
STONE: Yeah... Aoooo... Oh; I’m gonna die, Aningaaq. I know, we’re all gonna die. Everybody knows that. But I’m gonna die today. Funny, you know, to know that. But the thing is; I’m still scared. I’m really scared. Nobody will mourn for me; no one will pray for my soul. Will you mourn for me? Will you say a prayer for me? I mean, I’d say one for myself, but I’ve never prayed in my life; so. Nobody ever taught me how.

-- Sandra Bullock (Stone), Orto Ignatiussen (Aningaaq), Gravity (2015)  

__________________________________

And The Winner Is

-- Mr Robert A. Zimmerman of Duluth, Minn.

Obverse Of The Nobel Medal For Literature (Wikipedia / Creative Commons)

Look out, Kid / It's somethin' ya did
God knows when but you're doin' it again
-- Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)

So many tracks playing in the ol' Brain Radio right now, connected to people, places, emotions.
Congratulations, Bob. This is way better than being asked to claim your Tub Of Slaw.

He is the first American to win the prize since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, was a surprise: Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

“Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” Bill Wyman, a journalist, wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Mr. Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”

... this is snarky, mayhaps -- but when Them Swedes give the same prize to Laurie Anderson, I'll really sit up and take notice. And, Laurie recently released Heart Of A Dog.

____________________________

We're Whalers On The Moon

Birthday of Big Marine Mammal Avatar Creators

Over at The Soul Of America, it's a celebration of Herman Melville's 197th birthday, and things of the Sea, and a Whale and other notables which Herman brought back, to tell Thee. I considered writing a post from the viewpoint of the Whale just for the potential Yucks (because, god knows, We Need The Yucks Wherever We Can Get Them), but gave it up and settled for the Humorous Image.

The best thing about the post, and the reason I mention it here, is -- Herman tends to be overlooked in a culture whose highest expression is a Rhianna / Pitbull remix; it's good to be reminded that he is still there -- as he reminds us that we are chased by our mortality; and that sometimes the Form Of The Destructor is large, albino, and aquatic.  For me, it's a big lawn mower. Your mileage may differ.

I was introduced to Melville when I was fourteen -- not through the novel he's most often identified with, but in the short work, "Bartelby The Scrivener" (1853), a classic in its own right. Ishmael's tale was next, and I was, uh, hooked. Later, I wasn't able to read anything by James or Conrad that didn't refer back to the narrative style I encountered first with Melville.

When I consider it, "Moby Dick: Or, A Whale" is ubiquitous now. There is No Whale before He who populates a goodly portion of that book (Yeah, okay; 'Shamu'  and 'Willy': not the same thing). That Big Marine Mammal is archetypal, now.

And His (or, Her) echoes in the culture are manifest:  We get Futurama's We're Whalers On The Moon / We Carry A Harpoon; or Robert Graves' "Good-Bye To All That" (where the President of his College at post-Great War Oxford tells the assembled, 'Gentlemen, the menu indicates that tonight we are dining on "Whale and Pigeon Pie." You will find the ratio of the ingredients to be precisely one whale to one pigeon');  or, Robertson Davies' What's Bred In The Bone (" '...Catch Me!' She said through a mouthful of whale' ").

And, when something appears in Family Guy, it's now hard-wired into our DNA.

 Herman Left Out The Part Where Whales Like 'Total'

______________________________

MEHR, MIT KEINE POLITIK: My Very Own Hillaryite Colleague asks, "So you hate music, too?" (This, because of the Rhianna / Pitbull quip.) And I would agree, it's absurdist reductionism to claim that the essence of culture in Eusa is rap music and movies like Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. I'm convinced that people (or, Whales; or very intelligent Honey Badgers) in the not very distant future will look back on this period as one of the most varied and vibrant in the history of our humanoid species -- until, you know, that thing happens.

______________________________

UND NOCH IMMER MEHR:  Once I saw this, I could not un-see it. It is an actual book.

 

 

The Monster Truck And The Rubber Duck Collide

And The Universe Was Born

O Happy Zion: Your Reward Awaits You In Jesusland™

What, you have a problem with this cosmology? It's as valid a Creation Myth as any other. I'm not fond of Monster Trucks (no matter how much I liked the series, House), true, but The Great Duck is our savior; He also floats, and is appealing as a chew toy:  I like my saviors to be multi-purpose.

Obey the Great Duck in all His forms. 

But yes, What Is All This? Why Are We, and What's It All For? Ah, the age-old questions -- life in all its multitudinous forms.  We won't be finding any answers today, but there is still fun social commentary for YOU, which is almost as good. Possibly.

( Click For Huge and Readable Version; It's Easy And Fun! )

MEHR, MIT EIN GESICHTE:  Speaking of Cosmology and Ducks and Fun, here's a true story: I once had a friend, who is now (just by the luck of the draw) famous and wealthy, someone who has in fact added to human culture in a not-so-small way, and who once told me a tale about his hitchhiking days. It relates to the Big Questions Of Life, but only just barely.

He was seventeen, and one Fall day, splitting from his home on the Great Lakes (which also involved a brush with John Wayne Gacy, but that's for another time), began thumbing it up north into Canada. He hooked up with two men, a classic Mutt-and-Jeff team, driving up into The Maritimes ostensibly to make and sell chocolate fudge. Jeff was tall and spindly in his forties or early fifties with a shock of black hair greying at the temples; Mutt was short, with a close-cropped buzz-cut (known from my Army days as a 'high and tight') who smoked cigarillos and looked a little like Popeye. 

My friend had a well-developed radar for Crazies, and after a time riding along read these two as fairly routine types (at least they weren't serial killers).  They had a station wagon pulling a U-Haul style trailer filled with fudge-making apparatus and a sales stand. It also became fairly clear that their business, while necessary, wasn't the prime focus of their travels.

It didn't take long for my friend to determine that Mutt and Jeff had Little Black Books, and their trips were like unto the routes of sailors, reaching ports of call where they knew the names and telephone numbers of every love-starved and rapacious widow, divorcee, and spinster librarian under thirty from Vancouver to Newfoundland. 

Apparently, they drove across Canada during the year, making fudge, making some money, seeing women they knew (and being introduced to a few new ones), then taking another route back west before starting all over again.

My friend passed himself off as nineteen, out of high school and just bumming around. Mutt and Jeff nominally appeared to accept my friend's story, and offered him the chance to tag along and join their team. Their normal routine was to drive into a town, file whatever paperwork, sell fudge by day and live well by night. My friend, at seventeen, was flabbergasted at the frank availability of the, uh, ladies Mutt and Jeff knew -- who also had friends very happy to, uh, get to know a young man. This all went on until needs financial and physical were satisfied; then, they pushed on to the next wind-swept Canadian town.

Canada: Renowned Worldwide For Its Beaver, 

And You Knew This Joke Was Coming

Somewhere in there, Mutt and Jeff also picked up The Kid. Not the Kenosha Kid -- this one was nineteen, tall, painfully blonde to the point of being a near-Albino. He was also Mormon, who had been out on his Year Of Witnessing (or whatever it's called). Young Mormons performing this rite of passage do so in the company of other Young Mormons, or with an Elder whose job is to keep a watchful eye on them.  

The Kid had a crisis of faith on the road. He wasn't sure if he was Mormon, or what, any longer, and had simply walked to the nearest highway and put out his thumb: If you don't know which way you're going, it don't matter which road you take. To the other Mormon(s) he was traveling with, The Kid had just up and disappeared.

I refer to him as The Kid because, even two years older than my friend, The Kid was clueless. And hitchhiking alone across Nowhere Canada, with dwindling finances, ashamed and frightened at the idea of returning to his family in Utah in his confused state.  

My friend's take was that Mutt and Jeff sized him up as Not Crazy, just Trying To Sort Things Out, and felt sorry for him. While he wasn't a danger to others, he was a Kid alone on the High Way, and Mutt and Jeff decided to take him into the Empire Of Fudgelandia for a while until he could decide his next move, and offer him an opportunity to make a little cash in the process. Plus, he got to meet girls in a way that he wouldn't have been able to do in the shadow of the Big Temple in Salt Lake City. The Kid, as the trip progressed, seemed to like that part of it.

He was given, however, to questioning the religious beliefs with which he had been raised -- volubly and frequently. He argued for them, against them; back and forth, a mirror of his own inner conflict, thinking out loud. Mutt and Jeff were fairly tolerant of these outbursts, which were greatly toned down if The Kid had ready access to Girls.

The drive up into The Maritimes continued. It began to get colder. Mutt and Jeff, my friend and The Kid drove in the station wagon-and trailer into a town that had a medium-sized mall with two floors of shops on all four sides of a large, open area, and topped by a skylight. The mall was heated during the winter months, and the open area was a perfect location for the fudge stand.

One day around noon, Mutt, The Kid and my friend were manning the fudge stand inside the mall. The sun had been trying hard to break through clouds most of the day; sales were slow, and The Kid had been banging on about religion in a general way since the morning. Mutt, dressed all in white when making and selling fudge -- white pants, apron, white T-shirt and a small white fry-cook's cap -- was leaning against the fudge machine, his face screwed up like Popeye's as he looked up every now and again at the skylight, listening as The Kid explained some aspect of Mormonism to my friend.

Even though Mutt's attitude toward The Kid's diatribes was kindly, he usually declined to join in.  Finally, The Kid turned to Mutt and asked, "So, what religion are you? I mean, what were you raised as?"

Mutt slowly took his omnipresent cigarillo out of his mouth. "I'm a Hueyist," he said simply, and looked up towards the grey sky above the mall. 

"What -- you mean, that big duck in the cartoons?" The Kid was nonplussed for a moment, then laughed at Mutt -- no; he guffawed. " 'Baby Huey' ??"

Mutt paused, as if in thought, still looking up, then quickly looked at The Kid with an utterly rock-solid, serious expression and said, quietly, "Don't make fun of Huey."

At that moment, the mall was flooded with light, pouring through its glass roof; the interior of the little arcade blazed as if someone were testing a nuclear warhead in the sky above. The Kid looked up, eyes wide, mouth slack-open in Awe and Fear, utterly speechless. It was clear he was at least considering that it might not be wise to mock the Power and Glory that was Huey in future.

As The Kid stood gobsmacked, rooted in place and staring up at the heavens, my friend looked over at Mutt. A tiny smile was creasing his face, just for an instant, before he replaced the cigarillo in his mouth and turned back to the fudge machine. He had been looking up, watching the clouds through the skylight, and timed his response to The Kid just as the clouds parted and the sun, at zenith above the mall, suddenly broke through.

________________________

Der Amerikanischer Politik

Schaum-Saugen Schweinhunde *

Mr Fish, keepin' it Real.

The Gory Death Of A Panicked Animal Is Terrifying To See (Mr Fish)

SEE the thrashing of the WOUNDED BEAST as it CRASHES ACROSS THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE !! It is THE TEA PARTEI against THE GOOD OL BOYS OF THE GOP in a DEATHMATCH for control of the GRAVY TRAIN and SWINE TROUGH ACCESS !!  BECAUSE FREEDOM !!

 Girls, Girls, Girls [Say Obama Was Just A Realist] (Mr Fish)

HILLARY THE INEVITABLE will ensure that everything APPEARS TO CONTINUE AS IT ALWAYS HAS and that NOTHING WILL CHANGE in the future except for THE BETTER. The fact that a layer of society WILL STILL BECOME RICHER THAN BEFORE can be ignored as INAPPROPRIATE.  BECAUSE FREEDOM !!

(* Scum-Sucking Pig-Dogs)

_______________________________

In A Just Universe We Are All Safe And Loved

But We Are Here

Yesterday a friend and I went to look at an assisted living community for her 86-year-old father. The facility's marketing person was friendly and low-keyed. The place itself was comfortable and clean; the average age of a resident was 83, and the men and women I saw seemed generally content and would easily engage with you if you stopped to talk with them. To live there in a small, one-bedroom apartment, would cost roughly $5,000 per month even without the range of assistance.

Later, my friend and I took a drive to another facility; it was a place her father could afford, but wouldn't feel comfortable in. She wanted to make a point about exclusivity. 

The place we went to was a 'community' run by a private corporation, like a suburb of single-story homes built within the past twenty years, all newer versions of the kind of GI-tract-style home built in 1948 which I had grown up in. It was on the top of a set of hills, surrounded by manicured lawns and trees, a cross between a park and a country club. 

We went into the community's main building, and walked through their dining area -- a broad room with tables and booths, actual silverware, fresh linen and bright napkins, good carpeting and dark, aged wood paneling; the place looked like the interior of a yacht club. The people in that room also seemed content, but in a different way -- they seemed dressed more formally for Sunday brunch than the people in the other facility; or, perhaps it was just me.

On the way out of the building, we stopped to look at an album with information about the residents -- "...after graduating from Stanford, he lived in London..." "was an officer in the U.S..." "...met his wife while working for the World Bank..." "...undergraduate degree at Yale...".  Most of the John Cheever short fiction I've ever read came to mind for a moment.

When we drove away, my friend said, "If you're accepted to live here, the entry fee is that you give the corporation who runs it about a million dollars. It's a loan -- they get to use that money for whatever they want. When you die, your heirs get the full sum back, but with no accrued interest.  And while you are living here, you pay about $10,000 a month for one of these homes. More, if you need assisted living," she said. "He could, but my father doesn't want to live in this kind of place."

"This is what the one-per-centers get at the end of their lives," she added. "And most of us won't even be able to afford the (first) place we looked at today."

I looked back at the place as we drove away -- at how clean, how quiet, orderly; how rich it seemed. It's one thing to intellectually consider how much better the Owners have it than the mass of the world's population. It's something else altogether to see it. 

I went away thinking about wealth, about inequity; about what Senator Sanders has been saying from The Stump, and the business-as-usual babble from Hillary The Inevitable ! I thought about things going on in the world outside Our Great Country, and about human suffering and history. 

___________________________

That led me to my usual blog-reading this morning, and I came across something that resonated.

One way or another, on a daily basis all of us struggle against the inane malestrom of useless human thought: con-artist commercialism, incoherence and illogic masquerading as clarity, and Exclusive and All-New ! that smothers human consciousness like a wet tarp. It does nothing to illuminate the landscape for other travelers or feed the soul.  And the Intertubes, a vast place, simply amplifies the prevalence of all of it (I'd include this blog in that list -- this is just a nighttime bus stop somewhere in the big middle of somewhere, or nowhere).

But -- one excellent thing about the Intertubes is, like other forms of communication, you may occasionally break out of the crazy Bardo-world of Amazon and Beyonce, CNN and Endless Living Through Twitting, and find yourself in a place where the sun is warm and the fields are green and open, the ocean is wide and blue, and people tell you the truth in complete sentences.

This bit of clear thinking (and you should read all of it), courtesy the Soul Of America, where there are cats.  I had to pass it along: Please consider.

If we had a society where everyone lived well whether they had a job or not, then we could make pure utilitarian arguments about employment. But when employment is required for people to be able to live decently, or even live at all, such arguments lead to treating huge masses of people as disposable, and consigning them to awful lives.

Again, this might be ok if we lived in a scarcity society, but we don’t. We produce enough food to feed everyone, we have the ability to house everyone, and so on... “Everyone should have a decent life, and that shouldn’t be contingent on whether they can make money for a billionaire.”

The economy and corporations exist to serve people, not the other way around. When they do not do so, the problem lies with them...

The core of any decent system of ethics, and thus of any political and economic order, is Kant’s maxim that people are ends, not means. When you forget that, you inevitably descend into monstrosity.

  --  Ian Welch, "Pure Utilitarianism and Capitalism"; Blog, March 5, 2016

MEHR, MIT ANGST AUS MITTELSTANDE: Rereading this post, I'm reminded how lucky we are to be able to focus on these kinds of issues, in a Western culture with cutting-edge technology. Which is another way of saying it reeks of middle-class stuff.  Guilty.

___________________________

Random Barking: Last Salute

Empire

"Gibraltar"; Artist: Charles Pears, 1930, For The Empire Marketing Board

I spotted this image on the Tom Clark blog, via The Soul Of America, and was immediately captivated.

It has everything -- balanced design elements (the Golden Mean at work), balanced and complimentary colors; images of The Family, the Power Of Worldwide Empire (Sing, "Rule, Britannia", right now. You know who you are), and being on holiday -- which suggests both financial and job security; a pleasant interlude in a sunny and pleasant life.

Sadly, when this poster was created, England had been virtually bankrupted after the excesses of the Great War (World War One to you), and was busily being kicked to the curb by the Depression ("Thanks awfully, America!  I say; we certainly didn't see that coming! Bit of a surprise!"). The Empire was fading and in the great unwinding of national self-determination that followed WW2, all the 'Pink Bits' on the map would have to be replaced by different colors.

Here in Aremica, our own Empire is slowly fading, except in the minds of persons like Herr Trumpi. The Kochbrudern don't care; they're rich. The rest of us don't care because we're too busy texting. When we're purchased by Commie Red China on eBay, no one will notice until Google is shut down for 'maintenance'.

__________________________________

Plastic Soul

David Bowie (1947-2016)

(Photo: Leonhard Foeger / Reuters)

Ground Control to Major Tom. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on ... For here am I sitting in my tin can. Far above the world. Planet Earth is blue. And there's nothing I can do. 

Now he knows what we do not.  So turn and face the strange.

______________________________________

Hasten January

X-Files

SCULLY: I swear to god, Mulder; if I heard "Silent Night" one more time I was going to start taking hostages. What are we doing here?
MULDER: Stakeout.
SCULLY: On Christmas Eve?
MULDER: It's an important date.
SCULLY: No kidding.

--  Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder (Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny),                   The X-Files, Season 6, Episode 6, "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas"

Don't misunderstand: News Corporation and Fox (network, cable, or film) are creatures of Little Rupert and Fat Roger's right-wing megalomania and overweening greed, and as such are tools -- rotten, rotten, rotten to the core.

That said, it made sense to me that Fox would showcase a program which presented a fairly paranoid world where governments manipulated the population to conceal a secret relationship with extraterrestrials, who were bent on doing god knew what.

 TTIOT: Presented With X-Files' Classic Opening Music By Mark Snow

The series debuted in 1992 and had already been on the air for 4 years when I finally gave in and watched it for the first time (the delay because I just don't support the Wizened Aussie's products on principle). I was immediately drawn in, and Had A Sad when it left the air in 2002.

After a ten-year story arc, we never really discovered what the government and the aliens were doing, and why -- but in the end, that was strangely all right. Much of the pleasure in a good novel, film or drama is in being kept wanting more than having as a story is told -- Chris Carter, the series' originator, and a team of talented writers had kept The Truth just out of reach through over 200 episodes. 

Now,  X-Files will be returning for a six-episode Coda, of sorts, in January 2016 (Fox wanted to bring the show back for the raitings it might receive, and the confiscatory ad rates it could charge. It was a business decision, period).

You can see a list of the new episodes and their air dates here.  Some of the usual suspects -- including Mitch Pellegi (FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner), Dean Haglund, Bruce Harwood and Tom Braidwood (Langly, Frohicke and Byers, collectively the "Lone Gunman"), and William B. Davis, The Cigarette-Smoking Man (aka C.G.B. Spender, the supposed father of Fox Mulder, and assassin of both JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr.), will appear.  Filming was done in and around Vancouver, B.C. -- the original production home of the series before it moved to Los Angeles, and one reason so many Canadian actors appeared in it (good thing too, eh).

Flukeman, From Season 2 (One of my personal favorites), Played

By Darin Morgan, Later A Writer And Producer On The Series

They booked six episodes, rather than a full 20-show season -- reportedly so that Fox could work around David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's schedules. Per Wikipedia, Duchovny "said he had no interest in doing a full season because: 'We're all old, we don't have the energy for a full season.' " 

However, Duchovny later said in an interview that he, Anderson and other former cast members were open to a return of X-Files; it just wasn't clear that a full-season run as in the old series would be possible. The first episode of the six is titled "My Struggle" (and we all know what that is in German, nicht wahr?), and ends with "My Struggle Part II".

I have no idea where Carter is going with this, but after hearing "Little Drummer Boy" for the septobazillionth time just a while ago, Gillian Anderson's line from one of the XF's  specific Exmass episodes came back to me, clear as a bell -- along with the CSM's famous Bah-Humbug takeoff on the 'Forrest Gump' park-bench scene:

 William B. Davis Breaks It Down For Us

CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN: Life... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable, whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down because there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an English toffee -- but they're gone too fast and the taste is... fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits, filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts; if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box... filled with useless, brown paper wrappers. 

As I am anxious for this season to pass into the history books, seeing the Old Crew together again is something to look forward to.  Happy Holidays.

_________________________________________

Still Missed

Twenty-Five Years

Something About Him Was Always A Kick-Out-The-Jambs Liverpudlian Rebel

Speak, Memory: One of the two arrests we made that day hadn't gone well. After putting the car in the basement garage at the Federal Building, I'd walked up the underground ramp to the street, intending to buy my second pack of Marlboros of the day from the liquor store up the next block. Stepping inside, I looked down at a stack of the evening edition of a paper which isn't even around any longer, lying on the counter below the cash register with a banner headline in 48-point type: JOHN LENNON SLAIN.  Fuck; I thought, and then said it out loud.  

_______________________________________

Miracle Of The Season

Go Ahead. Take A Break From Your Busy Holiday.

The 1993 film, Matinee ! was (one Dog's opinion; there have to be miscreant throwback troglodyte maniacs individuals out there who believe it's a cinematic gem) a failed coming-of-age movie set in Key West, Florida -- only an SRBM's throw away from the island of Cuba -- and during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962, no less.

One of its subplots was the arrival in town of a hucksterish film producer,  Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), who was out in The Sticks doing some audience research of a B-grade sci-fi movie before its full release. The real story line of the film was about the experience of two 10 to 12-year-old boys in Key West whose fathers were Navy aviators on end-of-the-world alert, and their Mom.

The only thing notable about Matinee was the B-grade movie being shown in Key west's local walk-in theatre, entitled MANT !, a typical man-exposed-to-radiation, mutates-into-giant-Ant story, the kind that would later become classic fodder for MST3K.  Snippets of this, uh, 'effort' were shown as a film-within-the-film as "Maintee" progressed; at least two of the actors performing in it, William Schallert and Kevin McCarthy, had appeared in actual sci-fi films in the 50's and 60's (McCarthy in the original 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', among others; Schallert worked on scores of television series, most notably in The Patty Duke Show), which increases the Camp factor for Dogs of a certain age.

While Goodman had received top billing in this, uh, 'effort', his actual on-screen time didn't amount to much. It was noted that, when the last take of his character's last scene was completed, Goodman was supposed to have looked around at the rest of the cast and crew, said, "So long, suckers!", then walked to his convertible parked just off-set and drove off without another word or backward glance.

It's a miracle that someone took the time in 2013 to stitch these clips together into a coherent reconstruction. Isn't it?  Of course it is.

Because this is the season for miracles. Or, something. Isn't it?

________________________________________

James Tate

(Because the comments section at BLCKDGRD is closed, and I can't get my suggestion in. And, it seems fitting -- the season, and bloody obscene tragedies, and politicians, and Oval Office speechifying, and everything. That the world as we see it now must seem full of opportunities, to a certain type of individual.)

Behind The Green Door

Thaddeus had said he wanted to get together, but,
then, when we met in town, he didn’t seem to have anything
on his mind. “I’d like to get myself one of those remote-
controlled airplanes, and chase pigeons in the park,” he
said. “That will show them who’s boss,” I said. “Of course,
some people might think I’m a little old for that,” he said.
“For terrorizing innocent birds? You’re never too old for
that, Thad,” I said. We sipped at our beers. It was still
before noon, and Mary’s was almost empty, except for an elderly
couple at the bar drinking martinis. “They’re pretty expensive,”
Thad said. “Martinis?” I said. “No, stupid, remote-controlled
airplanes,” he said. “Think of it as an investment in your
lost childhood,” I said. He thought that over for a while.
The couple at the bar toasted one another, and laughed. The
bartender brought us another round. It was a Saturday, and
I had many errands and chores on my list. “You know all about
my ‘lost childhood,’ so I don’t need to remind you,” he said.
“I can recite what you got and what you didn’t get for all
your birthdays,” I said. “Then, why do you put up with me?”
he said. “I need to suffer, Thaddeus. It makes me a better
person. So, you see, indulging you is completely selfish
on my part. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s how the
world is, and that’s why some great good may come out of
making those birds suffer. I don’t know what it is, but something
tells me it’s so,” I said. The woman at the bar was tickling
the man’s ribs, and he was about to fall off his stool. “Then,
you think there really is a plan?” Thad said. “Absolutely,
right down to the last drop of beer spilled on this floor
every night, to the ant you killed walking out your door,
and the plane crash in the Andes,” I said. Thaddeus seemed
stunned, while I was just saying anything that came into my
head. I took it as my job to give him something to think
about. The couple at the bar ordered another round. Then,
Thaddeus said, “If that’s true, then I’ve never really done
anything wrong. I had no choice, I’m off the hook.” I looked
at my watch. We were right on schedule for that conclusion.
“And soon the earth will open up, and a ten-thousand-year-old
giant squid will strangle us all,” I said. “I’m hungry,” Thaddeus
said, “do you want to get some lunch? There’s a new place
across the street.” “That’s not new. They just painted the
door a different color. The owner, Herb, had a midlife crisis
or something,” I said. “Well, then, it’s sort of new, I mean,
you don’t know what you’re going to get after something like
that,” he said. “I see your point. I suppose it could get
kind of ugly. Or maybe not. It could be better than ever.
Still, I have these errands,” I said. “You’re afraid to lose
even an hour, George, afraid what you might find in its place,
something truly unknown, without a name, no visible shape.
There’s nothing wrong with that, George. You know I’ve always
admired you, so go on your way, get your dishwashing detergent
or whatever it is. I’m going to find out what’s behind that green
door,” Thaddeus said. “No doubt there will be an ambrosia burger,”
I said, “and you’ll order one.” “I will have no choice,” he
said. When we stepped outside, the sunlight blinded me. “Good-bye,
Thaddeus,” I said, “wherever you are.” A dog barked, and, then,
a siren sped by. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my
face.

-- From "Ghost Soldiers" (2008)

_______________________________

Henning Mankell, 1948 - 2015

Case Notes

Henning Mankell (Photo: Munro McLeod For The UK Guardian)

At the end of Faceless Killers, Henning Mankell's first crime novel, his main character, police Detective-Inspector Kurt Wallander, sits in the dark talking with his mentor, retired Inspector Rydberg, who is dying of cancer. A murder investigation is over, the killers are apprehended, and Wallander talks with Rydberg about the case.

     "We made lots of mistakes," Wallander said thoughtfully. "I made lots of mistakes."
     "You're a good policeman," Rydberg said emphatically. "Maybe I never told you that. But I think you're a damned fine policeman."
     "I made too many mistakes," Wallander replied.
     "You kept at it," said Rydberg. "You never gave up... that's the important thing."
     The conversation gradually petered out. I'm sitting here with a dying man, Wallander thought in despair... The incantation flashed through his mind: a time to live, and a time to die.
     "How are you?" He asked cautiously.  Rydberg's face was unreadable in the darkness.

Henning Mankell died yesterday at age 67, roughly eighteen months after being diagnosed with cancer. He was a playwright and director who married the daughter of film director Ingmar Bergman, and served for several years as Director of Sweden's national theater. He was most prolific as an author of fiction -- including thirteen stand-alone novels and eight novels for children.

But Mankell will be remembered in Europe and America primarily as author of twelve more novels, "Krimis", featuring Swedish police Detective-Inspector Kurt Wallander -- as vibrant, individual and human a detective as Simeon's Inspector Maigret, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, or Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe.

____________________________________________

Detective fiction as a genre had been popular in Europe since the end of the First World War, but  publishers considered them entertaining diversions with formulaic, predictable characters and plots. Agatha Christie, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Georges Simeon, Erich Kästner, 'S.S. Van Dine', Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler all sold well enough, but detective stories were not taken seriously by publishing houses in Europe or America.

Neutral Sweden was untouched by WW2. Trading with Allies and Axis, it remained secure and became rich. After the war, a wealthy Swedish society could afford to provide all basic needs for its citizens -- a social safety net that was the envy of the world. But by the late 1960's, the open State was experiencing everything from rock music and antisocial teenage behavior, to drugs, organized crime; corporate corruption; and, as increasing numbers of refugees poured in from around the world, a right-wing backlash from some who wanted to end Sweden's its traditional open-door asylum policy.

The quiet, isolated northern country which had escaped the ravages of a world war found itself unsure of its future, and the problems imported from a larger world. At roughly the same time in the 1960's, a Swedish couple, Maj Söwall and Per Wahlöö, wanted to write novels exploring those issues -- and used the format of the crime novel as their vehicle.

Söwall and Wahlöö's stage was Sweden's capital, Stockholm, with a cast of police detectives led by a senior investigator named Martin Beck. Their framework was what we now refer to as the "police procedural": we follow the detectives as they piece together evidence, using the same methods, systems and protocols as real Swedish police.   

And, the two authors were among the first to present their policemen as all-too human -- they were cynical and idealistic by turns, and driven by a sense of duty. They had drinking problems, money problems; marital problems (one moves in with a barely above legal age girl). They argued with bureaucracy, complained about their pay, and fought with each other in petty rivalries around office politics. They had political positions (for or against America's war in Vietnam), and might occasionally smoke pot.

The novels immediately became popular in Sweden, then across Europe. Söwall and Wahlöö's Martin Beck and his squad were immediately accepted by Constant Reader, the person in the street, as valid, three-dimensional characters.  These Swedish cops reflected the world that the readers lived in. Publishers saw money to be made and began trying to find the "next  Söwall and Wahlöö".

Within a few years, a new niche publishing industry developed:  Krimis, from the German, Kriminalroman (crime novel).  It's no exaggeration that Steig Larson, Jo Nesbo, Hakan Nesser, Ian Rankin, and a large number of other Krimi authors would not have been as successful without Söwall and Wahlöö's work -- and that includes Henning Mankell.

____________________________________________________

By the time Mankell began writing his crime series, the Krimi industry had been developing for over twenty years; as a market, it was arguably over-saturated. What made Mankell's work stand out and succeed is, simply, his talent as a writer. He tells (as best we know through the translations of his works) a good story; the voice of his narrator is reliable.

His characters are believable; the pacing and the action in his plots follow the typical rising-action-to-resolution framework, but none of the details about his characters or events in the story lines disturbs our suspension of disbelief. And most important -- the character of Kurt Wallander is immediately familiar.

Divorced, diabetic, self-doubting, Wallander worries -- about his daughter, who can't seem to find her place in the world; about his father, a curmudgeonly artist who only paints one basic theme (with or without the Grouse) and who begins suffering from Alzheimer's. He tries to figure out how he might find the money for a dream of a small house, and a dog. We've met him, and whether you're male or female it's not hard to imagine being him. At a minimum, we find ourselves emphasizing with him, and caring about what happens to him.

He listens to opera, keeps buying one Peugeot after another, and worries about his connections to the world, about dealing with his superiors and peers -- but when Wallander is presented with a case, his self-doubts recede and he is focused, driven, and decisive. We like our heroes to resemble us, and we want them to be better, to rise to challenges as we always hope that we could; Mankell gave his readers a character which did both.

And, like Söwall and Wahlöö, the crimes in Mankell's novels spring from changes in Swedish society, brought on by events in a larger world. Faceless Killers, the first in the Wallander series, is about a brutal double murder seemingly involving non-European refugees. Firewall explores terrorism through digital technology; themes in The Fifth Woman and The White Lioness touch on modern Africa; "The Man Who Laughed" involves corporate piracy and a self-assured Oligarch figure above the law. Before The Frost is a look at religious extremism, an echo of Jonestown and the People's Temple.

Wallander became a worldwide phenomenon; two Swedish television series based on the character in the early 2000's were followed by the BBC version in English, starring Kenneth Branagh. Mankell had been involved with the Swedish production company, Yellow Bird, in developing scripts for stories not connected to his novels. There's more to that story; I've written about it here.

____________________________________________________

Mankell, like Oliver Sacks earlier this year, had written publicly about his battle with cancer, and had just sent a brief article to the UK Guardian before he passed away:

Eventually, of course, the day comes when we all have to go. Then we need to remember the words of the author Per Olov Enquist: “One day we shall die. But all the other days we shall be alive.”

____________________________________________________