Moving On

I moved to Kansas City in 2018. I should say we but, I haven’t introduced my wife to this blog. Her name is Sara and if you want to know all about her check out her blog. It is an unflinching look at her life, her spirit, and how her past and present are taking their toll or giving her all the blessings. It just depends on how you take it.

So, we moved to KC in 2018. Yeah, right on time to get settled in for the pandemic. By the time of lockdown I’d already chewed through two meaningless jobs. Probably the only thing I did during that time of any consequence was volunteering for a local charity that I won’t name. When I first approached them I was looking for something to do with my time that seemed a little more meaningful than providing customer service to people with more money than brains. With this charity I spent four or five hours every Saturday morning tending plants at the charity’s greenhouses aimed at resolving one of Kansas City’s many food deserts or working on one of their many residential properties they maintained for the low income residents of that neighborhood. 

After we’d been in KC for a year our lease was up and we were a little sick of living in a multifloored apartment building in a faceless, midtown neighborhood. Instead of signing up for another year there, I approached the owner of the charity. I’d come to like the neighborhood in northeast KC that they served and I knew that they had a few vacant properties to sell or rent. We struck a deal and moved into a tiny little house about five blocks away from the charity’s headquarters. After a year of apartment living we suddenly had a yard, a washer and dryer right there where we kept our boots and bikes instead of a laundromat 2 miles away, four unshared walls, and our very own driveway.

Now, I’m not the best neighbor you could imagine. I’m quiet, at least I think I am. I can only guess but, I imagine that from other’s perspective I can seem secretive or maybe even suspect. Suspect of what, I don’t know. I just know that when I try to withdraw and not offend in most situations this tactic backfires and I become a subject of some attention and negative speculation. The more I withdraw, the more I seem to be up to something.

To be a neighbor, one must exist in a neighborhood. This neighborhood was largely hispanic. Sara and I thought that we could fit in by quietly living our little lives and doing our best to not interfere. Our neighbors, on the other hand, were joyously loud and involved in each other’s lives. Brothers got brothers places to live nearby, children grew up and moved into the house on the next corner. Birthdays, especially those of young girls, were huge affairs that involved huge cookouts with hired musicians, fireworks, light displays, and dancing long into the night. This was before marijuana was widely legal and available in Missouri. Any holiday, be it secular or Catholic, meant that the streets in our little part of the world were heavy with the smell of pot. I swore that on some occasions I could literally see a haze of the sweet smoke traveling up and down the streets like a silent specter.

Sara and I were living our best lives then. She had a job at a dog day care, the perfect nexus of her biggest passion and her need of a job. She would often come home with tales of this or that delightful misadventure with her dogs. I found a job working from home for a company that provided medical supplies for folks on medicare. In the mornings I was riding my bike regularly, striving to add one more mile to yesterday’s ride. Mind you, we were still drinking like fishes and it was from this house that I would enjoy the first of what would turn out to be many hospital visits due to my internal organs revolting to the booze. I’ll just say that Sara and the teams of EMTs that she beckoned on my behalf saved my life more than a few times. If hospitals had punch cards I’d be owed a free sandwich by now. We don’t need to dwell on that now.

By the time the pandemic was real we were firmly nestled in our bungalow. I had a vegetable garden in the back and flowers in the front. Predictably, our neighbors had begun to dislike us. Well, they’d begun to dislike me. They probably wondered why such a sweet women as Sara would put up with an asshole like me. I’m not sure I have a healthy enough self-perspective to give you an honest assessment of my role. Let’s just say that none of us behaved well and, by the time we left, everyone was glad to see the back of me.

Here’s one little scrap that doesn’t have much to do with me: That charity I mentioned above was a bit rudderless. What had started as a well meaning food charity slowly began making of its owner a minor real estate baron in that low income neighborhood. I don’t have many details. It seems that the house-flipping scheme - let’s admit that’s what it was - was just supposed to be a side thing to underpin the food charity. In time, the housing arm began to demand more and more the owner’s attention. It all ended after a dramatic weekend where half a dozen cop cars with lights whirling surrounded the owner’s comparatively grand house in the neighborhood. We never knew what happened but, several months later I found a piece written by the owner after the dissolution of the charity. It didn’t mention the charity; it was a Kaczynskiesque screed about the powers that be and the end of our socio-economic system. 

The pandemic was hard on us all.

Now, we live in another apartment in North Kansas City. This one is much more livable. We’re on the ground floor with a decent patio and laundry just one floor downstairs. Most of our neighbors are as reclusive as us so everyone happily minds their own business. 

Pipe Pouch

This is one of my favorite things. It’s a pipe pouch made of deerskin. It has a slot along the top for storing pipe cleaners, a little pouch on the inside for my pipe tools and lighter, and a nifty string that goes around it to wrap it up tight. It also has a stain on the front flap so I can “tell people you stole it off a dead cowboy.”

That’s from the homeless guy who made it for me.

I met him in the courtyard of a coffee shop on the corner of a busy-ish street in downtown Cape Girardeau. It was the summer of 2016. I stopped in for a latte and to gather my nerves. He was sitting at one of the tables outside with a whole manner of crafty shit spread out in front of him. He told me how he wouldn’t sell any of his bow and arrow sets until he had shot the bow 70 times. He told me how he made and then broke in the moccasins he was selling to passers-by.

I visited at that shop a few more times that summer and I was always glad when he was there. We talked about politics, religion, sex, and all the other stuff you’re not supposed to talk about in casual company. Meanwhile, his dog, a lab named Ginger, would dash around and harass the other customers. They didn’t mind, she was a sweet dog who just wanted to say hi. Nevertheless, our conversations were constantly interrupted with him yelling, “Ginger, get over here! Leave that lady alone.”

Maybe the third time we met, and after watching him make moccasin after moccasin, I told him that my pipe case had recently fallen apart and maybe he could make me a new one. He was all over it.

A few days later he had it done. It was perfect.

We continued to get together. He told me about the time he got a bad cut on his leg on the road in Wichita. It went septic and he had to spend time in the hospital, which he hated. I told him about my recent divorce and my plans for the future. All the while he was yelling at his dog - “Ginger, stop that!” - and stitching leather.

He drifted away at the end of the summer.

A month later I met a ginger with a bunch of dogs, one of which was named Ginger. We got married the next year.

Anyway, this pipe pouch is one of my favorite things.

Teddy Bear

I like to give people rides. If I see someone hoofing it and the stars are aligned I’ll pull over and offer them a lift. It’s a good way to meet some interesting people.

The last time was a couple of days ago, December 26, Boxing Day, to be exact. I really don’t know what Boxing Day is, exactly, I just know it’s a thing in some English speaking countries.

Anyway, because of the holidays I got off work earlier than expected. It was mid-afternoon and there was a heavy fog nestled on Kansas City. I took a meandering route home, stopping occasionally to take pictures.

Once I’d had enough and just wanted to get home I pointed my car north - couch-ward. I was in a part of town that I didn’t know well. I saw a woman loaded down with backpacks, bags, and satchels. I noticed a long loaf of bread poking out of one of her bags. This is a woman who’s been shopping and, for whatever reason, is having to walk home on a chilly, damp day. This is a person to whom I should give a ride, I told myself.

Her story was different.

“Do you want a ride?”

“Oh, yes, sir!”

There was no hesitation. No, ‘Are you sure?’ Just ‘Hells yah!'

She danced around to the passenger side and, without adjusting any of her ponderous baggage, dropped herself into the seat. Face-forward, she didn’t say anything as if I knew where she needed to go. I drove in the general direction she had been walking until the first stop sign.

“Which way?”

Meanwhile my phone’s GPS was barking rerouting instructions. It was muffled and frantic under the pile of stuff I’d chucked in the back seat in order to give her room.

“Left.”

“Oh, my name is Bryce, by the way.”

We shook hands. Silence.

“And, what’s your name?”

“I don’t remember.”

It’s wasn’t bread in her bag. It was a teddy bear. I realized she wasn’t bringing shopping home. This was everything she owned. She didn’t shift her bags when she sat down because they are always on her. She wears them like clothing.

Her face was mottled and weathered. She was young, probably early thirties, but she’d been living hard for a long time.

“Do you want some water?”

“No.”

“I have some food. I have a peanut butter and jelly if you’d like.”

“No. Do you have any drugs?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Any pot?”

Isn’t pot a drug?

“No, sorry, I don’t have anything like that.”

“Oh. Left.”

We took three lefts. I wondered if she was leading me into some kind of ambush. Just for a moment. Of course she wasn’t. What would be the plan there? Wander the streets with all your possessions on your back until some naive dude picks you up then steal, what, his driver’s license?

Finally, she said turn right. I said I can’t, it’s one way the other way.

“It’s just a sign.”

I looked around. This was an empty part of the city. The few houses were boarded up, crumbling. The right turn led us to a T intersection. Straight ahead was a path leading into a wooded area. The path was littered with moldy clothing, an abandoned shopping cart, trash bags...you’ve seen it.

“This is it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. My partner is in there. Come with me. We’ll party. He wants to meet you. He talks better than me.”

“Oh, thanks. I can’t. I need to get home.”

I regretted saying the H-word immediately.

“Yeah, come on. He can tell you.”

“Isn’t there somewhere else I can take you? Do you know somewhere warm?”

“No, I’m safe here.”

She asked me where I lived. I gave her a vague description of the house that Sara and I are renting. She asked about Sara and, again, invited us to stop by to party.

Playing with the buttons on the radio she asked how much I paid for the car. I told her. She said it’s nice. It’s warm. I let her sit for a while. I held her hand for a little bit. She looked like someone who needed to be touched.

I hope it helped.

She broke my heart. She was clearly confused, probably drug addled. I told her to please stay warm. I only had three dollars on me, which I gave her along with a lighter. She was far more grateful for the lighter.

I watched her walk up the path to whatever it is that is her place. She disappeared into the trees.

Second Hand Therapy

 I need a teapot.

Please don't get too invested in that idea. You will be disappointed.

Still, I need a teapot. Two weeks ago I had a very nice teapot. Well, I had a teapot that fit my very specific requirements. I like whistlers. Don't judge me I just like it when they whistle. I also want a kettle with a lid, which can be a problem. A lot of whistlers on the market these days only have the neck with a tight-fitted cap which facilitates the whistling. The combination of a wide, equally tight-fitted lid and a whistling neck isn't always the easiest thing to find.

But, like I said, up until two weeks ago, I had one of those. It took me a few years to find it. Besides those specifications, it had to have the right look. Simple, clean, classic – it can be a troublesome equation and I'd solved it. Then, my wife, my love and companion of +20 years asked me to move out and, as is her nature, very efficiently organized our divorce.

I take kitchens very seriously. I'll drive a POS vehicle for years and never give it another thought but if a kitchen I'm associated with is out of order in any way, I will not rest until the problem is rectified. So, in packing up my belongings, I could not bring myself to remove the perfect kettle that I'd found for that kitchen, even if it left me without one.

Which brings us back to the frustrating truth that I need a teapot.

This afternoon I stopped in on a local 2^nd hand shop to find my teapot. In the meantime, my friend, Beth, was asking me to explain fractions to her. (We can talk about my choice of friends later.) I think I helped but, whether I did or not, I entertained myself by sending her some silly pictures of the stuff I found in the shop. I found a rack stuffed with bad ties and snapped a picture with the caption: All The Ties! There was a basket full of thin vases for $5. My caption for this was: I was hoping for a bag of dicks but a basket of vases will probably work.

I'm clever. My friends are lucky to have me.

There is an extensive collection of old, classy clothes in one section of this shop. I'm not what one would call a classy dresser but I like to slow down and admire the racks when I'm there. There's a wall there with nothing but ladies' hats. It's really stunning. I texted: All The Hats and lifted my phone to get the best angle to capture the amazing array of hats.

Just as I was just about to snap the picture...

Wait, first this. Among the beautiful, generations removed clothing and accessories I spotted the piece I would have to have. It's a heavy, cotton weave messenger bag. It's 70 years old if it's a day. It's busted to hell, worn and shredded on every corner. Still it's well made and despite it's state, there isn't a hole or flaw in it that would challenge it's functionality. As I admired it, I felt something in a side pocket. I stuck a finger in and pulled out a buckeye. How do I not buy that right then, right there?

Well, because my cash on hand was a dollar short, that's how.

Oh, well, I thought, maybe I'll come back later and grab it. Then I saw the hats...

I was ready to snap the picture when, from around the far corner, stepped a woman. At first, I truly believed that I was seeing one of the comically comely mannequins that the proprietors like to scatter throughout the shop. She was slender yet shapely and wore a snug, silk dress that would have been the jewel of the classic, outdated collection in this shop. It was tan, the color of stained pine, with a floral print in reds and greens, slightly and beautifully faded with age.

She was younger than me but I won't venture a guess how much. She had a beautiful smile and so happy eyes. Her skin was the blackest of black, gorgeously threatening to make the exquisite silk dress seem drab.

I never got that perfectly framed picture of the wall of hats.

Instead, after seeing my fellow shopper, I fumbled my phone/camera. It shlooped out of my grasp like a bar of soap. I juggled it for a few moments and finally lost the game as it clattered and broke open in a box of old post cards. The woman glanced at my antics and smiled as I tried to make a joke while gathering the pieces.

Pulling myself together as best I could, I headed for the nearest exit.

After driving a few blocks, I decided two things. First, I must have the buckeye bag. Second, I must offer to make dinner for my new beauty. Never mind, that I'm floppy, grey-haired old white dude with a scruffy beard and inability to speak to humans. It was just the necessary thing.

I found an ATM so I covered the cost of the bag which, I'm pleased to report, is now mine. After buying it, I found her and showed it to her. I showed her how it is so busted and told her how I like that. Then I showed her the buckeye. She didn't understand the significance but was engaged and listened as I told her about it. Then, I told her that I would like to make dinner for her. She was very nice and wisely declined with, “I doubt my boyfriend would appreciate that.”

I laughed – not nervously – and said, “Yeah, I suppose not.”

She smiled, warmly, and told me she appreciated the offer, even adding that it was flattering.

Who knows if there's a boyfriend. It doesn't matter. There's not a version of that scenario where she accepts. There are hundreds of versions of that scenario where I don't ask the breathtaking woman in front of me to spend some time. I rejected them and at no stage of the process did I lose my mind to dumb fright.

I've known my wife since I was 20; we've been together almost as long. To repurpose a line I think I heard in some TV dramedy, we had 21 amazing years in a nearly perfect relationship and then a year and a half suffering through hell together.

At 43 I'm back to single and I wasn't sure how I'd handle it. Thanks to some second hand therapy today, I think I might be okay.

Turn Signals or The Increasing Entropy of Common Human Relations

Turn signals are great. They’re so simple. They explain so much while being the easiest thing to understand. There’s no written language to understand to understand a turn signal. They communicate a pure, often important message to others. There is no nuance to a turn signal and the information delivered by a turn signal is only ever beneficial to everyone involved.

Most people who know me in real life consider me to be quiet, introverted, thoughtful and, overall, a bit of an asshole. That’s all probably pretty accurate but mostly because there aren’t turn signals. Human interaction is incredibly complex and I get it wrong almost every time. It would be so much better if motivations, needs and desires could be communicated in the same purely binary principles of the turn signal. Instead, we’re meant to receive a raft of spoken and unspoken information to understand each other.

Eye movement, posture, facial expression, hand gestures, personal space, tone of voice, verbal infliction and a whole mess of other subtle and not so subtle clues are continuously being delivered in even the simplest of conversations. Heap on top of that individual, familial and cultural differences mean that nobody is working with the same unspoken vocabulary. The whole thing is further complicated by the fact that spoken words, meant to be the most explicit form of communication, rely on living and therefore always evolving languages. None of it - definitions, word order, sentence structure, etc. - is static.

I just want to know if you’re turning left or right but somehow we’re involved in a heated conversation about the pros and cons of tapioca pudding. Is it any wonder I spend most conversations watching and listening? Receiving, interpreting and filing the information that I think is being delivered is often overwhelming. Then developing and delivering a clear response makes a complex situation nearly impossible. Is it any wonder that I spend most of my time actively avoiding conversations?

There aren’t many people I would count as close. There are a lot of people I like and, not always concurrently, admire. There are far fewer with whom I feel capable of communicating. I think those unfortunate few probably to find me exhausting.

Despite appearances, I do crave human interaction as much as anyone else. When I think I’ve found it, I quickly overload my new victim. Making matters worse is the fact that I’m almost always wrong. I haven’t established successful interaction. More often I’ve found someone who, for whatever reason, finds it in their interest to try to exchange ideas with me. I find myself in situations where I think I’m building a friendship or affection where the other person might simply fulfilling a specific need. Once done, I’m left wondering what happened to my new buddy.

I’m not saying I’m a victim or this is a situation unique to me. I imagine this is a universal experience and I’ve probably been on the other side of that situation quite a few times. I do think I’m less aware of it than most. Human relations are always a negotiation and most people understand that instinctually. I find I don’t and I have to stop and make myself understand that what I think is a fast, new friendship was, actually, a transaction.

Whenever I really put my mind to these matters, I almost always decide that I have Asperger syndrome. If I do, I’m on the functional end and there’s probably not a lot of benefit in knowing. Fortunately, I do have a few people in life and they’ll have to do.

I just wish the rest of you assholes would wear turn signals.

Shakespeare in the Writers' Room - Totally True History of Stuff You Should Totally Believe, for Reals!

This is an installment in the occasional series Totally True History Stuff You Should Totally Believe for Reals! It is researched, written, curated and maintained by Beth D. Carter and me. You should totally believe everything here because it's totally true, for reals.

For years the television industry has kept the lid on what I’m about to reveal. Careers may be at stake and reputations irrevocably damaged by what I am about to share but, in the end, the truth is always better than a lie. The mistruths behind the television show Cheer must be brought into the light.

Scholars and television executives alike will deny this. They will call me a whack-job and smear my name. As I’ve researched this I and my family have been threatened but I remain committed to the cause. I will make public supportive evidence in coming weeks. Today, I only intend to present a brief summary of what I’ve found.

In order to understand the import of these facts, you need to be able to conceive how it’s even possible. The first time one hears that William Shakespeare wrote the ‘80’s sitcom, Cheers, it may seem like pure fiction. But that most unlikely of facts is 100% true.

At the original Globe, costume and set design took a lot longer than in today’s theaters. The time between act one, scene two and act one, scene three could be as much as 20 minutes. Shakespeare could see that his audience would get restless and many would wander away. Most plays ended with half the audience they started with.

So, under the pen name Christopher Marlowe, he wrote silly little 15 minute vignettes about clownish oafs who were hanging out in a pub. His actors for these little pieces were stage hands in their street clothes, sitting at the bar, talking and joking in base language. The little side stage never changed and the costumes didn't matter so it filled the time perfectly with no real extra effort.

Problem was the pub scenes became more popular than the plays. The situation flipped. People were bored, wandering around, starting fights during the proper play. They were waiting for the pub scenes and didn’t care about Henry V, Much Ado, Hamlet...

This infuriated Shakespeare so he buried the vignettes and tried to start a whisper campaign about that hack, Christopher Marlowe.

In 1958, archeologists unearthed the manuscripts in a wooded area near Kensington known as the James Burrows. Once they were cleaned up and transcribed, it became clear that what was once thought to be just a rumor was, in fact, reality. The CHristopher Marlowe William shakespEARE, or CHEARE, plays were real.

The stories were brushed up for the sitcom to be more modern but the actual dialogue remained true. More than 85% of the words said on Cheers were originally penned by the Bard himself.

Parks and Recremation

A friend of mine asked me to write her obituary.

Camilla Parks's vast and varied contributions to the progress of humankind began several decades before her birth when she invented the photoscopic device that bears her namesake, the camera. She would later describe the pre-embryotic revelation that would lead to the creation of a tool that could transfer light images on to treated film thusly: “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could save the shit we see on paper?"

 

It was this simple observation that marked the beginning of the amazing career and, later, life of Parks. The noted inventor, woman of letters, world-class phrenologist and all around awesome dude would go on to delight and astonish all citizens of the world from great thinkers and political leaders to those dumb-fucks who just sit around eating dirt. What is up with those people?!

 

Born to Mr. and Mrs. Harriet S. Tubman on exactly the right day in the twentieth century, Reginald Archibald Peachpot would later change her name to Camilla Park after reading a really interesting book about Haley’s comet. She changed her name to Camilla Parks after the birth of her second child stating, “Wulp, I guess we’re plural, now.”

 

It was her heroics during the Battle of the Bulge that first landed Parks in the national spotlight. Her Sometimes You Gotta Contract campaign swept the nation and is widely considered responsible for TV shows such as Laugh In and 60 Minutes by most historians. Stephen Ambrose said, “It was a heady time for Parks. Her ability to balance work and family life was a true inspiration for the nation.” He added, “Is that what you needed?”

 

Once, after a phone call, Parks was overheard saying, “I really wish they’d stop calling me.”

 

Parks is survived by her loving family and that beef she put in the refrigerator to marinate yesterday morning. Her last thought was, “There’s no way they’re going to cook that steak right.”

 

She will be missed.

Of Lips and Levis or How the Book Was Way Better Than the Movie

A little over two decades and a thousand years ago I took some time between being a dumb teenager and being a slightly less dumb twenty-somethinger. One station of my rumschpringe involved a small video rental store in Hanau, Germany. It was located near a US army base and exclusively carried VHS tapes formatted for American video machines. I worked there, for cash, for a solid three to four weeks.

Hang on, this is going nowhere, I promise!

The ground floor had the standard – if spare – selection of movies: comedies, drama, etc. I don’t remember a lot about it but I don’t think there was a new releases section and the movies in stock on that floor rarely saw any action. The real business was upstairs, the porn section. It was packed tightly with, very possibly, every porn video available at that time.

I had one coworker who was really neither much of a worker or a co. I’m almost convinced her name was Ziva. Like the owner, she was Israeli – not Jewish, she often reminded me. Also, like the owner, she lived in the Israeli – not Jewish, she insisted that I understand – section of Frankfurt. It was never clear to me how she commuted to the store in Hanau. She would simply be there when a moment before she hadn’t been. Later, she would unhappen just as mysteriously. Come to think of it, I don’t remember her being anywhere but at the cash register, languidly checking out soldiers as they slid in and out with their porny treasures.

She was short and impossibly thin. Her features were a collection of angles, all of which pointed and seemed to slide to her perpetually pursed lips. Before each enunciation, of which there were very few, she would slowly kiss with the quietest of smacks what I can only assume was an invisible fairy always floating just in front of her, ready for its next blessing. It was easy to focus on that mouth when dealing with her. Besides being directed to do so by the rest of her face, it was better than looking in her black eyes. She had the second deadest pair of eyes I have ever encountered. To look at them for any longer than just a glance was to feel the room grow colder by at least three degrees.

During the first shift I worked with her, she stood silent, leaning, watching as the owner showed me around the shop and explained my duties. It was impossible to tell if she was studying us to establish the best, most silent ways to end our lives or deciding which one of us she would fuck and whether or not the Amaretto would be flaming or just wet as she poured it over our slithering body parts.

As soon as the boss left, she took my attention with an okay. [nyoekyay] She explained to me in exhaustive detail how I, as an American, could go into the PX on base and buy American Levis while she, as an Israeli – not Jewish – immigrant to the German economy. could not. She went on to explain that the American Levis in the PX were far less expensive than the Levis she bought in German shops. She told me how she and her friends would all like me to buy them the American Levis and they would be glad to pay me…

She was very thorough and mistaken. I didn’t actually have the credentials to make purchases at the PX. I’m lucky I didn’t. I can be breath-takingly naïve at times. I believed that she just really wanted the American Levis. It dawned on me years later that she was proposing something of a US army enabled smuggling ring. She never really understood, or perhaps chose not to accept the knowledge that I could not help her. Her greetings for me, if we were alone, was always, "Nyoekyay, I’m wondering, the Levis?"

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that little shop. It jumped into my brain today when I saw this meme on Facebook today. That movie and this shop are locked together in my head.

There was a single screen in the store. It was an old TV hung on the wall with a VCR opposite the cash register on which employees could watch any non-porn video in the store. I was there alone one morning and popped in The Breakfast Club. It was a slow morning and I was soon engrossed in the movie. It was during one of the snottier, self-confession scenes that the owner arrived. He stood, blocking my view of the screen and spent several moments watching the bawling teens.

Finally, he turned and fixed the deadest eyes I have ever seen on me. “Are you a fucking psychologist?” [skeeyiekeeawlajust]

He punched the TV off. I’m not sure if he hit a button or if he and the TV simply had an understanding. I just know the TV was punched and the images and sounds stopped.

He turned and vaguely waved in my direction. “File that.”

I brought a book in with me for my next shift. 

Delicate Books

Do you have delicate books? I imagine you do. I'm not talking about precious, first editions or beloved writings that have nourished. I'm talking specifically about brittle tomes that have sat on your shelves for years, maybe decades, without being touched. They have yellowing dust jackets with that curious linen covered cardboard hard cover. They are fourth, fifth, whatever printings of classics that you picked up at a library sell off, yard sale, used shop years ago when, upon seeing you said to yourself, yes, for $1.50 I really should own a disintegrating copy of the Federalist Papers.

You do. We all do.

I have several. There are books on my shelf that I'm constantly pulling to remind myself of the distance between basil plants I should arrange in my garden, to remember that Kennedy-Lincoln parallel thing, to remind myself in which play Shakespeare coined the borrower-be thing. Those books get action.

But those other books, the delicate ones, stand true, untouched and gathering dust. I have Schlesinger's Roosevelt series, sure. But, do I touch it? No. I used to yank out that curiously mesmerizing Timetables of History all the time and then Google happened and now it stands, untouched, waiting. Becoming delicate.

Tonight I was looking for a book I know I have somewhere – still haven't found it – and came across a couple of others that grabbed me. The Robe by Douglas and 84, Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff have just been sitting there, waiting. Why do I have The Robe? I have no idea. I don't know what it's about, I have no memory of it being being recommended. I think an old college buddy might have once mentioned a movie called The Robe but that can't be why I have this book. 84, of course, is a delightful movie. If you can watch that film and not fall in love with Anne Bancroft then you and I have nothing more to say to each other. But, how did I find this book and, more importantly, why haven't I read it are questions for which I have no answer.

Both books have grown delicate. The Robe is in very bad shape. The binding is pulling loose and the spine is impossibly stiff. I'm gently working it back and forth. Fortunately, my hands are big enough that I can wrap my palm about the length of the edge. I can roll it softly and gingerly open the pages. Soon I'll open it about 20 degrees and let the pages break apart from the fused block they've become, starting at the center, of course. In a bit I'll be able to let them cascade back and forth as individuals. Finally, still gently rolling, I'll crawl to the front and find out what the hell this book is that I've guarded for so many years.

After that, I may actually read 84. We'll see.

Loving This Week with Larry Miller

I love the Christopher Guest movies - Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. So much so that I've bought the DVDs of each of them and watched the "movie with commentary" part of each of these films. I bring that up to say this: on one of them, I forget which, Christopher says that no one can wear short sleeves like Larry Miller. I have no idea why I know what that means but I do and it's so totally true.

Anyway...

Larry Miller can play an asshole like no one else. But, he is the farthest thing from an asshole of any person I know of. The first inkling of this I had was when I listened to his interview on Marc Maron's WTF. Now, I'm a subscriber of his podcast, This Week with Larry Miller and I love listening to it. I hope to someday find myself able to embrace Larry's philosophy of "game's over and you've won."

The latest dumb thing my mind is doing to me

Four or five days ago I had one of those dreams that shocked me straight awake, screaming and scrambling out of bed. I was convinced that some sort of flesh eating, scaly skinned eels were eating my feet. In the dream, they had already swallowed me up to my ankles, making it impossible to move.

So, a bad dream, right? Should be no big deal.

But it is. I can't sleep unless I'm under my sheets and blanket. Now, after that dream, I remember those eels in the moment just before getting to sleep and wake straight back up. I can't get to sleep on top of the covers and I can't stay asleep under the covers.

In short, I'm very, very, very tired.

The Pacific - To the point movie review

Young men of mostly European descent shoot at young men of mostly Asian descent on Pacific islands.*

2 out of 5 palm fronds

*To be fair, I didn't finish this miniseries. It is billed as a companion piece to Band of Brothers and in production value it certainly lives up to the standard set by that great series. However, it is so lacking in story telling and character development that by the end of the second episode I had no idea who was who or what was going on. Protracted, confusing, night-time battle scenes dominate the series which left me confused and frustrated.

Is it a coincidence that Eric Cantor and Eric Cartman sound so much alike?

Consider Cantor's negotiation technique: Why Eric Cantor Bailed

and

Cartman's technique:


Is it just me or is Cartman just Cantor all growed up?

Words to live by... (I'm in a mood)

The Lord loves a working man.
Don't trust whitey.
See a doctor and get rid of it.

US Kills Osama Bin Laden

John Donne says any death diminishes us all; I say jubilation over death diminishes us all the more.

Meditation XVII, John Donne

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Le Dork d'Arthur

I've never cared for the Arthur character. I mean that exactly. I've never found him at all interesting. I don't hate him and I don't love him. He is presented as a pawn of destiny and, somehow, everyone is supposed to respect him for that. But, he's just a pawn.

The characters around Arthur are far more interesting, right? Merlin, the scheming chess master trying to fit Arthur in exactly the right spot, Arthur's sister -- whose name escapes me just now -- with her vicious response to a shitty homelife, his cheating wife, his cheating knight and all the others around him who partook in adventure while he sat serenely as the holy head of state; all of them are far more interesting than the man who seemed to allow himself to be mindlessly buffeted back and forth by fate right up until the end of his life.

I've only recently come to realize that this is why I've always been bored with Arthur. I never really gave it much thought but, there it is.

The Hurt Locker - To the point movie review

Boys with toys kill each other and blow shit up in Iraq.
2/5 bootleg DVDs

Saving Grace - To the point movie review

Craig Ferguson grows marijuana in his boss's solarium.
4/5 seedlings

Dean Spanley - To the point movie review

When he was a boy, Peter O'Toole's dog died. Sam Neill remembers it when he drinks an Eastern European dessert wine.
5/5 glasses of tokaji

Splitting Heirs - To the point movie review

Eric Idle sleeps with Catherine Zeta Jones and tries to kill Rick Moranis. And who among us hasn't wanted at least one of these things?
3/5 brandy flasks