Brigham's Blog: August 2010

31 Aug 2010

I watched a funny film last night, "The Ghost and the Darkness" (1996), about two man-eating lions terrorizing a railway bridge construction site. In terms of plot and action it was very much like a sort of "Jaws Goes to Africa." By the movie's end I think the lions accounted for half a million deaths. It was much like the Transformers movie, except instead of explosion after explosion you get chewed-upon natives. And the lions in question are unnaturally clever; it's almost like The Far Side's Gary Larson wrote the script.

In one scene, the crafty lions fool the two Great White Hunters (Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas) who hatch a plan for their capture. After cleverly drawing some fire, the lions double back and attack the hospital instead, chewing up untold numbers of patients, leaping upon the tent poles and collapsing the tents, scattering the paperwork, urinating on the rifles, and, probably, upturning the ashtrays. Terrible!

Roger Ebert thought this film was ridiculous (and gave it half a star) - which it was - but he didn't think it was funny. I beg to differ - I thought it was hilarious. There's a scene towards the end where the bridge engineer's pretty little wife comes to visit, holding their new baby, both dressed in spotlessly white garb. She's standing at the depot, all smiles and excitement, waving happily to the husband, "Hi honey! I missed you so much! Look at your new child!" while Kilmer is running, doing one of those slow motion Noooooooo! things. Just then an enormous vengeful lion leaps out of the tall grass and does a rugby tackle on the wife and child, her legs flopping skyward. To quote Oscar Wilde, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at it.

It's one of those all too familiar Hollywood productions where you can tell what's going to happen in the plot by simply looking at your watch. It's a 109 minute production. For instance, if the movie looks like it's ended at the 90 minute mark, you know you have a false ending.

Needless to say, this movie is based on a true story. ("Only the most incredible parts are true!" Yeah, right.) Also needless to say, Hollywood went way, way overboard with exaggerations. I plan to read the 1919 book account by the bridge engineer as soon as I can figure out how to turn the website into a .pdf so I can view it on the Sony electronic reader which came my way via my son.

I don't care what kind of heat wave the forecasters are calling for, it's clear to me that summer's back is broken. We were at the pool last night; it was an entirely different feel from June and July. Here we are on the last day of August... September is traditionally a bad vibe month for me due, I suppose, to it being the back-to-school month. (Despite the fact that I haven't gone back to a school in September - college - for 27 years.) It's also the "If you haven't gone on vacation by now it's too late" month, which is a traditional bummer. But... September is also the gateway to October and autumn, my favorite season.

That's the nice thing about Northern Virginia, the weather suits people like me who are constantly looking for variety and entertainment. As soon as you get tired of one season, the next is on its way. And unlike Southern California, which has but two seasons (a short wet and cool one and a long warm and then hot one), there are four distinct seasons here, each with their own moods, activities and rites.

I plan to start working on my Garage Improvement Project in fall, when the weather cools and I can stand being in the room. (The attic isn't insulated, which means that the garage gets dreadfully hot in the summer.) I started this in June, but then gave way as the interior temperature reached the high 90's on a daily basis. The idea is to change it from a cluttered, messy storage space to a sleek room for my handsome cars. I want to put everything, or as much as possible, behind closet or cabinet doors and to organize my tools better. This will involve patching all the holes in the drywall, painting the same a shade of gray - the cabinets will be in a darker shade of gray - and put up the correct German industrial VW signage.

Of course, another garage improvement will be getting rid of our now-despised 2002 Dodge minivan (which made perfect sense when we had three kids) and replacing it with the appropriate SUV. I'm all for a passenger car, but my wife likes the upright, commanding seating position in a smaller SUV. So we'll get one of those. But that won't happen for some months now. The safety inspection comes up next month on the minivan and we need new tires to pass it. As long as we're putting new tires on the minivan, we might as well keep it long enough to pay off the other car and get some use out of the tires. As loathsome as that minivan now seems to us, it has one undeniable virtue: it's been paid off for years.

I am now reading "How do you go to the Bathroom in Space?" by William R. Pogue, Astronaut. It's in a question and answer format. I like his description of the effects of traveling through bands of radiation in space. Now you know. If you close your eyes and see light trails and bomb flashes, you're being irradiated.

30 Aug 2010

Blog reader L. Scott Pishko asks, "Do you remember an instance when you knew that the 60's were gone and the 70's had taken over?" Indeed I do. The Seventies were when I came of age, so it was an important decade for me. I remember two milestones quite well. One was physical, the other was emotional.

There is a school of thought among pop culture writers which holds that a new decade really doesn't begin until some time into the new decade; in other words, the old decade persists for a while. I agree with this. For instance, 1960 and 1961 were pretty much like the 1950's. The things that made the 1960's characteristically the Sixties hadn't taken place early in the decade - those things (the youth movement, drugs, Vietnam protests, Beatlemania, the generation gap, psychedelia, etc.) came around later, after the death of JFK.

I think this was also the case with 1970. Nothing about that year specifically strikes me as being characteristically Seventies. Let's see... the Dark Shadows movie came out that year. But Dark Shadows was really more of a Sixties phenomena than a Seventies thing. (The show premiered in 1966 and was canceled in early 1971; it became a hit when Barnabas the vampire was introduced in 1967.) Mungo Jerry had an enormously popular song with "In the Summertime" in 1970 - but so what? It wasn't disco. For me life was pretty much the same as it was in 1969. I was still in junior high (middle school) - no difference there. So we can safely dispense with 1970 as anything other than the chronological start of the decade.

For me, the Seventies arrived with a jolt - a physical jolt - on the morning of 7 February 1971 when the Sylmar Earthquake hit at 6 AM. I had never experienced an earthquake before in my life; this was the first. It was very memorable, and Southern Californians who remember it consider themselves "survivors" and wear wry little smiles. I've written a web page about that day. But it wasn't just getting shaken all day long with aftershocks, it was the whole feeling that something new had arrived in my life, mainly fears about what would happen with a bigger, follow-up earthquake. Would California fall into the ocean? This became a topic of interest in the Southland - from that point on, people became interested in earthquakes.

That very same evening I saw my first episode of "All in the Family," a groundbreaking Seventies television show and a media event. That episode dealt with a friend of Archie Bunker's who was gay. It was obvious to me that a line had been crossed; the Seventies had begun in earnest. But the event that had really convinced me that things were different and a new decade had started had to do with a girl in high school.

I had sixth grade in 1967-1968. It was about as bad as it could possibly be. And junior high, which is what the rest of the nation called middle school, wasn't pleasant for me at all. What's worse, in the school system I was in, one had to endure middle school a year longer: we had 7th, 8th and 9th grades in junior high and didn't start high school until 10th grade. I think eighth grade was my worst year, ever. I had a bad case of acne, I was unusually socially inept and most of the time I just wanted the world to leave me alone with whatever book I happened to be reading at the time. I was a thirteen year-old hermit. So when it became time to start high school my general feeling was, "Swell, more of the same." I was surprised and gratified when this turned out to not be the case at all.

Emotionally the Seventies began for me in my French class, which was my first class in the mornings in my first semester in Burbank High School, September 1971. I didn't know what to expect. The classroom seats were arranged weirdly, so that half of the students were facing the other half. I'm not sure why the teacher did this - something to do with the educational benefit of watching other students speak French, I guess. There was a girl who was sitting on the other side of the room directly in my line of vision; I have entirely forgotten her name. She was pretty, and I can see her now in my mind's eye. Freckles, wide open blue eyes with big false lashes, dark blond curls with a hat sitting thereupon most days. She usually wore brightly colored dresses. Looking back on it, she would have been hard to miss.

What convinced me that a new era had indeed started was that we often glanced at one another - it would have been difficult not to, really, given the classroom set up. The teacher walked up and down the aisle speaking French phrases and had us repeat them. Towards the end of the semester we began to make faces when we repeated the French phrases, and we began to entertain one another with our mugging. Well, young men of fifteen become easily enchanted, and I did. What came of it?

Nothing. I was still coming off an era in my life when I thought I looked like the Phantom of the Opera (Erik the Opera Ghost only had to deal with acid scars, not acne), and striking up conversations with members of the opposite sex was a fearsome thing. By 1971 my face had cleared, but the psychological scars remained. It would take the experience of being in the Marine Corps to develop my self-confidence later in the decade - but that was years hence. So the semester ended and so did our French class, and I lost track of the gal with the freckles without ever having had a conversation with her.

But my feeling at the time was that high school was very different than was junior high, and that my personal problems of the Sixties were over. It was a new decade and a new environment, and there were possibilities - mainly, girls - that weren't there before. A few months later I began driver's training, which ushered in a whole new sense of freedom and Independence. The Seventies had begun!

Does that answer your question, Mr. Pishko?

I came across this sad little bar chart. Records, music and stereo equipment was another feature of the Seventies for me... I'm sorry to see this industry apparently dying.

And the work week begins - the count down to a three day weekend.

27 Aug 2010

I forgot to mention in my little remembrance about Tower Records yesterday that they used to give away calendars. I had the 1975 one.

Early this week I heard tell that NASA was going to be reporting important news on Thursday. Turns out that what they reported yesterday was that two exoplanets appear to be transiting a distant star. When I heard that NASA is going to report important news, my mind - conditioned by decades of media about space travel - runs to, "They detected signals from intelligence elsewhere in the universe!" Nope, nothing so exotic.

So, I started casting about in the SETI article in wikipedia. Have you ever heard of the 1977 "Wow!" signal? I encountered mention of it before in my readings about cosmology. In short, it was an unusually strong signal more or less in the frequency that hydrogen resonates (1420 Mhz), which would be a natural candidate for a frequency to be used by one advanced civilization attempting to contact another (since it's a universally significant frequency, hydrogen being the most common element in the universe). Problem is, there was that one blip and that was it - nothing since then. It could have been any number of things.

The other candidate for extraterrestrial communication is called, "Radio Source SHGb02+14a." But, according to wikipedia, SETI seems to be stepping away from that one.

The remarkable thing is that SETI has been looking for some electronic sign of life somewhere in the universe since the 1960's, some giveaway signal, and has found nothing they feel comfortable enough to assemble a press conference about. True, it's a fiendishly difficult search. There's a lot of sky to monitor, and who knows what sort of frequency and modulation scheme another civilization might use? In fact, the SETI people are not sure of what they're looking for - a recipe for disappointment. (It reminds me of a frequent conversation I have at yard sales... Person conducting yard sale: "What are you looking for?" Me: "I don't know until I see it.")

In my readings I see that scientists are beginning to consider that perhaps we're all there is. But this seems extraordinary given the expanse of the universe. You'd think there would be somebody else out there.

Is anybody out there?

Yesterday my pal Don and I discussed a Civil War era song - "Twenty Years Ago" - that is played in a short movie they show at the Antietam Battlefield Park, "Antietam Visit." The lyrics are touching in an old-fashioned way, and tell a sad story. (Victorians loved sad stories.) I went into research mode. As it turns out, by no less an authority of Ward Hill Lamon (Abraham Lincoln's friend and self-appointed bodyguard - see image above), this was Lincoln's favorite song. In fact, Lamon sang it for Lincoln when they visited the Antietam battlefield in November 1862, which makes it especially appropriate for the film. Lincoln, a borderline depressive, was fond of sad poems and songs.

Doing some more digging around, I came into e-mail contact with the fellow who performed the song for the film. While I downloaded a recording of "Twenty Years Ago" last night on iTunes, it is a rather stridently Victorian version of the song for a tenor with piano, with slightly different music. The one I want is the more gentle one for voice and guitar used in the film. Perhaps if I ask "please?" really nicely...

Today I lunch with the owner of the late, lamented Video Vault. I expect that we will discuss films!

I watched a good one last night, a documentary about hobo life recommended to me by a hobo: "Long Gone" (2003). I think it should be required viewing for anyone contemplating a life out on the rails. Tramps are shown, usually drunkenly, standing around campfires, cuffing each other and lying, acquiring Hepatitis C, abusing drugs and, ultimately, dying. It's tough out there, and it's nice to know the kind of folks with whom you may be sharing a boxcar.

I must admit that a year or so ago, when I first became interested in the subject of riding the rails, it had some attraction for me. (I seem to go for exotic recreational pursuits.) Long Gone indicates that the society of those who ride freight cars is not what one would call intellectually stimulating. There seem to be a lot of alcoholic crazies out there... (and that was the prompt for my wife to write, "Well, duh - do ya think?" on the comments form).

The weekend arrives again, hooray! I have a Webelos raingutter regatta to attend tomorrow morning but after that it's yard sales. Have a great weekend!

26 Aug 2010

Let me take you back to the Seventies, in large part because I'm reading a book set during that decade and it's causing me to remember things. Not painful things, like the Mustang II, oil embargoes, the way I dressed and my relationships with girls, but pleasant things.

There's a scene in "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) where the violent young protagonist, Alex, walks into what appears to be a record store set in an arcade of some kind. I have examined this scene at length. He walks by Lp records on display, magazines and what appears to be drug paraphernalia (wrapping papers, bongs, etc.). Since the production is set in the not too distant future of socialist Britain, the set designer tried to make the shop look futuristic, with loud orangey colors and foil wallpapers.

Needless to say, he failed. The future is notoriously difficult to predict, especially when it comes to interior decor. And we do not have Korova Milk Bars or garish record stores. In fact, we have very few record stores left! (I notice there's still an FYE store in the Fair Oaks Mall - a hold out.) The future depicted by A Clockwork Orange is not that of the Eighties, Nineties or even the New Millennium. Today we recognize it as the past view of the future - a sort of Retro Now. It looks amusing, and naturally it was lampooned by the national Punch, The Simpsons.

The media shop Alex walks into reminds me of Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard, in Hollywood. I started visiting there in 1970 or 1971 with my father, who was always up for a Sunday drive. It was the most amazing place... it was the showpiece of the Sixties/Seventies Youth Movement. Naturally the latest records were available, piled in great stacks on the floor, the casual display aesthetic being very much a part of the Seventies. They also reproduced the Lp covers on great canvasses outside - the overall effect of Tower Records' exterior was garish Pop Art. But at the time it seemed very hip, very loud, very NOW. Tower also carried magazines espousing New Left rhetoric - Rolling Stone, Creem, National Lampoon - as well as audiophile magazines.

Visiting Tower Records fuelled one of my first interests, stereo equipment, or, as we called it then, audio. After all, you had to have something groovy to play all those groovy albums on. It was an exciting time: the market responded to consumer demand with all sorts of technical innovations both valid and bogus. I was blown away by what I now recognize as market extension. You could obtain, say, Janis Joplin's 1971 release Pearl in stereo Lp (now called "vinyl" and once again in vogue), quadraphonic SQ Lp, cassette, 8-track cartridge, quadraphonic 8-track cartridge and 7 1/2 ips (inches per second) open reel tape, stereo and quad. That's seven different formats! And if you didn't have the bread, man, for the whole album you could buy the hit off the album, "Move Over" (which I listened to endlessly) as a 45, that carryover format from the 50's and 60's.

I was surprised and delighted when Memorex reinvented the cassette case. The first time I was handed an old style one by a kid on a school yard in 9th grade I was enchanted: you opened the little plastic case like a book to remove the small cassette... you mean they fit all of the Blood Sweat and Tears' Lp on this? Groovy! But then Memorex upped the ante with higher quality cassettes wrapped in black wrap, with only a "60" or "90" indicating the tape length. Opening it you discovered that the cassette wasn't housed in the usual plastic book - it was in a case with a fold out black spine. You could line up the black spines on your bookshelf and remove the cassette without having to remove the cases. Dead sexy. I eventually invested in 3M CassetteBoxes (which I describe here), which I still have and use. Not on display like they used to be all through the latter 70's and 80's, no. My unfashionable cassettes are hidden away in a drawer. But I still listen to them!

Getting back to Alex and his stroll through the record shop, at one point he stops to chat up a couple of girls. They stand by a flashing sign listing the various pop hits for that week, one of which is "Inside" by the Heaven 17. This bit of insider obscurity inspired a British band to call themselves Heaven 17. A Clockwork Orange was enormously influential, so much so that a wikipedia article on the subject goes on and on...

(Wait! Did I say we didn't have any Korova Milk Bars? Wrong! The "locations" section of the article says there are at least two. I may visit the one in White Plains, NY some day for some moloko vellocet but no ultra violence - I'd just play rugby.)

Last night I watched a fascinating performance on DVD of musician and Anglo-Saxonist Benjamin Bagby performing "Beowulf," accompanying himself on what he claims is a fair representation of an Anglo-Saxon harp. I quite enjoyed it. Anglo-Saxon sounds a lot like the Swedish spoken in Ingmar Bergmar films - well, as intoned by Bagby, anyway. Who knows what a spoken recital sounded like circa 800 A.D.? The language of Beowulf sounds quite unlike modern spoken English. I could only make out a few phrases: "That was a good king!" and "My name is Beowulf" as well as some words here and there.

The recital only took about 90 minutes - he ended with the death of Grendel. The poem is longer, of course... there's Grendel's mother and Beowulf's death and funeral, but there's only so much of this one can listen to. I was listening to it downstairs when my poor, put-upon wife arrived home from work. "What is that?," she asked. A little of me goes a long way.

25 Aug 2010

According to a recent British news article, the Stig (Top Gear's racing driver) has been "outed" as Ben Collins. This is a disappointment to me, as I was sure it was Jeremy Button. Oh, well. As a limp defense I might offer the possibility of the show's having a number of Stigs, depending upon availability (Collins and Button are Formula One drivers), and at one time Button may well have been the Stig. But it appears that Collins was the main Stig. I'm looking forward to seeing how the show addresses this in the next season. They "killed" the first Stig off by having him drive a Jaguar off the side of an aircraft carrier...

I finished watching "Death of a Salesman" (1951) last night. Most. Depressing. Movie. Ever. I can't imagine that listening to Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" over and over again or watching continuous broadcasts of Tess of the d'Urbervilles could be worse. If you're a middle-aged man with a son or two (I am) and have any doubts whatsoever about your success in your chosen line of business (I do), this work pushes all the buttons. (By the way, I am something of a connoisseur of depressing art and know whereof I speak. Good film noir is often a bummer, my favorite operas are Wozzeck and Lulu - two of the most depressing works in a generally depressing art form - and I like German expressionism.) Take my word for it: if you have been prescribed mood-altering medication or are curious about suicide, avoid this one like the plague! Honestly, much of it was painful to watch.

This is not to say that I regret seeing it, however, or that I consider it an artistic failure. Far from it! Willy Loman is one of the most finely-drawn and compelling characters in all of theatre, and I am happy to finally understand the references to him I encounter in the same way I now appreciate the Cassandra references after I read the Greek classics. And coming to terms with "Death of a Salesman" and the playwright's other great work, "All My Sons," as a middle-aged man brings comprehension to the pieces that I never would have had as a younger man.

Well, hang on. I'm 54. I'm only "middle aged" if I live to be 108. I'm old!

By the way, I do believe that there are certain times in life appropriate to encounter certain works of art. For instance, I was grateful that I read Tom Sawyer when I was only twelve and was able to act it out. It was also fun when my son read it at more or less that same age. And sixteen was a great age to encounter West Side Story. I suppose in another decade or so I'll really appreciate King Lear.

:)

I posted a funny old history of Burbank to my hometown website yesterday: Rancho de los Santos - The History of Burbank (1927). The language is unbelievably fulsome:
"Someone said long ago that earnest, active industry is a living hymn of praise and a never-failing source of happiness. The author might well have had Burbank in mind when he penned the words, for here industry, whether looked upon as a personal attribute or as a process of production, rewards itself with the fairest fruits of progress. Too often one conjures up thoughts of grime and ugliness and of unhealthful tenements when told that a certain town is an industrial center. If these characteristics must accompany manufacturing then Burbank is not a typical manufacturing city. It is representative, however, of a new order of things which says that beauty and cleanliness and home-ownership are the handmaidens of industry. The very number and prosperity of Burbank's factories have in fact added to the natural beauty of her hillsides and her valley by making possible the erection thereon of homes of handsome and harmonious architecture."

Talk about boosterism! As you might have guessed, this history was authored by a business, specifically, a bank, which had much to gain in convincing droves of people to seek out those "homes of handsome and harmonious architecture." (The 1920's homes often look like little castles. Literally. Go here and scroll down.)

I am now reading "The Rotters' Club" by Jonathan Coe. It's an amusing memoir about being a teenager in Birmingham, England in 1973. Yes, I picked it up at a yard sale. While it's true that you can't judge a book by its cover you can make some initial guesses as to whether you'll like it or not. My success rate at this is rather good. (With "Quincunx" being a notable exception.)

24 Aug 2010

I checked my singing voice against the piano: I can hit the notes approximately from C2 to F4 (C two octaves below middle C to the F above middle C). My tessitura - the notes I'm most comfortable singing - are in the upper bass clef. That makes me a bass, according to wikipedia. I've always wondered.

My wife and I watched an interesting flick last night, "The Iron Curtain" (1948), based on a true story about a Russian defector in Canada. The release of the film caused an international incident because, probably under pressure, the Soviet composers Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khatchaturian all issued a letter of protest about their music being used in the "outrageous" movie. In fact, Shostakovich sued 20th Century Fox (once again, probably under pressure by the Communist Party).

The film is based on the memoirs of Igor Gouzenko (pictured above), a Soviet cipher clerk who defected to the West with proof of Soviet espionage activities. According to wikipedia and other sources, The 1945 "Gouzenko Affair" is credited as a triggering event of the Cold War.

Curious about one of the great American literary figures, Willy Loman, I have begun watching "Death of a Salesman" (1951). I have never read the play. Perhaps it's not the best thing for a middle-aged guy who is unsure of how much he has achieved to watch, but I plow on. It's certainly depressing. From an NPR article: "Critics who saw the first performance in 1949, with Lee J. Cobb as Willy, said that when the curtain closed, they only heard silence. Then, sobbing.
'It's the only play I know that sends men weeping into the men's room,' says director Robert Falls."

Playwright Arthur Miller wrote another devastating play that was turned into a memorable movie, "All My Sons" (1948). This time Edward G. Robinson played the classically flawed middle-aged American male.

What does Arthur Miller have against middle-aged men, anyway?

My daughter Julie is visiting Virginia in late September for a week - how cool!

I think I may have mentioned in the past that I occasionally get e-mails from misguided people who think my .gov work e-mail address belongs to General Wesley K. Clark... this has led to some odd e-mails and occurrences. This morning I got an e-mail from some self-described "graybeard" in Hungary who is trying to talk the general into positioning himself to become Obama's next Defense Secretary by doing something or another with the poppy farmers in the fertile crescent - or some such thing. To be honest, it's not clear. Normally, I simply respond, "Wrong Wes Clark" and leave it at that, but this guy is so weird I don't plan to reply and confirm there's somebody at the e-mail address!

Jack Horkheimer is dead. (Apparently his Star Gazer page hasn't been updated with the fact yet.) R.I.P. I always liked his little PBS show. I wonder if the Miami Space Transit Planetarium will find a replacement?

23 Aug 2010

Saturday morning yard sales were okay. I bought a couple of hard cover books and a couple of paperbacks. My "to read" stack is back where I want it.

Today's blog personality is Wilmer McLean, shown at left. He wears a world-weary look on his face for a good reason.

Who is he? Well, if you've ever read any books about Civil War trivia you'd know - he's inescapable. In fact, he's Mister Civil War Trivia. He was a fellow who had the misfortune to live in Manassas, Virginia, on... well, I'll just let wikipedia explain with some perfectly serviceable text: "The initial engagements on July 18, 1861, in what would become the First Battle of Bull Run, fought on July 21, took place on McLean's farm, the Yorkshire Plantation, in Manassas. Union Army artillery fired at McLean's house, headquarters for Confederate Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, and a cannonball dropped through the kitchen fireplace. Beauregard wrote after the battle, "A comical effect of this artillery fight was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff by a Federal shell that fell into the fire-place of my headquarters at the McLean House."

McLean didn't find it so funny, of course and moved south to avoid the war (and for other reasons), properly understanding that more battles would be fought in Northern Virginia. He moved to a quiet little hamlet named (ominous music) Appomattox. Here wikipedia picks up the story: "On April 9, 1865, the war came back to Wilmer McLean when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of McLean's house near Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War. Later, McLean is supposed to have said 'The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.' Once the surrender was over, members of the Army of the Potomac began taking the tables, chairs, and various other furnishings in the house—essentially, anything that wasn't tied down—as souvenirs. They simply handed the protesting McLean money as they made off with his property." I entertain Civil War reenactors with this: d'Oh! It's the Civil War again!

So why am I allowing wikipedia to write today's blog about Wilmer McLean? I was reading a trivia book the other day that had some details about him that I didn't know: 1.) His plantation home Yorkshire technically wasn't his - it was in his wife's name, 2.) At the end of his life he moved to Alexandria at a home on the corner of Pitt and Wolfe streets, and 3.) He's buried in Alexandria as well. As I work in Alexandria I checked out the site of his home; there are no plaques anywhere so I'm unsure which one was his. But his tombstone was easy to find, however. I used to walk right past it when I'd go on my lunch time health walks! What's more, he's buried right near where some stones are for the Fawcett family; a fellow rugby player named Fawcett where I work is descended from Stabler and Hooff families. (There is a Stabler Apothecary and a Hooff Run near where we work.) Small world, huh?

I saw a memorable (neo) film noir last week, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" (1973). The plot was unsophisticated, nothing new there. The cast supporting Robert Mitchum as the title character was okay, too - but there was nothing special there, either. And the music was vintage Dave Grusin 1973 jazz funk. What elevated it was Mitchum's notable performance as the put upon, cornered loser. During one important scene he invites a fellow gunrunner to count the number of knuckles on his hand - he has twice as many as he should. Why? Because he was once punished by the mob by having his fingers slammed into a drawer, all of them broken. It hurt, it hurt bad. Nothing personal, you understand, they had to do it. And the remembrance of that pain - he rubs his hands - is evident in every scene where he considers selling out the mob to keep himself out of prison. You really feel for the guy. In the pantheon of film noir losers, Eddie Coyle is right up there with Richard Widmark's more youthful and flamboyant Harry Fabian in Night and the City (1950). Unforgettable.

Really, folks, I know I write about film noir a lot, but I can't recommend it enough as a great American art form, right up there with jazz and musical theatre. You really should get to know those great old 1940's and 1950's crime films. Unlike the special effects laden adolescent fare being made today, these films were made for adults by adults and contained adult themes. Oftentimes, even the most minor and quickly produced of them contains interest that is just unavailable in film making today. And those old directors really knew what they were doing; there's an economical narrative craft that is usually lacking these days in overdrawn "director's cuts" and multi-hundred million dollar budgets.

Case in point. Yesterday a friend told me he saw Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" (2010) on DVD - a 128 minute film. When he put it on the DVD the movie started in the midst of action, no title sequence. He thought, "Hmmm... must be something wrong with the DVD tracking," and popped it out and put it in again. Same thing - it started at the same place. "Okay, this must be how the film is, he thought." He later discovered that the DVD was mastered incorrectly, and it started the movie 40 minutes in. But the film still made perfect sense with the first 40 minutes missing! My contention is that modern films are overlong in terms of narrative. I suspect they're longer to keep audiences happy given that they paid so much to get in the theater, not because the storyline justifies the length. Certainly I have seen many recent films that had me glancing at my watch...

Finally, I notice that in the Friday comments reader Slats wants me to write a fiction piece. I don't like writing fiction and I don't think I'm good at it. I shall point to an example of what I regard as my best piece of fiction, A Death at Fredericksburg. It ran in a magazine for Civil War reenactors in 1992 and got no response from anyone. Too weird, I suppose. In a lighter vein, here's White Mansions. It was published earlier in the year, also to no comment.

20 Aug 2010

Somebody named "Slats" posted a comment to yesterday's blog: "Write something really personal." Okay, I take requests.

Take a look at the photograph at left - it has an emotional resonance for me that I have never disclosed until now.
It was taken in the South Run Rec Center indoor pool in Summer, 1988, when Ethan was four and Julie was about sixteen months; I was 32. We were in the kids' pool, which was rather shallow. Ethan was busy splashing around in his arm floaters as a four year old will, and Cari was also in her swimsuit. Naturally, I brought the camera (a big Pentax K1000) because I'm the camera parent. This was Julie's first swim in a big, deep pool. Cari waded in and handed her off because Julie reached out to me. It struck me that while in the home or some other safe surrounding, Julie preferred her mother. But here in this forbidding new environment, she wanted her father.

As I reached for Julie she clung to me tightly and resisted any attempts to get her to "swim." At that moment I felt needed, relevant and indispensable more than I ever have before or since. I have often heard mothers claim, smilingly, that little girls wrap their fathers around their little fingers. This was the moment it happened to me. We played around in the water until we judged that the kids had had enough, and then went home. After I got the roll of film developed I put the print in the family scrapbook.

Seventeen years later I was a volunteer at Julie's high school grad night party, which was held at the very same South Run Rec Center. By the time she was a senior Julie had excelled in theatre, was popular (there was a rule among the yearbook staff: no additional photos of Julie), had a boyfriend and, of course, didn't need me anywhere as much as she did in that shallow pool that day. But that's natural and the way it should be - we raised our kids properly, to be independent, self-reliant and to experience the world on their own (within boundaries, of course.) We were the best parents we knew how to be.

At grad night I was assigned security duty and was posted for a time at the pool; as I watched Julie cavort around with her friends among the floats in the deep water I looked at the kids pool and recalled her first swim in a big pool, and held back the tears. It just wouldn't do to have a wet-eyed security guy.

This is not to slight Julie's younger sister Meredith, however. When she arrived in 1990 they got along very well, and when they were little I had some of the most truly perfect days in my life when I took off from work to take them to King's Dominion, a theme park about an hour south. I think we did this three times. After a long day at the park we'd always finish off by eating cotton candy (Meredith tells me she wants cotton candy at her wedding reception) and watching the water fountains change color in the big central pool. I have always been aware of the passing of time - too aware - and as we sat together it occurred to me that the number of days like this would be limited in number, and precious. As I pondered this my eyes would become wet; I always concealed this from the girls. Whether successfully or not, I don't know.

When Julie was married in 2008, one of our friends at the reception asked me, "Why aren't you crying?" I replied that I had shed my tears in advance at King's Dominion, which no doubt puzzled her. But I didn't explain.

Last night I watched my friend Chris play with his little son and daughter at the neighborhood pool as his visiting in-laws looked on. His little daughter clung to him in the pool. As I mentioned yesterday, Chris became the father of his third child. I wanted to tell him to cherish these turbulent and tiring days, that they would be relatively few in number, and that once his period of being a young father were over, he'd miss them terribly and would never again feel as indispensable as he did. But why inflict my melancholy upon him? Better to let him just enjoy the moment.

How was that, Slats?

Have a great weekend! Tomorrow (my wife has to work) I'm visiting a Smithsonian Museum in D.C. that I've never before visited, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. My expectations are... measured.

19 Aug 2010

Congratulations to my Civil War pard Chris, whose wife gave birth to their son and third child early this morning! Baby Olsen (they're still choosing a name) and mother are doing fine. I think "Wesley" would be a fine name - and guarantee the lad his weight in yard sale toys.

Mystery solved - Burbank's "turkey crossing." Click here for the article. I now have an exact date and a name.... I'm probably being needlessly competitive, but I love it when I scoop the Burbank Historical Society (who claimed that the railroad accident which gave the area its name occurred in the 1920's). It's funny, but in the fifteen years I lived in Burbank I never knew the area I used to walk by to get home from school was called Turkey Crossing. Never heard of the place. Now I probably know more about it than anyone.

I am also amused to learn that the site was once associated with one of Burbank's most colorful early citizens, J.W. Fawkes. Reporters must have loved the guy. I see William R. Mulholland (show above) also appears in "Burbank's Bloodiest Battle"; that name is well known to every Los Angelino via "Mulholland Drive," named for the man who is generally credited for bringing water to Los Angeles. There is also a film noir connection... in "Chinatown" (1974), the character Hollis Mulwray is loosely based on Mulholland. Great script in that film. His name is also associated with another fine neo-noir, "Mulholland Drive" (2001).

I have gotten to the part in my book about blogging that describes the creation and development of blogspot.com (now blogger.com) - the service you are viewing with this blog. According to the book, blogs have more or less superseded web pages. Certainly I hear the terms used interchangeably. For me there is a difference between my blog and my websites. I think of my blog as being a time-sensitive, "newsy" kind of thing with constantly changing content. My websites are more static. That is, they are added to but are more like books. My blog is more like a daily article in a newspaper. I suppose I've always wanted to be Walter Winchell.

Last night we did collages in Webelos Den using old magazines for the Artist activity pin. I introduced the scouts to the work of Philip Featheringill, who used to do collages for the covers of Columbia Masterworks Lps. Here is one of my favorites. The ones the scouts did were... not quite as artistic. One kid did one entitled "Time for Cancer" with an arrow sticking into some person's eye - he chortled to himself while doing it. It was amusing to watch. Ten year old boys have an odd aesthetic: a mix of open-heartedness, sadism and wonder. I was drawing my own comic books when I was eleven (Captain Tin, Fatman and Blubber) - looking back on them, I also came up with some strange notions. Ear pods that fired a glue stream? A super hero monitoring the Hobo Kelly Show in his lair?

My daughter Julie was also imaginative in this way. She came up with a super-heroine named Silver Sapphire who fired "stinging crystals" from her fingertips. I laughed when she told me that.

Kids are fun.

18 Aug 2010

From an exasperated, unnamed friend of the middle-aged male persuasion: "Uttered at a My Eyes Glaze Over meeting this morning by one of those thirtysomething women managers with more ambition than brains. If she’d shut up we could cut these things by twenty minutes. After some dead horse issue was thoroughly flogged and then kicked for good measure she administered the coup de grace by stating, 'We are close to coming over the edge to at least see the horizon on this one.' That is a verbatim transcription."

Wow. One of my favorites was during a terribly convoluted budgetary meeting some years back. Various proposed perplexing standard levels of budgeting were presented and discussed. Sensing misdirection on the part of the bean counters, I asked "What is 'fundamental funding?'" "The minimum level of funding needed for the project," I was told. "Then what is 'optional funding?'" I asked. "Even less than that." A level less than a minimum level - that's pretty small. Needless to say this whole structure went away when the head budget guy was told to resign a year or so later. (His other budgetary innovations, including a spreadsheet with almost 7,000 cells to complete, disappeared as well.)

Then there's the funny-looking former chief bean counter who kept referring to herself in the third person for two hours. That was just plain weird. It was one of those meetings where you sense that you have seen this before - and then realize you're thinking of an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Welcome to August, my month of discontent. Perhaps it's a carryover from when my children were in school, and I sensed that time to plan and execute family vacations was quickly disappearing, but I never really liked this month. Some day I would really like to dispense with the month by taking it entirely off from work. But.... I guess that won't be possible until retirement. Assuming that I'll ever be able to retire. A nagging little voice is telling me that I'll be stuck in meetings - where I am held hostage to people who feel unfettered to run their mouths at length - until the day I expire.

August was better when I was a kid, however. My father's birthday was August 22nd, and he and I would always drive down to Del Mar (California) for three or four days of horse racing (for him) and beach and exploration of the area (for me). I miss those trips.

I watched a terrific film noir last night, "Woman on the Run" (1950), starring a wise-cracking Ann Sheridan. It's one of those location noirs, where a city - in this case, San Francisco - is used prominently enough to almost become one of the characters in the film. This one had a great plot (a man who witnessed a murder flees the cops who want him as a witness - in the process of looking for him his estranged wife discovered that he really loves her after all), neat actors (Robert Keith is wonderful in this, as is Sheridan and stalwart noir leading man Dennis O'Keefe), a great location (mid century San Francisco) and a novel plot twist. The conclusion, which takes place at a boardwalk amusement area, is bizarre and nightmarish. Films like this remind me of what attracted me to film noir in the first place!

I mention Robert Keith... his is a name that is really only known to old film buffs nowadays, but he's in a group of favorite film noir character actors. Whenever I see his name or that of Timothy Carey, Percy Helton, Emile Meyer, Paul Stewart, Jack Lambert, Barry Kelley, Jack Elam or Frank Cady appearing in the credits I have to smile. They're almost like old friends.

1950 was a great year for films noir... in addition to the one I cite above, it also marks the release of The Asphalt Jungle, Sunset Blvd., Where the Sidewalk Ends, In a Lonely Place, Gun Crazy, Night and the City, D.O.A., Panic in the Street, No Way Out, Caged, Dark City... so many top quality productions... Film historians usually cite 1939 as being a high water mark for quality output from Hollywood. I think it's more like 1947-1951. And 1950 was, arguably, the high water mark year for film noir.

I am now reading an interesting yard sale book I picked up last Saturday almost as an afterthought, "Say Everything" by Scott Rosenberg. It's about blogging - what I'm doing right now, in fact. It describes the early history of the Internet - a history I am somewhat proud to be a part of (my first web page was put online in early 1996 and updated ever since; I established the first Civil War reenactors e-mail list the year before). It also describes the evolution of the blog, which has become more or less synonymous with web pages. Mention is made of old, discarded technologies like HTML frames - ha! One of my sites still uses frames, and I have no intention of changing it as it does what I want it to do: it presents data in the way I want.

All of my sites are, in terms of presentation technology, old hat. That's okay. Content has always been more important to me, and all of my sites have tons of content. You can get to that content just as quickly - or perhaps more quickly - with my simple HTML links as you can with more advanced pages. I am an organized person and the organization makes sense to me.

Last night Cari and I test drove a very nice 2008 Toyota Highlander with all the bells and whistles. It had 30,000 miles on it. The dealership wanted $32.8K for it. That seems too steep for a used car to us. I need to scan craigslist to see what people are asking for these in private transactions...

17 Aug 2010

What did I do during those four days I had off last week? Click here for my captioned Picasa photos. I saw all sorts of interesting stuff in museums with visiting friends... many of these are depicted here.

And now I am suffering from the usual back-to-work culture shock. Bleah. And yes, I know, in this economy it's nice to have a job, period. I'm well aware.

I watched a very disappointing claimed-to-be film noir last night, "Brainstorm" (1965). That is, it's listed as a film noir in Silver and Ursini's Encyclopedia, but it sure looks more like a fairly typical 1960's Universal Studios teleplay or an episode of Burke's Law to me. There's a betrayal, which is a noir element, and it has some good black and white cinematography, but I was very unimpressed. Given that it starred Anne Francis, whom I always liked as TV's "private eyeful" Honey West, I had high hopes.

Warning: Organ Recital follows. I am going in for shoulder therapy this afternoon. During my last rugby season, in Fall 2006, we did an insane amount of line outs one practice session which thoroughly messed up my shoulders. (I help hoist guys in the air so they can catch the thrown in ball.) My shoulders hurt the remainder of the season and past it. I was doing therapy sessions afterwards, but it never entirely helped. My left shoulder got better, but my right never really did, even after four years. I can sit at my desk and occasionally feel twinges of pain.... I probably now have arthritis. Anyway, my goal is to learn what exercises I need to do to relieve the pain. There's a place near where I work that my boss raved about - I'll try them.

I opened up the piano and did a clinky, halting practice last night. I haven't played it for about a week, our tourism was such that we were gone all day and into the night. Every time I heard some good piano playing I think, "I will sound like that only after years of practice. I need to knuckle down."

I converted the 24V electric clock from my high school that my friend Mike brought me to a quartz movement and installed the same in the garage. When I first set it up it appeared to be running well, but this morning at 6:40 it was reading 10:35. Sigh.

16 Aug 2010

I'm back!

I took four days off from work (and writing this blog) last week to do some gonzo tourism with my visiting friend Mike McDaniel and family. In four days we saw the following:

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (the one near Dulles airport), National Cathedral, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Wall, Korean Memorial, Air Force Memorial, Marines Iwo Jima Memorial, Pentagon Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, World War II Memorial, the White House from Pennsylvania Ave., Smithsonian American History, Natural History and Castle, Mount Vernon (now an all day attraction), the Marine Corps Museum at Quantico (they added two great new galleries), Pohick Church, Antietam Battlefield, the Kennedy Farm and Harper's Ferry.

Long days! Those who tour with me, however, know that I am very efficient...

My visitors wanted to see Ford's Theatre and the Museum, but the National Park Service totally screwed that up by introducing timed ticketing and, far worse, Ticketmaster. (Same way they made the Washington Monument far more difficult to visit.) Boo, hiss.

We took tons of pictures but I didn't have time to put the most interesting on a Picasa website for you to see. Perhaps I will. Anyway, I beta tested a new evening monuments route which now includes a visit to the front of the White House. Funny story associated with that... I was dodging around in the van trying to find a place to park so we could walk over to the Pennsylvania Ave. plaza to get some photos of said White House. I pulled over to look things over and let the traffic pass by when a ubiquitous Secret Service guy waved me away - drat. He then followed me for a distance, annoying me (as I wanted to do something illegal to get into a parking space I saw). I accidentally turned into a one way street and, sure enough, on came the lights. I pulled over. A young guy asked if he knew why he pulled me over, I said "Yes" and produced the driver's license, proof of insurance and vehicle registration, expecting a ticket.

After a delay he asked, "Who was in the Marine Corps?" (I have a couple of USMC stickers on the back of my van.) I said I was; sure enough, so was he and he let me off. Hooray! That's the second time I've been let off by former Marines this year! Or... do Secret Service guys not issue tickets for traffic violations in D.C.? I don't know.

I watched some films:

Black Hawk Down (2001): A Ridley Scott film that raises the bar for showing realistic modern warfare and, reputedly, one of George W. Bush's favorite films. As gripping as the action sequences are, however, I think this film is flawed in that not enough time was given for character exposition. It seemed we didn't get to know the soldiers at all before they started getting killed and injured. I thought one of the big stars of this film was the M134 Dillon minigun. Wow. Seeing that thing in action reminded me of when I was a twelve year old watching John Wayne's "Green Berets" (1968) - one of my favorite sequences was watching the Puff the Magic Dragon airship dealing death and destruction to the VC. It also helped that I built the model...

Jacques Tati's Playtime (1967 - he is shown above): A French comedy that, unfortunately, is only infrequently amusing. I like Tati's other 1950's comedies which, according to Rowan Atkinson, inspired his Mr. Bean characterization, but this one seemed too slow paced, with the visual gags coming too few and far between. Roger Ebert loves it. I get the impression it's one of those films film critics love and the general public yawns at. I'm somewhere between the two.

Hickey and Boggs (1972): A film noir with Bill Cosby? Yes, and it's a good one. Technically, since it's out of the classic period (1940 to, say, about 1960) it's a neo-noir. But it is as bleak and as world weary as the best noirs, which is why it's in Silver and Ursini's encyclopedia. It's also fun to watch as it's set in Los Angeles in 1972, when I lived there. Things look very familiar. Robert Culp and the Cos play down and out private investigators of few words who become involved with a local gang and some money laundering. The story line is nothing new and the strained interaction between them and the local police is very common, but director Culp presents a no-nonsense action film that left me wondering why I don't read more about this flick in the film noir literature.

That's it for today. Back to normalcy, sigh.

10 Aug 2010

My Burbank pal Mike arrives today with part of his family; they should be here about noon. After that it's local tourism for the remainder of the week. Time off from work - hooray! So possibly no blogs for a while.

I watched a very amusing yard sale film last night: The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), an anti-war satire infused with counter-cultural values, as many films from that period were. You can consider it the polar opposite to John Wayne's The Green Berets, also released that year. The British film is helped by an excellent cast - John Gielgud plays Lord Raglan, who still thinks he's fighting the French even though it's the Russians who face him - and some wonderful, Monty Pythonesque animated sequences. Trevor Howard is, as usual, excellent as Lord Cardigan, who leads the charge. The main problem with this film is also the problem with just about any war film made from about 1965 to well into the Eighties: it's really about Vietnam. (I have a friend who despises the television version of M.A.S.H. for this reason, and I see his point.)

"The Charge of the Light Brigade" also stars David Hemmings, a young actor who personified the counter-cultural ideal: arrogant, disdainful, diffident and contemptuous. I never liked him. I must admit, however, he was a perfect Mordred in Camelot (1967). (Mordred is a bratty character you would dearly like to slap around a bit.) I saw Hemmings' most notable film, Michaelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966), and wondered why it was so highly regarded at the time. It's crap. Given what I've written above, you can see why I think he made a very poor Alfred the Great in 1969. The same actor cannot credibly portray Mordred and Alfred the Great!

It's a kind of justice that, his style of loathsome young man becoming passe by the Eighties, he earned a living directing such fare as "the A-Team" during that decade.

Speaking of Vietnam, I have been pondering the book and the film "We Were Soldiers" (2002), which I also saw recently. (I'm glad I also read the book - you need to with this particular film. It takes some liberties.) In his book, Col. Hal Moore says that when it comes to Vietnam, Hollywood has gotten it spectacularly wrong. I agree. But I think this film comes close to getting it right. For one thing, it includes substantial scenes of the wives of the soldiers at home, which, I believe, is a first. It also plays down the anti-war sentiment at home - there is tons of material about that - and focuses instead on what the troops were really fighting for: each other. In the end that, and the fact that the troops were also loving fathers, was the story being told.

I was struck by one passage in Moore's book, which helps makes sense of Vietnam for me. He cites some lines from John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural speech: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge - and more." Moore writes that that price became payable in November 1965 in Vietnam at Ia Drang, the first major battle of that conflict. Was this just talk on Kennedy's part or did he mean it?

It was well known that when Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency after JFK's death he was continuing the policies of his predecessor - hence the build up of troops in Vietnam. The simple fact was that America, specifically young America, balked at paying the price Kennedy described. They did not have the experience of World War II and Korea to fix in their minds that there is a high cost to freedom.

Seeing Vietnam in this way also is a rebuttal to the historical nonsense propagated by Oliver Stone and his ilk, that Kennedy really wanted us out of Vietnam but was assassinated by members of the military-industrial complex (which Eisenhower described) to keep us involved. There isn't a shred of credible evidence for this.

I also came across a historically factual assertion in a user review of "We Were Soldiers": The United States did not invade Vietnam. North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam, our ally. I plan to keep this one in mind.

It appears that with my recent viewings of "Tour of Duty" and this other work I am beginning to develop an interest in the Vietnam War. (I refuse to a call it a "conflict" or a "police action.") It's probably about time, since it was the dominant social and political event of my youth...

9 Aug 2010

I finished watching the eight Whistler short movies over the weekend, an entertaining series. My favorite was installment number five, "Mysterious Intruder" (1946). I've seen hundreds of films noir but I didn't see the unexpected, powerful ending to this one coming - well done!

I also started watching "We Were Soldiers" (2002) last night, a good film. I'm very glad I read the book - it fills in the gaps of what's going on. I understand from various comments that some of the uniform items and equipment aren't accurate to when the battle of Ia Drang was fought, in November 1965. It would have been nice to get the details straight, but that doesn't get in the way of a good war flick for me. My favorite Civil War film is the 1955 John Ford-directed "Red Badge of Courage," which is utterly wrong in terms of uniforms, equipment and drill.

I found a really cool book at a yard sale on Saturday: Robots, Spaceships and Other Tin Toys. It's almost as good as having a tin robot collection! (Which I'd like to have.) These funny little toys were fairly common when I was growing up in the 1960's - odd thing is, with all of my interest in space exploration, I never had one. A friend of mine had the one shown above, however. I remember that occasionally the robot would halt its walk when the two doors on the chest opened up, firing two cannons. A very clever mechanism. I recall his mother, watching the robot, said, "I can do that! Haw! Haw! Haw!" (sticking out her bust). I was mortified. Mothers aren't supposed to make comments like that.

The big news as far as I'm concerned is that last night my wife and I made arrangements to go on a cruise (our first) to celebrate our 30th anniversary in December. It's a seven day Caribbean trip on the Norwegian Sun. Map here. HOORAY!

This might be my first and last blog of the week... I have some guests driving out from Burbank, California who want to do the D.C. area tourism thing, so I'm taking the week off once they arrive. They encountered rain in Arizona and road construction delays in Oklahoma, so they aren't making the time they expected. Modern conveniences or not, driving across North America still isn't a trivial thing! So they may be arriving late tonight or, as is more probable, sometime tomorrow.

6 Aug 2010

For reasons of my own I am reprinting this piece I once wrote for a rugby club e-mail. (Yes, I used to put a lot of odd stuff into rugby club e-mails.)

I read, that is, rapidly scanned, through a dreadful book the other night about doing genealogy on the Internet. It’s by a North Carolinian named Ralph Roberts and it’s called Genealogy Via the Internet. I call it dreadful because the writing style is overly colloquial and folksy; it reads more like a badly-written e-mail than a published book. (He owns his own publishing company, which explains how it got published.) Misspellings abound, and it is badly in need of editing.

Roberts is a proponent of what he calls “full genealogy,” that is, finding every available ancestral link. This leads to documented connections with celebrities. It’s relatively easy to do on the Internet; I’ve been at it for about a year, now, and, on my mother’s side, I have discovered distant cousinship with such French-Canadian luminaries as Madonna, Celine Dion, Jack Kerouac, a hockey hall of famer and the guy who invented the snowmobile. (I am especially pleased to be a 25th great-grandson of Geoffrey Plantagenet - shown above - Richard the Lion-Hearted's grandfather.) But how good is the documentation? The widely-varying quality of data on the Internet is enough to make a professional Daughters of the American Revolution-style genealogist blanch. However, while Roberts’ book is poorly-written, I cannot argue with some of the conclusions he draws about kinship and humanity in general.

I was alerted to his work when I once read an article in the Washington Times that quoted a fellow at Burke’s Peerage, who mentioned that Senator John Kerry is a lineal descendant of the Prophet Mohammad, the founder of Islam. One of Roberts’ (many) books was mentioned.

Well! Senator John Kerry a lineal descendant of the founder of Islam! That ought to give conspiracy theorists a field day!

Turns out that not only is John Kerry a lineal descendent, but so is George W. Bush. And, according to Roberts, perhaps upwards of about 70% of all Americans of European descent.

Roberts’ chapter about this is detailed, but summing it up:

1.) Mohammad’s genealogy is traceable and well-known.
2.) Mohammad had twelve wives, and therefore many lines which survive.
3.) Members of these lines later intermarried into Spanish royalty.
4.) Spanish royals married into other European royal lines.
5.) European royals married non-royals.
6.) Because of simple math, each of us has hundreds of millions of ancestors as far back as Mohammad’s time.
7.) Math and geographic boundaries being what they were and are, we all share direct ancestors with a lot of other people.

This raises some interesting geo-political questions. In the Islamic world, green is the color of the Prophet Mohammad, and the Encyclopedia Britannica notes that, in some countries, a green turban usually denotes a direct descendant of the Prophet. So, very conservatively speaking mathematically, there are millions and millions of Americans who could properly wear the green turban. Maybe me. Maybe you. Rather than being called “The Great Satan,” you’d therefore think we’d get a little more respect than that.

Think of genealogy as an inverted pyramid, with yourself at the bottom apex. You have two parents, four grandparents, etc. A geometric progression. You have 1,048,576 direct ancestors only 20 generations back, which is in the 1400’s. (This is about where European genealogical documentation starts because it was about then that surnames started being created.) If you consider that a generation is 50 years, there are 28.7 generations which separate us from Mohammad’s time. That’s more than 268 million direct ancestors at the 28th generation alone. So how many parents and grandparents do we all have at every generation? You do the math.

Moral: Realistically speaking, we are all related and all wars are Civil Wars. So, being kin, why don’t we treat each other better than we do?

5 Aug 2010

I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes ... I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak.

I watched two more "Whistler" short movies last night. The second installment - The Mark of the Whistler (1944) - was quite good. It was written by none other than Cornell Woolrich, master of paranoia and one of film noir's leading literary lights. Many of Woolrich's crime novels were turned into films noir, one of my personal favorites being the amusingly named "I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes." (Reading the summary for this one makes for interesting reading, and gives you a good idea of what Woolrich was about.)

It also featured film noir character actor Paul Guilfoyle (not to be confused by the actor of the same name in TV's CSI), who is yet another of the interesting denizens of the streets and bars one sees in these wonderful old films. He played "Limpy" Smith, a crippled street vendor of items sold from a tray held by a strap around his neck. (I think OSHA outlawed these...) Once you see his face you're not likely to forget him. He's primarly known for being James Cagney's victim in "White Heat" (1949).

The third Whistler episode - The Power of the Whistler (1945) - was underwhelming. I've read that it's the weakest installment in the series. I can see that. But I am getting into the spirit of this entertaining old series... it's fun watching this shadowy figure (you never see his face) walking the dark city streets in his fedora and trench coat, making psychiatric comments on the action and whistling his odd little tune.

Another attraction: The series was filmed by Columbia Pictures, and thus a lot of the shots were taken in Burbank, many on the back lot complex once known as Columbia Ranch. In fact, at one point in the first installment an industrial building is shown, and both Cari and I recognized it immediately as being a building which still exists in town.

Speaking of my hometown, I posted an article about the 50th anniversary jubilee. In the last shot is a photo of Mary Strickland; she runs the Burbank Historical Society. She'll be taking part in the 100th anniversary as well. Cool!

I also ran some newspaper articles about one Burbank teen made good, Mary Frances (Debbie) Reynolds - scroll to bottom. It's a funny story... She only entered the Miss Burbank contest because she wanted the scarf and blouse which were offered as prizes, and unexpectedly won. She thus became Miss Burbank of 1948. This led to a seven year film contract and worldwide fame and fortune.

Last night I also watched an A&E documentary about the history of professional wrestling narrated by Steve Allen. It was great! I especially liked the early televised days of wrestling section... you know, Killer Kowalski, Classy Freddie Blassy, Gorgeous George, etc. One wrestler named Ricky Starr was known for his performance of ballet moves in the ring - this part had me falling down laughing. (You have to check out this video - hilarious stuff!)

I love vintage roller derby and wrestling. It's just the stuff I want when I'm doing intellectual slumming.

4 Aug 2010

As long as I've been watching films noir, I've been aware of a series of short movies (they run about 60 minutes) made in the 1940's featuring a character named "the Whistler." I've avoided these until now because I've had bigger fish to fry. But last night I watched the first installment. A review is here; it was pretty good. Very high on style and mystery. The Whistler is an interesting character. He lurks primarily as a shadow on dark city streets wearing a fedora and appears at critical junctures in the story; he also provides opening and closing narration. As his name suggests, his presence is felt when he whistles an odd, mournful tune.

Is he a supernatural being of some kind? A watcher? The narrative heart of film noir? I should mention that he was originally a radio character - which explains the whistling. I bet those old shows were pretty evocative.

I ran an old photo on my Burbankia page yesterday, an overhead view of the Wanamaker Rents lot with Burbank Ford seen at the left edge of the image. My family bought two cars at that Ford dealership, a 1966 Mustang and a 1972 LTD Brougham. I blogged about the LTD on my birthday this year - it was a fondly remembered car.

The Mustang we had was a butter colored car (just like the one shown above) with an inline six cylinder engine. For some reason, probably cost, my parents didn't opt to get one with the famous 289 CID V-8. But the six was pretty strong. I recall my Dad tromping the accelerator one day on the freeway. We got from 50 to 90 pretty quickly.

Ours had a black interior, and most of the time I sat in the back, which was fine when we first bought the car (I was ten). However, by the time I turned thirteen or so and my legs started growing it became seriously cramped in that back seat! I recall a 1967 trip to Las Vegas in that car... we noticed a family broken down along the side of the road, and offered to drive them to the nearest gas station. There was a very tall father and his tall wife, and a little kid. To this day I don't know how we managed to get four adults and two kids in that Mustang... but it was a pretty close and sweaty experience. They owned a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in Encino. When we got to the gas station the dad said, "I won't insult you by offering you money ("What insult?," I thought), but here's my business card. Come in and get a bucket of chicken," which is what we later did.

It was cool to have a Mustang in 1966 - the car was still enough of a novelty that we'd see people driving other Mustangs and we would wave to one another, like we were a part of a big, hip, with-it segment of the American car-buying population. My parents. Hip. That would never happen again!

From the wikipedia entry for Gulf Oil: "Gulf No-Nox gasoline was promoted with a bucking horse leaving an imprint of two horseshoes. Several promotions centered around the two horseshoes. In 1966 bright orange 3-D plastic self-adhesive horseshoes for your bumper were given away." We put these on the rear of our car, as did many other Southern California Mustang drivers... I thought it was cool, horseshoes for the Mustang. Get it? Now I look at them and think, "Ugh. Tacky." A lot of the time we also had a foam Union 76 ball atop our antenna. I discovered that if you inserted a firecracker into one of these it could be lobbed satisfyingly like a hand grenade, producing a nice fragmentation burst of white foam.

For some odd reason I also recall the name of the Burbank Ford salesman who sold us the Mustang, Al Zoltz. Al Zoltz Lightning Bolts I called him (but not to his face).

I first learned to drive in the Mustang, and used it for my driving test. However I did a "California Stop" (a roll through) at one intersection with a stop sign, and failed the test. When I retook it a week or so later in our new LTD I passed with flying colors.

I ran some amusing old Los Angeles Times columns about Burbank's Fawkes Folly monorail to my Burbank site (scroll to bottom).

I'm pretty much done with J.W. Fawkes for now.

3 Aug 2010

The summer drags on; I am very tired of hearing about other people's vacation experiences.

I found some more old Los Angeles Times columns about our friend J.W. Fawkes, Burbank public transport visionary, inventor, rancher and frequent crank. They're added here. You can read what he says about rabies in Burbank in 1922 - which is a decidedly niche subject matter, I admit.

The City of Burbank celebrates its 100th anniversary of incorporation next year, and has released plans for its Tournament of Roses Float. ("Putting the petal to the metal." I'd like to slap the reporter a few times for that.) Pretty elaborate. I have never been a big fan of the Tournament of Roses... the whole notion of placing flower petals all over a vehicle and driving it down the street has always seemed a bit bizarre to me, and I almost never tune in on New Year's Day. There's also the inevitable recounting of construction details: "This year's float is composed of 1.5 million gladiola, 57,000 rose and 88,000 tulip petals," etc. How is the mind supposed to make any sense of this? To be honest, the only float I ever had any enthusiasm for was the Animal House Deathmobile.

At the Movies (originally known as Sneak Previews, which is what I knew it as in the early 80's) is ending, apparently a victim to the Internet and the speed with which one can digest criticism of films with online tools. Look how young Ebert looks in the photo! I have dabbled a bit with film criticism - less well-informed than Siskel and Ebert but far more terse:

Civil War and reenactor interest films - Written mostly as a joke, but I have gotten far more letters and e-mails about these articles than anything else I ever wrote about reenacting. Odd, that.

Family films - A more serious effort. If you have kids you can avoid some real stinkers by checking out this one. (Executive summary: Avoid Baby Geniuses at all costs. Years ago a friend of mine once took his daughter and her friends to see it - $75. Every now and then I invoke this film's title just to watch him roll his eyes. It's the cinematic equivalent to an elegant evening spent at Chuck E. Cheese.)

Film noir - More of a list for me to check against when I've forgotten the all-too-coloquial title of some obscure noir. "Hmmm. 'Impact.' Have I seen that one?"

That's all for today. Let the drudgery, eating and napping begin.

2 Aug 2010

I would like to say that the Air Force Strings performance of Dag Wiren's String Serenade at the Air Force Memorial on Friday night was played well and sounded great. Unfortunately I can only say it was played well. It had the worst live sound, ever. For some reason the P.A. system was malfunctioning, and it made the strings sound distorted and shrill. My wife said it sounded like an old record. We left early.

I got a big tub of Lego at a yard sale for $5; it has the Hogwarts train in it, along with a whole bunch of other stuff. Cari and I sorted through it and counted 75 little Lego people. Once again I'm buying stuff for grandchildren I don't have. I have to knock that off. It could turn into a storage issue.

I learned the old rule once again: If you see something somewhere and you think you might want it, buy it because it may not be available later. At a library sale I found a $2 VHS copy of a 1988 Classic Images production of the 125th anniversary Gettysburg event (which I attended as a participant). I passed on it, but tucked it away in what I thought was a hiding place in case I wanted it later. Sure enough, when I came back for it the next day it was gone. Who would want to buy that? Somebody. It was worth the money for its unintentional hilarity alone. There's a recreation of General Meade's War Council staged with reenactors (pointedly, not actors) that hits a new low for awkward reading of lines, missed cues and puzzling silences. Oh, well.

And Happy Birthday, Don!

My wife and I saw "Toy Story 3" Saturday afternoon; it was excellent, probably the best of the three. Pixar hasn't had a flop yet, an enviable record. (I thought "Ratatouille" may have been weak - I haven't seen it - but Ebert called it one of the best films of 2007, so I guess not.) How long can Pixar keep it up, I wonder...

I came across an interesting blog page about Bob Kane, the creator of Batman. Or was he, really? When I used to read Batman comics I was used to seeing his name on the splash page. Frankly, it was a name I always associated with crappy artwork. (I was reading these at the same time I was exposed to the work of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby - no comparison!) Turns out, the great majority of the comics I read were really drawn by Dick Sprang, Sheldon Moldoff (who sucked) or Carmine Infantino (much better). So I was never sure what, if anything, Bob Kane really did. And now this blogger provides convincing information to suggest that Bob Kane was stealing the credit from others for decades, and that the one case of artwork being unarguably his (Detective #27) was really traced from a Big Little Book, among other things. Looks like Bob Kane was a real creep.

One comic stood out in my young mind for being just bizarre, "The Rainbow Batman" in Detective #241, complete with Shelly Moldoff's primitive artwork. My son and I used to make fun of it: "I must, Robin, I must..." Anyway, this was the sort of stuff I associated with Bob Kane. Turns out he wasn't even that good!

We have out of town house guests staying with us for a few days and so last night we did my celebrated Monuments at Night tour. It takes about two hours and goes like this: Air Force memorial, Pentagon 9/11 memorial, Marine Corps Iwo Jima memorial, Vietnam Wall, Lincoln memorial, Korean War memorial, World War II memorial. If you have more time you can add in the Jefferson and the FDR memorials, but we got a late start and so went home. The D.C. tour books really ought to suggest that tourists see these at night. They look just as good - if not better - than they do during the day, and it's far less hot and crowded to see them at night. The parking is also better.

That's all for this cheerless Monday. I once read somewhere that, statistically, the most common time for a man to get a heart attack was Monday morning at 10:00. I understand that so well...

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