Nobody 681

Sunday, January 14, 2007
Nobody # 681

Nobody Asked Me But:

Last week, I finished “The Lay Of The Land,” by Richard Ford. It is the concluding book in a trilogy ("The Sports Writer," "Independence Day" – the latter won him a Pulitzer) on the life of protagonist Frank Bascombe. The book, 485 pages long, is about 10% active and 90% passive - Bascombe’s thoughts about his life, past and present, his politics and his New Jersey environment.

If you think this makes for a fast read, think again. My time (about 3 ½ weeks (or was it years?) was divided between enjoyment and “is this damn thing ever going to end?” But mixed in with Frank’s 3 billion thoughts were some delicious ones including “I have chosen a life smaller than my talents because smaller made me happier.”

This thought hit close to home. I have written many times about doing the same thing during my pre-retirement and the opposite since retiring. During the former I worked sorta hard but not that hard, because I wanted time to enjoy being alive. Since retirement it has been much of the opposite. I fill my life beyond the brim because of a sense that I do not want to miss anything in my remaining years. I have only a few regrets about the past, but my present calls for change.

In the 1970s there was a debate between two writers about these conflicting choices. Richard Bach, in his huge best seller, “Jonathon Livingstone Seagull,” defended the always striving to reach your potential goal position, while James Kavanough, in “Celebrate The Sun,” wrote that people should surrender Bach’s level of striving that made one miss life’s simple joys.

I am sure that ambition is good, if take in moderation, but am positive that celebrating the sun is the wiser choice. It is the latter that I sometimes allowed to slip away and am trying to rediscover. It helps when I take time to re-read this poem:

Of Simplicity

By James Kavanough

Simplicity calls,
After all the scheming’s done,
Now that I’ve paid homage
To damn near everyone.
God should be satisfied,
Parents got their due.
My education’s justified.
I’ve proved myself to you.

Simplicity calls
Now that everyone’s been paid,
But even so I hesitate
Because I’m still afraid.
One of these days,
I’ll jump the last few walls;
Give no explanation
Save”simplicity calls”!<<<

If I lived in Canada, part of the cure would be found in watching a new television series playing there. It is called “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” and is a show about a small Muslim community.

It contains such gems as a religious leader preaching: “'Desperate Housewives'? Why should they be desperate when they're only performing their natural womanly duties,” while, at the same time, a woman whispers to another from behind her veil, “I hope he finishes in time for us to get home and watch this week’s episode.”<<<

The Bruins beat the Trojans! The Bruins beat the Trojans – in a game that was closer than the final score. And here is our warrior among warriors, Aaron Afflalo. (left for game winning shot) "I want to leave some small mark on the greatest basketball program in the country."

You have, Aaron, you have. And not just yesterday. You have been a credit to UCLA since you first stepped on the campus. Now how about staying another year and playing on a National championship team with Kevin Love?

Speaking of Love, he scored only 4 points for his Lake Oswego HS team in its Friday night game. Of course those were the only points in the game, which ended at the three-minute mark when Love stole the ball, took it the length of the court and broke the glass backboard with powerful slam.<<<

Here are two quotes from a recent USA Today poll in which only 26% of the people support the Bush policy for Iraq:

“It’s one thing to be steadfast and another to be stubborn,” said Rick Lacey, a Republican who voted for a Democrat in the last election.

“I’m as devout a Democrat as they come,” said Mr. Daily. “But if we are still in the war in two years and a Republican candidate for president like Hagel or Brownback is more anti-war than the Democrat, then I will vote Republican.”<<<

As David Brooks pointed out in a column last week, the Democrats slipped up again. Most American people, including many Republicans, were ready to support a plan to end our senseless bleeding in Iraq, but the Dems couldn’t unite their quick exit vs. gradually withdrawal factions and once more sacrificed action for reaction.

They should have compromised on a more troops/timetable-for- withdrawal policy, which had the twin virtues of being both right and an easy sell to the voters.

Come on Democrats – LEAD!<<<

(Note: A piece in this morning’s LAT indicates that the Democrats may be coming together on this)<<<

NO! NO! NO! There is nothing that would cause me to move to Iran.

What? You say gasoline there is .35 cents a gallon. Barb, do you still have that veil?<<<

I don’t know about you, but I have always wondered about royalties – what is the writer or singer’s cut per sale. I found a piece of the answer in last Sunday’s NY Times Magazine interview with Yusuf Islam. (AKA Cat Stevens – remember, “I’m being followed by a moon shadow?”)

Q. - How do you support yourself these days — off your old hits?

A. - I think we sell about 1.5 million albums a year.

Q - Which is how much in royalties? About a dollar an album?

A. - Probably more.<<<

Did you know: that former New York mayor and now possibly the Republican candidate for President, Rudy the G is trademarking his own name? Consider the possibilities if he becomes our next chief executive. We may be able to buy POTUS Giuliani boxers or briefs – probably the former considering Rudy’s pugnacious nature.<<<

The time is 2027. All women on earth are sterile. There seems no future.

The place is England, which is trying to stave off this coming end to humanity not with a stiff upper lip but an irrational purging of all immigrants using a Homeland Security force that might well be the secret dream of today’s American anti-immigrants.

Then introduced into the picture is a young black immigrant girl who is pregnant and perhaps the only hope for human survival. But she and her baby are the focal point of the struggle between the nativist British government and the persecuted immigrants who want to use the child as a symbolic rallying point for their armed resistance.

It is the task of our protagonist, Clive Owen to steer her and the baby, once she is born, unharmed between these forces and to a sort of habitat for humanity safe haven.

The film, “Children Of Men,” which I saw this past week, is loosely based on a novel of the same name written by P. D. James in 1992. It is outstanding both for the moral questions posed and for its cinematography. I would not rate it ahead of “Letters From Iwo Jima,” but it is totally deserving of an Academy Award best picture nomination and is one of the three best 2006 films that I have seen. (“The Queen” being the third)<<<

Oh, and I need to add here that in listing the best films that I saw this past year, I forgot to mention “United 93,” which I thought very good but not good enough to deserve awards like being named Best Picture by the NY Film Critics Association. I think that sentimentality is replacing objectivity in judging this picture.<<<

And before we leave movies, “Alpha Dog” opened Friday in theaters across the country. It is the story of the senseless murder of one of our former students, Nick Markowitz. Since both Barb and I feel that the tragedy should not have been exploited, I was not sorry to see the following from a review in the NY Times. The reviewer is Manohla Dargis who once had the same position at the LA Times:

“Alpha Dog” is a true-crime story inspired by a pipsqueak thug improbably named Jesse James Hollywood.”

“Here the dimwitted mastermind is Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch), a pint-size nihilist with wary eyes and a face full of molting hair. He has a skinny blonde named Angela (Olivia Wilde), a pit bull called Adolf and a posse of cretins.”

“The cretins rule in “Alpha Dog,” which has much the same entertainment value you get from watching monkeys fling scat at one another in a zoo or reading the latest issue of Star magazine. Of course a little of that nasty stuff may land on you, but such are the perils of voyeurism.”<<<

Did you read about Shadow, the Santa Monica cat, who had a hard time adjusting to the two cats already living in his new home? Shadow’s owners, answering an ad, allowed him to be part of a cat behavior modification group. He is now on Prozac and his behavior problem, urinating on the furniture to establish territory, has almost entirely dried up.

This could affect humans in a big way. Not only in urinating patterns but, now that the drug has found an new market, perhaps its price will drop.<<<

"Two things perhaps best symbolize Iraq in 2006:

The first is the recent execution of Saddam Hussein. Only a country in shambles could offer up such a spectacle, execution turned into circus.” (JT in Nobody, January 7th)

“The execution of Saddam Hussein was Iraq in a nutshell. Aside from the dead man at the end of the rope, nothing went the way the Americans wanted.” (Richard Cohen, Washington Post. January 9, 2007)

I am glad that Cohen, a very good columnist, is reading Nobody, but I think he should have asked my permission before he stole my stuff.<<<

And finally, here is Robert Frost on the President’s decision to send more troops to Iraq:

A Soldier

He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled,
That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,
But still lies pointed as it ploughed the dust.
If we who sight along it round the world,
See nothing worthy to have been its mark.<<<