Nobody 803

Sunday, January 24, 2010
Nobody 803

Nobody Asked Me But:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YESTERDAY, TO MY WIFE, WHO REMAINS YOUNGER THAN SPRINGTIME.

Tuesday Morning, January 19, 2010 – 10:15

“Love is not love which alters where it alteration finds.” Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 – My favorite of Parker’s quotes.

I am in shock! I just did a routine check of the LA Times list of recent news and read that Robert B. Parker has died. Parker was my favorite fun novelist. I cannot begin to describe the joy he has given me. Jesse Stone, Sonny Randall and the incomparable Spenser (with Hawk and Susan) have been pleasurable companions for over 20 years. (I was late in my discovery of Parker.)

Parker, with his Spenser novels, led the mystery “comeback” in the 1970s. He was not a great or complex writer. His books were almost entirely dialogue – but it was excellent dialogue – fast, sharp, observant and irreverent. Yes, it is true that over the last 10 years as he emphasized quantity over originality, his plots became more formulistic. I laughingly – but fondly – observed that he had reduced everything to a computer program, so that he had only to add a small amount of new and out popped one of his three novels per year.

And yet, just as I have been eagerly looking forward to his new Jesse Stone, due out next month, so have I eagerly awaited his every publication.

Parker’s passing will leave a hole in my life – a small one, because my life is much more than reading, but a hole. Again, as with Kavanaugh, I am saddened. More so, I think, because where the poet drifted away in the last decade, Parker was there with a new novel every 4-6 months - a clock-work pleasure.<<<

Parker Add-on: I love this tribute from Harlan Coben: “When it comes to detective novels, 90 percent of us admit he’s an influence, and the rest of us lie about it.”<<<

So, two weeks in a row I write obits. How do they speak to me about death? Pretty much they reinforce that which I have been feeling since I turned 75 last summer, which is: Even though to the best of my knowledge I am in excellent health, I can no longer look forward to any future event with a strong sense of certainty.

That sounds depressing, but I am far from depressed. I find joy and a sense of relief in knowing that I am beyond worry (mostly) and into acceptance. Life is always day-to-day. It is just more so now.

Add-on: And just think, having passed the magic age barrier – no more colonoscopies or PSA tests.<<<

PRESIDENT OBAMA

My definition of good continues to be the practice of treating others the way you want to be treated. With this in mind, and this may surprise or startle you, of all our presidents since Abraham Lincoln, I think that Barack Obama is the most genuinely good person.<<<

SENATOR BROWN

Mr. Brown said on Wednesday that voters are “tired of the backroom deals” and would punish the Democrats if they tried to wiggle out of their predicament. (Passing the health care bill once he is sworn in as the 41st Republican senator.)

They may well be, but thoughtful people are even more tired of obstructionist Republicans who oppose by rote and block democracy with filibusters.<<<

TWO VIEWS OF CELEBRITY

Fox News - campaign 2008: “Obama is a CELEBRITY, not someone we can take seriously.”

Fox News - MA election, 2010: “Brown is a CELEBRITY and the Democrats better watch out, because he is going places.”

KNOW YOUR PARTY PROFESSIONALS: WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS, DEMOCRATS ARE DUMB AND REPUBLICANS ARE IMMORAL AND VISCIOUS.<<<

“Republicans may be united in cynical obstructionism, but at least they're united.” NY Daily News<<<

The great lie: We have the world’s best healthcare system.

The great liars: Republican politicians and commentators.

The great gullibles: The too many Americans who fall for the lie.<<<

Honest to god, I cannot handle the Republican liars and the Democratic dummies (and citizen dummies too) any more. I think my days of political passion are nearing their end.<<<

But before they are gone completely – here are David Letterman’s top two comments on the Palin/Fox News coupling. Palin:

2. Actually found a place with more white people than Alaska.
1. Announced plans to run for President in 2010.<<<

I love this quote from Bertolt Brecht’s “Galileo:” One of Galileo's students says, "Unhappy the land that has no heroes," and the scientist responds, "No, unhappy the land that needs heroes."<<<

IN MY UTOPIA – which I know at times sounds very much like Singapore:

Men misusing public restrooms (failure to flush, leaving their urine all over the toilet seat, etc.) would receive their choice of automatic life sentences without possibility of parole or spend their two-week vacation every year cleaning filthy public toilets.<<<

CORNY, BUT I LOVE IT: When you are asked by grocery store personnel to answer that fateful question “paper or plastic,” just say "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual."

This week’s remedial English award goes to the Laker’s Shannon Brown who, when asked if he has been chosen to participate in the All-Star slam-dunk contest, answered: “I haven’t heard nothing.”

Second place goes to North Carolina’s Roy Williams for – “So line-up changes have been a lot.”

I finally watched “Watchman” on HBO the other night. Here is my 2-cent review: Bizarre and pretentious crap meets gratuitous violence.

And it had a lousy ending too.<<<

On the other hand, “It’s Complicated” made me laugh out loud. What more of a recommendation do you need?<<<

56 BOOKS

I did a count the other day, and I read – or in two cases reread – 56 books in 2009. Here are the best and worst of them.

Worst
First Family by David Baldacci (My second Baldacci = fool me twice, shame on me.)
Roadside Crosses by Jeffery Deaver (Amateur hour – and his last book was quite good. Go figure.)
Three Weeks To Say Goodbye by C. J. Box (Box is normally a good writer, so there is no excuse for this mess.)

Best

That Old Cape Cod Magic by Richard Russo - total enjoyment from page first to page last.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – I have already written about this great read.
The Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth - It has been a 6-year wait, but John Madden is back and England is under siege from the Nazis.
9 Dragons by Michael Connelly – Connelly is the best crime fiction writer alive not named James Lee Burke and this is one of his best.
Rain Gods by James Lee Burke – Burke still writes prose that a poet would gladly claim.

I also reread Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and continue to believe that it may well be the greatest American novel.<<<

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YESTERDAY, TO MY WIFE, WHO REMAINS YOUNGER THAN SPRINGTIME.

Barb says that she (and we) are actually young in spirit but old in joints.