Far from the Madding Crowd

I now suppose that it's an Asperger's thing, but I have always hated crowds. It's gotten worse as I get older: the proximity of so many bodies bothers me, but so does the noise -- with so many people yammering away at once, it is sometimes impossible for me to understand or identify a single voice, even when the person is standing right next to me.

I try to avoid arriving at work at the same moment that classes let out just because I can't stand the flow of students around me, crossing my path, cutting me off, walking too slowly, or dominating the sidewalk by walking in groups two to four abreast. All babbling on their cell phones.

Even a busy supermarket or another person in the break room is torture. So Book Rush is one of my least favorite times of year at work: virtually the entire student body will pass through the store at some point, usually in waves at the top of the hour. Sometimes it's a challenge to get from one end of the store to the other.

I've posted about book rush before, so I won't re-tread it. I just wanted to type that with the kind of week it's been, I'm not going to beat myself up about how I plan on spending the weekend.

The Plan:

1) Not to leave the house for any reason, not to see or speak with any damn person

2) Snuggle up with my Honey cat and sleep in AS LONG AS IT TAKES -- even if it's until twelve-thirty or one in the afternoon.

3) Decompress with a movie or two, Doctor Who, Torchwood and Laurel & Hardy.

4) Eat pizza and other comforting things.

5) and last, try to get a complete first draft on the Flash Gordon piece I agreed to write in a moment of arm-twisting, but not to beat myself up if that doesn't happen.

I can't promise that I'll exactly be ready for more punishment once this strict regimen is completed, but with any luck it will get me past the gibbering, twitching, shaking stage.

-- Freder.

Everyone's a Critic

It's an old expression, but it's more meaningful today than ever. Back in the day, when Vincent Canby and Pauline Kael and James Agee and others were plying the trade, criticism was an art.

Today, any idiot with a keyboard and a blog (including myself) can and does put more than their two cents worth before the panting public. Sometimes, their thoughts are considered, informed, and well-written. Most often it's the opposite. Still, no one's holding a gun to our collective heads and forcing us to read blogs, right? So where's the damage? Sometimes we just like to hear as many different opinions as we can.

But it has damaged the formal culture in the sense that professional critics are less influential than ever before, in the sense that many newspapers and magazines aren't even employing critics any more, and in the sense that the standards of mainstream media criticism have, in some areas, dropped off markedly. Janet Maslin is still writing about books, thank goodness, but where are the Vincent Canbys and Pauline Kaels of today? (And don't even mention David Denby of The New Yorker -- The man is an moron.)

I read a lot less criticism than I used to. In part it's because there's so much of it out there, cancelling itself out, but it's also because most mainstream critics are nothing more than logrollers, crying out "The Best Movie of the Year!" at every opportunity. "Brilliant! Breathtaking! Stunning!" -- oh, now there's a good one. I see "stunning" all the time, and I have to believe that some people must be easily stunned. I don't recall ever being "stunned" by a book, even the ones I love, except maybe when a heavy one falls off of a tall shelf onto my head. I don't always agree with Roger Ebert, but I can usually count on his opinion to be well-informed and well-written. That's more than you can say for most.

When I hopped online and read some of the commentary about Heathers, a picture I wrote about on this blog last week, I had to wonder if some of these people had seen the same movie that I did. They could not even describe it accurately. It is not a movie about teenage suicide, as I read over and over again in one misinformed article after another. It's a movie about bullying. That many can't seem to grasp the basic concept makes me mistrust their judgement in a big way.

Years ago I read a review of The Exorcist that claimed there was a shot in the movie showing Jason Miller's head hitting every step on the way down when he's thrown from the house. I watched for the shot. It isn't in the picture. I could probably name numerous examples, if I wanted to do the research, of critics describing things that don't exist in the films that they write about, things that came out of their own heads..

One good example comes to mind: William K. Everson is one of the best, a man whose work I respect as being carefully thought out and backed up by solid experience and knowledge. But he was writing before the era of VHS and DVD and video on demand, and his otherwise wonderful book The Films of Laurel and Hardy (a must-have item for anyone who treasures that team as I do) does contain errors. He probably hadn't had a chance to review some of these pictures in years and years, with the result that I can go through his book and point out at least five instances in which he misremembers details, attributes individual scenes to the wrong movie, or describes scenes that flat-out never existed.

The thing that got me started on this today was a book review from Time magazine, one that the publisher thought good enough to use as an endorsement on the paperback edition of the book itself: "Then We Came to the End is that rare novel that feels absolutely contemporary, and that rare comedy that feels blisteringly urgent."

There's some danged stinky writing going on in that sentence, and it scores high on the BS-ometer at the same time. Is the word absolutely absolutely necessary? Did the writer feel a need to distinguish between this and, say, a novel that feels only slightly contemporary? And rare? Actually there's a boatload of "absolutely contemporary" novels out there. I can smell them a mile off. I've also seen plenty of urgent comedy in my day. But "blisteringly" urgent? That's a new one. I think I'll stay away. I don't want to have to bandage my fingers after reading a couple of pages.

Nice going, Time!

-- Well, Doug, what did you think of this post?

"An astonishing depiction of teenage suicide!"

"Two thumbs up!" (I won't say what portion of the anatomy.)

"Un-putdownable!" (No, really, I spilled a bottle of crazy glue and now I can't put the book down!)

"Breathtaking!" (No, really, I'm hyperventilating right now!)

In this atmosphere, I'm kind of surprised that no one has ever typed: "I had seven orgasms while reading this book, and I wasn't even touching myself!"

Onward.

-- Freder.

Moving Daze

Laurel and Hardy did it. Mickey Mouse did it. I'm surprised that the Three Stooges never did. By definition, comedy usually involves pain. The kind of pain that isn't so funny when it happens to you!

But, really, the final phase of the formal move came off as well as could be expected. I now have furniture!

When I saw the truck pull up I grabbed the cats before they could know what was happening and locked them away again in the bathroom. Much complaining from behind the door! Then I noted that the truck had not pulled up in front of the house as expected, but backed into the driveway.

I was told that the town would not let them park in the street, and that I would have to shovel the sidewalk. I said, "That's baloney! I've seen at least two moving vans parked in front of this house in the last six months! They do it all the time! It'll take me an hour to shovel this out!"

In the end, they parked in front of the house and started off-loading, and I got busy shoveling in case a cop came along and ordered them away. A cop did come along, but he paid them no attention, and I shoveled the sidewalk for nothing (the town snowblower came down the walk just a short while after I finished!)

The movers poured sand all up and down my front walkway and soon were tracking it into the house with wild abandon. Footprints everywhere. I still haven't cleaned it up; I had higher priorities. Once again Mister Complainer let his partner do the lion's share of the heavy lifting.I pitched in and lugged a bunch of stuff myself. After all, they were being paid by the hour. We loaded up the house, then they moved the van and we put the lawnmower and wheelbarrow and the garden dog and my mother's flats (display pieces that she painted to look like buildings -- she used them at art shows to display her paintings way, way back when she was pursuing art full-time while raising us youngsters) into the garage.

They came inside and assembled the beds, starting with mine. As soon as it was ready I made it up, and flopped down on it in relief. I said, out loud to the room, "This is hot!"

It was all over by around 12:30. I paid them off ($1,039.50) and waved goodbye, hoping never to need or see them again! I went inside and let the quats out.

Honey was first out the door as usual, zooming at slightly under the speed of sound, but doing it in that low, distressed crouch. "What's he done now? What's he done now?" she seemed to be thinking. I followed her upstairs. She jumped on the bed with a look of disbelief, sniffing about. "Is it? Is it really?"

Downstairs Patches was not asking questions. She knew, and was jumping on every single piece of furniture with a happy look on her face. Everyone else was sniffing, but contentment was the overall tone.

For my part, I felt suddenly exhausted, almost too weak to stand. I flopped in my comfy chair before the telly and just sank into it. I hadn't been that comfortable in a solid month. I turned on TCM.

I must say that TCM is becoming my favorite channel. In the early days of video and DVD, it was a pleasure to track down movies that I knew about and knew that I wanted to see, but TCM is a different experience entirely: I'm getting to see pictures that I never heard of, never knew I would like. Yesterday it was Two Knights from Booklyn, a 1949 comedy with William Bendix and Grace Bradley (an actress I've never encountered before that I know of, but man-o-man, whatta cutie!). It was pretty dumb, but also genuinely funny in the way that modern dumb comedies are not. I don't think I've seen Bendix do comedy before, but he's hysterical in a good-natured way.

I was not feeling any stronger, and finally realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day. I made myself breakfast and I made myself lunch, one after the other, and wolfed it all down while watching the movie, which kept going off on a new tangent just when I thought it was over. I like it when movies do that.

Eventually, TCM followed it up with another Bendix comedy, Kill The Umpire, and that was when I turned off the set and started getting on with my new job: unpacking!

This move is far from over! But anyone who has done this would know that. I wonder if anyone unpacks like me, though: I get started in one area, then something comes to light that belongs in another part of the house. I take it to where it belongs, then immediately see something that needs doing right away, get involved in that, and forget all about what I was originally doing. Shake vigorously and repeat. In the end, no one room really got done, but something got done in all the rooms, with the result that the place is really starting to shape up. It does feel and look like home now.

A dirty, messy, box-strewn version of home, but home!

And apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Honey slept with me last night, all of her own volition. She left once to use the bathroom, but jumped right back into bed with me after she got herself cleaned up. I didn't have to go looking for her in the night.

Oh -- my friend Jean is doing well, and out of the hospital.

-- Freder.

"Why don't you do something to HELP me?!"

Many thanks to my friend FlickChick (who has a much more entertaining blog than mine) for the heads-up that TCM would be running a Laurel and Hardy marathon from Tuesday night into Wednesday. The parts of it that I was able to catch have easily been the best part of the last two days -- and they reminded me of something as well, the only perspective I've been able to maintain in the chamber of horrors that I've been trapped in during that time: Life is a Laurel and Hardy comedy: one nice mess after another.


It's better now. Really, the only real concern that I don't have an answer for at this point is that my friend Jean is in hospital and I hope she's doing well. The rest of it -- the nice messes that made up yesterday -- is all being worked on.

Let's start with the easy stuff. I still don't have a computer. On Monday they tried to deliver at the back door, so I left a note there the next morning. On Tuesday they instead tried to deliver at the front door. So on Wednesday I had notes on both doors -- when I got home and struggled up the stairs (more on that latter) I noticed that the note on the back door was gone. . . but there was no package!

And I still don't have telephone service. It was originally supposed to start a week ago Monday. When it didn't, I called from work and they gave me a new number, and a new date: yesterday. Yesterday came and went, and still no phone service.

Yesterday was also to be my moving day -- so of course the weather weenies were calling up a storm. They said that it would start after midnight and be terrible by morning. So I was overjoyed to wake at 7:00 AM and find that nothing was happening. Yippee! I thought. It's not going to be as bad as they predicted!

You can see it coming, can't you?

I drove out to Albion and loaded up the car while I waited for the movers to arrive. And waited. And waited. By the time I was finished loading, the snow had started to fall. Still no movers. I waited until after nine, then called the company and said, "Once again I am here and you're not!" The woman said that they were on their way, should be there any second, that they had left at a quarter after eight.

It took another ten minutes for them to arrive, and by that time the snow was beginning to get serious. It gathered on their boots and blew into the house -- all I could think of was the empty winter home in Doctor Zhivago. I helped them where I could, and kept their ramp swept clean, but the snow was coming down at the rate of an inch or two an hour and toward the end I had to stand out in the storm full time just constantly sweeping the ramp clear. That was miserable, but just as well -- I had managed to get through all of my weekend hours at the old house without tears, but yesterday I broke down several times. It was better to have a focus, even on a task such as that.

The downstairs went quickly enough, but upstairs there were four beds to take apart, and that was time consuming.

By the time everything was loaded and we were ready to hit the road, it was near one o'clock and there was probably six to eight inches of snow in the driveway. The moving van was stuck. My car was stuck. With much effort, we got out and onto the road -- which had not been plowed or treated in any way. It was a case of putting your tires in the tracks of the vehicle ahead of you and hoping for the best.

This was probably one of my ten worst winter driving experiences ever. It was white-out conditions all the way. For much of the drive, I could not even see the moving van just in front of me. The main roads were not much better than the town roads. The blower on my car was not working well enough to handle the cold, and I had to wipe down the inside of the windshield several times.

Once again, my plow guy had not been along. I was able to get most of the way into my driveway, but at the end it makes a sharp left turn and goes up an incline to the garage. With nine inches of snow on the ground, the car could not handle that, and I got stuck there again.

I went into the house, rounded up the cats and threw them into the bathroom, then grabbed my shovel and did the fastest job on the front walkway ever, only to have the movers suggest that they take the load back to the moving company with them and deliver it on Friday.

I wasn't going to have any of that. I asked them to do it right then and there.

Have you ever noticed that on any given working crew, there's always one guy who does less work than anyone else, and complains the loudest? This one went into full complaint mode. They off-loaded two and a half pieces of furniture and then flat-out quit on me. There was nothing for me to do but head inside and let the cats out.

The plow guy came along as I was shoveling out my car. He "helped" me in exactly the way that Stanley helps Ollie. He helped the car right off of the driveway and into the ditch, where it remains as I write this. I could not call Triple A because I had no phone.

Also, I could not drive to the store. I had meant to do that in the evening, after the move. I was low on some basic supplies.

So I walked. Three quarters of a mile one way to the supermarket, through the storm. What the hell, I was wet already, had been wet all day. The walk out wasn't so bad. The walk back was into the wind. The snow caked into my hair, my eyebrows, the whole front of me was white. My gloves were wet. By the time I was halfway home my fingers were so cold they were on fire.

When I got home I made the mistake of sticking them under the faucet. The pain as they thawed out was horrific. I laid down on the floor and screamed.

But it passed in about five minutes. I puttered around, unloaded the groceries, did my chores, then remembered Laurel and Hardy. With Stan and Babe and the cats for company, I made an early dinner (my only meal of the day) and wound down with a couple of drinks. By six o'clock it felt like eleven. I needed to get that day behind me. I went to bed early, leaving the dishes in the sink, and slept like the dead.

Nothing like a Yukon Ho

My Friday night movie was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Lost in Alaska -- as I work my way slowly back through time, saving their horror comedies for October.

This was a great improvement over A & C go to Mars! Although it was obviously made on a shoestring, this actually works in the boys’ favor: there is nothing to keep them from their appointed rounds and nothing to distract the viewer from the characters.

The first half-hour is especially fun, with the boys as volunteer firemen trying to rescue a guy from the Yukon who’s bent on doing himself in. Bud’s motives are not entirely pure, as he has his eye on the piles of gold that the prospector is weighted down with. In fact, Bud is kind of a sleaze all through this movie. . . very much in character with that godawful mustache he’s adopted at this point in his career.

Lou just concentrates on being very funny, and for the most part he succeeds. Like Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, he builds his simple-minded character with ticks and gestures that seem random, but are actually quite precise. He owes much to comedians who came before him, but he’s got his own thing going and by this point he knows the routine very well. I have to wonder what Bud and Lou were like in real life.

Once the action moves north, a very basic melodramatic plot is tacked on, so perfunctory that at the final fade-out the villains and the “good” guys are shaking hands all around. There are lots of good gags, but the comedy becomes more situational and less character-bound. Although I love Lou looking at seals for the first time and mistaking them for dogs.

Oh, nearly forgot: Bruce Cabot (Jack Driscoll from the original King Kong) plays the heavy.

The truth is, I did fall asleep on this one, but it had nothing to do with my feelings for the picture. It had been a long, emotional week, and I found that an hour spent with Bud and Lou was a little too relaxing.

-- Freder