Almost All Gone

Old photographs can be haunting even when you don't know anyone in the picture. Change is the murderer of all things. When you do know the people in the photograph, you can be left feeling powerless and sad. I look at the picture above and think, my god, was the world ever really like that?

There are only three people in that picture who are still alive: My sister the wolf, my father, and me. It's funny that we three are sitting together while everyone else outside of the car is waiting to be swept away by Time and Motion.

My grandmother Agnes, far left, was the first to go. This picture was taken before she suffered a stroke while weeding her garden on a sweltering hot day. It didn't kill her: it robbed her of herself and her memory. She became first a wordless, frustrated child, and then, slowly a vegetable confined to bed. She died of choking while my Aunt was feeding her.

And the auto moves on.

Next was her husband, my grandfather Adolf, the first alcoholic in the family, standing on the runner board to my right. He was coming out of an antiques show when he was struck by a car driven by a young idiot with a girl in his lap. He was hit so hard that his body was thrown clear across the street. Grandpa had a hard life, had a lot to cope with, including the loss of most of his tongue to cancer. He was a very matter-of-fact guy. I didn't know about most of his troubles.

So my father was the first one of my parents to become an orphan, while I was still quite young. The auto had a chance to speed forward some few years before the next one dropped away, the man holding the camera, my grandfather Claude. He died at home, in my grandmother Melvina's arms, I believe of an aneurysm.

Grandma (sitting on the running board) went steadily downhill after that. She was already frail. I don't think that she ever forgave Grandpa Claude for dying first. My mother and her brother got her into an assisted living facility, a better place than many I've seen. I was there to help move her from her house into her new apartment. She tried to get along, but I could see she was bitter. I came back home to Maine and never saw her again. On her deathbed she told my mother, "Is this really all there is? What's the point?" and early last year Mom said she was starting to feel the same way about life.

The car didn't last long. Dad loved old cars, but he kept switching them out. The one I remember was a big black enclosed car the size of a small house.

The picture was taken at our house on Edgcombe Road. Even though I was very little, I have many memories of my life there that I can "see" as clearly as when they happened. My father didn't believe me, but I was able to describe the house to him in detail. Sometimes my memory is so vivid that I feel like I'm looking into an alternate universe. Can see into it, but can't go there. The black automobile carried the three of us away from all that. It is far, far in the distance.

Sometimes I don't think I understand the world or the way it works any better than I did when I was that little kid behind the wheel.

-- Freder.

The Internet May Indeed Be a Playground. . .

. . . but David Thorne's book with that approximate title is more like the paperback equivalent of trowelware. This is why the world needs editors, and why the world is a little bit worse off without them.

I'm one of those people who found Thorne's website (which I will not name or link to here, because I'm afraid that Mr. Thorne would follow the link back with dire consequences to myself) really hysterically, laugh-out-loud funny. But the book, which contains a complete archive of the site plus, seemingly, everything else Mr. Thorne has ever written, is a classic case of not knowing when to stop.

I can hear the publisher thinking "We have to give them a reason to buy the book. We have to give them lots and lots of stuff that they can't get for free right on Thorne's website. Let's jam-pack the thing with everything David has ever written, even if it's just a laundry list!"

This is like a dump truck being emptied onto your front lawn.

To be fair, I was ill yesterday and I turned to the book for cheer. Instead, I grew increasingly depressed as I realized that this was the same thing over and over and over again, and that I could predict pretty much exactly how each piece would go. "He's going to go into a deliberately ridiculous digression with a story from his youth now," and yep, there it was, right on cue. I began skipping over whole sections, in search of the good stuff, and finally I just had to stop about a third of the way short of finishing the thing. I'd had more than enough.

Thank goodness I didn't pay money for my copy -- it was an Advance Reader's Edition that I got through the bookstore. In the end, I didn't even want the thing in my house. I brought it back this morning and put it on the shelf with the other Advance copies. Let someone else enjoy it, if they can.

By all means go to Mr. Thorne's website and enjoy the mischief there. The internet is the perfect vehicle for him. If the book brings him some income, then good on him. But I can't recommend it to anyone who isn't, almost literally, a glutton for punishment.

-- Freder.

"Exactly, Brigadier, Exactly!"

A friend on Facebook left me a message asking me to post EXACTLY how I am (capitalization his). Well, that's exactly the thing: exactitude is not exactly a strong point of mine in the best of times. As exactly as I can express it, this is exactly how I am: I am somewhat like The Doctor.

I'm an eccentric non-neurotypicical who has just been through an explosive, year-long regeneration, and I'm not done yet. "Still cooking." Unfinished. I have good moments and bad ones, and the good can change to the bad in the blink of an eye.

Anyway.

Been away from the computer for nearly the whole week-end. Sunday last I had my father and his wife over again for what I thought was a very successful Father's Day. It came off well enough that I felt up to managing company again this weekend. D_____, a friend that I haven't seen in, what, a decade or more? came by in the afternoon. It was fantastic to see her again, I'd nearly forgotten why she was one of my favorite people from the old bookstore days. She could only stay about forty-five minutes, but even so it was a bit like no time had passed at all.

Then around six, S_____ and C____ came over to dinner. I'm afraid this was a bit more like a visit to a local museum for them than it was a relaxed social outing! I forget that although the house is, for me, uncluttered and open, to others I think it must be a bit like the stepping into a TARDIS.

Yesterday I spent almost the whole, entire day reading. I cannot tell you when was the last time I did that. No, really, I can't tell you, because I don't remember, it was so long ago. Used to do it all the time. I took an hour or two at three o'clock to mow the lawn and clean up after -- the rest of the day I was out on the porch sofa, stretched out with a varying array of quats sitting on or around me (at one point I had all five on the sofa with me!), nose buried in a book. Nothing high-toned, mind you. But I was determined to finish Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children just on principle, just so that I could say that I'd finished something.

It's a bit derivative -- X-Men wrapped in a fairy-tale setting, and pocketed with isolated lapses in taste and careless writing, but on the whole it's an entertaining diversion with its own flavour. At least it's not another Harry Potter knockoff, although it does revolve around the old saw of a so-called normal kid discovering that he has a special ability.

Of course it ends, not so much in a cliffhanger, but in a clear set-up for another book to follow. I enjoyed reading this one, but not so much that I need to pursue any further installments in the series.

I wish that I had a special ability, I mean other than making friends with animals (which is also my Indian name: "Makes Friends With Animals.").

During my dinner break I watched a vintage Doctor Who show with William Hartnell, and then I went right back onto the porch, where I started in on something even lighter-weight: David Thorne's The Internet is a Playground. I still haven't decided for certain if his stuff is for real, or if he's made it all up. It's a lot funnier if it's real.

And just before bed I returned to a favorite, King Aroo. Have I burbled about King Aroo on this blog? Do yourself a favor and follow that link. Then follow this one. I don't care where you buy it or even if you buy it -- get it from the library if you prefer; after all, it's pricey; but King Aroo really is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Nothing makes me smile inside like King Aroo. I'm so glad that I decided to nibble a few pages before sleep.

Other than mowing the lawn (and I wonder what my neighbor thought about that after I'd already done the side facing them early on Wednesday morning, just after midnight!) I did nothing more productive. I've decided not to beat myself up about not working on the new website as I should be doing. After all, I'm still cooking, and I've decided that's all right. When it's ready to happen, it will happen.

--Freder.

That Persistent, Extremely Large, Dedicated-to-his-work Black Dog

This is one of those mornings where the Prozac doesn't feel like it's working at all, one of those mornings where it's a good thing I'm not the sort of person to keep a loaded gun around the house. There are moments every now and then when if such a thing was within my grasp I would absolutely use it. Fortunately, those moments pass. Mostly, I think of my kitties. It doesn't end the depressive spell to think about snuggling with Honey or the way they all gather 'round and "bump" me when I'm putting on my shoes, but it does bring the thoughts of doing myself harm to a sudden halt.

The only reason I mention it is, I can't be the only one who sometimes feels this way, and some of the others who sometimes do are the sort of people who keep loaded guns around the house. This is the reason why we have tragedies like the one we had recently here in Maine, where a young man killed his wife, his children (nobody knows in what order) and then himself.

Anyone who believes that gun control wouldn't save a significant number of lives every year is living in a dream world. If you don't have access to those sorts of weapons, you can't harm yourself or others. I also believe that people who would turn a gun on themselves or others in the heat of the moment are far less likely to use other methods, because, as I've already typed, the moment passes -- and those other methods are slower and far more intimate. I have actually cut myself on occasion, just enough to know that I could never go deep enough to do the job. I'm not saying that gun control would put an end to all suicides, murders and accidental deaths. Humans are far too venal and inventive for that. If someone really wants to do harm, they will find a way. But we stand a better chance of stopping them if they can't just pick up a gun and start pulling the trigger.

My favorite line in the original X-Men movie comes when Sir Ian McKellan as Magneto says to a large assembled force of police officers, in tones dripping with contempt, "You homo sapiens and your guns!" -- just before using his powers to rip the weapons from their hands and turn them on the cops.

Guns bring no good into the world. But I'm realistic about gun control, because there are too many idiots out there like Charton Heston with his cold dead hands.

If we can't have gun control, I wish that others would be like me and practice self gun control. Don't give money to the gun industry, don't give in to the kind of illogical thinking that having a gun in your house will make you safe. There are better ways to "protect" yourself, including not owning one of the things.

This is also one of those mornings where it feels like a good thing to have started this blog in the first place. Sometimes it helps just to type things out.

-- Freder.

Neighbors is the bunk

When I told C______ at work today that I was wakened this morning at seven AM by my neighbor mowing her lawn under my bedroom window, she laughed and said, "You're not used to living in the city!"

But I don't think that's the problem.

This tank town does indeed call itself a "city," but I say it has delusions of grandeur. The postcard above was taken sometime near the beginning of the last century, and Main Street has barely changed since then. This isn't a city, it's a blot on the landscape.

And I'm finding its people to be sickeningly provincial. It's barely an exaggeration to say that they roll up the sidewalks at five o'clock. At nine PM I can walk around two blocks in my neighborhood and never see a car and most of the lights in the houses are off, but at seven AM on a Saturday morning everyone is out there driving around, who knows where they'd be headed at that time of the bloody morning.

This is not "city" life as I know it. I have spent some time in cities, including New York, Boston, San Francisco, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and city people do not behave like this. Real cities are alive all night and quiet on a Saturday morning. This is the way a Sane and Civilized Universe works. W_______, you are populated by hicks!

I'm not sure what action I'll take, but Action Will Be Taken. I've watched too many Bugs Bunny cartoons to let this go. The Elmer Fudds who live next door to me are going to get a taste of their own medicine.

Perhaps I'll mow my lawn under their windows after midnight. Perhaps I'll point my CD player directly at their windows and play loud music until All Hours.

But I don't want to punish the whole neighborhood (or get them all mad at me for that matter). The next time I'm wakened by my neighbor's lawnmower, I could douse her with a bucket of cold water. That might do the trick.

Mustn't be too hasty. The punishment has got to be subtle, and fit the crime. Time to get out the books on Dirty Tricks and do a little research. . .

I'm reminded of a Warner Brothers cartoon where Daffy and Porky are trapped in a hotel room by the manager. They try everything to escape, then in desperation Daffy says: "I know! Let'th call Bugth Bunny! He alwayth knowth what to do!" The call is made, and soon the familiar voice is on the other end of the line. "Did'ja swing across on de rope?" "Yeth!" "Didja try. . ." "Yeth! Yeth! Yeth! We tried all of thoth thingth!"

Cut to Bugs. He's in a similar hotel room, shackled to the wall. "Ehhhhhhhh, don't woik, do they?"

End of cartoon. I can tell that mine is just beginning.

-- Freder.

It's Duck Soup

At the height of the Bad Stuff that was going down both publicly and privately surrounding the anniversary of my mother's death, my friend Donna G___________, known to some of you as a frequent commenter here on this blog, made a beautiful gesture and sent me a copy of Roy Blount Jr.'s latest book, Hail, Hail Euphoria!: Presenting The Marx Brothers in DUCK SOUP, The Greatest War Movie Ever Made.

I never saw the box that it arrived in (so Donna, if there was a return address, I never got it). I came in to work one morning, and Stephen, a student worker, had just opened it. There was a general level of mystification, as there always is among the receiving crew when something arrives that has no discernible paper trail. Stephen handed the book to me, and I noticed there was a card, which I opened. "Oh!" I muttered in surprise. "It's from a friend." And then I beat a hasty retreat out of there so that they would not see my tears.

The D__ sisters and I (the initial can stand for their first names or their maiden names, you take your pick) go way back. But it's not what you think, although a part of me wishes that it were. Donna's sister D____ wrote in my senior class yearbook, "I'll let you know. I love you." Should have been a clue, right? But hey, I had Asperger's and didn't know it, it wasn't even a real diagnosis yet; anyway, I didn't have a clue and wouldn't have known where to start. Dating in High School? For me, beyond the pale. The closest I came to having a girlfriend in High School was a girl named Deanna who had sat in front of me in home room for four years without ever saying a word to me or even, to my knowledge, looking at me, suddenly wanted to hold my hand in the hall between classes. I liked her -- but I didn't understand any of it. My efforts to understand included talking to classmates -- and that was the end of that.

When I played the John Travolta part in Grease and it became very much a grafted-on part of my make-up, that was the first time I really started to have any kind of a real social life. The whole company went out together -- to MacDonald's, where we were in full character and were very nearly arrested; to the Hukilau, where, cash-poor, I drank water while the others feasted on Chinese; to the famous Cape Elizabeth Lobster Shack, where, in full Danny Zuko mode, somehow it came about that I had to kiss every girl in the place, and the third D__ sister, D___, was the only one who demurred. I thought she hated me.

The book is neat, and I knew after the first few pages that I had to get my hands on a watchable copy of the movie, which, believe it or leave it, I didn't have. That was OK. I needed to read my books about Asperger's first anyway.

The main title of the book is based on a pun made by Gummo at the Algonquin Round Table, wrapped around the word "euphoria." I'll let you work it out for yourself. It's the last line in Blount's book, so I'd hate to five it away. Clue: although there are five Marx Bothers, only four of them are in Duck Soup.

The book is a self-proclaimed DVD Commentary track, but on paper. It's good fun to read, and full of good information. Like, did you know that the director of Duck Soup, Leo McCarey, a flawed great who worked with the best of them including Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase, so deeply DEEPLY did not want to work with the Marx Brothers that he actually left the studio? Only to find himself, through a circle of events worthy of Duck Soup itself, having to work with them anyway.

Well, I mean, think about it. You're a movie director. Would you want to work with the Marx Brothers?

Quoth McCarey, "They were madmen!"

Blount has done his research, but he still makes one glaring (to me) mistake. Of course Woody Allen's Hannah and her Sisters must come into the narrative, because Woody's character in that picture is actually saved from suicide by watching this movie (a fact which Blount finds extraordinary, but which I understand completely. Feeling suicidal? Put on Duck Soup and you will know that you have to stay). Anyway. Blount refers to the Woody Allen character in Hannah as "Alvy Singer," and that's just wrong. Alvy Singer is Annie Hall. Sorry Roy.

But that's a nothing, really. That's just me showing off -- Ha ha! I've got something on the expert!! Blount's book is full of Good Stuff, and a delight to read in conjunction with a viewing (or multiple viewings: Duck Soup really is a picture that demands repeated exposure) and I can't do either the book or the movie justice in just one blog post.

On the whole, I find actual DVD commentaries to be distracting and annoying. I can only do one thing at a time: listen to a discussion about a work of art, or experience the work of art itself. This is absolutely perfect, and I wish that more DVD commentaries came in book form.

Duck Soup may not actually be my favorite Marx Bothers movie -- but I'm working backwards through time, so I won't make the call as yet. The thing is, Chico doesn't get to play the piano and Harpo doesn't get to play the harp, and I can't regard a Marx Bothers movie as being complete without at least a glimpse of the soulful Harpo, the spiritual Harpo, the Romantic Harpo -- that side of my favorite of the Brothers that actually made his character complete. Harpo was in no way "on the spectrum" -- all of the Bros. Marx were perhaps more neurotypical than your average neurotypical -- but he played someone who was. . .

Thank you Donna! I have to stop typing now, but I'll have more to say in the time ahead. . .

-- Freder,

David Copperfield, David Copperfield

While I was in the early stages of the move, before DirecTV was installed and I had no television at all, one of the best DVDs that I watched was one that my father had given me of the 1999 version of David Copperfield produced by the BBC. I took it in approximately hour-long bites, and given how I feel about all remakes (and Dickens in particular: The Beeb did a version of Oliver Twist in 1985 that was wretched with a capital Retch, and another one in 2007 that I'll never watch -- Nancy played by a black woman? I don't think so!), it came as a surprise that I liked it so well.

At its exact center is Maggie Smith as Betsy Trotwood. I'll watch Maggie Smith in anything, but her performance here is just delightful. Miss Trotwood is one of Dickens's best female characters, and Ms. Smith really shakes the trees to bring her to life. And she's not the only one. Just look at the cast list over at imdb. But, in particular, Trevor Eve as Murdstone and Zoe Wannamaker as his sister, Sir Ian as Creakle. . . and more. On the whole, I don't think that any version of Copperfield has ever been this well-cast. Plus, the producers didn't mess around with Dickens, instead focusing on what the Beeb used to do better than almost anyone: faithful realizations of classic British dramas that look and sound gorgeous.

At well over two hours, the 1935 MGM version of David Copperfield is an extraordinarily long movie for the period, and even then there's much compression and shortening. It aired on TCM a few days ago, and I hadn't seen it since I was a Young Thing -- and then not from the beginning. On many levels I found it disappointing. I've loved many other of George Cukor's movies, especially including Gaslight, but, I suppose necessarily, this one left me feeling exactly the way the film version of The World According to Garp did. Too much novel crammed into too little film real estate.

When it's good, it's very good. Davey's slow walk and his reunion with Aunt Betsy are terrific. But there's a distinct feeling that we're getting the Classics Illustrated version of the story.

And to a great extent the casting compares unfavorably to the BBC version. Oh, Edna May Oliver as Miss Trotwood was probably the best they could have chosen at the time, and she has great fun with it, but she's no Maggie Smith. And Basil Rathbone gives, I think, one of the worst performances of his career as Murdstone. Good casting, or so one would think: but Rathbone is a scary enough guy when he's being subtle, and there's nothing of subtlety to what he does here. Snarl, rage, chew on the draperies: it's a big performance in a part that's more effectively played quietly.

Jesse Ralph as Peggotty is kind of scary and artificial compared the genuine qualities Pauline Quirke brings to the role in the British version. And in the 1935 version we don't get to see Creakle at all: Young Davey's school years are brushed past with a line of dialogue. This is particularly damaging to the story, as Steerforth isn't introduced until he's all grown up -- and without knowing the details of their school years together, it's frankly hard to understand why David thinks so highly of Steerforth in the first place.

But there are three actors here who, imho, blow away the cast of the BBC version like so many toy soldiers. First, someone named Lennox Pawle as Mr. Dick. He would die just a year after this film was made. There's nothing wrong with what Ian McNiece does in the BBC version, but I can see him acting. By comparison, Pawle has the genuine appearance of good-natured simple-mindedness. You all know what I mean.

Then there's Roland Young as Uriah Heep. I simply can not believe this is the same man who played Topper. It can't be possible! But it is. Nicholas Lyndhurst is good casting in the British version, but there's a trick to playing Uriah Heep that Lyndhurst didn't work out: Heep must be, in equal parts, sickeningly smarmy and unsettling, but also nonthreatening. Too insignificant to be taken seriously. Young actually appears to be sincere in certain of his kind words towards David. You can see why David (and the others surrounding Heep) could be put off-balance by this person. The magnitude of his villainy needs to come with at least a measure of surprise. Lyndhurst doesn't succeed at that. His Heep is slimy all the way, from the get-go.

Last, but certainly not least, is W.C. Fields in the role he was born to play, Wilkins Micawber. Fields was a great fan of Dickens in real life, Micawber was one of his proudest roles. Now, I like Bob Hoskins a lot, and I even liked his Micawber -- but Fields is The Man.

He is good for the role and the role is good for him. It's nice to see Fields playing someone who doesn't hate women and children, someone with a little bit of the hero about him, who is both a protector and someone who needs protection; someone who pays his debts when and how he can, and who for all his lesser qualities is nonetheless fiercely loyal. Nobility looks good on Fields, and so does Micawber's Fancy Dress. It's almost as if Dickens had Fields in mind when he wrote the part.

The pairing of these two Great Men, the one real and the other fictional, is a high-water mark in movie history. If the 1935 David Copperfield had nothing else to recommend it (and it does), W. C. Micawber would be reason enough to call it a classic.

-- Freder.

Say "Wensleydale!"

Smile, though your heart is breaking. . . Does everyone know Charlie Chaplin wrote that song?

With the current season of Doctor Who going on hiatus until September, I knew it was time to get the DVD set of last year's episodes and get myself caught up. It arrived day before yesterday and I dove right in. I've watched two episodes in two days -- that's got to stop or the set will never last long enough!

But it's been my Drug of Choice while I wait for the Prozac to finally kick in, and thereby hangs a tale.

For the last four days, whenever I haven't been a) at work or b) watching Doctor Who (and sometimes even then -- Stephen Moffat's scripts are very much character driven and when all the plot points finally come into focus they generally add up to an emotional exclamation point) I've pretty much been in tears, all the time, over nothing at all, over a general sense of loss that doesn't have a particular name. I know why it's happened: last week I cut my dosage of Prozac in half.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, on a number of levels. Prozac takes the edge off of the lows, but it also takes the edge off the highs -- and I want my highs back. When I was on the high end of the curve, that was when I felt juiced and creative, that was when I could get writing and drawing and good stuff like that to happen. I don't feel creative anymore, and it's becoming an issue. If nothing else, the way Stephen Moffat has turned Doctor Who around encourages me to want to turn myself around. But the adrenaline isn't there anymore.

Last night's Who introduced The Smilers. They look like those old fortune-telling machines. When you behave yourself, they show you benign happy wooden faces. When you do something to displease them, the whole head swivels around and you get the un-happy face. Keep up the bad work and the head swivels a third time, and you don't want this to happen. Not only do you get the very unhappy face pictured above, but you get a one-way, all-expenses paid trip straight down into the belly of the beast. You might say that they've gone off their Prozac, and if you encounter one in the above mood, you're going to be very anxious to get them back on the stuff.

You'll still be shit out of luck, because it takes days for the changes in dosage to take effect. I thought that I was fine for the first three days. Then all of a sudden one night -- bang! -- sobbing. It was only after two days of this that I thought: You think. . .?

"The Beast Below" isn't the best script Moffat has turned out for the show, but, you know, if this is the worst he can do then Bring It On. The first episode of the season was so good that I watched it twice the same night -- with subtitles on the second time, to be sure I caught the dialogue that got past me the first time. I've been a fan of Doctor Who since the old days when the monsters were made of rubber, and special effects consisted of cardboard spaceships danging in front of a blue screen, since the days when the stories often went rambling on about nothing for much too long ("I know! Let's split up the Doctor and his companions and have them run around aimlessly for two episodes!") and sometimes the only thing holding Who together was the actor playing the part. I think most longtime Doctor Who fans will know what I mean when I say that we loved the show without reservation, but were often quite embarrassed to admit it. There's no need for embarrassment anymore. The show is as good as anything on the air, and better than most.

My own Beast Below is still somewhat on edge. Last night there were fewer tears, but I wandered about and sat out in my back garden in a haze of sadness, unable to appreciate what a beautiful evening it was, until looking at my jailhouse reminded me of the TARDIS and decided me on going back inside to swallow another episode whole.

Well, it's better for me than some other drugs I could be on.

-- Freder.