Tag Archives: Writing

TRUE BELIEVER: ATROCITY

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TRUE BELIEVER by Kurt Andersen

Do not buy this book. Waste no time reading it.

Andersen has presented America with a gross self-promotion, and he flat out misrepresents that this book is about the 1960s. Author Andersen is a National Public Radio host, a New York personality and a contributor to The Daily Beast. When asked by that Internet website to compile a list of his favorite books about the Sixties, Andersen put his book as Number One.

True Believer story: Woman in her sixties is writing her memoirs. The first chapter tells of her current life (divorce, professional status, etc.) She says she saved every document about her life from birth certificate to date, but the text belies she did that or she knows what she is writing about. Because of a poorly contrived literary contrivance of this book, I’ll call this woman First Person Girl.

In Chapter One Andersen introduces First Person Girl who is writing her memoirs. The first chapter is first person. Almost every chapter for 250 pages is First Person Girl in her sixties, as a child or as a teenager, and she is always “I.” Flitting between the present day and the Sixties (and sometimes events in between the Sixties and present day) requires a reader with a very complete memory of those 60 years just to know the references. Andersen does not tell what any character is actually thinking and why she is next doing something or changing her mind. He presents no life, no character changes and no character development. The book is a recitation of unconnected events with First Person Girl among them or mentioning them, along with more current and past events. Andersen tries to connect the reader to references by making First Person Girl a James Bond fan. What Andersen accomplishes is making First Person Girl silly, supercilious and superficial.

After introducing First Person Girl in Chapter One, most novelists would drop into the life of the subject. NOPE. There are improbable conversations. A grandchild asks First Person Girl, tell about the hippies. Did you smoke marijuana?!

Of 428 pages of text about half is present day stuff, and the remainder about the Sixties and references to facts in between (Princess Diane’s death). When writing, Andersen opened a reference book of events by year and asked himself: What am I going to put on the page from which year? The Mall March, August 1963, Harry Belafonte wasn’t identified as being there, but the lesser known in 1963 Sidney Poitier was. Next in that chapter was the “first real conversation about the Negro question with a Negro,” the family’s cleaning woman.(page 102) Violet complains, gives impressions and tells aspirations of the Civil Rights Movement, but it conveys nothing. Violet is not a real person; she’s a token stuck in so five pages can be devoted to Civil Rights exposition. First Person Girl next summarizes Violet’s conversations over “hundreds of hours…over the previous decade.”(105) [Which decade and when did First Person Girl have the conversations? Violet dies at age 51 within a decade.] Nothing is learned from the bald recitation of facts and impressions in the contrived, counterfeit drivel. Readers have no insight into Violet’s life, the life and times of the Sixties in general or of the Civil Rights Movement broadly.

It finally became apparent that First Person Girl grew up, in the Midwest, likely Northern Illinois. There are a few lines about listening to the Cubs game but no mention of Ernie Banks. There is a reference of going to Milwaukee, but not to Milwaukee Braves games or seeing Hank Aaron. On page 111 I thought these people were Canadians – a reference is made to “Canadian sophistication.” I was mistaken.

The idle and frequent references to events in the Sixties have no order, no significance and no relevance. They don’t put the reader in the human lives of those times, and they don’t tell what Americans were thinking. While flitting between 2012 and the Sixties, Andersen mentions Le Bron James (305) but fails to mention New York kid, Lew Alcindor [Kareem Abdul-Jabbar], UCLA basketball [nine championships in eleven years] or Cassius Clay [Mohammad Ali]. If Andersen were interested in young forwards playing basketball in the Sixties, he might have mentioned Rick Berry or Julius Erving. NOPE. In an appeal to the modern crowd but conveying nothing, Anderson mentions Mark Zuckerberg (308). The name dropping adds nothing; it tells nothing. It is a waste of ink, paper and distracts from any story of the Sixties. Indeed, while relying heavily on cliches and name dropping, it is important to get everything right and imprudent, lazy and i!rresponsible to use slogans twice: “Hey, hey, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?” (187, 328)

What wasn’t mentioned about the Sixties? A good economy but not much about the World or even Vietnam. Sports wise omitted were the Boston Celtics, Wilt Chamberlain, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, the New York Mets and the Packers. Movies were mentioned but not Doctor Zhivago, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Joe or The Last Summer (excellent, brutal, cruel story about social pressure among teenagers). “The Smothers Brothers” TV show is mentioned but not Pat Paulson for President. There are no other presidential candidates in 1968 other than Nixon and Humphrey. There were no gays and lesbians in the Sixties. Andersen apparently was not part of any rioting; he mentions riots but not what it is like to be inside a riot. The April 1968 C!hicago riot is not mentioned.

The research for True Believer is poor. It reveals Andersen had his ears closed; his eyes shut; his mouth covered, his hands in mittens. He was a sheltered teenager who went to Harvard University in 1970 after that school had its campus student uprisings. A book was written and published within a year of those events; it tells of the low-key protests. The other excellent book from 1972 gives a decade’s events at Harvard: The Fall of the American University, Adam Ulam.

Approximately page 250 to page 370 First Person Girl, who has juvenile diabetes, fades. Andersen more or less slips into a third person story. First Person Girl goes to Radcliffe, so is an adjunct of Harvard. A Harvard-Radcliffe “cult” (Andersen’s word) forms, is secret, purportedly disciplined, supposedly motivated, presumably knowledgable, financially capable and with the means to change the world. They use artistic license from The Theater: Since everyone in the cult is highly educated, there are show-off references by cult members about other cult members – characters from Shakespeare’s plays like Mr. Indecisive of the cult, Hamlet. That is an idea for use in a movie, but it does not reflect any reality of cults or from any group of the Sixties. The Shakespeare references indicate Andersen’s abysmal failure to research any revolutionary or radical movement or group which was successful. He could have started by reading the writings of Harvard professor, Adam Ulam.

Cults exist through psychological and physical coercion and force, and emotional dependency. Add ideology and there is an political dimension. In the 1960s drugs were used to create submissive, compliant beings, following a Leader to Earth’s end. But drugs and diabetes? First Person Girl does drugs and gets by. Another cult tool was sex, especially with the Leader. Sex sealed relationships and secured devotion. First Person Girl had a boyfriend. I infer he was a Leader of some sort, so he had her exclusively. Anderson doesn’t tell his cult-sex-life, but no doubt Boyfriend was actively porking everything he could. Was there an emotional toll on First Person Girl?

It is difficult to determine which true beliefs anyone in the cult had because there seems no Leader, no herald, no Joshua. The cult decides to assassinate LBJ, President of USA. Because of this limited goal Andersen’s cult is mislabeled. It is closer to a cell. The cult plans, gets prepared, gets into place: LBJ gives his quitter speech on March 31, 1968, and everyone in the cult realizes the assassination should no longer be carried out. Members listen to a Bob Dylan song, and one or two cult members sing along.(336-337) That’s not much of a cult, a cell or any other type of group, except a bunch of spoiled, rich Ivy League Ivory Tower morons occupying this asshole story.

Andersen, though, does not give up. The story is wanting, but he wants a longer book. He drops in more events, and more names. Page 393 students of Harvard (I believe) chant: “Dare to struggle, dare to win, Charles Manson, live like him.” It is extremely doubtful this was chanted in the fall of 1968 or any other time in public. Charles Manson was completely unknown in 1968. The Tate-Labianca murders happened in August 1969. Manson and those murders were anathema to the New Left. When Bernadine Dohrn [name dropped along with Bill Aryes in True Believer, 110] praised the death of Sharon Tate, Leftists said about Dohrn, Aryes and their followers, “The Weather Vain:” “You don’t need to be a Weatherman to know who the assholes are.”

The next page, 394, Andersen bounces to March 1970 – townhouse in New York City explodes; it is a bomb making factory. He regresses to November 1969 with revelation of the massacre on My Lai, Vietnam. He rushes into the future to the killings at Kent State, May 4, 1970. This whipsawing is nonsensical, word wasting, page filing and reveals Andersen is not writing a novel but is listing events and is making up crap about each happening.

I looked for evidence of research. None. In ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Andersen writes condescendingly, “…there were things I needed to learn about…young women in the 1960s.” [Men have penises; women have vaginas.] “I am grateful to all the women I’ve known – in particular to those I know and love the best [names omitted to protect the unwary] for their specific suggestions and corrections, and for splendidly teaching me day in and day out how the other half lives.”

None of Andersen’s female sources appeared to be around during the Sixties, and Andersen read nothing: Not Betty Friedan, not Robin Morgan, not Valerie Solanas, nothing about SDS and the New Left and not Alice Echol’s excellent book, Dare to Be Bad. A defining moment of the women’s movements occurred at a New Left meeting during the summer of 1967. New Leftists were droning on about issues, agenda and dogma. Shulamith Firestone, a tiny, determined woman, got to the microphone with points she wanted raised and discussed. A guy dismissed her (paraphrased): Don’t bother us little girl. We’re talking about real issues.

From that time on, the New Left, radicals, revolutionaries and other groups had difficulty obtaining women. It was fatal to those causes because women were the oil that allowed the machines to function and keep relations civil. Women, who were conscious [not First Person Girl], were unwilling to be mothers to men their own age. They wanted to be women and adopt other roles as opportunities arose. There were arguments over this stance, and especially about no kitchen duty, no cooking duty, no housework, no typing. None of these female concerns were mentioned in Andersen’s cult or in True Believer. It is too bad because if the women he loved had informed Andersen, True Believer may not have been published.

What sort of research should Andersen have done? I cannot tell which sources are available today. When I wrote Bitch., a period not a dot, a verb not a noun (iBookstore, Michael Ulin Edwards), the Berkeley campus housed the one library with the collection of liberationist and feminist texts which had existed in Berkeley since 1970. I wrote the first draft of Bitch., and I returned to that library for research. It was gone. The books (about 10,000) had been moved.

Whereto? Berkeley was going through a spring cleaning trying to free space for new groups with new interests. Women’s issues were passé, especially the thoughts and imperfect expressions from the late Sixties and early Seventies. The books (and I suppose magazines, articles and pamphlets) went to the main library where they were culled. Not many went into the library collections; some went to other UC libraries. Many of the women’s books were mass market paperbacks, and those were put up for sale, a nickel a piece. If there were no buyers, the books were recycled. I paid five cents, found books in libraries, in used bookstores, in library bookstores and at garage and yard sales. I likely read 500 books and looked at another 500.

Reading True Believer, I have no inkling, no sense, no impression that Kurt Andersen researched any issue on any point he mentions: Hippies, Street People, the New Left, Harvard student protests, women, Vietnam, anti-war movement and marches, and liberation issues. He didn’t live among any of those people, so he lacks experience on that level. He may have vast experience with one issue: drugs. 

In True Believer an issue of writing arises. Any author, especially someone writing a memoir as a novel, has a voice separate and apart from the character in the novel. Mark Twain did it as well as can be done in Huckleberry Finn. In True Believer there is no indication that Andersen keeps himself separate from First Person Girl’s voice. Andersen never abandons the author’s voice. Indeed none of the characters have his or her own voice. An example:  

                     “As the Movement grew, and antiwar protests became regular bi-annual festivals of rage,

                   and we learned from the Seed, Chicago’s new underground paper, that Negro riots were

                   actually black rebellions, the adults grew less indulgent. I saw a poll showing that in the

                   last two years, Americans’ support for civil rights demonstrations – civil rights – had dropped

                   from 42 percent to 17 percent. Which meant push was coming to shove. Alex had mentioned 

                   McGeorge Bundy, President Johnson’s national security adviser, because I’d just written an

                   editorial for the school paper arguing that New Trier’s speaking invitations to him and the White

                   House press secretary should be withdrawn. ‘These two men,’ I wrote, ‘share responsibility

                   for the death’s of eight thousand American soldiers and the murder of untold thousands of

                   Vietnamese women and children. While freedom of speech is important, refusing to condone

                   needless death can be more important. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

                   once said, if words ‘create a clear and present danger [such] that they will bring around…

                   substantive evils,’ they should be prohibited.’ My mother called my article ‘extremely well

                   written.’ That was also what she’d said about my editorial in the fall approving the assassination

                   of South Africa’s apartheidist prime minister. But this time she said that my argument struck

                   her as ‘nutty as a fruitcake…’”

                   True Believer, p. 211-212.

Mamas are prone to undue, unwarranted praise. It’s good that this family cliche is in the text for a personal touch. This paragraph begins with the Movement (Leftist, anti-war, civil rights, Black – which one?). It races onto Negro city riots and Underground Newspapers. It mentions Americans ebbing support for civil rights. There’s push “coming to shove,” a cliche with references to nothing in the book and nothing during the Sixties or in the present day. There are invitations to Presidential aides, and how wrong those invitations are. Next is First Person Girl’s editorial, mentioning freedom of speech and Oliver Wendell Holmes. There is apartheid in South Africa and the assassination of a prime minister, the family reaction and the potential Generation Gap.

There is a lot going on in this paragraph, too much for a 16 year old girl(210). It’s 1965: First Person Girl graduates in 1967; she goes to college. If she is referring to anti-war protests, the first large scale “festivals of rage” happened nationally after she graduated from high school. The American death toll in Vietnam reached 8,000 in the Spring of 1966. Chicago had its first large scale race riots after she was at Radcliffe. And it is inconsistent for a James Bond fan in 1966 to be editorializing about the Vietnam when alternative lifestyles may not have been part of her life. Indeed, First Person Girl seems uncomfortable describing any alternative lifestyles as well as living within them. Her life at Radcliffe in the cult seems sterile. Take something as simple as hair. Did First Person Girl have long hair? Did she thread-braid it? Moreover, would First Person Girl think this paragraph should be in her memoirs, thus representing any part of her life? Certainly her mother wouldn’t say it was well-written. 

Instead it is the author’s voice the reader is hearing.  

HIPPIE – Barry Miles

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A picture book (nine by twelve inches) of the Sixties’ music and hippie scenes.

Author Barry Miles is on the inside back cover. A photograph has a biographical caption of one sentence which reads in part, “Barry Miles was a central figure in the development of the hippie movement…”

Everyone can stop laughing now. Although there are photographs, hippies were no longer hippies by 1968. They were street people, dealers, run-of-the-mill petty thieves, drug addicts, counterculture-artists as well as students, radicals, revolutionaries, communist anarchists, women belonging to various women’s groups, gays, lesbians, ecology-earth freaks, commune people and minorities.

I appreciate the pictures, graphics and artwork in Hippie, but showing them only does not distinguish among the lifestyles and goals among the various peoples. That sort of story, fiction or non-fiction, would take a long time and a long book put together with great care. By showing pictures only there are mistakes. Women’s movements (1968 to the present) ended much public nudity for the mass of politically in-tune women. Indeed, by the Spring of 1973 the underground newspaper, The Berkeley Barb, which had made a living on naked women stopped printing those photographs. Yet in Hippie Miles has photos of naked women at music festivals to support the idea that there were hippies later.

The mix of Hollywood and youth music is not well told in pictures or in the slight editorial comments. Much too many pages are devoted to Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary and people prominent in the mid-Sixties when their influence justly faded after a year. One page mentions The Beach Boys – surfing, girls, ocean, beach: California Culture. The Beach Boys were in California before The Beatles, the Stones and everyone else. And California, its beaches and the Pacific had a lot to do with hippies, pot and youth music. No pictures and no words explain, tell or reveal any of this.

Hippie makes a passing glance at Charles Manson, musician hippie. His murders are mentioned, but it is Manson personally who is responsible, not hippie culture of peace and love which Manson embraced and lived, had disappointments and professional set  backs. Something should have been written. Anyone familiar with hippie culture knows how mean, degrading and violent it was. Explanations are difficult but not an impossible analyses for “a central figure in the development of the hippie movement” to narrate about hippies, Manson and murder.

Finally, while there are many photographs, graphics and artwork, collected in one volume, not much was presented that I had not seen before. The book yielded insignificant facts – Bill Graham’s beginnings. But there is no explanation in Miles’ broad brush of hippies and the culture. Did hippies disappear (1) because they no longer had anything to oppose; (2) because life was becoming more difficult to support that lifestyle; (3) because the youth of America [not English youth] were less naive; (4) because hippies could not solve anything in society with their lifestyles; (5) because hippies were predatory leeches on society; (6) because women stopped being hippies because it was primarily chauvinistically oriented and women were interested in liberation or feminism?

None of these questions or considerations are solved by showing pictures, artwork and graphics. Hippie is disappointing.

NO SEE MOVIES

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Fortunately, these are available at libraries, but why waste time.

THE SONG OF LUNCH. This movie is about Alan Rickman having lunch with Emma Thompson. He is a failing writer who works at a publisher as an editor. Emma is an old girlfriend now married to a successful writer. They haven’t seen one another for 12 (15?) years.

There is a Voice Over from Alan Rickman who looks pained as it is read. I took the Voice Over to reflect his character’s imagination, the quality of his English, the expression of his English and representing a style that would show up in the character’s writing. There are far too many adjectives. Thereupon it is easy to see why Alan Rickman’s character is a failed writer.

I wondered what Emma would do to overcome the Voice Over, carrying on while they’re having lunch. Nothing. The Voice Over is overwhelming, distracting, dull and drab. 

RESULT: I turned the DVD off.

A WRITING PROBLEM in The Song of Lunch did not happen in this film. If the story is about a character who is stupid or mediocre, the author has to write the story smart. The author cannot join the character who is stupid and be stupid or mediocre himself; that idiocy shows up in the writing. The author has to separate himself and be smart, lett the stupid player go his own way.

COUGARS. This is about middle-age women who find fun among the boys at a private boys boarding school.

Extremely poor casting. All the young men, boys, including Kyle Gallner look old. Ballner appears to be 30 plus years. His prep school buddies all look mid-twenties. When they hustle girls who look like teenagers, they struck out. Duh!

Katheryn Morris is one of the women. This is a loser of a movie; her TV show was much better. This movie suffers greatly from its format, a kindergarden script – asking questions and next writing the scene to attempt answer imperfectly through drama – extreme mediocre dialogue – and music that can be heard on any street corner.

Gallner should know if he gains another 25 pounds, he’ll begin looking like Charles Laughton. Whether the talent is there to act is a mystery. 

HORROR STORY I HAVE LIVED

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Halloween is tomorrow, and I’ve wondered why I can’t get into costumes, parties and the feel for the day. I like having kids “trick or treat” and handing out candy, this year full Almond Mound bars. But adults should know better.

I’ve done what I’ve always done, be deliberate, remembering much and thinking about what is happening. I’ve seen a lot of stuff unrelated to the bad entertainment of the House of Representatives versus the President and the Senate. All the horrors I observed are about people, perpetrating interminable hardships on themselves, suffering from wrong choices in life, having inabilities to comprehend what is happening or why they are bound on restrictive mindsets, acting inappropriately and communicating wrongly causing them to linger longer. And they make the same mistakes or nearly identical mistakes again, again and again. I’ve done some of that stuff to myself.

Mostly, I watch those horrors of life, terrifying me but not them, and now arrives Halloween. What’s to celebrate? I don’t need a special day to remember that everyone else is entertained by contrived stories and sketches designed to shock them, meanwhile they’re oblivious. So other than handing out candy, I sit this day out.

I’ve come to my approach naturally. A while ago an older book-loving friend became a friend and influenced me to read War and Peace. He called me Pierre Bezukhov. I had many of the characteristics and traits of Pierre. When I told him I would read Anna Karinina, he said there was someone in that novel who was like me. It didn’t take long to realize who I was, Konstantin Levin. [He also told me to remember the rail station accident at the beginning of the story.] Both Pierre and Konstantin are surrogates for Leo Tolstoy. I don’t know if I’m like Leo, but I am still like Pierre and Konstantin.

I hadn’t written anything when I read those Tolstoy, but since then, I’ve written novels, long and short, for sale on the iBookstore, Michael Ulin Edwards. Each novel is carefully crafted, excellent works of fiction, easily belonging to the bosom of American literature. Buy and read each. Sorry for the promotional note. It seemed an opportunity to slide it in.

Encumbered by my disposition while everyone in society relishes in going ape (Halloween is not the only day), my life is slow and occasionally fast. I can’t live a normal life, fat, dumb, drunk and happy and try to ignore my predilections. Turning to writing full time has not been happily profitable, but I am productive. My abilities to write have grown while I don’t care if I talk only a little. I am generally happy. I figure I have deep seeded ideas and thoughts that I have not expressed, and that I could not release in any other way. Writing had afforded freedom and openings from a communication congestion and allowing a flow of conflict and uncertainty from my mind. I write more because I have more stuff jammed in here, or perhaps more stuff originates and needs expressing.

Part of this cycle or process was encouraged by going cold turkey on booze. Yes, I loved fine wines and single-malt Scotches (whisky for the Brits). I don’t feel better physically, but mentally I’m sharper. I can read at night. I suppose I’ll sort out the other benefits of no longer consuming alcoholic chemicals. I know only partly what I put myself through. For a while I had to drink to write fiction, and I excused my behavior by resorting to William Faulkner (paraphrased): The writer has four tools. Tobacco, alcohol, paper and ink. The most dangerous of these is paper. 

If you don’t believe Faulkner is correct, stare at a blank page or at a screen. How dangerous is that to a writer? Next stare at a screen full of words, or at a page of your words. How dangerous is that compared to ink, tobacco and alcohol. For a writer paper represents the product, good, bad or ugly. The processes of writing increases little terrors in every writer. It is uncertain, indefinite, unsuccessful, and every word made and page filled make the product a potential source of unhappiness, whether it be sold or not. Some writers realize that what is on the page, rather than the smile in the publicity photo and the dollars under the table, is not good. The writing was produced to pay the rent. Time to shrink from that work and all other sequels the publishing house wants to push.  

Consciousness of this commercialism and willingness to step into it is a horror story. One such tale has already been written, the best Halloween movie for writers [William Holden’s character] ever filmed: “Sunset Boulevard.” Unspecific vagueness, senseless eternities and meaningless musings all greet the writer. Who needs Halloween for terror? So I don’t spend much time dwelling on this day, or thinking about spooks or hoping that horrors will drop my way. I’m living them now, tomorrow and for much of the next year.

WHY SPY?

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America has a right to listen to Angela Merkel, and must do so for its own interests and for the interests of Europe. This opening sentence comes as a reply to a blog, my comment, a reply, my reply (incomplete).

The first observation is Angela Merkel looks completely Prussian. She never smiles; she is incapable of it. She sneers, but she hasn’t sneered for ten days.

What could dear sweet Angela Merkel, what could the Europeans be talking about that would interest Americans and make our decisions and lives better (and their lives better) if we knew what they were saying?

The Germans and their economy has benefitted more than any other country from the existence of the Euro, the Euro Zone and the European Community. Year 2010 intensified the Euro crisis in the PIGS: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain. The European Community tried to resolve all the problems themselves. They could not. The United States of America got involved with support, advice and lots of money, before 2010 and during those years.

The biggest obstacles to the European effective action were the Germans led by sweet Angela and to a lesser extent the French. The Germans wanted to pay no money to any other nation for any purpose whatsoever. Yet the Germans were benefitting the most because the Euro-zone existed.

What was at stake? If Europe went into a deep rescission and possibly a Depression – lack of confidence, no economic activity, no way forward – the American economy would follow as well as the remainder of the world. Furthermore, all the nations of Europe as well as the USA know how the Germans react to end Depressions.

Listening into sweet Angela allowed the United States of America to advise, to cajole and to convince the European Community to go forward. We countered, blocked or tempered German and French arguments and proposals for inactivity, for conditional loans and for harsh policies that could never be implemented, that would prolong the Euro-crisis and that would end in Depression. Finally, the Germans had to put up much more money and agree to terms they did not like.

Amazingly, today, Halloween Week, 2013, France is protesting American actions and acting as the German lap-dogs. Meanwhile, in that country there have been protests and talk about France leaving the Euro currency, and resuming the French Franc [like the British have maintained the pound to good effect]. The French should reject the Euro. The French had beautiful banknotes, much better than the dour austere paper from the European Community. The French may not other choice but to leave. Requirements from the German-led European Community are onerous and detrimental to current conditions in the French economy. The French do not have the flexibility to react to local conditions to improve their economy and the lives of the French people.

Sour-puss, bad sport Angela wants payback because the Americans knew how to overcome German resistance. Current conditions now allow Germany to continue to screw all the other countries of the European community, just like it was doing before the Euro-crisis. Obama’s reaction to European protests should be to tell Angela and the other protesting clowns to cram it. The United States was correct. The Germans were wrong. Most of the European Community has an improving economy.

But Obama is weak and forgetful. He acts like someone wanting to be the popular Student Body President of his high school. This was a success of his administration. He is now willing to give all the credit to the Germans, apologize and promise, so he can call that Kraut, “Sweet Angela,” and Merkel can give her Prussian sneer again.

 

TIDBITS of Movies

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Having read and previously posted (two weeks ago) about John LeCarre’s early novels, Call of the Dead and A Murder of Quality, I got the movies. The movie title of Call of the Dead is A Deadly Affair(James Mason). My advice: Stick with the novels.

“A Murder of Quality,” scripted by LeCarre is best but lacks the adult setting, subtle politics and society of adults. Set around a boy’s boarding school there are too many classroom scenes which convey little but expose a youthful Christian Bales as one of the boys to a grand future in the medium.

“A Deadly Affair” is Le Carre’s first George Smiley novel. It is necessary to know the novel to follow the movie. In the book not much time is devoted to George’s marriage to Ann and its dissolution, it is a big part of the movie. It seems Ann is played by a foreign actress (wrong – it is Harriet Anderson) who does not well represent Ann’s character in the book: a woman of means from gentry or nobility. There are senseless arguments between husband and wife. Indeed when husband and wife appear on the screen together, there is ridiculous bongo music. Throughout much of the music is not suited to espionage/murder, but more geared toward “The Thomas Crown Affair.” Much of the politics and pettiness in the Intelligence Community is overlooked or ignored. The script does not build to the end, but to save itself, the script slows and seems written from one chapter of the novel before going off on the screenwriter’s whim.

EXTRA. I was an extra in the now filming Helen Hunt/Robert Downey Jr. movie. I know I won’t be invited to the wrap party, but they’ll always remember me. When Helen and Robert are sitting on the park bench, I’m in the background waving at the camera.

“The Swiss Family Robinson” – When I was young, I saw this movie multiple times in movie theaters. I also read the book. I visited the tree house at Disneyland. John Mills is in it. James MacArthur, Danno of “Hawaii 50,” is in it. The guy who played and was “The Shaggy Dog” was in it, as the second son. For a scene he was wearing a Yippie Hat, something Abbie Hoffman might wear. This is very advant-garde for a Disney movie. The bad guy pirate in it was Colonel Saito in “Bridge on the River Kwai.” He wears a necklace that has torquoise. At the end there are lots of pirates to kill, as many as 150,  more than there are on Wall Street, especially after the second wave, 50 or so brigands hit the beach, off-loading from a small Chinese junk. MY CONCLUSION – This movie sucks.

“The Court Jester.” I saw this movie in Yosemite Valley at the movie theater that was there before it burned down. I remembered little about the plot, but I remember that the movie was very funny. I laughed very hard throughout. I liked Danny Kaye thereafter until I lost track of him.

Match the rhyme:       Flagon – Palace

                                     Vessel – Dragon

                                     Chalice – Pessel

Perhaps it is fond memories, but “The Court Jester” holds up. I recommend it.

I’ve read and recommend Film in the Third Reich, David Stewart Hull. In this short history Hull tells about a 1934 German movie, “Gold.” It is science fiction. In it is depicted an atomic reactor, used in an alchemy process to turn lead into gold. Hull writes,

“When the film was reviewed by an Allied censorship board after the war, the viewers wondered whether the German scientists had invented an atomic reactor long before they were supposed to have done so. An effort was made to seize every known print, and the film was put under a restricted category. It is even reported, on reliable authority, that a copy was flown to the United States to be viewed by atomic scientists to see if the machines could actually perform….” (p. 57, UC Press, 1969)

BRAVO! The film maker had his triumph – imagination over reality!  

 

 

SPORTS & POLITICS

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It seems American politics has become much like watching sporting events. Everyone play is the same; every pitch is the same; every dunk is the same; every hole is the same. Or if you’re watching car racing and the world go in circles, every lap is the same.

I no longer watch sports on TV or in person. [I’ll watch kids play sports because it’s fun. Most of them are out there for the fun.] Professional sports is bad entertainment and a horrible waste of time. I’ve seen games before, and today nothing seems new, better or improved. Going to the park is a rip-off – expensive seats, expensive parking with delays, slow play, expensive and poor concessions. And by going to the park the fan doesn’t avoid advertising, which allows big salaries and great profits but long, boring performances. There is no telling why a long-haired, unkempt, fat, unshaven slob takes as long as a minute between pitches unless he’s as slow and stupid as he looks. Hasn’t any pitcher watched Sandy Koufax in a 20 second delivery routine: Strike out. If batters took their time with Koufax, they could strike out slowly. In the 1963 World Series Koufax pitched the first game, struck out 15 Yankees and won a complete game. Reportedly, Yogi Berra said after the game, “How did he ever lose five [games]” [Koufax was 23-5 during the 1963 season.]

I watch pitchers today and wonder, how come he didn’t lose 15 [games]. Complete games are rare. PItchers are unprepared and pampered. Nothing is expected of them beyond six innings, when a bunch of relief pitchers with concocted names [titles] handle the remainder of the game. It is no wonder why many pitchers can’t get beyond four innings and allow no runs: Reduced expectations + reduced performance + reduced abilities = mediocrity. The New World Order protects the pitcher’s arm. 1963 when Koufax won 23, Warren Spahn was 23 -7 and 42 years old. Spahn weighed 170, was six feet tall and disciplined, unlike the hairy, disheveled, drooling, drug-cursed, mama’s goons pitching on the mound today.

The first point about sports today is, mediocrity is punctuated by advertising to make it palpable. There are readers who don’t believe it. Anyone who saw Wilt Chamberlain play, who saw the speed, maneuverability and strength, knows that if Walt were playing basketball using today’s rules, he’s score 100 points a game. If the strong men today got tough, Wilt would slam dunk them. 

What do we have in Washington DC: Executive, Legislature and Supreme Court: Mediocrity punctuated by cable TV favoring one group of Ordinaries or another. We expect no excellence in sports; why expect any extraordinary in government.

Has anyone listened to today’s sportscasters? Their speech is an insult to human beings, unintelligent and incoherent, and long exposure will reduce the IQ of any listener a point every month. Listeners learn the cliches, to replace intelligence, reason and cogency. Sportscasters use cliches as emotional nuggets which lack any bearing to what’s happening on the court, diamond, field, course or track. 

There are exceptions. Chick Hearn – “air ball,” “no harm, no foul,” ‘pop-corn machine.”  Hearn was absent from the radio for a while. Upon returning he used cliches which had originated with him. The reaction of listeners: Why doesn’t he say something original?

I wrote a screenplay about baseball announcers, and I’ll compliment myself: It is very funny. The research was torturous. I listened to baseball announcers for a season, and took down as much nonsense, stupidity and irrelevance as I could: About the pitcher looking at the catcher before tossing the ball: “He wants the next pitch to be a strike.” OR, “The score is Giants 4, Reds 2.” Immediately the announcer does the arithmetic: “The Giants have a two-run lead.” Because nobody bought this screenplay, I concluded, the whole country needs to stop taking itself so seriously and improve its sense of humor.

The problem with selling that screenplay was (1) Everyone in the hometown was mortally offended, once they realized the local favorites were being accurately targeted and fairly portrayed. (2) Everyone out of town believed the whole scenario improbable.

But sports fans and watchers are swamped in cliches. That’s all they hear and think about. They remember nothing else but, is the running back going left or right; is the quarterback going to pass? Frequently cliches are ironically nonsensical. Marv Albert, sports announcer and backbiter yelled, “Yes. Yes! YES!” when a basketball player made a basket, I assume.1/  Frequently, the cameraman missed the shot, and Marv was so overwhelmed with the thrill, that he didn’t mention the change of score. Or course, I’ve heard that exclamation from women under much different circumstances.  To me “Yes. Yes! YES!” is a confusing, meaningless cliche when referring to action on the basketball court, but Marv may have different experiences.

Cliche thinking, cliche uttering, cliches in the heart, Americans know nothing else; they remember nothing else. Should the Congress of the United States review all programs and pass a budget every year? Note, the last budget passed was in 2008. The Democrats want a Clean Continuing Resolution. The Republicans want to cut the budget, or what’s left of it. Cutting a clean continuing resolution sounds messy. What do Americans think? Consult the cliches. Another situation: Obamacare – Website Failure is just like a football team that has three downs and punts. It happens all the time. Considering the Administration has had three years to put it into place, Obama’s claims about creating high tech jobs doesn’t ring true.

Why do I feel “fourth down and 25 yards to go” are upon us in America. Peyton Manning is not at quarterback. Barack Obama has the ball, and everyone knows but is unwilling to tell him, “Barack, you can’t play no ball!” He knows it. His game has become golf, a one man effort against the elements, letting the President hide undesirable traits: impatience and a poor team play. How often does he call anyone? Democrats say, not too often.

Who are the announcers in the political arena? An example. An American was watching MSNBC and laughing. “I thought Chris Matthews was going to have a heart attack or a stroke.” Terrific! I thought. Just what America needs. Announcers having heart attacks and strokes on TV.

I next considered it might be a good idea. The 100 or so announcers on cable TV should all have heart attacks or strokes and be off the air a while. Reporting and news will be better.

Today there is no reason to watch cable TV and the announcers. There is no NEWS, just loads of talking from opinionated, dogmatic, overwrought, emotional clowns mugging to Americans. It is bad news and also bad entertainment. [For good entertainment watch the movie, Network, and as a game figure out who on cable TV best plays Peter Finch’s character. Who plays Sybil the Soothsayer. Guess who’s going to sponsor the new reality show, Revolution – not the Steven Spielberg knockoff.] Today, there are empty suits and straw women on cable TV aping one group or pleasing another.

 

I have nothing against Chris Matthews. I know he can’t be as irrational and wild as he acts. He has to have some sane moments. {Replace Chris Matthews’s name with the name of any other Cable TV person.}

What all these Cable guys and gals should know is, stick to the news and give it. If you slide into entertainment, you may end up naked, and Miley Cyrus will be your co-host. 

Where does this leave Americans? Most situations in politics and sports cannot be described, and for most fans, spectators and observers, they hear no reason, intellect or logic. There are cliches to explain the emotion of everything but leave people empty and discontent.

1/ Marv Albert was at the leading edge of the vampire craze. Today his actions may noteworthy and prescient rather than be proscribed by ancient laws.

GEORGE SMILEY

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Call of the Dead/ A Murder of Quality

John Le Carre

I ran into George Smiley in the last decade when I rented “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “Smiley’s People.” Although I’m busy now, I’ve wanted to buy those Alec Guinness BBC Productions and watch them. I ran through all the selections on Amazon and found two other moves, which are more difficult to obtain. However, within a week at a library book sale, I found one volume with the two novels, now hard-to-get movies.

Espionage and detective stories are related and approximate one another in procedures, methods and goals. There are differences as these two Le Carre stories demonstrate. The Murder of Quality is a detective story of an investigation into a murder at a British Boarding school. Everyone is reluctant to talk to the local police. George Smiley is retired from Intelligence, and for a newspaper friend, he goes to the village, introduces himself to the police and talks to everyone. His cover story is as a reporter who’s writing an obituary for the newspaper. Some people at the school know Smiley’s background in Intelligence and are not threatened; they willingly talk to him. The police do forensic work – blood tests, fingerprints – and the murderer is caught.

In Call of the Dead the case of a murdered Foreign Office man comes to Smiley, who is to investigate perfunctorily and cover it up. Nobody Smiley interviews acts appropriately, and events and facts are out of place. From previous counter-intelligence work Smiley knows of the espionage allegations against the murder victim. As the investigation of murder lengthens Smiley realizes he was wrong in his counter-intelligence conclusions, and uses both intelligence and police methods to solve the murder, and expose and break up a spy ring.

Introduced in Call of the Dead plus their background are friends present in the later Smiley stories: Mendel and Gilliam. The relationship of trust among the men is firmly set in story.

CLICHE SUNDAY

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It is my perception that every Sunday the cliches for the week in Sports and in Politics change. I suppose this is healthy so we don’t belabor points and we don’t bore ourselves.

SPORTS: Saturday and Sunday are big football days. The focus on certain teams change which means the talents of this player or that defense comes into focus. New is not the cliches used to describe the teams of the week. New is that the cliches are applied to a new set of players, defenses and cities. Few Americans feel left out.

POLITICS:  The cliches change frequently. A set of terms, cliches, are used on the talk shows, and for the remainder of the week, columnists, pundits, letter writers, commentarians, personalities, broadcasters, editorialists and others with public exposure exhaust the discussion of one cliche or another. I do not know what are the upcoming cliches; I don’t want to know what they are. I’m sure by the end of Sunday [today] I will have heard enough of them to wish for a new batch.

However, it will take the politicians [Republicans and Democrats] to digest a whole week’s worth for any of them to sink in.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENT LIBRARY

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I used an ODL yesterday. You know of such places if you ever used the rare books, rare documents rooms or library of a public library, or at a University. Every city has rooms or libraries that are ODLs.

The best of these libraries has free parking, free street parking available, admission is free and use of materials is free. It is comfortable with good chairs and wide tables, well lighted and lots of research help if you can be specific. I won’t say what I was researching for a novel, but as soon as I mentioned it, there were no specific books. I knew I had to consult a few hundred books. I would have to write the dialogue from my imagination.

The drawbacks to such libraries are no ink, computers or paper only, the willingness to be searched, no food, no gum, no liquids, no cell phones (lockers are provided and paid for) and if you’re writing to take notes, use only pencils which the library provides. They have excellent pencil sharpeners. 

There were few other patrons; everyone was quietly at their work. It’s a place to get work done, unless you’re accustomed to noise and like to be distracted.