Author: Sysadmin

On a recent movie and quick original poem

Last night watched the U.K. horror film Howl  (2015) about werewolves attacking a stalled train in rural, foggy England. I don’t think I will ever watch it again and don’t really recommend it unless you like the horror genre and just want to pass time but have a few thoughts on it.

• The movie is largely claustrophobic, about people trapped on one or two train cars that have stalled, apparently because attacked by half-men/half-wolves. It is one those suspense/horror films that leaves the real action until near the ending.
• There is a real issue about rural men being potentially animalistic (you may recall that disturbing scene in Deliverance or the later movie(s) called Wrong Turn. I don’t mean to be regionalist/racist).
• While I oddly still like the horror genre and don’t like werewolf ones usually (I don’t like really gross ones like the Saw series either but do often like ghost tales), I think this movie is an allegory for animalistic tendencies in humans. And to like the horror genre, you have to accept allegory to some degree.

A poem

“Wed” by yours truly

Wed.

Dead

Ed or

Ned.

Fred

Said,

“Led

To…

Bed.”

On a pop song, a poem, and a joke

This about another Hall and Oates song.

It is called “Wait for Me,” and apparently about someone romantically attracted to another but unable to commit immediately or even soon.

It interested me especially because my work-in-progress novel has as its main theme the experience of waiting in different environments. Beckett’s famous two-act play Waiting for Godot was described by one critic as having a plot where “nothing happens twice.”

Anyway, here are the lyrics to the song:

On a media article and two original poems

From The Irish Times:

“Groundhog Day is the best film ever made about working in the media, and the most unerringly accurate. I’ve said this before, and the chances are I will say it again.

Never mind all the prestige dramas crammed with noble speeches about the fourth estate, the thrillers starring scruffy hacks investigating unsolved crimes and those unfeasibly stylish fantasies where magazine writers own loft apartments in New York.

None of them hold a candle to even the opening scene of Groundhog Day, when Channel 9 Pittsburgh weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) informs viewers he’s off to Punxsutawney to cover the groundhog festival and smiling anchor Nan helpfully chimes in with: ‘This is your third year in a row, isn’t it Phil?’”

This article interested me because it is about repetition. My current novel (almost finished) is about repetition and waiting in various  phases of life: three or four job environments. It can be tedious or peaceful. “Life is what you make of it,” as my Dad says.

Well, maybe.

Two poems by yours truly

“Less”

Less light, less light!

I want the night.

Or at least the dark,

Not just a lark

(Or to be a snark).

But really need sleep:

Not really deep.

Or just relax

And avoid heart attacks.

“Rhetorical”

What is the answer to a rhetorical question?

(Something you should best shun?)

Really tired of waiting for an answer.

Are you a teacher or just a prancer?

Maybe, just hide your head in the sand, sir.

On a Mass and two jokes

The main reading today seemed to be about a well-known passage from St. Paul 1 Corinthians 13: 11 about going through childness into maturity and  faith, hope, and love, “but the greatest of these is love.”

One of the other readings was from the Book of Jeremiah. My main memory of this is from grad-school reference to Jeremiads, meaning, I think, really angry speeches about others’ sins. So, it made an interesting contrast to the New Testament reading about love.

A joke

(Disclaimer: this is not directed at African-Americans. It is making a bit of fun of Biden. I think presidents have to expect they will be made fun of).

“Heard Joe Biden had a top choice for a few days to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, but his senior advisors had to tell him Aunt Jemima is not a real person. So who knows now?”

“Hey, that’s racist and politically incorrect! Be careful: despite what the government tells you, the First Amendment doesn’t exist. First things, sadly,  can be as unreal as wedding rings.”

A poem

“Humble” by yours truly

I don’t want to rumble

But may just stumble

Through the house

Like a brain-dead mouse

(You may say I’m a louse)

Then to myself mumble:

“Do you want in bed a tumble”?

No?

Makes one humble.

On a media article and two jokes

From The Irish Times article on the issue of domestic clutter (beginning and end):

The method is about experiencing more calm by living with less. ‘The more possessions we have, the more occupied we are,’ says Keohane. ‘We fall out of love with home when it’s in a state. The calm that comes over you when all this excess is gone is profoundly life-changing.’”

This article appealed to me because I have usually had trouble with disorganization (my Dad nearly had a heart attack yelling at me when I was a teenager because my bedroom was so messy, and I do currently have a “floordrobe” but partly because a chest of drawers did not assemble properly). At least the clothes are usually clean.

But seriously,  I think keeping a clean and relatively spare home is good for mental health. Doing so is a kind of job, even though you are not being paid for it.

A joke, a bit inappropriate. This one actually goes back to my youth.

“I’m of two minds about the schizophrenia diagnosis the doctor gave me.”

Another joke:

“Was considering adopting ‘woke’ ideology very early this morning but went back to sleep.”

On comics, movies, and politics

From The Wall Street Journal:

“Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly — known for her role on the TV series “Lost” and as the Wasp in Marvel’s films — said she went to an anti-vaccine-mandate rally in D.C. last weekend to support ‘bodily sovereignty.'”

A few thoughts:

• My brother-in-law may have been right a while back when he said Hollywood had run out of ideas. I think they have overdone adaptations of comic characters to movies, even though some like the Gal Gadot first Wonder Woman and the second Christopher Nolan Batman in his three-part series were very good, in my opinion.
• I liked the movies about insect-sized super-humans like the one Lilly was in. Generally, DC comics movies seem better to me, but some  of the Marvel ones are okay. I described Marvel movies like the X-Men ones as over-stuffed sandwiches: tasty but hard to fit in your mouth.
• Comic books may have become the modern mythology. I was a comic-book nerd when young but thought the early movie versions of them were not good. The 21st-century versions have got much better.
• As for Lilly’s comment on “bodily sovereignty,” While she was speaking more directly about the issue of whether or not to be vaccinated, the article says she was echoing to issue of abortion. I have expressed my opinion about abortion before, so shall hold my tongue. Let the voters and The Supreme Court decide.

On three songs

I have liked Hall and Oates a lot lately. I think they deal with with many difficult issues like romantic failure, economic inequality, and  palliative humor.

But their music is usually gentle and positive, and they have had a calmative influence for me. Other harder groups like NIN were appealing to me for a time when I was angrier and had more energy.

I have written about one of their other songs in a previous post, but here are comments on three others from the Hall and Oates “best of” collection:

” Kiss is on My List.” I have heard women say kissing is better than sex, and I think they are right  (as long as the man has taken breath mints. Haha.). But this song seems like a very melodious ode to just kissing between a man and woman who are passionate with one another.

” Did it in a Minute.” This song seems to be about immediate romantic seduction. It can happen in a minute, “love at first sight,” as they say. Immediate attraction isn’t always a bad thing; what matters more eventually is what happens afterwards.

“Rich Girl.” This about the sometimes difficult combination of economic inequality and romantic attraction. The “spoiled brat” who is abusive to a poorer suitor. I grew up as an adolescent around families a lot wealthier than mine was, and it was hard not to think the wealth difference made long-term relationships impossible.

On a Hopkins poem

My parents gave me a book by noted Jesuit intellectual James Martin. My parents have always wanted me to be a priest.

Anyway, on page 73 of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, he quotes a famous 19th-century poem by the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poem is titled “Pied Beauty.” Martin says it is an example of trying “to find God in all things.”

Here it is:

On  a memory

“You have to believe in something.” said a buddy who was apparently atheist, agnostic, or at least bitterly opposed to the Church. We were in our late teens, and I had just pretty much failed with a wanted girlfriend.

It was late at night in a one-on-one conversation. I had said I had psychiatric problems, and he said treat me like your psychiatrist; he said my troubled youth may have been a good thing. I suppose he meant it made me more sensitive as I got older.

He said he had respect for me, maybe more than other friends.

They call people like he was “frenemies” now. I think it means someone who is willing to hang out with you and communicate with you but may be stabbing you in the back through gossip or potentially physically. “Et tu Brute?”

A French teacher spoke of “false friends” or false cognates, when French words seem a lot like English but are actually importantly different.

Never really spoke to the old buddy again. We went to a movie together a few years later because we had a common friend, but we never really spoke again after that, and he pretty much ignored what I had to say as we drove to and from the film, called Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood.

Life goes on.

On forgiveness and a poem

(May have a case of the Mondays.)

Do you have to forgive people who don’t admit they have wronged you and don’t ask for forgiveness? My answer is no. The perpetrator should at least apologize even if not forgiven by the victim.

I think it almost psychologically impossible for a victim to forgive without an apology. It may be better for the victim’s mental health to “let bygones be bygones.” Wrath, even if only  in the form of particularly bitter memory, can be a deadly sin.

But sometimes sin is brought upon us.

“Expected” by yours truly

As expected, been rejected.

Don’t blame others for being infected.

(They only wanted what is best for you.)

Yourself you should have protected.

This has been detected.

Take care.