Author: Sysadmin

On Ray Liotta

The Irish Times has published a profile of the U.S. actor Ray Liotta. It begins:

“Ray Liotta was almost Tony Soprano. He was showrunner David Chase’s first choice to play the New Jersey mob boss, but Liotta chose to focus on his film career, leaving E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, Anthony LaPaglia and Michael Rispoli in contention. Two of those actors would appear in different roles in the show.”

Liotta has appealed to me as an actor because I think he can play good guys and bad ones equally well. From the interview: “You’re playing pretend. That’s basically what I do.” I have never really been interested in mafia stories. Why would you want to watch extended narratives about criminals? Maybe one film or show about them.

Regarding the E Street Band, apparently the house I lived in as a teenager in suburban Maryland was formerly the residence of one of the band’s musicians, Nils Lofgren. I wondered if it was haunted by him; I do like Springsteen. Haha. The house has been torn down now and replaced with a new one.

’

On a movie

Currently re-watching a weird fantasy action movie from a few years back called  Sucker Punch by the director Zack Snyder (I like some of his other films, even though many critics don’t seem to like his work; I thought Justice League was pretty good).

Apparently the plot of this movie is about a young woman put into a mental institution by a physically abusive parent who starts imagining doing heroic things with other inmates she likes. It is a pretty brutal film, and Snyder seems to tilt toward the dark side in his visual imagery. The main character is Australian but does an American accent well.

The title of the movie bespeaks the violence of its content. The movie begins with a cover version of “Sweet Dreams” by The Eurythmics while the main character is fighting with her father figure.

I think this film might fit into what they call “grrl power” comics and other art, the idea of women being very strong, sometimes stronger than men.

On Clint Eastwood

Eastwood is now 91. It is impressive anyone reaches that age at all, but he has remained productive. He is publicizing a new movie he stars in called Cry Macho. From a The Wall Street Journal review:

“As the director and star of Cry Macho, in theaters and on HBO Max, Clint Eastwood sends himself on a picaresque journey through rural Mexico in 1979. He plays Mike Milo, a washed-up rodeo star who accepts a job from his former boss: Go to Mexico City, rescue the man’s supposedly wild-spirited young son from the clutches of his abusive mother, and bring him back to Texas. Milo is a cowboy of many parts—a horseman (it’s great to see Mr. Eastwood back in the saddle at age 91); a horse whisperer; a woman whisperer (more about that in a bit); an adequate conversationalist in sign language; and a grizzled Dr. Dolittle who ministers as best he can to sick animals. Confronted by a terminally decrepit dog, Milo tells its owner, ‘I don’t know how to cure old.’ Yet the film, for all its endearing oddities, suggests that old doesn’t need to be cured, only worked through with as much grace and equanimity as possible.”

Eastwood was a major entertainment icon in my youth, best known for his “Dirty” Harry series of movies about a police officer with flint-like confidence and no remorse. Good police officers should be confident; bad ones or irresponsible vigilantes should be punished fiercely. One of the “Dirty” Harry movies, Magnum Force, dealt with this issue.

On a The Irish Times column about California politics by Janan Ganesh

“It is some feat to persuade the young that a Republican ran Los Angeles in this century. Even if you can sell them on the fact of Richard Riordan there is the conservative pedigree of the wider state to explain.

Yes, Ronald Regan governed it (tax rise and all). Richard Nixon called the lemon groves of Yorba Linda home. The New Right, which nurtured both these presidents, first stirred in Orange County.

At the turn of the millennium, more than a third of Californian voters were still registered Republicans.

That share is below a quarter now. More than enough, of course, to subject governor Gavin Newsom to a recall election for, among other things, a selective approach to lockdown rules.”

California interests me, even though I don’t know it well and probably would not want to live there. I love movies, and it produces most of them in the U.S. I guess the political dichotomy comes down to the difference between entertainment-industry progressives and oil-industry or agricultural conservatives.

I had a close relative who lived in L.A. a long time and visited him there a few times. So I know a bit about the local vibe.

Media analysis and a joke/poem

On noise from The Wall Street Journal:

“When the pandemic struck in March of 2020, the human world went quiet. During what some are now calling the anthropause, highways and byways emptied of cars while shops and services locked their doors for weeks and months. Using sensitive sound level analyzers, scientists from every continent confirmed a reduction in human-created sound levels, in some cities by as much as seven decibels, which translates to about one-fifth as loud as before.

Gout
Gout

Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Uric acid
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
Uric acid I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

In violent times
You shouldn’t have to sell your mole
In black and white
They really really ought to flow

Those one track minds
That took you for a working boy
Kiss them goodbye
You shouldn’t have to jump for joy (but can’t anyway because of gout)
You shouldn’t have to jump for joy (but can’t anyway because of gout)

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

They gave you strife
And in return you gave them smell (not just perfume)
As cold as ice
I hope we live to tell the tale
I hope we live to tell the whale

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do with bloat
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
Uric acid I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out (let it all out)
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

And when you’ve taken down your guard
If I could change your mind
I’d really love to break your smart
I’d really love to break your smart

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
Uric acid I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
Uric acid I can do without
Come on
I’m talking to you
Come on

Gout
Gout
Let it all out
Uric acid I can do without…

(with lyrical adjustments by John-Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt)

On taxation

From The Wall Street Journal:

“House Democrats spelled out their proposed tax increases on Monday, pushing higher rates on corporations, investors and high-income business owners as they try to piece together enough votes for legislation to expand the social safety net and combat climate change.”

My personal experience recently with the I.R.S. is that they really went after me when I had been unemployed a few years and had no income. Very nice. They charged me for past-due payment. They didn’t really bother me when I was gett[ng a decent income. My Dad says I was a “sitting duck” for them.

There was a saying from a federal government official that “weakness is provocative.” There is another saying that “only the strong survive.” Maybe true but also rather sad.

On Mass

It is Sunday, and I do try to at least watch Mass lately. I said to a social media-contact recently that you can treat Mass as literary analysis, even if you are not religious.

There are generally two Old Testament readings and one New Testament reading then a pastoral sermon. One of the comments from Isiah is about being capable to set your face “like flint.” I think it means being strong. The New Testament reading seemed to be about whether Jesus was only a religious leader or, as his community seemed to want him to be, a political one against the Roman empire. “Who do you say that I am?” He asks this of Peter.

The priest mentioned in his sermon that faith without action is “dead.”

A random thought. One of my neighbors when I was a reporter was a fallen-away Catholic. He said one of the things that disturbed him about the religion was the image of a man being tortured on a cross in church. I don’t know. I know what he means, but I guess I have a stronger stomach. I think it is sad but in a way beautiful.

On O. Henry

This from a recent piece by Michael Dirda of The Washington Post:

“I first realized there was more to O. Henry than surprise endings when, a few years ago, I picked up a Penguin edition of the writer’s selected stories edited by Guy Davenport. In his introduction, Davenport — an essayist of the most sophisticated literary intelligence — noted that O. Henry’s reputation has long stood extremely high in Europe. Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of the chilling 1924 dystopia We, found in his work “the art of brevity and speed proper to America,” while the Italian novelist Cesare Pavese praised the writer for the strange beauty with which he imbued city life, transforming turn-of-the-century New York into “Baghdad-on-the-Hudson.”

I don’t think “brevity and speed” are necessarily bad things in fiction. One of my grad school classmates teased other students who focused on short stories instead of novels. But sometimes less is more, and some people don’t have the concentration or time to read War and Peace. One of my favorite fiction books as a teenager was called Sudden Fiction, an anthology of extremely short stories.

More from Dirda’s review:

“Even though O. Henry revels in puns and wordplay, period slang and colorful rhetorical exaggeration, he keeps his narrative voice intimate and confiding. Its tone can be wry and sometimes even mildly Wodehousean…”

Henry stayed in a famous U.S. vacation/convalescence area for a while and joked it was difficult to do work there because the environment was so pleasant.

On another matter, it is Sept. 11 today. I said to a friend just after the terrorist murders happened that when the U.S. is being called “the world’s only remaining superpower” some people are going to hate it. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” –Thomas Jefferson

More about the book Guyland and a brief poem/joke

Kimmel’s book mentions the death of a first-year college student in 2005, Matt Carrington, at a hazing at one of the California-state university fraternities. He didn’t die of alcohol or drugs or violence, but of water intoxication after being put through some physical violence.

One of the older fraternity brothers admitted in court he and others were responsible for Carrington’s death. Again, I think a large part of maturity is being able to calm down, and young men can get over-excited when in groups and do bad things.

One of my college teaching colleagues focused a course on initiation rituals in literature. I don’t think fraternities or their initiation rituals are necessarily wrong, but they are risky. My undergrad college did not really allow fraternities for this reason. But it had many of the same behavioral problems of many colleges.

“Gout” by yours truly

I have developed a case of gout.

Makes it hard walk about.

(Happens to many men after 50.

Isn’t that nifty?)

You may think it makes me a lout.

What’s that all about?

Please don’t about it pout.

Or have any doubt;

We can all do without.

On Jonathan Swift

From The Irish Times:

“An 18th-century portrait of writer Jonathan Swift was sold to an Irish buyer on the first day of the Howth Castle Auction.

The auction of the contents of Howth Castle exceeded expectations as the majority of items surpassed their guide prices, due to keen international interest.

The portrait of The Gulliver’s Travels author sold for €234,000, and to the relief of many observers, say the auction’s organisers, will remain on the island of Ireland. The painting by Irish artist Francis Bindon dates back to 1735.”

Have not read Gulliver’s Travels but read and taught to college students the satirical essays “A Modest Proposal” and The Battle of the Books. 

Swift was wickedly satirical. I think it had to do with his political and cultural environments. Environments can make you angry; I know this.

“A Modest Proposal” boils down to the satirical metaphor of eating babies to make up for economic hardship. I wrote a weird essay in high school comparing it to abortion in general.  But the idea isn’t entirely crazy. When does life begin, and what is it is worth? My English teacher did not like the essay.