I know that these things aren't actually songs, they're riffs at most. I've got to record them, get them onto YouTube, because the way that I sing them is a lot of the overall flavor, as we hip-hop artists call it. (You may have noticed that I don't write out the melodies in these blog posts. That's because I can't write melodies. The only way I can hear a melody that's written down is to actually play it on a musical instrument. And no, I can't play it right out after the first look. Not even close.)
People who've known me all my life and heard me sing may find this hard to believe, but I've actually gotten a lot better at singing in the past year or so. Turns out that the missing piece of the puzzle was PRACTICE, lots of it. Who knew that doing something over and over, again and again, could eventually make you better at it?
Some of the time when I sing I'm making fun of the way other people sing, and some of the time I'm sincerely trying my best to sound good, with no irony or sarcasm. It has occurred to me that if anyone is listening, they may think I'm being completely serious all of the time. This amuses me very much. "You know Mr Bollinger, that great big old guy who lives over there? Well, I can hear him singing sometimes. And part of the time he sounds alright, and part of the time he sounds, just... really WEIRD. Like a really bad 1970's rocker or something."
Anyway, here's my new song, or riff. This is one of the times when I'm mocking other musicians. When you read the lyrics, try to hear a fast-tempo, mid-1970's hard rock riff in your head:
Shake ya hands like a MORON, Baby/Shake ya hands like a moron (repeat endlessly)
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
TV Series About Art
Since I got rid of my TV last August, I've watched a lot of TV -- on YouTube.
In a recent post I reviewed Kenneth Clark's 1969 TV series "Civilisation." Since then I've seen about 15 minutes each of two series regarded as replies to Clark: John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" from 1972, and "Civilisations" from 2018, with multiple hosts. 15 minutes of the first episode of each of these series has been all that I've been able to stand so far. However, if I review them without watching them in their entirety, I'll be repeating exactly the same mistake which I finally rectified in the recent post about Clark's series. I can say truthfully, however, that the thought of watching either "Ways of Seeing" or "Civilisations" in its entirety fills me with sadness and dread.
15 minutes of the first episode is also about all that I could stomach of Robert Hughes' 1980 series about modern art, "The Shock of the New." I will not review it without watching it all. But I will say that if Robert Hughes ever said anything about art which was new even as long ago as 1980, it would come as a shock to me.
However, I have found one more show about art besides Clark which I enjoyed watching in its entirely and which I can therefore honestly recommend: "This is Modern Art," a six-part series hosted by Matthew Collings, first aired in 1999.
I'd never heard of Collings either, but I found his show quite informative and satisfying. I like the way that Collings can appreciate aspects of the work even of artists with whom he has major disagreements. Notably, Matisse.
Collings asks rhetorically what Matisse's art is about, and answers: beauty. His paintings are very beautiful. Collings then asks: what else are they about, and answers: nothing, and it turns out that this is a problem, not only for Collings but also for many modern artists and modern art critics.
I hadn't realized that this was a problem. But then, I've never been to art school. The fact that for modern artists general, beauty is not enough, that their art is expected to engage with society in some other way, is a great help in explaining some conversations I've had with artists which had puzzled me.
Back to Collings and Matisse: despite Matisse doing things wrong in what is, to modern artists generally, a very major way, Collings spends a lot of time in his series on Matisse, and finds very much to praise in his work. He finds depth in beauty alone. Although it's entirely clear that this is not really Collings' kind of art, an entire episode of the series, entitled "Lovely Lovely," is devoted to artists who only want to make their art pretty. The openness which Collings shows to these artists is quite impressive to me. Finding things to agree about with those with whom you fundamentally disagree: to me this is a sign of a very sharp mind.
Other artists to whom Collings devotes a lot of time, and who seem to be more up his general alley, include Dali, Warhol, Goya, Pollack, Judd and Koons. He manages to be quite witty and quite deep at the same time. Not very many of us can do that, it's sometimes harder than it looks.
In a recent post I reviewed Kenneth Clark's 1969 TV series "Civilisation." Since then I've seen about 15 minutes each of two series regarded as replies to Clark: John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" from 1972, and "Civilisations" from 2018, with multiple hosts. 15 minutes of the first episode of each of these series has been all that I've been able to stand so far. However, if I review them without watching them in their entirety, I'll be repeating exactly the same mistake which I finally rectified in the recent post about Clark's series. I can say truthfully, however, that the thought of watching either "Ways of Seeing" or "Civilisations" in its entirety fills me with sadness and dread.
15 minutes of the first episode is also about all that I could stomach of Robert Hughes' 1980 series about modern art, "The Shock of the New." I will not review it without watching it all. But I will say that if Robert Hughes ever said anything about art which was new even as long ago as 1980, it would come as a shock to me.
However, I have found one more show about art besides Clark which I enjoyed watching in its entirely and which I can therefore honestly recommend: "This is Modern Art," a six-part series hosted by Matthew Collings, first aired in 1999.
I'd never heard of Collings either, but I found his show quite informative and satisfying. I like the way that Collings can appreciate aspects of the work even of artists with whom he has major disagreements. Notably, Matisse.
Collings asks rhetorically what Matisse's art is about, and answers: beauty. His paintings are very beautiful. Collings then asks: what else are they about, and answers: nothing, and it turns out that this is a problem, not only for Collings but also for many modern artists and modern art critics.
I hadn't realized that this was a problem. But then, I've never been to art school. The fact that for modern artists general, beauty is not enough, that their art is expected to engage with society in some other way, is a great help in explaining some conversations I've had with artists which had puzzled me.
Back to Collings and Matisse: despite Matisse doing things wrong in what is, to modern artists generally, a very major way, Collings spends a lot of time in his series on Matisse, and finds very much to praise in his work. He finds depth in beauty alone. Although it's entirely clear that this is not really Collings' kind of art, an entire episode of the series, entitled "Lovely Lovely," is devoted to artists who only want to make their art pretty. The openness which Collings shows to these artists is quite impressive to me. Finding things to agree about with those with whom you fundamentally disagree: to me this is a sign of a very sharp mind.
Other artists to whom Collings devotes a lot of time, and who seem to be more up his general alley, include Dali, Warhol, Goya, Pollack, Judd and Koons. He manages to be quite witty and quite deep at the same time. Not very many of us can do that, it's sometimes harder than it looks.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Today
I woke up from dreams about a girlfriend I don't have, who didn't look like anybody I know. She was tall and pretty, had long dark hair and dark eyes and a Latin American accent. I've been dreaming about Latinos a lot more often since Trump was elected,. I'm sure many others have been too.
In the dreams, she and I were doing little helpful healing things for each other. For example, she said she was tired and tense, and I rubbed her shoulders and her feet.
Three days ago, I had gone to the local used-sporting-goods store and lifted an 80lb dumbbell with each hand, one hand at a time. Several days before that, I had tried to lift 2 80lb dumbbells at once, and it hadn't happened. I think I could've done it except that my technique was a little off. When I lifted the 80lb dumbbell with my right hand, I felt a bit of pain in my lower right back, which has been painful a lot of the time since I had surgery in August -- exercise-related pain, I believe. I'm not alarmed by the pain. It's been there for a long time, but not at an alarming level.
Today I lifted a 100lb dumbbell with either hand, and felt no pain at all.
These are standard dead lifts, rising up until I'm standing straight up with the weight in my hand.
Of course, what such dumbbells are made for is one-armed curls. I did not attempt to curl either an 80lb nor a 100lb dumbbell. The most I have ever curled with one arm was 70lbs, some years ago. I have no idea how much I could curl today. I don't want to try for a new personal best and injure myself in someone else's store. The people in that store are really nice, they don't deserve that sort of aggravation.
Does everyone become much more prone to exercise-induced injury as they get older, or is it just me? I used to be able to just let it rip, quite uncautiously, with weights. Not these days.
I tried to find a copy of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle,
and the Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson.
I couldn't find anything by Wilson today, and only one book by Tolle: Stillness Speaks. In the early pages of the book, Tolle says that it doesn't need to be read straight through cover to cover, but can be picked up and set down often, read just a little a time if one wishes, and also talks about connecting with your inner stillness, and about observing the stillness of plants.
I'm cool with all of that. I wouldn't say that that means I'm a spiritual person, but apparently some people would disagree.
In the dreams, she and I were doing little helpful healing things for each other. For example, she said she was tired and tense, and I rubbed her shoulders and her feet.
Three days ago, I had gone to the local used-sporting-goods store and lifted an 80lb dumbbell with each hand, one hand at a time. Several days before that, I had tried to lift 2 80lb dumbbells at once, and it hadn't happened. I think I could've done it except that my technique was a little off. When I lifted the 80lb dumbbell with my right hand, I felt a bit of pain in my lower right back, which has been painful a lot of the time since I had surgery in August -- exercise-related pain, I believe. I'm not alarmed by the pain. It's been there for a long time, but not at an alarming level.
Today I lifted a 100lb dumbbell with either hand, and felt no pain at all.
These are standard dead lifts, rising up until I'm standing straight up with the weight in my hand.
Of course, what such dumbbells are made for is one-armed curls. I did not attempt to curl either an 80lb nor a 100lb dumbbell. The most I have ever curled with one arm was 70lbs, some years ago. I have no idea how much I could curl today. I don't want to try for a new personal best and injure myself in someone else's store. The people in that store are really nice, they don't deserve that sort of aggravation.
Does everyone become much more prone to exercise-induced injury as they get older, or is it just me? I used to be able to just let it rip, quite uncautiously, with weights. Not these days.
I tried to find a copy of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle,
and the Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson.
I couldn't find anything by Wilson today, and only one book by Tolle: Stillness Speaks. In the early pages of the book, Tolle says that it doesn't need to be read straight through cover to cover, but can be picked up and set down often, read just a little a time if one wishes, and also talks about connecting with your inner stillness, and about observing the stillness of plants.
I'm cool with all of that. I wouldn't say that that means I'm a spiritual person, but apparently some people would disagree.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
I'm Sorry, Sir Kenneth
Or is it Lord Clark, or Baron Clark? I gather to most people you were simply K.
10 years ago I wrote a post in this blog denouncing Kenneth Clark and his book and TV series which are both called "Civilisation." I denounced Clark as a quite horrible snob.
The problem is that I had not seen his TV series, and had only read the first half-page or so of his book and then very hastily paged through the rest. And in what I wrote I got Clark all wrong. I assumed that he was an upper-class, royalist Torie elitist, which made me wrong three out of four times: Clark's family did come from the upper part of the upper crust, but he was a lifelong supporter of Labour. And although he worked for the royal family and knew them well, he annoyed them quite a bit in a television series he made shortly before "Civilisation," which let television cameras into parts of the royal palaces where they had never been before, and in which Clark was altogether too frank and cheeky about what he saw as the foibles and failings of past rulers of Britain. As for elitism: when he was appointed director of the National Gallery in 1933 at age 30, he set about to make the museum more accessible and friendly to the general public. Later in his life he made his now-famous television shows about art because he wanted art to belong to everyone. Although he's most often associated with pre-Modern art, he was quite enthusiastic about some Moderns, such as the sculptor Henry Moore, perhaps his best friend. He opposed other members of the avant-garde of his time because he found them to be too elitist.
It's true, as he says in the beginning of the book which angered me so 10 years ago, that he largely equates civilisation with Western civilisation. I wish I had been the director of the TV series, and had been able to convince Clark to change the name of the series to "Western Civilisation," and to drop his comparisons of Western civilisation to other civilisations. I wish he hadn't said that one of the works of Western art he was showing in the series -- I don't remember which work it was, and I don't think it matters -- was "better than anything Islam had ever produced." What does such a statement accomplish, other than to lend aide and comfort to bigots, which Clark was not, and to give to more thoughtful viewers the strong suspicion that Clark's knowledge of Islamic art was far from comprehensive?
Clark was not bigoted, he was old-fashioned. He was born in 1903, and in 1969, when "Civilisation" first aired on the BBC, he had not acquired the outlook of cultural relativism which had begun to spread through the Left, and which by now is deeply ingrained in Leftists such as myself, and which caused me too so over-hastily mis-judge a fellow Leftist like Clark.
Another objection which has been made to Clark is his championing of geniuses. I do not share this objection, because I can't imagine any more than Clark could how we would get great art without geniuses.
I would urge you to see the television series, and to try to overlook Clark's occasional attempts to make art about one civilisation vs another. Although he does this right at the very start of the first show, he doesn't repeat such unpleasantness very often. Instead, the show is all about the love of a connoisseur for things of great beauty, things which happen to have been made in the Western world between the 9th century and the 20th, a connoisseur who wants to share his joy in such things with the whole world. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. On the contrary, the series is beautiful.
And K -- as everyone called him, it seems -- is quite simply loveable.
10 years ago I wrote a post in this blog denouncing Kenneth Clark and his book and TV series which are both called "Civilisation." I denounced Clark as a quite horrible snob.
The problem is that I had not seen his TV series, and had only read the first half-page or so of his book and then very hastily paged through the rest. And in what I wrote I got Clark all wrong. I assumed that he was an upper-class, royalist Torie elitist, which made me wrong three out of four times: Clark's family did come from the upper part of the upper crust, but he was a lifelong supporter of Labour. And although he worked for the royal family and knew them well, he annoyed them quite a bit in a television series he made shortly before "Civilisation," which let television cameras into parts of the royal palaces where they had never been before, and in which Clark was altogether too frank and cheeky about what he saw as the foibles and failings of past rulers of Britain. As for elitism: when he was appointed director of the National Gallery in 1933 at age 30, he set about to make the museum more accessible and friendly to the general public. Later in his life he made his now-famous television shows about art because he wanted art to belong to everyone. Although he's most often associated with pre-Modern art, he was quite enthusiastic about some Moderns, such as the sculptor Henry Moore, perhaps his best friend. He opposed other members of the avant-garde of his time because he found them to be too elitist.
It's true, as he says in the beginning of the book which angered me so 10 years ago, that he largely equates civilisation with Western civilisation. I wish I had been the director of the TV series, and had been able to convince Clark to change the name of the series to "Western Civilisation," and to drop his comparisons of Western civilisation to other civilisations. I wish he hadn't said that one of the works of Western art he was showing in the series -- I don't remember which work it was, and I don't think it matters -- was "better than anything Islam had ever produced." What does such a statement accomplish, other than to lend aide and comfort to bigots, which Clark was not, and to give to more thoughtful viewers the strong suspicion that Clark's knowledge of Islamic art was far from comprehensive?
Clark was not bigoted, he was old-fashioned. He was born in 1903, and in 1969, when "Civilisation" first aired on the BBC, he had not acquired the outlook of cultural relativism which had begun to spread through the Left, and which by now is deeply ingrained in Leftists such as myself, and which caused me too so over-hastily mis-judge a fellow Leftist like Clark.
Another objection which has been made to Clark is his championing of geniuses. I do not share this objection, because I can't imagine any more than Clark could how we would get great art without geniuses.
I would urge you to see the television series, and to try to overlook Clark's occasional attempts to make art about one civilisation vs another. Although he does this right at the very start of the first show, he doesn't repeat such unpleasantness very often. Instead, the show is all about the love of a connoisseur for things of great beauty, things which happen to have been made in the Western world between the 9th century and the 20th, a connoisseur who wants to share his joy in such things with the whole world. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. On the contrary, the series is beautiful.
And K -- as everyone called him, it seems -- is quite simply loveable.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
"Is He Crazy or is That Just the Way He Acts?"
I saw that headline over a picture of Trump, and, like many others, I'm sure, at first I assumed it was someone talking about Trump -- perhaps a high-level Republican, speaking off the record, to be sure, but getting pretty tired of pretending that Trump isn't a lunatic and a jackass.
But no, that's a quote from Trump, talking to reporters today about Beto O'Rourke's announcement of his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President as he sat beside the Irish Prime Minister.
Trump's entire comment on the subject was:
"I think he's got a lot of hand movement. Is he crazy or is that just the way he acts? I've never seen hand movement. I watched him a little while this morning doing, I assume some kind of a news conference, and I've actually never seen anything quite like it. Study it; I'm sure you'll agree."
It's not just that Trump insults everyone: his insults are so dumb and dull. So utterly lacking in wit, style and grace. Every time we hear another of Donald's insults we groan and roll our eyes and ask ourselves how anyone could ever like this moron.
Just for relief from the daily dullness of the moron-in-Chief, I'm going to quote some insults from someone who was really good at it: that great American, Mark Twain, O how we need his like right now:
"It [the press] has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular. It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is—they are so morally blind—and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that."
"Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son. It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel."
"When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane."
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
"It does look as if Massachusetts were in a fair way to embarrass me with kindnesses this year. In the first place, a Massachusetts judge has just decided in open court that a Boston publisher may sell, not only his own property in a free and unfettered way, but also may as freely sell property which does not belong to him but to me; property which he has not bought and which I have not sold. Under this ruling I am now advertising that judge's homestead for sale, and, if I make as good a sum out of it as I expect, I shall go on and sell out the rest of his property."
"The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey."
"Mr. Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has befallen the country since the Civil War—but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn't; there isn't any way to libel the intelligence of the human race."
But no, that's a quote from Trump, talking to reporters today about Beto O'Rourke's announcement of his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President as he sat beside the Irish Prime Minister.
Trump's entire comment on the subject was:
"I think he's got a lot of hand movement. Is he crazy or is that just the way he acts? I've never seen hand movement. I watched him a little while this morning doing, I assume some kind of a news conference, and I've actually never seen anything quite like it. Study it; I'm sure you'll agree."
It's not just that Trump insults everyone: his insults are so dumb and dull. So utterly lacking in wit, style and grace. Every time we hear another of Donald's insults we groan and roll our eyes and ask ourselves how anyone could ever like this moron.
Just for relief from the daily dullness of the moron-in-Chief, I'm going to quote some insults from someone who was really good at it: that great American, Mark Twain, O how we need his like right now:
"It [the press] has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular. It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is—they are so morally blind—and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that."
"Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son. It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel."
"When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane."
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
"It does look as if Massachusetts were in a fair way to embarrass me with kindnesses this year. In the first place, a Massachusetts judge has just decided in open court that a Boston publisher may sell, not only his own property in a free and unfettered way, but also may as freely sell property which does not belong to him but to me; property which he has not bought and which I have not sold. Under this ruling I am now advertising that judge's homestead for sale, and, if I make as good a sum out of it as I expect, I shall go on and sell out the rest of his property."
"The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey."
"Mr. Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has befallen the country since the Civil War—but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn't; there isn't any way to libel the intelligence of the human race."
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
My Friends Are Into Comic Books
My friends are into comic books, talking about them the way comic-book enthusiasts do, and I'm listening, trying to keep up with the conversation.
I can only actually remember owning one comic book as a child. It was an Incredible Hulk number. I don't remember much about it. Bruce Banner was being strafed by a WWII-era fighter plane for some reason, and he thought to himself that if just one of those .50-caliber bullets hit him, he'd be dead, and that thought upset him so much that he turned into the Hulk. There was also someone in the same volume who'd been shrunk down to much smaller than a bee, and was fleeing from a bee. I don't know whether that was Bruce Banner as well, or if it was a separate story which just happened to be in the same volume.
I was asking myself why I never had any more comics besides that one, and I was thinking it was because I never had any money to buy them, but that's not true: I had a paper route.
What did I do with all the money from the paper route? I don't remember. In any case, it wasn't comics. (I don't know whether the correct term is "comics" or "comic books," and to all those people who feel very strongly that I should use one term or the other, I'd just like to say that I don't care.)
During parts of the 1980's and 90's, I lived in Columbus, Ohio, maybe a mile from a huge comic book store. I went in and browsed a few times, but I felt unwelcome, somehow. By contrast, there were several used-book stores in town where I felt very welcome, spent a lot of time, talked to the people running the stores, etc.
Why did I feel unwelcome in the comic-book store? Well, I suppose one possibility is that I wasn't unwelcome, and the guys who worked there were thinking, "How come that guy always walks past the store, hardly ever comes in, and when he does he seems so unfriendly?"
Another possibility that occurs to me is that they were physically afraid of me. I'm a big guy, more Hulk than Banner. Maybe I reminded them of people who'd bullied them in school or whatnot.
Or maybe they were just jerks and I'm better off, I don't know.
Recently, on TV, I saw parts of the movie Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson. Only parts of it, because it didn't hold my attention enough to make me want to sit through the whole thing. Anyway, Jackson's character made some very bold statements about the cultural significance of comic books, and I wondered how seriously I should take those comments, and SPOILER ALERT then it turned out that Jackson's character was the bad guy, and that made me wonder whether his statements were to be taken less seriously. But like I say, I've never even seen the whole movie, so --
Just today, reading along in a Facebook conversation between some friends of mine about comic books, I was about to chime in that I've been somewhat interested in 21st-century movies made from comic books, and ask whether or not that counted and meant that now, at last, I too had become a true comic nerd.
But then, trying to be really honest about it, I had to admit that my interest in those movies is almost entirely about Scarlett Johansson.
I just think she's really, really cool, and I'd gladly watch any movie she's in, and, to be honest, other than the character she's played in a lot of the comic-book movies, Natasha Romanoff, I haven't been paying very close attention to all of those movies. Could I describe the plot of a single one of them? Hmmm... not very well.
And so I remain a comic-book outsider, but since I have some friends now who are fans, I'm starting to listen to conversations about them, and hearing things which seem to make perfectly good sense, such as that comics in general, and individual artists such as Stan Lee in particular, have always been very progressive politically.
Which would mean, for example, that fanboys who are complaining about what they call political correctness in comics, with characters like Rey in the Star Wars movies, and the new female Captain Marvel (hmm, not so new, apparently, seems the female Captain Marvel was in comic books as long ago as the 1980's), are missing the boat.
Anyway, I'm listening, and I'm not claiming that I'm keeping up, but... I'm listening.
I can only actually remember owning one comic book as a child. It was an Incredible Hulk number. I don't remember much about it. Bruce Banner was being strafed by a WWII-era fighter plane for some reason, and he thought to himself that if just one of those .50-caliber bullets hit him, he'd be dead, and that thought upset him so much that he turned into the Hulk. There was also someone in the same volume who'd been shrunk down to much smaller than a bee, and was fleeing from a bee. I don't know whether that was Bruce Banner as well, or if it was a separate story which just happened to be in the same volume.
I was asking myself why I never had any more comics besides that one, and I was thinking it was because I never had any money to buy them, but that's not true: I had a paper route.
What did I do with all the money from the paper route? I don't remember. In any case, it wasn't comics. (I don't know whether the correct term is "comics" or "comic books," and to all those people who feel very strongly that I should use one term or the other, I'd just like to say that I don't care.)
During parts of the 1980's and 90's, I lived in Columbus, Ohio, maybe a mile from a huge comic book store. I went in and browsed a few times, but I felt unwelcome, somehow. By contrast, there were several used-book stores in town where I felt very welcome, spent a lot of time, talked to the people running the stores, etc.
Why did I feel unwelcome in the comic-book store? Well, I suppose one possibility is that I wasn't unwelcome, and the guys who worked there were thinking, "How come that guy always walks past the store, hardly ever comes in, and when he does he seems so unfriendly?"
Another possibility that occurs to me is that they were physically afraid of me. I'm a big guy, more Hulk than Banner. Maybe I reminded them of people who'd bullied them in school or whatnot.
Or maybe they were just jerks and I'm better off, I don't know.
Recently, on TV, I saw parts of the movie Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson. Only parts of it, because it didn't hold my attention enough to make me want to sit through the whole thing. Anyway, Jackson's character made some very bold statements about the cultural significance of comic books, and I wondered how seriously I should take those comments, and SPOILER ALERT then it turned out that Jackson's character was the bad guy, and that made me wonder whether his statements were to be taken less seriously. But like I say, I've never even seen the whole movie, so --
Just today, reading along in a Facebook conversation between some friends of mine about comic books, I was about to chime in that I've been somewhat interested in 21st-century movies made from comic books, and ask whether or not that counted and meant that now, at last, I too had become a true comic nerd.
But then, trying to be really honest about it, I had to admit that my interest in those movies is almost entirely about Scarlett Johansson.
I just think she's really, really cool, and I'd gladly watch any movie she's in, and, to be honest, other than the character she's played in a lot of the comic-book movies, Natasha Romanoff, I haven't been paying very close attention to all of those movies. Could I describe the plot of a single one of them? Hmmm... not very well.
And so I remain a comic-book outsider, but since I have some friends now who are fans, I'm starting to listen to conversations about them, and hearing things which seem to make perfectly good sense, such as that comics in general, and individual artists such as Stan Lee in particular, have always been very progressive politically.
Which would mean, for example, that fanboys who are complaining about what they call political correctness in comics, with characters like Rey in the Star Wars movies, and the new female Captain Marvel (hmm, not so new, apparently, seems the female Captain Marvel was in comic books as long ago as the 1980's), are missing the boat.
Anyway, I'm listening, and I'm not claiming that I'm keeping up, but... I'm listening.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
I'm an Atheist, BUT --
-- I know that doesn't guarantee that I'm bright.
-- it's no excuse for me to be a jerk.
-- I DO care if you're insulted.
-- everything about religion all added up together is not as important to me as our friendship.
-- I cringe every time I hear Dawkins or Harris or Stephen Fry or Maher talk about religion.
-- I hope there's a Heaven and that it's great and that we'll all go there forever and ever.
-- I'm not Islamophobic.
-- I'm not blind to the kind acts done all around me every day in the name of some religion or other.
-- most of my friends are religious believers.
-- my experiences with New Atheists have been so horrible that now, when I hear that someone is an atheist, my first reaction is to cringe.
-- it's possible to have polite and pleasant conversations with me about all sorts of religious topics.
-- I don't judge a religion based on the dumbest, most hateful adherents of it whom I can find.
-- I see absolutely no reason to compare Dawkins or Harris or Hitch to Russell or Sartre or Nietzsche or Twain. (The latter group: I LIKE those guys.)
-- I now completely understand atheists who deny they're atheists. Completely.
Recent and Contemporary Latin Prose
Over the course of the past 30-odd years, I have taught myself a small amount of Latin. In 1989 I received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in German and English and a minor in French, and I studied more German in graduate school, without obtaining any graduate degree.
Otherwise, all of my language acquisition has occurred outside of classrooms. My method of learning Latin may be unusual -- I don't actually know whether it is -- and perhaps it is not to be recommended: I have read little bits of Latin textbooks, but really not very much at all. Almost all of my attempt to learn Latin has consisted of looking at Latin texts, in editions by Teubner and Oxford Classical Texts and the Rolls Series and MGH, and Loeb, and some editions from the 19th century and earlier from publishers like Weidmann -- just looking at the texts and trying to read them, and occasionally going to a dictionary or textbook for help. And then looking at the Latin texts again, over and over, until I begin to understand them somewhat better. And then looking at them some more.
In the case of recent editions from Teubner and Oxford Classical Texts, in which the editors' prefaces have been in Latin in every case I've seen except one -- in such cases, often I'm much more familiar with the modern prefaces than with the actual ancient texts, which are after all the ostensible point of such endeavors. The modern editors often write in a much more accessible style.
Let me assure my readers that I am in no way accusing these editors of writing Latin in an unsophisticated way. On the contrary, an accessible writing style can the sign of the very greatest skill: look at Bellow in English, for example, or late Sartre in French, transmitting great depths of thought with exceptional clarity. A complex writing style, one which is a little more difficult to read, can also convey deep thinking, but it does not always do so: right now I'm thinking of great 18th century writers in English who wrote grand, long, convoluted sentences -- often because they had read a lot of Classical Latin -- writers such as Berkeley, Hume and Gibbon, and also of other 18th century English writers who wrote long, convoluted sentences which are not grand at all, and who are far too numerous for it to be necessary for me to name any of them.
Right now I'm struggling, not for the first time, with de aquaeductu urbis Romae by Frontinus.
It's not the first time that I've turned the pages of this text, in the 1998 Teubner edition by Kunderewicz, and yet, I could tell you much more about Kunderewicz' preface than about Frontinus' text. At first I had thought to copy here the first sentence of Kunderewicz's preface and of Frontinus' text, but on the copyright page of this edition is an exceptionally long and emphatic warning against using any part of its contents -- and I could hardly claim to be ignorant of this warning's contents just because it's written in German -- and so I will just give you word counts: the first sentence of Frontinus is 75 words long, and then first sentence of Kunderewicz is 12 words long.
I coincidentally also happen to have a copy of the 1990 Teubner edition of stratrgrmata by Frontinus, edited, by R I Ireland. The first sentence of Ireland's preface is 104 words long. It's a wonderful sentence, and I have nothing to say against Ireland as a Latin prose stylist, but, as a whole, I think Kunderewicz's style is closer to the contemporary norm. And I think that is a good thing. I take it as a sign of an authentic and living contemporary Latin (at least as far as writing is concerned). Most of those writing today in Latin do not seem to be trying to imitate the ancient authors whom they edit. (There may be many others writing in Latin today who are doing things other than editing ancient Latin and Greek authors, but I am not aware of the existence of many.)
In the Italian Renaissance, very many of the most prominent Latin authors, who were writing all sorts of things besides prefaces to editions of ancient authors, strove quite consciously to imitate Cicero's writing style in prose and Vergil's in verse -- two very bad ideas, in my opinion, which inadvertently did more to kill the Latin language than to vivify it.
Contemporary Latinists, as far as I can tell, rather than imitating the ancients, seem to be closer to sharing the attitude of Angelo Poliziano, one of the the relatively few non-Ciceronians among the Italian Renaissance authors, who said:
"Non exprimis, aliquis inquit, Ciceronem. Quid tum? Non enim sum Cicero; me tamen, ut opinor, exprimo." ("Some say I don't write like Cicero. So what? I'm not Cicero. But, I believe, I do write like myself.")
That's the only way to write, as far as I'm concerned. Here's to the living Latin language.
Otherwise, all of my language acquisition has occurred outside of classrooms. My method of learning Latin may be unusual -- I don't actually know whether it is -- and perhaps it is not to be recommended: I have read little bits of Latin textbooks, but really not very much at all. Almost all of my attempt to learn Latin has consisted of looking at Latin texts, in editions by Teubner and Oxford Classical Texts and the Rolls Series and MGH, and Loeb, and some editions from the 19th century and earlier from publishers like Weidmann -- just looking at the texts and trying to read them, and occasionally going to a dictionary or textbook for help. And then looking at the Latin texts again, over and over, until I begin to understand them somewhat better. And then looking at them some more.
In the case of recent editions from Teubner and Oxford Classical Texts, in which the editors' prefaces have been in Latin in every case I've seen except one -- in such cases, often I'm much more familiar with the modern prefaces than with the actual ancient texts, which are after all the ostensible point of such endeavors. The modern editors often write in a much more accessible style.
Let me assure my readers that I am in no way accusing these editors of writing Latin in an unsophisticated way. On the contrary, an accessible writing style can the sign of the very greatest skill: look at Bellow in English, for example, or late Sartre in French, transmitting great depths of thought with exceptional clarity. A complex writing style, one which is a little more difficult to read, can also convey deep thinking, but it does not always do so: right now I'm thinking of great 18th century writers in English who wrote grand, long, convoluted sentences -- often because they had read a lot of Classical Latin -- writers such as Berkeley, Hume and Gibbon, and also of other 18th century English writers who wrote long, convoluted sentences which are not grand at all, and who are far too numerous for it to be necessary for me to name any of them.
Right now I'm struggling, not for the first time, with de aquaeductu urbis Romae by Frontinus.
It's not the first time that I've turned the pages of this text, in the 1998 Teubner edition by Kunderewicz, and yet, I could tell you much more about Kunderewicz' preface than about Frontinus' text. At first I had thought to copy here the first sentence of Kunderewicz's preface and of Frontinus' text, but on the copyright page of this edition is an exceptionally long and emphatic warning against using any part of its contents -- and I could hardly claim to be ignorant of this warning's contents just because it's written in German -- and so I will just give you word counts: the first sentence of Frontinus is 75 words long, and then first sentence of Kunderewicz is 12 words long.
I coincidentally also happen to have a copy of the 1990 Teubner edition of stratrgrmata by Frontinus, edited, by R I Ireland. The first sentence of Ireland's preface is 104 words long. It's a wonderful sentence, and I have nothing to say against Ireland as a Latin prose stylist, but, as a whole, I think Kunderewicz's style is closer to the contemporary norm. And I think that is a good thing. I take it as a sign of an authentic and living contemporary Latin (at least as far as writing is concerned). Most of those writing today in Latin do not seem to be trying to imitate the ancient authors whom they edit. (There may be many others writing in Latin today who are doing things other than editing ancient Latin and Greek authors, but I am not aware of the existence of many.)
In the Italian Renaissance, very many of the most prominent Latin authors, who were writing all sorts of things besides prefaces to editions of ancient authors, strove quite consciously to imitate Cicero's writing style in prose and Vergil's in verse -- two very bad ideas, in my opinion, which inadvertently did more to kill the Latin language than to vivify it.
Contemporary Latinists, as far as I can tell, rather than imitating the ancients, seem to be closer to sharing the attitude of Angelo Poliziano, one of the the relatively few non-Ciceronians among the Italian Renaissance authors, who said:
"Non exprimis, aliquis inquit, Ciceronem. Quid tum? Non enim sum Cicero; me tamen, ut opinor, exprimo." ("Some say I don't write like Cicero. So what? I'm not Cicero. But, I believe, I do write like myself.")
That's the only way to write, as far as I'm concerned. Here's to the living Latin language.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Dream Log: Stuck in the Mall, and Year-Round Major League Baseball
I had a 2-part dream: in the first part I was in a mall and couldn't find an exit except for one which led out into pitch-black unlit night; and in the second part I was on a major league baseball roster, but I wasn't playing baseball, and the major-league baseball season was all year long.
I've frequently had dreams like the first part, where I'm stuck inside a mall or some other large building and can't find my way out.
Last night, as usual in these dreams, I kept going around and around the whole huge building, and somehow kept coming around to the same exit, which in some of these dreams just leads to more buildings, and in this dream, where the exit was in Sears, led outside, but it was too dark outside to see, and I wasn't going to go stumbling around in the dark, hoping to eventually come across some sort of light. So I went off looking for another exit.
I had a sweater on over my shirt, and I was too warm, so I took off the sweater and folded it and put it on a stack of sweaters in a store. And then I kept on marching around and around the huge mall, feeling as if I would never find my way out. In last night's dream, a big crowd of other people was having exactly the same problem. We were getting more and more upset, because no-one who worked at the mall would help us.
But apparently I eventually made it outside, because suddenly my brother and I were outside, walking on a sidewalk on a busy city street, coming over the top of a hill. Below us a bridge crossed the road. I told my brother that we could go to the left, crossing the bridge, and head to an area with lots of art galleries, or --
and before I could say anything else my brother was already turning to the right, heading to the stadium where the San Francisco Giants played major league baseball.
And before I knew it, my brother and I had both been hired and were on the Giants' roster.
In the dream, as in real life, it had been guite a few years since I had payed close attention to major league baseball. I didn't know whether or not the Giants were having a good season. I got ahold of a newspaper and looked at the sports section, and it turned out that the Giants had played 6 games the day before, and had won 5 of them, and that this had been the final day of the season, and the Giants had managed to pull themselves up out of last place. Then I saw that it was February. I had been used to baseball season starting in April and ending in October, but now, it seemed, the baseball season ended in February, and the next one started later on in February. There were about as many games per season as before, though, so the players got about as much time off per year as before, they just didn't get it all at once.
Then came some changes which I didn't understand at all: now, not all of the wins and losses were decided by actually playing baseball. Some of the players on the roster, although they wore the same baseball uniforms as the regular players, did not play baseball, but instead performed some sort of work at computer terminals, and depending on how well or poorly they did, the team would get more wins or losses. We computer "players" could add as many as 30 or more wins or losses to the team's total in a single day. My brother and I had been hired to be two of these computer "players."
However, I had absolutely no idea how this job worked, and no-one would tell me anything about it. I couldn't find my brother to ask him about it, the actual baseball players acted as if they had nothing but disdain for me and my job (which I could actually understand), and the other computer "players" whom I could find seemed to have their own nerdy club of which I was not a member (and which didn't look like a club I'd want to join either).
And then I woke up.
I've frequently had dreams like the first part, where I'm stuck inside a mall or some other large building and can't find my way out.
Last night, as usual in these dreams, I kept going around and around the whole huge building, and somehow kept coming around to the same exit, which in some of these dreams just leads to more buildings, and in this dream, where the exit was in Sears, led outside, but it was too dark outside to see, and I wasn't going to go stumbling around in the dark, hoping to eventually come across some sort of light. So I went off looking for another exit.
I had a sweater on over my shirt, and I was too warm, so I took off the sweater and folded it and put it on a stack of sweaters in a store. And then I kept on marching around and around the huge mall, feeling as if I would never find my way out. In last night's dream, a big crowd of other people was having exactly the same problem. We were getting more and more upset, because no-one who worked at the mall would help us.
But apparently I eventually made it outside, because suddenly my brother and I were outside, walking on a sidewalk on a busy city street, coming over the top of a hill. Below us a bridge crossed the road. I told my brother that we could go to the left, crossing the bridge, and head to an area with lots of art galleries, or --
and before I could say anything else my brother was already turning to the right, heading to the stadium where the San Francisco Giants played major league baseball.
And before I knew it, my brother and I had both been hired and were on the Giants' roster.
In the dream, as in real life, it had been guite a few years since I had payed close attention to major league baseball. I didn't know whether or not the Giants were having a good season. I got ahold of a newspaper and looked at the sports section, and it turned out that the Giants had played 6 games the day before, and had won 5 of them, and that this had been the final day of the season, and the Giants had managed to pull themselves up out of last place. Then I saw that it was February. I had been used to baseball season starting in April and ending in October, but now, it seemed, the baseball season ended in February, and the next one started later on in February. There were about as many games per season as before, though, so the players got about as much time off per year as before, they just didn't get it all at once.
Then came some changes which I didn't understand at all: now, not all of the wins and losses were decided by actually playing baseball. Some of the players on the roster, although they wore the same baseball uniforms as the regular players, did not play baseball, but instead performed some sort of work at computer terminals, and depending on how well or poorly they did, the team would get more wins or losses. We computer "players" could add as many as 30 or more wins or losses to the team's total in a single day. My brother and I had been hired to be two of these computer "players."
However, I had absolutely no idea how this job worked, and no-one would tell me anything about it. I couldn't find my brother to ask him about it, the actual baseball players acted as if they had nothing but disdain for me and my job (which I could actually understand), and the other computer "players" whom I could find seemed to have their own nerdy club of which I was not a member (and which didn't look like a club I'd want to join either).
And then I woke up.
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