LEISURELY THOUGHTS
from Howard
21 April 2003. The first four months of every year are my busiest. This year, as my work load is diminishing to something sort of reasonable, we are in the process of moving my firm's offices from downtown St. Paul to the Minneapolis riverfront (overlooking the Mississippi), so serious leisure time hasn't happened yet. No out-of-town vacations for Jerry and me. I haven't finished a book in more than a month. Haven't seen a movie since my Oscar rush in March.
So it's time to change all that. Spring has almost sprung here in Minnesota. I'm going to buy a new bicycle and hit the bike paths, visit the coffee shop, and go see Bend It Like Beckham. And, oh yes, where are those books I started a month ago?
Maybe it's not fun spring stuff, and I didn't particularly plan it this way, but I happen to be reading two novels about political suppression. The first is I Married A Communist, a 1998 Philip Roth novel about the blacklisting and Red-scare of the McCarthyism of the late 1940s and early 1950s. The other is a book I am reading for two reasons. In these dark political days, we often hear the term "Orwellian" used when certain current government policies turn more irrational and repressive, and I need to be more in tune with what the "Orwellian" reference means, so I am reading that 20th century classic, 1984. Another reason to read a George Orwell novel this year: 25 June 2003 marks the 100th anniversary of George Orwell's birth. Some Orwell trivia for you -- George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair, who was born in Matihari, India. He died 21 January 1950.
08 April 2003. Okay. I tried really hard to not say any more about the war. But how can I ignore the members of the U.S. news media that are clearly enjoying this war a little too much? I'm not sure when news reporting became blatant propaganda. Consider: the breathless over-reporting of bombings (which show very well on TV screens), the impatience with lulls in the action, the downplaying of innocent casualties, the simplistic attempts to glamorize and legitimize military solutions. Never is there any thoughtful analysis of the morality of what we are doing there or even a questioning, skeptical attitude. I wonder if this is what state-controlled TV feels like.
And what is this "support the troops" rationale as a means of deflecting anti-war criticism? Unlike bush, cheney, rumsfeld, and most of the rest of the current administration sending other people's kids off to fight under deplorable conditions, I am a former "troop". I was drafted into the Army in April 1968, at the height of the Vietnam conflict, at a point when something like five hundred Americans a week were dying in Vietnam. And most of the people that I served with were not feeling betrayed by anti-war protestors; instead, they were angry at the weak-kneed politicians and the soul-deficient corporate stooges who had purposely misled the U.S. population into thinking that Vietnam was a threat to our way of life. The way to support the troops is to bring them home alive and well and with clear consciences -- and soon. And, the next time, to not send them at all.
23 March 2003. Some people think tonight's Academy Awards program should be postponed because of the "war". I disagree, of course. If people need another evening of watching bombs exploding and generals expounding, let them switch back to CNN. After all, "film is the international language", and international languages promote peace and understanding. Besides, I am pulling for Bowling for Columbine to win Best Documentary, and I want to hear Michael Moore's (author of Stupid White Men) acceptance speech!
If you have been reading my "thoughts" for a while or if you scroll back to 23 March 2002, you might know that I get together with my sister Joan every year to watch the Oscars (and make sarcastic remarks) and that my choices always lose. So, not that I want to jinx anybody, here are my picks of this year's Oscar nominees:
These are the nominees for Best Picture: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Gangs of New York, The Pianist, Chicago, and The Hours. Well, I think that Chicago will sweep most of the awards, and, I don't know, maybe it deserves them. I was very prepared for The Hours, having first read the novel by Michael Cunningham and even Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and it is a good but not outstanding movie. Gangs of New York was an impressive film but too hard to follow and too unnecessarily violent. And I'm just not a Lord of the Rings person. My favorite of the nominated films is undoubtedly The Pianist, Roman Polanski's masterpiece about a man who survived the Warsaw Ghetto. It has practically zero chance of winning.
My pick for Best Actor is Michael Caine for The Quiet American, an excellent film (based on the Graham Greene novel) that should have been nominated for Best Picture. I choose Nicole Kidman as Best Actress, playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours, and Roman Polanski as Best Director for The Pianist. And, even though Adaptation is the only one of the major nominated films that I haven't seen yet, I am hoping that Meryl Streep wins as Best Supporting Actress because it has been too long since she has won, and, let's face it, she is the best. Enjoy the show if you watch it.
[Later note: Wow, I did better than usual! Congratulations to Roman Polanski, Nicole Kidman, and the rest of the winners. And, Michael Moore, what can I say?.. :-) ]
22 March 2003. My friend Elke in Germany ("German Mama") and I have been emailing each other our thoughts, mostly our outrage, on the "war" ("massacre"?) the last few days. What appalls me most is the "war as entertainment" attitude of the news media and the eagerness of the U.S. population to huddle around TVs showing bombs destroying Iraq and killing people. The newest "reality TV" show, I guess. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the news media has been so uncritical of our accidental president and his right-wing advisors during all these months leading up to the fighting: war is a much bigger story than peace is. We are invading a weakened country that has a military budget that is about one percent of ours, and people are cheering wildly and mindlessly waving flags like there is a real contest going on. I will never understand.
Elke, in her email to me today, has some interesting thoughts connecting our frustration with the U.S. news media to an underlying theme of this web site's originating reason-for-being, John Irving's The Fourth Hand. Click here to read her letter.
14 March 2003. We had a great time in California last weekend. The temperatures were about 50 degrees (F) warmer in San Diego than they were back here in Minnesota last weekend, so it was a good break from frigid, snowy weather. We also drove over to Palm Springs (one of my favorite places anywhere) for a day, where it was even twenty degrees warmer than San Diego, and were able to spend a day by the pool in the desert sun. Then back to reality, if that's what this is.
I read a book last week that I recommend highly -- The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander. This is a new "novel of the last tsar", a fictionalized version of the last days of Nicholas and Alexandra, from of the point of view of their "kitchen boy". If you have an interest in stories relating to the Russian Revolution as I do, you will find this book very readable and hard to put down.
Robert Alexander is a pen name for mystery writer R.D. Zimmerman, who happens to live here in Minneapolis. I have never read any of his mysteries, but I can see the mystery-writer coming through this novel. And what story has more mystery over the past decades than the massacre of the Romanovs? We went to see and hear Mr. Alexander/Zimmerman being interviewed Wednesday night about The Kitchen Boy for public radio. It is obvious that he has researched his topic very thoroughly, which makes his story all the more compelling.
One more thing about The Kitchen Boy: there is a promotional web site that I find to be irresistible (Is this is a trend for new book releases?). Try it (make sure the sound on your computer is turned on) by clicking here: www.thekitchenboy.com.
28 February 2003. This is my busy time of year at work, and I don't have a whole lot of spare time. I usually tend to read relatively lighter works in the first months of a year since my brain is too full of work-stuff to handle anything too heavy. It wouldn't be a good time to re-tackle Ulysses. But, as I look over this year's list so far, it's not nearly as light as usual. Nothing with any action at all. In fact, two books that I was reading simultaneously, Seek My Face by John Updike and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, didn't even have chapters! (Very irritating! When you write your book, please put chapters in it!)
So, perhaps to make up for that strain on my brain cells, I am now reading a totally frivolous but fascinating (at least to me) celebrity biography from 1989, He's A Rebel: Phil Spector -- Rock and Roll's Legendary Producer by Mark Ribowsky. Phil Spector, the nut-case 1960s record producer, is recently back in the news because he is accused of murdering a woman in Los Angeles last month. The Spector pop record productions were some of my favorite songs of my youth, and I can relate to every song that the book is describing along with the madness of each song's creation. You would know some of them too (some of his musical groups were the Ronettes, the Crystals, and the Righteous Brothers), but this book is definitely for someone who is a fan of the music of the era.
The more serious side of my musical experience at that age came back to me last week when I read in my on-line hometown newspaper that my piano teacher, Mrs. Ferguson, had died at age 85. Even though I hadn't seen her in at least 30 years, I felt very sad. I treasure my piano and am grateful for a lifetime of knowing how to play. As an instructor, she was the best.
Next week, to briefly escape our Minnesota winter and the busyness of our lives, Jerry and I are going to spend a weekend in San Diego, California, where I'm hoping the sun will be shining warmly.
19 February 2003. I received this e-mail yesterday from Spain:
"Dear Howard,
I write from Barcelona and at present I'm reading The Fourth Hand which is very profitable for my English language knowledge and delightful for myself.
With reference to your thought on 15 February, I'd just like to tell you that on Saturday 15 February I also marched for peace/No War together with 1,300,000 people (Yes, 1.3 Million in Barcelona and one million people in Madrid). And I'm very glad and proud to learn that in this world there are lots of HUMAN pacifist people, no matter they are American, Spanish or from Irak.
From Europe with love and peace,
Montse
NO WAR!"
15 February 2003. Please allow me another political moment. On this day when millions of people around the world are once again marching for peace, I must say how proud I am of the people who do this. I myself marched with a large number today in Minneapolis, probably 10,000 marchers in all, on this very cold day when people could have easily stayed home and watched some mind-numbing TV instead. These are people who passionately care what happens to the world, what the world thinks of Americans, what will happen to the next generation. How wonderful to think of a million people marching against war in London today! I'm proud of all of them, am proud of "Old Europe" (Vive la France!) and of everyone else who knows that war is an absolute last resort: if not for these millions of voices of reason, in a world where weapons today have such tremendous destructive power, where does civilization go from here?
30 January 2003. Occasionally, I hear from Mark, a nice guy who hosts the web site www.johnirving.com. Mark lives in eastern Canada (where, he tells me, the temperatures have been minus 25 ° C for a week) and has good intentions of someday building and expanding that web site, but he never seems to get around to it. Let's face it: web sites are a lot of work and can take a lot of time. But, just by virtue of having the "johnirving" name, he gets attention from web surfers, and in his most recent email he told me about some of the more bizarre aspects of that attention: "johnirving.com - it's like a magnet for everyone and anyone wanting to 'bear' their soul :) . I've had messages from Russian wrestlers wanting to challenge John Irving, NYSE stockbrokers having affairs with co-workers looking for autographed copies of books they share with their lover, people on the verge of suicide, religious fanatics, anarchists, people who love bears and even a 'whiff of rumor' that John Irving is not pleased I've put up a partial and positive review of a book by his arch enemy Tom Wolfe (they hate each other with a passion)".
And, since Mark isn't reading Tom Wolfe right now, I'll tell you what he is reading: Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson, a history of the U.S. Civil War. Says Mark: "second round of watching Ken Burns' Civil War series compelled me to do it :) - and now I can't put it down, just turning page ' 900 and something'... It's a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of my favorite non fiction reads to date".
Thanks, Mark!
18 January 2003. Today is a day of anti-war protests in this country, most notably in Washington, DC, and San Francisco, and also around the world. If I could have been in DC to march, I would have been.
Instead, we do what we can. Last night, Jerry and I, along with our friend Tomoko who was visiting from Seattle, attended an anti-war candlelight vigil held at Lake Harriet in south Minneapolis. Several hundred people, or more, showed up in very cold weather to encircle the lake with candles and lanterns and flashlights to make a statement for peace. How terrible it is that most of the world right now thinks that the U.S. image represents war and destruction. The people in my neighborhood, the people around me, are appalled by the current oil man aggressor policies. I'm hoping that more of those people get out of their chairs and express their outrage publicly before it is too late.
At the vigil, I was interviewed on camera by one of the local TV news programs, asking why we were there and what was going on. It was sort of amusing to see myself on the news, with a caption showing my name and the description of me as "Anti-War Protestor" (Is that even a correct term? Shouldn't it be "War Protestor"?). I did note, however, that the news coverage also stressed the fact that we protestors are the minority, that the majority of U.S. citizens being polled support a bush attack on Iraq. How sad -- and inexplicable -- that is.
Yesterday was definitely our "media day". Besides my TV interview, Jerry had a letter to the editor published in the local "alternative news" weekly newspaper, City Pages, in which he attacked bush policies on the domestic level. So watch out, bush-cheney-ashcroft-rumsfeld: you have us stirred up.
11 January 2003. Here's hoping that 2003 is off to a good start for all the needahand.com readers. May you find lots of good books to read and fun things to do this year, and may you share some of them with us.
Some responses to my "what was the best book you read in 2002?" question:
- My brother Ronnie: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (yes!).
- Co-worker, Todd: A Painted House by John Grisham.
- My brother-in-law Dave: Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides.
- My "sister-in-law" Betty: Couldn't decide on one title but said it had to be something by Janet Evanovich.
- Friend, Paul: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.
- Co-worker, Theresa: The Veritas Conflict by Shaunti Feldhahn.
- Friend, Jen: Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley & Ron Powers and A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (yes!).
And then there is our morning "coffeeshop group" that hang out at Taraccino Coffee, on East Hennepin Avenue here in Minneapolis. Here are the favorites they picked:
- Janet: The Ash Garden by Dennis Bock; The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos; The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture.
- Gail: PrairyErth by William Least Heat-Moon; The Amazing Adventures of Kovalier and Clay by Michael Chabon; Eccentric Islands by Bill Holm.
- Stuart: What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis.
- Sylvia: A Place Where the Sea Remembers by Sondra Benitez.
And what are they reading in East Frisia, you might be wondering? My friend Elke on the German North Sea has sent me a list of the books she read this past year, which I share with you... click here for Elke's Bücherliste 2002. You may notice some overlapping between her 2002 list and mine. It is good to see that, even with an ocean and first-language barriers between us, that we have been influenced by each other's reading choices and by other needahand.com readers.
Click here for LEISURELY THOUGHTS, December 2002 backwards to September 2002
Click here for LEISURELY THOUGHTS, August 2002 backwards to May 2002
Click here for LEISURELY THOUGHTS, April 2002 backwards to January 2002
Click here for LEISURELY THOUGHTS, December 2001 backwards to September 2001