Tradition And The Individual Talent

      Van Morrison will be sixty later this year, a somewhat surprising fact given that The Man-- a moniker given to him by Robbie Robertson during The Last Waltz concert lo those many moons ago-- has continued to produce albums with astonishing regularity.   It has become old hat, though, for critics and listeners to sigh that a new Morrison album will never match up to his early classics like Astral Weeks and Moondance and Into the Music.   Every now and again, over the past twenty-plus years, a new album seems to make people prick up their ears, the Old Fart seeming to sound again like his former self, but the album fades into the larger oeuvre that is Morrison's canon and becomes just another Van record, one of the nearly forty solo albums produced over a career of about as many years.   That Morrison's oeuvre is broad hardly seems to warrant mention: from Irish traditionals to twelve-bar blues, from light jazz to country, from New Agey instumentals to deep and dirty funk, he, like his musical forefather Ray Charles, seems to subsume other genres into another genre entirely, one that is his and his alone.   His versatility is his trademark, so much so that one almost fails to notice how much territory he covers at any given time, especially given that in recent years Morrison has been making music that is defiantly anti-innovation.   It's as if he has decided he has nothing to learn from the present, and he's been learning more and more from the past, digging particularly in recent years into the music of the past to learn from it.   Picture, if you dare, the Belfast Cowboy covering Eminem's "Ass Like That."   It's an absurdity not even the snarkiest nihilist could suffer.

      But even if Morrison can seem staid, he still has a few surprises up his sleeve after all these years, and one of those surprises on Morrison's latest album Magic Time comes right at its end, when, after "Carry On Regardless" has found its way through its coda, The Man -- wait for it-- yodels.   He then laughs, and chuckles that he was "having too much fun," a sentiment one hardly expects a crank like Van to admit.   But Morrison yodelling is much like Leonard Cohen reaching high C, and almost as absurd as that atrocious concept of him singing Eminem.   It's a strangely comic ending to an album that otherwise seems typical Van, with so many of the songs seeming to fit into that very personal oeuvre of his, and the lyrics so often recalling-- to the point of plagiarism-- previous songs.   Once again, the lyrics are the album's weak link, though they are at least not as patently bad as some of those that appeared on The Healing Game.   It's hard to believe that the same man that could ask, almost forty years ago, if he "could venture in the slipstream, / between the viaducts of your dreams" would now settle for mediocre lyrics like "You gotta fight everyday to keep mediocrity at bay."   One hopes for better, especially from a man capable, at least in the past, of lyrics as evocative as those of Dylan or Cohen.   Or, perhaps, as he intoned on "Songwriter" on the Days Like This album, ten years ago, he has cleaned up his diction and discovered he has nothing else to say.   Shame, that, especially when the feeling one gets as a result is a sense of a man spinning his wheels.

      But if Van the lyricist is caught in a rut, Van the singer and arranger is as strong as ever, his voice on this album as fine as it has ever been, majestically saxophonic and still one of the few wonders of modern music.   It's an old saw that Morrison could read the telephone book and make it seem powerful, but it's no less true for being an old saw: the man has got pipes, and he continues to have the best sense of phrasing since Brother Ray and Aretha Franklin.   In fact, it's clear at certain points on the album how much he's adapting the styles of Mr. Charles and Frank Sinatra, covering Sinatra's "This Love of Mine," and inflecting the subversively-bucolic "The Lion This Time" with more than a few suggestions of Charles' version of "I Can't Stop Loving You."    And on songs like "Evening Train" and "Carry On Regardless," his voice jumps and jaunts with a frisky acrobaticity that's impressive without being flamboyant.   Whatever else, Morrison still possesses something most popular musicians never have, a genuine sense of gravitas that helps to make those attempts at soaring seem so much more effective.   When he reaches for those romantic moments-- as he does on "Celtic New Year" and the album's title track-- his modulations are as crisp as kisses in winter, and only the stoniest of listeners will not perceive their beauty.   In fact, "Celtic New Year," for its stodgy title and lyrics, is also the album's strongest song, largely because it's rendered as effectively as any of the best Van Morrison song-seductions, with Van proving yet again that he knows more about repetition than Kierkegaard ever imagined, with Paddy Moloney (of The Chieftains) raising the stakes with lovely whistle work in the background.

      Magic Time, more even than most of Morrison's recent efforts, is a textured album, and in this way it is Morrison's most lush album since 1990's magnificent Enlightenment.   (Trust me on this one: listen to either this album or Enlightenment on a loud volume to appreciate the subtleties.)   And there are lots of grooves here, even if none of them will make radio play in North America, with "Gypsy In My Soul" and "Stranded" working especially well, the former especially due to the late Foggy Lyttle's guitar work.   "Just Like Greta" works better, too, than one might expect, given its trite lines about wanting to be alone: once Van gathers full-steam, the song proves its value, especially as the Wired Strings are left to do their work.   The irony is that as much as this album has a grumbly side to it (i.e., Van bitching, yet again, about being him), this is a remarkably affirmative album, and as embracing and rollicking as anything he has done in the better part of a decade.   The best songs on the album-- "Celtic New Year," "Gypsy In My Soul," "The Lion This Time," and (surprisingly enough) the cantankerous "They Sold Me Out"-- are probably going to be minor classics in the same ways that "Someone Like You," "Have I Told You Lately" and "Real Real Gone" have already become, and I can already imagine Rod Stewart co-opting "Magic Time" for a desperate single a few years from now.  

      In writing this entry, I'm reminded all too well why with certain artists (poets, musicians, whatever), we attend upon their new releases as documents the value of which we'll not be able to judge accurately for some time.   This is one of those albums, faulty as it may sometimes seem, whose virtues will probably be discovered with time and rediscovery.   It is, however, an album that has, if you'll pardon the mixing of the metaphors, gold in them thar hills.   What it lacks in genius it finds in traditional inspiration, and perhaps it is a testament to Morrison's individual talent that he has created yet another album that will likely only find its true audience with years and probably decades.   They said that about Astral Weeks, too, Morrison's album that is still regularly held up with (and often above) any albums by Bob Dylan and the Beatles as one of the best rock albums of all time, though its proximity to rock is roughly that of a sea anemone to a porn film.   This, however, is a wonderful and remarkably satisfying album, more to be understood when we grasp better the elusive beauty that comes from a truly individual talent studying tradition-- and having fun with it.   Yodel-ay-he-hoo.

Non Confidence

      Unsurprising, to me at least, the best writing I've read on the French rejection of the EU Constitution comes from my old friend RK, whose blog entry on the subject is better than most articles from the punditocracy would be.   Essential reading, as it were.

      And, on the subject of constitutions, I am so glad, as a citizen of Canuckistan, that for once Canada is not niggling over its own constitutional matters.   In Canada, the c-word isn't "cunt," or even "cocksucker."   It's "constitution."   Most of us in these climes would rather have broken beer bottles inserted into our recta than dredge such matters back into civil discourse.   Canada, a country that touches its constitution with the same regularity, guilt, and trepidation of a four year-old discovering his equipment's working, tends very nastily to keep reaching for itself, even when it should know better.   The four year-old at least has an excuse.

      BTW, for those of you that had not heard, there's a new PM in France as a result of the Non vote.   You see, here, in Canada, when the government loses a vote-- or even a series of them-- it remains in power, and no one faces the guillotine, despite the whinges and whines of Andy Coyne and the National American Post. This blog is shocked-- shocked-- to discover there's no such thing as accountability in this establishment.

      And where, oh where, is Claude Rains when we need him?   Sorry, being dead is no exucse.

It's Alive, It's Alive!!!!!!

      Well, it seems the prodigal Doc is back, after a week's worth of meatball surgery on his computers, all of it devoted to trying to cannibalize one working computer from the parts of three.   One, finally, is now alive, he says resisting the temptation to do an impression of Colin Clive.   Now the question remains, whether or not I can manage to get a second computer out of the remaining bits to spring monstrously to life.   We shall see.   It's probably a damned good thing that the warranties on all of the machines have long-since expired, else they'd have been rendered invalid by the various tinkerings I've been having to do, tinkerings, by the way, that have necessitated reinstalling just about everything including the ever-exasperating Windows.   But, mercifully, I now have internet access again, and so I should be able to get caught up on the backlog of emails, and maybe even update this poor, neglected blog.   Maybe.

      (Note to self:   Just because you can open up a computer and play with its naughty bits does not mean you should, you bloody dunderhead.   Next time, save yourself the frustration and just let some technogeek do it.)

      So, Dr J, what's on the docket to get done for this blog?   Hmmm.   Beyond the normal trivialities and explanations, there's the long-delayed third edition of the Heaven Admissions Test, a now-anachronistic discussion of The Revenge of the Sith, an entry on the newest Van Morrison album Magic Time, and some loose notes and oddities that have been gathering like scurf on an old man's lapel.   Too much to do, too little energy to get it done.   Call me Dr Frankenstein with a deadline.   Argh.

Wish I Were Here

Well, everyone, it looks like the Good Doctor is for the next little bit fucked. Today, my only fully-functional computer went kerblooey, so access to all things cyber (email, this blog, the Net) will be severely limited, and most of the time non-existent. I have no idea how long will take to get everything working again, so I have to ask for everyone's patience for a while, particularly if you're sending emails and awaiting some sort of response. Even to write this, I'm having to use my aunt's computer, at whose whom I am now for a birthday party for my two little cousins. So, who knows when things will return to normal, so please bear with me. Grrr, arrrgh, and sigh. I never remember my old typewriters deciding to crash on me.... Simpler days, simpler days....

Vengeance Is Mine, S(a)ith The Lord

      Shortly:   Saw Revenge of the Sith tonight, and will offer a more substantial assessment of it tomorrow (later today?) when I'm feeling less like a mouse that's been swatted about by a rambunctious cat.   Unfortunately, the comparative immediacy of that writing will delay the third edition of the HAT by a day or two more, providing any of you care.   The Force does not always have profound effects on the weak-minded.

      Marginal note: spent Thursday in a minor rack, trudging through a four-hour (plus) departmental grades meeting at Pork Spew, and doing so on no sleep.   (Don't ask.)   Argh.   Still haven't even picked up the new Van Morrison album, which is further proof that important things always happen at once-- and when I'm still waiting (grumble, grumble) to be paid by my concrete arsehole of an institution.   (Where the official credo is: We'll pay you when we're good and fucking ready.   Or, alternately, Bills, bills, yoou don't have no stinkin' bills!)

      By the way, as for that meeting, all that time just to read what was already on paper, and to change only one mark (slightly, and to this student's benefit).   Am reminded all too well of Jackie Gleason's notorious assertion that he was a drunkard and not an alcoholic, because, after all, drunkards don't like to go to meetings.

      More tomorrow.   Er, or later today.   Or, like my instimahtution, whenever I'm damned good and fucking ready.

"Break Me A Fucking Give"

      It seems Anthony Lane at The New Yorker is in a catty mood, viciously but hilariously clawing at The Revenge of the Sith in his latest review.   How catty is it?   Some evidence:

What can you say about a civilization where people zip from one solar system to the next as if they were changing their socks but where a woman fails to register for an ultrasound, and thus to realize that she is carrying twins until she is about to give birth? Mind you, how Padmé got pregnant is anybody's guess, although I'm prepared to wager that it involved Anakin nipping into a broom closet with a warm glass jar and a copy of Ewok Babes.

The general opinion of Revenge of the Sith seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

Most devastating is Lane's assault on Yoda, which has to be read to be disbelieved.   Very, very funny, but clearly Lucas tapped into Lane's inner bitch.   All Lane's missing is the entourage hooting, "You go, girl!"

      In a word, Meow!

See also this:

About Face

      And Mr. Harper wonders why no one, or no one of sane political thinking, trusts him. (After all, this wasn't a power-grab....)

Truth In Advertising?

Yes, my people, you too can be Liberal with the truth. Shame I haven't found a Harper one yet. (Or a Layton, or a Duceppe....)

Holy Shit....

      Will this save the Prime Minister's bacon?   By my count, this brings the vote tally for Thursday's budget vote to this:

152:   Tories and Blockers
151:   Libbers and Dippers
1:   Carolyn Parrish, Independent, to vote with the Libber-Dippers
2:   Cadman and Kilgour, Independents whose votes are still undecided

Translation: it's now a dead heat, and given the intense volatilty of the electorate, this may be little more than a means of stepping back from the precipice of a non-confidence stand-off.   It's surely a body-blow to Mr. Harper-- and, ironically enough, to the NDP, who can no longer be seen as supporting the government while waiting patiently for its demise.   But I think it's quite possible we've now forestalled an election, and Mr. Martin may just have bought himself a few more months in government, and that plopping sound you just heard in the background was the sound of Andrew Coyne shitting himself.

      This truly is the House of the (Very , Very) Long Knives....

      UPDATE:   Mr. Harper's press conference, going on as I write this, sounds almost like a concession of defeat.   I wonder if he knows more about the Cadman and Kilgour votes than the rest of us do.   Or, perhaps, that he's suspecting a few of his own members-- from Atlantic Canada?-- are waffling in their support.   I have to say, Stevie came across very poorly in his conference, like a child that had his allowance taken away, just when he knew what he was going to spend it on.

      Key quote from the Harper: "There's no grand principles in this decision, just ambition."   Sorry, Mr. Harper, says I: that should be, "There are no grand principles in this decision."  

      UPPERDATE:   I guess this means Lucienne Robillard is out of cabinet? How wise a move is this, dumping a Quebecois member from cabinet with separatist sentiment as strong as it is right now? We shall see.

Unpopular Mechanics

      After reading this galling article from the Telegraph last evening, I had planned to issue a little rant that probably would have sounded rather like one of Chicken Little's plaintive cries, but I got lazy and shrugged it off, as lazy shruggers like me are wont to do.   This morning, though, I see RK has done my work for me, moreorless saying everything I had planned to say, but certainly more eloquently and more succinctly than I would have.   It's all gold, people, and to which I would only add this, that I find distressing the implicit disrespect for language and its basic demands.   This disrespect is nothing new, but in the wake of phonics and the internet culture, this disrespect is reaching critical mass, in part because those that should be protecting language most forcefully-- particularly those of us that teach it-- are so Dionysaically permissive that it's little wonder how besotten matters have become.   The more we coddle such sloppiness, stroking its maturing head and palliatively saying that everything is okay, the more we encourage imprecision and carelessness of both language and thought.   Language is the only technology-- which is what it is, after all, a skill which we use to deal with and to treat knowledge-- we treat with such abandon, and we do so at our peril.  

My Penis Is Studious And Majestic

      Sorry if I gave anyone a terrifying image with that title (you may now collect yourselves from your respective floors), but read this article and you'll see why I used it-- other than the obvious reason, that it was just too damned good to resist.  

      (Gee, this blog would nehhhhhh-ver, ever, have guessed that there were double standards at universities.   Not for a second.)

Welcome To Texas

      It's enough to make a grown man cry.

Around Here, From Now On, We'll Call Him Mister Ed....

      I can't believe it: there's a flicker of class in this farce of a parliament?   It figures it would be someone like Broadbent lighting that candle.

      On the more strictly political side, this is an ingenious move by Broadbent.   In addition to being a noble gesture, it stanches the putrid Conservative argument about preying upon ill MPs, and it keeps the Liberals upon the razor's edge, the opportunism of the situation no longer strictly to anyone's advantage.   Well, not quite.   This example also serves as a demonstration that things could have been done civilly in this parliament, and it may reinforce the current perception in the general population that only the NDP is trying to make parliament work as it should. This could be the pre-election coup de grace, because for the first time since Mr. Broadbent was leader, the NDP could truly end up spoiling a lot of ridings for both the Tories and Liberals, and both of those parties seem to be genuinely worried about the perception of the NDP when both primary parties are looking self-interested rather than sincerely-motivated.   Broadbent's gesture may help to swing a surprising amount of public opinion toward the Dippers, which could prove truly problematic, especially in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and the Atlantic provinces.   In other words, Ed's gesture-- informally accepted by Mr. Harper, especially since it would be churlish and indefensible for him to refuse it-- may have transformed the nature of the election that's coming by demonstrating that there is still room for the high road in Canucki politics.   The dynamics of this whole ridiculous, and intellectually-insulting, race to the polls may have just changed dramatically, indignant shouting no longer being adequate on its own.  

      Broadbent, with perfect civility, threw down the gauntlet.   Good on him, and it may be this gesture that determines the fate of the Commons in a couple of months, especially given the current "a pox on all your houses" mentality currently ripe within the electorate.   Boys and girls, this just went from being asinine to interesting.   Let's see if any of the other players meet Mr. Broadbent's parting challenge.

Abemus Hop, Mmmm......

      And right now, the makers of B&B are kicking themselves.... (With all due apologies for the title of this entry, but it was-- as so many of those horrible puns are-- simply irresistible.)

Columns and Layers

      Only in British Columbia....   

      And if you don't like your politicians coming from that, er, end of the spectrum, you might want to check out the recent passings of Mr. Floatie, pictured at right.   Again, only in British Columbia....

      See also this article, which contains the surely accidental pun, "POOP is pushing for primary treatment in Victoria" (emphasis added).   Since when does the poop do the pushing?   (Unless, of course, one is--- well, er, never mind....)   Another key quote: "A few people dont want to hug it."   You don't say....

"You Tried, Young, Hot, Obi-Wan. You Tried."

      Reading this article from MSNBC's Mary Beth Ellis, the Not-So-Good Doctor nearly sent coffee through his nose and all over his computer screen. Check it out, though I recommend doing so without imbibement. This blog's favourite bit: "The man has consistency, if not a thesaurus." How appropriate....

      (I swear, for the life of me, I'll never understand the swooning-fandom that ends up being lavished upon Kenobis and Aragorns and Legolases-- or would that be Legolae? Then again, considering I've been likened-- by a few people blind and too generous by half-- to both Ewan McGregor and Viggo Mortensen, I should probably just shut the fark up, shouldn't I? ·)

Shell's Bells

      Key quote: "I assume they poked and prodded it and sniffed it to work it out."   Sniffed it!?!?!   (How Zealous!)

Currying Favour?

      Just in case you were worried about your Cock paste....  

Martin, Shaken Not Stirred

      Oh, Canuckistani politics, so niggling, so odd, as a government is defeated but not, so long as it can forestall the inevitable. (Check out Paul Wells' latest column on the current state of Canpolitik in Macleans, which begins with the lovely assessment, "Probably it was too much to hope, as Canada's national political leaders left for a trip to commemorate the 60th anniversary of victory in the Netherlands, that the Dutch would simply keep them. No, that good country has already suffered enough." How true.)   Loathe as I am, though, to call upon polling data, the latest numbers from CTV/Grope and Flail are truly bizarre, with PM PM taking a major hit on his credibility, and even "we-think-we're-good-people-so-we-vote-Liberal" Ontario seeming to pull back from its pretensions of political niceness. Perhaps the most interesting factoid of all?   The numbers from Quebec, where the Liberals are leading the NDP-- the N. D. P., for Chrissake-- by a mere five points, the NDP being the only party that in its entire history has only ever won ONE seat there. And the Tories are below them.   These are interesting numbers, indeed, and one has to wonder about the wisdom of the Tories forcing an election, or the capacity for the Liberals even to fight one.   One begins to wonder, too, if, somewhere in the lands of Mordor, there's one ring to rule them all.

Victory Is Mine

      Given the debate RK and I had on the virtues of older and younger women, RK sent the images above conceding defeat.   My lord, what a stunningly beautiful woman-- and has been for decades-- and of the few truly classical beauties for the ages. Hard to believe she's 47 now. She makes one remember why Romantics swooned so much.  

Verbatim

Q:   Gee, [Doctor J], you don't believe in you at all, do you?

A: Never ask pointless questions.

Life In The Fast Lane

      Anthony Lane's current reviews of Kingdom of Heaven and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in The New Yorker are typically witty takes, and the feature some choice bits of fine Lanery. Among the finer cuts:

• Re Kingdom of Heaven: "Having barely studied the period, I hadn’t realized that twelfth-century nobles favored the rhetoric of a miked-up Tony Robbins."
  
  
• Re Hitchhiker: "It was inevitable that “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” would become a film, because it was running out of other things to be."

Unfortunately, Lane doesn't discuss the films in as much detail as one would like, but the reviews are further reminders why he's one of the few reviewers still worth reading these days, even if he photographs like Niles Crane on a prissy day.

How Schmaltzy Was His Worst

      With Mother's Day coming-- and arriving today-- Emule earlier this week sent out to its readership the following poem from Wendell Berry.   Like all relatively-dutiful sons, I'm always on the lookout for stuff Mom might like, but this poem is so wretched it deserves quoting here just for its unbearable badness. Yes, it's so bad on so many levels, one hardly knows where to begin identifying them, or even if one should bother to do so, the clutch of sentimentality so strong one wonders if the poor man even had a choice in putting the words together.   (He says, all-too-aware of that clutch's irresistible and lung-crushing power.)   But, here it is, for those of you desperately looking for something-- anything-- to write in your cards today.  

To My Mother

I was your rebellious son,
Do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
So complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
Precede my wrong, and I erred,
Safe found, within your love

Prepared ahead of me, the way home,
Or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
Foresaw the worst that I might do,

And forgave before I could act,
Causing me to smile now, looking back,
To see how paltry was my worst,
Compared to your forgiveness of it

Already given. And this, then,
Is the vision of that Heaven of which
We have heard, where those who love
Each other have forgiven each other,

Where, for that, the leaves are green,
The light a music in the air,
And all is unentangled,
And all is undismayed.

--- Wendell Berry

(Gee, that prodigal really is obsessed with forgiveness, isn't he?)

      Anyway, to mothers everywhere-- and for once, I'm using the "m" word according to its original intention-- have a good day, which, hopefully for you, means not having to read poetry like this.

Consider It A Warning

      See if you can figure out what this means:



      It's coming, the third edition, and coming very soon (according to Him, "New Pope, new exam, but it's been delayed in committee, as usual").   Worse, it seems the Big Guy thinks he's funny this time: "I figured I'd go for the HATrick."  

      (Those of you uncertain about the Third Coming might want to glance about the "More Significant Links Within" part of this blog.)

"I Love My Wife"

      I can't even begin to count how many times I've been in this position over the years....  

And People Say I'm A Hard Marker

      There's nothing like a liberal education.

Out Of Control!

      Oh, the trials of the dispossessed....

The Atkins Diet

      Forgive me in advance, but this story reminds me of the old joke, "What do you get an old woman for her birthday?"   Answer: "Mikey, he'll eat anything."   (Those of you too young to remember those commercials will be utterly lost, which is probably just about all of ye.)   At the very least, I'm sure this story will console a lot of young, drooling females, who can now rest assured that there may yet be hope for them; in forty or fifty years.

      (RK: Shades of "John Who Can't?" **shudder**   )

      Key words: "I spent two and a half hours saying No."   Just like anyone that saw Alexander.

Because Every Now And Again This Blog Feels It Needs To Perform A Public Service

      Here you go.

      This blog is now high on its own sense of civic responsibility.

      FOLLOW-UP:   For those with particularly serious conditions....   Honey and oats?!?

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This...

      Kevin Smith has posted on his website a brief early review of Revenge of the Sith, and it's a RAVE.   I'm almost afraid-- after the first two prequels failing so badly-- to believe reviews, which, pretty much across the board (see this one from The Telegraph) are quite positive. My experience in life has suggested that hope is just an appetizer for disappointment, but do we dare?   Do I?   Probably best to remain on my diet of ambivalence.   For now, anyway.

A Thought To Live By

from the wonderful Despair.com, which features lots of other stuff to knock the hope out of ye.

Desperate House Knives, Part Deux

      Gee, can you tell we're headed for a non-confidence vote?   Seems to me the lot of these guys-- remembering that this contemnable display comes hot on the heels of some of the most insidious politicking since the days of Huey Long-- should have their lips stapled shut and be cast out of politics like Oedipus out of Thebes.   (An appropriate punishment for motherfuc--- well, you fill in the rest.) That we don't have this option is a frightful shame, especially with one of the few relatively respectable Members of Parliament that we have, Ed Broadbent, otherwise known as Canada's version of Ernest Borgnine, retiring from politics again, and so further misaligning the decent-guy-to-mofo ratio in the House.   But ain't that always the way-- the ones that ought to go just damn well won't, and the ones that ought to stay damn well can't.   No wonder the people are cynical.

      And, given the current political climate, this blog almost haws to note the laughability of one of our politicians being named "Inky Mark," lest this blog be accused of being racist.   I wonder what the ghost of Mike Pearson is thinking right now.

      UPDATE: It all just gets ridiculouser and ridiculouser.... Key quote, from my slimeball of an MP: "This is merely an instruction to a committee." Ah, it almost makes one long for Sheila Copps. Almost.

R.I.P.: Kay Walsh

      Sadly almost lost in the vapidity of what we now call "news" (at least in North America), the wonderful British actress Kay Walsh died at age 90 almost three weeks ago.   Her passing has a strange sense of ironic timing, coinciding at little too eerily with the death of her sometime co-star Sir John Mills, whose passing did manage to make at least a slight register in the North American media. Like Mills, she was one of the stars of Tunes of Glory, a film that seems oddly to be warranting quite a bit of mention of late, especially on this blog.   Her other films-- Oliver Twist (as Nancy), The Last Holiday, In Which We Serve, Stage Fright, and the marvellous comic adaptation of Joyce's Cary's The Horse's Mouth-- are well-worth searching out and savouring.   I have to say, finding decent images of Ms Walsh online has been a task, and I wound up just reaching into my own library and scanning the picture at right.   It galls me, though, that we have to endure countless hours of coverage of the actions and prattlings of Michael Jackson's lawyers, but the passing of a very fine actress should be left to go unnoticed.   We're such a self-involved, disrespectful culture, aren't we?  

      For those of you unfamiliar with Ms Walsh-- she was also the second wife of David Lean, director of Lawrence of Arabia-- I recommend this article from the Telegraph in the UK. Sad to think that (I'm more or less sure) all of the great Brits from the movies of the forties are gone.   I can't think of a major one still around, which really is pause for thought on this sixtieth anniversary of VE-Day.

The Ugly Fuckling

      With Maureen Dowd's latest column (free subscription required), I suddenly (epiphanically!) understand why I am the way I am, and to which I give Mo' Better Dowd half a slap in high-five:

A beauty bias against children seems so startling because you grow up thinking parents are the only ones who will give you unconditional love, not measure it out in coffee spoons based on your genetic luck - which, after all, they're responsible for.

Unconditional love.....   Excuse me a moment.      Damn, I was screwed from the start.   This suddenly explains every single God-damned thing in my life that went wrong, but without-- mercifully-- the Freudian suggestion that I wanted to do something unspeakable to my mother.  

      Yes-- for those of you that are wondering-- there are levels of irony in my previous paragraphs. Except, of course, the fact that I was-- have been, am now, will always be-- an ugly fuckling, a fact to which most of my readers are very, very, very well aware. (As I've said before, I was good-looking-- for a week, in 1973. Since then, well, as Jon Stewart would say, "not so much.") Grrr.

      And some people call this research.   And, worse, some people will read Mo's whinge and think it means something.   And thanks, Maureen, for adding to the pool of cultural victimization, even if your addition is yellow and surely unwanted.   Those that are coiffed and styled for regular appearances as one of those talking heads on television should not be taken, ever, as advocates of the ugly.

      Now, altogether now, kiddos: ~~   I'm Richard the Third, I am I am, / I'm Richard The Third....~~

      As my father used to say, to make us rotten kids behave, when we asked why we should do as we were instructed, "Because I'm meaner, older, and uglier than you are."   Suddenly, I understand a certain behemother of tenure-- she constantly, but pointlessly, widening like a postmodern argument-- with refreshed vigour.   And who says you have to be beautiful?   (Me, miles asteep in self-relevant irony: gee, who'd have guessed?)

The Lion This Time

      Excellent: a new release from Van the Man is due out in a few weeks....    Those of you interested can check out some clips at the newly-established official Morrison website.   (What!?!?! Van is going digital? Oh how the world has changed....)

      **sigh**

      I remember when my Van collection was in tact, instead of dispersed among friends, onetime friends, and onetime "involvements."   I really do have to learn not to share.   Grrr.   Argh.  

      On the flip side, my friend to whom I leant-- and then just gave-- Ray Charles' opus posthumous surprised me Saturday night with an unexpected treat, the new Springsteen album-- with DVD attachment-- Devils and Dust.   It certainly seems a step above from his last album, The Rising, but I need to give it a few more listens before I make any comments about it.   But the gift itself was quite a shock, though of course a pleasant one.   Ah, it's good to have fellow musketeers-- even if they have nasty tendencies to ply the Not-So-Good Doc with drinks....

      And before any of you say it-- I know, I know, I know....   Smart alecks.

What Is It With Kenobi In Bars?

      With Revenge of the Sith promising to disappoint in theatres in a few weeks, it seems everyone and his wookie is offering his, her and its opinions on the most memorable (or most infamous) moments in the series.   Here's one example, that at least has some analytical sensibility to it.   As for me, the best -- or most memorable moment-- shouldn't be too hard to predict: the knowing glance, the near-wink and the barest, pursed smile issued by Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness), just before he allows Vader to strike him down.   It's a perfect, wry moment, and exactly not what you'd expect him to do.   **sigh**   Remember when Star Wars movies were things to get excited about?   Oh, so long ago....

      And in related news.... God help us all.

Toil And Trouble

      This blog reports; you decide.

Britney Peed Here

      Key words, people: "GoldenPalace."

How To Succeed In Academia (Without Really Trying)

      And people wonder why I'm cynical....

Charms and Riddles

      Watching one of those celebrity poker things last night, I found myself in an all-too-familiar position, that of being utterly charmed and disarmed by one of those pretty young things, in this case Mena Suvari, she best known as the object of Kevin Spacey's lust in American Beauty.   (Don't even go there, people....)   I was struck by a number of things, not least of which was her cagey and steely poker play, she being absolutely unreadable to her opponents at the table, and I was impressed by the sense of discipline she had.   But during breaks in play, she was coy and sweet and endearing in that girly-girl way that really has become quite uncommon these days.   I have to say I liked her comportment, too, she carrying herself with a kind of humble elegance that's even less common than that girly-girl way; she had subtlety, a quality for which the Doc is always a sucker, and archness, aspects that were occasionally tonicked by an almost childlike glee with what she frequently got away. I think it hardly needs saying that she won.   In fact, she won decisively.   It was an impressive performance, and I couldn't help but notice the delightful cunning in her eyes. Ah, the eyes-- it's always a woman's eyes.... Prettiness or whatnot is one thing, but expressive eyes, well, they're the Not-So-Good Doc's Kryptonite.   Especially playful ones-- they're absolutely deadly.

      In writing this, I feel I should probably qualify all this with a "I-don't-say-this-often" disclaimer, so you, my ever patient readers, would not think me simply writing a paean to some female celebrity roughly equivalent of a gaga fan letter. The real point to this entry is this: that in thinking about all this, I found myself realizing some of the ways in which I observe women, how I tend, in fact, to read them as if they were poems or savour them if they were good wines, how, indeed, I have that tendency to admire qualities and nuances rather than use baser criteria as many others with Y-chromosomes regularly do.   For reasons I only wish I knew, I have a tendency to beatify women, though mercifully not in ways I once did, and surely not in the Dantescan fashion. (All the women reading this blog with whom I have been, er, "involved" are now suffering swelled heads that might otherwise suggest gigantism.   **shrug**   So be it.)   As all men with any sort of savvy for reality know, it's no longer good to beatify a woman, the whole idea now seeming too gooey-romantic by half in this age that prefers indifference, irony, and laissez-faire casuality.   But it occurred to me how rare it is anymore for me to be truly charmed by a woman, those dimensions of mystique and play now replaced by opacity and dopeyness in the general population.   I don't know-- I think I'm probably just a modernized chivalrist, which, if true, further tags me as hopelessly out-of-date. (What else is new....)

      To wit: a friend of mine recently accused me of looking for poetry in women when there's so much prose out there I should just get my hands on.   I had to laugh, the comparison so bizarre it made my brain feel like it had been boxed.   But he was right, I guess, to which I guess I can only iterate my old remark about having long ago lost the patience for prose. Give me the subtlety and the panache, the elegance and the comportment, the charms and the riddles.   As should be obvious, sometimes a few lines here and there are worth more than entire novels, especially when those novels are given to Faulknerian involvement and Jamesian exhaustiveness.  

      Now I'll put that comparison away and never think about it again.   And I definitely won't consider a single bit of the irony that I am no longer teaching Introduction to Poetry.   That would just be begging for trouble.