The Badness of King George

      Laudator Temporis Acti has reminded me of this delightful piece by the legendary American cynic and intellectual shit-disturber, H.L. Mencken, in which Mencken kindly translates the Declaration of Independence into then-idiomatic American.   For those of you unfamiliar with Mencken (he was grandly redrawn as E.K. Hornbeck in the classic play Inherit The Wind), I recommend perusing some of the materials available here from the University of Maryland library.

      It's one of those rare shames of being Canadian, that few of us north of the border are even at all familiar with him.   He's much more commonly known in the States, but for some reason he hasn't been held to Canuckistani breasts in the same way that other Yanks have been.   He can be penetratingly insightful-- and sometimes unnecessarily vicious.   More than anyone else in literary history, I can easily imagine him echoing, with righteous indignation, Pooh-Bah's famous assertion from The Mikado: "I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something in-conceivable. I cant help it. I was born sneering."   "Sneering," though, would probably have been putting too fine a point on it for Mencken.

One Thing To Gruel Them All

      The Chronicle published online this delightful-- and alarmingly fitting-- piece comparing the curse of dealing with a dissertation with-- wait for it-- The Lord of the Rings.    For the record, my own experience in same situation had only one other member of a fellowship (a white-bearded Gandalf, naturally), and I think that in the end I turned into Gollum.   Either that or I got lanced by the Ringwraiths and subsequently dropped the blasted ring along the way.   *shrug*  

      Because The Chonicle will probably make the article inaccessible in a few days, you can read the text of the article by clicking on this pretty little link right here.

Frodo Baggins, A.B.D.

by Susie J. Lee

When I was A.B.D., I tried to motivate myself to write my dissertation by setting deadlines that corresponded with the premieres of Peter Jackson's cinematic interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. My goal was to have a first full draft of the dissertation written by the time the third movie, The Return of the King, came out at the end of 2003, and to watch all three films back-to-back in Times Square in celebration of the achievement.

      I didn't exactly meet that deadline. But once I had finished my dissertation and successfully graduated, I watched all three movies again, this time on DVD, and was struck by how closely the story mirrors the experience of writing a dissertation.

      For those who have not read the books or seen the films, the significant parts of the story center around a long journey made by a hobbit named Frodo Baggins. He travels across a land called Middle-earth to throw a ring into the middle of a volcano called Mount Doom -- an action that, for doctoral students, is known as "filing the dissertation."

      Like many a dissertator, Frodo's terrible and treacherous mission has a dual nature. He cannot, and does not, accomplish the goal without the help of others, but ultimately, he must bear the great load alone.

      Frodo is accompanied on the journey by his hobbit friends Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Merry and Pippin are like fellow graduate students still doing their course work. Their carefree nature disappears along the journey, however, as they begin to recognize the impending doom of becoming All But Dissertation. By the end of the second movie, The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin have passed their comprehensive exams and gained a greater maturity, but it is not clear whether they will go on to the dissertation phase. Maybe they've decided that an academic career is not for them.

      Frodo, on the other hand, has made the decision that he wants to go all the way. His most important companion is Sam, who is the equivalent of Frodo's "partner."

      Sam is not a Ph.D. student, and more than anyone else, he has the terrible burden of being the one closest to the ring bearer. Sam's own fate is tied to that of the ring yet he is helpless to determine his future in a direct manner. He cannot make Frodo finish; he can only try to make it easier for Frodo to do so. He is the long-suffering hero whom every ring bearer thanks at the beginning or end of the acknowledgments of the dissertation -- the one about whom everyone writes "I couldn't have done it without you."

      On their way to file the dissertation, Sam and Frodo separate one time. The separation is the result of a deception spun by a fallen soul named Gollum -- aka, the doctoral candidate who will never finish.

      Gollum lived with the ring for many years and it destroyed his life, mind, and well-being. Gollum is the living image of what Frodo will become if Frodo cannot complete his task. Frodo in fact pities Gollum, while Sam can only feel disgust and distrust for the miserable creature.

      If the ring is to be destroyed -- and the dissertation finished -- new alliances must be formed. Without that fellowship, Frodo's quest is doomed. But a partner alone cannot provide enough support for the difficult mission.

      For example, he is stabbed three times during the course of his journey by disgusting and horrible creatures. He is hounded by terrifying beings called the Ringwraiths. Those attacks are the equivalent of the dissertator's endless financial struggles. Each loss of funds prevents him from paying enormous photocopying costs, expenses for travel to archives, bills for books and supplies, health insurance, and campus fees. They take a toll on his morale and his health and increase his stress and exhaustion.

      One of Frodo's key supporters who tries to protect him from those problems is a wizard named Gandalf, who, for our purposes, represents Frodo's dissertation committee, usually made up of three people.

      Gandalf is instrumental in running interference for Frodo and making sure that he can complete his mission. He writes recommendations for grants and letters of introduction to libraries. He critiques drafts, locates possible sources of money, and feeds his student whenever possible. Most important, he offers intellectual guidance and moral support. Gandalf has his own challenges, however. In the Mines of Moria, he faces down a horrifying demon called the Balrog -- meaning he must also teach, research, publish, and serve on committees.

      Frodo's "fellowship" also includes family, friends, dissertation groups, fellow doctoral students, professors, undergraduates, and archival and administrative staff members. They provide counsel, writing deadlines, good company, book references, housing, theoretical critiques, and other key assistance. There are even filmmakers like Peter Jackson who provide incentives around which dissertation deadlines can be set.

      Yet while all that support is critical, the mission of the ring is still Frodo's alone. Even with help, can he achieve his goal?

      The drama of filing the dissertation is heightened at the end of the process, in those last months of writing, editing, and formatting. A critical scene in The Return of the King highlights the deep emotional struggle between Frodo and his alter ego, Gollum.

      Frodo and Sam have finally arrived at Mount Doom, which means that Frodo finally has the full draft. But he looks terrible; he has been defeated emotionally and spiritually by the burden of carrying the ring. He has reached the end of his long journey, but will he file?

      At the volcano, Sam yells to Frodo to throw in the ring. But by this time, the strain and burden of carrying the ring for so long has damaged Frodo's mind; he doesn't want to let go. He looks at Sam with a crazed look and says, "The ring is mine!" which, translated, means that he can't or won't finish; he has more research to do, more editing; the dissertation is just not good enough; he must reformat the page numbers.

      He has taken the step toward becoming Gollum. He will remain A.B.D. forever. Sam cries pitifully. His life is ruined, too.

      All of a sudden, Gollum appears and wrestles Frodo to the ground. They struggle for the ring and Gollum bites off Frodo's finger. Gollum has unwittingly forced Frodo to rise up and save himself from himself. As they struggle, they fall from the ledge, and the ring falls into the molten lava (along with Gollum). The deed is finally done. The dissertation is filed.

      But Frodo has completed his mission unwillingly. The year of carrying the ring has damaged him and taken the joy from his life. He has completed his quest, but he's not happy. Can he recover?

      Several years later, Frodo is back in his comfortable home in the Shire and has completed the book manuscript for the story of his journey, called The Lord of the Rings. But he confesses to Sam that he is still not at peace. He leaves the Shire on a big boat to find peace and be with his mentor, Gandalf, and other associate and full professors in a faraway land called tenure.

      Having shared my Frodo allegory with my dissertation group and my fellow graduate students, we've started to refer to the dissertation as the "ring." When we share stories about writing 12 hours a day for months on end with little human contact, or about feeling angry with people who have the time to eat in nice restaurants and go to the movies, we say, "That's the power of the ring."

      The moral of the story, because there is always a moral to these kinds of stories, is to take care of your health and appreciate those around you. Unlike Frodo, we all have the job market to go through, too.

She's A Neodematerial Girl

      Now and then, some people ask me why I don't read more contemporary scholarship, and why I wear my disdain for it with a medalist's pride.    Rather, though, than explain oh so laboriously, and surely repetitively, let me simply direct you to this, The Postmodernism Generator, which produces mini-articles that are astonishingly close to so much of the vapidity that passes these days as scholarship.   One of the generations, which you can read here, yielded these brain-paining paragraphs:

"Society is fundamentally a legal fiction," says Baudrillard. The masculine/feminine distinction intrinsic to Madonna's Material Girl emerges again in Erotica, although in a more self-falsifying sense. Therefore, the characteristic theme of Hubbard's [1] critique of conceptualist socialism is not dematerialism, but neodematerialism.

In the works of Madonna, a predominant concept is the concept of capitalist narrativity. In Material Girl, Madonna analyses Debordist situation; in Erotica, although, she examines conceptualist socialism. Thus, Lyotard suggests the use of Debordist situation to attack and modify class.

How eerily close this nonsense is to half the pieces in any edition of the PMLA these days.   The postmodern solution to everything seems to be to make use of as many ironizing prefixes and jargonistic collisions as humanly possible.   I probably shouldn't use the word "humanly" there, though.   I'd probably be dismissed as a soppy, ignorant humanist for doing so.

Finally, A Website With Practical Applications....

      At long last, my life is made sooooo much easier.   (Figures it would be Canadian, does it not?)  

      Possibly NSFW due to naughty, naughty language.

"Something To Do"

      Alas, these poor kids will be probably end up being described as The Diverty Dozen....

      Also from the notoriously unreliable Ananova comes this article, which, if there's any truth to it at all, should prove more disturbing than all of the Hammer horror films combined.   What was that about things older and harder than Bob Dole again?  

"Give Me Your Tool," To Him I Said

      Twenty centimeters, eh?    Hmmm....

         Favourite quote: "It's highly polished."   No comment.   Except perhaps that it's strangely assuring to know that there's something out there older and harder than Bob Dole.

The Hans-On Approach

      Because we Canadians are just power-hungy, land-grabbing ice fiends....

      Now we know why Paul Martin was so desperate to become Prime Minister.   He wants this to be the penal colony for his more pooh-pooh-lar predecessor.

From The "Oh, Get The Fuck Over It" File...

      ... comes this article which seems to testify to the pricklish philistinism discussed briefly here on Saturday.   Some things are just too ludicrous to believe.

      In other film news, the CBC has an intriguing account of what may well prove to be Ingmar Bergman's final film, Saraband.   Gee, and it stars Liv Ullmann.   Who would possibly have predicted that?  

      (Key quote: "It's less Bill O'Reilly, more Kierkegaard."   Mercy be for that.   I think.)

Winnie The Who?

      Last week, the NYT had a piece on the actress Danica McKellar that somehow I missed until now.   I remember-- or, about as much as I remember anything anymore-- the crush I used to have on her years and years ago, when she was on The Wonder Years, a show I used to find unbearably schmaltzy, but which I watched mainly for her.   In adulthood, though, the only impression she really made was in her guest stints on The West Wing, her adorable quirkiness put to good use as the sister of Joshua Malina. (And further proof, for me, anyway, that the Aaron Sorkin days of The West Wing were truly a Golden Age of writing for women, because Sorkin knew how to make his women both smart and sexy, the latter more a result of the former than the other way around.)   Turns out, though, that Ms McKellar had made a kind of name for herself in the world of mathematics, which for some reason surprises and impresses me, perhaps because it allays my concern that most of the people we see on our screens are little more than empty-headed personae.   Reminds me, for example, that Carroll O'Connor, aka Archie Bunker, had a Master's in English, and that Kris Kristofferson (!) has a Ph.D. in same.   (O'Connor, however, could act; Kristofferson couldn't.)   It's also surprising, I guess, because so many of those "Where Are They Now?" cases tend to prove pitiable rather than admirable. Key quote from the NYT piece: "I love continuous functions and proving if functions are continuous or not."   Cute, very cute.

      POST-SCRIPT: Yes, that picture I included seems ot show her as having primate arms.   Those more lecherous among you (er, us), may want to check out the pics from the current Stuff magazine.    Consider this update a performance of this blog's continuous functions.

Too Long In Exile

      As I've mentioned here before, it seems one of my lots in life to lend out material that I'm bound never to see ever again.   I can't even begin to count how many books, videos, CDs and such I've lost in such fashion over the years, and some of them have been genuinely missed.   Years ago teaching for RK, I allowed several of my students to borrow the Branagh Hamlet, only to have it vanish into the vortex that is undergraduate self-absorption.   Then there's the quartet of CDs I leant to a former friend and bartender, a four-poofer in the world of this sort of vanishing.    And so and so forth, to the point I regularly end up thinking, "Gee, I haven't listened to xxxx CD in a while," and so I go hunting for it in my collection, only to remember that it has gone into the great wide open.   This happened as recently as yesterday, when I decided to drag out my tattered old copy of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, partially because I was reminded of the play's anniversary last week. Great, I thought, another hole in my already bleeding library.   Add that to the list of stuff I have to buy again.   Insert overly regular grumbling here.

      This morning, however, while sorting through my hard drive, I discovered quite to my surprise an old MP3 file (probably from Napster, or other such place) of Van Morrison's "Ball and Chain." The song is from 1993's otherwise lacklustre album Too Long In Exile, the few other highlights of which include another rendition of Yeats ("Before the World Was Made"), a cover of the Doc Pomus/Ray Charles standard "Lonely Avenue," and a riveting turn on Bobby Bland's "I'll Take Care of You."   (I should also mention Van's version of Sonny Boy Williamson's classic of perversion, "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl," which seems elevate lecherous growling to a kind of minor art form.)   Exile, as you have probably determined, is also one of those lost discs, so finding the file today was an unexpected delight.   There is, after all, precious little better than discovering an old favourite: there's a refreshing familiarity that underscores one's capacity to perceive things anew, and the result is serendipitous. (Serendipity, I'm reminded, is looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the farmer's daughter.)   Through the unknown, half-remembered gate, as Mr. Eliot would say.

      "Ball and Chain" is one of those overlooked songs, and sadly it's a song that never made a mark on the charts and which Morrison himself never performs in concert.   It has, however, a neat little groove, simple but jaunty, and it harkens back to days of apparently easy (as in "with ease," not as in "without difficulty") melodic arrangements.   And for a love song, it's also wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, which happily tonics some of the overly-earnest pretensions-- to say nothing of the mushiness-- of so many other songs of its ilk.    There is, contradictory as it may seem, a whimsical stateliness to it, as the main rhythmical shuffle is decorated by guitar, piano and sax complements that seem almost like little musical pirouettes. There's a quaint pastorality about it, too, that reminds me how well Morrison does with the genre, particularly in terms of classics like "Caravan" and "Tupelo Honey."   This is a song for Sunday morning strolls, when the pace is unhurried and the air crisp and clean.   Shame it is that I haven't heard this song in so long, and more so that few others beyond pure Vanatics have ever heard it.   I recommend giving it a listen so you can judge for yourself.   (It's a 5MB file, for those of you, like me, cursed to be stuck on dialup.)   But for this chap, it's a joyful reminder of a type of music that so seldom seems to be made these days.   I know, I know, I'm too old-fashioned by half, as if any of you reading this didn't already know that....

The Mouse That Roared

      Er, well, evidently not:



      And Jenny, of course, is mouth wide-open. Surprise, surprise.    (Human in pic, for those of you asentient enough not to surmise this already, is NOT me, but my maternal unit.)

Irresponsible Plasticity

      Howard Jacobson has a terrific piece in today's Guardian that this blog would consider essential reading for those that purport to study literature.   In addition to a dynamite concluding paragraph, which in many ways echoes ideas I've expressed on this blog and in discussions in and out of the classroom, I'd like to call attention to this paragraph:

The other proof of our philistinism is our politicising of literature. I am not thinking only of the hijacking of book programmes and literary festivals by the current-affairs mob, I also mean the excitement generated by the idea that a novel, or indeed a clutch of novels, has, say, 9/11 as its subject matter. There is, of course, no reason why it shouldn't. But there is equally no reason why it should.

Philistinism: what a perfect assessment, not just of literature itself in this day and age, but also by the leading critics and discussants of it.   I can just imagine so many of my onetime colleagues but-but-butting their way to defending their philistinism.

Blowin' In The Wind

      For those of you interested, this article just wants your extra time and your (chigga chigga chigga chigga chig) kiss.    Mwah!   

      (And strangely enough, there isn't even a single paragraph devoted to inappropriate lip-locking in public drinking establishments.    Tsk, tsk, tsk....)

      It's worth adding that were I teaching Shakespeare or some other pre-modern subject, I'd be inclined to reproduce this article for my students just to dispel some students of the tendency to read all kisses and references to kissing as always-already erotic.    It might help to untangle some of the silliness one so often confronts in teaching, say, Twelfth Night or The Merchant of Venice.    And definitely the outright stupidity that sometimes comes from those reading Alyosha's tale of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov.    Gawd save me from the erotomaniacal criticism that seems to have been born of Iago's leering and Puck's mischief-making.

On Buster's Cookiedusters

      Dave Barry's blog provided me the link to these horrible haikus on-- of all subjects-- the neutering of Man's more rarely-unleashed Best Friend.   As you might well have predicted, this (pardon the phrase) threw this Old Dog a bone, to dig up these lines in his own effort.   This blog dares-- dares, double-dares, TRIPLE-DOG DARES!-- all of you to see if you can jump the hump and, er, come up with your own.    Added challenge: borrow from a famous writer, though we expect here at Doctor J's that Virginia Wo(o/l)f is most surely not a good idea in this regard.

Howl by Maulin' Ginsburg
I saw the best parts Of my miscegenation Carved off, eunuchal, Slakèd, dragged themselves Through the begroined streets At dawn, taken for		Angry fucks, beagle-whetted Connipsters, yearning for an Unctious, skanky scent, Cravenly c'nncted To those furry dynamos, Chien-eries of night....

Call Me Up In Dreamland

      For those few of you reading this blog that may actually care, a recent interview with Van The Man sent a chill down my spine with these paragraphs:

"I'm never really making one record. I decide what to put out from a pool of a lot of tracks."

At the deep end of that pool are long-dormant recordings Morrison hopes to compile into a series called The Unreleased Masters.

"It's an ongoing project that I work on when I get the time," he says. "It's too early to say, but we might get one out in October, some stuff from the early '70s. A lot of the stuff I've forgotten about. I actually don't remember doing it because there was a lot happening and these weren't the mainline records that came out. So it's very exciting for me. It's fresh and new because I haven't heard it in so long."

Most of us that are fans of The Man were thrilled with the release of the double-disc The Philosopher's Stone several years ago, with all its wonderful recovered material.   One shudders to imagine how much material remains unperformed or unreleased, especially given how much has, in fact, seen the light of day over the past two decades in one form or another.   These promised Unreleased Masters could prove to be astonishing in the same ways that TPS and Dylan's The Basement Tapes were, so for once this blog has occasion to be genuinely excited.   Further, one stops to fathom how much material might remain, given Morrison's already impressive canon of almost forty albums in forty years.   Remember the days when artists were prolific rather than marketing constructs?    This series could be staggering reminder at the very least.

      BTW: There are also many whisperings and hints of a similar set of unreleased songs by Ray Charles, but given the difficulties of locating and archiving such material could prove more wishful thinking than tangible possibility.   One haws to imagine, however, if twenty years down the road anyone will bother to look for-- let alone care about-- Britney: The Lost Tapes.    Methinks not.

But You Got Away, Didn't You Babe?

         I remember you well
         And the Chelsea wholesale,
         You were talkin' so brave and so sweet,
         Offering 20 beef head and a well-made bed,
         While the special agents wait in the streets....

      (Forgive me, Leonard.   But, tell me, how could I resist?)

And Did Those Feet...

      ...in ancient time?    (Imagine the irony if the perpetrator turned out to be named Blake?)

      And for those of you that are wondering:   Yes, I do have a very odd way of looking at things.   Sue me.

BLURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

      Leave it to our wacky-- and increasingly ridiculous-- neighbours to the south to gerrymander Time.    Weialala leia, wallala leialala....

Ecce Homo (and Ecce Nympho?)

      Sometimes, one really doesn't have to say a blasted thing....

      Same goes, by the way, for this, which really should have received a grammatical once-over by someone with more than a second-grade knowledge of the English language.    Key quote: "Clearly there are a lot of Glorias out there, so men beware."    Indeed.    (Insert mock silence here.)

      ~~ And her name was G--- L--- O--- R--- I--- AAAAAAAA.... ~~

Disquiet Riot

      Gee, he says, plucking on the strands of his beard more than a bit facetiously, I have received a notice from my union explaining how they are fighting for my rights.    Hmmmmm.... What a wonderful reminder this is of deadpan comedy.   

      Further, from the same notice: "YOUR BARGAINING TEAM NEEDS YOU!    What you can do..."    Please, please, I can't stop not laughing....

The Yet-Further Exploits of Colin Farrell's Winky

      As most of you have probably surmised, the Doc has been otherwise occupied for the past week and change, having been very busy with his "Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give A Shit Anymore" tour, and so he figured it would take an article of equally ambivalent import to make him drag his sorry arse back to blogging.    Well, here it finally is.

      Which calls to mind: this is the third, I believe, time in two years we've had to endure some sort of rogermarole in relation to good ole Colin TheMarines.   Too bad the "three times, you're out" rule does not apply to film players (c.f., John Travolta, He Who Will Not Remain Dead).

      On a more serious note, this past week we lost an Irish actor-- well, actress-- that this blog will genuinely miss (and who, in passing, received absolutely no recognition in the mainstream media).    Geraldine Fitzgerald-- who played, he says, among other things reaching for associations with which average readers of this blog may be familiar, Dudley Moore's vicious grandmother in Arthur and (shriek!) Rodney Dangerfield's battleax mother-in-law in Easy Money-- has died.    She was a very good actress, and one who certainly improved with age, and became in many ways the epitome of the Old Lady You Just Don't Fucking Mess With, period.   Check out her performances, too, in the original film version of Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and as Edith opposite Alexander Knox's Woodrow in the forties biopic, Wilson.

      This leads me to a point that gets right under my skin, how we live in a culture that will let marvellous actresses, like Ms Fitzgerald, Kay Walsh, Dame Wendy Hiller and so many others, pass without a jot of notice or tribute, but focusses speculatively and leeringly on the bedtime adventures of an actor of questionable output and limited range.   And people wonder why I think we live in a sickeningly classless society.    Harrumph.

Parental Discretion Advised

      Just in case you thought your parents were psychotic.....

Supervise This!

      Zelda has a very good entry from yesterday on the basics of dealing with a supervisor for those of you foolhardy enough to bugger themselves through graduate school.    It's probable wisest if I say as little as possible on the subject, but Zel's remarks are spot on, and worth remembering for those willing to endure (suffer?) the Gradgrind.

Hey, KoolDude!

      John Tierney has another good op-ed in today's NYT, this time about fitting punishments for those near-lowest of life forms, computer hackers.    Who says creative sentencing has lost its lustre?

On Losing One Of The Good Ones

      The unfortunate passing of Independent MP Chuck Cadman on the weekend causes this blog to reflect upon how rare a man he was, especially in this disgustingly partisan age.    As a man with strongly Conservative leanings (he was so before he was oustered for his own party's nomination), he not only fought back, he WON his riding solely on character-- by more than twice the votes of even his closest rival. He was also not afraid to do as his constituents told him. Tory MPs dismissed him as a cheap pollster-MP, but they were wrong, very wrong. This was a man who saw himself-- genuinely-- as a representative of those that elected him, and he will go down as one of those few Members of Parliament whose integrity will not be questioned, in large part because he obeyed his constituents not just against the ebbs and flows of shifts of power, but against his own health.    The man, after all, defied his own doctor's orders to attend a vote -- the one which maintained the current Liberal government-- in service of his constituents, the plurality of whom did NOT want what they determined to be a premature election. It matters little which side of that debate you were on: he came out, at risk to his own health, and did the will of those he represented, and he did so, obviously, without a prospect of personal gain.    And because he brooked no offers (soliciting nothing from the ever-gift-giving Prime Minister, unlike jaunty Belinda), he did what he did as a matter of conscience and duty. But this was Cadman: he did politics with a rare nobility that almost gives one pause for hope.    He'll be sorely missed.   

      Mr. Cadman: I hope you have another decent jam with Jimi-- and, more importantly, a reunion with the son you so sadly lost, but whose loss determined both your character, and your sense of what was in fact just.    As much as anyone, Good Sir, you were Canada, at least as it was meant to be: noble, a little shaggy, but committed to the truly important things.    In this latest fiasco, you were the conscience of a nation that is used to being, or pretending to being, the conscience of the world, but which couldn't bring itself to behave that way.    Where your nation was lost, you were not, and to that, we are clearly in your debt.    Not for voting one way or another, but for reminding us that an honest man can still, and should, make a difference.    You did, but more for this country's political soul than for the loss or maintenance of a government.    And we thank you for that.

      Rest in peace, Good Sir.

A Wise Credo

      Glancing once again at the wonderful Dame Helen Gardner's The Business of Criticism, I stumbled upon a sentence that when I first read it some years ago I thought spot-on, but which I appreciate even more now, given the vapid results of those that elect to believe otherwise:

Critics are wise to leave alone those works which they feel a crusading itch to attack and writers whose reputations they feel a call to deflate.

This was 1959.    The better part of 50 years later, how many hold to this?    (Answer: check out any recent journal entries on Tom Eliot or Shakespeare, or much more naively and so much less insidiously, any undergraduate essays on same.)    We're wisest to argue for than to argue against, unless, of course, there is a truly and dreadfully ominous line in the sand that must be drawn, like that posed by Mein Kampf.)    The more we ensconce ourselves in the critica negativa (RK will surely correct my flimsy Latin), the more we establish ourselves in self-important punditry than in the development and furtherment of knowledge (cultural, historical, anthropological, or otherwise).    Do we really need more material on what rotten bastards Eliot or Pound were? Or how Conrad was this, and Freud that, and Hemingway such-and-such?    That's not to say there aren't relevant arguments to be made against things or people, or that we should simply argue for those we most admire.    However, I find it snide to sit imperiously in judgment of others, as if we are Elders of Perfection, which we of course are not.    We will have our sides of argument, on any and all number of issues.    But there's a profound ignobility to the lowering of debate to sniping and harping.    Those of us that chastise the overly-partisan tactics of FOX-News and other such "conservative" media forms should probably remember that those tactics are largely the equal and opposite reactions to what has crested forth from the academic left in the past thirty years.    The tone of debate has so gone toward the negative, on all sides, and we now harvest the price for it, some disingenuous nonsense, and some overly-radical bullplop.    There has to be larger wisdom.    And I think Dame Helen reminds us where we ought to start.

Crudely, Crudely Drawn

      It's one of those things I'll never get over, how much TV cartoons have changed over the years.    In my youth (Heaven forfend!) we were stuck with the crop of such miserable animated series as Scooby-Doo and Spider-Man-- and for the truly masochistic, Hercules and Rocket Robin Hood and the like.    (Those of us that remember Hercules are permanently scarred by the voice of the sexually-disturbing centaur Newton, trapsing along shouting "Herc! Herc!")    So it's strange when these embarrassingly bad shows find themselves back on the air in our much more sophisticated age.    One ends up cringing at every cheesy melodramatic gesture or kindergarten-level science or grossly-racist stereotype, unless of course, one is sufficiently stoned and/or drunk that one could just as easily find a wheat-thin sexy.    The worst offender, I think, was The Superfriends, and tonight (er, this morning) I was watching the series for the first time in ages.    Suffice it to say that there's a damned good reason the show is aired at 3am in my neck of the woods, an hour after last call: it's something else to forget the next morning.    Needless to say, watching a pair of episodes while sober is almost morbidly enlightening.    It makes phrases like "Jinkies!" and "Ruh-roh!" seem like lines of Stoppardian dialogue.

      The internet, however, being what it is-- the ultimate resource for all things irrelevant-- I was suprised to see that someone has actually bothered to put together a site of commentary on the show, most of it, mercifully, wicked rather than earnest.    (Note: link may be NSFW, because of banners.)    For those of you jonesing for some truly off-putting nostalgia that will make you wonder if you were ever as stupid as you probably were, this site-- and its many clips from the shows-- will make you want to crawl inside your skins and never, ever return.    And, yes, yes, yes, I am immeasurably ashamed that I used to watch the show almost religiously, as they say, when Toby was a pup.    But, damn, we've come a long way, baby.    Except, of course, for those that actually bother to put up websites about such shows. Or write red-faced blog entries about them. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear....

      POST-SCRIPT:    It has just occurred to me who Newton-- the main player's fawning, sycophantic sidekick-- reminds me of.    Put them side-by-side and see if you can see a difference:


You know what, I can't, either....

Ways and Means: Another Post-London Thought

      Sexy (*shudder*) Rexy Murphy in his piece for today's Grope and Flail makes a great point worth keeping to heart in wake of the horrible recent events in London:

London this week, in a strange and possibly heartless way, tells me we're still lucky. Lucky only in the chilling sense that the dead hearts of Mr. bin Laden and his likes have not yet found the means, or had the opportunity, to deal a blow on the scale that all of us must by now know they would wish to deal.

There is no moral reserve in terrorism. If they could have concluded the lives of all Londoners on Thursday morning, they would have done so.

Odd, isn't it, how something can be both profoundly disturbing and profoundly consoling at the same time?    This, of course, is not the kernel of Murphy's argument, but perhaps it is also something that needs to be remembered, especially as terrorists try to summon panic as our great cultural chimera.    That these attacks were not as crippling as those in Bali or Madrid or New York may, of course, be the result of other factors (incompetence on the part of the attackers, effective rescue techniques, or even just plain coincidence), none of which may have a thing to do with what might still be possible.    It does, however, appear to me as an act of a different kind of desperation from what we have come to know from these "people."    The plot seems almost like a macabre "forget-me-not" from people (again, scare quotes are probably best used around that word) losing ground.

      Dreadful, though, when one has to think in such perverse terms.   

The Crumpets' Red Blair, or G-8-Gait

      For as many problems as I have with Tony Blair, watching the handling of the London bombings and the concurrent G-8 meeting, today's NYT op-ed piece by John Tierney makes a key point, following a bit of typical Amero-Tony Arse-kissing:

      Tony Blair was as eloquent as ever when he faced the press at the G-8 summit meeting yesterday, but what was most impressive was what he didn't say. After uttering three sentences of gratitude to the other leaders for their support after the London attacks, he dropped the subject of terror.

      Instead of giving murderers publicity on worldwide television, he talked about poverty in Africa and global warming. When a reporter tried to distract him by asking what "went wrong" in London, he said it was the terrorists' fault and went right back to the business of the G-8.

Key, isn't it, both rhetorically and substantially?    Rather than Shrubberishly iterating the same notions of victimization and indignation, Blair refused to make terrorism the main matter, and he refused to make it the antique drum of his governmental platform.    Contrast this with the Shrub, who even now insists on invoking, callously and cheaply, September 11th at every opportunity he possibly can.    Make no mistake: I don't think Blair credible, nor do I think him a great leader.    He is, however, leaps and bounds ahead of his American counterpart, so much of whose support-base is that of a self-determined group of active-victims, under constant attack from everything from gay marriage to Islamic fundamentalists.    Blair, for his numerous other faults, at least under these circumstances provided a better, and far more reasoned, template for leadership.    More crucially, he didn't retreat to the tired rhetorical rhythms that end up lending further force to those sociopaths that believe mass murder a legitimate course of action.    President Shrub, however much he may not intend to do so, makes terrorism in terrorism's despite.    So credit to Blair, dare I say it.    This should also remind us, devastatingly, what an impossible boob now occupies the White House, and why he's still worthy of great and, in fact, inescapable worry.

      UPDATE:    It so happens that Dave Barry has been vacationing in London the past bit, and I really like his description of the aftermath of the bombings:

Here in central London, where we're staying, things are calm. The Brits are carrying on, as Brits do. Many shops are understaffed or closed because employees couldn't get to work. Crowds are smaller than normal. But there's not the slightest sense of panic.

It's a terrible thing, but this is a great city, inhabited by strong and resilient people. Londoners got through the Blitz, and they will get through this.    As an American among them today, I can't help but feel proud that these are our allies.

I think any of us that saw the immediate reports from those that survived the attacks were impressed by the relative calm and stoicism of those being interviewed.    But Barry's words remind me that maybe it's about time the Yanks reconsidered some of their nasty stereotypings of Brits as effete little weaklings that maintain their pretentious, pseudo-homosexual lifestyles because of American largesse since World War II.    For the first time in as long as I can remember, the Brits, and particularly Londoners, are being figured in the American media as genuinely steely, admirable people, something those of us with even an idiot's grasp of history have always known.    Even now, dare I say it, there's more Churchill in that nation's spine than ever there was Blair (or Thatcher or Chamberlain).    Let us hope, here in Canada, that we have more Trudeau in our collective spine than any other of our leaders, should we ever come under such decriably vile attack.

Final Consecration

      Gee, a marriage born of boredom and avoidance, whoda thunk it?    Surely not this blog.    Not.    At.    All.

      (And remember, lads and lasses, the term "permanent commitment" has two very different, but strikingly similar, meanings.)

To Spite His Face?

      Forgive me, but all I can say about this news: it's a little, er, eerie.    Gogh figure....

Chick-A-Boom

         As those of you that know me well might have predicted, I read this article with about the same lack of interest as Homer Simpson would the collected works of George Eliot, or any intelligent person would a Star Trek marathon.    (Do I digress?    Very well, then, I digress: I disdain multitudes.)    The silliness of this whole Chick-Lit genre-- the critical terminology as much as the source material-- is as risible as an Oompa Loompa genre.    This isn't sexist, believe it or not: great women writers-- like Woolf, Eliot, all three Brontes, Welty, Murdoch, Dickinson, Behn, Laurence, and so many others-- would never write such tripe and swaddle it in pretentious political robes to conceal that the fact.    There's a reason it's called "Chick"-Lit: it takes, generally, as its central premise rudimentary, and largely crude, assumptions about women (usually by women) and enlarges them against insipid templates of plot and characterization.    In short, it caricatures women, usually by rendering them as flighty but adorable stereotypes, ones as reductive and almost as offensive as anything in the poems of the John Wilmot or the more inflammatory novels of William Faulkner.    At least Wilmot and Faulkner were interesting, and knew well enough to be genuinely interested in women, however uneasily, to use that word mildly.

      My belief is this: that the more we stultify creativity by championing this sort of caricature-based pap, the more we succour reductionism and sexism that believes it is not.    Remember the turgid stereotype of super-male machoism, so popular throughout history but which reached its ludicrous apex in the 1980s films in which a single male could rip apart countries with an Uzi and His Very Will?    Admittedly, even that cliche hasn't receded entirely yet, but I don't think any but the most addled minds would give that cliche cultural credence.    The difference?    Right now, we're giving the Chick-Lit cliches cultural-- and regularly, academic-- credence.    Blech.    I try to imagine what Virginia Woolf would say about Sex and the City, or what Amy Lowell would say about Bridget Jones' Diary.    Somehow, I think they'd wipe their eyes in frustration, no doubt tinged with sadness, just as, say, John Milton might have if he had anticipated Zane Grey or, worse, Sylvester Stallone.    And writing this, now in the area of broad speculation, I am taunted by the thought of what Stevie Smith would say about our current state of affairs.    I can only imagine what she would have written in dripping response.    Suffice it to say, I think it would be slightly more sympathetic than anything Dorothy Parker would have had to say.

Finally, The HAT 2005 Edition

      Well, yes, it has taken a while, but it's finally here: the third, and probably final, edition of the Heaven Admittance Test.    Ready to put yourself to the test? You can initiate the turning of the paper by clicking here.

HAT: The Heaven Admissions Test:

2005 Edition

      You must answer at least TEN of the following questions.

      Read this examination paper in its entirety before answering. You are reminded that you have three hours to complete this examination, and that this is your only opportunity to sit this examination, so answer carefully and accurately.   Good luck.

1.   In his Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope once famously opined, "Good nature and good sense must ever join; / To err is human; to forgive, divine."   Prove, coherently and indubitably, that these lines are absolute bollocks, and so should never, ever, be uttered again.   Use your answer to discern how you should be feeling now about any expectation of leniency on the part of your examiner.

2.   Demonstrate that the Antichrist is, in fact, Bill Gates.   Do so without using the words "Internet" and/or "Explorer."

3.   "My bowels, my bowels!   I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.   Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled and my curtains in a moment."   (Jeremiah 5:19-20)   Discuss in relation to each of the following:

      (a)   the history of warfare;
      (b)   the cleanliness of Hippie communes in the 1960s;
      (c)   the music of Dizzy Gillespie;
      (d)   the hodiernal wisdom of Tony Blair;
      (e)   a Thomist view of the cultural value of German scat films; and
      (f)   taffeta.

4.   Identify your fifty favourite papal encyclicals-- not bulls-- of the past six-hundred years, and provide brief summaries for each.   Use your list to speculate upon which Popes got into heaven and which did not.

5.   How many gunshots in the face will it actually take to kill off 50 Cent once and for all?   (Answers will be allowed a +/- 10 margin of error.)   Once you have figured that out, explain how what you were just thinking about was NOT sinful.

6.   In Answer To Job, Carl Jung famously suggested that Job, and not God, was the winner of their so-called debate.   Imagine and describe, as best as you can, God's response to Jung when his time was finally up-- and what Nietzsche was doing laughing his Teutonic arse off in the background.

7.   Is there sin in heaven?   Why or why not?   How disappointing will heaven be if there is? How much more disappointing will it be if there is not?

8.   What is the best euphemism for "euphemism?"

9.   Why did God make the sexual and procreative processes so darned messy?   (Gentlemen, especially, should be VERY cautious in how they answer this one.)

10.   Prove that it is, in fact, possible to be deeply, passionately, and eternally in love with a bumblebee.    Explain how in many ways it may be preferable to the alternatives.

11.   Explain the fundamental relationship between quantum physics and the poetry of Ogden Nash.

12.   Justify either Pauly Shore OR Australia.   (We assure you, the answers for each are the same.)

13.   Lick the threnody nearest to you, and explain precisely what death tastes like.   Answers including the word "chicken" will be immediately disqualified.

14.   Provide the first comprehensive history of the human anus, from australopithecus anamensis to homo sapiens.   Concord your chronicle, as much as possible, with Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

15.   Ask yourself: do you really (really, really) think that answering any number of questions on a test like this will actually make up for what you have done in your lifetime, including that incident involving the dwarf, Bill Clinton and the bagpipes?   (Yes, we have mercifully left out that part about the corpse of Wallace Stevens.)    If so, explain how that experience helped you to better understand the word "fulcrum."

16.   Calculate justice.   Be aware that CPAs, the few of whom that made that cut, are standing on-guard for thee.

17.   Sit through-- consecutively and without interruption-- five Demi Moore films in which she remains entirely clothed.    Surmise how this (admittedly torturous) experience might help you to understand better the historical significance of Girolamo Savonarola.    And, please, avoid any jokes about Ms. Moore being (repeatedly and repeatedly) de-Florentined.

18.   Make jaundice cool, once and for all.   Do so without puking, Jackson Pollack-like, all over your examination paper.

19.   Logicalize desire.    Do so without mentioning "pheromones" or "ultimate misery."

20.   Discuss as much as possible the value of Samuel Johnson's Johnson.    Suggest reasons why Boswell significantly disregarded this historically-crucial information.

21.   God, looking at his modern morass and in need of a copywriter, decides he needs another ten commandments. Write them, exactly, to His approval.

22.   God goes to see a performance of Inherit The Wind.    Explain his reactions.

23.   Does He does or does He not object to the word "cunt?"    Determine, with proof.

24.   Are you really that sure He is a He?    Elucidate, profoundly.

25.   Sing, with his exact ferocity, the scope of human history in the voice of Ray Charles-- or, Maurice Chevalier.

26.   Accessorize the capacities of human love in terms of a raspberry-skyed glory in an overcast world.    Then, succour your metaphors.

27.   Understand the ever-adorable Leeloo.    (Be glad, this is supposed to be an easy exam: if asked the same of Doc J's Jenny or Trouble, you'd be utterly beyond acceptable answer.)

28.   Write your own epitaph as an Emily Dickinson poem.    If it in any way sing-songs with "The Yellow Rose Of Texas," you can guarantee yourself a place in Hell.

29.   Gather, finally and perfectly, the genius of frogs, and abate yourself to this wisdom.    Do so without any cheesy jokes about the French or the Quebecois.

30.   Summarize, in one word or less, why you deserve eternal life, and then explain why your answer justifies irony.

BONUS:   "Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck" (Psalm 75:5).   Fashion from this the best understanding of fellatio you can provide.

      FOLLOW-UP:    Well, it seems the response to this year's HAT has been pretty tepid, though I admit this year's exam lacks something the previous versions did.    (My apologies: I just was not particularly into it this year, which accounts for it also being the last edition.)    Anyway, those few of you that are considering sending answers can do so by email sometime in the next week, and I will post them here with relative dispatch, along with my own answers.    Then we'll bury this idea once and for all.

A Mari Usque Ad Mari

      Or, as the satirist Eric Nicol once translated it, "a little water with that whisky."

Some Orange Peels With Your Fireworks?

      From today's NYT comes this very good article that stands as a good reminder of the unities of history and language, especially as Monday celebrates the anniversaries of both American independence and Dr Johnson's dictionary.    It's this observation that I find most trenchant:

Thus this dictionary, written by a man who detested American democratic principles, is paradoxically almost democratic in its organization. It is fitting that a young nation trying to shake off a king would be attracted to a lexicographer who rejected a tyrannical vision of the language.

Something to remember, especially in this age in which discernment is often supplanted by mealy-mouthed populism--- and by rhetorical bastardry, especially that represented by the anti-logical Bushies.

She Looks Good For 138

Happy Canada Day, Everyone!

Now have a beer or three and celebrate.

A Long Day's Journey Into Night

      Oh, my American friends, you have my sympathies: with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's announced retirement yesterday, I fear your extra-special Presimuhdent will finally be able to stack the court with ultra-right wing ideologues.    In other words, I suspect, among other things, that Shrub will finally follow through and deliver on his "Dredd Scott" promise, the coded message that he would not appoint a pro-choice justice to the court. Roe v. Wade can probably look forward to being overturned in the not-too-distant future.    Congratulations, Americanoes.    Aren't you glad you elected the Dumbo from Crawford, now....