One Last Thing

Since today's topics have been songs, movies, and evil, here's a list of The Most Overused Songs in Movie History.

For a brief moment I was surprised that You Shook Me by AC/DC didn't make the list. Then I realized that I couldn't think of a soundtrack that had that song on it, and decided I was confusing the above list with The Most Overplayed Songs in Bars That Make Flipperhead* Girls Squeal and Dance. (Also on this list - I Will Survive.)

*Flipperhead: a term coined by my consigliore to refer to a certain type of female whose squeaky voices rise in pitch as they speak, producing a sound greatly resembling Flipper the Dolphin begging for a fish.

Speaking of Evil...

Here are three Movies That Scared The Daylights Outta Me...or at least left me with unpleasant mental images of things I wished I had not seen.

1. The Shining

This movie definitely goes at the top of my list, for the lingering feeling of deep unease it left me with. I first watched it during winter break at college many years ago, with my then girlfriend and a bunch of our friends. At the beginning of the film she expressed a reluctance to watch a scary movie and a fear that she wouldn't be able to sleep that night. Yet hours later she was snoozing away and I was the one creeping about my apartment , opening all the closet doors to make sure there weren't any sinister little twin girls lurking about. And the infamous furry scene - I never want to see that again.

2. The Ring

I saw this movie during my last visit to Chez Bunny in Annapolis. The opening scene put me on edge and the from-the-well-through-your-TV sequence was no walk in the park either. Sinister little girls are now on the list of Wrong Things Best Avoided right alongside clowns and mimes.

3. The Changeling

Confession time - I never actually saw this movie. The TV commercial alone was enough to give my ten year old self a serious case of the heebie jeebies. It also left me with a healthy respect for attics (and their opposite, cellars) as in 'if things start to seem, well, wrong, do not seek refuge in a place where evil seems to like to hang out. Like your attic, basement, or any room with a large number of dolls that maybe just come to life and attack you. Or caves. Sleestaks live there you know.

Name That Tune

Here's another exercise making the blog rounds:

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don't name the band, nor the album-title.

I don't have any CDs near to hand, but this from the CD I was listening to in the Mach Five earlier today:

You can't get to heaven in a silver spoon,
You can polish everything, except for the mark on you.

I Need an Old Priest and a Young Priest

Today's Los Angeles Times features an article on the Vatican's top exorcist(link requires registration), Fr. Gabriele Amorth.

My first thought on seeing this was 'how come he gets to be the top exorcist? Does the Vatican score these kind of things, in the same fighter pilots score their kills?' I read on a little further to find out that:

He co-founded the International Assn. of Exorcists, an organization of priests that meets in secrecy every two years, and he remains its president emeritus. Author of numerous books on the subject, he has had a hand in recruiting, training or inspiring most of today's exorcists.

On the one hand I find this vaguely amusing; I picture in my mind a union hall for the I.A.E Local 143, with a bunch of exorcists meeting to vote dollars for various local charities and maybe griping about the current rate per demon. Yet it sounds vaguely sinister as well, what with Fr. Amorth founding a secret society - sounds almost like a plot for a movie or book.

All told, an interesting article. I imagine that most people who are believe they are possessed are in fact in need of medical care. On the other hand, I admit to a belief that evil can manifest itself in this world in a tangible form (I assume that's my Irish Catholic background at work.)

On the Ropes

Heather referenced ESPN's Degree of Difficulty - a ranking of which sports are the toughest, the most demanding.

Not surprisingly, boxing is at the top of the list. But in a companion article, Ralph Wiley writes about the difficulty of finding boxing talent today. It seems that the money available in football, baseball, and basketball has drawn off a lot of the talent that formerly would've entered the ring. Which is why you can't remember the last heavy weight match really worth watching.

Anyway, it's a damn good article. Along the way Wiley discusses the first Clay-Liston fight, Tyson, Zab Judah, the Klitschkos, and gives a shout out to George Pelecanos (one of my favorite writers):

Staying with Liston for a minute (only because it keeps us from getting to Wladimir Klitschko, also known as "Glass Joe," and the rest of today's lot), one of the more interesting boxing books of recent times was "The Devil and Sonny Liston," by Nick Tosches. Tosches used a hard-bitten, muscled-up prose, sort of like George Pelecanos, although George (the combo Chandler/Papa Hemingway/Himes/Mosley of Washington, D.C.) is in a class all his own.

Ever seen HBO's "The Wire"? That's George. He can bring serious heat.

Styles aside, where Pelecanos achieves true greatness beyond the mandatory Shared Experience of Good Writing is that he sees the truth behind things. Nick Tosches -- and also the palindrome Mark Kram, in a recent book of revisionist history about Muhammad Ali -- see whatever it is in boxing that they want to see, the truth having only an oblique relation to it.

All In

Some ten-odd years ago, biographer and journalist Anthony Holden spent a year as a professional poker player, beginning and ending with the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe Casino. He captured his story in the resulting book, Big Deal.

And now, with poker exploding in popularity, Jay Lovinger, journalist, has decided to spend a year as professional poker player, begining and ending with the World Series of Poker. He'll be chronicling the results in a column for ESPN's Page 2 as well as a book to be published by Harper Collins.

After reading this, my thoughts (in order) were:
1. Lucky bastard.
2. Is he doing this on his own dime or is someone bankrolling him?
3. Given the recent growth of poker, on the TV and the best-seller lists, why doesn't some enterprising publishing company bankroll...er...sponsor, say, a poker blogger, to do the same thing? Surely both sides could make money from something like this.

I bet there'd be plenty of volunteers.

Can't Hardly Wait

Still, We Believe: The Red Sox Movie

"Benefiting from unprecedented access to the ballpark, clubhouse, and front office, THE BOSTON RED SOX MOVIE, produced by Bombo Sports and Entertainment, chronicles nine fans' perspectives as they watch the Red Sox' dramatic season begin when tickets go on sale in January through the fateful, final hit that entered Aaron Boone into the list of immortals who have tripped the Sox on the way to the alter.

While containing privileged and extremely candid footage from the perspective of the team, it also narrates the amazing highs and lows from the point of view of nine representative but vastly different fans. "

This documentary opens in the metro-Boston area on May 7th, across New England on May21st. Those of you Red Sox fans living behind enemy lines will either have to wait to see it, or make the trip home.

Kings and Queens

The history of playing cards is a long and lengthy one, dating back thousands of years and spanning the continents to their origins in China. For the purposes of this post, suffice it to say that by the end of the 15th century playing cards were in use across Europe in a form easily recognizable to us today: a deck of 52 cards divided into four different suits. While these suits were initially standardized by nationality, the suits that we're familiar with - hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs - appeared in France around 1480. Supposedly, each of the suits represented a strata of medieval French society. Hearts symbolized the Church; spades, the State or the aristocracy; diamonds, the merchant class; and clubs, the peasantry.

I'm sure most readers are at least passing familiar with the decks of cards featuring the 'most wanted' Iraquis that were issued to U.S. soldiers. However, the practice of identifying specific personages with suited cards is hardly new. Rouen, France was a center of card manufacture in the 1500s, and the Rouen court cards (King, Queen, Jack or Knave) were named as various figures, both historical and mythical.

In Rouen courts, the king of hearts is Alexander the Great. King David, originally depicted with sword and sling is the king of spades, while the king of diamonds is Julius Caesar. Charlemagne, often illustrated holding the orb of Christendom in his left hand, is the king of clubs. Each king can also be seen to represent one of the main sources of Western civilization, with King David symbolizing Judaism, Alexander the Great as ancient Greece, Julius Caesar (obviously) representing the Roman Empire, and Charlemagne the Holy Roman Empire.

The king's consorts also have specific identities. The queen of hearts is named as the Jewish matriarch Rachel, the mother of Joseph. The queen of spades is the Pallas Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom. The queen of diamond's name is an obscure one: Argine, an anagram of the Latin word (regina) for queen. Lastly, the queen of spades is Judith, of the Book of Judith.

Kings and queens must have their champions, this the Jacks are all famous warriors. The jack of hearts is La Hire, also known as Etienne de Vignoles and a comrade-in-arms of Joan d'Arc. The jack of spades is Hector, price of Troy, and the jack of clubs is Judas Maccabeus. The jack of diamonds is Ogier the Dane.

Obviously, the Rouen court cards with their specific personages have not carried over fully on to modern Anglo-American playing cards, but there are still traces of this distinctiveness. One-eyed jacks (spades and hearts) are so called because they are depicted in profile, while other face cards are shown in full face.

(I should note that much of the impetus and research for this post came from James McManus' Positively Fifth Street.)

A Brief Comic Interlude

Will the Johnny Damon/Jesus Christ jokes ever get old? Nope, not if, like me, you have a taste for blasphemy.

Right. Johnny Damon commandeth: The Kingdom is in center field! Hit a pop fly, I am there. Lift one to the warning track, I am there.

Housekeeping...You Want Me For Pillow?

The blogroll has been expanded as of late. Here are two of the new additions...

Common Sense

Go visit Tom Painintheass. Learn how to properly dispose of inconvenient corpses. Tell him to post some more already.

Mean Gene's Poker Blog

A bit more than poker going on here. And funny too - like the following excerpt:

Chip Jett...I can't beat a guy named Chip Jett. Not one who looks like he does. I mean, if I was dealt AK suited, and the board showed QJ10 of my suit, and we both went all-in, I have this feeling in my gut that the dealer would shrug and push the chips Jett's way.

"Wait," I'd tell the dealer. "I won. I have a royal flush."

The dealer would shake his head. "I'm sorry, you're playing Chip Jett. No one as uncool as you can beat him."

I'd fight hard to keep my lower lip from trembling. "My mom says I'm cool."

The dealer, still shaking his head. "You mother is mistaken, sir. Blinds, please."

List o' Lit

Little inspiration at the moment, so here's a list I pulled from Lux's place. How many of these classics have you read? And because I'm contrary, which of the titles below do you intend never to read?

Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

Update - both Heather and Sheila have lists up.

Shuffle Up and Deal

Given the growing popularity and ease of blogging, it seems that if you search hard enough you can find a blog, or group of blogs, writing on whatever obscure or esoteric topic you're interested in reading about. A knitting blog? No problem. You want to read about comic books? Easily done. And so on...

So I really had no business being surprised to come across a poker blog, with links to a whole bunch of other poker blogs. I want another game. Now. Must. Feed. Obsession.

But first I have to my homework. I have two poker books currently awaiting my attention:

Super System - Doyle Brunson
Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold 'Em - T.J. Cloutier and Tom McEvoy

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

Being a brief list of things which fill me with child-like glee out of all proportion to their real significance.

pockets
I am all about the pockets - as far I'm concerned you can't have enough of them. All jackets must have an inside pocket, preferably two. Cargo pants or shorts rock by virtue of having up to six (six!) pockets in which to store various items. My current favorite pocket? The extra pocket-within-a-pocket that certain men's pants have on the right hand side. No doubt meant for spare change, I find my cell phone fits in it perfectly, and I derive great satisfaction from that.

pocket knives
A logical progression, and like pockets, can you really have enough of them? Seriously now, I find you need one for your actual pockets, perhaps one or two more for the home (variety is good here - a buck knife and a Swiss army knife compliment each other nicely) and one for the glove box in the car. You never know when you're going to need to sharpen a pencil or slice open a package.

slang
Or maybe I should say jargon? Whatever, I delight in learning terminology specifically related to a certain things. It's almost like learning a new language, or least a dialect of one, along with the delight of feeling like you possess a sort of philosopher's stone of language that 'others' don't. Plus it sounds cool. Turning over your hole cards and saying 'aces wired' is much more fun than saying 'a pair of aces.' I'm sure much of my current fascination with poker derives in part from the large lexicon accompanying the game.

unusual words
This is a little different than the joy of slang. Every now and then I come across a unique and distinctive word that just lodges in my head. Once there, I feel obliged to pull it out, roll it around, consider it from various angles, and randomly insert it into conversations. The word figgy-dowdy, for example, captivated me for quite some time. Various acquaintances were tortured by my use of this word: 'I could really for some figgy-dowdy right now' or 'Do you think they serve figgy-dowdy here?' What a fun word - try it at home!

the doubleplay
I love baseball. I love the doubleplay. I love the combination of urgency and grace inherent in the doubleplay. The doubleplay is like sex - even when it's merely ok it's still pretty damn good.

Hobbledehoy or Hobbledeclueless?

I recently came across this piece on The Morning News, in which the author finds a definition of his character in the world literature. Specifically, the works of Anthony Trollope and the male archetype he terms 'hobbledehoy' and defines as follows:

"There is a class of young men who never get petted, though they may not be the less esteemed, or perhaps loved. They do not come forth to the world as Apollos, nor shine at all, keeping what light they may have for inward purposes. Such young men are often awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease, when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates. Social meetings are periods of penance to them, and any appearance in public will unnerve them. "

The 'blurb' or foreword for the article (or whatever the technical term is for that brief description of an article you can find in the table of contents or the online equivalent) describes hobbledehoys as men who are 'shy or bad at dancing;' the author Juan Martinez simply holds up Charlie Brown as a classic hobbledehoy, and that paints about as clear a picture as you're likely to get.

After reading something like that naturally I wondered, am I a hobbledehoy? So I considered...
Bad at dancing? Oh yes. Horrid. I dance like the proverbial white boy that I am.
Shy? Well, sorta. On the one hand, I generally don't go around chatting up strange women (except on the rare occasion when I do chat up a strange woman). On the other hand, given an introduction or some other in I can carry on a decent, sometimes witty and entertaining, conversation. So not shy, just excessively formal.
Charlie Brown-ish? Mmmm, not so much. No football kicking or little red-headed girls in this boy's life.

Well then, I thought, not a hobbledehoy. And then my lizard-brain tapped on my mental shoulder.

The lizard-brain, for those of you wondering, is my very non-technical term for that part of my subconscious brain that processes various impressions, vibes, instincts and other sensory data that is not easily quantifiable, and sends the results to my conscious mind in the form of vague impressions. Impressions like 'somebody is staring at my back' or the classic 'I got a bad feeling about this.'

Anyhow, the afore-mentioned conversation went something like this:

Lizard Brain: Hey Dan.
Dan: Um, yes?
LB: Remember that girl from Friday night?
D: Sort of... .
LB: Let me refresh your memory. The one that struck up a conversation with you...
D: Oh her. I remember...
LB: ...and made a point of introducing herself..
D: Yes, I remember now.
LB: ...and kept talking to you after her friends walked away?
D: Right. I remember. What's your point?
LB: Did it ever occur to you that she did that for a reason? That she was, you know, interested in you?
D: Er.. well, no, I just figured she was, well, being social.
LB: (sighs, mutters to self) Riiiight. Being social.
D: Oh. I see what you're getting at.
LB: Now you do. Four days later.
D: I guess I wasn't thinking along those lines...
LB: Key words there. Wasn't. Thinking.
D: Ok, ok. Next time...
LB: Next time listen to me. I can't help you if you won't freaking listen! Sheesh. How you manage to read all those books and get dumber by the day is beyond me.
D: Now wait a minute! One blown opportunity doesn't make me dumb!
LB: Sure thing Slick. And another thing... .
D: What now?
LB: The next time I tell you to lay your hand down, lay it down. You had no business going all in with a lousy two pair.
D: (swerves off the road, drive up onto sidewalk)

Nope, not a hobbledehoy. Hobbledeclueless.

Worst. Songs. Ever.

According to a story in USA Today, a magazine called Blender is publishing a list of 'The 50 Worst Songs Ever.' Here's the top ten audio offenses:

1. We Built This City - Jefferson Starship
2. Achy Breaky Heart - Billy Ray Cyrus
3. Everybody Have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung
4. Rollin' - Limbizkit
5. Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
6. The Heart of Rock & Roll - Huey Lewis
7. Don't Worry, Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin
8. Party All The Time - Eddie Murphy
9. American Life - Madonna
10. Ebony and Ivory - Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder

Also cited for aural crimes according to the article: R.E.M. for loosing Shiny Happy People on the world, and John Mayer's nightmarish Your Body is a Wonderland.

My quibble with what I've seen of the list is that it doesn't seem to differentiate between 'good bad' songs and 'just plain bad' songs. A minor quibble I suppose, but I am one who revels in 'good bad' songs. We Built This City is a vile and evil song, that makes me convulse with agony if I hear more than three notes; Ice Ice Baby makes me reach to dial the volume up and may (if I've ingested enough beer) cause me to demonstrate what it means to 'slide like a ninja, cut like a razor blade.' And don't get me started on the joys of Party All The Time.*

Oh well. I guess not everyone has my refined taste. Why, I bet they even listed The Rain by Oran 'Juice' Jones as a 'bad' song.

*In case you were wondering the absolute best part of this song - the bit that makes it truly a 'good bad' classic - is the bit where Rick James comes in behind Murphy's squeaky vocals and repeats the line 'diamonds on your fingers' in this spoken word-mack daddy-I'm-so-hot-I-turn-myself-on bit of back-up. Everytime I hear this song I can't help but be mack daddy along with ole Rick, say the line along with him, and then laugh like a maniac.

I suppose that is further proof that I am not entirely right in the head, but that's ok. I'm not ashamed of the way I feel.

The Answer Man Can

I am a font of useless information; my head stuffed chock-a-block with all sorts of trivial bits about all sorts of trivial things. My friends all know this and occasionally I find myself serving as a kind of bipedal Encyclopedia. If you're out somewhere and find yourself overcome with a sudden need to know 'the name of that volcano that blew up all over the Pacific a long time ago'*, well I'm only a phone call away.

So I wasn't the least bit surprised to have the following conversation with Bunny on Sunday afternoon, in the middle of watching Secondhand Lions.

(phone rings)
Dan: Hello?
Bunny: Mason, it's Bunny. What are you doing?
D: Watching TV. Where are you? Castlebay?** (I can hear a lot of noise in the background).
B: Yeah, I'm down here with the boys. I got a question for you, I need you to tell me who sings this song.
D: What song?
B: It's the one that goes like this... "playing with the queen of hearts, knowing it ain't really smart... .
(Momentary pause as I hold phone away from my ear and stare at it. What the hell is going on down there?)
D: Juice Newton dude. That's Juice Newton.
B: Cool. Thanks Mason, I'll talk to you soon.
D: Later.

I kept the movie paused for an additional minute or so while I tried to figure out how exactly Juice Newton and her one big hit had come into play some 800 miles to the south. And then I considered the usual suspects who were probably involved in that conversation and decided I didn't want to know. It wouldn't make any sense to me anyhow, unless I was there.

*The answer, that time, was Krakatoa.
**Our local in Annapolis.

Luck Be A Lady

Heather recounts Friday night's festivities.

Secondhand Lions

I'd been meaning to see this film for a while, so last night I grabbed a copy from the local Blockbusters. I figured at the very least it worth viewing to see Michael Caine and Robert Duvall, two of my favorite actors. But it turned out to be such a decent film, that I can't help but strongly recommend it to others.

As advertised Secondhand Lions appears to be a your typical treacly coming-of-age story centered around Haley Joel Osment. And it is a coming-of-age story and it does pluck at your heart strings. But the lessons taught to Osment by his eccentric uncles (Caine and Duvall) are so traditional as to be almost subversive.

At one point, Duvall gives the following speech to Osment:

"If you want to believe in something then believe in it. Just because something isn't true, no reason you can't believe in it."

"All right. There's a long speech I give to young men. Sounds like you need to hear a piece of it. Just a piece. Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this, that love, true love never dies. Remember that."

"Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in. Got that?"

Honor. Off hand I can't recall ever seeing a movie referring to honor in way that wasn't meant to be ironic, or sneering, or condescending. I nearly fell off the couch when Duvall rolled out that bit of dialogue; it's so.. old fashioned. Dangerous, in a way, to many of the 'values' held dear by society today.

But look, it's not a preachy movie. The lines above may seem hokey as they appear on this page, but when Duvall speaks them they seem entirely natural and uncontrived. So thoroughly does he portray his character that you can't imagine that he would say anything else.

Indeed, while Osment gives a decent performance I found that Duvall and Caine as the eccentric brothers Hub and Garth stole the show. They are the secondhand lions of the title - aging men who have lived lives of excitement and now have returned to Texas to await death, tempting it even. The movie is every bit as much about their coming-of-age as it about Osment's.

I've deliberately said little about the plot of the movie; I don't want to spoil it for anyone who acts on my recommendation. But this movie is worth watching for the same reason A Bronx Tale is worth watching: it's a movie that takes ideas and themes that are so simple as to be almost cliches, and presents them onscreen in a manner that is real and good and true.

One last quick note: Secondhand Lions gets points for involving Berke Breathed (of Bloom County fame). In the movie's final scene we're given to understand that Osment has grown up to be a cartoonist; the various clips and bits hanging in his office were obviously done by Breathed. Nice touch that.

"Stand Your Ground."

"Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."
-Capt. John Parker. Dawn, April 19, 1775.

Happy Patriot's Day. It's about more than the Marathon and the Red Sox game.

Speaking of Red Sox fans and the Media...

..this is an apt summary of another idiot who strayed from his village.

I should also note - for those of you who checked out The Soxaholic but are as slow as me - that it has been called to my attention that the dialogue in the comic strip contains hyperlinks. So read closely folks.

And after reading the first Soxaholic, I'm adding him to the blogroll, dubious honor though it maybe.

In the City of Chicago..

...there's going to be a reading. And if I lived there you can bet I'd be attending, as two of the readers - Sour Bob and mimi smartypants - are on my blogroll because they're funny funny funny. Who can resist the prospect of this?

"Of course I have not prepared for this in the least, so I either need to get my act together and select some entries or I need to drink a shitload of beer that evening and deliver some kind of impromptu, staggering-drunk, obscenity- and non-sequitur-laden monologue, which will make everyone laugh more and more nervously, until finally not at all. "

Building A Better Mouse Trap

Some new questions from Cheddar X...

1. What does party mean to you? (i.e. when you go and get your party on, what does that mean?)
It means the following:
I will be up late, as in last call and beyond.
I will laugh a lot and talk about everything under the sun...
...because I will in the company of very dear and (though not always) very old friends.

Over the past five years this has usually meant I'm attending a wedding.

2. What was the first thing you thought or said when you saw your significant other for the first time?
Well, for starters this position is currently vacant.

As for what I thought when I first saw my last significant other*, suffice it to say that I did a doubletake. The rest is none of your business.

3. Do you talk to yourself? Why?
Yes, because I no longer have a dog at home to serve as a captive audience.

4. What's been your biggest personal change in the last ten years?
Coming to terms with the loss of loved ones. I still grieve.

5. What are you most looking forward to?
Currently? This weekend: the first Red Sox-Yankees series of the season - at home - plus our monthly game of Texas Hold 'Em poker.


*Incidentally I hate that word; it's so impersonal sounding. I mean for chrissake the Mach Five could be my 'significant other' - it is 'significant' (I do need to drive places, like work) and it's definitely an 'other.'

Sox Linkage

Check out The Soxaholic. Sure it's a rip off of Get Your War On, but it's about the Red Sox. And it's funny.

This one comes courtesy of Red. Enjoy, gentlemen.

Book Notes in Brief II

More of the same. This should, for the time being, bring me up to date.

The Fall of Berlin - Anthony Beevor.
A reader looking for a 'popular' history of the Red Army's invasion of East Prussia and the subsequent fall of Berlin and end of the Third Reich won't go wrong in picking up this book. While it doesn't break any new ground in WWII historiography, it is a gripping read and a vivid portrait of the madness and evil of Naziism's death throes.

Beyond Valor - Patrick K. O'Donnell
The author interviewed WWII veterans of elite units such as the Rangers and Airborne, with an emphasis on their experiences in combat in the European Theater of Operations. A quick, but moving read. Interestingly enough, many of these accounts were collected via the internet through O'Donnell's website the Drop Zone Virtual Museum. He has since published a companion volume for veterans of the Pacific war, but I have yet to read it.

The Duel - John Lukacs
It is a truism to say that Hitler came very close to winning WWII. The Duel goes a long way towards illustrating that point. Lukacs covers the approximately 80 days period from May 10, 1940 (when Churchill became Prime Minister) until July 1940 (when Roosevelt began moving the U.S. towards a more active support of England). At the beginning of those 80 days Hitler seemed unbeatable and many in England wished to reach an 'accommodation' with him; by the end, and largely through Churchill's efforts, England was determined to remain in the war, hoping for direct intervention by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Anyone who shares my fascination with Winston Churchill will take away a lot from this book.

Cut Time: An Education At The Fights - Carlo Rotella
An account of one man's fascination with watching boxing, especially live and ringside as opposed to the HBO experience most of us have of the fights. This book contains an interesting chapter on Larry Holmes, a fighter Rotella believes to have been vastly under-rated by history.

Fearless Jones - Walter Mosely
Mosley returns to the mystery genre that made him famous, with a new character.

Castles of Steel - Robert K. Massie
A very detailed (we're talking 800 pages) history of the Great War at Sea, with a heavy emphasis on actions between England's Grand Fleet and Germany's High Seas Fleet. For history geeks only - the prose is excellent but you really have to want to wade through 100 odd pages on the Battle of Jutland and it's aftermath.

Book Notes in Brief

Back in March I posted a list of the 26 books I'd read so far this year. Here's a brief run down of some of those titles.

Havana - Stephen Hunter
The written equivalent of a Chow Yun Fat movie, this is Hunter's third novel featuring the formidable Earl Swagger: Marine veteran, Arkansas state policeman, and 20th century gunfighter. Havana is damn entertaining reading, ideal for rainy days, airports, or beach reading.

The Pepperdogs - Bing West
The Pepperdogs is best described as a 'techno-thriller,' along the lines of what Tom Clancy writes. But frankly I found this more engaging than anything Clancy has penned of late. A very fast-paced read (I worked through it in one evening) about a Marine Recon team that defies orders to rescue a captured comrade.

The Winter Soldiers - Gary Douglas Kilworth
Historical fiction very similar to Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, The Winter Soldiers is one of a series relating the exploits of one Sgt. 'Fancy Jack' Crossman during the Crimean War. A solid read - but it didn't leave me with a burning desire to seek out the other titles in the series.

The Biggest Game in Town - A. Alvarez
A. Alvarez is a noted poet, critic and novelist, an intimate of such literary lights as Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. He is also an avid poker player. The Biggest Game is his account of the 1983 World Series of Poker, held annually in Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, and considered by many to be a classic , one of the best books written on poker (as opposed to books written on how to play poker). Most, if not all, of the material in this book originally appeared in The New Yorker, and Alvarez's depictions of the world of poker and the distinctive characters like Doyle 'Texas Dolly' Brunson that inhabit it, put me in mind of another New Yorker writer: Joseph Mitchell and his pieces of some of New York's oddballs.

Mr. Littlefield the Village is calling...

...they're wondering where their idiot is. Apparently, penning pieces full of lame gibberish for the Boston Globe Magazine. (Yes, I know the article is over two weeks old; I came across it today and feel like adding my $0.02). Some excerpts:

"Because though Boston fans say they want the Sox to reign as world champions and may even believe it, that outcome would likely bewilder rather than delight them."

This statement is totally nonsensical. Why would such a development bewilder us? The Bruins, Celtics, and Patriots have all won world championships - is he suggesting we couldn't fathom this strange concept of 'winning?'

"But doesn't it seem more likely that fans (as well as those who weren't aware that they were paying attention) would tremble in the scary novelty of this... this... winning, and that they'd wonder how they were supposed to make sense of the next day that would dawn - that day upon which they would have no new pain to embrace, nobody to blame?"

I'm not sure why this seems 'more likely' to Littlefield except the fact that he embraces the media-fueled myth that Red Sox fans revel in the misery and disappointment of losing and couldn't order their lives without it. Funny that - after the Red Sox beat Oakland last year I don't recall anyone saying 'They might just do it this year. Wouldn't that suck?' or 'If they win this year, what pain will become the guiding star in my life?' Apparently it's too much for Littlefield to conceive that the Sox fans reaction to finally winning might be much the same as Patriots' fans after finally winning - simple joy.

"...this off-season was the best of times, especially for those of us who are fans of marvelous stories and who regard the local ball club as a blessing primarily because of its inexhaustible capacity to generate them."

In other words, not fans who would merely like to see a World Series victory in Boston, but pundits, columnists and talk radio hosts who need grist for their controversy mill.

" If the Red Sox don't win the World Series fairly soon, the team will not have won in the lifetime of anybody. People who root for such a team can, perhaps, lay claim to a kind of distinction. That may be what holds together what has only quite recently become known as Red Sox Nation, whether the citizens acknowledge it or not: not passion, not even suffering, but membership in a fraternity/sorority of loss wherein the only sure thing besides the loss itself is the mad, self-centered, but finally gratifying conviction that the failure is directed personally at each of them and that it will come with a story worthy of a long, long line of such stories."

I can only wonder in what alternate reality does this man dwell. Again with this notion that Red Sox fans enjoy the losing. I especially like part about 'whether the citizens acknowledge it or not.' In other words, if you disagree with his wisdom, why then, you must be in denial. You may not think you take the losing personally, but believe Mr. Littlefield, you do.

"But a couple of floors below the level where the cheap opinions circulate, down there with all the other convictions we ignore so we can get through the business and pleasure of the day, lurks the aforementioned truth about fans hereabouts: They're better off if the Red Sox don't win. "

Lovely. How absolutely condescending - now we're told what will make us happy or 'better off." Here's the real truth - the Red Sox winning would be a far greater blow to the media than to average fan. The gravy train would just come to a screeching halt. No more condescending articles about Sox fans enjoying misery. No more mail-it-in columns about curses. Jesus, what would they write about?

Despite his claims to know how and what Red Sox fans feel and think, and better yet, what's best for us, it's pretty clear to me that Littlefield doesn't know too many regular fans. Donald Hall, yes. Regular folk, no. Should the Red Sox make the play-offs this year, I invite Mr. Littlefield to come down to the local and watch a game. He can even take a survey, asking patrons such gems as 'Don't you enjoy losing' or 'Doesn't the lack of a Red Sox World Series victory make you feel special?' or 'If the Red Sox do win it all, won't your life go off the tracks like a runaway train?'

Or maybe he can enjoy the game without such silly and tortuous questions. And maybe - just maybe - if the Sox win it all, he'll see some simple joy.

The Average Man

The Broad once again speaks truth to power.

"Every man out there wants a safe haven where he can bare his back without worrying about getting it knifed. (Scratched, yes. Knifed, no.) And isn't that what you want too? Then why on earth would you think it's okay to offer anything less in return? The "do it to them before they do it to me" mentality has never resulted in any winners, only a bunch of walking wounded."

A Wrinkle in Television

Why do I have the feeling that this will thoroughly annoy me?

If I actually see it, that is.

Oddly enough, last week's New Yorker carried a profile of Madeleine L'Engle (which is not online anywhere so far as I know). Interesting in many respects, not the least of which was the revelation that her family not only disliked her series of memoirs (The Crosswick Journals) but considered them to contain some outright fabrications. I just finished reading The Summer of the Great Grandmother, the second of the four volumes, which was specifically mentioned in the article as relating events that never happended. Disappointing, as I found that work especially moving.

Espionage and Murder

So here's my first point. If you love reading and books, check out identitytheory - especially the great collection of author interviews.

And here's the second point (and the third as well). There are interviews with two of my favorite authors.

Alan Furst writes what he terms 'historical espionage fiction' and what one critic has called the closest thing to seeing Casablanca for the first time. His novels are set in the Europe of the 1930s and 1940s; Paris looms large in all his writing, especially the Brasserie Heinenger. His characters are denizens of the twilight world of espionage and resistance - members of the French Resistance, NKVD, the OSS, the Rotte Kappelle. While all of Furst's novels stand alone, characters from one often make brieef appearances or are referenced in others. You can start with any of them, personally Dark Star was the one that hooked me.

Geroge Pelecanos writes what many would categorize as crime fiction. Others might call his writing noir, or hard boiled as his characters are much closer to the street than the drawing room. What he's really written are some damn fine novels, filled with a lot of shrewd and telling observations. Start with The Big Blowdown and then move on to King Suckerman. You won't be able to stop after that.

Here are the interviews:

First Alan Furst interview

Second Alan Furst interview

First George Pelecanos interview

Second George Pelecanos interview

Charm City Redux

A few random observations from my recent journey south....

Edward at Bambino's Curse recounts a confrontation with an angry native and wonders if Orioles' fans are sore losers; several commenters agree about 'nasty' Baltimore fans. While I'm sure there are asshole fans in every ball park, I would like to note the following for the record. I lived in Baltimore for six years. I had season tickets for two years at Camden Yards, and prior to that attended many games at Memorial Stadium. All told I probably attended about 50 or so ballgames in Baltimore during that time, usually wearing a Red Sox hat. I never had any bad experiences with Orioles fans. I suppose things could have changed in the roughly nine years I've been gone but I don't think so. Before the games on Sunday and Tuesday, my friends and I wandered among the crowd at the large block party hosted by the watering holes across the street from Camden Yards. We encountered plenty of ribbing and friendly banter, but no overt hostility. Same inside the park at Tuesday's game. Hopefully Edward will have a better experience next time he ventures south to Charm City.

I proposed to our waitress Tuesday night, but my offer was rejected despite my indicating that my family was willing to pay a substantial brideprice of 'three cows, perhaps more if you are fertile.' Unfortunately for me, her family already owns a dairy farm.

Monday I mentioned The Tale of the List. For some reason, Bunny was inspired to put together a list of 42 bad pickup lines, some of which he copied from the internet and some which he came up with himself. The list included such groaners as:
Are those space pants you're wearing? Cos your ass is out of this world.
Well, I'm here. What were your other two wishes?
You remind me of a hooker I knew in Fresno.
We must be near an airport, because my heart just took off.

You get the idea. They were all horrible. The funny thing is, women found the list amusing. They even took copies of the list (yes, Bunny made copies. When he schemes, he does so in detail.) And then they went and used the list to go and meet guys. Seriously - I watched the whole thing go down. So some guy probably got lucky with that list - just not Bunny. Or any of us for that matter.

There are so many badly done Boston accents on TV and in movies, that apparently people don't recognize the real thing. Some lady we met before the game on Sunday told that our accents were 'fake.' On the other hand, she also believed our claim that Boston Rob from Survivor (I think that's his name, I don't watch the show) was Snuggles' cousin.

Despatches II

It's quiet.

Finally.

Bunny dragged himself off to work several hours ago, and I imagine he is now suffering in a serious way. Hopefully he's hiding in the back office, and not forced to interact with any clients with a king hell hangover riding his back.

Snuggles is still sleeping on the couch. I think we have broken him, damaged him in some permanent way. If left to his own devices, Snuggles is a sprinter, not a marathoner, and I think the relentless grinding pace of the last five days has left a mark. The cracks appeared Sunday when I was witness to something I'd never seen before: a silent Snuggles. Completely mute.

And yes, there has been baseball. Yesterday everything was right and well in the world, at least for the few short sunny hours in which I took in my first ball game of the season. * Two hot dogs. Beer. A day warm enough to wear just a t-shirt and jeans. A Schilling win. A Foulke save. Thousands - I am being quite literal here - of Red Sox fans rocking Camden Yards. Yesterday was my New Year's Day. Yesterday I finally shook the dust of 2003 - a long horrid year in which I lurched from one disaster to another - off of my feet, and welcomed 2004.

It's about fucking time it got here.

*No, we didn't get tickets for the game Sunday night. But once we realized how cold it was, we didn't try too hard either.

Despatches

There really is, in the end, much more that unites than divides us. Fenway franks, Esskay franks, Camden Yards, Fenway, Sam Adams, Natty Boh - all these differences fade in the face of the one thing we all have in common: a shared hatred of the Yankees.

Before the game yesterday Bunny, Snuggles and I attended the some sort of Opening Day block party across the street from Camden Yards. Though it was chilly there were plenty of people outside and enjoying the day, listening to some music and knocking back some beers, all decked out in their Orioles regalia. Bunny and Snuggles had Red Sox hats and I was wearing a Cubs hat (my Sox hat appears to have gone missing) nobody bothered us. Sure there was plenty of friendly kidding but no one was outright hostile. Baltimore is a very friendly place, and Orioles fans are very friendly as well.

Unless you're a Yankees fan. The sight of any sort of Yankees gear turns Orioles fans as means as a dog shitting tacks. It's quite amazing really, especially since it's the opposite of their usual demeanor.

I do, of course, have more stories to tell. When I return home on Thursday you shall all hear The Tale of The List: Being the Account of Another One of Bunny's Schemes Gone Awry. Until then let me ask you just one question...

Are those space pants you're wearing?


Cos your ass is out of this world.

The Breeze

It's time to hit the road again. Tomorrow afternoon I'll be boarding a plane bound for BWI, for a five day sojourn in Annapolis and Baltimore to celebrate the New Year - otherwise known as Opening Day. I plan on being at Camden Yards Sunday and Tuesday, to catch the first two Red Sox games of the season. But the agenda also includes much of visiting, story-telling, beer-drinking, mischief making and mayhem.

I can't wait. I am well over due for for some rest and relaxation.

So, place nicely amongst yourselves until I return, and I'll see you all next Thursday.

"....they call me the breeze, cos I keep blowing down the road..."