The Solipsist Reads the Paper! (So You Don't Have To)

A couple of interesting nuggest from today's paper.

As President Obama winds up his trip to Israel, he can boast at least one significant accomplishment: brokering a rapprochement between the governments of Israel and Turkey.  The two American allies had maintained a frosty relationship since an incident in 2010 when Israeli troops enforcing a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip boarded a Turkish vessel that was on a humanitarian mission.  Violence broke out, several people were killed, and the Turkish government broke off diplomatic relations with Israel.  At the urging of President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a formal apology to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan, who accepted the apology.  The two countries will once again exchange ambassadors.

What was interesting about the apology is that it occurred in a phone call that was made from. . .  a trailer.  One doesn't normally see such high-level diplomacy conducted from such a location--at least, diplomacy that doesn't involve Mexican drug cartels.  The trailer itself was at Ben Gurion airport.  Were the phones in Air Force One not working?

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Another article profiled Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which is the primary organizational force behind the battle to forbid governmental recognition of same-sex marriage.  Brown is a Catholic who has already fathered eight--count 'em, eight!--children.  So, if we assume that one of the arguments against same-sex marriage is that the purpose of marriage is to produce children, I say that as long as we have dedicated procreators like Brian Brown, we have little to fear from a few gay marriages: He alone has already made up for the presumed barrenness of four to eight gay couples!

Also, has anyone considered the irony of the fact that the primary organization battling against the right to same-sex couples to wed is the National Organization for Marriage.  Orwell would be proud. 

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Finally, another front-page piece describes the dearth of female students in a number of New York City's most selective high schools.  How bad is the situation?  Well, at Stuyvesant High School, "Kathryn Rafailov, 16, a junior, said boys so dominated her square-dancing class that they had to pair off with one another."

Try to put aside for the moment the fact that Stuyvesant High School has a square-dancing class.  More troubling is the fact that a public high school is apparently OK with boys dosey-do-ing other boys!  Alert Brian Brown!

FOS Doesn't Know Sports

FOS critiqued yesterday's post, saying that it was "Obviously a slow news day."  Maybe it was.  Still, I struggle every day to find some little tidbit to enrich the lives of my faithful readership.  I agonize over what to write.  Ouch!  (See, even once I've started writing I still agonize.)  So I was a little taken aback by what I took to be a cheap dig.  After all, I could always just start sharing stories about my friends and family.  How would certain people feel about that?

Let's find out.

So, way back when, in the days when FOS and I were first developing interest in adult matters--particularly immature adult matters--we would occasionally exchange dirty jokes.  I would here like to share a joke that FOS once told (don't worry, it's not particularly prurient), and I would like to share it with you in exactly the manner in which FOS shared it with me.

"So this man and woman get married," FOS began, "and go on their honeymoon.  On their wedding night, the wife turns to her husband and says, 'Darling, I have a confession.'

"'What's that?'

"'Well, I'm not a virgin.'

"'Oh. Well, that's not a big deal.  I mean, these days that's not really surprising.'

"'Well, I should also tell you that the man I slept with is pretty famous.  It was Jimmy Connors.'"

[NOTE: For our younger readers, just insert "Roger Federer."  That bride certainly did! BWAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!  OK, back to the joke.]

"'Oh. Well, hey, I'm a fan of Jimmy Connors.  I mean, that doesn't bother me.'

"And so they have sex.  Afterwards, the husband sits up and picks up the phone.  'I'm going to call room service and order some champagne.  Should I get anything else?'  His wife sighs. 'What's wrong?'

"'Oh, nothing.  It's just. . . . Well, that's not what Jimmy Connors would have done.'

"'Really? Uh, what would Jimmy Connors have done?'

"'He would have made love to me again.'

"Oh,' the husband says, 'Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint you.'  So they make love again.  Afterwards, the husband says, 'OK, now, how about that champagne?'

"'Well, that's not what Jimmy Connors would have done.  Jimmy Connors would have made love to me again!'

"'Really?!?  Well, OK.'  So they make love again.  Again, the husband starts to call room service.  Again the wife tells him 'That's not what Jimmy Connors would have done.'  They make love AGAIN.  Afterwards, the husband once again reaches for the phone.

"'You're calling room service,' his wife asks?

"'No,' the husband says, 'I'm calling Jimmy Connors.  I want to find out what's par for this hole."

At this point, FOS starts giggling.  I express confusion.  "Don't you get it?  Jimmy Connors?  'Par for this hole'?"

"Yeah, I get it, but. . .you know Jimmy Connors is a tennis player, right?"

"He is?  Oh.  Well, who's the famous golfer?"

"Uhh. . . Arnold Palmer?"

"Yeah!  Yeah, that's who I meant!  Arnold Palmer."

Slows news day, my ass!

Hardly Sounds Thrifty

Exiting the local thrift shop, one passes under a sign inviting customers to "Come back tomorrow when another 4,000 new items will be put on sale."  This strikes me as geometrically implausible to say the least.  The store is already quite overflowing with stuff.  Sure, a fair amount of merchandise is sold every day, but enough to make space for 4,000 new items?  Every day?  Because if the amount of stuff added exceeds the amount of stuff sold by even a modest amount, the implications are unsettling.  You know those disaster movies about epidemic diseases?  There's always that scene in the miltary headquarters where a map of the world quickly turns red as the featured malady spreads exponentially.  I imagine something similar originating from the thrift shop.  Instead of deadly germs, though, the planet will find itself awash in second-hand purses and slightly-used copies of Joyce Carol Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys.  Time to change the defcon rating!

The Quest for the Perfect Sentence

Busy day today, so I just thought I'd share with you this little nugget of a sentence I came across last night, from Atonement by Ian McEwan.  It describes the atmosphere in London in the early days of World War II, before the Germans began bombing:

"The dead were not yet present, the absent were presumed alive."

Nifty.

That, by the way, is more or less an example of chiasmus--a sort of "reverse parallelism," where the elements of the first part of a sentence are switched around in the second part.  A simple example of chiasmus would be something like, "If you're looking for a fight, then a fight you shall have."  The writer uses the rhetorical device to express with a minimal number of words a relatively complex thought: Nobody in London was dying yet, and the soldiers who were away fighting in France could safely be assumed to be alive--at least until further information was revealed.  The sentence is pretty, too: beginning and ending on strong beats, it has a sort of "u-shaped" rhythm.  Well done, indeed, Mr. McEwan.

Norman's Not Himself Today

I watched the premiere of "Bates Motel" last night.  An interesting experience, as I hadn't read anything about the show beforehand. The general premise, though, seemed obvious enough, based on the title and the fact that the main characters are Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga).

The show opens with the death of Norman's father.  Six months later, the remaining Bateses hop into a vintage car and relocate from Arizona to a coastal town (not sure whether it's California or Oregon), where Norma has purchased a run-down motel and the oh-so-familiar mansion on the hill behind it.  Norma strikes a pin-up pose on the hood of her car for Norman to take a picture commemorating their arrival.  The pair enter the mansion, filled with early century furniture covered in drop-cloths.  Norma explains that here they will make a new start.

OK.  So far, so good: It's a prequel.  Through this show, we will learn how nice, polite Norman becomes a Hitchcockian shower-slasher.  When the show comes back from commercial, though, things go. . .sideways: Norman is sitting outside fiddling with what look like iPod earbuds.  Suddenly, a group of girls drives up in an unmistakably modern-day BMW convertible.  In other words, we are no longer in the 1950's; turns out, we never were.  While the main characters are clearly the iconic figures from "Psycho," the show itself is set in 2013.  It's not a prequel; it's a "reboot."

The show is enjoyable, as far as it goes. Vera Farmiga's a good actress, and Norma is an interesting character: strong-willed, humorous, devoted to Norman, but with the incipient overbearingness that we can imagine inevitably leading to psychopathology.  Freddie Highmore plays Norman with the expected amount of teenage awkwardness, while investing him with a likable degree of wit and, yes, humanity.  The rest of the cast fills the Bateses' new seaside home with a degree of eccentricity reminiscent of "Twin Peaks."

So why the modern-day setting?  Ultimately, this affords the viewer a modicum of hope.  Sure, Norman could become a serial-killer, but maybe he won't.  There is no inevitable Janet Leigh waiting a few short years in the future.  Only as the series unfolds will we learn whether Norman's story is the tragedy we have come to expect.

The NRA Does It Again!

Regular readers of this blog--all both of you--know my position on gun control: The more the better.  So you might expect I would favor disarming those gun owners against whom courts have issued orders of protection.  Relieving perpetrators of domestic violence of their violent paraphrenalia just makes sense.  Still, as I read an article today, about states' efforts to legislate or enforce such disarmament, I found myself wondering....

First, how useful is such legislation?  Don't get me wrong, in terms of strategy, I think gun-control advocates should flood state legislators with as many proposals as possible: As I mentioned in an earlier post, making the NRA and like-minded groups battle on as many fronts as possible is a good way to sap their resources and/or their will to fight against more mainstream, acceptable proposals.  At the same time, though, when questioning the effectiveness of this particular type of legislation, gun-rights advocates make a reasonable point.  By definition, those against whom orders of protection are issued are not exactly model citizens.  They have presumably manifested disregard for law and order.  Requiring these people to give up their guns is a fine idea, but are these people truly going to feel constrained by such laws?  Are they likely to hand over all their weapons--even the ones the cops may not know about?  Will they not just go out and buy another gun, assuming that is their weapon of choice.  (Arguably, laws against gun purchases by this population would be a sounder idea, from a prevention standpoint.)  By all means, pass these laws, but at the same time understand that this is just one of many possible remedies for gun violence.

The other thing this article makes clear, though, is the continuing tone-deafness of the National Rifle Association.  Seriously, if MoveOn.org or some other liberal advocacy group does not, within the next 24 hours, create an ad promoting the NRA as the "Wife Abusers Rearmament Society," then someone should be fired for dereliction of duty.

Breaking Worse

A popular meme making the rounds on YouTube re-imagines some of today's most popular television shows--"Game of Thrones," "The Walking Dead"--as if they were produced in 1995.  To me, the results are more reminiscent of the 1980's--I don't remember the '90's being quite so cheesy--but they are amusing nonetheless.

One remix presents "Breaking Bad" as an "Eight Is Enough"-style family dramedy.  Instead of the familiar image of chemical symbols rising through toxic meth-fumes, the show's "opening" features a cheery up-tempo pop tune over clips of the show's stars smiling, joking, and loving each other unconditionally.  The ncongruity of "Breaking Bad"'s unremitting gothic darkness transposed into the land of warm fuzzies makes for great comedy.

The problem arises when somebody at a major network--or in this case, ABC--decides that this parody would actually make for a good drama.  Such seems to be the case with "Red Widow."

I watched the pilot the other night--I have a lot of old stuff on my DVR.  The show is about a woman, Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell), whose husband is murdered after he and his partners steal a cocaine shipment from a powerful gangster named Schiller (Goran Visnjic).  In order to settle her husband's debt--and ensure no further harm comes to her family--Marta agrees to work for Schiller.  Although she is awkward at first, I can already see where this is heading: If the show lasts, Marta will undoubtedly display a Walter-White-worthy capacity for violence.  As the daughter of a gangster herself, Marta already has the criminal instincts she will need to thrive in this business.

Unlike "Breaking Bad," though, where the corruption of a basically decent soul is treated with the seriousness befitting such a theme (although not without a generous helping of black humor), "Red Widow" cannot be taken seriously.

One ostensibly minor moment gives the idea: The plot of the pilot revolves around Marta trying to obtain the cooperation of a port supervisor, who will make sure that, when the time comes, a shipment of drugs will be placed on the "right" truck.  When she first approaches this supervisor, she is hopelessly awkward.  She is advised by her partner that she should use her "assets": "At least you're hot."  We next see Marta walking down the stairs in her house, wearing a micro-mini-skirt and heels in which, for some reason, she is stumbling.  She then accidentally sets off her newly installed security system when she opens her door, and frantically, haplessly, tries to turn it off.  Her son comes to the rescue and questions her wardrobe choices.  She brushes him off and proceeds to begin her seduction of the unsuspecting longshoreman.

I suppose the slapstick is meant to be funny, or at least to show us how ill-prepared Marta is for these dangerous undertakings.  But the bit with the alarm system just felt gratutitous, and I find it hard to believe that a thirty-something blond bombshell has never walked in heels before, especially since we earlier saw her dancing at her sister's wedding--and I don't think she was wearing sneakers.

Nitpicky?  Well, yes, but still, it's little things like this that make me wonder what this show wants to be--how seriously it means to be taken.  I realize that the major broadcast networks have an imperative to reach the broadest possible audience, and obvious gags are a good way to lighten the mood and assure the masses that this is a character they can relate to.  But if this is what is going to pass for long-form drama on the broadcast giants, they might be better off just sticking with ever-more installments of "The Bachelor" and "Dancing with the Stars."