Author Archives: Frank Moraes

About Frank Moraes

Frank Moraes is a freelance writer and editor online and in print. He is educated as a scientist with a PhD in Atmospheric Physics. He has worked in climate science, remote sensing, throughout the computer industry, and as a college physics instructor. Find out more at About Frank Moraes.

Odd Words: Caducity

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CaducityIt’s been over two weeks, but finally I am getting around to page 36 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition. There are a lot of strange and useless words on this page. But I’ve picked a good word that seems like I should have known it: caducity.

Caducity Is Not a Musical Word

This page had a number of words I knew from music. And I learned something. The word “cadence” means both “the beat or measure of any rhythmical motion” and “a sequence of chords showing the end of a section or phrase.” Now, I knew both those words, but I was never certain if they were exactly the same word or if they were spelled differently. I know “cadence” well because I studied music theory. But the first definition is one I know only because I was in marching band in high school.

Another cool music word is “cadenza.” Now you might think this is related to “cadence,” but it isn’t. A cadenza is “an elaborate ostentatious passage for a solo instrument in a concerto, aria, etc.” They are often improvised or written by the performer. In my experience, they are dreadful. They are there for the purpose of showing off. Think: the classical music equivalent to a rock drum solo.

Other Words

There were a number of property words. For example, “cadastral,” which is “of or pertaining to property boundaries.” There were a couple more related words. But then there was “cairn” which is “a heap of stones serving as a landmark. There were many others that I didn’t know that had nothing to do with property, of course. For example: calathiform. How I got this far not having a word to describe something shaped like a cup, I can’t say. No, wait! I can! I just say, “Shaped like a cup.”

All right, here we go: caducity.

Ca·du·ci·ty  noun  \ke-‘dü-sə-tē\

1. senility.

2. the quality of being transitory; impermanence.

Date: mid 18th century.

Origin: from French, caducité, which means (Maybe?) “deciduous nature.” But it comes from the Latin word caducus, which is an adjective meaning “that falls” or “has fallen.” It was especially used in reference to warriors, as in, “He has fallen in battle.”

Example: This is also seen in The Pope’s Body, where Paravicini Bagliani inscribes the death of the pope within a dialectic of caducity and glorification. —Joëlle Rollo-Koster, in Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed.

Image cropped from Senility by Kamil Porembiński. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

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Slaves - Nobody Knows the Trouble I've SeenYesterday I was feeling kind of sorry for myself and started singing “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” Now, I feel kind of bad about that. After all, I’ve lived a pretty charmed life. Sure, I’ve seen a lot of trouble, but it’s almost entirely my own damned fault. Just the same, relative suffering is worse than absolute suffering. Think of Richard Wilkinson’s work on inequality and how relative inequality is the killer. So I think I can be allowed my meta-grumbles.

I hardly have a good voice for “Nobody Know the Trouble I’ve Seen.” So I went on YouTube to find some performances of it. The song itself dates back to at least the middle of the 19th century — and could be much older than that. It does seem a natural song to come out of slavery.

Marian Anderson

By the early 20th century, the song had been co-opted by classical musicians of the time. And this resulted in Marian Anderson having the first really successful version of it. That was in 1924 when she was 27 years old. And she would live almost 70 years afterward.

It’s a very restrained performance, focused on the music. What’s probably most interesting is that I always think of it as a song sung by a man. But that isn’t at all the case, as this version, and many others attest.

Paul Robeson

Two years later, Paul Robeson recorded the song. His deep bass voice is irresistible. Still, his performance is very similar to Anderson’s. It’s hardly surprising, however. Slavery was still a living memory. And it isn’t like life was that great for blacks then either.

Here is a later recording where his performance is more emotional and free:

Harry James

In 1941, trumpeter and bandleader Harry James recorded an instrumental version of the song. It’s good, but it is performed just as a tune. It’s very much in the style of Glenn Miller. One can almost imagine it accompanying a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Louis Armstrong

By the 1950s, the song seemed to be something different for everyone. Louis Armstrong recorded it in 1958. It’s kind of hard to know what to make of it. Armstrong was so idiosyncratic and so talented that he transcends everything. I’m not keen on the arrangement. And his spoken word segments would embarrass me if they were done by anyone else. But it’s just wonderful — joyous without losing the weariness of the song.

Sam Cooke

A couple of years later, Sam Cooke recorded the song in his own inimitable way. It is both rocking and sad. I don’t know. Cooke was such an amazing talent that it really is pointless to talk about. Just listen:

Mahalia Jackson

Let’s finish off with a real gospel version of the song by Mahalia Jackson. She recorded the song a few times. This version was (like much of her work) not released during her lifetime. But I figure it was recorded in the late 1960s or early 1970s (she died in 1972). It’s the kind of performance that makes me feel like I’m missing out by not being a Christian:

Nobody Knows

So that’s all. This isn’t really a history of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” But it does give you a good idea of how the musicians have changed in their thinking of it. In the 1950s, things get very postmodern in the sense of everyone just doing their own thing. But there are times when those very serious early versions are preferable.

Image cropped from James Hopkinson’s photograph. It is in the public domain.

Polling Aggregators Are Killing Polling

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Matt Yglesias - Polling AggregatorsIt feels at times like we’re bombarded with poll coverage, but a little-noticed reality of the 2016 campaign is that we actually have many fewer polls out in the field than we are accustomed to…

The trend in favor of aggregating polls — whether using statistical modeling like FiveThirtyEight and the Upshot or simple averaging like RealClearPolitics or Huffington Post Pollster — has created a serious tragedy of the commons problem…

Smart people realized that you could actually get a much more accurate picture of the race by aggregating all the polls together so that idiosyncratic methodologies or sampling error would wash out. Combine this with the way the internet broke down barriers between different media outlets and we got the golden age of poll aggregation in 2008 and 2012. The problem, as Henry Farrell foresaw four years ago, is that once the prestige and attention shifted to the aggregators, it undercut the economic rationale for doing the polls. Why go through the expense of conducting a poll to figure out if Clinton is up by 6 in Wisconsin or just up by 2 if you’re just going to become another data point in someone else’s well-trafficked model?

—Matt Yglesias
Poll Aggregators Seem to Be Killing off Actual Polling

Image cropped from Matthew Yglesias 10.1.13 by The Kelly Writers House. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Will and Michael Moore in TrumpLand

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Michael Moore in TrumpLand

I have been really depressed about the election. So when Will came by with Michael Moore in TrumpLand, I really didn’t want to watch it. Even talking about politics is depressing. It isn’t that I think Trump is going to become the next president. It is that Trump has a decent chance of becoming president. And I’m embarrassed — for the whole country. And so even reading about politics fills me with dread. So I didn’t want to watch the film — even highlights. But Will was a very persistent. And after half a beer, I found his laptop set up and we’re watching the film.

But what they always say is true: misery does love company. Of course, Will isn’t miserable. He’s just waiting for the election. I’m the idiot who is addicted to following politics. I’m the idiot who knows that the Real Clear Politics polling average has Clinton up by 1.9 percentage points. And that FiveThirtyEight now gives Trump over a 30 percent chance of becoming president and that Clinton is now losing in Florida and North Carolina.

It’s madness! Why do I know these things? The truth is that most likely Hillary Clinton will be the 45th president of the United States and that she will have a Democratic Senate. All this stress is for nothing. But it is there nonetheless. I’d like to not care. I’d like to not check FiveThirtyEight a dozen times per day, but I can’t stop myself. So I didn’t want to watch the movie.

A Surprising Pleasant Time

But it turned out to be pleasant. Michael Moore in TrumpLand is really just a filmed performance. And it is usually nice to listen to what Moore has to say. But more than that, it was nice to watch it will Will. It reminded me of 1988, when I was incredibly depressed about Michael Dukakis’ impending defeat to George HW Bush. Will and I went to the Plaza theater in Petaluma to watch a documentary about Bush’s evil past. After all, by that time, we knew who he was. And watching the film with Will and other like-minded liberals really did make the coming doom easier to handle.

Michael Moore in TrumpLand has a lot of great moments. And they aren’t usually the funny ones. Much of it is very tender. There’s a point at which he sits down and reads from his notebook. He talks about all the working class people who have suffered and have a right to be angry. Of course, they aren’t Trump’s base. Trump’s base is made up of people who will vote out of racial resentment. Check out this graph from Jonathan Chait:

Perceived Racial Disadvantage - Clinton and Trump Voters

Trump’s Base Is Not Open to Argument

So Moore is going out of his way to court these voters — giving them every benefit of the doubt. And you could tell that his act wasn’t really working for the Trump supporters. But that’s hardly surprising. I know there are a lot of people who support Trump because he is the Republican nominee. But true Trump supporters — the ones who voted for him in the primary — are beyond thinking. Really: it’s scary. It is something akin to pure rage. I’ve always been proud that I could find common ground with conservatives. But with Trump supporters, there is no ground to find.

But it was nice to sit there with Will and watch it. We were both Bernie Sanders supporters in the primary. But it wasn’t an emotional decision. Bernie was just a better fit to our hard left economic beliefs. It was never about us sending a message that we were mad as hell. Bernie would have led the country in a positive direction and so will Hillary. Will and I could have a conversation about whether Trump would lead the nation in a positive direction. The trump supporters I know can’t. They are voting out of fear and hatred.

Sharing Michael Moore in TrumpLand

So it was nice to watch Michael Moore in TrumpLand with someone who is like-minded. I firmly believe that if PJ O’Rourke (who is actually a Clinton supporter because he isn’t a vile idiot) had done a similar film making the case for Trump, Will and I would have been open to it. That’s not to say we would have been convinced. And maybe that’s why this kind of social approach to politics helps to calm me down. It’s just nice to know that there are sane people in the world. Not that Will is all that sane…

The Michael Moore in TrumpLand placard is taken from Wikipedia and licensed under Fair use. The graph is also licensed under Fair Use.

The Working Poor and the Hoops They Jump Through

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Working PoorSo when we moved to Cincinnati, we got the cheapest apartment we could find. It was the lowest apartment in the building, and we got hit by a summer storm. So what didn’t get destroyed by water got destroyed by mold. And I was, I think, seven and a half months pregnant, eight months pregnant at the time. So I was calling every charity I could, thinking, I just need a chair. For or whatever reason in my head, if I could just get a chair, then everything else would be fine. But I needed a place to sit. I got in touch with one charity who said, “Yeah, you can come and pick up a chair but you’re gonna need you to go to a resume-writing class.” And I said, “For what?” And they said, “Well, because we need you to be looking for work and trying to better your situation; we don’t just give charity to just anybody. We need to make sure that you’re, you know, invested — you got some skin in the game.” And I said, “Okay, when is the resume-writing class?” And she gave me two different times. And I said, “Well, I have to be at work at both of those times.” And they said, “Well, if you want the charity you have to show up to the class.” And I was like, “If I come to the class I’ll get fired.” And this woman was telling me how I really needed to learn to write my resume so that I could find gainful employment, so that I could get the stupid chair that was probably worth five bucks.

That is what personal responsibility means to somebody on welfare. It means here are these stupid hoops that we’re gonna make you jump through and then we’re going to give you a solution that absolutely won’t work for you. It’s that kind of just over and over beating your head against these ridiculous regulations and these double-binds that don’t make any sense. And the whole thing is set up specifically to humiliate you as much as possible because what we need poor people to do in America more than anything else in the world is know their place.

—Linda Tirado
Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook: Poverty in America Edition

Working Poor image cropped from A cashier and a customer interact at a cash register at the Wal-Mart store in Harrisonburg, Virginia by Ben Schumin. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5.

A Passage to India: Individual and Collective Conflict

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A Passage to IndiaAs I mentioned before, I watched A Passage to India, and it really improved my mood. But it isn’t because it is a feel-good movie. The denouement is perhaps like that, but getting there is hell. The film is highly political and it plays a lot with the concept on the individual and collective levels. And it is in this way that the film is structured.

The first part of the film is focused on the collective. We see a lot of the British ruling class. They are, as a group, not very sympathetic. Just the same, you see their dilemma. None of them want to be in India. They remind me very much of the 1% in the United States. They are part of the power elite, but that mostly just allows them to see how the truly rich and powerful live. If they were truly successful, they’d be in England. And that fact is painfully on display in the film.

The description of The Ugly American seems quite fitting, “A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They’re loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they’re frightened and defensive…” Or more directly, there is George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant,” where he shows how imperialism was a trap for the British. The one good thing is that you know all these people will be released from their self imposed bondage within two decades.

Collective Conflict

Throughout this first part of A Passage to India, we follow two visitors: the young Adela Quested (Judy Davis) and the much older Mrs Moore (Peggy Ashcroft). They both want to see “the real India.” So they are sympathetic. But as the Indian protaganist, Dr Aziz, notes at the beginning, “They all become exactly the same. I give any Englishman two years… I give [the women] six months…” This is said somewhat in jest. Dr Aziz admires the British. This he will come to regret.

Mrs Moore and Dr Aziz meet at night, in a mosque. Dr Aziz is impressed with Mrs Moore’s respect for their customs (she removed her shoes before entering). This starts a series of events that leads to Dr Aziz taking Adela and Mrs Moore on a trip to the Marabar Caves. It comes about because he is too embarrassed to let them see his humble house. But throughout all of this, Adela has something of a sexual awakening. And she becomes attracted to Dr Aziz.

Adela’s sexual awaking is rendered with only images. It is director David Leen at his very best. Adela takes a bike ride and comes upon an abandoned Hindu temple with much suggestive sculpture. As she stares transfixed at a sculpture of a man and woman kissing, she hears cries. She’s surrounded by monkeys who make their home there. They chase her and she runs away, terrified.

Individual Conflict

There is a clear distinction between Adela and Mrs Moore. While the older woman always sees reality clearly and fearlessly, the younger woman lives in her own world. It’s impossible to say if the monkeys really exist. But whether real or not, they represent the fear she has of her own sexuality. And this scene is repeated roughly 45 minutes later on the expedition to the Marabar Caves. But in that case, Dr Aziz is present. What happens is never fully explained. But Adela runs screaming down the mountain and accuses Dr Aziz of trying to rape her. He is promptly arrested. And 45 minutes after that, Adela recants and Dr Aziz is freed.

So A Passage to India starts with the collective English contrasted with the collective Indians. And it ends (effectively) in a courtroom with Adela and Dr Aziz facing each other — representatives of their cultures. Dr Aziz cannot understand why Adela has acted as she has and he is not quick to forgive. And Adela cannot understand her own actions. Dr Aziz becomes more committed to Indian independence, just as his country would. And Adela goes back to England, just as her country would soon do.

A Passage to India as Allegory

It is only after the bonds of imperialism are cut that the British and the Indians can reconcile because it is only then that they can be equals. From the standpoint of a 1984 film, it ends in a most pleasant way. I suspect if I had read the book in 1924, I would have found it troubling indeed. One could, I think, write the same novel with Israel and Palestine.

Afterword

Speaking of Israel and Palestine, West Bank Story is a fun little film.

Image of A Passage to India taken from Wikipedia, and is licensed under Fair Use.

Jonathan Chait on the Republican Herd

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Republican HerdI think much of the analysis of Trump has not quite grappled with… the reality that parties operate like herds. The focus on the individual is natural, and somewhat appropriate, given Trump’s extraordinarily disqualifying combination of personal traits. Still, all of Trump’s personal and ideological tics can be connected to decades-long trends within the Republican Party toward anti-intellectualism, white racial paranoia, and authoritarianism.

The herd quality of parties explains why the most pessimistic observers of the Republican Party during the Obama era have been right — indeed, Trump’s rise has proven many of us to have been insufficiently pessimistic about the party — and the optimists wrong. The optimists have believed that the GOP could elide, or move beyond, its most fanatical and retrograde elements with some kind of killer app: just the right kind of presidential candidate, or Speaker of the House, or domestic-policy innovation, could reposition Republicans as a serious, responsible governing force.

But it hasn’t worked because the outliers in the party have a way of pulling the herd in their direction.

—Jonathan Chait
Why Republican Kooks Matter

Image of Republican Herd cropped from on at Pixabay by Erico Junior Morais. It is in the public domain.

The Pointlessness of Following Politics

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Hillary Clinton - PoliticsIt’s not a happy time to be a Democrat. It still looks like Hillary Clinton will be the next president. But FiveThirtyEight gives Trump a 30.3 percent chance of winning if the election were held today. Real Clear Politics now has Clinton up by only 2.2 percentage points in both a two-way and four-way race. In absolute terms, this is actually good news. But it’s much worse than things were even a week ago when Trump looked like he was heading for a devastating loss. The whole thing just drives home the fact that those in the mushy middle might as well be random number generators.

It really doesn’t matter that James Comey’s letter last week said nothing. How are the know-nothings to decide on who to vote for other than which candidate is currently getting bad press? If the vote had been right after the Trump “sex tape” was released, Clinton would have won big. Now that there is talk of some email that no one has looked at that might have something to do with something that might conceivably be important, people swing in the opposite direction.

November Surprise

Politics is maddening. We used to talk about the October Surprise. Those were the days! Now the attention span of the American voter is so short, it is really the November Surprise. Or perhaps: the Day Before Election Day surprise. What nonsense this all is.

Donald Trump - PoliticsNow I should be clear: I don’t think that Clinton voters are turning and running. I suspect we are just seeing a lot of queasy Republicans deciding that Donald Trump is the safe choice. It’s amazing to think about. Even if Clinton were as corrupt as the right wing media make her out, Trump is far more corrupt. Trump has benefited from the fact that he is so publicly vile that it isn’t even considered newsworthy to discuss.

This election has affected me in a profound way. It isn’t about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. It’s just become so clear that the electorate is made up of three pieces. First there are the dependable Democrats. Second there are the dependable Republicans. Third there are the people in the center who really will make up their minds based upon whether their favorite sports team won the weekend before. If you couldn’t make up your mind between Clinton and Trump a month ago, you really are a nitwit. But maybe we who follow politics closely are nitwits in a different way.

Why Follow Politics?

It doesn’t really matter to me in the sense that I largely understood this dynamic before. But it makes me wonder why I follow politics. There really is nothing to it that bears attention. Jesus could come on national television and say, “Hillary Clinton is innocent of all the charges you are lobbing at her.” And you know what would happen: all the conservative Christians would renounce their faith and vote for Trump. There is nothing really to talk about.

I think I should be more like Godbole in A Passage to India. When asked if he cares what happens to Aziz, Godbole replies, “Yes, but it is of no consequence if I care or do not care. The outcome is already decided.” Maybe the people of Ohio who vote based on how the Steelers do against the Ravens next weekend are the enlightened ones.

Afterword

The good news, however, is that that it still looks like Clinton will win. And it looks like the Democrats will take the Senate. All Americans should be glad at least that the the White House and Senate won’t be split. Otherwise, the Republicans in the Senate would surely cause a constitutional crisis. But as Godbole said, “The outcome is already decided.” I do, however, think you all should vote by the end of the day on 8 November. Think of it as part of the universe’s plan.

Donald Trump image via Wikimedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Hillary Clinton by Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Halloween Is the Best Holiday but I’ve Kinda Given Up

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Halloween: Trick or Treat?It’s Halloween, and that means that by the Frankly Curious Terms of Service, I am required to say: Halloween is my favorite holiday. But the truth is that I am being let down by our society. Halloween could be so much better!

When I was a kid, it was so much better. I remember being on the street with my parents and there being kids everywhere. And then, starting in the late 1960s, every year the local news reported on how dangerous the holiday supposedly was. People gave out candy with poison and razor blades! Most of this was folklore.

What’s more, in as much as it was true, it was based on the folklore. For example, most of the razor blade stories seem to be children putting razor blades in apples and then showing what they “found” in their apples to their parents. And the cases of poisonings have been people murdering children and trying to make it look like some random act. Sick, but hardly the fault of Halloween or, more to the point, society.

Social Decay and the End of Halloween

And that’s the problem with the holiday: we’ve lost the necessary social cohesion to make the holiday great.

For the last several years, the only trick-or-treat child I get is the little boy who lives across the street. And I have been giving out regular-sized bars for a couple of decades. Kids really should want to come to my house!

I understand the fear of parents. Just the same, so much is lost. What’s more, those parents could protect their children by getting to know their neighbors. That’s part of the same thing. It’s all about fear of these unknown people.

Now, I understand that this is hard to do. And our economic situation is a big part of it. We now live in a nation that requires both parents to work. A large fraction of the nation is far too busy just getting by to spend time getting to know the neighbors. And income inequality puts barriers between people. So my disappointment is not focused on how individuals act but on how our society forces them to act.

Still, it sucks. Some of my best memories of my second marriage are our Halloween events. We loved decorating the place. I was always big on creating ghosts — probably because they are the most friendly of scary things. And now, I find I can’t even bother. It was easier with a partner. Even if no kids showed up, at least we had fun with it.

There’s a price to pay for our lack of trust in each other. It’s about more than a holiday — even one as gloriously silly as Halloween.

Image cropped from Trick or Treat? by Ryo FUKAsawa. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Halloween Movies That Will Make You Feel Undead

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Halloween MoviesGood morning everyone! It seems I have gotten back my evil will to live — others call it their “groove.” And just in time because it is the best holiday of the year: Halloween! And I thought I would share with you a few wonderful clips from my favorite Halloween movies.

The Bride of Frankenstein

Okay: I have to make a disclosure. My favorite Halloween movies really aren’t scary. When I was eight years old, I stayed up late with my older sister to watch Creature Features. They were showing The Bride of Frankenstein. And I was so afraid, that I vomited. Now, of course, I find it one of the most charming films ever made. The monster is not frightening. If you treat him well, he’ll be nice to you. He just wants to be loved!

There is so much to love in the film. But the ending really does sum everything up, “Friend? Friend?” Not that he can’t be riled, as he is soon enough.

The House on Haunted Hill

This one is pure fun. But again, when I was kid, I was very frightened by it. The following video is of the entire The House on Haunted Hill. But I have it set at the very ending because it is so ridiculous. When Vincent Price appears out of the shadows with his preposterous contraption for controlling the skeleton, lesser minds think, “That’s stupid!” But the evolved know that it makes perfect sense that a man would have a small pool of acid and a skeleton marionette. Right?!

The Last Man on Earth

Before Night of the Living Dead there was The Last Man on Earth. In fact, George Romero has said that he was inspired by the film (and the book by Richard Matheson). When I was very young (six or seven), it seemed that The Last Man on Earth was always being played on Creature Features. Now I’ll admit: it isn’t as good a film in terms of narrative. But it terrified me as a child. “Morgan, come out!”

What’s remarkable is just how beautifully the film is shot. I recommend watching it just as an exercise in the craft of filmmaking. The whole film is there.

Bride of the Monster

Okay, Bride of the Monster is a hard film to watch all the way through. People say that Ed Wood was a terrible director. He wasn’t. But he didn’t worry too much about the scripts that he wrote. Most people don’t know this, but Wood published over 80 novels in his life. He was a writing machine — apparently because quality wasn’t that important to him. But he was capable of great work. And that is well on display in this star scene with Bela Lugosi.

Best of the Halloween Movies: A Comedy of Terrors

Of course, I’ve never been a big Lugosi fan. I love Boris Karloff. And we’ve already had one of his films. Also: two with Vincent Price. And one film written by one of the greats, Richard Matheson. So why don’t we throw in Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone and enjoy a whole film, A Comedy of Terrors. It is not at all frightening. It probably wouldn’t even have been to 8-year-old Frank. But it’s wonderful:

Have a wonderful holiday all of you! Use it as an excuse to enjoy some great old Halloween movies. Let’s finish with a song:

“Jack-o’-Lantern 2003-10-31” by Toby Ord – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons.

The Pleasures of Growing Old

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Old People in NaplesI thought that I should check in, what with my last post being all about death. Not that one should mistake me thinking of death as a bad thing. Death is our victory over the evil will. But many people do think of it in negative terms. That post wasn’t really about death anyway. It was about pain, which I do think the ultimate evil. That’s why the will is so awful: it makes us continue to accept pain. But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about growing old.

I just spent three wonderful hours watching A Passage to India. It wasn’t my first viewing. I saw it roughly three decades ago and I recall liking it — but not like this. I’m going to write about the film tomorrow (most likely). Now I just want to mention how one needs to grow into a lot of works of art. That’s definitely the case here. What I suspect I appreciated then was the nice story where things turn out well for all the characters we care about.

This time, I more appreciated the film’s visual style and its formal elements. I’ll discuss that later — or at least some of it. But it’s interesting how I have to learn to appreciate things. It was the same way with writing. I was probably 30 years old before I even started to hear the language. I think for a mind like mine, math is easier because it is deductive. The beauty is pure. But the beauty of English requires far greater knowledge.

Last night, I was reading an article by Alex Nichols. He wrote something that quite amused me that would have left me cold 30 years ago:

JRR Tolkien said that “cellar door” was the most beautiful phonetic phrase the English language could produce. “BuzzFeed Hamilton Slack,” by contrast, may be the most repellent arrangement of words in any tongue.

It’s nice to grow older. Your body may fail you. You aren’t the quick wit you used to be. But you’ve marinated for so long that you can appreciate more things in life. It’s a very good thing. It makes the will seem not quite so evil.

Image cropped from Old People in Naples. It is in the public domain.

Death and the Last 48 Hours

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DeathThe last 48 hours have been very difficult and it’s got me thinking about death. We had a serious medical issue in the family. (I don’t want to go into detail because this is one of those rare cases where I have some sense of decorum.) Everything is fine now. But I still feel like I’m shell-shocked. I can’t seem to grab hold of my usual view of the world. Everything seems distant, and I just want to go to bed even though I’m not tired.

There is a difference between the intellectual and the emotional. One can, for example, look to one’s eventual death with calm detachment. That’s certainly what I do. But if someone where to pull out a gun and put it to my head, I suspect that I would freak out. I always hope that when death comes, I’ll be like Jeff Goldblum at the end of The Fly. But I suspect not.

That’s such a great moment when he grabs the barrel of the gun and places it to his head. But generally, we all want to fight to the very end. That’s because we aren’t driven by rationality. Schopenhauer was right: there is this will to live and it exists only for its own sake, regardless of what we — as relatively rational beings — want.

All of this comes to mind because of the pain and suffering of others. It’s made me change my thinking on how I want to die. Before, I’ve always wanted to slip away easily and most definitely nonviolently. But now I think a sudden and unexpected death would absolutely be the way to go. After all, it isn’t really death that we dread; it’s the idea of death. If I just disappeared right now, that would be great! Here and gone — nothing to worry about.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about. But I don’t think I’m going to post anything for the rest of the day. I do hope that by the time you read this, I’ll be feeling more connected to life. But all this thinking about death has not made me morose. Continuing to live requires an act of faith — the belief that somehow it is all worth it. And right now, I’m not really feeling it. I’m pretty sure intellectually that it isn’t — as usual. But I’ve always had a strong (And evil!) will that makes me get out of bed each morning.

Here’s hoping that it returns tomorrow!

Image cropped from Death in the Hood by George Hodan. It is in the public domain.