RatBoy - an online little magazine

Quaking Aspens

2007-03-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

Fitzmas it is, and I can only hope that those lines from Scooter to Judy [pdf - see p.2] back in September, 2005, might mean a gift that keeps on giving. If ever there was a circle of roots that needed excavation and airing, it's the one that connects the OVP to...well, name your mischief.

Groundhog Day + 11

2007-02-13T13:04:00.000-08:00

Poking the snout out to find shadowlands deserted, the scent of hyacinths around every supermarket, and shoves from New Blogger at my butt, pressing an end to hibernation. Far from being asleep, however, I was taking my classes, getting my license, canvassing my precinct - and a lot more non-idleness. Not enough mischief and invective, I fear, but I'll remedy that.

I'll have to post sparingly at the moment, and there is a lot of plumbing and wiring yet to be done (just look at that Blogroll, so many dear departed!), but I expect to be up to an amble pretty soon.

Thanks to all who have sent queries as to my whereabouts (and to those who even thought about sending one). My apologies for no letting you know, sooner, how much they heartened.

2006-06-12T00:55:00.000-07:00

Awake & Sing

Resurrection, Now....

2006-06-12T00:22:00.000-07:00

So, can't fucking believe it's been a month since the last post. Haven't been snoozing so much as reacclimating to a more normal diurnal pattern of sleep and feeding and work. Nearly 4 years of 24/7 patient care can deform all your expectations of how things are done - a postcard from one of the best friends of this site, featuring Rip Van Winkle, was more appropriate than the sender could have known (but he's smart and a little sneaky, so it probably didn't escape him).

More later today. As I find them, I'll fold in links to C-SPAN coverage of YearlyKos from this weekend, because the tail end I caught was brilliant.

Homage à Derek & Clive

2006-05-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

Roy, I am in your debt (and Digby saw it first, for me). It's so odd; people who will kick you into the gutter - for your own good, of course - and maybe take an extra shot in the ribs for good measure, will squeal like stuck pigs if you utter a word they might find offensive, or decline their efforts to Save You from Hellfire. Or whatever. There's a name for them, and I think roy nailed it.

2006-05-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

It Makes the World Go 'Round.....

Mayday + 5

2006-05-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

This is not something I have wanted to do, but immediate circumstances - medical, job gap, maintaining minimal connection with the world ( that means with all of you, when it comes down to it...) - make a funding plea necessary. Any small amount in the PayPal tip jar (left column, and down...) will ease the situation. It will certainly be a hedge against brain-block, and a veritable guarantee of more fascinating, up-to-date posts. I, too, have missed that.

Thanks, in advance, for anything you can pony.

[Update: there's now an Amazon jar, too. Just got back from the semi-annual meetup of lawyers and craftsmen and assorted others who pay attention to things like The Goss Mystery, The Colbert Follies, and the rest of this last week's amusements. the food and drink were excellent, but everyone is a little confused....]

2006-05-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

Onward & Upward

For Hugh

2006-05-05T05:35:00.000-07:00

We lost one of our dearest friends this week, my extended family in Los Angeles. He selected the date and time, and, in consultation with those nearest to him, and most loved, he cashed out . The rest of us were not so well-prepared.

Some people are so vivid they seem to carry their own light around with them, and Hugh was one of those guys to me. He and I had a lunch date once, when I was working for a mutual fund whose offices were a matter of yards, a few stories, and a palisade away from the beach and the ocean. Hugh showed up sopping wet; he'd wanted a swim and hadn't bothered to bring a towel, and he was as elegant and as insouciant as ever. His real concern was to sell me a tapedeck he had on hand - needed the dough for an invention he was working on.

Surely, in a life filled with such improvisation, risk, private anxiety, tumultuous fortune, beauty and love - it took great pain and courage to decide where and when it would stop. As our friend Ron said, "He's braver than I am."

Memorial this Sunday, and the Sargent, above, is a tribute - Hugh was darker, but just as dashing, and JSS would have done him proud.

2006-05-05T05:33:00.000-07:00

Borromini - the Baroque Curve

Licence

2006-05-05T05:10:00.000-07:00

1983...1986, 1987...

In the sequestered week I described just below, I finished Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, a book I pounced on as soon as I'd heard of it, hailed to friends to look for when it won the [link] Booker, and then could only read in sleepy bits as my patient got worse last year. I was too tired with duties to give it the attention it deserved, and from the first third (1983, pressing into 1986), I knew it was too good to give less than my full attention, and now I had the license to give it.
[If you haven't read Hollinghurst before, I recommend checking out Colm Toibin's piece on this one in the NYRB of last year [V.52, n.1 - Jan 13, 2005] - it is not, unfortunately, free on-line, but it's a lovely summation of his work so far, and how The Line of Beauty extends his achievement. I'll quote from hardcopy in the following.]

Nick Guest, our mirror and lens, is down to London after taking a first-class degree at Oxford, preparing to pursue some - rather vague - post-graduate studies on Henry James and style. His perch is the Kensington Park Gardens house of his school friend Toby's family, the Feddens - Dad is the Tory MP for Nick's market-town home constituency, his wife of a distinguished and fabulously wealthy Jewish family, at whose country house the Master was himself a guest, from time to time. Nick is Out, but not yet about, and like many a Jamesian principal, he finds himself in unexpectedly deep waters. He is also acutely observant, ambitious, and - distinctly unlike your usual Jamesian hero - intensely, explicitly horny.

Hollinghurst, thank god, does not write coming-out stories. That grand first step is as nothing compared to the world that comes after. Nick announced he was gay, at school, before he had ever had man2man sex, but his sexual education, in 1983, is poised alongside the Thatcher landslide of that year, the rising fortunes of his host family, and the shadow of AIDS in the deep end.

There is no separating Nick's aesthetic from his sexual hunger or savor. Hollinghurst writes wonderfully about sex - it's hot - but I think it's as accessible to straight as it is to gay readers. Nobody gets caught (or should I say pinned, like a specimen), in the narrator's eye, in bed, in a park, in a t-room - lust gets very free rein, and all its delicious triggers, but fucking itself, are given the respect of privacy and tact. That keeps it on everyone's mind, all the time, and in this particular social comedy, that's as it should be.

As Toibin points out, quoting the narrator of The Folding Star, for Hollinghurst's gay heroes, "...the world of heterosexual feeling [is] never fully plausible." As a gay American reader, this is a kind of confidence - both a privacy and an assurance - that US gay culture too often dances around. I am sure heterosexuals feel exactly the same thing about me - neither of us should deny it, however. Taking that plausibility for granted gets Nick into considerable trouble - that and his empathy, which, while he is out of them himself, feeds the monsters in other peoples' closets.

I was on a pivot myself, in 1983, moving from one distant city to another one, and while I hung between them, the plague flags went up. It's a shock to jump from Nick's deflowering of 1983 to his confident cruising of the Hampstead Ponds in 1986, "grown slowly and unseriously heavier" in the years between (Hollinghurst knows what a daily 50 laps in the pool can do, I suspect, viz. The Swimming-Pool Library]). The middle distance is beginning to pile up with the lost. In a reader who had been there, who had shoved the cork back in the bottle, this is terrifying, and engenders envy. Nick is careful, to a degree - he's certainly not oblivious - but he's not overwhelmed by the paranoia, the panic, that was sweeping the United States at the time. There's no Larry Kramer on the scene, no ActUp, that I know about (and anyone in the UK who knows better, please comment). When the shit hits Nick's fan, it's in the form of classic British tab scandals, and it follows from an act of discretion, a fault of foresight, and some willful misreading of sex, love, politics and economics that could constitute a coat of arms for the Thatcher Era. Or the Reagan Era, for that matter.

At a certain point, you face the Beast in the Jungle - it comes for you, or you go after it. There is going to be blood, either way. Some of it - many pints, actually - go into Nick's OGEE, a luxury item magazine, part coke-dream, part reflection of Nick's love of the world's beauty - lustrous, and as he observes himself, somewhat malign - black-bound, glittering, akin to his friend Toby's sister's worst fears of a poisonous universe. The spine is flanked by mirrored Borromini angels' wings, forming the double curve of baroque churches, onion domes, Alhambra arches, the curve of a lover's back. It's ephemeral, but it's still a treasure.

2006-04-24T04:50:00.000-07:00

Run for the Exits - and Watch Out for That Right Eyebrow...!

10 Days in the Country

2006-04-24T02:54:00.000-07:00

If this was a conspiracy, it was one of Events. A death, a dislocation, a disconnection (very much in descending order of importance), while I got some teeth ripped out and replaced. Not quite replaced, yet - we're 2/3 there, but that's the setting. The dislocation was to a small river town on the Columbia, where my sister chose to live and where she chose, very kindly, to look after me.

Anyone - certainly all of you who read here - can duplicate the disconnection on their own; pretend you're on dial-up, limit yourself to 30 minutes a day connection time, max - also strictly broadcast TV channels, no cable access. Actually, add to this no computer access at all, even off-line. I brought mine with me, but she had cleverly put obstacles between every electrical outlet and my box, so after a little exploring, it was clear that I'd have to fall back on older technologies. E-mail checks only, and at her convenience (I still think, after nearly 10 years on-line myself, that she harbors suspicions that I'm Up to No Good when I log on - I do not intend to wise her up). For some of even the most Progressive people, e-tech - indeed, almost any tech - is suspect, and likely to be e-vil. My sister is as determinedly Progressive as they come, but I had the feeling that she was scanning me for signs of having, you know, imps or familiars hanging around in my aura. Maybe I should never have mentioned my love for Buffy all those years ago....

While my sis moved where she did for the Quiet Life, it's no Red County in a Blue State - it went 51% to 47% for Kerry in 2004 - and if you walk a couple of blocks down the road, you'll find Safeway shoppers and staff who will go out of their way to help you, and who probably like their Jon Stewart and Olbermann, too. Bet they check out The American Street (they live on it), or FDL (where Jane is a p/t Oregon resident), too. I was stuck with Mrs. Miniver (literally - it was the featured DVD my last night there, no arguments - and fucking appalling).

As far as the old technologies went, I was able to finish books I had put off for months. See above for one of those. That was a joy, but I still felt penned - and is there anything worse than not being able to share jokes with someone you love, with whom you have a great fund of shared experience, and who now wants to hear only about what is comfortable and familiar, which does not include you? I made great friends with the cat, but both of us ended up pussyfooting around together, avoiding the tripwires.

So, finally, there was no trend to be found out there. The particular and the personal were the vivid things, and they can't be categorized, or be made to fit a scheme or a plot. I just hope I don't have to watch Greer Garson again, for a long, long time.

[Update/Second Thoughts - Weltschmerz Edition: Among other thrills, Tom Delay resigned during the 10 Days described above. I couldn't help thinking, under the circumstances, of all the delicious snark, all the sharp analysis, I was missing. I wasn't getting any from broadcasts; poor Mike Allen of TIME looked poleaxed (and fumbled for words) on the PBS Newshour - you'd have thought he'd lost a mealticket. It was Norman Ornstein who gave the story some structure, and quite unsentimentally {he must have some special dispensation from his robot masters to be insightful).
Once I was all moved in and reconnected, it took at least two or three days to catch up on the posts of the few dozen sources I read regularly. It's now two weeks from that day, and I'm finally feeling properly oriented. I also hang my head for complaining about anything after seeing Michael Bérubé's list of meds he was on last week - and he was writing, and posting...!
There will be a lit post tonight, on the wonderful Alan Hollinghurst. I'm not sure about the Google-y ads, but am willing to give it a shot - more on that later, too. ]

2006-04-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

Mary Anne, and the luscious Ginger....

Mary Anne, or Ginger?

2006-04-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, and time to choose a Chosen One (you know, Rite of Spring, all that...). Let's all pretend we are Anne Baxter and we have to decide between Mary Anne and Ginger. My favorite teacher of maybe all time was named Marianne, so if I chose her it would be almost incestuous, and that's criminal in most states, so I'm a Ginger Boy.

Now it's YOUR turn.

Horizons

2006-04-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

Only a week away from full re-connection. Expect a flurry of postings (not least on the agony of being unplugged from my accustomed sources of information...it is no wonder a third of the country persists in believing BushCo fantasies, if what reaches them through the airwaves alone is any evidence). Have much reading, of a literary nature, to report on, too - and that's balanced the isolation.

Cheers to all who've stuck with me - you will be rewarded very soon.

Update : Yeah, like - what, 12 days later? Sorry about that - it's been very goofy with the move, the re-settling and the General Chaos (and yes, that's a Butters reference....). More tonight..

2006-03-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

Choppers!

The Chattering

2006-03-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

There's going to be a pause around here - and I mean a real one, not a merely lazy, distracted one - as I move and am attacked by dentists and oral surgeons (nice guys, but they are going to do phenomenal damage - though they might call it repair). I'm usually pretty good about this kind of stuff, apart from putting it off so long that it balloons into a major project. It's almost assured that my head is going to balloon a couple of times, and I probably deserve it. The finished product will be, however, dazzling. Perhaps not Martin Amis dazzling (or gruesome), but we'll just have to find out.

In the meantime, please check out the launch yesterday of And They Cook, Too - a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders. I have a couple of entrées in, and having reviewed the contents pre-launch, can vouch for the overall deliciousness - it's a huge boost for me to be included in company like this, as both writers and cooks. Once I get my kitchen reconstituted (and am able to chew), I'll be working on some new stuff. Friends, family, dinner guests - be warned!

2006-03-21T22:54:00.000-08:00

To their right praise and true perfection!

How many things by season season'd are...

2006-03-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

And here I interrupt. Got less than 36 hours before this long season is ended, and I don't feel well-seasoned at all for the next. There's the adrenaline-junkie side my most recent shrink saw, and then there's the antiquarian sensibility one of my school advisors saw; it's an odd kind of conflict. As often as I wanted to escape the fences patient care put around me, I will miss this house, this place, the routines Val and I made up - song and dance and patter - to give life a shape. I think we succeeded pretty well, certainly enough that when she left it, she wasn't leaving chaos.

For me, if it wasn't still unseasonably gloomy and damp out, I'd be dazzled by the light. I am dazzled, in fact, and for the time being must put up with it. It's Spring again, after all - just a little late this year.

2006-03-15T07:21:00.000-08:00

Remember the Alamo!

Happy Birthday [Week]

2006-03-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

For res, and for all the other beloveds who hang out in the Republic. Arf! [see above.]

2006-03-15T02:15:00.000-08:00

Florence Green is 81

Up in the Air, Aloft

2006-03-15T01:47:00.000-08:00

And, yes, that's an homage to Donald Barthelme. It's also how I'm feeling right now, suspended, and in suspense. There's a dentist appointment this afternoon. There is a sibling confrontation this afternoon. They are joined (take that, Jeffrey Masson!), and only in the afterglow of their unholy congress will I be able to take my bearings and figure out what needs to be done in the next ten days. A real 3-way.
I always loved tha opening of Snow White, where Snow and the dwarfs took lovely showers together, before the boys marched off to wash buildings and make Chinese Baby Food....
Où sont les neiges d'antin?

Now, back to editing The Journal of Sensory Deprivation.

See you this evening.

Juggling

2006-03-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

After last week's Decompression/Limbo Contest, the fun this week has been getting the jobs/housing/moving projects in gear (I am thinking of something resembling Howl's Moving Castle...) - and that's left little time for posts. This will be corrected this weekend.

On Wednesday, Noodley left for his new life, with a gift baggie of his toys, treats and bones, and our patient's two favorite small blankets (which, I assure you, he knows very well). Something familiar to burrow into. The farewell was dry-eyed, but warm - can't guarantee what will happen when I see him again, though. Reunions could be weekly.

Thanks to my readers for all the comments and mails these last two weeks - you are all golden.

[Update: Dropped in on Noodley Friday afternoon (he has a whole needlepoint shop to patrol now), and his sang-froid was remarkable - boy is not pining at all. His new mistress is a bit disconcerted by his aplomb - compared to more slavish canines, N seems to her inexpressive. She is also discovering his native dachshund stubborness. To me, he is looking comfortable, a bit miffed at all the changes in his life, but putting up with the inevitable. Good boy!

Having been sequestered with me and the Old Lady for such a long time, I am eager to find out how he responds to the society of the Dog Park - nearly 6 years old and never met a bitch in heat....hmmmmm. Late bloomer.]

2006-03-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

Never Underestimate Pooch Power....

Pard

2006-03-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

Time to come up for some air. It's very strange to have been suddenly let off the leash; 24/7 patient care forces you to accommodate to all sorts of personal restrictions, you get used to them, and, when they are removed (especially as you seek new gigs and digs), it's pretty disorienting. I still have a gigantic sleep debt, for example, and I have needed to make up at least a small part of that if I am going to run around like a maniac in the next few weeks, taking care of business.

Before all of that fascinating stuff gets fully underway, however, I have to pay tribute to my partner, the doggie who was here when I arrived, who became an ever more adept therapist, companion and friend throughout my tenure. I posted about him last year, and everything I said then is still true. I can happily add that he's gained new respect from his titular owners in the meantime. He's still stuck with the ridiculous name - Noodles - (where the hell did that come from? The DeNiro character in Once Upon a Time in America? I don't think so...) - but he will always be my Noodley.

As our patient got weaker and weaker, he became ever more attentive, warming her body, giving her morning kisses. He couldn't spend nights with her, but he spent most of every day, and after she died last Friday, he would run downstairs and post himself under her (now empty) hospital bed, or take a post at the front door, under the misapprehension that she was out for a clinic visit. Neither of us could immediately persuade ourselves that she was gone. When the baby-monitor was still plugged in and active, both of us leapt to attention if we heard a Val sound - "Let's go help Mom!" I'd say to him and we'd be off. Ten seconds and we'd be there. This past weekend I kept thinking I'd heard her, when that was impossible. He knew better, but he'd cock his head, anyway, when I'd turn mine, and he probably sensed when she intruded in my dreams, too.

He's been my buffer and teammate - a surrogate for the kind of emotional attachment with my patient that would have endlessly complicated doing my job. I cannot overvalue his contributions, or recommend highly enough the services of an intelligent, loyal, sensitive animal as a caregiving helper. So this is for Noodley. He's fully worthy of the Gromit pic, above.

[We watched Curse of the Were-Rabbit last weekend, and enjoyed it immensely!]

An End

2006-02-24T07:51:00.000-08:00

Less than an hour ago, my patient died, in her sleep, and to all appearances at peace. It's a release from years of great physical pain, but we lose a very fierce spirit, an engaged mind, and more than 97 years of personal history. No posts for a couple of days, as things sort themselves out.

[Update: Thanks to all my friends/mates/buds who have commented, called, or mailed about this. You are true family - you're golden.]

Diptych

2006-02-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

Dine, for Val

A Fine Line

2006-02-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

We are on the downhill here, and very far from Torino. My patient seems to be fading incrementally, visibly, each day, and the days can seem like weeks. She was lively (and rather combative) last Friday night/Saturday morning, then crashed. This was not unprecedented; periodic nightmares have destroyed her sleep over at least the last year, and while adjustments in her meds have moderated them, they haven't gone away entirely, and they are exhausting, for both of us. In the last couple of months, however, her body (at 97+) has stopped replenishing itself. Nothing catastrophic - everything still works, there is no raging disease - but it is not fighting so much anymore. It is hardly fighting at all.

If there was a single hallmark on the last 3 1/2 years, it's been the passion of my patient to defy the odds. Manifold arthritis and osteoporosis - longstanding conditions - made her glass-fragile. She took quite large amounts of morphine, daily, but maintained her lucidity and her interest in the world. We watched the 2004 presidential debates together, critically; she paid attention to American Idol on her own. Having been married to a lawyer, she loved courtroom shows, the more lurid, the better (a big Boston Legal fan, for instance).

I've rehabbed her through a knee break and a hip break/replacement - she got through both and was ambulatory (with a walker, and with close care from me) until very recently. The stamina went first, and that infuriated and depressed her. She likes giving orders, but she'd rather do it herself, and only recently has she relinquished her hold on her old determinations. If anything constitutes a fine line between holding to life and letting it go, that one must be signal. For a woman of such will, acquiesence is not a compromise, it's a defeat. I kept hoping it was an aberration, something passing. It seems not to have been.

You take care of a person - body and, to the extent that you can, mind - basically 24/7 for more than 42 months and you are invested in them, their health, their survival, their peace. On many more than one occasion my patient tried to mother me, and I had always to remind her that I already had a mother, and one was quite enough (they met once, finding each other adorable). But closeness and dependence and jockeying and setting boundaries (and seeing they are observed) tend to erode any pretense to pure professionalism - we've gotten on each other's nerves, entertained ourselves, given each other grief and delight. As much as you might want it to end, you also want to see it through. I'll be here until the end, and until the fine line is crossed.

[Update 1: The Sleeping Beauty revived somewhat this afternoon, which delights me, but also reminds me that this is going to be a roller-coaster for a while - and I truly hate roller-coasters (jerk you around, your glasses threaten to fly off, you puke...). I am sure her family will hate it all even more - they were unhinged on Sunday, and they may not be prepared for even temporary improvement. Unless your patient is alone in the world, you are caring for the entire extended family, and they don't necessarily want to admit that, or like it if they do admit. Aplomb, baby, aplomb.]

2006-02-18T20:49:00.000-08:00

Frivolity Pure....

Quelle bonne surprise!

2006-02-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

Almost tripped over the package yesterday (it had been laid at my door). I didn't have any outstanding orders that I knew of, and then I opened it and blessed Lance for the generous and - no doubt - instructive gift of Wodehouse, in 3 volumes. Catnip. man, and if any of you detect that style creeping into my posts, you will know whom to blame!

2006-02-14T02:42:00.000-08:00

Hey Mickey...Hey Mickey...!!!

The Moose in the Room, or Whatsamatta U

2006-02-14T02:29:00.000-08:00

I was wandering through Peter Daou's Post Garden this afternoon and, fairly high on the Right Hedge, was an Andrew Sullivan link to something called, "Visceral Surface Revulsion," - and that was just too good to pass up, especially as the first word in the clip was Mickey. Andrew's is a pretty good post (I think he's often good on gay issues), but the Prize is a clip from an interview with Mickey Kaus in which - I am not kidding - he holds up a toy moose sidekick to back up his homophobia.

A good deal of the clip [it's about 10 minutes long] blathers on about possible evolutionary/genetic foundations for hostility to Teh Gay in order to justify MK's VSR, but I couldn't help thinking that he can't possibly have spent much - if any - time around real groups of gay men. As I subsequently said, in part, in a mail to Andrew:

"He's obviously lived a very gay-sheltered life, though, if he thinks gays don't reproduce - indeed, he seems to think we can't. I would certainly like to see some stats on the number of currently exclusively homosexual men who have a) at one point had str8 sex and, b) if so, how many produced children, in or out of traditional wedlock. My experience - and I am confident yours, too - would suggest that there are a lot of gay dads out there, and even more potential gay dads. It would only take one successful shot, after all, even in the spirit of exploration or self-testing, to transmit the dreaded gay gene to yet another generation. Maybe that's what's really creeping Mickey out. "

Because he is, you know, quite short....

I still haven't seen the movie in question, but there is an excellent Daniel Mendelsohn piece in the NYRB about it, which you shouldn't miss.

Vikings (who like Spam and Clean House)

2006-02-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

That cryptic thing is on a again for a couple of hours - had an attack of spam from every House Cleaner in the world, apparently. I'll take it off when the thing passes.
Post later today on movies!

[Update: OK, going to take off the wraps and see what happens...]

[Update 2: ...and what happened is they were suppressed for a while, and then came back, inflating my traffic stats for no good reason. I have some stuff cooking and regular readers will, I know, be able to manage the Word Verification thingy if they are moved to comment. Give it a few hours and the spammers get enough bouncys and I'll take it off again. Go read Lance and FDL and TWN and The Rude One and all the rest of the usual suspects (see lefthand column) in the meantime.]

2006-02-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

The Sentinels

Like Summer Tempests - Part 2

2006-02-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

They had just finished their meal and resumed their armchairs, when there came a heavy knock at the door.

Toad was nervous, but the Rat, nodding mysteriously at him, went straight up to the door and opened it, and in walked Mr. Badger.

He had all the appearance of one who for some nights had been kept away from home and all its little comforts and conveniences. His shoes were covered with mud, and he was looking very rough and touzled; but then he had never been a very smart man, the Badger, at the best of times. He came solemnly up to Toad, shook him by the paw, and said, `Welcome home, Toad! Alas! what am I saying? Home, indeed! This is a poor home-coming. Unhappy Toad!' Then he turned his back on him, sat down to the table, drew his chair up, and helped himself to a large slice of cold pie.
Toad was quite alarmed at this very serious and portentous style of greeting; but the Rat whispered to him, `Never mind; don't take any notice; and don't say anything to him just yet. He's always rather low and despondent when he's wanting his victuals. In half an hour's time he'll be quite a different animal.'

So they waited in silence, and presently there came another and a lighter knock. The Rat, with a nod to Toad, went to the door and ushered in the Mole, very shabby and unwashed, with bits of hay and straw sticking in his fur.

`Hooray! Here's old Toad!' cried the Mole, his face beaming. `Fancy having you back again!' And he began to dance round him. `We never dreamt you would turn up so soon! Why, you must have managed to escape, you clever, ingenious, intelligent Toad!'

The Rat, alarmed, pulled him by the elbow; but it was too late. Toad was puffing and swelling already.

`Clever? O, no!' he said. `I'm not really clever, according to my friends. I've only broken out of the strongest prison in England, that's all! And captured a railway train and escaped on it, that's all! And disguised myself and gone about the country humbugging everybody, that's all! O, no! I'm a stupid ass, I am! I'll tell you one or two of my little adventures, Mole, and you shall judge for yourself!'
`Well, well,' said the Mole, moving towards the supper-table; `supposing you talk while I eat. Not a bite since breakfast! O my! O my!' And he sat down and helped himself liberally to cold beef and pickles.

Toad straddled on the hearth-rug, thrust his paw into his trouser-pocket and pulled out a handful of silver. `Look at that!' he cried, displaying it. `That's not so bad, is it, for a few minutes' work? And how do you think I done it, Mole? Horse-dealing! That's how I done it!'

`Go on, Toad,' said the Mole, immensely interested.

`Toad, do be quiet, please!' said the Rat. `And don't you egg him on, Mole, when you know what he is; but please tell us as soon as possible what the position is, and what's best to be done, now that Toad is back at last.'

`The position's about as bad as it can be,' replied the Mole grumpily; `and as for what's to be done, why, blest if I know! The Badger and I have been round and round the place, by night and by day; always the same thing. Sentries posted everywhere, guns poked out at us, stones thrown at us; always an animal on the look-out, and when they see us, my! how they do laugh! That's what annoys me most!'

`It's a very difficult situation,' said the Rat, reflecting deeply. `But I think I see now, in the depths of my mind, what Toad really ought to do. I will tell you. He ought to -- -- '

`No, he oughtn't!' shouted the Mole, with his mouth full. `Nothing of the sort! You don't understand. What he ought to do is, he ought to -- -- '

`Well, I shan't do it, anyway!' cried Toad, getting excited. `I'm not going to be ordered about by you fellows! It's my house we're talking about, and I know exactly what to do, and I'll tell you. I'm going to -- -- '

By this time they were all three talking at once, at the top of their voices, and the noise was simply deafening, when a thin, dry voice made itself heard, saying, `Be quiet at once, all of you!' and instantly every one was silent.

It was the Badger, who, having finished his pie, had turned round in his chair and was looking at them severely. When he saw that he had secured their attention, and that they were evidently waiting for him to address them, he turned back to the table again and reached out for the cheese. And so great was the respect commanded by the solid qualities of that admirable animal, that not another word was uttered until he had quite finished his repast and brushed the crumbs from his knees. The Toad fidgeted a good deal, but the Rat held him firmly down.

When the Badger had quite done, he got up from his seat and stood before the fireplace, reflecting deeply. At last he spoke.

`Toad!' he said severely. `You bad, troublesome little animal! Aren't you ashamed of youself? What do you think your father, my old friend, would have said if he had been here tonight, and had known of all your goings on?'

Toad, who was on the sofa by this time, with his legs up, rolled over on his face, shaken by sobs of contrition.

`There, there!' went on the Badger, more kindly. `Never mind. Stop crying. We're going to let bygones be bygones, and try and turn over a new leaf. But what the Mole says is quite true. The stoats are on guard, at every point, and they make the best sentinels in the world. It's quite useless to think of attacking the place. They're too strong for us.'

`Then it's all over,' sobbed the Toad, crying into the sofa cushions. `I shall go and enlist for a soldier, and never see my dear Toad Hall any more!'

`Come, cheer up, Toady!' said the Badger. `There are more ways of getting back a place than taking it by storm. I haven't said my last word yet. Now I'm going to tell you a great secret.'
Toad sat up slowly and dried his eyes. Secrets had an immense attraction for him, because he never could keep one, and he enjoyed the sort of unhallowed thrill he experienced when he went and told another animal, after having faithfully promised not to.

`There -- is -- an -- underground -- passage,' said the Badger, impressively, `that leads from the river-bank, quite near here, right up into the middle of Toad Hall.'

`O, nonsense! Badger,' said Toad, rather airily. `You've been listening to some of the yarns they spin in the public-houses about here. I know every inch of Toad Hall, inside and out. Nothing of the sort, I do assure you!'

`My young friend,' said the Badger, with great severity, `your father, who was a worthy animal -- a lot worthier than some others I know -- was a particular friend of mine, and told me a great deal he wouldn't have dreamt of telling you. He discovered that passage -- he didn't make it, of course; that was done hundreds of years before he ever came to live there -- and he repaired it and cleaned it out, because he thought it might come in useful some day, in case of trouble or danger; and he showed it to me. "Don't let my son know about it," he said. "He's a good boy, but very light and volatile in character, and simply cannot hold his tongue. If he's ever in a real fix, and it would be of use to him, you may tell him about the secret passage; but not before."'

The other animals looked hard at Toad to see how he would take it. Toad was inclined to be sulky at first; but he brightened up immediately, like the good fellow he was.

`Well, well,' he said; `perhaps I am a bit of a talker. A popular fellow such as I am -- my friends get round me -- we chaff, we sparkle, we tell witty stories -- and somehow my tongue gets wagging. I have the gift of conversation. I've been told I ought to have a salon, whatever that may be. Never mind. Go on, Badger. How's this passage of yours going to help us?'

`I've found out a thing or two lately,' continued the Badger. `I got Otter to disguise himself as a sweep and call at the back-door with brushes over his shoulder, asking for a job. There's going to be a big banquet to-morrow night. It's somebody's birthday -- the Chief Weasel's, I believe -- and all the weasels will be gathered together in the dining-hall, eating and drinking and laughing and carrying on, suspecting nothing. No guns, no swords, no sticks, no arms of any sort whatever!'

`But the sentinels will be posted as usual,' remarked the Rat.

`Exactly,' said the Badger; `that is my point. The weasels will trust entirely to their excellent sentinels. And that is where the passage comes in. That very useful tunnel leads right up under the butler's pantry, next to the dining-hall!'

`Aha! that squeaky board in the butler's pantry!' said Toad. `Now I understand it!'
`We shall creep out quietly into the butler's pantry -- ' cried the Mole.
` -- with our pistols and swords and sticks -- ' shouted the Rat.
` -- and rush in upon them,' said the Badger.
` -- and whack 'em, and whack 'em, and whack 'em!' cried the Toad in ecstasy, running round and round the room, and jumping over the chairs

`Very well, then,' said the Badger, resuming his usual dry manner, `our plan is settled, and there's nothing more for you to argue and squabble about. So, as it's getting very late, all of you go right off to bed at once. We will make all the necessary arrangements in the course of the morning to-morrow.'

Toad, of course, went off to bed dutifully with the rest -- he knew better than to refuse -- though he was feeling much too excited to sleep. But he had had a long day, with many events crowded into it; and sheets and blankets were very friendly and comforting things, after plain straw, and not too much of it, spread on the stone floor of a draughty cell; and his head had not been many seconds on his pillow before he was snoring happily. Naturally, he dreamt a good deal; about roads that ran away from him just when he wanted them, and canals that chased him and caught him, and a barge that sailed into the banqueting-hall with his week's washing, just as he was giving a dinner-party; and he was alone in the secret passage, pushing onwards, but it twisted and turned round and shook itself, and sat up on its end; yet somehow, at the last, he found himself back in Toad Hall, safe and triumphant, with all his friends gathered round about him, earnestly assuring him that he really was a clever Toad.

He slept till a late hour next morning, and by the time he got down he found that the other animals had finished their breakfast some time before. The Mole had slipped off somewhere by himself, without telling any one where he was going to. The Badger sat in the arm-chair, reading the paper, and not concerning himself in the slightest about what was going to happen that very evening. The Rat, on the other hand, was running round the room busily, with his arms full of weapons of every kind, distributing them in four little heaps on the floor, and saying excitedly under his breath, as he ran, `Here's-a-sword-for-the-Rat, here's-a-sword-for-the Mole, here's-a-sword-for-the-Toad, here's-a-sword-for-the-Badger! Here's-a-pistol-for-the-Rat, here's-a-pistol-for-the-Mole, here's-a-pistol-for-the-Toad, here's-a-pistol-for-the-Badger!' And so on, in a regular, rhythmical way, while the four little heaps gradually grew and grew.

`That's all very well, Rat,' said the Badger presently, looking at the busy little animal over the edge of his newspaper; `I'm not blaming you. But just let us once get past the stoats, with those detestable guns of theirs, and I assure you we shan't want any swords or pistols. We four, with our sticks, once we're inside the dining-hall, why, we shall clear the floor of all the lot of them in five minutes. I'd have done the whole thing by myself, only I didn't want to deprive you fellows of the fun!'

`It's as well to be on the safe side,' said the Rat reflectively, polishing a pistol-barrel on his sleeve and looking along it.

The Toad, having finished his breakfast, picked up a stout stick and swung it vigorously, belabouring imaginary animals. `I'll learn 'em to steal my house!' he cried. `I'll learn 'em, I'll learn 'em!'

`Don't say "learn 'em," Toad,' said the Rat, greatly shocked. `It's not good English.'

`What are you always nagging at Toad for?' inquired the Badger, rather peevishly. `What's the matter with his English? It's the same what I use myself, and if it's good enough for me, it ought to be good enough for you!'

`I'm very sorry,' said the Rat humbly. `Only I think it ought to be "teach 'em," not "learn 'em."'

`But we don't want to teach 'em,' replied the Badger. `We want to learn 'em -- learn 'em, learn 'em! And what's more, we're going to do it, too!'

`Oh, very well, have it your own way,' said the Rat. He was getting rather muddled about it himself, and presently he retired into a corner, where he could be heard muttering, `Learn 'em, teach 'em, teach 'em, learn 'em!' till the Badger told him rather sharply to leave off.

Presently the Mole came tumbling into the room, evidently very pleased with himself. `I've been having such fun!' he began at once; `I've been getting a rise out of the stoats!'

`I hope you've been very careful, Mole?' said the Rat anxiously.

`I should hope so, too,' said the Mole confidently. `I got the idea when I went into the kitchen, to see about Toad's breakfast being kept hot for him. I found that old washerwoman-dress that he came home in yesterday, hanging on a towel-horse before the fire. So I put it on, and the bonnet as well, and the shawl, and off I went to Toad Hall, as bold as you please. The sentries were on the look-out, of course, with their guns and their "Who comes there?" and all the rest of their nonsense. "Good morning, gentlemen!" says I, very respectful. "Want any washing done to-day?"

`They looked at me very proud and stiff and haughty, and said, "Go away, washerwoman! We don't do any washing on duty." "Or any other time?" says I. Ho, ho, ho! Wasn't I funny, Toad?'

`Poor, frivolous animal!' said Toad, very loftily. The fact is, he felt exceedingly jealous of Mole for what he had just done. It was exactly what he would have liked to have done himself, if only he had thought of it first, and hadn't gone and overslept himself.

`Some of the stoats turned quite pink,' continued the Mole, `and the Sergeant in charge, he said to me, very short, he said, "Now run away, my good woman, run away! Don't keep my men idling and talking on their posts." "Run away?" says I; "it won't be me that'll be running away, in a very short time from now!"'

`O Moly, how could you?' said the Rat, dismayed.

The Badger laid down his paper.

`I could see them pricking up their ears and looking at each other,' went on the Mole; `and the Sergeant said to them, "Never mind her; she doesn't know what she's talking about."'

`"O! don't I?"' said I. `"Well, let me tell you this. My daughter, she washes for Mr. Badger, and that'll show you whether I know what I'm talking about; and you'll know pretty soon, too! A hundred bloodthirsty badgers, armed with rifles, are going to attack Toad Hall this very night, by way of the paddock. Six boatloads of Rats, with pistols and cutlasses, will come up the river and effect a landing in the garden; while a picked body of Toads, known at the Die-hards, or the Death-or-Glory Toads, will storm the orchard and carry everything before them, yelling for vengeance. There won't be much left of you to wash, by the time they've done with you, unless you clear out while you have the chance!" Then I ran away, and when I was out of sight I hid; and presently I came creeping back along the ditch and took a peep at them through the hedge. They were all as nervous and flustered as could be, running all ways at once, and falling over each other, and every one giving orders to everybody else and not listening; and the Sergeant kept sending off parties of stoats to distant parts of the grounds, and then sending other fellows to fetch 'em back again; and I heard them saying to each other, "That's just like the weasels; they're to stop comfortably in the banqueting-hall, and have feasting and toasts and songs and all sorts of fun, while we must stay on guard in the cold and the dark, and in the end be cut to pieces by bloodthirsty Badgers!'"

`Oh, you silly ass, Mole!' cried Toad, `You've been and spoilt everything!'

`Mole,' said the Badger, in his dry, quiet way, `I perceive you have more sense in your little finger than some other animals have in the whole of their fat bodies. You have managed excellently, and I begin to have great hopes of you. Good Mole! Clever Mole!'

The Toad was simply wild with jealousy, more especially as he couldn't make out for the life of him what the Mole had done that was so particularly clever; but, fortunately for him, before he could show temper or expose himself to the Badger's sarcasm, the bell rang for luncheon.

It was a simple but sustaining meal -- bacon and broad beans, and a macaroni pudding; and when they had quite done, the Badger settled himself into an arm-chair, and said, `Well, we've got our work cut out for us to-night, and it will probably be pretty late before we're quite through with it; so I'm just going to take forty winks, while I can.' And he drew a handkerchief over his face and was soon snoring.

The anxious and laborious Rat at once resumed his preparations, and started running between his four little heaps, muttering, `Here's-a-belt-for-the-Rat, here's-a-belt-for-the Mole, here's-a-belt-for-the-Toad, here's-a-belt-for-the-Badger!' and so on, with every fresh accoutrement he produced, to which there seemed really no end; so the Mole drew his arm through Toad's, led him out into the open air, shoved him into a wicker chair, and made him tell him all his adventures from beginning to end, which Toad was only too willing to do. The Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticise in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and the raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?

2006-02-01T04:04:00.000-08:00

The River Bank....

From the Beginning

2006-02-01T03:29:00.000-08:00

This site has always looked with particular affection on Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graham's comic pastoral of English country life. My Dad read it to us when we were little, and I read it for my own pleasure years later (with pleasure much enhanced by admiration for it's beauty and wit), and I have read it to other kids since then. I sort of leaned on excerpts from it when I started this blog - Ratty was, and is, my signature character - were I an animal, he's the sort I'd like to be. My brother was very insightful when he started calling me RatBoy (for other reasons of his own), and it seemed a natural fit when it came time to brand this blog. I've never been sorry.

I've also thought, when I've posted excerpts from the book, that it provided counter-arguments - even some solace - to the vicious life we are so often now encouraged to lead. Ratty, Mole, Badger, the impossible Toad - all value sympathy and forgiveness, even when it cuts against their grain. I'm not trying to draw lessons from the fable, just hold up a small mirror, and compare. Ratty's love of his independence and neat arrangements; Mole's devotion to home and hearth; Badger's sense of justice; even Toad's guilt at having been an egotistical fool (which in itself will not cure him). Each is challenged and grows beyond himself by various trials. Admitting mistakes and then putting them right - redressing the balance - is one of the cores of the story.

So look for more excerpts - Toad has yet to wrest back his homestead, but he will do so with renewed humility (for about two seconds).

2006-01-31T17:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Year of the Pooch!

2006-01-31T04:28:00.000-08:00

Taking It All In

Time Regained [Core Dump 6]

2006-01-31T04:21:00.000-08:00

I walked into this room alone, looking, listening, speaking under my breath, took a cocktail. Must have been something tonic in it, to keep me going, and then someone listened, and stayed until I finished, and then introduced me to a partner, and we danced. That was lovely. She was blonde and had keen eyes. There was also a man, taller than me and - I thought, perhaps - even shyer, but he was kind and he put his arm around my shoulder and guided me to a bay of the great room where there was the most animated conversation. I was buzzed enough to join in - no one made me feel stupid.

I turned once and saw a man I knew enter the room - a grand welcome. I flushed, as I had met him before. and tried to hide it. He had a following - the girls ran to him in greeting, gowns like flowers gathering, separating. Kisses, and words, were exchanged, and the bouquet scattered again.

And what romantic bullshit. If only.

That was sort of my Berlioz version of opening the blogosphere. There are possible variations on Ben Hecht, on Almost Famous, maybe on Nicholas Nickleby and joining the Company of Mr. Vincent Crummles. Whatever the case, I didn't know what I was getting into, but I wanted to join the Circus. I won't let go now.

Looking back over this last year's posts, I'm surprised at how much I could write into the night not that many months ago. It's just a fact that the patient I look after has become markedly more fragile and less predictable over the last year, and so I can't count on as many secure and quiet hours to post - and I'm feeling very worn. This will only turn around when I move on from here, and that will not be dependent, I hope, on my patient's mortality. She'll be 98 in June, 2006, and I have every expectation that she'll make it. But, unlike new parents, the ward doesn't increase in affection and knowledge and powers, but diminishes and weakens and becomes ever more fey.

That's tough.

Right now, I just hope to get through the experience intact, and to be able to throw more weight to the crises we all face with our fucked-up government. I've tried not to add to the din I talked about in my very first posts - merely echoing positions and rhetoric I like. My impulse is to be wonkier than I have either the time or the energy to be, and it may not be such a good fit for my sensibility anyway. I still believe, however, that we are at a moment of crisis as a nation, and that we should bring everything we have to preserve and conserve the manifold, crazy, rude, snot-nosed, generous country we want to live in against those who pervert the language of liberty, democracy and freedom.

Fuck - I want to spit those last three out, they have become so debased in the mouths of Our Leaders; let's reclaim them before it is too late.

2006-01-27T23:30:00.000-08:00

Beekcake Friday - Gentlemen Prefer Goats....

Friday Night Beef

2006-01-27T23:18:00.000-08:00

This is going up now, in part, because the weekend's Core Dump needs pride of place. Tuesday will be my first bloggy anniversary, and I want to look back over the last year, see what I caught, what I missed. The last couple of weeks have been exhausting, professionally, and I took today's time off just to recover, alone. Friends, haircut, will have to wait until next Friday.
Woofy guys, OTOH, should always be welcome.
See above....

Burping the Cyberbaby

2006-01-23T21:25:00.000-08:00

I had hoped to get something solid posted tonight (and I may still), and then an antivirus update went all buggy on me and required a few hours of maintenance and trouble-shooting. God, I do not need two patients at once!
Moreover, my box and cable constitute about 80% of my contact with the rest of the world - family, friends, business, information - and the island would indeed be desert without them. Hope the colic disappears soon, certainly in time for the 1st anniversary of this blog next week.

More later, with luck....

2006-01-22T17:35:00.000-08:00

And Many Happy Returns!

A Pause for Beefcake...

2006-01-22T17:33:00.000-08:00

While the Core Dump is not completed, it's Midniter's birthday over at RoD, so the pic above is for him. Cheers, baby!

[Update: In addition, I am hugely behind in updating the Blogroll - count Freedom Camp (run by the estimable teh l4m3) plussed. More will follow.]

2006-01-21T16:26:00.000-08:00

Let's Put on a SHOW!

[Not] Alone Out There, in the Dark [Core Dump 5]

2006-01-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

I forgot about this. And it's important to anyone who cares about movies at all. The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., is having a fund drive, and I urge any and all of you to help them. Rep houses like the Brattle are a truly endangered species, and just about the only places, outside of college film societies, that we can go to for the movie past. Look at the Brattle's calendar this month - there's Werner Herzog, Antonioni, and the MUPPETS! Julian Barnes is there in February - c'mon, people!

Remember that babka in the Blogger Bake-Off last month? My consolation prize was movie tix and I asked that equivalent funds be contributed to the Brattle Fund instead. My nephew is in film school, has already started a production company, and one of my greatest pleasures is talking to him about stuff he hasn't seen - and that I wouldn't have seen either except for Doc Films and the Clark, the Aardvark, the Aero (my fave nabe), the Nuart - and the Brattle.

I am posting a pic, above, of that place. Not the world's best screen, not the most comfortable seats (it's a fucking barn, or was when I was last there...), and none of that makes the slightest difference once the lights go down and the genuine article is there before you. Some of my most thrilling moments at the movies have been in tiny lecture halls on screens designed for film strips and diagrams. The Brattle is the real deal, and I know I am not alone in this.

Go, give - Les enfants du paradis will bless you.

2006-01-21T14:25:00.000-08:00

Breathless....

America at 24 Frames/Second [Core Dump 4]

2006-01-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

For a movie lover, this is soooooo hard! I think all such lists are. I like what Lindsay did with it (not for the first time).

To the unintiated, this is a list of 10 movies that could serve as a primer on America (i.e., the USA) to a visiting alien or some hermit who had, for personal reasons, missed the last 100 years of popular culture I've let it simmer for a few days and I'm still pretty happy with it, though there are personal favorites and movies I rate higher aesthetically that aren't on it. There is no particular order, and notes will follow.

Nashville
Dr. Strangelove
Swing Time
The Lady Eve
Bonnie & Clyde
From Here to Eternity
Casualties of War
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Duck Soup
Long Day's Journey into Night

I link to each through IMDb as a default.

What would I hope my hypothetical innocent would take away from this list? First, I suppose, is that we are not a simple (at least not in the sense that our current leaders want us to be) people. We can laugh at very serious things, without not taking them seriously. We make up our beauty on the fly (and conceal the hard work). We prefer to tell the truth. We worry about where we came from, we're anxious about class (and are uncomfortable talking about it), we will gamble on the future (and know we might lose - i.e., we're essentially optimists).

And there's nothing monumental or triumphant about any of these movies, and that may be a flaw in the list, but I think it is closer to the American grain than the chest-thumping that's going on now, and why that will not last. We're just too revolting, and that's what I love about us.

2006-01-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

All We Like Sheep...

Under the Mount [Core Dump 3]

2006-01-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, Lance's Uncle Merlin posted a meditation on Brokeback Mountain. I sent him this comment:

For Uncle Merlin -
I haven't seen the movie, but I have read the story on which it is based. The text is making the rounds pretty aggressively, and that's good for an 8-year-old tale - it's robust, and it's powerful enough to explain why it would have become a project in the first place, and why it might move a broad audience.

Still, you and I have to take it more personally. It's about people very like us - as you say, "a living moment for me...I see scenes from my life and I can't stop looking back over my life." As isolated in mountain and plain (and driven, and brave and scared) as these two guys are, they are not that distant from your buddies in NYC, or mine in PDX. Word I was getting here was,"Good, not Great," which is fine with me as a critical judgment, but nobody was talking about much beyond that.

Let's face it. We are a minority, always have been and always will be, and this will make our lives difficult, no matter how tolerant the majority culture becomes. I came out late (and with great sighs of relief on the part of my dear straight friends - they'd been twiddling their thumbs for years), but doing so gave me some perspective on that, "Are you really gay?" question from my gay brothers who had announced much earlier. Well, yeah, of course, I can say, but are you trying to stereotype me, honey?

This can become a pain.

But it is nothing compared to the pain and joy of love, and there may have been more than the ordinary obstacles for gay men (I speak for no one else) to have overcome them. I have enough close straight men and women friends to know that the landscape of love and commitment and possible fracture are just as imminent for them as they are with us. If Brokeback Mountain resonates with them, that's why. What is not universal is how you and I got there, stumbled there, in the first place, and what the stumbling and struggling did to us - doubt, defiance, bravado - and that's just assuming no severe trauma along the way. And then maybe we got some perspective, some wisdom, some balance, and - hmm - still tipped over. Lots of very attractive, deeply insecure guys out there - just very bad for us.

Merlin, just do not give up hope on this score - and don't start adding saltpetre to your oatmeal.

BTW - I drove over some of that country when I moved west from Chicago - it is as spectacular and astonishing as Annie Proulx's list suggests:

"Years on years they worked their way through the high meadows and mountain drainages, horse packing into the Big Horns, the Medicine Bows, the south end of the Gallatins, the Absarokas, the Granites, the Owl Creeks, the Bridger Teton Range, the Freezeouts and the Shirleys, the Ferrises and the Rattlesnakes, the Salt River range, into the Wind Rivers over and again, the Sierra Madres, the Gros Ventres, the Washakies, the Laramies, but never returning to Brokeback."

Never returning. Moving on.

I see, today, at Wolcott's, more dismay and bile spewing because this fucking movie is looking like a success. I mean, if we want to see a couple of real gay cowboys, let's just go rent a DVD of Giant.

I mentioned in my comment above driving through the western mountains on a move from Chicago. I did not say anything about my encounter with sheep. That happened a few months later, on the last leg of my transfer to Los Angeles. My brother (the rock on whom I lean for big moves - just ask him...) and I were one day out from LA, had driven hard through a lot of rain, and we stopped in Tracy for the night. It's a town noted for its prison and for its confluence of highways.

We got a cheap motel after dinner, parked the van as the sun set, carried our gear to a second floor room. On the other side of the chain link that fenced the parking lot was a field, really, a meadow, and it was full of sheep. They all had numbers tagged on their sides (something I'd never seen, not being a country boy), and they were doing what sheep do - clump together, be dumb, and make lovely sheep noises.

Understand, I was throwing my life into the air at this moment, stepping into a void. As I went to sleep, those sheep voices in the evening dark seemed a benediction, had a real - if inchoate - music, and insofar as I could, I blessed them back. Just ask my brother.

2006-01-20T01:41:00.000-08:00

A Quincunx for LM

5 Things, Perhaps Random, Perhaps Not...[Core Dump 2]

2006-01-20T01:20:00.000-08:00

This is for BG, because she started this....(and, honey, this is what passes for pop around here...not my fault):

"By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am."
`Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,' he said presently. `O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.'
"...Penny said, "Was it Henry James you're working on?"
"Er...yes," said Nick.
She seemed to settle comfortably on that, but only said, "My father's got tons of Henry James. I think he calls him the Master."
"Some of us do," said Nick. He blinked with the exalted humility of a devotee and sawed off a square of brown meat.
"Art makes life: wasn't that his motto? My father often quotes that."
"It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process " said Nick.
"Something like that," said Penny...."
"But then oblivion dark, on all my senses fell. Again at length my thought reviving came, When I no longer found my self the same; Then first this sea-green beard I felt to grow, And these large honours on my spreading brow; My long-descending locks the billows sweep, And my broad shoulders cleave the yielding deep; My fishy tail, my arms of azure hue, And ev’ry part divinely chang’d, I view."
"God will help me, I trust, to rid myself of any desire to follow the example of...other characters in this work. I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist."

2006-01-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

Parmesan...Sauce Tomate...Aieeeeeee!!

Thursday Recipe Blogging - Eggplant - [Core Dump 1]

2006-01-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

I had intended to unload everything on my mind in one massive post, but that's proved to be impossible, so I will come at you in sections. Here's the Aubergine Variation.

Eggplant Parmesan -

For some reason we are finding beautiful eggplant right now (in January!) and I can only assume they are arriving from our Neighbors Down South (hemispherically) - but at a buck apiece, I'm not complaining. This variation of Eggplant Parmesan worked out very well - I like the addition of an embellished ricotta and the mozzarella (not the fancy kind) give it a slightly meaty feel, though it has nothing that would give a vegetarian pause.

You could certainly make your own (simple, quick, and not long-cooked) tomato sauce, but I find bottled more than acceptable - and I always doctor mine. However, might be best to wait for real summer for anything that needed tender fresh herbs, like basil.

Here's what I did with a couple of good-sized aubergines: You will need:

2 large eggplant (about 8" long), firm and unblemished
Extra-virgin olive oil
Fennel seed
Dried (or fresh) thyme
Kosher salt
A baking sheet, preferably non-stick, and aluminum foil to cover
A colander
Paper towels

For the fillings and other enhancements:

1 pint whole milk ricotta
1 Tbs minced or puréed garlic (I used the bottled stuff this time)
Red pepper flakes, in moderation, or to taste
1/3 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Ground black pepper
Pinch of salt
1/2 large white onion, finely diced
2 Tbs Extra virgin olive oil
1 quart simple tomato sauce (I used Classico Tomato & Basil)
water

1 lb mozzarella (vac-pak is fine here]
Reggiano-Parmesan - no substitutes! [However, you won't need that much...]

A baking dish (I used a plain glazed earthenware oval)

Preheat the oven to 400 deg F. Trim the ends of the eggplant, then cut into 1/2" slices. Sprinkle both sides of each with the salt, stack in a colander, and let drain of their (potentially bitter) juices for 20-30 mins. Drizzle a bit of oilive oil on the baking sheet. Dry off the eggplant slices on the paper towels, removing most of the salt as well. Lay the slices in a single layer in the pan, sprinkle on the fennel seed and the thyme, sprinkle with the olive oil, cover the whole thing with foil and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

While eggplant is baking (I had to do two pans - remove the baked slices to a plate to wait), sweat the diced onion in a saucepan in olive oil. Just sweat over low/medium heat until translucent, don't brown. Add the tomato sauce, plus about 1/2 cup water, and bring to a simmer. The added water will evaporate while the sauce and onions marry.

Assuming the eggplant has finished baking, reduce oven heat to 350 deg F.

In a bowl, mix the ricotta up with a fork, add the garlic, the pepper flakes, and the chopped parsley and blend. Season with salt and pepper [I pushed the salt slightly, but it disappeared in the baking]. Let the ricotta mixture rest. As it does, reduce the sauce back to it's bottled consistency, perhaps a little looser - this will be enough to incorporate the onion and mature the flavors. Cube the mozzarella.

Assembly:

In the baking dish, film the bottom with a spoonful of sauce. Make a layer of eggplant slices, then spoon each with enough of the ricotta mixture to cover. Spoon over these half of the tomato sauce, then spread lightly with a spatula to fill in gaps. The ricotta mixture is quite soft, so don't worry if it and the sauce seem to melt together a bit. Distribute half the mozzarella over that, then finely grate the R-Parmesan over that - generously. Then make another layer of eggplant, ricotta, sauce, mozzarella, and more R-Parmesan over the first one.

Place in the 350 deg F oven, uncovered, and bake for 45 minutes. It's done when the top layer of cheese is melted and lightly browned - bubbley and very hot. It's essential that it rest after baking for 20-30 minutes in order to pull together.

Patience

2006-01-12T21:33:00.000-08:00

No hot, steaming Beefcake until I do a Core Dump, omnibus post, later tonight or in the morning. This place is beginning to look like a softcore porn site, which would make the eponymous Ratty blush, and it's only because there have been so few posts between the Friday hunks. Gotta eat your vegetables, my dear friends.

2006-01-07T22:45:00.000-08:00

ArmyMen! - Weekend Beefcake Edition

Saturday Nite Half-Alive

2006-01-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

Yay! the baking gods have spoken, I got a non-trivial post up, and now it's time for weekend BEEFCAKE!
Smoochies!

2006-01-07T18:23:00.000-08:00

In Ms. Podhoretz's Dreams (and apologies to Zoe W for even the suggestion....)

Kindergarten Nation

2006-01-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

It's the Marriage from Hell. Glenn Greenwald, guest-blogging at digby this last week, nails the 9/11 Republicans, so called, for capitulating to Bush/Cheney fear-mongering; nothing so fierce as an angry bedwetter. "You made me pee, you Islamofascist!" They're around every corner, underneath every bed, inside every closet, on the other end of every cellphone call, commanding weapons as mundane as blowtorches, as lethal as a nuke (carried around in a handbag, like a misplaced baby, in plain sight), and, no doubt, wicked evil viruses and bugs that will make all New York City and DC (especially Sally Quinn) break out in boils and froth at the mouth and go all George Romero zombie on us. Not like they don't deserve it (per Pat Robertson - let him speak for himself), but there's not a soul on earth that Rev Pat couldn't scourge for disagreeing with him (anyone see 12 Monkeys lately?).

I'm rather sorry that SZ's poll for Ultimate Wingnut dropped Midge Decter before the finals. She's not as voluble as Malkin or Coulter, or as easy to dismiss - she's a signatory to the PNAC agenda, after all, and she's no bedwetter. Rather, she trains the vulnerable to pee the sheets - fills the troop quotas. Because we are at War - we are always at War, and always have been. Used to be the Soviets, and then they crumbled (for which she can take credit, deserved or not), and now it's the creeping Islamic Horde, which, without our eternal vigilence, will girdle the globe in a 1K Caliphate - nicely done out of crummy Hamburg flats and Florida motels. And you know what? We will have deserved it, not for the Rev Robertson's reasons (G-d hates us), but - to borrow a phrase from Garth - because we are Unworthy. Not Manly/Womanly enough, insufficently belligerant, overly tolerant of anyone (blacks, fags, Euros...) who questions our intellectual and moral leadership, and who might find us constricted and reactionary and dessicated and sour (we used to be in the radical vanguard ourselves, right?).

Why, asks Midge, do I not LEAD? The "New Class" (her term) ignores her warnings and wisdom, at their peril. Mark Steyn is her fellow-traveller, warning (thanks, TBogg!) against 3rd (or other-) worldly fecundity, the soft underbelly of Happy Western Kultur, unprepared and snoozing for the kampf to come. We are always in a decadent death-spiral to these scolds and alarmists; Decter worships Donald Rumsfeld, wrote a hagiography, sucks his fucking balls. The notion that he might be nuts (or merely pathologically evasive and thoughtless on defense policy and military strategy) seems never to have occurred to her - he has the foot Mercurial, the Martial thigh, and that's good enough.

The posture of strength is all - and when everyone stops listening (or, worse, laughs and runs away), you climb to the top of the Empire State (or in the 70's version, the WTC...), and roar and swat and beg for annihilation. Because, as Greenwald intuits, it's really defeat and destruction that the Lords of Fear court - the threat from under the bed, the silent closet, the dust bunnies. The truly lethal threats are too subtle for these people, and getting all grandiose is going to make them miss the real and truly threatening story - a story they are writing today in their own incompetence. And unless they wise up, quick, we are all gonna get fucked. As if we haven't been already, but, whatever - midterms are still in November.

2006-01-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

In the Black Hat...think he's sending a message?

Abramoffukuh!

2006-01-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

According to the WaPo, the first candle has been lit. How many days have we to look forward to?
Two guilty criminal charge pleas, plus:

"Abramoff will also agree to cooperate in any ongoing federal investigations in Washington, said his Miami attorney Neal Sonnett. Prosecutors there are investigating several members of Congress who allegedly received favors from Abramoff or his clients."

Let the Games begin!

[Update (no doubt only The First): See ReddHedd at firedoglake for a more detailed (and expert) take.]

[Update 2: More from WaPo, and TPM has the Criminal Information document - if the same I found, it's 13 pages, pdf format.].

2005-12-30T04:26:00.000-08:00

Friday Beefcake - and a Happy New Year to you, too!

2005-12-30T04:23:00.000-08:00

Elevations, Plans...Whatever - there are 4 of them....

The Foursomes

2005-12-30T03:53:00.000-08:00

Okey-dokey.....I'm playing this meme before it plays me.

Four jobs you've had in your life: academic research editor, medical data cruncher, financial database manager (and yeah, I wrote code), mortgage loan QA/QC

Four movies you could watch over and over: The Palm Beach Story; McCabe & Mrs. Miller; The Band Wagon; Mulholland Drive

Four places you've lived: Portland, OR, Chicago, IL, Cambridge, MA; Venice, CA

Four TV shows you love to watch: [Proviso: I hardly can ever watch anything uninterrupted right now - had to watch the first 3 seasons of Alias on DVD, for example. With that in mind, these are skewed to stuff that is broadcast repeatedly] - The Daily Show/Colbert Report; [adult swim] - ATHF, Venture Bros.; Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann; The Buffy/Angel universe (almost disappeared, but I am trying to catch Bones and Veronica Mars).

Four places you've been on vacation: Boston, MA, San Francisco, CA, Paris (the one in France); Victoria, BC

Four websites you visit daily: Eschaton, Digby, Steve Clemons (TWN), TBogg - merely scratching the surface...

Four of your favorite foods: pasta w/ white clam sauce; chopped liver; goat cheese; roasted potatoes

Four places you'd rather be: Paris (see above), Venice Beach, Bed (not necessarily alone), A Movie

2005-12-30T03:50:00.000-08:00

Out of the Frying Pan....

That 2005 Show

2005-12-30T02:41:00.000-08:00

I just couldn't take it anymore, so just short of two weeks ago I signed up for a TimesSelect trial - over the holidays, mind you - and Paul Krugman just gave me a nice end-of-year gift with his column this morning. No revelations to anyone who reads this blog, just a marvel of compression that, within his column-inch allowance, he hits:

Social Security reform
Permanent Tax Cuts
Public Safety/Hurricane Katrina
"Brownie" and agency cronyism
Jack Abramoff
Dick Cheney's "gravitas"
Howard Dean - "flaky and unsound" or prescient?
After Downing Street
Where Are They Now? - Allawi & Chalabi....
Staying the Course - what Course?
L'Affaire Plame

And he concludes with these points:

"A year ago, we didn't know that Mr. Bush was lying, or at least being deceptive, when he said at an April 2004 event promoting the Patriot Act that "a wiretap requires a court order. ...When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."
A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest.
A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians and pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the president isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we know when it comes to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if you're a Republican. "

I said to my Dad about a year ago that this one was going to be ugly, but I had no idea how that was going to play out - far beyond my expectations, anyway. If you want to see a much richer chronicle, go to digby (and, hey, fork out, too - it's deserved). As the stakes increase - as we approach the mid-term elections next November, as the various scandals (the ones we already know about...) come to trial, as the whole Bushie fata morgana falls apart - there's going to be some awful and vicious denial, and that's not going to be pretty, either. 2005 is Dead, long live 2006! Whoa!

However, in the Dept. of Silver Linings, this was the year I started this rag, and found readers beyond any expectation. That any of them keep coming back (especially when I promise, with all good will, posts that don't materialize) is an open-handed gift and miracle and I am grateful beyond the known limits of grateful. I expect to machete my way into a new gig in 2006, and to be much more entertaining, so I hope they will stick around for the fun, the thrills.

Happy New Year to all of you!

2005-12-27T02:59:00.000-08:00

Light for a Dark World

Promises, Promises

2005-12-23T12:51:00.000-08:00

I know, I know - RatBoy seems to be stuck in the world of cakes (of one sort or the other), but this is only because of the extra work pressure holiday anxieties can create in the very old. I've been wiped. There will be more substantive entries this weekend; I have been paying attention to the NSA story (and who knows - they may have been paying attention to me...) and much else. We are not so shallow around here...Cheers!

2005-12-23T01:47:00.000-08:00

Friday Beefcake - Holiday Edition

2005-12-19T23:26:00.000-08:00

Heroic Babka! Pre-Glazing!

Snow, Ice & Babka

2005-12-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

Just seasonal luck that we get snow and ice here to fuck up my babka-shipping plans. The baking went fine (see pic above) and early taste tests are highly positive; now I have to confront UPS Tuesday morning with samples and try to figure out the best way to ship them to the RoD Blogger Bake-Off jury (there are so many posts there on the subject, I can't choose just one). Poor thing has already been through trials that would test the strongest pastry - not least the hair-raising trip back home Sunday evening on snow-slick roads (they don't know from salt here...), my sis driving, and the need to navigate, cajole and placate her in order to arrive in one piece. Babka and I succeeded, and that's a real holiday miracle.

At this point, even if I miss the shipping deadline, I'll be content - treat will arrive, eventually, and I hope it gives pleasure to these people who have become friends over the last months.

2005-12-16T14:04:00.000-08:00

Muffin Attack - by Tristan Bronkhorst

The Muffin Man

2005-12-16T13:44:00.000-08:00

Now that I am really committed to this Bake-Off in Bedlam, a PayPal button has been added to the sidebar. As the judging panel has expanded, my purse has shrunk, so yeah, head hanging, I could probably use some help with shipping costs....
But if you just like the ink-stained wretch content, or the graphics, or the porn, don't let that stop you - pony on up! Keeping old people alive doesn't pay that well, let me assure you.

2005-12-16T05:11:00.000-08:00

Friday Beef Blogging - LATE EDITION

2005-12-16T02:57:00.000-08:00

"I'm in the Milk and the Milk's in Me!"

Dough Boys (and Girls)

2005-12-16T02:39:00.000-08:00

Please take time, for those of you unfamiliar with the splendid Republic of Dogs, to run over and check out the Blogger Bake-Off the Whole Sick Crew there (and I count myself proudly in their number) have devised for the Holidays. I will be making babka for the occasion (and will share pics of product Sunday evening), so be ready to feast your eyes, and to envy the judges!

Even if I don't make top dog (or top gun, or whatever...) in this one, if the reviews are good I will post my recipe. I and former roomies can testify to the comforts and virtues of good stuff baking inside when the world is frozen outside. Anticipation, friends!

2005-12-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

Friday Beef Blogging - Early Edition

2005-12-14T08:29:00.000-08:00

Susan in NOLA - with a Foundling

Gyppy Tummy

2005-12-14T08:17:00.000-08:00

That's what they call a lethal GI infection in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. Evasive and maybe charming, until the victim dies, not long after. That's when it hits you - people you come to like wiped out, people you don't much care for surviving and thriving; so like Life! Powell takes 40-50 years to chronicle his society, its survivors and its corruptions, aesthetic and political. I am thinking we are at the point of vomiting up some bad tuck from the last 25 years, right now.

Take New Orleans, fallen off the radar now by offical pronouncement. My friend Susan is back there again (see pic above), part of an animal rescue mission. This is not sentimentality; men and women overcome by the hurricane and floods have died, but their pets may have survived, or at best been separated from their families who escaped and survived elsewhere. Regardless of the state of these animals prior to this disaster - well or ill-cared for - it strikes me that there is a conservative expectation that their owners and masters will - and should - go feral long before their dogs and cats will. That is, every man for himself, and God will sort it out, if He does not cut you down first, and if that happens you will have deserved it, just as your lost city did.

That's a Declaration of Anarchy - Free Market, of course - and if you think you are safe from that policy in Missouri (New Madrid fault), Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles (major earthquake or volcanic zones, all) - well, you're dreamers under this government. Talk to Oklahoma City about homegrown bombers - not al-Qaeda, but our own native nutcases who hate the gummint, the captains of industry and business (Jews, or, now, possibly Arabs - certainly George Soros), the hordes of Beaners on our southern border (without whom Lou Dobbs would not be able to enjoy his salad), or the stealthy Canucks up North - look just like us, talk just like us, but they are NOT us....fuck, we've got enemies on all fucking sides! Greatest country in the world, in History, and we are hoping attitude will save us.

Is it so hard to recall where we were 5 years ago? Federal budget surplus, anyone? Dodged some Y2K terrorist attacks, anyone? Panels warning more, but, what the fuck, they were Wets, at best (to borrow a Thatcherite term); tax cuts and deficits are now "our due" in The Cheney's immortal words. Fuck fiscal responsibility. The apparatus of government is being - and should be - eviscerated - what are you talking about "Common Good" for, you godless, un-Christian, income-redistributive traitor! C'mon, Atlas, Shrug!

I have a buddy who married a very bright and attractive woman. She had a lot of issues - passionately hated her family, self-esteem problems in spite of high achievement - but the thing that bugged me the most about her (as I met her at the same time as my buddy) was her romance with Ayn Rand. I couldn't figure out why she didn't see through that simple didactic gimme agenda, but I guess she did, at the end, because after my buddy built her up for 7 years, she left him. He'd made her strong enough to do what she had wanted to do all along. Nothng like empowerment, I guess, but beware of the therapeutic relationship.

There's a sense in which the Dem leadership - and far too many consultants, and journalists, and ordinary independent voters for that matter - still talk about the radical (e.g., dominant) wing of the Repubs as if they were people to be reasoned with. They are not. Like my buddy, they will marry you and suck you dry and leave you. Selfishness is a Virtue, and you are a Loser, my friend.
Winners, after all, don't have friends - only clients, only suckers.

2005-12-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

Friday Beef Blogging - for my RoD cohort...

2005-12-09T03:20:00.000-08:00

The Fantod - courtesy of Edward G

So, What's the Story Jerry, Part Deux

2005-12-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

The Next Day (10/29) -
[There really is a point to this saga, I promise, so please bear with.]

Readers familiar with RatBoy - alolm will know that I don't get much time off, and I had made special arrangements for October 29th to have a free overnight to attend a semi-annual party thrown by a lawyer buddy. Last one was in the Cinco de Mayo spring bash, and for that I hadn't been able to negotiate sofa-flopping time, so this one was a real treat. And we were getting returned that hour we lost for Daylight Time (which I always accept as a birthday gift, anyway). Wee hours would be our due, and I had partied with these people, and they are eaters, drinkers, most of all talkers.

Also smart and funny. Bunch of labor lawyers (evenly split between employer/employee business), radio media, bohos, and the likes of me. Costumes were optional (best I could come up with was a bowling shirt with discrete howling/flaming skulls) - our host was in elegant black tattered robes and leather-patched wings (and a matching tail), his wife in spectacular spider-web hose and evil-french-maid's get-up. There was a harlequin with a mane of red hair (touting Green Day's American Idiot, which she had been listening to all the way up from Eugene) The most frightening couple came as Lyndie Englund and her Man-on-a-Leash, complete with loincloth (over a thong) and a keffiya - which would have been truly disturbing if he hadn't been having such fun showing off his good body. There were also Joey Ramone wigs, and two splendidly over-fed and over-loved doggies. And an electric bat suspended and flapping over the cooktop.

But there was nothing particularly madcap about the conversation. Everyone was trying to get their bearings around the Fitz/Libby indictments, what kind of response Dems would make (especially their temperament to make any concerted response at all). Old shit in Left Blogistan, but being able to spend an evening with it, with real warm bodies and hot minds, just reinforced the wonder and confusion from the day before, talking to my old friends.

What none of us knew that Saturday night was that Harry Reid was going to throw the Senate into closed session on the following Tuesday (11/1) to force the issues of distorted intelligence and blocked investigation of those distortions, nor how powerful that can-opener would be. Here was a house well-populated by pretty prosperous, well-connected and serious minded men and women, and (heads up, Sen. Wyden, Rep Wu, etc.!) feeling adrift. My friends Jeff and Susan went out of their way to tell me how much they admire Gavin Newsome, and they only live close to SF - he still bears their standard.

They act on it, too - but that's the Next Part.

2005-12-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

DLG - from Jeff & Susan country...

So, What's the Story, Jerry - Part 1

2005-12-08T02:25:00.000-08:00

Now it's, like, what? 4-5 weeks? OK, buddy....

The birthday I acknowledged this year, below, has kept dishing out presents beyond my capacity to open them fast enough and appreciate them (for good or ill) at leisure. But here's a stab at it.

10/28, I have lunch with one of my oldest friends - the kind you can miss being face-to-face with for 10 years and it's still like you saw one another just last week. An illusion, of course, but enormously satisfying. So, he says over lunch, "I don't know what your politics are [he could make a good guess, so he's being polite..], but I can't figure out why anyone voted for this dumb fuck [meaning W]." Understand, the speaker here has made a fortune in financial management and has certainly benefitted from current tax policies, at the very least, and he's still appalled. We have a lot more to run over, so I shrug and say, "Beats the shit outta me," which is quite true, and we move on to his parents (who are like my second family) and his wife (who we will meet later in the afternoon), and his kids.

It's a fine lunch - Jeff taunts the waiter to feed me big (it was always his contention that I could outeat anyone in a sitting - god, I'm glad I haven't made that a habit!). I am, even now, thinking about how I want to attempt the polenta with mascarpone and roasted fennel and red peppers - yum. And it was a beautiful fall day here to walk a fair amount of that off. We did, with a lot of quizzing about how our various aging parents were doing, and pointing out Portland sights, and what it was like to lose my gay pussy. My own family would never ask such a question (not that there's anything wrong with it...), but that's why I needed a second.

We stroll on to a rendezvous with Susan, an art dealer (and she'll have other roles to play, just wait) and Jeff's wife. Last time I saw her was in LA after Thanksgiving at her brother's house, saying goodnight as I took my bike for a walk down the boardwalk, totally shitfaced from her brother's weed-laced stuffing. A very elegant dinner that was, and I think she was wise enough to stay a qualified designated driver, or else I wouldn't be writing this.

They had a dinner engagement with a Nike exec friend, so we had to say goodbye, but I was buoyed by the continuities, on the same day the Libby indictments came down.

Big stuff the Next Day - and next installment, or I'll never get anything posted.

[Just an aside, but my readership should be ashamed to flee from ballet posts - philistines! :-)]

2005-12-06T03:34:00.000-08:00

Too Much Is Never Enough

A Muse of Blue Flame

2005-12-06T02:03:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a dancer is more than a dancer - think Pavlova, think Nijinsky, or Astaire, or Baryshnikov, and then think Farrell. I was hardly more than a baby when I saw my first dancing - probably at the movies, but I'm not sure. I am absolutely sure, though, that once knowing that you could move your body to music, that knowledge transformed both the music and the body; the body was made to move, and the music you then heard from head to toe and from the inside out.

Of the five dancers I name above, only two did I see in live performance - Baryshnikov and Farrell. Both I saw with the NYCB, in their Chicago seasons in my late youth, when George Balanchine was still alive and that company was in its late prime. The company was full of tremendous dancers (and Baryshnikov was with them to add to his already prodigious vocabulary), but it was seeing Farrell that was life-changing. The ballet was Agon, Stravinsky from the '50's and written for (and with) Balanchine. It was not made on her, originally, but I had never seen anything like it. Her partner (as in the picture above) was Peter Martins, and for all the music's and the choreography's spikiness - listen to a recording, if you can fucking find one anymore - it is a reiteration of very old courtly dances. Arlene Croce once wrote something to the effect that ballet exalts manners and civilization, but it also contains the unspeakable; Agon is like that. What I saw Farrell do was combine them, in the same moment, in the great pas-de-deux - conquest and submission, and mercy, too.

I saw her in other things - dances that had been made on her, notably two performances of Vienna Waltzes in which she carries the final act (to Richard Strauss's suite from Der Rosenkavalier), for much of it almost alone on stage, from isolation, though fleeting partnerships, to a kind of self-immolation exit the like of which I have never seen. The exit ushers in the final luscious tableau of swirling partners, but it's a renunciation (not unlike the opera's Marschallin) that you remember - and the suggestion of much darker things. To do all that is being more than a dancer. I don't even know what the word for it is.

In Venice, California, I used to sit house for some friends - looked after their cats, get a respite - and I got to know their neighbors (e.g., look down from above on the hair-transplant plugs of the guy who lived beneath them). As it happened, the woman next door started talking about a dance program and she was from Cincinnati and had known Suzy as a kid - girlfriends. Knocked me off my feet, and I told about what I had seen (with more gush), and not too long after that she brought me back, from a trip East, an autograph and a photo of her and Suzanne. A treasure, and lost now, but, whoa, while I had it, it was gold - it still is, and it was a kindness of Suzanne Farrell (who is famously shy about that sort of thing) to acknowledge a fan.

I suppose that's what has set Farrell apart in the line of great dancers I listed - all-out commitment, all-out performance, combined with a personal reticence that doesn't take to the runway, that shuns stardom. Muses don't bestow their gifts lightly - which is why poets were always appealing to them, praying to them, to show up this time. She's got a part-time company out of DC, she's coaching and staging with companies all over the world, but that unity of personal performance and the works she inspired and made new - those are gone. Yeats nailed the eternal transience of the art with:

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

2005-12-03T03:25:00.000-08:00

Where does it hurt, now?

Tristes Tropiques

2005-12-03T03:11:00.000-08:00

Too many days of this last week have been like the pic above - for me, for my patient. Nightmares for her, broken sleep for me (plus some personal puffy-face torture on account of a tooth). We shall both be OK, but go read Joyce Maynard's piece on rescuing animals in NOLA - there will be more to come, and her published reporting is just a vestige of the full story she has to tell. I'll have more on that later this weekend.

Does make one long for a Brazil of the mind, however.

2005-11-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

Go Ahead - EAT ME!

Many Thanks

2005-11-24T09:14:00.000-08:00

That 3-Week Roundup is now pushing 4 weeks, but it's been an invigorating near-month - the public ice break on so many fronts, and some supremely satisfying personal reconnections. I could not be more grateful right now for my long-standing (some might say long-suffering) friends; they abide, like The Dude.

The Aged Patient and I will have a feast to remember today. Made stock last night in the splendid pot I nabbed earlier this year (its maiden voyage), found great fresh turkey parts (recipe and technique as posted below), and they will be roasted with beautiful leeks, turnips, carrots and - I think - rosemary this time. Cornbread base for stuffing is done, and there are nice criminis and mild italian sausage to fill that out (a special request of the AP). She also has sweet potatoes coming - and when you're 97, you should get whatever you want.

This was always the holiday of choice to visit my family when I lived far away. No religious trappings or conflicts, no gifts to lug, and I would promise to cook - give me something to do and a superior meal for the rest of them. Just in the last 2 weeks, I've found an archive of photographs kept by our landlords in our Chicago house, and preserved by one of my original roomies there. I don't recall exactly how this got started, but Betty and Albert welcomed us for Thanksgiving fairly early on, and as the years passed, students who had lived in the house (it was a 3-flat, really), would return for the holiday, and they would have their placecards, and they would bring a contribution of food, and we would all celebrate on Betty's good Wedgewood or Limoges. Got quite fancy after a while, but it was very cool. I'll post some of the pics when the mood hits.

I am also thankful to all my readers and patrons here - that I have either seems miraculous at times (most of the time, actually). If I can cook a decent meal, I can post more. That's a promise.

[Update: Dinner was hugely successful - the AP was delighted, the turnips could not have been better (magnets for meat juices - I don't know why they are not more appreciated...), and I got to do a full-bore dinner here, something of a rarity. And we will have tasty leavings for at least a week. The remaining stock, alone, will enrich 2-3, many post-colonialist feasts! All power to the Bird!]

More Fumes...

2005-11-18T23:17:00.000-08:00

Been a tough and volatile week here at work - I wanted to do a 3-week wrap-up of the marriage of the personal and the public, but I've just been too beat. Apologies to all who come back looking for something interesting and who are held in suspense, disappointed. Back with you this weekend.

2005-11-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

Dangerous when cornered....

Weasel Alert

2005-11-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

The Rude One posted an excellent warning yesterday on the dangers of Gulo gulo, largest of the weasel family. I am with him on the likelihood of the coming year being even more savage than this one almost passed. And he's in the middle of a series, so go read.

Like Summer Tempests - Part 1

2005-11-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

[Returning to our friends at WITW...]

THE Rat put out a neat little brown paw, gripped Toad firmly by the scruff of the neck, and gave a great hoist and a pull; and the water-logged Toad came up slowly but surely over the edge of the hole, till at last he stood safe and sound in the hall, streaked with mud and weed to be sure, and with the water streaming off him, but happy and high-spirited as of old, now that he found himself once more in the house of a friend, and dodgings and evasions were over, and he could lay aside a disguise that was unworthy of his position and wanted such a lot of living up to.

`O, Ratty!' he cried. `I've been through such times since I saw you last, you can't think! Such trials, such sufferings, and all so nobly borne! Then such escapes, such disguises such subterfuges, and all so cleverly planned and carried out! Been in prison -- got out of it, of course! Been thrown into a canal -- swam ashore! Stole a horse -- sold him for a large sum of money! Humbugged everybody -- made 'em all do exactly what I wanted! Oh, I am a smart Toad, and no mistake! What do you think my last exploit was? Just hold on till I tell you -- -- '

`Toad,' said the Water Rat, gravely and firmly, `you go off upstairs at once, and take off that old cotton rag that looks as if it might formerly have belonged to some washerwoman, and clean yourself thoroughly, and put on some of my clothes, and try and come down looking like a gentleman if you can; for a more shabby, bedraggled, disreputable-looking object than you are I never set eyes on in my whole life! Now, stop swaggering and arguing, and be off! I'll have something to say to you later!'

Toad was at first inclined to stop and do some talking back at him. He had had enough of being ordered about when he was in prison, and here was the thing being begun all over again, apparently; and by a Rat, too! However, he caught sight of himself in the looking-glass over the hat-stand, with the rusty black bonnet perched rakishly over one eye, and he changed his mind and went very quickly and humbly upstairs to the Rat's dressing-room. There he had a thorough wash and brush-up, changed his clothes, and stood for a long time before the glass, contemplating himself with pride and pleasure, and thinking what utter idiots all the people must have been to have ever mistaken him for one moment for a washerwoman.

By the time he came down again luncheon was on the table, and very glad Toad was to see it, for he had been through some trying experiences and had taken much hard exercise since the excellent breakfast provided for him by the gipsy. While they ate Toad told the Rat all his adventures, dwelling chiefly on his own cleverness, and presence of mind in emergencies, and cunning in tight places; and rather making out that he had been having a gay and highly-coloured experience. But the more he talked and boasted, the more grave and silent the Rat became.

When at last Toad had talked himself to a standstill, there was silence for a while; and then the Rat said, `Now, Toady, I don't want to give you pain, after all you've been through already; but, seriously, don't you see what an awful ass you've been making of yourself? On your own admission you have been handcuffed, imprisoned, starved, chased, terrified out of your life, insulted, jeered at, and ignominiously flung into the water -- by a woman, too! Where's the amusement in that? Where does the fun come in? And all because you must needs go and steal a motor-car. You know that you've never had anything but trouble from motor-cars from the moment you first set eyes on one. But if you will be mixed up with them -- as you generally are, five minutes after you've started -- why steal them? Be a cripple, if you think it's exciting; be a bankrupt, for a change, if you've set your mind on it: but why choose to be a convict? When are you going to be sensible, and think of your friends, and try and be a credit to them? Do you suppose it's any pleasure to me, for instance, to hear animals saying, as I go about, that I'm the chap that keeps company with gaol-birds?'

Now, it was a very comforting point in Toad's character that he was a thoroughly good-hearted animal and never minded being jawed by those who were his real friends. And even when most set upon a thing, he was always able to see the other side of the question. So although, while the Rat was talking so seriously, he kept saying to himself mutinously, `But it was fun, though! Awful fun!' and making strange suppressed noises inside him, k-i-ck-ck-ck, and poop-p-p, and other sounds resembling stifled snorts, or the opening of soda-water bottles, yet when the Rat had quite finished, he heaved a deep sigh and said, very nicely and humbly, `Quite right, Ratty! How sound you always are! Yes, I've been a conceited old ass, I can quite see that; but now I'm going to be a good Toad, and not do it any more. As for motor-cars, I've not been at all so keen about them since my last ducking in that river of yours. The fact is, while I was hanging on to the edge of your hole and getting my breath, I had a sudden idea -- a really brilliant idea -- connected with motor-boats -- there, there! don't take on so, old chap, and stamp, and upset things; it was only an idea, and we won't talk any more about it now. We'll have our coffee, and a smoke, and a quiet chat, and then I'm going to stroll quietly down to Toad Hall, and get into clothes of my own, and set things going again on the old lines. I've had enough of adventures. I shall lead a quiet, steady, respectable life, pottering about my property, and improving it, and doing a little landscape gardening at times. There will always be a bit of dinner for my friends when they come to see me; and I shall keep a pony-chaise to jog about the country in, just as I used to in the good old days, before I got restless, and wanted to do things.'

`Stroll quietly down to Toad Hall?' cried the Rat, greatly excited. `What are you talking about? Do you mean to say you haven't heard?'

`Heard what?' said Toad, turning rather pale. `Go on, Ratty! Quick! Don't spare me! What haven't I heard?'

`Do you mean to tell me,' shouted the Rat, thumping with his little fist upon the table, `that you've heard nothing about the Stoats and Weasels?'

What, the Wild Wooders?' cried Toad, trembling in every limb. `No, not a word! What have they been doing?'

` -- And how they've been and taken Toad Hall?' continued the Rat.

Toad leaned his elbows on the table, and his chin on his paws; and a large tear welled up in each of his eyes, overflowed and splashed on the table, plop! plop!

`Go on, Ratty,' he murmured presently; `tell me all. The worst is over. I am an animal again. I can bear it.'

`When you -- got -- into that -- that -- trouble of yours,' said the Rat, slowly and impressively; `I mean, when you -- disappeared from society for a time, over that misunderstanding about a -- a machine, you know -- '
Toad merely nodded.

`Well, it was a good deal talked about down here, naturally,' continued the Rat, `not only along the river-side, but even in the Wild Wood. Animals took sides, as always happens. The River-bankers stuck up for you, and said you had been infamously treated, and there was no justice to be had in the land nowadays. But the Wild Wood animals said hard things, and served you right, and it was time this sort of thing was stopped. And they got very cocky, and went about saying you were done for this time! You would never come back again, never, never!'

Toad nodded once more, keeping silence.

`That's the sort of little beasts they are,' the Rat went on. `But Mole and Badger, they stuck out, through thick and thin, that you would come back again soon, somehow. They didn't know exactly how, but somehow!'

Toad began to sit up in his chair again, and to smirk a little.

`They argued from history,' continued the Rat. `They said that no criminal laws had ever been known to prevail against cheek and plausibility such as yours, combined with the power of a long purse. So they arranged to move their things in to Toad Hall, and sleep there, and keep it aired, and have it all ready for you when you turned up. They didn't guess what was going to happen, of course; still, they had their suspicions of the Wild Wood animals. Now I come to the most painful and tragic part of my story. One dark night -- it was a very dark night, and blowing hard, too, and raining simply cats and dogs -- a band of weasels, armed to the teeth, crept silently up the carriage-drive to the front entrance. Simultaneously, a body of desperate ferrets, advancing through the kitchen-garden, possessed themselves of the backyard and offices; while a company of skirmishing stoats who stuck at nothing occupied the conservatory and the billiard-room, and held the French windows opening on to the lawn.

`The Mole and the Badger were sitting by the fire in the smoking-room, telling stories and suspecting nothing, for it wasn't a night for any animals to be out in, when those bloodthirsty villains broke down the doors and rushed in upon them from every side. They made the best fight they could, but what was the good? They were unarmed, and taken by surprise, and what can two animals do against hundreds? They took and beat them severely with sticks, those two poor faithful creatures, and turned them out into the cold and the wet, with many insulting and uncalled-for remarks!'

Here the unfeeling Toad broke into a snigger, and then pulled himself together and tried to look particularly solemn.

`And the Wild Wooders have been living in Toad Hall ever since,' continued the Rat; `and going on simply anyhow! Lying in bed half the day, and breakfast at all hours, and the place in such a mess (I'm told) it's not fit to be seen! Eating your grub, and drinking your drink, and making bad jokes about you, and singing vulgar songs, about -- well, about prisons and magistrates, and policemen; horrid personal songs, with no humour in them. And they're telling the tradespeople and everybody that they've come to stay for good.'

`O, have they!' said Toad getting up and seizing a stick. `I'll jolly soon see about that!'

`It's no good, Toad!' called the Rat after him. `You'd better come back and sit down; you'll only get into trouble.'

But the Toad was off, and there was no holding him. He marched rapidly down the road, his stick over his shoulder, fuming and muttering to himself in his anger, till he got near his front gate, when suddenly there popped up from behind the palings a long yellow ferret with a gun.

`Who comes there?' said the ferret sharply.

`Stuff and nonsense!' said Toad, very angrily. `What do you mean by talking like that to me? Come out of that at once, or I'll -- -- '

The ferret said never a word, but he brought his gun up to his shoulder. Toad prudently dropped flat in the road, and Bang! a bullet whistled over his head. The startled Toad scrambled to his feet and scampered off down the road as hard as he could; and as he ran he heard the ferret laughing and other horrid thin little laughs taking it up and carrying on the sound.

He went back, very crestfallen, and told the Water Rat.
`What did I tell you?' said the Rat. `It's no good. They've got sentries posted, and they are all armed. You must just wait.'

Still, Toad was not inclined to give in all at once. So he got out the boat, and set off rowing up the river to where the garden front of Toad Hall came down to the waterside.

Arriving within sight of his old home, he rested on his oars and surveyed the land cautiously. All seemed very peaceful and deserted and quiet. He could see the whole front of Toad Hall, glowing in the evening sunshine, the pigeons settling by twos and threes along the straight line of the roof; the garden, a blaze of flowers; the creek that led up to the boat-house, the little wooden bridge that crossed it; all tranquil, uninhabited, apparently waiting for his return. He would try the boat-house first, he thought. Very warily he paddled up to the mouth of the creek, and was just passing under the bridge, when . . . Crash!

A great stone, dropped from above, smashed through the bottom of the boat. It filled and sank, and Toad found himself struggling in deep water. Looking up, he saw two stoats leaning over the parapet of the bridge and watching him with great glee. `It will be your head next time, Toady!' they called out to him. The indignant Toad swam to shore, while the stoats laughed and laughed, supporting each other, and laughed again, till they nearly had two fits -- that is, one fit each, of course.

The Toad retraced his weary way on foot, and related his disappointing experiences to the Water Rat once more.

`Well, what did I tell you?' said the Rat very crossly. `And, now, look here! See what you've been and done! Lost me my boat that I was so fond of, that's what you've done! And simply ruined that nice suit of clothes that I lent you! Really, Toad, of all the trying animals -- I wonder you manage to keep any friends at all!'

The Toad saw at once how wrongly and foolishly he had acted. He admitted his errors and wrong-headedness and made a full apology to Rat for losing his boat and spoiling his clothes. And he wound up by saying, with that frank self-surrender which always disarmed his friend's criticism and won them back to his side, `Ratty! I see that I have been a headstrong and a wilful Toad! Henceforth, believe me, I will be humble and submissive, and will take no action without your kind advice and full approval!'

`If that is really so,' said the good-natured Rat, already appeased, `then my advice to you is, considering the lateness of the hour, to sit down and have your supper, which will be on the table in a minute, and be very patient. For I am convinced that we can do nothing until we have seen the Mole and the Badger, and heard their latest news, and held conference and taken their advice in this difficult matter.'

`Oh, ah, yes, of course, the Mole and the Badger,' said Toad, lightly. `What's become of them, the dear fellows? I had forgotten all about them.'

`Well may you ask!' said the Rat reproachfully. `While you were riding about the country in expensive motor-cars, and galloping proudly on blood-horses, and breakfasting on the fat of the land, those two poor devoted animals have been camping out in the open, in every sort of weather, living very rough by day and lying very hard by night; watching over your house, patrolling your boundaries, keeping a constant eye on the stoats and the weasels, scheming and planning and contriving how to get your property back for you. You don't deserve to have such true and loyal friends, Toad, you don't, really. Some day, when it's too late, you'll be sorry you didn't value them more while you had them!'

`I'm an ungrateful beast, I know,' sobbed Toad, shedding bitter tears. `Let me go out and find them, out into the cold, dark night, and share their hardships, and try and prove by -- -- Hold on a bit! Surely I heard the chink of dishes on a tray! Supper's here at last, hooray! Come on, Ratty!'

The Rat remembered that poor Toad had been on prison fare for a considerable time, and that large allowances had therefore to be made. He followed him to the table accordingly, and hospitably encouraged him in his gallant efforts to make up for past privations.

[More to come...]

[Note: Emphasis added above at "Stoats and Weasels" - you will see why in the following post.]

2005-11-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

A River Runs through It

The Light at the End of the Funnel

2005-11-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

Seems I haven't been the only one. If Roy felt like this on Tuesday, I don't feel like such a wuss. I think I'm coming out of it, but I also think the Shock and Awe are going to be coming home - perhaps for the first time - to many people who have invested their trust and fears in this misbegotten government, and for them it is going to be a difficult awakening. Long, agonizing, no anaesthetic. It will give me no pleasure, but the bullshit must be washed away - rivers may need to be diverted, and we are seeing only a trickle so far, but the America I love can't regain her bearings without it.

Ben M - b. 8 Nov 2005

2005-11-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

My patient just had another great-grandchild - a healthy boy, named after her husband, and she was so thrilled she went blissfully to sleep. It was all worth it, after all.

Now, where's that mohel...?