Category Archives: Books

Dances with Pretension

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Yes, Mark, of course we despise "Dances With Wolves!" It’s pretentious, silly, boring, condescending, tedious and intellectually offensive. The worst thing about it was that Hollywood thought it was profound, and that just confirms so much about Hollywood, doesn’t it?

You see, this "epic" — which I believe lasted about 14 hours, but it may have been longer — was intended to teach Deep Lessons to us hicks out here in Flyover Land all about the Noble Red Man. It seems that Hollywood had just discovered the American Indian, and learned that he was treated badly by the white man, and was going to teach all of us about it, because of COURSE we couldn’t have heard about it out here.

Never mind that the theme of the Noble Savage had been done to death in the early 19th century by James Fenimore Cooper, as any literate person (a category that, as near as I can tell, does not involve anyone in Hollywood) would know.

Or that the theme had become so passe that Mark Twain brutally satirized it later in the century. And remember, Twain was a very liberal, free-thinking sort, but he could not abide pretension.

Or that Hollywood — John Ford, no less — had decades previously given the subject serious, respectable treatment, in a way that might make even John Wayne feel guilty about the white man’s role.

Or that Hollywood, in a more thoughtful era, had even satirized that. In fact, let’s consider "Little Big Man" for a moment. It had fun with almost every Western cliche you can think of, including that of the noble, mystical Red Man (and yes, that was, is, and always will be a cliche, which is my point here — the people making "Dances with Wolves" were not sophisticated enough to know that; they actually thought they were breaking new ground, and that is what is so embarrassing and offensive about it).

"Little Big Man" paid the American Indian the compliment of treating him as a human being, rather than as a stereotype, positive or negative. Director Arthur Penn had the good sense to give his Indians — who, appropriately enough, referred to themselves collectively as "the Human Beings" — the full range of human attributes. They were brave, silly, wise, stupid, tragic, comic and so forth.

The best bit in the whole movie was when Chief Dan George, the wise, earthy Grandfather, decided it was "a good day to die," and went out and lay down to do just that. Of course, the viewer thinks, "Wow, Indians can really do that? I guess it’s because they’re just so much more attuned to the universe than we are." A few moments later, raindrops hit his apparently lifeless face. He opens his eyes and asks Dustin Hoffman whether he is dead yet. A relieved Hoffman says no, so Grandfather gets up with the younger man’s help, shrugs and says something to the effect of, well, maybe some other day would be a better day to die. Or so I remember; I don’t have it at hand to check.

It was so down-to-earth, real, fallible and human. And for those reasons, Grandfather actually is noble — unlike the cardboard cutouts of "Dances With Wolves."

Do you see what I’m saying?

As for "Apocalypse Now" — I’ll deal with that, at least in passing, in my next post. As it happens, my thoughts on it are sort of the opposite of Dave’s.

A legitimate civil liberties issue?

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It’s not often I look at a "civil liberties" issue and see any merit in the libertarian position. To me, the constitution — properly and conservatively understood — does an excellent job of protecting all the personal rights we need, and I tend to be impatient with people who either see a "slippery slope" threat to those freedoms in everything government does, or want to invent entirely new "rights" (as the U.S. Supreme Court did in Griswold and its extension, Roe).

But I have to say that in this case, I can see some legitimate worries. Forcing people who may do a bad thing in the future — but haven’t done a thing yet — to take antipsychotic drugs is disturbing. For those who have trouble getting the link, I’ll explain that the WSJ story is about a "national trend," pushed by a "maverick psychiatrist" named E. Fuller Torrey, to pass laws that force psychotics to take their medicine or have the police come take them away to lock them up in the not-so-funny farm.

The thing is, his main argument is that he believes this helps "prevent crime," and here’s how he has sold the idea:

Dr. Torrey keeps an online database with hundreds of grisly anecdotes about mentally ill people who killed the innocent. They include a jobless drifter who pushed an aspiring screenwriter in front of a subway train and a farmer who shot a 19-year-old receptionist to death. Influenced by such stories, Michigan, New York, Florida and California are among the states that have toughened their mental-health treatment laws since 1998, when Dr. Torrey formed the Treatment Advocacy Center to lobby for forced care.

We have here shades of "Minority Report" and A Clockwork Orange (what with the idea of letting the rozzes lovet a poor bezoomy malchick so some veck can mess with his gulliver rather than letting him make up his rassoodock by his oddy-knocky).

So am I convinced this is a bad idea? No, but I’m willing to concede that I’m not sure either way. Both the libertarian point of view (how can you arrest people who’ve done nothing wrong?) and the societal protection consideration paired with the argument that opponents "want to preserve a person’s right to be psychotic" seem to have merit.

I present this to you folks out there for debate. But first, here are some pros and cons I see. I’ll start with the pros:

  • People with untreated mental illnesses are one of South Carolina’s great challenges. It’s a huge factor in homelessness, overcrowded jails and hospital emergency rooms, a lack of proper care (since jailers, for instance, know little of looking after the mentally ill), and yes, crime.
  • Medication has been developed that can effect remarkable results with these brain diseases. But one manifestation of mental illness may be that the patient won’t take his meds on his own. In such a situation, when the choice is between someone wandering the streets out of his head and a functioning member of society, maybe the state should step in to act in loco parentis, so to speak, and require him to do what’s good for him — and what’s good for the others affected and potentially affected by his sickness.
  • I’ve seen a lot of harm done by overconcern for mental patient’s rights — excessive deinstitutionalization, for one. Why not just act to fix the problem?

And now some cons:

  • Suppose the police do haul them in. We don’t have the psych wards to put them in. Taken a step further, we could go a long way toward fixing the problem of the mentally ill wandering the streets by simply properly funding both insitutionalized and community-based care.
  • We don’t really understand the brain, and while there’s a plethora of "miracle drugs" out there, they don’t always have the expected effect. Based on my own experience with anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds, depending upon your dosage and other, metabolic, factors, you can have side effects that make you feel even worse, or create whole new problems. I’ve known too many people have to take one psychiatric drug after another, until their shrink manages to help them by trial and error (or they just quit taking anything, which under the circumstances may not be an irrational reaction).
  • Whose standards do we use to define "what’s good for him: Big Nurse‘s or R.P McMurphy’s?

OK, what are your thoughts?

New category! Top five lists

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So I was reading our special section last week on this year’s "20 Under 40," and thinking what a fine, upstanding groups of youngsters this was, when I got sidetracked — I started checking out what they listed as their "favorite movie," and suddenly the popular-culture snob in me came out for a romp, and I started looking only at that criterion, and began to judge them much more harshly.

Note that I realize full well that what this illustrates is shallowness and misplaced priorities on my part, rather than reflecting negatively upon our 20 honorees. Obviously, these folks spend their time and energy on more serious matters. This is why they are on a "20 Under 40" list, and I never was.

But indulge me here (which, come to think of it, is something you do every time you waste valuable time reading this blog). I mean, don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed "Red Dawn." I’m not one of those left-wingers who dismiss it as mere right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda. (Of course, it was right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda, but that was part of its charm; it wasn’t afraid to be what it was.) But favorite movie of all time? I don’t think so. Still, this young gentleman should get points for taking a risk with his pick (something I utterly fail to do with my own list below, I’ll admit), and that’s worth something. But risky choices need to be defensible.

Far more impressive was Mary Pat Baldauf‘s esoteric selection of "A Face in the Crowd." Now there’s a film buff. I mean, even though I’ve heard great things about it, I haven’t even seen it myself (although I just got it from Netflix and hope to watch it this weekend), but it’s got great snob appeal. Think about it — Andy Griffith, before he was famous, shining in a serious, dark role. And don’t forget it’s got Patricia Neal in it. So way to go there, Ms. Baldauf. And please note, she dared to list "old movies (especially from the 1950s and 1960s)" as a personal passion, which raised the bar on the discriminating reader’s expectations. So this was quite a high-wire act, and she pulled it off beautifully.

I would applaud Cynthia Blair‘s choice of "The Usual Suspects" (although, being more obvious, it’s not as cool as Ms. Baldauf’s), but it’s listed as "last movie," rather than "favorite," which just doesn’t count for as much.

So where am I headed with this? Well, as an ardent admirer of Nick Hornby‘s masterful High Fidelity — and as one who also thoroughly enjoyed the film adaptation (in spite of their having moved the setting from London to Chicago, it was rescued by a stellar cast, with Jack Black turning in a mind-blowing performance as Barry) — I have been tempted for some time to start a "top five" category on this blog.

What’s stopped me? Well, fear, I suppose — fear of being savaged by the real pop culture snobs, because I know my own tastes are fairly pedestrian, truth be told. There are an awful lot of Barrys out there ready to tear into my picks the way the original Barry dissed Rob’s and Dick’s. But ultimately, as a reader-participation exercise, this could be fun. So let’s do it.

I had wanted to start this with something less obvious, such as "top five movie endings," or "top five cover songs that feature the original artist singing backup," or some such. But since I just got on the under-40 crowd about favorite movies, let’s start with that very vanilla sort of list:

1. "It’s a Wonderful Life."
2. "The Godfather."
3. "Casablanca."
4. "The Graduate."
5. "High Noon."

Or maybe number four or five should have been "Saving Private Ryan" or …

Yes, I know. I’m stretching the concept of "vanilla" until it screams. Barry would call that list "very …". Well, never mind what Barry would call it, since this is a family blog. But hey — the best movies of all time are obvious, if they’re really the best. I could have thrown in "Life is Beautiful" or "36 Hours" or "Office Space" or something that had a little individuality to it. But I had to be honest.

I promise to do something a little more intriguing the next time I visit this category.

Meanwhile, I’m anxious to know what y’all think — not only your own "top five movies," which I’m sure will put mine to shame. I’d also like your suggestions for future lists.

Assuming, of course, that you dare…

The Caffeine Also Rises

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This is blogging. This is the true blogging, el blogando verdadero, con afición, the kind a man wants if he is a man. The kind that Jake and Lady Brett might have done, if they’d had wi-fi hotspots in the Montparnasse.

What brings this on is that I am writing standing up, Hemingway-style, at the counter in a cafe. But there is nothing romantic about this, which the old man would appreciate. Sort of. This isn’t his kind of cafe. It’s not a cafe he could ever have dreamed of. It’s a Starbucks in the middle of a Barnes and Noble (sorry, Rhett, but I’m out of town today, and there’s no Happy Bookseller here). About the one good and true thing that can be said in favor of being in this place at this time is that there is basically no chance of running into Gertrude Stein here. Or Alice, either.

I’m standing because there are no electrical outlets near the tables, just here at the counter. And trying to sit on one of these high stools and type kills my shoulders. No, it’s not my wound from the Great War, just middle age.

So that puts me in mind of Papa. No, excuse me: I once had lunch with Mary Welsh Hemingway (wife number four) at a hotel down by the river (the Mississippi, not the Seine). It was 1976. She drank a Bloody Mary; I had one of those crisp, cold Dutch beers in the green bottle. It was good, and it did not mount to the head as those things sometimes do. We were standing in line at the buffet when I started to ask her something about "your husband," and I stopped myself to say, "It seems silly to keep saying ‘your husband’ as though he had no name. Is it, uh, is it OK if I just call him ‘Papa‘?"

No, she said. That was just for family.

Good for her.

Anyway, this line of thought got started partly because of the writing-standing-up thing, and partly because I’m standing under that mural they have around the cafe area in Barnes & Nobles, with all the famous writers sitting in a real cafe looking intellectual and bohemian, and Hemingway is up there with Joyce and Faulkner and Neruda and …

Well actually, no, he isn’t. I’ve stepped away and walked around the area three times now, probably drawing stares at such odd, peripatetic behavior, and he’s not up there. But he is on the one on Harbison, isn’t he? I remember it because it bugged me that they showed him smoking a pipe. At least, I think they did. I’m not in a position to check. Anyway, I’ve never seen a photograph of Hemingway smoking a pipe. Not the kind of thing he would do. I’ve got a certain stereotype of pipe smokers in my head, and he doesn’t fit it. Of course, I could be wrong about him.

I shouldn’t let it bother me, but it does. I’m going to walk around again to see for sure if he’s up there…

Nope.

You know, the coffee here is a lot stronger than I expected. She warned me that it was really hot and really full (too full for me to stir in my six packets of Sugar in the Raw without spilling), but she didn’t say it was this strong. It’s enough to make a man start babbling about nothing. Nada y nada y pues nada.

We are all a lost generation.

Who said that? Oh, no — she is here…

The Longest Day

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Today is the day of days — at least it was, 61 years ago. Our modern-day Agincourt, when men who lay a-bed in America might hold their manhoods cheap in later years, for not having been there to launch the assault on Hitler’s Fortress Europa.

Of course, the men who were there would have snorted at such flowery, high-flown rhetoric. They were just there to do a job that they didn’t want to have to do, and were pretty ticked off at the Germans for keeping them from being able to lay a-bed back home.

And unlike at Agincourt, there were plenty of men on our side that day. About 175,000 were flung into the headlong, all-or-nothing effort — on that first day alone. The war in the West, and and perhaps in the East as well, depended on the establishment of a beachhead on this day, in spite of everything Field Marshall Erwin Rommel had done to make it impossible. And he had done all he could.

By this time of day, the battle was well joined. Paratroopers had been on the ground since midnight — early evening on June 5 back home. They had been scattered all over the place by C-47 pilots who had been totally unprepared for the volume of anti-aircraft fire they had flown into — dropped too fast, too low and almost always in the wrong locations. Plenty else had gone wrong. So many things had gone wrong that Iraq looks seamless by comparison. At midmorning, Omaha had looked hopeless — to the generals. But individual sergeants and lieutenants here and there didn’t know that, and went ahead to get the job done.

How, I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine. All any of us who were born later can know is what we read in books and see in films. Steven Spielberg has done his best to try to depict the experience, in one epic film and on television, and for many of us, that constitutes our entire understanding of that momentous day.

To help connect us a little more to the reality, I provide links to sites dedicated to two of the real men who were there — Bill Guarnere and David Kenyon Webster. One of them still lives, the other is long gone. Their names — particularly Sgt. Guarnere’s — are well known to those who watched Mr. Spielberg’s "Band of Brothers." Both were members of Company E of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Mr. Webster’s letters home (he was an aspiring writer who had left Harvard to join the Airborne) were a critical source for Stephen Ambrose when he wrote the book upon which the series was based.

Go to the sites. Mr. Guarnere’s is worth it for the intro alone. Mr. Webster’s contains excerpts from his letters. Their words provide a better, and more fitting, tribute to what they and so many thousands of others accomplished than anything further I could say.

How about here, Bob?

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Bob Gahagan tells me via e-mail that he has a book he’d like to recommend on this blog, but he couldn’t figure out where to place his comment.

Seeing as how the book in question is Tom Friedman‘s latest, and seeing also as how I was recently presented with a copy of it and have not had a chance to open it yet, and considering that I am one of Mr. Friedman’s biggest fans, I’m particularly interested to see what Bob and others who’ve read it have to say about it.

So how about here? The discussion thread begins now…