Arguably, one of the most magnificent achievements in American printing is Daniel Berkeley Updike's Standard Edition of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer of what was then known as the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. Updike was an Episcopal by birth, and so familiar with the Anglican liturgy. Prior to producing the Standard Edition, he had made a careful study of the history of printed liturgical texts, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox. This essay, printed first in The Dolphin, no. 2 (1935), is the result of his historical and aesthetic study of the typographical art of his predecessors. The moment I first handled a Book of Common Prayer, many years ago, the typeprint and durable binding immediately convinced me that I was handling a book consecrated by centuries of Christian wisdom and experience. Later, I would enjoy a similar feeling, handling an old Roman hand missal. Our predecessors in the faith knew the value of a beautiful object, hallowed to the service of God. Need I say that we could learn from the practical and aesthetic wisdom of J.B. Updike?
The word "liturgy," from which comes the word "liturgical," is derived from the Greek leitourgia, signifying public worship, but in English its primitive meaning was the service of the Holy Eucharist, sometimes called the Divine Liturgy, because it is a service instituted by Christ Himself. There was, too, a secondary meaning, which has now obscured the original idea; it signified the set formularies for the conduct of divine service in the Christian Church. Liturgiology is the science, if it may so be called, which pertains to liturgies, their construction, peculiarities, forms, and use; and liturgical printing is that branch of typography which has to do with the arrangement and printing of such forms. To understand liturgical printing as it is now practiced, we must know something of its typographic history, for it has retained the marks of that history to the present day. The first liturgical books were, of course, manuscripts, and although in the earliest of these there appear to have been scanty directions for the performance of divine service, when fuller directions came into use the writers had in some fashion to differentiate the words to be said or sung from the accompanying directions as to where, when, and how to say or sing them. The easiest way to show this was to write the words to be said in one color and the directions in another, the latter sometimes in a smaller letter as well. The words to be said, being of major importance, were written in black, and red was adopted for the directions. These directions, being rubricated, were by a transference of meaning called "rubrics. " Apparently the word "rubrics" first appeared as applied to a liturgical book in a Roman breviary printed at Venice in 1550; but it occurs in manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. "Lege rubrum, si vis intelligere nigrum," says the adage: "Read the red, if you wish to understand the black." As early printed books were nothing more than a mechanical imitation of manuscripts, when liturgies came to be printed they followed the arrangement of liturgical manuscripts, with text in black and rubrics in red. The materials used for manuscripts and books differed--manuscripts being usually on vellum, printed books on paper--though even in printed missals vellum was often used for the canon of the Mass, since the pages devoted to this were subject to wear by constant handling. [1] Both in manuscripts and in printed missals, the canon was arranged in considerably larger type than the rest of the book, and the old name given to a large size of blackletter type, "canon," is a reminder of this. A smaller size was called "brevier," which was sometimes used for breviaries. For a very long period blackletter type with rubrication was altogether used for all such books; [2] but later roman type was adopted, with, however, precisely the same rules as to rubrication. A good deal later italic type (invented by Aldus about 1501) was, for economic considerations, employed to represent rubrics, as this avoided the necessity of printing in two colors; and this plan was adopted for inexpensive editions of liturgical books, though sometimes a very small size of roman type was used instead. This, in brief, is the story of the development of liturgical printing. Indeed, rubrical directions exist in the Bible--for instance, in the Psalms the word Selah, which appears to be some sort of musical direction, meaning, probably, an interlude. Whether any difference was made in the characters used for Selah in Hebrew manuscripts, I do not know, but it is a fact that the differentiation in the use of type in liturgical printing was not confined to Christian liturgies. In Hebrew modern books of devotion one finds the same thing. Rubrical directions are indicated by the insertion of a Hebrew character in outline, or by the use of a small size of the normal Hebrew character. Furthermore, the important sentences or words in the service are indicated by very large type, precisely as in Roman Catholic missals, or by setting certain words in capitals, as in the American Book of Common Prayer. The earliest Greek Orthodox liturgical book printed in Russia was Chasovnik, a book of hours, issued at Moscow in 1565--the second earliest dated volume printed in Russia, the first being an edition of The Acts of the Apostles printed in 1564. These books were printed in the Cyrillic character, a letter derived from late Greek capital letters. Liturgical books of the Greek Orthodox Church appeared prior to that date outside of Muscovy, the earliest ones having been printed at the end of the fifteenth century in Poland--at Cracow in 1491. These, too, were printed in "Church Slavonic," using the Cyrillic character. Two modern books printed at Moscow are good examples of comparatively recent Greek liturgical printing, for under the Soviet regime such books are no longer produced. The first book mentioned is a service book (Sluzhebnik) of 1894, and the second (Trebnik), of 1906, is of the same nature. Both the Sluzhebnik and the Trebnik came from the press of the Synod Printing Office (Sinodalnaya Tipografia) of Moscow. These books are printed in red and black, and an illustration of a page in the Sluzhebnik volume is reproduced. Before the Revolution, the Synod Printing Offices of Moscow and of St. Petersburg were the chief printers of Greek Orthodox liturgies and of devotional works generally. Although the Moscow establishment came under the jurisdiction of the Most Holy Synod only in 1721, its history goes back to 1563; as for the St. Petersburg Printing Office, it was active for over two centuries prior to the Revolution, with some intervals. As far as I have been able to examine the eighteenth-century books used in the services of the Orthodox Church, they are roughly put together and are not very good pieces of typography. But the rubrication in all these books, whether old or new, appears to be governed by the usual rule that words to be said are printed in black, and directions for their use in red, as in Roman Catholic and Anglican rubricated prayer books. When only black is employed, the rubrics are printed in a smaller size of type. These Greek Orthodox service books are so unfamiliar to most English-speaking people that they have little practical value for the reader, except as showing the universality of certain methods of printing liturgical books. For liturgical printing, as English-speaking people know it, we have two sources--Roman Catholic liturgical books and the liturgies in use in the Anglican Communion. These differ in some particulars. The printing of the authorized Roman Catholic books is chiefly in the hands of three publishing houses, Desclée & Cie of Tournai (otherwise known as the Société de St. Jean l'Évangéliste), Pustet of Ratisbon, and the Vatican Press, at Rome, about each of which something should be said. The brothers Henri and Jules Desclée, who had already built a monastery on their property at Maredsons, Province of Namur, Belgium, founded a printing press in 1882 at Tournai, and under the name Société de St. Jean l'Évangéliste published a series of admirable liturgical works, arranged according to the best liturgical traditions, harmoniously decorated, and technically excellent. They had a part in the musical printing required in the movement for the reestablishment of the liturgical chant, inaugurated largely through the influence of the Benedictines of Solesmes. Their editions served as the basis of the Vatican edition ordered for universal use by Pius X. In the Desclées' books the principle that the directions are to be printed in red and all else in black is consistently followed, and headings such as "Introit," "Gradual," "Epistle," or "Gospel," are rubricated, as these are in a sense directions Moreover, references to passages in the Old and New Testaments are rubricated, for they are merely guides to the verses quoted and would not be said. For the same reason, apparently, the running headlines describing the contents of the page below appear in red, for they, too, are directions as to the day, hour, or occasion of the service. But for purpose of convenience the headings of each new section on the page are printed in bold black capitals--which, while not absolutely consistent, is convenient for purpose of speedy reference. In these books the "Amen" to prayers is treated as a response--as it actually is--and is preceded by in red in rubricated editions, and the words of all versicles--short sentences said by the officiant--are preceded by . In the matter of initials there appears to be no fixed rule, and prayers begin with rubricated initials or black initials, as taste directs. I think this is a mistake. Strictly speaking, prayers should have initials in black, for these initials are part of a word to be said, and, moreover, black initials have a better typographical effect. Rubrics in these books have initials in black, which I think also open to exception, for rubrics, except in rare instances, require no initials; but if used, such initials should be rubricated also. A more serious fault is the introduction of gothic initials in prayers printed in roman type. As a whole, however, these books are consistent and careful pieces of typography. The Pustet family was of Bavarian origin. In the first quarter of the last century Friedrich Pustet, who had been a bookseller, started a printing house at Passau which four years later, in 1826, he transferred to its present location at Ratisbon. Enlarging the establishment and adding a paper mill to the plant, the firm began to print and issue liturgical books in 1845, and later added facilities for the printing of church music. In 1870 the Pustet house was given the style of Typographus S. R. Congregationis, and the Vatican authorities have placed in its hands the editio typica of all liturgical work. The best books issued by Pustet are excellent, but their product is uneven and they have been less fortunate in their decorations than the Desclées, whose books show a greater uniform excellence. A disagreeable feature is the use of colored lithographic frontispieces and pictures, and a later series of these, intended to be more modern in feeling than those they supersede, are no improvement on them. "In the latest Pustet Missal," writes a correspondent learned in these matters, [5] "the incipit letter of the text itself is often in color, usually red. Another characteristic is the introduction into the Canon of certain parts of the varying Communicantes and Hancigitur prayers, to obviate turning the page at that important moment of the service. In general, this new Pustet Missal pays attention to the pagination of the prayers." The Vatican Press (Tipografia Vaticana), founded by Pope Sixtus V in 1587, was housed in the palace in the building known as the Cortile della Stamperia and an interesting "specimen" of its types and characters for musical notation--Indice de Caratteri, . . . esistenti nella Stampa Vaticana, & Camerale--was published in 1628. Shortly afterward, the Congregation of the Propaganda established a separate printing office for the needs of missions, in which connection it issued, during the seventeenth century, a series of grammar-specimens of its various exotic alphabets, the first of which, Alphabetum Ibericum, appeared in 1629. This press later developed into the Tipografia Polyglotta. In 1910, Pope Pius X effected an amalgamation of the two, under the name Tipografia Polyglotta Vaticana, and arranged a modern and finely equipped plant. The new office prints the usual output of the Curia, especially the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, as well as the special choral editions of the liturgical chant, and the typical editions of the missal, breviary, ritual, and other service books. The Vatican editions of plain song printed in one color, italic being used for the rubrics, are practical, workmanlike, and handsome; they are well adapted for what they are meant for. "The typical editions of the Vatican Press have the custom of printing the top of the page in red for the title--for example, Praefatio solemnis in festo Sancti Josephi, but using black for this same title as a heading for the actual preface itself. Furthermore, in the actual directions, when a text is referred to by name, the text itself is printed in black. For example, 'Dicto Pater Noster et Credo,' the underlined words are in black, the others in red"--precisely the use in rubricated English prayer books. To persons wishing to consult authoritative Roman Catholic liturgical books, the Desclées' publications will serve the purpose best. The books to be looked at are the Missal, Breviary (in four volumes for the four seasons), Rituale, and Officium Majoris Hebdomadae (Offices for Holy Week). For Anglican prayer books the three authorized houses are the University Press, Oxford, the University Press, Cambridge, and the King's Printers. These have in the Anglican Communion much the same authority as the publications of Tournai, Ratisbon, and Rome in the Roman Catholic Church. The chief of these three houses is the Oxford University Press, which dates from about 1517, though there was a long interruption in its work and it was only in 1585 that it began its present function. Its chief promoters were Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; Archbishop Laud, who secured for it a royal charter; Dr. John Fell, Dean of Christ Church, and later Bishop of Oxford; and Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon. The printing of Bibles and prayer books was secured to the University in 1675, largely through Fell's efforts. Its present equipment numbers some 550 fonts in 150 characters, a foundry, a bindery, a paper mill, etc. It is governed by a body styled "delegates," headed by the vice chancellor. In its prayer books "every attention has been paid to accuracy and excellence of printing and binding, to the provision of editions suited to every purpose and every eyesight, and to the efficient and economical distribution of the books all over the world at low prices. In all these respects a standard has been reached which is unknown in any other kind of printing and publishing, and which is only made possible by long experience, continuous production, and intensive specialization." [6] Of the hundred editions of the prayer book, the Coronation prayer book of 1902 in octavo and the Fell prayer books are perhaps the best known, but the smaller editions are often exquisite though unobtrusive specimens of printing. Just as the Roman Catholic books of devotion continue to need constant additions through the canonization of new saints, so "the accession of a sovereign makes it necessary to print a large number of cancel sheets, which have to be substituted for the old sheets in all copies held in stock or in the hands of booksellers." The Cambridge University Press, now four hundred years old, has printed Bibles and prayer books since early in the seventeenth century. Baskerville produced for this press, in the eighteenth century, some prayer books, more remarkable because he printed them than for any merit of their own. Creditable as are the Cambridge books and those issued by the King's Printers, Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode, I should recommend the consultation of the Oxford prayer books to students of English liturgical printing. The Anglican use in printing these official prayer books differs from the Roman use only in minor details, the chief of which is its employment of italic for responses, eliminating the use of before each response. Italic even in rubricated editions of a prayer book has in Anglican books come to signify something not readily signified otherwise, i.e., a response, as, for instance, the responses to the suffrages in the Litany, and to the versicles in Matins and Evensong, and "Amen" when said by the people. For the printing of Protestant orders of service this use of italic is desirable, for to the average congregation the and would be unknown, but when a response is printed in italic the mark should be omitted. The rule that italic should never be rubricated still holds. In both Roman and Anglican uses, notes indicating references to the Bible which are not said are rubricated. In the folio Oxford prayer books the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are printed in full measure and, as far as may be, on facing pages, enabling the book to be carried, open, from the "Epistle" to the "Gospel" side of the altar. The quarto prayer books are printed in the traditional double column, which in liturgical books saves space and avoids ragged pages. Both editions are printed from the celebrated types given to the University by Bishop Fell, and are duly rubricated, but are disfigured by the introduction of a ponderous series of seventeenth-century Dutch "bloomers," as that kind of initial letter is called, mixed with free initials, both kinds being rubricated. A better piece of printing is the octavo Coronation prayer book, also from Fell types, issued in 1902--though a bad fault is the rubrication of italic in the catechism. There are also a number of liturgical books issued by Anglican convents, private societies, or persons, which, while having no authority, are interesting pieces of typography. So far our attention has been given to rituals of liturgical and historic churches. But modern Protestantism is more and more leaning to liturgical forms, either for constant use or for certain occasions. Protestant "orders of service" offer no great difference in typographic treatment from services in the Book of Common Prayer, except that they very often introduce the names of those taking part in them, composers of the music, the words of hymns, or anthems that are sung. The prayers, being extempore, cannot be printed, and for that reason these "orders of service" lean toward the form of programs, and the endeavor should be to avoid this as much as possible. As far as feasible, everything that can be ascertained beforehand should be printed in full, and the names of those taking part in the service should be as inconspicuous as possible and grouped on a separate page. Decoration should be omitted, and, above all, the indiscriminate use of crosses avoided. Further than this it is not possible to give any very detailed directions, as each service is a problem in itself. In general, what is said should be made of the first, and who says it of secondary, importance.
A wise lady of my acquaintance once remarked that although moral laws were clear, simple, and explicit, the cases to which they could be applied in their entirety were few; and she added that this was because the circumstances or situations to which they were applicable were in themselves often confused and complex. I am reminded of this dictum in connection with our subject, for while it seems simple to say that all directions in a liturgy should be rubricated and all else printed in black, along with the understanding of a difference between liturgy and rubrics there must be some knowledge of the particular liturgy in question, as it is used. This knowledge demands some further acquaintance with the theological views implied or expressed therein, and I doubt whether a printer unfamiliar with the ritual of the historic communions could acceptably print services for them. Certain theological views lead to certain acts; and these acts have to be expressed by certain words used in certain ways, and these words and ways have to be fostered, or at least not impeded, by the typography that presents them. Nor are rules for rubrication, etc., simple from another point of view: they cannot always be pushed to an absolutely logical conclusion without doing violence to the appearance and convenience of the book when in use. So while such systems are of very general application, there are "exceptional exceptions," and one must know when these are allowable. The following axioms may be of practical use to persons to whose lot it falls to prepare for printing, or to print, liturgical work.
Concerning Type
Roman initial letters, either free or block, should be used with prayers set in roman; and gothic initials if prayers are set in blackletter.
Rubrics at the beginning of an office or service do not require initials, the initial occurring in the first prayer following the rubric. But, if used, the initials should be printed in red.
Paragraph marks before rubrics may be printed either in red or black, but when a number of rubrics follow each other, black paragraph marks separate them from one another more clearly. In some Roman Catholic books a black arabic figure is substituted for the paragraph mark, but then only when a considerable number of rubrics follow each other.
When it is intended to indicate a versicle and its response, and marks should be used in either red or black. But in Protestant services, as these marks are unfamiliar, the words Minister, People, etc., may be employed, printed in italic.
Italic, being a substitute for rubrication, should never be rubricated.
"Amen" when said by the people should be printed in italic in a service printed in one color, but when said by the clergy only should be printed in roman. Note that in Roman Catholic services the "Amen" is preceded by in red or black when said by the people.
A Maltese cross X is a sign of blessing and should never be used except to denote that the sign of the cross is to be made. Almost the only exception is its use in the singing of the Passion in Holy Week, when it indicates the words of our Lord; or before the printed signature of a bishop.
Prayers, psalms, hymns, etc., must be set throughout in the same size of type and with the same leading; and rubrics must follow this rule and be uniform throughout the work.
While blackletter may be used for titles or display lines on title-pages, or for running titles, it should never be used for prayers in a liturgy to be publicly used.
The use of colored inks to indicate liturgical seasons (i.e., violet for Lent) is always to be avoided.
Concerning Arrangement
A rubric should be on the same page with the prayer, etc., to which it refers, and should be closer to the text following than to the matter preceding it.
The breaks caused by the turning of a leaf should occur, if possible, at the end of prayers that are followed by anthems or hymns.
"Turnovers" should be avoided during prayers, psalms, or lections. But turnovers during music are less objectionable than during portions of the service which are said or intoned.
A versicle should never have its response appear on another page.
In Anglican services the canon and the prayers following should always appear on pages facing each other, unless the Roman use is followed of a facing representation of the crucifixion.
The traditional form of service books was in double column, probably adopted by calligraphers to save space, and to avoid blanks by short lines on a wide page. For books of private devotion this is allowable. In books for public use, however, a full-page measure is preferable, since it is easier to follow. In the Roman Catholic missal, the canon is probably for this reason sometimes printed full measure, though the remainder of the service is set in double column. This also applies to the arrangement of plain song, which must be set in full measure for the same reason.
* * *
Here these notes on liturgical printing end. So little of a practical nature has been written in English on the subject that they may be a slight contribution to a codification of the rules applying to it. In an age when there seem to be more questions than answers, it may be asked what need there is of such minute rules at all. But in this instance there is an answer. It was made by St. Paul when he said to the Church at Corinth, "Let all things be done decently and in order."
At mass yesterday, after the post-communion drum solo, I saw one of the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion returning to the altar. No, there was no flood or fire or imminent fiasco which imperiled us and necessitated an extraordinary minister, nor were throngs of parishioners expiring in the lines. The use of extraordinary ministers is of course de rigueur these days. Perish the thought that anyone should be forced, at mass of all places, to sit and pray by himself. Anyway, what struck me was less the lack of necessity for such an exception to the norm, than there realization that serving as an extraordinary minister is perhaps the last thing I'd want to do at mass.
First, I can't imagine receiving Communion at the altar all by myself while the rest of the church looked on. Likewise, I would never want to receive and then go off and do something, whatever it is, without first praying. I suppose it is possible to serve as an extraordinary minister and not receive beforehand, but receiving before ministering seems the default.
Second, I wouldn't want simply to be handed the ciborium full of Holy Communion. I mean, they just hand it off to you, often very casually, I might add. The slightest thought about what the sacred vessel contains should give one pause.
Third, it is not my preference to receive in the hand. I can't remember the last time I did. How can one just touch the Consecrated over and over again? It doesn't compute.
Fourth, I don't think I could actually utter the words. Who am I to assert such a thing? Who am I that anyone should affirm such to me?
All of these objections have in common a reverence, fear even, of the mystery. How can one step into it without a priest's authority and training? Cultivating the reverence needed to offer mass is a nexus of scholarship, self-understanding, discipline, and prayer. So why would one so eagerly step into part of the priest's role?
Most people, I think, just want to help. This is something that they're permitted to do, so why not do it? Such people are, in my experience, pious, often very pious, but it is a certain sort of piety. It is an intellectual piety though which they understand the importance of the liturgy, and perhaps even that there exists an ineffable dimension, but it is not an emotional piety. They don't fear or tremble before the sacrament.
Or maybe they do. For my humble part, I can't fathom why you'd take up such a burden, or how you could truly bear it, outside the context of priestly duties and training. There are so many ways to serve outside the liturgy and so much one needs from it, that the choice baffles me.
While teaching short poems, notably Catullus 85, I'm fond of saying that if you to put forth a mere two lines of poetry, they ought to be good. Well today in my Twitter feed I saw the image to the right. Putting aside policy, what does it mean?
First I thought he meant that we individually define ourselves as a nation of immigrants, but that can't be so because I don't define myself as a nation. So then I realized that the president must mean that we collectively define ourselves as a nation, and a nation of immigrants at that. Fine. We're too far into this administration's tenure for such a statement to up my libertarian dander.
How does that sentiment, though, gel with the second sentence? Bones are pretty individual things, to start, so the image of us collectively having bones is awkward. Does the image of "national bones" resonate with anyone? Or are wethe bones? Either way we still have our own, actual bones, so when he says "bones," which set of bones is he talking about? Either way, are we a nation of immigrants in our bones, or are we people who define ourselves as a nation of immigrants in the bones? Since the latter seems more likely, I am, according to the president, myself defining the nation as one of immigrants, in the, or I guess one of, the national bones?
I ask again, then, what are the bones made of? Do we constitute the bones, or do we defining ourselves as a nation of immigrants, constitute the bones, or do we actually being, which has not been established, a nation of immigrants, constitute the bones? Does something else entirely constitute the bones? Presuming, though, we're talking about metaphorical bones, he of course means essence, but the image of a bone is not that of a substance which admits a multiplicity of essences, if such a multiplicity is possible politically, philosophically, or metaphorically.
So when he says, "We define ourselves" does he mean define absolutely or partially? He must mean partially since the nation can't be singularly "a nation of immigrants" with no other dimension, but then how can we be so in our bones? As I asked, can we be multiple things in our bones?
What about the reflexive, though, ourselves? This has to be meant with reference to individuals. Do we have collective selves and individual selves? Are we anything else? I guess he meant "We define ourselves constituting a nation of immigrants, but he wrote as. None of these thirty one definitions of as fits the sentence. Maybe he's being rhetorical, using a simile? But isn't his point, which he makes three words later, not that we're like a nation, but that we are a nation? Besides, a simile is between unlike things, of what else can a nation consist than people?
So what's going on here? What's he talking about? This is Ciceronian? It's like Jabberwocky run through an Enigma encoder.
Dear Whomever Wrote Those Words,
There are only two sentences. Why couldn't you get this right? Why?
Peevish, irritable, surly, ill-tempered. This is how we usually define grumpy, but to me it seems a more specific condition: a loss, usually temporary, of humor and sympathy. Such senses bind us to the world and its people, humor to the light foibles which ask charity, and sympathy to the serious seeking compassion. They also bid us be generous and forgiving to others while aware of our own imperfections.
Meanwhile, the grumpy are not aware of their own flaws, only the foolishness of others. All of the grumpy man's own flaws fade away under a bombardment of irritants. In fact, when you're grumpy you don't recognize the good in anything save the perfect. The world is never more black and white than when you're grumpy. The annoying girl is now a shrew, the slow cashier an imbecile, and the chatty neighbor a pest. Formal becomes stuffy, casual vulgar. People with questionable taste become full-fledged philistines, the frugal folks outright cheapskates.
In fact, apart from the dulling passage of time, only the most incorruptible excellence may snap you out of the grumpy funk. But why spoil a grumpy groove? Rather than trying to pacify oneself with some therapeutic excellence, it's far more satisfying to let the grumpiness boil over into a full-blown rant. A good rant is invigorating and cathartic. What liberation from gentlemanly confines, what control one seems to exercise over the life's ills when one rants and raves.
Unfortunately, it's hard to get a good rant going by yourself and an unfulfilled or half-started rant is quite an unsatisfying experience. What you need is a good friend to stoke the fires of disgust, someone who knows and shares just what ticks you off and who sympathizes with your frustration.
It's curious, though, that sympathy should be both the beginning and end of grumpiness. Perhaps it's because we grow grumpy by disconnecting from the intolerable vices of others, and thus the sympathy of friends returns us to a group to which we can happily belong. Ah, friendship.
Quid dulcius quam habere quicum omnia audeas sic loqui ut tecum? - Cicero, Laelius de Amicitia
There are many ways to insult a man. You can steal from him, strike him, shout him down, and on and on. Surprisingly few words, however, are so pregnant with scorn that they can single-handedly and unilaterally insult a man. We need not mention them, but most insults can be walked back, softened, used jovially, or explained away. Even many vicious remarks are limited in their focus. One word, though, seems to carry irrevocable and devastating repudiatory power: actually.
Actually will hew any conversation asunder and cut anyone to the quick. In fact, no conversation is so friendly or genial that actually won't cleave it in two. It's so flippant, as if the word means to overturn whatever argument preceded it, however logical and artful. You will be educated, it says. Actually. It smacks of such a smug self-satisfaction in what will follow that it etches the speaker's smirk, and there's always a smirk, into your mind.
No intonation or gesticulation, however soft and timid, can lessen actually's effect.No follow up can change course. It is a declaration of war. As such, it should be stricken from the gentleman's vocabulary. There's always a friendlier point around which one can pivot if you intend to disagree: speaking in the abstract, pretending to agree even though you are disagreeing, or re-attributing his statement to someone else and then disagreeing with that person.
When you get actually-ied, though, all bets are off. It's a total war of rhetoric. So disagree wisely, if you must disagree, less you wake the wit within the gentleman.
Living requires a great deal of work. That much has at least been agreed upon if not since prehistoric times when the caveman first realized he had to purge his cave of vermin and smoky entrails, then since Hesiod said that whatever be your lot, work is best for you. If that much may be agreed, then, we may also affirm that man seeks to avoid work. This is not news, of course, for it has as long been the nature of man to seek respite from life's relentless toil. The industrial revolution gave modern man a new way to avoid work: efficiency. It seems to me, though, he did not succumb to this temptation, at least not always or broadly, but rather redoubled his efforts and produced the spectacular abundance of the modern world.
He achieved this by means of a two-edged sword: specialization. We've talked before about the extraordinary benefits of specializing at your craft and trading your service or wares. Clearly the practice produces goods and services of increased quality at lower cost. This applies to everything from art and artistic craft to services like those of doctors and grocers. Now I'm not going to backpedal from these facts and suggest every man learn toss in the towel at work and retreat to a patch of land for farming. Instead, I would like to observe the sword slicing the other way.
Namely, that the more one pursues greater specialization at one task, the more one seems to forego others. One may of course pursue specialization for the sake of efficiency and productivity so he can make more money or work less, but one may hyper-specialize even for the goal of excellence. No one condemns the doctor for spending his spare time improving his craft, especially when one's employed his service. Likewise no one would blame Mozart or Shakespeare for devoting all waking hours to their arts. It is an awkward and even disappointing realization, then, that most geniuses have developed their one shining skill at the expense of their other abilities.
Man's life, however, is varied. He must learn to feed himself and get himself from place to place, to write and speak well, to care for and protect his family and property. These should not be viewed as burdens to be shunted off at the soonest possibility for there is unique pleasure in fulfilling them yourself. There is no dishonor in treating oneself to the expertise of a first rate chef, but there is joy in watching something one has grown oneself crisp in the pot, whether it is meat from livestock he has raised or basil grown in his window box. Likewise there is no shame in paying a teacher to instruct one's child in specialized learning, but who would not want to teach one's son or daughter to read?
This may sound a strange or cruel, that I wish man to suffer unnecessary toil, and there is of course an element of displeasure in work, that of exertion, but happiness is an activity and how else will one take joy in these things if one does not do them himself? You may experience ease when someone completes them for you, but not joy. Separating man from his intimate needs and cares is to separate him from his self and nature, and what has separated man from his health as food's transformation from nature's fickle bounty culled by his own hands and refined by his own skill, to processed commodity. What has separated him from his social nature as the law's ebb from res publicae of the common man to esoteric knowledge of lawyers. What has separated man from tradition as knowledge's shift from familial and social trust to pedagogical ware. Overall, what has denied man from the edifying, character-forming, and instructive use of his diverse faculties than contracting out ever more of life's work?
It is not so much, though, that we should strive to do everything possible by ourselves all of the time, but that we should let life's intimate moments remain intimate. We should have significant personal connections to the work of family life, of cooking for and cleaning up after ourselves, of teaching our children life's essentials, and living peacefully with our neighbors. We should seek, wherever possible, to learn about the tools we use and to understand the work done for us by machines and professionals. Such activity not only offers insight into the needs and costs of life, but unique joys in both failure and fulfillment. To contract out activity, that is, life, eagerly and at any and every turn, is a sign not of progress or efficiency, but of dullness and decadence.
It's always amusing when someone makes a ridiculous statement and then quickly backpedals to a more sensible position. In person, a few glances follow such statements and then everyone begins to chuckle. A good time is had by all and no one thinks the offender a lunatic or even a churl. He just got a little heated up. Occasionally, though, everyone begins to chuckle except the offender, and then all laughter ceases. It really is quite a sight when someone launches into a spirited defense of the patently absurd.
Before we look at a specimen, though, two thanks to Tom Woods. First, I wouldn't have come across the article if he hadn't mentioned the piece. Second, if he hadn't excerpted an interesting portion, I most certainly would not have found it amidst the disjunct prose of an author who finds the wrong word and wrong construction at nearly every turn. In fact, the piece is such a turbid kludge of vapid words clacking together in a mass of syntactical bramble that it's almost unreadable. On the bright side, the style is a perfect complement to the ideas.
All of these events are the slow stripping away of the vestiges of the state, deriving step by step the hell that waits at the logical end of the libertarian impulse, a counterpoint to every argument against state power. From a certain perspective, the state is our greatest invention, for all the horrors it has wrought when wielded darkly. It is the sine qua non of everything else we normally consider to be the triumphs of civilization. Writing, electricity, science, art. None of it is more than dust in the wind without the state to jealously guard it, without a hand shielding the guttering flame from the maelstrom. [Link]
Notice how "the state" is not defined. He employs not a single concept to delimit his encomium for state power, not government or legalism or common law or constitutionalism, not balanced power or natural rights, nor monarchy, republicanism, democracy, or bureaucracy. There is no mention of principles like justice or equity by which one might judge the efficacy of a state. But never mind all that. Never mind too how all such principles would by necessity predate the state which rests on them. Never mind his lack of formal argumentation or empiricism. And never mind that without recourse to the aforementioned principles, processes, and evidence, his essay is but a paean to monopolized authority.
Recall instead, how this author thought so little of us, and so much of himself, that he bothered neither to say something intelligent nor to say it well. What an insult.
It is often remarked that tough times try men's souls, and that in such times they are found firm or lacking. True enough. Less often but as truly, observers of God's curious creatures find that peace tries souls too. In the absence of strife, does a man choose to create or does he find a way, or fulfill a need, to destroy? I would note that art tries the soul, that great works of art thrust man into profound realms, and what he does there, if not what he is, what he aspires to.
Years ago I went to the movies with a new acquaintance. After the show, as per my way, I began to prod her for a response. And prod, and prod, and prod. Should said prodding have been of the electrical variety she surely would have perished, but I persisted in stupefaction at her indifference. Of course excellent and terrible movies provoke us, but nothing is so middling that one can't weigh in.
Today I again risked discovering someone by touring a few halls of the Met with two fellow educators and intellectuals. Not that I feared for them, but it was a risk, as experiencing art with someone must be. Who will they turn out to be? Well, I couldn't have been happier. Who has an eye for perspective and tone, who gesture and proportion. Spiced with my own wit and wisdom, we strolled the halls a trio of élan and perspicacity. Naturally the experience brought previous Met ventures to my mind, different times with different friends and no two trips ever the same. It is a curious realization how much of one's life revolves around the arts, how much life revolves around the arts.
How ingrained in how many minds the hand of Socrates' grasping his cup of death, how deep and far now run the currents of his thought. How many friends were made playing musical poker with Haydn, how many conversions in the halls of Bach's polyphonic cathedrals.
Of course, what's reflected back isn't always flattering, and not just the secret delights man takes in the obscene, but all manner of perverse responses to art. Who is not somewhat thrilled by the devastating finality of Hamlet or Antigone, regardless of the tragedy, or the fleshiness of an ostensibly chaste painting? Yet while some reactions reveal our unsavory natures, others illuminate our uniquely cultivated vices. Prominent among these is inconsistency. Who raves in detail about the genius of Orwell, pops in V For Vendetta for a Saturday night movie, and then votes for statism. Even more curious is what I notice in some performers who don't like to attend the performing arts, which I take to mean they can't be bothered if they're not involved. Take away too the dilettantes, I beg you.
There is power in expression, but it requires an agent. Dare a man sieze it and turn it on himself? The end, though, ought not be reducing artistic encounters to navel-gazing exercises, but respect and gratitude for craft, and awe at what can be unlocked, or unleashed.
Directed by Howard Hawks. 1940. Few action heroes have dominated their movies the way Cary grant does His Girl Friday. In fact, if you consider that Grant disappears for about a quarter of the movie, he probably has greater per scene magnetism. The only dull part of the film is the yawning center where the nitty gritty of the urban political machinery spools out. Yes, these scenes are more than competent and the zippy newsroom dialogue adds spice and verismo, but the political shenanigans stand but a framework for the romance between newsman Walter Burns (Grant) and his protege-cum-ex-wife-cum-girl-Friday, Hildy Johnson (Russell.) These electric scenes bookend the film and come so fast and furious their details are hard to spot. Their charm, however, is sure and irresistible.
Take the opening, where Hildy enters the copy room of her former boss and husband, power paper owner Walter Burns. She hurries in with her new beau, leading the guy through the office. The sheepish man moves to open a door for her but she pushes ahead and barely registers his gesture. What a contrast to her relationship with Walter. When these two are finally alone in his office, Walter takes a seat. When Hildy asks for the same he crosses his leg and gives it a gentle tap. "There's been a lamp burning in the window for you," he says, and to which she replies, taking a seat on the table, "That's a window I jumped out of a long time ago." Thrust, parry.
The scene escalates as he lights up and she asks for a cigarette. Without turning to face her Walter tosses over the pack. After he's lit, Hildy asks for a match and, instead of lighting hers, Walter shakes his out and hands over the box. He finally swivels his chair to face Hildy, entirely comfortable with her towering over him as she sits atop the table. Feigning forgetfulness about when they last saw each other, she adds, "It feels like yesterday." "Maybe it was," he trumps, "seeing me in your dreams?" Slowly Hildy gets caught up in the wheels of his flim-flam machine and they're re-hashing old spats about missed honeymoons and empty promises with Walter constantly re-framing the arguments, going so far as to say she spoiled their cozy arrangement by marrying him. Not content with her level of outrage, he mocks her feminine wiles with a cheeky impersonation and finally gets her to blow her top by claiming he was drunk when he proposed. She moves to chuck her purse at him and, ducking both to dodge it and answer the phone, he chirps, "You're losing your arm. You used to pitch better than that." Whew. Good thing the cigarettes are already lit.
When Walter finally discovers Hildy's engagement, he finagles a lunch with the happy couple, proceeding in every way possible to humiliate the dull simpleton. He bursts out of his office, hat on and heading out. Holding doors? Forget about it. Walter immediately mistakes an old man for Bruce, and when he finally finds the guy, shakes his umbrella handle in place of his hand. At lunch, this time Hildy lights up first and when Walter decides to follow, instead of striking a match himself, he pulls her arm over to light his cigarette for him. Walter orders first and everyone follows with the same. He takes rum in his coffee and Hildy follows suit. Bruce demurs because he has a busy afternoon buying tickets and checking baggage and what a bore, this guy. An insurance salesman, he's "wooed" Hildy with promises of a quiet country life in upstate New York. In contrast Walter begins to tell some spicy stories about some of his old cases with Hildy, who proceeds to kick him each time. By the end of lunch, Walter's convinced the Bruce to sell him a policy, but that's just a ruse to get Hildy to stay and get on top of a hot story with him. At the close of the scene, she takes Bruce's money and cautions her fiance about her charming ex, "A lot of people never did anything until they met Walter Burns."
The ensuing political big-city political chicanery is coherent enough, but it's just a frame to get Walter and Hildy back together and Walter uses it just that way. Whether he's setting Hildy up to be in the action or getting Bruce arrested, three times!, Walter's moving everything to his advantage for getting the story and the girl. We spot Walter's win when the jig with the city bigwigs blows up and Hildy stands there, handcuffed to him, playing hardball politics with mayor and chief commissioner. She's thrilled. No way she'll give up the excitement of life with Walter for a country-time picnic with Bruce and his mother. No way she'll forego the flitting zips and zingers, the relentless witty persiflage with Walter for Bruce's ho-hum agreeability.
Once the story's all wrapped up, Hildy looks up adoringly at Walter over the typewriter, quite forgetful of Bruce. Yet Walter sends her on her way. She walks off sullen, but darts back when the phone rings. It's the police. They have an ever-bewildered Bruce in custody, set up in another of Walter's schemes. Hilda finally bursts into tears. Walter really does love her. He's swindled her into a plot of murder and corruption, used her to get a story, broken up her incipient marriage, nearly killed her would-be mother-in-law, and dashed her hopes of a peaceful life. But this time they're going on their honeymoon. Yep, sounds like love.
I step into a room built of cardboard boxes. At its center stand two tables, for cards and pool, and making my way between I investigate the far corner. A bar. No sooner do I peek behind than its tender vaults from the shadows. The figure backs me around the bar and once more behind, pours drinks for the two men now beside me. They step over to the card table and with drink, deck, and hammer in hand, begin to play. A king. One man stands, picks up the card, and nails it to a board covered with dozens of others. They continue. A king. The hammer. Now the bartender's bumped the hanging light and it swings like a pendulum, searing my eyes with each pass as it slices the darkness. Before I regain my senses I'm against the wall and two of the men are pushing at one another. They rant and rave and begin to brawl, thrashing one another against the walls and atop the pool table until behind the bar, with a raging rictus of revenge, the tall man cudgels his quarry with the hammer.
I'll forgive you if the scene doesn't conjure an image of Macbeth, but Punchdrunk's production of Shakespeare is less the form of the play than the primal essence. Gone are the tripping words of the Bard, alas! alack!, but so too the trappings of the theater: the acts, scenes, stage, seats. In place of a linear performance we have parallel staging not of scenes but of various moments from the play. One murder is realized as a saloon fight, another a street brawl. A scene of dialogue becomes a sojourn through a silvery midnight wood or a ballroom dance. Instead of seat and stage, masked audience members are free to wander amongst the performances. The twisting, twirling, and hurling dance of the actors supplant Shakespeare's words.
Stitching these elements together is the ruse that we're not patrons at a theater but guests at the mysterious McKittrick Hotel, whose twisted entry corridors shake up the everyday order and lead you to a smoky lounge of peak 1920s elegance. Sip. Mingle. When your number's up you're masked, hushed, and sent on your way through the McKittrick's five floors. The novelty and detail of the sets catch you first. The detail is exceptional and immersive. A room of headless dolls suspended over a crib. (Whose room could this be?) Another of rolled maps with Creasey's history open on the desk. A nurse's room with a lockbox of keys.
You stumble upon a tailor primping himself in his shop. An angry man walks in and a chase ensues. They grapple and now the tailor's walking up the... shouts in the distance?
You see, while the stagings are parallel they're not discrete. You follow the performers around the hotel, intersecting with other performers followed by other guests. On the one hand this adds the frisson of the live and unpredictable, on the other it results in wandering amongst rooms with little knowledge of their purpose. Pretty and jarring as they are, their significance is often more apparent than actual, contributing less to theater than to tone.
Losing the linear structure also jettisons the structured climaxes of recognition and denouement in the Shakespeare. The result is a scramble whose effect comes not from the controlled ebb and flow of thought in verse but from the visceral. There is, however, an exceptional unity of effect owing foremost to the ferocious aplomb and expressive dexterity of the performers and second to the set design. Much is simple curiosity, but the effect is a disjuncture from the ordinary which in in amplifying, immerses you in the boiling emotions.
As a technique, though, the sensually immersive does not engage the spirit as much as the dramatic perfected by Shakespeare. Absent the traditional form and the words of the Bard, Sleep No More doesn't stand so much on its own as, with different tools, amplify certain dimensions of Shakespeare's masterpiece. As that, it's an engaging thrill.
Second presidential terms are fraught with speculation about potential lame-duck status. Does he have enough pull to push his agenda still further forward? It's not a useless question, but it's really just speculation about what the politicians will do, for the people have more or less checked out of the debates. The popular opposition by this time is always fully enraged. Nothing the president does, good or bad, is good. They're exhausted from opposing, angered by policy and indignant about losing not once but twice. Again, this is unsurprising. The reaction of the president's coalition, however, baffles.
You see, if a candidate I supported ever won, I would hold him to the high standard of the ideals he supposedly represents because should he fail, he would discredit my principles. I find it tough to understand the "my guy" philosophy of politics in which one must eternally support anyone and everyone he voted for. Now few would admit to unconditional support of "their guy," but somehow the equation always balances in his favor. Does supporting "x-rights" trump foreign policy and the economy? Does the economy trump education policy? It's like a game or rock-paper-scissors where everybody wins.
So I wonder now, for example, as we sit mired in a miasma of myriad misguided, misapplied, and misanthropic policies, what might finally snap one of the president's supporters from his piper's tune. Every single matter, they invariably say, would have been worse under the alternatives. If so, then there's a rather monumental political problem, wouldn't you say? I have, in fact, received such concessions from the president's men, so to call them, that we are in dire straits with poor candidates, yet they subsequently say that, even so, better to have "their guy" in charge.
Still, though, some attribute no vice whatsoever to the president. His failures all owe to external factors. The GOP, the supreme court, the lobbyists, congress, big business, Fox News, and the American people. In fact the president's only flaw seems to be an excess of virtue which renders him incapable of doing the nasty work necessary to nudge his policies through. He's too respectful, too quiet. He follows the rules. He just won't break those eggs. The great Progress-Bringer lays chained, Prometheus-like, to his virtue as the all mighty GOP pecks away at him, a painted president at the cusp of greatness.
Of course the "conservatives" played their parts as toadies before, doing their dance for President Bush. The "my guy" mentality is unshakeable and bipartisan. "I'm a pragmatist" they told me. Funny how their pragmatism perfectly coincided with everything Bush did to the exact degree.
This is not to say these two parties won't admit the failure of policy. You only need witness their game of hot potato with the TSA and No Child Left Behind to realize that. But "my guy" had nothing to do with that. And never criticize your guy, because then you'll help the other side. "We have to win elections." If you have principles, keep them under your hat. The implication there is of course that the machinery of government is powerful and irreversible, so just put the guy who seems best at the helm and hope for the best. We'll try and hold him accountable after we give him the power. How liberal.
It's not always unreasonable to vote for an imperfect candidate, but it should be after an honest reckoning one's principles, of what he's done and what one expects him to do, and without the conceit that because somebody was going to win, that it was moral to turn the gun over to him, for having "a guy" is nothing short of worshipping either man or power, two ends which tend to overwhelm all.
It is a poor centre of a man's actions, himself. – Francis Bacon
One of the most unexpected side effects of internet use is exposure to high levels of self-centered statements. The most common of these expressions are the need to "do something for myself," or to "center myself" or that "I'm wonderful the way I am." Aside from the Rousseauean dimensions of such statements, I've noticed that once someone starts to make such statements, they come more and more often. I'm tempted to speculate that a superficial or learned self-centeredness can yield the genuine article. If so, it seems to be happening.
Some of the cause is economic: as we specialize more, we contract out more of our life to others. While the end of trade should be gratitude, though, it seems just as if not more often to be a sense of entitlement. Receiving certain services, prices, or convenience from sellers eager to please, we grow to expect such irrespective of the delicate balance which makes it possible. Slowly we learn to trust our desires as the world seems to orientate around us.
So perhaps most of all, the modern news turns around us, functioning not to inform but to make us feel the center of events. With what skill producers draw millions of viewers thousands of miles away into the heart of every incident, from minor scuffles to calamities. The result is not genuine sympathy or empathy, for no man has so much to spare from his daily life that can spare a meaningful amount for each unfortunate he learns of in the news, but sold sentimentality. What are you supposed to think about someone when you read his Facebook or Twitter feed and see comments about how various news items "affected him" interspersed with comments about shopping, traffic, and the weather? Certainly not that he is full of empathy, but merely that he's been frenzied into a flurry of activity.
One almost feels bad for such a misguided individual who has been presented something he genuinely cannot process. How does it affect him? What can he do in response? Yet we've been informed so we must do something, so we chatter about it, accomplishing nothing save convincing ourselves that we're involved and virtuous. The result is navel-gazing prattle like this, sputtering indignation from people who've been trained to have opinions and feel important.
Yet look at the phrase I used before: news items. The very act of reporting seems to reduce people, activities, in short, life, to news items. For what purpose is the viewer informed? If he cannot or not without great difficulty empathize with the many unfortunates of the day's news cycle, why should he know of them? If he believes in the power of prayer and he prays for them, perhaps that might be a reason, but I see more and more people circumvent both the meaning and means of prayer in response to calamities. They "send love" or better, "send light." They've not only nixed God from the loop there, but they've put themselves in place. Their own will and sentiment, naturally not activity of which there is typically is none, will ameliorate the world.
Let's say though, one can neither empathize nor pray. Perhaps one ought simply, "be informed," as good citizens. Yet daily life and daily news do not necessarily or even often accumulate into significant larger trends. What is presented in the news broadcast then tends to accumulate into a slowly, subtly formed sense of life than a body of facts which is later systematically sorted.
Of course, it seldom occurs to man that he could do more harm than good by learning about something. If the purpose of education is wisdom and wisdom right action, then one must ask how much "being informed" by watching the news leads to virtue in good deds how much an exercise in making oneself feel educated, compassionate, and generally superior.
The proper course of action is naturally not to insulate oneself, but on the one hand to refrain from gossip, speculation, and crisis mongering, and on the other actively and systematically to inform oneself slowly over time. Finally, we ought to do good with what we learn, loving not just ourselves or even the truth, but the good.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski. 2013. spoilers There might not be a single original element in Oblivion. Plot elements hail from the illustrious I Am Legend to the lowbrow Independence Day. The gadgetry looks peached from Minority Report and run through the Apple workshop of Jonathan Ive. The cinematography hovers in documentary-style wide shots of the landscapes and landmarks. I hope they cut Hans Zimmer a check for the score. Without a doubt the movie plays like a scifi pastiche, but Oblivion has one ace up its sleeve, and a substantial one at that. You see, original movies invent the ideas. Lesser movies mimic them until they become staples. Oblivion walks a fine line borrowing the elements but not the tropes, the gestures which go along with them. This liberates the familiar from the confines of the crusty cliche and gives them a new lease on life.
So we get the gadgets, but not the explanatory technobabble. We hear the backstory but not the historical minutiae. There are flashbacks, but the hero doesn't blabber about them incessantly. We get a love story, but not umpteen moments in which we're they're almost separated for good. There is the heroic moment of recognition, but no histrionics as the music flares up and the camera circles. Especially, the joy!, there's no moment after the recognition where the hero decides to explain the situation to someone who, for the convenience of dim filmgoers, doesn't know what's happening. The result is a mix of familiar sci-fi, crisped and served on a thoughtful, if not bulletproof, plot.
After a Pyrrhic war with alien invaders, the human survivors have fled to an orbiting space station, the Tet, where they await transport to their new home, Titan. Tom Cruise is Jack, one of the last Earth-dwelling humans and a technician tasked with protecting the massive machines which extract Earth's remaining resources for the journey. Actually, Jack is a sort of Maytag man for the floating, spherical drones which do most of the protecting, protecting from the scavs, alien survivors intent on throwing off the evacuation. He lives with his partner Victoria in their Jetsons-like apartment in the clouds, from which he daily and dutifully descends to repair the drones. The two are not married per se, but we sense that the closed quarters and length of their assignment have funneled them into the traditional roles, and while it might be a sweet thought that the last people on Earth are a sort of Adam and Eve, it's dark twist that they remain not to people and endure, but take and flee.
At least Victoria, Vix to Jack, wants to flee. Jack is a good deal more sentimental about them and about Earth. While there's intimacy and the frisson of romance between the two, we sense that Jack likes the experience and business of his routine. Victoria wants to go home. Jack is home.He likes Bob the bobble-head on his dashboard. He likes to put on his Yankee cap when he sets off to work. He likes to tell stories about the surface when he touches down. These are all nice subtle touches, nothing beating us over the head. The situation and contrast between Jack and Vix is nicely summed up when Jack gives her a small tin of growing grass, painstakingly grown and a nice nod to man's most traditional and respected role as farmer. Without a word she steps away and drops it off the balcony. It might be contaminated, she notes. Sensing his disappointment, she pacifies him with some poolside nookie. Vix aside, Jack is most at home on the surface where he has illicitly prepared a Thoreau-esque cottage and furnished it with Earth artifacts. Yet they're not so much for preservation as they are to make him feel at home, for home is not the touch displays and chic of his stratospheric apartment, but the record player, sunglasses, and books of his grassy preserve. Ah, yes, books. A Tale of Two Cities. A biography of Van Gogh. Books are the key to Jack's downfall and redemption.
On his next repair job Jack repels down into the NY Public Library. After a scav ambush, which seemed more intent on capturing than killing him, Jack prepares to ascend to the surface. Grabbing the cable he spots a burning book and then having stomped the flames picks it up. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:
Then out spake brave Horatius,
the Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods."
Jack pockets Horatius for his collection and climbs up. Ultimately the scavs capture Jack and the secret to his dreams and the truth about Earth's fate come into focus. This is handled subtly, if a little too slowly. What's most striking, perhaps, is what's missing. No kitschy aliens. No lengthy speech from the bad guy had honcho. No action escape. Anyway, we don't need to discuss the revelation here. It's familiar but functional. More importantly, though, it's meaningful, and it's meaningful because it is Jack's character and arc that stitch everything together.
You see Jack's not really so alone on Earth. There are many like him, but he was given the keys to the truth because someone saw in him the spark of his ancestors, and they saw it when he picked up that book. Ultimately, Jack's recognition of his repurposing sets in motion the final confrontation at the Tet which is marred by one misguided line. Here, Jack proudly recites the moral from Horatius to which the computer responds, "I am your God." The situation demands a line fraught with portent and bravado about Jack reclaiming his individuality and history but what we get is, "Fuck you." I thought of the end to Speed where the hero's partner is taunted by the madman played by Dennis Hopper. When the partner offers the same profane reply as Jack, Hopper snaps back with vicious scorn,
In years, we've come from, "I regret but I have one life to give for my country" to "fuck you"?
The line really hit a sour note, especially coming off of the gravitas and severitas of Macaulay's Horatius. Too, by the end we feel Oblivion's pacing problem. It luxuriates in the leisurely stride of 2001 and Solaris, but lacks the visual energy and mystery to keep you enthralled. A number of its points and gestures could have been made more briskly which would have cut down the time and punched up the impact. Still, Oblivion is a success. Action junkies will be sorely disappointed, but aficionados of slow, thoughtful sci-fi will find a kindred spirit in director Joseph Kosinski who assembles from familiar and occasionally inglorious parts a meaningful story, subtly told, sometimes even beautiful.
James Bond needs no introduction, nor do the songs to the 24 films. In fact they've become a cornerstone of the franchise, giving each film the flavor of its age. While they all retain a certain charm, especially in the context of their title sequence and decade, some really are excellent, some are fun but flawed, and some are leagues away from the world of Bond in both tone and quality. Let's have a listen.
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5. The Man With the Golden Gun
The swelling brass, scintillating percussion, and zippy, motivic figure give The Man With the Golden Gun an exotic vibe. The second Bond song not about the spy but his adversary-du-jour, The Man With the Golden Gun sketches a deadly assassin with his sights on Bond. And how does the song build up Bond's opponent into a fearsome rival? As far as I can tell, by a nonstop series of phallic references. Not including repetitions and variations, I count fifteen, sixteen if you include that brass figure. [YouTube]
4. Goldeneye Goldeneye was a gutsy return for Bond after a long hiatus. With those four opening notes peering out from the dark quiet, Tina Turner's sultry voice, and the dark imagery of the text, Goldeneye brings the indomitable and irresistible spy back out from the shadows. The text is also a novel woman's take on the 007 allure: raw attraction, defiantly resistant. [YouTube]
3. Goldfinger Oh that wailing brass, classic yes, but the star here is of course Shirley Bassey, plucking those notes from nowhere and then weaving them out into seductive, sinuous lines up to a bravura finish. The text is simple but effective, mythologizing and building up a ruthless enemy who just may
spell doom for the unstoppable Bond. [YouTube]
2.Skyfall
Here the brassy opening harkens straight back to Bond's origins, appropriate not only for Skyfall's subtle origins theme but as counterpoint to M's end painted in the text. All the vocal and instrumental leaps here paint a falling, an end shared by both M and Bond. [YouTube]
One of the graces of aging is the ability, in seeing the same thing over and over again, to reevaluate things. Now you can go ahead and rethink philosophy and works of art, but what I find increasingly fascinating is reevaluating various forms of unreason. More specifically, it's fascinating when a smart person chooses not to apply reason. Now sure, you can revisit and freshly examine things like art and philosophy, but as I get older it is not such idealized species of inquiry which reveal man, but his insanity, his in-sanitas.
Please note I'm not talking about when people step outside their area of expertise, but rather when they forego simple formal logic and even trivial common sense.
The latest of these inquiries into concerted logical vacuity came yesterday when I saw the superfluity of leftwing responses to the recent legislation which had something to do with guns. I say "something to do with" because, not pretending to know the motives of legislators and with the actual effects of legislation seldom matching their titles, I don't want to give any bill any benefit of my considerable doubt.
Anyway, I don't want to talk about the purely ridiculous responses. I don't want to castigate people for defending a bill they didn't read addressing a topic they didn't understand. Nor do I wish to address points of inconsistency, such the slumbrous quotidian indifference from which a select species of democratic citizen wakens on occasion, his maladroit limbs righteously akimbo. What fascinates me is why some intelligent people would refuse to think about the bill and its effects and choose blindly to storm the barricades for it.
My conclusion is that the bill became part of a "thing," a cause, the cause of "gun control," and anything which purports to support the cause must be supported. Never mind the long, circuitous, vale-ridden path from bill to cause to policy to premise. Support
You see if someone wants to stop violent crime, he makes observations, records data, analyzes it, makes conclusions, and acts. Look at this video from Stefan Molyneux's as an example. It undoubtedly took a lot of research and reasoning. Regardless of whether you agree, his approach is reasoned. If you oppose aggression then you'll use reason to find an end to it, because only reason will get you that end.
Yet if you oppose aggression and use a series of unquestioned and unproven assumptions, unless you believe unquestioned and unproven assumptions produce predictable and good results, i.e. you are unreasonable, you're not serious about getting the job done. You've either foregone reason in this instance or are generally unreasonable. Since I think many people possess and use some reason, I believe the former more probable. So why would one forego reason?
Identity, and identity seldom mingles with reason. Some people don't care so much about a cause as being the kind of person who supports the cause. They may or may notbelieve in the cause, but their primary affinity for it is the way it completes their character.
Now I don't mean this entirely as a criticism and to illustrate that point I'll use a different example. Take someone who values liberty. He loves liberty, but he doesn't do anything to promote it. It's not a bad thing that he values it "internally," so to speak, but he might not care so much about it existing as he does about believing it is good. He's more concerned with his own internal state than the instantiation of the principle. Again, this is not wholly a bad thing but it must be distinguished from actually wanting to make something.
The problem with "causes" then, is that they prey on this ultimately self-centered interest in ideas by trying to implement the ideas, and in doing so they unite people with the same affinity. This validates the virtue of the affinity, which is all the individual cares about. Such is why many people don't care that a proposal does what it says it will. After all, if they were really in it for the idea itself, they'd be doing it already.
Should we, then, single out the progressive for scorn? Typically. For whereas the collectivist pull of political organization is fulfilled in the conservative with religion and/or tempered by his skepticism for all activity, and the same is tempered in the libertarian by a lust for liberty, the progressive has no strong counterbalance to grand-scheming. Hence the current president. It's not so much that progressives are persuaded by his speeches, the oratorical equivalents of Morning Train, so much that they speak the same level of earnest cliché. It matters not whether the ideas are specific, reasoned, moral, or possible to follow, but that they are held.
In such a light, this week's knee-jerk reactions seem, well, insane.
There's a charming scene in J. R. R Tolkien's The Two Towers where hobbits Merry and Pippin encounter the ancient shepherd Treebeard in Fangorn Forest, surprising the prehistoric herder in more ways than one. First off, poor Treebeard has never heard of a hobbit before. "You do not seem to come in any of the old lists," he says. It's a subtle, gentle, and traditional line. Why traditional? Because in the old world and ways of Treebeard, one doesn't learn by poking one's nose around. You learn when you're young from the old lists, lists handed down and seldom added to. That's the way of things.
Second, the prehistoric herder is taken aback when the young hobbits introduce themselves by their real names. Why aren't they careful? Old Bilbo certainly didn't tell fire-breathing Smaug his real name, although he did introduce himself as Mr. Bilbo Baggins to Gollum of all people, almost to the detriment of Middle Earth when his name made its way to Sauron. So what's the big deal with a name, or any word for that matter?
It is no small feat to use a word, for to use one is to name a thing and to name a thing is to decide what it is. To name something is to de-fine it, to put ontological limits around it. Naturally just because you name something doesn't mean you are correct in defining it, but for your part you have used what concepts you have to de-termine what it is. Indeed the nominative power is nothing short of the creative and possessive powers. Regarding names, how sensitive are we about our names.
First names, middle names, last names, nicknames, patronymics, epithets, initials, diminutives, titles, ranks. . . don't ever call someone by the wrong one. All of those nominative associations between people and places, deeds, jobs, countries, and other people are definitive and quite intimate. Consider the awkwardness when someone mispronounces your name, or when a child calls an adult by his given name. Even if we're not sure what something or who someone is, we insist on discussing and speculating until we settle on a name. We just can't abide by an unknown. Accurately or not, we have to name it. Unless we want to avoid it. How deftly we avoid names when we speak ill of people, shifting to pronouns and the passive voice: I hate her and the gun wentoff.
Finally, consider the fine ways we insult each other, the colorful and crude turns of phrase. Why is invective so satisfying? For much the same reason that all acts of naming are significant: they give you some power, or the impression of power, over a thing. We glory in exercising it and flee from it turned against us. Whether it's disguising the name of a god in a religious text or Catullus obfuscating the details of a romance, we have often sought in anonymity a protection from the invidious.
No, we're not as superstitious today, and how much we value our names may owe more to vanity than fear. Yet without fear, reverence is hard to come by. Recall Latin's revereor for both fearing and revering. We should then, perhaps, cultivate a certain reverence for words, that is, the act of naming, for as in Treebeard's Old Entish language, "real names tell you the story of the things they belong to." We should try to find those stories in both the words and things. Naming, then, is a thought-ful and active task of studying the essences of things and concepts behind words. Yes, the work exacting, but it might do us some good to be less hasty and more thoughtful. Let us say of our own then, what Treebeard says of his, "It's a lovely language, but it takes a long time to say."
This WSJ review of a new book architect and urban planner Leon Krier brings a considerable question into relief: can an idea inhere in a work of architecture. This would be a heady, esoteric, and generally uncontroversial question. . . if Krier weren't discussing the Nazi architecture of Albert Speer.
The author of the review summarizes Krier's thought as follows:
Mr. Krier correctly objects that there is no clear congruence between architectural form and ideological meaning. Washington, D.C., he points out, has modern façades that would have been welcomed in Hitler's Berlin. Classicism, he thinks, has been unjustly tainted by association with fascism. At the other end of the spectrum, sleek modernist design was deployed under Mussolini and a forward-looking capital like Brasília, built to signify democratic openness, perfectly served Brazil's military regime.
Yet what does he mean precisely by "congruence" and "ideological meaning?" Yes, you might not be able to express certain ideas in architecture, but that does not mean one cannot express any. Similarly, although classicism and modernism have been put to varying purposes we can't assume there is no commonality.
And what is the commonality in question? Renowned art critic Robert Hughes put it well in his 1982 exploration, "The Shock of the New," that it is the architecture of power, devoid of particular ideology.
Is there no difference, then, between the Flavians' amphitheater and Mussolini's Palazzo della Civiltà?
Surely one could argue for the refinements of the former, but is the force of impact any different? Did a Roman citizen look up at the amphitheater humbled by imperium? Was he proud of the conquests which funded it? Did he simply feel he was getting his "money's worth" from the government? Was it fundamentally for him, even his, as a citizen, or was is foremost, or only, a symbol of power from above?
Yet if we lump modern democratic facades from DC to Brasilia to Lincoln Center into the "architecture of power," is there, as Hughes asks, one of free will?
What comes to my mind is not quite a perfect answer. Take the Greek amphitheater-style, which, in putting the dramatic action at the center of all attention, elevates the activity and agency of the players and thus the drama and thus individuals of the plot.
Likewise and putting aside the competing theories about the significance of its ratios, the Parthenon is a point of mediation for man as individual, man as citizen, and man as created.
These are not styles of force or power, however refined and channeled, but styles which embrace if not the free man, the whole man.
Written and Directed by David Mamet. 2013. Critics and fans like to talk about how much confidence and bravado a director needs to make an epic film. True enough, and your Leans, Kubricks, and Jacksons fairly loom large in the cinema world. On the other hand, it's not so hard to lure an audience when you give yourself three hours, a great man, and a vast stage. Now how much confidence, and skill of course, do you need to make a ninety minute movie about Phil Spector?
However much, David Mamet had both and succeeded in his HBO drama about the famed record producer Phil Spector and his 2009 murder trial. Actually, Phil Spector could have played almost without loss as a chamber play because it's essence is in the words. I don't think anyone would approach this movie too sym-pathetic to the title character, but Mamet generates it in two ways. The first is through Spector's new lawyer, Linda Kenney Baden, and her slow realization that, guilty or not, it'll be virtually impossible for Spector to get a fair trial.
Foremost, she observes, everyone is tired of the rich and famous getting away with murder, so Spector is going to be tried not just for his crime but those of O. J. Simpson and every other celebrity who's walked free since. This prejudice plays out not just in the difficulty of persuading a jury by reason, but in what kinds of methods they can use in the courtroom. , Bruce Cutler, Spector's first lawyer, tells Baden she may have a persuasive reenactment, if but you put that skull out there, all the jury sees is: skull=guilty. Baden also refuses to tear down the deceased, Clarkson, and the judge strikes down her request to use certain demonstrations in court. She also can't very well put the kooky Spector on the stand, so her hands are quite tightly tied for proving reasonable doubt.
That's all neatly handled in classic legal-procedural scenes, but the more interesting element, and path to understanding this curious character and movie, are the scenes where Baden gets to know Spector. When she enters Spector's vast mansion we've already been loaded up on media frenzy fodder, both reasonable and unreasonable. Of course we're not sympathetic. It doesn't help that Spector's shuffling around in his pajamas, hair bouffant, and that his mansion is adorned with the eclectic mix of fine art and his own pop culture contributions. Finally hear from Philip. We see a man who, according to himself, just wanted to disappear after his successes, just "like T. E. Lawrence," he adds, without a hint of awareness at the delusion of grandeur. He begins to rant about how other criminals walked off and no one seemed to care. Look at John Gotti, he says, a through-and-through criminal, and Teddy Kennedy, a talentless hack rewarded with decades-long tenure in Congress who not only murdered a woman, but fled the scene. Hit outrage at the fickle public and justice system is palpable and, if unreasoned, not unreasonable. We do come around to him a little, just in time to see his argument go off the rails when he alleges Jesus was put to death not for being the Son of God but for being "too big for his breeches," just like Phil Spector. Ooph.
One line very neatly sums up Phil Spector. Baden is flipping through a book of clippings Spector has kept about the trial. Turning a page she says how it's a bit much, with the wigs and all, and he replies, "They're not wigs, that's a prejudice." Indeed, we just assumed he was playing a crazy part to the hilt. It turns out he was authentically oddball, and authentically talented, and authentically troubled, but guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt?
On the one hand we're rationally appalled at the violence and Spector's apparent and grandiose self-concern. On the other, justice requires of us reason, precision, and impartiality. The film asks us to look at ourselves vis-à-vis this most unusual, and perhaps criminal, man. Are we "Back to Mono" fanboys, overlooking his potential guilt because he's "the great Phil Spector." Do we just want to put the rich sicko away? Do we demand justice, or "Justice for Lana?" Are we one of the many actors on the legal stage "just doing our job?" Ultimately, Phil Spector leaves the audience the way Phil Spector left the public, but hopefully more self aware.
N.B. I've referred to Mr. Spector variously as allegedly criminal not because I believe he was not guilty but because the movie is asking us to consider that he was not.
In remembering Jonathan Winters I'd like to take a look at one of the funniest minutes in one of the funniest films. Here in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Phil Silvers gasses up the car he stole from a furiously pursuant Jonathan Winters. Some movies build up a joke over the course of a whole scene but here they come at a mad cap pace in which nearly every moment offers a novel laugh.
Right of the bat we have Silvers laying his polished flim-flam routine on the station attendants, convincing them Winters, due to arrive at any moment, is a deranged mental patient. Right on cue Winters' buterball frame cycles in on atop a dainty bicycle and proceeds to chase Silvers around the car as he continues to lay his phony-psychiatrist shtick on the attendants. The increasingly enraged Winters responds by unhinging the car door and bounding over the vehicle, landing atop the fleeing Silvers who continues his incontinent effusion of desperate outrage.
The minute climaxes as Winters grabs the chiseler by the collar and proceeds to thrash him against the gas pump, the sale bell tinkling each time. Finally Winters slings his arms through two massive tires and with what look like two massive bosoms gleefully beats his former tormentor.
The scene is classic rip of nonstop-gags which plays off the simple contrast between the two characters: Winters' growling vs. Silvers' relentless jabbering, husky vs. skinny, mad vs. terrified. It's a blast, but it's also only about one minute of a long hilarious movie, and career.
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in red in rubricated editions, and the words of all versicles--short sentences said by the officiant--are preceded by
. In the matter of initials there appears to be no fixed rule, and prayers begin with rubricated initials or black initials, as taste directs. I think this is a mistake. Strictly speaking, prayers should have initials in black, for these initials are part of a word to be said, and, moreover, black initials have a better typographical effect. Rubrics in these books have initials in black, which I think also open to exception, for rubrics, except in rare instances, require no initials; but if used, such initials should be rubricated also. A more serious fault is the introduction of gothic initials in prayers printed in roman type. As a whole, however, these books are consistent and careful pieces of typography. The Pustet family was of Bavarian origin. In the first quarter of the last century Friedrich Pustet, who had been a bookseller, started a printing house at Passau which four years later, in 1826, he transferred to its present location at Ratisbon. Enlarging the establishment and adding a paper mill to the plant, the firm began to print and issue liturgical books in 1845, and later added facilities for the printing of church music. In 1870 the Pustet house was given the style of Typographus S. R. Congregationis, and the Vatican authorities have placed in its hands the editio typica of all liturgical work. The best books issued by Pustet are excellent, but their product is uneven and they have been less fortunate in their decorations than the Desclées, whose books show a greater uniform excellence. A disagreeable feature is the use of colored lithographic frontispieces and pictures, and a later series of these, intended to be more modern in feeling than those they supersede, are no improvement on them. "In the latest Pustet Missal," writes a correspondent learned in these matters, [5] "the incipit letter of the text itself is often in color, usually red. Another characteristic is the introduction into the Canon of certain parts of the varying Communicantes and Hancigitur prayers, to obviate turning the page at that important moment of the service. In general, this new Pustet Missal pays attention to the pagination of the prayers."
While teaching short poems, notably Catullus 85, I'm fond of saying that if you to put forth a mere two lines of poetry, they ought to be good. Well today in my Twitter feed I saw the image to the right. Putting aside policy, what does it mean?
Peevish, irritable, surly, ill-tempered. This is how we usually define grumpy, but to me it seems a more specific condition: a loss, usually temporary, of humor and sympathy. Such senses bind us to the world and its people, humor to the light foibles which ask charity, and sympathy to the serious seeking compassion. They also bid us be generous and forgiving to others while aware of our own imperfections.
There are many ways to insult a man. You can steal from him, strike him, shout him down, and on and on. Surprisingly few words, however, are so pregnant with scorn that they can single-handedly and unilaterally insult a man. We need not mention them, but most insults can be walked back, softened, used jovially, or explained away. Even many vicious remarks are limited in their focus. One word, though, seems to carry irrevocable and devastating repudiatory power: actually.
Living requires a great deal of work. That much has at least been agreed upon if not since prehistoric times when the caveman first realized he had to purge his cave of vermin and smoky entrails, then since Hesiod said that whatever be your lot, work is best for you. If that much may be agreed, then, we may also affirm that man seeks to avoid work. This is not news, of course, for it has as long been the nature of man to seek respite from life's relentless toil. The industrial revolution gave modern man a new way to avoid work: efficiency. It seems to me, though, he did not succumb to this temptation, at least not always or broadly, but rather redoubled his efforts and produced the spectacular abundance of the modern world.
It's always amusing when someone makes a ridiculous statement and then quickly backpedals to a more sensible position. In person, a few glances follow such statements and then everyone begins to chuckle. A good time is had by all and no one thinks the offender a lunatic or even a churl. He just got a little heated up. Occasionally, though, everyone begins to chuckle except the offender, and then all laughter ceases. It really is quite a sight when someone launches into a spirited defense of the patently absurd.
It is often remarked that tough times try men's souls, and that in such times they are found firm or lacking. True enough. Less often but as truly, observers of God's curious creatures find that peace tries souls too. In the absence of strife, does a man choose to create or does he find a way, or fulfill a need, to destroy? I would note that art tries the soul, that great works of art thrust man into profound realms, and what he does there, if not what he is, what he aspires to.
Few action heroes have dominated their movies the way Cary grant does His Girl Friday. In fact, if you consider that Grant disappears for about a quarter of the movie, he probably has greater per scene magnetism. The only dull part of the film is the yawning center where the nitty gritty of the urban political machinery spools out. Yes, these scenes are more than competent and the zippy newsroom dialogue adds spice and verismo, but the political shenanigans stand but a framework for the romance between newsman Walter Burns (Grant) and his protege-cum-ex-wife-cum-girl-Friday, Hildy Johnson (Russell.) These electric scenes bookend the film and come so fast and furious their details are hard to spot. Their charm, however, is sure and irresistible.
When Walter finally discovers Hildy's engagement, he finagles a lunch with the happy couple, proceeding in every way possible to humiliate the dull simpleton. He bursts out of his office, hat on and heading out. Holding doors? Forget about it. Walter immediately mistakes an old man for Bruce, and when he finally finds the guy, shakes his umbrella handle in place of his hand. At lunch, this time Hildy lights up first and when Walter decides to follow, instead of striking a match himself, he pulls her arm over to light his cigarette for him. Walter orders first and everyone follows with the same. He takes rum in his coffee and Hildy follows suit. Bruce demurs because he has a busy afternoon buying tickets and checking baggage and what a bore, this guy. An insurance salesman, he's "wooed" Hildy with promises of a quiet country life in upstate New York. In contrast Walter begins to tell some spicy stories about some of his old cases with Hildy, who proceeds to kick him each time. By the end of lunch, Walter's convinced the Bruce to sell him a policy, but that's just a ruse to get Hildy to stay and get on top of a hot story with him. At the close of the scene, she takes Bruce's money and cautions her fiance about her charming ex, "A lot of people never did anything until they met Walter Burns."
The ensuing political big-city political chicanery is coherent enough, but it's just a frame to get Walter and Hildy back together and Walter uses it just that way. Whether he's setting Hildy up to be in the action or getting Bruce arrested, three times!, Walter's moving everything to his advantage for getting the story and the girl. We spot Walter's win when the jig with the city bigwigs blows up and Hildy stands there, handcuffed to him, playing hardball politics with mayor and chief commissioner. She's thrilled. No way she'll give up the excitement of life with Walter for a country-time picnic with Bruce and his mother. No way she'll forego the flitting zips and zingers, the relentless witty persiflage with Walter for Bruce's ho-hum agreeability.
Few action heroes have dominated their movies the way Cary grant does His Girl Friday. In fact, if you consider that Grant disappears for about a quarter of the movie, he probably has greater per scene magnetism. The only dull part of the film is the yawning center where the nitty gritty of the urban political machinery spools out. Yes, these scenes are more than competent and the zippy newsroom dialogue adds spice and verismo, but the political shenanigans stand but a framework for the romance between newsman Walter Burns (Grant) and his protege-cum-ex-wife-cum-girl-Friday, Hildy Johnson (Russell.) These electric scenes bookend the film and come so fast and furious their details are hard to spot. Their charm, however, is sure and irresistible.
When Walter finally discovers Hildy's engagement, he finagles a lunch with the happy couple, proceeding in every way possible to humiliate the dull simpleton. He bursts out of his office, hat on and heading out. Holding doors? Forget about it. Walter immediately mistakes an old man for Bruce, and when he finally finds the guy, shakes his umbrella handle in place of his hand. At lunch, this time Hildy lights up first and when Walter decides to follow, instead of striking a match himself, he pulls her arm over to light his cigarette for him. Walter orders first and everyone follows with the same. He takes rum in his coffee and Hildy follows suit. Bruce demurs because he has a busy afternoon buying tickets and checking baggage and what a bore, this guy. An insurance salesman, he's "wooed" Hildy with promises of a quiet country life in upstate New York. In contrast Walter begins to tell some spicy stories about some of his old cases with Hildy, who proceeds to kick him each time. By the end of lunch, Walter's convinced the Bruce to sell him a policy, but that's just a ruse to get Hildy to stay and get on top of a hot story with him. At the close of the scene, she takes Bruce's money and cautions her fiance about her charming ex, "A lot of people never did anything until they met Walter Burns."
The ensuing political big-city political chicanery is coherent enough, but it's just a frame to get Walter and Hildy back together and Walter uses it just that way. Whether he's setting Hildy up to be in the action or getting Bruce arrested, three times!, Walter's moving everything to his advantage for getting the story and the girl. We spot Walter's win when the jig with the city bigwigs blows up and Hildy stands there, handcuffed to him, playing hardball politics with mayor and chief commissioner. She's thrilled. No way she'll give up the excitement of life with Walter for a country-time picnic with Bruce and his mother. No way she'll forego the flitting zips and zingers, the relentless witty persiflage with Walter for Bruce's ho-hum agreeability.
I step into a room built of cardboard boxes. At its center stand two tables, for cards and pool, and making my way between I investigate the far corner. A bar. No sooner do I peek behind than its tender vaults from the shadows. The figure backs me around the bar and once more behind, pours drinks for the two men now beside me. They step over to the card table and with drink, deck, and hammer in hand, begin to play. A king. One man stands, picks up the card, and nails it to a board covered with dozens of others. They continue. A king. The hammer. Now the bartender's bumped the hanging light and it swings like a pendulum, searing my eyes with each pass as it slices the darkness. Before I regain my senses I'm against the wall and two of the men are pushing at one another. They rant and rave and begin to brawl, thrashing one another against the walls and atop the pool table until behind the bar, with a raging rictus of revenge, the tall man cudgels his quarry with the hammer. 
Second presidential terms are fraught with speculation about potential lame-duck status. Does he have enough pull to push his agenda still further forward? It's not a useless question, but it's really just speculation about what the politicians will do, for the people have more or less checked out of the debates. The popular opposition by this time is always fully enraged. Nothing the president does, good or bad, is good. They're exhausted from opposing, angered by policy and indignant about losing not once but twice. Again, this is unsurprising. The reaction of the president's coalition, however, baffles.
This is not to say these two parties won't admit the failure of policy. You only need witness their game of hot potato with the TSA and No Child Left Behind to realize that. But "my guy" had nothing to do with that. And never criticize your guy, because then you'll help the other side. "We have to win elections." If you have principles, keep them under your hat. The implication there is of course that the machinery of government is powerful and irreversible, so just put the guy who seems best at the helm and hope for the best. We'll try and hold him accountable after we give him the power. How liberal.
One of the most unexpected side effects of internet use is exposure to high levels of self-centered statements. The most common of these expressions are the need to "do something for myself," or to "center myself" or that "I'm wonderful the way I am." Aside from the Rousseauean dimensions of such statements, I've noticed that once someone starts to make such statements, they come more and more often. I'm tempted to speculate that a superficial or learned self-centeredness can yield the genuine article. If so, it seems to be happening.
There might not be a single original element in Oblivion. Plot elements hail from the illustrious I Am Legend to the lowbrow Independence Day. The gadgetry looks peached from Minority Report and run through the Apple workshop of Jonathan Ive. The cinematography hovers in documentary-style wide shots of the landscapes and landmarks. I hope they cut Hans Zimmer a check for the score. Without a doubt the movie plays like a scifi pastiche, but Oblivion has one ace up its sleeve, and a substantial one at that.
There might not be a single original element in Oblivion. Plot elements hail from the illustrious I Am Legend to the lowbrow Independence Day. The gadgetry looks peached from Minority Report and run through the Apple workshop of Jonathan Ive. The cinematography hovers in documentary-style wide shots of the landscapes and landmarks. I hope they cut Hans Zimmer a check for the score. Without a doubt the movie plays like a scifi pastiche, but Oblivion has one ace up its sleeve, and a substantial one at that.
5. The Man With the Golden Gun
4. Goldeneye
3. Goldfinger
2. Skyfall 
One of the graces of aging is the ability, in seeing the same thing over and over again, to reevaluate things. Now you can go ahead and rethink philosophy and works of art, but what I find increasingly fascinating is reevaluating various forms of unreason. More specifically, it's fascinating when a smart person chooses not to apply reason. Now sure, you can revisit and freshly examine things like art and philosophy, but as I get older it is not such idealized species of inquiry which reveal man, but his insanity, his in-sanitas.
There's a charming scene in J. R. R Tolkien's The Two Towers where hobbits Merry and Pippin encounter the ancient shepherd Treebeard in Fangorn Forest, surprising the prehistoric herder in more ways than one. First off, poor Treebeard has never heard of a hobbit before. "You do not seem to come in any of the old lists," he says. It's a subtle, gentle, and traditional line. Why traditional? Because in the old world and ways of Treebeard, one doesn't learn by poking one's nose around. You learn when you're young from the old lists, lists handed down and seldom added to. That's the way of things.
Critics and fans like to talk about how much confidence and bravado a director needs to make an epic film. True enough, and your Leans, Kubricks, and Jacksons fairly loom large in the cinema world. On the other hand, it's not so hard to lure an audience when you give yourself three hours, a great man, and a vast stage. Now how much confidence, and skill of course, do you need to make a ninety minute movie about Phil Spector?
Critics and fans like to talk about how much confidence and bravado a director needs to make an epic film. True enough, and your Leans, Kubricks, and Jacksons fairly loom large in the cinema world. On the other hand, it's not so hard to lure an audience when you give yourself three hours, a great man, and a vast stage. Now how much confidence, and skill of course, do you need to make a ninety minute movie about Phil Spector?