Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Thursday, February 10, 2022
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Oscar the grouch
Academy Award nominations have come out. I've seen five of the listed films, all of them nominated either for Best Picture or Best Animated Feature: Dune and West Side Story, both of which I saw in the theater in virtually-deserted matinee showings; and three which I saw online: Being the Ricardos, Encanto, and Raya and the Last Dragon.
I wrote about all five of these here when I saw them. I didn't strongly dislike any, but I guess I'd say I found Dune and West Side Story more impressive than sheerly enjoyable. That an epic sweeper like Dune succeeded at all was a huge plus, however. Being the Ricardos scratched my liking to see movies based on recent historical events, even though I'm not a big I Love Lucy fan (but I'm not intending to see Spencer, because it's made by the director who made Jackie, the most deadly historical film of my recent viewing). Raya and the Last Dragon was just another Disney feature, with all the mixed blessings of that breed, but Encanto was more than a bit different, and the ways that made it charming vastly outweighed the holes in the plot.
Most of the other films on the list are not on my want list, mostly for looking too grim. The only ones that really attract me, based on trailers I saw in the theater, are The Tragedy of Macbeth - all right, that's really grim, but at least I already know the story - and Cyrano, which was only nominated for costume design, but which looks really good, and I already know and like that story too.
I wrote about all five of these here when I saw them. I didn't strongly dislike any, but I guess I'd say I found Dune and West Side Story more impressive than sheerly enjoyable. That an epic sweeper like Dune succeeded at all was a huge plus, however. Being the Ricardos scratched my liking to see movies based on recent historical events, even though I'm not a big I Love Lucy fan (but I'm not intending to see Spencer, because it's made by the director who made Jackie, the most deadly historical film of my recent viewing). Raya and the Last Dragon was just another Disney feature, with all the mixed blessings of that breed, but Encanto was more than a bit different, and the ways that made it charming vastly outweighed the holes in the plot.
Most of the other films on the list are not on my want list, mostly for looking too grim. The only ones that really attract me, based on trailers I saw in the theater, are The Tragedy of Macbeth - all right, that's really grim, but at least I already know the story - and Cyrano, which was only nominated for costume design, but which looks really good, and I already know and like that story too.
reading
Our play-reading group has just finished The Lion in Winter, James Goldman's famous dramatization of King Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. It's a powerful work and I felt drained after some of the scenes. But that comes from playing Henry with the shadows of Peter O'Toole, Patrick Stewart (in the movie remake), and Robert Preston (the original stage Henry) all looking over your shoulder at once.
One scene of bitter conflict with the princes ends with Henry describing what his biography will say of him: Eleanor "bore him many children - but no sons. King Henry had no sons. He had three whiskered things but he disowned them." He curses them and then he breaks down: "My boys are gone. I've lost my boys." Reading that with the power it deserves is quite the challenge.
Later Henry comes up with another explanation for his problems: "I want no women in my life." At this point I succumbed to the temptation to ad-lib: "My name is Henry, my last name is Higgins, and I want no women in my life."
One scene of bitter conflict with the princes ends with Henry describing what his biography will say of him: Eleanor "bore him many children - but no sons. King Henry had no sons. He had three whiskered things but he disowned them." He curses them and then he breaks down: "My boys are gone. I've lost my boys." Reading that with the power it deserves is quite the challenge.
Later Henry comes up with another explanation for his problems: "I want no women in my life." At this point I succumbed to the temptation to ad-lib: "My name is Henry, my last name is Higgins, and I want no women in my life."
Monday, February 7, 2022
of beards and men
Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair by Christopher Oldstone-Moore (University of Chicago Press, 2016)
At last, a book that directly addresses what I've always considered one of the most mysterious questions in social history: what was responsible for the Wave of Beards that settled on the faces of many European and American men in the middle of the 19th century, and then disappeared around the end of it? The only problem is, I'm not sure I entirely believe the explanation.
Previous books I've seen on the topic of facial hair consisted of little more than cumulative anecdotes about individual beard-wearers. O-M is much more ambitious than that. He tells the entire history of facial hair-wearing from the Sumerian kings on down, and puts his discussion of individuals into social context. Thus he explains Hitler's toothbrush mustache as a style that had been popular in Hitler's younger days among German men who abjured the large military mustache but didn't want to adopt a thinner mustache, which was considered decadent, or go clean-shaven, which they thought was weak. Hitler, who wore a military mustache when he was actually in the army, only adopted the toothbrush later as it was going out of style. O-M further notes that the incongruous resemblance to Chaplin's Little Tramp really did cause people to underestimate Hitler's malignancy.
Further context is provided by O-M's assiduous search through the history of polemic literature on facial hair. The advent of the Wave of Beards was accompanied by much rhetoric advocating beards as manly and attractive, and its disappearance was accompanied by a further wave of rhetoric advocating a clean-shaven face as manly and attractive. (Actual surveys of what both men and women think of facial hair tend to be ambiguous.) That these viewpoints alternate in favor over time is one of O-M's major theses.
Thus his explanation of the Wave of Beards. After getting on to two centuries of socially enforced beardlessness - the last mustaches, final vestige of the previous, Renaissance-era Wave of Beards, had disappeared around 1680 - there was a pent-up need for men to express themselves in a new wave of beards. But with the significant exception of the military mustache - so much expected among officers in the early 19C that there were moves to ban civilians from wearing them - beards of the time were considered the mark of dangerous political radicals and were shunned by respectable men for that reason. (O-M strangely doesn't point out the parallel with the view of beards in the 1950s and 60s.)
But here's where I get a little skeptical. O-M says that the failure of the European revolutions of 1848 threw the radicals into political impotence, liberating beards from their association with politics and freeing respectable men to wear them. But while that may have been true in Germany, in France the revolution succeeded, Britain had radicals but no attempted revolution, and the US had no equivalent to this at all, yet the Wave of Beards settled in all those places too.
O-M says that Louis Napoleon was the main trendsetter for beard-wearing, but outside of France few followed his style of beard. Walt Whitman is also cited as an influential beard-wearer, though I've always understood that Whitman was considered a dangerous eccentric in his own day. I'm more convinced by the statement of the continued association of the mustache with the military, which explains why Lincoln, emphatically not a military man, when he grew a beard in 1860 continued to shave his upper lip, resulting in a style of beard much associated with clergymen.
As for the disappearance of the beards, O-M points out that shaving has existed since antiquity, so improvements in shaving technique have little effect on beard-wearing. King Gillette's safety razor didn't cause men to shave; Gillette merely caught a rising tide.
O-M is of the school that believes that all bodily decoration, or the purported lack of it, is intended to send a social message. He equally denies that shaving or beard-wearing are done as a convenience. In the case of ornamental beards, whose wearers carefully shave around the edges of the beard, I believe this. But not in my case. All that the increased social acceptability of beards in the 1970s and 80s did for me was free me to wear a beard without being considered terminally eccentric. I grew a beard for the sole reason that I saw no point in wasting time scraping it off every morning. For the same reason I don't trim it, and equally so I keep it short, because a short beard is less nuisance than a long one.
So I'm still not sure I have an answer to my question, but I have read an awfully interesting and illuminating book.
At last, a book that directly addresses what I've always considered one of the most mysterious questions in social history: what was responsible for the Wave of Beards that settled on the faces of many European and American men in the middle of the 19th century, and then disappeared around the end of it? The only problem is, I'm not sure I entirely believe the explanation.
Previous books I've seen on the topic of facial hair consisted of little more than cumulative anecdotes about individual beard-wearers. O-M is much more ambitious than that. He tells the entire history of facial hair-wearing from the Sumerian kings on down, and puts his discussion of individuals into social context. Thus he explains Hitler's toothbrush mustache as a style that had been popular in Hitler's younger days among German men who abjured the large military mustache but didn't want to adopt a thinner mustache, which was considered decadent, or go clean-shaven, which they thought was weak. Hitler, who wore a military mustache when he was actually in the army, only adopted the toothbrush later as it was going out of style. O-M further notes that the incongruous resemblance to Chaplin's Little Tramp really did cause people to underestimate Hitler's malignancy.
Further context is provided by O-M's assiduous search through the history of polemic literature on facial hair. The advent of the Wave of Beards was accompanied by much rhetoric advocating beards as manly and attractive, and its disappearance was accompanied by a further wave of rhetoric advocating a clean-shaven face as manly and attractive. (Actual surveys of what both men and women think of facial hair tend to be ambiguous.) That these viewpoints alternate in favor over time is one of O-M's major theses.
Thus his explanation of the Wave of Beards. After getting on to two centuries of socially enforced beardlessness - the last mustaches, final vestige of the previous, Renaissance-era Wave of Beards, had disappeared around 1680 - there was a pent-up need for men to express themselves in a new wave of beards. But with the significant exception of the military mustache - so much expected among officers in the early 19C that there were moves to ban civilians from wearing them - beards of the time were considered the mark of dangerous political radicals and were shunned by respectable men for that reason. (O-M strangely doesn't point out the parallel with the view of beards in the 1950s and 60s.)
But here's where I get a little skeptical. O-M says that the failure of the European revolutions of 1848 threw the radicals into political impotence, liberating beards from their association with politics and freeing respectable men to wear them. But while that may have been true in Germany, in France the revolution succeeded, Britain had radicals but no attempted revolution, and the US had no equivalent to this at all, yet the Wave of Beards settled in all those places too.
O-M says that Louis Napoleon was the main trendsetter for beard-wearing, but outside of France few followed his style of beard. Walt Whitman is also cited as an influential beard-wearer, though I've always understood that Whitman was considered a dangerous eccentric in his own day. I'm more convinced by the statement of the continued association of the mustache with the military, which explains why Lincoln, emphatically not a military man, when he grew a beard in 1860 continued to shave his upper lip, resulting in a style of beard much associated with clergymen.
As for the disappearance of the beards, O-M points out that shaving has existed since antiquity, so improvements in shaving technique have little effect on beard-wearing. King Gillette's safety razor didn't cause men to shave; Gillette merely caught a rising tide.
O-M is of the school that believes that all bodily decoration, or the purported lack of it, is intended to send a social message. He equally denies that shaving or beard-wearing are done as a convenience. In the case of ornamental beards, whose wearers carefully shave around the edges of the beard, I believe this. But not in my case. All that the increased social acceptability of beards in the 1970s and 80s did for me was free me to wear a beard without being considered terminally eccentric. I grew a beard for the sole reason that I saw no point in wasting time scraping it off every morning. For the same reason I don't trim it, and equally so I keep it short, because a short beard is less nuisance than a long one.
So I'm still not sure I have an answer to my question, but I have read an awfully interesting and illuminating book.
Sunday, February 6, 2022
have a seat
The comfy green chair in our living room expired one evening last week. The spring in the seat went sprung while B. was sitting in it. We'd only had it for two and a half years - I know because I wrote a post here when we bought it. It came from Pier One, which no longer has any retail stores. After this, we wanted something sturdier than they had to offer, so we started looking online.
The problems with online shopping begin with a frequent lack of sufficient description of the items. We want a chair with a firm seat, not something you sink into and swallows you up, and it's hard to tell from looking what that thick cushion will be like. Some chairs don't have thick cushions, but they tend to have other features we don't want.
What's more, even when the features are listed, the search capacity on these websites is not really well organized. There's no search on some features, and others don't cause everything that has it to come up. So the only solution is the tiring process of browsing through pages and pages of similar items, clicking on likely possibilities, and stopping when you get to one that has everything you want.
We wound up on a website called Wayfair.com, which apparently you're likely to have heard of if you watch ads on cable tv, which I don't. Their listings, though varied in nature, looked curated which Amazon's do not. I don't trust Amazon for anything I'm not willing to eat the cost of if it turns out to be wrong, as it frequently does. But I decided to trust Wayfair.
It met our trust. Delivery was promised for two days later, and a driver left a huge box on our front porch that noon. We wrested it inside, slit open two sides, and lo, the chair as pictured on the web. We slid the legless chair into position, attached the legs - which was easy, just screwing them into place, no messing with an Allen wrench and misleading instructions as with the old chair - and pronounced it good. It's wider than the old chair but not too wide for the space, is firm in the seat, and has a polyester fabric-style surface that's not too susceptible to little feline claws. The design is hard to describe, but resembles a kind of geometric paisley.
Now to dispose of the old chair, and the giant box which I laboriously folded up.
The problems with online shopping begin with a frequent lack of sufficient description of the items. We want a chair with a firm seat, not something you sink into and swallows you up, and it's hard to tell from looking what that thick cushion will be like. Some chairs don't have thick cushions, but they tend to have other features we don't want.
What's more, even when the features are listed, the search capacity on these websites is not really well organized. There's no search on some features, and others don't cause everything that has it to come up. So the only solution is the tiring process of browsing through pages and pages of similar items, clicking on likely possibilities, and stopping when you get to one that has everything you want.
We wound up on a website called Wayfair.com, which apparently you're likely to have heard of if you watch ads on cable tv, which I don't. Their listings, though varied in nature, looked curated which Amazon's do not. I don't trust Amazon for anything I'm not willing to eat the cost of if it turns out to be wrong, as it frequently does. But I decided to trust Wayfair.
It met our trust. Delivery was promised for two days later, and a driver left a huge box on our front porch that noon. We wrested it inside, slit open two sides, and lo, the chair as pictured on the web. We slid the legless chair into position, attached the legs - which was easy, just screwing them into place, no messing with an Allen wrench and misleading instructions as with the old chair - and pronounced it good. It's wider than the old chair but not too wide for the space, is firm in the seat, and has a polyester fabric-style surface that's not too susceptible to little feline claws. The design is hard to describe, but resembles a kind of geometric paisley.
Now to dispose of the old chair, and the giant box which I laboriously folded up.
Saturday, February 5, 2022
not a conference
The Mythopoeic Society decided that, as long as we're still holding conferences by Zoom, to hold an extra one-day conference in February. The theme of horror did not initially attract me, but I decided to sign up as an attendee once I saw the topic would be horror elements in the Inklings. I'm not interested in horror as a genre or the works that comprise it, but horror elements in fantasy is more intriguing; much as I have no desire to eat spices, but spices in actual food are more appetizing.
That was today. Unfortunately I'm finding that either my interest in, or capacity for, listening to scholarly papers on Zoom has atrophied, so I only attended intermittently. Several of the papers were on Tolkien, often focusing on the sense of menace exuded by some of his forests: the Old Forest and Mirkwood in particular (but not Fangorn, curiously enough). A friend with an interest in both authors is convinced that Charles Williams's P'o-L'u has enough in common with Lovecraft's Cthulhu that Williams must have read the Cthulhu stories somehow, but I don't see how he could have known them. Williams read widely in popular literature, but we know only that he reviewed lots of a) books b) of UK publication. The relevant Cthulhu stories were then only in Weird Tales, which didn't have a British edition until 1942, long after Lovecraft's death. Could Williams have gotten hold of the US edition?
Tybalt did make an appearance, standing on my shoulders to lick my hair. "Interesting parrot you have there," remarked someone in chat.
That was today. Unfortunately I'm finding that either my interest in, or capacity for, listening to scholarly papers on Zoom has atrophied, so I only attended intermittently. Several of the papers were on Tolkien, often focusing on the sense of menace exuded by some of his forests: the Old Forest and Mirkwood in particular (but not Fangorn, curiously enough). A friend with an interest in both authors is convinced that Charles Williams's P'o-L'u has enough in common with Lovecraft's Cthulhu that Williams must have read the Cthulhu stories somehow, but I don't see how he could have known them. Williams read widely in popular literature, but we know only that he reviewed lots of a) books b) of UK publication. The relevant Cthulhu stories were then only in Weird Tales, which didn't have a British edition until 1942, long after Lovecraft's death. Could Williams have gotten hold of the US edition?
Tybalt did make an appearance, standing on my shoulders to lick my hair. "Interesting parrot you have there," remarked someone in chat.
Friday, February 4, 2022
conversation with my alternative self who actually follows popular culture
"So I see Jeff Zucker resigned. I'd seen his name occasionally as president of CNN. I'm sorry he's gone down in a semi-scandal, as I'd always thought well of him."
"Why?"
"Well, Airplane! was such a good movie."
"Airplane!?"
"Yeah. Leslie Nielsen, 'Don't call me Shirley.' You remember that movie."
"I do, but what's it got to do with Jeff Zucker?"
"He made it!"
"No he didn't."
"Yes he did. It was Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, and he was one of the Zuckers."
"No he wasn't. Jeff Zucker was like 15 years old when that movie came out."
"He wasn't? Then who was?"
"It was Jerry and David Zucker. Jerry. Not Jeff."
"Oh. Oh. Oops."
"Is this like the time you wondered why Election wasn't listed among Renée Zellweger's films and only then realized that she and Reese Witherspoon were different people?"
"Yes."
"Or like the time James Taylor played at Obama's inaugural and you were surprised because you thought he'd died in a plane crash decades earlier? And only much later figured out that you were thinking of Jim Croce?"
"Yes. I'm still croggled by the discovery that 'Fire and Rain' and 'Time in a Bottle' are by different guys."
"Why?"
"Well, Airplane! was such a good movie."
"Airplane!?"
"Yeah. Leslie Nielsen, 'Don't call me Shirley.' You remember that movie."
"I do, but what's it got to do with Jeff Zucker?"
"He made it!"
"No he didn't."
"Yes he did. It was Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, and he was one of the Zuckers."
"No he wasn't. Jeff Zucker was like 15 years old when that movie came out."
"He wasn't? Then who was?"
"It was Jerry and David Zucker. Jerry. Not Jeff."
"Oh. Oh. Oops."
"Is this like the time you wondered why Election wasn't listed among Renée Zellweger's films and only then realized that she and Reese Witherspoon were different people?"
"Yes."
"Or like the time James Taylor played at Obama's inaugural and you were surprised because you thought he'd died in a plane crash decades earlier? And only much later figured out that you were thinking of Jim Croce?"
"Yes. I'm still croggled by the discovery that 'Fire and Rain' and 'Time in a Bottle' are by different guys."
bitter symphonies
I felt particularly woeful missing last night's San Francisco Symphony concert because I didn't want to be out during omicron season. I doubt I've missed any of music director emeritus Herbert Blomstedt's return concerts in the 27 years since his retirement, in which he concentrates on his specialty, major symphonies from the Germanic and Scandinavian repertoire. Until now.
True, the items offered on this program - Nielsen's Fourth and Beethoven's Fifth - though individually great, make an indigestible combination. But I fancy I would have enjoyed it.
Nielsen's Fourth was the first work of his I ever heard, in a student orchestra concert when I was still in school. It was not a good piece to open the acquaintance with, written as it is in an alarming mixture of the idioms of the Third that was and the Fifth yet to come, and the unpolished performance didn't help. I put Nielsen on my "to avoid" list, until I gave him another chance with recordings and learned to appreciate this remarkable composer.
Beethoven's Fifth was the first symphony by anybody I ever heard, and as my introduction to the whole concept of symphonic writing just fairly dazzled my mind and won my instant allegiance to the heavy classics. It's been a central work to my existence. I've been hearing a lot of it from the inside recently, for B. has signed up with a local orchestra which had scheduled it for a March concert, and she's been practicing the second violin part diligently. But then last week they canceled the next rehearsal and put the Fifth off to the May concert, because it has winds. Now they're planning March to be a strings-only concert so that all the players may be masked, and have substituted Tchaikovsky's Serenade, which is a much easier piece to play, judging from the sounds coming out of the living room.
Weather outside is cool but sunny (where'd the December rains go to?), but it's dark and bitter in here.
True, the items offered on this program - Nielsen's Fourth and Beethoven's Fifth - though individually great, make an indigestible combination. But I fancy I would have enjoyed it.
Nielsen's Fourth was the first work of his I ever heard, in a student orchestra concert when I was still in school. It was not a good piece to open the acquaintance with, written as it is in an alarming mixture of the idioms of the Third that was and the Fifth yet to come, and the unpolished performance didn't help. I put Nielsen on my "to avoid" list, until I gave him another chance with recordings and learned to appreciate this remarkable composer.
Beethoven's Fifth was the first symphony by anybody I ever heard, and as my introduction to the whole concept of symphonic writing just fairly dazzled my mind and won my instant allegiance to the heavy classics. It's been a central work to my existence. I've been hearing a lot of it from the inside recently, for B. has signed up with a local orchestra which had scheduled it for a March concert, and she's been practicing the second violin part diligently. But then last week they canceled the next rehearsal and put the Fifth off to the May concert, because it has winds. Now they're planning March to be a strings-only concert so that all the players may be masked, and have substituted Tchaikovsky's Serenade, which is a much easier piece to play, judging from the sounds coming out of the living room.
Weather outside is cool but sunny (where'd the December rains go to?), but it's dark and bitter in here.
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
tooting
Some wiseacre newspaper columnist says this is Trumpet Day. Because it's two two two-two.
In that case, what happens when it's two two-two two-two? That, he says, is two much.
Groan. In any case, I thought trumpets were depicted as going toot.
In that case, what happens when it's two two-two two-two? That, he says, is two much.
Groan. In any case, I thought trumpets were depicted as going toot.
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Letterman interviews
So Dave Letterman has just put up on the web a whole raft of clips from his show, mostly back from when he was good. There's a number of intriguing things in there, but the one that really attracted my interest was from November 2004, when he interviewed a newly-elected senator.
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