Month: January 2022

What January 6 insurrection?

Big Lie redux

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they try to storm the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. – Demonstrators breached security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

I was trying to write a post about the anniversary of the events of January 6. Now, I had gathered tons of articles and video clips laying out why the events of a year ago were so awful. But isn’t that self-evident? Of COURSE NOT, because America.

I’m going to use the I word here. Right after the January 6 insurrection, all manner of persons, even Republicans in Congress, specifically denounced the then-sitting President for fomenting the violence. Then, not so much. Did It Even Happen?! Spoiler: Yes (feat. Chris Hayes and Jordan Klepper | The Daily Show).

Yeah, I know: “When asked to describe what happened at the Capitol, 85 percent of Democrats surveyed said it was an insurrection and an attempt to overthrow the government. By comparison, 21 percent of Republicans said the Capitol attack was an insurrection and 18 percent said it was an attempt to overthrow the government.”

Don’t use that word!

This Newsweek opinion piece by Markweaver bugged me. “Since January 6, a clanging chorus of commentators has standardized the language surrounding the event with the use of a few choice phrases including ‘insurrection,'[oops!] ‘assault on democracy,’ and—according to President Biden— ‘the worst attack on the Capitol since the Civil War.'”

Then he points to United flight 93, which WOULD have attacked DC on 9/11 but for the intervention of “citizen heroes.” He also mentions “a 1954 assault on Congress when terrorists fired indiscriminately from the gallery into the House chamber, wounding five congressmen.”

I would submit that January 6 is worse because it was, apparently, an inside job. The committee investigating the event is subpoenaing Republicans in Congress, including Jim Jordan. Yes, that Gym Jordan, who House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted to put on that very committee. He and others will be asked about their role in planning the insurrection.

Not as smart as Chauncey Gardiner

Worse because the “leader of the free world” apparently watched the DC riots on TV, ignoring pleas to intervene. This despite pleas from Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham from FOX News, not to mention Trump’s own family. They all tried to pressure him and his Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, to “intervene to stop the insurrection (despite publicly downplaying and lying about it).”

Yes, this is worse because, even before the 2020 election, the incumbent made it clear that if he didn’t win, the system must have been rigged. And he repeated the Big Lie again and again, to the point where state Secretaries of State, county clerks, and even those folks who only work the polls were physically threatened.

This is worse because the intent was to stop the prosaic but required task of certifying the Presidential election. Will we ever be able to have an election that isn’t challenged for no good reason?  

And this is worse because it could be the collapse of democracy in the US. Thomas Homer-Dixon, “the former head of a center on peace and conflict studies at the University of Toronto, warned that the ‘political and social landscape’ of the U.S.—a profoundly unequal and ideologically polarized nation that also happens to be ‘armed to the teeth’ —is ‘flashing with warning signals.'”

Vaguely related: Conspiracy Chart, from Detached from Reality to Grounded in Reality

Movie review: Licorice Pizza

Paul Thomas Anderson

licorice pizzaDuring my wife’s vacation week, we went to the Spectrum 8 Theatre to see the movie Licorice Pizza. The description: “The story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.”

In the first half of the movie, I suppose it would have helped if I’d grown up in SoCal. I was apparently not catching a lot of the cultural references, even though I was the right age. The character of Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) is based on Gary Goetzman, a friend of the movie’s director/writer/co-producer Paul Thomas Anderson. Goetzman is the co-founder of Tom Hanks’s production company, Playtone.

However, I DID recognize the reference to the movie Your, Mine, and Ours with Lucille Ball, which I saw when it came out in 1968; it featured Goetzman. Here it’s called Under One Roof. In this film, child actor Gary needs a chaperone. So he gets Alana (Alana Haim from the band of sister Haim) to leave her dead-end job to chaperone him cross-country.

The whole Gary-Alana relationship is both endearing and somewhat creepy. Or as one critic noted, a device “for men who fantasized about dating their babysitters when they were teens.” The story meanders to various vignettes including selling waterbeds, which Goetzman actually did.

Alana’s family was played by Alana Haim’s real family. Her father Moti in particular was very authentic in a small role.

The name stars

The movie actually developed more plot threads when Sean Penn shows as the daredevil Jack Holden. Also, Bradley Cooper plays the schmuck moviemaker/boyfriend of Barbra Streisand, Jon Peters. The latter section featured some of the best driving backward I’ve seen on film.

Eventually, Alana ends up volunteering for the campaign of idealistic local candidate Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie). Wachs was actually an actual candidate back in the day. And the plot twist, while a bit obvious, was touching.

In the end, it seems that the couple’s fate is worth its circuitous route. But though I wanted to, I just didn’t love this film. As I suggested, if you grew up in Los Angeles ara and were born in the 1950s, you might like it more than I do. Most of the music, in fact, I really did enjoy. And the leads are pretty good in their first major roles.

In some circles, the Japanese wife scenes have been characterized as having racist content. It seemed to me that Jerry Frick (John Michael Higgins), the “real-life owner of Mikado, the first Japanese restaurant in the San Fernando Valley,” was the real butt of the joke. On the other hand, it wasn’t funny.

The film never explains why it is called Licorice Pizza. I later discovered that “Though you won’t find either of those foods in the film, it’s an homage… the Southern California record-store chain that existed in the ’70s and ’80s.”

The office suite dream (not so sweet)

My kingdom for…

open the church doorsIn October, I had a dream that was surprisingly vivid after I awoke.

I was in an office with a long and narrow hall. Entering one room, a friend of mine, who used to work in the music business, was sleeping at their desk. They had been working a second job in the evening, related to the music industry, and they were tired.

One office appeared to be unoccupied, but, going around the corner was a guy at a desk. He was annoyed that I barged in, but I just needed an empty space. Another (real-life) friend I couldn’t find. What is the meaning of this?

There appears to be two sources of this dream. One is a friend of mine who was complaining that they now have to share a space with another, both full-time workers, in order to facilitate a couple of part-time employees. The other involved my last job location at 10 North Pearl Street. I came back to work in October 2015, just after my hernia operation.

To say that I was disappointed would be a gross understatement. Everyone save for the secretary and two of the librarians had doors. The secretary at least had this fortress and was front-facing. The other librarian had a wall on one side of the cubicle. But mine was right on the corner. There was no way to sit without someone coming up from behind me. I was startled regularly.

Fixable

On Day One, I requested a glassine attachment to the cubicle. It would have made the walls about six feet tall, rather than about five. And though I re-requested this at least twice more, I never got them. And because I was in this open space, visitors, repair people, and folks who got lost were always asking me for directions, which was truly distracting.

Finally, ten months later, startled one more time, I said that I needed to move. The only place I could go was this large storage area, actually only three meters from where I was sitting. And I was given this option early on, but I wanted to try to be geographically closer to the others in a team-like setting. Still, the move involved a loud discussion, during which I left the office for a time, lest I say something regrettable.

So I got my move. People in the other department on our floor didn’t understand why I’d move to a glorified closet. It’s because I could be front-facing with no one coming up behind me. I stayed there and it was tolerable. Well except that some anonymous person ratted me out for taking off my shoes while I was sitting at my desk, and it got written up. Such petty BS, and I’m pretty sure I know who it was.

A door

Finally, an office with a door became available in November 2018. I was not all that interested in moving yet again, since I knew I’d be departing soon. But I took it anyway, and l left at the end of June 2019.

For the last year and a half of work, I was seeing a therapist. They believed that it’d all be better once I retired. And I should note that I don’t think much about the place. (And there’s lots more I could note, but won’t.)

But I was talking to my good friend in France in early September. She’s a therapist. When she mentioned my former job, I displayed a flash of anger she found surprising. It’s not that I spend any actual time thinking about the place consciously. But the subconscious must still be ticked off.

2021: ’22? You’d better be better!

J. Eric Smith

clinical_trials
Clinical trials, courtesy of https://xkcd.com/2530/

The rest of the annual quiz from Kelly. BTW, ’22? You’d better be better!

Where did most of your money go?

Books, music, medical stuff, takeout food.

What did you get really excited about?

GETTING THE VACCINE. Eating out. Going to the movies, though I didn’t do so often. Being the point person for the Literary Legends, Lydia Davis and Gene Mirabelli. The choir meeting again. Doing research in Binghamton.

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Clearly sadder.

Thinner or fatter?

Back to where I was a couple of years ago, alas. A function, in part, of being sadder.

Richer or poorer?

A little poorer, but not appreciably problematic.

The rain

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Reading, singing, sleeping.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Going to ZOOM meetings, figuring out my new insurance coverage

How did you spend Christmas?

Opening presents, watching the church service on Facebook, eating dinner with my MIL, playing a lot of Xmas CDs

Did you fall in love in 2021?

Sure

How many one-night stands?

Same as last year. And the year before that. And the year before that…

What was your favorite TV program?

CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, Finding Your Roots. I have an extremely low capacity for watching TV right now, except for, of all things, Law and Order: Criminal Intent (2001-2011), which I mostly missed when it originally aired. JEOPARDY I still watch but don’t love it as much.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nah.

What was the best book you read?

Er…

The park

What did you want and get?

A COVID shot, or three.

What did you want and not get?

Liberation from the limiting effects of COVID.

What were your favorite films of this year?

Summer of Soul (the ONLY one of these I saw in a theater), Promising Young Woman, Another Round, Wolfwalkers, Small Axe: Mangrove (if it’s a movie), One Night in Miami, Sound of Metal,  The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

What did you do on your birthday?

I went to adult education and church online. Talked with my sisters on ZOOM. Had cake. I don’t much remember beyond that.

And other things

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021?

Wearing shoes as infrequently as possible.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Possibly Isabel Wilkerson whose book Caste I bought but did not read.

What political issue stirred you the most?

The dissipation of truth, not just in government, but online.

Who did you miss?

Other than the deceased, I’ve actually managed to see many people in my neck of the woods (FINALLY!) in recent months, because I missed them all!

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2021

Writing about it is a pain. Not writing about it is worse.

I was quite touched by what J. Eric Smith kindly wrote about me in his blog, which he’s been writing since before the word blog was created.  I am, I’ve read, “a super-long-time daily blogger of refined tastes and interests, many of which closely align with my own. Roger also brings his formidable librarian skills to organizing his information, and that’s a noticeably great thing in the mostly mucky mire of poorly-curated online experience.”

That sort of helps me when I fear that I absolutely have not a single thing more to say before I finally have a Eureka moment again.

Now, why am I thinking of a song by the Cowsills (#2 for two weeks pop in 1967)? I have no idea. As noted: ’22? You’d better be better!

2021: a spaced odyssey

tough questions

Every data table
Courtesy https://xkcd.com/2502/

Time to make the donuts! I mean respond to more of these spaced odyssey questions in the quiz promulgated by the illustrious Kelly. I’m not faulting him, BTW.

Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Well, probably not and definitely not. I didn’t REALLY make any for last year. But if I had, I probably would have failed. So I’m DEFINITELY not making any this year because it’s too much of a bummer.

Did anyone close to you get married?

Why yes. my good friend Alexis married her beau with a similar name.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t think so, though, as of this writing, someone vaguely named for me is very pregnant.

Did anyone close to you die?

Yeah, and I wrote about most of them here and here.  Also, I went to the funeral of Jack White, a cousin, online.

And I attended the funeral of my former next-door neighbor Dino Patelos at his Greek Orthodox church. During the service, his priest favorably compared him to Jimmy Buffet in Margarettaville, but with a boilermaker. 

Since I don’t SEE many people, I was afraid I was forgetting someone, but, no they died near the end of 2020.

Almost abroad

What countries did you visit?

Well, I didn’t GO to Canada. But we were on The Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, so we were Canada-adjacent.

What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?

The normal I thought I would get in 2021 after living through 2020.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I did some research about my family when I went to Binghamton. Didn’t find as much as I had hoped, but the effort was there.

What was your biggest failure?

I’m not sure I finished a single book. I bought more than a dozen of them and started at least half of those. Actually, that’s not quite true. I did finish The Color of Law, but that was in February 2021.

What was the best thing you bought?

Aside from music? Probably the iPhone 8. And the case, because the phone literally kept slipping off the sofa.

Thumbs up, thumbs down

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Those who try to inform: John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, various websites. The folks who worked in COVID hotspots in the US, even though you KNEW they were ticked off about it because they thought it didn’t need to be. Folks promoting vaccines, addressing hesitancy and fear. People who stood up to racial, economic, and other disparity.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Tough question. They fall into many categories, only a few of which are noted here. The problem is that some belong in multiple slots. The list is necessarily incomplete.

January 6 facilitators and deniers. This includes, but is hardly limited to, Steve Bannon; Representatives Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Madison Cawthorne (R-NC), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA); Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows; Mike Pence

Big Lie promulgators: DJ Trump; MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell; Elise Stefanik (R-NY); various media outlets, including a vulpine one, including the one with Lara Logan

COVID facilitators and deniers. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI); governors Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Greg Abbott (R-TX)

General blowhards. SCOTUS justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas; Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John Kennedy (R-LA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN);  Josh Hawley (R-MO); Reps. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY); Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC); former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY); Candace Owens; Eric Clapton

I’ll finish this spaced odyssey tomorrow.

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