Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

The Lydster, Part 59: Miss Independence


My great joy recently has been the fact that Lydia wants to dress herself lately. She’s had the means before but not the inclination, leaving it up to Daddy to put her clothes on. She HAS, for some time, picked out her clothing, and I must say that she generally does a pretty good job coordinating her outfit, a skill she must have learned from her mother, not me. In fact, the only times I’ve ever vetoed her selection is if it is going to be too warm or, more recently, not warm enough.

I’m also pleased that she hads deigned to pick the top pair of underwear in her drawer rather than rumaging around to find underpants that match her outer outfit. After all, people are not going to SEE her undergarments, are they?

This is not to say that she doesn’t need help with some things. When her clothes are washed inside out and remain that way when they go to the drawer, she needs assistance. And some buttons are still tricky.

But for the most part, it’s “Daddy, go away! I can dress myself!” And that’s fine with me; actually gives me a chance to check my e-0mail in the morning.
***
She has had a tough week, though. On Monday, she fell on the ice in front of our own house. The snow had melted, and it tends to gravitate to the sidewalk. Then it got cold and the water turned to black ice. She didn’t cry, but she was sore.

Then last night, she did cry after falling off the stool she uses to brush her teeth. Coincidentally, I had to use ice to tend to her almost-immediately visible bruise.

Careful, Lydia.

ROG

ROG

F is for Fire

As I was growing up, I spent a great deal of time at my grandma’s house, as she lived just a half dozen blocks from my house in Binghamton, NY and as close to my elementary school as my own house, so I’d often have lunch there. She had a coal stove and one my jobs was to to go down to the basement and shovel up a couple pails of coal to keep the fires burning.

After my grandmother moved south, and I stayed in her house in the winter of 1975, I realized how inept I was at keeping the fires going on my own. Obviously, I was doing something wrong, and the flames went out. So it’s February, it’s bitterly cold, I have a mountain of covers on and I’m using a space heater. A quilt comes off the bed and catches fire. Fortunately something woke me up, perhaps the acrid smell, but possibly some psychic connection to my mother who SWEARS she woke up in Charlotte, NC at that very time to warn me; I don’t dismiss it out of hand.

When I was about nine, there was a massive fire on my grandma’s one-block street, Maple Street. An apartment complex called the Rogers Block, four wooden structures as I recall, all caught fire and were utterly destroyed. I don’t believe anyone was hurt, but naturally, many lives were disrupted. It took a while for the area to be razed, and for months, I’d walk by from across the street and smell that very distinct post-fire odor.

Every year, at Midwinter’s, there’s a bonfire where one can throw pieces of paper representing things to get rid of from the previous year, although one year, we threw in the chair of one of our founding members of the tribe, who had died the year before. Indeed, the fire that represents me on this blog comes from a photo of a Midwinter’s wax magick burst.

Totally coincidentally, this week, my daughter had me read a book called A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams, which is about a family who lost everything in a fire, got some stuff from their neighbors, but who were saving up for a nice plush chair to put into the new apartment. It’s a Caldecott winner, and I’d recommend it.

My sister lives in southern California, not in a traditionally fire-prone area, yet a couple years ago, she could see the flames in her neighborhood. She was fortunately spared, but many were not. The photo above I believe she took.

I recall that there was this young woman on JEOPARDY! in the college tournament a few years back who had experienced a fire and was pleased that she was able to start over; Alex Trebek looked at her as though she were crazy, but at some level, I understood her point.

The dichotomy about fire fascinates me: useful tool, destructive force. Even theologically, that comes up, the notion of hellfire

vs. the idea of being “on fire for the Lord”. Today is Ash Wednesday and it is with the remnants of fire with which some Christians will be marked.

Anyway, here’s one of my favorite fire songs, by the OHIO PLAYERS:

ROG

ROG

Fat Tuesday


Today is Mardi Gras and that, of course, reminds me of New Orleans and the whole “should Nawlins survive?” conversation.

Specifically, I was thinking about a recent podcast called The KunstlerCast, “a weekly audio program about the tragic comedy of suburban sprawl,” featuring James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency, among others. It was the distinguished Alan David Doane, who said such kind things about me recently, who turned me on to Kunstler.

In episode #52, Duncan Crary, the host/producer of the Kunstlercast, was wondering, and this is a broad paraphrase: Isn’t New Orleans culturally cool enough to try to save? And I think there’s a part of me that shares that viewpoint. Kunstler, for his part, indicated that the city may survive in a smaller form, although, with global warming, who knows?

I suppose the argument that it’s under sea level, so it is foolish to save it would resonate more with me if people weren’t also rebuilding in fire zones in California, flood zones further up the Mississippi and other places that have been destroyed more than once. A friend got hit by two Florida hurricanes in one year a few seasons back. I’m still convinced that some earthquake is going to carry half of California into the ocean.

But let’s fret about that another time:
Mardi Gras 1941 and 1954 and 2006, just after Katrina.
Take Me to the Mardi Gras
jamming with the Meters
ROG

ROG

the Trilogy Meter


Since I’m still in the movie mode, here is a film trilogy thing from Dan Meth, via SamuraiFrog and Jaquandor:

Star Wars
The original Star Wars is one of my favorite films. Empire Strikes Back is nearly up there. Return of the Jedi is a bit disappointing, mostly because the Ewoks irritated me; Tribbles, but not as cute. As for the prequels, not only did I bhate Jar Jar Binks, but, far worse, I was bored by all of the political yak for good chunks of the movie.; so, I never saw the rest of that trilogy.

Indiana Jones
Raiders of the Lost Ark I loved. Temple of Doom, for whatever reason, never grabbed me the same way, and I thought it was gratutiously gross to boot; it practically created the PG-13 rating. The Last Crusade I liked almost as much as the first film, because of the humor and the great Harrison Ford-Sean Connery riffs, but also because of that whole theological angle of walking out into nothingness bit. adventure movie. Never saw the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The Matrix
I saw the first movie on commercial TV; I was unimpressed, and never saw the others. Probably didn’t give it a fair shake. So never saw the others.

Star Trek
I’ve seldom been as bored with a movie as I was with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I don’t know if it was the pacing or what, but these characters, who I liked a lot, were making me restless in my seat. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek film I’ve seen, and it was probably helped in the minds of the fans by its improvement over its predecessor. The problem with Star Trek III is that even though big stuff happens, it feels transitional, like the middle part of a trilogy; toss out the first, largely unrelated movie, it really is. As for the others, I saw Star Trek IV with my mother; she was quite confused not having seen III, though she enjoyed it well enough. I liked it considerably more, for which I credit my San Francisco obsession. Star Trek V was awful, just awful. I’ve not seen a Star Trek movie since, though I would.

Superman
The original’s iconic, yet I’ve never seen the sequels, except pieces of III on TV.

Jurassic Park
saw the first one well enough, but never cared to see the sequels.

X-Men
Never saw the first movie. My wife and I were in a hotel in Maryland on New Years’ Eve, coming back to Albany from North Carolina when I flipped on the TV and saw most of X2. It wasn’t bad, but seemed terribly busy. My wife, who is not a comic book collector, was totally confused.

Spider-Man
I liked the first film quite a bit, though it felt flat occasionally. The second film, though, I loved; possibly my favorite superhero movie, though Iron Man was pretty nifty. Haven’t seen the third yet.

The Lord of the Rings
It’s just not my genre. I tried, and failed, to read the books. I saw the first movie, thought it was fine, but never saw the latter two parts. Yeah, I know: sacrilege.

Mad Max
Seems that I’d catch one of these on TV, but never knew at the time which one it was. Probably should actually watch.

Jaws
This came out at a time tin my life that I just wasn’t going to see movies that might be gory. I have never seen Jaws, let alone its sequels. I will, someday, see the original, at least.

Back to the Future
I was very fond of the original. The second movie just felt both dark and like the middle part of a trilogy and doesn’t stand on its own. I musty admit that the third movie, with the okld West theme, I thought was a hoot, and I’d end up watching big chunks of it when it used to show up on TNT every other day.

Die Hard
Another movie series where I’d catch it on TV but didn’t know which episode it was. Looked like fun.

Blade
Never saw.

Planet of the Apes
I managed to see all five Apes movies in one day. NOT recommended. The original Planet of the Apes is a great film; I totally bought into it. Beneath was a lesser effort, but I actually enjoyed Escape. Conquest was stupid and Battle was an unrelenting bore.

The Godfather
This was one of the films (along with Catch-22 and A Clockwork Orange) that got me to swear off gory movies from 1973-1980. No doubt, the original was one of the finest films ever made. But I wasn’t going to see II or III.

Rocky
Rocky, which I saw with my mother, is a great film; I think it got slapped down because it won the Oscar against showier fare. I rather liked Rocky II, which comes close to equaling the first one. But III to V, awful to more awful. Never saw Rocky Balboa.

The Terminator
Yet another series I’ve only seen on commercial TV, and caught by flicking stations. Seemed that I would like at least the first two films, based on what I’ve seen.

Rambo
Never saw. Never really wanted to see.

Batman
Batman, the first one with Michael Keaton, I liked well enough, though sometimes it felt as though Jack (Nicholson) was doing Jack. Batman Begins, though I know I saw it, for some reason didn’t stick to the brain; I do recall that it seemed a bit campy, and I never got back into watching Batman movies – though I WOULD have seen Batman Begins (2005) had I been going to the movies. As for Dark Knight…wait until tomorrow.

Alien
The first film was excellent. But didn’t need to see the sequels.

The Mr. Frog and Jaquandor suggested other trilogies:

Lethal Weapon, Karate Kid
Other one I saw only on TV and couldn’t tell you which episodes I actually saw. Know I saw the end of KK1, and at least parts of three different LWs.

Omen, Scream
Didn’t see at all.

ROG

ROG

VIDEO REVIEW: The Visitor


When The Visitor was released in April 2008, I made a mental note to go see it. It was, after all, director “Tom McCarthy’s follow-up to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent.” And I loved The Station Agent. As it turned out, I never did see it in theaters. But recently, I cajoled my friend The Hoffinator to put it in her Netflix queue and then let me see it before it got returned. (I have my own Netflix account, but I had The Dark Knight 12 days unwatched.) I watched it Thursday morning at 5 a.m.

Richard Jenkins, best known for being, if I was told correctly, the first to die in the HBO TV show Six Feet Under, plays Walter, a widower without much going on. A professor at a Connecticut college who’s allegedly writing a book, presenting papers for which his contribution is minimal and teaching his one class by rote.

As I thought back on the movie, there’s a Paul Simon lyric which seemed to encapsulate Walter’s persona:
I’ve just been fakin’ it,
I’m not really makin’ it.
This feeling of fakin’ it–
I still haven’t shaken it.

It is while he’s in New York City to present a paper that he visits his seldom-used apartment, only to find that is already occupied. This turns out to be transformative in Walter’s life. Frankly, I don’t want to tell too much more except that the djembe, an African drum, plays a role. In fact, after I watched the movie, I saw the trailer, and I felt that it gave away too much of the plot elements.

Later, I watched the deleted scenes and totally agree with their excisions. Another extra: info on the djembe.

I still haven’t seen Frozen River, The Reader, The Wrestler or Benjamin Button, among others. But of the 2008 films I DID see so far, The Visitor was my favorite.

ROG

ROG
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