"Rabbit Remembered"

I finished the novella "Rabbit Remembered" by John Updike and found it rewarding if for no other reason than the light it shone on familial denial and the persistence of genetic traits. Oddly, this time (I had read this work years ago but in my old age or sleep-time reading of it forgot much) brought to mind some comparisons with Tony Soprano. Both Tony Soprano and Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom are pathological in their solipsism -- and yet, and yet, we somehow root for them, at least some of the time. Then we shake our heads and wonder how or why. And both the Soprano and Angstrom clans collectively collaborate in the pathological relationships that interweave; sometimes we even see glimmers of hope, new beginnings seemingly free of the tired strands of misery. And then those strands get restrung and interwoven once again. (Which is not to say the others, the lives that these people touch, are any better; often worse.)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is the very first instance of someone showing similarities between Tony Soprano and Rabbit Angstrom. Calling all academics! Here's a great topic for a dissertation!

I like to dog-ear the pages of a book as I am reading it, to remember juicy quotes. (In this case, I have to de-canine-ear the marked pages, since it is a library book.)

Some tidbits from John Updike's "Rabbit Remembered":

Nobody wants war but men don't want only peace either.

If society is the prison, families are the cells, with no time off for good behavior. Good behavior in fact tends to lengthen the sentence.

At thirty-nine, everybody's their own problem.

A grin is held on his face like a firecracker ready to go off.

Being adult, it seems, consists of not paying much attention.

Olympian Lethargy

In Greek mythology, isn't Lethe the river in Hades that evokes forgetfulness, hence our word lethargy?

To answer my own question: yes.

Is it anywhere near Mount Olympus?

To answer my own question (redux): you decide.

This is my roundabout way of declaring that I have watched zero seconds of the Beijing Olympics.

And I'm not sure why that is so.

It's been that way for several Olympics for me, so it isn't anything in particular related to this year's extravaganza.

Strange, because as kids my brother Jack and I would reenact our own Olympic events with great fervor, winter or summer, using a stopwatch I still possess. We'd mimic the Olympic theme and perform copycat events in the snow or high-jump or run.

Maybe it's commercialism, unwillingness to invest the time or emotion, lack of interest in the chauvinism. Something. I don't know. I'm just not sure.

I do, however, rather enjoy reading about the dramas, the events, the backstories, so to speak.

What happened to me?

I'm more interested in my new favorites TV series, "Mad Men," on tonight.

Appropriately enough, the same time slot, 10 to 11 p.m., formerly occupied by "The Sopranos."

The Hit Charade

Jokingly, we used to say, sitting at a restaurant in Manhattan, any restaurant, don't sit with your back to the entrance door, sit facing the door, as if we were important enough to be rubbed out in a mob hit, and as if this seating arrangement would protect any one of us. This was in the days when Paul "Big Paulie" Castellano was in fact assassinated just outside Sparks restaurant off or on Third Avenue, not far from where I worked, and not too distant in time from when I, Pawlie Kokonuts, had walked by the steakhouse, which is now probably closed. Of course, it's not like one has to be important to be felled by mob bullets, or by anyone's bullets, or by anything. Collateral damage is the military term, ain't it. But the biggest fallacy of all, as we were saying at breakfast Saturday at the Good News Cafe, the biggest pretense of all is the illusion of control. Sure, if you had a machine gun, a Tommy gun, as it was called in the Al Capone days, you might be able to spray your attackers with hot metal before they got you. Maybe. But unlikely. You might more likely be in mid-bite of your ravioli or mid-dip of your bread into the olive oil or spreading butter on your bread or in latter-day modern life feeling your cellphone vibrate in your pants, only to realize it's your leg going numb from the onslaught of the loss of consciousness and blood in the final nanoseconds, just as you were formulating the syllables of a final joke about vibrators vibrate get it haha a joke they all have heard from you countless times haha as it dawns on you in the darkest of dawns that your dawns are over, buddy. The utter conceit of it all, to think you are not powerless, to think that your position, your positioning, your placement, your posturing, your posing, your pronouncing, your protecting will stave it off, will delay it, will forestall it, will spin a cocoon around it, will armor you against arms and the man, or woman, or transgendered, will make you quicker, safer, surer, you or yours, if only you had faced the entrance, if only sooner, later, this, that, a little over here, there, anywhere, everywhere, if maybe why not if that or this. The utter hubris of it. They say alcoholism is the disease of denial but the disease of denial is called by something else, a tiny four-lettered L word we all conspire to and with and for (and other prepositional propositions), something we all aspire to as we pray for its continuance fending off respirable dust unto dust, just as Father Luke once intoned or invoked, or maybe even choked on the words, I don't know.

And that, I postulate, as a poor postulant, is why the last episode of The Sopranos was right and fitting, in the familiar family way.

Do Ask, Do Tell

In an effort to help the Chinese people, especially those who encounter foreign devils, excuse me, tourists, during the Olympics, I nominate eight questions that you can ask (see preceding post, immediately below).

1. Who killed Jimmy Hoffa?

2. Would like me to show you how to use chopsticks?

3. What did you think of the final episode of "The Sopranos"?

4. Do you embrace the logic, beauty, and clarity of the serial comma?

5. What size is your [insert noun here to represent an anatomical anomaly, description of square feet or cubic metres of living space, or current total of 401(k), if any]?

6. How do you like our air and water pollution, as well as our popular habit of public spitting?

7. Do you miss all those manufacturing jobs we took from you?

8. Brother/sister, can you spare a dime?

Characters, Sketchy

Having seen "The Simpsons Movie" (and I have watched "The Simpsons" probably fewer times than 99% of the whole Universe; maybe five times), I can tell you this:

Tony Soprano and Homer Simpson are similar in that each has very few redeeming qualities but we somehow for some reason root for each of them.

But we laugh more at Homer.

Usually.

I guess.

And Homer lives.

I think.





BLANK SCREEN NOW FOR 347 SECONDS.

Don't Sweat The Fast Stuff

According to a New York Times story by Louise Story, researchers at NBC claim commercials "work" even if you fast-forward through them. If true, that would mean advertising dollars could be reaped (careful on the spelling there) whether the ads are watched rapidly via digital video recorder (DVR), or in the more seemingly ordinary pace of so-called ordinary time (in itself, an intriguing theological term).

These new studies don't merely measure eyeball movement; they track biological reactions such as sweat (formally called "skin conductance"), heartbeat, abdomen or chest movement (to see if you hold your breath), erectile tissue, and wiggling in your seat. (Here's a pop quiz: one of those measurements in the preceding list was tossed in there just to see if you're awake. Which one? It's not hard. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)

The buzzword for the viewer's response is "emotional engagement." Ponder the implications of a few of these seismic quotations:

"Whether people watch or not is not a useful measure of anything." -- Joe Plummer, chief research officer for the Advertising Research Foundation

"People don't turn off their emotional responses while they're fast-forwarding." -- Carl Marci, chief science officer of Innerscope Research


"You've created a message that in theory requires 15 seconds or 30 seconds to get that selling message across. On a high-speed DVR, 30 seconds gets pushed down to 1.5 seconds with no audio. It just wouldn't work." -- Jason Maltby, president of MindShare North America

It was bound to happen. The world spins ever faster. "The centre cannot hold," to quote William Butler Yeats.

So much for sound bites instead of political or intellectual discourse; now we have vidbits. So much for character development; now we have subliminal stimulants. So much for linear plot; now we have streaming slides, no sound, please. So much for instant messaging; now we have IMage-racing.

I've gone on too long. You have no time for forays into verbal foreplay or airplay. Research says I've lost you already. Research says, you are not moist with the sweat of excitation. Your screen has gone black, just as in the last episode of "The Sopranos."

Chasing Climaxes

From the narrow vantage point of one solipsist (i.e., The Laughorist), the closing scene of "The Sopranos" final episode demonstrated both brilliance and courage on the part of David Chase. The scene takes place at a New Jersey diner called Holsten's (having lived in Jersey for 10 years, with two children born in the Garden State, I must confess to harboring very fond memories of those joints). The hypertense tableau is set, with all of the Soprano family poised to sit down and eat, all in one place and at the same time. This is itself a rare event for any family (nuclear or otherwise) in America, as ably demonstrated by Steven Spielberg in the opening scene of "E.T." You might say, the Sopranos are in a Tension Envelope (as I have blogged several times before). In the words of the summary provided by HBO:

Tony is the first to arrive at Holsten's for a family dinner. He sits in a booth and plays a song on the jukebox, watching the door. Carmela enters and joins him, asking about his meeting with Mink. He tells her Carlo's gonna testify and she takes the news with a sigh. AJ arrives next, complaining about the more mundane tasks of his job but quotes old advice from his father: "Try to remember the times that were good." Meanwhile, Meadow struggles to parallel park outside. Customers come and go - a shady looking guy who's been sitting at the counter enters the restroom. Finally parking the car, Meadow runs inside to join her family, just in time for dinner.

But of course the summary cannot convey the electric fear pulsing through this ordinary moment. As viewers, we expect the whole family to be sprayed with bullets, or at least Tony, or for him to be arrested. Something. We crave some spectacular climax. The bell at the door rings; SCREEN GOES TO BLACK. (The bell at the door, reminiscent of Thomas DeQuincey's essay on the knocking at the gate in Macbeth.)

Many, if not most, fans and ordinary viewers feel cheated by this anti-climax, this impotent lack of climax, this "nothing" nonending. But this David-Chased climax of the quotidian, this climax of the ordinary, is perfect because it's like a Chekhov slice of life. This is it. That's it. Just see it, folks, with all its laden possibilities.

Did I lust for and expect the Big Bang Bada Bing Climax? Sure. But here's why I like what Chase did:

1. The cut to BLACK was so abrupt it was like experiencing the shock of a hit (if indeed they were assassinated; maybe they weren't).

2. It was like death itself (I know; I can only surmise) in that it was the rudest of interruptions. You want to say, "Hey! Wait! I'm not finished here. Something's wrong with my freakin' TV. Hold it. something's wrong. I'm not ready for this." Which is more or less what we want to yell at Death anyway, eh?

3. I'm not likely the first to observe this, but wasn't David Chase obviously echoing T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men (1925) with:

"This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper."

4. C'mon! Aren't most climaxes more ordinary than extraordinary if you're really honest? (I freely expect a veritable chorus of satiated and panting readers to shout: "Speak for yourself, buddy!")

5. Isn't life really not as tidily wrapped and explicitly resolved as we have come to expect through supermarket novels and conventional (American) dramas, at least as depicted in television series and movies?

Plus, isn't life

Soprano Apocalypto

More seriously, I offer these two alternative predictions regarding "The Sopranos" finale:

1. Apocalypto in Toto:

Remember those Middle Eastern guys who were hanging around the 'Bing? The ones who have gone missing? They're ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ck, with a vengeance. They unleash some catastrophic attack that wipes out everyone, and we mean Everyone.

or

2. Apocalyptas Paterfamilias:

A.J. takes out his family and himself.

You saw it here first. If any other blogger says the same thing, may you gag on gabagool.

Mobular Prognostications

Last year I discovered we have HBO on a TV upstairs, although we never asked for it (it must've fallen off a truck), so I became a latecomer fan of "The Sopranos." I thought I wouldn't be able to follow it, given all the twists and turns of the previous seven or so years. But, hey, I enjoy it, right from the theme song. (Well, one or two shows this season were total bombs.) It's a great tragicomic epic soap opera with broads and bullets. (Best hilarious line last week: "It doesn't take a gynecologist to know which way the wind's blowing.") It's weird. Just when you begin to sympathize with Tony Soprano, he whacks someone or knocks eight teeth out of someone's skull (with a bit of tooth shrapnel in his pants cuff found when he's at his therapist's).

I'm gonna miss it. Sunday is the finale.

So,

here are

Top Ten Predictions for 'The Sopranos' Finale

10. A.J. becomes the 11th Democrat to run for President (of the U.S.).

9. Meadow gives up pre-law to run The Bada-Bing.

8. Sil recovers from his wounds and opens a hair salon.

7. Vito's son starts a goth band.

6. Carmela has a sex change, readying her for a starring role in the spin-off "The Altos."

5. Christopher's widow produces "Cleaver 2."

4. Dr. Melfi tries to shoot Carmella but misses.

3. The shrink Elliot whacks Dr. Melfi.

2. Tony Soprano enters the federal Witness Protection Program and assumes the name George W. Bush.

and

1. Paulie Walnuts enters the federal Witness Protection Program as Pawlie Kokonuts.

The Saga of the Especially Special Specialist

I once had a job (sounds like a mundane start to "Norwegian Wood") whose title was Project Specialist. They made up the title because they needed to call me something, and they didn't exactly have anyone who was just a technical writer. That wouldn't sound, um, technical enough. How special I felt that first day, back in February 1999. After all, I was now a specialist, and not just any kind of specialist but a project specialist. Being a specialist distinguished me from the hoi polloi of all those plebeian generalists out there, or within the firm.

Turns out, the House of Specialists is bursting at the seams with residents. In fact, we all have a room there. I'm just down the hall from you, and you. Especially special you.

This weekend, I just finished a book I had blogged about even before I read it: Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.

I can report it is entertaining and informative. It may even change the way I think (which may or may not make me happy, but that is only part of the story). At one point Gilbert writes:

Because if you are like most people, then like most people, you don't know you're like most people. Science has given us a lot of facts about the average person, and one of the most reliable of these facts is that the average person doesn't see herself as average. Most students see themselves as more intelligent than the average student, most business managers see themselves as more competent than the average business manager, and most football players see themselves as having better 'football sense' than their teammates. Ninety percent of motorists consider themselves to be safer-than-average drivers, and 94 percent of college professors consider themselves to be better-than-average teachers. [p.252]

He goes on.

I suppose he could just as easily have written, "Every blogger considers himself or herself especially special, with insights more worth sharing than anyone else and insights more worthy of comments than anyone else."

Or else, why do we all bother tapping the keyboard keys, hunh?

I'm not sure this stumbling onto specialness diluted by everyone else's special specialness makes me happy or not.

I think not.

Maybe it's a topic for me and my therapist on Wednesday.

Then again, I'm a little fearful my therapist may pull a Dr. Melfi on me, just as she did on Tony Soprano. My therapist might feel that I'm using therapy simply to validate my pathological special specialness that goes by the especially special name of solipsism.

Moonday Moonday

Monday, the first day of the week, at least according to ISO 8601, of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Stubbornly, unlike the ISO, the United States still holds that Sunday is the first day of the week, despite the cyclical symbolism of mini-Easter drowning in a sea of secularism.

But, let's face it, Monday is for most of us the first day of the week, the first whirrings of human anxiety over the labor pains mandated by Adam Smith and his Captains of Commerce.

Is this what St. Benedict had in mind with his "laborare est orare" ["to work is to pray"]? I believe he symmetrically balanced the phrase with "orare est laborare" ["to pray is to work"]. Yes, sometimes it takes work to pray; other times it comes as easily as

H

E

L

P

!

as one dangles from one's fingertips from the ledge of one's unmaking.

But back to Monday. Or, if you prefer, Moonday.

I wonder why we have this moon thing going on. I invite your lunar musings. Monday means the day of the moon, Moonday. (Of course, right after the day of the sun, Sunday.) The inevitable comparisons to the moon's feminine attributes will be invoked, but what are we to make of them?

On Mondays I typically must invoke ever-more-powerful prayers and incantations to pry myself from under the canopy of cozy sheets. Translation: God! It is hard to get up!

Am I trained to dread Monday with its quest for the almighty quotidian, its maelstrom of management and duty? Or, am I out of training for the travails of work? Does Friday and Saturday catapult me away from the rigors of capitalism?

Maybe that's it: workaholics are so afraid of losing stride, so neurotic about getting out of workshape, they never stop working. Feck 'em.

Or is Monday no worse than any other day, except in my weekend-laden mind?

Perhaps Monday is perfectly named, with its moonish craters and cravings, its hotness and coldness, its unearthly airiness, its moonday Mondayishness.

In all honesty, it wasn't too bad today. I got through the day. I didn't invoke Saint Monday and stay home. I'd say Mondays are dangerous and potentially subversive, in the same way vacations are. That's it! That's where the powers of the moon come in! Beware of anyone making a life-changing decision on a Monday or during or right after a vacation. ("Marge, I think we should stay here in Aruba. We can find work. We'll love it. It'll work. Really!")

Well, at least I didn't book a flight to Vegas, just to escape the pressure, as Tony Soprano did in last night's episode.

He just might stare at the Vegas desert sun forever, and never see the moon again, anywhere, day or night, Moonday or Monday.

How was your Moonday?

P.S. Incidentally, come to think of it, the French don't mince words: Work literally is travail!