The Star Fraction

A most thought-provoking novel by Ken Macleod - the first volume in the Fall Revolution series. An England perpetually on the edge of collapse (along with pretty much everywhere else on Earth and in near-space) as a patchwork quilt of communities and forces tussle with one another - sometimes cooperating, at other times not at all - in the name of just about every social and political belief that you can bring to mind, along with a few you will not unless you're demented or intoxicated beyond measure. Engagingly complex, featuring, for example, a smart-gun whose sentience evolves in unexpected ways;   a Trotskyite mercenary with scrupulous morals; and at times a delib- erately bewildering sequence of events that lend the story an immediacy that may surprise you.

Sicario

A brilliant and brutal portrayal of Mexican drug cartels and the extremes to which Northamerican forces go to destroy and control them. There is no single main character; rather, a number of them orbiting within systemic forces that can both save and punish with equal measure and without compassion. Emily Blunt, James Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro give powerhouse performances. The cine- matography by Roger Deakins delivers images - particularly of landscapes and movement - that are somehow familiar and other- worldly at the same moment. And the music...Johann Johannson, the Icelandic composer, delivers a score that a times will make you curl into a ball to protect yourself from what is coming. The intelligence of this movie makes it bearable to watch, but it isn't easy. Don't say I didn't warn you. Rated 'R'.

Advertising

For the foreseeable future advertisements will appear on this blog. The process of finding and getting appropriate ads is going to take some time because the blogger can only partially control it, and it's largely a question of controlling sometimes very aggressive attempts by marketing firms to place inappropriate or irrelevant material on the site. I ask for your forbearance while this is worked out.

A Rule

Now in my 68th year, I have a rule that I recite to myself every morning:
   Live every day as though it might be your last; live it as though you are immortal.
   Doesn't make sense, does it? Ah well, such is life.

Poetic Observations • 5

...
When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the Southern Cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches the Southern Cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of Time upon the dial of the universe; and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing - that relief and rest are close at hand.
Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

   Eugene V Debs
   Upon being sentenced for sedition, 1918

Nicknames

Casey

My first nickname, and chosen by me, initially because I was enthralled with a picture book called Casey the Fireman, about the captain of a fireboat in New York City harbor. He was tall and handsome, like I hoped to be, and blond, which I already was, and he put out fires from a kind of tugboat. What could be better than that? Going to school gave me an additional  reason to keep the name - I had outgrown the book - because boys in the 50s were almost never called Christian, and when teachers called roll for the first time they inevitably asked for ‘Christine’, putting me at near-mortal risk for merciless teasing on the playground.

Windy

My father sometimes called me this and, in fact, had wanted  to give me that name when I was born. My mom vetoed the notion. Neither one told me why the name was considered (I did know it wasn’t about weather) and it’s origin remains a mystery.

Chip

Of Chip and Dale fame. My first brother was Dale. These were private names used only by us, and was the earliest agreement between us that we represented the two essential parts of the perfect person: Brains (Chip) and brawn (Dale). My brother shortchanged himself; he’s extremely smart and insightful. But the characters in their cartoons are a riot and we strongly identified with them.

Moose or Moosenheimer

I began struggling with my weight when I was thirteen. I’d been thin as the proverbial rail until then, but a diabolical combination of growth spurts, puberty and its sidekick, hormones, and collapsing arches and chronically inflamed achilles tendons collaborated to turn me into, well, someone you’d nickname moose. This was used by my father. When he was exasperated with me, I got the short form. The long version was used when he wanted me to know that, in spite of the difficulties between us at the time, he cared very much about the problems I was having..

Cwissy-Poo

This is from one of my sisters. Totally affectionate, with  enough           of a bite to remind me that just because three of her brothers had inflicted an annoying nickname on her didn’t mean she was incapable of retaliation.

Chipmunk

A glorious Norwegian girlfriend (sigh) came up with this one in my early 20s. It’s inscribed in a copy of e. e. cummings’s  collected poems she gave me, along with a mention of my ‘bright eyes’. The unwritten half of the phrase - ‘and bushy tail’ - may come to mind, but dis- cretion, even at this late date, requires I refrain from speculation on any implications from the fact.

Yellow Cap

During the wars in Southeast Asia in the 60s and 70s, I was active in a group called The Resistance. I habitually wore a yellow knit cap, and someone – perhaps thinking I should have a nom de guerre (or nom de anti-guerre?) – took to calling me this, a habit that was picked up by others.

Captain Terror

Not a compliment. Early in my career as a bookseller I worked at the store on the campus of UCLA. Much responsibility, which I exercised with great attention to detail – something I demanded the crew I supervised share. But while the demand wasn’t unreasonable, my attitude was, and until the scales fell from my eyes a couple of months later, I had this nickname.

Irish

Years laters, working at another bookstore, I indulged my long obsession with Celtic traditional music by putting it on the store sound system whenever it was my turn to choose what should played. This continued for nine years. About a year into the run             I was given this name by a couple of co-workers.

Big Fellah

An extrapolation from Irish when I turned to reading every book on the Easter Rising, and Michael Collins and all matters related, and I was tagged with the famous nickname given Collins. At one point, in a moment of whimsey, the store owners got everyone bowling shirts to wear, and this was embroidered on mine.

Oracle

My last job as a bookseller was with Borders. The company’s upper management was stunningly inept. The store where I worked, by contrast, had a hard-working and professional crew that kept the place afloat far longer than expected. Some of them had 10 - 25 years of experience, which was unusual. I had just under 40, with the accumulation of knowledge that goes with that length of service. Whenever a customer asked for a book that seemed impossible to get, the problem was given to me, and my success at meeting their need was high enough that I was tagged with this name.

Note: Epithets have not been included. If they had been been, the list would have made up a slender book held at length by a thumb and index finger.

Poetic Observations • 4

love is the every only god

who spoke this earth so glad and big
even a thing all small and glad
man,may his mighty briefness dig

for love beginning means return
seas who could sing so deep and strong

one queerying wave will whitely yearn
from each last shore and home come young

so truly perfect the skies
by merciful love whispered were,
completes its brightness with your eyes

any illimitable star

65
By e. e. cummings

Epic Moments From My Life as a Veloist • 1951-1959

My very first memory of bicycles was when I couldn’t have been more than three or so. My father had, like most soldiers from the beginning of human history, brought home some ‘things I found’ - loot - from Europe, one being a bare-bones French touring bike.     And I remember him hoicking me up onto a small red cushion or pad fastened to the top of the handlebar stem, facing forward, knees and feet dangling in front of the bars, and holding me with one hand as we rode around in whatever neighborhood it was. I felt like I was flying. It was wonderful, and I'm so grateful I was able to experience it, because now of course he and my mom would have been arrested   on child endangerment charges and put in a home with padded walls and no candy and certainly no comic books or rock n' roll music.

   When I was about five years old. The old man planted me on the seat of a miniature two-wheeler in the middle of a big front lawn       of thick grass, showed me how to grip the handlebars and put my sneakers on the pedals, and gently pushed me on my way. When I   fell almost immediately, I don’t recall that it was any big deal – the grass cushioned it and the ones that followed, and before much time had passed I was happily wobbling all over the place. (1)

   At twelve, while going down at a hill at too high a speed, I lost my balance and ended up on my stomach sliding across the asphalt, hands and arms stretched out before me like a swimmer, for about twenty feet. Long sleeves and jeans managed to protect me from everything except some vivid bruises, but my palms were badly scraped, and after they healed a tiny piece of stone remained embedded at the very base of my right hand. It remained there         for another forty years, a reminder to me that being a smart ass -     on a bike or otherwise - doesn't usually pay off. (2)


(1) A perfect example of life to come: While learning, you fail; failing, you pick yourself up off the deck and try again; repeat as needed until you succeed. Little did I realise what I was in for.

(2) This was before helmets, knee-pads, gloves. It was also   before whining to your parents and friends. I picked myself up and limped home and cleaned my wounds. Other than one of my brothers asking me what had happened - we had an almost ghoulish interest in each other’s misfortunes – it was not remarked upon.