American Rust: A Book about the Destruction of the American Heartland and the people in it.

 

Philipp Meyer is a talented writer. “American Rust” is his first book.  Allegedly.  Because a ‘first book’ doesn’t include all those thousands of words lying in a half-finished manuscript in the drawer. 

I mention this because the writing style is evolved, not in its formulative stages.  The prose (should be another word for it) is intuitive, and reflective of mixed Pennsylvania Dutch sentence structure coupled with a Joycean stream of consciousness model that gets into the reader’s head.  

The novel is well-grounded and generally well researched.  Characters are real, not the idealized   social types popular with people thinking literature and writing should remain within the aegis of academic preferences, aspirations, and fantasies.  

Politics don’t figure much in this novel in any except in incidental ways.  Meyer’s story captures the feelings and sensations of a time not entirely passed.  The destruction of the post WWII industrial base. Same things happening in fictional Buell are still happening or have happened in so many small and even large towns of America.  Heavy and light industry shipped to Asia.

At the center of “American Rust”  are two long-time high school friends, Isaac, an undeveloped would be something tethered to  his crippled father in a small dead town with no future prospects.  Then there’s his bosom buddy Billie Poe, former star athlete, volatile, also talented but fated to fail. Like with everyone else, he has ideas but fails to act on them.

The two young men share a special and unique bond. Billy, or “Poe” as he’s characterized in the text, pulled Isaac out of the icy cold waters of  a river.  Apparently, Isaac inherited the suicide gene. His mother filled her pockets with rocks and drowned herself in the river

 Their families are part of it too. 

Grace is Billie Poe’s mother who missed her chance of an upgrade by sacrificing her life to raising Billie, even if her feet are stuck in the physical and emotional mire of Buell.  

There’s a background focus on the decline of  American manufacturing.     This is about people in a small town in western Pennsylvania (referred to as ‘Pennsyltucky’ be people trying to denigrate the place) who are struggling to get by as the times they are a changing.’ Think of Billy Joel’s anthemic song “Allentown:”

‘Well, we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem, they're killing time
Filling out forms, standing in line

That’s the tapestry upon which the plot is built.  This speaks of the decline of the American steel industry  and old-school manufacturing in general. Bethlehem Steel was a giant economic force in Pennsylvania’s   Lehigh Valley.  About 300 miles west, near Pittsburgh, is fictional Buell Pa where things seem even worse.  

 The Lehigh Valley has survived, been rejuvenated to some extent. The giant rusted hulk of the legendary Pennsylvania steel mill has been turned into a museum. Across the road from it is a shiny new gambling casino which employs a large number of people though not nearly as many as the steel industry supported.  

Buell has not survived.  Or it’s on life support, and so are the people who live there, it seems.  Buell is a monument to abandoned factories,  rusting machinery and      double-wide trailers where Isaac’s best friend lives with his arthritic mother.

This books does a lot of things well.  I particularly liked the way the writer created the tense, interlocking reationships between the four principal characters. That much is tight. 

What’s not tight about the novel is that the Isaac character spends too much time engaging in masturbatory philosophical meanderings which do little for the plot.  Some of it does help to define the character;  too much of it gives you heartburn.  Granted, this was not a large impediment to me enjoying the book. 

My hit on the end of the book is ambiguous just as the writer probably intended.  The characters came out bruised, dented, and changed forever but they’re still breathing and marching forward.  I like that — the scrappy determination of small town America.  Maybe ‘cause that’s where I was at during a particular period of my life.

I’d be looking at reading this writer again perhaps. So. . . B-plus or A-minus. C’est la meme chose.

 

 

 

Paramount TV Series "1883" (The Bad Old Days of the West)

 

The Paramount TV series “1883” is worth a look if you like realistic westerns. It’s supposed to be a prequel of the contemporary western series “Yellowstone.” I don’t see how that fits yet but maybe that’s because I’ve only watched Episode 1. 

I mentioned realism and that comes to mind early in the segment when a band of Indians attacks a wagon carrying a family and its supplies heading for available and fertile lands in Oregon.  I certainly appreciate the contribution that Native Americans have made to our great country, and I certainly appreciate the fact they came here first.  What I do not appreciate is the often repeated meme of the ‘noble savage.’ European whites were cruel in their treatment of the first peoples but Indians were often more merciless to their captives from other tribes and groups. 

The opening scene in 1883 finds you watching arrows penetrating a helpless women would-be settler.  Another warrior rides down on another fallen woman to take her hair which he triumphantly holds up for his colleagues to see.  This kind of thing needs balance, of course. Later on in the episode we see a public bazaar situation in which a vendor is advertising his wares including Indian scalps from various tribes.

Underlying this film is the basic cruelty and harshness of the environment, the rapacity of some of its citizens, an entire feeling of disorder and mayhem.  A pickpocket gets hung on a public street, no law enforcement involved.  Bandits freely roam the country.  A drunken fat man tries to rape a teenager.  Good guys Shea Brennan and Thomas, played respectively and realistically by Sam Elliot and LaMonica Garrett don’t shrink from casting out a husband and wife team afflicted with smallpox.  It’s on the moral edge — the Sam Elliot character lost both his wife and daughter to the disease, leaving him crouched in the dirt with the barrel of his six-gun pointed up into his head.

He decides against it.  He and Thomas find a life of sorts, guiding a group of feckless European  immigrants to their dreamland in the west. Yeah, I could watch some more of that, especially if it sustains the impact and tension of the first episode.  

GIVEN “COLD” GUN, ACTOR ALEC BALDWIN KILLS CINEMATOGRAPHER HALNYA HUTCHINS

 UPDATE:  The whole mystery of this tragic occurrence lies in answering one question:  What came out of the barrel of the gun Alec Baldwin fired in the direction of camera operator Halnya Hutchins.  

Cutting to the case, okay it's a western. You're not going to have a semi-auto drawn from a holster of a guy wearing spurs and a cowboy hat.   You think about revolver then.  

If the script calls for a shot looking at the front end  of a revolver and the camera goes into close-up, you'll see the hollow dark barrel and the bullets in the chambers.  These 'bullets' will be what show business armorers call "dum-dums."

 A dum-dum will look exactly like a real bullet or live round but it will have the gunpowder removed. You will see a projectile on the business end, exactly like a live and deadly round but it will not fire.  

If firing such a weapon is required by a film script, there will be a cut to another shot where the revolver will be loaded to fire  with blank cartridges. Blank cartridges will not have a projectile on the business end, though it may have wadding of some type, harmless to anyone out of blast range.

So the essential question is this:  What kind of projectile exited the barrel of the gun that killed Halnya Hutchins and wounded director John Souza? The best explanation I've heard to date is one by film armorer Dutch Merrick, a true expert in the field.  

There was a lot of information packed into an excellent interview conducted with Merrick by Julie Grant of CourtTV.  It's worth watching for many reasons, but particularly for the possibility mentioned by Merrick that the projectile from a dum-dum worked loose and lodged in the barrel. 

 Without knowing this had occurred, the film armorer might have loaded a blank round into the revolver as is typically done when you need a lot of bang and fire coming out of the gun but with no bullet or projectile.  

If this is what happened, it would be tantamount to firing a live and deadly round - period. If you think this is far-fetched, then watch the interview Julie Grant conducted with Merrick.

 Merrick recounts the story he'd heard regarding the death of /Bruce Lee's son - Brandon Lee.    Here's the link. 

EXT. – DAY – BONANZA CREEK RANCH NEW MEXICO  

A movie production crew waits inside the rustic 1880s chapel-like building for the filming of an American western “Rust,” starring co-producer and major star Alec Baldwin in the role of a wizened grandpappy in flight with his thirteen-year old grandson.

There is to be a shooting scene.  What they’re all waiting for is the six-gun.  Behind the camera is rising cinematography star  Halnya Hutchins, 42.  Behind or next to her is   director Joel Souza, 48. 

Assistant Director Dave Halls goes to a roll-cart where the supposedly tightly controlled prop weapons are kept.  He brings the revolver to Alec Baldwin, describing the piece as a “cold” gun — meaning it was safe to shoot.    The shot is done in closeup. The audience feels the tension. Baldwin is supposed to unholster his gun and point it.  He does this twice, the second time with a bang.  A live round of some sort comes out the barrel killing Hutchins and wounding director Souza.  

Halnya Hutchins is dead of a gunshot wound to the chest.  Souza   is wounded in the shoulder by the same projectile but survives. A horrible thing, a thing that should never happen, a thing that reminds people of Brandon Lee who died in similar fashion on a movie set of the 1990s.

Questions to be Answered

Why are live rounds even allowed to be on a movie set controlled by film people? This is unconscionable. There is absolutely no reason for live rounds to be on the set especially around people who are obviously not familiar with weapons-handling.

The armorer in charge of the weapons is Hannah Gutierrez.  Where she was when Hall picked up the weapon is unknown?  Were the weapons left unattended for any length of time? Was a live round in the cylinder of one of the three guns on the weapons cart?  Were the other revolvers also loaded with live rounds?  Why, why, why?

Why was Assistant Director Halls even allowed to declare the gun was “cold” — meaning safe to operate for filming purposes?

Why were earlier reports by film production staff of unsafe weapons handling practices ignored?

Why did several production staff members walk off the set complaining about pay and working conditions?

What was the caliber of bullet that could pass through Hutchins and strike Souza?  All reports say that there was only one bullet fired but one has to wonder amongst the talk that there was a previous accidental discharge during the week prior to this tragedy.

Editor’s Note:  We offer our sincere condolences and prayers to Halnya Hutchins, her 8 year old child, and husband Matthew, to all those who knew them.  We hope it is accurate that director Souza is recovering and that his recovery continues.

SEPTA Passengers Watch and Take Video While Woman is Raped on Moving Train

                            Fiston Ngoy:  Philadelphia Train Rapist (Alleged) 

UPDATED INFORMATION:  The DA with jurisdiction over the case declines to pursue prosecution for any passengers who witnessed the attack and did not come forward.  He promised that anyone who did come forward would not be prosecuted.  

So by now you may have heard of Fiston Ngoy, the 35 year old SEPTA attacker who raped a woman on a moving Philadelphia train. It happened around 10:00 p.m. on October 13. Most accounts have it that Ngoy boarded the train, sat down beside her, began grabbing at her breasts.  She pushes him away several times as seen on the train’s surveillance camera.  He persists, gets even more aggressive, tears off her clothing and rapes her. 

So you may be thinking okay, night in Philly, the woman’s had a few beers, the train cars are empty or nearly empty.  She shouldn’t have been on that train alone that time of night. Everyone knows the homeless ride the trains all night long if they’re not booted off.  The blame-the-victim scenario, you know?

Ngoy was unarmed when arrested, and we have no details about his martial abilities, but let’s stipulate that he was a fit 35 year old man, and there were a few people in that train car who were truly scared  and unable to act. Fine,  except that these same terrified people were not too terrified to point their smartphones at the attacker and his victim as the rape went on for approximately 8 minutes.  All this according to video surveillance.

 It’s indisputable there were several people in that train car who did not call 911 nor attempt to intervene in any way but were willing to post videos on name-your-favorite-social-media.

 Sick right? So okay, that’s the news if you didn’t’ already know. But is that where we’re at now? Looks like we are.  Yet I know people who, the minute such an attack began, would have been all over the perpetrator like a cheap suit.  Choke him out in no time. Think of that crew who sacrificed their lives by bringing down Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa.

I’m not one of those people, though.  I’m not brave. Every time I’ve  had to fight I fought but I was always afraid. If the other guy were a bum, malnourished and weak, I’d make easy work of it.  But that wouldn’t   be my luck and really   sometimes you just don’t know.

I’m too long in the tooth to get into a fair scrap with a thirty-five year old guy of man-strength.  Not to say I wouldn’t throw punches if he came for me. But my choices would be slim.

 I can punch a little even in my dotage so I would probably do it. I might get lucky. Either way I’m going to get fucked up.  I might as well get fucked up putting some lumps on the other guy.

 How long I can punch is another thing. With that adrenaline going you get a little boost but it soon tires out an old body.   After that initial surge, if you haven’t handled your business, you’re fresh out of adrenaline courage. Fucked, in other words.   

I don’t want to lose teeth, I don’t want to lose an eye, I don’t want to get my head pounded into the floor — all of which (and worse) I’ve seen happen.

Which brings me to my first choice. See if the guy is armed. I would not do anything if he were armed except hit the emergency line, get off at the next stop,   call 911.

But if I stayed on the train I would look for an escape route.  I would then pull the emergency strap line running above the windows of the train.  I  would get   up behind the guy get an arm around his neck, try to choke him out, and hope for the best. If all that failed, I would take the escape route. Maybe he'd come after me, maybe he wouldn't.

In the case of this female victim, all it took to stop the attack was a transit worker who stumbled onto the scene and called 911. The story goes that the police arrived three minutes later and took the man off and down.  The poor woman was in shock, in  a hospital, supposedly recovering.

I guess that’s relative. I don’t know how you really recover from such a thing but maybe she’s strong.

I seriously wonder what those people on the train car were thinking, what they felt, why they didn’t do anything.  That’s something I don’t know. I’d like to know and so are the police. They’re investigating, looking at video, preparing a variety of charges.

There’s always something you can do in such situations. Am I wrong? What would you think? What would you do? 

I’d like to know. It would make me feel better if you told me you would try even if you knew deep down you wouldn’t. 

The Silence of the Laundrie Parents

 

Much has been written and reported about Gabby Petito’s murder.  There is no need to extensively revisit what is largely known.  She was traveling with boyfriend Brian Laundrie on a vlogging tour of the western states when she was murdered.

 The boyfriend genius returned to his parents home on September 1^st with her van, her credit cards, and her money without telling anyone what happened to her.  Gabby’s parents kept asking what happened to their daughter but all they heard from the Laundrie family is crickets chirping in the night.

  The manner of death was announced as homicide. What wasn’t announced until a few days ago was the cause of death: strangulation.

 Strangulation makes it personal. Strangulation fits the domestic violence profile.  Strangulation fits the videos we’ve seen and the accounts we’ve heard about of Brian Laundrie’s abuse of his girlfriend.   

The autopsy report also said that Gabby Petito’s body had been lying out in the open for a period of about three or four weeks. 

This puts the day she was murdered very close to the day she was last seen, the day boyfriend Brian Laundrie slapped Gabby around and made a huge ass of himself at the Merry Piglets Diner in Jackson Hole Wyoming. The date was August 27, according to Nina Angelo, who dined in the same restaurant that day. The date was confirmed by restaurant employees and by receipts.

This theory corresponds with the suspicious email Gabby’s parents received that very same day  . The email referring to “Stan” the grandfather whose name Gabby would never use in this third-party way of referring to him.  

Gabby’s mom thinks the email was sent by Brian Laundrie to cover up her murder at his own hands.  She’s probably right.

Everyone has an angle on the case and so do I.  My angle on this story concerns the non-responsive behavior of Brian Laundrie’s parents.  

   It’s not unusual for parents to cover for their children who make serious mistakes in life. Go to the visiting rooms of any prison and you’ll see. But how many of those supportive friends and family members would cover up for murder?   

Can they pretend a death was accidental or in self-defense when the medical examiner first informs the public the manner of death was homicide?  Can they forgive the murder of a woman they said was like a daughter to them?

Don’t they feel guilty in plotting   the escape of an adult son who is a ‘likely suspect’  in the murder of a young woman who’d been living with them for a long time? We all know that people are not required  by law to assist police. But   to shut the door to police and Gabby’s parents, is a monstrous unspeakable act that defies the laws of civilized people.

Now with both the manner of death and cause of death made public, the   Laundrie parents are under tremendous pressure.  They’re experiencing a modern version of drip torture 2.0.  This case is not rocket science.

 The police likely have enough evidence to conclude that Brian murdered Gabby. They’re working on proving it.  While they’re doing so they’re under no obligation to release details that will help the Laundrie’s lawyer. 

A suspect in a murder case may make several mistakes and still escape justice.  Cops make a single mistake in a murder investigation and a killer can go free. Remember Johnny Cochran: “If it (the glove) doesn’t fit, you must acquit?” It was an absurd tactic but ti worked.

Police okayed the medical examiner releasing that first report that the manner of death was homicide. This was intended to put pressure on the  parents who refuse to talk except in carefully planned and lawyerly phrases. Their silence is offensive. Even people as numb to Gabby’s human life as the Laundries must feel something.   

The ‘homicide’ announcement was firepower directed over the bow.  The “strangulation” announcement October 12 is a direct blast to the Laundrie quarterdeck. 

With homicide being the manner of death, and strangulation being the cause of it, any line of defense is necessarily limited.  You can’t claim accident.  All you can do is claim someone else strangled her.

I know it’s not fashionable to claim that the police are handling any case with a high degree of intelligence and concern. But they’re handling this one perfectly, and in a way that reminds me of the casual but shrewd inspector in Fyodor Dostoevski’s great novel “Crime and Punishment.”

Raskolnikov crumbled under the pressure. So too will the Laundries — in one way or another and however long it takes — they will be eventually crushed under the weight of their monstrous disregard of that poor girl’s life.

Samantha Josephson Thought She Stepped Into an Uber Cab, Not a Murderer's Vehicle

 

You’re tired after a night of carousing in a bar with your friends. It’s about 2:00 a.m. and you want to go home. None of fellow students has a car so you do the logical thing — call an Uber.

That’s what Samantha Josephson, a student at the University of South Carolina thought she was doing. Only it wasn’t an Uber.  But by the time she realized that it was too late.  She couldn’t escape  the car because the  child safety locks had been engaged.

It was video that led people to   Nathaniel Rowland, the man charged with her murder. You can see Samantha waiting calmly at the curb as the black 2017 model year Chevy Impala comes around the corner and pulls up at the curb. Samantha appears alert and entirely in command of herself as she gets into the back seat of the car.   That video is the last time anyone except the killer saw her alive.

The events leading to Nathaniel Rowland’s arrest unfolded in a matter of hours — fourteen hours after Samantha was reported missing to be exact. Next day, March 30, 2019 at about 3:00 a.m, an alert   police officer spotted the black Chevy   Impala only blocks from where Josephson disappeared.  

When the officer did a traffic stop, the suspect took off running but was caught.  Police say he had a companion with him who agreed to cooperate with the investigation. 

 In subsequent days, investigators found bloody clothes and cleaning products in a dumpster behind Maria’s house. Other video evidence shows Rowlands going into a store attempting to sell Samantha Josephson’s cell phone.  A forensics team found Samantha Josephson’s DNA, fingerprints, and strands of hair in Rowland’s car.  According to prosecutors, a bladed knife tool that Maria recognized as one she’d seen before was also found.

Today is the third day of the trial of Nathaniel David Rowland on charges of kidnapping and murder of the twenty-one year old woman.  The defense strategy is simple. They allege that Nathaniel was passed out drunk at a party when someone took his car, picked up Samantha and murdered her.   

The defense team hopes to create reasonable doubt by attacking the   evidence cops have accrued.  In   opening statements,  the lead defense said that DNA found on the murder victim did not come from the accused but from other unknown persons. 

The prosecution is led by Byron Gibson, a towering and articulate black man who led off with what seemed a damning opening statement. He revealed a host of facts to the jury and outlined for them what they would hear in the coming days.

Samantha’s cell phone was found in his car along with his own.  They were tracked together until approximately 2:27 a.m., just twenty minutes after she got into Rowland’s car.

According to prosecutor Gibson, Rowland’s phone continued to ping after Josephson’s powered off. Authorities were thus able to track the vehicle to the defendant’s family home in New Zion, South Carolina.   Rowland’s home is just two miles from  the isolated rural dirty road where two turkey hunters found the dead body of Samantha Josephson.  The location of the victim’s body is estimated to be sixty-five or seventy miles from where Samantha first stepped into a predator’s vehicle after an evening at the Bird Dog Lounge.

   If Rowlands is found guilty, it will be partly because he’s one of the dumbest criminals in homicide history as well as one of the most brutal.  Samantha had more than thirty stab wounds all over her body from head, neck, and even her feet. A forensics pathologist report says that she had over one hundred total wounds inflicted upon her person by her assailant.

All things considered I don’t see how any defense team could keep Rowlands from being convicted of the charges, barring an anomaly like jury nullification.

  

“My Brilliant Friend” was a book before it became a TV series.

 

You’re supposed to read the book before you watch the film (or the series) but I didn’t like the book  or thought I didn’t like the book and so I thought I wouldn’t watch the series.      I might have long ago called “My Brilliant Friend” a chick flick series and made excuses not to watch the film the same way I made excuses about not reading the book but I’m a reformed man and just a little bit smarter now.

In any case,  my wife had me watching the seasons one and two of the series with her. The reason I succumbed so easily was because when the pandemic hit I took the opportunity to  work on learning the Italian language. I’ve been watching lots of Italian movies — subtitled.

The “My Brilliant Friend” series is in Italian, with heavy use of Neapolitan dialect.  So the fact that these languages of Italy can be so dissimilar, and have such different expressions and meanings, is fascinating.

I absorbed a little Sicilian from my mother and grandparents who were born there.  My father came from a small town about seventy miles from Naples so I picked up a little of that dialect from him.  If my language acquisition proceeds at a snail’s pace, at least I got some validation from the series to sooth my insecurities about speaking in a bastard tongue.  I’m not sure whose tongue is really the bastard tongue but I digress. . .

So the  topic of this discussion is book v. film.  And I already said that my first encounter with the book was a fail.  I might have been smarter and looked into it more because only recently did I find out “My Brilliant Friend” was first written in Italian. This is pretty basic, I know, but did I ever say I was a genius?   

 One reason I rejected the first opportunity to read the book was because I was hearing about it everywhere  — on all the talk shows, the internet, and everywhere blah-blah-blah was being touted.   This kind of 4-walled publicity approach often indicates   the publisher is making a huge and expensive effort to create a blockbuster on somebody’s behalf while dozens of better books are unfunded, unsupported, and unnoticed.  I’m not saying that’s the case with “My Brilliant Friend.”  I don’t know yet.  I’ve only read ten pages of it so far in this second-life attempt.

   Yes, I’ve learned a few things since then.   As I look back I’m not even sure I didn’t like the book. I see now that maybe what I didn’t like was the translation.  I see now that the novel, because of its parochial nature, would be terrifically hard to translate into English.  Some of the things people say and do in Naples and Sicily cannot be understood anyplace but in those two regions.

  I have only recently understood what a difficult thing translation is, especially in a long novel which makes fundamental use of localisms and idioms.   A translation of a novel will always be quite a different book even while keeping  to the basic plot points.  The phenomenon is blatantly clear in translations of poetry, particularly where rhyme and metaphor are extant. 

What language transference cannot do with a novel such as "My Brilliant Friend"  is duplicate the actual feeling and meaning of words to   persons  not involved in the particular culture.  This unfortunate and difficult aspect of translation is experienced most  egregiously by those who watch ‘foreign’ films with sub-titles.  Just as there’s no direct translation of our Americanisms, there are no direct translation paths for many of the Italianisms in Elena Ferrante’s book. 

So this comparison of book to film  is of small importance to most people but that’s what I’ll try to do as I read Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend.” 

Lina Wertmuller's "The Basilisks" (restoredI) and She's Just Not Into Me.

 I saw one of Lina Wertmuller’s films a few decades ago when I was crushing on my teacher, an attractive, intelligent   California socialist. I didn’t know any better, just that the films were beautiful and idealistic. So was our teacher.   

 She presented a    world as we’d like it to be.  This included being a great fan of Che Guevara, without the political murders the regime orchestrated to rub out all traces of the former Cuba.   

I was crushing on this professor pretty bad. She liked me, I could tell, but it never went anywhere.  Or it never went where I thought it might go.  I was torn between  my professor and my gf  who around the same time announced she was gay.

 I was a schizo-homophobic.  While I couldn’t conceive of male homosexual relationships, gay relationships between women didn’t bother me not at all. In fact, it turned me on. The gf of my gf is my gf too.

 But I lost on both counts. People come and go. The more people you know the more likely the go.  Well, we’ll always have Palo Alto.

  I’m watching Lina Wertmuller’s first solo film (she had worked with Fellini on 8 1/2 and he had a big influence on her)  tonight, several decades after I’d first heard of her.  It’s called   “The Basilisks” (I’ve yet to discover why that title)  and it’s about tough times in post-war Sicily. 

Lots of unemployment.  Grinding poverty everywhere.  Mothers were having a difficult time finding suitable men to marry their many daughters.  A communist party vying with the social democrats for political power.  Nostalgic fascists yearning for the good ole days of Mussolini.

People were fatalistic, giving up hope except to survive.   The film was made with high consciousness regarding social class identity and the unsteady relationship between the north and south of Italy. 

One of my favorite scenes  is at the end.  I involves ‘Antonio’ who finally breaks out of the rut of his listless and deeply rooted existence and goes to Rome.  He comes back dressed differently, speaking differently, boasting to his old amicis of how wonderful it is — attractive women everywhere, jobs, culture, beauty — a paradise on earth!  He tells his buds he’s going back the very next day but while he continues to talk up Rome day in an day out he never goes back and falls into the old habits of idling the hours playing cards and cherchez la femme etc…

The film has been restored only recently and if you’re into that kind of thing you might want to take a look.  It’s on Amazon Prime, I should mention, but maybe elsewhere too. As I kid I heard much of the Sicilian and Neapolitan dialects from my parents and grandparents, but when I went to Rome two years ago, I felt embarrassed to engage for it wasn’t the language I was hearing there.

Well thanks to Basilisks and a few other films located in southern Italy (I just watched 16 episodes of “My Brilliant Friend” on HBO and it’s central locus is Naples) I’m now speaking a hodge-podge of dialect and proper Roman with pride and entirely without embarrassment.

And I don't care any more. . . 

    

AND THEN SHE WAS GONE, by Lisa Jewell (Reviewed Audible Version) Anthony Ventre

 

AND THEN SHE WAS GONE 

I finished listening to the audio version of Lisa Jewell’s “And Then She was Gone.” It’s a full 10 ½ hours of mostly pleasurable listening. Mostly pleasant because it’s a dark story of a child kidnapping.

I got the book  in audible form from our local library.    Some tribute must be paid to Helen Dunn, the actor/reader   who was awesome in rendering of the   principal characters.  I’ve never been tuned into that business of ‘voicing’ different characters and   didn’t realize that one single reader/actor was doing all the characters.  When I found out a single person was doing all the voices, I’m like ‘duh’, how is that possible?   

 Just about every novel has soft spots.  I prefer my fiction to be realistic, a contradiction in terms, I know.   But how convincing is the writer?  How true to life are the events depicted?     If a  writer requires too much of me in the way of suspending my sense of reality, I fall out of the magic bubble of imagination.  

The plot of “And Then She Was Gone” requires the reader to believe that the female perpetrator was  capable of artificially inseminating a kidnapped teen. You’re supposed to believe the   kidnapper   could have accomplished this with semen bought over the internet and a drug store syringe.  There is no description of   the procedure in vivo so the author apparently found the scene impossible to write convincingly.

One problem with credulity is not enough to make me quit reading.     The whole of this story was very good.  Ingenious, vibrant dialogue, realistic characters, surprises all along the way.      

 There are rules in fiction but there are no rules in fiction. Yes, another contradiction.   The novel begins in a third party omniscient POV but often switches into a first-person narrative. Shakespeare did that long ago and it’s become accepted practice.  The direct appeal of the character to the reader is effectively done here.   

In the audible version especially, they sound real.  The net effect is that you’re drawn into the stories each character tells.  There are charming frauds like Floyd who becomes a clueless accessory to the crime.  You feel for the mom and principal protagonist Lauren as her story tugs at your heart, not with violins and harps, but with a steady drumbeat of weirdness.    

Other significant characters are Lauren’s estranged husband Paul, her alienated daughter Hannah, and gone girl herself, Ellie.   I can’t forget Noelle, the hardened Irish maven who fronts well but haunts even better.  Each of these characters is well-drawn and vibrant; however a most conspicuous and bizarre personage is the precocious Poppy, a ten year old going on forty, as her father says.

You can’t   wrong with this intriguing and intricately woven plot and  cast of characters, most of them dinged up if not permanently dented.  “And Then She Was Gone” is a strong genre mystery with an insightful and often disturbing psychological edge.   As an aspiring writer, I learned from it.    

Germany: Ready to Jab at a Moment's Notice

Germany is out in front in the race to stop Covid-19.  The country expects to start immunizing people against the disease before the year ends.  Though there are several companies in various stages of development (including Phase 3), the German-American research and development alliance is closest to deployment. 

  BioNTech is a German company which has been working with New York headquartered Pfizer.  Final results in the U.S. Phase 3 studies are   available now and BioNTech-Pfizer could soon received emergency authorization for the vaccine’s use in November of this year.

Germans already have set up plans to distribute the vaccines among 60 vaccination centers rather than doctor’s offices.  The centers are already set up. This is a much more efficient way of distributing vaccines.  Aside from efficiency, one of the biggest challenges in Germany, as in other countries, is security.   

Theft is a large concern.  Shipments of the vaccine will be easier to track and monitor as they are transported from the secret German transport hub to the vaccination centers located throughout Germany’s 16 states.  A second concern is to insure that the first vaccines go to the intended priority targets — health care workers, the elderly,  law-enforcement officials and other clinically or institutionally vulnerable people.

  BioNTech and Pfizer are already producing millions of doses to be able to deliver on pre-purchasing contracts. BioNTech says that their vaccine will be ready to jab   hours after they get authorization from the European Medicines Agency (equivalent of F.D.A in the U.S).  

The vaccination centers are equipped with cooling facilities. The BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine can be stored at temperatures of up to 8 degrees Celsius for a week while for longer periods they must be kept at a temperature of -75 degrees. 

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I Voted Early and In-Person in New York

 

I voted for President Trump  early and in-person yesterday in New York so I’m positive my vote won’t end in a ditch, a drainage flume, or get burned up in a mailbox.  But with this being the People’s Republic of New York, neither would my vote count in the win column for Trump regardless.  Democrats own the electoral votes.      I was determined to vote for Trump in person even if I were dead.   

Besides voting in person  , I also voted for most of the down-ballot candidates on the Republican side.  I wasn’t expecting to wait  so long in lines but the fair weather was one factor.  The sun was shining brightly   and the temperatures were very comfortable. The voting lines were more than I expected but  not overwhelming as they are described in the national headlines.  I had to wait only about twenty to thirty minutes before I got to the machines.   

I have a theory about the long lines for early voting.  Since I’m living in Democrat dominated New York state, it’s probably better than a theory.  All those Democrats waiting in line are just as skeptical of the   new uncontrollable mail-in process as I am.  This even while the media seems intent on saying the lack of confidence in the electoral system is   entirely in the domain of  Republicans. 

No, it’s in the domain of common sense.  If a thousand people died suddenly of Covid-19, there would be hysteria and panic at CNN.  If a thousand votes get thrown away, burned, counterfeited, highjacked, counted double, not counted – none of that means much because CNN and its brethren are constantly telling you that such fears are absurd.

At the very least mine is  a protest vote, and maybe there was a silent majority in that unusually quiet voting crowd who will surprise.  It’s a pretty easy vote for me.  I prefer Trump’s plain speaking, argumentative hit and miss style to the unctuous  plagiarized campaign slogan prose of slickster Biden.  

The Hate-Trump crowd  knows damn well Covid-19 infections would be just as bad or even worse had Hilary Clinton won in 2016. And I’m pretty sure that, if Biden had been in the White House when the pandemic hit here, we’d have millions dead and the rest of  us with herd immunity. 

With Biden, we’d have to wait three years for a vaccine even if one developed by Pfizer-BioNtech, Moderna,  AstraZenica, or several other expedited  epidemiological concerns were available   next month. I really can’t countenance the way Democrats are taking the low road on something that benefits the country. It’s scurrilous.  If I could think of a worse word I would use it. Despicable maybe?   Getting all those pharma companies to work without fear of being guillotined by a leftist government is   the type of thing Trump does well.

I’m not a blind Trump follower with ghoulish eyes beaming   out of my skull.  I voted for Jeb Bush in the 2016 primary.  I voted for Trump in the national. When he won, I regarded him as an accidental president. I still do. But never in my wildest imagination did I think he’d do as well as he has for all citizens of America including minorities. Like JFK said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”       

 Trump’s public remarks occasionally annoyed me   but more often he communicated  some fundamental truths that the entrenched “expert” bureaucrats need to hear, however ineloquent.  Trump is a far better choice than the confused,   doddering, gaffe-ridden shadow-candidate the DNC puppeteers offered up in the hopes that a slavish  media would elevate him to viable status.   

Beyond the rhetoric, I’m very strong on Trump’s accomplishments, including his handling of the coronavirus epidemic. I might say especially for his handling of the epidemic which the Biden crowd  is cynically targeting.   I'm in agreement on just about every other policy position or change that Trump made but I'll save that for another time. 

 

Poetry & Hip-Hop

Sometimes I think writing poetry is taking the easy way out.  I think most people will agree that it is  easier than writing novels or non-fiction.   The poet doesn’t need to put forth a story line.  The meaning of a poem is supposed to come out through images and a creative and often ironic use of words.   Many of the poems I read are translated, perhaps that’s what gives me the feeling sometimes that a poem which has provoked my interest, at some point, will seem to fall off a cliff.

 But yes, poems are fun, fun to write even if the subject is tragic, wherein the poem can be said to be ‘redemptive’ or ‘healing’ or both.  I suppose a reader of poetry might find comfort in a poem but really any healing or redemption would accrue only to the person writing the poem. 

I’ve listened to some really good poetry and some really bad poetry in the genre called ‘hip-hop.’ I can only guess how others feel about it but my same judgement would apply to the kind of poetry people think of when someone says ‘poetry.’ 

There’s a lot of uninteresting published poetry out there in what we   call ‘free verse.’  In my mind, all poetry is on the same level, whether it comes to you from a gifted and creative hood rat or trailer park citizen or from academia.    Many people may disagree, of course, and perhaps they would be right.  I’m a flawed individual, open to improvement.  Perhaps someone   show me where I’m wrong in my estimation. 

 Hip-hop is often poetic, making use of the same conventions as high-brow poetry and sometimes to better effect.  It has a large audience. Huge numbers of people get meaning from it.       Highbrow poetry can mean something too but no one seems to notice when it doesn’t and no one dares criticize it: 

Was, Then Wasn’t

when a star fell

ruining my sky and leaving nothing

except a stray angel

to cancel the razor blades

the thin ice between my skin and the dark

melting away

brain pounding like a runaway train

following broken conversations

written upon the bricks of old walls

my heart about to open again or fall

once again to the rocks below

when suddenly awakened, breaking free

I clawed my way out of there

leaving that damned place forever

that dark hell

that place that was, and then wasn’t

Poetry Express: Why Do Some Poems Take Up More Space Than They Should?

The Paris Review emails me a daily poem.  Some of them I get but many of them I don’t.  It’s not that I don’t like poetry but sometimes it seems that people are trying to hard to be obscure or academic.  

Perhaps I’m too plebian. I listen to hip-hop and can find poetry there in the rhythm, placement,   irony, and inventive use of  common memes.  That’s not to say I could make a steady diet of it or that it’s  all so wonderfully poetic.

 I am put off by poems that make use of the empty white space on the page.   Like if there’s some sensation of flight and the words of the poem are placed so as to configure a bird or a plane.  Or maybe a cat figure forms the pattern for word placement. 

Fact is, I don’t need it.  If the image is expressed  , I can imagine the cat myself.  Maybe a different cat, maybe a better one. 

 So in the latest  poem sent to me, there are images of a scorpion.  I’ve seen scorpions. If you say scorpion, I see them in my mind’s eye. I don’t need to see the words slithering (yes, I know scorpions don’t ‘slither’)  on the page as they do in “ Monsoon by Eduardo C. Corral: 

Monsoon by Eduardo C. Corral Issue no. 228 (Spring 2019) Scores                of scorpions                                  honey-bright scorpions                   twist counter-                                        clockwise around my body                                     saw-toothed pincers shred                   my jeans & shirt                                           when I’m stripped completely                   all but two                                        scorpions stop clattering                   they scramble up                                        my left arm & shoulder                   press tack-                                        sharp legs against the arteries                   in my neck                                        I slowly reach for them                      expect a few                                           bloody sparks but instead                   of scorpions                                        my thumb troubles                   two warm letters                                        initials his initials                the scorpions                                        rattle twist clock-                   wise this time                                        saw-toothed pincers cut                   into my skin                                        I refuse I refuse                   to speak his name                                        the scorpions honey-bright                   come to a halt                                     raise their tails a bead of poison                glints on the tip                                     of each stinger the small bones                   in my tongue                                           break it starts                      to rain

Short Storyland: "Witness" by Jamel Brinkley

Jamel Brinkley

Perusing Twitter I saw someone posted a tweet complaining of disappointment endings to short stories.  I thought it was fair insight as I think of the short stories of Ernest Hemingway and some other writers of the genre.  Well, it's not a genre exactly -- well anyway, I found a modern short story in Paris Review that had a good ending.  The title and writer are shown above.  So what's the story?

In its most basic sense, it's about Bernice, Dove, and the narrator.  The narrator is Bernice's sister -- she lives in a tiny New  York City apartment.  Her brother, the narrator and writer presumably, comes from somewhere small to make it in the big city like his sister.  He has to sleep on the couch; there's only one bedroom of course.   Narrator can't find a job, not until the end, but that's only a side trip.  

The basic theme of the story is that brother and sister get alone just fine until Bernice meets a "dude" named Dove who hustles  a living as a DJ.  Bernice is a bit frivolous, given over to following her impulses.  Dove has a certain kind of mouth move that appeals to her and she marries him.  Yeah, that makes three in a tiny NYC apartment. 

Okay so,  if this short story is any indication, Jamel Brinkley is a talented writer who can get into your head with his internal reckonings.  He and his sister love and understand each other in a kind of intimate Frannie and Zoey way, with lots of inside humor, and crackling wit.  

Narrator looks down on Dove and with some reason. He's a vapid shallow character who doesn't have the depth of understanding that Bernice needs.   You do wonder why she married him.  The only thing I can figure is that she's a bit loose in her associations, and maybe she's become desperate to marry.  She has some kind of illness which comes into play later.   Tiny apartment also  plays a part as the writer/narrator reviles poor Dove every chance he gets.

What makes it particularly sad is the Dove is the kind of guy who sometimes doesn't understand he's being whipped.   Narrator seems to think that perhaps he's not whipping Dove hard enough to make an impression.  Narrator exhibits a persistent and increasing cruelty to Dove right up to the end of the story when Bernice becomes ill and dies. 

It's only at that point that Dove understands how deeply reviled he is, not only by the narrator/writer, but also by the mother of Bernice and her brother.  

The mother appears only intermittently;  there's no mention of a father.   I get the impression of a hard childhood somewhere far uptown.  I'm guessing her irrationality, wild accusations, and need to blame someone for her daughter's death serves to explain narrator/writer's cruel streak but who knows?

There's a slight racial component to the story but it's not preachy or didactic and it's really not about that so much as it is about who the main characters are, what they think, what they feel.  

Okay so back to the tweet about insufficient unsatisfying endings.  This one has Dove not going to Bernice's funeral.  There's a final encounter where narrator/writer "reaches out" to Dove, inviting him back to the apartment to get his crates of vinyl records.  

There's no great battle climax and that's to the good, just the  steady quiet decline of relationships that should have been better from the get-go and gradually got worse. 

First They Come for the Symbols: Fight over Columbus Statue in South Philly's Marconi Park

The Antifa Taliban who are everywhere shouting at the top of their lungs for the defunding of police departments should take a look at South Philadelphia where two groups of demonstrators clashed over a statue of Christopher Columbus who sailed  for Spain and made a pathway to the New World. 

The city of Philadelphia had already taken down a statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo, a staunch and strong-armed law and order man.   Columbus statues were recently toppled or taken down in Camden, NJ and in Wilmington, Delaware.  Now there were protestors demanding that the Christopher Columbus statue in South Philadelphia’s Marconi Park     be taken down.

 Only problem was that surrounding the statue was a determined crowd of  South Philadelphians who   want to keep the statue where it has been for decades. When the anti-Columbus crowd grew increasingly frustrated at not being able to get near enough to topple the statue or vandalize it, they  surged forward and were met with. . . well, shell I say overzealous indignation? 

Yes, well a few of the antifa-BLM demonstrators did get roughed up, none badly, perhaps a bit of South Philly detuning.  The news here is not protest but that there were present at Marconi Park an alleged forty police officers who, following directives from on high,  did not interfere with the rude exchange of opinion. 

   There was one chubby fellow crying that the police “did nothing” and “should have helped us” and so forth.  There was a young female college student who also testified to the lack of action on the part of the police.  But while Columbus’ defenders were as angry  and vocal as the madding crowd, it was a minor dustup. The conflict was about  as   vigorous as a schoolyard fight amongst third graders. 

Still, this nameless naïve person whom shall be referred to as “Chubby Boy” or perhaps “Chubby White Nerd” was absolutely astonished he got the bum’s rush by a Columbus defender.  He should really bring his outrage to the mayors of at least a dozen cities who are calling or taking calls for  the abolishment and/or “defunding” of police departments a la CHAZ – the Seattle looney-bin acreage where cops abandoned their precinct under orders from the Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.  The message of the official panderers like Durkan is “don’t escalate” and those were the orders also given by some unnamed official in Philadelphia. But apparently following even those instructions, the after-market quarterbacking resulted in one police leader being fired. 

The hypocrisy is fairly typical of the “defund” crowd.  They don’t support police until they need them. And when someone else does need them they do their best to hinder officers from doing their job. 

Yes, we know there are some bad actors among   police ranks but overall those are statistically insignificant. Most American cops are good-willing, of good characters, and devoted to keeping people like Chubby Boy (mentioned above) safe.   Anyone who doesn't understand this should try their antics and complaints in other countries -- Argentina, Russia maybe? See what happens when you throw bricks or paint on a cop.

Surprising as it may be, there are still people with a deeper understanding of the unusual challenges and hurdles police face today .  

You can read about those people and other news here: https://6abc.cm/2YCK2jy