I have learned and forgotten this word more times than I want to say, since my brain is mysteriously convinced that it should mean corrugated. Where did that risible idea come from?
Risible - capable of laughing, disposed to laughing, arousing laughter. My dictionary supplies a nice use of the noun form: “Our risibility supports us as we skim over the surface of a deep issue.” - J. A. Pike
I finally got around to posting this. I did it last spring, from a photo taken a few years ago, with late afternoon light from mom’s window. Ira looks much older now! I’m almost done with a pastel of Ian with some interesting light from venetian blinds. I’ll post that soon.
Vatic - from the Latin vates - seer, prophet, related to OE woth - poetry, wuot - madness.
Prophetic, oracular.
Are poetry and madness so closely linked?
This book has been widely compared to The DaVinci Code, but it certainly deserves better company than that. It was advertised mainly as an intellectual mystery, but I found it more of a melancholy musing on growing up, friendship, relationships with parents, and the danger of obsessions that pull one away from life. There is a depressed tone that runs through the book, spoken in the voice of narrator Tom, a Princeton student who cannot reconcile his own fascination with an ancient book with his conviction that his father’s similar obsession ruined his life. The source of this fascination is the Hypnerotomachia, a Renaissance romance whose hidden content, in fact, seems to be dangerous to all who come near it.
The world of the scholar is shown in its best light in Tom’s friend Paul, who seeks to decode the Hypnerotomachia, but The Rule of Four is mostly an argument for the withering effects of a scholarly life. Time is the ever-present enemy in this book, leaving college professors beached without an original idea left in their heads, wandering Princeton bitterly or seeking surrogates in the young. “If we are particles in a sea of distance, exploded from an original whole, then there is a science to our solitude. We are lonely in proportion to our years.” While the book celebrates the friendship of four men, it is clear that even these close friends, bound together with the intensity of youth, cannot stand against this tide.
The book is at its most lyrical dealing with such depressing thoughts. While I have read complaints that this is a distraction from the mystery, I think instead that the book falters somewhat in the passages that deal with exploration of the Hypnerotomachia, falling into a rather crude straight-guy routine, with Tom asking questions in order to elicit complex explanations from Paul. The unraveling mystery is fun, and, when solved, casts an ironic light on the whole book, but I didn’t actually find it the heart of the book. Rather it’s the book’s world-weary quality that lifts it above a simple mystery.
The writers have keen eyes for detail and the ability to write truly lovely descriptive passages: “In a dream once, I visited Firestone [Library] in the middle of the night and found it full of insects, thousands of bookworms wearing tiny glasses and sleeping caps, magically feeding themselves by reading stories. They wriggled from page to page, journeying through the words, and as tensions grew and lovers kissed and villains met their ends, the bookworms’ tails began to glow, until finally the whole library was a church of candles swaying gently from left to right.”
This luminous love of books will be badly beaten up by the book’s end. You can almost imagine Princeton students forced, like recovering addicts, to stay away from them forever.
Millennium Actress is the third animated film I’ve seen by Satoshi Kon, director of Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers. This falls somewhere between the other two.
Like Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress explores the faceted nature of reality, in this case through the fractured memory of an aging actress recalling her film career, interwoven with her lifelong obsession – the search for a political agitator she fell in love with as a young girl. It’s often difficult to tell if scenes are excerpts from the actress’ films, her memory, or dreams. Transitions between scenes are abrupt and very creative, adding to the dislocated quality that Kon has mastered. He succeeds in creating a visual analogue for memory, with its elisions and unexpected leaps through time.
As in Tokyo Godfathers, the animation is lush and detailed. Satoshi Kon uses the main character’s film career as a means to cut through large swaths of Japanese history, from feudal castles to bombed-out cities in World War II. The characters, costumes, buildings, and landscape are beautifully rendered, and the film is a visual feast from beginning to end.
But Millennium Actress lacks the emotional heart of Tokyo Godfathers. Though the film’s subject is overwrought passion, even the director seems a little uncomfortable with the ridiculous side of this unrequited love. He frames the love story by introducing an interviewer and cameraman who follow her through her memories, providing occasional comic relief; in my opinion the device is silly, although the interviewer’s real love for the actress adds some emotional depth. Ultimately, as a story, the film is about lifelong self-indulgence and unwillingness to live in the present. It is the visual structure of the film that elevates it, not the tale it tells.
(The cat with the long hair is Ian.)
I fell in love with Felicia at my vet’s clinic when she sat on my shoulder and purred and purred. Our friend Terry works there, and we set out to look at some orange tabbies she told us about, but fate intervened. Allen believes that if you go to look at cats, cosmic forces are at work and you have to come home with someone, and she was glued to my shoulder, so what else could we do?
Felicia is a very self-assured cat. From the moment she came in the door she figured the house belonged to her - no hiding under beds or staking out a little corner to defend. I think she must have been in a home where she was well loved, perhaps the only cat. She knows the sound of cat food cans opening for sure! I wonder why in the world they gave her up? She is extremely affectionate and likes people; we haven’t found anyone she won’t approach. Kids can pick her up and carry her around, which Ian and his friends love. She is contented, sweet, and quite feisty, a little cat gem.
Felicia came from the Benarda Clinic, where she had been for several months. Someone brought her into the Humane Society in February or March of 2004. They describe her as about 7 years old (hard to believe, since she looks and acts like a young cat). She had an abscess, so Benarda took her to try to heal her. She ended up needing an operation, and then the clinic kept her, hoping to find someone to adopt her. Us!
I believe Jonathan Carroll has a truly great book in him, and this one comes as close as anything I’ve read of his. It’s flawed by an ultimately silly plot line about alien interference in human lives, but the heart of the story is purely human. Frances McCabe has travelled far and hard to find peace of mind before returning to his home town and becoming a police chief. He was a cocky youngster, a troubled juvenile delinquent, a Vietnam veteran - all selves he has absorbed willingly or unwillingly into bemused middle age. He is astonished to find himself where he is: a respected man in the town that expected him to end up in jail, best friend of a man who repeatedly arrested him as a youth, married to a woman he adores, though his adolescent self had thoroughly despised her. His past selves are by no means gone, surfacing in a fondness for losers, “the perfume of grilling T-bone steaks,” and a Ducati Monster motorcycle - “the evil ‘F*** me - I’m a god!’ sound of its 900cc engine alone is worth the price of admission.”
McCabe’s world begins to go awry when a three-legged, mottled, pathetic dog appears on his doorstep, dies, is buried, but somehow refuses to stay in the ground. Its carcass returns with a heartbreakingly lovely smell and a strange feather. McCabe suspects that someone in town is playing with his mind, but the story takes a far stranger turn when a strutting teenager begins to give him advice, and he recognizes the youth as his own adolescent self. McCabe will meet all his loved and unloved past and future selves before the story ends. The device that brings this to pass is so ridiculous that it damages the novel, but the real story remains McCabe’s unfaltering affection for his crazy life. His difficult past has made him caring, not cynical, and he is a keen observer of the world around him, seeing people and events with a hard-beaten sense of wonder and humor.
It’s rare to find a writer who can match a character sketch like this with the steady detail that makes it real, but Carroll has that ability. McCabe’s personality breathes on the first page: “Never buy yellow clothes or cheap leather. That’s my credo and there are more. Know what I like to see? People killing themselves. Don’t misunderstand; I’m not talking about the poor f***s who jump out windows or stick their sorry heads into plastic bags forever. No ‘Ultimate Fighting Championship’ either, which is only a bunch of rabid crewcuts biting each other. I’m talking about the guy on the street, face the color of wet lead, lighting up a Camel and coughing up his soul the moment he inhales. Good for you, Sport! Long live nicotine, stubbornness, and self indulgence.”
Carroll’s scenario in The Wooden Sea is the hero whose strength is put to the test, and the author has placed the Trials of Job in front of McCabe. Halfway through, a plague of locusts would be a welcome relief. Ultimately, though, it’s an uneven contest, for McCabe has been through fire before, and is as solid as they come. Unlike Job, he perseveres for his love of people, not his fear of the gods, and he will sacrifice no one but himself to their whims. His success comes at a huge price, but he pays it without question. He has been played with by the gods, even agreed to play their games, but the gods are certainly the worse by comparison.
I am surprised by the lack of internet comment on the optimism that runs through this book. Hope is certainly an unexpected late guest at the dark feast that Gibson began with Neuromancer. The author, creator of a dark future where our traumatized children inhabit virtual worlds while their bodies rot, seems to have looked up and caught a glimpse of the sun. We can wonder that the trauma of September 11, which reverberates throughout the book, has made his landscape far less bleak.
Cayce Pollard is Gibson’s most fragile and human creation. Her friends care for her. She emails her mom. (Did the word “mom” even appear in any of his other books?) She is numb with loneliness and grief for her father (missing on Sept. 11). Cayce has a strange ability to sight trends and recognize the unreal Real Thing – logos and advertising that will strike deep into the murky subconscious of our culture. She has an intense physical reaction to cultural icons like the Michelin man, and has made a living expoiting this odd skill in the field of advertising. From this alienating world of pattern recognition, where logos and brand names and Product seem to circumscribe her life, her hunt for the author of a series of cryptic internet videos, known only as “the footage,” takes her far afield into the heart of a very human story, where the motive for bleeding edge technology turns out to be fierce protectiveness for the wounded.
I found this book surprisingly comforting. Gibson, the high priest of cyber-alienation, holds out hope that our technology can connect us. We are not cyborgs yet. Pain hurts. And remaining human is not such a bad thing.
The Coffee Trader, Liss’s second historical novel about early capitalism, is much more about trade than about coffee. It includes a few interesting tales about the introduction of coffee into Europe in the 1600s (is there really a highly prized coffee made from the turds of monkeys that eat coffee beans?) and the side story of a neglected Jewish wife who finds a much-needed personality change in coffee, but it focuses on the trader of the title, Miguel Lienzo, and his machinations in the Amsterdam stock exchange in the 1650s. He stumbles on coffee by chance. Not yet widely known, it is mostly consumed by the small Turkish population of the city. Lienzo believes he has found the lifetime dream of a trader, a commodity on the verge of huge popularity, for he sees coffee as the future drink of commerce, bringing alertness and energy where the ever-present wine of the time dulls the senses and impairs judgement. Amsterdam is a vibrant financial center, and everyone has an eye out for a deal, so Lienzo embarks on a murky scheme to gain control of the European coffee market.
Lienzo is a Jew from Portugal, one of the Conversos who were forced to convert to Catholicism. They practice Judaism in secret, afraid even of other Conversos who could expose them to the Inquisition. Lienzo has learned subterfuge and secret dealings in his hidden life in Portugal, skills which turn out to be highly useful in the burgeoning Amsterdam stock market. Amsterdam became a financial center in the 1600s and was the source of many early capitalist innovations including the joint stock company and the shady world of futures: “a new form of commerce… that of buying and selling what no one owned and, indeed, what no one ever intended to own.” The Amsterdam traders learned to manipulate rumor as adroitly as stocks, and deceit and betrayal became their everyday tools. This corrupting influence of capitalism is the main theme of The Coffee Trader. It is full of details about the alienating life of money traders, who have no natural solidarity with their colleagues and are often driven to a kind of insanity by their love of money unconnected to human labor. While the book provides a rare and vivid view of early capitalism, it is sometimes hard to like, for all its characters are sinking into webs of deception. No one can truly be trusted in this world; even families are broken by betrayals. Lienzo is drawn deeper and deeper into shabby deals, floating of loans, and forgery of documents to keep his scheme afloat. He argues, apparently correctly, that these are the everyday tools of finance capital.
As in Conspiracy of Paper, Liss is at his best writing about the European Jews. Touched by the pervading corruption, the Jewish population of Amsterdam is unsettled and split. It is ruled by the Ma’amad, a dictatorial council that controls the Jewish Nation on points of faith but also, increasingly, on rules of commerce. The Council invokes cherem, ex-communication, on citizens whose main crime seems to be challenging Council members in trade. Lienzo is deeply grateful to be able to practice his religion openly, and wishes to think well of the Council, but becomes increasingly fearful of the Ma’amad when its leading member, Parido, uses the power of the Council to try to thwart Lienzo’s coffee scheme.
Conflicts arising from the oppression of Jews fill this book. Wealthy Jewish traders are fearful of the taint of bitterly poor East European Jews, using the power of the Council to ban charity and commerce with them. The Council forbids Jews from trading on the stock market for Gentiles, yet most Jewish traders must do so to live, forcing them into duplicity and secrecy they hoped to leave behind in free Amsterdam. One of the most interesting characters in the book is Hannah, from a Jewish Converso family in Portugal who feared “the loose tongues of women” and raised her entirely as a Catholic, with no knowledge of Judaism. When the family emigrates to Amsterdam, she is suddenly told she is a Jew and that she must follow Jewish practices to the letter. She now practices Catholicism in secret, a crime to her Jewish husband who has learned little tolerance in his own secret practice of religion. Her slow awakening to a sense of self worth, courtesy of the kick in coffee, is the only story of growth that the book offers.
It is not generally pleasant to watch a character sinking into corruption. The book is somewhat hard to read while Lienzo struggles to keep his coffee scheme afloat, sinking deeper into debt, spending money that isn’t his, and becoming increasingly suspicious of his colleagues. It pulls to a close with a surprisingly exciting duel over coffee prices on the Amsterdam exchange, but, by the time it is over, Lienzo, moderately wealthy from his success, has alienated himself permanently from his brother and looks forward only to further corrupt dealings. While the book is always intriguing in its details about trade and early capitalism, it is not entirely enjoyable. Someone untouched by the prevailing climate would have been a welcome relief.
Kage Baker is known for her time travel series about the Company (Mendoza in Hollywood, In the Garden of Iden). I couldn’t get interested in those, but found Anvil of the World, her first foray into fantasy, fun to read and well written. It’s an ensemble novel, created around a group of eccentric characters drawn together on a caravan ride. The strange religions of this world emerge as central to the plot. They include the Yendri, dreamy followers of a living god; the eminently practical Children of the Sun, who have an unfortunate lapse in their knowledge about birth control; and an unusual batch of conflicted demons, children of a demon king and the saintly living god. Baker’s main character is a retired assassin and unassuming caravan trader, named only Smith, who appears to hold the fate of the world in his hands; fortunately, he has a healthy disrespect for the will of the gods.
The plot is lively, and Baker’s writing style is witty and breezy, much less ponderous than her earlier writing. I hope she continues with fantasy
This is the last in Gemmell’s Stones of Power series; it’s notable mostly because Gemmell has wrapped up a bad series with a good ending. The earlier four books are immature in their writing style and plotting, but Bloodstone pulls the frayed plot lines together and turns Jon Shannow into the archetype for all Gemmell’s tormented heroes. The earlier books introduced a line of meddling immortals, posing from time to time as gods (Athena and Odin among others), and mythical figures including Merlin and Gilgamesh. The series ranges from Arthurian England to Atlantis (home, mysteriously, to the Biblical Noah) to Shannow’s post-Apocalyptic wild west. Time travel has allowed a paradoxical twist in which Shannow sends a 20th century missile back in time to initiate the cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis.
Bloodstone takes all these plot twists and manages to make them work. When Shannow sent the missile to Atlantis, he freed a fleet of 20th century planes from time stasis; they land, bringing a strange leader intent on rebuilding the earth to combat a mysterious evil. Who is the stanger? What is this evil only he knows about? With a parallel universe, an ur-villain, and a hero seeking redemption, what more could you ask from Gemmell? I don’t think this book would make much sense by itself, unfortunately, and I can’t recommend slogging through the whole series just for this, but if you can stand the earlier books, this one is rewarding in the solid, well written style I have found in Gemmell’s other series.
Directed by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress), this animated movie is an unusual journey into the life of Tokyo street people. Three derelicts — a drag queen, a drunk, and a teenage runaway — make a bedraggled, edgy life together on the streets. In the face of thugs who beat the homeless and a brutal Tokyo winter, they have formed a tattered family, protecting and helping each other. One day they stumble across an abandoned baby, and Hana, the drag queen, is determined to keep it. Hana is an outrageous actor, dramatizing every moment, but turns out to have a surprising amount of steel underneath his movable stage. With the reluctant help of Gin and Miyuki, he manages to get food and clothes for the baby, then sets out to find the mother. The journey forces the three friends to draw on all their resources, opening doors into their past lives and exposing the raw wounds that put them on the streets.
I have never seen a Japanese film that portrays this underside of urban life, making me wonder how accepted it was in Japan. The director refuses to pity his characters or make them objects of scorn. The drag queen in particular is full of life, breaking into song and holding onto a kind of nobility incredibly at odds with his circumstances. Gin is given to drunken self pity, but has an enduring and unjudging loyalty to Hana. Miyuki is a desparate street child, acting with tough bravado while terrified that she has broken from her family forever.
The animation is georgeous and detailed, much more a work of love than the somewhat stilted animation in Perfect Blue. Hana’s robes dance across the screen, and even the cardboard and tin shacks of the homeless are lovingly rendered. The final scenes on a windblown Tokyo rooftop are beautiful and eerie. Satoshi Kon’s animation work rivals that of Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away), and shows a clear affection for his characters missing in Miyazaki’s cool masterpieces. Watch the moment when Hana, homeless and without a dime to his name, breaks into an exuberant chorus of “Crimb every mountain, ford every stream…” The movie’s generous spirit is aptly summed up in a raucous, extremely strange Japanese version of “Ode to Joy” that plays over the credits.
It is a tribute to Haven Kimmel’s strengths as a writer that this is a good book despite its flaws. Her story draws together a troubled small-town pastor, a depressed young woman, and two traumatized children. In other hands this could have been very grim, but Kimmel has a light touch, a quirky sense of humor, and great love for all her characters. She has a poet’s eye for the perfect phrase and the perfect moment to stop. Langston and Townsend are complex and believable, not always likeable, but always intelligent.
As to the flaws, readers of “A Girl Named Zippy” will be surprised to find out that the young girl who refused to believe in God has grown up to find, not just religion, but esoteric and erudite theology. We are expected to believe that an entire small-town family and the town’s pastor share a deep interest in Kierkegaard, Nietzche, and St. Thomas Aquinas. At risk of insulting the intelligence of small towns, this reads like an uneasy projection of the author’s interests. While many great novels have dealt with religious doubts and searching, constant references to theologians are best left out.
The ending of the book is pleasing and beautifully told (Langston’s loving speech to the children going off to school is priceless), but not believable. While we have seen some signs of the pastor’s changing feelings toward Langston, we are unprepared for her about-face.
In spite of these flaws, the book is a beautiful rendition of people awakening from pain, no longer desparately alone. Kimmel is a writer to watch.
This Japanese animated manga (comic book) is a tense, violent exploration of identity and madness. The closest American equivalent is the film Waking Life, but, where Waking Life is a dreamlike movie, Perfect Blue is nightmarish, punctuated by graphic murders. The film traces teen idol Mima as she tries to become a film star, diving into near-porn because “it’s what I have to do as an actress” – or is she dreaming this all? She is pursued by a mysterious internet stalker who hates her for sullying his idol – or is she the stalker, murdering her film co-workers one by one? Her sole protector is her best friend – or is her best friend impersonating her and trying to kill her? Does Mima exist at all? Is she the fantasy of a young girl in an insane asylum?
I couldn’t possibly take this film in live action, but animation makes it tolerable. It’s not great or even particularly smooth animation, but it has a slightly demented feeling that matches the subject well. (It reminds me of the scene in Brazil where a torturer wears the mask of an insipid, smiling baby.) The colors are pastel, candy-colored, until blood splashes the screen; then the film reaches the kind of graphic art genius the Japanese do so well.