Amid the idiocy of current news I find respite, even comfort from that phrase for it reminds me of what some people are capable of doing. The phrase is a passage from the Book of Ecclesiasticus also known as the Wisdom of Solomon. (The Thought Police who react to the use of the noun ‘men’ are advised to take up the matter with the author, Solomon.)
Today the three men who come to my mind were Dwight Eisenhower and John Steinbeck, and Bob Hope. I don’t suppose either name means much to most people these days, and so I will venture are few words of introduction.
Eisenhower was a general on whose order 1.2 million soldiers invaded Normandy France in 1944. Later he was a two-term president of the United States. When he retired in 1960 he made a pilgrimage to France. It was not a victory lap. There were no parades. He did not go to Paris to receive accolades. Rather he went to the war cemeteries in Normandy sixteen (16) years after the fact. The pictures need no annotation. These men died on his order and he knew it, just as he knew some of them personally.
John Steinbeck was a writer, mostly novels, but also journalism. In that same war, at forty plus years old, he followed twenty-year old American solders into battle. The dispatches are collected under the title Once There was a War for the literate.
Without a doubt the most compelling of many remarkable accounts is his observation of the comedian Bob Hope in an army hospital ward. Read it and weep.
We have need for more of their kind today. These three needed no gold to affirm their worth, neither in their own eyes nor ours.
Talk of a military parade reminded me of Eisenhower who needed no such parade, and a conversation with a reader at breakfast the other day called John Steinbeck to mind, When Eisenhower comes to my mind the first thing I remember is his face in the city of the dead in Normandy, while with Steinbeck it is report of Bob Hope among the dying. Morbid I suppose, yet uplifting, too.
IMDb meta-data is runtime of 2h 11m, rated 8.1 by 1,600 cinematizens.
DNA: Czech & Slovak.
Genre: Docudrama.
Verdict: Remembered.
Tagline: 20 August 1968.
Mirroring the macro in the micro, the film covers the last days of the Post War Communist regime, the short-lived Prague Spring, and the Soviet repression. The microcosm centres on a technician employed by National Radio, who has tenuous custody of his younger brother after the accidental deaths of their parents. His aim is to keep younger brother out of a state orphanage in the workers’ paradise, which institutions are more like labour camps than schools.
Trying to protect his younger brother from his own foolishness, older brother gets enmeshed in spy-and-counter-spy. All the individuals are trying to survive in the whirlpool, or even to protect others, but, well, it just isn’t possible. (The only cardboard characters are the thugs, and, as always, there is never a shortage of such ‘willing executioners’ per Christopher Browning.)
To the regime, having a cookbook in French is suspicious, kind of like having a tattoo or writing a school newspaper op-ed. One hopes hours were spent trying to decode the recipes for proof of treachery. (In East Germany the Stasi did just that.)
The film integrates archival footage very well at several points. I caught glimpses of many places we visited in Prague a time ago. One of the sites was the Monument to the Victims of Communism, which is regularly defaced by those who lament the passing of that regime. That vandalism seems to emphasis the point of the memorial.
During the Cold War, Czechoslovakia had the reputation of being the most tolerant of the Warsaw Pact regimes. Even so between 1948 and 1968 there were 18 re-parenting wellness camps for tens of thousands of political prisoners who did forced labour, some in uranium mines free from nanny OHSA regulations to be sure. None of the camps were in El Salvador. The following data cover the 20-year period 1948-1968 by this lenient regime against a population of 9-millions. For political offences:
205,486 arrested,
170,938 forced into exile,
4,500 deaths in prison,
327 shot while trying to escape, and
248 executions for political crimes, including a defiant school teacher, a woman.
See Jana Rehab, Czech Political Prisoners (2012) for many more gruesome details.
It is worth remembering that this horror story followed on the heels of the Nazi occupation and dismemberment of the country with attendant genocide, slave labour, and forced relocations. No doubt some thought these to be the good old days, too.
I viewed the film in part in juxtaposition against the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal.
***
I made the acquaintance of some of these 1968 displaced persons while I was in grad school. What was curious was that the 1956 Hungarian refugees resident in the vicinity, were hostile to the 1968 Czechs for reasons only they knew. But the hostility was evident even to this outsider.
Now and again I try take advantage of the Dendy Cinema multiplex nearby until I review at the screenings. However this one was part of a Czech & Slovak Film Festival and not the usual Hollywood sound and colour pablum, so off I went. We are going to see another, lighter entry soon.
By the way, it was a full house in the largest theatre so the event was a success for the organisers. Well done.
Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008) by K. A. Bedford.
Good Reads meta-data is 390 pages, rated 3.58 by 531 litizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: WA aka Sandgroper.
Verdict: I couldn’t resist the title.
Tagline: ‘Are we there yet?’
‘It’s a job,’ says the technician who needs both the money and the distraction that work brings. The machines themselves are simple but the regulations from the Department of Time and Space are not. Then there are the punters who can be unbelievably stupid. Just as they drive cars like the fools they are, so, too, they drive the time machines!
Quick primer on Time Machines for those who skipped that class in Future History. They travel in Time, that is why they are called time machines. Doh! They do not travel in space. If your time machine is parked next to the car in your garage in Perth, that is where it stays. You can set it for 1660 or 1912, yes, but when it arrives at that time, it is still at that very same spot. Most time travel is backward (1) where people go back to change things for better (and always fail: Kismet) and (2) tourism to witness events. There is little forward time travel since there is no tourist draw, and most do not want to find out about themselves in the future. Yet there are exceptions.
Technician is having a bad day: Very. His McKinsey manager is tsk tsking about his Key Performance Indicators. His estranged wife wants more money. The new apprentice is even more hopeless than the last one. No matter how expensive the beans, the workshop coffee machine produces brown dishwater. Just when he thinks things can’t get worse, they do. His latest repair job is…. Well, his latest repair job revealed a corpse in the time machine. Ah, that would explain why it didn’t work. Usually a corpse in a time machine is a bird, rat, or a cat. Not this time. Bad, very.
Worse, the corpse and machine seems to have come – sit down – from the future.
***
Technician is weighted down with the mandatory tiresome backstory.
Isaac Asimov’s End of Eternity came to mind.
Gave up in confusion, needed a flowchart, run-sheet, and a scorecard. About halfway my confusion became terminal.
Good Reads meta-data is 288 pages rated 3.94 by 2419.
Genre: krimi.
Verdict: The Best.
Tagline: It’s hot!
Lew Archer’s humane instincts put him in the middle of a martial dispute when feeding pigeons, while waiting for a bus, he shares his peanuts with a small boy. Soon he is in the crossfire between a loutish father and a battered mother as they quarrel over the boy. Knowing he should walk away, Archer does not.
Ever the loner himself, Archer wants to help this broken family and so the inner knight errand mounts his faithful dusty blue Ford sedan and sets forth. Once in, it’s all in for Archer. As he goes to and fro, asking questions against the background of a raging wildfire like a conquering army pounding and destroying all in its path slowly approaching the city.
While the prose is spare the metaphors are rich (albeit sometimes too rich and forced) as Archer moves through the body politic of SoCal – noir in the sunshine, indeed. Once broken, families repeat that break through the generations it seems. The title should be ‘Men’ not ‘Man.’ Much of the action stems from fragile masculine egos.
The people he questions seldom want to talk about the most important things. The façade of normality is just that, a screen.
***
Ross Macdonald
I sometimes think Macdonald is THE krimi writer. One critic said he wrote the same story twenty-five times in varying ways. Each time with more depth, insight, or empathy. It was story about a broken family.
Good Reads meta-data is 328 pages, rated 3.22 by 45 litizens.
Genre: Thriller: Species: Paranormal.
DNA: Black Swan.
Verdict: A change of pace.
Tagline: Elves and demons rove Western Australia! ‘Get your amulets right here! Three potions for the price of two!’
A few years after The Great War, a widowed English novelist moves as far away as possible from bad memories to Western Australia, hours south of Perth. She lives alone, hires servants, writes novels, wears old clothes (at times those of her dead husband), has plenty of money, never attends church, drives cars, does not coif her hair, is reclusive, each and all of these facts shocks the locals. They, however, are divided among themselves over which of her unnatural behaviours is the worst. So far she hasn’t started smoking or playing loud music, but can it be long before she starts this devil worship? So they may well ask. The vicar reviles her wanton ways! He is small-minded hypocrite. A touch of realism there.
(A similar reaction to women of that time on the other side of the world is On the Rocks, discussed elsewhere on this blog.)
Then, unbidden, a favourite aunt from Old Blighty makes the two-week odyssey by air (circa 1926) to warn Novelist of impending doom! Doom? Doom. However, once arrived, Aunt is so exhausted from the sojourn, confused by her fatigue, ill from motion sickness, disoriented in the unfamiliar surroundings that she cannot quite say what impelled (or paid for) her impromptu trek, apart from some strange dreams involving Novelist. These dreams, as she recounts them, are very detailed and accurate about places and objects auntie has never seen. We have entered Spooktown in the Twilight Zone.
Late 1930s
Side Bar: spiritualism reached a high in the years after World War I. The wholesale slaughter of a masculine generation gave impetus to efforts to penetrate the beyond. While many charlatans and crooks took advantage of that demand, there were also well-meaning people who explored the occult. One of them is Novelist’s neighbour, who spends most of spare time, when not reading up on magic, building a time machine with correspondence from H. G. Wells. Get the idea?
The plot pot thickens when she receives first a menacing letter, then a threatening one, and finally a blackmail demand. Since she has only been there a few months, none this makes sense…in this world.
Daunted, she nonetheless fights back with scant assistance and resources, not including the local plod whose only apparent interest is football. Another touch of realism that. Being other worldly the story does not stick to Ronald Knox’s decalogue for krimis. Ergo, in the last 50+ pages all kinds of new information and characters enter. It’s just not natural!
***
A change of pace from my usual reading. It is well written and thoroughly contextualised with differentiated characters. The detail is rich but not suffocating. It ends on an open door that suggests a follow-up novel.
John Rossi, The 1964 Phillies: The Story of Baseball’s Most Memorable Collapse (2005). Rev. ed. (2024).
Good Reads meta-data is 192 pages, rated 3.0 by 1 litizen.
Genre: History: Species: Baseball.
DNA: Philly.
Verdict: [Here I go again.]
Tagline: They were all out!
In 1964 an unprepossessing Philadelphia Phillies baseball team led the National League for 74 consecutive days in the home stretch, World Series tickets were printed, and…the Cinderella Cardinals from St Louis won it all. Huh? That result set two records. For the Phillies: it was longest lead that late in the season to dissipate, and for the Cardinals: the largest deficit overcome in the shortest time.
The Phillies lost ten straight games in the last fortnight of the season and sank from view. It all started with Chico Ruiz, who stole home, when he shouldn’t have. Tsk, tsk, tsk. (I have decried this event in other posts and will not add further salt to that old wound.)
Much ‘If only’ second guessing, inevitably, fills the pages about rosters, pitch calls by the catcher, pinch hitters, pitching rotation, use of the windup rather than the stretch, line up cards, batting order, even leads from first base, each and all in an effort to solve the mystery of the debacle.
But, at the end, as the author admits, there was no mystery. Or rather the mystery is how an average team like the Phillies, played well enough to lead the balanced Dodgers, the big bats of the Giants, and the laser pitchers of St Louis for so long.
In 1964 only two Phillies made the National League All Star team for the only time in their careers. The one Hall of Fame player on the roster, pitcher Jim Bunning, had started slowly, and was not an All Star that year, but later he carried the team much of the way. (Stock broker by winter, in the season Bunning always wanted the ball. Two days between starts was fine with him.) Further evidence for the mediocrity of the team is that in the following years it sank still further and still faster, as did most of the members of the 1964 roster who disappeared from view.
The success in 1964 was a compound of good luck, good management, and some grit. Though of course in unfailing hindsight the manager — Gene Mauch — was blamed for the defeat, rather than congratulated for the successes of his tactics of ‘little ball.’
‘Little ball?’ asked the fraternity brothers, who have forgotten everything and learned nothing. It means advancing the runner and playing for one run at a time, and relying on defence and pitching to keep the game close. Ergo it involves hit-and-run, hitting behind the runner, bunting for hits, squeeze bunts, tag ups for sacrifice flies, advancing on fielder’s choices, double steals, going deep into pitch counts, and delayed double steals, playing the infield in, pitch outs, double cutoffs, and so on. It also places a premium on defence in the middle of the diamond with a sound double-play combination, a strong-armed centre fielder, and a smart catcher who can block the plate. The final piece of the puzzle is a bullpen of strike-throwing relief pitchers.
Manager Mauch also played ‘money ball’ avant le mot by platooning in several positions, notably left field and first base, to give hitters an advantage.
As the day-by-day, game-by-game report in this book shows the Phillies ran out starting pitchers in August. Instead of five, as the coach’s manual says, they had two. The others had one problem or another. Things were so desperate that the starting pitcher in one crucial game during the slide was an 18-year old called from the minors getting in his first major league game. A promising left-hander had a shoulder injury in June that made every pitch painful. The two other right-handers in the pre-season planning each became unreliable. One had lost confidence in himself (later compounded by the Ruiz incident): he overthought everything and simply did not want the ball in baseball speak. The other, much less experienced pitcher, seemed resigned to losses before he threw the first pitch and the manager lost confidence in him.
John Rossi
While Rossi refers to the crowds attending games, and quotes often from the press, there is little about the social impact more generally on the city. It was a year of turbulence and, I have seen it asserted elsewhere, that the Phillies’ successes had a positive influence on the communities of the city by giving disconnected people something in common that transcended their own grievances and adversities.
Good Reads meta-data is 336 pages, rated 3.88 by 6784 litizens.
DNA: Brit; Species: Royalty.
Verdict: One liked it.
Tagline: Look what Santa Claus brought.
Members of the British royal family travel to Sandringham House on the Norfolk Coast for Christmas, where they have been many times before. The peace and quiet they seek is unsettled by a macabre discovery on the beach, teenage drug dealing, a hit and run accident or was it, and a death in odd circumstances. Sandringham sounds worse than Newtown on Saturday night.
While plod takes these events one at a time, with years of experience at the jigsaw puzzle of humanity, Her Majesty sees a whole, and sends forth her paladin, one time artillery officer Rozie to connect the dots.
Bennett makes the members of the royal family human, and in the main likeable. Similarly the local residents are several and varied. Nor are the police reduced to cardboard.
Still I niggle, Her Majesty seems to be in a hurry and has three direct confrontations that cut against her softy-softly approach. The sulky teenager who appears early on then disappears, and likewise the drug haul that misled the police also goes poof! There is also a reference to Greenland that had me consulting Google Earth to see if it made sense. Barely. Contrived.
Finally, I found it hard to keep the characters straight. Those with titles have three names: their aristocratic one, a birth name, and a nickname. It was like reading a Russian novel with patronymics, eponymics, retronymics, and nymics.
For pedants only: Sandringham House is the personal and private property of Elizabeth Mountbatten née Windsor. It was purchased by her father and willed to her. Wikipedia says it has, get this, between 100 and 200 rooms! ‘Between.’ That made me wonder about all the staff. The maids, janitors, tradesmen to keep the place running. Then there are the grounds of the estate, which are extensive. Who pays them?
Third in the sequence and one hopes for a fourth in due course.
Good Reads meta-data is 336 pages, rated 3.88 by 6784 litizens.
DNA: Brit; Species: Royalty.
Verdict: One liked it.
Tagline: Look what Santa Claus brought.
Members of the British royal family travel to Sandringham House on the Norfolk Coast for Christmas, where they have been many times before. The peace and quiet they seek is unsettled by a macabre discovery on the beach, teenage drug dealing, a hit and run accident or was it, and a death in odd circumstances. Sandringham sounds worse than Newtown on Saturday night.
While plod takes these events one at a time, with years of experience at the jigsaw puzzle of humanity, Her Majesty sees a whole, and sends forth her paladin, one time artillery officer Rozie to connect the dots.
Bennett makes the members of the royal family human, and in the main likeable. Similarly the local residents are several and varied. Nor are the police reduced to cardboard.
Still I niggle, Her Majesty seems to be in a hurry and has three direct confrontations that cut against her softy-softly approach. The sulky teenager who appears early on then disappears, and likewise the drug haul that misled the police also goes poof! There is also a reference to Greenland that had me consulting Google Earth to see if it made sense. Barely. Contrived.
Finally, I found it hard to keep the characters straight. Those with titles have three names: their aristocratic one, a birth name, and a nickname. It was like reading a Russian novel with patronymics, eponyms, retronymics, and nymbics.
For pedants only: Sandringham House is the personal and private property of Elizabeth Mountbatten née Windsor. It was purchased by her father and willed to her. Wikipedia says it has, get this, between 100 and 200 rooms! ‘Between.’ That made me wonder about all the staff. The maids, janitors, tradesmen to keep the place running. Then there are the grounds of the estate, which are extensive. Who pays them?
Third in the sequence and one hopes for a fourth in due course.
IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 2h and 9m, rated 7.0 by 20,000 cinemtaizens.
Genre: Sy Fy.
DNA: Verne.
Verdict: Fun.
Tagline: What waits below?
Pretty sure I saw this on the wide screen as a boy, and marvelled at it. The character studies stand the test of time even if the special effects don’t. James Mason is, well, James Mason. He can’t act but he doesn’t have to. Arlene Dahl can and does. Then there is Pat Boone in his underwear. Something for everyone. Though I thought the villain wouldn’t scare fourth graders.
Declaration: I have tried to read Jules Verne and found his prose impenetrable. So mannered, so stiff, so roundabout, so ponderous, so unyielding that I did not make it past page 10 in either 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or Five Weeks in a Balloon.
There is a genre of JCE films. I count more than dozen on the IMDb using that exact title, and many others with variants.
IMDb meta-data is a runtime 1h and 30m, rated 4.1 by 2,000 extended family members.
Genre: JCE
DNA: Verne.
Verdict: Uncle! I gave up.
Tagline: Bore.
A consistently tedious rendering of the Jules Verne story. Made for television to eclipse a big budget version due out later that same year. In this mishmash, a corpulent child (actor) plays the romantic lead, disbelief was disbelieved right there. Later he is superseded by another as if the producers also disbelieved the early scenes.
Declaration: I didn’t make it to the end.
There is a cottage industry of JCE films. One day I might try to watch a few of them for a comparative perspective. Or I might hit my foot with a hammer instead. Hard to decide which would be less painful.
