Incredibly Hulkish

Today I continued my researches into the lives of superheroes. It may surprise my readers, but my desire for martyrdom at the hands of communists has close competition from my longing to be a superhero. (I would be the first superhero with a mascot, which reminds me of the lovely dream I had last night where there were guinea pigs, rabbits, and chinchillas everywhere, so I just scooped up and hugged promiscuously as I went about my daily business, and was only saved from snuggling two precious skunks by the fact that my arms were already full of piggies.)†

Anyhow, I feel the Hulk's pain. I, too, have a raving beast lurking inside me, only it is unlocked by injudicious food choices (well, those are the things I can avoid.) The migraine burst out a few days ago because I stopped taking vitamins, ate some fake sugar, then ate some real sugar. None of this was on any large scale, but then again the poor Hulk explodes in green madness when he gets shoved: for some of us, suffering is entirely disproportionate to the cause.

I've really enjoyed these superhero movies. The fun bits lull the mind, which allows some quality, meditative thinking during the slow bits (i.e. dialogue, the last 40% of fight scenes or the last 75% of car chases). In fact, what the Hulk has to accomplish by sitting cross-legged and wiggling his diaphragm is brought about in me simply by watching him jump around destroying buildings.

Work awaits me early tomorrow morning, so ho for bed and responsible sleep. And in dreams what shall come to give me pause? Probably an enormous green guinea pig.

† WHAT does this say about my subconscious???

Time Is Passing

So why am I no closer to owning twelve dachshunds at once than I was this time last month???

Google's Black Box

Apparently Google's exact search formula is proprietary information and thus not available to puzzled bloggers, but it must involve something seriously weird. If you google "fruit vs vegetable", this post comes up in the top ten. Seriously weird as the intended audience was precisely one person, and the only proof I have ever received of the post having been read was from that same person, which was pretty okay with me since I put about as much time into the post as it took to type, and I type faster when I think less.

An image search of some sort (I haven't figured out what, yet) pulls up one of my favorite posts, but again the wider world has not really been knocking down my door begging for more of this special brand of something. So why do the fashion-hungry from Tel Aviv end up on my threshold?

"Jesse tree pictures" will again bring me up in the top ten, again with no apparent links.

A brief look at Wikipedia on PageRank tells me that a) Google does not live by links alone and b) something else that I don't really want to bother understanding right now and probably isn't important. Maybe showing up on Google is roughly equivalent to Aristotle's assessment of prophetic dreams: if enough of it happens, sooner or later a couple will ring true.

Now why am I not the first result if you search "dachshund Catholic communist"? (Actually, it's a fun and informative site on dachshund stamps.)

What a Nice Day

The plumbing fiasco involved tearing out portions of the newly-built wheelchair ramp and bring in a $1200 machine to send a camera through the sewer pipes. It turns out there is a chunk of wood in the pipes which was catching non-flushable paper products which someone has been flushing. The wood is several years old and is probably a relic of one of the many remodels. The plumber did angioplasty on the pipes and managed to shift the wood, as well as the sludge, but at some point the wood will probably need to be removed. For now *we* need to avoid flushing non-flushable items.

The phones (which had shorted out from the flooding) have been repaired, and the wireless internet has been fixed. It turns out we had a faulty router, so for the first time since I moved here I can download software updates and watch on-line videos of cute animals without continually resetting my internet connection. The FiOS guy was even nicer than in the commercials.

And I didn't have to cook dinner. Since we couldn't use the toilets in the main house, everyone went over to the second house and we got pizza from the best pizza place in Chambersburg, whose owner asks us to come by and get whatever we want whenever we want it, gratis.

Now we are back in our little house, all cozy and ready for bed. The downstairs is still a disaster (the second bout of roto-rooting sent even more sewage into the basement, and the cleaners are back and working as we speak), and we're praying the insurance will cover the damage. On the plus side, I will get to learn tiling when it comes time to replace the ruined flooring. I've heard that the key is not to eat the thinset or grout, no matter how much they look like icing.

And it was a beautiful, cool day, with patches of sun and rain, which I got to enjoy while drinking coffee and watching the plumber tear apart the decking. To be honest, I had a great time.

How Insufferably Dreary

At one point in Love in the Time of Cholera, the upstanding husband pushes aside the dinner his wife had prepared, saying, "this was not made with love."

Frankly, there are few things which seem more horrible than this.† But it does seem like going from the frying pan into the fire to be then trapped in an eternal groundhog day with an elderly Basil Seal (who is, I believe, simply the Ideal of Modern Man, enfleshed).

†In close competition is the husband on HGTV who, while showing off his master bathroom, said, "This is something we always wanted, a shower for two people, very romantic." Perhaps he figured that his bride had no interest in privacy since she was allowing national TV to go through her house.

Today I Was a Helpless Woman

Yesterday my shower was interrupted by urgent knocking. My co-worker's voice, kind and apologetic but determined to be heard, came through the door asking me to please stop showering as the sink downstairs was overflowing. I finished up quickly (not wanting to repeat the time in grad school when I forgot to finish washing my hair, then had to take an emergency rinse-shower five minutes before a class in which I was giving a presentation), then went downstairs where I was met by the bucket brigade. Apparently the accumulated filth of hours had been too much for the sewage system, and it had given vent to the overflow of its burden all over the basement floor. The plumber (a stop-gap job: our regular maintenance savior was out of town for the day) was called in, he diagnosed it as a problem restricted to the washer, and told us to feel free to shower. He'd be back in two days to fix the washer.

Today buckets were set forth just in case the plumber had been mistaken, and when I went downstairs after my shower (the fourth of the day) to see if it needed emptying I was met by a scene from Genesis. I took one look (and smell), turned on my heel and called A Man (the real one this time, as he had returned riding in a white Cadillac). I felt like a failure for doing so, but a great part of wisdom is knowing the limitations of one's own powers.

The Man came, saw, exclaimed, called rotorooter (one of my favorite words) and the carpet cleaners, banned us from using any water in the house, and generally made me feel like I'd been right to wring my hands and wail. Now I can return to Mr. Henry James and the joys of escaping solid mercenary provincialism with a light heart.

Choler with Some Melancholy

I gave up on Señor García Márquez, feeling that there is only so much outrage that a human frame can sustain at one time, even one as accustomed to it as mine. I'm going to hold off on further reading/ criticism until I've lived in Colombia for a while, which I hear is an important first step for proper appreciation. I'll leave the posts up as a case study in the choleric-melancholic temperament when it takes a literary turn. The choler gives rise to outrage, the melancholy to intense criticism, and the two together to strong reactions. Yes, even to me it sounds like I'm writing quotes for my future hagiographer.

This week my library bag includes two P.G. Wodehouse, two Isabel Allende, and three Henry James. I'm reading The Ambassadors right now. It hasn't taken him long to get down to brass-tacks. We're on page 21 and it is clear that this is a book about how a Yankee feels in Europe (i.e. about like a Westerner feels in the Northeast or a Southerner anywhere that doesn't involve mud and cotton, and I say this with the highest respect for these two substances, the equivalent for the Westerner being dust and weed). Slot A is "relative hick" and Slot B "relatively cultured", but with Southerners it's complicated by the fact that they're the only ones with any manners.

The two P.G. Wodehouse were The Catnappers and The Plot that Thickened, both excellent specimens of late Wodehouse (also known as his Dachshund Period, as the artist portraits of those years all involve a fat standard dachshund). I should have exercised some self-control and saved at least one for last, but instead I ignored Leah and went straight for Rachel. (Does anyone else think, "And finally for Rachel!"* when they turn their dinner-plate to the last remaining item, which is also the favorite one?)

In looking for the above photograph, I found the following libelous article from that venerable rag, Time. It is loosely inspired by a real event, which is that Wodehouse was taken prisoner by the Germans (along with all other male British subjects under the age of 60) when the Germans occupied the area of France where he, his wife, and his pekingese were living. While prisoner, Wodehouse made five broadcasts for the German radio, intending to assure then-neutral Americans to his relative well-being. The broadcasts were used in the United States as examples of brilliant subversive propaganda, being highly critical of the Germans,

One day, an official-looking gentleman with none of the Labour Corps geniality came along and said he wanted my car. Also my radio. And in addition my bicycle. That was what got under the skin. I could do without the car, and I had never much liked the radio, but I loved that bicycle. I looked him right in the eye and said 'Es ist schönes Wetter' [all he knew of German]- and I said it nastily. I meant it to sting.

but in England no one knew what their content was, and that ignorance was used to stir up patriotic fever by execrating Wodehouse. The news media and politicians involved should never be mentioned again without acknowledgment of their evil deeds (William-Connor-curse-him) which caused the kindly Wodehouse much pain. In the 1970s, England seemed to feel badly about it and made him a knight. Now our savvy modern media has returned to the original judgment but with important progress: the slander of a good man no longer serves patriotism.

*The allusion is both to Genesis 29 and to Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Tinkyada brown rice pasta

Usually when I hear someone say that a gluten-free pasta is just as good as wheat pasta, I think "what have they been doing to their wheat pasta?" I left a regretfully supercilious comment on Hélène's blog to that effect (regretfully as in apt to cause regret in its author, as in fact it has). It turns out that she should have responded "what have you been doing to your rice pasta?" In my defense, what I was doing was following the package instructions. The company's enemies placed a bit of foul libel entitled "energy saving cooking instructions" that reduces the rice pasta to more of an emetic than food, which I mulishly followed. But when cooked like normal pasta, with salt and at a rolling boil for a short period of time, it really is delicious.

It's good to be wrong now and again, if only for the novelty.

Housekeeping

I just updated my blogs list to delete hybernating blogs and add new friends. If you were deleted (or added), and feel upset about it, let me know and I'll reverse the change. Also, let me know if you want to be deleted or added.

Also, does anyone know how to edit the template to make my left column wider (preferably without making the right column narrower)?

Light Reading Masquerading as Literature

I'm trying to calm myself down again with regards to my friend Gabriel García Márquez. I just started The Autumn of the Patriarch, and have one more of his books to go.

Basically, it doesn't seem fair to expect a modern author to have a concept of form, or to require their concept of sexuality to have continued maturing after high school. It is the essence of modernity that neither of these happen. And it's not my Colombian friend's fault that I heard somewhere that the worldspirit of Literature moved to South America after 1960, so that I approached the books hoping for something more substantial than a Harlequin. And he does do a fairly good job on the political and cultural levels*. He just doesn't know much about love and friendship—again, not his fault that I'm most interested in human nature as revealed in relationships and motivation. It's also not his fault that I get huffy when I feel like my healthy worldview is being subverted. And I am desperate for light reading material, so this is me trying not to be opinionated.

*Not that I'm a good judge: what I know about South America could be written on a 3x5 card, and most of that would be about capybaras, and most of that would be speculations on whether they'd ever been domesticated and if so how willing they are to be hugged†.

†According to Wikipedia: "Capybaras are gentle and will usually allow humans to pet and hand-feed them." Oh boy.

Love Among the Elderly

As the title suggests, my imagination has been entirely occupied with Indiana Jones 4 and Love in the Time of Cholera. The conjunction led to the story of the frat boy who could only have sex* if he and his paramour du jour were listening to the Indiana Jones themesong. This disability provoked a certain amount of mockery among the shallower of the sorority girls, but eventually...well, actually, the reason that I'm not turning this into a full story is that I don't really want to think about it long enough to complete the plot. Anyhow, it sprang forth fully formed from my splitting headache in the middle of a conversation about Indiana Jones with a person who absolutely could not be told what I was laughing at, but I succeeded in switching the laughter for a choking sneeze and my reputation for spiritual elegance was maintained.

I went to the Indiana Jones movie wanting to spend a little time away from the house on my day off and hoping vaguely that it would be better than the Star Wars prequel (which my dad took us to see at the discount theater, and which I thought was not worth his dollar, though it was fun to go out with them.) My requirements were met and I had a lovely evening. The movie dealt with the protagonists' aging in a fairly classy way. Otherwise, my main critique was that Shia LeBoeuf sounds like a black woman, not a white man.

Cholera does not get off so easily. The supposedly happy realistic marriage is not very nice. It confuses the little every day services of love with love itself. There's nothing great about cooking meals for someone unless you love him. The act itself is certainly not love! The same goes for all domestic acts, whether done with a casual acquaintance, paid professional, or spouse. The author halfway understands this, remarking that the heroine had become a glorified servant, but then saying that this was love. The main character (of the triangle part) is a kind of elderly Basil Seal (but somewhat more solvent), initially sweet in a geeky kind of way but by the end of the book he's raped and seduced his way into so much tragedy that really the only appropriate finale would have to be violent and bloody. "He clasped her to his withered chest and wheezed sweet nothings into her ear. Suddenly, the last manatee leapt on board, clenching a conquistador's sword between her teeth. She decapitated everyone on board, then lay down to nurse her young amid the flaming wreckage of the riverboat framed by the treeless banks." Yes. What actually happens: no.

I have more to say on Gabriel García Márquez and the word love, but will save it for another post.

* I like to maintain the tone of the blog, but I'm afraid I just can't write "make love" here, as it is so far from being true. Further, Guy Crouchback has forced me to write "sex" instead of "gender", and bunthorne writes "sex" whenever he means "six" and he's even more of a prude than I am.

What Will Everyone Think?!?! *

But isn't it nice that they're thinking at all?

* Or, what the SJ says to the NT.

I take that back

I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, and decided that I either like it or don't hate it, and will need to read a bunch more Marquez to figure this out.

I wonder how much of the strangeness was Gabriel Garcia Marquez and how much was just Colombia. I've known a few Colombians, and I'd just like to say that whenever in my presence they were leading lives of exemplary order and chastity. Of course, they were seminarians and I was teaching them ESL, but all that proves is that a lot of Colombians are seminarians who want to improve their English. Marquez, on the other hand, portrays Colombians as people who want to get in unfortunate sexual situations with others (generally human) who are probably related to them.

One interesting internal* discussion was comparing the banana company of Macondo to the aluminum factory in my hometown. It was a draw as to which was more evil, and I don't know what my hometown was like prior to the infestation. It does seem that bad as industry is, a large city without it is doomed to become a sinkhole of destitution and misery.

My budget dictates that further researches will have to be carried out at the library, so I'm mentally preparing myself to pay off the late fee. Maybe I should go for some "talk therapy" to work through this issue.

"You see, it makes me feel like someone is standing on me, like some man—a solitary man—maybe, standing on my neck."
"And how does that make you feel?"
"Um, like I'd been born with the tail of a pig. [Sob]"
"Let's work through this. Why a pig? And why a tail?"
"Oh my gosh, it all comes back to my dream where my mother's silk poke was made from a sow's ear, doesn't it?"

*Because interesting to no one else in my immediate vicinity and philosophizing is best done in person.