Negative capability

"Days and Clouds" was the cinearts film at the library last night - a 2007 release, directed by Silvio Soldoni. Great title for a film, beautiful cinematography and fine understated performances. Certainly it was timely enough: the movie deals the "down-sized" lives of a middle class couple who face economic turmoil after the man of the family - the breadwinner - loses his job and faces the dismal prospect of long term unemployment. It was somewhat predictable, but also interesting to note the particular aspects of Mediterranean culture that the plotline highlighted: i.e. the more traditional gender roles that still prevail in contemporary Italy. And lots of shouting!

The film was set in Genoa, which looks like an interesting and attractive city, even in its industrialized port area. Connection: my Italian grandmother sailed out of Genoa in 1910 on her journey to the USA.

Last week we had our first "Snowbound Book Group" discussion of the season: Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover." It was the last novel that Lawrence published before his untimely death in 1930 - he was only 44 but died of TB. Sir Clifford Chatterley (partially a self-portrait of the author) is a frustrated writer who thinks he knows Everything about Everything, but he is actually an embittered and impotent World War I veteran suffering from PTSD. Chatterley is also a coal mine-owner in the depressed and exploited English midlands, whose wastelands are an apt analogue on Sir Clifford's barren soul. His wife Connie however is an untamed English rose, and she finds solace in his gamekeeper's hut and in the gamekeeper's bed, discovering The Joy of Sex decades before Alex Comfort coined the term.

D.H. Lawrence's prose is occasionally purple, it is occasionally profane, it is occasionally full of nearly incomprehensible dialect. But it's never dull. He broke through a crucial literary taboo in the 1920s with his casual use of certain four-letter Anglo-Saxon words that today raise nary an eyebrow. After the sexual revolution in literature (starting in the 1960s and continuing today), no one today would find this once-shocking book even remotely obscene or prurient. However, if you laugh whenever you see the words "loins" or "bowels" in connection with human intercourse, you might want to avoid this book!!! But Lawrence writes powerfully about social class, and his ideas about the dangers of materialism and the empty pursuit of success ("the Bitch-Goddess") are still worthing reading today. I recommend the book.

By the way, September 27 to October 4 was Banned Book Week in the United States. Timely enough!

Before I flew back to Michigan yesterday, I spent a few hours wandering in the shadow of the Mouse - the small towns and endless strips of motels fast food outlet malls sea shell sellers and tourist tat in the vicinity of "the Kingdom."

First I stopped at a used book store in Kissimmee. Didn't find any treasures there, but I happened across an interesting "pre-Disney" piece of Roadside Americana: The Monument of States. In the early 1940s, during World War II, a local physician wished to create something which would demonstrate the integrity and strength of the country. He wrote a letter to all 48 governors of all (then) 48 states, asking each to send a stone or rock or physical emblem of their constituency. He then had each fragment encased in mortar, and then assembled each of the blocks in a gangly and not-quite-plum tower, capped with the American Eagle. Voila! I also spent some time in Celebration, a Disney-creation practically at the front door of the amusement park. The noted post-modern Architect Robert Stern (and his partners) designed Celebration in the style of an early 20th century midwestern small town. The place is considered to be one of the models of the movement of "New Urbanism," i.e. a conscious effort to create community by looking to the past, employing mixed-used structures and a higher density of construction than is usually found in new suburban tracts.

In my view, "New Urbanism" is not really urban at all - it is typically all carried out by one developer who controls all the land and who maintains strict control over all aspects of community life. I much prefer the term "New Suburbanism." It's a modified form of "anti-septic mall America," and as such it is entirely fitting that is so close to "the Kingdom." At the same time, I have to admit that it's a big improvement over the horrors of the Highway 192 strip. The scale is small, the place is welcoming, and it's not a tourist attraction. And it's surprising to find any kind of pedestrian friendly place in central Florida. Better than the local alternative, certainly.

The English punk-folk-dance group Chumbawamba has a song called "Celebration Florida" that sums it up pretty well.

The good folks pull together
It's July 4th forever
Down in Celebration, Florida
The neighbors bring you coffee
And everyone's always happy
Down in Celebration, Florida
There's a bake sale at the schoolhouse
And they're selling innocence
They're keeping out the deviants
To protect the residents
Of Celebration, Celebration, Florida

They're buying up nostalgia
For a time they can't remember
Down in Celebration, Florida
They're sharing homemade corn chips
Even the dogs get facelifts
Down in Celebration, Florida
There's nation fighting nation
There's kids with malnutrition
But not in Celebration, Florida
Social engineering
It gives you that fuzzy feeling
Down in Celebration, Florida
Celebration, Celebration, Celebration, Florida

Paul Newman, R.I.P. (1925-2008)

Paul Newman was a gentleman and an actor's actor, a star for six decades, a philanthropist and food lover, and he had the honor of appearing on Richard Nixon's enemies list.

My favorite role of his: Brick in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".

I liked this quote which appeared at the end of his obit in today's NY Times:

“We are such spendthrifts with our lives,” Mr. Newman once told a reporter. “The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”

Coming Soon to an email in-box near you!

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson