Spitball Army

If you have never seen this Merrie Melodies short from 1936, it is well worth the 8½ minute time investment.  I haven’t seen this in many years, and stumbled upon it today by accident.  Especially hilarious: the telegram delivery bit (I laughed out loud, frightening Barbara).  Hope you enjoy it!

This is my sorry tale of woe.

It has been raining here since Friday night.  It is now Tuesday morning.  This area sorely needs the rain, and this rain has been ideal – a slow and steady rain, but never a deluge.  At this time next week, my neighborhood will be ten shades of green.  But, today, as I walked across the back lawn to my office hideaway, the soil underneath the grass groaned and moved beneath my feet, sounding like an old man breaking wind.

I opened the office door and flipped on the lights.  The top of the desk was cleared.  Each of the drawers was opened an inch or two.  In the corner of the room, glaring at me with an immobile pigheadedness, was the collection of papers and magazines that I had piled up while in my frantic search last night.  I surveyed the room once more for any possible nook or cranny that I may have overlooked during my raid.

For, you see, I have lost my notebook.

This was not just any notebook, not one of the many black-and-white composition books that are scattered around my house, pen attached, waiting to have a thought scribbled in it before the thought flies from my head altogether.  No, this was my daily book.  The one that I rely on.  The one I use the most.  The one that contains all of the good stuff.

It is brown, with a leather binding and thick brown cloth on the front and back panels.  It securely holds a wire-bound pad, with lined, perforated pages.  It has pockets behind both the front and back covers that can store notes and small documents.  It even has an elegant brown ribbon that marks a place in the pad that I might want to access with ease.

This book travels with me. It went with me on a long weekend trip to Cambridge last Fall. It frequently accompanies me to a local coffeehouse.  Most recently, it made the cross-country journey with me to southern California, where I attended my 30th high school reunion, and visited family and places from my past.

As fine and as comfortable as this notebook is – and it is nothing if not comfortable, both in my hand and to the eye – it is not the object I am distraught about losing as much as what is contained within it.

When I travel – and travel is not something that I do frequently – I like to journal in this book.  I journaled my Cambridge trip, and eventually translated the scribblings to posts on this weblog (see “Cambridge Journal” in the sidebar tag cluster).  I had just outlined extensive notes on my California expedition – “outlined” because so much happened on that trip that it would have taken days to write it all out in sentences.  I had planned to eventually flesh out those notes into more rhapsodic language.  I was composing Thank You notes to acknowledge several kindnesses from this recent trip.  These notes and the recipients’ mailing addresses were in the notebook, along with a small bundle of postage stamps.  Hotel and restaurant receipts were in the cover pockets, along with several postcards and a few business cards.  My name tags from the reunion events (“Hello, My Name Is”) were stickered inside the back cover.  A small cache of my personal stationery was stashed in the back cover pocket, my name and home address printed on the envelopes.

How could this notebook have just vanished into thin air?  I have traced and retraced my steps over the last few days.  I have turned the house and office upside down looking for it.  I went to both local post offices, where I had delivered tubs of mail recently, thinking that I might have placed the notebook in the tub inadvertently.  In fact, I distinctly remember doing this sometime in the last week, but am having a hard time accessing a memory of pulling the book out of the tub.  As expected, the staff at the Irondale post office shared my concern and took my phone numbers, while the people at the downtown Birmingham branch didn’t want to be bothered.  If the notebook did show up in one of these places, it would be easy to locate me, as the pages are filled with detailed personal information (including my name and address, and God knows what else).  Perhaps someone at the P.O. will rescue it and, in a rare moment of sparkling humanity, return it to me in the mail.

But I can’t hold out hope that this will happen.  What is a dear treasure to me is likely going to be seen by someone else as a bunch of random scribblings on paper.  They are more apt to toss it in the trash than think empathetically.  Maybe my misfortune is a “message,” telling me that I need to work without notes.  Could that be?  God, I hope not.  I feel that same helplessness that Samson must have felt once shorn of his seven locks of hair.  I tried to recreate some of the book’s content from memory this morning, and I had a paper jam in my head.  It didn’t help that I am going through a carb-detox period with its attendant headaches.  The accompanying scowl has spread from my face right into my brain, blocking coherent thought processes.

It really does hurt to think.

[audio:Hank_Williams___Weary_Blues_from_Waitin.mp3]
“Weary Blues from Waitin'” (1951) by Hank Williams

[audio:Madeleine_Peyroux___Weary_Blues.mp3]
“Weary Blues” (2004) by Madeleine Peyroux

[from 23 August 2008]
    

The mind wanders after so much TV and talking heads.  It seems every one of those heads is out today, weighing in on the latest political news (today it’s the Obama/Biden ticket).

Richard Wolffe of Newsweek is a frequent visitor on the MSNBC news shows, and today was no exception.  He sits (or stands) rigidly, with nary a stitch out of place, speaking precisely, articulating each letter of each word with an indistinct, yet noticeable, accent reminiscent of Andrew Sullivan’s.  All the while, his head and prominent ears balance precariously over a crisp shirt-and-tie ensemble.  My mind indeed wanders at these times to the nearly identical countenance of Mr. Mackey, the South Park school counselour.  Can you see the resemblance?  No?  Take another look, mm’kay?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4_tOiLB_Ko

[Richard Wolffe photo: NBC’s Meet the Press, April 27, 2008]

At 9:03:17 a.m. today, I received the following e-mail from info@barackobama.com, that was time-stamped at 4:31:39 a.m.:

Fred —

I have some important news that I want to make official.

I’ve chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate.

Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois — the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago.

I’m excited about hitting the campaign trail with Joe, but the two of us can’t do this alone.  We need your help to keep building this movement for change.

Please let Joe know that you’re glad he’s part of our team.  Share your personal welcome note and we’ll make sure he gets it:  http://my.barackobama.com/welcomejoe

Thanks for your support,
Barack

P.S. — Make sure to turn on your TV at 2:00 p.m. Central Time to join us or watch online at http://www.BarackObama.com.
[followed by, so as to not miss an opportunity:]

No, I did not receive “the text message” at or around 3:00 a.m. or even later, even though I had signed up to receive it.  Sounds like if I had been up before 3:00 a.m., though, I could have heard the news on the Tube.

My favored Democratic presidential candidate from the very beginning of this process was Joe Biden, so I was quite pleased with Obama’s choice.  It makes my November vote that much more comfortable.

Being somewhat of a political junkie, I have had the TV on this morning, listening to the punditry on most of the stations (excepting Fox News).  Joe Scarborough has been prattling on endlessly about Biden’s “big mouth” and tendency toward verbosity.  “Long-winded,” was what at least one guest on his show labelled Biden’s tendency toward a slow-building style of oratory that does not reward short attention spans.  I imagine, and hope, that in a short time, the concentration on this trait of Biden’s will diminish and we can all start focusing on issues and ideas that really matter and affect us (I think that larger dialogue has begun, hasn’t it?!).

From an early Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC:

The gaggle of media persons in shorts and t-shirts with coffee cups in hand has been the standard cutaway on most of the morning shows.  What on earth are they expecting to get by loitering in the Biden family driveway in Wilmington, Delaware?  Last night, as Biden drove from his home, a reporter asked if he had anything to report.  Biden, through the car window, responded, “A successful dump!” referring to a load of lumber he had hauled away in his pickup truck earlier in the day.  ROFL (as might be seen in a text message).

Scarborough (again) and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC interviewed Richard Ben Cramer over the phone this morning.  Cramer wrote the book What It Takes: The Way to the White House, a monumental (in size and scope) work of journalistic reportage on the 1988 Presidential race.  A good chunk of Cramer’s book focuses on Biden and his initial bid for the U.S. Presidency, examining his skill at negotiation and dogged pursuit of goals, as in this excerpt about the purchase of the old DuPont mansion, which had fallen into a sorry state of disrepair and was facing the wrecking ball:

Joe did a $200,000 deal for the house.  That was more than he had, of course.  But Biden never let money stand in the way of a deal.  He got in the developer’s face and started talking – fast.  It’s like the stutter left it all pent up, and when he starts talking deal, he goes at a gallop.  But the beautiful thing is the way he talks deal.  By the time Joe’s finished talking, it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have a thousand dollars cash…in fact, that no one would see any cash, for years.  When Joe Biden gets going on a deal, he’ll talk that deal until it’s shimmering before your eyes in God’s holy light…like the Taj Mahal…where do I sign?

Two or three months ago, I scraped the BIDEN ’08 sticker off of my rear bumper.  I never, ever put bumper stickers on my vehicle, with a particularly self-righteous “against my religion” fervor.  I must be getting soft in my advanced age, as I had made an exception in this case (as in the case of the MY OTHER CAR IS A VULTURE WHALE sticker, which I applied on the other side of the rear bumper in consideration of one of my favorite Birmingham bands).  But I’m ready for my Obama-Biden bumper sticker…has anybody got one available yet?

from Harpo Speaks!, by Harpo Marx with Rowland Barber:

The next morning Aleck [Alexander Woollcott] was gone from the island when the rest of us got up, and so was Joe Hennessey.  This meant that Aleck had taken a cooling-off trip, to recover from the incident of the tire.  Most likely he’d gone on a cemetary hunt, in which case he’d be back at the end of the week to recite through cocktails and dinner and half the rest of the night all the “sweet, fantastic names” he’d copied off old tombstones – like “Felicity Calm DeWitt,” “Happy Ivy Wentworth,” “Deuteronomy Newton,” “Lucy Fur Thomas,” “Honesty Policy Dredge,” “Onward Christian Purdy,” or his favorite four sisters, “First Cora Hooker,” “Second Cora Hooker,” “Last Cora Hooker” and “Immaculate C. Hooker.”

Later, I made some of these trips with Aleck.  He couldn’t pass a cemetary without having Joe stop the car so he could explore the boneyard – grave by grave, stooping to read out loud the inscription on each and every one.  What started out to be a viewing of the autumn colors or a back-road tour of the mountains invariably wound up as an excursion to a graveyard.

More Eddie Izzard, this time from his film, Circle.  Timely, sure, and when this was filmed in 2000, there was an Olympics happening, too.  As an aside, I discovered that Eddie was performing in San Diego the day after I arrived there a few weeks ago, so I missed seeing his live act yet again (though I could have blown off my high school reunion, but didn’t spend too long figuring out where my time was best spent).

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

Stoned archer banned from Beijing
16 July 2008, 8:15:00 a.m.
by Peter Cassidy

Czech archer Milan Andreas has had his Olympic dreams shattered after testing positive to marijuana.

The Czech Olympic Committee has confirmed Andreas will not be included in the national squad.

“We have not had this officially, but Milan Andreas had a positive test for THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active chemical in marijuana). It appears he will not be nominated for Beijing,” committee spokesman Jan Martinek told the CTK news agency.

The 19-year-old insists he smoked the drug in September last year without a thought for the consequences.

“The Olympics should have been the height of my career and instead it has turned into the greatest upset,” Andreas said of his Olympic participation.

[source link]

Youth Without Youth (2007), directed by Francis Ford Coppola:
[SPOILER ALERT!]
I heard about this new Francis Ford Coppola film from a trailer on another DVD.  If it ever played Birmingham, I missed it.  Chances are it played New York and L.A. and a few festivals, then wasted no time getting onto DVD.  Over the course of several nights, after determinedly slogging through this fantasy/romance/tragedy dressed in the trappings of a treatise on linguistics and philosophy, it is easy to see why.  There are just too many ideas competing for space on the screen, and none of them gets sufficient play to take full shape.  That is indeed unfortunate, as the production value is of the highest quality, and the film has a painterly look and mysterious texture very similar to Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain.  Tim Roth portrays the central character of Dominic Matei with a studious gravity, though at times bearing the appearance of a man sleepwalking (which may have been intentional, given the disappointingly conventional it-was-all-a-dream ending).

Capturing the Friedmans (2003), directed by Andrew Jarecki:
Watching this documentary was an unpleasant experience.  Well-made and well-researched, the subject matter – pedophilia and the disintegration of a family – is unnerving, at best.  The film begins with the investigation of Arnold Friedman – the father – on charges of possessing child pornography and follows the uncomfortable family dynamic over several years, making use of videotapes that the Friedman sons took of practically every family interacton.  I found myself cringing most painfully during those moments when the family members were engaged in shouting and screaming matches.  This is a must-see for social workers, family therapists and students of the law (the legal cases against the Friedmans are shockingly mismanaged), but it may have everyone else longing for a viewing of something warm and fuzzy.  Like The Godfather.

If, like me, you have been hooked on the Olympics for the last week and a half, you have most likely seen this commercial from Nike.  The song sampled here is “All These Things That I’ve Done,” by The Killers.  I always watch it closely, as if expecting to see Michael Phelps touch the wall at the end.  Terrific stuff.

Dear Spitball Army,

I read with interest your recipe for blueberry glace pie, and was wondering if you have ever tried that recipe with any other fruits as the main ingredient? I attempted to make the pie according to your recipe, but substituted powdered sugar for corn starch and created a runny mess. Lesson learned. Please let me know about the other fruits for the pie. I am specifically thinking about grapefruits.

Sincerely,
Fruit Sweet
Ventura, California

Dear Fruit,

If your idea of an appetizing dessert is some tart citrus wedges amassed in a gelatinous mold lined with crust, by all means GO FOR IT! I remember such confections, sans crust, from my childhood. They tended to be made of transparent green jello with chunks of pineapple jammed inside. Not quite beautiful to look at, a bit jiggly (thus somewhat titillating), but refreshing on a hot day if you ate it before it had a chance to melt.

I have never tried other fruits in that pie recipe, but think that bananas or peaches might be fun to try – to eat, at least. If you do try to cook either of those in the future, please attempt making the pie at least three times to perfect the ingredient ratios. Then, once it is perfect, please forward the recipe on to me. Thank you.

As for the powdered sugar faux pas, you have taught yourself a valuable lesson. I recall my mother making her famous chili con carne once, and adding what she thought was corn starch at the end of the cooking process to give it a bit more thickness (the better to stay on the tortilla, don’t you know!). When that didn’t work, she added some more, then some more, and then a bit more. After emptying most of the remaining corn starch into the chili pot, she noticed that the box was labeled “Powdered Sugar.” All of those yellow pantry boxes looked the same, anyway. She decided to pretend that nothing was amiss, and presented my father with a lake of chili on a plate, accompanied by her apologies for the runny stew. Ah, yes…the day my mother invented “sweet” chili, which, despite an initial launch offered by my Dad (from tabletop to wastebasket), never really took off.

Yo ho ho and a box of Argo,
Spitball