Gina Harris's Blog, page 101
May 8, 2018
Roman à clef (War is Hell, part 5)
One of my less successful reading list additions for "War is Hell" was a collection of poetry by those who fought in World War I - primarily British - named for for one of the more famous poems, Anthem for Doomed Youth.
I say it was less successful because many of the poems weren't very good, and reading a lot of indifferent poetry together is pretty annoying. That was mainly a presentation issue, because arranged differently and focusing more on the authors, it could have been a completely different experience. I wholeheartedly agree that the soldiers expressing themselves was important, and that it's worth appreciating that.
For my prose reading, with accounts of these young men, who are no longer young, and some are no longer living, there was something that bothered me, and that is going to be hard to explain correctly.
First of all, even as Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back is considered a memoir, there is some fictionalization, including names and details changed. Ken Babbs' Who Shot the Water Buffalo and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front are specifically novels, but they are novels inspired by experiences.
In All Quiet, everyone dies. Okay, that's an exaggeration. One man merely gets such a strong reminder of home in some blossoming cherry trees that he starts to walk home, is court-martialed for desertion, and never heard from again. The school teacher who pushed his students to enlist is still alive. The drill instructor who berated and abused the new recruits is still alive. I guess Tjaden lives, because he is in the sequel. Still, the impression that you get is that they all successively die. His classmates who signed up with him die. The young recruit he is so helpful to dies within hours of being aided and comforted. The men he meets and grows to rely on while in the field die. When Kat dies especially - because he was so good at surviving and making things better - how can you expect anyone to make it out alive? Finally the narrator dies.
In To Hell and Back it felt like only one character besides the narrator lived, Kerrigan. He was only out of danger because he got an injury severe enough to send him home. Kerrigan was credited with a poem in the book that Murphy wrote himself. Was there something that could never be healed?
Those are just impressions. I did not diagram all of the characters and double-check who makes it to the end. I know that even with a high casualty rate, some people live. I also know that when your write, things come out that may not be deliberate but represent real feelings and thoughts. I worry about soldiers coming back with a feeling that everyone was lost. I worry about them having survivor's guilt, or just an overabundance of grief.
The death rate is much lower in Who Shot the Water Buffalo, Ken Babbs' Vietnam-era novel. They were helicopter pilots, which had its own dangers, but it was probably realistic for them to have fewer fatalities than the infantry. There was still something that bothered me at the end.
There are two main characters, fast friends who go through everything together. It is natural to associate the narrator with the author, but personality-wise, his wilder, taller friend seems a lot more like Merry Prankster Babbs, and that character disappears. There are rumors about the wild adventures he is having, but those feel like an inability to accept a death. Did he lose himself? Was he trying to keep someone alive?
In many ways, those are better questions for the authors to figure out. On the other hand, the issue of young people being sent to fight and die, but the ones who live coming back bearing scars both visible and invisible, that is a question for society. That is something we need to be looking at all the time. Not just for the ones who are out there now, or could be sent out there, but for the ones who are back.
There was one more book I haven't mentioned yet, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. O'Brien has written multiple books and given many talks - he was one of those interviewed for The Vietnam War. Maybe he didn't need to kill everyone off in one novel. Sometimes he writes about his interactions with other living members of his unit.
There was one story that required profanity to tell right, which sometimes got him some complaints. O'Brien writes...
That's a part of the price, but not the worst part. More on that later.
I say it was less successful because many of the poems weren't very good, and reading a lot of indifferent poetry together is pretty annoying. That was mainly a presentation issue, because arranged differently and focusing more on the authors, it could have been a completely different experience. I wholeheartedly agree that the soldiers expressing themselves was important, and that it's worth appreciating that.
For my prose reading, with accounts of these young men, who are no longer young, and some are no longer living, there was something that bothered me, and that is going to be hard to explain correctly.
First of all, even as Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back is considered a memoir, there is some fictionalization, including names and details changed. Ken Babbs' Who Shot the Water Buffalo and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front are specifically novels, but they are novels inspired by experiences.
In All Quiet, everyone dies. Okay, that's an exaggeration. One man merely gets such a strong reminder of home in some blossoming cherry trees that he starts to walk home, is court-martialed for desertion, and never heard from again. The school teacher who pushed his students to enlist is still alive. The drill instructor who berated and abused the new recruits is still alive. I guess Tjaden lives, because he is in the sequel. Still, the impression that you get is that they all successively die. His classmates who signed up with him die. The young recruit he is so helpful to dies within hours of being aided and comforted. The men he meets and grows to rely on while in the field die. When Kat dies especially - because he was so good at surviving and making things better - how can you expect anyone to make it out alive? Finally the narrator dies.
In To Hell and Back it felt like only one character besides the narrator lived, Kerrigan. He was only out of danger because he got an injury severe enough to send him home. Kerrigan was credited with a poem in the book that Murphy wrote himself. Was there something that could never be healed?
Those are just impressions. I did not diagram all of the characters and double-check who makes it to the end. I know that even with a high casualty rate, some people live. I also know that when your write, things come out that may not be deliberate but represent real feelings and thoughts. I worry about soldiers coming back with a feeling that everyone was lost. I worry about them having survivor's guilt, or just an overabundance of grief.
The death rate is much lower in Who Shot the Water Buffalo, Ken Babbs' Vietnam-era novel. They were helicopter pilots, which had its own dangers, but it was probably realistic for them to have fewer fatalities than the infantry. There was still something that bothered me at the end.
There are two main characters, fast friends who go through everything together. It is natural to associate the narrator with the author, but personality-wise, his wilder, taller friend seems a lot more like Merry Prankster Babbs, and that character disappears. There are rumors about the wild adventures he is having, but those feel like an inability to accept a death. Did he lose himself? Was he trying to keep someone alive?
In many ways, those are better questions for the authors to figure out. On the other hand, the issue of young people being sent to fight and die, but the ones who live coming back bearing scars both visible and invisible, that is a question for society. That is something we need to be looking at all the time. Not just for the ones who are out there now, or could be sent out there, but for the ones who are back.
There was one more book I haven't mentioned yet, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. O'Brien has written multiple books and given many talks - he was one of those interviewed for The Vietnam War. Maybe he didn't need to kill everyone off in one novel. Sometimes he writes about his interactions with other living members of his unit.
There was one story that required profanity to tell right, which sometimes got him some complaints. O'Brien writes...
If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty.Yeah.
That's a part of the price, but not the worst part. More on that later.
May 7, 2018
Immersion (War is Hell, part 4)
Regular readers have probably already noticed that one way I tend to dive into things is bookishly, reading many books on a similar topic close together. Then they can reinforce each other. (This was also helpful when taking four classes about Roman art, architecture, archeology together, though at times it felt like overcommitting.)
It is not really surprising that the experiences of US forces in World War II - read about in Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back and Hampton Sides' Ghost Soldiers recently, and in Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken a little farther back - contain certain similarities.
It should possibly be more surprising to find those same similarities in the account of a German soldier in WWI, as told in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
Maybe it is not all that surprising. The Germany that went to war a few years later was furious with the book, the movie, and the author. Remarque himself was able to escape the country, but the Nazis beheaded one of his sisters and sent a bill to the other, ostensibly for the executed sister's own acts in undermining Germany's war effort, but more obviously as a way of lashing out at her brother.
Realistically, the similarities aren't that much of a political nature. It ends up being more about the moments of recklessness, and the growing deadness inside. It's about the suffering, and how starving changes you physically, but also how wonderful it can be then to have a full stomach and to get rested for a change. Reduced to basics, good food, good rest, and good company end up being the most important things.
None of the books spend that much time on politics. All Quiet spends a little more, but that is merely a discussion on how the physical features of a country - like mountains in France or rivers in Germany - can't offend each other, and shoemakers and farmers in the different countries are really very similar, so what can they be there for? And that is surely that without fighting wars a leader doesn't get a reputation, and it must be useful for some, even if it is not useful for them there in the trenches.
There are many ways in which Remarque's book is more philosophical. I don't know if that came from being part of an older generation, or waiting longer after his combat experience to write, but there is a part where he points out that he and his counterparts are too young to be attached to anything. They have not married or found trades yet, but they are no longer children, and it will make going back hard.
To Hell concludes with Murphy vowing that he will learn to live again, because he realizes he has lost his ability to live normally.
Reading Remarque's words, I had a better understanding of why it might be hard, but not necessarily an understanding of how to make it easier. He may not have known either. His main character had dabbled in writing before the war, as Remarque had, and Remarque was able to successfully return to it. He also ended up living kind of an unsettled life, full of excesses. Was that because of his wartime experience, or for having to flee his country as it was overtaken by Nazis (not realizing at the time that it left his sisters in danger), or was it something else?
Because of reading the books so close together, I associate these authors in my mind, but it's not necessarily a new thought either. A few years ago I ran into a friend from school whom I had written to for a while after he joined the Marines. We had not seen each other for ages, and we were glad to see each other, but he had some hesitation.
"I know you don't like the military." he said.
"It's not that," I told him. "I worry about it."
Then he admitted to seeing and doing some things that he might have been better off without. I had heard about some anger issues through the grapevine before that. I mean, it's not that I didn't know at all, but it felt so much more tragic when he was there in front of me.
And it's not that there is never a need to fight, but the prices are high and I worry about it.
It is not really surprising that the experiences of US forces in World War II - read about in Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back and Hampton Sides' Ghost Soldiers recently, and in Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken a little farther back - contain certain similarities.
It should possibly be more surprising to find those same similarities in the account of a German soldier in WWI, as told in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
Maybe it is not all that surprising. The Germany that went to war a few years later was furious with the book, the movie, and the author. Remarque himself was able to escape the country, but the Nazis beheaded one of his sisters and sent a bill to the other, ostensibly for the executed sister's own acts in undermining Germany's war effort, but more obviously as a way of lashing out at her brother.
Realistically, the similarities aren't that much of a political nature. It ends up being more about the moments of recklessness, and the growing deadness inside. It's about the suffering, and how starving changes you physically, but also how wonderful it can be then to have a full stomach and to get rested for a change. Reduced to basics, good food, good rest, and good company end up being the most important things.
None of the books spend that much time on politics. All Quiet spends a little more, but that is merely a discussion on how the physical features of a country - like mountains in France or rivers in Germany - can't offend each other, and shoemakers and farmers in the different countries are really very similar, so what can they be there for? And that is surely that without fighting wars a leader doesn't get a reputation, and it must be useful for some, even if it is not useful for them there in the trenches.
There are many ways in which Remarque's book is more philosophical. I don't know if that came from being part of an older generation, or waiting longer after his combat experience to write, but there is a part where he points out that he and his counterparts are too young to be attached to anything. They have not married or found trades yet, but they are no longer children, and it will make going back hard.
Kantorek would say that we stood on the threshold of life. And so it would seem. We had as yet taken no root. The war swept us away. For the others, the older men, it is but an interruption. They are able to think beyond it. We, however, have been gripped by it and do not know what the end may be. We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a waste land.
To Hell concludes with Murphy vowing that he will learn to live again, because he realizes he has lost his ability to live normally.
In the streets, crowded with merrymakers, I feel only a vague irritation. I want company, and I want to be alone. I want to talk, and I want to be silent. I want to sit, and I want to walk. There is VE-Day without, but no peace within.An earlier story he was told of a man who completed his tour and re-enlisted after being unable to adjust to civilian life, and then died during his second tour, must have made his fears seem worse, but he is not giving up.
Gradually it becomes clear. I will go back. I will find the kind of girl of whom I once dreamed. I will learn to look at life through uncynical eyes, to have faith, to know love. I will learn to work in peace as in war. And finally--finally, like countless others, I will learn to live again.I don't know if the words ring hollow more because there is no plan or more because I know that he struggled with PTSD and anger for the rest of his life. It's not that the desire rings hollow - I absolutely believe in his desire and determination - but I worry about the possibility.
Reading Remarque's words, I had a better understanding of why it might be hard, but not necessarily an understanding of how to make it easier. He may not have known either. His main character had dabbled in writing before the war, as Remarque had, and Remarque was able to successfully return to it. He also ended up living kind of an unsettled life, full of excesses. Was that because of his wartime experience, or for having to flee his country as it was overtaken by Nazis (not realizing at the time that it left his sisters in danger), or was it something else?
Because of reading the books so close together, I associate these authors in my mind, but it's not necessarily a new thought either. A few years ago I ran into a friend from school whom I had written to for a while after he joined the Marines. We had not seen each other for ages, and we were glad to see each other, but he had some hesitation.
"I know you don't like the military." he said.
"It's not that," I told him. "I worry about it."
Then he admitted to seeing and doing some things that he might have been better off without. I had heard about some anger issues through the grapevine before that. I mean, it's not that I didn't know at all, but it felt so much more tragic when he was there in front of me.
And it's not that there is never a need to fight, but the prices are high and I worry about it.
May 4, 2018
Band Review: Shing02
I added Shing02 to the review list because of his collaboration with IAMOMNI. Initially thinking he was a DJ (hip hop artist would be more accurate), I had concerns about endless remixes. Shing02 has been a nice surprise.
Yes, I did find several remixes, but they differed enough from each other to give each mix its own significance. I especially like the Michita remix of "Jikaku". That is one of several instrumental mixes, and they all feel complete. Sometimes an instrumental version can feel like something is missing, but that does not happen here.
Interestingly, part of what drew me to Shing02 was two pictures of him against a wall of lyrics. The images give a feeling of so much that needs to be said that the words are overflowing. That can be true as well, and he is noted for addressing important issues in his lyrics, but he can also choose to let the music stand alone, and do that effectively.
His ability to do that may be at least partly an effect of his history. Born in Japan, Shing02 has also lived in London, Tanzania, and California, and is known for blending elements of many different types of music, including reggae. Having opened himself up to many places, people, and sounds has given Shing02 musical resources that are broad and deep, and you can hear that when he plays.
http://e22.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Shing02/
https://www.youtube.com/user/e22video
https://twitter.com/shing02?lang=en
Yes, I did find several remixes, but they differed enough from each other to give each mix its own significance. I especially like the Michita remix of "Jikaku". That is one of several instrumental mixes, and they all feel complete. Sometimes an instrumental version can feel like something is missing, but that does not happen here.
Interestingly, part of what drew me to Shing02 was two pictures of him against a wall of lyrics. The images give a feeling of so much that needs to be said that the words are overflowing. That can be true as well, and he is noted for addressing important issues in his lyrics, but he can also choose to let the music stand alone, and do that effectively.
His ability to do that may be at least partly an effect of his history. Born in Japan, Shing02 has also lived in London, Tanzania, and California, and is known for blending elements of many different types of music, including reggae. Having opened himself up to many places, people, and sounds has given Shing02 musical resources that are broad and deep, and you can hear that when he plays.
http://e22.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Shing02/
https://www.youtube.com/user/e22video
https://twitter.com/shing02?lang=en
May 3, 2018
Band Review: Sideways
Generally listening to house music gets me increasingly aggravated until all I want is for it to stop, but I enjoyed listening to Sideways.
It doesn't mean I am going to listen to them over and over again, but I have to consider them better than the average house band, and so for fans of house music, they are definitely worth checking out.
I know it doesn't sound like much, but that is really a pretty big compliment.
https://www.facebook.com/SidewaysOfficial
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJX4hJQl-UFOIYC3feAJ5dg
https://twitter.com/OfficialSideway
It doesn't mean I am going to listen to them over and over again, but I have to consider them better than the average house band, and so for fans of house music, they are definitely worth checking out.
I know it doesn't sound like much, but that is really a pretty big compliment.
https://www.facebook.com/SidewaysOfficial
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJX4hJQl-UFOIYC3feAJ5dg
https://twitter.com/OfficialSideway
May 2, 2018
In over their heads (War is Hell, part 3)
Watching The Vietnam War sent me forward and back. It sent me forward in causing me to read various accounts of soldiers - some first-person works and some not. Then as I read them, I started remembering things from before, and working them into a greater context. Something I had read last July contributed too.
It actually started with another documentary, The Act of Killing. That came out in 2013, but I did not see it in theaters. I read the review, found it interesting, and eventually got the DVD and watched it at home. Then I was so enthralled with it that I kept doing searches for supplemental material.
Along with interviews with that film's director, Joshua Oppenheimer, an interview came up with the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Dave Grossman. I finished his book in September 2015, so all of this happened fairly close together.
The Act of Killing is about participants in the Indonesian mass killings that occurred throughout 1965 and 1966 after a failed coup. (Don't assume that the killings were about punishing the participants in the coup, because nothing ever goes that simply.) As we get a look into the past through re-enactment, we start to understand more about what it takes to kill. The featured killer himself understands more about what it took to kill, at least on one level, and it is not a happy realization for him.
The book is about the natural human resistance to killing each other, and how that gets broken down for war and other circumstances. Obviously the subject matters are related, but I think it was a title similarity that brought me the Grossman clip, which was fascinating.
The claim he made was that most war casualties happen during retreat. After reading the book I realized I had misinterpreted what he meant, but at the time it took me back to a graphic they had shows us for a French class when we were reading Balzac's Adieu.
A lot of his stories were related to Napoleon's assault on Russia with his Grande Armée. I imagine to understand the France of that time you had to understand that, but it is hard to visualize the loss. Yes, hearing that Napoleon started out with 442,000 men, was down to 100,000 as he took Moscow (a victory?), and returned to France with only 10,000 (the inverse of decimation for the way back?) - that means something, but it is still kind of baffling. That is why they showed us the Minard Map.
http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/229-vital-statistics-of-a-deadly-campaign-the-minard-map
For probably a few months it made sense to me that more men died in retreat from cold and disease and not getting enough food, because there is more to war that is bad for your health than the combat. It seemed like a cruelty that the war might spare you but then getting back home would not, and another reminder of how carefully any decisions about war should be made. Then I read the book and that was not what he meant.
I took in the new information (I'll get to that in a different post), but then last July I read Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, and I read that because of the poor conditions of the planes, more men went down on search and rescue missions than in combat. I think it was a 6:1 ratio. But every time a plane went down you had to send out a search party, in case they survived the crash and were out in a life raft. Then you might lose yet another plane and air crew. That was what happened to the book's protagonist, Louis Zamperini, but he was found by enemies, not allies, leading to his ordeal in a prison camp.
This year, as I got to Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides, I learned more about the Bataan Death March, and the rescue of the remaining survivors. There was a lot of deliberate cruelty to those prisoners, but much of the death came from not having adequate transport and rations for the captured men. The Japanese expected a much smaller group, but then the men only had to surrender because their leaders had miscalculated their ability to hold the peninsula and did not have an evacuation plan in place. That might remind you of Dunkirk, except there was no rescue force of civilian boats.
Maybe my first understanding wasn't completely wrong either.
May 1, 2018
The political price of war (War is Hell, part 2)
I believe most of what I write will focus on soldiers and what we do to them, but I saw a different side of it, too.
The most shocking revelation for me in The Vietnam War was that Nixon prolonged the war when he wasn't even in office, and was in fact running on an anti-war platform.
A successful resolution to the 1968 Peace Talks would have given Johnson - and thus Hubert Humphrey's candidacy - a boost, so Nixon had an aide convince the South Vietnamese to walk away, and then Nixon would win and give them a better deal.
(There is a brief write-up here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/)
It worked out for Nixon; he won the election. It didn't work out great for the South Vietnamese. It must have also been a disappointment for the voters who supported Nixon in order to end the war; he instead spread it to Laos and Cambodia. That meant an additional loss of 22000 US lives.
I don't even know that it would be possible to tally the suffering that it caused for the people of South East Asia. That's not just the deaths, though there were a lot of those. It's also displaced people, and refugees, and maimed children because the land mines stay long after, and economic oppression and re-education - because there would be some people who survive the re-education camps and stay in their country, but it takes a horrible toll on them.
Probably in a few weeks I will write about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and how pain ripples out from one bad act more than you can ever fully know. That will be a different topic, but the extending consequences applies here, and I want to spend a little more time on that. First, I need to take a tangent.
Shortly before the documentary series aired, I finished reading K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Kruschev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist, by Peter Carlson. I read it because Kruschev had come up so often in Hannah Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism, and there had been reminders of that in The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman, and I thought - this book has been on my reading list for a while, let's just get to it.
My purpose is not to defend Kruschev, who participated in and led many terrible things. He also really did try to improve the Soviet Union, especially focusing on agriculture, but also on disarmament, which he had successfully started. Then there was a coup.
Reaching back very far into my knowledge, I actually saw Thirteen Days in the theater, back in 2000. I remember that the US and the USSR both gave some concessions, but part of the deal was that only the Soviet concessions would be made public. That's the kind of thing that can make a leader look weak, so that he could be both unpopular enough and apparently vulnerable enough for a coup.
What would the world have looked like if the Cold War had started rolling back twenty years sooner? What if nuclear proliferation had been arrested that far back? Sure, there's room for a lot of things to go wrong, but that seems like a valuable opportunity thrown away largely for the sake of appearances.
I also do not wish to paint LBJ as a saint. He had his own bad deeds, including bugging his own allies so that he knew about Nixon's backroom dealing but was in a position where he could not reveal it.
I do believe he wanted to build a better country, and that included strengthening civil rights and working against poverty. I also believe that part of his continuing to escalate in the quagmire of Vietnam was because looking weak is the kind of thing that loses elections, and would keep him from continuing the work he wanted to do.
Pulling out was never going to be easy, and was always going to result in a loss of human life. Trying to avoid that led to a lot of loss of life too. I'm never going to call it an easy decision.
What I do know is that once in office, Nixon fired the housing administrator (George Romney) who was trying to eliminate redlining and improve fairness in housing. His Supreme Court nominees worked to maintain school segregation. He was a strong supporter of Southern Strategy politics, racially coded language, and took steps toward the War on Drugs that Reagan would later run with. He tried to consolidate presidential power at a level that some of the same advisers would have more success with under George W. Bush. And yes, he may not have known about the Watergate break-in before it happened, but that was his team, and they had been assembled to get revenge on his enemies. A country that was already becoming cynical about their government would end up much worse.
And I kind of started out writing this as if the toll these war decisions take on society is a separate issue from the toll on military personnel, but I am pretty sure that it is all the same. The society that sees backing down from doing harm as weakness is a society that is going to damage its young in a multitude of ways, and that often includes sending them to kill and be killed.
What I would like to know is what a country would look like if it was composed of citizens who valued human life and happiness above macho posturing, blood lust and greed.
The most shocking revelation for me in The Vietnam War was that Nixon prolonged the war when he wasn't even in office, and was in fact running on an anti-war platform.
A successful resolution to the 1968 Peace Talks would have given Johnson - and thus Hubert Humphrey's candidacy - a boost, so Nixon had an aide convince the South Vietnamese to walk away, and then Nixon would win and give them a better deal.
(There is a brief write-up here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/)
It worked out for Nixon; he won the election. It didn't work out great for the South Vietnamese. It must have also been a disappointment for the voters who supported Nixon in order to end the war; he instead spread it to Laos and Cambodia. That meant an additional loss of 22000 US lives.
I don't even know that it would be possible to tally the suffering that it caused for the people of South East Asia. That's not just the deaths, though there were a lot of those. It's also displaced people, and refugees, and maimed children because the land mines stay long after, and economic oppression and re-education - because there would be some people who survive the re-education camps and stay in their country, but it takes a horrible toll on them.
Probably in a few weeks I will write about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and how pain ripples out from one bad act more than you can ever fully know. That will be a different topic, but the extending consequences applies here, and I want to spend a little more time on that. First, I need to take a tangent.
Shortly before the documentary series aired, I finished reading K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Kruschev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist, by Peter Carlson. I read it because Kruschev had come up so often in Hannah Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism, and there had been reminders of that in The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman, and I thought - this book has been on my reading list for a while, let's just get to it.
My purpose is not to defend Kruschev, who participated in and led many terrible things. He also really did try to improve the Soviet Union, especially focusing on agriculture, but also on disarmament, which he had successfully started. Then there was a coup.
Reaching back very far into my knowledge, I actually saw Thirteen Days in the theater, back in 2000. I remember that the US and the USSR both gave some concessions, but part of the deal was that only the Soviet concessions would be made public. That's the kind of thing that can make a leader look weak, so that he could be both unpopular enough and apparently vulnerable enough for a coup.
What would the world have looked like if the Cold War had started rolling back twenty years sooner? What if nuclear proliferation had been arrested that far back? Sure, there's room for a lot of things to go wrong, but that seems like a valuable opportunity thrown away largely for the sake of appearances.
I also do not wish to paint LBJ as a saint. He had his own bad deeds, including bugging his own allies so that he knew about Nixon's backroom dealing but was in a position where he could not reveal it.
I do believe he wanted to build a better country, and that included strengthening civil rights and working against poverty. I also believe that part of his continuing to escalate in the quagmire of Vietnam was because looking weak is the kind of thing that loses elections, and would keep him from continuing the work he wanted to do.
Pulling out was never going to be easy, and was always going to result in a loss of human life. Trying to avoid that led to a lot of loss of life too. I'm never going to call it an easy decision.
What I do know is that once in office, Nixon fired the housing administrator (George Romney) who was trying to eliminate redlining and improve fairness in housing. His Supreme Court nominees worked to maintain school segregation. He was a strong supporter of Southern Strategy politics, racially coded language, and took steps toward the War on Drugs that Reagan would later run with. He tried to consolidate presidential power at a level that some of the same advisers would have more success with under George W. Bush. And yes, he may not have known about the Watergate break-in before it happened, but that was his team, and they had been assembled to get revenge on his enemies. A country that was already becoming cynical about their government would end up much worse.
And I kind of started out writing this as if the toll these war decisions take on society is a separate issue from the toll on military personnel, but I am pretty sure that it is all the same. The society that sees backing down from doing harm as weakness is a society that is going to damage its young in a multitude of ways, and that often includes sending them to kill and be killed.
What I would like to know is what a country would look like if it was composed of citizens who valued human life and happiness above macho posturing, blood lust and greed.
April 30, 2018
Ken Burns' The Vietnam War (War is Hell, part 1)
You probably know that Ken Burns and Lynn Novick created a 10-part documentary series on the Vietnam War that aired on PBS last September and October. I don't think I got around to watching it until November.
I found it very moving and interesting, and it's a big part of the impetus behind this "War is Hell" week. There was a lot of information there, but what shook me most profoundly was a brief moment in the introduction to the first episode, when the cameras start rolling back.
I suppose it was a good reminder just how many of those famous photos that everyone recognizes are from the Vietnam War era. I hadn't even known that so many of those moments were not just photographed, but filmed.
I took a photography seminar once. We spent a lot of time on settings, but then the instructor pointed out that most of your best shots will happen with the automatic settings because the moment just happens and you have to capture it without thinking. Yes, you can think ahead about what might happen and what might help you get a better shot of that, but there's a certain amount of chance, and you put those odds in your favor by always being ready to shoot.
That would have been true for the photo and film crews there.
One of the most disturbing shots for me was always Saigon Execution, taken by Eddie Adams. He wasn't sure what he had, but it ended up being a symbol of the ugliness of the war. To the people at home who saw it, it looked like a cold-blooded murder by one of our allies.
That is not how Adams saw it, and he always regretted the damage he did to the reputation of the shooter, Nguyen Ngoc Loan. By all accounts, the man shot - Nguyen Van Lem - had murdered many as well. The paper was careful to publish it with a picture of a child slain by the Viet Cong, but that image has not endured the same way.
I don't remember exactly when I first saw it, but I definitely didn't know anything about the context. I only saw the wince, which I interpreted as fear before the shot, not the pain after the fatal shot. I do remember wondering how you could take a picture of something horrible, instead of trying to stop it.
Given time and some seminars, I know that you shoot instinctively, not always knowing. I know that this is necessary, especially with journalistic photography. There are things that cannot be stopped but need to be documented. I know that sometimes you take the picture and help.
Nick Ut filmed the burned and terrified children running toward him, but he also took Kim Phuc to the hospital. Though they thought her burns were severe enough that she could not survive, he visited her every week until he was evacuated. The last I knew, they still talk on the phone once a week.
That run was also filmed, and that was one of the images shown in reverse.
It plays terrible emotional trick. Here are these images that horrified you, and look, they are being rewound. The children are running backward to before the napalm hit. The crumpled body springs back up and the bullet returns to the gun so that Nguyen has not yet shot Nguyen. Protesters are not beaten, missiles do not fall. There was not footage of it, but I can imagine no one dying at Kent State.
Being given that glimpse of it doesn't make it real. You can't undo what has been done.
You can try and heal it, and hope to learn from it, but it can't be undone.
That is an excellent reason to think carefully before releasing Hell on earth.
I found it very moving and interesting, and it's a big part of the impetus behind this "War is Hell" week. There was a lot of information there, but what shook me most profoundly was a brief moment in the introduction to the first episode, when the cameras start rolling back.
I suppose it was a good reminder just how many of those famous photos that everyone recognizes are from the Vietnam War era. I hadn't even known that so many of those moments were not just photographed, but filmed.
I took a photography seminar once. We spent a lot of time on settings, but then the instructor pointed out that most of your best shots will happen with the automatic settings because the moment just happens and you have to capture it without thinking. Yes, you can think ahead about what might happen and what might help you get a better shot of that, but there's a certain amount of chance, and you put those odds in your favor by always being ready to shoot.
That would have been true for the photo and film crews there.
One of the most disturbing shots for me was always Saigon Execution, taken by Eddie Adams. He wasn't sure what he had, but it ended up being a symbol of the ugliness of the war. To the people at home who saw it, it looked like a cold-blooded murder by one of our allies.
That is not how Adams saw it, and he always regretted the damage he did to the reputation of the shooter, Nguyen Ngoc Loan. By all accounts, the man shot - Nguyen Van Lem - had murdered many as well. The paper was careful to publish it with a picture of a child slain by the Viet Cong, but that image has not endured the same way.
I don't remember exactly when I first saw it, but I definitely didn't know anything about the context. I only saw the wince, which I interpreted as fear before the shot, not the pain after the fatal shot. I do remember wondering how you could take a picture of something horrible, instead of trying to stop it.
Given time and some seminars, I know that you shoot instinctively, not always knowing. I know that this is necessary, especially with journalistic photography. There are things that cannot be stopped but need to be documented. I know that sometimes you take the picture and help.
Nick Ut filmed the burned and terrified children running toward him, but he also took Kim Phuc to the hospital. Though they thought her burns were severe enough that she could not survive, he visited her every week until he was evacuated. The last I knew, they still talk on the phone once a week.
That run was also filmed, and that was one of the images shown in reverse.
It plays terrible emotional trick. Here are these images that horrified you, and look, they are being rewound. The children are running backward to before the napalm hit. The crumpled body springs back up and the bullet returns to the gun so that Nguyen has not yet shot Nguyen. Protesters are not beaten, missiles do not fall. There was not footage of it, but I can imagine no one dying at Kent State.
Being given that glimpse of it doesn't make it real. You can't undo what has been done.
You can try and heal it, and hope to learn from it, but it can't be undone.
That is an excellent reason to think carefully before releasing Hell on earth.
April 27, 2018
Band Review: Punch Brothers
I added Punch Brothers to the review list because of Claire Coffee - Adelind on Grimm - because she is married to band member Chris Thile.
Punch Brothers are roots music, so at times you are reminded of country and folk without them ever being either. They definitely are old-timey, but their latest album, 2015's The Phosphorescent Blues, retains an interesting mix. I especially like the juxtaposition of a version of Debussy's "Passepied" with their "I Blew It Off".
I am nonetheless amazed at how much I hated their 2015 track "Sleek White Baby". I'm not sure if it is just a misfire, or a different product name would have worked better, but I strongly object to that song. For previous releases, try "Movement and Location" instead.
Punch Brothers are definitely a good fit for fans of roots music, and fans of bluegrass will probably enjoy as well.
You know who you are.
http://www.punchbrothers.com/
https://www.facebook.com/PunchBrothers/
https://www.youtube.com/user/punchbrothers
https://twitter.com/punchbrothers
Punch Brothers are roots music, so at times you are reminded of country and folk without them ever being either. They definitely are old-timey, but their latest album, 2015's The Phosphorescent Blues, retains an interesting mix. I especially like the juxtaposition of a version of Debussy's "Passepied" with their "I Blew It Off".
I am nonetheless amazed at how much I hated their 2015 track "Sleek White Baby". I'm not sure if it is just a misfire, or a different product name would have worked better, but I strongly object to that song. For previous releases, try "Movement and Location" instead.
Punch Brothers are definitely a good fit for fans of roots music, and fans of bluegrass will probably enjoy as well.
You know who you are.
http://www.punchbrothers.com/
https://www.facebook.com/PunchBrothers/
https://www.youtube.com/user/punchbrothers
https://twitter.com/punchbrothers
April 26, 2018
Band Review: Charles Esten
I don't love country music. I don't hate it, but I don't love it. Still, I am doing a week of country music for the daily songs, and it seemed like a good time to get to two of my reviews that have been in the queue for a long time. One of them was Charles Esten.
I still think of him as Chip. I knew him from Who's Line is it Anyway?, which led to me recognizing him in 13 Days and an episode of Married With Children, but I primarily knew him as an improviser. However, what opened the door to him getting invitations to Whose Line was a long run in a musical, and he can sing. I was glad when he got cast in Nashville, which seemed like a good thing for his career.
The show began airing in 2012. In 2016, having written several songs and trying to decide what to do about releasing them, Esten committed to releasing one new song #everysinglefriday for a year. He did it. I knew eventually I was going to want to check them out.
Charles Esten is a country singer.
I don't know if he has gotten a lot of push back on getting started as an actor, or performing songs on a show, but he is undeniably an actual, accomplished country singer.
At one point I was reminded of an old Saturday Night Live sketch, "Who's More Grizzled?" (guest Robert Duvall by a landslide), but Esten does - as the songs call for them - sound grizzled and twangy and even whiskey-soaked.
It is not terrible, but it is still not my favorite. He seems happy, though, and he seems like a good person, so I am just going to be happy for him.
May he never lose his wife, job, truck, and dog.
https://www.charlesesten.com/
https://www.facebook.com/officialcharlesesten/
https://twitter.com/charlesesten
I still think of him as Chip. I knew him from Who's Line is it Anyway?, which led to me recognizing him in 13 Days and an episode of Married With Children, but I primarily knew him as an improviser. However, what opened the door to him getting invitations to Whose Line was a long run in a musical, and he can sing. I was glad when he got cast in Nashville, which seemed like a good thing for his career.
The show began airing in 2012. In 2016, having written several songs and trying to decide what to do about releasing them, Esten committed to releasing one new song #everysinglefriday for a year. He did it. I knew eventually I was going to want to check them out.
Charles Esten is a country singer.
I don't know if he has gotten a lot of push back on getting started as an actor, or performing songs on a show, but he is undeniably an actual, accomplished country singer.
At one point I was reminded of an old Saturday Night Live sketch, "Who's More Grizzled?" (guest Robert Duvall by a landslide), but Esten does - as the songs call for them - sound grizzled and twangy and even whiskey-soaked.
It is not terrible, but it is still not my favorite. He seems happy, though, and he seems like a good person, so I am just going to be happy for him.
May he never lose his wife, job, truck, and dog.
https://www.charlesesten.com/
https://www.facebook.com/officialcharlesesten/
https://twitter.com/charlesesten
April 25, 2018
Are you still writing?
I'll tell one more story about something that happened when I left the house, and then I'll move on.
Of the many musicians that I admire, there is one who recognizes me. I saw him recently and it was great, and he asked me if I was still writing.
That is so much more complicated a question than it should be.
To be fair, he also asked how I was, and that is way more complicated than it should be too.
On top of an already difficult life, that hard drive crash really set me back. I was grateful to be able to get at least some traction with the laptop, and my friend's mother's old desktop is a huge help, though it does slow down a lot. I did get FinalDraft and Office back up and running (though it also has OpenOffice, and sometimes the differences are hard to tell and I have documents in both Word and WordStarter and maybe a third program too). Clearly I am blogging again.
I am not blogging as well. I used to draft posts in a Word document, and then copy them over. I should still be completely capable of proofreading regardless, but I spotted errors better in Word, so what I pasted into Blogger was better. I could create another Blog Draft document, but that doesn't feel right. It may be a sense that this computer is only temporary, but also there may be ways in which spending less time on the blogging helps when there are always so many things to do.
Getting FinalDraft reinstalled does not give me editable copies of my screenplays. I can download the PDFs from Amazon Studios and recreate them, but worse than that, Amazon Studios has stopped accepting open submissions. Granted, they never bought anything anyway, but that was the one place I had where it didn't matter that I don't have an agent and that no one knows who I am, and it's gone.
Frankly, from a financial point of view there is no evidence that me writing is productive, and honestly not a lot of evidence that a decline in my blogging quality makes much difference.
That all made the question resonate more: Are you still writing?
Should I be? Does it make any difference at all?
I didn't really have time to think about it then, but I kept coming back to that question, and is this the time to walk away?
And I can't.
It may be that the only reason I woke up less worn out today than I did yesterday was because I got in some productive journal writing. It is certain that writing my messy, oversharing blog posts even while busy and worried felt better than skipping them last week.
And I love my creative writing, even though the amount of money it has brought in has been negligible.
I am reading a lot of soldier stories now, and I find things in their writing where I see things I got right in things I have written.
I still like what I write. I still only feel good when I write.
No, I haven't been writing much. I should be.
