Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 33

Lincoln and Lewis

We went down to Providence to have Thanksgiving with our old friend Meredith Steinbach – pals since graduate school in Iowa, in the seventies.  The turkey was perfectly done, the dressing interesting with whole cranberries.  I made the gravy and carved, my traditional tasks.

After dinner we went downtown – about twenty miles – to see the movie Lincoln, which is by several orders of magnitude the most expensive civics lesson ever given.

A good movie that I think only Stephen Spielberg could have gotten away with.  A long, measured performance that unfolds mainly in dialogue, most of which is politicians arguing and posturing.  There are a couple of minutes of military massacre on a huge scale, and a long ride through the rotting aftermath of battle as Lincoln rides a horse on his way to meet with Grant – not historically accurate, perhaps, but good cinema.  This great and terrible man, alone in the immensity of the carnage he caused, or allowed.

Daniel Day-Lewis does a stirring job as Lincoln, a job he initially turned down.  His acting is supported by remarkable makeup and his voice is marvelous in its understated undramatic character, surprisingly high-pitched and weak, which of course is historically accurate.   Too many bad actors have made Lincoln orotund and grave, when contemporary accounts had him rather folksy, conversational.  Some of Day-Lewis's best moments are Lincoln telling political tales, charming his opponents, even telling a couple of ribald jokes.  And his lack of success in charming many of his enemies, especially in his own cabinet, is well portrayed, too.

I thought Sally Fields was problematical as Mrs. Lincoln.  She brought considerable force to the role, but perhaps too much of the wrong kind of force.  More of a twentieth-century woman than a nineteenth.  Was the historical figure that self-reliant and feminist?  Maybe.

Googling, I find that she had every reason to act crazy.  She probably had bipolar disorder and also had psychological symptoms from a severe blow to the head.  Probably Fields was trying to convey that kind of formal mental illness as well as convey the woman's immensely stressful position.  (All of her brothers died fighting on the Confederate side; it's hard to imagine the depth and complexity of her grief because of that.)

It's a hell of a long movie, two and a half hours, but it's hard to imagine it working well, shorter.  Well worth seeing.

Joe

bonds

Like most American men of my generation, I was seriously bent by growing up through the annual presentation of James Bond movies, with Sean Connery flawlessly drifting through one bad situation into another, finally sailing off with the girl.  And I've enjoyed the more grim, but still somewhat comic, interpretation Daniel Craig brings to the role.

Some of the best writing I've seen on it was in last week's New Yorker, by David Benby –

" . . . I still long for Sean Connery.  Connery was shrewd and piratical – he let us in on the fun of being wicked.  An ironist, he knew that the role was absurd but the desire for fantasy wasn't.  He was the gentleman-rogue hero – aristocratic in disdain, yet classless – of every man's dream of himself, and women could enjoy him as the adroit cad who arrives at night, delivers the goods, and leaves in the morning.  Connery took his time.  His drawling pauses as he calculated his advantage were a prime comic device, the manner of a brute swathed in sophistication, so sure of success that he never needed to rush."

Benby says that Daniel Craig "is amusingly single-minded.  He has the strange attractiveness – prominent nose, hooded eyes, narrowed forehead – of an intelligent cobra . . . . He doesn't need a soul.  What would be the bloody use of it? as M. might say.  Just as he is, he's sufficient for his job, his body a frequently unsheathed weapon, alabastered and fast, cutting through cluttered sets and straitened passageways . . . . "

Good writing, that.

Joe

in "Seasons"

Director Tim Miller and I have been messing around with stuff for ages – notably Mindbridge, which has been attracting nibbles for twenty years or so.  I'm as glad for him as I am for me, that a movie of the novelette "Seasons" seems finally to be moving.

It will be completely CGI, as far as I know; no human actors.  It's his first feature-length film, though his shorter things have been impressive, and he's pretty well-known for them, the hard-edged realism he puts into fantastic scenes.  (He did the stunning opening credits for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.)

Anyway, it's all good.  Tim needs a big picture to showcase his talent, and I'm intensely curious to see what he'll do with one of my favorite stories.

Some neat Blur graphics for Mindbridge at http://www.grokstudio.com/beta/fundin....

Joe

art and octopi's

About sundown – weirdly early – Gay and I took a combination of subways out to the Museum of Fine Arts stop.  But we didn't go to the MFA this time.  Instead we went across town a bit, to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum.

  

We met Dayton visitors Becca and Guy, and had dinner in the museum café.  Very delicious.  I had frog legs fried in a light batter and, on a whim, a glass of icy Gewurtztraminer.  Lovely combination.

The museum has a very quirky collection.  From Wiki -- After her husband John L. Gardner’s death in 1898, Isabella Gardner realized their shared dream of building a museum for their treasures. She purchased land for the museum in the marshy Fenway area of Boston, and hired architect Willard T. Sears to build a museum modeled on the Renaissance palaces of Venice. Gardner was deeply involved in every aspect of the design, though, leading Sears to quip that he was merely the structural engineer making Gardner's design possible. After the construction of the building was complete, Gardner spent a full year carefully installing her collection in a way that evokes intimate responses to the art, mixing paintings, furniture, textiles and objects from different cultures and periods among well-known European paintings and sculpture.

A wonderful surprise was the number of John Singer Sargent paintings –I recently got that book Sargent's Women and devoured it; several of the best paintings in that book are here.  There's even a picture of Sargent painting Mrs. Gardner.

There are important pieces by Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Vermeer, and Michelangelo. A Rembrandt self-portrait at age 23 is particularly arresting.

The paintings are hung without identifying labels, but each room has a box of laminated guides.

The layout of the museum is itself a dramatic work of art.  At night the light level is low and quiet; during the day a central skylight would make it more dramatic.  Have to go back next year during the day. 

Next time, start at the top and go down; they announced closing time just as we finished the second level, so we can look forward to seeing the third floor.

The museum book store was even more seductive than most.  I had to part with $40 and get a book called Sketchtravel – a reproduction of a handmade book, about 12"X8.5", which has drawings and watercolors by seventy-one artists.  It was passed by hand, never mailed, from one to the next over five years.  Seventy-one artists in 75,000 miles.  Most of the pictures are quirky cartoons; many quite stunning.

I plucked it out of a window display, and after a couple of pages knew I had to have it.  It will be my main coffeetable book for awhile.

For the sake of marine biologists in the crowd, in LiveJournal I'll add a picture of the snow octopus we saw melting in the grass outside the museum.

Joe

Vote for the guy with the biggest ears.

I've probably posted this before – maybe four or eight years ago – but repetition is the better part of squalor, so here goes . . .

I was in Vietnam when election day, 1968, rolled around.  I got my absentee ballot only a couple of days after my man-by-default, Humphrey, lost to Richard Nixon by less than a percentage point, 42.7% to 43.4%.  (Segregationist George Wallace got 13.5%)

    

In a spirit of I-don't-know-what, I wrote in Mickey Mouse.  When I got home from Vietnam, I was leafing through the accumulated magazines and found that Mickey had been a pretty strong contender for fourth party, with about 20,000 votes.  I felt strangely vindicated.  (Never did like Humphrey that much.)

Joe

a thought for tonight

Finished teaching, came home to watch the last hours of vote-counting.

Looks like my guy is probably going to win a close one.  There will be speeches.  But I want to remember the first one I ever heard, a little boy listening to the radio. 

Sixty years ago, Adlai Stevenson lost to General Eisenhower, and he had the grace and intelligence to leave us this:

I have a statement I should like to make. If I may, I shall read it to you.

My fellow citizens have made their choice and have selected General Eisenhower and the Republican party as the instruments of their will for the next four years.

The people have rendered their verdict, and I gladly accept it.

General Eisenhower has been a great leader in war. He has been a vigorous and valiant opponent in the campaign. These qualities will now be dedicated to leading us all through the next four years.

It is traditionally American to fight hard before an election. It is equally traditional to close ranks as soon as the people have spoken.

From the depths of my heart I thank all of my party and all of those independents and Republicans who supported Senator Sparkman and me.

That which unites us as American citizens is far greater than that which divides us as political parties.

I urge you all to give General Eisenhower the support he will need to carry out the great tasks that lie before him.

I pledge him mine.

We vote as many, but we pray as one. With a united people, with faith in democracy, with common concern for others less fortunate around the globe, we shall move forward with God’s guidance toward the time when his children shall grow in freedom and dignity in a world at peace.

I have sent the following telegram to general Eisenhower at the Commodore Hotel in New York:‘The people have made their choice and I congratulate you. That you may be the servant and guardian of peace and make the vale of trouble a door of hope is my earnest prayer. Best wishes, Adlai E Stevenson.’

  (and he added this . .  .)

Someone asked me, as I came in, down on the street, how I felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell – Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.

Joe

blow job

Gay and I both have memories of Hurricane Hazel in 1953.  She was in a Girl Scout camp out in Western Maryland, and it was pretty scary, relying on buses that couldn't go back home.  I was ten years old, delivering papers, The Washington News.  I remember trying to bicycle up a steep hill and having to walk my bike through the driving rain.  People's papers were pretty soggy – we didn't have plastic wrap back in those days.  (And the dinosaur skin delivery was delayed by the storm.)

Joe

Urban Ornithology

Urban Ornithology . . . in a month of living in this apartment, I've never seen pigeons outside this window.  Do they know the hurricane's coming?

Joe

Why a duck?

We went into Cambridge last night to have dinner at Passim – went early in order to guarantee a good table – and stay for the Vance Gilbert concert.  The food was okay, rather bland vegetarian, and Vance Gilbert was very good.

We first saw him at Passim in the 80's and have been following him since.  One of the few black New England folk singers.  Aggressive steel-string picking and a strong, operatic tenor.  He often sings about flying and model airplanes – an interest that got him in the news last year.

(He didn't mention it last night, but in 2011 somebody saw him reading a technical magazine about airplanes while he was on a flight leaving Logan, and with his light-brown skin color thought he was an Arab!  So they turned the plane around – "See Something; Say Something" – and took him back to Security to be searched again and interrogated.)

He had a fine new song last night, "Old White Men," about the old WWII vets who took him under their wing and taught him model-making and carpentry.

He's always seemed like a guy you'd like to know . . . after the concert I realized I should've taken along a book to sign for him, you know, one famous guy to another.  Some of his songs have a stfnal feeling.

We also spent a couple of hours shopping yesterday; took a cart down to Chinatown and got a bunch of groceries at Ming's.  A huge market teeming with Asians.  The only place in town for jellied frog eyeballs.  Long wait for the bus back, though; the first #11 passed us by and the next one was late.  Well, the thrills and chills of public transportation.  (The #11 does drop us off a block from home.  The subway's more reliable but is a half-mile walk.)

We brought home a Peking duck, most of it destined for the freezer since we won't be having dinner at home much for a week or so.  But then after the Toronto convention (World Fantasy) we'll be back in Boston till school's out.

Joe

good flick and great food

We had fun yesterday, going out to Somerville with a couple of pals to see Argo.  Went with Betsy Fox (who works in the Writing Lab with Gay) and her friends Kurt and Ellen.  Then we went to Redbone's, the famous rib place in Davis Square.  Other people chowed down on the ribs, but with the sore on my tongue I was conservative and went with fried catfish – o so yummy!  With a fruity pinot grigio, icy cold.

The movie is a really gripping thriller with good performances by John Goodman and Ben Affleck, based on true experiences related in the Wired article "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran."  Really tight writing and breakneck pacing.  I was kind of wrung out after watching it, and glad to slide into a beer joint.

We used to go to Davis Square all the time when we lived out in Arlington, and should go there more often.  Not as hectic and Harvard-y as Harvard Square, more a neighborhood than Central Square and Kendall.

And it has Redbones.  I'd go to a fucking mall if it had Redbones.

Joe