David Gustafson's Blog: Bonjour Amigos!, page 29
July 20, 2015
Bonjour Amigos excerpt #2
Lily had known Carla back in the days when she was living under the mistaken identity of one Rudolph Carl Schlepdinger, the painfully introverted, insecure boy whose only touchstone with reality were the small triumphs his poker success brought to his ego. Beside Rose, the dealer, Lily was the only person among the Bellagio day shifters to acknowledge his existence, to smile at him.
Naturally it was love at first sight, unrequited love that is. Rudy had all the chances for conjugal success of an eager Chihuahua trying to mount a Great Dane in heat. He reluctantly settled for friendship. That worked. Lili was everyone's confessor and confidante.
Eventually, he deftly concluded that his unquenchable libido would meet with greater success and some much needed relief as a ladyboy working both sides of the fence. Lily advised him on choosing the demure breast enhancements, nothing ostentatious, and everything in proportion to his diminutive size.
The Chihuahua was not ready to give up, but Lily unfortunately declined to be the last woman of record to make love with Rudolph Carl Schlepdinger. No and thank you. Well, you never know if you never ask. All they can do is say no.
Instead, Lily helped him choose her new name. After the implants, Carla needed a classy new wardrobe. Time for some shopping! Lily should have known better than to share a narrow dressing room. Before she could turn around, Carla was undressed, admiring the excitement between her legs.
"Are you always like that?"
"I can't help myself. This is who I am."
"Does it hurt?"
"Only if I leave it alone. Buck or doe, down they go," Carla gave her a jaunty hip shake. " I think he likes you."
After that exchange, Lily insisted on separate dressing rooms.
Naturally it was love at first sight, unrequited love that is. Rudy had all the chances for conjugal success of an eager Chihuahua trying to mount a Great Dane in heat. He reluctantly settled for friendship. That worked. Lili was everyone's confessor and confidante.
Eventually, he deftly concluded that his unquenchable libido would meet with greater success and some much needed relief as a ladyboy working both sides of the fence. Lily advised him on choosing the demure breast enhancements, nothing ostentatious, and everything in proportion to his diminutive size.
The Chihuahua was not ready to give up, but Lily unfortunately declined to be the last woman of record to make love with Rudolph Carl Schlepdinger. No and thank you. Well, you never know if you never ask. All they can do is say no.
Instead, Lily helped him choose her new name. After the implants, Carla needed a classy new wardrobe. Time for some shopping! Lily should have known better than to share a narrow dressing room. Before she could turn around, Carla was undressed, admiring the excitement between her legs.
"Are you always like that?"
"I can't help myself. This is who I am."
"Does it hurt?"
"Only if I leave it alone. Buck or doe, down they go," Carla gave her a jaunty hip shake. " I think he likes you."
After that exchange, Lily insisted on separate dressing rooms.
July 19, 2015
BonjourAmigos excerpt #1
“Cockroaches are survivors. Turn on the lights and you will see a scattering of casino hosts in three thousand dollar bespoken suits, corporate fruit flies in empty suits, lawyer-class slime on their way to the courthouse to go shopping for other people's money, bankers shilling bad loans by bundling them together with good ones and sending them down the financial pipeline knowing that they stand protected by the political scum from every level of government who have risen to breathtaking heights of mediocrity, tossing a couple of bucks from the public till to the obedient myrmidons in exchange for their votes. While decaying empire crumble, cockroaches multiply among the ruins."
- Bonjour Amigos
- Bonjour Amigos
The Quote of the Century!
Although it has been attributed to former Czech President Vaclav Klaus, no one has rightfully claimed the authorship of this brilliant summation since it appeared online in November 2012. I have mischievously made one minor change, and I stress the word minor, that I will elaborate upon later.
"The danger to America is not George W. Bush, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of a Bush presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Bush, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a George W. Bush, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President."
A few readers will notice that I diabolically inserted George W. Bush's name in place of Barack Obama that originally appeared online. It makes no difference. The essence of its salient point is neither Obama nor Bush but the American electorate that elected both of those little boys who arrived at The White House with scant accomplishment in the world of grown-ups to spend their time in the Oval Office playing with matches and pissing their pants. This paragraph is a most succinct summary of Plato's fundamental objection to democracy - the uninformed electorate.
Given the last 15 years of American government, replete with its dysfunctional Congress of whores and pimps, call girls and call boys, bb brains and kumquats, maybe it is time to reconsider Plato's objections to democracy?
In the meantime, I would love to meet the mysterious author of this most brilliant summation. Please contact me!
"The danger to America is not George W. Bush, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of a Bush presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Bush, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a George W. Bush, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President."
A few readers will notice that I diabolically inserted George W. Bush's name in place of Barack Obama that originally appeared online. It makes no difference. The essence of its salient point is neither Obama nor Bush but the American electorate that elected both of those little boys who arrived at The White House with scant accomplishment in the world of grown-ups to spend their time in the Oval Office playing with matches and pissing their pants. This paragraph is a most succinct summary of Plato's fundamental objection to democracy - the uninformed electorate.
Given the last 15 years of American government, replete with its dysfunctional Congress of whores and pimps, call girls and call boys, bb brains and kumquats, maybe it is time to reconsider Plato's objections to democracy?
In the meantime, I would love to meet the mysterious author of this most brilliant summation. Please contact me!
July 17, 2015
They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no...
I can already hear Amy Winehouse singing, "They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no,no,no..."
This history nerd is closing the door to the waiting room list of William Shirer's "Berlin Diary," Boswell's "The Life of Samuel Johnson" and Josephus Flavius' "The Jewish War."
I am going on a noir binge. I will be reading or rereading, "The Maltese Falcon," "The Thin Man," "Red Harvest," "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity," "Mildred Pierce," "The Lady in the Lake," "The Little Sister," and "The Long Goodbye."
That should cure me. I ain't going to rehab, no,no,no...
This history nerd is closing the door to the waiting room list of William Shirer's "Berlin Diary," Boswell's "The Life of Samuel Johnson" and Josephus Flavius' "The Jewish War."
I am going on a noir binge. I will be reading or rereading, "The Maltese Falcon," "The Thin Man," "Red Harvest," "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity," "Mildred Pierce," "The Lady in the Lake," "The Little Sister," and "The Long Goodbye."
That should cure me. I ain't going to rehab, no,no,no...
July 8, 2015
My nominations are...
On the quickly unfolding scale of human events, America's arbiters of what is naughty and what is nice have decided that the time has come to place a woman on either the twenty dollar bill where President Andrew Jackson resides, or on the ten dollar bill replacing the rather unlucky (in his duel against Aaron Burr) Alexander Hamilton, America's first Secretary of the Treasury.
Hopefully, the cultural mullahs will keep Hamilton and retire Jackson.
The media has proposed their usual, predictable and very boring darlings and doyennes from the civil rights and feminist movements.
Instead, may I suggest that the choice not be limited to one female? Why not have two or three sharing the same spotlight?
Here are my nominations of three great ladies to represent the all mighty dollar and strut their stuff around the world as monetary centerfolds:
Willa Cather
Marilyn Monroe
Julia Child
Hopefully, the cultural mullahs will keep Hamilton and retire Jackson.
The media has proposed their usual, predictable and very boring darlings and doyennes from the civil rights and feminist movements.
Instead, may I suggest that the choice not be limited to one female? Why not have two or three sharing the same spotlight?
Here are my nominations of three great ladies to represent the all mighty dollar and strut their stuff around the world as monetary centerfolds:
Willa Cather
Marilyn Monroe
Julia Child
July 7, 2015
Style and Substance
From 24/7 television to millions of selfies every hour, we live in a world of constant visual gratification where a single sentence of language is considered more than enough elaboration while a paragraph of substance and concept is a completely baffling intrusion upon contemporary sensibilities.
July 5, 2015
Willa Cather's "My Antonia"
When I left American literature and sailed into the deeper waters of European letters, Hemingway, Steinbeck and Faulkner were my Holy Trinity. I felt Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the only worthy novel appearing after those mighty icons that might be read a century later. Fortunately, I had overlooked some previous masterpieces that I would open later like a buried treasure.
After my European literary sojourn, I left fiction completely for many years and spent my time reading history, mainly ancient Roman history, the Jewish culture during the Roman occupation of Jerusalem and the first three centuries of the Christian church.
After converting from a lapsed Lutheran to a devout Catholic and finding myself in the American Southwest, I found Willa Cather's, "Death Comes to the Archbishop," resting comfortably in my hands. I was astounded that I had missed such a talented writer who immediately vaulted into contention with my previous three icons. I bought "Oh Pioneers" and "My Antonia," and set them both aside, returning for years to history and biography.
Deciding I needed a break from this routine, I pulled forth the Cather novels, wondering which one I should read first. After glancing at the first paragraph of 'My Antonia," I was reminded of what a superlative wordsmith Cather was, much more fluid than the best of Hemingway, Steinbeck or Faulkner. Then the short, second paragraph hit me like a fanfare of trumpets, announcing that here was a world-class storyteller a notch or two above my previous heros.
"My Antonia" covers a period of Western immigration from the 1880's to about 1918 when the railroads opened up the prairie states to Easterners, and daring Czechs, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Finns, hardscrabble immigrant gamblers who bet the comfort and security of their homes and cultures that they could hit the ground running and succeed in a Far Country with its foreign language.
They landed on the prairie plains before there were trees, roads, fences or towns where the isolation and bitter winter winds drove many to despair and madness, living huddled with their families in caves carved from the swells, then sod houses, then log houses and finally frame houses as they broke the fertile prairie soil, turning it into one of the world's greatest breadbaskets within a generation.
This is the story of Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda who meet as trusting, inquisitive children on the barren prairie, barely able to communicate with one another until Jim begins teaching Antonia her broken English.
As barefoot children they share adventures among the tall grasses, along the river banks, with every new insect, bird, animal, and snake they encounter that brings wonder to a child's soul when the world is brand new. Every person adults might otherwise find ordinary, they find exotic and entertaining. They share the bonds of early experiences that will bind them together through years of separation and tribulation until they meet again in middle age.
They forge this friendship during a time when there was a distinct class separation between townsmen and country folk in America.
An unrequited romance develops that will last from childhood, to adolescence and into middle age. Every male reader will fall in love with Antonia and every female with Jim, but this is about the lasting friendship between a man and a woman. The spontaneous combustion between the young couple that the readers yearn for, never bursts into flames.
You will read the final chapters very slowly because you will wish this story not to end. You will not want to leave the quiet prairie and return to wherever you live, to the world of noise, cars, televisions, 24/7 news, smart phones and casual sex.
Here are the first two paragraphs I mentioned earlier where Cather introduces us to her friend who will become the story's narrator when they begin discussing their childhood friend, Antonia Shimerda. They are your train ticket across the American prairie when it straddled the turn of the twentieth century. When you disembark, may I suggest you book your next ticket on "Death Comes to the Archbishop?"
"Last summer, I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden - Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I are old friends - we grew up together in the same Nebraska town - and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed though never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay over everything. The dust and the heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it was like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests.; blustery winters with little snow when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said."
(Now the for the short trumpet fanfare of genius)
"Although Jim Burden and I both live in New York and are old friends, I do not see much of him there. He is legal counsel for one of the great Western railways, and is sometimes away from his New York office for weeks together. That is one reason why we do not often meet. Another is that I do not like his wife."
After my European literary sojourn, I left fiction completely for many years and spent my time reading history, mainly ancient Roman history, the Jewish culture during the Roman occupation of Jerusalem and the first three centuries of the Christian church.
After converting from a lapsed Lutheran to a devout Catholic and finding myself in the American Southwest, I found Willa Cather's, "Death Comes to the Archbishop," resting comfortably in my hands. I was astounded that I had missed such a talented writer who immediately vaulted into contention with my previous three icons. I bought "Oh Pioneers" and "My Antonia," and set them both aside, returning for years to history and biography.
Deciding I needed a break from this routine, I pulled forth the Cather novels, wondering which one I should read first. After glancing at the first paragraph of 'My Antonia," I was reminded of what a superlative wordsmith Cather was, much more fluid than the best of Hemingway, Steinbeck or Faulkner. Then the short, second paragraph hit me like a fanfare of trumpets, announcing that here was a world-class storyteller a notch or two above my previous heros.
"My Antonia" covers a period of Western immigration from the 1880's to about 1918 when the railroads opened up the prairie states to Easterners, and daring Czechs, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Finns, hardscrabble immigrant gamblers who bet the comfort and security of their homes and cultures that they could hit the ground running and succeed in a Far Country with its foreign language.
They landed on the prairie plains before there were trees, roads, fences or towns where the isolation and bitter winter winds drove many to despair and madness, living huddled with their families in caves carved from the swells, then sod houses, then log houses and finally frame houses as they broke the fertile prairie soil, turning it into one of the world's greatest breadbaskets within a generation.
This is the story of Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda who meet as trusting, inquisitive children on the barren prairie, barely able to communicate with one another until Jim begins teaching Antonia her broken English.
As barefoot children they share adventures among the tall grasses, along the river banks, with every new insect, bird, animal, and snake they encounter that brings wonder to a child's soul when the world is brand new. Every person adults might otherwise find ordinary, they find exotic and entertaining. They share the bonds of early experiences that will bind them together through years of separation and tribulation until they meet again in middle age.
They forge this friendship during a time when there was a distinct class separation between townsmen and country folk in America.
An unrequited romance develops that will last from childhood, to adolescence and into middle age. Every male reader will fall in love with Antonia and every female with Jim, but this is about the lasting friendship between a man and a woman. The spontaneous combustion between the young couple that the readers yearn for, never bursts into flames.
You will read the final chapters very slowly because you will wish this story not to end. You will not want to leave the quiet prairie and return to wherever you live, to the world of noise, cars, televisions, 24/7 news, smart phones and casual sex.
Here are the first two paragraphs I mentioned earlier where Cather introduces us to her friend who will become the story's narrator when they begin discussing their childhood friend, Antonia Shimerda. They are your train ticket across the American prairie when it straddled the turn of the twentieth century. When you disembark, may I suggest you book your next ticket on "Death Comes to the Archbishop?"
"Last summer, I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden - Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I are old friends - we grew up together in the same Nebraska town - and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed though never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay over everything. The dust and the heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it was like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests.; blustery winters with little snow when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said."
(Now the for the short trumpet fanfare of genius)
"Although Jim Burden and I both live in New York and are old friends, I do not see much of him there. He is legal counsel for one of the great Western railways, and is sometimes away from his New York office for weeks together. That is one reason why we do not often meet. Another is that I do not like his wife."
July 1, 2015
Fröken Julie
I will read "Fadern" and "Drömspel" later. I bought this book for "Fröken Julie" which I had read in English long before I researched my Swedish heritage and its charming language.
Reading this in the original Swedish, with all of the old words and phrases that have slipped from everyday usage into distant memory, made it ring like a church bell from a quaint, countryside idyll.
Being a history nerd, I consider "Miss Julie" (1888) and Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" (1912) to be two of the greatest, and shortest, masterpieces revealing the turn-of-the century, bourgeoise European mindset breaking away from the bonds of its Christian heritage and venturing into the turbulence of the secular twentieth century.
The manservant Jean and the maid Kristin also illustrate the obedient and disobedient angers of the underclass, predicting the future clashes between industrial labor and private capital that would consume the greater part of the century.
Besides representing the bourgeoise, Miss Julie, who describes herself as half man and half woman, one who has gotten all of her thoughts from her father and all of her passions from her mother, presages the modern, independent female. When you read her monologues as dawn is breaking, remember that this was 1888!
The storyline of "Miss Julie" moves at a breakneck pace. The class reversal dialogue between Miss Julie and Jean after their Midsummer night "emotional fling" is priceless, classic theatre.
This is a timeless masterpiece; Strindberg its timeless genius.
Reading this in the original Swedish, with all of the old words and phrases that have slipped from everyday usage into distant memory, made it ring like a church bell from a quaint, countryside idyll.
Being a history nerd, I consider "Miss Julie" (1888) and Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" (1912) to be two of the greatest, and shortest, masterpieces revealing the turn-of-the century, bourgeoise European mindset breaking away from the bonds of its Christian heritage and venturing into the turbulence of the secular twentieth century.
The manservant Jean and the maid Kristin also illustrate the obedient and disobedient angers of the underclass, predicting the future clashes between industrial labor and private capital that would consume the greater part of the century.
Besides representing the bourgeoise, Miss Julie, who describes herself as half man and half woman, one who has gotten all of her thoughts from her father and all of her passions from her mother, presages the modern, independent female. When you read her monologues as dawn is breaking, remember that this was 1888!
The storyline of "Miss Julie" moves at a breakneck pace. The class reversal dialogue between Miss Julie and Jean after their Midsummer night "emotional fling" is priceless, classic theatre.
This is a timeless masterpiece; Strindberg its timeless genius.
June 13, 2015
Secular Piety and the Temperance Church Ladies
Racism! Sexism! Homophobia! Social entitlements!
The gasping guardians of the Secular Commandment du jour cannot wait to squeeze their tight little sphincters around the latest real or imagined improbity threatening their pristine political correctness and the future of the human race.
Eventually, these tireless tabloid crusaders, these babbling, boobtube bobble-heads will evaporate into history's ether and be laughed at with the same gusto that makes us chuckle and shake our heads in amazement when reading about the temperance movement church ladies who prowled across the American prairies during the 1920's proclaiming the Gospel of Prohibition against the effects demon rum.
Not to worry. Political correctness can only constrict freedom of speech so long before it gets its overdue enema of justice in the end.
The gasping guardians of the Secular Commandment du jour cannot wait to squeeze their tight little sphincters around the latest real or imagined improbity threatening their pristine political correctness and the future of the human race.
Eventually, these tireless tabloid crusaders, these babbling, boobtube bobble-heads will evaporate into history's ether and be laughed at with the same gusto that makes us chuckle and shake our heads in amazement when reading about the temperance movement church ladies who prowled across the American prairies during the 1920's proclaiming the Gospel of Prohibition against the effects demon rum.
Not to worry. Political correctness can only constrict freedom of speech so long before it gets its overdue enema of justice in the end.
June 12, 2015
An Enemy of the People
August 4 marks the 51st anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's phony Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that eventually sent 58,220 American soldiers to their needless deaths defending not their countrymen, but the vanities of an incompetent political hack out of his depth with world history, cultures and languages.
Besides leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fighting for their national autonomy, it eventually led to the poisoning of millions of acres of that country's forests and waters with Agent Orange courtesy of Monsanto and Dow Chemical. That poison remain in the eco-system to this day causing birth defects and cancer.
August 4, 1964 marks the day in history when a congenial democracy serving its own people became the deceitful enemy of its own people.
August 4, 1964 marks the historical beginning of the "decline and fall" of America and the reckless projection of military power into obscure corners of the world far removed from American borders...see Iraq and Afghanistan.
Curiously, it also seems to mark the beginning of the end of any meaningful literature, music, poetry, cinema or theatre emanating from the "land of the free."
August 4, 1964.
Besides leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fighting for their national autonomy, it eventually led to the poisoning of millions of acres of that country's forests and waters with Agent Orange courtesy of Monsanto and Dow Chemical. That poison remain in the eco-system to this day causing birth defects and cancer.
August 4, 1964 marks the day in history when a congenial democracy serving its own people became the deceitful enemy of its own people.
August 4, 1964 marks the historical beginning of the "decline and fall" of America and the reckless projection of military power into obscure corners of the world far removed from American borders...see Iraq and Afghanistan.
Curiously, it also seems to mark the beginning of the end of any meaningful literature, music, poetry, cinema or theatre emanating from the "land of the free."
August 4, 1964.
