Another taped treasure from my basement

You are never lost in Iceland

Miss Congeniality

After swatting flies all day (see previous blog), last night I relaxed with this pleasant, undemanding little movie.  After watching the Seahawks get creamed in Green Bay for a while this afternoon, I decided it would be more fun to write a blog.  So here it is.

Do you know that Sandra Bullock is 52?  I haven’t seen her for a few years, but she always strikes me as being about 30, beautiful and brainy.  Other important cast members include Michael Caine (of whom one can safely say that no movie with him in it is ever truly bad), Candice Bergen (who had a brief heyday about then, now thankfully terminated), someone named Benjamin Bratt  (whom I liked but know nothing about ) and – sadly – Captain Kirk.  Where were you Scotty?  You might have beamed him out of there.  I hate to see a man who can stand down the Klingons make a fool of himself.

Okay, the movie is only 16 years old and was fairly popular (the critics didn’t like it, but who listens to them?).  That means you’ve probably already seen it.  So see it again; it is good for psychic tension.  The plot is not particularly deep or taxing to follow: sad-sack imperfectly civilized female FBI agent is transformed into a beauty queen to stop a threat to the Miss Something beauty pageant.  Plenty of chuckles, lots of pretty girls – what’s not to like?

BUT be sure to avoid Miss Congeniality II, which (I saw the first 30 minutes) was terrible.  Even Michael Caine couldn’t have saved it.

MY ROOM MATES

You probably know the old gospel song that goes something like this: “Go down Moses, Go down Moses, Go on down to Egypt land.  Tell old Pharaoh; tell old Pharaoh, LET MY PEOPLE GO!”   In the event, old Pharaoh capitulated, after Moses unleashed ten plagues of increasing severity, and the Children of Israel began their long journey through the Wilderness.

Well, would someone please inform God that I am not any kind of Pharaoh, that I have no people to release – and that I sure would appreciate it if He withdrew the Plague of Flies He has visited upon me, for whatever sins I cannot guess.  He doesn’t seem to be paying attention to me. 

It goes like this.  It has been cold but sunny for several days (now, however, it is cold and snowy).  Three days ago I came into the kitchen to find a window nearly obscured by at least 100 smallish house flies.  They were lethargic, barely crawling around – so I swatted the lot and vacuumed up the corpses.  Later that same day I returned to that window, and found it again thick with flies.  Again I swatted & disposed of the bodies.  Within a few hours the window was again rife with moscas.  And so it has gone, for three days.  I am making progress, however – this morning there were only a dozen to kill.  But twelve is about fourteen too many.

So, would somebody tell me what is going on?  There are no dead animals lying about, nor conspicuous piles of rotting food.  I take out the garbage fairly regularly.  My cat is clean.  It is almost winter, surely not prime housefly breeding season.  Yet still they come; dozens and dozens of diminutive crawly things, easy to kill but seemingly impossible to eradicate.  Not fun,  at all. 

To make matters worse, some of the little bastards apparently escape the fly swatter and grow into full-fledged annoying houseflies, of the hard-to-kill variety.  For instance, two of them took a fancy to my TV screen last night.  You have no idea how hard it is to absorb what Katty Kay (BBC World News America) is trying to tell you about Aleppo when a fly is attempting to crawl up her nose!  Nor how hard it is to write a blog with a buzzing nuisance apparently fixated on your right ear!!

Help!

AN ADMONITION

Sheik Abu Bakr ibn Beck al Beaumonti

Urges verbal restraint

On the effective use of the F bomb:

The word “fuck” can be used as a verb, a noun, and a simple expletive.  As “fucking” it is an adjective, and as “fucked” it can be used as an adverb.  It is a most versatile word, and one that once had a most important use – it allowed a person to convey that he or she was very unusually disturbed about something.  Now, alas, it has become mere throw-away verbiage.  As a daughter wrote recently, we need a stronger word, now that you-know-who is in charge.

I have seen several recent Facebook postings that exemplify the over use and cheapening of the F word.  One utilized the phrase “fucking shit-ass” four or five times in a half-dozen lines.  Another described conditions as being “fucked” at least five or six times, in a short posting.  I seldom resort to “social media” that I do not encounter our F…ing friend.  That’s sad.

Why is it sad?  Well, for one thing, it allows the user to avoid valuable mental exercise.  Instead of inveighing against "fucking shit-ass" weather, why not simply describe it as "atrocious"?  Rather than declaring that with Donald Trump as president, we are fucked, try “we are in serious difficulty.”  This sort of thing would allow humanity to save the F-bomb for truly unusual circumstances.  Then it would be a real bomb, and not a pathetic fizzling fire-cracker.  I like the F word, and I want it to mean something once again.

Yeah, I know: you are thinking that I am an old man, with speech patterns stuck in the 1950s.  That is true.  But it also is true that later on I was known as nearly the most profane man in geology, second only to Bob Butler.  Butler later became my field partner.  We resorted to lots of colorful phraseology – and saved the F word for when the tent leaked.

I can't stand to watch!

Maybe we should try crowdsourcing to buy some protection for Russell Wilson.

Russell Wilson is a fine young man, and one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.  Last Sunday he was sacked six times, flattened many times more – and was forced to run for his life more often than I can count.  The problem is that most of the Seahawk offensive line appears to have been acquired bargain-basement style, perhaps by drafting starters from the football team fielded by The Little Sisters of the Poor.  Whatever the explanation, I could not bring myself to watch the last half of that game.  I guess I’m just too squeamish for professional football.

You might say that Wilson has brought it on himself, that his exorbitant salary pushed the Seahawks up against the salary ceiling, leaving nothing to buy really ugly/mean guards and tackles.  You might be right, but that is beside the point.  Other teams have quarterbacks with higher salaries, and better offensive lines.  Wilson makes less than Andrew Luck, Drew Breeze, Joe Flacco and Aaron Rogers, and none of those guys faces death nearly so closely every game – they have better protection.

So how about we crowdsource about $13 million and buy Tyron Smith from Dallas – or two or three less expensive offensive linemen?  I like Tyron, personally – he weighs 320 lbs. and can bench press 600 lbs.  Put him in front of Russell and dare the other team to blitz!

NIXON

An Englishman confronts the North Cascades

Dr. Peter Dagley, University of Liverpool

Book review:  Nixon.  The making of a politician. By Stephan Ambrose.

This blog (“Frivolities”) perhaps is deceptively named.  I enjoy writing, and sitting at this keyboard, resting my joints while the pills kick in lets me imagine that my time is not being totally squandered.  I have one active blog devoted to cancer research (”Myrl’sBlog”).  Everything else goes here.  So, as difficult as it is to imagine Richard Nixon as a frivolity, maybe compared to cancer, he is.

In the Facebook frenzy following our late election I have seen Nixon equated with Donald Trump.  A greater misconception is difficult to imagine.  Nixon was a peculiar man, disliked by many, but he was extraordinarily intelligent, hard-working, and totally dedicated to political causes that – in his view – worked to the betterment of America.  His great defect, it seems to me, was that he regarded people on the other side of his issues as not only wrong, but dangerous – perhaps, at times, even a little  evil.  He was an “ends justify the means” sort of guy.  He was the quintessential politician.

Trump, in contrast, is the quintessential loose cannon.  Whereas Nixon thought deeply about issues, Trump, it seems, just goes with his gut.  Nixon had a well-thought-out political philosophy which he could defend; Trump seems to be guided solely by consideration of momentary expedience – and the aforesaid gut.  With Nixon you could predict what he would do, faced with various events; with Trump you don’t even want to guess.

Oh, yes – the book.  You don’t want to read it.  It is very well written and to me, a child of the 50s, darned interesting.  I enjoyed revisiting the events of that bygone age – lost in the midst of time, you might say.  But it is 670 pages long.  If you have never heard of Checkers or a good Republican cloth coat – give this one a pass.

Movie Review: The River Wild

Okay, so this isn’t a Taped Treasure from my basement; rather, it is a gloriously successful suggestion from a friend.  It is the movie “The River Wild” from 1994, starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, John C. Riley and David Straithairn, ably abetted by a whole bunch of people whose names escape me.  I talked Linda out of going to this movie when it first came out, on the grounds that it was perfectly obvious from the first that Bacon and Riley were bad guys and would get their comeuppance in some dramatic manner at the end.  That was, of course, true – but, boy! What comes before is gripping.

I learned two things tonight:

1)      Meryl Streep can punch in the same weight class as the best Brits: Judy, Maggie, Helen, Emma:  And that’s saying something.

2)      It was wise of me not to take up whitewater rafting as a pastime. 

So, the plot is predictable.  Bad guys steal money, attempt a get-away down a nasty river, coerce Streep – an experienced river guide – to assist them – and meet their Heaven-ordained end.  Don’t see it for the plot.  Rather, see it for the splendid acting, and the scenery.  But, whatever: see it.

Sorry, Linda.  I hope you went out and saw it without me.

INDOOR STATIONARY BIRDING

The name of this Icelandic geyser is "Geyser"

That's where the name comes from

Last winter I wrote a Facebook post about a senior-suitable activity I called stationary birding.  For those who missed it, click on this:

https://www.facebook.com/myrl.beck.3/posts/1757700751125729

Well, my hip is hurting so much today that all I want to do is sit in the recliner by the sliding glass door leading to my front deck.  That being so, I decided to scatter bird seed on the deck, then sit back with a bird book and practice INDOOR STATIONARY BIRDING.  It was a qualified success.

On the plus side I was able to enjoy studying  the feeding behaviors of several species of birds: the dark eyed junco, the spotted towhee, the northern flicker, and the Steller’s jay.  On the minus side, I came away from the experience with painfully lacerated legs.  This leads me to some important advice:  Do not engage in stationary birding with a cat in your lap!

Many of you will know my cat, Creampuff.  Creampuff is fat, lazy, docile and cowardly.  (She is also a pretty, soft and loveable.)  If Creampuff faced off with a junco – let alone a jay – I would bet on the bird.  She also loves a lap.  This morning when I was dozing (indoor stationary birding is not exactly an exciting sport), Creampuff launched herself from my lap at the nearby glass door, in the process excavating small pits in my thighs.  Apparently in her DNA or racial memory  lies something that tells her that birds are her enemies.  Lucky for her the glass door saved her; had she landed on the deck itself (rather than colliding with the door), the Steller’s jay would have pecked the snot out of her.

So, to modify the advice, above: if you must practice stationary birding with a cat in tour lap, make use of a very thick towel. 

WHAT THIS BLOG IS ALL ABOUT

The author, in Iceland

Visitors to my living room have been known to comment that all the books lying around are at least 2 ½ inches thick, and it’s true.  Over the years I seem to have developed the pernicious attitude that if I’m reading fiction I’m wasting time.  Example: for a month I have been trudging through the early life of Richard Nixon, as related by Stephan Ambrose.  There are two more volumes (probably 600 pages each) which I intend to read, if I live long enough. 

Nixon and Lyndon Johnson probably are the most widely disliked presidents of the 20^th century.  Robert  Caro has written four volumes about Johnson, which I also intend to read.  Lord,  give me a long life, or make me a speed reader!

Oh, sure – sometimes I read a tiny fiction book between my titanic tomes – but I always feel guilty doing it.

So, you say – who cares?  Well, it’s like this.  I have begun to suspect that some of you are a bit tired of my cancer blogs.  My joints won’t let me stand for more than a few minutes at a time so, other than driving out for more beer, of necessity I spend much of the day reading, or pecking away at this keyboard.  It has been suggested that I write more about frivolous stuff – book reviews, movie reviews, rants about current events, embarrassing stories from my youth , etc. – and less about cancer.  So I’m going to try that for awhile.  If I can figure out how to do I will start a new blog.  I think I will call it something like ‘Frivolities”.  And, of course, I will subject you to it on Facebook!

Stay tuned for my review of the first Nixon volume; I am less than 50 pages from 1962.