To thine own self be true

So often the people who clean out closets, attics, barns, the people who dumpster-dive or buy something for $5 at a thrift shop or garage sale, unwittingly, hit the jackpot and find out the painting they own is worth 20 thousand for a small amateurish-looking painting.

Even the people who know they have something important get surprised anyway. The woman who was given an “ugly” pop art print by her friend who dragged her to modern art shows, the person who had the Frank Lloyd Writing architectural designs, the American woman that owned a nice (Canadian) painting (turned out to be a rare Krieghoff). All of them astounded by the 70,000 to 1.2 million kinds of estimates. Having ‘greatness’ of value thrust upon them as surely as a winning lottery ticket.

Some weep openly, some hug the appraiser; some coolly say “Very nice” or “Good God’; some say “Not a bad bargain for something free”. A range of responses, tones and moods. Often, though, sheer disbelief that the item taken for granted could be worth that kind of money. Some say, defensively, “It’s staying in the family”; others “Wanna buy it?

Responses 360 degree different from the folks who assume too much and get an unexpected ‘comeuppance’ on what they confidently bought from an investment perspective.

It had been months since he had seen his parents and home. The city skyline gradually came into sight after a long flat prairie drive. Suddenly he was passing the familiar landmarks as he entered the outlying district where he used to live. There was the drugstore where he had worked briefly, riding his bike in the deep snow delivering prescriptions. There was the bus stop where his girlfriend had tripped as they once ran for the bus. There was the hospital where his mother had worked and walked several blocks to in winter in order to save busfare. There was the little hall where a September Saturday dance had once been and he had been introduced to all his friend’s grade 9 classmates from another school–opening up an entirely new world of amazing possibilities for him.

There were the two streets where he had delivered papers for several years, the building his parents had found him in upstairs when at 5 he wandered off with some strange kids and they showed him how to box, complete with boxing gloves. There was the old store which had a giant cartoon tramp painted on its side, which punned it was a long tramp to the next town. There was the bend in the road where the bowling alley he and his parents had had once bowled in, and the six-storey apartment block they had once lived in–the high school a long cold walk across the open sports field in winter.

There was another newer apartment block where a student in a band he used to go see had lived in; a handsome, funny teen who had once charged the Beatles’ plane when it stopped to refuel at the airport–a few years before the student had joined one of the country’s most famous bands (later being fired) and finally being killed as an innocent hiking-passenger in a wild car ride on the same city street late one wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time-night.
There was where the bakery had been before it exploded, killing the baker and others, taking out the rest of the block’s buildings–the bakery he and his new grade 9 friends used to stop at, to eat and comically tear apart loaves of bread on their way home from school–the clothing store where his father had, on credit, bought him dark green leather loafers which never fit right and which finally fell apart–and the barber’s where he had once sat and envied the annual Export A NHL calendars featuring the Maple Leafs and Canadiens on a facing wall.

Beside the deathly-still vacant lot was the street where, a few houses down, he had gone to in grade 8 with an older teen to see his friend’s uncles’ two Corvettes parked on a driveway–a consummation of his private Route 66 tv show fantasies. And there, further down the main avenue, was the restaurant he had never been in, but which he would finally go into after his 40th school reunion with those same, now aged grade 9 friends. And there was the supermarket where his musical friend–now a married, computer expert for another city, had once worked as a bagboy.

He parked the car in the same store’s lot and went in to buy some better quality hamburger. Then he drove across the avenue to the parking lot beside the walk-up near the river where his parents still lived. The same building the big planes passed on their very low descents to the airport. His folks were both well and happy to see him, much like the old Corgi cross who slowly got up from her bed. She was obviously very tired and quite ill–‘on her way out’.

After supper, he went to the stove, took out a red saucepan and cooked up some of the hamburger. The dog lay motionless beside him on the floor, her head up, patiently waiting. When the meat was cooked, he put some in her yellow bowl and she limped over and tried to eat. It was the least that he could do, after all this time between, for his close childhood companion.

Later that evening the dog passed away quietly and the family all said goodbye to her peaceful body on the living-room floor. In the long silence that followed that evening, he thought to himself: Everything changes. Everything passes. But inside, he was still glad that he had come home, in time at last, to do one nice, last special thing for his old, never-forgotten friend in a never-forgotten life.

They circled the open well lazily, no discernible pattern–about twenty of them–five feet off the ground. You could feel that something was about to happen.

Then they shot up in a linear swarm and turned suddenly at the leader’s chosen zenith to arc straight-down, still in formation, toward the well and its unseen nadir. I watched them disappear into its depthless darkness at top speed and wondered at their inexplicable, soundless, frenzied ends. Not a single bird emerged again.

“If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and you are a free man; then you are ready for a walk.”
–Henry David Thoreau, “On Walking”

……………….

“The readiness is all.”

is a lot easier when you have dealt with unfinished business of the past and resolved all past missing pieces and conflicts, and truly know, understand, and accept yourself. As well, such is easier if you have made many plans for the future as if nothing else will change. By doing so, you direct the course of your own life quite apart from whatever else may happen.

There are two schools of thought relative to such anxieties. One says You should live each day fully, as if it was your last because “you never know”. I must admit it is very satisfying having full, constructive, forward-moving days–taking care of biz, doing a variety of activities, and getting things done, while leaving room for impulse, pleasure, and serendipidity.

The other school says Live as if you will live forever with no special regard or anxiety for passing time. This view is closer to a fatalistic one that we will all die one day, that death is inevitable and so one might as well enjoy the immediate passing moment. This view is also reflected in the way many people live–they just ‘go on’ without seemingly a care to actual limits, limitations, and a more realistic sense of process; i.e., that we can be accidentally ‘rubbed out’ at any time.

Which to choose? Obviously we all, at different times, live by both approaches.
I feel, though, more and more, as I age, the inevitability of process, my own limits and limitations, and some days I just enjoy or savour a la approach 2. But other days can also be comforting with the first approach–knowing one has anticipated many possibilities and already acted and chosen (route 1). In that, no restlessness–instead, peace, and acceptance that defies whatever sudden challenges or turn of events.

Thoreau’s comments on walking (in the previous blog entry) can be applied in a larger sense to one’s own life. Similarly, Hamlet’s “The readiness is all.” And the title of my 2001 poetry book Negative Capability–a phrase from John Keats, sums up this position–“This is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without reaching any irritable reaching after fact or reason.”

If/whenever such a balance has been achieved, there is a satisfied inner state consisting of relative peace, integrity, acceptance, and letting go that looks through, past, and beyond whatever imagined or real crisis or challenge, there follows a profound sense of both arrival and completion in one’s own life.

And one is really ready for whatever–Thoreau’s walk, the continuous massive societal and cultural changes of the day, great losses of those closest to one, major upheavals in living conditions or lifestyle, serious illness, tragedy, and even death.

Coumadin.

Otherwise known as Warfarin. Rat poison. Which, ironically, is a blood thinner for stroke and heart attack patients. Can kill if not properly monitored and controlled lest the patient die. Just as easily as rats who bleed to death from its use.

Ironically, many’s the human patient who has died, rat-like, by refusing to take it. “I’m not going to take that stuff; it’s just rat poison.”

Evelyn Waugh’s best novel is brought to life in this 11 part, 660 min. Granada/Acorn classic on DVD once called “the best series ever” by  TheWashington Post.

The initial/main focus in this melodrama is on the relationship of Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons in the role that made him a star) with his 1922 gay Oxford chum Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews in his best-ever role) and members of the latter’s family into the 1940s of WWII in England. Brideshead, Sebastian’s home, (played by the magnificent Castle Howard) is the locale for much of the action as Charles interacts with family members up to and past Lord Marchmain’s (Sebastian’s rogue-father living in sin and exile played by the great scene-stealing Laurence Olivier) death. In fact, the plot begins and ends with Charles, an officer, returning to the changed estate with his troop, and the main storyline is told in flashback in voice-over as Charles remembers his old friend and his own and family past.

Each minor character has his or her own story and relationship to Ryder and the family; each character being well-acted by British actors of the day. Diana Quick plays Sebastian’s sister Julia, who marries an ambitious politician-businessman Rex (Charles Keating) against her family’s wishes and later falls in love with Charles. Phoebe Nicholls plays Sebastian’s equally devout younger sister Cordelia. Claire Bloom makes an excellent Lady Marchmain, a pious mother who drove her husband and Sebastian away. Jane Asher (once Paul McCartney’s girlfriend) does a strong turn as Charles’ determined wife. And the veteran Mona Wasbourne plays Nanny, Sebastian’s favorite at Brideshead–the nanny popular with the rest of the Flyte family. She turns out to be an unexpected survivor after the family abandons Brideshead in wartime.

The male supporting cast is equally strong with Nickolas Grace as the funny, showy, effete gay friend of Charles and Sebastian, who understands the Flytes best of all right from the beginning. John Grillo makes a suitable Uriah Heep-figure who worms his way into the plot as Sebastian’s companion and ‘jailer’ when Sebastian’s mother assigns him that role to watch over her alcoholic son. Simon Jones makes a wonderful Bridey–an older ass, stiff- upper-lip brother to Sebastian throwing various wrenches into the works. And John Gielgud is as scene-stealing as Olivier, playing Charles’ humorous, indifferent, cynical father. Overall, this series has perhaps the best British cast ever assembled for a dramatic tv series.

Though much of the early focus is on Charles’ relationship with Sebastian, the focus changes as Sebastian becomes increasingly dissolute and living separate from his family. The focus then moves onto Charles’ dealings with the family, mostly at Brideshead. Evelyn Waugh, the author, was himself a Catholic and interested in the various issues revolving around devout Catholics and their lives and lifestyles. This subfocus is also what most of what the rest of the series is about. And so these Catholic conflicts of the Flyte characters are observed by and reacted to by Charles, especially when Lord Marchmain, a lapsed Catholic comes home to die.

The last two episodes resolve whatever confusions and bring the series to a more exalted, thoughtful and serious ending after all the earlier frivolities,  conflicts and issues.. The viewer is left, impressed by the scope of the plot, feeling that real life and lives have been realistically presented, much as in a good novel or in actual life.

My only quibble about the series is that it could have been one episode shorter by combining two needlessly longer episodes at sea when Charles’ marriage dissolves and he meets Julia again. (There are two brief scenes of distracting, gratuitous male nudity that might also have been omitted.) There is nothing else that a viewer might have wished for in terms of economical and effective editing to make this strong series stronger.

There will, no doubt, viewers who wish that the Charles and Sebastian plot had run longer or that the two of them might have had happier endings, but, as stated above, this is a realistic plot and book, inspired by the author’s own glory days as a ‘Bright Young Thing’. Anyone interested in upper class British life from the 1920s to ’40s will find this a valuable background of a lifestyle. Likewise, anyone interested in issues that were once significant for Catholics in relationships of the past.

There are many reasons to check out the series, but the best one may be for serious or veteran viewers who enjoy seeing the sweep and conflicts of life played out on a larger scale than a movie can do. The feel of which is something very close to reading a book such as Waugh’s own novel. In any case, the quality of this production is quite high and consistently commendable. An enthusiastic 9/10 for a thoroughly entertaining, leisurely series which charms and delights repeatedly.

…can be seen in all in all of Shakespeare’s history plays and tragedies. To begin with, a country that has a corrupt or weak king (R II on both counts) will have great civil unrest (much as in the case of you-know-who south-of-the-border these daze).

Richard is one of Shakespeare’s most egotistical kings excessively preoccupied with himself, forever psychoanalyzing whatever role he is playing. Like the T-word, he is simply not interested in others except as they aid his agendas (e.g., confiscating the loyal John of Gaunt’s estate). As one of my profs pointed out, he is perpetually concerned with his role and performances; hence, all the acting imagery and the theatrical ways in which he refers to himself. This is not someone who has his country’s best interests at heart; instead, someone who is fickle, frivolous, vain, silly, whimsical, and blind to the destruction and ruin he brings to England and far more worthier folk than himself.

Universal’s The Hollow Crown DVD series co-produced by Sam Mendes picks up where Branagh’s Henry V left off. But instead of an amazing studio set complete with Agincourt’s battlefield, Richard II’s director Rupert Gould opens this play up to Nature and the outdoors. There is one fantastic scene on a widescreen beach when Richard returns from Ireland that epitomizes this fuller, less cramped, limited approach to adaptation.

Like Branagh, Gould’s direction lingers close-uply on individual characters and their speeches, though cutting and interesting cinematography choices (e.g., the hollow crown’s or mirror’s views of Richard and Henry from the floor) take this movie beyond Branagh’s simpler, basic camera-work. Gould also gives the viewer a rich, colorful version of Richard II that rivals any theatre movie. Shakespeare fans will be satisfied with Gould’s sensitive handling of language and the play’s original classic scenes and speeches.

The acting is outstanding. Ben Whishaw is presented as an effete, childish Christ-figure in appearance and action. He is also compared to Saint Sebastian, someone he views as a fellow victim from history, someone whom Richard ends up emulating quite literally. There are also clever, associated references to Judas and Pilots in the text. Whishaw gives one of the strongest performances of confusion and weakness I’ve ever seen in film.
Patrick Stewart makes a very strong John of Gaunt and David Suchet does likewise as York. Rory Kinnear gives a remarkable portrait of restraint as Henry Bolingbroke to round out the supporting cast.

I would have no problem giving this adaptation a 9/10, given how much it brings the play to life for a modern audience. At least up to the point when Richard is removed from the court after surrendering the crown.

But this is a Shakespeare play, like Macbeth and Titus Andronicus which is about blood and its shedding quite literally. (SPOILER WARNING) The denouement becomes suddenly and startlingly gory with the St, Sebastian-style murder of Richard and the crass presenting of traitors’ heads to Henry. (Earlier there are two beheadings, incidentally). So expect  a lot of gore and a decisively gruesome tone to this movie’s conclusion.

But civil war and betrayal of kings is a nasty business and it was so in the 1400s and 1500s in England. Gould makes the point in a Polanski-like way (though exceeding his predecessor) as to why and how such things were so detestable to ordinary people and sensitive writers like Shakespeare. Was such violence necessary and justified in the film? Well, them was the times.

Regardless, as a teacher in high school, I would not have shown this to a class. The violence makes this a mature film and most kids won’t get the language and Shakespeare in it as will a university lit student. In short, the film is mainly for lovers and serious students of Shakespeare. That said, yes, this first movie in the series (which includes Henry IV-Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V) has a strong emotional, visual, verbal, visceral, and mental wallop, and is easily the definitive version of this history play. 9/10, after a minus 1/10 deduction for a choice of a slightly over-the-top, tasteless gory ending.

1/3 (1.4 billion tons) of food prepared in a year is thrown out.

1/3 die from dementia and Alzheimer’s.-related conditions.