Comedy that is so often discussed and then closed off, “They couldn’t do that today.”
And if they try to do it today, how would some of the comedy be made politically correct.
As I write, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs are and are not in the process of removing the famous Life Magazine photo of the Sailor Kissing the Girl in White on VE day (by Alfred Eisenstaedt who said he notice the sailor and saw the Nurse and hoped for the best) as the photo is of forced perhaps unwanted contact.
I don’t know what to say about that but I digress.
I was struck by the line in the article where Mr. Logan wrote:
What they made clear is that these theatrical jaunts down memory lane aren’t primarily about making us laugh.
They’re about nostalgia,
about reconnecting us with our younger selves.
What you lose of the surprise on which comedy depends,
you gain in the golden glow of recollection as simpler,
more joyful times are spirited back to life.
I can relate to this statement as I DO have a younger self that had a pretty good time on earth and I can get a golden glow recollecting simpler more joyful.
I have to understand that not everyone does.
Just one more way I have been lucky in this lifetime.
confused and distraught this will have to serve – face it these loom large these days
Driving to work this morning, I was listening to a collection of articles by Jim Harrison in a book posthumously published titled, A really big lunch (New York : Grove Press 2017).
It is a collection of Mr. Harrison’s articles about food, cooking and eating,
In the introduction by Mario Batali, Mr. Batali wrote of Jim Harrison, “…and nothing makes a cook quite so happy as someone who exists entirely to eat — and when not eating, to talk about eating, to hunt and fish for things to eat, or to spend time after eating talking about what we just ate.”
Mr. Batali also wrote that Mr. Harrison was someone … “who wrote sentences that stretched beyond the wildest poetry of my imagination” and I could appreciate that.
Still these are essays about eating, hunting and fishing for things to eat, and talking about what Mr. Harrison just ate.
Maybe not the best thing to listen to first thing in the morning especially for someone who still gets by on just coffee please until I wake up enough around lunch time to think about putting food in my system.
I made it through Mr. Batali and then through the first essay titled, Eat Your Heart Out, a discussion of commercially available hot sauces (in 1981), the rain was pouring down, I couldn’t see and much as I enjoy Mr. Harrison’s prose, I said to myself, “… time for some music” and as the car eased off the bridge onto the island where I work, I reached over to switch from audio books to music.
In that second before the click registered on my handheld, the next essay (Food for Thought as published in Smoke Signals 1982) in the queue stated to play.
I heard the first two words of that essay before it stopped.
I heard, “Dear Mike ...”
And it went off.
Well, boy howdy but that kind of freaked me out.
I had to hear what Mr. Harrison was writing to me.
I switched my device back to audio books and hit play.
I heard the last bit the previous article that I had just heard and then once more I heard, “Dear Mike …”
“I am so confused and distraught …”
And I hit stop.
That’s all I needed to hear.
Confused and distraught.
Like Castor and Pollux, the twins of the Gemini, confused and distraught.
The full sentence, I later looked up is, I am so confused and distraught that this will have to serve as my food letter for the upcoming issue. Let’s face it, the twin specters of food and politics loom large these days.
Food I am not so much worried with.
But politics?
And of much else in life?
Confused and distraught.
Remember Potiphar in the Bible?
According to the Genesis 39:6. Potiphar … “did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.“
Did not concern himself with anything … ANYTHING, except the food he ate.
a people’s contest unfettered start, a fair chance in the race of life
This is essentially a people’s contest.
On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men;
to lift artificial weights from all shoulders;
to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all;
to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.
President Abraham Lincoln’s special message to Congress, July 4, 1861.
Known as the The Fourth of July that Could Have Wrecked the Country, Mr. Lincoln explained his views and plans to keep the United States with Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
Oddly prescient, Mr. Lincoln said:
It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion;
that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets,
and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets;
that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections.
Such will be a great lesson of peace,
teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war;
teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.
What’s more, the GOAT construct is tired and flawed in ways that do a disservice to them both. Contrary to popular belief, it’s OK to appreciate Picasso and Da Vinci at the same time and just leave it at that. There are enough flowers to go around.
GOAT meaning Greatest of All Time.
Which I usually translate to “The Greatest of All Time … This Week.”
It is Joe DiMaggio who is credited with saying he played hard … “Because there’s always some fan who may be seeing me for the first time. I owe him my best.”
That too me sums up the outlook of a GOAT.
I will pass over that Marylin Monroe left Mr. Dimaggio for University of Michigan Alum, Arthur Miller.
What do I think?
I think a lot of things, especially when talking about the greatest of all time.
But off all the things you could ask, think, require or want, I think Mr. Amick sums it up pretty good when he wrote, “… it’s OK to appreciate Picasso and Da Vinci at the same time and just leave it at that.
There are enough flowers to go around.
Just leave it at that.“
And I will say this.
Think of all the discussions of this topic in any given field and the discussions go on to the end of time because you know why?
I’ll tell you why.
Because there is NO SPONSOR or COMPETITION that is recognized as the accepted last word on the subject.
With no one to say this is that and that is so, the discussions can be endless.
And rightfully so.
There was time in College Football were there was no ‘truly’ recognized body to say which team and which team was not the best in any given season.
The result?
The real result?
The discussions were endless.
This past year, Michigan won, end of story, end of discussion, on to next year.
For me, the National Champion construct is tired and flawed in ways that do a disservice to them both.
There were a lot of good teams last.
There were enough flowers to around.
And the story, the discussions, would have gone on forever.
No Haiku For You 