Call me...Ickenham!

I’ve chosen “Ickenham” as my new nom de web. It’s inspired by my favorite character from the work of P. G. Wodehouse: Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham, aka “Uncle Fred.” If you don’t know anything about Wodehouse, you are in for a treat—he’s one of the greatest comic writers ever. His books usually are about upper class English eccentrics, twits, ne’er-do-wells, menacing aunts, and young men hopelessly in love. He often throws in a healthy dose of grifters and petty thieves for good measure, too.

Watoosa’s blog is more focused on books (and sundry!), so I’ll leave the longer discussion of Wodehouse to her. But if you want a hilarious read, check out Uncle Fred in the Springtime. Uncle Fred loves nothing so much as a scheme, especially if it involves him assuming a false identity, or (even better) juggling multiple false identities all at once. Since Watoosa has referred to me in print as a “lying bastard,” it’s no wonder I’m drawn to the Earl of Ickenham.

Plus, I think the photo that appears next to my moniker probably resembles Uncle Fred. So for now, it’s “Ickenham.” Let’s see Tim P or Timpe make something off-color out of that!

Holy Crap*

Marginal Revolution pointed readers to a recent article in the New Yorker that explores the Bible publishing industry. It’s got plenty of factoids and quotations that are good for a chuckle or a groan. I had heard that it was the best-selling book of all time, but I didn’t realize it outsold all other titles every year (e.g., in 2005, it sold twice as much as the latest Harry Potter book). That amounts to more than half a billion dollars in sales annually. The article describes some of the economic incentives to come out with new translations, the potential sales boost that can come from an endorsement from a megachurch pastor, and the way Bibles are (re-) packaged and marketed to more and more cultural niches. Here are a couple lowlights:

• Bibles for everybody: cowboys, surfers, hikers, dieters, skaters…you name it. There’s a super-heroes Bible, and one that’s “for boys” that emphasizes all “the gross and gory stuff.”
• There are Bibles that are designed to look like teen magazines that give beauty secrets. Here’s a quotation: Have you ever had a white stain appear underneath the arms of your favorite dark blouse? Don’t freak out. You can quickly give deodorant spots the boot. Just grab a spare toothbrush, dampen with a little water and liquid soap, and gently scrub until the stain fades away. As you wash away the stain, praise God for cleansing us from all the wrong things we have done. (1 John 1:9)

I haven’t had much exposure to the evangelical culture in quite a while, now. I see some of it at the school where I teach, but I don’t listen to Christian music or read Christian books anymore (that is, the kind of music and books you’d find at a “Christian” store; when I want Christian music or books, I’ll listen to Bach or read Augustine, but I digress). I don’t go to one of those trendy churches—you know, the kind that tries hard not to look like an actual church. These are things I’ve actively tried to flee, and I’ve succeeded to the point that when I’m faced with it, evangelical culture seems alien to me.

The New Yorker report put it right back in my face. But I’m puzzled about why it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. Few people have more respect and admiration than I do for the glories of the free market and the creativity it unleashes, and I think it’s wonderful that producers come up with more and more ways to meet the demands of consumers. Heck, I even think it’s a good thing when producers can create demands that weren’t already around! So why do I react so strongly to this article? Here are a few possibilities:

1. All the packaging and “glitz” detracts from the content, and maybe it fuels a kind of narcissism.
2. It’s wasteful—wouldn’t it be better to send Bibles to places that are starving for copies?
3. It reinforces the cult of celebrity surrounding pastors of mega-churches and talk-shows; the emphasis is on those people rather than on God.
4. It also represents/reinforces the evangelical tendency to neglect things like transcendence and reverence.
5. Some of the aesthetic choices are just execrable: e.g., the Precious Moments Bible (sweet Jebus, why did they have to come up with that one? WHY?!).

*I’m sure the idea for the title has been used before, but honestly I just couldn’t resist.

Tunes o' Christmas

Each year, it seems like the holiday shopping season starts earlier than the year before. Happy Hallothanksmas, y'all! I have a strict rule about not listening to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, though, so now I can indulge myself. Here are a few favorites.

The best Christmas album in our house is Christmas through the Ages. It consists almost entirely of choral pieces by some of the best ensembles in the world. There are a few classic carols, like "Hark, the herald angels sing" and a fine version of "O come, O come Emmanuel." But most of the other pieces are more obscure. One song we heard performed live by the Boston Camerata and have come to love is the Spanish tune, "Riu, riu chiu." Turn up the volume for that one, and try to follow the rhythm (I can't).

But my two favorites on this record are Poulenc's "O magnum mysterium" and Britten's "In the bleak mid-winter." Both are by twentieth century composers, and while Watoosa and I tend not to care much for modern stuff, I find myself getting into a lot of modern sacred choral music. Poulenc's piece actually sounds much older, though, and there are parts of it that show an influence from the Russian Orthodox choral tradition (which I really like, too). The piece flows from quiet and ethereal to loud and powerful and back again. Britten's setting of "In the bleak mid-winter" sounds nothing like the familiar version. The traditional setting is fine, but Britten gives the poem music that is rather eerie in its use of odd, slightly dischordant harmonies. The text is sung slowly and faintly--I have to turn the volume way up to be able to hear it well. Then some of the choristers superimpose over it an old English folk song,"The falcon hath borne my make away." I know the phrase "hauntingly beautiful" gets bandied about too much, but this piece just is hauntingly beautiful. I've never heard anything like it.

Another favorite in our house is the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. I can't say whether I'd enjoy this album as much if I hadn't grown up watching (and loving) the TV special. But there's some good stuff here. I especially like Guaraldi's originals; "Christmastime is here" is wonderfully melancholy. Sometimes Christmas isn't a joyous season at all, and this song captures that. (Fun facts: Arrested Development used it in one episode, and I once saw Stone Temple Pilots perform it on TV; snaps to AD and STP for that).

I also drag out a vinyl recording of one of Bing Crosby's Christmas radio broadcasts. I uncovered it in a Chicago record store and bought it for a dollar. Yes I know, Der Bingle did a lot of schmaltzy stuff in his day. But the man could sing. This record is full of corny skits, holiday songs, and occasional commercials for Kraft products (the show's sponsor). I like this record partly for its kitsch value. But it's also interesting because the show aired in 1942, the first full year of WWII for Americans, so the show has a few somber moments that temper the holiday cheer. The fact that I'm listening to it on vinyl makes it all the more sentimental--perfect for Christmas, especially when I’m stone drunk with egg nog it’s nice and cold outside. I also like it because it features a dramatic reading of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" that is so over-the-top histrionic that it drives Watoosa into a fit of rage. Good times.

For another combination of kitsch value and genuine talent, check out Elvis's Christmas Album. When Elvis was "on," he was fantastic. He wasn't just a white kid who could imitate a bluesman--he was the real deal. But as his career progressed, his choice of songs often became as corny as his taste in couture. Sadly (or comically, if you prefer), most of the tracks on this album show the "E-Z Listening" Elvis. But the first track, "Santa Claus is Back in Town," absolutely cooks! It reminds you of what he was capable of doing as a singer. My version came out in the seventies, and features a different set of tunes than the one I've linked to here. Gone is the laughable, "Mama loved the roses," with its tear-jerker (from laughter, that is) spoken-word bridge. I first came across this album on an ill-fated road trip with blakbuzzrd and Jim; guffawing over that record was about the only thing that kept us going. On the other hand, this new version has a few gospel numbers, and Elvis always knew how to treat that material.

I want THIS guy's job!

This guy blends all kinds of things. I recommend especially the garden rake, the golf balls, and the crowbar!
Just go ahead and plan on not getting anything done for the next hour.

Celebrity Watch

People sometimes ask me, "Have you seen anyone famous?" The short answer is, no. And that's surprising. Even before we moved out here, we heard stories about how common it was to see celebrities in this part of California. My college is located in the same neighborhood where Oprah, Rob Lowe, and John Cleese live, and Christopher Lloyd frequents our favorite Italian restaurant. George Clooney and Salma Hayek were in town last spring for the annual film festival. Yet, alas, we've never seen any of these people. Heck we've got three points of contact with Julia Louis-Dreyfus: she buys olive oil at the same Farmer's Market stall where we get ours (we just missed her one day); she dropped her kids off at my college for a summer day camp thingie; and she apparently can be seen at our parish once in a while. No dice.

In fact, before this week, the only celebrity I had seen out here was Dennis Franz, also known as "Detective Sipowicz" and "The Butt-Ugliest Man on TV." I don't count him, though, because he was the marshal of the Christmas Parade. And because I find him annoying.

I saw George W. Bush at Commencement 2005 when I lived in GR, so I actually saw more famous folk in Michigan than here in CA. Ridiculous!

Well, the Golden State has now pulled up even with America's Giant Oven Mitt. On Tuesday, Watoosa and I were at LAX to pick up some people who were coming in from England. There we had our first genuine celebrity sighting: Mr. Copa, Copacabana himself! As he walked past, I nudged Watoosa and nodded toward him. Once the realization struck, Watoosa was out the door in a flash to confirm. She slyly walked past and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye--very smooth! Bingo.

I thought he looked a bit like a hipper Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz: skinny, spiky hair, leather jacket. Watoosa thinks he resembled Victor from Corpse Bride. In addition to being suspiciously tan, he was also very well-coifed, which just goes to show you that those fatcats who fly first class across the Atlantic get everything!

Another Call for Help

It's been made clear to me that my web moniker "CAC" just isn't cutting it. I've always signed off on emails with my initials--it's just faster than writing out my name, and the milliseconds I save can then be used for weightier pursuits. I always figured people would pronounce it mentally as three letters: "C. A. C." But apparently some folks are reading it as a monosyllabic word, and that's where problems arise. Kevin says it sounds like he's hacking up a chicken bone. Tim thinks it sounds like a Bostonian-accented synonym for a gentleman's naughty part. Neither of these things are what I want people to think of when they think of me.

I don't want to insert periods after each letter, because that defeats the whole time-saving point. I also don't like the simpler "CC" because a.) I'm afraid people will think it means "carbon-copied" and b.) I'm afraid people will think of C.C. Deville, guitarist of the glam-metal band Poison. Poison embodied everything that was wrong with 80's metal. Worse, DeVille named his next band "The C.C. DeVille Experience." Since DeVille, in addition to playing in the leading crap-metal band of his day, couldn't play his way out of a wet paper bag, his use of the immortal Jimi Hendrix's group name is utter sacrilege.

All I can come up with so far is:
1. Dr. Philgood (a pun on Dr. Feelgood, but that's a bit of a stretch)
2. Baron von Funkmeister (too long)
3. PA (an abbreviation for Pompous Ass, a name my B'ham friends affectionately(?) called me from time to time; but it sounds too much like the countryfied synonym for "Dad.")

So I'm open to suggestions. It needs to be relatively short, but not necessarily as short as CAC. And it should probably avoid exposing me to ridicule and taunts by the other boys and girls on the cyber-playground.

I know I've asked for your help before, such as when I needed to come up with killer names for my arms, or a name for this blog. And yes--I didn't ever actually accept anyone's recommendation. But this time could be different! As an added incentive, I'm going to go ahead and announce the prize for the winner: I will personally mail you two CDs out of my collection. And they won't be cruddy ones I just want to get rid of anyway--no these will be albums you'd be glad that people know you own. Or at least they'll be guilty pleasures. Hey, what are you complaining about, it's a couple free discs, dangit! And you know it won't be anything by Poison.

Blogtoosa

Those of you who know my better half, Watoosa, may be interested to know that she has now sipped from the goblet of blog Kool-Aid. She calls her joint The Conscience Pudding, a name she has shamelessly swiped from the work of the fantastic Edward Gorey (a favorite around our house). You can find it listed in the margin of this page, or just click here.

The picture above is one of her stylin' at the ruins of Knapps' Castle, a few miles outside of town.
In the interest of equality, here's one of me at that same site, climbing a chimney that looks like a giant pair of pants.

Actual Student Writing

"Philosophers plunge into the bowels of what truth really means in order for society to have a firmer grasp of it."

For the love of Zod, I wish I'd never read that sentence.

Best. Bond. EVER.

Not that that's saying much.

My theory about Bond is that the idea of the James Bond character is greater than any of the movies. The best are probably Goldfinger and From Russia with Love. The Connery films (excluding Never Say Never Again, a film which falsified its own title), as well as Lazenby's Her Majesty's Secret Service, had a sixties glamor that holds up well even today. But toward the end of Connery's first run, they started getting campy. In You Only Live Twice, Bond is surgically altered to look Japanese. Or was it Klingon? And his penultimate Bond film, Diamonds are Forever, gave the world an early preview of the aesthetic wasteland that would be the 1970s.

With Roger Moore, the franchise went beyond campy to downright cartoonish. Part of the reason why is the previously mentioned aesthetics of the 1970s and even the early 1980s. When you see Connery's Bond, his clothes and car and those of many of the other characters still look good, albeit in a retro way. Not so with Moore. His clothes look chintzy and garish, and he drives this piece of crap, made by a company that promptly went out of business. But apart from being victimized by their own sense of fashion, the Moore movies were just corny. Exhibit A: the final combat between Bond and Herve Villechaize.

The Dalton films are so unremarkable I've forgotten everything about them, even the titles. And Brosnan made a decent Bond, even though he looks a little sissyish when he runs. But those films were just Bruckheimeresque action flicks, with a few Bondisms thrown in.

All that has changed, now. When I learned that Daniel Craig would be the new 007, I didn't think he looked right for the part. When I heard that Ford would be supplying the cars, I shook my head in disbelief (think Ford will now go the way of AMC?). When it came out that Craig couldn't drive a stick and had to have a stuntman do all the driving, I gave up entirely. But I decided to go see Casino Royale when the reviews came out and saw they were all remarkably strong (here's a good one).

Believe the hype. This is the best Bond movie ever. The biggest improvement is the writing. Gone are the insufferable puns, thank God. In their place is actually interesting and rather witty dialog. It's almost as if the writers thought there might be a few intelligent people in the audience and wanted to avoid insulting them, for a change. The opening title sequence is fantastic--no lascivious sillouettes this time, but great animation playing on card and roulette imagery. The chase scene immediately after the titles is one of the most exciting things ever put on film. And the Bond character is given much greater depth; we see a man who has extraordinary capabilities but also certain vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and who is setting out on a career whose psychological toll he has yet to grasp. Don't get me wrong--this isn't an artsy-fartsy character study film. But the writers realized they could make the action more affecting by developing their characters a bit more than usual. And they succeed. The movie does drag a bit toward the end, but honestly it's such a fun ride that I couldn't complain. So I walked out of the theater convinced that this was the Best bond film ever.

But does Craig give the best performance of Bond? I'd say he gives Connery a run for his money. He fills the role nicely. While he's not a pretty face, he has a different kind of charisma that works well for the role. And when he throws a punch, you believe it, unlike when Roger Moore would employ a Shatneresque karate chop, for example. Craig's Bond is genuinely dangerous, and that's refreshing after decades of fops.

Personal Ads from the Bizzaro World

You never know what's going to pop up on Google desktop. Today, I saw a link to this story about personal ads in the London Review of Books. What kind of person, you might ask, chooses that publication to look for a romantic connection? People who post ads like these:

"67-year-old disaffiliated flâneur jacked up on Viagra on the lookout for contortionist who plays the trumpet."

and

"Baste me in butter and call me Slappy."

and

"61-year-old laryngologist and amateur taxidermist looking for a woman with whom to share, among other things, dancing and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation."

And my favorite bit:

"A woman in the current issue, for instance, specifies that she is looking for a man "who doesn't name his genitals after German chancellors" (not even, the ad says, "Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, however admirable the independence he gave to secretaries of state may have been.")"

That one got me thinking: the bizarre nature of these ads is a bit like German absurdism, only with ironic humor. Imagine these quotations coming not with a wry smile but with the creepy earnestness of this fellow. It totally works! So, is that all that separates the Brits from Germans? I know we'd all like to think that this man's career demonstrates the German sense of irony, but that might be wishful thinking.

One More Cool Thing We Did

On Friday evening, we went to see the Royal Drummers of Burundi. It was fantastic. They were preceded on the billing by a group called Mombasa Party. That group played a set of fairly pleasant, low-key, and mostly forgettable African songs. As they finished their last number, the Burundi drummers came slowly sauntering onstage, clicking their sticks with each step. Each one took his spot behind a drum, and then without much warning, they laid into their drums. It sounded like a cannon going off. There was an audible expression of shock in the row behind me. And it was glorious.

The picture included here shows the central drum, carved out of a tree trunk. The others looked just like it, which is to say, heavy. That made their entrance after the intermission all the more impressive, because they came out carrying those things on their heads! And not just carrying them, but playing them and dancing at the same time.

I can't imagine how loud it was onstage, because it was plenty loud twenty rows back in theater. All in all, a fantastic show. Reminiscent of the Kodo drummers of Japan. See either group whenever you get a chance--you won't be disappointed.

The Getty

Last Saturday, Beth and I went down to LA for the day. First, we my friend Ryan and his friend Daniella at the Farmer's Market, which--inexplicably enough--has little produce for sale but does feature a Singaporean/Malaysian/Indonesian restaurant called "The Banana Leaf." I recommend it. Then we went to the Getty, which was fantastic. I had no idea how large the whole thing was. It actually comprises four main buildings, each of which has two floors of galleries. The campus sits on a mountaintop, from which you can view Los Angeles in one direction, and (I think) Malibu in the other. I also highly recommend going, whenever you're in the godforsaken wasteland that is Los Angeles. It's free, too.

A few pics: