Cat people

My 2025–2026 reading cycle has ended. On the last day, I finished reading six books. I came up three books short. (The final tally was fifty-seven.)

I thank Karin for her tolerance.

I caught Samuel trying to put one of my books on its shelf. He couldn’t slide it into the space; he was jamming it in. I stopped him before he could wrinkle the cover.

He’d brought the book downstairs from his play-room.

“Why did you take my book upstairs?” I asked him.

He said: “I just wanted to copy out some of the text.”

I didn’t object to that answer. Indeed, I was rather pleased.

We have a new cat in our house: a young “queen” that Karin rescued from a gang of “toms.” We’re keeping her in our bathroom. The plan is to get her spayed ASAP; we’ll then consider whether to give her up or keep her. She’s starved but friendly, a year or so old. She may be the offspring of the winsome, irresponsible cat that lives across the street.

The “toms” have been prowling outside our house all day. I just saw them have their way with another “queen.” One can’t save them all.

Jasper and Ziva are none too pleased, perhaps because a new cat is in the house, perhaps because Karin medicated all three cats against fleas.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 98: When it rains; The final insult

I saw Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1978) almost twenty years ago. I gained nothing from it, which was my fault. Roger Ebert’s review should have prepared me for what the movie was like and for what it was trying to say.

It also would’ve helped to have been familiar with two of Burnett’s later, smaller pictures: When It Rains (1995; 13 m.) and The Final Insult (1997; 55 m.). The lead actor in both short movies is Ayuko Babu. Los Angeles is the setting.

Here is the IMDb’s description of Killer of Sheep:

Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.

That’s the scenario; more important are the episodic nature of the storytelling, the judicious use of music, and the blending of “acted” and “candid” footage. These elements are present, to a greater or lesser degree, in the shorter movies.

When It Rains is the most accessible of the three movies. The plot is simple. A woman and her daughter are evicted from their apartment. The woman tracks down a jazz musician (Babu) and asks for help. The jazz musician talks to the landlord, who refuses to budge. (He is “crazed,” the jazz musician mutters, perhaps a little unreasonably.) The jazz musician goes around to various acquaintances to raise funds “for a Sister.” Most refuse. A kindly scrapyard worker gives a few dollars. This money is subsequently – and humorously – lost. Reconciliation with the landlord, when achieved, is not financial; it occurs because the jazz musician is able to find common cultural ground with the landlord. It’s not enough that all of the characters are Black; they have to like the same music. The jazz musician reflects that he was fortunate not to have been seen carrying a hip-hop record.

In The Final Insult, Babu plays a banker who advises business owners to hire temporary workers so that they can avoid paying taxes and employee benefits. At the end of his shift, the banker goes to his car. This is where he resides. He may have a job and wear a white shirt and a tie, but he is homeless (or quasi-homeless). The car is not in good shape. The banker is one breakdown from disaster.

Blended with this story are interviews with and “candid” footage of real homeless people of various racial and class backgrounds. The point of these grueling passages, I guess, is to show that homelessness is no joke.

When It Rains is about the threat of homelessness, but it’s easy to watch because it’s funny. On the other hand, while The Final Insult contains passages of poetry and piquant irony, these are swamped by the prosaic bitterness of real people’s sufferings.

The banker is not a real person, as Jonathan Rosenbaum points out. His misadventures become more and more artificial as the movie goes on. I don’t believe the banker is meant to invoke our sympathy. He is “most of us” – but we are unlikely to admit it. He symbolizes a transitional status. He is a prosperous person fallen on hard times who retains a bourgeois attitude. An automobile dweller, he is mostly insulated from the horror of forced pedestrianism in a traffic-heavy society. Other homeless people react angrily when, at last, he calls for revolution.

Intriguingly, the theme of finding common ground through music is revisited. Another homeless character – a (possibly educated) white man – sings Korean ballads at a bus stop to a group of Korean women. They are charmed. How do you know this music?, they ask. From listening to records, he says. The man also sings Italian opera songs, and he can speak Spanish.

But although the man’s encounters are uniformly positive, they provide no lasting material relief. He remains homeless. The question is whether positivity and human connection can be enough. The movie doesn’t say.

Open-ended and loosely structured, the two short movies do manage to say a good deal. One is pleasing; the other is a downright slog. Considering them together is more enlightening than considering them apart.

Glorious mysteries

We attended a funeral for J., Karin’s kindly old colleague.

“J. and I used to talk hockey,” said the priest. “Sometimes joyfully, sometimes with a little griping.”

That was about it for reminiscing about J. (Reminiscing is done at the wake, apparently.) The priest and mourners then prayed the Glorious Mysteries, in which are included:

• one Apostle’s Creed
• six Our Fathers
• six Glory Bes
• five Oh My Jesuses
• fifty-three Hail Marys
• other formulae

My heart sank around the thirtieth Hail Mary. Was the priest shooting for one hundred? Mercifully, no.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I finished reading the Adrian Mole series. It gave me much pleasure.

I’ve begun reading The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. It features Miss Jane Marple and is set in the classic murder-village of St. Mary Mead. When I finish, I’ll’ve read all sixty-six of Dame Agatha’s crime novels.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Daniel, somehow, is learning to speak in French.

Bonjour, Daddy, he grins. Ça va.

Not bad for not having been taught. And his accent is spot-on.

How to beat the ads

My brown dress shoes didn’t quite survive the wedding we attended a few weeks ago. So, I’ve been glued to the computer, looking at new shoes.

I haven’t bought any. But the happy result is that now, all of my browser’s banner ads show pictures of elegant, brown, leather or faux-leather shoes. This is more pleasing to have in the background than the usual eye-popping fare.

It also has sparked an idea for making the web advertisements on one’s computer less painful to view – assuming, of course, that one’s ad-blocker doesn’t already keep everything out.

(1) You should choose something nice to look at.

(2) It has to be something you could buy (not, e.g., a fawn, or Mt. Fuji).

(3) But it should be something you have almost no desire to buy, so that it won’t distract you (much).

(4) Any one specimen should look like any other.

(5) Corollary: the object should come in a standard color (muted, not garish).

(6) Ideally, it should be a natural object. (Not a box of Brillo pads. Not a jug of laundry detergent. A transparent, full milk jug is better but not ideal; see, above, the third point.)

(This sixth point will be qualified later.)

(7) Visit lots of merchant’s websites and click on pictures of the object. Do this for several days.

(8) Voilà. This pleasant object, and nothing else, will appear where garish things once did.

I suggest looking at lots of merchant’s pictures of unadorned blue spruce Christmas trees. After a few days, your screen will be flanked by a lovely forest rather than by the Las Vegas Strip. If you can’t stomach anything to do with Christmas, browse cacti or cilantro or firewood instead. You get the idea.

Now I’ll qualify (6). You can get away with looking at artificial Christmas trees because they resemble the natural ones. Not all merchandise has this characteristic, however.

Canadiana

The dandelions have returned. Fewer lawns are infested this year. Ours is one.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

More reading:

• Agatha Christie, Death Comes as the End (her novel set in *ancient* Egypt)
• Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (supplement to MacIntyre’s book)
• George Grant, Lament for a Nation (see discussion, below)
• Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals (for the group)
• Stefan Zweig, novellas: Burning Secret, A Chess Story, Fear, Confusion, and Journey into the Past (they’re great)

Grant’s 1965 book, summarized here, deserves some comment. What is Canadianness? North American Britishness, is the core of Grant’s answer. That is, Britishness nurtured as a tradition of political distinctiveness from the USA, featuring, e.g., a more serious commitment to federalism, as involving better treatment of and greater autonomy for minorities. Alas, when Britain itself was pulled into the U.S.’s military-economic orbit, Canada was pulled in, too. Canadian businessmen sold out first. Politicians followed. Nuclear weapons were brought to Canadian soil. Canada effectively gave up its nationhood and became a satellite.

(Lately, of course, the pendulum has swung the other way.)

A Canadian’s capsule summary, written two decades ago (scroll down the list to book no. 41):

Well, Canada is still here, but what, pray, is it? Grant wrote this brilliant, deep essay on the question in the early 1960s, in the aftermath of Diefenbaker’s political downfall. He wrote of a small “c” conservative society, respectful of tradition, that was disappearing under the pressure of continentalism. Forty years have passed, but Lament still speaks to us directly of important issues. It is a must-read for anyone interested in what might define a nation called Canada – especially given that the formula of “medicare with peacekeeping” is more glib than inspiring, and factually shaky as well.

Who in the U.S. knows about Prime Minister Diefenbaker? I’d guess less than one tenth of one percent (Canadian expats excepted). So, next month, I’ll read Desmond Morton’s Short History of Canada, which purports to make “acute observations on the Diefenbaker era.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Another item of Canadiana: The Peanut Butter Solution (1985). It includes music by teenaged Céline Dion. We watched this bizarre movie as a family. I won’t say I didn’t like it – I did! – but it fed my suspicion that our admirable northern neighbors are, in fact, deranged.