Progress

I sent my advisor some of my dissertation, and we agreed to put back into motion the degree-granting machinery. This will require filing this or that petition and “bringing on board” this or that new committee member.

During the last week, my advisor and the departmental secretary did some of this “legwork” for me at Cornell. So far, everything has gone straightforwardly (they report).

“When would you like to defend?” my advisor asked me.

“In December or January,” I said, playing it safe. (Some of the dissertation’s chapters need quite a bit of work.)

From Karin, I secured permission not to attend our church camp in Michigan this year. So: no major distractions outside of work (except for the World Cup). Also, Jasper and Ziva should be happy not to be left on their own this summer.

Instead, it looks as if Karin & I will postpone our next big trip; and, when we do take it, we’ll go to Ithaca.

Moonstruck

Having put it off for years, I watched Moonstruck (1987).

Oscars:

Cher, Best Actress (deserved);

Olimpia Dukakis, Best Supporting Actress (deserved);

John Patrick Shanley, Best Original Screenplay (deserved).

It was pretty good. Now I know where that twerp, Ryan Gosling, gets his moves. He copies the young Nicolas Cage.

Only, the guy that Cage plays in Moonstruck is more tortured. “You’re a wolf,” Cher tells him (he sure looks like a wolf).

Ebert review 1.

Ebert review 2 (“The Great Movies”).

Stream Moonstruck before April 1, when it’s due to expire from Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus.

A visit to Bethel

The snow is gone, and with it – at last – the LimeBike that obstructed my sidewalk all winter long.

This is hardly the end of our trouble with LimeBikes. On the contrary.

Not long ago, Karin & I noted a LimeBike that had been abandoned halfway up a narrow outdoor staircase.

To view South Bend’s grim future with LimeBikes, look no further than to China.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Yesterday, I visited the man who was my boss when I worked in the library at Bethel College. We had lunch together in the cafeteria. He insisted that I finish the Ph.D., and he asked me to regularly send him my dissertation drafts. It was most kind of him. I wonder if this will help me to finish the degree.

I greeted the other faculty that I saw in the cafeteria. Some were pleased that I was there; others weren’t. I can tell when they aren’t pleased because first they pretend not to notice me, and then they coldly ask, “What brings you to campus?”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

All last week, I was sick; and now I worry that Karin has caught the bug.

Austin, or, rather, the Texas Hill Country, pt. 3: LBJ’s ranch

I wished to view something more “Texan” than the hipster city of Austin. And so, on Friday, Ana & David took Karin & me out into the Texas Hill Country. Our destination was the LBJ Ranch.

We drove through Dripping Springs and Johnson City, where LBJ grew up (and which was named after his cousin). That city is now a tourist town. We also passed some wineries. Onward!, I insisted. No wineries! Onward, to the ranch!

Admission to the ranch was free, but each of us was charged $3 to tour the house. Driving through the property, we saw the Pedernales River and large fields with handsome Hereford cattle. We also stopped at LBJ’s airplane hangar and viewed a short movie about the importance of the ranch to the Johnson family and the nation. LBJ spent about a quarter of his presidency on the ranch. He hosted politicians and foreign dignitaries there. (His Secret Servicemen were disguised as ranch hands.) We also listened to an airman tell stories about how LBJ would fly into the ranch at the government’s expense.

The house itself was rather plain. It had eight bedrooms, a swimming pool, and many, many phones and televisions. It was decorated in the Sixties’ style, with vinyl armchairs, lemon-yellow countertops, and popular books from the period. (I was reminded of the Missionary Church Dorm, in Quito.) The best thing in the house, however, was LBJ’s desk chair, made of spotted cowhide. Oh, how I longed to sit in that chair! Alas, it wasn’t permitted.

Austin, pt. 2: Russell and one other frisky, young dog (the goose hunter)

Karin & I are nearly back at home. I’m writing this on the train between Chicago and South Bend.

I was going to call this entry “Austin, pt. 2: Sux By Southwest,” but Mary (or some other commenter with the moniker “Me”) is impatient to read about Russell, and so I’ll discuss him instead. During our visit, Russell was unfailingly sweet and playful as a host. Also, he refrained from chewing up the travel cushions that we left lying around the apartment, which showed impressive maturity. He certainly is being raised better than Karin & I are raising Jasper and Ziva (though he has the behavioral advantage of being a dog).

It was pitiable to leave him in Ana’s & David’s apartment for many hours each day, but that’s what we had to do.

On Thursday, we went downtown to look at the capitol building from afar and to get lunch from a typical Austin food truck. This second quest was quite an ordeal. Because of the hipster festival, we had to pay $20 to park in a faraway garage. Then we walked several miles through downtown, past shoppers and festival-goers, and when we arrived at the food truck, we paid $52 for a three-person lunch. The festival itself wasn’t especially vibrant; Karin & I were in Chicago for one hour this afternoon, and the St. Patrick’s Day revelers there put SXSW to shame.

We finished our tour of downtown Austin by walking a few more miles on a lakeside trail. David pointed to some kayakers who had their dogs with them. “This is what Austinites aspire to,” he said. I was reminded of the good people of South Bend. Then one of the kayakers’ dogs jumped into the water and started to paddle toward a flock of geese. The birds were wise to him and kept out of his reach.

At the end of the day, Ana joined us and we hiked several more stony miles on a different trail. Finally, we came to a small, clear pool, into which Karin dipped her feet. This made her want to use the hot tub at the apartment complex. So, that night, we did: I bobbed up and down while Karin swam a few dozen tiny laps.

While all of this was going on, Austin made the national news because package bombs were killing people there. We were so busy with our activities, we didn’t learn about the bombings until this morning, in the airport.

Austin, pt. 1: the outskirts

Though I’d known that Austin was hilly, I hadn’t expected so much of it to look like a gently undulating sea of trees – green trees mixed with scrubby, gray ones, sloshing over an occasionally exposed bed of brown-red soil.

David says the climate is Mediterranean, and I suppose that’s right. The air has been dry, the skies have been clear, and the temperature’s been in the fifties and sixties, Fahrenheit (in the summer, it’ll rise into the hundreds).

The buildings in Austin are incredible. Not beautiful: just very new, comfortable, and expensive-looking. Viewing them from the freeway, and now and then from regular city streets, I can tell that I’ll never be able to afford to live – or to work – in them.

Ana’s & David’s apartment near the edge of town is small but spiffy. Across the road is a private school that one of George W. Bush’s daughters used to attend.

We stayed near the outskirts yesterday (no downtown; no hipsters). David and Karin & I visited the zoo, all of whose animals had been “rescued.” My favorite animal was a gigantic Yorkshire hog named Babe. It was elderly and cancerous.

Then, we took a short hike to look out over the Pedernales River.

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In the evening, Ana joined us and we set out for the town of Marble Falls. We intended to visit the town’s cascadian namesake, as well as its state park and its legendary café, the Blue Bonnet, which is known for having a “wall of pies.”

We drove for an hour. When we reached the town, we found a pretty little lake and a city park, but no state park or falls. We asked Google to direct us. Finally, we came to a bit of cemented land with a distinctive topology of curved ramps and trenches, among which loitered some helmeted youths.

A sign proclaimed: “Marble Falls Skate Park.” Skate park, not state park. So much for that destination.

Next, we tried to visit the falls. This time, Google took us to the entrance of a gated residential area. A guard came out to meet us. We told her that Google had brought us there to see the falls. “Yes,” she said, “Google does do that. Unfortunately, the falls were covered over many years ago, when the dam was built.” (In 1951, we later learned.)

There remained the Blue Bonnet Café to visit. This, at least, existed, and regular diners already were queueing up to go inside. But our wait wasn’t long, our food wasn’t bad, and, afterward, we certainly ate a lot of pie.

In the spirit of a so-so movie from 1997 …

That is, Titanic …

No, Jasper and Ziva, you must stay at home.

I just realized that in Titanic, the vessel crashes and the hero dies. I hope that that doesn’t happen to us during the vacation.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 1: Shine

The Oscars were given out earlier this week. I hadn’t seen any of the nominees. Not a one!

I take that back. I’d seen Icarus, one of the documentaries (actually, I slept through most of it).

I gather that the Best Picture winner was something called The Shape of Water. Whenever I hear of such a title, I can’t help but recall THE FLOWER THAT DRANK THE MOON, the title of a (fictitious) movie lampooned in Ghost World.

I think that I may be “all out of love” with the movies – at least, with new ones. The only movies that still affect me came out many years ago. Most of them were released when I was a teenager.

Last night, I showed Karin Shine, which was released in 1996. That was the year of the many “indie” Oscar nominees. The others were The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, and Secrets & Lies. I’ve watched all of them many times, and I know them by heart, or nearly.

I shall discuss them in the next few months, as well as other classics from 1996 (and maybe a few from 1995 and 1997).

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Directed by Scott Hicks, Shine is about a musician. It is most successful, however, in what it does for the eye rather than for the ear. This isn’t entirely surprising. Two excellent movies directed by Hicks’s fellow Oceanian, Jane Campion – Sweetie and An Angel at My Table – are Shine’s visual predecessors. The visual power of these movies is less the result of composition (i.e., the spatial balancing of different elements) than of concentration upon this or that colorful, textured object. The viewer is led to focus, in succession, upon such objects as a broken picture frame … broken eyeglasses … a pair mismatched of shoes … a pair of purple-pink gloves with the fingertips cut off … a purple-pink feather boa … a tape recorder whose tape has run out … a cigarette with ash dangling from it … a rain-speckled car hood … a death mask … and many, many pianos, elegant and shabby (there seems to be a different piano in Shine for each life change undergone by the protagonist).

I don’t know if I need to repeat the story. Talented young David learns music under the tutelage of his overbearing father; the strain eventually causes David to break down. He plumbs the depths. And then, seemingly out of nothing, he finds love. It’s this third act that catapults the movie into greatness. The suddenness with which David’s life is reclaimed would be jarring in any other story. Here it feels natural: David always has had in him the capacities for profound misery and for profound joy.

David grows up being told: you must be strong. You must win. Only thus will you survive.

But only when love is extended to him does he “shine.” He takes to love quickly and voraciously, like a plant finally flourishing for having received water.

Noah Taylor, the great depicter of Australian youth, shows us the early David: clever and modest, torn between hope and despair.

The mercurial older David is portrayed by Geoffrey Rush, never again so compelling as he is here. On screen only a few minutes, Rush manages an Oscar-inevitable performance.

Two elderly characters – a poetess, played by Googie Withers, and a music teacher, played by John Gielgud – passionately encourage David. The viewer is convinced of the value that these two people recognize in David.

David’s father is played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, a specialist in depicting oppressive patriarchs. He dominates his scenes; then he is absent; then he reappears, like Caesar’s ghost to Brutus. His performance mixes horror with tenderness.

Finally, there is Lynn Redgrave, in a small but impactful role at the end of David’s story. She is the one commissioned by the heavens to bring David fully back to life, and she leaves the viewer with no doubt as to why she would.

March’s poem

This month’s poem is titled “Attempted Assassination of the Queen.” I thought of waiting to post it until the Ides of March. On that day, however, I’ll be in Austin, Texas, and I expect I’ll want to write about eating barbequed steaks or about attending SXSW or other things of that nature.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

God prosper long our noble Queen,
And long may she reign!
Maclean he tried to shoot her,
But it was all in vain.

For God He turned the ball aside
Maclean aimed at her head;
And he felt very angry
Because he didn’t shoot her dead.

There’s a divinity that hedges a king,
And so it does seem,
And my opinion is, it has hedged
Our most gracious Queen.

Maclean must be a madman,
Which is obvious to be seen,
Or else he wouldn’t have tried to shoot
Our most beloved Queen.

Victoria is a good Queen,
Which all her subjects know,
And for that God has protected her
From all her deadly foes.

She is noble and generous,
Her subjects must confess;
There hasn’t been her equal
Since the days of good Queen Bess.

Long may she be spared to roam
Among the bonnie Highland floral,
And spend many a happy day
In the palace of Balmoral.

Because she is very kind
To the old women there,
And allows them bread, tea, and sugar,
And each one to get a share.

And when they know of her coming,
Their hearts feel overjoy’d,
Because, in general, she finds work
For men that’s unemploy’d.

And she also gives the gipsies money
While at Balmoral, I’ve been told,
And, mind ye, seldom silver,
But very often gold.

I hope God will protect her
By night and by day,
At home and abroad,
When she’s far away.

May He be as a hedge around her,
As He’s been all along,
And let her live and die in peace
Is the end of my song.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(William McGonagall)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Our versifier was hardly the sole insane poet devoted to the Queen (though perhaps he was one of the more benign ones). This Wikipedia article tells of the events upon which his poem was based:

On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean, a disgruntled poet apparently offended by Victoria’s refusal to accept one of his poems, shot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station. Two schoolboys from Eton College struck him with their umbrellas until he was hustled away by a policeman. Victoria was outraged when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but was so pleased by the many expressions of loyalty after the attack that she said it was “worth being shot at – to see how much one is loved.”

The article describes several other attempts to murder Queen Victoria. In one incident worthy of a Law and Order episode, the Queen allowed herself to be used as “bait” to help to catch the perpetrator:

On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis aimed a pistol at her but the gun did not fire; he escaped. The following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to provoke Francis to take a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, and convicted of high treason.

For his crime, Francis was transported to Australia. He died at a ripe old age in Melbourne, which is in the state of … Victoria.

Before the spring break

I’m now in that limbo prior to a journey when I don’t dare to order any new books, lest they pile up outside the apartment while I’m away. Such is the cost of seeing the world.

Karin’s routine also has been disrupted. She’d made an appointment for a mechanic to look at her car during our absence. But then the car began doing a grinding noise, and we figured it shouldn’t be driven before the appointment, either.

(The solution has been for Karin to use a car that belongs to my parents.)

At IUSB, the Spanish students have attempted their midterm exams. Those who’ve scored poorly enough have been told to make corrections, which are to be reviewed by the tutors before the holiday. The students were alerted to this requirement some time ago; so far, none of them has come to see me. I’ll probably have to deal with a dozen of them all at once on the day before the vacation.

At least it’s springtime. How to tell? Nelson’s port-a-pit chicken has sprung up outside the gas stations. Karin brought me some this afternoon, much to my delight. I would’ve enjoyed it better had the kitties not relentlessly begged to share it, gone digging in the trash after the bones, or knocked my glass of water over my books.