Quarantining, pt. 2

I keep on ordering vol. 1 of the Strangers and Brothers omnibus and receiving handsome copies of vol. 3. This happens even when I try ordering from different vendors. There must be some error on Amazon’s product page for vol. 1.

Thankfully, my money is being refunded.

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Just a moment ago, as I was typing, I received this injurious text message:

Your Amazon package with Strangers and Brothers (Omnibus Edition; Vol. 1) was delivered.

Alas, the package contained vol. 3, not vol. 1.

Would anyone like the leftover volumes? Karin is anxious to be rid of them. I have an extra copy of vol. 2, two extra copies of vol. 3, and zero copies of vol. 1.

I may have to obtain vol. 1 from a distributor made of flesh and blood.

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Little Samuel was slightly feverish yesterday: we think his first tooth is about to come out. Today he was happier and had a cooler temperature but remained uncharacteristically docile. He also slept more than usual. I think yesterday’s fever must have worn him out.

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Like millions of others, we’ve been attending church services from our living room. No, not by watching televangelists; we’ve been watching video of our pastor and musicians in their respective basements.

Then, tonight, using an online video calling system, we held a “small group” meeting with 5–10 participants. (I give this range because some participants dropped in and out of the meeting.) The highlight, for me, was seeing the dog of one of my fellow churchgoers lazing behind him on the back of his couch.

This reminds me that one of our neighbors has a beautiful husky dog. I keep seeing its tail bob up and down above the top of the fence.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 25: Flirting with disaster

Secrets & Lies, one of my favorite movies, is a profound and stirring drama about an adopted woman’s search for her birth parents.

But this review is about Flirting with Disaster. This movie depicts a young father’s search for his birth parents.

Flirting with Disaster is neither stirring nor profound. All it aspires to be is a very funny screwball comedy. (It does make this important point: we should do right by those near to us before we search for love further afield.)

The young father is played by Ben Stiller in nervous-wreck mode. In the aptly titled Meet the Parents (2000), Stiller plays a man who disastrously meets his girlfriend’s parents. In Flirting with Disaster, his character is still disastrously meeting his own parents. This he must do several times because he’s misinformed about who his parents are.

While he searches for his birth parents, he puts on hold the task of naming his infant son. His wife (the wonderful Patricia Arquette) patiently tags along while he tries to discover his identity. But her exasperation increases as his quest becomes tied up with feelings for his adoption caseworker (Téa Leoni), a person it’d be disastrous for anyone to get involved with.

The search takes the young family – as well as the caseworker, who insists on documenting everything – from New York to California to Michigan to New Mexico. Other hangers-on join in the young family’s quest. They all arrive at the birth parents’ house for the movie’s zany climax.

Every character, except the young mother played by Arquette, has a screw loose (or two, or three). The movie slyly paces its revelations of eccentricity. A character will seem reasonable enough at first; then, he’ll let out something a little strange; and by the end, it’ll be obvious that he’s cuckoo (or at least neurotic enough to need serious help). Some of these characters achieve at least partial redemption. Others are beyond the pale. The movie dispenses its justice according to the awfulness of each character’s choices, and each choice is carefully shown to spring out from a deep well of habit.

Here’s an example. A couple of the hangers-on are staunch advocates of staying at B&Bs. This gets everyone into trouble in New Mexico. On a desolate backroad, they discover that the B&B to which they’ve been heading has been closed down because of uranium poisoning.

B&B Advocate 1, holding up his B&B guidebook: “Maybe we should have sprung for the updated edition. The picture’s right here. It was a nice B&B.”

Young Father: “Yeah, they probably have something about the uranium contamination in the new edition.”

Adoption Caseworker: “Did it ever occur to you to call first?”

B&B Advocate 2: “Without spontaneity, the world of B&Bs is fairly meaningless.”

It sounds much funnier in the movie than it looks on the page. This is a testament to the acting, as well as to the intricacy of the plotting. This movie has been made with consummate skill.

And the best news is, Secrets & Lies does everything Flirting with Disaster does – only with greater skill and subtlety. I love Flirting with Disaster. But I can’t wait to review Secrets & Lies.

Stir-crazy

We had our first visitors in a while: Edoarda & Stephen, who brought furniture for our basement. Of course, they didn’t stay long.

We had a brief visit, last week, from my Aunt Sally & Uncle Tim, who brought diapers and towelettes. Also, a church friend brought groceries, but he quietly set them on our porch and went away.

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Karin goes to her office but rarely sees clients. She staffs the drive-thru and answers phone calls.

Excepting my brief hospitalization, it’s been longer than two weeks since I last went out beyond our driveway. I haven’t done so at all in the daytime.

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Now is the time to turn one’s thoughts inward, to reflect that all the furniture of the universe is contained in the basement of the mind.

For Spotify subscribers who listen to the Orb:

Previously inaccessible tracks of The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld –

• “Little Fluffy Clouds”;
• “Outlands”;
• “Star 6 & 7 8 9”;

and

• “A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain that Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld”

– are now accesible.

Another medical test

The hospital called yesterday. They’d canceled my sleep observation, which had been scheduled for next week.

This was hardly surprising, what with the pandemic.

Still, it was dispiriting. Had it not been for a clerical mishap, I’d’ve been observed in January.

Who knew when the next opportunity would arise?

The hospital called again in the afternoon. Would I come in that night? Yes, I would.

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Karin and Samuel dropped me off at the hospital. I was led into a room with a large, comfortable bed and left alone to read Cold Comfort Farm until 10:00pm. Then the technicians fitted me with a CPAP mask. They attached many, many wires to my torso, legs, and head.

They turned out the lights, left the room, and instructed via intercom:

Look up and down ten times.

Look left and right ten times.

Grit your teeth.

Emit three loud snores.

After I’d done enough calisthenics, they let me sleep.

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The bed was much lovelier than my bed at home, and I didn’t mind the air blasting through tubes into my mouth and nose. What I did mind were the wires. They kept me from rolling over naturally.

But I did manage to sleep. Later, the technicians told me I’d achieved some periods of deep sleep.

(The previous test showed I’d been averaging 67 disruptive episodes for each minute of sleep.)

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I finished Cold Comfort Farm. Next to read is Chocky. My reading cycle runs from May to April; I need short books to fill my quota for the year.

I got a refund for the surplus copy I’d received of vol. 2 of the Strangers and Brothers omnibus. I again ordered vol. 3.

On the day of vol. 1’s arrival, I was all too eager; but when I tore open the package, it was a (now redundant) copy of vol. 3.

Quarantining

What with the spreading of COVID-19 these days, we don’t go out much; which is to say that, fortunately, my life is practically unchanged.

(Except, I used to go to restaurants. And church.)

Unfortunately, Karin must still go to the office.

Fortunately, she’s separated from her clients by a window of bulletproof glass.

Unfortunately, after work, she goes to the store to buy our food. So, she has plenty of opportunity to contract the virus.

Fortunately, whether in sickness or in health, we won’t lack for reading material. Today I received in the mail two thick volumes of C.P. Snow’s Strangers and Brothers (the omnibus edition).

Unfortunately, they were the same volume (vol. 2).

Fortunately, vol. 2 contains two of the best-regarded titles (The Masters and The Affair).

Unfortunately, I already owned The Masters and The Affair.

Fortunately, Samuel was much taken with the dust-jacket photo of C.P. Snow.

Unfortunately, he cried soon thereafter.

March’s prose passages

This month I offer, instead of a poem, excerpts from Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year.

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We had no such thing as printed News Papers in those Days, to spread Rumors and Reports of Things; and to improve them by the Invention of Men, as I have liv’d to see practis’d since. But such things as these were gather’d from the letters of Merchants and others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that the Government had a true Account of it, and several Counsels were held about Ways to prevent its coming over; but all was kept very private. Hence it was, that this Rumour died off again, and People began to forget it, as a thing we were very little concern’d in, and that we hoped was not true; till the latter End of November, or the Beginning of December 1664, when two Men, said to be French-men, died of the Plague in Long Acre, or rather at the upper End of Drury-Lane. The Family they were in, endeavour’d to conceal it as much as possible; but as it had gotten some Vent in the Discourse of the Neighbourhood, the Secretaries of State got Knowledge of it. And concerning themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the Truth, two Physicians and a Surgeon were order’d to go to the House, and make Inspection. This they did; and finding evident Tokens of the Sickness upon both the Bodies that were dead, they gave their Opinions publickly, that they died of the Plague: Whereupon it was given in to the Parish Clerk, and he also return’d them to the Hall; and it was printed in the weekly Bill of Mortality in the usual manner, thus,

Plague 2. Parishes infected 1.

The People shew’d a great Concern at this, and began to be allarm’d all over the Town. …

[The narrator then enumerates plague deaths from winter to spring.]

But those were trifling Things to what followed immediately after; for now the Weather set in hot, and from the first Week in June, the Infection spread in a dreadful Manner, and the Bills rose high, the Articles of the Feaver, Spotted-Feaver, and Teeth, began to swell: For all that could conceal their Distempers, did it to prevent their Neighbours shunning and refusing to converse with them; and also to prevent Authority shutting up their Houses, which though it was not yet practised, yet was threatned, and People were extremely terrify’d at the Thoughts of it. …

The richer sort of People, especially the Nobility and Gentry, from the West part of the City throng’d out of Town, with their Families and Servants in an unusual Manner; … Indeed nothing was to be seen but Waggons and Carts, with Goods, Women, Servants, Children, &c. Coaches fill’d with People of the better Sort, and Horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away; then empty Waggons and Carts appear’d and Spare-horses with Servants, who it was apparent were returning or sent from the Country to fetch more People: Besides innumerable Numbers of Men on Horseback, some alone, others with Servants, and generally speaking, all loaded with Baggage and fitted out for travelling, as any one might perceive by their Appearance. …

I now began to consider seriously with my Self, concerning my own Case, and how I should dispose of my self; that is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut up my House and flee, as many of my Neighbours did. …

I had two important things before me; the one was the carrying on my Business and Shop, which was considerable, and in which was embark’d all my Effects in the World; and the other was the Preservation of my Life in so dismal a Calamity, as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole City; and which however great it was, my Fears perhaps as well as other Peoples, represented to be much greater than it could be. …

I had an Elder Brother at the same Time in London, and not many Years before come over from Portugal; and advising with him, his Answer was in three Words the same that was given in another Case quite different, (viz.) Master save thy self. In a Word, he was for my retiring into the Country, as he resolv’d to do himself with his Family; telling me, what he had it seems, heard abroad, that the best Preparation for the Plague was to run away from it. As to my Argument of losing my Trade, my Goods, or Debts, he quite confuted me: He told me the same thing, which I argued for my staying, (viz.) That I would trust God with my Safety and Health, was the strongest Repulse to my Pretentions of losing my Trade and Goods; for, says he, it is not as reasonable that you should trust God with the Chance or Risque of losing your Trade, as that you should stay in so imminent a Point of Danger, and trust him with your Life?

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We’ll see how our own pandemic goes and what other passages will call out for quotation.

The sports

Yesterday, Samuel and I viewed the best match of the last two or three years: Atlético de Madrid’s victory, in extra time, over title holders Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League’s round of 16. As brilliant as last year’s semifinals were, this game was superior – at least in terms of the overall quality of play. Both teams did what they do well. Both were fairly successful. The Liverpudlians attacked ferociously, the Colchoneros defended, and Jan Oblak was a monster at blocking shots. The Liverpudlians slowly clawed their way into the lead. But then the series was turned around by substitutes who scored three crisp goals. Thrilling, heady stuff.

I happened to watch this game rather than others because it was held in a stadium with fans. To contain the new coronavirus, fans were kept outside of other games played at the same time.

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Rumbo a la gloria eterna said the arch over the players entering the field of the Copa Libertadores Group A match between Independiente del Valle and Junior de Barranquilla. (This slogan, too, was in step with the coronavirus pandemic.) IDV won 3–0 with cracking goals, what Argentinian commentators call goles de altura – goals characteristic of the altitude.

My own team, Barcelona, lost 3–0 at title holders Flamengo. Elimination stares us in the face.

R.I.P. Max von Sydow

His chess match has ended. Surely, he was one of the greatest movie actors.

What really matters, of course, is the condition of his soul. Wikipedia gives this tantalizing information:

Von Sydow was reported to be either an agnostic or an atheist. In 2012, he told Charlie Rose in an interview that Ingmar Bergman had told him he would contact him after death to show him that there was a life after death. When Rose asked von Sydow if he had heard from Bergman, he replied that he had, but chose not to elaborate further on the exact meaning of this statement. In the same interview, he described himself as a doubter in his youth, but stated this doubt was gone, and indicated he came to agree with Bergman’s belief in the afterlife.

Julia

R.I.P. Julia, my grandpa’s sister. Today our family held her funeral.

I didn’t know her well. She wrote nice letters to me when I was little. The few times I met her, she was very kind.

That impression was borne out by the funeral. Stories were told of her kindness. They were interspersed with hymns and scriptural readings.

Before the funeral, the church served quite a feast. Some six hours later, after a long nap, I still viscerally remember that feast. The rice dish. The potatoes. The chicken drumsticks. I also drank three delicious bottles of Aldi water.

Little Samuel made the rounds and was much admired. He wore pajamas to the funeral. No one could put him to sleep, though, until Roger, his first cousin twice removed, rocked him to sleep.

Here, Samuel plays with Roger’s beard:

The theatre-goers

On Saturday, we drove to Fort Wayne – a city of a quarter-million people, Indiana’s second-largest – and spent the night with Carol, Karin’s dad’s girlfriend. We met Carol’s family and viewed a local production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. It was our first trip, since Samuel’s birth, away from the environs of South Bend.

We drove home the next day and took Samuel to his first cinematic screening. It was of Kiki’s Delivery Service, at Notre Dame. Samuel was quiet through the first half of the movie. Then we lost his pacifier and he howled. We watched the last scenes behind the other audience members, near the exit.

It was a good movie to watch in an auditorium full of children. They all cheered for Kiki at the end.

Tomorrow night, Karin and her mother will view a theatrical production of The Lion King. I’ll stay home with Samuel. Matilda and Kiki were quite enough for me.

Besides, there’ll be more of Matilda in the coming months: South Benders will perform the play.

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R.I.P. Terence Penelhum (1929–2020), a Christian philosopher who wrote on religious topics, as well as on David Hume and Joseph Butler. His autobiographical chapter in InterVarsity Press’s Philosophers Who Believe is, for me, one of the more compelling ones. I especially like this passage:

For a period of some four or five years, … my parents became influenced by Christian Science. This is a sect toward which I have never since been able to assume the attitude of easy derision shown it by both Christian and non-Christian philosophers. Its thought may be egregiously confused; but it has no religious monopoly on this. I can well recall the exemplary serenity of one of the lady readers whom we came to know, and who had been converted to Christian Science through the dramatic physical healing she experienced from it. I also recall very clearly one occasion during the war when we were attending a service and the air-raid sirens sounded. The service was moved to a supposedly less vulnerable part of the building (I think a corridor). Another of the readers made the comment that the move had been made to conform to government regulations, but that since we were all in the care of God’s love, where could we possibly be safer? Such a direct and simple absorption of the New Testament preaching of Jesus (and there was no particle of anxiety) is something I much aspire to now, and have rarely encountered. If it was combined with muddled metaphysics, I am not so consumed by analytical fervor as to believe that this matters greatly.

This brief period introduced me to the possibility of deriving unorthodox results from biblical texts. My recollection may now be faulty; but a frequently repeated juxtaposition of readings yielded the following argument: All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made; God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good; ergo, evil and disease do not really exist. The well-known dismissal of the reality of evil as “error” follows from this conclusion, and the perhaps muddled, but certainly very real, spiritual life of the few Christian Scientists I knew rested in no small measure on this argument.

One can see why Hume should have appealed to this philosopher, un-Humeanly modest though he is, Christian though he is.

There’s also this story about Penelhum, from a Leiter Reports correspondent:

[H]e didn’t like going to the American Philosophical Association meetings. He said he couldn’t abide sitting around with his fellow tenured friends drinking while watching all the unemployed new PhD’s running around begging for jobs. This was in the early 80’s. I don’t think much has changed. I always thought well of him for that comment. It revealed to me a kind heart.