An oddball and I practice civic friendship

Two bang-average true crime docs, worthwhile nonetheless:

Deadnorth (Tubi), set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula;

Lover, Stalker, Killer (Netflix), set in Omaha and its environs.

I watched one right after the other, knowing little about either. There was considerable thematic overlap. The true crime genre is, if nothing else, extremely useful as a catalog of behavioral red flags.

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Samuel went to the lake with grandparents, grandaunts, granduncles, and second cousins (an inexact tally). He came home this afternoon, sunburnt.

With just Daniel in tow, Karin & I went out for gyros. As we were finishing our meal, a nerdy man one table over, who’d been wearing a headset and talking into his phone all lunch long, asked me to look after his food while he ran out to his truck. I nodded. His truck was a semi. I watched through the restaurant window while he fumbled around in his cab. Then he brought out a cigarette and smoked it outside the restaurant. Finally, he returned to the bits of onion and tomato on his plate.

He grinned and thanked me. I nodded again.

My good deed for the day.

Weil on the Iliad; Nazis everywhere; the scholar, pt. 4; a dialog of trucks

I discussed, with fellow readers, Simone Weil’s essay “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force,” which we all were impressed with.

(Weil gets some details about the Iliad wrong, per the introduction in this edition.)

We also learned about this new book: Our Nazi.

Nazis, Nazis everywhere is the virtual life-refrain of one of our venerable reading-group members.

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Rough school day for Samuel, who heard some unsettling noises. He doesn’t want to go back.

Karin bought him some Hot Wheels, out of pity.

Later, she heard him playing with other toy cars – a pickup truck and a food truck.

“Hey, man, give me some sliders.”

“Sure, man. Where do you want them?”

“Just toss ’em in the back of my truck.”

The scholar, pt. 3; September’s poem

We’ve learned a little more about what goes on at school. Samuel’s teacher sent this report:

I should add that Samuel has been swearing more.

Today, after Samuel had returned from school, we went strolling. When conversation lulled I told the boys about the love of God. Samuel stopped in his tracks and became very quiet. Daniel pointed to a statue of the Virgin Mary in someone’s yard. “That is God,” he said.

This month’s poem is by Shakespeare. I’ve italicized the scholastic bit.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling [bawling] and puking in the nurse’s arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard [leopard],

Jealous [touchy] in honor, sudden [rash] and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined [perhaps an allusion to the practice of bribing a judge with a capon],

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws [sayings] and modern instances [commonplace examples];

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon [ridiculous old man (from Pantalone, a stock figure in Italian comedy)],

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose [breeches], well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his [its] sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere [utter] oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(As You Like It II.vii 139–166; text and notes from The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare)

The scholar, pt. 2

Samuel seemed shell-shocked after his first day.

“What did you do in school?” I asked.

“Work,” he said, grimly.

He wouldn’t say much else. He made a beeline for his toy cars and organized them fastidiously. Then he slept all afternoon.

With Samuel away, Daniel has been extra clingy.

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World Cup-wise, we lost 1–0, in Brazil. We debuted a new coach (Sebastián Beccacece). We wore red (!). Alan Franco, a midfielder, played surprisingly well as a makeshift right-back. Otherwise, it was a forgettable game.

At the same time, in São Paulo, the Packers and Eagles played a regular-season game. Was the NFL wise to promote itself to Brazilians while a World Cup qualifier was in progress? Maybe: the qualifier was such a stinker.

The Bolivians have begun hosting games in El Alto – clearly a savvy choice. They defeated Venezuela 4–0 and leapt back into contention. A lot of bad teams are contenders this time.

The scholar

Samuel’ll endure his first school day tomorrow. Tonight he is being supplied, bathed, dressed, taught to put on new shoes, made to sleep earlier, etc. His backpack is so large and full, he barely can carry it and keep his balance.

What’ll I do at home all day with just Daniel?

Karin disabused me of this worry. I was shocked to learn that Samuel’s classes would end by 10:30. “Just early enough for the students to grab McDonald’s breakfast,” Karin noted.

Samuel’ll be driven to school tomorrow. Soon – we hope – the South Bend schools will assign him to a bus route.

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With David, I have joined a book club. Its reading list is prodding me to brush up on my Homer and my William James.

Apart from this, I’ve finished Forster’s Howards End and moved on to his stories in The Celestial Omnibus; I’ve followed the Ingallses from Wisconsin to Indian Territory and now to Minnesota, where they’re living in a hole in the ground; and I’ve reached, in Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time, a cleverly titled but labored instalment, Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant (which Evelyn Waugh disparaged, his initial enthusiasm for the series having dwindled). The narrator has spent several books detailing his acquaintances’ love mishaps. It’s some relief to think that the Blitz can’t be far off: always picturesque, the Blitz.

Picturesque, also, are the killings in the Iliad, but their sheer numerousness makes the poem tedious.