I guess it’s all right, now, to disclose that Ana, David, Ada, George, and Russell (the dog) have sold their house in Texas and will move to South Bend this weekend. So, we siblings – John-Paul, David, Mary, and Stephen – and our respective households, as well as our parents, will all have settled in the same metro area (two adjacent cities) for the first time since 2000 (the previous millennium). Odd to think that South Bend/Mishawaka, and not, say, Quito, Esmeraldas, Guayaquil, or even Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, should have proved our stubbornest anchor. It’s not as if our ancestors hailed from this part of the state. My dad’s dad grew up closer to Lafayette; my dad’s mom, closer to Fort Wayne. They never lived together in the South Bend area. (Neither of my mom’s parents was a Hoosier.) My parents got together as students in Chicagoland. They became missionaries, moved to Ecuador, had their children, and spent furloughs in Illinois (twice) and Missouri. They – we – never all lived together in Indiana.
But, soon, we shall.
I’ve lived some fifteen years, off and on, in the state. Hoosiers still seem strange to me. Not as horrifying as Missourians – whom I think I actually understand better – but less relatable than, say, Upstate New Yorkers, and not nearly as endearing as Minnesotans or Wisconsinites.
I look at the institutions and positions that confer prestige here, and think, that doesn’t appeal to me at all. But then, I might think that anywhere.
I look at what people here do for enjoyment, and think, that doesn’t appeal to me, either. That’s worse.
I think how, last year, a chicken trapped itself in our yard, and the officer who removed it told me it was a gamecock. This weekend we had friends – Michiganders I’d known in Quito – in the yard. We heard roosters crowing, and I thought, I may not approve of cockfighting, but my heart is warmed to know it’s practiced in the neighborhood where I now live.
A dead racoon lay in the middle of our street, in front of our house. Someone put a traffic cone next to it to alert passing cars. The racoon remained there for many hours.
No city official collected the racoon.
Our next-door neighbors – jovial young men – held a memorial service for the racoon and buried it in their back yard. I applaud the sentiment but worry. Scent of racoon attracts more racoon.
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It’s chilly in the house. Our brand-new furnace provided heat for two days. Then it quit.
Not that I’ll be affected much. Repairs have been comissioned, and meanwhile I’ll fly to Texas to visit David, Ana, Ada, George, and Russell (the dog). The forecast there is for temperatures in the 70s and 80s, F.
Ana & David have jobs, and Ada and George go to day-care, so I’ll have time to myself. I intend to walk, ride the bus, eat, and read – things I used to do when I was a bachelor. I’ve pared down my cargo to these texts:
The Bible
Daphne Du Maurier, Don’t Look Now: Stories (I’ll probably just read one or two longish ones)
R. M. Dworkin, ed., The Philosophy of Law (probably just one or two articles)
Dolores Hitchens, Sleep with Strangers (unless I finish it tonight)
Alasdair MacIntyre, The Unconscious
Ronald Hugh Morrieson, The Scarecrow
I’ll use the Internet to continue reading Macbeth.
So, in addition to Scripture: texts of criminality, deviance, and buried desire. My usual seasonal fare.
Ecuador and Bolivia will play in La Paz on Thursday. David and I will watch that game together.
A warm welcome to George, my nephew, born yesterday to Ana & David. My mom is in Texas with them. She looks after little Ada and the dog, Russell, while Ana, David, and George are in the hospital.
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A synopsis (not by me) of Rats in the Ranks.
Each year, as part of the democratic process all over Australia, local councillors meet to elect a mayor to lead their council for the next year. Rats in the Ranks tells the story of this process in the Leichhardt council area of Sydney in 1994. Every September, the Leichhardt council meets to elect one of their twelve members as the Mayor and another for Deputy Mayor for the following year. The election is rarely a straightforward affair.
In 1994, the current mayor, Larry Hand, was popular with the local citizens, but they don’t vote for the mayor, the councillors do – and after three years of Larry, some of them were after his job.
In Rats in the Ranks, filmmakers Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson trace the story of the struggle for the mayoralty. They had extraordinary access to the councillors who were willing for the story to be filmed in the lead up to the election.
Arms are twisted, favours are called in, people are double-crossed, damaging stories are leaked to the media and deals are done. But right up to the vote, no one knows how the numbers will stick and who will walk away from the election as mayor.
missed out on a nomination in the “best documentary” category and most other categories at the 1996 [Australian Film Institute] Awards. …
The film’s failure to make it past a pre-selection jury into general membership voting became part of a larger ongoing controversy about the AFI Awards, and eventually led to a change to the AFI’s voting system. This was the year that the AFI Awards reached the level of contempt usually reserved for the Academy Awards.
(The last sentence is a bonus, I guess.)
The documentary is basically C.P. Snow’s The Masters, with this difference: the scheming Cambridge dons of that novel are conscientious and gentle souls next to the professional politicians of Rats in the Ranks. In what follows, I’ll not reveal the outcome of the election, but I shall describe some of its participants. My opinions of these people changed as I viewed the movie. Here I’ll present my final character assessments. I thought hard about whether I could cheer for anyone to win the election, and, in the end, I decided I could; but you might reach a different verdict. I recommend you watch the movie and then read this review.
The accents and slang aren’t always easy to follow. I watched with the captions turned on. Here is a YouTube upload; the movie also can be streamed through Kanopy.
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There is a councilor in Rats in the Ranks who may as well be Satan. (In some scenes, he even wears a cape.)
There is another councilor who is “Satan’s” dupe – in effect, his lackey – even though she belongs to the opposing party. She spends more time with the Satan figure than with her fellow party members. After her meetings with them, she runs over to tell “Satan” everything.
In good bureaucratic fashion, this lackey has a lackey.
Meanwhile, other members of her party conspire to defeat the Satan figure by means fair or foul. (Mostly fair means, but the foul cannot be overlooked.) So, there is a potentially fatal division within that party. This makes for some outrageous caucus meetings. These scenes would be ghastly if they weren’t so entertaining.
It’s fascinating to hear such good talkers make tactical blunders, lose all sight of values, etc.
What’s most disturbing is how little the populace matters in all of this. The residents vote for their councilors, but not for their mayor; which might not matter so much, except for two things.
First, the mayor has considerably more formal and effective power than the other councilors have. (Not even the deputy mayor comes close.)
And second, the councilors choose the mayor on the basis of their personal ambitions and resentments. They give lip-service to their parties’ and constituents’ interests; but, at the end of the day, those interests don’t determine their choices.
How can these people live with themselves? How can they sleep at night?, the Satan figure asks about his fellow councilors – though he himself would betray any of them, should the winds change.
Interestingly, the Satan figure is a very good public official. (At least, he convinces me that he is a good public official.) He gets things done. He listens to the citizens. When they disagree with him, he patiently and candidly explains to them why his way is better. Were I to live in Leichhardt, and were it in my power to vote in this election, I’d be tempted to vote for this candidate.
I also was favorably impressed by his main challenger. He, too, has the makings of a good public official. He is the schlubbiest of all these schlubs (or the second-schlubbiest, after the lackey’s lackey); but he has moments of reasonableness and forthrightness.
Indeed, he may be too forthright to be a very successful politician. The Satan figure runs rings around him, gamesmanship-wise.
The two men can’t stand one another. Perhaps this is because of a class difference. Or perhaps they recognize each other as genuine threats. Or perhaps they sincerely disagree about how to govern.
Another politician, who refuses to appear onscreen, makes a crucial intervention. He is Anthony Albanese; as of May of 2022, he has been serving as the Prime Minister of Australia.
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The other day, I said to Karin: Isn’t it funny that I, who find politics so distasteful, should have written a dissertation about political matters. But the word “political” describes two different inquiries. One inquiry is about how a polis should be run, and the other is about how the polis is run (which boils down to a lot of scheming, backstabbing, etc.). If the gulf between should and is is too great, it’s natural to be interested in one inquiry but not the other.
This movie shows a representative democracy whose representatives aren’t chosen with regard for how it’s best to run the polis. And yet the polis is run competently enough. This suggests that we may as well choose our representatives out of a hat, as some of the more trusting politicians in this movie are inclined to do; or by having each desiring person take a turn, as some of the more self-important and envious politicians insist upon.
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.
Zero degrees, Fahrenheit. “Feels like −11°,” says the Weather Channel. Plenty snowy, too.
No heat in the church building, so tomorrow’s service is canceled. I’m glad Karin gets two full days off (the 31st and the 1st).
And so ends 2017. This is my hundredth entry of the year.
For providing material to discuss, I wish to thank:
Karin.
The kitties, Jasper and Ziva.
All the soccer players.
The weather.
Kazuo Ishiguro.
Bertrand Russell.
Russell (the dog).
My other family members.
My tutees.
The LimeBikes of South Bend.
The fire department of South Bend, for turning us out of our first marital dwelling. (That building has been demolished. There’s a vacant lot where once was so much love.)
The Irish. I didn’t blog about them, but they figured prominently in what I read and watched on TV. A nod, also, to the Scottish (it goes without saying that I was obsessed with the English and the Australians). I wonder if 2018 will be the year of the Russians.
I hardly saw any new movies. The most I did was to catch up on the offerings of the last decade. Two standouts were It Follows (2014) and Man on Wire (2008). Tonight I saw Nerve (2016), which was a cut above most of what gets released nowadays. (It strikes me that all three of these movies supply a good dose of existential dread.) I did watch a lot of TV. I spent many happy hours immersed in Broadchurch, Midsomer Murders, and Shetland – British crime shows – and in Rake, which is about lawyers and politicians in New South Wales. (I was transfixed, if not happy, watching The Fall, another British crime show.) Of these, I urge everyone to try out Rake; as one reviewer puts it, beneath its farcicality it’s about how to be good. Man on Wire I also unreservedly recommend. It’s about how sometimes a person’s calling has nothing to do with being good, but with doing one beautiful and useless thing.
Fall has arrived: cool air, cloudy skies, a congested work schedule.
At IUSB, I’m one of the longest-serving tutors. This means that my hours are more numerous – and less regular – than in previous years. And it means that when I’m not tutoring, I’m writing emails to set up special tutoring sessions.
These things get in the way of meeting my life goals, such as finishing the Ph.D. and making enough money to sire children in good conscience. (Of course, by wishing to sire human children, I don’t mean to devalue Jasper and Ziva. I love them as dearly as if they were my own offspring.)
This week, at last, I met Russell, Ana’s & David’s little son (Ana & David are visiting from Texas). Russell is no larger than Jasper. He’s partly a terrier and partly a Chihuahua. He has a considerable repertoire of tricks.
Last night, at supper, our whole family watched Russell do his tricks. Then we watched one of our favorite movies: Citizen X, about a Soviet serial killer. The Donald Sutherland character reminded me of my Ph.D. advisor.
If ever I use the toilet in the night, little Ziva follows me to my bed for a good petting. Last night, I didn’t use the toilet. Ziva showed up anyway, at 5:00 a.m., and so I gave her a thorough petting (I’m being trained for fatherhood, I tell myself).
At 6:00, I was still awake. I went to the living room to watch YouTube. I watched this nice video about the classic Scottish movie, Local Hero.
Ziva and Jasper ran around the living room, wrecking the décor. They often do this in the early hours.
Q: Why is it perilous to go into the jungle between 3:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon?
A: That’s when the elephants are jumping out of the trees.
Q: Why is the crab the flattest of God’s creatures?
A: The crab went into the jungle between 3:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon.
Karin was surprised by my early rising (she usually gets out of bed first). Tonight I’ll be too tired to go to the laundromat, I told her. But no, Karin won’t let me weasel out of going to the laundromat. Our clothes-washing routine is set in stone.
Ana & David have acquired a dog named Russell. Mary and I confer: Where would Russell stay if he were brought to Indiana? The options are meager. Because of our own pets, neither Mary nor I could admit Russell as a guest.
Our fear is that Russell won’t be brought at all. We’ll only get to see our nephew if we go to visit him in Austin (Ana & David are quitting Houston to live in the Texas capital). And then, what would our pets do?