Madness

Ordinarily I try to stick to fairly trivial things here.  Things like the misadventures with the dog or the furnace, or pop culture things like movies or memoria for fallen actors and writers.  But this morning I just have to remark on something a little heavier on the world stage.

As events in Libya continue to unfold, this morning I heard a report of a large group of protesters gathering in a mosque in Tripoli.  They were apparently warned to break it up or there would be "a massacre."  They chose to stay and continue their protest.  Shortly thereafter, one of Qaddafi's fighter units attacked the mosque. Dozens are estimated to be dead.

I am wondering this morning what kind of person obeys that order.

Libya's dictator is clearly "round the twist" as they say in the UK.  He is nutty as a fruitcake.  Anyone who saw his rambling press conference in which he droned on for over an hour under a white umbrella, calling the protesters "greasy rats and cats" and generally making no sense whatsoever, can have no doubts whatsoever as to his mental competence, or the lack thereof.  So what kind of person accepts the order from this nutball to go bomb a church?

Where does it stop?  Have we as a species learned nothing from our history?  That the "I was only following orders" defense is no defense at all?  It's bad enough that the mentality of a suicide bomber remains largely closed to me.  But I can -- barely, but I can -- wrap my mind around someone being so ignorant and depressed and oppressed that they feel that taking out themselves and as many others as they can is the only course of action open to them.  Barely.

But you can't be an ignorant peasant and fight in a supposedly elite unit.  To acquire those skills you have to be at least literate and fairly intelligent.  So again I ask, what kind of literate, fairly intelligent person gets the orders to go and kill a church full of people -- and says, "OK?"  What kind of sociopath can take those orders, carry them out, and continue to live with himself?

It's madness.

I wish the people of Libya well during this time of trials for them.  I hope they are finally able to rid themselves of their lunatic dictator with as little further loss of life as possible.  But I feel that there will be a lot more blood shed because of the small-minded men who continue to serve Qaddafi's whims and will do so until the bitter, bitter end.

Madness.

Rest In Peace, Kenneth Mars

Last week we lost one of the funniest, most influential character actors of the late 20th Century, Kenneth Mars.  I first saw his work in the original film version of "The Producers" by Mel Brooks, in which Mars played Franz Liebkind, the author of the Worst Play Ever Written:  "Springtime for Hitler:  A Gay Romp With Adolf And Eva In Bechtesgaden."  He was hilarious.

Mel Brooks used Mars again in the brilliant "Young Frankenstein."  He played Inspector Kemp in a wonderful send-up of the police inspector who had been maimed by the monster in the original Universal horror film "Son of Frankenstein."  I still howl with laughter at the town meeting where Inspector Kemp intones, "A riot is an ugly zing, und I zink it's about time zat ve had vun!"  His schtick with his prosthetic hand is priceless.

I have always admired Kenneth Mars' work; back when I was a working actor, his career was one I would have loved to have had for myself.  He was funny, had great comic timing, and got to play the kinds of parts that the leading man-types never get their hands on.  He ranks up there with Hans Conreid and Tony Randall as one of the great comedic actors of our time.  Yet by all accounts he was kind, personable, and down-to-earth; the kind of guy who would talk to you while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Mars died of pancreatic cancer, a particularly nasty cancer with which he had been struggling for months.  I am thankful that his body of work will continue to inspire others.  The Mel Brooks films are truly classics, and other fans of Mars' work can count on seeing his performances delight audiences for generations to come.  He will be missed.

Filling In Time

Once again, I find myself sitting around waiting on a visit from the HVAC technician.  We think we solved the furnace crisis, finally -- the computer in our new "smart" furnace thought it was connected to a multi-stage thermostat (whatever that is) and needed to be reprogrammed for the actual thermostat that came with it, namely a single-stage thermostat.  Since the reprogramming six days ago, it has worked flawlessly.  Unfortunately, the air in the house has been getting dryer and dryer despite out having a whole-house humidifier system.  So they are coming back today to make sure that the humidifier is wired up to the new furnace correctly.  What a pain.

My wife wisely keeps reminding me that this is the price of home ownership.  I wish I had her patience with those things over which I really have absolutely no control.

Although she herself lost patience, a little, this morning when she let the dog out to relieve himself and he took off like a rocket down the street.  Whatever extra time she might have had to get some work done and get a jump on the day went right out the window.  She had given up on finding him and was heading in to work when he rocketed in through the garage as she opened it up to get her car out.  My dear one left for work less than pleased with her dog.

I had the sense NOT to point out that getting a dog wasn't my idea.

So until the tech comes I will work on some stuff for church that will eventually find itself onto these pages:  hymn lyrics, poems, and the Easter reflection I'm signed up to do.  I really want that Easter reflection to be perfect, as it will also be my swan song as a Lay Liturgist.  Next year, our church will be going to two services, one at each campus and the lay liturgists will be expected to drive from one church to the other between services.  I disagree with this strategy on a number of levels, but mostly because of the waste.  It's hard to be an advocate for a Green Sanctuary when you are commuting between two buildings unnecessarily every week.  I can only vote with my wallet and my feet when it comes to church policy, so I have elected to leave the Lay Liturgist program rather than waste the fuel and add to the pollution that this commute will cause.  I know, it's only a few times a year, but global warming isn't going away just because I look the other way on my values in this instance.  We have enough members in our church to allow for each liturgist to pick their church and their service.  I would rather see us aggressively recruit more people who are looking for a soapbox than have us drive in haste between two buildings that are not even remotely close together.

I truly hope that they don't decide to do the same thing with the choir.  It would break my heart to quit, but I cannot in good conscience be one of the 40-plus people who drive the miles between churches twice each month.  We have not heard even a whisper about how the choir will be expected to deal with the change.  I personally am hoping for a split into two groups, but even that is problematic.

We'll see.  For now, I just want to go out on a high note with my Easter reflection.  So...I'd better get to work!!

Poetry for Hymns

My good friend, Dr. Jim Haines, is in the process of putting together some ideas he's had into some hymns for our church, the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg.  Why he asked me to collaborate I have no idea, but he has.  I've written down something based on some ideas I had for an upcoming "member reflection" which will show up here eventually -- both the written something and the actual reflection itself.  Meanwhile, Jim has also been inspired by the words of William Ellery Channing, and I kicked around an awkward phrasing -- Channing was brilliant, but not a poet -- into something that I want to publish here as a short poem.

Seeing as how I am sitting here waiting in a freezing house for a furnace technician to call me, so we can figure out why my BRAND NEW Lennox furnace keeps quitting ("unable to calibrate pressure switch") I will keep this entry brief, and end with my poem.  Thanks, Jim, for helping nourish my spirit even though for today at least, my physical self is freezing.  Here goes --

CIRCLES ©2011 by James L. Haines and Tom Hayes

I cannot myself suffer
Without radiating circles of evil
And I cannot myself improve
Without radiating circles of goodness
Around me
As a stone dropping into a pond.

Mourning Mike Seeger

I am thinking tonight of Pete Seeger's brother, Mike, who passed away in 2009.  For some reason, while listening to a guy play the saw on Prairie Home Companion this evening, my wife and I got into a discussion about instruments that almost seem to require perfect pitch in order to play them well.  That got me thinking.  Back in 1974 I had the great pleasure of meeting Mike at a music workshop he conducted when he came to play a gig at the University of Virginia.  Mike taught me, among other things, how to play the Jew's Harp, or, as it is more politically correctly known today, the Jaw Harp.  Mike turned me on to his supplier, a blacksmith in Virginia who made pretty much perfect harps -- I have two -- and taught me how to hold and play the thing without chipping a tooth.  I don't know about perfect pitch -- I sure don't have it -- but you have to have a decent sense of the scale, at least, in order to make music with the harp.  If you don't hold your mouth in just the right shape for a particular note, it can sound pretty awful.

Mike was just about the nicest man I have ever met.  He was gentle, and funny, and patient with all of us at the workshop.  He was generous with both his time and his talent, something I have always tried to be ever since.  I'm not always as successful in that as I would like to be, but I surely have a great example to keep inspiring me.  I have never had the pleasure of meeting his more famous brother, Pete.  There are a lot of accounts on the internet about Pete's famous temper, notably when he wanted to take an axe to the power cord (probably apocryphal) when Dylan first played electric guitar at a big ol' folk music concert because he thought the music was too damned loud.  I can't imagine Mike doing anything other than going along with the flow.

The guy playing the saw was very, very good, and if he didn't have perfect pitch, I sure couldn't tell.  I have no idea whether or not he is generous with his time, but he seemed a gentle souls when Keillor interviewed him a bit after he played.  I know that because of him I'm thinking once again of one of the purely nicest human beings I have ever met, and I'm grateful to him for that, if nothing else.

A Citizen of Oa

As the year progresses, I can't help but get more and more excited by the upcoming Green Lantern film.  At first I was less than thrilled with the casting, but as I see more and more snippets of the film I have been coming around to the idea of casting Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, Earth's Green Lantern.  In my heart of hearts I always wanted Nathan Fillion to play the role, but I think that Reynolds will do just fine.  Likewise Blake Lively as Carol Ferris, the owner of the aircraft company for whom Hal works as a test pilot.  The only thing I'm still not crazy about is the redesign of the costume, but I do understand that to put Reynolds in spandex would look silly.  It's why Smallville still works; Tom Welling has stayed out of the damned spandex tights.

It looks like the special effects team actually read the source material:  most of the alien members of the Green Lantern Corps look pretty accurately represented, especially Hal's nearest neighbor, Tomar Re of Space Sector 2815.  (We, of course, live in Space Sector 2814.)  Tomar Re looks just like he did in Gil Kane's original design, a fin-headed alien fish/bird hybrid.  Likewise ultimately-evil Sinestro, GL drill sergeant Kilowog, etc., etc.

If you don't read the comics, you will have no idea what I'm talking about.  If you came to this blog because you know what the title means, I'm preaching to the proverbial choir.

I want to recommend that you read Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver.  It's available in trade paperback form, and I understand you can even borrow it from many libraries.  It's well worth it, even if you've never read a comic book before in your life.

And yes, I refuse to use the pretentious convention of calling it a "graphic novel" or "sequential art."  It is both of those things, but never mind.  At the end of the day, it's a comic book.

And a great one.

By the end of it, even if you can't tell Batman from Superman, you will understand who Green Lantern is, what he represents, and in what kind of universe he lives.  And if you do have some passing familiarity with the character of Green Lantern, you will be delighted by all of the care that went into crafting this story.  I grew up reading about Hal Jordan, the fearless test pilot who was chosen by a dying alien to take over the ring and the green glowing battery that charges it with the power to create anything he can imagine -- for 24 hours.  It had all the elements an 8-year-old kid could want -- aliens, crooks, black and white morality, and lots and lots of action.  It was written largely by unsung writers Gardner Fox and Bill Finger, but sci-fi greats such as Alfred Bester and Edmond Hamilton all had turns with the character.  Then in the eighties and nineties, things soured.  The powers that be at DC comics decided to shake things up and replace the old heroes with new guys in their masks.  They made Hal a villain, gave the ring to a new kid named Kyle Rayner, and a lot of us stopped reading.

Green Lantern: Rebirth gives us back Hal.  It recaps his history, explains and excuses his turn to the dark side, and even explains the dumbest conventions from the 1960's stories (things like the fact that Hal's ring wouldn't work on anything colored yellow.  I know.)  Rebirth features most of the great heroes of the DC Universe -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman -- and puts Green Lantern right up there with them.  If you give it a look before the movie comes out later this spring, I think it will add a lot to your appreciation of the movie.  Even if it's a turkey, which I hope will not turn out to be the case.

Seriously, go check out this book!!

Some Improvements

Things have improved, somewhat.  On the home front, we have a new furnace.  It made a significant dent in our savings, but the manufacturer did something rather nice, as did our installers:  when the furnace we were sold turned out to be unavailable, they upgraded us to the next better furnace at no additional cost.  So we now have a variable-speed multi-stage gas furnace which, in theory, will pay for itself in gas savings over our previous furnace in about five years.

On a more personal front, my dental issues are being addressed.  It's been ten days since my oral surgery.  Bone grafts seem to be doing well, but I am in a lot more pain than I probably should be.  I suspect some infection still going on, which my wife tells me would not be unusual since the kind of extraction that was performed often releases a lot of bacteria into the surrounding tissues.  Friday I couldn't even touch near the area of the surgery, and that was eight days after the fact.  Today it's still very tender, but improved.  So I may have to be in touch with my dentist tomorrow regarding possible intermediate treatment.  Considering how Crohn's Disease and its treatment has damaged my immune system over the years, mucking around with an infection is probably unwise.

And finally, on a purely trivial front, I had some disappointing news about the new Green Lantern movie.  There was much rejoicing among fans and collectors when, right after Christmas, Toys'R'Us announced a special adult-collector "early bird" action figure of Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern.  The figure was limited to 2,814 in number, in honor of the space sector, number 2814, which is Green Lantern's "beat" as our local space cop.  The figure was especially exciting because it appeared to come with a replica Green Lantern ring much like the one that Warner Brothers sent out to a number of celebrities to promote the film.  The replica ring is, as you can imagine, an object of considerable desire among GL fans, and this looked like a great "consolation prize:"

Alas, I received an e-mail from Toys'R'Us last night, cancelling my order.  EVERYONE had their order cancelled.  All that has been announced is that the manufacturer, Mattel, was experiencing "production difficulties."  Will the figure be re-issued?  No idea.  Was the replica ring made of lead?  No idea.  Was the container ship sunk on its way to the USA and the figures will be washing up on the shores of Mexico some time in 2012?  No idea.  A very frustrating situation for all concerned.  I can take or leave the toy, but I love that ring!

And speaking of Green Lantern's movie ring -- here is the one that WB sent out to various celebrities a few weeks ago to help promote the picture.  It even came in a nifty green-lit display box, along with a hat, a t-shirt and a goodie box designed to look as though it came from Green Lantern's "civilian" employer, Ferris Aircraft.  If any of you have it and are feeling generous, or mercenary, I'm open to talks!

Like I said, I love that ring!