Hot author
He is Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942–95) whose Prone Gunman and 3 to Kill (City Lights, 2002) have noir-thrillerdom down cold. Prone G starts this way:
It was winter, and it was dark. Coming directly from the Arctic, a freezing wind rushed into the Irish Sea, swept through Liverpool, raced across the Cheshire plain . . . and, through the lowered window, struck the eyes of the man sitting in the little Bedford van. The man did not blink.
Exciting? Maybe not, but intriguing, which is saying a lot about anything written. Words not wasted here (in this translation by James Brook, 2002, of 1981 novel), nor anywhere else in these 155 pages.
Same goes for 3 to Kill (also City Lights, 2002), a 1976 novel translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith.
Georges Gerfaut is a man under forty. His car is a steel-gray Mercedes. the leather upholstery is mahogany brown, matching all the fittings of the vehicle’s interior.
That’s how the second paragraph starts: tight, detailed, cool, and as it happens, leading somewhere.
Having not found fiction of interest lately, am glad to find these — at River Forest Library, whose acquirers have my respect — and intend to use them as a measuring stick. The coming Midland Authors awards, for instance, will demonstrate someone’s taste. Maybe it’s same as mine. Who knows?
Newspapers, thinking, Roe, Koran
* How to read a newspaper: Always 2 or 3 days late. You get so-called breaking (broken?) news by Internet and cable and talk radio. Go to the paper for a palimpsest of local stories — crimes, accidents, school board fights, etc., above all sports! It’s to prevent yourself from being too much impressed by story placement, headline, photos, etc. More later: this is a very pregnant topic.
* Books: Blink: the Power of Thinking without Thinking was #5 on the Chi Trib national list 4/24: psychological snake oil for which a buyer is born every minute? Or work of profundity? The author, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, says this at gladwell.com:
It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because . . . those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good.
We report, you decide.
* See www.endroe.org for easy way to put in your two cents in opposition to the pro-Roe litmus test for judges. This from the site is persuasive:
On January 22, 1973, in its infamous twin decisions, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the U.S. Supreme Court created a constitutional right to abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy. Setting forth the most permissive abortion policy in the world, the Court effectively removed all legal protection from the unborn child. In one fell swoop the abortion laws of all fifty states were effectively struck down. The public conversation then underway on just what the proper abortion policy should be, was stopped in its tracks. Citizens and the other branches of government were disenfranchised and the destruction of unborn children became a state-protected activity.
I italicized what states the anti-choice factor: Roe deprived voters of their decisions about allowing abortion. We accept restrictions from the central government, yes. But let us not say we provide choice with Roe, when we actually deny it in the sense of denying voters the right to choose.
* We have Biblical criticism: we take the Bible apart, debunking and affirming, reviewing and studying. But is there Koranic criticism? Who dares?
Ibn Warraq does. He’s for “Scholarly Criticism of the Koran” as part of his goal of secularizing Muslim society, specifically Iranian. He also operates underground, using a pseudonym even as author of his book Why I Am Not a Muslim (Prometheus, 2005), which puts him well outside the Islamic pale. Warraq
believes that the great Islamic civilisations of the past were established in spite of the Koran, not because of it, and that only a secularised Islam can deliver Muslim states from fundamentalist madness. Little wonder that he chooses to keep his identity secret.
I’ll say.
More: “Muslims loathe any use of Biblical criticism that is applied to the Islamic texts, but their objections are often quite weak,” says Free Thought Mecca, an equal-opportunity holder of feet to fire of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and “Heterodox” sects outside the mainstream. It’s quite a site, with dozens of articles that seem quite stimulating at first look. But again, it’s hardly a case of Islamic self-criticism.
And finally, ending this with a sort of overview lest we become mired, we have this from the voluminous if curiously named and anonymously produced Dictionary on Labor Law Talk about “Textual Criticism and the Qur'an”:
Higher biblical criticism revolutionized Judaism and Christianity by calling into question long-held assumptions about the origins of the Bible; some ambitious textual critics are attempting to do the same for the Qur'an. They claim that parts of the Qur'an are based on stories of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), the New Testament of the Christian Bible, and . . . non-canonical Christian works; differences of the biblical [from] the Qur'anic versions indicate that these stories were not taken directly from written texts but seem rather to have been part of the oral traditions of the Arab peninsula at Muhammad's time. To Muslims, however, this explanation is topsy-turvy: the "non-canonical" Jewish and Christian stories are simply further textual corruptions of an otherwise nearly lost divine original reflected in the Qur'an.
These critics also seek to find evidence of text evolution and transcription disputes in early Islam; the results have been meager, but some have expressed hopes that recent discoveries of "Qur'an Graveyards" in Yemen will throw more light on the subject.
There’s lots more at this very interesting site.
Finally, finally, what jogged me into thinking about this was “The Crescent and the Conclave,” by “Spengler” in the 4/19/05 Asia Times, which starts off with the startling suggestion, that as “a way out” of the “demographic death” faced by Europe from being overrun by Muslims, Christians and especially Catholics under their new pope should “convert European Muslims to Christianity”!
Farther down, quoting himself from a 2003 article, he says, “The worm in the foundation of radical Islam” — as in the foundation of Christianity, fundamentalist Christians would say, we might add — may be Koranic criticism. It would “delegitimize the whole [Muslim] historical experience,” wrote Toby Lester in the Atlantic Monthly in 1999, quoted by Spengler. In other words, it would topple this house of cards, and they cannot allow it.
To which Reader Bob O. responds in an email:
In all the "Greying of America" and "Muslimization of Europe" stories, why do we rarely see a reference to the fundamental cause of all these future problems—the precipitous drop in white, mostly Christian birth rates? To which I respond: Drop in births is among the liberal-thinking, while right-thinkers have kids, which points to a diminution of liberal influence in ballot box, already demonstrated in Republican victories.
Losing it
Metabolism runs out of ingested fuel and turns to the body itself. It’s weight-loss time, and the livin’ is queasy at times but in general a preferable alternative.
ALL IN HOW YOU SAY IT
JUNIOR SENATOR . . . Sen. Barack Obama, in a televised debate last fall with opponent Alan Keyes: "I think there’s something immoral about somebody who’s lost [his] job after 20 years, has no health care, and [whose] pension is threatened, and about young people with [good enough] grades and drive to go to college who lack the money."
But nobody is immoral for losing his job, etc. He means the situation. But situations may be unjust, not immoral. Does he have someone in mind whom he wants to call immoral? He should come right out and say it. Or he should look back on his expensive education and wonder if he got his money’s worth.
THE FATHER’S SON . . . "America must come to grips with" big-city corruption whereby campaign donors get plum jobs and contracts that cost the public much money, said Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley recently.
Wrong! He said it about a comfortable target, guns, seeking to distract editors and publishers from discussion of corruption on his watch by mouthing one of their favorite phrases, espousing one of their favorite causes.
QUIRKS ALLEGED . . . Wednesday Journal crime reports also last fall: So & So was "allegedly found" in a stolen auto. But he was surely found.
That’s not in doubt, is it? How about "allegedly stolen" auto?
Not to pile on, but someone else was "allegedly also found" with a drug pipe. We are not sure he was found?
Meanwhile, in the Sun-Times of 3/25/05, we read that a man was jailed for an alleged scam he is accused of engineering, leading us to wonder if there was a scam at all since it is merely alleged. Try this: He was jailed, accused of engineering a scam.
COLLEGE QUIRK . . . "Empowering the Mind, Enriching the Spirit" says banner on Concordia U. campus. There’s something wrong with that. Try this: "Enriching the mind, empowering the spirit." There. That’s better. The spirit has to be willing, as we know; so let’s empower it. As for the mind, we want it well stocked, do we not, full of riches? So let’s enrich it.
LET US BE CLEAR ABOUT IT . . . "[M]ortals . . . value . . . speech rather as a disguise than as an interpretation of their real convictions . . ." says Agnes Repplier in
Books & Men.
"Self-expression" has no appeal for
Times Literary Supplement columnist and poet Hugo Williams, who says he cares only for "making something solid that would stand up under use."
"The literary artist moves directly from things to words, and consummates their marriage," said the late Hugh Kenner in
Paradox in Chesterton. We should not admit impediment to this marriage, as with folderol and obfuscation.
WE ARE WHAT WE READ . . . Sun-Times’s Sneed heard "rumbles" (Sneed for "rumors") last December that Chief Justice Rehnquist would "reportedly" announced his retirement in January. But "rumbles" plus "reportedly" left us with something very wispy.
It was a case of pure publicity rather than news, and not even with ax-grinding by columnist or press agent payback to explain it. On the other hand, there was space to fill, and this has led better men than Sneed (a woman) to go with the wispy.
PERILOUS WATERS . . . Crisis Magazine had a bad month in January. "Blessed is that servant
whom [italics added], when his Lord returns, will be found watching," said one essayist, a retired English teacher.
And "Born in Queensland in 1885, Tubby’s parents returned to their native England when he was two." says another, a learned pastor, writing about a man named Tubby.
SUGGESTION . . . Harrah’s is the premier place to play, says radio ad. Why not "premier gambling den"?
HE HAD HIS CAREER TO THINK OF . . . Norman Porter Jr., a.k.a. Jacob Jamieson, pleaded not guilty in Massachusetts to escaping confinement. This is an open-and-shut legal dodge, since he clearly escaped confinement – unless a guard winked and left the door open and Porter thought he meant he was pardoned and free to go.
But why then did he change his name once out of confinement, as he did in Chicago for many years? Maybe because being known as an ex-con would have hampered his career as poet, peace activist, and member in good standing of Chicago’s 3rd Unitarian Church.
YEA WALTER! . . . In
Rob Roy Walter Scott writes of the "opportune" (timely) but not "fortuitous" (unplanned) appearance of rescuers, making neat work of a usage of our benighted day, in which "fortuitous" is equated (unfortunately) with "fortunate."
Cell phones, squirrels and pharmacists who strike back . . .
. . . in
today's Wednesday Journal:
CALL ME...It’s sooooo 2004 to complain about cell phone conversations in public. But we can talk about it, can’t we? Yes: Caribou customer’s phone rings loudly, he answers, other customers hear that he is in Oak Park—they knew that—and is buying a hot chocolate—the counter man knew it, but not the guy at the window table, slightly out of earshot.
Another time, another store: man enters discussing his affairs loudly and clearly. One of the two customers shoots him a look involuntarily—can he be speaking to me? Man smiles and says "Hi," friendly, not defiant, continues conversation. Speaks of man who "merged" a failing pet store on Madison "Avenue" [sic] in Forest Park, and to a woman who will either go to jail or make restitution, thanks to legal action he instituted. Certain details he won’t go into, saying he’s in "the UPS store," cruelly leaving others uninformed. Five minutes more and he winds up: he and the other will meet at "Mother’s." "That will be fun," he says, and signs off.
LOVING NATURE...I don’t feed the squirrels at Scoville Park, but I look at them and they look at me. I sit with my coffee covered, lest they sip. My toast too, which is far more attractive to them. They hop onto my bench or timbered seat, probe a little, hop back down. I rise and stand before them; they approach indirectly, veering slightly, then probing to one side. This one primps, scratching, nosing himself, brown fur glistening in the sun. He’s light, almost blond in places, and holds his left forepaw or both forepaws bent at his breast. Why?
SHOWING THE WAY ... Mid-morning of a blustery January day, the stroller is approached at Oak Park and Lake by a young couple from another country asking, in careful English, where Frank Lloyd Wright houses can be found. They wear leather mid-length jackets and are of olive complexion, black hair, unassuming demeanor, are prosperous enough looking but flaunt nothing. They apparently had just got off the Green Line train a block away, most likely from the Loop.
A block that way, says the stroller, pointing north, then four or five left until the park, then right, and there you have your Wright houses. Smiles and thank yous, and off they go.
BURYING MISTAKES ... Oak Park’s own Debra Stulberg, M.D., a West Suburban Hospital resident, is quoted March 23 by the Sun-Times in a story about a Planned Parenthood protest of a Loop druggist who refused as a matter of conscience to supply morning-after contraceptive pills. Dr. Stulberg says a pharmacist’s job is to fill prescriptions and not "get in the way of the best interests of the patient" but is grievously one-upped by a Pharmacists for Life spokesman who tells the reporter, "Pharmacists are the final checkpoint of patient safety. We correct doctors’ mistakes all the time."
This is a case of "Pharmacists Strike Back." They are still getting even for the depiction of Mr. Gower the druggist, who would have mistakenly sent poison to a patient if not for intervention by the Jimmy Stewart character (as a boy), who got his ears boxed for his trouble, which made him half deaf for the rest of his wonderful life.
Never mind. Dr. Stulberg has had a reproductive-issue bone to pick at least since her days not too long ago at Harvard Medical School, where she belonged to Medical Students for Choice, on whose web site she argued in 2001 for more training in how to abort. Teachers, she complained, were afraid to "take the risk" and give such training, having "heard the message of the anti-abortion movement loud and clear."
More recently, she has worried about a decline in abortions, including at her own West Sub since Resurrection Health Care bought it last year—actually, saved it from abortion by operational deficit. "A lot has changed since the Resurrection takeover," she told the National Women’s Law Center. "Patients [looking for birth control help] are being turned away. Rape victims ... are being sent to an outside facility [for] emergency contraception."
This is a case of "Pro-choice residents striking back" at "Catholics striking back" with their own institutions and should be watched for further developments, like Dr. Stulberg’s finishing her time at West Sub and going somewhere else.
A poem . . .
. . . composed weeks ago on hearing of female cop overpowered and
disarmed in Chicago by fleeing carjacker twice her sizeFive foot four, girl in blue,
She's a cop, and a good one too.
Tried to nail a malefactor,
In this case he went and sacked her.
Had her by one hundred thirty,
Plus one foot, and he played dirty.
Halt, she said, and halt he did,
But turned and nailed the girl, poor kid.
She had a rod. So what? he thought.
He tripped her up though hard she fought.
Down went the gun, down went the girl,
So fast it happened, in a whirl.
Next thing, she choked, but not for lack
Of spirit. The plucky girl was on her back.
She feared not fate that's worse than death,
The guy was going for her breath.
What's more, the gun she counted on
Was held by Mister Pile-on.
The bad guy had it, woe was she,
And goner feared she soon to be.
But guy-cops came around the corner,
Pointed guns at bad guy, he so orner-
y, so now they had 'em . . .
[Stuck. Anybody got an idea where to go next?]================
To which Reader Margaret submits "a happy ending:
............................
But guy cops came to the poor girl's aid,
Just in time to save the maid.
She angrily argued she'd almost caught 'im,
and the guy cops deferred as gentlemen oughta.
But the lass wised up and changed professions,
and was no longer driven by delusional obsessions.
She's happier today, and safer by far,
The guy cop she married thinks she's a star!
