The Glass Character

Saturday, April 27, 2013

My God, my God: the falling Wallendas

I don't know what it is about me. Just me? Look at reality TV. We all have this instinctive inner urge to ogle, to goggle. Other people's disasters fascinate us.

I was tempted to (but didn't) post a horrific 15-second YouTube clip of the patriarch of the Wallenda family attempting to walk a wire stretched between two high-rise buildings. He lost his balance, slipped, fell and hit the pavement. But even that isn't the worst part. Two guys are just standing around talking. Obviously they saw what happened - wouldn't the whole world be watching this incredible stunt? - and it doesn't even occur to them to try to help. In the next second, twenty people run frantically toward the now-expired body. But what was up with those two guys?

Just looking at a picture like this makes me queasy.

How could anybody find it enjoyable to watch this? For that matter, why did people used to (and still do, I hear) attend executions of death-row criminals? Why do we go to movies that scare the bejesus out of us, even pay good money for it?

Here are the Wallendas walking the wire at Detroit's Shrine Circus in 1962. They always worked without a net. Nets were for amateurs and sissies. I never attended the Shrine Circus (I hated that smell of animal dung and the sweaty frightening clowns), but I could have. I lived close enough to Detroit that when the ground rumbled, our teacups began to rattle. In this photo, it's obvious already that things are going perilously wrong. The quivering symmetry of the first shot is coming undone.

What happened? Post-disaster, one of the Wallendas claimed it was the man at the top of the pyramid. Quite simply, he lost his grip. With all that weight on both sides, a deviation of a fraction of a centimeter meant doom. It must have happened that night.

Obviously a few reporters were there, smoking cigarettes, taking swigs from hip flasks as they covered the most boring public event of the year. But suddenly, the cameras couldn't snap fast enough.

An interjection. There's something funny about these two pictures. That banner behind the woman was supposed to be horizontal. Here it's wildly askew. Someone tilted their camera, obviously, to make the shot look more dramatic. Here (below) is the same shot, rotated to normal: obviously the woman wasn't careening down at an angle, but being carefully lowered on a wire. The position of her hands makes that obvious. Like anyone who parachutes, an aerialist would be prepared for an eventual/inevitable fall, and certainly would NOT fall feet-first!

The more I look at this, the more I see the essential phoniness and dishonesty of the press. If the woman were actually falling, she would not be looking down at the ground at this angle. The corrected shot is almost like another picture. Her legs are relaxed and dangling, whereas her arms are flexed as she holds on. For shame, Detroit News.

Call this the Day of the Jackal. The carnage was laid out for everyone to see. The Detroit News went on and on about it, pages and pages. Were there video clips? I think so, but not on YouTube. I've seen a couple seconds of it on documentaries about the Wallendas. It's horrendous.

This catastrophe put Detroit on the map and was the biggest thing to happen to the entertainment industry since Milky's Party Time.

But think of the audience.

Think of the sickening screams, the horror, the disbelief. the bizarre part of the mind that insists, "Oh, it's all part of the act" (like people today, caught in terrorist attacks, who without fail say afterwards, "I thought I was in a movie").

And the children. It wasn't common then to explain anything to them. (Still isn't, if you ask me.) If we didn't talk about it, it just went away. Imagine the racing heart and overwhelming dread, that little spot of horror deep inside, never healed, just crouching there, while the adult wonders why he has heart disease, why he's so afraid of heights.

Couldn't that buried trauma, like a tiny earthquake vibration gradually growing stronger and stronger, eventually crumble the core of a human being? Couldn't it? We call it "psychosomatic illness". I call it the human sickness, the thing that might just finish us after all.

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Lost and found, found and lost: the miracle of the Tube

This is one of those pieces I inadvertently tracked down through wonderful YouTube. I've been immersed in music lately, discovering those playlists of 148 complete symphonies end-to-end, many of them live performances with superb sound. I guess I didn't indulge before because I had a hard-and-fast rule: NO MUSIC while I was writing. Too distracting! My mind can't do two things at once.

But this writing doesn't matter so much (except to me): I write about whatever is at the top of my head (or over it!), and don't need to worry about some pecksniff of an editor picking it to pieces. It's wild and free. So maybe I CAN have music on while I write, because it isn't really writing, not like those miserable little 500-word blocks of text I had to turn out every week for newspapers.

This piece by Khatchaturian (an Armenian whose music straddles conventional romanticism and sexual/edgy/spicy/fierce/exotic Armenianism, with a dose of early-20th-century dissonance on the side) is one that I heard in my childhood, which whether I liked it or not was drenched with classical music. I was expected to be a musician, a violinist specifically, though I had little talent and no inclination. The fact that I went back in my 40s and took nine years of violin instruction is another story.

My siblings were all vastly older than me, and always seemed to be coming home from university and Europe and stuff, and often they came bearing records. (And sometimes pot, but that's another story.) These were New Discoveries, things we hadn't heard before, outside the box of Bach and Brahms. Thinking back, there was nothing too spectacular about these things. Khatchaturian isn't exactly a secret, not with the Sabre Dance appearing on Ed Sullivan every week while Armenians juggled flaming torches. But this waltz, well.

My brother called it Dark Waltz, and it would be right at home in today's climate of sexy vampires, Dark Shadows Redux, Beauty and the Beast gasping back to cheesy life, and Twilight. I searched and searched for the right version, played at the right tempo, as many of them are just too fast and miss the point: this is Armenia via Vienna, almost a wink or a trick or a parody of Strauss, with its lurking corners, sneaky dissonance and falling cadences. As a matter of fact, I have that queer feeling (did you know I'm queer? Neither did I, until this moment) that it is the SAME recording I listened to in my childhood. It's quite possible. Strange are the ways of YouTube, which to my mind gets better and better, so long as you ignore the Cretan-ish crap in the comments section.

Things are within reach now. As far as I am concerned, I will never buy a CD again. I keep making discoveries, every day, and things from the past pop up and say, "HI!", with an idiotic look on their face. So I WASN'T hallucinating Clutch Cargo and his Pals Spinner and Paddlefoot, or Spunky and Tadpole, or I Married Joan (do-wah, do-wah!). It's all there, though I have no idea where people get these things, along with ancient Anacin commercials and even (selah, my Saviour) a rare clip of Milky the Clown bothering Little Nancy, the crippled poster child for the Whatever-it-is Pity Society in Detroit.

I mean, people must have vaults of this stuff in their basement. Hundreds, thousands of things, old TV themes like T. H. E. Cat (gifinated by me a few posts ago - what an amazing, elegant piece of animation!). Just stored? Do they come from musty old TV vaults? Or what? The mysterious provenance of them just makes it all better, I think. They seem to waft up from the past. Here I am again, only this time everything is different, and how. I'm not this bewildered little kid any more, but a bewildered adult with many of the same compulsions and dilemmas, with the same confusion as to why I am alive.

I was assigned this, my life; I did not choose it. I guess no one does. But it does seem a heavy burden, and a long one, a long trudge through unknown territory. I savour all the discoveries I make, no matter how tiny.

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Friday, April 26, 2013

The day Brando failed his screen test

Though Hollywood keeps its tacky red mouth shut about things like this, James Dean wasn't the only person they had in mind for Rebel Without a Cause.

They also thought of Marlon Brando.

They thought of Marlon Brando, who hadn't even made a movie (yet) and didn't know his way around a camera (yet). They thought of him cuzzadafact that he had already made a searing splash as Stanley Kowalski on the stage, and somebody must-of thought: this boy has talent, and not only that, I'd like to suck his face.

I lied a while ago and said that I wasn't reading the massive 1994 Brando bio by Peter Manso. I've started reading it to get to sleep at night, and it works, except it cuts off the circulation in my legs. I wonder what this Manso thinks of Brando. I know he was eccentric to the point of craziness and scarfed down Mallomars by the box, but. . . I've been watching some clips of interviews with him, later ones like the Connie Chung one in which he seems pretty much like an old crank. But once in a while, a certain facial expression, a light in those dreamy eyes will bring back the hard-bodied but soft-faced, almost androgynous hero who ripped his way through a couple dozen brilliant films, playing everything from Marc Antony to a goofy little Japanese guy in a teahouse.

Brando wasn't always good, he wasn't always in good films, and some of them were fatal mismatches (Sky Masterson? The guru in Candy?), but he was as intrepid as Captain Kirk aboard the Starship Enterprise, grabbing at one means of expression after another. He was a primitive with an intricate mind, emotionally damaged, and a leveller: of egos, of feelings, of human mystery. All would be smoothed flat by the forward blaze. I believe he was frustrated and angry and curious and very much like a small child rushing around in the woods, ripping things up and eating them and spitting them out.

Anyway, that's what I think. Though he failed his screen test, he's still worth making gifs of, 60 or so years later.

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Holy Crappoly! Look what I found! (or: the Methigel Column)

Holy crappoly. Look what I found!

I wrote this in, I think, 1995.

It appeared, or it must have, in the Tri-City News, the paper I wrote for for years and years and years. I remember it because I had to beg for my cheques. Then one day, after 15 years of service, they casually canned me for no reason they would state.

Them's the breaks. But here it is, this thing I found while trying to find my Google Author's Profile, which is right now having a nervous breakdown on Internet Explorer and flashing and jerking all over the place. I found it on some forum-or-other, and who knows where the person ever got it. It's almost like finding one of my columns from the (choke) Hinton Parklander!

The cat, whom I've written about before, is long since dead, though I was sentimental enough to make a scrapbook of his best photos, vet records and a lock of his fur (just kidding - I found enough of that on the furniture to not want to see it ever again).

"Methigel is extremely palatable," the directions on the tube of
medication said. "To stimulate taste interest place a small amount of
Methigel on animal's nose or directly in mouth. Cats: 1/2 to 1
teaspoonful twice daily. Dogs: 1 teaspoonful twice daily."

To me, it looked like old beef gravy which had been allowed to harden
into a quivering semi-solid. To my cat ... well, when I unscrewed the
top of the tube, he took one sniff and ran the other way.

I don't blame kitty for his critical response. Cats loathe medicine,
especially the really noxious stuff. Murphy hates it, just as he hates
to admit that with the onset of middle age he has developed certain
urinary problems familiar to 50-year-old males everywhere.

There is a treatment: Methigel. But why are the manufacturers so
insensitive as to suggest that this stuff is equally "palatable" to
cats and dogs? That's like saying a medicine is suitable for guppies
and giraffes. Frogs and finches. Amoebae and antelope.

Everyone knows there is a world of psychic difference between a cat
and a dog. Just take a look at their owners.

Dog people wear thick Cowichan sweaters, smoke three-dot Brigham pipes
(even women), drink Dewar's White Label, read Hemingway, and sit by
the fire with their faithful pal at their feet. They like to be in
control - of their dogs.

Cat people wear claw-marked cashmere, gave up smoking years ago (Tabby
doesn't like it), drink whatever will get them there fastest, read
Dorothy Parker, and know enough to sit very still so Precious will
deign to jump up and snuggle. They love to be in control - but not of
their cats, who can bite and hiss and scratch and still be named
"Cuddlebug".

Murphy eyed me with mistrust. "I suppose you think I'm going to take
this greasy gunk without a fight," he stated as I prepared an oral
syringe full of the dreaded methigel.

"No, but I do expect you to take it," I countered, grasping 16 pounds
of cat between my knees for the twice daily struggle.

"Good for cats and dogs? Bah -," Murphy spat, decorating the wall with
most of the dose. "A dog will eat coffee grounds."

He's right, you know. I've seen it. Dogs aren't fussy. In fact,
they'll lick up any old swill with the greatest of enthusiasm, then
sit up and beg for more.

Dogs are prose; cats are poetry. Dogs embody the spirit of rugged
manhood. Cats are the spooky eccentricity of woman. Dogs doggedly
follow. Cats disappear.

I'm writing to the manufacturer of this medicine to suggest a change.
"Methigel for Cats?" No, let's call it Tuna Delight, a tasteful puree
of assorted fish-heads.

There will be a twist to the instructions. Before the owner is allowed
to administer the first dose, he or she must swallow a full
tablespoonful.

Good for cats. Humbling for humans.

Post-blog: Aren't you glad I took that Creative Writing course at Pinetree Elementary School in 1996? Since then, my prose has soared to new heights. Speaking of fish, this piece is suitable for wrapping it. But hey, I thought it was way good at the time!

Post-post: Just dredged up this bit of writerly nonsense. Showing off again, are we?

If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.”
- Doris Lessing

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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

It's late, I should go to bed, but I have this horse. . .

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A. J. Clemente: the f-bomb and the death of coherence

This has to be a hoax.

Right?

Beside the fact that the guy immediately fires off the f-bomb (along with a quite charming, accompanying s-bomb), he is absolutely bloody awful, worse than some high school student shooting a YouTube video during spring break.

His partner (whom he seems to address as "man") not only stumbles over her copy (perhaps understandably, since the co-anchor has just bleeped his career all to fxxk) but has a noticeable lisp.

Anchoring is usually considered to be the prestige job in any newsroom. Who knows why, because I think reporters out in the field work much harder and put themselves at far more personal risk. Usually this means careful screening of candidates, not scooping some foul-mouthed idiot off the street.

We won't get into the ludicrous errors passed off as truth, clownish stumbles in grammar and useage that nobody even notices even more (such as: shouldn't the verb match the subject? Didn't we learn that in kindergarten?)

Here's a very simple example: "Having dug a hole under the fence, Ricky went to look for his missing dog." The worst of it is, people aren't reacting to this kind of verbal soul-murder any more because, like a lot of excruciatingly bad grammar and useage, it is worming its way into passive acceptance and will soon be considered "correct", even cited in modern dictionaries. Do you know why that happens? Because it is done over, and over, and over again until people don't hear it any more.

A particularly excruciating example pops up in my memory: an anchor introduced a story by talking about "chickadees". "Parents should not be giving chickadees to their children for Easter." Well, THAT seemed right enough.

The clip was, of course, about baby chicks. As in: baby chickens. As in: those little yellow fluffy things that come out of eggs at Easter time (for the express purpose of being mauled to death by children).

Not one person complained or even noticed that chickadees are small, sparrowlike birds that don't migrate but stay here in the winter. They make a sound similar to: chickadee-dee-dee-dee-dee. . . (I know, because I have seen/heard them.)

When I wrote in to complain to the station, their response was, "Well, no one else has complained about it." This is a defense I particularly loathe. Why? It's similar to that repugnant question, "Are you sure?" This question denigrates your feelings and in fact negates them completely. If you're not "sure", you're either lying or vacillating so much that nobody should be taking you seriously anyway. And why ask? It means your credibility (not to mention your mental competence) is seriously in question.

"No one else has complained" means that valid, proper complaints require one thing: NUMBERS. The higher the number of complaints, the more seriously they are taken. One person complaining about something is completely irrelevant, making the protestor look like a foaming crackpot who won't have the least effect on the ratings.

Your complaint will only be considered valid if it's clumped in with hundreds or even thousands of others (but even there, it's in danger of being buried by the lemming stampede of public conformity). If no one else has complained, you might as well keep your mouth shut and go away.

Then again: your comment may have a tiny grain of credibility. But only if you're sure.

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Mugatu 2: Renaissance monster

For those of you who think the Mugatu was just some weird conglomeration of King Kong, Godzilla and Bigfoot, let it be known that he was a creature of many manifestations/talents.