"Sunset Boulevard"

Joe: You used to be big.

Gloria: I am big! It's the pictures that got small.

We don't expect our perspective to shift with age... but it does. When I first watched the classic film "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) thirty years ago I naturally identified with struggling young screenwriter Joe. As the story opens, Joe is evading tough-guys from a finance company intent on repossessing his car. For non-payment, of course. In his escape Joe limps into a Hollywood estate, once grand but now fetid from neglect. There he stumbles upon eccentric inhabitants: a once-famous but now aged silent-movie star, Norma Desmond, her (dead) pet monkey, and her creepy butler Max. 

Seeing the movie again, now, I relate more to Norma than young Joe. Norma is clinging to a fantasy: her "return" to the cinematic spotlight. We, the audience, are invited to ponder whether Norma is rational or insane. Delusion is an easy guess given her decrepit circumstances. Indeed, screenwriter Joe's first opinion of her compares Norma to Miss Haversham in "Great Expectations."

But... perhaps Norma isn't crazy. After all, she WAS a star thirty years ago. Her exaggerated affect had cultural value back then. And she's still remembered by Hollywood mogul, Cecil B. DeMille -- who plays himself in the movie, along with other "waxworks" like Buster Keaton.

The film hits me differently now as I ponder whether I'm still rational -- or have drifted away from you youngsters into a magical land of personal fantasy. Last year, when I was physically, socially and spiritually separated from "society" I felt pangs and bliss of deep isolation. In that state you question why we seek human connection. Normal people merely assume an answer but those on the outskirts -- the ill, the deviant, the insane -- face this question with arrant seriousness. Why do we care about connecting to their "reality"? Should we care? It's possible to detach from everyone else and drift away on your own ice-floe. Like the elderly in some indigenous arctic tribes.

Some, like Norma and me, choose to "return" to society -- but with radically new perspective. Things that formerly mattered, now don't. Friendship needs to be real, not phony. Empty gestures to attract social applause (most posting on social media) are realized to be hollow and absurd. Ultimately, we can "make a comeback" but we'll do it on our own terms, infused with real meaning, not false pretenses designed merely to impress others.

"Alright, Mr. DeMille. I'm ready for my close-up!"

"Back to Blood"

Tom Wolfe, who started out as a journalist, became one of our best writers. His 18 books include four novels that are notable for their non-fiction character. Wolfe weaves into stories knowledge about art, culture, sociology and psychology. That Balzac-inspired approach entrances me.

I'm almost through Wolfe's complete oeuvre and want to report on his last novel, "Back to Blood" (2012). It is immensely entertaining. The story begins at a poor Cuban community in Miami but ends up as satire of the international art market and its chicanery. Miami Art Basil is one of the most prominent art fairs in the world where ultra-rich collectors vie for hot art. Wolfe knows the art world better than any other writer and is merciless describing its predations.

In his work Wolfe creates characters and scenes of detailed specificity. You easily believe they're real; they seem too authentic to be fictional.

Reading "Back to Blood" was the most enjoyable thing I did this year. Strangers in Starbucks probably wondered why I was smiling and laughing while staring at a Kindle. I'm agog to finish Wolfe's books and, strictly entre nous, recommend his work.

For a sample of delightful metaphors and wordplay consider:

- "The look on Sergei's face took his breath away. This was not the mere look that kills. This was the look that kills and then smoke-cures the carcass and eats it."

- Rich collectors are "eager to inhale the emanations of Art and other Higher Things amid the squalor of" urban art districts.

- She wore "enough black eyeshadow to make her eyes look like a pair of glistening orbs floating upon a pair of concupiscent mascara pools."

- The curtains hanging in the mansion were "almost comically magnificent."

- "All three [girls] were shrink-wrapped in denim. Their jeans hugged their declivities fore and aft, entered every crevice, explored every hill and dale of their lower abdomens and climbed their montes veneris."

- He sat "at a desk with a surface you could land a Piper Cub on."

Finally, Wolfe enlarges my vocabulary with esoteric words like zephyr, rakehell and nob. I like building new wings on my Word Warehouse. 

Interment

Today was a solemn day for us. Robin and I transported my father's cremated remains to the National Cemetery in Farmingdale where he was interred in their Columbarium. The National Cemetery is for military veterans and celebrates their service to our country. 

My father, born in Germany in 1930, came to the America in 1951. He learned the fastest path to U.S. citizenship was through military service. He enlisted and spent two years in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He earned several medals and emerged from the Army an American citizen. He was proud of his military service and wanted to be laid here.

I didn't expect today to be emotional but it was. Robin and I shed tears for both my father and thousands of other dead soldiers in the cemetery. It's impossible to walk among them, as we did, without dolorous sorrow at this human loss. We saw graves of many young men and women cut down in the prime of their lives (18-22 years old). Thankfully my father escaped that plaintive fate and enjoyed a long life.

His final resting place will be marked by a plaque in a month or two. The VA also has a memorial website on which I'll add biographical data. Anyone who wishes can later offer a tribute on the website to my dad. I'll let you know when both projects are finalized and ready for visiting.

If you're wondering why it took a year for me to arrange this interment, the answer is simple: I was, um..., distracted last year by another matter. Attending to this now was the best I could do.

Another Birthday

Tomorrow is my birthday. I normally take stock on these occasions. This year the report is encouraging.

I'm working out regularly and improving my physical health. I've learned how to function with limited vision (20%), discovering dozens of techniques to compensate for bad eyesight. I'm also active mentally, reading abstruse work with glee.

Best of all, my enthusiasm has returned. After last year's set-back I've re-discovered joy. Simple pleasures delight me. Staying in touch with friends is a priority. And unexpected experiences pop up frequently. Let me describe a recent one. 

A few days ago I was waiting at the light to cross a busy four-lane street. There was lots of traffic. A frail old lady with a cane approached me and asked if I'd help her cross the road. She said she walks very slowly and wasn't sure she'd reach the other side before the light turned. Of course I volunteered to be a tutelary. I didn't mention to her that her eyesight is way better than mine.

I escorted her across. As she predicted the light changed before she could reach the other side. I stopped traffic with my hand and protected her with my body; this enabled her to continue and reach the sidewalk. 

I felt unexpected emotions afterward. Surprise that I'm able to help others, not just be a recipient of assistance. And pride at using Badass Biker Confidence to stare down large threatening road-bugs. The only way to safely deal with aggressive motorists is to intimidate them so they back off. And when you're vulnerable on two wheels or two legs, the way to do that is with ATTITUDE. Leonine aplomb.

In the past year I've started to feel younger, so this birthday isn't bad news.

Geneviève Bujold

I saw Geneviève Bujold in several movies during the 1970-80s. I fell in love with her. The Canadian actress's beauty is mesmerizing. She's a true houri.

Yesterday I was shocked to see Geneviève in a movie made a decade ago ("Still Mine"). In it Geneviève looks OLD. Now 84, she seems like someone on her last legs -- but her eyes are the same, twinkling with inner pulchritude.

How can this be? I'm still young, why isn't she?

A Life Of The Mind

“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.”

  -- Ernest Hemingway

One of the consolations of my current condition is the ability to read, think and write. From childhood to today reading has opened doors for me, supplied knowledge and engaged my curiosity. I can't imagine being without it.

Every week I devour The New Yorker cover-to-cover. Lately I'm waist-deep in Tom Wolfe's oeuvre. It's fun to encounter new words (like "shambolic", "boulevardier" and "houri"). I'm also tickled by clever sentences such as: "It would be as risky as trying to beat a burning fuse to the dynamite"; "...the peculiar male compulsion to display knowledge"; and "Moral bitterness is a basic technique for endowing the idiot with dignity."

What do you like to read?

Whimsy

Modern life is insipid. Unless you make independent effort, life's banality will bore you into stupor. That's why I search for eccentricity and whimsy anywhere I can find them. They make life exciting.

The Volkswagen Beetle, acclaimed as "a people's car," was introduced in 1938. VW's idea was to provide folks with cheap basic transportation. Eliminating frills and unnecessary expense enabled budget consumers to get on the road. It also, unintentionally, allowed arrant oddballs to create custom cars at very low cost.

I, for instance, inherited a 1966 VW Bug as my first automobile. I learned on it, grinded gears while mastering "the stick" and drove the car to high school. With teenage exuberance and quirky artistic vision I converted the Bug into the strangest vehicle in my town. I stapled white shag carpeting to the interior walls and roof, removed the entire muffler system and installed "straight pipes," painted racing stripes (actually a decal), boasted racing-style "mag wheels" and tires, replaced the plain knob on the stick-shift with a black billiard eight-ball, and mounted loud, uncovered speakers to boost stereo volume. My proudest achievement was to add a risible car-horn that moo-ed like a cow. Seriously, it moo-ed. The horn had a lever you pulled to RELEASE THE MOO. I thought that was the wildest idea ever. True éclat. Needless to say I was the only kid in town with one. 

MOO!!  "Ralph's here."

One feature I didn't add -- only because I wasn't aware of its existence -- was a coffee-maker. In 1959 -- I SWEAR TO GOD YOU CAN CHECK ME ON THIS -- Volkswagen offered the option of a coffee-maker mounted on the dashboard (Hertella Auto Kaffeemachine). Drivers could harness car electricity to brew a cup of Joe. Matching porcelain coffee cups had magnets in their base to stay attached to metal holders while driving. In case you don't believe me, here's a photograph of the device. I invite skeptics to do their own research and confirm this.

"Would you like cream or sugar with that?"  :)