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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~ In Memoriam: Rodney Dangerfield (1921-2004) ~~~~
~~~~~~~~ Beloved Comedian who got "no respect", e.g., "I was an ugly kid. My mother had morning sickness after I was born." ~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The dons, the bashaws, the grandees, the patricians, the sachems,
the nabobs, call them by what names you please, sigh and groan
and fret, and sometimes stamp and foam and curse, but all in vain.
The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more
equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must
be established in America. — John Adams, 2nd US President
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This month Violet and Joey learn about the Meta-Engineer.
Each month we take time to thank two of our good readers of Good Mountain Press Digest, books and reviews. Here's our two worthy Honored Readers for this month. One of their names will be in the TO: address line of your email Digest notification. Our Honored Readers for November are:
The month began with Georgia marching through LSU the way the first LSU President Sherman marched through Georgia during the un-Civil War. The next improved when Del and I attended the Babin-Himel Reunion in Houma. Many of my first cousins I hadn’t seen in years were present. The day was beautiful, sunny and dry as befits an October day in South Louisiana. Of the 8 Babin daughters to Pierre Gabriel Babin and Dessee Himel Babin, my mom, Annette and four of her sisters are deceased, one has Alzheimer’s, and the other three sisters, Mazel, Clara and Clarice were present for the festivities.
While I was busy doing other things, my website became non-functional for a few days due to some Earthlink Web Hosting snafu and then my PC’s motherboard ceased functioning after I powered down and back up to test a fix to the website problem. I was faced with a complete upgrade of Mother Board, 1 Gb RAM, 128Mb Dual Video Card, and 200 Gb Hard Drive. This happened right in the middle of two funerals in the first two weeks, one of which was my father-in-law, Henry Guthans, the grandparent of my children. Reprising the visit of our four Hatchett offspring in January when Del’s father died, we had all four of our Matherne offspring in town for about a week. My upgraded PC was ready the same night, but it took me a week to block out the time to boot up all my software from scratch — and believe me, I was scratching around to locate all the multitudinous pieces of software I’d loaded over two years and trying to get them all working again as smoothly as before. This took most of the second week of the month and left me little time for reading or writing till sometime after the 15th of the month. We did manage to watch a lot of movies this month, however, partly due to escaping from the mess sitting on my desktop waiting to complete its resuscitation.
The first funeral I attended had been postponed because of Hurricane Ivan — it was for my cousin Joy Ann Breaux's husband, Jimmy Morvant. Joy was the oldest of Aunt Mazel’s twelve children and I hadn’t ever seen more than two or three of her children together at one time since the mid-fifties when they still lived on a sugar cane farm in Dulac, Louisiana. There were ten of the twelve present for the funeral and I took this photo after the funeral of the twelve. From the
left in the photo below are: Harris Jr, Michael, Margaret, Marlene, Ethelda, Janell, Joy Ann, Verlie, Jimbo, and Raleigh Breaux. Missing are Lynn and Millard.
The next football game LSU gave up two TDs to Florida right away, probably in sympathy for all the hurricanes which hit the peninsula the past month, but LSU came to their senses and game strengths in time to win the game.
Watched the movie, “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, together with my son, Robert, who was deeply touched by the movie in which someone attempts to completely remove the memories of another person from Jim Carrey’s mind. Needlessly to say, such subterfuge doesn’t work, neither in the movies nor in real life, as he and I have both learned. Here is the eponymous quote from Alexander Pope in this poem from Heloise to Abelard:
Eloisa to Abelard [excerpt]
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.
The movie had a very emotional ending for me, and also for Robert. For me, I realized: That Jim and Kate would stay together finally. And it would be good. That removing memories was not enough to keep two people apart, no matter how it’s done. That humans are more powerful than the machines that humans make. That when you deal with humans, you are operating outside of the maps of the makers of the machines. That the inventor never knew of the bleed-through of the things which happened in the room during the removal of the memories. Nor that two humans who had been through the process could communicate while one was in the process and agree to meet in Montauk later to re join each other.
There was another quote for the inventors of ill-fated machines every where and every time: Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders. (Words of Friedrich Nietzsche in “Beyond Good and Evil”)
At Henry’s funeral, I walked up to his son, Tony, who said to me, "We lost a good union man." I chuckled a bit and then expressed my love and respect for his dad. Henry was very kind and generous to me I told him, and Tony said that it was his nature to be that way. As I was standing next to Tony, I noticed that my four-year-old grandsons, Garret and Aidan, had walked over to the open coffin and were reaching into it and touching Henry’s clothes. Garret reached up and touched Henry on the face, looked up at me, and said, “He’s cold. His face is hard.” I lowered my body down to Garret’s level and explained to him that Papa Henry was gone and this was just his body that was left. I pointed to the kneeler facing the coffin and Garret said, “Pray?” I kneeled down and Aidan took to his knees to the right side of me and Garret to my left and we all bowed our heads and I said a prayer for “May the Lord Jesus Christ take Henry into the warmth and light of His Being” or something like that. As I said each phrase of the longer prayer, Aidan repeated my words, and the both of them kept their heads bowed and hands folded until I was finished. It was a sacred moment that I will remember for the rest of my life, and I expect that they will also.
While I was toiling in my Cyberspace Garden, Del was toiling in the South Portico Garden, and the disaster area left by the pouring of the concrete for the garden patio area was soon looking “dirt and pretty” as Calvin liked to say. Photo of the new area is directly below.
October was a month during which I watched more baseball than I had in the past twenty years combined. When the Red Sox were down 3-0 and needed to win the next 4 games in a row from the Yankees to go to the World Series, I watched two incredible games when any one play goes awry and the Sox are gone. The Sox went on to win EIGHT games in a row and win their first World Series since 1918 after which win, they traded away their best pitcher and homer run hitter in one man, the famous George Herman Ruth, Babe Ruth, to the Yankees. The curse that seemed to be on the Red Sox for the next 86 years has finally been broken and in the most exciting way one could conceive of — truth is again more unbelievable than fiction.
We went to the fourth birthday party of our grandson, Collin, in Baton Rouge and stopped on the way at Tanger Outlet Mall for Grandma Claus (Del) to stock up on boxes and wrapping paper, and Christmas presents for the upcoming wrapping season. We drove back from the party to get dressed for an elegant wedding at Latrobe’s in the French Quarter, corner of Royal and Conti. Turns out the building was originally a bank, the first bank in New Orleans, and the high vaulted ceilings of the central room are spectacular! The bar was set up in the actual vault portion of the bank with 20" walls. I couldn’t help but wonder how many more architectural treasures fill this city, hidden behind mundane gray walls from the busy street outside as Latrobe’s is.
On the last Tuesday of the month I was up 4:30 AM listening to Cousin Demetri on WWOZ as I drove to go fishing. Met Mike Nuccio at his Barber Shop and rode in his truck with him to Hopedale and Pip’s Marina. Mike caught seven nice speckled trout (see photo) and I caught two. Here’s my inventory of what I caught that day in the water:
A stingray (tossed back in, rest were keepers)
Two spotted weakfish (speckled trout)
One Blue Crab who held onto my bait till I brought him into the boat.
A cluster of oyster shells which had two live and tasty oysters.
One MacGregor leather-covered baseball which was floating in the water as we motored back in. Without having to deflect the passage of the boat I reached into water and grabbed it as we passed it.
On the last Friday of the month, Del and I went to see the new movie "RAY" on opening day. About the life of Ray Charles, it has yours truly in it as a background performer (aka 'extra') in an interesting role suitable for a Jorge Luis Borges story: I appear in one scene twelve times at the same time! It's in the scene where they show Ray introducing his new song "I Can't Stop Loving You" to a packed theater in St. Louis. They used some 200 extras in period dress, placed us in the various seats in the theater, shot us standing and applauding and then tiled the 12 separate shots into a packed house ovation! You might say that there was something extra special about this movie.
That was a thumbnail of my month. Del had an equally busy month getting the Richards’ Building’s elevator and foyer re-painted and floored. Her mom, Doris, is driving again for the first time since her back operation in March of this year. A few more tests and perhaps a minor medical procedure on her back or knees, but she is feeling much better and now drives her car when Del is with her. We are all cheered by her recovery and expect her to join us here at Timberlane when our four Hatchett offspring, spouses, and children join us for Thanksgiving Dinner together with two of our Matherne’s as well.
Till next month, may your Thanksgiving be filled with family, friends, and plenty of good things to eat, with God’s Blessing on you and yours.
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Subject: Change of Address
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 09:26:56 -0600
From: Ray Haiduk [old address]
To: doyletics address
Laughter is good! Thanks for making me laugh!
Ray Haiduk, Lubbock, TX
My new email address will be: [new address] [Sent from Digest54]
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endeavor to make it fun and informative for you every month. One good reader wrote about May, 2004's Digest:
"Bobby, Really enjoyed the beautiful pictures in this issue." Captain Rod Resweber, Continental Airlines
Thanks, Rod, and here's a photo of our youngest grandson, Kyle Hatchett, which you and I have in common. He is a super kid in a Superman costume.
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Five most popular ARJ Review webpages visited in 2004:
Hits (Watch as soon as you can. A Don't Miss Hit is one you might otherwise ignore.):
“RAY” (2004) gives the performance of his life! This movie is Ray Charles Robinson at his best and his worst and no one’s walking out his show until the last note sounds. After losing his sight about age seven, Ray never tapped a cane, he used hard-soled shoes and his fine-tuned sense of hearing instead to hear-see and walk his way through the world. It was that sense of hearing in which he lived in every note he sang. See this movie and you’ll applaud as those on the first night did as the credits rolled. See the man behind the music and enjoy his music all the more. A must see! “Beyond Suspicion” (2000) is an incredible movie whose title conceals more than it reveals. Jeff Goldblum stars in almost a one man show in this movie. He is John Nolan the slick life insurance salesman who is changed forever by a chance encounter with Augie Rose who as he dies says, “It will be alright, John.” The movie begins with John saying words over a friend’s coffin, words that seem cold and almost disrespectful. It appears as if all the other mourners have left, leaving only John and the minister remaining over the open grave with the coffin already lowered into it. By the time the movie ends, we see this exact scene and hear the same words in a scene of heart-overflowing poignancy that cannot be described, but only experienced by watching this entire movie. This is a must see movie, a classic of the ilk of “Citizen Kane”, “A Wonderful Life”, “Regarding Henry”, and many other movies in which a male movie star portrays a man whose life is dramatically changed by one salient event. This was a fun movie to watch as there is no way to predict what will happen next, and the characters that fill this movie are like precious treasures: John Nolan, Augie Rose, Luci, Charlie, Molino the retired boxer, Romeo, and the black policeman. “Mooseport” (2003) — a laugh riot in a rollicking small-town in Maine where the newly ex-president comes to reside and run for Mayor. Ray Romano plays Handy Andy the hardware store owner and candidate for Mayor and the affections of Sally. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2003) — a dark movie with Jim Carrey, one that is a little difficult to get your mind around at first, e.g., the end of the movie sequence happens before the movie titles are shown. Jim is a loser in love who finds Clementine and suddenly she doesn’t know him. She has had her memories of him erased. Distraught, he signs up with the company to get his memories of her erased, and halfway through the procedure, while completely unconscious, he decides to change his mind. Will he be able to do it? The scenes where Jim is running down the street while listening to the two re-programmers chatting about their love life while hovering over his supine body in bed is priceless — should be required viewing for any surgical teams who likewise chat over their patients in operating rooms everywhere. Nietzsche quote from movie: “Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.” Plan to watch this one at least twice. “Zoolander” (2001) with Ben Stiller, directed by Ben, and starring his parents, Ann Meara as a screaming demonstrator (cameo), and his father Jerry Stiller as his agent. Ben does to male modeling what Mike Meyers did to spying with his “Austin Powers” movies, even has a “Fat Bitch” masseuse who looks like Fat Bastard’s sister. This is a rollickingly funny movie all the way to the end when Zoolander opens his “School for Kids Who Don’t Read Good.”
“Twisted” (2004) with Ashley Judd as the most likely suspect for the serial murderer, especially since she predicted the second one, especially since she was unconscious of everything that happened each night of the murder, and especially since she had recently slept with each man who was brutally killed with a cudgel of the very type she practices with and uses on attacking men. Only problem is this: she’s the police inspector trying to solve the case, and it’s a big case for her: her job, her sanity, and her life depends on finding whodunit. Hint: it ain’t the butler.
“Monsoon Wedding” (2001) – should have been called “My Big Fat Indian Wedding” – in the rain. Gene Kelly choreographed “I’m singing and dancing in the rain,” for himself, but I’m sure he never choreographed an entire wedding party singing and dancing in the rain! The language is very fast English with occasional lapses into some local New Delhi dialect (with English captions). The bride is upset about giving up her boy friend, the groom is upset that she had a boy friend, the aunt is upset that child molester is coming to the party as an honored guest –- someone who had molested her -- and who is spending a lot of time with little girls during the engagement party (2 days long) which precedes the main bash. And the wedding planner is so upset that he’s stopped eating marigold flowers and his workers are concerned about him. Can this movie be saved? After all without a wedding they would have to refund the audience’s money who came to a wedding during a monsoon. Vibrant, colorful, sensuous overload of all the senses — red dresses, lipsticks, red splashes on foreheads, a Mardi Gras spectacle of song, dance, and exuberance. “Longitude, Part I” an A&E movie of Dava Sobel’s book. She followed up a very good Galileo’s Daughter with the amazing story of John Harrison and his “time machine” – a naval chronometer for keeping track of one’s longitude all around the world. No longer would ships crash on shores which popped up in the middle of the night if only someone could build an accurate clock which worked aboard ship. A carpenter took on the job, and this two-part movie lets us see how he did it and interweaves the tale of a modern day naval officer who is restoring the original time-pieces of Harrison some 200 years later. As this part ends, two sea trials have revealed a flaw which must be fixed for long voyages: a variation in the time when the ship yaws or makes a turn due to centrifugal force. A gripping story which reveals the resistance encountered by some at the hot-end of the innovation spectrum. “Love Letters” (1999) — the movie begins with Senator Andrew Ladd returning to D.C. with three boxes of letters and asking his aide to find out who said, “Every funeral we go to is really our own.” Then he retires to his study at home to open and read the letters he and Melissa wrote to each other since the Second Grade. After he finishes the first letter he wrote, Melissa shows up to read the second letter, and so it went. Soon we are following the life of these two through high school, college, and careers. An ever-budding friendship, but will it ever bloom? At one point Andrew writes to Melissa telling her he was becoming a lawyer this way, “I’ll be writing laws, which are the letters civilization writes to itself.” One scene will help you get a flavor for the inventive genius of this movie – Melissa in high school is walking down the stairs carrying her books and speaking the words of the letter that Andrew had received from her. A sheer pleasure from the budding beginning to the blooming end. “The Rainmaker” (1997) a young Matt Damon plays an attorney just passing the bar who tackles a huge insurance company and their $1000 a minute staff of lawyers. Will being in the right be enough for Matt to carry off the prize from the jury? Will the sweet young thing survive her brutalizing husband and run away with Matt? Will this movie spawn a new series of lawyer jokes? “Reckless” (1997) describes a brash 30-ish surgeon who comes to live at his Dad’s house in London and to work for a nearby hospital and the woman twenty years older than himself that falls in love with, only to find out she’s been married to his boss, the Chief of Surgery, for twenty-one years. When he becomes the agent of her discovering her husband is not the faithful paragon of virtue she thought him to be, havoc ensues in multiple lives over four episodes of this Masterpiece Theatre series, till things settle into a new pattern. “Elephant Parts” (1981) won the very first Music Video Grammy, and made us a fan of Michael Nesmith forever, having missed the Monkee’s fad earlier. If you haven’t met Sunset Sam, or Flown Down to Rio for the Night, or learned the Pirate Alphabet, or seen the Light through the Window, or discovered the Night is Magic, then all I can say is Schmootek! “Age of Innocence” (1993) portrays Edith Wharton’s classic novel of American manners in an 1870s New York mise en scène. Martin Scorsese’s lush movie is full of mandala-like table spreads of plates, food, and guests all equally carefully arranged. Full of lives just as carefully arranged. In a bit of irony the Countess Ellen apologizes for intimating that American marriages were arranged after Newland Archer corrects her, but it is his own marriage to Ellen’s cousin, May, which had been arranged for so long that even when he fell in love with Ellen during the engagement, he could not break free of the arrangement. This is a slow movie by modern standards, and must be watched with an eye for understanding the world before 1879 in which freedom had truly not yet entered into the selection of one’s spouse in the higher realms of society. If you look carefully, you’ll spot the director in a cameo appearance as a photographer — nice touch, Martin. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1999) a place where every night is Halloween and if you walk the Sleepy Hollow road at night you might be subjected to Trick or Treat by the Headless Horseman. He’ll either trick your head off with his sword to replace his own or treat you to a ride into eternity upon his horse. Ichabod Crane was never done more memorably by a non-cartoon actor to my recollection. A bumbling overstuffed pedant who lived in a world of his own illusions till he was snatched away one night by the town’s own illusion. “Raising Helen” (2004) asks the question, “Can a high-powered model agent raise her dead sister’s three kids in NYC without damaging her nail-polish?” among other things. Sounds like Kate Hudson’s mom’s stint in “Overboard” and if you watched that one, you can guess the happy ending waiting for you as Kate gets the mommy-gene overhaul she needs so desperately. “The Red Badge of Courage” (1951) was adapted from the famous Civil War novel by Stephen Crane in 1895. It stars a genuine war hero of WWII, Audie Murphy, as the young man named Henry who struggled with going into battle for the first time. Will Henry receive a war wound as a symbol of his bravery in battle, his very own red badge of courage? Directed by John Huston, this is a movie classic in all senses of the word.
Misses (Avoid At All Costs): We attempted to watch these this month, but didn't make it all the way through on most of them. Awhile back when three AAAC horrors hit us in one night, I decided to add a sub-category to "Avoid at All Costs", namely, A DVD STOMPER. These are movies so bad, you don't want anyone else to get stuck watching them, so you want to stomp on the disks. That way, if everyone else who gets burnt by the movie does the same, soon no copies of the awful movie will be extant and the world will be better off.
“Full Frontal” lobotomy. (2002) “Prince and Me” (2004) ditsy film in which a farm girl, MD-wannabe, falls in love with a King of Denmark-to-be. Can this film be saved by an abdication by the Queen-to-be? Strictly chick flick time. “Pink Floyd: The Wall” (1982) — a dark rock opera with flights of cartoonic splendor about a young man’s struggle to be free from his misguided mom, the horrors of war, school, and the rock band. I thought I’d enjoy a relook at this movie, but I didn’t. “Hollywood Homicide” (2003) shows that Han Solo still has it but doesn’t use it much any more. A wannabe “48 Hours” with all the flash and dash but lacking a real story. A 97 minute Rap Video masking as a movie. Some fun parts if you can watch it with your ears plugged. (Tag: Graveyard for Aging Actors) “People I Know” (2002) Al Pacino as a publicist during the last day in his life. Bandied about by this clients for his entire career, he is down to Ryan O’Neal, and has to do him a favor. It’s the last favor he does anyone. An utter waste of Pacino, O’Neal, Bassinger’s talents in a flick that goes nowhere as slowly as the publicist goes nowhere. Like “Hollywood Homicide” this one belongs in the Graveyard of Aging Actors.
Your call on these — your taste in movies may differ, but I liked them:
“The Affair of the Necklace” (2001) portrays how a necklace that Marie Antoinette spurned came to be one of the causes for her having her neck severed by the guillotine. Hillary Swank looks a bit like Julia Roberts all gussied up in 18th Century period dress as a Countess who attempts to recover her family’s noble name and wreaks havoc on the institution who dispossessed her in the process. This movie’s very existence proves that making money by documenting one’s evil deeds has been around for over two hundred years. “A Woman’s a Hellavu Thing” (2001) what happens to the Publisher and Founder of “A Man’s World” Magazine when his mom dies and chooses her female companion as Executor of the large family farm shouldn’t happen to a dog, but it should happen to this macho egomaniac or he would never grow up, and so it does and this movie shows it happening.
“Mumford” (1999) when a psychologist becomes really successful in the small town of Mumford, the competing psychologist opens a can of worms and we begin to find out the background of how Dr. Mumford came to the town bearing his name and how he came to be Dr. Mumford. And once more we discover that real psychotherapy doesn’t require a degree, but it does require someone who can listen. A delightful comedy with a slowly developing romance that blossoms shortly before the credits roll, in fact, several romances. “Bless the Child” (2000) As Joe Bob Briggs would report “one head rolls” in a good-versus-evil messiah-reborn-as-a-girl flick. Mediaeval demons brought to life by computerized special effects. Rats run rampage. Devil makes a cameo appearance. Black Knight from “Knight’s Tale” is — guess what — the bad guy leading the forces of evil. Kim Bassinger once more proves she can act with her clothes on. “Ned Kelly” (2003) with Heath Ledger in title role and Orlando Bloom in supporting role of this true story. The four Kelly boys are forced to become outlaws when the corrupt police force in Australia jails their mom to get the boys to come in. They came in with a vengeance which resulted in the loss of the lives of many if not all of the police officers who were corrupt. An Oz version of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” with an equally lugubrious ending. “Day After Tomorrow” (2004) in which a VP who is against the Kyoto Accord changes his mind after watching 2 hours of Hollywood message shored up by special effects. Hooray for Hollywood: they took a wet dream of Art Bell and Whitly Strieber and attempted to scare the world into believing that an Ice Age will result from global warming. Makes sense: the very thought of wearing T-shirts in Vermont in February doesn’t throw a fright into very many folks. Was there something worth watching if you strip away the hype? There’s Dennis Quaid doing the superhero blizzard walk from D. C. to NYC to keep a promise to his son. He arrived just in time to see the Empire State Building turn into a Popsicle and save an ancient copy of the Bible from warming the hearth at the Main Library. “Dinner with Friends” (2001) Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell as a happily married couple. This movie asks and answers the question, “Can a good marriage survive the splitting up of a bad marriage between its two best friends?” Lots of dialogue about the issues that arise when two people break up a marriage of 11 years and the effect it has on those around them. “Envy” (2004) in which Ben Stiller is envious of his best friend Jack Black, but no one in his right mind would be envious of either. The show begins with a dizzying camera rotating 360 around each man as he prepares to leave for work. Great technique but way overdone. Then Ben picks up Jack across the street, and the two suits carpool to work. Jack notices Ben has a large spot on his pants, dips his finger in it and tastes it, “Hmm, maple syrup! Can you believe that comes from a tree?” The show went downhill from that high point. Jack invents a spray that vaporizes dog poo and calls it “Va-poo-rize” and becomes a billionaire overnight and builds a huge mansion directly across the street from Ben who is envious and sad that he didn’t take up his friend’s offer to be an equal partner in the dog poo business. Finally Ben loses his cool and his job and finds solace in a bar where he meets a Christopher Walken that you ain’t never seen again before in your life! "Mr. J" is his name and the movie turns a dark corner from then on that you are sure it will never return from. Or will it? Can there be friendship after billions? Love after sex? Sex after marriage? The trip in the rain with the dead horse on the top of the van reminds one of the Harvard Lampoon Vacation movie with a dead Imogene Coco on the roof. If you decide to watch this schtick, please don’t admit to anyone that I recommended it to you — say you read about it on a restroom wall. PS: Del says to tell you we laughed a lot during this movie.
“It Runs in the Family” (2003) and the family is the Kirk Douglas family with his first wife (Michael’s mother), Michael Douglas, and Michael’s son. Kirk has played some seedy down-on-his-luck characters in his lifetime, but this was him playing himself – a pater familia in post-stroke recuperation working out his last “few good years” with a son he has alienated himself from, who has in turn alienated himself from his own sons and his wife. What runs in the family? Now you know. Can alienation become reorientation in love before the curtain falls on the heads of the family? God knows, but you can watch the movie and find out. “The Canterville Ghost” (2000) this is no cowardly ghost as in the 1990 movie of a similar story. The good captain Picard plays Sir Simon who has been trapped in the castle some five hundred years. Offer Patrick Stewart the chance to play a character who inspired William Shakespeare and he’s off to the races. Ghost or not, audience or not, he’s spouting Shakespeare every chance he gets, and only balks in the middle of playing Hamlet’s father which dialogue gets too close to reality for even a Shakespearean ghost. “Before Sunrise” (1995) with Ethan Hawke as an American who meets a French girl on a train to Vienna and spends the night with her. What they do during the night is walk around Vienna, talk, see the sights, enjoy each other’s company, maybe have sex on the ground in a park near morning, and say goodbye as her train is pulling out promising to meet again in six months. Sounds mundane, but it is an enjoyable movie — a poignant look at a nascent love affair that may go on forever. “Moldanado Miracle” (2004) about a 12-yr-old Mexican, José, whose father, Hector Moldanado, was a migrant worker and never returned home. He came to the US with wetbacks to find his father and ended up in a small town, San Remo, wounded in a near-miss with the Border Patrol. He was hiding in a church loft bleeding from his shoulder’s stab wound when a woman below cries out, “MILAGRO!” as she sees blood dripping from the white marble statue of Jesus on the crucifix. Soon the town is besieged by miracle-seekers, but the one who needs the miracle most is the young boy who is completely alone and whose dad he finds out has had his leg crushed falling off a migrant workers’ truck and has disappeared. Will this movie end with revealing the truth behind the miracle of the blood of Christ? You bet — and many lives will be changed for the better along the way. “Domestic Disturbance” (2001) — a dark and frightening movie in a seaport Maryland small town where the Man of the Year becomes the Murderer of the Year and only a 14-year-old kid knows the truth about his evil step-father.(See also blurb in Digest36.
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5. RECIPE of the MONTH for November, 2004 from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen: (click links to see photo of ingredients, preparation steps) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Shrimp Stew
Background on Shrimp Stew:
This is the way Annette Babin Matherne made this for our family on many a Friday. Always served over rice (never on the side of rice as some affected restaurants serve it). Will fill many a hearty appetite. Serve hot right out of the pot over warm rice.
Chop the yellow onions, green onions, and parsley on a wooden chopping board.
Preparation of Shrimp:
If frozen or otherwise uncooked, add peeled shrimp to a shallow Pyrex dish of water to which a half capful of Zatarain’s Liquid Shrimp & Crab Boil has been stirred in. This will give the shrimp the flavor of having been boiled the way Cajuns boil them. Skip this step if shrimp are already boiled in seasoning. Just soak them in some water to create the liquid for the latter stages of the roux base below.
Cooking Instructions Make a roux!
(You must use a wooden spoon with a flat bottom for this step.)
That’s the beginning instruction for many Cajun dishes. First you make a roux (pronounced “roo”). But what’s a roux? Is it burnt flour? Nooo, it’s well-cooked flour in an oil base so that the flour takes on the color and consistency of peanut butter. Here’s how you make a roux:
Cover bottom of heavy sauce pan or cast iron pot (better) with olive oil. Place heat on HIGH and drop a piece of chopped yellow onion or two to provide an audio signal when oil is ready — it will begin to sizzle. (This trick will prevent flame-ups of the oil.) When oil is hot, place one tablespoon of flour in pot and stir. The amount of oil and flour needs to be coordinated to create the peanut butter consistency, so just add more flour and keep stirring so none of the flour burns. If it does, empty the pot and start over or else your roux will taste burnt.
Serving the Dish:
While the shrimp stew is simmering, you have time to cook some rice. Always use long grain rice and always steam it. Bobby Jeaux’s favorite thing to do is to cook a mixture of long grain parboiled (like Uncle Ben’s) and wild rice. The instructions for this can be found by Clicking Here Note: I use gourmethouserice.com Quick Cooking Wild Rice which I buy on-line from them here.
When the rice is done, turn fire off the stew. Serve by placing rice in the middle of the serving plate and pouring the shrimp stew over the rice till the liquid covers most of the rice. Eat immediately. Cajuns always eat the main dish, which this stew is, first. They eat the salad later — after all a salad will not get cold, but the stew will. (Do not put rice in a big lump to the side of the plate as restaurants do. You’re not a restaurant, after all. You can serve it the way Cajuns do in their homes.)
Each of the writers from Kate Chopin to Melville to Stowe that Delbanco discusses in these essays has created landmarks in our world with their writing and it is these landmarks we call classics. Here's how he describes these writers in his Preface:
[page xi] First and last, they were inspired practitioners of the American language. Although they valued the literary achievements of the past, they were determined to enlarge the expressive range of the language beyond where their predecessors had left it. To read them is to experience anew the pleasure that everyone knows who has ever tried to coax a sentence out of the conventional form in which it wants to settle, and who manages to carry it instead toward a new shape, a new gesture, a new style. Recognizing this when it happens on the page is what reading is all about. To do it oneself is to be a writer. Through the literary experience -- this refusal to submit to precedent, no matter how honored or honorable -- we can partake of the democratic faith in the capacity of all human beings to perform the miracle of creation.
In the previous volume we discovered the interplay between the four basic human bodies, the physical, etheric, astral, and I and we caught a glimpse by the end of the volume of how the first three bodies are refined by the I into spirit self, life spirit, and spirit human. All of these activities take place during our time between birth and death where I am as I type these words and you are as you read them. The lectures in this volume begin with a consideration of the other half of the physical-spiritual cycle that the human being rhythmically flows through — the time between death and a new birth. It is a time when we are in effect inside out — our bodily organs which are inside of you and me as I type and as you read these words were formed out of the cosmos around us as we prepared to enter the physicality portion of the cycle at birth. During the spiritual portion of the cycle we undergo an inversion: what was inner becomes outer and what was outer becomes inner.
Then Steiner takes us on a series of studies of the Human Form, the Human Life, and the Human Soul in relation to the universe. These are important lectures in books that are hard to obtain, hard to read, and hard to put down before you have assimilated their contents. If you can't find the books, these reviews (Cos 1 and Cos 2) will help you to know all about them before you start reading the books, always a great way to study a new subject.
This essay is an excellent introduction to Michaelmas, one of the neglected cardinal or hinge points of the year. Michaelmas opens the gate to Fall for us in the Northern Hemisphere, just as Christmas opens the gate to Winter, Easter to Spring, and St. John's Tide to Summer. It is a time for us to bring into our awareness the deeds of the Archangel Mi-cha-el. Mi-cha-el is the favored pronunciation because when we pronounce it that way, we acknowledge him as Micha of El or Micha of God, where El represents "of God" in all the Archangels names, such as Gabriel, Oriphiel, Samael, and Raphael, among others. It behooves us to avoid eliding the reference to "of God" by our usual two-syllable rendering of "my-kull", up until now. We do best to replace it in our daily speech with the more rhythmic and beautiful "mee-kah-ale" (regardless of how it is spelled) from now on.
In the usual image of the Archangel Mi-cha-el, we see a youth in armor wielding sword while standing upon a writhing dragon. He has the dragon under the power of his foot and is about to slay the dragon with his sword. The dragon represents the forces of non-thinking or darkness, and Mi-cha-el represents the forces of light. Someone once wrote about this image that the palpable writhing of the dragon indicates that it is under Mi-cha-el's control and that we are safe when Mi-cha-el is around us.
Each Michaelmas, in places around the world (more so than in the USA), school children re-enact the slaying of the dragon. They built a paper mache dragon and dance around the one chosen to be Mi-cha-el until finally with a play sword he slays the dragon and all the children have tea and cookies. A similar ritual is enacted in our skies every Fall when the meteorite showers of the Leonids and Perseids rain down meteoric iron upon Earth which strengthens the Michaelic forces of the Earth.
I wish to thank the Reverend Kristina Kaine for giving us persmission to publish this fine essay on Good Mountain Press in A Reader's Journal. Through her work, many more will be brought to understand why the Archangel Mi-cha-el is very important in bringing freedom and light to our world during this time.
I hear often from my Good Readers that they have bought books after reading my book reviews.
Keep reading, folks! As I like to remind you, to obtain more information on what's in these
books, buy and read the books — for less information, read the reviews.
In this section I like to comment on events in the world, in my life, and in my readings which have come up during the month. These are things I might have shared with you in person, if we had had the opportunity to converse during the month. If we did, then you may recognize my words. If I say some things here which upset you, rest assured that you may skip over these for the very reason that I would likely have not brought up the subject to spoil our time together in person.
p>I. Padre Filius
Padre Filius, the cartoon character created by your intrepid editor and would-be cartoonist, will appear from time to time in this Section of the Digest to comment on the world.
This month the good Padre receives an Order.
II. My Commentary for November:
1. A String of Pearls
While doing a Google of some phrase I had earlier written, I found my review of The Alchemy of Happiness by Hazrat Inayat Khan posted on the weblog of Nazila Goudarzi posted at 10:34 PM on Wednesday, November 20, 2002. The three ending paragraphs caught my attention and I would like to share them with you. If you haven't ever thought of life as a string of pearls, perhaps you will after reading this. (The pearls that Del is talking about below are my quotations from Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Cambridge-educated Sufi, who is an amazing spiritual writer. Check the Review if you wish to read more of these pearls, or buy the book you want them all.)
About halfway through this review my wife and copy editor, Del, read what I’d written and said, “I really like how you’ve strung these together.” “Yes,” I said, “like a string of pearls.” A string of pearls in which I merely selected the pearls and provided the string. And now I’m ready to complete the journey by attaching the end to the beginning of the string of pearls. Life is like that string of pearls, eventually it closes the circle and attaches the end to the beginning.
[page 259] Rumi gives a good explanation of this in his Masnavi where he says, ‘What is it in the reed flute that appeals to your soul, that goes through you, pierces the heart?’ And the answer is: it is the crying of the flute, and the reason of its crying is that it once belonged to a plant from which it was cut apart. Holes were made in its heart. It longs to be reunited with its source, with its origin. In another place in his book Rumi says, ‘So it is with everyone who has left his original country for a long time; he may roam about and feel very pleased with what he sees, but there will come a moment when a strong yearning rises in his heart for the place where he was born.’
Rumi has just described my life. I left my native state of Louisiana and roamed about from coast to coast and was pleased with everything I saw. But there came a moment when, like that reed, I felt a crying need to return to my native soil, to re-attach myself to the earth from which I sprouted. Where are you in your journey, dear Reader? Are you still roaming about, pleased with all you see? Have you started thinking about a return home? Are you the artist who paints the plan you have laid out in your mind? Or are you the artist who takes suggestions from the painting as you go on painting? Listen to the music of the flute that is your individuality as you string the pearls of your life together. These are the jewels that no matter where you carry them with you in this world will accompany you into the next world in freedom and light.
2. The Million Dollar Man
The Padre Filius carton at the top of this Digest is in honor of Evan Soulé, Jr. who won a million dollars in the Harrah's Slot Machine Tournament in Atlantic City. When it came time to draw a number for the slot machine for the final round, Evan drew 23 and went on to win the tournament. The number 23 shows up in many places if you look for it. When the hero in "A Tale of Two Cities" is placed in a cell in prison in one of the movies made of the book, it is Cell#23 he is placed in and he is the 23rd man guillotined. Robert Anton Wilson wrote an entire book, "The Cosmic Trigger -- The Final Secret of the Illuminati," in which the number 23 comes up again and again. Take this excerpt:
[page 47] Professor Seisel's mother, while visiting Monte Carlo, purchased a book, Ily Ehrenburg's Die Liebe der Jeannie Ney, in which the heroine wins a great deal betting on number 23 at roulette. She decided to experiment; 23 came up on the second try.
So I'd like to say, "Congratulations, Evan! Live long and prosper!" holding up my right hand in the Vulcan salute: 2 fingers, 3 fingers, the 23 Salute. To you non-believers, I say to you, "23 Skiddoo".
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The month began with Georgia marching through LSU the way the first LSU President Sherman marched through Georgia during the un-Civil War. The next improved when Del and I attended the Babin-Himel Reunion in Houma. Many of my first cousins I hadn’t seen in years were present. The day was beautiful, sunny and dry as befits an October day in South Louisiana. Of the 8 Babin daughters to Pierre Gabriel Babin and Dessee Himel Babin, my mom, Annette and four of her sisters are deceased, one has Alzheimer’s, and the other three sisters, Mazel, Clara and Clarice were present for the festivities.
I was faced with a complete upgrade of Mother Board, 1 Gb RAM, 128Mb Dual Video Card, and 200 Gb Hard Drive. This happened right in the middle of two funerals in the first two weeks, one of which was my father-in-law, Henry Guthans, the grandparent of my children. Reprising the visit of our four Hatchett offspring in January when Del’s father died, we had all four of our Matherne offspring in town for about a week. My upgraded PC was ready the same night, but it took me a week to block out the time to boot up all my software from scratch — and believe me, I was scratching around to locate all the multitudinous pieces of software I’d loaded over two years and trying to get them all working again as smoothly as before. This took most of the second week of the month and left me little time for reading or writing till sometime after the 15th of the month. We did manage to watch a lot of movies this month, however, partly due to escaping from the mess sitting on my desktop waiting to complete its resuscitation.
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“Beyond Suspicion” (2000) is an incredible movie whose title conceals more than it reveals. Jeff Goldblum stars in almost a one man show in this movie. He is John Nolan the slick life insurance salesman who is changed forever by a chance encounter with Augie Rose who as he dies says, “It will be alright, John.” The movie begins with John saying words over a friend’s coffin, words that seem cold and almost disrespectful. It appears as if all the other mourners have left, leaving only John and the minister remaining over the open grave with the coffin already lowered into it. By the time the movie ends, we see this exact scene and hear the same words in a scene of heart-overflowing poignancy that cannot be described, but only experienced by watching this entire movie. This is a must see movie, a classic of the ilk of “Citizen Kane”, “A Wonderful Life”, “Regarding Henry”, and many other movies in which a male movie star portrays a man whose life is dramatically changed by one salient event. This was a fun movie to watch as there is no way to predict what will happen next, and the characters that fill this movie are like precious treasures: John Nolan, Augie Rose, Luci, Charlie, Molino the retired boxer, Romeo, and the black policeman. 
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2003) — a dark movie with Jim Carrey, one that is a little difficult to get your mind around at first, e.g., the end of the movie sequence happens before the movie titles are shown. Jim is a loser in love who finds Clementine and suddenly she doesn’t know him. She has had her memories of him erased. Distraught, he signs up with the company to get his memories of her erased, and halfway through the procedure, while completely unconscious, he decides to change his mind. Will he be able to do it? The scenes where Jim is running down the street while listening to the two re-programmers chatting about their love life while hovering over his supine body in bed is priceless — should be required viewing for any surgical teams who likewise chat over their patients in operating rooms everywhere. Nietzsche quote from movie: “Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.” Plan to watch this one at least twice.
“Twisted” (2004) with Ashley Judd as the most likely suspect for the serial murderer, especially since she predicted the second one, especially since she was unconscious of everything that happened each night of the murder, and especially since she had recently slept with each man who was brutally killed with a cudgel of the very type she practices with and uses on attacking men. Only problem is this: she’s the police inspector trying to solve the case, and it’s a big case for her: her job, her sanity, and her life depends on finding whodunit. Hint: it ain’t the butler.
“Longitude, Part I” an A&E movie of Dava Sobel’s book. She followed up a very good 
“Reckless” (1997) describes a brash 30-ish surgeon who comes to live at his Dad’s house in London and to work for a nearby hospital and the woman twenty years older than himself that falls in love with, only to find out she’s been married to his boss, the Chief of Surgery, for twenty-one years. When he becomes the agent of her discovering her husband is not the faithful paragon of virtue she thought him to be, havoc ensues in multiple lives over four episodes of this Masterpiece Theatre series, till things settle into a new pattern. 
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1999) a place where every night is Halloween and if you walk the Sleepy Hollow road at night you might be subjected to Trick or Treat by the Headless Horseman. He’ll either trick your head off with his sword to replace his own or treat you to a ride into eternity upon his horse. Ichabod Crane was never done more memorably by a non-cartoon actor to my recollection. A bumbling overstuffed pedant who lived in a world of his own illusions till he was snatched away one night by the town’s own illusion. 
“Prince and Me” (2004) ditsy film in which a farm girl, MD-wannabe, falls in love with a King of Denmark-to-be. Can this film be saved by an abdication by the Queen-to-be? Strictly chick flick time.
“A Woman’s a Hellavu Thing” (2001) what happens to the Publisher and Founder of “A Man’s World” Magazine when his mom dies and chooses her female companion as Executor of the large family farm shouldn’t happen to a dog, but it should happen to this macho egomaniac or he would never grow up, and so it does and this movie shows it happening.
“Day After Tomorrow” (2004) in which a VP who is against the Kyoto Accord changes his mind after watching 2 hours of Hollywood message shored up by special effects. Hooray for Hollywood: they took a wet dream of Art Bell and Whitly Strieber and attempted to scare the world into believing that an Ice Age will result from global warming. Makes sense: the very thought of wearing T-shirts in Vermont in February doesn’t throw a fright into very many folks. Was there something worth watching if you strip away the hype? There’s Dennis Quaid doing the superhero blizzard walk from D. C. to NYC to keep a promise to his son. He arrived just in time to see the Empire State Building turn into a Popsicle and save an ancient copy of the Bible from warming the hearth at the Main Library.
“It Runs in the Family” (2003) and the family is the Kirk Douglas family with his first wife (Michael’s mother), Michael Douglas, and Michael’s son. Kirk has played some seedy down-on-his-luck characters in his lifetime, but this was him playing himself – a pater familia in post-stroke recuperation working out his last “few good years” with a son he has alienated himself from, who has in turn alienated himself from his own sons and his wife. What runs in the family? Now you know. Can alienation become reorientation in love before the curtain falls on the heads of the family? God knows, but you can watch the movie and find out. 
“Moldanado Miracle” (2004) about a 12-yr-old Mexican, José, whose father, Hector Moldanado, was a migrant worker and never returned home. He came to the US with wetbacks to find his father and ended up in a small town, San Remo, wounded in a near-miss with the Border Patrol. He was hiding in a church loft bleeding from his shoulder’s stab wound when a woman below cries out, “MILAGRO!” as she sees blood dripping from the white marble statue of Jesus on the crucifix. Soon the town is besieged by miracle-seekers, but the one who needs the miracle most is the young boy who is completely alone and whose dad he finds out has had his leg crushed falling off a migrant workers’ truck and has disappeared. Will this movie end with revealing the truth behind the miracle of the blood of Christ? You bet — and many lives will be changed for the better along the way. 
Shrimp Stew
While doing a Google of some phrase I had earlier written, I found my review of 
The Padre Filius carton at the top of this Digest is in honor of Evan Soulé, Jr. who won a million dollars in the Harrah's Slot Machine Tournament in Atlantic City. When it came time to draw a number for the slot machine for the final round, Evan drew 23 and went on to win the tournament. The number 23 shows up in many places if you look for it. When the hero in "A Tale of Two Cities" is placed in a cell in prison in one of the movies made of the book, it is Cell#23 he is placed in and he is the 23rd man guillotined. Robert Anton Wilson wrote an entire book, "The Cosmic Trigger -- The Final Secret of the Illuminati," in which the number 23 comes up again and again. Take this excerpt:
