Literary gadfly Stephen Hartshorne writes about books that he finds at flea markets and rummage sales.

I think it’s brave when people sing even if they don’t have a very good voice or just don’t know how to do it very well. I thought of this while watching Russell Crowe in Les Miserables. It reminded me of Paint Your Wagon,  one of the best movies ever made, which features Lee Marvin singing “I Was Born Under a Wandering Star.” (Lee comes in around the one-minute mark.)

The film also has Clint Eastwood singing “I Talk to the Trees,” but Clint actually sings pretty well. He did a duet with Merle Haggard called “Bar Room Buddies.” Turns out Sean Connery is a pretty good singer, too, as he shows in Darby O’Gill and the Little People when he sings “My Darling Irish Girl.”

It’s worth pointing out, though, that these other guys sing just a song or two. Russell Crowe sings all the way through a three-hour movie, which is a little different.

Whenever I think  of Paint Your Wagon, I remember the terribly sad story of Jean Seberg, driven to her grave by your tax dollars, or those of your parents and grandparents. Seberg made many charitable contributions and unfortunately, one was to the Black Panther Party. The FBI, with the full knowledge of President Richard Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell (may they rot in hell), subjected her to a systematic campaign of surveillance and harassment culminating in a planted story, published by the editorial staff of Newsweek (may they rot in hell, too) that Seberg, who was married, was pregnant with the child of  one of the Panthers.

Here are some relevant paragraphs from the Wikipedia entry on Seberg:

“Romain Gary, Seberg’s second husband, called a press conference shortly after her death where he publicly blamed the FBI’s campaign against Seberg for her deteriorating mental health. Gary claimed that Seberg “became psychotic” after the media reported a false story that the FBI planted about her becoming pregnant with a Black Panther’s child in 1970. The child died two days after Seberg went into premature labor. Gary stated that Seberg had repeatedly attempted suicide on the anniversary of the child’s death, August 25.”

“The investigation of Seberg went far beyond the publishing of defamatory articles. According to her friends interviewed after her death, Seberg experienced years of aggressive in-person surveillance (constant stalking), as well as break-ins and other intimidation oriented activity.”

“FBI records show that J. Edgar Hoover kept U.S. President Richard Nixon informed of FBI activities related to the Jean Seberg case via President Nixon’s domestic affairs chief John Ehrlichman; John Mitchell, then Attorney General, and Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst were also kept informed of FBI activities related to Jean Seberg.”

Jean Seberg was a beautiful woman and a beautiful soul, and  those sons of bitches destroyed her. Since she was blacklisted in Hollywood, she went to France to find work, but at heart she was a small-town girl from Iowa, and she missed the good old USA.

“I miss that casualness and friendliness of Americans,” she told an interviewer, “the kind that makes people smile. I also miss blue jeans, milk shakes, thick steaks and supermarkets.”

 

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I just finished reading Serenade by James M. Cain, and I’m afraid I cannot tell you whether I recommend this book or not. I will say this: If you’re looking for something completely different, this book is for you!

Here’s my take, with lots of spoiler alerts. Maybe one person who reads this will read the book, and I’m not even saying they ought to, so I’m not going to worry about giving away the plot.

As the book opens, we find a guy in Mexico who doesn’t seem to like Mexicans, or Mexico, at all. He’s a washed-up opera singer whose voice cracked, we later learn, because he had a male lover. A Mexican prostitute learns this, just from his singing, and asks him to be her partner in a whorehouse in Acapulco. They’re on their way there, but get sidetracked by a flood and they break into a church and steal communion wine and cook an iguana and have sex and he gets his voice back. Please don’t interrupt me with guestions.

So he goes back to the US and becomes a movie star, but then the producers want him to fulfill his contract to make movies and get paid a lot of money, but he just can’t stand that because they won’t accept the Mexican prostitute for the amazing woman she is, and believe me, she is one amazing woman.

So he ignores these Hollywood contracts and sings with the (NY) Metropolitan Opera, but the only guy who can get him out of these burdensome contracts is Winston — his old boyfriend, who caused him to lose his voice. Winston, it turns out, owns the banks who loaned money to the Hollywood producers, so he can get our hero off the hook, but Winston also wants our hero back, so he calls the immigration authorities on the Mexican prostitute, Juana.

So Winston has moved into the same apartment building as our hero and Juana and he’s having a party. He has called the immigration authorities, and they’re waiting downstairs, but the doorman tips off our hero and he makes arrangements for Juana to scoot. But at the party, Winston is asking Juana about bullfighting and how bullfighters train, and instead of scooting, she comes back with a cape and a sword that she got from a former boyfriend in Mexico.

She explains that bullfighters start by training with a burro, and Winston imitates the burro. Then she explains how they kill the bull. Then she skewers Winston through the chest in what may be the most climactic moment I have ever experienced in a goofy novel of this kind. Then she scoots and the doorman and his pals cover themselves in glory getting her out of there.

After that, it’s just sad. If the hero left Juana alone, she could have a full life, but he hangs on and in the end she is murdered, just because of him. If there’s a lesson to be learned from this book, it is #1 James M. Cain doesn’t believe gay guys can sing opera and #2 when it’s over, it’s over.

Like I say, I can’t recommend this book, but if you’re looking for something completely different, it might just be for you.

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I have a little ritual when I go to Greenfield. I go to the Raven Bookstore and buy a book and then go to Greenfield Coffee and sit and read a little bit of it. Then, of course, I take it home and become absorbed in it.

The latest book is The Teapot Dome Scandal by Laton McCartney, and I really have to say, much as I try to avoid this phrase, this is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand American politics. It shows how much of our government was and is and ever shall be up for sale to the highest bidder — how, in the 1920s, a few hundred thousand dollars to a cabinet member like the Secretary of the Interior (millions today) could yield hundreds of millions (billions today) in corporate profits.

This is a first-rate work of scholarship, because McCartney draws on a wide and disparate body of evidence, sifts through it all, and presents it in a way that tells the real story, and the real story of the Harding administration is the murder of Jake Hamon.

Hamon, to make a long story short, is an Oklahoma oil man who decides to buy the Republican Party convention, nominate an unknown, elect him president, become Secretary of the Interior, grant leases to the oil reserves assigned to the US Navy in case of war, and make millions.

Buying the GOP convention is a breeze; so is getting the unknown, Warren G. Harding, elected, especially since Harding has a bunch of handpicked racketeers, headed by his attorney general, Harry Daugherty, later known as the Ohio Gang.

But Hamon run into a stiff-arm by the Duchess, Mrs. Warren G. Harding, who tells her husband in no uncertain terms that Jake Hamon cannot be Secretary of the Interior unless he dumps his mistress and goes back to his wife.

Now Harding is a lifelong adulterer, and tens of thousands have been spent shutting up his previous amours and keeping his mistress and their son out of the public eye, but Mrs. Harding is a driving force in his campaign — she’s much smarter than he is — and on this she will not budge.

Jake breaks the news to his mistress Clara, and she murders him. And things just get funnier and funnier after that. Harding dies in office, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge have to wait a whole week to move into the White House because Mrs. Harding is busy burning documents.

Another funny part is this indomitable crusader who keeps trying to inform the American public about Harding’s African-American ancestry — the original birther! Daugherty’s FBI agents burn all his books, but he keep surfacing again and again.

And the funniest part of all is that Clara, the mistress, gets off scot-free and ends up marrying a Hollywood mogul.

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I do hope that this post will be moot, but here it is anyway, just in case. I’ve been steeling myself against the  prospect of a Romney presidency, purely as a matter of self-defense. When Bush junior was elected — twice! — it really brought me down and impaired my happiness,  and this is something I should not have allowed, and I will not allow it again.

Back in  the Reagan era, I wrote a  poem called The Last Liberal: “I’m the last liberal in this country, and I’m not feeling well.” And I worked very hard with some very decent elected Republicans to  do all we could to improve the laws of the State of New Hampshire. There were Democrats in New Hampshire back then, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. So I guess I averted depression during the Reagan years by  positive action. In my spare time, I brought down the Soviet Empire, but that’s another story.

The elections of Bush Junior really ripped my guts out. This preppy twerp with a fake Texas accent was disgracing my country. There’s stupid and there’s stupid. When hundreds of millions of people all over the world tell you you’re making a terrible mistake, and you make it anyway, that’s a new level of stupid. I know classmates of Dubya who can state with certainty that he did not have that drawl when he was a cheerleader at Andover, nor when he was a law student at Yale.

I think Bush Junior depressed me more because I wasn’t doing anything about it. That’s not going to  happen again. If Mitt Romney is elected, he will face an implacable enemy – me. I will fight him on the beaches. I will fight him in the fields. I will fight him in the streets. I will fight him in the hills. I will never surrender.

I will cause his allies to betray him. I  will force him ‘out of the books’  onto unfamiliar ground where he will have to rely on his wits, and he’s a stupid man. When I’m finished with this guy, his legacy will be likened  to Warren G. Harding’s – corrupt from top to bottom. Because the Republicans always get careless. They go into a feeding frenzy, and along comes a methodical guy like Montana Senator Thomas J. Walsh with enough grit and determination to expose their corruption.

The problem, of course, is that people don’t care that their government has been sold  to corporate interests that have poisoned the food supply and contaminated the environment. They’re content to sit home and watch Honey Booboo. I’m working on that, too.

I’m going to wage war on indifference. I’m going to expose the corporations that have created the diabetes epidemic, and the heart disease epidemic, and the cancer epidemic, and expose the cost to our country. My ally here is Dr. Mark Hyman.

And I won’t be stopped. I will be aided by the spirit of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and so many others who gave us this opportunity to forge a working democracy.

And I will never forget what is at stake. Looking at a photograph of Mitt Romney makes my skin crawl. Seeing him in a video makes me ill. This man is vile, and so is Ryan. I am reminded of the world’s greatest orator, Winston Churchill on June 18, 1940:

“…the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

“But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

I’m not being dramatic here. Perverted science is what the GOP and their corporate masters are all about. And, friends, there is still hope, even if Romney is elected. Again, I defer to Sir Winston:

“…in casting up this dread balance-sheet, contemplating our dangers with a disillusioned eye, I see great reason for intense vigilance and exertion, but none whatever for panic or despair. During the first four years of the last war the Allies experienced,…nothing but disaster and disappointment, and yet at the end their morale was higher than that of the Germans, who had moved from one aggressive triumph to another.

“During that war we repeatedly asked ourselves the question, “How are we going to win?” and no one was able ever to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, our terrible foe collapsed before us.”

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I think all our guests thought of Lea and me as a romantic couple, so a lot of our wedding presents were candlesticks and wineglasses, mostly wineglasses. We had a yard sale in Henniker and sold half of them, and then split them up when we got divorced, and still, if you came to my house with a bottle of champagne and wanted some glasses, I would say, flutes or saucers?

Twenty-odd years later all the wineglasses have at last gone their ways and the only wedding present that survives is this beautiful ceramic baking dish. I put the onion slices in first and put the cover on to give them a good scorching, then the garlic and carrots and cauliflower, to give them a good scorching  too, then the portabella mushrooms and red peppers, to scorch them somewhat.

Then I add two capfuls of cider vinegar and some Bragg’s Amino Acids (like soy sauce), and put on the cover for a minute or two. Then I mix in the penne with parmesan and let it cool.

If you ever feel a stir fry is getting away from you, add a capful or two of cider vinegar to prevent overscorching. Don’t add too much, though, or the veggies will get soggy. The vinegar also cuts down the amount of Bragg’s or soy sauce you need to use. More vinegar, less salt!

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This guy’s name is Wachitawcha. He’s a soapdish. He belonged to my mother, who once had a thing for frogs. I call him Wachitawcha, which is not a name you would expect for a guy in a porkpie hat, but every time I see him he says, “Remember your mother and Wachitawcha.”

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This is an excerpt from Xenophon’s Anabasis, a book which Alexander the Great kept under his pillow:

After him, Xenophon got up, and spoke as follows: “Cheirisophus, it is agreed, sets out in search of vessels, and we are going to await him. Let me tell you what, in my opinion, it is reasonable to do while we are waiting. First of all, we must provide ourselves with necessaries from hostile territory, for there is not a sufficient market, nor, if there were, have we, with a few solitary exceptions, the means of purchase. Now, the district is hostile, so that if you set off in search of provisions without care and precaution, the chances are that many of us will be lost. To meet this risk, I propose that we should organise foraging parties to capture provisions, and, for the rest, not roam about the country at random. The organisation of the matter should be left to us.” (The resolution was passed.)

“Please listen to another proposal;” he continued: “Some of you, no doubt, will be going out to pillage. It will be best, I think, that whoever does so should in each case before starting inform us of his intent, and in what direction he means to go, so that we may know the exact number of those who are out and of those who stop behind. Thus we shall be able to help in preparing and starting the expedition where necessary; and in case of aid or reinforcements being called for, we shall know in what direction to proceed; or, again, if the attempt is to be undertaken by raw or less expert hands, we may throw in the weight of our experience and advice by endeavouring to discover the strength of those whom they design to attack.” This proposal was also carried.

“Here is another point,” he continued, “to which I would draw your attention. Our enemies will not lack leisure to make raids upon us: nor is it unnatural, that they should lay plots for us; for we have appropriated what is theirs; they are seated over us ever on the watch. I propose then that we should have regular outposts round the camp. If we take it in succession to do picket and outlook duty, the enemy will be less able to harry us.

“And here is another point for your observation; supposing we knew for certain that Cheirisophus must return with a sufficient number of vessels, there would be no need of the remark, but as that is still problematical, I propose that we should try to get together vessels on the spot also. If he comes and finds us already provided for here, we shall have more ships than we need, that is all; while, if he fails to bring them, we shall have the local supply to fall back upon.

“I see ships sailing past perpetually, so we have only to ask the loan of some war-ships from the men of Trapezus, and we can bring them into port, and safeguard them with their rudders unshipped, until we have enough to carry us. By this course I think we shall not fail of finding the means of transport requisite.” That resolution was also passed.

He proceeded: “Consider whether you think it equitable to support by means of a general fund the ships’ companies which we so impress, while they wait here for our benefit, and to agree upon a fare, on the principle of repaying kindnesses in kind.” That too was passed.

“Well then,” said he, “in case, after all, our endeavours should not be crowned with success, and we find that we have not vessels enough, I propose that we should enjoin on the cities along the seaboard the duty of constructing and putting in order the roads, which we hear are impassable. They will be only too glad to obey, no doubt, out of mere terror and their desire to be rid of us.”

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For the last year I’ve been reading The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgwood, and this book has changed everything I thought I knew about European history. I began reading, put it aside when it boggled my  mind, and took it up again when I had assimilated what I had learned. Then, several times more I went back to the beginning and started over.

It’s not that Dame Wedgwood is difficult to read, it’s just that she is describing a situation that is so complex it takes a lot of assimilating. The text itself moves along beautifully, like a well-stoked freight train. She reminds me of Barbara Tuchman, and that’s the highest compliment I can pay to a writer of history.

I was reading along about the insurrection in Bohemia and the crowd grabbed these guys and started carrying them across the room toward the windows and I thought, “Here it is. The defenestration of Prague!” Some Protestants threw some Catholics out the window and they were saved, depending on whom you talk to, either by God Almighty or by a conveniently located dung heap.

The Thirty Years War is taught in schools as a conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Germany, but boy is that an oversimplification. For one thing, the Lutherans and the Calvinists, both Protestants, detested each other more than the Catholics. And the Catholics were divided by the rivalry between the Jesuits and the Capuchins, and on top of that there’s the ancestral hatred between the Hapsburgs of Spain and Austria and the Bourbons of France.

Underlying all of this is the need for Spain to send troops and gold from Italy over the Alps to Belgium to support their war against the Dutch, a route which passes though the famous Val Telline, bordered by the Swiss, who support the Dutch, the Republic of Venice, ditto, and the Duchy of Savoy, which could go either way.

Alan Mason of Deskarati discovered Wedgood’s book in his research on the Spanish Gold Route by which gold from the Americas reached Imperial troops in Belgium.

“The centre of Europe was convulsed by this war which dragged on and on over thirty years. Initially, it only involved the Germans and Czechs within the “Holy Roman Empire” but, like a whirlpool, it gradually sucked in more and more of the small German principalities. Eventually, the Swedes, the Spanish, the French, the Hungarians, and Poles were all engaged in this conflict, together with the Germans.

“All the ordinary people, particularly the Germans, suffered appallingly, in ways which are too horrifying to record here. I found Wedgwood’s book, and the background reading that I did, was so deeply upsetting that I did not want to return to this issue ever again.”

Not me. I want to learn all about it.

Wedgwood introduces us to all the principle players in the conflict, Ferdinand of Styria, Maximillian of Bavaria, John George of Saxony, and the ill-advised Elector of Palatine. Then there’s Wallenstein, the Dick Cheney of his day, the original war profiteer, who plundered Bohemia for personal gain and established a state devoted to war, and Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who won the Battle of Lutzen, but died.

Wegwood describes the personalities of all these men, because their timidity, vanity, and ambition is all part of an incredibly complex tableau of destruction.

I love books that demolish everything I thought I knew.

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These are two sculptures made from four pieces of wire I found in the fields on my morning jog. The first is called “Les Mouches Sont Fait: A Tribute to Jean-Paul Sartre” and the second is called “Oiseau” because it looks vaguely like a bird.

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