Sunday Sundries, 163

1. AOTW: A tie this week--and both from the health club at the same moment. Danny at his locker. Two young men (20s or so) have their toiletries spread out along the entire length of the bench we're all supposed to share. (By the way, I didn't know men used so many products!) I had to "get by" without the bench--smoldering silently, of course (Wimpy Old Guy), feeling good only in that I knew I now had my AOTWs.

2. I'm starting a new little series here, an occasional series (I hope it will be very occasional--the reason soon apparent to you); I'm calling it "Danny Dumb," and it will deal with those moments when I realize something I should have noticed from the git-go. Those Duh! moments, in other words. I've got one for tomorrow ...

3. I finished just one book this week (not counting the one I reviewed for Kirkus Reviews: As I've said here before, I ain't allowed to say what they are).

     - The latest novel by Jerome Charyn--Winter Warning (2017)--features a recurring character in his work, Isaac Sidel, a former cop and mayor who has now, in a somewhat complicated fashion, become the POTUS. That's right; the president of the United States. Enemies surround him--even in the White House (especially in the White House, it seems).

People are wagering on how long he will remain not just in office but alive (contracts are out on him). He finds some people who are somewhat (probably) loyal to him--including his Marine 1 pilot and a few others--and they are able to save his life and, oddly, send his popularity skyrocketing because of an unusual act of physical courage. (I think of that old Harrison-Ford-as-president film, Air Force One--not that dramatic--but pretty courageous, that's for sure, what Sidel does.)

I began reading Charyn a long, long time ago, then sort of drifted away, and in recent years have drifted back. He recently wrote a novel about Emily Dickinson (then a nonfiction book about her)--both of which I liked. And now this.

The text is full of literary allusions--nothing that's too obscure (or that emanates that odor that says Look what I know!), but there's a sly one to E. E. Cummings' "Buffalo Bill 's") and to Waiting for Godot, for example. And a mention of meeting Saul Bellow.

And, as usual in a Charyn novel, there are some sentences that just stop you (me!) cold; here's one.

• "'We all dream of murder,' Isaac said. 'That's built into our fabric'" (100).

And there's also an alright instead of all right. I think We Fussy Ones have lost this spelling battle ...

4. Joyce and I finished streaming all the available episodes of Shetland (which we both loved, loved, loved) and, scouting for another one, we settled on The Commander (also BBC) but quickly tired of it. Will try something else ...

5. Last night--despite reading some bad reviews (e.g., the New York Times)--Joyce and went over to Kent to see The Snowman, based on the novel by one of my favorite thriller-novelists (Jo Nesbø, a Norwegian).

So ... we were not expecting much, but I had to see it: I'd read the novel--as well as all of Nesbø's others.

And ... we liked it! The photography (all shot in Norway, I read) was gorgeous; the actors were fine; the story moved along well. (Link to film trailer.)

Yes, there were some "issues": our psycho killer spent a lot of time making snowmen (when did he find the time?); film-goers who know nothing of the novel will probably be a bit confused here and there, especially about the background/situation of Det. Harry Hole; we're asked--once again!-- to believe that although our hero (played by Michael Fassbender) is a drunk and in some kind of psychological disintegration, when he takes his shirt off, he looks as if he's just spent six years at the health club, six hours a day. Ripped!

BTW: Val Kilmer is really hard to recognize now.

6. On Friday night, Joyce and I drove down to the Hanna Theater in Cleveland to see A Midsummer Night's Dream, a production of the Great Lakes Theater Festival. I was not looking forward to it, to tell you the truth. I was in a gloomy mood (who knows why?), I've seen this play a gazillion times, it was a dreary evening (it began to rain on us almost as soon as we got in the car). And then, when we hit I-271 north, a parking lot. Very little movement. Although we left an hour early (for the 7:30 curtain), we slipped into our seats only seconds before it all started ... and I mean seconds.

But ... guess what? It was good. Very good. Strong cast, major to minor. Simple staging (very Shakespearean!). Some playful modernization in the business (some cell phone foolishness). Deep respect for the script. And a naughty, naughty, naughty "Pyramus and Thisbe" (which is what we all love, eh?).

I was in a much better mood driving home. And I-271 south was free-flowing. And--as is always the case after seeing a Bard play--I felt supremely virtuous (I saw Shakespeare tonight ... what did you do?) and humbled. How did that dude know all that in the 1590s?!!?!

Oh, and as I wrote yesterday, I was so taken this time with Theseus' speech about the lunatic, the lover, and the poet that I'm going to memorize the damn thing!

7. Final word--a word I liked this week from my various online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from dictionary.com (an appropriate seasonal word!)

psychomancy (noun):  occult communication between souls or with spirits.

Citations for psychomancy

" ... There is something, though, that is rather queer, but it belongs to psychomancy rather than psychology, as I understand it." "Ah!" I said. "What is that queer something?" "Being visibly present when absent. It has not happened often, but it has happened that I have seen Marion in my loft when she was really somewhere else and not when I had willed her or wished her to be there."

William Dean Howells, Questionable Shapes, 1903

To one who has an adequate knowledge of the laws of electricity and magnetism, it is more than amusing to see with what pedantic gravity these latter philomaths descant upon electricity and magnetism, contorting and butchering their established laws all the while, to explain some vile juggle, or unravel the psychomancy of rappers and tippers ...

Charles G. Page, Psychomancy: Spirit-Rappings and Table-Tippings Exposed, 1853

Origin of psychomancy

Psychomancy is a less common euphemistic synonym of the far more sinister necromancy. The first element, psycho-, familiar from English psychiatry and psychology, is a combining form from the Greek noun psȳchḗ “breath, soul, spirit, ghost.” Psȳchḗ is also the name of a butterfly, which inspired the English poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) to write a short poem, “Psyche,” about the double meaning “soul” and “butterfly.” The element -mancy ultimately derives from Greek manteía “divination,” a derivative of mántis “diviner, soothsayer, prophet,” and also “praying mantis (the predatory insect).” Psychomancy entered English in the 16th century.