Sunday Sundries, 207

1. AOTW: This one's a bit complicated, but I'm going to wade in nonetheless, for this driver was the essence of AOTWness. (See drawing below.)

Last Sunday, we were heading to the Hudson Panera (as is our wont), and we cut up through Milford Drive (on the right) on a little driveway that leads from Milford to the parking lots (near top of the page). There is a stop sign where you see the red car (us!) and the AOTW car (right behind us). I had stopped there to let Joyce out so she could head straight to Panera while I parked over nearer the Acme (we'd do our grocery shopping after breakfast). The incredibly impatient AOTW, apparently profoundly upset that she would have to wait, oh, about 15 seconds before she could proceed, pulled out and roared by me on my left, then cutting right, directly in front of me, heading to the bank (not visible--top of the page). Had I not been paying superb attention (a result of our wreck a couple of months ago), she would have hit the car--or Joyce. I almost followed her to the bank to ask her WTF, then remembered that, these days, you have to assume that everyone is packing and standing his/her ground. So I drove off into the parking lot, thinking less of myself ...

2. We've seen a couple of films lately.

     - Last week it was Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. We went with my younger brother, who'd arrived for a surprise visit, and with our son and his family. Kind of fun to watch with the kids (9 & 13)--and a special thrill to learn (later on) that our friend Chris Cozens had worked on the music for it. Unfortunately, I was sprinting for the men's room when the credits were running, and I didn't get to see his name roll by ...

We hadn't seen the first one, so there was a bit of what was that? going on. But we did pretty well, following it. Oh, and I also could not think of Johnny Depp's name the Whole Damn Time! (Link to film trailer.)

     - Yesterday evening, Joyce and I (alone this time) drove over to Kent to see Widows, the new film by Steve McQueen (who made 12 Years a Slave). It's a "caper film"--but far darker than most of the ones that feature, oh, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The widows of some thieves--all killed in a gig gone bad--decide to carry out the robbery their husbands had planned next. But, oh, do things get complicated!

Set in Chicago, the film shows a city corrupt to its core. (This is not a film from which you emerge feeling good about our species.) Everyone lies, is on the hustle, is seeking power, money, prestige. Grim. (Grindelwald would fit right in.)

A few plot flaws and improbabilities (which, to be kind, I will not share)--but I loved the "look" of the film--and was surprised--once in a major way ... (Link to film trailer.)

3. I've finished a couple of books in the past couple of weeks ...

     - The first, which I picked away at in bed, is David Quammen's latest, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life (2018). Quammen--a celebrated science writer--is here telling the story of evolution--how the whole metaphor of the "tree of life" is a bit ... simplistic. For--as discoveries made in my lifetime have revealed--genetic material has not been a stay-at-home substance; no, it has, since the very beginning, migrated here and there, and our own bodies are packed with material that came from ... outside.

Naturally (!), I didn't understand everything in the book, but I was dazzled by Quammen's summaries of what's gone on in the field. Here's a few sentences that show you what I mean:

The concept of "species" is commonly supposed to be secure. It isn't secure. It's especially insecure in the realm of bacteria and archaea, but it's even a bit blurry when scientists try to distinguish one species of plant or one species of animal from another. The boundaries blur. (251)

     - As some visitors to this site know, I've been reading my way through the novels of Kate Atkinson, and a week or so ago I finished her Life After Life (2013), a book that--to coin a phrase--blew me away.

The title tells all. Ursula is our principal character, and throughout this 529-page masterpiece Ursula lives,well, life after life. She dies (the first time--at birth!), then the story rewinds, and she starts over--only, eventually, to die again--and, along the way, experience some grim things (a rape among them). Each time she comes back she does not "remember" her previous life, but she has ... feelings, instincts that are sharper.

The main part of the story takes place during WWII in England, and there are some moments gripping and grotesque; in one life, she is helping go through the rubble from the Nazi blitz, finding, well, you can imagine.

A couple of years ago I raved here about Paul Auster's most recent novel (4 3 2 1),  2017, a story that tells four versions of the life of its main character. I had no idea at the time that Atkinson had antedated him by four years--and written a story far more complex. (I just checked the Times review of Auster's book and realized the reviewer alludes to Atkinson, right from the beginning--the first sentence ... so why didn't I notice then? Link to review.)

Because ... Kate Atkinson was a writer I'd not heard of; now I've read four of her novels--and am awaiting the next in the mail.

Auster's book is still a wonder, but Atkinson's is a WONDER.

4. We've started streaming the new Coen Bros' film on Netflix--The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. A howl. A sanguinary howl--but a howl nonetheless. One of the stories is based on Jack London's "All Gold Canyon"--though we haven't gotten that far yet. (Link to the original story--included in Moon-Face & Other Stories, 1906.)  (Link to film trailer.)

5. Final word--a word I've liked recently from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from wordsmith.org

bamboozle (bam-BOO-zuhl)

verb tr.:

1. To deceive.

2. To confuse.

ETYMOLOGY: Of unknown origin. Earliest documented use: 1703. [The OED adds that it is probably “of cant origin.]

USAGE: “Vietnam began the game with a short passing game using one-touch tactics to bamboozle the Cameroonians and negate their physical size advantage.”

Vu Duc; Olympic Finland Win BV Cup; The Saigon Times (Vietnam); Nov 20, 2006.