Sunday Sundries, 213

1. HBOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: This is somewhat overdue--more than somewhat overdue. A bit of background required: Back in the spring of 1999, I spent about a month in Europe running around, chasing Mary Shelley--places she lived and loved, places of grief (e.g., where her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned), her grave. One disappointing stop: Oxford, where young Bysshe had briefly been a student before they booted him for publishing a pamphlet about atheism. At Oxford's University College (where he'd been a student) there is now a famous sculpture of Bysshe after his drowning (I know--but it's beautiful). Anyway, when I got to Oxford in 1999, I discovered to my horror that the exhibit was closed for maintenance and repair. They would not let me in to see it, even though I'd come across the ocean to do so. Years passed. And then a former colleague from Western Reserve Academy--Susan McKenzie--was headed to Oxford to visit her daughter, who's studying there. I see Susan's husband, John, all the time in the coffee shop (well, not all the time!), and when he told me of their journey, I asked a favor. (Gee, wonder what it was?)

And they did, indeed, go to University College, see the sculpture, take some pics for me (see below). And I am eternally grateful to these most kind human beings!

2. In the coffee shop not long ago, former WRA student Alexxa Gotthardt  told me about a writer I'd not heard of--Rachel Cusk. I wrote her name down, ordered one of her books (Outline, 2014, the first volume of a trilogy), read it with admiration--and with some alarm: Why have I not heard of this person? Turns out, she's won prizes, had her books named to the best-of-the-year lists by some notable publications (New Yorker, etc.). What's my excuse?

Dotage?

Well, I have learned this over the years: The older I get, the less I know; the more I learn, the more I discover there is to learn. I will go to my grave grieving for all I never got around to reading and learning about.

The novel is narrated by a writer. She's on an airplane to Greece, where she will be teaching a writing course. Sitting next to her, an older Greek man who befriends her (okay, he makes moves on her later on), and they begin spending time together after their arrival.

As the story moves along, we learn things about her past, about his (which is far more ... complicated), and I was stunned at her naivete: going out on his boat with him, etc.

We get some glimpses of her class--the sorts of tasks she assigns her fledgling writers. But, mostly I was so taken with the novelty of her approach--a running commentary on what's going on during her days, a commitment to trying to understand her own motives.

I've got vol. 2 on my pile--but I've first got to finish a Kate Atkinson novel!

3. We went last week to see Clint Eastwood's film The Mule, a story of an older man (Clint) who loses his day lily farm (you heard me), then stumbles into being a drug "mule" for some pretty rough guys--and making so much money doing so that he begins contributing to various local causes. It's based on a true story that originally appeared in the New York Times.

It was much better than I feared it would be (popcorn was a primary motive for going! and I've been seeing Clint since Rawhide days on TV: 1959-65).

There was a scene at a mob party in Mexico that I thought was excessively ... prurient, I guess. Young women in thongs shaking their butts in close-ups. Really, Clint? You thought that was necessary?

And I was troubled a little by some of the convenience of the plot twists--and by the failure of the script to deal with the effects of his trafficking. Who was buying these drugs? What was it doing to their lives? Their families? Their communities? Not worth a mention? An allusion?

That said, I still mostly liked it, especially the times that clueless Clint learned something about the worlds he was living in--the drug world, the human world. (Link to film trailer.)

Good supporting cast--Bradley Cooper, Dianne Wiest, Michael Peña, Laurence Fisburne, etc.

3. Still streaming bit of shows each night as our days wind down: Wire in the Blood, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, and we started one called WPC 56, about a British woman copper in the 1950s; 1st episode is kind of clichéd and predictable, but we'll give it some more chances.

4. Last Word: A word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers.

     - from the Oxford English Dictionary--sounds like a great name for a comic-book villain!

† cannibal stinkwood, n.

Origin: Apparently from a proper name, combined with an English lexical item. Etymons: proper name Camdeboo, stinkwood n.

Etymology:Apparently <  Camdeboo (Afrikaans Kamdeboo), the name of a region and a national park in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, with folk-etymological alteration after cannibal n. + stinkwood n.

 S. Afr. Obsolete.

  A timber tree of southern Africa which gives a strong odour when felled, either the white stinkwood, Celtis africana (family Cannabaceae), or (perhaps by confusion) the black stinkwood, Ocotea bullata (family Lauraceae).

1859  R. J. Mann Colony of Natal  viii. 156 There is a variety of this wood, known under the name of the ‘Cannibal Stink-wood’.

1877  M. A. Barker Year's Housek. S. Afr.  325 What rhyme or reason, what sense or satire can there be in such a name as ‘Cannibal Stink-wood’?—applied..to a graceful, handsome tree whose bark gives out an aromatic..perfume.

1913  C. Pettman Africanderisms  107 Cannibal stinkwood, Celtis Kraussiana. The first part of this name appears to be a corruption of Camdeboo..; it is applied to a variety of stinkwood, the wood of which is woolly, porous, and useless to the cabinet-maker.