Sunday Sundries, 245

1. AOTW: Okay, this is a little petty, I know--and I fear that by even mentioning it I am identifying myself as the actual AOTW ... but here goes ... At the health club there are some guys (I'm occasionally among them) who shave, etc. at the sinks in the men's locker room--and then neglect to clean up the countertops, leaving it for the locker-room attendant to do. It takes fewer than 30 seconds (this I know--because I am not among the messy-countertop-guys), but so it goes, and so I confer this week's AOTW award on the Countertop Creeps.

2. Joyce and I went to see Ad Astra last night at the Macedonia Cinemark, and we (for the most part) enjoyed it. It's the story of a veteran astronaut (Brad Pitt) who must undertake a secret mission to Neptune, where some experiment appears to have gone haywire, and the entire solar system is at risk.

Brad plays a guy without much apparent affect (which is odd for Pitt): He's placid, resigned, has low BP and pulse.

Involved in the story is Brad's father (Tommy Lee Jones), a celebrated astronaut from an earlier generation, who ... ain't tellin' you.

Also appearing: Donald Sutherland, who will not remind you of the character he played in the 1970 M*A*S*H film by Robert Altman. Man, we all age, don't we?

The look of Ad Astra is amazing. I was telling someone today how sci-fi movies looked so tacky in my youth, and now? Director James Gray must have worked forever on the damn thing.

I wish they'd worked a little more on the dialogue, though. A little predictable here and there--sometimes cliched.

But I've liked BP since the first time I saw him (in Thelma and Louise, 1991). Ad Astra is a solid film--not a great one, I don't think.

A little worrisome: There were not all that many people in the theater.

Link to film trailer.

3. I finished two books this week ...

     - The first (which I've been picking away at most nights on my Kindle while awaiting the arrival of Morpheus) was The Wire in the Blood, the 2nd novel in Val McDermid's series about Carol Jordan (a police officer) and Tony Hill (a psychiatrist/consultant to the cops). We had streamed all the Wire in the Blood episodes on BritBox (I think), and I decided to start on the books. And, until my friend Chris corrected me (as I've said here before), I'd thought Val McDermid was, you know, like Val Kilmer--a guy. Nope.

This one is about the pursuit of someone who is killing young, star-struck girls. Some other folks get offed along the way, too, but soon the focus narrows to someone who couldn't possibly be guilty--a huge TV celebrity ...

Soon ... on to the 3rd by McDermid! What a guy ... uh ... woman!

     - The second was the latest novel (2019) by Salman Rushdie, Quichotte, an alternative spelling of Quixote that is pronounced, he tells us key-SHOT, a term that has some plot relevance later on.

It's a contemporary story about a contemporary Quixote pursuing his own Dulcinea (who, here, is not a modest woman but a mega-celebrity)--only it's more: It's also the story of the man who is writing the story--only it's more: It's also the story of "Sancho," who appears in quite a surprising fashion—only it's more: It's also the story of contemporary America (of our divisions, our interests, our failures, our drugs)--only it's more: It's also ... (This could go on and on.)

I have to say that I was dazzled throughout. Surprised often. Moved often.  Amused by the improbability, the magical realism (or whatever you want to call it). And stunned on the final page.

Sentences appear to flow almost magically from Rushdie, streaming across the page, glistening, delighting, shocking, ....

4. We had a kind of natural tragedy at our house this week. I came outside a couple of days ago and found the head of a rabbit in the driveway--a severed head. (No Godfather thoughts, I swear.) It appears to be the head of "our rabbit," a friendly fellow who's been around for months. Joyce would actually stop and talk to him by the garden; he would appear to listen--would not run away. I took a picture of it, which I've decided not to post--a bit grim and, in a way, as I've said, he was kind of ... ours.

I did write a eulogy for him (it's on Facebook, but I'll post it here, too), and this afternoon Joyce and I are going to do a little memorial for him where she buried his remains in our garden.

Elegy for a Rabbit

(Discovered in Our Driveway)

September 19, 2019

Some vicious thing’s beheaded him—

Performed for hunger? Or a whim?

An act to simply demonstrate

That savagery proves you are great?

The head lay in our driveway—though

There’s one thing here that you should know:

His final gaze showed no surprise—

No horror, terror in his eyes—

A normal, placid rabbit look,

Which indicates the thing that took

His head, his life, had been so swift

That death was somewhat like a gift.

What did it? Dog? Coyote? Fox?

It seems in ways a paradox:

A killer with a kind technique—

So swift there was no time to shriek.

Or maybe death came from the sky?

An owl? A hawk with eagle’s eye?

Perhaps this possibility:

Some creature from mythology

That winged in from, oh, Ancient Greece

And gave the rabbit last release?

Or something from the netherworld

That broke the soil, then came uncurled

And lashed out with its razor-claw

To slice the head before it saw?

The rabbit in his dying light,

Was dead before he thought of flight.

The killer came while humans slept—

And at its craft was most adept.

The tortoise, though, was not amazed—

He knew when Rabbit’s eyes were glazed

That he was inattentive, bored,

And that’s how victory can be scored.

A rabbit’s speed can take your breath—

But tortoise-slow, compared to death.

 5. Last word--a word I liked this week from on of my various online word-of-the-day providers:

     - anthropoglot, n. An animal with a tongue resembling that of a human, or able to imitate human speech; spec. a parrot.

Forms:  18 anthropoglott,   18– anthropoglot.

Origin: Either (i) a borrowing from Latin. Or (ii) a borrowing from Greek. Etymons: Latin anthropoglottus; Greek ἀνθρωπόγλωττος.

Etymology: <  post-classical Latin anthropoglottus (1771 or earlier) or its etymon ancient Greek (Attic) ἀνθρωπόγλωττος speaking like a human being (Aristotle) <  ἀνθρωπο- anthropo- comb. form + -γλωττος -glot comb. form.

 [1771 Encycl. Brit.  III. 327/1 Anthropoglottus, among zoologists, an appellation given to such animals as have tongues resembling that of mankind, particularly to the parrot kind.]

1828  N. Webster Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang.  Anthropoglot,..an animal which has a tongue resembling that of man, of which kind are parrots.

1832  D. J. Browne Etymol. Encycl.  Anthropoglot,..In Zoology, an animal having a tongue resembling a man's, as the parrot.

1849  W. J. Broderip Zool. Recreations(new ed.) 64 The sound could hardly be termed more than an articulate whistle:—how different from the pronunciation of those anthropoglotts, the parrots.

1902 Ludington (Michigan) Chron.  15 Oct. 1/4 It truly was the chance of a life time to see..the screeming [sic] anthropoglot.