Sunday Sundries, 204

1. AOTW: Lots of candidates this week, but let's go with the health club, shall we? In the men's locker room, there are a few benches--all fairly short. Sharing--as in kindergarten--is essential. This week, when I came in to get dressed, some guys had left their gym bags on the bench nearest my locker, covering virtually its entire length. Okay. I undressed, put on my workout clothes (that reveal my incredible fitness!), did my workout (about an hour), came back: The bags were still there. Showered, came back. The bags were still there. I thought about a bonfire--or tossing them in the trash. Restrained myself. Decided, instead, I'd "honor" them here ...

2. Last night, Joyce and I drove over to Kent to see The Hate U Give, a moving and powerful film that is guaranteed to polarize--as if we aren't already! A policeman shoots an unarmed black teen after a traffic stop--and we see all the fallout. Virtually everyone here is scarred and hurt (and, thus, human)--from the cops to the residents of the community that suffered the loss of the young man, who, by the way, was not entirely "innocent": He dealt drugs. But in this place, he had few choices, I fear.

The story focuses on a young girl--Starr--who is attending a mostly white prep school and living something of a schizophrenic life: getting by at the school, getting by in the neighborhood. She is in the car when the shooting occurs (he was a lifelong friend), and then her life, which had been complicated before, becomes a series of Gordian knots.

It's difficult to watch for a number of reasons. My dad's brother Clark was a lifelong policeman (he was buried in full uniform + Sam Browne belt); Dad himself worked a bit as one, too, during the Depression. Some of my former students are cops--and, from what I can tell, excellent ones.

But what the film deals with is, in one sense, our predispositions: What do we expect from a cop? From a young black man late at night?

And what on earth are we going to do about it? Doing nothing leaves families devastated, communities angry and explosive, cops defensive and (I would guess?) even more worried about themselves out there in the streets. Not good. But we seem--as a country--to lack the determination to search for solutions. To try things. And this stance of ours leaves us even more bitterly divided--and makes it all the more certain that more such tragic incidents will continue to occur.

I had some complaints about the script--the ending seemed a bit over the top--but I was riveted by the story--by the performances--and grieved for everyone involved, especially for the family and friends of the young man.

And for us.

An important, provocative film.

Link to film trailer.

3. I finished two books this week:

     - One (via Kindle) is the antepenultimate (always wanted to use that word) novel in Ken Bruen's series about Irish P.I. Jack Taylor (there was a TV series, too--you can stream it). This was was called Green Hell, and it well deserves the title.

The narrative technique is a little different in this one. An American student in Galway (where all the stories are set) decides to write Jack's story (instead of the research he's supposed to be doing). This goes on for a while--until Bruen shifts us (I won't tell you why), and we're back to narrator Jack again, Jack who is, once again, falling apart in various ways--losing friends, etc. Murders to be solved. And, as usual, there's a shocker at the end--a Bruen trademark.

These are among the most unique thrillers I've ever read--in style, in subject matter. And I'm starting to feel sorry for myself already as I have now begun the penultimate in the series.

     - I also finished Kate Atkinson's third novel (I'm working my way through them in order), Emotionally Weird (2000). As I noted briefly on Facebook this week, I greatly admired this novel (unbelievably clever and unusual technique--a writer supremely gifted, handles the language as if it were No Big Deal), but I did not enjoy it as much as I had her earlier two. (See previous "Sundries.")

The story involves a young woman--Effie--and her mother, Nora (but is she the mother? ... hmmm....). They are on an otherwise-abandoned island off the coast of Scotland, where Mom proposes that they entertain each other by telling their stories.

Well ... here we go!

Effie tells about her time as a student in a university English Department (savage satire at times), experiences that become increasingly complex as her story goes on. (She has some essays due; she's not getting them done.) Nora (in a different font) interrupts occasionally and tells Effie to make something more clear--or complains about a detail. Also included: excerpts from a piece of fiction that Effie's been working on. Nora's story is even more tangled and evasive--but as we go along, we learn some truths about the family, about Effie's heritage, etc.

And, yes, there's some canine involvement (see cover image).

So--as I said--so much to admire here, but I just did not "get into it" as much as I had with her previous books. I'll soon start novel #4! I am learning so much from her ... And I continue to wonder how on earth I had not read her before!

And it's not often you read a novel featuring a character killed by some falling volumes of the OED!


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

     - from dictionary.com

cyonaut [krahy-uh-nawt] noun

1. a person whose dead body has been preserved by the technique of cryonics.

QUOTES: ... cryonics ... has now been around for 60 years, since the death of retired psychology professor James H. Bedford. Alcor, the company that still has his body in a frozen chamber, calls him the first “cryonaut.”

-- Kat Eschner, "The First Cryonic Preservation Took Place Fifty Years Ago Today," Smithsonian, January 12, 2017

ORIGIN: The rare noun cryonaut derives clearly and simply from the Greek nouns krýos “icy cold” and naútēs “sailor.” Krýos comes from the Proto-Indo-European root kreus-, krus- “to freeze, form a crust,” from which Greek also derives krýstallos “ice” (English crystal). Krus- is also the source of Latin crusta “a hard covering, scab, crust.” Naútēs is a derivative of the noun naûs “ship,” from the same Proto-Indo-European source as Latin nāvis “ship,” nauta “sailor,” and nāvigāre “travel by ship.” Cryonaut entered English in the 20th century.