The Immortality of the Little Things

With the New Year we create new expectations, new resolutions and renewed visions for a high successful and meaningful year. We hope to remember big things, often discarding "minor" moments to the dustbin of disdain. How sad.  Sometimes that half-second glimpse or spontaneous moment of reflection can resound with an imperturbable resonance whose echo emanates through our being and our soul for a long time.

I recently read a passage from the Thomas Wolfe book, Of Time and the River that captures this sentiment perfectly:

A thousand times thereafter the tone of that rich voice would return to him and reverberate in his memory with the haunting, strange and wonderful recurrence with which the "little" things of life--a face seen one time at a window, a voice that passed in darkness and was gone, the twisting of a leaf upon a bough--come back to us out of all the violence and savage chaos of the days--the "little" things that persist so strangely, vividly, and inexplicably when the more sensational and "important" events of life have been forgotten or obscured.

Enjoy a successful 2013, but take a moment to take in all the 'little' things. You would be amazed by all the wonderful things around you.

Phrontistery

I love learning new words and having the chance to showoff my new vocabulary. So I was wonderfully surprised when I stumbled on the Phrontistery website. It showcases many words and uses and serves as a remarkable resource. I was particularly impressed with its collection of words related to manias and obsessions. Click on the link above.

I am a verbomanic. What are you?

Rest in Peace, Pascual Perez

I was saddened to learn of the death of Pascual Perez, the erratic, but colorful pitcher who experienced success and infamy in the 1980s and early 1990s. This lanky right-hander from the Dominican Republic had a unique personality that I was able to witness firsthand when I went to see the Yankees play the Indians in Cleveland in 1989. He was pitching for the Yankees then and although I can't remember the score of that game, there were two moments that I will never forget: with a runner on first base, Pascual, before going into his motion, peered through his legs and pretended to throw to first base--a startled Don Mattingly just raised his arms up in exasperation; the second moment later in the game was when he threw a 30 mile-per-hour changeup to home plate. The batter didn't swing, but it was still funny.

Pascual was never a great pitcher, but he had a great personality that endeared him to many fans, me included. In the Fydrichian tradition of engrossing fans and opponents with bizarre on-field behavior, Pascual makes it easy for me to root for him and baseball. I am not sure if any other sport has produced so many wonderful characters.

Rest in Peace, Pascual. You will be missed.

Two Lunar Writers

Thomas Wolfe

What do Thomas Wolfe (1930-1938) and Federico Garcia Lorca have in common? How about the moon? Both have used the moon and the imagery, sentiments and landscapes it evokes to supplement their some of their works. For me, we see Garcia Lorca make full use of this in his obra maestra (masterpiece) "Bodas de Sangre." He was described as a lunar poet by his biographer Ian Gibson and you would be hard pressed to dispute this claim. Lorca's allegorical style and personification in "Bodas de Sangre" give this work an energy and drive unlike any others.

I recently began to read the works of Thomas Wolfe. Look Homeward, Angel is an excellent book which showcases Wolfe's superb lyrical skills. His descriptions of landscapes and people are stellar. But it is in the book I am currently reading, Of Time and the River, where he describes in magnificent and resplendent detail landscapes and people under the moon. These days people do not read books that are longer than 300 pages in length, so they are highly unlikely to attempt to read some of Wolfe's books (between 600 and 900 pages. How sad. Check out this segment from Of Time and the River:

"The moon blazed down upon the wilderness, it fell on sleeping woods, it dripped through moving leaves, it swarmed in weaving patterns in the earth, and it filled the cat's still eye with blazing yellow. The moon slept over mountains and lay like silence in the desert, and it carved the shadows of great rocks like time."

Tagg, You're It

Yes, it seems like everyone is quick to put their foot in their mouth these days, but I was particularly dismayed by Tagg Romney's comment after the second presidential debate, in which he expressed his 'fleeting' desire to 'take a swing' at President Obama. 

His reaction is typical of the times we live in where stoicism and professionalism go by the wayside and a primordial and reactionary mindset take the driver's seat of people's responses to items or people they disagree with. But more than that, Mitt Romney's son displayed the callous disregard or respect for authority and represents the overindulged segment of our society.

In many ways he represents this sad and despicable part of society. I am not sure if he has ever been held accountable for his actions or not, but the fact that he still makes this comments with an almost cavalier disregard for the consequences (he seems to think all you have to do is say 'sorry' and everything goes away) indicates that this behavior will not change anytime soon.

Inter-Planetary Weight Watchers

For those of us looking for new and innovative ways to reduce our weight, I may have found the solution: go to another planet!

Check out this cool website which calculates what you would way on each of the planets in our solar system. It will also reveal what you would weigh on the sun (just before you are burnt to a crisp!).

Weight-Watching on Other Planets

Where have you gone, Richard Hofstadter?

A few weeks ago I saw an episode of Baseball Tonight in which the baseball analyst Tim Kurkjian delivered a segment titled "Seamheads." An avowed baseball loyalist Kurkjian created this segment for die-hard baseball fans in which some of the most arcane tidbits of baseball trivia and lore are thrown at the television audience faster than a Stephen Strasburg fastball and with more guile than a Mariano Rivera cutter. As a long-time baseball fan I decided to watch a little bit of the segment. I was stopped cold when Mr, Kurkjian said, "I can't name any of the Supreme Court justices, but I can tell you which players with last names beginning with the letter "A" hit the most home runs." Impressive feat of recollection, but should he be saying this? In a way he is advertising his ignorance, placing it on a pedestal for all to worship. What kind of message is this? It is ok to be ignorant about how our government, our democracy works as long as you can recite obscure baseball stats? This is disappointing and I really wish Mr. Kurkjian had used a different analogy. In that simple sentence he made two declarations: 1) his ignorance and 2) his incredible knowledge of the game. I respect his dedication to baseball and its vaunted history, but in attempting to use humor to make  his point he unwittingly downgraded an important institution in this country and shone a spotlight on a very disturbing tendency in this country: the growing lack of familiarity (sometimes outright disdain) for our historical traditions. Perhaps if he said "I can't name all of the Kardashian sisters, but I can...," the analogy would be much 'cleaner.' In this comparison his baseball acumen would stand on a much higher plateau when compared to the drivel of reality show celebrities. 

I firmly believe that we have become too sports-centric in this country. For those of who read history, this is not knew. The great US historian Richard Hofstadter observed this trend years ago in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. He wrote: "At times the schools of the country seem to be dominated by athletics, commercialism and the standards of the mass media...." He lamented the "cult of athleticism." What would he think now?