America Noir

Academic language is a subset of American English. I'm a Berkeley grad, and deciphering the argot of professors was de rigueur during my time there. I imagine most college students have had similar experiences with scholarly obfuscation. Check this out:

As the dominant strain of modernism increasingly assumed quasi-official status in the postwar period, artists working in popular forms, who were beneath the notice of serious intellectuals (except as they fell under the general heading of mass culture), found themselves freer to maintain a critical stance vis-à-vis the Cold War state. (p221)

I love it! It's from a book called America Noir: underground writers and filmmakers of the Postwar Era, by, you guessed it, a college professor. His name is David Cochran. I realize the above passage isn't too difficult, no big words and only one foreign phrase, but in tone and style it is wholly academic. You certainly couldn't say "popular American artists began to criticize American culture during the Cold War." That would lack the flair and polish the audience for such a book expects. I don't mean to pick on Prof. Cochran, after all, he's a noir-man like me. And it's a good book--the stories of the various artists (from Jim Thompson to Rod Serling) are interesting and enjoyable. And Cochran is capable of some real gems--here's his take on the brilliant Charles Willeford:

In a string of pulp paperbacks published in the fifties and sixties, Willeford created a world in which the predatory cannibalism of American capitalism provides the model for all human relations, in which the American success ethic mercilessly casts aside all who are unable or unwilling to compete, and in which the innate human appreciation of artistic beauty is cruelly distorted by the exigencies of mass culture. (p40)

I like that. Academic study of noir is a little dry for everyday reading, I know, but I've a passion for the subject. Nothing comes close to Eddie Muller's magnificent Dark City: the lost world of film noir, but that's an unfair comparison. Mr. Muller's book is strictly about movies, is for a popular audience, and is filled with vintage photos. And it is as intelligent as it is entertaining. But Prof. Cochran's book has its place on the shelf--I certainly learned a lot and was pointed in some new directions.

Thirty years ago . . .

. . . I was finishing my senior year at the University of California. The space shuttle Columbia made its maiden voyage on April 12th and I was awarded my B.S. degree on June 13th. Columbia broke up over Texas during re-entry on January 16, 2003. That was its 28th flight. Sister ship Challenger, launched on April 4th, 1983, was lost at the start of only its 10th mission on January 28, 1986. Atlantis, first launched on October 3rd, 1985, touched down at Cape Canaveral early this morning, closing the door on the entire shuttle program. It was the 33rd trip for Atlantis. The newest member of the fleet, Endeavour, was first launched on May 7th, 1992, and completed its 25th and final voyage on June 1st, 2011. Workhorse Discovery made 39 flights between August 30th, 1984, and March 9th, 2011. I remember talk at the time of Columbia's debut was that each shuttle would be capable of 100 missions. Although NASA fell short of that optimistic prediction, thirty years of performance from such a complex machine subject to such demanding conditions is still an impressive accomplishment. If you want to do pure science, satellites, robots, and unmanned probes are much better than human-filled spaceships. If you want to explore, you need people. I hope NASA can continue to do both.

Elaine Bartholomew Rothwell

My mother-in-law passed away earlier this week after being hospitalized due to a heart problem. She was a month past her 85th birthday--she was born in 1926, the same year as Marlyn Monroe. Elaine grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father Fred Bartholomew was an artist and passed his passion and talent on to his daughter. Elaine met her "man in a uniform" in 1945, when newly-minted ensign William Stanley Rothwell, a fellow Minnesotan and an Annapolis grad, swept her off her feet. They were married a year later and had a long and loving partnership. Elaine raised four children while Bill pursued a career in physics. Once the family moved to California, Elaine returned to her art, earning a degree from San Jose State University in 1966. Her work with Vi Woodbury brought her to etching and printmaking which she pursued for nearly fifty years. Elaine and Vi remained lifelong friends. Elaine, signing her work as E.B. Rothwell, developed a unique style that was both playful and serious, skillfully combining high art with popular references. Her signature technique was the use of negative space to hide images and her best work always had something below the surface to tease the eye and prick the mind. Bill and Elaine retired to Auburn, California where she was active in the local art scene. She is survived by her husband, her three daughters, Suzanne, Amy, and Wendy, her son Bart, and her two grandchildren, Damien and Cherise Verrett, as well as two step-grandchildren. I will remember her for her great love of history and in particular her enthusiasm for classical Latin ("It's KICK-ero, not SISS-ero!"). She was a sharp and combative conversationalist and a supreme story-teller with a prodigious memory. Rarely do I meet someone who can out-talk me! She was a wonderful mother and wife, and a fascinating and charismatic woman who in many ways was years ahead of her time. I will miss her very much.

Z-books

Some folks like e-books. Others like iBooks. But I'm a Z-books man. As in Ziesing Books. Mark and Cindy Ziesing have been peddling books for a long time out of their home in Shingletown, California. That's State of Jefferson country in case you don't know. Shingletown is an unincorporated little burg in Shasta County just east of Redding on State Route 44 on the way to Lassen Park. The Ziesings have a print catalog and a website jam-packed with lots and lots of weird and wonderful stuff. They used to publish books as well, and I have maybe a half-dozen lovely hardcovers with the Ziesing imprint--John Shirley, Tim Powers, Iain Banks, Lucius Shepard and the like. I've been shopping at Ziesing for about twenty years and in all that time have never talked to an employee, salesman, or customer-service rep. When you call on the phone either Cindy or Mark will answer. Same when you email. You get hand-written notes from them in your packages. This is a real, live, mom-and-pop operation. I once had a shipment of Z-books stolen from my post office box. When I called Ziesing, Mark sent me replacements without hesitation and charged me only the shipping! (There were, if I remember, a few one-of-kind items that I'd ordered that were lost forever, but the bulk of it was indeed replaceable.) He certainly did not have to do that, and I certainly did not ask him to, but he made me a customer for life nonetheless. Those low-lifes who stole from me (and them, by extension) would obviously never appreciate the literary bonanza they stumbled upon or the grace and class of the Ziesing operation.

I just received my latest order. It was preceded, of course, by an email from Cindy letting me know it was in the mail. All four books were individually paper-wrapped before boxing--you think Amazon does that? I got two hardcovers, The Right Madness by the late James Crumley and Leather Maiden by Joe R. Lansdale. Mr. Crumley is considered by many as a modern noir master and this is my first foray into his oeuvre. The book was listed as "Fine in Fine dust jacket." That means it is a new book that has sat on a shelf for a while (it's from 2005). That one set me back five bucks. Mr. Lansdale is a well-known and accomplished horror and crime fiction writer, and I've read several of his excellent short stories. This is my first Lansdale novel. The book is new, a 2nd printing from 2008, and it cost four bucks. I'm cheap--I scour the "sale" section. I challenge anyone in bookstore meccas like Berkeley or Portland to find better deals with less hassle than that. I also picked up a vintage paperback from Ballantine (it looks like a 70s edition) of Theodore Sturgeon short stories (E Pluribus Unicorn) for two bucks, and a new mass-market paperback from Joe McKinney called Flesh Eaters. The new book was $6.99, the most expensive item on the list! I interviewed Mr. McKinney a few months ago for the Gutter Books website--another small, local, independent venture. Flesh Eaters is one of his apocalyptic zombie books. The Sturgeon was a real find as he is one of the all-time SF greats.

When you are weary of shopping at soul-less box stores and giving your Visa number to mega-corps, check out Ziesing Books. In fact, don't wait until you are weary. Shop there now. Besides, they are also Giants fans.

Expert Mouse

That's what the Kensington people call it, but it isn't a mouse at all. It's a trackball. I developed a fondness for trackballing over mousing a long time ago, but my old trackball was not compatible with Windows 7. Kensington finally updated their Expert Mouse and claimed Win 7 functionality with the new Trackball software. I bought the damn thing and downloaded the software but couldn't get it to work. A quick search on Google brought me to a forum where some fellow suggested using a different version of the software available at the UK site for Kensington. By golly, it worked! I'm now fully functional with my new trackball. The wireless mouse that came with my Dell wasn't bad, in fact it was pretty nice as far as mice go, but I'm happy to be back to my four-button cue ball & ring ways. I sure like the Kensington product, but I have to say the website support is damn poor. Having to find a different version of the software on my own somewhere else is not what I call customer service.

Orange & Black Congrats Ale

Mi concuño Alberto sent me a beer in the mail. Now that's a true friend! Alberto is my sister-in-law's husband, that is, we are married to sisters. English just doesn't have as elegant a term as the Spanish for that particular relationship, so concuño it is. Moylan's Brewery in Novato made a special black ale to celebrate the Giants winning the World Series. That's what was in the mail and no one could appreciate it more than me. After all, I'm a crazy fan and a brewer who also made a beer to honor the champs. My lovely bride and I enjoyed the pint of Congrats Ale while watching Tim Lincecum destroy the Mets on TV. Supposedly Orange & Black had a bit of orange flavor to complement the dark grains, but I'll admit that neither of us detected that. Nonetheless it was a lovely and refreshing brew and was good luck for the lads as well.

Muchas gracias, amigo!

The Mental Game

"Baseball is 90% mental; the other half is physical."

Yogi Berra is credited with that bit of wisdom. Funny thing, it is true. Baseball is a mental game. The pace may be languid, and the physical action sporadic, but the athleticism required to play professionally is a rare trait. A small percentage of the population has that kind of talent. A small percentage of those athletes make it to the big time. What separates the ones who stick from the ones who don't is mental. Fortitude. Perseverance. Desire. And what separates the greatest players is their ability to learn--to adapt and adjust. To maximize what they have and acquire new skills. Jim Kaplan's new book, The Greatest Game Ever Pitched: Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn, and the Pitching Duel of the Century, brought this point home.

Mr. Kaplan relates a story about Juan Marichal telling Willie McCovey that he was going to change his approach before a game, asking him to play deeper in left field. It was June 15, 1963, at Candlestick Park and the opposing team was the Houston Colt 45s (later Astros). McCovey, amazed that the red-hot Marichal would be messing with things coming off a shutout and five straight wins, obliged nonetheless. Marichal explained that the Colts had hit him hard last time, and he needed to give them a new look. Here's Kaplan:

After consulting his notes on opponents, Marichal had concluded that Houston players were getting a preview of the coming pitch by reading his grip. Abandoning his high leg kick, he hid the ball, brought his hands together belt high and pivoted quickly.

McCovey wound up making a play on the fence late in the game to get an out and help preserve Marichal's no-hitter. Warren Spahn had the same attitude. Here's more from Kaplan:

"I don't pitch the hitter the same way from season to season," said Spahn, who could remember pitches he'd thrown 15 years prior. "Why? Well, I think hard about hitters and try to think the way they think. So there's always the possibility that the hitter may have given considerable thought to the way I pitched him in the previous year and he might be looking forward to those pitches next year."

A little later in the same chapter:

Like Spahn, Marichal had an extensive mental book on hitters' weaknesses. "This is a guessing game," he said. "I'm always trying to guess what the hitters are guessing. I haven't gotten any better, only smarter."

On July 2nd of the same 1963 season, Spahn and Marichal would pitch a 16-inning 1-0 game in San Francisco that Willie Mays would end with a home run. Spahn was pitching for the Milwaukee Braves (now Atlanta), the club he had come up with when they were still in Boston. That game is the subject of Kaplan's book, but it's really about two men, two ballplayers from different backgrounds and different generations. Their personal histories and their accomplishments on and off the field are interwoven throughout the account of the great pitching duel. Spahn was 42, and just about at the end, while Marichal was 25 and just beginning his exceptional run of great seasons (familiar to every Giants fan). Warren Spahn, the winningest left-hander in baseball history, died in 2003 aged 82. His son Greg supplies the forward for the book.

Stories about baseball before the era of division play and free agency naturally contrast sharply with much of today's game. But the game itself, and the contest of wills between the participants, remains the same. I get the feeling that Mr. Kaplan is nostalgic for a lost era of baseball, before Twitter and ESPN and whatnot. I was nine years old when the NL West and NL East were created, and I was in high school when Andy Messersmith was granted free agency. I'm not sure I've known anything but modern baseball. I remember though, when people watched the play on the field and not Jumbotrons or iPhone screens. So I can relate to his longing for some of those bygone things.

Read The Greatest Game Ever Pitched and tell me what you think.