As a public service, we suggest creative ways to make time fly.
Heat up the can of lima beans that’s been sitting at the back of the pantry shelf since 1st Obama.
Enjoy the lima beans while fantasizing that we’re back in 1st Obama.
Watch the 3rd season of Babylon Berlin in one glorious day.
Invent new cocktails that use whatever’s sitting under the sink. Like a Drambuie Beet Consommé Fizz.
Peek-Out-The-Front-Window games: Which Tree Will That Bird Fly To Next? Is That Amazon Truck Bringing Something For Me? Is That Neighbor Going To Clean Up After Her Dog Or Just Walk Away?
Set a new personal record for not checking your Facebook. (7 min 12 sec)
Watch the 3rd season of Babylon Berlin one more time so you totally get everything.
Start writing down the novel you’ve been writing in your head since your sophomore year of high school. The one where you only needed two weeks away from work for it to be a best-seller.
After 1½ pages, realize with equal parts disappointment and relief that you’re not a novelist.
Browse through the collection of all the DVDs you ever bought from the Wal-Mart $5 bin, looking for anything that doesn’t make you groan on sight.
Fail the attempt but watch the Sylvester Stallone Gold Collection for seven hours anyway.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”—President Donald Trump, August 8 2017
The White House had announced early Friday that Trump’s trip to the CDC was canceled because of concern about a possible infection there, but that person tested negative and Trump ended up going after all.—The New York Times, March 6 2020
ON NORTH KOREA
North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never…GAAACK! GET THAT OFF ME! Was that a spider? I think it was a spider! Who let it in here? [To Secret Service detail] Is it still alive? You killed it, right? —August 8, 2017
ON IRAN
If Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, will be hit very fast and…jeeSUS YOU SCARED THE [REDACTED] OUT OF ME, PENCE! How long have you been standing there?—January 4, 2020
ON POSSIBLE U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION IN VENEZUELA
Certainly, it’s something that’s on the…EEWWW, is that something on my fork? I think I’m going to throw up!—February 3, 2019
1. “March Madness” (again). Do we really have to go through this every year?
2. The 40th anniversary of “The Miracle on Ice.” I think it’s something to do with hockey.
3. The Democratic primaries. Just go ahead already and pick the one I’m going to vote for in November. Or not, since I’m a Democrat in Texas and my vote won’t matter.*
4. The lack of affordable housing in the Bay area. So?
5. Whether or not Harry and Megan get to use the word “royal.” By the way, if things get tight you two are welcome to stop by the Garden any time for a sandwich and a beer, on me.
6. Don’t remember what the sixth thing was.
7. That thing on my foot, unless it gets infected.
8. “Electability”. 2016 erased any meaningful definition of the word.
9. Medicare For All vs. expanded Obamacare. I’m cool with either one, really. Let’s focus on the real problem (hint: it looks like 250 lbs. of fresh pork roast wearing a long red tie).
10. Where Tom Brady ends up. I should care…why?
* Though it should be Elizabeth Warren. She gets things done and she knows how to fight.
Movies like “1917,” “The Irishman,” and “Ford v Ferrari” have all used their historical settings as a shield to deflect diversity critiques. – Aisha Harris, in an editorial in the New York Times, Feb. 6 2020
Human beings are strange animals. We’re the only species that loves to tell itself stories. And, being the unevolved species that we are, the story-tellers prefer to tell stories about themselves, or more usually, mythologized versions of themselves. For example, white male film producers, directors and actors just love to tell stories about super-duper white males. Even when they are telling a story about a black person, it’s usually really about a white person. Yes, I mean Green Book.
Hollywood’s ingrained exclusion of minorities is wrong, and effectively suppresses an enormous supply of great talent. But we wouldn’t want to live in a world without Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood. So here is a solution that will allow us to have our inclusion cake and eat our great entertainment, too.
Cast the best actor, not the (supposedly) appropriate race.
For example, why not cast Ford v Ferrari with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Chadwick Boseman instead of Matt Damon and Christian Bale?
“But then,” you say, “it wouldn’t be real.”
Oh, right. Reality.
When we’re watching Ford v Ferrari (so goes this line of thinking) we’re capable of forgetting that we’re sitting in a movie theater or a living-room couch, watching a digitally contrived recording of professional actors wearing silly costumes, speaking lines written by someone else. We can mentally block the experience of having seen these same actors, who now portray “real” people, perform the parts of Jason Bourne and Batman, among many others. Yes, we can delude ourselves into believing that somehow we are watching a live-stream reality show that is able to reach back in time to 1966.
We can do all this, and yet our suspension of disbelief is so fragile that the whole experience will be ruined if one of the lead actors happens to be black!
Oh really? Did the Greeks of Sophocles’ time grumble on their way home from the theater, “I hated that Electra! The real Electra didn’t go around wearing a mask!” Did the Elizabethan audience of Hamlet walk out midway through the performance, muttering, “The whole thing was so stupid! Everyone knows Ophelia was a girl!” No, and no.
Yet today we follow the silly and arbitrary convention that if a movie is about a real or imagined person of gender A and skin tone B, then the actor must be the same. What does that convention really do to enhance our movie-going experience? Nothing.
And once that convention is broken, all sorts of wonderful possibilities emerge. Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington would have crushed the parts of Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman. And if it bothers anyone, they can damn well just pretend the actors are “white.” It’s no harder than pretending that the man you once pretended was Michael Corleone is now James Hoffa.
And why stop with racial correctness? I for one would pay green money to see a Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood headlined by Whoopi Goldberg and Awkwafina.
And don’t get me started on Little Women. I’m thinking John Lithgow, Rupaul, Nathan Lane, and Chris Tucker. And that’s just the girls!
REFLECTING ON LATEST DISASTERS, TRUMP DECLARES, “I AM SO SORRY.” “I’m only human,” the president adds
SCHOOLCHILDREN CONFUSED BY TEXTBOOKS ON 21st CENTURY HISTORY “What did they mean by ‘a black person’ or ‘a white person’?” they ask
DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY CLASSIFIES THE N.R.A. “TERRORIST ORGANIZATION” “Our investigation uncovered an obsession with guns,” observes director
REPUBLICANS PASS MAJOR CLIMATE-CHANGE REFORM BILL “We can’t enjoy our wealth if we’re getting roasted alive,” explains Senate majority leader
APPLE, SAMSUNG DECLARE BANKRUPTCY Device manufacturers struggle to stay relevant as books, newspapers, movie theaters enjoy renewed popularity
‘MADAME BOVARY’ TOPS NY TIMES BESTSELLER LIST FOR RECORD 100th WEEK Says fan, “I can’t believe it’s been here all this time, it’s so much better than the crap they put out today”
ISRAEL, PALESTINIANS AGREE ON VIABLE TWO-STATE SOLUTION, ENDING DECADES OF VIOLENCE “All we had to do is start acting like responsible grown-ups,” says negotiator
USC ANNOUNCES $10B STATE-OF-THE-ART ENGLISH DEPARTMENT “The world has enough doctors and quarterbacks,” says chancellor, “what we need now are more poets”
GARDEN OF EATON WINS BEST-BLOG PULITZER “Huffington Shmuffington” says judge
WARREN BEATS TRUMP 100,000,000 TO 1 “I must have checked the wrong box,” laments Ohio man, “I don’t see too good”
All-State sonneteer Caitlyn Adams (North Richland Hills Senior High School) committed to UT-Austin on Friday, ending months of speculation and raising early hopes of a return to national championship contention for the Longhorn poetry team after a decade-long drought.
“I visited the poetry dens of Chicago, Iowa, UC-Berkeley, and Columbia,” said the D/FW regional standout, “but the facilities in Austin were like totally awesome,” her choice of words causing head coach Gail Postlethwaite to visibly flinch. Adams was probably referring to the results of the $20 million overhaul of the poetry training facility, which now includes a gleaming battery of commercial-grade espresso machines and a world-class wine-bar. Postlethwaite has received sharp criticism for the expenditure, but explained, “you don’t write world-class rondelles on Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and boxed swill. Every penny we spend contributes to our goal: getting to the slam in Carmel in March and bringing home the trophy.”
Postlethwaite was brought in two years ago after the regents fired her predecessor over his lackluster verses and unengaging imagery. “Beating your Harvey Mudd or North Texas was nice,” says Postlethwaite, “but we’re here to prove we’re the best.” Given her $5 million annual salary, she needs to make that intention a reality.
It won’t be easy. The Longhorns had a poor season last year, dropping to last in the Big 12 after a rough handling by Baylor in the free-verse tournament in November. The shocking loss caused Postlethwaite to fire her assistant coaches for meter and enjambment. And next year’s team is handicapped by the loss of junior Rocky Anderson, who went pro after being offered multi-million-dollar contracts by several publishing houses. “Rocky had a winning mentality and a flair for innovative metaphors,” said Postlethwaite. “But we’ll be just fine with our incoming talent. I know that expectations are high in the Longhorn community for a national championship, but as I keep telling our kids, we’ll get there, one tetrameter at a time.”
Postlethwaite has a reputation for keeping her young writers in line. Before her tenure, Longhorn poets were known for getting into late-night fights on Sixth street and acing exams. “When I first got here,” recalls Shaun Jameson, sophomore rapper from Katy, “Coach Gail caught me looking at a chemistry book. She made me throw it in the dumpster. She doesn’t put up with any nonsense.” The practices are grueling, Johnson adds. “We do two-a-days, every day, in the coffee shop. Like I learned from Coach, there’s no substitute for just sitting down with a grande mocha, booting up the Mac, and dreaming for four hours straight. But that first winning submission makes you forget about all the pain that went into it.”
Postlethwaite nods and smiles. “I make no apologies. We’re not here to party or graduate with honors. We are here to write poetry. World class championship poetry, period. Or no period, if you’re omitting punctuation.”
We all have our reasons for looking at the title of a book, maybe reading the blurb and a few sample pages, and saying, nope, not for me. Maybe it’s a genre you have no interest in. Maybe you can’t stand reading a book written in the present tense. I know a guy who refuses to read any book with the words “Billionaire”, “Christmas”, or “Daddy” in the title. Then there’s the Bechdel test, and there’s people who won’t ready anything written by a dead white man. Me, I’ll read almost anything (or at least, give it a try), but I do have my one hard-and-fast rule. I call it
THE SNIFF TEST
I don’t want to read about nostrils. If, by the end of chapter 1, nostrils are already flaring, I’m done. If nostrils are flaring while eyes are glaring, I’m double done. And why can’t a character just smell things anymore? Why must we be informed that the aroma of his mother’s cooking made love to his nostrils, or the smell of the restaurant’s salmon special swam up her nostrils to spawn, or that the sweet pong of Panzer exhaust blitzkrieged his nostrils?
I will never read Cordwainer Smith’s sci-fi novel “Norstrilia”. I know it has nothing to do with nostrils, but it’s just too close. It even bothered me that the ship in “Alien” was “The Nostromo”, but that was a movie, so I give it a pass. Gogol’s “The Nose” is fine—I have nothing against noses—I’m not crazy. Nor do I have a problem with septums, because they aren’t over-used like nostrils are. I think the only time I’ve ever seen the word septum in a novel is when it’s about a cokehead who doesn’t have one. Now there’s an opportunity there for the discerning writer. Consider, for example, the sentence: “The smell of her perfume set my septum vibrating like a prank handshake buzzer.” Isn’t that so much better than that old nostril bit, worn thinner than a cokehead’s septum?
And philtrums—I love philtrums. You want me to read your book, title it “The Philtrum”.
Anyway, No Nostrils. That’s my rule. My one-and-only rule.*
What’s yours?
*Okay, I confess, I’m the guy I know who would refuse to read a book titled “My Billionaire Christmas Daddy.” I make no apologies.
I suppose everyone has had the unpleasant and disappointing experience of wandering into someone else’s racist hang-ups.
A few years ago I was having lunch with a married couple, colleagues from work and personal friends. They were, and are, nice people, well educated, progressive in outlook. Unbidden by me, they began to talk about a gardener who once worked for one of their families back home. He was honest and hard-working, unlike the rest of his kind, who stuck together, were lazy, and would stab you in the back if they got a chance. What’s more, they got preferential treatment from the government, getting all the social benefits without having to do anything to earn them.
Who were my colleagues, and who were the “they” they feared and resented? Well, they weren’t white Americans talking about African-Americans or Hispanic immigrants. They happened to be Romanian, and their “they” were gypsies.
But I was struck by how comfortably their stereotypes fit into racism around the planet.
That lunchtime conversation came back to me as I was reading the recent book by Enrico Deaglio, La storia vera e terribile tra Sicilia e America (The True and Terrible History of Sicily and America, Sellerio:2015), a fascinating and appalling account of the experience of Sicilian immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century. The core of the book is a detailed analysis of a mass lynching of five Sicilian immigrants in the town of Tallulah, Louisiana in 1899. The town was enraged by the murder of a white doctor. As the rumor-mill had it, one of the Sicilian’s goats had wandered onto the doctor’s veranda, and the doctor, tired of this recurring annoyance, had shot the goat. The hot-blooded Sicilians, who loved their livestock like family, and took such an outrage as a matter of personal honor, spent most of a day secretly planning their revenge, then tracked down and killed the doctor. That night, the Sicilians, by then locked up in the city jail, were dragged out of the prison and hanged. Three of them comprised the alleged murderer and two close relatives. The other two were lynched for being Sicilian in the wrong place and the wrong time.
Too late it was discovered that the doctor, an alcoholic quack, was not only alive but had suffered only superficial wounds—a blast of birdshot—from which he quickly recovered! (The story is a corrective for anyone who thinks The Oxbow Incident is far-fetched.) Deaglio casts serious doubt on the rest of the goat-revenge story as well and suggests more material motives behind the lynchings: its victims were successful local merchants with valuable holdings that afterwards ended up in the hands of white citizens.
There is much to be appalled at in this sordid tale, such as the hypocritical indignation of the Italian government over the incident and its less-than-halfhearted attempt to seek justice: Italy’s official position was that since all the victims were either American citizens or intending to become American citizens, they and their relatives had given up any right to have the Italian government seek redress on their behalf.
But the most astonishing and sad aspect of the story for me was the institutionalized and quite open racism by Italy’s establishment towards its southern Italian citizens—and how enthusiastically that racism was endorsed by Americans. In a chapter entitled “Nel cranio dei dagos” (“In the Dagos’ cranium”) Deaglio recounts the work of the progressive (northern) Italian sociologist Cesare Lombroso, who scientifically “proved” that Sicilians were actually a race, and a genetically inferior race at that, prone to laziness, stupidity and violence. Sounds depressingly familiar?
It should, because Lombroso’s work was welcomed by Americans who shared the Italian establishment’s distinction between its own nice, superior northerners and its darker, dangerous southerners. It’s not hard to imagine why many whites in the post-Reconstruction United States would have been attracted to the idea that Sicilians were inferior to their northern compatriots, due to the historical “mixing” of the island’s European population with Africans and Arabs.
Deaglio quotes Theodore Roosevelt as stating, in response to the even more horrific lynching of 11 southern Italians in New Orleans in 1891, “It was time that race was given a lesson.” And he wrote to his sister shortly afterwards, “Monday we dined at the Camerons; various dago diplomats were present, all much wrought up by the lynching of the Italians in New Orleans. Personally I think it rather a good thing, and said so.”
So Roosevelt, who later became one of this country’s most progressive presidents, had drunk the racist koolaid.
It is depressing to witness the universal nature of racism. I have personally been invited to commiserate with various ignoramuses (including Italians and American tourists) on the dangers posed by gypsies. As a white boy growing up in Denton, Texas, U.S.A. I was sometimes expected to share ugly opinions and ugly jokes about black people. I have been regaled with snarky comments and stupid jokes about Jews by people who didn’t know a whole lot about me. I was treated to a racist (if that’s the right word) Irish joke once by an Australian of English descent—evidence of how well racism travels and survives over time and across continents. I have conversed with some northern Italians who don’t vacation in Sicily because they are afraid (as well as others who, like me, adore the island and its people). I’ve listened to an Indian friend and colleague talk trash about Pakistanis.
And that’s just on the personal level, not including all the garbage spewed these days in public forums.
It’s all wrong, it’s all stupid, it’s all evil.
But we always try to find a bright spot here in the Garden, and maybe it’s this. Racism seems even more ridiculous and absurd than usual, when it’s someone else’s. And maybe we can use that ridiculousness to reflect back on our own racism.
Is there anyone (outside of Burma) who thinks the Rohingya deserve the appalling treatment they are getting at the hands of their own country just because, after all, they are Rohingya? No, that would be ridiculous. As ridiculous as the idea that black people are genetically inferior. Or Sicilians.
After reading in Christopher Hitchens’ memoir Hitch 22 about the hilariously erudite (and often obscene) word games he used to play with Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and other friends, such as coming up with failed book titles (Good Expectations), we decided to come up with our own list of proposed film titles that never made it past a producer:
Publisher’s note: The Garden has correspondents spread across all corners of the globe and all four dimensions, including that of time. From the Near Future desk we learn of startling events occurring in the spring of 2020. Just before Super Tuesday, Satan declares his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. Due to Russian hacking, cynical crossover voting by Republicans, poor debate performances by Joe Biden, and 24 x 7 promotion by Fox News, Satan wins the nomination at the Democratic convention in Milwaukee in July, beating Pete Buttigieg on the fourth ballot and announcing Tulsi Gabbard as his running mate.
These developments put Democrats as well as Republican “Never Trumpers” in a bind: whom to support for President? Since Satan’s record of public service is not well known to the American public, we provide here, as a public service, a voter’s guide to the differences between the incumbent and the challenger.
Health Care
Satan: Invented french fries, opioids and recliners
Trump: Ripped apart Obamacare because the name contains ‘Obama.’
Honesty
Satan: Known as ‘The Great Deceiver’ but never actually tells a lie
Trump: You’re kidding, right?
Experience
Satan: Former angel
Trump: Former real-estate developer and reality TV personality
Immigration Policy
Satan: Welcomes all humankind
Trump: Wall
Educational Policy
Satan: Led the movement to spread the knowledge of good and evil to all mankind
Trump: Founded Trump University
Vices
Satan: Favors a nice pinot noir with dinner
Trump: Doesn’t drink
Charisma
Satan: Handsome devil
Trump: Comb-over on top of an angry scoop of orange sherbet
Foreign Policy
Satan: In a tense but functioning detente with God for 2,000 years and counting
Trump: Thinks NATO is stupid
Mental and Emotional Stability
Satan: Thinks he’s the greatest
Trump: Thinks he’s the greatest
Military Experience
Satan: Has led the Armies of Darkness since the beginning of time
Trump: Medical deferment (bone spurs)
Favorite Books
Satan: Loves The Fountainhead and How to Win Friends and Influence People
Trump: Favorite books are the bible and The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump*
Fantasy Dinner Guests
Satan: Roy Cohn, Vladimir Putin and Andrew Breitbart
Trump: Roy Cohn, Vladimir Putin and Andrew Breitbart
Personal Income
Satan: Based on tax returns for the last ten years, approximately 1M souls per year
Trump: Undisclosed
P.R. Firm
Satan: The Christian church
Trump: Fox News
Campaign strategy:
Satan: appeal to our worst instincts
Trump: appeal to our worst instincts, especially in ‘swing states’.
Conclusion: Satan 2020!
* according to the Wikipedia article on The Art of the Deal.
![Storia vera e terribile tra Sicilia e America (Italian Edition) by [Deaglio, Enrico]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/415-oTuPKjL.jpg)
The Garden of Eaton 