(Cross posted from DKos because they never read past the first forty paragraphs of my not quite so short posts, it is not about religion nor about Bill Frist and so has squat all chance of being recommended)
In the main High Street in Caernarfon, there is one of those shops selling remaindered books.
I love these places. They are crammed with expensive hardbacks that no longer sell at a speed to justify their retention. I love the feel of a new book, the weight of it in the hand, the reluctance with which it opens to the next page that has never been read and the smell of the inked paper opened to the air for the first time.
I love that the big publishing houses measure the square footage of the warehouse space that they consume and the accountants do their bean counting and calculate the cost of the square footage of the footprint of the crates of books. Then, they end up in Caernarfon at a cost that I can easily afford.
I like, too, to see which books are languishing there with their dust covers in harsh primary colours to make them stand out on the shelves , now like tawdry street tarts desperately looking for a john in Manchester at lunchtime, when the bright daylight does them no favours. I love to see the ridiculous biographies of minor celebrities condemned to the cheapest of bins so that this final statement on their petty lives is all that remains of the champagne and canapés of the book’s ambitiously hopeful launch party.
Amongst the trash of the glossy cook books and poor romances of fevered yearning and a passion that fails to burn and lies flat and lifeless on the page, I sometimes find a Tom Wolfe, or a Douglas Coupland or a rare gem like the six hundred page collection of the letters of Ernest Hemingway.
The last time I went there, it was not with books with which I came away.
They had a shelf of DVDs for sale at just under three dollars each or four for nine dollars. I don’t normally buy recently released DVDs because they are ridiculously over priced in the UK and few are the ones that I want to see twice. Past experience has told me, also, that these cheap offers of discarded films are no great bargain either, being a hugely expensive waste of your life to view.
Yet one of them prominently displayed the name of the great Welsh actor Bob Hopkins. Another had Al Pacino in it, another of my favourites. I didn’t care how bad the movies might be, I will always watch these two exercising their craft.
Not looking at the titles or content I took them. There was nothing else worth having. So I added an early and probably very bad Nicole Kidman film because I am not immune to eye-candy, and a fishing masterclass filmed on the Norfolk Broads. These last two picks were pretty desperate but the lure of the price reduction on four always gets me, as God and the merchandising manager intended.
Well two months later, three of these films remain in their cellophane. Last night, however, I watched the Bob Hopkins film. The reason was, I noticed the title for the first time: “Then There were Giants”. It is an historical docudrama, recounting the fragile World War II alliance in which Hoskins plays the role of Churchill, Michael Caine that of Joseph Stalin and John Lithgow is a brilliant Franklin D Roosevelt.
Drawing on the actual cables between Washington, London and Moscow, the dialogue is interspersed with real footage of combat occurring in the war. It illustrates the controversies, the forceful personalities and the arguments of these heads of state as they tried to hold together the vital alliance to defeat a common enemy.
Each of these men was flawed and imperfect and none more so than Stalin. Yet each proved great leaders in fighting a huge and a terrifying war.
“Then there were Giants”, indeed. A great film, more than worth the two bucks paid for it.
When I come out of the theatre having seen a great play or out of the cinema having seen a good film, I am poor company. I am detached, introspective and resent the intrusion of a less bright world. Heaven help my companion if he or she starts to discuss what we have just seen and they do not have the empathy or sensitivity to understand its proper meaning.
After watching the movie, I made the mistake of coming on here. Cutting across the thoughts of what I had just viewed, and the effect on me of the power of great events being played out on the screen, was the need to contemplate John Bolton.
The reality that I had to face was the discussion about this nasty little man, this pigmy of an official. I read descriptions of his mean temper, of his petty revenges and his small mindedness. I read of how he despises the great institution that once carried our hopes for our poor world and which now lies shattered and broken under the boot of an ignorant power that allows no checks and balances to its craving for hegemony.
By the end of the night, I came to a perverse and startling conclusion.
Nominate this man, this pigmy amongst the giants of past world leaders whose mantle his minor ambassadorial role is supposed to touch. Rip him apart in congressional hearings. Let Barbara Boxer with unrelenting zeal identify his flaws and lies and dissembling. Display to the world his venal and grubby soul. Yet do not stop him being nominated by this President and by this administration.
I do not ever want again to see a Colin Powell, whom the world wanted to respect and trust, appear at the United Nations as your representative. I do not want to see a fine man, who came so close to being a great man, reduced to the poorest of hacks as he desperately tried to provide credibility to a President that has none.
Colin Powell did not change the direction of events in the Security Council. Nor will John Bolton, as the ambassador to it, change the inevitable course of where we are headed. This is a bit part in a sideshow, a charade for the people to believe whilst the determination of real policies takes place in a small room in the White House.
John Bolton is the truest, the most perfect representation of your country now. Let his presence be there on the television screens and in every newspaper. Let just not the world know the features on the face of this administration but let it be clear also to that blind, unseeing and uncaring majority in your country.
You will have to suffer so that more may know the truth about America now. Do so with resoluteness, content that John Bolton is a truth that must be shown. Then, maybe, the giants will emerge.
Glad I posted here. Within just under ten minutes it was eight down the list of recent diaries, one felt it was too sunny a day to get worked up tra la, tra la, and four disagreed that John Bolton should be nominated – as if this was the real message of the diary. But I am grateful for having it explained to me why not. Silly me.
Oh, yeah. And one wants the spelling of “pygmies” corrected to “pigmies” – except, as we all know, there are two ways to spell it.
Sheesh. Thank heavens for New European Times, where Welshman is never criticised, or misunderstood or questioned.
Because I hold the levers, see?
You are holding a conversation with yourself!
And, what is with our poll choices? I picked the only one that a red-blooded, blue-faced, ugly American could choose…show the US’s collective ass in the visage of John Bolton.
I’ve enjoyed all of the “Bolton is a butthead” stories this week, but my favorite is from Martin Schram called “Weasel of the Sea”:
It happened when the senators started questioning Bolton about a topic that sends media eyeballs rolling upward in reflexive ennui – even though it is about a weapon we need in our war against terrorists.
It is the Law of the Sea Treaty, a convention signed and ratified by virtually every seafaring nation – except the United States. It is championed by the U.S. military and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark said the treaty “supports U.S. efforts in the war on terrorism” because it provides America “the freedom to get to the fight, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, without a permission slip.”
If a rogue ship is carrying a terrorist’s nuclear weapon, this global convention means the United States can ask the nearest ship, from any country, to intercept it – pronto. Other strong supporters include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar, the Indiana Republican, and such politically strange sea-bedfellows as the oil industry and environmentalists.
There is a whole back and forth between Bolton and Paul Sarbannes where Bolton is against it, for it, has no knowledge of it, revisionist historied it and was slapped in the head with it. Classic.
Schram’s article is posted here among other places. God Bless Google.
Now, Welshman, go home and take in my new series on political and social commentary in music
… because of all you good people posting on there.
My rubbish is only good enough for DKos so why mess my own place up? 🙂
Oh da irony of it all.
..it may be helped because I have been over there and now explained that there is an element of irony in this piece.
Yep I..R..O..N..Y 🙂
I am not going back there because apparently I did not ruthlessly expose enough that Stalin as a BAD MAN.
In case Booman Tribune people need it pointing out for them, which thankfully I am sure you don’t, Stalin was, indeed, a BAD MAN. O.K?
know that Josef was actually naughty. A naughty bad man.
When I was little, I thought he was from Atlanta. I never could figure out how he came to power over there in Russia.
Josef was actually naughty. . . . When I was little, I thought he was from Atlanta.
Is there some obscure historical reference I’m missing here? Josef Dougashvili in — oh, I get it. Georgia. D’uh.
When I was little, a friend of my family’s was from Georgia, and he always insisted that the Civil War monument of the soldier looking pensively south (every New England town has one) really marked the northernmost advance of the Georgia cavalry. So you see how twisted some of my historical references are. 😉
I agree that I cannot imagine a more true representation of our current administration for the UN. At least he wouldn’t have Colin Powell’s veneer of respect that Bush and his minions hid behind in the lead up to the Iraq war.
Ugh. I want my country back NOW.
If one’s opponent decides to enter the lists upon an Ass, cheer him heartily and don’t offer to lend him a horse.
Are you going to the home show with the ladies?
I am tempted to hit the 4pm Phils-Braves game.
that attempted to have his horse elected to the Senate.
I await the day when Bush attempts to replace Ted Kennedy with his Range Rover.
He’s already doing it. It’s called Mitt Romney.
But there’s a problem here. You misunderstand. This is real writing!! It’s difficult for people in the context of dkos, which—I’m going to offend and anger a great many people by saying this finally—is becoming a place to post the most juicy scandal or scoop in the shortest period of time in order to get on the rec. list, to sit back and relect on a somewhat introspective essay with thoughtful metaphors and stylistic elegance.
Of course, it’s not Markos’ fault that his site is so popular. It’s noone’s fault. There’s just too much. It’s passed way beyond saturation level,IMO, perhaps. Anyway, just some observations of my own, FWIW…
As to Bolton, it is something of a side issue. So I voted for that option. But sex sells and sexy-sounding potential scandals will defintiely make the rec. list if you break them on time. Both the left and the right seems to me to be turning toward who can catch the other in the act,as it were, and break out the story.
Gilgamesh, I know what you mean about the rapid response, beat-ya-to-the-punch nature of dKos.
But like here at the B-trib, there is still a great deal of fine and inspiring writing going on.
The Welshman was the first at dKos that I subscribed to because the writing quality was so consistent and not the least bit relying on sensationalism. Not to say it wasn’t there, buthe never had to hang his hat on it.
In case you missed it, I’d recommend Stirling Newberry’s piece from yesterday on ‘Enlightened Populism’
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/15/92421/0553.
It is the things that goosebumps are made of, but then I’m easy.
of course…in fact, i would almost say there’s an overabundance of quality. There’s an overabundance of sensationalism. There’s an overabundance of eveything!!
That’s all I meant to suggest. As a result, a lot of good stuff inevitably gets pushed out and you also wind up with a certain level of chaos.
“I have always deplored and deprecated table-pounding and name-calling; such methods, I have long believed, are normally self-defeating defense mechanisms. On the world scene, practiced by governments, such manners are tragically stupid and ultimately worthless.” [Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pp. 148][emphasis mine]
Indeed. Fill the halls with “christian” fundamentalists, submit the cockamamie legislation drafted by the un-dead in the middle of the night, and by all means, send the pygmie to New York.
Annan does not suffer fools (or demagogues) gladly. He let the volume rise to fever pitch on U.S. claims of fraud and nepotism; then pointed out that the administration not only knew, but participated in abuse of the program.
Let the little guy rage against the empire. Maybe he’ll even take his shoe off and pound the table.
My fear, however, is that Bolton will get into the U.N. and that the country will not see that he is the real face of the Bush misadministration, given the poor state of the American press.
Barbara Boxer said he needs anger management, but the more I read about him the more I think he is seriously deranged and needs psychiatric assistance.
What is the title of the Hemingway letters book? I have an interest in researching one of his friends, and if it’s a book I haven’t seen, should probably read it for whatever letters between Ernesto and the friend may be in there.
Quote: “What is the title of the Hemingway letters book? I have an interest in researching one of his friends, and if it’s a book I haven’t seen, should probably read it for whatever letters between Ernesto and the friend may be in there.”
I do rather wish you hadn’t asked this. I have over twelve hundred books scattered throughout the house, none of them classified, none of them sorted. They occupy every nook and cranny. I know exactly what I have, but haven’t a clue where they are (It is even worse for about seventy of my paperbacks from university days. Each was bound in a smart looking cover which are great except they have no title. They are in the hallway next to the downstairs toilet. It is my delight to grab one in passing. I have no idea what I will be reading. Townsend describing Inner City Poverty or Maupassant describing some delectable affair or Huxley scaring me about a futuure world that is now here).
My first pass for fifteen minutes has produced nothing. I shall find it, though, and will leave you a message on New European Times tomorrow evening.
Meanwhile, you have yet another clue as to why my much younger and much smarter and quite delighful ex-wife left me. Aha. I sense the sadness again but at least I still have my books.
Oh, Welshman, your guilty secret is safe with us. You, too, are a bookaholic!
Been there, done that. I am no longer allowed in bookstores unaccompanied.
While I’d be glad of the title if the book is findable (and asked only because you seemed to be saying you’d acquired it just the other day), do not derange yourself, as Jerome’s friends might say.
I wish we had has FEW books as welshman
my wife has ana AB from Harvard, and M Litt from Oxford and a Ph. D from George Washington. I have my BA, two masters, and have dropped out of two additional masters programs and two doctoral programs. Given all the boxes that arrive regularly from Amazon and packages from Alibris (used books), and how many bags I walk away from Borders or Barnes and Noble on teacher discount days, I would be afraid to count. I know that we are out of book shelves and even cartons. Right now on the stairway next to the wall there are over 300. Gvien my wandersing through religion (collections of Episcopalian related, including most of Chalres Williams and C S Lewis), E Orthodox related, Jewish related {and I do teach Comp Religion], the study in which I write this has mainly religion, and has at least 1,000 books. Then there are all my books on music (undergraduate degree), … you get the picture.
Having just done my taxes, I know that we gave away 150 books this year, as well as 100 copies of back educational journals.
What is really scary is not that we have so many books, but that we have read most of them .. not laways completely — some are for my wife’s reserach of truning her dissertation into a book, some I use fo reference purposes of my own.
I do know that during summer vacation in 2004 I read 65 books in two months — of course, i was not blogging so much then.
And one reason sometimes I disappear from the blogs is because I find books more rewarding to read than much of what appears in places like dailykos — after the 10th diary of the day on Dewaly or Schiavo or Frist it does get a bit annoying.
But then we can comment on one thing — at least we are reading beyond merely the Bible and the interpretations thereof of certain right wing preachers — of course, with a Masters from a Catholic seminary I ahve read the entire thing including apocrypha a nubmer of times, and a fair anount of scholarship, which is why I know how badly some of our “preachers” interpret it.
Oh well… just venting a bit ….
methinks I’ll find a book i want to read and go soak in a tub full of salts — perhpas Masada from the dead Sea. I refuse to take my laptop into the bath with me!!
Even I am not quite that bad! However, I have over the years done quite a bit of reviewing for print, so I have stacks and stacks of review copies hanging about.
Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961
by Ernest Hemingway, Carlos Baker available at Amazon.com
John Bolton is the truest, the most perfect representation of your country now. Let his presence be there on the television screens and in every newspaper. Let just not the world know the features on the face of this administration but let it be clear also to that blind, unseeing and uncaring majority in your country.
Oh, so sadly true.
As for dKos, the Front Page is turning into PR for party hackery, and many great diaries slide off in favor of sophomoric arguments over minutae. Take it as a compliment that most of them didn’t get it.
How incredibly wonderful to have written about books and movies so lyrically and then tied that to the perfectly horrid Johnny Mustache while making perfectly wonderful sense.
Speaking of Boxer I think I remember her asking Bolton about his famous quote about him thinking those ten stories would or should just disappear and her asking him then rhetorically just why is it he wants to work in a place that isn’t there….oh man that was sweet.
Even if by some chance Bolton didn’t get nominated we’d just get some other jackass with maybe a lower profile. So I think you’re onto something with his becoming our ambassador and doing his worst. Maybe that will finally start waking up the public to georgie boy having no sense of what it takes to be President or doing the right thing for the country.
I like, too, to see which books are languishing there with their dust covers in harsh primary colours to make them stand out on the shelves, now like tawdry street tarts desperately looking for a john in Manchester at lunchtime, when the bright daylight does them no favours. I love to see the ridiculous biographies of minor celebrities condemned to the cheapest of bins so that this final statement on their petty lives is all that remains of the champagne and canapés of the book’s ambitiously hopeful launch party.
My hat is off, W-man.