Tag: World War II

Give Up the Funk (Tear The Roof Off That Sucker)

I started watching Doom Patrol on DC Universe the other night, and I have to confess I was a bit intrigued–much more so than I was when Titans did their crossover and wound up at the Doom Patrol house for one episode. That episode didn’t encourage me to tune in when Doom Patrol got its own series, but I’m glad I did tune in. I love that Brendan Frasier and Matt Bomer are basically doing voice-over work, as their characters are robots and completely bandaged from head to toe; but there was also a wonderful sequence where we learn that before the accident that left him burned beyond recognition over all of his body, Matt Bomer’s character was a deeply closeted gay Air Force pilot in the 1960’s, with a wife and child. It was a lovely, sad, and poignant touch, and one that we, in our modern times, don’t think about much: what it was like to be queer between World War II and Stonewall. I am finding myself drawn more and more to historical queer life, to be honest; it’s fascinating finding the clues and small, almost completely eradicated traces of queers in history. Maybe one of these days I’ll write a book set in the past…I have an idea for one or two, the problem being I don’t have a whole lot of time for research–I don’t have a lot of time for anything these days, it seems.

We also started watching Fleabag last night, and it’s quite interesting. Very different from most other shows, really; I can’t think of anything it’s even remotely like. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is fantastic in the lead, and she also created the show and writes it.

Yesterday I worked on a manuscript I’m editing; I intend to do some more work on that today as well. There are a million other things I need to do as well today; I started making a red velvet cheesecake for a co-worker’s birthday yesterday–I made the cheesecake part, today I have to do the red velvet cake, layer them together, and make the frosting–and I also need to do some cleaning. I’d like to get some writing or editing of my own stuff done today, too–but who knows how much time I will have to get around to doing any of it? It’s so easy for me to get off-track, and I am very easily distracted, as we all know. It’s really all a matter of juggling and staying motivated. The last two nights I slept deeply until around three-thirty in the morning; after that my sleep was spotty–more awake just lying in bed or half-awake until I finally got up both mornings. Yesterday I wound up being very tired in the afternoon and wound up taking a nap; having Scooter get into my lap and fall asleep never helps; Paul and I think he drains our energy like some kind of cat-vampire; he always cuddles up to one of us and falls asleep….and before too long, whichever one of us he is lying on is asleep as well.

Naturally, he doesn’t cuddle up to me at night when I’d like to use his sleep-inducement powers.

Anyway, I feel rested this morning and I’m awake early, which means I can get a lot done if I close my browsers and ignore the rest of the world. The house is a mess, as always, and I’ve been letting things slide (I’ve not done the living room floor in quite some time and it’s very apparent), and perhaps today I can make the time to get some of it under control.

I have a short work week this week; National HIV Testing Day is a week from this Thursday, which means I have to work eight hours instead of the usual four; since our pay week runs from Friday to Thursday, that means I get to take this coming Friday off for a lovely three day weekend. Needless to say, the month is completely winding down and I still haven’t gotten the first draft of the WIP done, but I think it’s slowly starting to come together for me–what I need to get the rest of it done. I think it’s going to be pretty good once it’s finished but who the hell knows? I’m really not sure of anything anymore, to be perfectly honest, particularly when it comes to writing. One would think it would get easier the more you do it, you know? But it never gets easier…if anything, it seems like it’s getting harder the older I get.

And on that note, I’d best get going on everything.

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Do You Hear What I Hear

Saturday!

There’s not any college football today, so I have literally no excuse not to get anything accomplished today. NOT LIKE THAT HAS EVER STOPPED ME FROM DOING NOTHING BEFORE.

I do have to run uptown to get the mail; I ordered a backpack and it was delivered yesterday, and I simply must make groceries. The Saturday before Christmas is perhaps not the best time to be running errands, but on the other hand, they’re always hellish so why should today be any different?

Yesterday, despite the positive attitude with which I began the day, disintegrated rather rapidly into something awful; one of those horribly frustrating days where everything goes wrong through absolutely no fault of your own. You know those days–the kind where you think to yourself I shouldn’t have left the house today, but I did, so the only thing to do is endure it until you’re safely home again.

And endure it I did, until I finally walked through my front door, groceries in hand and backpack draped over one shoulder, relieved and never more happy to get back to the Lost Apartment in quite some time.

I did spend the rest of the day doing that most relaxing–to me–of endeavors; cleaning the house. A lot of laundry and dishes had piled up during the course of the week, and I got that taken care of, and then relaxed in front of the television for the rest of the evening, pretty much emotionally and physically spent. I should probably have written some last night; but as I said earlier, there’s no college football today and therefore the day yawns and stretches before me with a plethora of possibility. There are only nine days left in this year and decade (I did see somewhere yesterday someone claim that the new decade technically doesn’t begin until 2021; fuck that, we celebrated the turn of the century in 2000 so we can celebrate a new decade when the number for the decade in the year changes, trash). It will be a very strange couple of weeks at work–the weeks of the holidays are always kind of weird, particularly when they fall on week days and break up the work week; I always feel off-kilter and not properly balanced, for some insane reason that makes sense only to me.

I am now up to the outbreak of World War II in  Richard Campanella’ Bourbon Street, and yet here again is an interesting period of New Orleans history that could make for an interesting crime/espionage novel. New Orleans had a small Japanese community at the time;  even bigger German and Italian ones. The Quarter itself, and the city, were way-stations for the war; we also had a shipbuilding industry, and of course, the Higgins boats that made the Normandy invasion were thought up and built here–the street the WW2 Museum sits on is named for Mr. Higgins, whose first name is escaping me at the moment–and so, yes, New Orleans during the second World War would make for an interesting novel or series of short stories or both, quite frankly.

I also want to carve some time out this morning for Laura Benedict’s The Stranger Inside, which should not be taking me this long to read, quite frankly. It is not the book’s fault; it’s entirely mine, for either being too tired at night to read, or for having a gazillion other things to get done so I can’t take the time to read it.

It’s raining this morning; apparently it rained all night but I slept through it all–yes, after one bad night of insomnia I’ve been sleeping the sleep of the dead ever since that dreadful night that derailed me for a few days from writing. But I intend to write today–after running the errands–and I am also going to try to make it to the gym either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I need to start exercising my body again; I am feeling entirely too stiff and physically frail and weak these days, and the only way around that is to actually put my muscle through their paces. I have also been saying that for years–am very well aware, thank you–but just the stretching and cardio alone will make me feel better about myself, will give me the endorphins I miss so much, as well as the physical exhaustion that makes sleeping that much easier.

Yet another 2019 goal I allowed to go down the toilet.

And on that note, I am going to head back into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

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I Will Remember You

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day; which originally was called Armistice Day. The day began as a remembrance of what was then considered, and called, the Great War. There had never been any war prior that was so awful, so horrific, so bloody. It changed the face of the world…empires crumbled and new nations rose from the ashes of the old. But the peace treaty that ended it was short-sighted and vengeful.

World War I was a horrific experience. “The war to end all wars” was what it was called; in the United States it was sold to Americans as “making (sic) the world safe for democracy”–despite being allied with the despotic autocracy of the Romanov empire in Russia. It was a most hideous war, one that left both the winners and the losers heartily sick of the waste of war and its pointlessness…yet merely served as a prelude to the much more horrific second world war; its conclusion set the stage for the rise of the Fascists in Italy and Germany, and the utter collapse of the German empire around the world, as well as the utter exhaustion and weakness of the surviving empires of the French and the British, set the stage for the rise of Imperial Japan in the Pacific and Asia…this rise ultimately led Imperial Japan into conflict with the United States. So, the “peace” of the first world war planted and fertilized the seeds for the second.

The flower of Europe’s youth died in this war,  in the trenches, in the mud and the wet and the cold. PTSD was first recognized after this war in soldiers who came home; only it was called shell shock back then. The boys who went off to this war came home as men forever changed by what they’d seen and experienced and borne witness to. It was a new kind of war, one presaged by the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. It would take yet another war for humanity to begin to rethink war.

And of course, the existence of nuclear weapons also had a lot to do with that critical rethinking.

I abhor war because I’ve studied it; for me, supporting the troops has always, for me, meant not putting them in unnecessary danger. Wars might sometimes be necessary, but they are, above and beyond all else, waste. Waste of lives, waste of money, waste of resources, all in the service of what is far-too-often an unclear, amorphous goal or purpose. I value the lives of our military, and not only the sacrifice of those serving but of their families, and I don’t think their lives and limbs should be placed in jeopardy without being absolutely certain there is no other alternative, and if they are to be place in such jeopardy, it should be for clearly defined, well understood objectives. I also believe they deserve everything we can, as a country, can do for them after their service. Our VA Hospitals should be the best in the world. No veteran should be homeless or unable to get the help they need to get back on their feet. No service family should be on food stamps, or go hungry, or worry about how to pay their bills or feed and clothe their children.

It’s the absolute least we can do for them.

Happy Veterans’ Day, and thank you for your sacrifice and service.

The Saints won big! Huzzah! GEAUX SAINTS! That was a lot of fun to watch, and I must say, the Saints are looking pretty amazing this year.

I also read “The Compendium of Srem” by F. Paul Wilson, from Bibliomysteries Volume 2, edited by Otto Penzler, for the Short Story Project.

Tomas de Torquemada opened his eyes in the dark.

Was that…?

Yes. Someone knocking on his door.

“Who is it?”

“Brother Adelard, good Prior. I must speak to you.” Even if he had not said his name, Tomas would have recognized the French accent. He glanced up at his open window. Stars filled the sky with no hint of dawn.

“It is late. Can it not wait until morning?”

“I fear not.”

“Come then.”

With great effort, Tomas struggled to bring his eighty-year-old body to a sitting position as Brother Adelard entered the tiny room. He carried a candle and a cloth-wrapped bundle. He set both next to the Vulgate Bible on the rickety desk in the corner.

I’ve not read F. Paul Wilson before; I know of him, of course, and have always meant to get around to reading him…but you know how it is, Constant Reader: too many books and authors, not enough time.

But “The Compendium of Srem” is a terrific story; about a mysterious book that comes to the attention of Torquemada and the Inquisition in Avila. Wilson provides just enough background for the story to place it firmly in its time period: Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, during the time after the reconquest and after Columbus sailed; when they were purifying the country of heresy (Moors and Jews). This story shows how simple it can actually be to write historical fiction–just a dib and a dab lightly dropped into the story, to place it in a context of time and place, without over-embellishing or over-explaining (the dreaded info dump); which of course has put ideas into my head. I greatly enjoyed reading this story, and look forward to reading more of Wilson.

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I Know There’s Something Going On

Yesterday I got notified that one of my favorite comic book runs, DC’s 1988-1992 Starman, is now available digitially on Comixology. I may have squealed like an excited little gay boy. This version of Starman, which came after the Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, was one of my absolute favorite comic series of all time. As a birthday gift to myself, I bought and downloaded the first two issues. I am really looking forward to reading this series again in its entirety. I hope it’s as good as I remember. It never really took off, and was eventually cancelled for low sales, which was a real pity. I’m curious to see what I think about it now that I’m older.

Yesterday was one of the most miserably hot and humid days in New Orleans that I can remember. I took a shower after my workout yesterday morning–and then another after running errands. The thing about humidity that you tend to forget is how it sucks the life right out of you; it’s exhausting navigating and operating and trying to function in it. I have nothing but the utmost sympathy for those who have to work outside in August in New Orleans–meter maids, mail carriers, construction workers, etc.

And last night, we went to see Dunkirk.

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The story of the mass evacuation of the Allied forces at Dunkirk is one that has always stirred me; had the evacution/rescue of the British/French forces there not happened, the war would have been over and Nazi Germany would have won. The way the ordinary British people stepped up, in the face of incredible danger and possible death, and sailed personal boats across the English Channel to help rescue their army is one of the greatest war stories of all time. As soon as I heard that Christopher Nolan was making a film about it I knew I wanted to see it.

And while it took a while for me to go, we finally saw it last night.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more affecting film about the horror of war before.

Nolan’s film is a completely immersive experience, and everything about the movie is designed to keep you anxious and on the edge of your seat the entire running time of the movie. There are only a few, brief moments where you can actually sort of relax; and those brief seconds of respite immediately fade into another rush of tension and adrenaline and anxiety. There is very little dialogue in the movie, and almost all of the emotion is conveyed by the faces of the actors, which is even more affective than over-the-top histrionics would have been.

One of the things I learned from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was that the reality is far harsher and much more horrifying to witness in person than to see on television or on film; the reason Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke is so affecting is the film of the aftermath, after the water was gone and what was left behind, triggers the memories inside my own mind from when I returned and drove around to see the  devastation for myself. A film camera is limited–even in IMAX–to how much it can capture in a shot; the reality of the flood aftermath was immersive; you couldn’t look another direction and not see horror.

As immersive an experience as Dunkirk is, it therefore stands to reason that the horrors faced by the soldiers and sailors and the British citizens in their pleasure boats sailing the channel and watching as war planes flew overhead, witnessing ships being bombed and torpedoed in front of them, was at least a thousand times worse than watching a fictionalized film version in an IMAX theater in Harahan. The choice to show the story from three different perspectives–a soldier wanting to get home, an RAF pilot, and the crew of the private boat Moonstone crossing the channel to answer the call–and to not show those stories unfold in the usual timeline but rather at different times–was a calculated risk that could easily could have failed, turning the movie into a mess that made no sense–but superb editing and cross cuts made it quite effective in unsettling the viewer and ramping up the tension and terror. (I predict many, many technical Oscar nominations for this movie–from sound editing to editing to cinematography–and it will probably win more than a few of them.)

It’s an amazing achievement in film.

Is it historically accurate? Probably not; it leaves the viewer with the sense that it happened over the course of a day or so when it was really a little over a week; all the soldiers and sailors seen on camera were all  white; and obviously some of the characters, if not all of them, were fictional. But…when the credits rolled I was emotionally drained and exhausted, and I am still processing the images I saw.

It also occurred to me, as we drove home in a downpour, if ever there was a time for TCM to schedule a World War II film festival–after the events of the last week or so, it’s now, as some people need, apparently, to be reminded of the horrors that were Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Have a lovely Sunday, every one.