baby please hang on...

I have undertaken A Song of Ice and Fire (now that I'm driving most nights I couldn't come up with any more excuses why not to start {except for the fact that the books [at least the first two!] are ridiculously popular on the library circuit with a typical wait time of several months}) and am attempting to watch along again the HBO adaptation as I'm reading along.

My understanding is that this is easy to do with the first season and first book of the series, and damn near impossible to accomplish thereafter.  I'll try to do it anyway - watching as much as I deem aligned from what I've read, and will try to comment along the way as I go.

But as I am approaching the end of the first book (and first season), I'll make some initial comments, and observations then add (either to this post or in the comments) as I make my way along.

Unlike some other recent takers on of this challenge, I watched all of Game of Thrones as it was airing, and highly enjoyed the series (and yes, even the deemed bad last season, which seemed in a damned hurry, but I thought was overall satisfying).  As it turns out, I may never watch through the entire series again, although all reports are that Mr. Martin is in acceptable enough health he still has two doorstops to write to round out the (planned) 7 book series.  After Stephen King's near death encounter with a van in 1999, I think I sort of made an agreement with myself to not risk an epic fantasy series again that hinges on an author's mortality.  Better to deal with authors who are either safely dead or series that are neatly wrapped up, 

But here we go again - and so far, I'm quite enjoying the ride.

A Game of Thrones (Book 1) / A Game of Thrones (Season 1)

My favorite surprise discovery so far has been the characterization of Tyrion, which I thought as I've been reading through the first book was quite different than the tv series.  I thought of all the casting and acting decisions made for the series that perhaps they had made with Tyrion one of their few mis-steps.  Not that casting Peter Dinklage was a mistake - he is magnificent in this role - but I thought as I was reading through that his take on Tyrion was more grand and epically heroic than the novel was making him out to be, but I realized as I watched the first few episodes that I was mistaken and my memories of Dinklage's take on the character must have been from later seasons.  In this early going, Tyrion is quite as small, in every sense, as he is made out to be in the novel.  Clever and cunning to be sure, but also petty and pitiful - a far cry from the "I drink, and I know things" hero he will grow in to.

The show and novel have some differences to be sure (e.g. in the novel it is Catelyn who insists that Ned Stark must take on the role of Hand of the King, whereas in the show it is Ned's own honor that compels him), but for the most part this is a one-to-one transliteration of the novel, both equally enjoyable and well executed. (7 January 2023)

A Clash of Kings (Book 2) / A Game of Thrones (Season 2)

By something of a fluke of schedule, I began this round by reading nearly a third of the book before even starting in on episode one.  When I did finally get back to the show and watched episode 1 (the only I've revisited up to this point) it felt a bit like a speed round of the book, quickly covering nearly everything I'd read up to that point.

As the season and book have moved along, it has been a fairly even split, and it seems like they may eventually catch up with each other.  There is a lot (as always) that has to be skipped or skimmed over for the filmic version, but what is shown is mostly shown as it was in the novels except for a few specific choices:

• when Arya is brought to Harrenhal, in the show she serves as cup bearer for Tywin Lannister because it makes for better for TV with her interacting with a primary character rather than the way she takes up the role once Roose Bolton and the north take back the castle.
• This difference is exacerbated when Arya asks Jaqen H'ghar to help them free the Northmen to take over Harrenhal in the book, but only asks him to help them escape (which totally is not nothing!) in the show
• So too where Jamie Lannister finds himself in the show in a war camp prison is not so nearly as horrible as the dungeon he is being held in at River Run when he is freed by Brianne of Tarth & Catelyn Stark.
• A fascinating conversation between Davos Seaworth and his son a few minutes into episode 9 of Season 2, where his son is blindly faithful to the Lord of Light and their imminent success, where in the novel Davos's sons are all on separate ships and far from him, but he worries for them as the battle for King's Landing is about to start.

in every iteration (so it seems) Tyrion turns out to be a hero of the night of Stanis' attack on King's Landing.  The Hound - it seems - might be a different case, where he is heroic in battle, but ultimately loses his position (but mostly, like all of us, because he deems himself unworthy rather than anyone else doing it for him...).

The TV show ties up most of the loose threads and aligns fairly well with where this second novel ends, with a few exceptions.  Bran's party remains together at the end of Season 2, whereas in A Clash of Kings, Osha takes Rickon while Bran & Hodor head off in another direction (to keep at least one of the boys safe, the hope is).  Robb Stark also marries a woman in the final episode who (I think) has not even been introduced in the novels as of yet... but mostly we are still aligned at this point. (7 March 2023) 

A Storm of Swords (Book 3) / A Game of Thrones (Season 2:10 - Season 3 - Season 4 - Season 5:1 - 6)

The opening chapter is the perspective of Jamie Lannister (his first of the entire series), and is almost entirely (although very differently)  portrayed in this book 3 while he travels south to King's Landing under the protection of Brienne of Tarth, which almost entirely occurs in the final episode of Season 2..  This final episode of Season 2 also seems to contain a lot of storyline that feels a ways off in the novelization (and the third novel's early chapters seem to have a lot of filling time that never made it to the show). 

As Season 3 of the show begins, the scene north of the wall seems to echo the prologue of Storm of Swords, but the Nights Watch who are far north of the wall are heading home rather than planning a stand against the Wildings - much of the other scenes in the first episode match up to the first 20% of the novel or so.

• Theon Greyjoy's narrative seems to moving forward more quickly in the show than the novel, but it's possible that this is just an illusion as he no longer has any chapters following his progress in the book.  It's possible that as he makes his transition to Reek, he may no longer get a perspective in the book, so his story is ended...
• In this novel - the Red Wedding happens just past the half way point, whereas I just started episode 5, and we won't see it on screen until the penultimate episode of this season.  In many ways, though, this season seems again a straight-up adaptation of this third book - some things are happening out of order from the other, but I think these versions of the same story are both unfolding at about the same pace.
• The Purple Wedding is just a short while after the Red one in book 3 (and in actual show time, I think ends up just being a few episodes after it), so it seems that Book 3 will be taking us well in to Season 4 of the show, without any major noticeable storylines that are far behind the novel.
• Gendry gets taken by Stanis' Red Woman in episode 6, and here's maybe the first point where the show is starting to conflate portions of the novels - Gendry and Robert's bastard from Storm's End whose blood the Red Woman uses get condensed into one character
• As I enter the final 10% of the third novel it has already blown past the end of the third season of the show, and further (I'll figure out exactly how far once I get there as I'm currently on episode 3:8).  The one aspect of the book that is much farther ahead of the show at the end of the third of each iterations is the Wildings and the Wall - the battles at Castle Black and trying to take the Wall have progressed much further in the book and seem to be leaving the show behind. 
• The "Mhysa" moment is a lot more affective in the show because it is the finale of Season 3, whereas its buried in the lost middle of Book 3.  However, Daenerys's story seems to occur in a different order in the books from a show, but hits all of the same notes. 

Book 3 ends AMAZINGLY, and it did not make the show (might have made the Tom Savini version of the show).  I do appreciate that the show gives us the chance to see a lot more perspectives, not just the points of view of the primary characters.  We see the Wildings build-up to their attack on Castle Black and the Wall in a way that it only gets explained afterward when Jon goes to play diplomat / assassin after the attack.  And we get an insight into what Theon Greyjoy's transition to Reek has been like (although, I do sense that this storyline is moving faster in the show than in the book - just as Night's Watch {and particularly the White Walker's} storylines are further ahead in the book than in the show).

Now that I am well finished with the book, and just catching up on episodes it looks like I will reach the end of Season 4 before I run out of material from A Storm of Swards, and while that is undeniable, I am not sure that there is anything happening in the show that hasn't happened in the book yet.  It occurs to me that what is ahead in the show as I watch episode 4:4 seems to be Tommen & Margaery's story - in the book, Tommen is a boy of 8, and while all of the children in the show are older than in the novels (lest the show be banned!).  Jamie also sends Brienne out in search of the Stark girls (or at least Sansa) to bring them to safety in a way that never happens (yet) in the books, and we get the adventures Brienne & Podric!  Stannis and Davos also venture to Bravos in the show (to try to get a loan, exciting banking adventures)

Bran is also way ahead of schedule in the show - he is reaching the Children / (the big GodsWood) by the final episode of Season 4, but isn't anywhere near that in Book 3.  (The Three Eyed Raven seems a lot older and a bit more "Big Trouble in Little China" than I recall him being...).  Right on schedule as the Season 4 finale closes is Tyrion who is in a box on a ship leaving King's Landing with the aid of Varys (24 May 2023)

A Feast for Crows (Book 4) / A Game of Thrones (Season 4:10 - Season 5:1 - 10 - Season 6:6)

Season 5 of the show begins much as Book 4 does - in part - Tywin Lannister's funeral and power-brokering in King's Landing, but the other storylines feel a long way off (either back from Book 3 or things that seem a long way off).  Interestingly, there are no chapters in Book 4 for Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Bran Stark, nor Daenerys Targaryen - whose stories are moving forward in Season 5, so it seems some of the storylines will be a long way off by the end of this book.

Book 4 has had a lot of storyline that mostly never made it in to the show for Brienne on the trail of Sansa Stark (a quite long storyline in the book that gets wrapped up neatly in about 11 minutes of screen time in Episode 2); Cersei recombobulating her power basis in the wake of her father's... wake; the politics of Dorne, and the fate of Princess Myrcella and her King's Guard protector (which seems to have gotten translated into Jamie Lannister heading southward to insert himself in their scene); Samwell's trip to Old Town, which is just a carriage ride in the show, I think (I haven't seen it again yet), but is an arduous boat trip in the book, where he runs in to Arya Stark!; and the Iron Born's sorting out of their new king.

• The religious fervor around the new, more lowly, High Septum and all of his Sparrows is evident in both the book and show, although in the book the church's army is explicitly rekindled by Cersei, whereas their power in the show is a bit more looming and lurking and softer power. (Oh, no, it turns out it's just as explicit on the show once we get a few episodes in to Season 5).
• The battling through this religious fervor is fought through Marjorie in the books, but Ser Loras takes the initial brunt in the show
• Sansa's story is far ahead of things in the show, getting married to Ramsey Bolton, and sending Brienne off.
• And now, after having just finished the book, frack!!, I know TV series (or movies) have to oversimplify plots and sometimes combine characters, but the TV show seems to mark any character with a Valerian Sword for the Last Battle (at least as I recall it now), but a lot has changed here...
• Also, Sansa's betrothal in the book, is all to do with the politics of The Vale (maybe the Boltons are off in her future, but for now), she is being promised to the future heir to Jon Arryn's domain...
• Jorah Mormont takes Tyrion captive to bring him where he's already going in the show, which is a delightful moment that hasn't happened in the book at all.
• Arya (aka Cat of the Canals) seems to actually be on track here in Season 5 / Book 4... she gets blind, and I haven't seen the results of that in either version yet...
• In the book, Jamie Lannister heads to take out the Blackfish (instead of rescuing his daughter from Dorne), and that happens in episode 6 of Season 6

This is the best guess of episodes (Season 5: 1-6 & Season 6:6) for this book, and I've honed and revised as I watch more and start in to the next book, but because A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons happen concurrently, there is just too much happening in the show that hasn't been hinted at yet in the books, I am going to stop watching any more episodes for now, but I feel like episode 6 of Season 6 is worth watching (even if it's a big jump for some bits): 

• Sam is arriving home (in the last chapter of Book 4 he arrives at Old Town, with a plan to return to Horn Hill next) 
• Margaery is playing the devout prisoner, which she is also beginning to do just as Cersei is first imprisoned (not sure if that has happened in the show yet or not).  Margaery's crimes in the books are much more inflated and Ser Loras is the one who is truly accused in the show, rather than him being killed retaking Dragonstone
• Jamie gets sent off to Riverrun...
• Benjen Stark saves Bran & Meera (which may never happen, or is at least a long way off in the books), but it seems to fulfill his role that he had for Sam & Gilly in Book 3, I think (16 June 2023)

A Dance With Dragons (Book 5) / A Game of Thrones (Season 5:1 - 10)

It's funny, the first scene from Book 5 that happens (kind of) in Season 5 is Tyrion getting out of his box, and immediately finding some wine to drink, promptly vomiting that wine, and then drinking some more wine.  While this happens, Vaerys is explaining whose house they are in, and the large cabal that he is a part of (which becomes a huge part of Book 5 with a second Targaryen claimant to the throne, Griff, {aka Prince Aegon Targaryen} none of which will happen in the show).

• Drogon shows up at the end of episode 5:2, which is being hinted at a lot by the book, but ever seems no nearer.  Given the title (ADWD) I suspect all 3 will be running wild, and protecting Dany's interests by the end of Book 5, and probably at least by the end of Season 5 
• There is a lot less religion in Book 5, at least a lot less of The Seven - maybe there's a bit more of the Lord of Light, and in the mid-going of Book 5, Bran Stark is learning a lot more about the Old Gods & the Godwood Trees than we ever learn in the show. 
• Sansa (the real Sansa) is the substitute in Season 5 for a fake Arya in Book 5 who is set to marry Ramsey Bolton.  In the books Sansa is disguised as Alayne, and Arya is actually Jane Poole.
• The death of Ser Janos Slynt in the show feels a lot more shocking having seen in on the show (Season 5:3) and the politics of The Wall are more complicated in the book, more factions and betrayals (and re-betrayals?)
• For Daenerys, it seems things happen a bit out of order - Ser Beresten dies in episode 4 (or just before episode 5) of Season 5, but he's still alive and kicking through nearly 90% of the book.  And Drogon shows up very excitingly in the book, whisking her away, which I remember now will happen in the show (but hasn't yet in episode 6).
• Tyrion, meanwhile has almost completely caught up to his narrative in episode 6, getting captured by Ser Jorah Mormont, and then sold into slavery with him (minus Penny, which is a whole other thing), and then blows right past the books in the show, taking up the role of advisor to Queen Daenerys.

I'm not sure how to follow the goings on in Dorne - with Jamie Lannister and Bronn there - a lot of the political machinations surrounding Myrcella seem to rhyme, and I expect they will both end similarly, but having Jamie there, when in the books he is up retaking Riverrun (and MEETING AN OLD FRIEND!!!) tends to muddy the adaptation a bit.  The Iron Born's story has also been almost entirely ignored in the show so far, except for Theon's suffering.  It seems to me that I need to watch at least as far into the show to see some of that.  Theon & Yara Greyjoy have just been reunited in the book with just a few chapters to go.

I've just about finished up the book this evening, with just the Epilogue to finish, and as I now begin my long wait, here is where things seem to stand:

• The trip to HardHome has been much talked about in Book 5, but has now happened in the show (Season 5: Episode 8)
• Stannis's camp is attacked in the night by Ramsey Bolton in the show (5:9), while in the book Ramsey sends a dire letter to Jon Snow, claiming to have killed Stannis, and ended his claim to the Iron Throne.  In the show, his attack on Winterfell fails, but his ultimate end comes from Brienne, who avenges Renly's death.
• So there's some stuff in the books that could never make it into a show, it's so horrible, but the one thing that isn't in the books (yet at least), but happens in "The Dance of Dragons" (5:9) is that King Stannis burns his daughter alive, as a 'blood of kings' sacrifice.
• While Tyrion did get to her a little early, Daenerys gets saved by Drogon in 5:9, too.
• Cersei makes her walk of atonement in episode 5:10.  Interestingly, in the Epilogue of Book 5, her uncle, Ser Kevin Lannister promises that his niece Cersei will get up to no more in the future.  Needless to say, in the show, she does, a lot, so we will see how that plays out in the Books to Come...
• John Snow is left for dead at the end of episode 5:10, he hasn't gotten up again in the books after he met the same fate in his final chapter, so if Season 6 ever sees him rise, I will perhaps pause, but there is more (I think more from Book 4 than 5) that is missing in the show from what has happened in the books, so I'll venture forward at least a bit, as I finish Book 5.

And so, the book has ended, and now my watch begins - the Epilogue (as several of them have been) was full of unexpected twists and turns.  Lord Varys makes an unexpected appearance (at the end of the show as well), but half a world away), and seems to be throwing King's Landing into chaos.  I will start Season 6, but feel like I won't get very far before almost everything gets ahead of things from the books. 

I Love The World Cup

 This particular version, while hugely problematic due to its occurring in Qatar for a myriad of reasons including the government's penchant for hateful intolerance, human rights problems, the despicable corruption that led to a tiny but wealthy nation with virtually no soccer culture being chosen by FIFA to host the World Cup despite the lack of infrastructure and proper climate to host a summer-time tournament, has had an awful lot of really brilliant soccer (albeit, a lot of my favorite brand which is underdog and upset soccer).

I am delighted that the host nation lost all three of their matches, and were embarrassingly and appropriately dispatched from the tournament before any other team, and we now sit an hour before the kick-off of the US Men's National Team final group stage match against Iran.  It's a simple proposition for the US - we win and we move on to the knock-out stage tournament of the top 16 teams.  We are ranked higher and truly are better than Iran's team, and we haven't won a match yet (just 2 draws), so if you can't win at least one of your group stage matches, then really, you don't deserve to move on.

I've got high hopes, and although it now looks like we'd most likely be matched up against the Netherlands in our Round of 16 Match (unless Wales win their match against England that kicks off at the same time or we win by more than 4 goals today and England - Wales ends in a draw), the Dutch have seemed a bit beatable this tournament so it wouldn't necessarily be the death sentence it might have been in other years for us.

To enhance the tournament, I've been listening to After The Whistle, a World Cup podcast with Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard from Ted Lasso) and Rebecca Lowe (an NBC Premier League commentator).  The two make a superb pairing with a British expat who talks about football professionally, but is an unabashed partisan for England on this show and an American fake soccer coach who used to live in and learned to love soccer in The Netherlands and is rooting for "The Guys" (his term for USMNT) and has a side thing for the Dutch.  It's a good listen...

But for now, it's all about this match this afternoon, and getting through.  I'm not usually a rah-rah fan for the US teams in Olympic or other competitions, but at the World Cup, because we are Underdogs, but I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN (is that still a chant that we do??)

Gooooaaaaallll!!!!

 11 October 2022

I've heard it said that it's important to write down your goals, or better yet, tell people about them, and therefore create some semblance of accountability.  I've never been a big fan of the stuff, myself (although I was for a while trying to create some regular accountability meetings with JP et al, which for one reason or another never stuck).

Well, ever since I read Stephen King's On Writing (which is not yet being catalogued here*, but could be) I have had in the back of my mind Steve's tautological assertion that if you want to think of yourself as a writer, you have to write, and his definition of that was 1,000 words per day "when you're working on something", 6 days per week (although he himself he said didn't tend to take a day off he allowed for it if you're so inclined).  I took this one small slice of King's great book about the craft of writing, and have at various times committed myself to producing just that amount of writing, though only very occasionally and in fits and starts.  This blog, in fact, is the result of that effort (zombies notwithstanding), although some of you who are particularly strong in the art of arithmetic may catch on to the fact that this blog does not, in fact, always publish 1,000 words of content every day.  "Very astute, hm!?, Dodger," as Sol Cohen might say.  There have, indeed been other outlets for the word count dump - including journaling and free-writing, a not inconsiderable quantity of drafts that have not yet been posted to this blog, the fiction and the academic and non-academic non-fiction drafts that sit in the various stacks or sacks or hard drives or cloud drives of my biographical path - although for the most part the days these last 22 years or so since I read King's book have been without 1,000 words, and I am therefore not, sad to say, a writer, perhaps, most notably, perhaps, because, I have not really

published any of the quantity of prose that I've been accumulating and producing lo these many years.

But then, I once again read the introduction to Stephen King's Four Past Midnight, which I'm planning to start reading again shortly again some 20+ years after first encountering it (and could also rightly include here*, but because I'm revisiting in toto, I won't, at least for now).  In the intro, King talks about publishing this book of four novellas, and some of the financial implications (in passing) of publishing this book and another, similarly structured one some 7 years earlier (and also, oddly, about Robin Yount).  But then King talks about the writing of these novellas (and of his writing in general), and how he does that just for himself (and to keep himself sane, he says), and it occurs to me (not for the first time) that I don't really need to publish anything to be a writer - to be an author, maybe, but not a writer.  All I have to do that is to write, right?  

And so (as I guess I have done at least once before here), I commit myself again to the 1,000 word goal, and the goal of being a writer.

My, that was easy.  I'm done now.

* Initially, my plan had been to post this as part of my Post of Lost Lasts (an ongoing post project whereby I list all the things that would belong in my Arfives {an archive of all past Last 5s}, but I either saw / read / etc. in their entirety before the beginning of the archive or was otherwise missed) as a joke about accountability, because no one in their right minds would still be reading updates that I am making to this post in October 2022 nearly 3 years after the original post^, and so the idea of writing goals to be accountable to in that post would be pretty funny.  But then, as it turned out, I thought this post was actually kind of valuable and so re-post it here.

^ for more quixotic perpetual posts that nobody will likely ever read, see The Star Trek Chronology.

Potentialities, or Could Walter and Martin have been friends?

Earlier this year (about a month or so before squirrel* {BS}), I started again to read works by one of my top two "favorite"^ writers, Walter Benjamin, whose first volume of his collected writings in English I finished in toto last July.  To be sure, I've read a lot of these three collections that I own (I have Volumes 3, 2 & 1 in my collection the first {or the 3rd, depending on your perspective} of which I received as a "gift / bribe" from Malynne at the end of the first course I took with her "Cults of Personality: Hitler, Stalin Mao").  

This second volume has begun with quite a lot of short reviews and happenings-related short pieces rather than the deeper philosophical pieces that he's most known for (if Benjamin can be said to be well known in any capacity).  The reason for this is clear, with Benjamin as a young man in is mid-20s he was struggling post university to find work and publishing these short, timely works wherever he could.  Two such articles published just a couple weeks apart in a couple different newspapers were both clearly derived from one single meeting / conversation / interview with André Gide, and another couple were (very) short reviews of a book by Karl Gröber.  What's amazing to me is not the brilliant extent to which he so brazenly double dips (nor the fact that you used to just be able to do book reports and send them to a publication and get paid for it!), rather it's the way that all of it is dripping with intentionality, but so rarely concerns itself with execution.

Por ejemplo, in Benajmin's interview with André Gide, Gide repeatedly discusses the lecture that he had planned to given while he was visiting Berlin (his visit to Berlin being the occasion of Benjamin's meeting with him), but that he has been so distracted by such visits and because of the nature of Berlin life, "the leisure [he] had counted on never arrived," and he never got the chance to write the lecture. And so, instead of giving a lecture, he just vaguely outlines the ideas he had intended to cover to Benjamin, who dutifully laps them up and writes them up for two separate German newspapers, and his (Gide's) work is "complete". 

I love this concept of doing something just by saying it out loud.  Come to think of it, this is rather the same method of work employed by Peter from my time at MPS, a deep underlying faith that if you just talk about what you want to have happen it will come into being (although in this latter case it involved employing an entire staff of people who were basically there to just try and discern his wishes, and then carry out all of these whims as much as possible). In the earlier case of Benjamin and his contemporaries, the focus is much more on the potentiality of having had a great idea, and then thinking about how great it was, and not concerning yourself terribly with the fact that it never came to fruition.

Another thing that I find compelling about Walter Benjamin is that he is a near exact contemporary of my grandfather, Martinus Kvidt.  Born just 9 months apart, Benjamin on the pre-anniversary of my own wedding on 15 July 1892, and Martin on MKE day 14 April 1893, they were both part of The Lost Generation of their respective countries, and while my grandpa was off to Europe to fight in World War 1, Benjamin was a country or two away studying away at university.  

I'm not entirely sure why, but I have always been interested in synchronicities - the phenomenon of things things happening at the same time in different places (and in different worlds, even - fictional and historical and historical fictional or futural historical...).  For years, I have tried to find (or create) a calendar app that would allow for historical events to be created throughout the past (weirdly, google calendar seems to have an odd glitch {or maybe it's actually iCal that has the glitch} where you can create some events in the far distant past and they will sometimes reappear, so I sometimes am able to re-discover that George McFly was murdered on March 15, 1973 {or it possibly could have been early in the morning of the 16th; anyway the same week as when the Watergate break-in guy was being paid off...} while looking through my calendar, but other times not, as the event appears and disappears unpredictably on my Calendar app).

I like to think about contemporaries in history, art, cinema (like, for instance what was going on in 1999 cinema that made it such a spectacular sampling of content while the history of that moment wasn't especially exciting - although we were on the brink of a lot that would happen in just the next few years and ultimately set up much of what we find around us today...), literature and also to consider the generations looking back at their influences from prior generations (a process that I would have thought I could have generalized as a faster and faster process, with TikTokkers citing Taylor Swift as major influence {some 10 years earlier}, whereas Benjamin and many thinkers of his era largely looked back Centuries, and in particular 150 years give or take to the Romantic Era of German literature {your Goethes & your Schillers, etc.}, but I think this tends to over-generalizing the history of cultural influencers {ikr!?}.

Perhaps the greatest of these Influencers of the 19th Century (don't worry, I'm bringing this in for a landing) is the Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison of his era, John Keats, who died at 25 and then suddenly thereafter became a famous and great poet.  Keats is of course most famous for writing the poem that you read in high school, "Ode to a Grecian Urn" and for aggrandizing the concept of Negative Capability.

 Negative Capability, Keats called when one is “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after facts and reason.” 

More than anything, this concept seems like the philosophical equivalent of the thinking without necessarily doing life philosophy we were talking about before (rather like the "Harold Hill Think Method" of marching band instruction!, "la-di-da-di-da-di-daaa").

*We had a moment this past spring, where we encountered a full-on squirrel nest in the engine block of our erstwhile Ford Edge, a vehicle that had had (before and after) A LOT of other issues once it was rapidly wandering out of warranty.  It took some help, but we have finally found our way out of that Capitalist death trap, and are generally on to lower and worse things, but at least out of that! 

an interregnum

 I am currently existing within a time period where I know which ubiquitous 90s song Sister Hazel is responsible for. (hint: "It's hard to say what I see in you--u-u!")

They, evidently, had a song on the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack (they announced that at their show before playing said song, and I shouted, unexpectedly, "I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!" which I do, but nonetheless didn't expect to yell), but Brooke & I went and watched 10 Things the very same evening that we got home from seeing Sister Hazel, after hearing that very same song after they announced it was the song, and still was not able to pick their song out of the movie lineup.

I'm convinced every 90s one hit wonder band (and maybe some 3/4 hit wonders) should learn and perform the hit songs from Sister Hazel, Del Amitri, Deep Blue Something, Blind Melon, etc. and play those songs throughout their set and then be like, "nah, that one's not ours!"

Much better sets overall, I think - without the pressure of playing every song you've got in your arsenal when everyone is just waiting for your last song before you leave so they can hear the one they know.

[this post feels a bit like a really overly long mean tweet and i am sorry for that.]

Birdwatching in greater San Diego County...

 We were sitting in the hot tub of the pool area at our (?) resort (?) [not pictured - you're welcome] with another couple from Des Moines when four green parrots flew overhead seemingly on a mission in a perfect straight line formation.

At first we all speculated as to whether the animals were recent escapees from the San Diego Zoo or Safari Park (which we had each dutifully visited one of earlier in the week).  After all, a dog had just a few days prior broken in to the San Diego zoo to meet some gorillas, so it didn't seem outside the realm of the probable that an escape had occurred.

After a little googling, though, it became clear that wild parrots have lived in and around Ramona, California, possible since as far back as the 1950s.  Non-native, for sure, but hell, it's California - everyone is from somewhere else!

After spying the same pack of the parrots the following evening at about the same time heading along the exact same path, we decided that they had a daily pattern, and we could capture some photographic evidence of them the following evening... Best laid plans, and all that:

These are they, truly, even though they're hard to see and don't appear at all green in this picture it's a pair of the set of four (or similar compatriots), but I barely caught them.  They tricked me, you see - by flying overhead in the opposite direction about 30 minutes earlier than when we had decided was their appointed time.  We were in the pool, and although I did make sure we got out of the pool to be closer to our phones at their appointed time, I didn't really fully expect them to come back the other way as they had the previous two nights - but indeed they did, and I scrambled for my phone and snapped this pic (and another one of entirely empty blue sky).

So, it seems obvious to me now that each day at about 4:45pm PT the parrots fly east into the desolate nowhere land beyond San Diego Country Estates, and hang out there doing something for about 30 to 45 minutes - whereafter they immediately bee-line it back westward to wherever they are most of the rest of the time.  Nuts, right!!??

Unfortunately, we won't ever get to find out what it is they do, because a mile or so east of here seems to be where the world ends... Even though google maps seems to think that there's a road there (and there is something that looks a bit like a mediocre driveway that's marked with an ominous {and very non-official looking} sign that reads NO EXIT), I didn't attempt it.  

It was reminiscent of a "Private Road" I encountered in Platte County, Wyoming when I was heading home from the Great American Eclipse.  I, and approximately 400,000 people from Colorado and California, had just witnessed the astounding event, stood around for a few minutes looking at each other appreciating the grandeur of nature, then got into our cars and started heading home on one of the approximately 4 roads in the entire county.  I'd been planning to head south get on the interstate and run in to I-80 to cut across Nebraska on the way home, but it soon became clear everyone was heading south, and there would be very little progress that way today.  So I asked google for a detour to take me back north to I-90, and it kindly obliged with a route that seemed a lot less trafficky than the one I was on.  After a turn off (where I was following a dozen or so industrious detourers and followed by a dozen or so more) and a half mile on a very minor road, we passed a sign that read "Private Road", but I didn't think much of it.  I'd been on lots of "Private Roads" which in the East and Midwest generally meant a bunch of rich neighbors paid a community to get their actual road listed as "private" and also to pay cops to harass anybody in a non-luxury vehicle.  In the West, though, it turns out that Private Road can mean "my road" as in "my driveway" that passes directly between my house and my garage and as our impromptu caravan approached the homestead we saw that the whole family (at least 3 generations, it seemed) had come out to watch us drive through their yard as they angrily shook their heads or at times yelled at each of us drivers in turn.  This was Wyoming, after all, the sort of place someone is as likely to shoot you as anywhere for approaching their property.  But there was safety in numbers and collective stupidity and American tourism.

And so we play tourist once more, this time particularly enjoying the birds (our favorite, Big Black Bird, is not pictured here, but are a couple more that we've gotten to know this week {I think an Acorn Woodpecker and a female Western Bluebird, but I could be wrong}).  These we've enjoyed as much as anything here - the puzzle and the pool and a Harry Potter marathon and a couple games of Scrabble (I won both) and Shuffleboard (Brooke won both) and all of the other things that we are supposed to do when traveling.

the eating the drinking the shopping the viewing oh my indeed

Forest are Magic! (or, So Long and thanks for all the Fish)

Source: fourFourTwo.com

Lower tier football fandom from across the pond has been a work in progress these last many years... I've been a fan of international soccer since 1990, when I was in Germany with my family during Italia '90 (the first World Cup Final that the United States had qualified for in my lifetime {and in fact the first time within the living memory of almost all Boomers!}).  The US fared poorly in that tournament, but West Germany ended up winning, and we were staying in West Berlin on the night that Germany qualified for the final.  There was an impromptu parade of joy and humanity that lasted all night, and I remember waking up in our hotel room, brushing my teeth on the balcony and looking down on the Ku'damm the next morning as the festivities continued, and some German fan who'd been partying all night raised his beer can to me.

The concept of club soccer first occurred to me, I think, on my visit to Nottingham, England nearly a decade later, when I had a stopover at the start of a spring break in Europe, and we watched a match out at the pubs. It's only now, 23 years later, that I'm realizing the match on TV had to be a Notts County affair (because Forest didn't have a match that mid-week that I was in town).  Watching a fan base come together over soccer felt different, because of the limited chances and scoring within a match, so I decided to become a fan of Nottingham Forest, and they were subsequently relegated from the Premier League a couple months later.  Following a Premier League team in 1999 and into the early 2000s was hard enough, but lower tiers - forget about it, so yahoo.sports.co.uk became a near constant tab on my computer for the next decade or so, repeatedly refreshing the browser during big matches to get score updates.

Meanwhile, I spent the remainder of that football season in Münster, Germany, which is Borussia Dortmund country, so I selected them as a Bundesliga club that I would follow, although I was never as invested in their success. But I did enjoy their success, and when their bad-ass manager, Jürgen Klopp, moved into the Premier League in 2015, I decided I should be a Liverpool fan for the Premier League - because clearly, Forest were still a long long away from top flight competition, and as much as I was enjoying following Forest's progress (now on Twitter instead of Yahoo), Liverpool had matches I could actually watch on a regular basis.  

Just a couple years later (at the start of the 2017-2018 season), ESPN+ started to show matches from the lower English leagues, so for the first time, once every 4 or 5 weeks, I got to watch a Nottingham Forest match.  It was also the first season under the new ownership of Greek oligarch Evangelos Marinakas (he bought it from Kuwati oligarch Fawaz Al-Hasawi in May 2017), and in just over five short (long, long, long) years - we are back in the Premier League!

And so it is, that I have to say goodbye to a "favorite" team.  While my selection of Liverpool was fairly arbitrary - a coaching hire - I've come to appreciate their fan base (not least here in Milwaukee!), and to cheer alongside them.  Thus, my (sub)title - which I now understand to be a malapropism - Scousers (people from Liverpool, but also more specifically Liverpool FC fans) are named after a local stew called scouse (or originally lobscouse), which I mistakenly thought had fish in it, but instead is a beef (or lamb) stew that is traditionally eaten while out to sea!

So, while I have been a lousy under-performing fan of Liverpool and Dortmund (and don't even get me started on Minnesota United FC!), I've been here for some years now of Nottingham Forest, and watching nearly every match these last several years on iFollow and ForestTV (with full, elaborate, BBC Nottingham radio commentary from Colin Fray).  The Garibaldi Red Podcast has also been a huge friend since it started in early 2020 - just before the world went bonkers, and I hope you will follow along with me at Three Lions Pub in Shorewood, or wherever we land to watch matches: MKE_nffc on twitter...