The Rebel on the Range

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Henry Allen in the WSJ on the film I consider to be the first revisionist Western:

Only “High Noon” can explain “High Noon.” It is no more explainable than Michelangelo’s David, a world in itself, self-defining. The artistic genius of the movie is that somehow we utterly support Kane, though we can’t say why.

It shows us what existentialism called “authenticity.” Kane defines himself by what he does rather than what he is. If his motive is honor, it’s an honor so foolish as to be dishonorable. No psychoanalytic agonies drive him—he takes sole responsibility for himself and the people affected by his decision.

With Amy taking up a gun too, Kane wins the fight.

There is no better expression for existentialism than the Western. The Western throws a spotlight on the person by himself on a vast and empty stage, a dry and thirsty landscape haunted by bad men. And yet — Kane is saved by his formerly pacifist wife. In Once Upon a Time in the West, Harmonica has his vengeance on Frank only after working with Cheyenne and Jill to eliminate Frank’s gang. There’s no army to help either man; there’s no tin-starred justice or the weight of the state to put things right. They ate their vegetables and paid their taxes but nobody cares. It’s just the individual, alone — alone except for the commitments made to others who’ve found themselves dropped into the same bleak universe.

Recent Reads

~ Jackson ~ 2 Comments

The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans
Lawrence N. Powell
Harvard University Press, March 2012 (Amazon | B&N)

I spend so much time dinging academic historians and their usually constipated prose that I’m obligated to call out an exception when it hits the shelves. This isn’t a definitive history of the city — it stops soon after the Louisiana Purchase, with the Battle of New Orleans as an epilogue — but, frankly, a complete recitation of NOLA during the 19th century, particularly during the Civil War, would fill a thick volume all its own. Instead Powell focuses on the 1700s, deftly explaining the events leading up to New Orleans’s improbable siting, followed by the convoluted real-estate scheming that shaped it (I like a writer who drops the word “autarky” into an economic discussion without feeling the need to explain it). Powell conducts his chorus so smartly that we can hear the echoes of those 18th-century voices today: the rise of nepotism (from a time when everybody in town really did know everybody else), corruption and disregard of the law (a reaction to mercantilism and a centralized state completely unresponsive to the city’s needs), lavish parties and displays of wealth (to create hierarchies in a world where everyone was sloughing off previous failures or humble origins to reinvent themselves), a rich African tradition (whites have always been a minority), and strong Francophile identity (a reflex against nearly 40 years of Spanish rule). Powell doesn’t overemphasize events either, which is always a peril for authors tempted to make A Point. The Accidental City is an accessible history of New Orleans’s haphazard beginnings.

 

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Michael Chabon
HarperCollins, May 2007 (Amazon | B&N)

There are bad books, which I’ve decided aren’t worth talking about anymore. There are mediocre books — ditto. There are good books, which are worth promoting, and then there are books that provoke me as a writer to say to myself, What the hell am I doing with my life? I’m a complete fuck-up. I’ll never be able to make something like this.

Michael Chabon and I started off on the wrong foot. The first book I read — or tried to read — of his was Manhood for Amateurs, which included a ridiculous chapter on Lego, followed by an equally obnoxious interview. Lack of enough synonyms for “awful” prevented me from scribbling a full review of the book; suffice to say Chabon is a better fiction writer than public intellectual. This experience scared me off his work. Then recently I read his alt-history “The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance” in the VanderMeers’ Steampunk anthology, which was wonderful enough for me to seek out The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I’m so glad I did.

Only after the last page did I learn the novel, a police procedural set in an alternate history wherein Israel was defeated in 1948, won a slew of awards, including the 2007 Sidewise. The first 11 chapters are very slow — he could’ve used a better hook — and Chabon’s cynicism runs more to the grotesque (people are defined by their deformities, by their fatness or dandruff or “larval white fingers”) than toward Chandler-esque wit. Still, Chabon has his moments:

The outer room holds a sleeper couch, a wet bar and mini-fridge, an armchair, and seven young men in dark suits and bad haircuts. The bed is folded away, but you can smell that the room has been slept in by young men, maybe as many as seven.

And:

One is a black man and one a Latino, and the others are fluid pink giants with haircuts that occupy the neat interval between astronaut and pedophile scoutmaster.

For me, Union hit every right note: a brilliant noir in which a detective doggedly pursues a lone murder, only to uncover a greater conspiracy. There’s a very sweet love story too. But most of all, Chabon gets alternate history. It’s a setting. It’s not an atmosphere or a corseted costume or even a genre — it’s a time-space geography the characters inhabit and interact with. Can you tell I really liked this book?

Running Up That Hill

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“One Running Shoe in the Grave” screams a Wall Street Journal headline:

In a study involving 52,600 people followed for three decades, the runners in the group had a 19% lower death rate than nonrunners, according to the Heart editorial. But among the running cohort, those who ran a lot—more than 20 to 25 miles a week—lost that mortality advantage.

Meanwhile, according to the Heart editorial, another large study found no mortality benefit for those who ran faster than 8 miles per hour, while those who ran slower reaped significant mortality benefits.

I won’t be throwing my New Balances on the bonfire anytime soon. “8 miles per hour” is an awkward phrase — runners gauge their pace in minutes per mile — concocted to mask how few people this second study applies to.

Eight miles an hour is a 7:30 pace, which is a good clip for most. To give you an idea of how few runners that is: In this year’s New Haven 20K (12.4 miles), only 379 of 2,373 finishers ran a 7:30 or faster. That’s 16 percent. In the 5K (3.1 miles), 410 of 3,548 finishers ran 7:30 or faster. That’s 12 percent. The remaining 84-88 percent of those racers, meanwhile, can expect to reap “significant mortality benefits.”

There’s not even an impairment here — the study simply showed no benefit for anyone running at sustained high speeds.

From this rather dull news peg the story then slides into the horrors of extreme sports like Ironman racing, which should shock the same folks who don’t realize pro boxers and NFL players sometimes experience brain trauma. Yes, elite (generally regarded as the top 10 percent of the field) and/or professional runners and triathletes often sustain injuries like “cardiac abnormalities,” increased risk of stroke, and a host of orthopedic ailments. That’s why it’s no country for old men. But the hebephrenic headline and tone of the article are misplaced, as are the “See? I told you so!” opinions of many of the commenters extolling the virtues of an inactive lifestyle while they rub the pizza grease on their bellies.

I’ll keep running up that hill, and if you run, so should you.

Samuel Smedley Commemoration

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Hey sailor! Do you live in or around Fairfield, Connecticut? If so, on Saturday, October 27, I’ll be at the Old Burying Ground on Beach Road to speechify at the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Samuel Smedley’s death. Come on out.

The fun starts at 10am at the intersection of Beach Road and Fairfield Beach Road — we’ll meet there, then walk up the street to the Burying Ground. You can park at Jennings Beach.

Update: Here’s a write-up of the event.